ferociousg

Facebook: Where you have 10+ checkboxes, please give me a check/uncheck all!

2009-09-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

I went to turn off email notifications for Facebook and discovered that I had to uncheck 55 boxes for default Facebook stuff. There was no check/uncheck all type button, which would have been really handy. Please, UI designers: if you have more than 10 checkboxes in a stack for the same sort of setting, use a check/uncheck all button!

Checking out Muvee

2009-09-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

I have been drafted to create a video out of video and photos from my sister's wedding. I think it will be a fun project, but will probably require more gunpower than Microsoft Movie Maker. So I have been trying out Muvee Reveal. The trial works nicely though it is severely limited. I was able to throw together a quick DVD in about 5 minutes.

It's discounted at the moment, only $60, so I went ahead and bought it. It's much less powerful than more expensive software, but you get what you pay for... and I'm not made of money!

The joys of refactoring

2009-08-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

Refactoring is a joy. We all have code that is sitting around that was thrown together in a hurry to begin with, and has become ever more crufty with time. And then you revisit it and suddenly the way to bring order to the chaos becomes clear... Sometimes time is all it takes.

Aweful default behavior: Firefox's downloads list focusing after download

2009-07-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

When you download a file with Firefox, the default behavior is that when the download is complete (possibly a second or so later), the "Downloads" window displays. That's probably rational if you chose to save the file. But if you chose to open the file, it is really very disruptive behavior. Because just before that Downloads window displays, usually the application which handles that file type has displayed first. The effect is that you flash to the file you want and then DOH!, there you are looking at the Firefox Downloads window. Very irritating. Luckily it can be disabled trivially (http://www.technixupdate.com/firefox-tip-how-to-close-the-annoying-download-window-automatically/), but it seems like occasionally it reverts because I've faced this problem several times and always forget for a while that I can fix it...

Week of Bing: Bust

2009-06-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

I had intended to post once a day about Bing or post regarding interesting searches, but I haven't had the time. I did use Bing for the past 7 days however. It is not terrible, but I often found myself going over to Google because I couldn't find what I was after. Especially yesterday when I was searching for guitar tabs. Anyway, I also don't have any time right now so I'll have to leave it at that...

G is for Giving Bing a fair shake: Week of Bing

2009-06-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

Well, now that the Bing preview is available, it's time to see what it's really all about. So far, I don't have any insights not found elsewhere, but it's not half bad.

I am going to switch search providers for a week and see if I can get my brain to think Bing instead of Google.

It is interesting that the layout is so very similar to Google's, even down to color choices. Can you tell which screenshot of a search for my hometown, "Forks, WA", is Google and which is Bing?

The first one is Google. The biggest giveaway are the promote/remove buttons on Google's. I did take the liberty of cutting out the Google Map result that was first on the list, which would have been a dead-er giveaway. It is interesting that Bing does not include a map result automatically, but not necessarily wrong. And clicking on the "Map" tab on the Bing page gets me a map, which might be a more straightforward behavior...

Anyway, this should be interesting. If you have a blog and want to try Bing for a week and blog about Week of Bing, please comment below with your blog URL.

Google Wave - Logo thoughts

2009-05-29T06:44:00.001-07:00

I am as excited as everyone else about Wave. I wonder though why they went with a Google-y logo (rainbow colors) on thier API page if they want this to be open and have other ISVs implement Wave protocol? It's a really cool logo, but I think they should have went with something non-Google, as they did with Android.

I can't wait to get my hands on this API though... as soon as school is out I'm looking into it.

Regarding Bing: Microsoft should invent a new category

2009-05-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

Ever since the Bing favicon leaked, people have been wondering what Bing is, even though we don't have much to go on besides a name and a favicon. Though details are still sketchy, based on what I've heard, Bing is not bringing anything new to the table. Rumor has it that Bing's basic "innovation" is a search results page showing several different types of search results (images, links, news stories, etc). That kind of thing has been around for a long time and none has really succeeded in one-upping the power of typing in something and getting what you want in the top 3 results 9 times out of 10, which is what Google gives me. Even if Microsoft can 100% replicate that, they are not going to compete with the fact that Search=Google in almost everyone's mind.

