The Page of Thoughts

iWork vs. Office

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:19:21 -0800

I wrote a comparison of these suites over two years ago, and it quickly rose in Google search results. Since I don’t want to give the 100 people per day who land on the page wrong information, I updated it.

Issues with Twitter 4.0 for iPhone

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:31:38 -0800

Today, Twitter released a new version of their app with a simplified design. You can read more about that at fly.twitter.com. Basically, Twitter tried to unify the appearance across platforms, and whittled the experience down to four hubs: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. This in itself is not a bad idea, but the rushed execution is pretty clear when you start using the new Twitter for iPhone app.

Features That Are Gone

To start, Twitter has gotten rid of the swipe gesture present in previous versions of the app, for no apparent reason. In keeping with the idea of simplification, Twitter may have believed that removing the swipe gesture to reveal a set of action buttons would make the app more approachable to new users. Unless they have data to back up accidental swipes and confusion from these users, there is no reason to remove a niche but powerful feature. In an interview from 2009, Loren Brichter says:

Now, I think you can split gestures into two categories. One is of the pull-down-to-refresh kind. These are gestures that are discoverable and explanatory. The other kind of gestures are like tapping-the-status-bar-to-scroll-to-the-top, or swipe-to-delete (or swipe-to-reply in Tweetie). These gestures you won’t discover on your own except by accident. These are not discoverable, and they are not explanatory.

This second class of gestures can exist (in my opinion) because they are not the only way to accomplish a goal. In the case of tapping the status bar, users already know how to scroll to the top manually. It’s slower, but it’s possible. In the case of swipe to delete, users already know they can tap on a message and then tap the trash button. So knowing the gesture isn’t necessary.

So when you’re inventing new gestures, it’s important to think about whether the gesture is required to use the app. If it’s the only way to accomplish a goal, you better be sure it’s discoverable and explanatory without needing to read a manual. If it’s the other kind of gesture, go nuts!

Knowing that swiping across a tweet reveals quick actions isn’t necessary to use Twitter, as you can always tap on the tweet to go into detail view and use the buttons there. But while the previous version of the app appealed to both pros and new users alike, the new version only works for casual Twitter users, leaving the pros angry and looking for a better app.

The same argument can be made for the swipe gesture on the back button, which would take you to back to the timeline regardless of how “deep” you were. The new version does away with this handy gesture, on the argument that you can just tap on a tab in the tab bar at the bottom of the screen. The problem is that this tab bar is not visible when you’re on a webpage. So, for any link in your timeline, you will need 2 taps to get to the webpage, and 2 taps again to get back to your timeline.

In addition, you cannot send a link to your Instapaper or Read It Later queue from the timeline or tweet detail view. You must tap the link, choose the action button, and then select “Read Later.” Thus, for each link in your timeline, you need 4 taps to send the page to your queue and 2 additional taps to get back to the timeline. With the swipe gesture in Twitter 3.x, this common action would take half as many taps.

Some people are complaining that switching accounts is too arduous a process, or that Direct Messages are hidden behind the Me tab. Luckily, there are gestures for quicker access.

Visual Inconsistencies

Once you start using the new app, you get the feeling that it was rushed, thanks to a ton of visual inconsistencies. Here are just five of these blunders.

During a transition, the Done button is shifted to the right. After the transition finishes, it snaps into place.

The Edit and Done buttons aren’t aligned with each other, and the + button is too close to the right. The entire bottom toolbar should be shifted to the left.

In addition to shrinking the text to minuscule sizes, the profile picture is not aligned. Source: @flyosity

Egregious alignment error when viewing a conversation with a favorite tweet.

The swipe to delete ugliness that existed ever since Tweetie 2.0 is still not fixed. Source: @gruber

For some more well-articulated criticism, read Twitter For iPhone Takes A Step Back.

The Long, Arduous Process of Updating to iOS 5

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:32:58 -0800

My dad has a philosophy of never updating to a “dot zero” release until the bugs have been ironed out. In the Windows days, that meant not upgrading to the latest OS until the first Service Pack was released, or just plain not upgrading ever. Today, when Apple released iOS 5.0.1, I told him that the bugs had been ironed out, and that he should update from iOS 4.3.2. Of course, somehow things always go awry when I’m trying to make a point.

