iThink | iDesign | iAm.

A font for dyslectics

2011-07-16T01:56:00.001+03:00

University of Twente created a typeface to help people with dyslexia read with fewer mistakes. This is huge as, in my knowledge, it's the first font to be created to aid people with a "deficiency". Now, the only thing that we don't have is a system to improve our writing skills without making mistakes! ;)

Too bad the font it's SO expensive to be used widely :/

P.S: The font seems to be the derivative of a master's thesis. Yep, we'd all wish to have a topic like that here in Greece and promote it after it's over (it's not so hard after all).

There's greek in your english!

2011-07-14T00:24:00.000+03:00

As I've been studying lately for my toefl exam I thought I should take a look at all those greek words that english language has. I knew most of them but there are many that I couldn't imagine they derive from a greek word. Luckily wikipedia has a complete list :P

However I don't think if you use words like "adiaphorism" instead of "indifferent" if anyone will understand you, or even more crucial, if they think of it as a valid word in the exams!

P.S: Beware, not all the words have the same meaning the root has in greek!

Where ipad/iphone notifications fail

2011-07-02T17:02:00.030+03:00

I still remember a presentation of a co-student about the usability of the iphone about a year ago. The impressive thing was that he didn't find any problems. Of course that's impossible ;) I find problems everywhere, it's almost annoying :P

After the introduction of multitasking to the iOs (real or not it doesn't make a difference to the user) notifications can be problematic in many cases. Take a look at the following scenario:

You are logged in a real-time conversation app (msn, skype etc) in case someone needs to talk to you but at the same time you perform another task, let's say you buy something online and you fill the checkout form. You start filling the first field of the form when someone messages you and you see the familiar notification window with "ok" and "go to app" options. You press ok, you will check this later after you finish the form, but your previous task is already interrupted. This can go on for as long as your friends text you unless you choose to lose time and go to the app to write your friend that you are busy and you need a minute to fill a form. Otherwise you will be writing down quickly and anxiously pressing continuously the ok button when notifications appear, hoping that your friend will understand that you can't answer back to him immediately.

To get to the point, what notifications miss is a snooze button! You may not want to completely disable them (cause you wouldn't know that someone or some app wants your attention) but you can't get any other task done if you get notifications at the same time. So what is needed is a temporary disabling system, just like an alarm clock ;) You get the first warning but not the following ones for a few minutes. Everyone's happy this way, no? *-)

iPad, my newspaper.

2011-06-15T03:10:00.006+03:00

After using my iPad for a while I thought I should buy a case, but not just any case, a case that would represent something. I searched and searched when I finally found this case to match the way I use the iPad!

My new etsy case.

I just love the metaphor (I should after all in terms of interaction design, right?), don't you?! :P

Of course now I have to keep in mind that I can't do this:

;)

Create a stylus for your ipad

2011-05-30T00:21:00.001+03:00

As a proud owner of an ipad 2 I wanted to have a stylus. It's not that I don't like the finger-interaction (cause I do) but there were certain times I felt I needed a stylus in order to note down some things. I did order a wacom bamboo stylus, but I don't think it will arrive any time soon. Googling I found many ways in which you can create a home-made stylus easily and fast on your own. Here is what I've done:

P.S: And, now, I wonder, why did I order this? *-)

Dr. House's blues...

2011-05-10T01:44:00.010+03:00

I believe you all know Dr. House, or even Hugh Laurie in reality. What you may not know is that Hugh Laurie actually plays the piano and recently released his own cd with the title "Let them talk".

Quite good if you're into blues :)

Future by Design

2011-05-03T14:46:00.002+03:00

Surprised that I haven't already posted this video, as it is quite old, but it's never too late. Future By Design 2006 is one of the three documentaries (well the other two are now much more famous: Zeitgeist 2007 and Zeitgeist moving forward 2011) associated with the name "Jacque Fresco". Jacque Fresco is a self-educated structural designer, philosopher of science, concept artist, educator, futurist and the creator of "the Venus Project".

The video below is about how he envisions, designs and implements the future.