Instead of trying to compete in Search, Microsoft should create a new category that it can own. It doesn't matter if in fact this new category is 90% the same thing as Search is currently. What matters is that they should open a window of time where, if people think "I want to Search" they will go to Google, but if people think "I want to ____", they will go to Microsoft. And eventually, that ____ can supersede "Search" as the way to get around on the Internet.

So the question is, what is ____?

There are a few possibilities. First in my mind would be "Explore". Microsoft already "owns" this word. "To Explore" is similar to "To Search", but whereas when you search you are looking for something in particular, when you Explore you are simply looking around in a particular area to learn things. Often when I go to Google I am intending to Explore, in which case I really don't want the results ordered quite so perfectly-- I'd like to stumble onto something I wouldn't otherwise notice. Social news engines like Digg bring some of this to the table, but it is harder to do just "look around" the Internet about a particular topic that is not news based without getting locked into a very well trodden path (Wikipedia, etc.). Microsoft "Web Explore" could be a technology that helps me discover the undiscovered gems on the WWW. If they could work out a very simple web UI (which seems to be a challenge for Microsoft these days) that helps me do this, I may at least bookmark that page in my PC browser.

Another possibility would be "Find". Apple kind of owns this concept via OS X's "Finder". But I don't think they've quite dominated the word like Google has "Search". "To Find" is also similar to "To Search", but implies that you'd actually find the thing you are looking for instead of just searching for it. I am not sure "Find" is quite differentiated enough from "Search" that people wouldn't instantly call foul and ignore this altogether. But it would be worth considering.

One more possibility would be "Locate". A bit less vernacular than "Find" but otherwise a similar concept. This could be leveraged heavily in Mobile and Local Search, a category that is just beginning to really blossom. I imagine location based and more generally context based searching would be key.

Speaking of context, some other concepts that Microsoft could bring to the table that Google would be at least a step behind on would be using knowledge of what the user is currently doing on their PC to drive search results (queue anti-trust concerns). It could notice that when I have Word and Visio open the search results I tend to select are related to academic topics, whereas when I have Eclipse, Sql Studio and Outlook open I am more likely to select Java, CSS, Javascript, and SQL related results. Since my major is Computer related, it wouldn't be that big of a difference for me, but I can imagine it would be fairly different for others.

Anyway, if Microsoft's "Bing" tries to attack Google head on via trying to take over "Search", they will lose. But there is absolutely no reason they cannot get everyone to move from "Search" to an entirely new category.

(Yes, I know this is all based on assumption combined with tell-me-something-I-don't-know, but still I hope an interesting set of ideas)

jFunk prototype

2009-05-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

I had a little bit of time recently to create a prototype for jFunk, which I have hosted now on google code projects: http://code.google.com/p/jfunk/. jFunk will be a jQuery-like Javascript utility for searching JSON/Javascript objects.

jFunk will allow you to retrieve (and soon, manipulate) objects within complex JSON or Javascript objects. The design of the jFunk API will closely parallel the jQuery API, replicating it exactly except where the differences between DOM and Javascript make replication nonsensical.

The current script is in an extremely rudimentary, throwaway prototype form, provided simply for exploratory purposes.

I would not recommend trying jFunk unless you are familiar with jQuery, otherwise this will not make much sense
This will only be appropriate with deep, complex Javascript/JSON structures
It has no expectation of good performance
The code is not "designed" currently, simply cowboy coded until it did some useful proof of concept things. So its ugly, and probably buggy!
It does not avoid looping structures, if a parent contains a child which contains a reference to it's parent, a loop will occur and lock your browser!

However, depending on level of interest and available time, a properly architected version will be written.

So far, only these selectors are supported:


    *
    name[atr]
    name[atr=val]
    name:first
    name:last
    #id
    .class
    parent > child

I recommend that you always use > between known parents and their direct children, to avoid unnecessary deep searching.

