Monthly Archives: February 2008

design, gadgets, industrial design, technology, technology news

Engadget.com – Optimus Maximus keyboard

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Optimus Maximus Keyboard
If you have been looking for the holy grail of keyboards it seems you will have to wait. For now, the highly anticipated Optimus Maximus – is already shipping from artlebedev.com and Engadget.com got one for testing. Now, almost every gamer and designer out there is salivating to know if it is worth the almost 3 year wait and worth the “are you kidding me?” $462 price tag. Short story – it doesn’t seem worthy of either. Yes, that price is JUST for a keyboard.

Well according to the first impressions of Engadget.com the Optimus Maximus is a very nice keyboard that fails at the basic premise of being a keyboard. Confused? Well they say the keys are very hard to press and do not flow like a keyboard should, causing unnecessary strain and fatigue for your hands.

For those that never heard of this keyboard, the idea is having a keyboard that can display an image in real time on each separate key. This can offer incredible customization to your work flow. Imagine keys that change depending on which programs you are actually using, keys that display a status like something as simple as “new emails” or any other notification you usually need. But, that is not all we users wanted; we also wanted a usable keyboard.

It seemed to me like an epic fail ever since they announced the price. But there was always hope. If you consider that technology which succeeds is lowered in price as time goes by; this is the best idea for a keyboard in a long time. If it doesn’t sell well, there will always be someone else that takes the idea and perfects it, the Optimus Maximus “new and improved” 2.0 or the desinger’s latest Optimus Tactus.

gadgets, technology, technology news

only in Japan: the best tech you can’t buy

PC World has a very interesting article about technologies that we can’t buy, well at least not in the USA.

Imagine a cell phone that offers true TV capabilities, works as your bus/subway/train pass, it links sales to a credit card (wave your cell phone at the register), tells your car where to go, which route has less traffic and which gas station is cheaper, and can even warn you of an impeding disaster like an earthquake. And this is a phone we are talking about here, not a computer you have to carry on your back.

Sounds like science fiction but it is reality at the other side of the world, in Japan. Read the article for more info.

design, design info, research, technology, usability, web design

10 principles of effective web design

Talking Pointer Usability
Here is an article that exposes usability in 10 easy to understand points through web design. Smashing Magazine also has older usability articles like 10 usability nightmares and 30 usability issues. They are all a must read.

One very important item, before I comment on their 10 points, is that users DON’T READ a website, users actually SCAN a website for information, then read. Something I scream to the wind as being true, and that actually explains a few of the points below.

Here are Smashing Magazine’s 10 principles of effective web design with my comments; do read their article for their original view and examples.

  1. Don’t make users think – Simple, lay your website components out in an organized fashion and let users select what they want.

  2. Don’t squander users’ patience – Users have all control, bother them with too much work, too many forms to fill (specially if you give them no incentive before they start) and they will leave.

  3. Manage to focus user’s attention – Call attention to those parts of the website that are important, but don’t do over do it so you don’t undermine the other parts of the website. “Not all users are on the site for this month’s special.“

  4. Strive for feature exposure – Guide your users on the site. Simple visual or text cues can make a huge difference. Continue reading →

design, design info, research, studies

colors and flavors, it’s all in your mind

Colourlovers.com has an article about the effect of the color of your food, and how colors actually can change the flavor your mind actually receives. The authors of the study Taste Perception: More than Meets the Tongue, Journal of Consumer Research described the phenomena as “Color dominated taste.”

Green Ketchup You might remember the product to the left. Most people said they could taste a difference between the red and the green ketchup. But HEINZ said that the content of both the regular colored ketchup and the green ketchup were the same, with the exception of the flavor-less colorant.

That is the kind of response that is mentioned in the original article.

statistics, technology, technology news

we keep multiplying

WebsitesOnlineJan08A report by NetCraft.com for January 2008 reports that 155,583,825 websites responded to their tests. Although, compared to 5.4 million new websites in December 07 the increase of 354 thousand sites for January might not seem like much.

