More web apps should implement the “Undo pattern” implemented in Gmail. While I’m sure Gmail wasn’t the first to do it, using it daily on Gmail has cemented it’s value in my mind.
Traditionally, mainly due to developer laziness (and/or necessity), web apps have required users to “confirm their action” via a dialog before it is applied. This pattern makes the user read an extra dialog, make an extra click and requires them to make an extra decision every time. Since the majority of actions are NOT mistakes the confirm dialog is a waste.
Enter the “Undo” button. The undo pattern would apply an action immediately and then simply let the user undo it if necessary. With the undo pattern:
Users have to do less work per action, so they will engage with your app more.
New users are trained to be more confident with your app. The mental assurance of having an undo would make them less afraid to try new features!
Your app will be classier
The cost of engineering the Undo pattern will be higher, but once your app is architected to allow it, your users will thank you.
I grew up on Windows. Starting with Windows 3.1, then Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and so on. In my family I was (and still am) known for my knowledge of how to fix broken computers. A few days ago, however, one of my friends called me with some weird problem with his Mac. Even though I’ve been on Mac for about 1.5 years now, I felt totally lost in helping him. I could tell him everything about how to use his Mac to the max, taking advantage of all the cool features, but when it came to figuring out why his computer wouldn’t turn on or why he was seeing some crazy error while booting up — I found myself lost. How is it that I knew so much about fixing Windows but have been so clueless about complicated Mac problems?
I came to a basic realization: I don’t know how to fix Macs because I’ve never really had to fix my own Mac! (actually I did once when I had permissions issues with my drive, but that was caused by my mistake). On Windows, every week or two I remember troubleshooting some issue or another. I fought countless viruses, created and resolved major havoc on my machines. In this process, I learned a lot about fixing Windows.
So does the fact that I don’t know how to fix Macs really speak for their top quality? Or am I just over-thinking my laziness in educating myself about Mac internals?
Wallpapers are fun. They give us inspiration, relaxation, and are a means of expression in an otherwise standardized work life. When I want to change the wallpaper on my desktop, I find myself rummaging through random wallpaper sites filled of annoying ads, popups or both. It is also hard to find the right size for different screen sizes (especially for my 30″ screen), supply is limited and the whole experience is generally annoying.
What I found out recently is that the secret to great wallpaper was right under my nose this whole time. Google Images!
To find quality wallpapers, you want to search for “[your topic] imagesize:1024×768″ where 1024 is the width of your desktop and 768 is the height. For example, try any of the following queries:
You get the idea. This way, I’ve been able to find a fresh collection of thousands of wallpapers easily for any size. Have fun and enjoy the redecorating!
I just got home from a run, and had the chance to check out the ending of the Olympic 50km walking final. I’m not sure whether it was live or not (many of the televised events are not live). Not having thought about the sport of race walking, I looked at these guys and I thought…bah what kind of sport is this where you have to actually make yourself go slower? My initial conceited reaction had completely changed in about 10 minutes of thinking about this a bit more, and doing a bit of math.
The winner, of this 50km (31 mile) race, had completed the race in around 3 hrs and 37 mins. That works out to a pace of under 7 minutes per mile. I was shocked! I can barely run just 1 mile at that pace before having to slow down. These guys walked 31 miles at an average of that pace. Wow!
Anyway, this just reminded me again of the general design pattern of life: when you don’t *really* understand a sport (or any skill really), it is easy to dismiss it, and lose appreciation for its best competitors.
It’s great that examples like Race Walking come by every once in a while to provide a lesson in humility and remind me this life design pattern again!
I stumbled upon the CIA – World Factbook guide about our world today. It has some very fascinating, and surprising statistics! Here are the highlights…
We hear everywhere that the world has 6 billion people. But its really an estimated 6.67 billion…which I would say rounds up to 7 billion.