Burdens of a house

2011-03-29T03:31:00.003+03:00

Οι ετοιμασίες άρχισαν. Με λιγότερες από 15 μέρες για την μετακόμιση το σπίτι είναι πιο ανάκατο από ποτέ. Βρήκα μερικές κούτες για να αρχίσω να μαζεύω όσα δεν χρειάζονται καθημερινά, αλλά μόλις άρχισα να ανοίγω συρτάρια και ντουλάπια αντί για κούτες γέμισα σακούλες με σκουπίδια, ή καλύτερα, σακούλες για ανακύκλωση. Είναι απίστευτος ο όγκος των πραγμάτων που κρατάμε με σκοπό κάποια στιγμή να ξανασχοληθούμε με αυτά ή να τα χρησιμοποιήσουμε κάπως στο μέλλον. Μέσα σε αυτά το 50%, ίσως και παραπάνω, ήταν χαρτιά. Manuals από όοοοολα τα πράγματα που είχαν αγοραστεί και φυσικα, δεν είχαν διαβαστεί ποτέ. Και να είχε χρειαστεί κάτι η πρώτη αντίδραση ήταν να το ψάξω στο ίντερνετ. Έπειτα ήταν οι τόνοι από cd. Κράτησα λίγα πράγματα, backups τα περισσότερα. Αλλά όλα αυτά τα cd που συνοδεύουν κάτι που έχεις αγοράσει με drivers κλπ είναι άχρηστα πλέον, σίγουρα θα υπάρχουν καινούργιες version. Παλιά cd από windows εποχές πετάχτηκαν, σε φάση xp service pack 1 (lol), ακόμη και τα cd με τα mp3 που είχα φέρει όταν πρωτοήρθα εδώ θεωρήθηκαν έξτρα χώρος, είναι όλα πια σε σκληρούς.

Το πρόβλημά μου είναι στα βιβλία. Μου αρέσουν τα βιβλία, αλλά δεν χωράνε στο υπερ-mobile μοντέλο που έχω στο μυαλό μου (εγώ, τα μήλα μου, οι φωτογραφικές μου και τα ρούχα μου φυσικά). Είτε τα δώσω είτε τα μεταφέρω το αποτέλεσμα μάλλον θα είναι το ίδιο, πιθανότατα δεν θα τα ξανανοίξω ποτέ, γιατί και στις δύο περιπτώσεις δεν θα είμαι εκεί. Επίσης, σημειώσεις. Τί νόημα έχουν αν στην περίπτωση που θέλω να ανατρέξω σε κάτι δεν θα μπορώ! Πλαγίως οι επόμενες σημειώσεις μου θα είναι ηλεκτρονικές και τα βιβλία μου από δω και πέρα ηλεκτρονικά επίσης (όπως ήδη είναι μερικά - hint: ipad inc!). Θα κρατήσω μια λίστα ελπίζοντας ότι στο μέλλον θα μπορέσω να τα ξαναβρώ κάπου στο ίντερνετ...

Καμιά φορά ξεχνιόμαστε στο να κάνουμε την ζωή μας πιο απολαυστική ή εύκολη αποκτώντας πράγματα. Όταν τα ξεφορτωνόμαστε όμως και φεύγουν τα βάρη και οι δεσμεύσεις του να είσαι σε ένα μέρος μόνο functional είναι ακόμη καλύτερο.

Υ.Σ. όταν θα είναι δυνατό να έχεις μαζί σου και ένα virtual πιάνο με αίσθηση και ήχο ενός πιάνου με ουρά και βαριά πλήκτρα (κυρίως βαριά, πολύ βαριά πλήκτρα!), τότε θα είμαι και ολοκληρωμένη και mobile ;) Mέχρι τότε...δεν ξέρω!

E-Book Reading και Johnnie Society

2011-01-30T04:05:00.004+02:00

Μία από τις πτυχές του εαυτού μου που μείνανε πίσω από τη στιγμή που πέρασα στο πανεπιστήμιο είναι το διάβασμα. Και δεν εννοώ το διάβασμα για τα μαθήματα, oύτε τα posts στο greader μου που εμφανίζονται κάθε λίγο ανεξέλεγκτα...εννοώ λογοτεχνία. Το καλοκαίρι μου δόθηκε η ευκαιρία να διαβάσω τα 7 από τα 8 δωρεάν ebooks που διέθεσαν οι εκδόσεις Καστανιώτη (το 8ο είχε πολύ ιστορία για να το αντέξω, έχω ακόμη παιδικά τραύματα μαζί της) και συνειδητοποίησα πόσο μου είχε λείψει. Έκτοτε πέρασε καιρός χωρίς να μπορώ να βρω χρόνο, ήρεμο χρόνο συγκεκριμένα, για να το επαναλάβω.

