Tiny Thoughts

For posterity: when Snow Leopard's "Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track" won't work

2009-12-19T12:42:55-08:00

When I tried using Snow Leopard’s nifty new action “Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track” to work, I kept getting the following error in iTunes:

An error occurred while trying to import the file “Text to Speech”. The current encoder settings for bit rate and sample rate are not valid for this file.

Of course, there’s no indication of how to correct this problem. After some experimenting, I discovered that (for my computer at least) I needed to:

go to iTunes Preferences > General
click on the Import Settings… button
select “AAC Encoder” for the Import Using option
select “Spoken Podcast” for the Setting

After clicking OK and retrying the “Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track” function, it worked beautifully.

For posterity: when Illustrator's eyedropper tool won't sample (pick up) colors from placed photos or raster images

2009-12-19T12:37:57-08:00

I thought Adobe Illustrator CS4’s eyedropper tool was broken (or actually had less functionality than CS3) when it wouldn’t pick up colors from placed raster images (screenshots, in my case), but it turns out an odd setting just needed to be switched:

Double-click the eyedropper tool in the tool palette and un-check “Appearance” in both sets of checkboxes.

This took me way to long to figure out, and I have no idea what it means or why it works. Searching Adobe’s forums was fruitless and nothing quickly matched my Google searches, so hopefully this post will benefit a fellow confused soul at some point.

Sequential Find & Replace

2009-05-14T14:09:21-07:00

A crude tool I just built that lets you replace a character you specify with the match number. For example, if you enter:

12:0~
12:0~

…it’ll spit out:

12:01
12:02

Oddly, it doesn’t look like there’s a simple way to do this with text editors like BBEdit or TextMate.

Selectively turn off Textile

2009-05-12T11:06:20-07:00

While writing the previous post I discovered that Textile chokes on bookmarklet URLs. It turns out there’s a way to selectively turn off Textile processing: simply add 'notextile. ' (making sure to include the dot and the space at the end) before the content you don’t want Textile to format. Handy.

Set 'precomposed' custom Web Clip icons for your iPhone

2010-02-05T08:23:15-08:00

Update: Google recently updated the iPhone version of Voice, and they’ve now included a Web Clip icon, so this workaround is now moot. / 5 Feb 2010

###

Last year, Cameron Kenley Hunt (of Birdhouse fame) posted a handy little bookmarklet that lets you set a custom iPhone Web Clip icon for any website (if you don’t like a site’s icon or if the site doesn’t have one). (Cameron’s bookmarklet was based, in turn, on Drew McLellan’s.)

Cameron’s works great, but it doesn’t have an option for “precomposed” Web Clip icons that don’t need the iPhone’s standard glossy icon treatment. Google’s icons, for example, don’t use the gloss, so I didn’t want my custom Google Voice Web Clip icon to have it either. I made a really minor tweak to Cameron’s bookmarklet so that it would use the precomposed option, and all is well in the universe.

In case you’re as ~~anal~~ discriminating about your Web Clip icons as I am, here’s that slightly modified bookmarklet:

'Precomposed' Friendly Clip.

And in case you use Google Voice from your iPhone too, here’s the URL for the icon: http://d.tinymachine.net/wcgvoice.png

Thanks to Cameron (and Drew) for the handy bookmarklet.

It's not you, it's me.

2009-05-06T01:54:55-07:00

My dad emailed me recently to ask if I could help him sign up for a frequent flyer program online. He’s pretty web-savvy, but he wasn’t able to complete the registration, blaming himself for a lack of computer knowledge.

This is madness! It’s not my dad’s fault he couldn’t fill out the form; it’s the airline’s! Yet somehow we’ve created a culture where users blame themselves for the poor usability of products and websites. This must change.

Relatively speaking, I think we’re still in a nascent stage of computing, where people are often led to think that if they have a problem with a computer, it’s their own fault/ignorance/etc. But really, it’s a little like ‘do-it-yourself’ technology right now. It’s as if, in order to drive a car, we’re expected to know how to adjust a timing belt. But we shouldn’t have to worry about adjusting the timing belt — we just want to drive!

When cars break down unexpectedly, people blame the mechanics and carmakers, and (generally) rightfully so. They should do the same when software or a website fails them. The onus is on us, the technologists, not on them.

