technochocolate

tablature

iPods here and there

MacBooks, plenty and to spare

Tablet, where oh where?

seasonal haiku

eggnog, a delight

only for the wintertime

in july it’s gross

tech support

I’m realizing I never posted this flowchart that was on a popular web comic a while back, but I wanted to reference it somewhere on my site. That way when people ask me stupid questions, I have a link to point them to.

thoughts on app store woes

As a software developer, I hear a lot of news these days surrounding the iPhone App Store. Most of it is centered on the horrible approval process. Yet, no matter how many sob stories I read, I never find them that shocking. What I do find surprising is that no one seems to be acknowledging the analogue between the App Store approval process and the requirements and testing required by game console manufacturers.

[Redacted], [Redacted], and [Redacted] all have guidelines for games that are released for their consoles. In every case there are strict requirements and testing for any piece of software intended for commercial release. I’ve worked at three game companies so far in my short career as a developer, and while I’ve never worked directly on meeting the certification requirements for a game, I’ve both seen and heard many struggles that make App Store approval seem like a walk in the park.

Submission of a title is in most cases accompanied by a fee. Failure to meet specifications (some of which may be undocumented) or pass manufacturer testing usually requires resubmission and repayment of the aforementioned fee. Requirements seem to change at the whim of the manufacturer, and it is not uncommon for games to fail multiple times. Not to mention that when a game goes to manufacture there is a per unit cost that is no trivial percentage of the retail price to add to whatever percentage your contract awards to the publisher.

I think what is really behind the complaints about the App Store is that most of its developers are transitioning from open application environments like PC, Mac, and the web, all of which have very few barriers between development and release. I can say that from a game development perspective, having worked on closed platforms, Apple’s offering with the App Store seems to be a favorable platform in terms of the app certification process.

Full disclosure: I’m a total Apple fanboy.

meat?

Doesn’t this sound appetizing: Meat Grown In Laboratory In World First

font stack dilemma

Helvetica? Oh, you must mean Arial!

While setting up a font stack for a page in my site I noticed that it wasn’t choosing the fonts in the order that I had specified whenever I viewed the page in any browser on Windows (XP). For the life of me it seemed like my fonts were getting ignored by the rules. I did a little Googling and found that’s exactly what’s happening. Apparently if Helvetica is specified anywhere, but not installed, Arial is considered the best substitute regardless of what your typographic sensibilities are telling you. In fact, this registry key is to blame (Update: some machines have additional things contributing to the issue as well):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes\“Helvetica”=“Arial”

Workaround? Call up every person who will ever view your website, and politely ask them to delete this registry key. Disregard what other implications that action might cause.

I’m hoping this helps illuminate the problem for anyone who can’t figure it out.

quicktime x

Hey QuickTime X, your easy editing features are really cool and all… and I’m gonna let you finish, but QuickTime 7 had A/V controls and more playback features.

reinventing email

My invite finally came along for Google Wave. If you don’t know what I’m talking about just watch this video. I haven’t had a chance to use it extensively yet as I only have a few contacts, but it looks great. More importantly it seems solid. This isn’t some flippant new GoogleToy™, but a deep new reinvention of electronic communication.

But this beta preview is just the tip of the iceberg. Email is so tightly integrated into the workflow of computing that it won’t be an easy task to supplant it. I’m hopeful that this could become the email of the future, but I see a number of hurdles before that happens. I’m not going to name names, but the initials of one such hurdle are MS.

new imac

Many times I have said that I will never buy another computer that’s not a laptop (unless it’s a server), but if I did, it would most definitely be an iMac. They just released new ones today, and they are full of wide-screen hotness: http://www.apple.com/imac/

color

I’ve been flip-flopping between green and blue for decades. So instead, I’m going to go a completely different direction. My favorite color is now officially red.

scribblenauts released

Yesterday Scribblenauts was released, and the reception has been great. We’ve been featured in a popular web comic. We’ve been given many highly favorable reviews. And most meaningful to me, I’ve watched some friends play, and give way to bellows of laughter upon encountering some crazy situations. It’s strange to view the success of this project, something I myself was very skeptical of from the get go. But it’s given me a fresh excitement about what I do, and made me realize there are so many great ideas yet to be created.

Update: Penny arcade did a comic too (9/23/09).

office environment

To give you an idea of the fun office environment I work in everyday, I just got back from lunch and the following todo list was on my desktop.