Αφορμή για να ξαναδιαβάσω στάθηκε η παραμονή μου για 2 νύχτες στο νοσοκομείο (καλά είμαι, no worries :P) όπου αφού εξάντλησα τα φωτογραφικά περιθώρια που υπήρχαν εκεί μέσα, την playlist του ipod μου κ δεν άντεξα άλλο σερφάρισμα, θυμήθηκα ότι είχα κατεβάσει πριν καιρό το Johnnie Society στο κινητό και άρχισα να το διαβάζω.

"JOHNNIE SOCIETY"

Γιάννης Φαρσάρης

Η αρχή του μου φάνηκε λίγο ανιαρή αλλά με κράτησε ο φρέσκος περιγραφικός τρόπος γραφής με σπόντες από πληροφορική (άλλωστε ο συγγραφέας είναι καθηγητής πληροφορικής) και μόλις η υπόθεση "πέρασε στη δεύτερη φάση" (να το θέσω έτσι για να μην υπάρχουν spoilers :P) κόλλησα. Αυτό ήταν. Ήθελα να διαβάσω την συνέχεια. Kαι το έκανα με μεγάλη αγωνία. Στο τέλος το λάτρεψα για τις αλήθειες του παραβλέποντας κάποια στοιχεία που μου φάνηκαν υπερβολικά σχετικά με την πληροφορική, μυθοπλασία είναι after all...

Ίσως πέρα από την συνολική πολύ θετική εντύπωση που μου έκανε, το μόνο που δεν μου άρεσε ήταν η εμφάνιση της λέξης "μειδίαμα-μειδιάζω" πολύ συχνά μέσα στο κείμενο. Μπορεί και να ήταν εσκεμμένο όμως, ποιός ξέρει;

Τέλος, μιας και η διάθεση του βιβλίου ήταν μέσω internet να κάνω κ ένα σχετικό σχόλιο με την καινούργια μορφή ανάγνωσης που είναι εφικτή για πολλά βιβλία πλέον. Κάτι που έχω την δυνατότητα να κάνω τώρα που η ανάγνωση έχει γίνει ηλεκτρονική, σε αντίθεση με παλαιότερα, είναι να κρατήσω φράσεις που μου άρεσαν. Ιδού:

"Για να ανακαλύψεις την αλήθεια πρέπει να πληρώσεις με την ψυχή σου."

"Κι όμως, στο κυνήγι του κέρδους δεν πρέπει να χάσεις την ψυχή σου. Μετά δεν θα σου μείνει τίποτα."

"Κι όταν οι άνθρωποι έχουν ήσυχο ύπνο, σημαίνει πως οι πράξεις τους είναι συμβατές με την κρυστάλλινη συνείδησή τους."

"Όταν ο άνθρωπος κοιτάζει προς το μέρος του ήλιου, παύει να βλέπει και να φοβάται τη σκιά του."

"Τί περιττό βάρος που είναι αυτή η ματαιοδοξία!"

"Όλοι οι άνθρωποι που μυήθηκαν κάποτε στην Αλήθεια, επανακάμπτουν αργά ή γρήγορα στο σανίδι για μια γενναία παράσταση."

"Όλοι μας αφήνουμε κάπου ένα κομμάτι του εαυτού μας, συνεχίζουμε την περιπλάνηση στον κόσμο και μόλις αισθανθούμε έτοιμοι, γυρίζουμε ξανά πίσω να το συναντήσουμε."

...εσείς ξέρετε πού έχετε αφήσει τα κομμάτια σας;

2011 resolutions and my tripadvisor map

2011-01-18T16:05:00.007+02:00

One day this map will be full of pins everywhere! Well, it might take me more than 1 year to accomplish that, but, let's say i'll keep the same resolutions for many many years ;)

P.S: I keep two things from my trips:

Magnet souvenirs (preferably with the name of the country or town I am visiting or a distinctive landmark depicted)
Tickets! The first ticket I ever kept was an airline ticket to Vienna, in 1999, my first trip without my parents (ok it was a school trip with comenius :P). However back then I returned without a magnet souvenir, so I visited Vienna again in 2010 to get one ;)

Vienna-Prague-Budapest: 8 days in fast forward

2011-01-05T23:18:00.005+02:00

First stop: Vienna

Day 1 & 2:
We had a nice early morning flight, with a very...foggy ending!