Some examples of use:


var Food={
    fruits: [
        { name: "Banana", color: "Yellow" },
        { name: "Apple", color: "Red" },
        { name: "Grapefruit", color: "Orange" },
        { name: "Kiwi", color: "Green" }
        ],
    vegetables: [
        { name: "Carrot", color: "Orange" },
        { name: "Turnip", color: "Purple" },
        { name: "Rutabaga", color: "Yellow" },
        { name: "Sweet Potato", color: "Orange" }
        ]
    };

var orangeStuff=jF("*[color=Orange]",Food).get();
var orangeVeg  =Jf("> vegetables > *[color=Orange]",Food).get();

//orange stuff is now [{name:"Grapefruit",color:"Orange"},{name:"Carrot",color:"Orange"},{name:"Sweet Potato",color:"Orange"}]
//orange veg is now [{name:"Carrot",color:"Orange"},{name:"Sweet Potato",color:"Orange"}]

Stackoverflow - Please add message envelope to your Flair, and make the URL for Flair based on user name

2009-05-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

I wanted to create a iGoogle gadget to display my current stackoverflow stats so that I wouldn't keep obsessively checking the main page (I am really just now getting into SO). So I create this stackoverflow status gadget:

And posted it to stackoverflow. All this does is embed an iframe to stackoverflow.com and scroll it so that the status block is available.

Anyway, then someone pointed me to the user flair, which I didn't know about. I should probably change my gadget to use user flair instead, which will be a much lighter load in SO. BUT...

I really want to see my message envelop status, that is my biggest point. And flair doesn't show this.

It would also be nice if the flair URL be something that can be constructed using the user's SO user name instead of the user id.

Anyway, since there is no-where on the flair page to add a comment, this is my attempt at communicating this request to Stackoverflow.

Stack Overflow Dev Days - Seattle, Oct 21

2009-05-13T05:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/05/12.html

jump on it!

Stupeflix - Video from anything, so awesome

2009-05-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.stupeflix.com/wikivideos/stupeflix/

This app lets you ingest content from elsewhere and create awesome videos automatically. Or, you can get really down and dirty editing an XML file to configure transitions, order, etc. Just take a look... All I can say is "wow".

Don't be afraid to say "I don't know"

2009-05-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

This past week in Computer Forensics in the Law we were covering the rules for expert witnesses. One of the rules when on the witness stand, and several variations thereafter, was "If you don't know the answer, say so." This is good advice in many other areas of life, no place else more than in the computing industry. Our industry changes so fast, there is no way anyone should posture expertise in any but a few areas.

I am reminded of this when I read of Jeff Atwood (coding horror, stack overflow) getting his password found by someone else. I love that Jeff came out and just said "check this out, I screwed up, don't make the samePublish Post mistake".

Citations

2009-05-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have found a good resource for producing proper MLA citations: the MLA Citation Generator. Just select the type of citation, fill out the relavent fields, and you are done. One caveat is that you must format the date strings properly yourself (e.g. 3 "Mar 2009").

As an aside, why don't books include the MLA and other relavent citation formats in the front of the book? I hate having to find the publisher, city and date, it is sometimes buried amongst other things. Maybe I'm just lazy but this seems like an easy thing for them to do.

Google Public Data announced

2009-04-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Google has announced a new feature which lets you view public stats such as unemployment data over time. This is really cool. I hope they open up a data API soon! There are definately some interesting simple gadgets and apps I can imagine for this.

OK Oracle, please don't kill MySql (or Java)

2009-04-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

I really hope that Oracle's purchase of Sun is a great thing for the industry somehow. But I just hope they don't kill MySql to defend their own database. And I hope they see value in re-injecting some energy into Java, or, barring that, just open it up completely.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/20/oracle-wants-to-be-the-apple-of-the-enterprise-but-it-just-became-ibm/

G as in Good: Outlook Web Access

2009-04-15T06:48:00.001-07:00

I had to get my laptop into the shop for some service (cooling system on the fritz) and so have been using Outlook Web Access for my work email. I am not a very big fan of Microsoft UI work, but Outlook is one of their best offerings in my opinion. And they have done an amazing job in making the web version duplicate the UI of the installed client. There are definitely noticeable differences, but not in any of the paths most traveled.

Put your hands up in the air!

2009-04-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted much about my Software Engineering course. It is a good class: the professor has taught it for a long time and knows his stuff. He brings an great historical perspective to the class because he has followed the industry from Waterfall model days through Scrum, from Cobol to C#.

Anyway, most of the class is lecture from this professor. And as usual, he will throw a question or solicit comments every few minutes.