Pre-Flight Checks

First, since he was running iTunes 10.4, we had to download iTunes 10.5. After that was done, we connected his iPhone 4 and clicked the Update button. Scary Message #1 went something like this: “Some purchased items aren’t transferred, and if you continue you will lose them!” He never synced his iPhone with his Mac, so I figured that the 7 free apps that he downloaded were the problem. I went to the Apps tab and turned on App Syncing, and then hit sync. After the sync finished, Scary Message #2 appeared: “Several items failed to transfer because this computer is not authorized.” So of course I went to the Store menu and clicked Authorize This Computer, and clicked the Sync button again. The sync finished without problems, and I thought we were done. I clicked update, and up came Scary Message #3: “Updating to iOS 5 will delete all the media from your phone!” Yikes. Although I knew that the photos in the Camera Roll would probably be fine if we restored from backup after the update finished, the dialog didn’t make that clear. We opened iPhoto and clicked Import All. After closing iPhoto, I tried the Update button for the billionth time. Wow, it finally started!

30 minutes later

iTunes displays a message that it’s going to reboot the device. We go through the on-device setup, and enable iCloud. Scary Message #4 is a modal dialog that asks if we want to merge or not merge contacts with iCloud. I choose “Don’t Merge.” After we get to the home screen, we discover that all the apps are intact, but all his contacts that weren’t synced with Exchange, existing only on the iPhone, were gone. We go back to iTunes and restore the iPhone from a backup at 9:55 PM, the time right before we attempted the upgrade. This time around, we don’t turn on iCloud, so we don’t get the message about contact merging. The contacts are back, but the apps are all gone. Using the Apps pane in iTunes, we restore the apps to the phone, but of course, all the data in those apps are gone.

In which I try to use iMessage

After getting the phone in a working state, I decided to play around with some features. I tried to use the iPhone 4 to send a text to my iPod touch 4th generation, because both devices were finally running iOS 5.0.1. I opened the Messages app on the iPhone and selected the New Message button in the top right. I tapped in the “to” field and started typing my name. The suggestions below the field suggested my phone number (for my cheap flip phone that I never use), even though my email address that I use for iMessage was stored in the same contact. I ended up having to send the iMessage from my iPod to his iPhone.

Looking to the Future

Really, all of these minor bumps boil down to issues with iTunes and issues with data loss. Supposedly/thankfully, iOS 5 will be the last release where we’ll have to deal with this stuff. When I get around to turning on iCloud (recall that the second time around we didn’t turn it on), the camera roll, contacts, and apps should all be safe from the evil thing known as OS upgrades.

Expensive Road Bikes Aren't What They're Cracked Up To Be

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:53:00 -0700

On September 17, I bought the Scattante R330 road bike for $700. This was an expensive bike, considering I previously rode a multitude of shoddy Costco bikes, all of which retailed for appropriately cheap prices. Naturally, I had high expectations for this shiny new toy.

Problem #1 happened on day zero. Apparently, what you see is not what you get. The bike technician took the bike on the shelf, performed various “adjustments,” and swapped out the perfectly fine pedals for weird shaped ergonomic ones that had straps. Granted, real bikers probably want these strange pedals, but you’d think that switching them out would be an easy matter. Nope! I paid an extra $15 for a pedal swap.

Because this road bike was 300% times more expensive than a Costco bike, I expected the gear shifters to be 300% more awesome. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Within days, the front derailleur wouldn’t switch from gear 3 to gear 2. The workaround was to switch from gear 3, to 1, and then to 2. I had to lug the bike to the shop for them to fix it.

As you may be aware, bike pedals and the associated crank shafts are quite important if you want to actually use the bike. So of course, the technician should make sure to put in all the screws and such. One day, I had just finished my daily ride when the crank arm decided to fall off. The technician had conveniently omitted one of the screws. Luckily the bike shop fixed this problem for free.

Those issues all happened last month. I thought I was done with them. But today, in the middle of my ride, I almost lost control when the front tire went flat for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I examined the tire and did not find any punctures or worn areas. Yet somehow the tire was flat. Since I had already raced down a fairly large hill and did not want to push the bike back up, I enlisted in some roadside assistance. I ran all the way back home since the bike barely fit in the car. That was fun for a while, as I was actually ahead of the car for half the distance. Even so, I’ve got a bike with a flat tire. Tomorrow I’ll have to lug it to the bike shop, rinse, and repeat.

Contrast this with cheap Costco bikes, which are of poor build quality but never fail as spectacularly as pretentious road bikes, and especially not in the first month. Road bikes are still great, but they break way too often, as if their thin frame conveys a supreme fragility. Perhaps next time I should consider that ~~extortion~~ extended service plan.

Update 10/21: Another flat tire.

Update 11/13: The back brake pad is now emitting strange squeaky noises.