World population timeline:
1820 – 1 billion
1930 – 2 billion (110 years)
1960 – 3 billion (30 years)
1974 – 4 billion (14 years)
1988 – 5 billion (14 years)
2000 – 6 billion (12 years)
When you parents were born the world had half the people it does now!!
Median age of earthlings: 27.4 years for men, 28.7 for women. (I’m getting close!)
There are 2.4 births for every 1 death.
Sex ratio:
At birth, 1.07 male(s) for 1 female
65 years and over:0.78 male(s) for 1 female (!!!)
2.58 children per woman
Religions: 33.3% Christian, 21.0% Muslim, 13.26% Hindu, etc.
40% of the 3.1 billion world work force works in agriculture! GDP however is only 4% from agriculture.
Oil production: 78.9 mil barrels/day.
Oil consumption: 80.29 mil barrels/day. (What the??)
Land line phones: 1.2 billion.
Cell phones: 2.1 billion!
Internet users, 1 billion.
Total airports: 49,024 (whoa!) Atlanta is the highest trafficked.
Top Airport in the world by Cargo: Memphis, TN (who would’ve thought? next is Hong Kong).
Heliports (exclusive for helicopters): 1,359 (didn’t even know these existed).
UN estimates “12.3 million people worldwide are enslaved in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude at any given time.”
Colombia produces 2/3 of the world’s cocaine (no surprise here)
Hope you enjoyed the list…check out the fact page yourself for more interesting facts
This weekend I went camping at Big Sur. The campgrounds there are pretty much out of range of any cell phone towers and thus I was getting no signal on my iphone. Secondly, I had no way of recharging the phone as there was no electric power outlets. So how did I save enough power to last me the whole trip?
I put my phone on Airplane mode!
Airplane mode turns off all wireless and phone connectivity of your iphone, and thus saves a TON of power. I was able to take pictures, take notes, play games, listen to music, do all kinds of stuff the whole time and still had half my battery left by the time I got home.
So if you are trying to make your iphone battery last (and don’t care if you can’t receive calls)…put it in Airplane mode till you need to make a call…you will be surprised how long you can make it last.
To minimize a window in Mac, you hit Cmd+M. But I could never figure out a way to un-minimize with the keyboard. Even ALT+Tabing to it wouldn’t work. This was one of the most annoying things. So after some searching, I found that there are two solutions that work.
UPDATE: Miicah gives us the best solution to this problem in the comments:
You can hit cmd-tab for app and before you release the cmd, push the option (alt) and hold it as you release the cmd-key.
Thanks! Other solutions I had found earlier are below…
Solution 1
Hit Cmd+Space to open Spotlight, and simply start typing the name of the app you want to unminimize. Run the app from there as if you were opening a fresh copy of your app. This will “unminimize” it instead.
If you use Quicksilver (you should) you can open it from there too for the same effect.
Solution 2
This one is a bit slower, but also works! Hit Ctrl+F3 to open up the Dock. Use Tab to get to the minimized app, and hit Enter.
So there you have it, two less than ideal ways to “unminimize” or “restore” a window in Mac OS X. If you know a better way, please do comment.
Every time I have an interesting thought worth sharing, the new big question of the web pops into mind: to blog or to twitt?
I have been twitting a decent amount recently and really since I am neither a professional blogger or twitt’r (separate thought, are there professional twitt’rs like bloggers? how long till there are? I guess once you can monetize your Twitting), I don’t spend thaaaat much time thinking about and creating content to write about. Most of it is really spur-of-the-moment stuff.
Anyway, so here is my conclusion, in prose:
If its a thought, and time is short, twitt.
If I have a lot to say, and not right away, I blog.
If while I’m on the go, there’s a brief moment of wit, I’ll twitt
Any other more developed thought, I’ll blog while I sit!
Keeping my listeners aware of both is important indeed
I’ll link to my blog on Twitter,
and decorate my blog with my twitt’in feed!
I’ll try to give both my equal love and care,
but sometimes, guess they’ll just have to share