From above, approaching Vienna

We spent our first day wandering around the city, familiarizing with Stephansplatz, the market and the surroundings of the center in order to be able to move around the second day. We also tasted the famous sacher torte (hmm I didn't like it) and hot sacher chocolate drink with chocolate liquor (I loved it!) in the ground floor of the Sacher hotel. (Sacher overdose :P)

Notice the Rathaus (City Hall) emerging out of the fog in the background

For the second time in my life I had a guided tour in Schönbrunn, luckily this time, it was a fast one.

Schönbrunn

And, of course, we had a tour inside Stephansdom, too.

The second day was far more interesting. After we grabbed our Mozart chocolates and visited a few stores (yes we entered Swarovski, I cannot hide it, it was so.... shiny) we decided to see a museum or an art exhibition, choosing eventually to visit Albertina. We ended up wandering around looking at paintings of Picasso, Michael Angelo, Herbert Brandl and William Kentridge, for four hours...

Especially William Kentridge was a pleasant surprise to all of us. We have never heard of him before, but he had amazing animations combining photos of himself (stepmotion) with drawings and a few, very impressive, installations of animated films, with moving parts, projections and animations in the background...well it's tough to describe it! (google/youtube him!)

Albertina

When we stepped outside it was dark and cold! But we couldn't leave without visiting one of the famous Christmas markets. To be exact... we wouldn't want to spend our last day in Vienna, without visiting the greatest of them, the one under Rathaus! We just merged with the crowd enjoying the decorations and endless things that people were selling. We ate langos with sausages (thank God, we survived...this thing was so...oily!), then a strawberries covered with chocolate stick (that I don't recall its name) and finally we tried out the Christmas Punch. The first cup of punch was more than enough to warm us up and to make us sing (almost) :P... I think none of us expected to be so strong! But, as the night was still young, we went for a re-fill, when the inevitable happened... I spilled hot Punch on my lx5's lens (on my hands/clothes too, but who cares! :P) - details will remain classified :P - and it was so sticky and hard to clean out! (My clothes are still kinda brownish :S).

It surely was a night to remember.

Wien Christkindlmarkt

Then: Prague and Karlovy Vary

Day 3, 4 & 5:

We woke up early in order to get from Vienna To Prague. First thing we visited was the castle town, but we didn't stay too long as it was cold and windy and snowing... We ended up in the old town square, where we stared for sometime at the old astronomical clock listening to a small group of discordant (well it's difficult, or even impossible to sing on tune with -10) and funny dressed people singing local carols. This time we tried a different kind of langos with cheese, tomato and garlic (tasted a bit like pizza, and we survived that, too) drinking Svařák (Mulled wine). Ιn the evening we had tickets for the black light theater! It was truly amazing :) Finally, we spent the rest of our night on a weird but beautiful old cellar restaurant, where I ordered the local grog (hot water with rum, lemon and sugar) while the rest of my company ordered local beers.

Prague's central square

Weird facts:

- I saw many catalogs listing Absinth, it was even sold on tourists' shops (I thought it was illegal)

- Czech people do whatever is possible for the sake of tourism. Many could speak a few Greek, and some musicians knew greek songs. (In the above mentioned cellar-restaurant they played "ta paidia tou peiraia" with... Czech lyrics. You could still make out the word "Peiraia" :P)

- You can't imagine how many greek people were there for the Christmas holidays. We could hear greek and cypriot greek all around us. What we've been told in tour was: "The majority of travelers here these days is greek. Next to the list are chinese & philippine people, but you don't hear them"

Getting out of our beds the next day was so...painful! Iris hotel had the...fluffiest bed I've ever slept in! However we decided to go all the way back to castle town on our own, having a plan to visit the museum of miniatures and the toy museum. We found the first one inside the monastery, after asking many people, but we never found the toy museum... We still can't understand where (the hell) it was, we had all the roads written down from one place to another, but...somehow that didn't match reality. Roads and names were so confusing!