Update 11/17: The crank shaft fell off. Again.

A Fun Way to Burn Up Your CPU

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:16:41 -0700

The Stockfish chess engine project just switched its GitHub repo from private to public. Guess what this means? Now YOU can pretend to be skilled at using Terminal! For the full effect, switch your Terminal color scheme to “Pro” and hit the full screen button. Behold…

git clone https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish.git
cd Stockfish/src
make profile-build ARCH=osx-x86-64
open stockfish
go infinite

Switch back to Activity Monitor and you’ll see all your CPU cores chewing away at the superbly difficult initial chess position.

Twitter Monetization Strategies

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:46:46 -0700

I was talking with my little brother about Twitter. He doesn’t use it, but he did come up with some pretty hilarious monetization ideas.

Of course, he started with the basics. You could purchase a “follower pack” and get 1,000 followers. Or you could buy a “premium account” and get your tweet on the Twitter home page. Here’s a strange one though: you could purchase an “@reply pack” and get 10,000 @replies! I’m not exactly sure why anybody would want that…

In an attempt to capitalize on the spam problem on Twitter, he came up with the idea of spam accounts. Prospective spammers could easily purchase spam accounts for a few cents apiece. Imagine how much revenue that would generate!

Obsessed over your Twitter background? Well, you’ll hate the background purchase feature. For just 99¢, you can upload your own background—but only once. If you upload the wrong one, you have 60 seconds to undo your purchase.

Hacking is always fun, right? For just a few hundred dollars, you can hack someone’s account and send tweets for them. Of course, that means you’ll need to buy insurance to protect from hacks by others. Or you can just buy someone’s account outright for a price based on your number of followers. Which you would have inflated with the follower pack, right?

To build a truly revolutionary platform, you must have in-game currency. Introducing Twitter Worms. If you’re feeling adventurous, feed your Worms to the Twitter Bird and you just might win the Twitter Lottery.

Do you want to mute someone on a massive scale? Purchase the taser, which will silence them for a day. Use the nuke ($1,000) if you want that ban to last for a week. For ultimate destruction, the mega nuke ($10,000) silences your target for a month. For a bit of protection, you can buy some body armor that will take care of tasers.

If you want to wreak even more havoc, buy a missile! This will literally destroy previous tweets sent by a user. For defense, you can use a laser to shoot down the missile.

No gamification implementation would be complete without an Angry Birds reference. The Mighty Eagle reflects everything—nukes, missiles, hacks, etc. against the person who sent it. A truly powerful weapon.

“If I were the CEO of Twitter I would definitely add these features. Twitter would be so much more fun!” —My little brother

An awesome short action film set in the year 2032.

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:04:05 -0700

An awesome short action film set in the year 2032.

OS X Lion

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:37:57 -0700

OS X Lion:

I’ve been using Lion since the very first developer preview. What can I say. Just go buy it now.

Breakout

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:50:00 -0700

Breakout:

I’m learning Java this summer by watching videos on iTunes U, and I built a game. Yay!

Mac Apps That Rock Redux

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:53:00 -0700

A few months ago back in January, Apple launched the Mac App Store. To keep track of all the cool new apps that were launching, I started the Mac Apps That Rock blog. Since then, Mac Apps That Rock has been a wonderful success. It’s now home to 150 apps, has over 450 followers on Tumblr, and has over 1000 subscribers via RSS. Today, I’m taking it to a whole new level, with the launch of Mac Apps That Rock 2.0.

An All New Design

The first thing you’ll notice about the new Mac Apps That Rock is the all new design. While the previous site used a stock Tumblr theme, the new site features a custom theme that I built from scratch. Notice the CSS3 download buttons, which take you right to the Mac App Store. Try clicking on the Categories button in the sidebar—it works just like an iOS folder. Navigation has been streamlined, too: at the bottom of each page is an easy to click “more” button. Looking for great Mac apps is now more enjoyable than ever.

Search

You may have noticed the search box in the top right corner of the new redesign. That’s right, you can finally search Mac Apps That Rock. Thanks to Google Custom Search, you’ll get your familiar list of ten blue links. And best of all, the page doesn’t even need to refresh with each query.

Twitter

Mac Apps That Rock finally has a Twitter account (@macappsthatrock). So now you have three great ways to subscribe: Tumblr, RSS, and now, Twitter. It’s easier than ever to keep up with the amazing new apps coming to the Mac platform.

Mac Apps That Rock 2.0. I think you’ll really like it.

Tweetbot

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:58:00 -0700

Tweetbot:

Really sweet Twitter client that came out yesterday. A must buy.