The Chaos of During

2009-05-11T08:46:36-07:00

Clay Shirky on the upending of newspapers. Before-and-afters of technological revolutions, even with the printing press, are easy. But during is hard.

So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs? I don’t know. Nobody knows.

(Via DF).

Monitor your home electricity usage

2009-02-10T11:49:22-08:00

What an amazing idea from Google: the ability to monitor your electricity usage from your PC. This might be the most wonderfully practical “green” idea I’ve heard of yet — giving people tools to let them monitor their energy use themselves. Google quotes Lord Kelvin: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

What we’re trying to do is portray people at exactly human-scale.

2009-02-04T19:22:49-08:00

What we’re trying to do is portray people at exactly human-scale.

Ira Glass discussing This American Life at GEL 2007

Immersion: Video/Photography of Robbie Cooper in New York Times Magazine

2008-11-26T01:24:03-08:00

I have a vivid childhood memory of watching a friend watch television. The effect on me was powerful and somehow depressing — this unblinking face lit up by the tube, fully enraptured and unemotional. Robbie Cooper captures that face, or rather several of them, in his photos and videos of kids playing video games. The effect is especially powerful because they’re shot straight on, so you can see the kids staring right at the camera, and yet through it.

Cooper’s photos are both beautiful and slightly depressing, but the videos from which the photos are taken (shot using one of Jim Jannard’s Red cameras) take the cake. Cooper was inspired by Errol Morris’s fantastic Interrotron technique. You can’t help but imagine a camera watching you watch this.

(Incidentally, I just noticed how the NYT video player page keeps ancillary portions of the site dim until you mouse over them. I’ve seen this technique used frivolously elsewhere, but here it’s a nice touch, because it really lets you focus on the video and lets the color in the video come forward. Really nice.)

Refreshing take on web design

2008-11-25T17:07:48-08:00

This is one of the most original, inspired designs for a website I’ve seen in a while. And from The Dude, no less — Jeff Bridges. For example, I love how he draws button draws buttons to represent links, and even characters pointing at the buttons to get you to click on stuff.

His photography is great, and his lettering (I’m assuming it’s his) is even better, like in the Iron Man set. The 1700 pixel-wide layout is interesting, too. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Of course it’s not terribly accessible or practical, but it’s fresh stuff.

What happened to you?

2008-11-24T14:03:47-08:00

Great information design for a sling. Don’t know who designed these, but a great idea.

Just did change of address on usps.com. Smart site, easy to use, good...

2008-11-17T17:46:51-08:00

Just did change of address on usps.com. Smart site, easy to use, good marketing integrations. Did I just say that about a govt site?!

Wired co-founder John Battelle, via Twitter

I'm sure I won't remember this word

2008-07-26T17:24:59-07:00

The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

Via Unnecessary Knowledge

‘Descriptive work’ apart from theory does not exist. We ask the...

2008-07-15T08:17:37-07:00

‘Descriptive work’ apart from theory does not exist. We ask the questions that our theories tell us to ask.

Linguist Dan Everett, profiled in The New Yorker, April 16, 2007

Emote with your hands

2008-07-15T08:15:42-07:00

Apple’s “guided tours” are really well-crafted: informative, engaging, and a great showcase for their products. Most tours are led by Apple employees — like the new iPhone 3G tour by Bob Borchers, senior director of worldwide iPhone product marketing.

For amateur actors, the tours are quite good, for which the directors of the videos should be given credit. But the one thing the directors get wrong, I think, is overcompensating for what might otherwise be dry delivery by coaching the actors to make lots of hand gestures — or at least the same gesture, over and over and over again. In the new iPhone guided tour, Bob’s hands are out of control.

Nemo, Wall-E writer/director: Listen to your gut, not the audience

2008-06-24T14:32:03-07:00

Andrew Stanton on not anticipating what the audience will or won’t like:

…That’s the part of the film audience to trust — the audience in ourselves. We don’t need to guess what other people want. I don’t go to see another filmmaker’s movie hoping he’s guessed what I want. I go to see it because I like his sensibility and I want to see what he wants to do next, or she wants to do next.

Wonderfully irritated with the OmniFocus UI

2008-06-19T17:20:26-07:00

Matt Neuberg just wrote a somewhat positive review of OmniFocus, but he lambasts the user interface, even recording some screencasts to demonstrate the interface’s shortcomings. I love just how audibly peeved Neuberg is. And rightly so! Good for him.