Anyway it was already "noon" so we walked from the castle town to the old square, all the way down, through Malá Strana, crossing Charles Bridge. (Remember, after 16:30-17:00 it's night)

In our way there were several marionette shops, Czech people have a thing for puppet theater! Of course we all bought one for ourselves, I got back with an Einstein marionette! :P Finally we visited an exhibition about Dali and Mucha (a graphic designer of 1900 :P). I don't remember anything more of that day... We might have gone to bed relatively early, cause the next day we had to travel again till Karlovy Vary.

Karlův most at night

What we enjoyed the next day in Karlovy Vary was... the snow! I hadn't seen snow since... my childhood. Also, the buildings, so colorful. You know the rest, Karlovy Vary has hot springs and if you drink that hot water (we saw water from 35 degrees to 70) you get cured...bla bla bla, well the truth is, most people go there on vacation for spa ;)

Karlovy Vary

And, finally, Budapest!

Day 6, 7 & 8:

The next day, was a fail one. We deserve a fail day out of 8 in total... We went from Prague to Budapest but not directly. We stopped in Bratislava and then we visited several villages. Yep, we got bored and tired and hungry. Well nothing worth mentioning... we arrived and we had a fast tour on the town...

Heroe's Square

Luckily we saw many things in our last day in Budapest. Initially we went to Fisherman's Bastion. The view from up there was... rewarding, even though it had fog and you could only see the front row of buildings on the other side of the river.

From the top of Fisherman's Bastion

Later we walked around the city (yes we bought different kinds of paprika :P) finding ourselves, again, on a christmas market. In the afternoon we had a river boat tour (in the fog, snow and wind :P) where it was tough to photoshoot because we were constantly moving, but I managed to take a few. The view was...dreamy, like a movie scene.

The city covered with fog

Our day ended on a traditional restaurant with music and dance by locals somewhere up in Buda (I think :P) eating goulash and other traditional food. The view from up there was really stunning, but my lx5 wasn't very helpful on that shot, neither the cold (it had about -15 degrees :S). Someday I might return there only for a better shot of this view, it's totally worth the time...

Budapest on your feet

Day 8:

We returned in Vienna for our evening flight where we found the temperature to be about 8 degrees below zero. We didn't have much free time and as we were cold, tired, a little bit sleepless and sick of eating meat, meat, meat, meat all those days we picked an... Italian restaurant and sat there until it was time to leave for the airport.

The returning flight was with the Czech Airlines, and it lasted half an hour less than our first one, with Aegean. Anyway, it was so beautiful to see Vienna with all those lights in the night from above...

-The End-

Mobile computing VS Desktop computing

2010-11-23T17:50:00.006+02:00

I've been working on this for a little while and I just wanted to post it, cause as strange as it may seem, I haven't found a table online with all those in one place.