"So, class, what is the step this author missed from the Waterfall Model with Sub-projects diagram?"

[crickets chirping]

And about 75% of the time, nobody answers for at least 30 seconds, which is an immensely long amount of awkward time. Until finally I can't stand it, since of course I have some idea of the answer he's after, having been in this industry for over a decade and having read many books on the subject. So I throw up my hand and give my response. Or the one other guy in class that seems to have had significant experience does.

I don't know why we have so few hand-raisers in this class. The class is 5:45pm to 8pm so possibly just sleepiness, but on second thought most of these people claim to be up till 2am (I get up at 4am myself), so that can't be it. One possibility is that it is because there is no class participation grade. The grading is based on several (long) papers and a term project.

But if so, I really want somebody to explain to my fellow students that it doesn't matter. It is still worth participating in class. When you answer a prof's question you:

Show the prof you are engaged and know what's up. And they do know who you are, and being a human being, their impression of you from class will probably be reflected in your paper's grades.
Demonstrate your level of expertise or intelligence/curiosity to your fellow students, who may someday be in a position to interview you or select your employer's project bid (software is a small world).
Keep your own wheels turning. If you answer a question, you will stay awake and interested, and you'll learn more.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.

Comparing Webinars

2009-04-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

I recently had cause to evaluate two products with very similar feature sets. For both of them, I attended a webinar.

The first product's webinar was a very power-point oriented presentation. There were about a hundred slides, with animations, bulleted lists, and the typical things you usually see in a powerpoint. The content was well organized into topics and subtopics, and the flow was obviously very well thought through and rehearsed. It was very much from a benefit-to-business point of view, though we did get lots of its of features. Even though the styling of the slides was frankly ugly, hearkening back to about 1998 (would have been ugly then), I found this webinar to be fairly compelling throughout.

The second product's webinar was a live demo of their software. It was very much driven by examining features one at a time, with less focus on the needs behind the feature. It was like a drawn out inventory of their capabilities. The first half was nearly drudgery as we went through each screen line by line. But the second half, I was shown a customized version of the software, complete with logos and even some halfway decent simulations of what our data might look like. This I found very compelling. It was more than a superficial mockup-- the processes I was shown reflected the fact that they had thought through my specific business needs.

So, if I were designing a presentation for either of them, I might condense the business/powerpoint-y version of the first to be about half as long, and then do a custom mockup for the second half. This would have been the perfect presentation.

Computer Forensics and the Law - First Class

2009-04-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

I actually got to attend class today. I'm glad I didn't do anything dumb like drop the class because it looks like it will be pretty fascinating. Both teachers seem to be very knowledgeable in the subject matter. Steve Schroeder was involved in prosecuting some serious cybercrime cases before he retired.

We watched a fascinating Front Line called "Cyber War" from several years ago. Even though it was old, the issues are still very relevant today. It featured quite a bit of footage of Dick Clark, which was pretty interesting in and of itself. Clark was trying very hard to prevent a "Cyber Pearl Harbor". There was lots of chilling explanation of various investigations like "Moonlight Maze" and "Eligible Receiver" in which revealed just how vulnerable DOD computer systems were.

In lecture, Schroeder explained how a program under the Clinton administration had trained attorneys and FBI in investigating and prosecuting cyber crime. And then how under Bush, this kind program was shut down, and the focus shifted to communications monitoring. He managed to present all this in a non-political way, but it is interesting how you cannot escape the politics of such discussions.

We also discussed things like "what constitutes authorized access?" and "should violations of Terms of Service really expose you to criminal liability?" (see the Myspace Mom case).

While doing my reading I had to remind myself what the difference between common law and civil law is (common law is a system of law based on the idea that court cases should be decided in a consistent way with previous cases; civil law pays little attention to precedence), and I ran across this very interesting map: (click here).

If you set everything to Priority 1, you might as well not prioritize at all!

2009-04-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

So many times in work and outside it we are dispatching or being dispatched against lists of prioritized tasks. Sometimes these lists are sequenced in the order they should be done, which makes it pretty clear where to start and where to end (or cut losses if time runs out).

Other times it is a bug list or something where items have been given a priority but no particular order. In these cases, there are hopefully only a handful of items that are the highest priority, making it still pretty clear to start.