To Do:

• Wash mangos
• Sell kidneys to charity
• Recycle a puppy
• Set up bear traps in apartment
• Triangulate the location of the enemy’s secret hq
• Figure out that algebra stuff
• Eat some dirt
• Karate chop an unsuspecting bystander
• Divide by 0

norris

This weekend I compiled a list of my favorite Chuck Norris “facts” (jokes). If you find them offensive, don’t read them.

• Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.
• Crop circles are Chuck Norris’ way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie down.
• The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’ fist.
• If you spell Chuck Norris in Scrabble, you win. Forever.
• Pluto is actually an orbiting group of British soldiers from the American Revolution who entered space after the Chuck gave them a roundhouse kick to the face.
• Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
• Chuck Norris invented black. In fact, he invented the entire spectrum of visible light. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.
• Chuck Norris once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.
• Thousands of years ago Chuck Norris came across a bear. It was so terrified that it fled north into the arctic. It was also so terrified that all of its decendents now have white hair.
• Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
• Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because Chuck Norris only recognizes the element of surprise.
• Noah was the only man notified before Chuck Norris relieved himself in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Most people fear the Reaper. Chuck Norris considers him “a promising Rookie”.
• Chuck Norris drinks napalm to quell his heartburn.
• Chuck Norris will never have a heart attack. His heart isn’t nearly foolish enough to attack him.
• When Chuck Norris eats garlic, the garlic smells like Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris sued NBC on a claim that Law & Order were trademarked names for his left and right thighs.

self-photo camera

You see it all the time. Friends squeezing together with a camera at arms length, just trying to capture everybody in the same image. Well Samsung wants to cater to such self-photo takers by releasing the first cameras with 2 LCD screens, front and back. I can’t imagine it will be long until you start to see this on cameras everywhere. Great innovation Samsung!

iphone development introduction

My cohort Sean recently emailed a link to a blog post which I feel is improperly titled iPhone Development Emergency Guide. It’s really a cursory glance at iPhone development for anyone who already has a strong familiarity with application development in general.

strategy games

IGN placed Lock’s Quest in their list of the top 5 strategy games on the DS.

The guys at 5th Cell are awesome. We’ve gone on and on about how blown away we are by Scribblenauts, and lots of people know about Drawn to Life. But between those titles there was Lock’s Quest. It’s a deep, intense strategy game that not enough people bought. So go remedy that!

kickin it

So far I’ve been having a great time in Chicago. The weather has been nice and cool for summer time. I had a good time with some great friends last night reminiscing about days gone by, and I went to brunch this morning with my brothers.

One thing that I always forget about when I’m in Seattle is how much more amazing the architecture in Chicago is by comparison. There are some simply beautiful buildings out here. Especially the older museums, etc. I also saw Trump Tower for the first time yesterday, and it’s quite impressive as well.

The wedding festivities begin in a few hours with the rehearsal dinner, so I’m getting ready for that. Hope Seattle is doing fine without me, but I’ll be back soon.

apple needs a stronger backbone

Concerning Google Voice and other communication apps recently being rejected/removed from the app store, I recently had the following conversation.

Chuck: I’m a little disappointed with Apple. They could be putting way more pressure on AT&T. Apple seems like they have a stronger position for negotiation in the relationship.
Sean: Agreed
Chuck: AT&T needs to suck it up, and just start new pricing. Seperate charges for minutes/texts/wifi is outdated.
Sean: Again. Agreed.
Blog it

So I’m blogging it. I really think Apple’s folding into AT&T on all this stuff is weak sauce. I don’t care what happens, but I’m paying AT&T way too much each month for them not to be giving me the best user experience technically possible.

photographic thought

I’m not a photographic genius. I don’t have all the best equipment. I haven’t had significant training. There are professional photographers who travel all over the world to the most beautiful locales imaginable, and capture timeless masterpieces. There are professional photographers who run around our cities and urban landscapes, and capture the beauty right at hand. There are professional photographers who hit the most high profile events, and capture history for us all. But there is one thing I can do that none of them can: take pictures of my friends.

how chrome os will change things

Last night Google announced that they will be releasing a lightweight operating system later this year to ship with netbook PCs in the latter half of 2010. Google Chrome OS in and of itself seems innocuous, but I think it could have a bigger impact than many people realize.

Microsoft Windows has been a dominant force in the OS realm since probably as long as you’ve been using computers. Even with Linux and Mac OS options many people still consider Windows to be the only choice. Google Chrome OS is clearly not positioned as a direct competitor, but what it will do is muddy the OS waters. With Intel pushing moblin and linux variants continuing to become more user friendly, what I see happening as Chrome OS gets released amongst all these options is consumers being confused.

