Blog — Page 14
These are some pretty old posts! I don't blog that much any more, but if they are of interest, feel free to browse. Alternatively, you can go back to the homepage to see some more recent stuff.
These are some pretty old posts! I don't blog that much any more, but if they are of interest, feel free to browse. Alternatively, you can go back to the homepage to see some more recent stuff.
As a twenty-six-year-old software engineer – I shan’t use the word “programmer”, for obvious reasons – who’s only ever really had one job, I probably ought to refrain from posting an opinion on this post: Don’t Call Yourself a Programmer But I will anyway. It’s true, every single word of...
There have been a lot of rants around the internet of late about “skeuomorphism” in software, largely targeted at the latest versions of Apple’s operating systems. They’ve almost all been negative, possibly because designers hating on the concept are the only ones who felt sufficiently incensed that they looked up...
Microsoft’s next operating system, Windows 8, is now available in “Consumer Preview” form – a release designed to let potential customers know what to expect from it when it launches in around six months’ time. It’s probably a very good idea to give it six months to soak in, because...
For those looking for a quick introduction to laying out Graphical User Interface components using Java’s Swing technology, this guide may prove helpful. (But probably not.) Swing Components all have a few common properties that affect how they are laid out on the GUI. These are: alignmentX and alignmentY do...
Dear Sid Meier, Where did it all go so wrong?! Figure 1. EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH FACEBOOK Yours sincerely, Ian
Occasionally, I read a piece of writing that sums up my thoughts so well, so exactly, that I sit and try to blog something comparable and just fail. Try as I might, I can’t outdo the original. I’m not sure what Pastebin.com’s retention policy is, so just in case, here...
Snow drifts lazily to the ground outside, lit sodium orange in the glare of streetlights and the lit-up logo of the self-storage place across the dual carriageway. It settles briefly, knowing all too well that the breeze off the ocean will melt it away before morning. Somewhere a radio is...
In just about every supermarket in the country, and doubtless others too, one can buy little glass bottles of liquid food colouring and essences such as vanilla and almond. They’re tiny, light, can easily fall out of cupboards, and can cause permanent staining if they fall and smash. Except that…...
The other day, a bout of online drama made me wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to make my online activities a little more private – hide my Twitter feed, for example, and maybe un-friend some people on Facebook to restrict it to just my “core” friends. Do...
In one of my previous blog posts, “Designing for Granddad”, I examined some of the user interface features that cause my grandfather issues when using his computer, and left a few hanging questions as to how we software designers can make our apps less confusing to the novice computer user....