But if a list has almost all items set to the highest priority, this has exactly the same effect as not having prioritized at all-- the person or group working on the list ends up choosing either the items they feel are important (which may follow a totally different agenda to the client/boss/requester), or the ones they feel like working on (often the easiest, or the ones which are funnest to work on).

So, if you are submitting a list of prioritized items, and you want to have some control over when various items get done, make sure you have actually made some hard choices and done real prioritization. Add more gradation if you want-- perhaps there should be 5 levels of "super-urgent-on-fire-high-priority". But unless you leave it pretty clear to the person(s) implementing the list, you are giving them the power to decide what should be done.

Software Engineering class

2009-03-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I started "Software Engineering". We will be reviewing various SDLCs, develoment methodologies, project management practices and more. It might just be interesting...

G is for Google Desktop: Let me schedule your indexing please : )

2009-03-31T05:17:00.000-07:00

Often times when I notice my laptop is performing poorly, it is due to Google Desktop doing it's index update (look in Task Manager, watch the I/O operations columns). I pause indexing and all is well. Anyway, I really wish I could configure when the indexing occurs, or have it go in periodic short bursts rather than it's current behavior.

Google Desktop feature webpage claims:

"This one-time indexing occurs only when your computer is idle for more than 30 seconds, so it shouldn't slow down your machine's performance, but depending on the number of items, this process can take a total of several hours."

..and possibly it's index updating only starts when your computer is idle for more than 30 seconds also (I can't find a reference too this), but it does not seem to stop indexing once your computer is no longer idle. This is probably the real way to fix it-- recognize when I want my machine back and stop indexing as soon as possible!

Otherwise, I love Google Desktop.

Computer Forensics and the Law Course

2009-03-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

This quarter I am taking a course "Computer Forensics and the Law" at UW Bothell. It looks pretty interesting:

http://courses.washington.edu/css490sp/course.shtml

The course draws upon the forensic and computer sciences, law, investigative techniques, and ethics. Topics covered in the course will include:

Computer forensic tools and techniques used to detect computer fraud, computer crime, espionage, cyber terrorism: Gathering probative evidence to secure a conviction under federal law and to develop approaches to prevention and detection. Determining how a system was penetrated and what was done while the hackers were in the system.

Investigative procedures: Procedural rules affecting collection and use of physical evidence. Court opinions defining the rules of search and seizure and admissibility of evidence and how this translates into forensic methodologies.

Implications of related law: Principles of criminal law and procedure, preparation and presentation of evidence, examination of witnesses, and methods of legal research. Issues discussed concerning discovery, admissibility of scientific evidence, chain of custody, use of notes, etc.

Ethics as related to computer security issues: Values, duties, social responsibility and obligations with respect to the exercise of computer forensic procedures.

Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, I expected the class to start next Saturday (since the quarter didn't start until March 30th), I missed the first class (March 28th). There was only one (buried) place where it was mentioned to start on the 28th... oh well. I'm sure I can catch up.

Right click on Windows Taskbar should _NOT_ display the window!

2009-03-27T07:12:00.001-07:00

Nine times out of ten when I right click a task bar item, I want to click the 'close' option. Often this is because I am trying to free up memory (I usually run way to many things). I do not want to wait for the program to be swapped back into active memory, get it's act together, and paint itself. Instead, it should quietly try to close the program in the background (which may entail bringing it into memory but possibly not as a top, UI-blocking, priority).

Of course, all the other options besides 'close' do require the window to display, and sometimes 'close' does also, as when a 'would you like to save' dialog comes up. But fine, paint only when you need to please!

Beware trailing commas in Javascript objects

2009-03-26T09:56:00.001-07:00

When working on web apps, I usually spend most of my time in Firefox, mostly due to the excellent Firebug tool. I've found that as I chop and change code, I might end up leaving a trailing comma in a javascript object declaration:

var someObject={ something: 1, other: "2", more: ["three"], };

Note the comma after the "more" property. Firefox is totally fine with this. IE throws an error, but depending on how your code is structured, oftentimes a hard to trace error.

Java SSL: Use the same password for keystore and key!