And thats where I come in… When people have a question about computers they ask me. Well, ok, not always me, but some reasonable facsimile. Over the last 5-10 years I’ve had this conversation dozens, if not hundreds, of times:

someone: Hey Chuck, what kind of computer should I buy?

me: Well, what do you plan to do with it?

someone: Check my email, watch YouTube, and use (waste my time on) Facebook (for 6 hours/day).

me: Buy the cheapest thing with a warranty, and buy a new one when it breaks.

Over the last 4 years “the cheapest thing with a warranty” has almost always had Windows on it, but when you look at what most people are using their computers for it’s clearly overqualified. I don’t think my advice will change too much, and unless Windows becomes free (which might be a good idea Microsoft) I’m pretty sure you’ll see much better deals on netbooks with Chrome OS.

But Chuck, not everyone buys a computer for such simple tasks. What about people who need more?

Aside from the internet stuff, what people tell me they want from their computer more than anything is multimedia. People want to record their music, make a website, edit their photos, or make videos. Clearly you see where I’m going with this. Buy a Mac. However those aren’t the only things people do. When I break down the demographics, I see two main types of people that are still bound to Windows. Gamers and business people with specific software needs. For gamers, the many popular console options (which Microsoft has joined with XBox) have already helped to dilute the PC gaming market, and made gamers question if they should be spending $2,000+ on a gaming rig every few years. And if you have a job centered around computing, look around, I bet you’ll find many of the critical tools you need have slowly migrated to the web. The Windows-centric workplace is fading into the internet-centric workplace, and this is exactly where Google is positioning Chrome OS.

Just like Firefox hopped in and mixed up the whole browser situation causing people to question their allegiance to the mighty Internet Explorer 6, I think Google has a chance to shake up things in the OS world. For many people, buying a computer with Windows will no longer be a given.

awesome fans

The fans of Scribblenauts keep blowing me away. Yet another twitter follower, Scribblenauts Fans, came to my attention today. Apparently, they’re working on getting a community together to build a site for our game by fans for fans.

twitter imposter

This morning I opened my email to discover a new twitter follower @scribblenaut. Apparently this guy, whoever he/she is, is spending a lot of time looking for stories and discussions about our game, and posting links to them on twitter. Awesome! Gotta love fan-driven buzz for the game.

He managed to post a few links to discussions about Scribblenauts that I hadn’t seen yet. One is an audio podcast from livemint.com (who says the game has been in beta since last year, not sure where they got that idea), and a webcast from one of the co-hosts of X-Play on G4.

Also, a number of fans have embraced our quirky art style and have begun recreating all their favorite characters in Scribble-form. Follow this link to check out (among others) Scribbley versions of Chuck Norris, Conan O’Brien, and Optimus Prime.

scribble stalkers

With the newfound buzz surrounding Scribblenauts I’ve garnered a number of internet stalkers. They are welcome to follow my online presence, and I’ve never really tried to keep myself a secret.

This was just posted earlier today on tinycartridge.com. They scrounged up a video and some photos from around the office. They mistook my friend Jeff for me, but in their defense, Jeff is wearing what I like to call the Darth Vader bonnet, so you can’t see his face.

un… be… lievable…

Scribblenauts just won E3 Game of the Show from GameSpot too! To win from both IGN and GameSpot is ridiculous. They almost never agree on anything. This seriously has to be making the record books or something. Absolutely out-of-control! We also won best puzzle game, and best DS game, as if that isn’t obvious having taken Game of the Show.

Scribblenauts is simply one of the most original games we’ve ever seen. Whereas most games offer a limited number of options at any given time, the only restriction in Scribblenauts seems to be the limits of your imagination.

overall awards

The final winners are in for the overall category on IGN. We won the following awards in this category:

• Best Puzzle Game
• Special Achievement for Innovation
• Best Handheld
• Overall Game of Show

It’s hard to imagine that Scribblenauts has caught so much attention. This little idea that we started working on last year, that even I was pretty skeptical about, is now a highly anticipated game. IGN’s Overall Game of Show award is probably the single best award a game can win before it’s even out on the market. Clearly we have a gem on our hands.