Desktop	Mobile
Reasons for Use
Lengthy information processing tasks	On-the-go lookup and entry of information. Quick communication, such as instant messaging and/or voice
Form Factor
Requires a table; best used while seated. Sometimes portable.	Less than 10"×12". Can be used standing up without a table, typically fitting in a shirt pocket.
Screen Size
Large Screen (17”, 19”,21”, up to 30”) o Plenty of space for navigation Desk-mounted monitor Good quality screens (with many dots per inch-dpi) “Landscape” width/height ratio	Small Screen (1”-3” inches) o Limited Navigation Space Screen jolting around Usually low quality screens (with limited pixels per inch-ppi), except for some high-end phones. Mostly “portrait” width/height ratio, with latest devices having the ability to present a “landscape” one by rotating the device. Other phones have square screen
Screen Resolution
Nowadays desktop screens’ resolutions have been standardized: o 600x800, 1024x768 or 1440x900 for small screens going up to o 1680x1050, 1600x1200 or even 1920x1080 for HD resolutions of bigger screens, to list a few	Mobile screens’ resolutions are not standardized yet (different combinations can be found beginning from 96x65 going up to 640x960 for latest high-end models). But if we talk about devices sold from 2007, we can separate most of them into four basic groups: o Low-end devices: 128×160 or 128×128 o Mid-end devices: 176×220 or 176×208 o Mid-end devices and some high-end devices: 240×320 o Touch-enabled high-end devices and smartphones: 240×480, 320×480, 360×480, 480×800, 480×854, or 640×960
Internet Connection
Unlimited use Fast Internet: o High Bandwidth o Reliable Internet Connection with no lag or connectivity issues	Cost per byte or per minute limits use Slow Internet, but improving: o Low Bandwidth o Unreliable connectivity with possible lag or/and disconnections
Hardware
Hardware is not an issue anymore in web browsing for desktop computers	Slow Processors Short battery life Limited storage Little memory o Limiting cache size
Input
Variety of input peripherals: o Most desktop computers will have a full 104-key (or more) o Mouse	Limited input peripherals: o 2- 3 letters to a key (numeric keypad) o alphanumeric keypad (QWERTY or ABC) o in case of mobile phones with touchscreen a small QWERTY on-screen virtual keyboard o touch o multitouch o external keypad (wireless or not) o no pointing device (except for fingers) Different input techniques: o Hand-writing recognition software o Prediction of words o Voice recognition
Interaction
Average session length: 10-15 minutes There are many events triggered by the mouse People are used to the point-n-click interaction of the desktop computer with the use of a multi-button mouse	Average session length: 2-3 minutes There are no mouse-over events, such as hover Thumb-Interactions mostly: o Specific gestures for touchscreen phones: Point with finger instead of a mouse. o When the device does not have touchscreen selection is done by moving through all items one-by-one
Available fonts and colors
Wide range of fonts Wide range of colors	Limited fonts supported Limited color-pallet (especially in older or low-end phones): o Potential contrast issues
Web Standards
Full support of web standards There are certain browsers and operating systems where over time developers have learned how to support the desired features for all of them	Not all phones have web browsers compliant with web standards: o Well known formats in desktop browsers may have unpredictable alterations in presentation for some mobile browsers, such as tables or frames. o Not all of the programming languages are supported for all mobile devices There are so many different browsers and operating systems supporting different things
Physical Constraints \| Environment
Have time to browse Quiet Environment Have pen & paper to take note Sitting down Have separate phone Focused on task People are used to the keyboard and mouse, having a better typing speed and accuracy than using phones Artificially-lit environment	Don’t have time to browse Noisy, interruptible and easily distracting environment: o even the device itself can interrupt the user from a specific task, with incoming calls or text messages Hard to take notes Standing or walking Phone and web in same device Multi-tasking The lack of a standard keyboard and mouse has a significant impact on typing speed and accuracy Various & usually unknown conditions affecting visibility and contrast: o May be in strong sunlight o May be in dark
Browsing
In many cases the user can have an overview of the content inside a page with a few scrolls Existence of tabs; one of the handiest features of desktop browsers Interaction in desktop browsing seems to be so “easy” compared to the mobile experience at the moment, but it hasn’t always been this way. Many of the mobile limitations of today applied to the initial state of desktop computing. Some of them were solved by technological advances, some by different design approaches and to some people got used to (such as browsing with the use of a mouse)	Amount of content is limited due to the small size of a screen, requiring a lot of scrolling to have an overall idea of the site. However some browsers offer a feature of content transformation, giving a zoomed-out version to the user, fitting the whole page into the screen. Tabs are missing on the majority of the mobile phone’s browsers, making popup links or external links without a prompt very annoying Small screens mean fewer visible options at any given time, requiring users to rely on their short-term memory to build an understanding of an online information space. This makes almost all interactions harder. Menus, buttons, hypertext links, and scrolling all take longer time and are more error-prone…Text entry is particularly slow and littered with typos, even on devices with dedicated mini-keyboards
Addressable Users
3 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide	1 billion total netbooks, desktops and servers

A collection of iphone web dev/design apps!

2010-09-04T03:37:00.002+03:00

Having an iphone might be very helpful in web design/development. So far I have installed the following .apps and only the last ones about java and jquery were not free (but were available at a very low price, 0.79€ each)

My collection of web dev/design relative tools!

itune links:

You might wanna check for similar apps too, those were apps that seemed to be working for me :)

Enjoy!

iphone wallpapers

2010-08-21T04:52:00.002+03:00

A collection of some iphone wallpapers that will draw your attention! :P

"Dongley Kong"

"Pacman"

"BluePrints"

"Shelves"
(in fact there are almost endless options in this direction)

"Numbered Grid"

"Grungy Walls"

The most interesting part is to see how those backgrounds blend with the .apps' icons on the iphone!

