Category Archives: user interface

Playing with Wordle

Wordle has been making the rounds lately but I’ve just gotten in to mess around with it — and it’s fabulous.

Here is a Wordle rendering of all of my del.icio.us tags:

Wordle rendering of my del.icio.us tags

Sure, it’s just a tag cloud. But, because the final layout is so well done and the creation interface is so thoughtfully put together, the data can be manipulated and understood in a way that wouldn’t be possible with traditional tag clouds.

Upgrading to Windows XP = brilliant

“I have finally decided to take the plunge. Last night I upgraded my Vista desktop machine to Windows XP, and this afternoon I will be doing the same to my laptop… Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive. I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log onto Vista, instead I can run applications as soon as I can click their icons. Not only that, but the applications start snappily too, rather than all waiting in some ‘I’m still starting up the OS’ queue for 30 seconds or so before all starting at once.”

Review of Windows XP

Stop hassling me and just shut down already.

Why do I have to answer so many questions when I just want to shut down my laptop and go home?

Textpad: Do you want to save untitled.txt?
Me: No! If I’d wanted to save it, I would have.
Entourage: Do you want to empty your junkmail folder?
Me: I don’t care! Maybe I do, but why do I have to decide right now?
Firefox: You are about to close 10 tabs. Are you sure you want to continue?
Me: Yes! Why else would I be trying to shut down the machine?

Imagine if our houses were like this. (Error: you are about to leave the kitchen without emptying the dishwasher. Cancel | Yes | No ) We would not stand for it.

Why can’t I just turn off the computer? Is it really such a dumb machine that it can’t remember the last version of all open files? I wish I had a switch labeled “just turn off, I mean it, it’s time to go home and I don’t want to deal with you anymore.”