To tally it up, we won 9 total E3 awards from IGN, every award we were nominated for. On top of that, Scribblenauts has won Overall Game of the Show from GameSpy, and multiple awards for best DS or handheld game of the show. Many publications are yet to announce winners. We won IGN Overall Game of Show against blockbuster, multi-million dollar budget titles for XBox 360 and Playstation 3. This is huge recognition for our humble, yet ambitious, little game. But I don’t have time to celebrate yet, I need to get back to work.

scribblenauts awards

IGN announced the winners of their E3 awards for the Nintendo DS today. Scribblenauts won 5 awards, including one that didn’t even exist! The awards were:

• Best Puzzle Game
• Special Achievement for Innovation
• Best Artistic Design
• Biggest Surprise
• DS Game Of The Show

Needless to say, it is a pretty high honor to receive all this attention from IGN. They also just posted a new video with our creative director Jeremiah.

The fun isn’t over yet though. IGN has yet to announce the awards for the overall category which includes all game systems. Among those awards Scribblenauts has been nominated for Best Puzzle Game, Special Achievement for Innovation, Best Handheld Game, and Overall Game of the Show. It’s odd too see Scribblenauts stand alone on the list for Overall Game of the Show amongst next generation highly polished 3D titles. We should be seeing all the final results later on this week.

and the e3 awards start rolling

G4tv.com just posted X-Play’s Best of E3 2009 list. Scribblenauts won Best Original Game and Best Handheld Game beating out Gran Tursimo Portable and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Let’s keep ‘em coming!

the origin of bad games

This article frustrated me when I saw it today on IGN. Regarding the Chrono Trigger games, Shinji Hashimoto (VP of Square-Enix) said the franchise hasn’t sold well enough to justify developing new titles. When told fans are anxious to see more games, he said:

“That’s not what the sales tell me! … If people want a sequel, they should buy more!”

There are two games in the series, and they’re both over 9 years old! The reason sales aren’t high is because you’ve sold us the same game three times! Chrono Trigger was a simply amazing game. It’s either my number one or number two spot for my favorite game of all time, but I’m sorry, I’m not going to buy it again. I’ve already bought it twice (SNES and Playstation). I’ve also bought Chrono Cross twice (I lost my first copy).

If Square-Enix keeps thinking like this, I have a feeling that Final Fantasy will become like the next Madden that just keeps getting rehashed every year, and frankly, it’s already pretty close to that. You’re making videogames people! I know it’s about money to you, but it’s about fun to your fans. Why should we buy Chrono Trigger again?

shameless self-promotion

Sorry for all these post about Scribblenauts, but it’s kind of what I do for a living. Furthermore, it has certainly been occupying most of my time these last few weeks. You won’t have to put up with it for much longer.

Meanwhile, Scribblenauts is currently the 8th best selling game for Nintendo DS on Amazon.com. Which is noteworthy as that is based on pre-orders alone, because the game won’t be released for months.

best quote

To date, I consider this to be the best quote about our game.

Everyone’s saying Scribblenauts, so I’m tempted to start being too cool for Scribblenauts now. But seriously, I want to play that game’s title screen for a year. – J.C. Fletcher (joystiq.com)

scribblenauts on this week in tech

The This Week in Tech clan discusses Scribblenauts and giggle with glee when they realize the premise. Best quote:

How do it know? – Leo Laporte

a few scribblenauts quotes

Scribblenauts really shined at E3, and the internet is buzzing with impressions from people who were at the show. Here are a few quotes I’ve taken from some news and blog sites around the web.

It’s pretty telling when a game’s opening menu is fun enough to literally cause people to giggle with excitement. – gamespy.com

A truly unique game is rare to find these days … Scribblenauts from Warner Bros. Interactive and developer 5TH Cell is one such game. – gamezone.com

Get ready to declare your game of the show after the break. – joystiq.com

Scribblenauts is the real deal. – 1UP.com

Scribblenauts is a blast. You’ll find yourself going from just trying to solve the puzzles all the way to trying to think of the zaniest solution out there. – kombo.com

Scribblenauts. This game is awesome. – nintendorks.com

We’re really excited to see the game being received so well. It’s crazy seeing people experience a game where their imagination is the only limiting factor on their gameplay experience. Ok, back to work so we can actually ship this game someday.

scribblenauts at e3

We heard word back today from our coworkers who are at E3 that the Scribblenauts booth is going crazy. People are drooling over the game.

IGN just released a hands-on preview of the game. It is very favorable, here are some quotes:

“…this is easily one of the best games at the show for any platform.”

“there’s so much to experience in this ambitious title that far exceeds all my expectations.”

We’re really excited at all the interest for our game, and we’re definitely trying our best to live up to everyone’s expectations.

my first haiku

I write a haiku,
I have not done this before,
Not really that great.

seattle sunshine

Can everybody from Chicago quit asking me how I can deal with all the rain in Seattle?

macbook review

It has been over two months now that I’ve had my MacBook, and I thought I’d leave some impressions about it. My last computer was was the first 15-inch Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro, so I’ll be using that as a reference point for comparison.