2009-03-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

I ran into a problem using Java SSL library javax.net.ssl.keyStore. The code being used is similar, though not identical, to the technique found here (http://www.kobu.com/oneday/javassl/sslecho-en.htm). We created a CSR using keytool (here is a useful URL if you are working on this: http://www.sslshopper.com/article-most-common-java-keytool-keystore-commands.html), submitted it to Verisign, and got back the signed certificate. However, after importing the cert trail and the cert into the keystore, I could not get it to work, getting some exceptions such as:

Exception in thread "main" java.net.SocketException: java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException: Error constructing implementation (algorithm: Default, provider: SunJSSE, class: com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.DefaultSSLContextImpl)
at javax.net.ssl.DefaultSSLServerSocketFactory.throwException(SSLServerSocketFactory.java:142)
at javax.net.ssl.DefaultSSLServerSocketFactory.createServerSocket(SSLServerSocketFactory.java:149)
at server.run(server.java:53)
at server.main(server.java:29)
Caused by: java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException: Error constructing implementation (algorithm: Default, provider: SunJSSE, class: com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.DefaultSSLContextImpl)
at java.security.Provider$Service.newInstance(Provider.java:1245)
at sun.security.jca.GetInstance.getInstance(GetInstance.java:220)
at sun.security.jca.GetInstance.getInstance(GetInstance.java:147)
at javax.net.ssl.SSLContext.getInstance(SSLContext.java:125)
at javax.net.ssl.SSLContext.getDefault(SSLContext.java:68)
at javax.net.ssl.SSLServerSocketFactory.getDefault(SSLServerSocketFactory.java:96)
at server.run(server.java:49)
... 1 more

Anyway, to make a long story short, the problem was that the keystore and the key had different passwords. I went back to a copy of the keystore from after the CSR had been generated, but before the import. I then changed the key's password to match the keystore, re-imported everything, and it all worked. Interestingly, the inverse (making the key pass match the keystore pass) did not work.

There may be other ways around this, but there was precious little useful information about this specific problem, so I thought I'd share my solution.

AS/400 -- no -- iSeries -- wait -- System-I .... grr

2009-03-20T06:24:00.001-07:00

Long ago, IBM created a beautiful server called the AS/400, carrying on a strong tradition of awesomeness from the System/38 and System/36. It was called AS/400 from 1988 to 2000-- long enough to cement the name in a thousand documents and a million minds. Then they re-branded it "iSeries eserver". And in 2006 they renamed it "System-I". Of course, for several years after each re-branding, vendors and users still produced emails, webpages, PDFs and so on using the older names.

So if I want to search for something to do with this platform, what do I type in? "System-I" is about the worst possible Google search term in the world! Thank you IBM...

G is for Gripe: Program close dialogs; Modal dialogs with typical Yes followed by typical No (or vice versa)

2009-03-20T05:43:00.000-07:00

I recently installed the excellent program "taskbar shuffle". It lets you re-order the items in your task bar. Even better, it lets you middle click a task bar item to close it.

Most programs respond nicely to this treatment and quietly close. But many throw up "do you want to save your changes" type dialogs you must respond to. I appreciate what these dialogs are about, but I am a habitual saver, and almost never actually need this dialog. It just creates an extra step for me. I can't say that any time in recent memory I have lost work due to not closing things-- in fact, I often close slow-closing programs via killing them Task Manager (I know this is shockingly bad hygiene but I have not seen any ill effects except for Outlook). Anyway, I wish all programs would have a configuration option which said basically "Close without prompting".

Meanwhile, a second gripe is routine sequences of modal dialogs where the answer to one is routinely "Yes" and the other is "No". The SQuirrel SQL client (excellent in many ways*) when closed, asks you first if you really want to close the session ("Yes") and then if you want to save your session (always "No" for me). But I often click "Yes" twice, and then get shunted off into a slow to show set of File save screens. I also see this pattern at the grocery store: Do you want cash back "No", Is this amount correct, "Yes". And at the gas station: Do you want a car wash "No", Do you want a receipt: "Yes". I appreciate that sometimes the answers will differ.

But UI designers should identify the most common responses and try to line up the responses. How about "Do you want cash back?" and "Is this amount incorrect?". I could answer "No" to both.

Use Google Earth Scratchpad for Google's "Create cool KML, win cool prizes"

2008-11-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Google just posted a contest: Create cool KML, win cool prizes. I will definitely be looking into it.