Ιστορίες καθημερινής τρέλας (πάλι)

2010-07-28T21:21:00.011+03:00

Παίρνω τηλέφωνο να κλείσω θέσεις για να φύγω με το πλοίο (ναι ομολογώ ότι βαριόμουνα να πάω από εκεί να κόψω τα εισιτήρια, αλλα ούτως ή άλλως δεν το αποφεύγεις αυτό :P)

- Γειά σας, θα ήθελα να κάνω κράτηση με το blue star 2, που φεύγει ξημερώματα

[pause]

και μετά από λίγο:

- Ναι, συγνώμη, μου είπατε flying cat 3;

(ναι γιατί είτε πεις blue star 2, είτε flying cat 3 ακούγεται το ίδιο, πώς να μην μπερδεύεται κανείς... δεν αρχίσαμε καλά λέω...)

- Όχι, blue star 2, ποιά μέρα περνάει από δω ξημερώματα;

- Μισό λεπτό να κοιτάξω [pause] ... Το blue star 2 περνάει στις (δε θυμάμαι πόσο ακριβώς) το πρωί, Παρασκευή

(βρε μπελά που βρήκαμε...)

- Συγνώμη ένα λεπτό, μου λέει και με πετάει στην αναμονή με αυτήν την ~~ωραία~~ σπαστική μουσική που μοιάζει με παμπάλαιο ringtone...

(sigh....)

- Mε συγχωρείτε, μου λέτε ξανά με ποιό πλοίο θέλετε να κάνετε κράτηση;

(φτου κι απ᾽την αρχή...)

- Blue Star 2, ξημερώματα.... έχει θέσεις;

- Εάν θέλετε να φύγετε με blue star ithaki ή highspeed δεν έχει πολλές, θα πρέπει να κόψετε νωρίτερα.

(hello, knock knock...anybody there?!)

- Xμ...ναι...με το blue star 2;

(αν δεν έχετε αντίρρηση κιόλας δηλαδή...)

- Nαι, πείτε μου όνομα blah blah blah να κάνω κράτηση

(omg πήρε μπρός....)

- Ok, θα περάσω αύριο να τα πάρω. Ευχαριστώ, γειά σας και τα συναφή...

Πάω στοίχημα ότι ΑΝ έχει καταφέρει να μου κάνει κράτηση τελικά.... σίγουρα δε θα είναι με το blue star 2 :)

P.S: Είναι να τις λατρεύεις κάτι τέτοιες στιγμές απείρου HHI (aka: human-human interaction)... Δεν είναι?!

Opencoursewares

2010-07-26T02:44:00.003+03:00

There are times I can't focus on what is need to be done (I think it's called attention disorder-but it's irrelevant to this port) and someone would expect me to get away of the computer and slack in any other possible way...but no. When I can't focus, what I enjoy doing to relax my brain is...read. Read something different from what I was reading at the time I got distracted (don't follow my thoughts :P)

One of my favorite places is the online courses from MIT. Not long ago, I discovered the online courses from Delft and somehow bioengineering got my attention.

Delft's university Current list of open courses

I'm starting to think that it would be very interesting to find more about neuro-science (or neuro-technology, call it however you like, I'm quite bored of the amount of different titles out there) -always with respect to systems engineering, or HCI-, well it is a step back (somehow I believe you need to make steps back to understand the things that come later) if you think of it...

Now...

2010-07-16T19:43:00.010+03:00

This is finally a desktop in which I can work... You throw all your icons/files away, you set a nice wallpaper (preferably with large amounts of blue) and you make a nice layout (yes with large amounts of blue also). We might want to add some immersive reality by sitting on a rocking chair... (luckily mac's battery can hold for few hours - I'm not sure about the chair though ^^).

And maybe now I have good chances in finishing chapter 1 tonight...

Where is my ~~mojito~~? Sorry -coffee- mean coffee *-)

Something tells me...