• Screen
  This was the hardest decision for me. I’ve gotten used to the 15-inch screen that I’ve been using for years now, and I was worried it would be hard to adjust. Surprisingly, I didn’t seem to even notice the difference at first, but when I started programming a project for the iPhone I found myself wishing to see more code on the screen. It’s livable, but definitely a point against.

  The new screen is brighter, a lot brighter. It makes other regular LCDs look like they are dimmed. This new screen has a weaker viewing angle than the older matte screens I’m used to, but I feel the contrast and color definition are stronger. Overall, I prefer this screen over my MBP.

• Keyboard
  This is the new style keyboard that Apple has been slowly integrating into its line since the 2006 MacBook. I prefer the newer keys aesthetically, but it hasn’t seemed to make a bit of difference to me otherwise. Same basic layout, still works.
• Touchpad
  Amazing. When they did the system update for the MBP trackpad to enable the two finger right-click and scrolling I stopped using my Mighty Mouse, but this multi-touch trackpad steps up the game even more. The gestures are simple and natural. The three finger browser back/forward swipes and the four finger Exposé and desktop gestures make me smile every time I use them. I feel like I’m piloting the Starship Enterprise.

  My one gripe with the new no-button trackpad is that the physical click is clunky and a little loud compared to the virtually silent button on my old MBP. I tried out the ‘Tap to Click’ option in the trackpad settings, and I’ve stuck with it. It recognizes a two finger tap as a right-click as well, and it hasn’t really led to any accidental clicking. Now I only need the physical click for drag operations.

• Battery
  I never replaced the battery on my Pro, and after three years the charge was hovering around an hour depending on what you were doing while on battery power. I seem to remember getting slightly more than two full hours when I first got the computer. The new MacBook is usually closing in on four hours of use before I spring to plug it in. I’d tend to call my usage ‘general computing’. I’m rarely encoding videos, but have kind of a balance between photo editing, programming, and browsing. Generally, the battery seems very strong considering the higher power of the computer and brightness of the screen.
• Speed
  Sean showed me some benchmarks that listed better performance out of the higher end MacBook versus the current low-end Pro model. It wasn’t a phenomenal difference, but every little bit helps. I never really felt slowed down by my MBP in the three years I had it, unless I was doing something obviously taxing for the system. To me the performance on my MacBook is an incremental improvement. That said, I consider twice as fast to be incremental (thanks to Moore’s Law). I usually can’t do things fast enough to keep my Mac busy.
• Firewire
  I have one firewire peripheral, a 500GB WD My Book drive, which recently has been working intermittently (not a good quality for a backup drive). It also is USB 2.0 compatible, and the difference for me is negligible. I could see lack of firewire on the MacBook being a big deal for video professionals, but the screen size would probably be an even bigger issue. So, this didn’t really sway my decision.
• Size
  It turns out having a smaller laptop is awesome in every respect besides screen size. It’s lighter and more portable, and that is a big win. I take my laptop all over the place, and the size makes it much less invasive to bring along. I actually feel like now it would be a little hard to go back to a 15-inch model.
• Sturdiness
  Just in case you haven’t gotten your hands on one yet, the new unibody line is really sturdy. It feels like a brick, in a good way. I think I could stand on my MacBook without it breaking. I fully expect it to survive wear much better than my old MBP did.

No buyer’s remorse here. This is a computer I’ll be happily using for years to come.

drawn to life 2 announced

Finally, THQ has announced the game from our other team at work, Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter.

The Wii version is not being developed by 5TH Cell, but I’ve had a few glances at the DS version that they’ve been working on here and it looks way better than the first Drawn to Life. I’m sure more news and screens are sure to follow soon.

scribblenauts multiplayer

Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo got a little glimpse into the multiplayer aspect of Scribblenauts. He sounds intrigued at the concept. It will definitely be cool, the possibilities are endless.

workin’ late

If you’ve been wondering how we stay entertained working long hours to hit game deadlines, wonder no more:

why i sleep on a couch

I sleep on a couch. It’s apparently something people have a hard time understanding. “Why do you sleep on a couch?” is one example of a question I hear a lot. “Where is your bed?” is another one.