I wonder if my Google Earth Scratchpad Gadget is a good starting point for people to kick this off? They have a list of more sophisticated tools here: KML in Research Competition | Bring your data to life.

G is for (i)Google: New iGoogle Gripes

2008-10-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Google just announced what appears to be involuntary U.S. opt-in for their new iGoogle layout. I was (involuntarily) included in the initially trial roll out several months ago, and only found out that I could opt-out (through a very obscure process I no longer recall) after several weeks of using it. I didn't like it much then, and it appears my main complaints are still there.

Side Tabs
I dislike the new tab scheme.

It appears you cannot drag a gadget onto a tab to move it into that tab. This is a bug and should be fixed.

Having tabs on the side wastes a lot of screen real estate.

The ability to fold out the gadgets list seems semi-redundant with having the gadgets visible when I am viewing that tab already.

New Gmail Gadget
It is slick to be able to delete emails right from my Gmail gadget. But

I liked the email displayed on a single line. I could show more emails that way.

I am also not thrilled with more of the email text being shown. Not as private.

I really would like clicking an email to take me into Gmail proper as it used to, rather than the new behavior of viewing within the gadget.

I will say that one of my original complaints was that you could not reply or forward from within the in-gadget email viewer. They appear to have addressed that. Awesome!

So I guess that's not too many complaints. But really, it would be nice to have options for these things.

Regardless, iGoogle is still an outstanding and useful tool. It is also great that they could introduce new functionality and a new look without breaking all the gadgets I rely on. Thanks Google.

News Image Tiles - all the news at a glance!

2008-09-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

This gadget shows you images from the latest news as a tiled visualization. Click on an image to view the news story. You can customize the news you see by adding new RSS or Atom feed URLS.

Feed Translator Gadget

2008-05-15T16:39:00.001-07:00

I was going to wait a bit to post this, but I thought it would be good to put it up in conjunction with the Google Blog's announcement of 10 new languages in Google Translate.

This is a pretty simple Gadget. All it does is pull a few feeds, run it through the Google translation API, and display the results. I also pull out an image from each feed (if there is one) and show it to the side to give you a bit of a preview. Clicking the translated title will take you to the Google translated version of that post. Finally, you can click the .. next to the post to see the original, untranslated version.

I have no way to vouch for the translations, as my Spanish is very rusty (and I also have no idea of the example feeds I chose are good publications!). But several round robin translations worked fairly well. So, enjoy!

Feed Slideshow Gadget

2008-05-15T16:35:00.001-07:00

I wrote this gadget several weeks ago, right after we returned from a family vacation to Arizona.

add it to your own iGoogle by clicking here:

We had posted a bunch of great pictures to our photo blog, and I thought it be great to see these on my iGoogle page. So I put together this little gadget that takes a few RSS or Atom feed URLs. It then pulls out the images and shows them to you one by one.

How do you set it up?

Add this gadget to your iGoogle page by click here: (or on the button above).
Find a blog or a news webpage that has pictures you like*

Look for a link on the webpage that says something like 'RSS' or 'Subscribe to Atom Posts', often with an orange button

OR, read your Browser's help text regarding RSS and Atom feeds, and find out how to tell if a site has a feed, as well as how to get to it.

Once you have the site's feed url (aka, it's address-- which should start with 'http://' and often ends with '.xml'), you can copy that to your clipboard

Then, open this Gadget's settings and paste the feed url into the 'Feed 1 Url' setting

Save, and enjoy your slideshow!

*Here are some suggestions for feeds:

Yahoo Top Stories: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories

Old photos from the Library of Congress: http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=8623220@N02&lang=en-us&format=atom

The Flickr blog: http://blog.flickr.net/en/feed/ -- you can find lots of great photo feeds at Flickr

This is taking longer than I hoped

2008-05-15T16:31:00.001-07:00

I got involved in another project which is much more important (the Eternal Valor Foundation), and I cannot afford more than one extra non-work non-school non-family project at a time! But this summer I can put some more effort into this.

Meanwhile, I should backpost a gadget I put up a few weeks ago, and a new one I wrote a bit later.

Coming Soon...

2008-05-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

watch this space. in the meantime, check out my other blog