Once in a while, I have the opportunity to visit Coupa Caf’e for a morning snack.
Their great tea, coffee or hot chocolate in my case, is famous around here.
Great atmosphere and WiFi connection (which did not work today...)
But the best part about this place is the attention to details and the fact that they care.
You do not see these levels of professionalism in the ‘other’ coffee places...
E.T.
With only few weeks left in office, and some funny/sad/embarrassing public appearances, President Bush is making headlines again.
At least this time he contributes to the 'casual gaming' industry....
http://www.sockandawe.com/
What is interesting to check is the list of most active countries:
E.T.
Today, only few have the patient to wait for a photo to be printed.
My kids, as true digital-native humans, always wants to see 'how does the photo look like' within 2 seconds. We even had to buy a digital camera to my grandfather, as his answer to the kids was not accepted by them...
:-)
Many years ago, Polaroid had the answer.
Simple camera and 60-90 seconds of waiting and you had your printed photo in your hand.
It was one of the coolest things back then.
Technologies changes, people needs changes but some things stay the same.
Today, you could find many mini-mobile-printers that can convert your recently taken digital-photos to printed ones.
Today I've learned from CNN that Polaroid files for Chapter 11...
I guess these cameras and films will be worth a lot for collectors and fans...
If you really miss it, try poladroid.net.
E.T.
As a comment to recent post (just good news),
I received this video from one of my sarcastic friends.
I found this image as part of a post on a new report about social network by Netpop.
Flickr Photo by: thomcochrane
Do you remember Myst?
I used to spent hours trying to solve the puzzles and wait for hours for the game to upload...
I think it was the first game that caused me to upgrade my computer...
Anyway, Cnet reported today that Cyan Worlds has decided to release all of Myst Online URU Live's assets to the public as open source.
This could be very interesting project to follow and to contribute to.
E.T.
One additional step for iPhone on its long road to be 'business ready'.
As reported in The Register, virtual desktop provider Citrix has, again, announced it'll be developing a client for the iPhone, providing the option of a Windows desktop on an iPhone: albeit at a distance.
Although Windows is not designed to be viewed on such a small screen, it may be very useful to have remote access to your Windows machine when you really really need to.
Check the demo:
E.T.
I was trying out the new Google Tasks from the labs.
Simple and useful gadget.
In case you added it and cannot find it (like me...), look at the left navigation area:
Also, what with the Actions and the List menus?
It seems as the list actions and tasks settings should be unified and the 'Tasks' settings should have a separated access point.
Anyway, nice to have this at last.
Now I could keep a better track of all the things I will not do...
(It is like your Netflix queue, you never see any movie in place 5 or higher...)
E.T.
Imagine yourself in an airport. You found a great seat with wireless connectivity (or a 3G card), you are online...But then, your power died.
"I wish I would have wireless power" you think to your self...
Well, Powermat provides almost that.
"...Powermat technology brings safe, simple, and efficient wireless electricity to surfaces including walls, tables, floors and desktops. It is designed to replace the need to access multiple electrical sockets with the flexibility and freedom of wireless power for real-time powering and charging of electronic devices of almost any kind in almost any environment. Powermat technology revolutionizes the way energy is consumed in the every day course of interaction with our environment.
Powermat offers the only scalable solution to transform large work surfaces and wall areas into safe and efficient conductors of electricity and is easily integrated into building construction and furniture design..."
A little out dated, but interesting nevertheless.
Here is the video of the Web Usability Event on June 25 featuring Tom Chi, Senior Director - User Experience, Yahoo!, Jeremy Ashley, Vice President, Applications User Experience, Oracle, and David Nelson, Sr. Experience Designer, Adobe Systems.
E.T.
Boxes and Arrows is devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design; including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture and the design of business. Since 2001, it’s been a peer-written journal promoting contributors who want to provoke thinking, push limits, and teach a few things along the way.
They have great (practical) articles and examples for design processes, prototyping methodologies and much more.
For example:
Well, recent weeks were tough.
Many sites are reporting the bad news (fuckedcompany, fuckedstartups, Cnet, Scorecard, and more...), but only few report good news...
Good Mood is a new website (Hebrew only for now) that just went live, so they'll be looking for ways to improve and expand. For now, you have a chance to read about some good things that happen in Israel and around the world, including a recent Israeli start up buyout :)
And if this does not help (or your Hebrew is rusty) here is one of the songs that always make me smile:
E.T.
If you liked the Flex2/3 explorer, you have to check this one out.
Tour de Flex includes over 200 runnable samples, each with source code, links to documentation, and other details. Topics include the Flex Core Components, Flex Data Access, AIR Desktop Capabilities, Cloud APIs, Data Visualization, Mapping, and a growing collection of custom components, effects, skins, etc.
Install the AIR application and explore its capabilities.
Such as Web Services
UI components and effects
and much more...
E.T.
Based on the good feedback I received on the 'Do the Math' post , I decided to recommend another great website.
http://tutpup.com focuses on Maths Game and Word Game Questions and include several levels.
The site has a very clean design, it is fun and easy to use.
And for the more competitive kids, it allow to play games and to compete with other kids, win awards and collect virtual prices.
No real names, just cool nicknames...
Screen capture is an important tool for me.
As a follow up to the Jing and Skitch post, I would like to add Evernote.
Evernote works on your desktop (Windows/Mac) as well as on your iPhone and other mobiles.
It is more than just a screen capture.
"...
Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.
..."
The last few weeks reminded me some scenes from The Hudsucker Proxy.
Two main associations were:
I guess 'getting real' is doing a comeback (...) as investors and companies are taking actions.
In a recent post of 37Signals, Jason pointed out some key concepts from the Getting Real eBook (read it free).
Some (relevant) topics from the book:
An interesting post in engadget.
Minority Report-style interface / interaction.
Cool for sure, but not so efficient...
As many, I also think that the best UI is no UI.
If we can remove unnecessary steps, no visual, flow or processes are needed or should be visible to the user.
This interesting prototype demonstrate many steps to reproduce existing user experience activities.
However, braking away from the 'traditional' input devices, such as keyboard and mouse, is happening.
This demo reminded me the BCI (Brain Controlled Interface) concept. But unlike BCI, the interaction flow include much more physical activities.
We are using voice interfaces all the time. Some time they are annoying (especially when you try to get service from a human...), and some time very useful (such as Yahoo! OneSearch, Say Who and Google mobile search application [UPDATE]).
Change is coming.
Let's work to make it change for the better.
E.T.
I was working over the weekend on an important presentation, using MS Office for Mac. As always, I was (or thought I was) careful, saving drafts and backups every few minutes…
I finished the presentation, just in time for breakfast with the family, and sent it to my team.
Few minutes later, I get a response that they cannot open the file.
“Strange… I just saved it”, I thought out loud.
When I tried to open the original file I got this message:
I checked my backup files, as well as any recovery files in the system folder – they all were corrupted…
My response included a big “F…” + few words in Arabic, Hebrew, Russian and 3 other languages I just invented for the occasion.
I called some friends and tried to retrieve/save at least the text from the files…
Finally, I changed the mime type from PPTX to PPT and the files opened.
Just to be clear – the latest format was not working, while an previous format was.
Now, when I can smile and learn from this experience, I can say that MS PowerPoint for Mac is not 'future compatible'…
Probably the only application that do not support its own newer formats…
E.T.