A few years back I lived in a studio apartment. It wasn’t a big place, but I lived alone. I was getting tired of sleeping on the floor and I had a minor cash surplus. I didn’t have room (or money) for both a couch and a bed. I figured I’d be having friends over once in a while, and rather than walking into my bedroom, I preferred to present the feeling that they were walking into my living room.

And that leads us to the inevitable next question: “Why didn’t you get a futon?” Which provides a segue into what this post is really about. Industrial design.

Let’s learn a lesson from our friend, the spork. Half-spoon, half-fork, genius! We just eliminated 33% of silverware! Except that in reality, it’s not quite as clever as it is in your brain. Sporks are awful. The tines are not long enough to hold anything substantial, and they cut out a huge portion of the liquid holding capacity of a spoon. Instead of an unstoppable hybrid utensil, what you really end up with is the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible fork, and a substandard (at best) spoon. I have little doubt in my mind that it was conceived as a result of budget cuts, not a passion for cutlery innovation.

To me, a futon (or hide-a-bed) is just the furniture equivalent of the spork. When I go to sleep on a futon, I do so with the assumption of back pain tomorrow. It’s not any more comfortable of a couch either. It’s schizophrenic furniture with low self-esteem. No thank you, I’ll take one couch please.

So that’s what I did. I marched up to IKEA and bought me a couch, and I sleep wonderfully, thank you.

Update: Since getting married, I’ve been sleeping in a real bed. As of yet, I haven’t had to spend a single night on the couch. Thanks honey :)

new article

There is a new article on Kotaku from Brian Crecente who recently had a little play time with Scribblenauts.

First I wrote night vision goggles. A pair appeared in the air above my character. When I slipped them on his head the screen turned green.

For those of you who still don’t fully comprehend what I do… I did that. I made the graphic effect for those goggles so that they look like someone might expect night vision goggles to look. There’s a little glimpse into my world.

more scribble press

Update: Yet another article today. An interview with our Creative Director Jeremiah from IGN DS.

Today is a wonderful day for Scribblenauts in the press. There is a new trailer on Yahoo! Kids, and an article from Kotaku’s Mike Fahey who doesn’t seem to “get” the game.

scribblenauts has a publisher

This technically happened a long time ago, but there has finally been an official public announcement. Scribblenauts has a publisher, and it’s Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. If you want to get into the nitty gritty you can check out the article here on IGN DS.

mac tips

Apple.com has some awesome short video tutorials for some of the more advanced/hidden features of Mac OS X. For some reason they’ve put them in a hard to find spot, the Apple Business Theater. It’s almost like they want to keep these a secret. These should totally be part of the Mac page.

The coolest feature I found that I hadn’t known about is being able to use Quick Look on items in the Trash.

bad icons

Chances are, if you are a normal person, you’ve spent less than 60 seconds of your entire life ever thinking about icons. However, they have a big impact on how we navigate our digital world. Yesterday, I posted a twitter about the de facto save icon:

Why are we still using floppy disks as a save icon? I bet over 50% of todays computer users have never even seen a floppy disk.

That’s just a drop in the bucket of common icon issues.

Icons all have some correlation to a computer functionality that happens as a result of “clicking” them, but the imagery behind the icons can often come from vastly different places. For instance, it is not uncommon to see a toolbar with save disk, email envelope, and undo circular arrow icons. The save disk is a literal icon, albeit a relic from the past. You save a digital file on a disk. The envelope draws on the analogy between email and sending real physical mail. And the undo icon is fully abstract.

We’re now in the unfortunate place where these icons have become strongly associated with their meaning as a result of time, and even if someone could come up with strong set of icons drawing on consistent analogues across these common functions people would be very slow to adopt them.

What instigated this post is two icons I see everyday which frustrate me the most. They’re both on my iPhone.

One of them is the YouTube icon. This looks like a 1950’s television. Not only does 50’s TV have little in common with the digital clips hosted on YouTube, but what’s worse is that YouTube already has a powerful logo. Not that it’s a great logo, but it’s there. It’s such a strong part of popular culture it’s very difficult for my brain to re-associate YouTube with this old TV set icon. Even with the YouTube icon in the same place on my phone, it takes me longer to find than any other icon.

The other is the Photos icon. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that less than 0.1% of humans have ever taken a picture of a sunflower. I would also wager that of those who have, sunflowers didn’t become instantly linked to photography in their mind. This is probably one of the weakest icons I’ve ever seen in over two decades of computing. Usually I click the Camera icon accidentally when looking for my photos, and fortunately I can access the pictures I’ve taken through the camera anyway.

Can you think of any icons that could use a makeover?

stop holding back the internet

Do your part. Stop using the browser which shall not be named.