The home button is going away

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:07:32 -0800

Recently, there have been rumors about the next iPhone not having a home button. Gruber thinks that the home button isn’t going anywhere, as does Benjamin Brooks. I disagree. iPhone 5 will look like this:

And you might be saying, “But how will you get to the home screen if there’s no home button?” “How will you take a screenshot?” “What if I need to reset my iPhone?” “Gestures are not discoverable!” etc. etc. etc.

See, the home button is there and not there at the same time. That bottom area where the home button used to be will now become a gesture area, sort of like the Magic Trackpad. You’ll still be able to press the bottom area of the iPhone, hear an audible “click,” and get to your homescreen. But with a gesture area, it opens up a world of possibilities. Imagine swiping up with two fingers to access the multitasking tray instead of double clicking the home button. Swipe left and right to switch apps. Tap with two fingers to pause and play music. Nice, no? And since the gesture area functions just like a home button if you want it to be, all those complaints that people have been lodging are taken care of.

Confusion in the App Store

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:09:32 -0800

The Scenario

Millions of Mac users are probably confused on how the App Store detects already installed apps and marks them as “installed” in the App Store. They believe that because the App Store detects it, they will get updates from the App Store. This is not true. The App Store only updates apps in the “Purchases” tab. The App Store marks apps as installed so as to prevent you from accidentally repurchasing apps.

The Fix

Here’s how Apple should fix it. Only apps that you install via the App Store should have the “Installed” text instead of the Buy button. Simple. If the user attempts to download an app from the App Store that they already have on their computer, the App Store should ask them if they would like to repurchase the app from the App Store or to leave things as is.

Firefox does it wrong

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:43:16 -0800

The first launch of an application is arguably the most important. It’s the first impression; it’s when the user decides if they like your app or not. The app should have an immersive first-run experience, and here’s where Firefox does it wrong.

Once you’ve dragged Firefox to your Applications folder, ejected the disk, and trashed the disk image, you probably want to open the app. You are greeted with this:

An import wizard! How fun. Nice seeing a “Go Back” button, even though this is the first screen and there is no way you can go back. Let’s pretend I choose to import stuff. Then I get:

Oh look, I get to select a home page. Except not really, because there’s only one radio button. Let’s continue, shall we?

Cool, thanks for telling me that the stuff has been imported. All I want to do is browse the web.

Firefox now asks to be set as the default browser. How am I supposed to decide now if I haven’t even tried it out yet? Mozilla should show this dialog after the fifth or tenth launch, with a friendlier message like: “Like Firefox? Set it as your default web browser.” In any case, we dismiss the dialog box.

The user is now ready to browse the web. But wait! As soon as we dismissed the last dialog box, a new notification bar slides down, telling us that Firefox is free and open source. Gee. I bet 99.9999999% of users do not care. Also notice that the default window size is totally wrong: there’s a horizontal scroll bar. Seriously, it doesn’t take much effort to change that default window size.

Contrast this to the first-run experience of Apple’s browser, Safari. The first time you launch Safari, the browser plays a beautifully done animation of an Apple logo and a spinning compass. It then redirects to your Top Sites, a gorgeous grid of webpages that you can click on. There are no dialog boxes to click through and no interruptions.

Guess which browser I want to use?

The iPod touch 4th generation

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 18:04:00 -0800

I got an iPod touch 4th generation for Christmas. This is a huge upgrade (previously, I used an iPod touch 2nd generation). Here’s my mini-review.

Pros

Multitasking! Finally!
The Retina Display is amazing. I used to think it wasn’t a big deal, but after actually looking at it for a while, I changed my mind. This blows every other display away. Now, when I look at my iMac, I actually notice the pixels.
Performance is much better than the iPod touch 2nd generation, but once in a while animations lag. This is especially noticeable when opening/closing apps.
Battery life seems very strong. I’ve been using it since last night, playing games, reading, and browsing the web. Still about 80% remaining. So if in one day it drops 20%, this should last for about 5 days.
The flat back is a plus. When I place it on a desk, it doesn’t wobble. Although @kevinchen says that it will scratch easily…
The camera supposedly is only one megapixel but the mere existence of one is an upgrade. iPod touch 2nd generation has no camera.