But when you think at the mass of the number, and let me spell this number, “one hundred fifty five million, five hundred eighty three thousand, eight hundred & twenty five” websites being currently online you just have to think how fast this business is multiplying, and has kept multiplying, for the last 13 years of it’s existence. It is great to be part of it all.

design, design tutorials, illustrator

225 Illustrator tutorials

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Illustrator Icon

designertoday.com has a list of 225 different Illustrator tutorials; from beginner to advanced. Because you can never have enough tutorials or bookmarks to save them.

It seems “more” is surely in… every time I have seen a collection of tutorials during the last month the number just keeps growing 10 – 20 – 50 -100 and now 225 tutorials for Illustrator; because I guess 200 tutorials were not enough.

But then again, who am I to complain about free? Enjoy.

apple, design, gadgets, technology, technology news

Ars Technica – MacBook Air review

Apple MacBook AirHere is an actual review, not just first impressions, of the MacBook Air by Ars Technica. This review deals with only the standard 4200rpm hard drive version – they will do another review for the solid-state hard drive version of this laptop on February 5th.

Big points of the review are:

  • The small size is only based on how thin it is, since in terms of desktop space it only saves a bit compared to the regular MacBook.
  • It’s trackpad is bigger than MacBook and MacBook Pro, but the gestures use is still limited.
  • For audio it has one speaker (good bye stereo) and it is still louder than a MacBook – but then again what isn’t?
  • Lacking a regular CD/DVD drive can be a pain if you don’t plan ahead or don’t always take your installation disks with you
  • The weight is a huge attribute; makes it very comfortable
  • It’s performance “Achilles heel” is the slow hard drive
  • Some users are experiencing louder than normal fans on these, but not the reviewer
  • Don’t even try the remote Migration Assistant, just don’t
  • WiFi is ok, but not close to the MacBook sensitivity
  • Actual usage time on the battery was about 2 hours and 33 minutes. Ouch, that is not even half of the 6 hours advertised!

Read the full review to make your opinions… but seems quite a disappointment for some of us. I could have lived without the DVD drive. I could have lived with the slower performance (on the go only!!). But such a short battery life is really a disappointment; especially for a computer that is made to take with you everywhere you can take a manila folder.

music, technology, technology news

last.fm frees the music

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Last.fm logoFor those of us that can actually listen to music while we work, I highly recommend last.fm

This is more so now that since last week you can listen to full albums right from your browser. It has a bit of a long process to install, but it is simple. Just create the free account, download their software, integrate it with the music player of your choice and it will look for your favorite songs, genres and artists. All this happens in the installation program so it is not as complicated as it might sound.

After installation, the system on their website will automatically start creating a play list of songs that you should like based on your favorites from the media player you chose during installation. It might take a few hours to find the perfect songs for you but wait until the site is done and come back later.

Ok, you came back and now your last.fm account has your profile and play lists ready. Just hit the play button and start listening to their recommendations. Don’t like a song? Just use the skip button, or the BAN button, and the system will learn your music taste based on your decisions. Love the current song? Click the LOVE button and your play list will continue to be filtered by those choices. The more you train the system by letting it know which songs you like and which you don’t the better selections it will give you.

 And now you can select an artist and scroll down to the albums, now you can just select and play the full album. Not all of the albums for each artist are available but the collection is quite good. Enjoy!

blogs, design, design tutorials, technology

designers are a picky bunch

Mouse Pointer

The title should come as no surprise; but thanks to that fact we can drive developers and programmers crazy sometimes.

We are picky on what goes where (layout), picky on which color to use (color combination), picky on how images should display (image manipulation), and if you are head of the project – specially picky on how the system works (design usability) and finally picky on the details that make the project look complete. These are pieces of the puzzle that some programmers and developers only pay light attention to. Just look at design-police.org for guidelines; yeah we have that many.

Although a system can -work- correctly, it might not display correctly or it might not give the impression a finished system should give. On the other side of the coin, programmers do pay attention to other parts of the system that we might not pay as much attention to. A programmer, somewhere, is mentioning this concept in a programming blog.

Continue reading →