Instead:

working lots

This week has been busy as we’re hard at work on Scribblenauts. I had a pretty late night last night, but we had a lot of fun. Strange camaraderie builds at work after 10pm.

It’s possible that I won’t be gracing the internet with my presence quite as much in the very near future, but once things settle a little bit at work I’ll be back in force.

why get bluray?

Recently I’ve made a decision to stop buying CDs and get my music online. It just makes more sense these days. I use my music almost exclusively on my computer or iPhone, and most of the time I only like a handful of songs from a CD. Paying $18 for a CD just seems ridiculous to me now. Especially when I could pay $4 or $5 for just the songs I like.

A few days ago Apple announced HD movies for sale and rental from the iTunes store. Now, I don’t have an HD tv yet, though I assume I will in the next year or two, but my question now is why would I buy a bluray player when I can already get HD movies for 19.99 from the iTunes store. The same movies that are between $25 and $30 for the bluray disc. It seems like a regression to start buying discs again after just making a switch away from CDs. Even more so considering how many emerging technologies allow me to view media from my computer on my tv.

iphone three beta

I’ve just installed the beta pre-release of the iPhone OS 3.0 software. I’m waiting for all my music and whatnot to re-sync. From the information at the press announcement today it sounds pretty epic, but as a part of the developer agreement I’m not really allowed to talk about it. Hopefully I haven’t already said too much.

I’m just happy they’ve added all the features that should have been there in the first place. Like Copy & Paste.

math, invented?

I have heard the question posed, “Is math invented, or discovered?”

Very simple. I can answer that with another question. Who decided that addition is commutative, and subtraction is not?

To be clear, it’s no question that our symbology and semantics for math has been invented, but that is an entirely different question altogether.

browser

You are all doing a great job. I just noticed that only 2.9 percent of views to my page are from any version of Internet Explorer, with the huge majority going to Firefox.

I’m so proud of you!

color inconsistency

My photo blog has been getting a lot more of my attention than my regular blog the last week or so. I have learned something about colors on the web that I thought I’d share.

I was noticing a difference between the appearance of colors when viewing my site in various browsers. Safari always seemed to show my colors more brightly more as I remembered them while editing. As it turns out, Photoshop (and Elements) by default uses color management on your images. When editing in Photoshop you are seeing the colors of your image through a color profile that has been applied. I haven’t looked too much into this, but I believe the idea is to have more control about how the colors look when they are used for different types of output.

Despite the purpose of color profiles this was the result. Safari displayed bright strong colors by using the color profile to render the image. Firefox ignores the profile and displays the unmodified, slightly more muted, color data as stored in the file. To me whatever benefit I am supposed to be getting from using color profiles looks like a bug. I want my pictures to look the same no matter which browser people are using.

Luckily, I found it very simple to disable color management and save files without color profiles stored on them from the Edit->Color Settings… menu in Photoshop Elements. Now my pictures look the same everywhere.

online software

Earlier today my friend Tim twittered a link to Pixlr, an online pixel editing application. You can think of it as a light version of Photoshop on the web.

I’ve been following a lot of software on the web, and it’s almost always been disappointing. I was quite shocked when I first hopped over to Pixlr. It has a lot of the polish for a web app. And a very familiar interface including a menu bar, tool and layer palettes, etc.

Granted, I will always opt for real software where it’s available, but if Pixlr is any indication of where internet applications are going, then I expect to see a great deal more of them in the near future.

setting safari as default browser

Windows XP is my work operating system, not by choice mind you. Recently the Safari 4 Beta was released (Apple’s internet browser), and I like it so much I wanted to set it as my new default browser. It wasn’t as easy of a task as it should have been.

There was some good information on the apple support forums, but it wasn’t very explicit so I’d like to detail the process here in case anyone else wants to set it as the default.

1. This may not be an issue for you, first try to set it as the default from Safari’s Preferences
2. Click the [Start] button and select the [Run…] menu item
3. Type ‘regedit’ into the text field and click [OK]
4. Inside the Registry editor expand the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT folder
5. Scroll down to the ‘http’ folder and expand
6. Expand ‘shell’
7. Expand ‘open’
8. Select the ‘command’ folder
9. You should see a single entry with a browser in the Data field
10. Double click the (Default) name
11. Enter “C:\Program Files\Safari\Safari.exe” -url “%1” (with the quotes) in the Value data: field and click [Okay].
12. Repeat the last few steps on the ‘https’ folder as well

The poster on the apple thread tries to make it sound like this is a Firefox issue. But Firefox works fine as a default browser, and even lets you switch to other browsers like IE and Chrome without a problem. This is an issue with Safari not setting the necessary keys to make it the default.