Cons

Not a huge fan of the lock button placement. It’s on the right side now instead of the left. Also, since the profile of the iPod is so thin, the button is practically on the back. Locking the device is now a fun finger dexterity exercise.
The home button feels really cheap. The old one had a “clicky” feel to it; this one is like plastic. I wonder when it will break.
I was looking through the Crash logs at ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice and found a ton of crashes and low memory warnings. Multitasking really puts a strain on the device. And when the OS quits apps that you haven’t used in a while, it doesn’t do it cleanly.
When I upgraded to iOS 4.2 (it came with iOS 4.1), Music.app said that I had no content. Luckily, there was an easy fix.
Non-retina apps are an eyesore. I’ve deleted most of them. Unfortunately, I need a Spanish dictionary and SpanishDict, which isn’t Retina ready, is one of the better ones. Seriously, search the App Store for “spanish dictionary.” All of them are ugly.
It’s really hard to complain about this device.

Bottom Line: If you don’t want to pay $1400 for an iPhone 4 ($200 + $50 service for 24 months), the iPod touch ($230) is for you.

Oh and happy almost new year!

A few years ago

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:39:24 -0800

A few years ago, I was running Windows XP.

A few years ago, I was gushing over Windows Vista’s UI.

A few years ago, I was still using Office 2000.

A few years ago, my PC had 768 MB of RAM and a Celeron processor.

A few years ago, Chrome wasn’t even at version 1.0.

A few years ago, I got my first iPod. The 3rd generation Nano.

A few years ago, I was using something called “ZoomBrowser EX” to manage photos.

A few years ago, I stored all my passwords in a Word document, and used the highlight tool to redact the passwords.

A few years ago, I used Photoshop 5.0.

A few years ago, I sucked at design.

A few years ago, I hadn’t heard of Twitter.

A few years ago, I had the Flash Player plugin installed.

Times change.

Stockfish Redesign

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:31:26 -0700

Stockfish Redesign:

I gave the Stockfish website a little redesign. Now sporting a fluid layout and OS detection, among other things. Best of all, it’s super-compliant and looks pretty much the same in IE 7, 8, 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 6 and 7, and Safari 5. Go check it out.

Inspiration

If you look carefully, you’ll see that the Stockfish redesign is heavily influenced by these sites:

These web designers are genii.

Mail Quick Tip: Archive Gmail messages

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:55:20 -0700

Arguably one of Gmail’s best features is the archive button. Instead of throwing messages away, we can take advantage of Gmail’s vast storage and keep them. Hit the “Archive” button and the message disappears from the Inbox, but it remains searchable and can be found in the “All Mail” folder.

If you’re using Apple Mail, there is no archive button. But we can repurpose the delete button to be an archive button. Here’s how:

Navigate to Mail > Preferences > Accounts > [Your account] > Mailbox Behaviors. Then uncheck “Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox.”

You’re all set! Now when you hit the “delete” button in Mail’s toolbar, the message will be archived instead of deleted.

Rachel's Challenge

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:42:44 -0700

Today a guest speaker told us the incredibly moving story about Rachel Scott.

Rachel Scott was and still is the most compassionate human being on Earth. Throughout her life, she performed small acts of kindness that had a huge impact on others. For example, one day at school during lunch she noticed a girl sitting in the corner, all by herself. Rachel went out of her way to sit and talk to her, and dragged all her friends over, too. Rachel stood up for the disabled, the bullied, and the victimized.

On April 20, 1999, two gunmen stormed onto the Columbine High School campus. Rachel was the first to be shot. She was eighteen years old. The gunmen then went into the library, where Rachel’s brother Craig and many other students were frantically scrambling for cover. The gunmen approached one of Craig’s friends, one of the few African Americans at the school, and started calling him every racial slur they could think of. Then they murdered him. They turned to Craig’s other friend, who was hiding under the desk. They shot him too. They pointed their barrels at Craig but were momentarily distracted by the ringing fire alarms.

Thirteen people died that day.

Later, Rachel’s father discovered an essay Rachel wrote for fifth period class, titled “My Ethics, My Codes of Life.” In it, she stated, “I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go.”

Rachel left more than just an essay behind. When she was thirteen years old, Rachel traced her hands onto the back of a dresser and wrote that those hands would touch the lives of millions of people. In her diary, she wrote that she would change the world. And indeed, her story has touched millions of people and changed the world.

Rachel challenges us to be unprejudiced, compassionate, and to reach out to others.

Do you accept that challenge?

Safari AdBlock

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:44:29 -0700

Safari AdBlock:

I didn’t like the previous text-only version of the site before, so I built a new one. It’s got browser detection and email spam protection. The buttons are drawn via CSS and take advantage of Webkit gradients, box shadow, and border radius. It’s a whole lot more usable with clear call-to-actions. And it’s got a nice video to go along with it. Go check it out!