2010-07-15T01:13:00.000+03:00

that I need to re-design (or realign :P) my whole e-xistance. I chose my first nickname when I first accessed the web and created my first mail and that was ...hmmm.. about 10 years ago or more (no comments). I don't even remember why i picked the number 39... A fast guess: got tired of the message "name already exists" for many combinations of my name-surname (my surname isn't helpful in finding a unique nickname though) and just typed a random number that wasn't already taken... (Well the fact that the only nickname I ever had was "tall" didn't help at all too, nope I don't like it)... It's not even a number I'd pick by choice... I hate odd numbers-I feel something is wrong even when a word doc has odd number of pages and I have to change it by any means to even ones-don't know why, don't ask.

Till now I have made accounts for so many services out there and I continue to create accounts, sometimes only to test new things and never actually use them with that nat_p39 nickname (i think it turned into a compulsive behavior similar to girls wanting to buy new shoes when they don't need them-meh, again, don't ask).

So that stupid nickname that looks like imavirus424362@hotmail.com needs a change... (Of course I have several "formal" emails with my whoooole name, but I doubt how many people will actually write my whole name without making a single mistake-aka mission to find me: failed). But I've always been lousy in picking words (or making nicknames-titles whatever)... And by the time I decided to change the title of my blog to decisions by design (after I read the elements of ux, same story-don't ask) it seemed nice (at least it represents what I believe...in a very abstract way)...but twitter tells me its too long for a nickname (it only accepts something like decisionsbydes...)...and it probably is too long for a site's url too...

And the conclusion after all is.... stupid book! It's annyoing to think that everything depends on decisions and even decisions need to be designed!

(And the worst of all? I still need to find me a new nickname...)

(Plus something also tells me that I need to clean the css of this blog...html5 templates came out...)

The design process: official versus how it feels

2010-06-23T15:01:00.004+03:00

LOL ... so true :P

(via adaptive path)

Ticking...ticking

2010-06-08T14:34:00.005+03:00

June...you've lost your color

2010-06-01T08:57:00.001+03:00

Bored of youtube deleting my posted videos after some time, I thought I should try something else to post music... What I found? Grooveshark... seems quite decent so far :) I can even make widgets of playlists :)

Web Typography in ... Ice Age (or not?)

2010-05-20T20:52:00.096+03:00

One of the many (-yes I admit it-) things that makes me mad is that web typography hasn't evolved through years as fast as web design has in general. What we could see was the so called "safe fonts", aka fonts that most browsers can display. That means that browsers have "installed" few fonts for us to load when we enter a web page that uses it. If a designer links a font to his code that is not installed on the end-user's pc/mac then the browser will display one of the safe fonts... (yep, it's all in vain :P)

Aren't you tired of seeing:

Arial
Comic Sans
Courier
Impact
Lucida Console
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trebuchet
Verdana

(Well i am)

And then Open Types and True Types arrived... but again it was hard to find a good free type and not find yourself looking for a license to buy...

And then...the replacements came! Designers were replacing fonts with whatever they could: images (the next time you'll see a site with "nice" fonts...try to select it...is it an image? :P), javascript or even flash. And the result was looking good! (But as you can guess this needed more time to build... Plus I bet web developers were angry about site's optimization or people that have accessibility and hci in mind...)

And now Google has a decent, simple and fast solution to this:

Google Font Directory!

They are not many, but they are enough for a site (after all as said in FAQ, you shouldn't have too many different fonts in one page even from a design point of view).

Currently Google Fonts are supported by most browsers:

Google Chrome: version 4.249.4+
Mozilla Firefox: version: 3.5+
Apple Safari: version 3.1+
Opera: version 10.5+
Microsoft Internet Explorer: version 6+

Hope sometime in the near future to see them supported in mobile web browsers and of course in other languages too...

Some day...

2010-05-08T04:04:00.002+03:00

I might be able to go to:

or even:

*-)

(I will be watching what's going on from #fowd and #wwdc though :P)

iPhone screenshots :)

2010-05-07T03:37:00.000+03:00

I'm guessing many already know how to take a screenshot of their iphone (I didn't, so I had to look for the answer :P)

It was so simple after all :P

HTML5

2010-04-21T16:19:00.006+03:00

Will html 5 finally give us the opportunity to do whatever we could do in flash... in a more accessible way?

Introduction to HTML 5 from Brad Neuberg on Vimeo.

By the way... w3c has stopped working on XHTML. XHTML will kinda be merged into HTML5... :) No more XHTML or HTML dilemmas :P