Hopefully this solves the problem if you had this same issue. Happy browsing.

missile balloons

This picture was just sent to me, and I’d like to share it with you. This guy tied these balloons to his truck, and drove crazy fast down the interstate. Can you imagine seeing this car fly past you with these three missiles tailing it? It is definitely a good way to draw attention to yourself.

I’m knowingly posting this image that I don’t own the copyright too. If this is your image please let me know so I can give you credit, or link to your copy of the picture.

geek proposal

This wired article was just in my news stream. It’s about geeks proposing in a manner consistent with their geekiness. The one that stuck out to me is a man hacking Chrono Trigger (among my top three favorite games of all time) to add a whole new area for his girlfriend to explore.

Frankly, I can’t see myself ever doing anything like this, but I have to give props to these guys. It’s definitely inventive.

peta hypocrisy

This is a screenshot from a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) website called seakittens.com. They want to convince people (from the looks of it, children) that fish are actually kittens of the sea.

Presumably, people think kittens are cute, and therefore do not want to harm/eat them. Their aim is to prevent the unethical treatment of fish, and more generally, all animals.

But take a look at the banner ad… Not quite in line with the goals of their organization, don’t you think?

web design badness

I’m not a web designer, but I am a web user. Web sites have started to follow some design rules over the years and things have gotten exponentially better, but there are still some common practices that I find frustrating. For anyone who cares here they are:

• Flash
  
  Everyone uses flash, so what’s the big deal? Consistent interface is the big deal. When I’m working in a web environment I have certain expectations. I have my mouse setup to follow links a certain way, such as to open them in new tabs, windows, etc. I have an expectation about the context menus that will appear when I right-click an image, file, or other link. Flash breaks all of these things. It totally hijacks the usual behavior for input, and it implements it’s own behavior. That creates a horrible user experience that is consistently inconsistent.
• Music
  
  Seriously, there is no reason for your website to play music. It’s unnecessary. If I’m a person who likes music, then I already have my own music playing long before I browse into your site. I’m not saying you can’t play music if I request it, but I should never have to hear it by default. One obvious exception is band websites. If the site specifically promotes a music group, you’re off the hook, but otherwise get rid of it.
• Resizing and Repositioning
  
  This is without question the worst. If browsing into your site causes my browser window to change size or position, chances are I’ll close it right away. This is similar to my first issue with flash and its unexpected behavior. I know how I like my browser window. I made it just the size it is, and just the position it is in. A web designer should never presume that such things are arbitrary, and free to be tampered with as they see fit. If you can’t design a site that is dynamic enough for me to view it how I want to, then you don’t have any business designing websites. You should just send me a PDF.

That’s my four cents (that’s two 1982 cents with inflation).

new lens

I’m getting a new lens for my camera next Wednesday in the mail. I haven’t gotten a new lens since right after I got my camera. This one has a much farther zoom range than my previous ones. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some more great candid shots (my favorite) by staying a little farther back from the action. You can check it out here. I’m excited to try it out. Hopefully I’ll have more pictures to show everyone soon.

netiquette

Microsoft – Essential online etiquette I recently discovered this article. There is more to say, but it’s pretty good. You should read it, especially the part on email. I’d like to highlight this point:

• Don’t send or forward virus warnings. These might be hoaxes.

You can check these as well as other ‘hoax’ emails on Snopes.com, and some viruses have been propagated through email disguised as warnings.

Also, if you are not the geekiest person on your contact list you never need to send an email about a virus. If there is a real threat, your geekier friends have already heard about it. Let them send out the email warning if necessary.

One guideline I would like to add. Never send anything to everyone in your email address book. If your email is so general that it can’t be targeted to a specific group of contacts, then it’s probably unnecessary to send at all. It’s very unlikely that your email is relevant to everyone. Really, you shouldn’t forward email at all.

fast fifty

If you are an aspiring photographer, hobbyist, or advanced amateur with a DSLR, and you don’t have a “fast” (large aperture, <= 1.8) 50mm lens you are wasting your camera. The miniscule depth-of-field and incredible sharpness from a fast prime lens can make seriously killer portraits, and lots of other awesome shots too. There is nothing that will make your subject pop in your photos quite like blurring the snot out of everything else in the image. Not too mention the fact that it is probably the cheapest lens you will ever buy. Nikon
Canon