Via Gruber.

To avoid Flash lock-in, Apple looks at SproutCore

2008-06-17T11:39:10-07:00

Matt Asay writes about SproutCore, the Javascript framework behind Apple’s “Cocoa for Web Apps“ concept:

It will be interesting to see if this gamble on a relatively unknown open-source JavaScript framework will pay off—or whether it would have been easier to just buy into Flash. Apple has the developer clout to make it pay off, but for most developers, Flash or Silverlight are likely going to be better options.

By “Flash or Silverlight” Asay probably means “AIR or Silverslight”, but why are these going to be better options for developers? I’m no Cocoa developer myself, but from what I can tell, devs are very happy to work with Cocoa. Apple could release a “Cocoa for the Web” integrated development environment that would beat Adobe’s and Microsoft’s IDEs for AIR and Silverlight.

Once the browser-specific hoo-ha and Javascripting jumping jacks are handled completely by a framework like SproutCore, and once there’s a beautiful IDE to work in, and when there’s no proprietary plug-in needed because all the underlying technologies are open-source, I’m not so sure AIR and Silverlight will be the tools of choice.

Apple's path to domination: first web apps, then the world

2008-06-16T00:37:27-07:00

In February, I wrote about Apple’s updates to Safari:

Apple is positioning Safari as the premier platform for web applications. They’ve got something up their sleeve, with last year’s port of Safari to Windows and with MobileSafari on the iPhone — should be fun to find out what it is.

Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted.com may have the answer:

Apple is refining Cocoa for deployment within the web browser to enable developers to build those so called “Rich Internet Applications” that Adobe wants users to build in Flash/Flex/AIR, Microsoft in Silverlight, Sun in Java, and so on.

I’m not sure how or why Eran is reporting all of this as fact, but this is a really intriguing idea — that Apple may be positioning Cocoa, its primary OS X application coding environment, as a platform for web app development. This could explain why Apple ported Safari to Windows, why Apple is pushing for faster Javascript performance in WebKit (the open-source browser engine behind Safari), and why Safari includes built-in database storage.

What this means for web apps is that programming web apps could, by and large, look exactly like programming for OS X. From my limited knowledge, programmers who code in Objective-C/Cocoa love it; I doubt the same is true for AIR, Silverlight (or .NET for that matter), or Java. Plus, the platform for distribution, according to Eran, would be completely open. This gets at one of the things I find so wrong about Flash: web development shouldn’t have to rely on proprietary app development tools. (My guess is Apple feels the same way, though surely their opinion involves more than my aesthetic dislike.)

But how does Apple benefit from an open web framework? A RoughlyDrafted reader offers some interesting, though of course highly speculative, thoughts: by creating an OS-neutral platform for not only their own apps (like the MobileMe apps), but for web apps at large — and one that web developers will actually flock to — the importance of the OS as a “platform” becomes meaningless, because the platform is the web. However, you still need an OS to get to the web, so the OS’s qualities as a program (security, performance, UI, etc.) become paramount. When the question of install-base and entrenchment no longer matter, the OS battle lines can be drawn up over the operating systems as apps themselves. OS X will, of course, win that battle.

(I think this is actually a large part of why Macs are already increasing in market share so dramatically: 95% of what people use their computers for is (web-based) email and browsing the web. You don’t need Windows for that.)

Zappos bribes employees to quit

2008-05-21T09:48:38-07:00

Amazing commitment to creating a gung-ho corporate culture (if you can call it “corporate”):

…When Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid their full salary during this period.
After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it’s time for what Zappos calls “The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!
Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later.

I’ve never bought from Zappo’s myself, but my wife has and had only positive things to say. I’m tempted to shop there if only to experience their customer service. There aren’t many companies I can say that about!

(Via Mark Hurst.)

It should be possible to admire a film with subject matter you...

2008-05-13T09:05:55-07:00

It should be possible to admire a film with subject matter you deplore, or positions you despise. The critic can make that clear in a review, but he should acknowledge the qualities of the film.

Rogert Ebert, in his journal

…The people who work for you through whatever period will be...

2008-04-11T08:34:56-07:00

…The people who work for you through whatever period will be more or less the same at the end as they were at the beginning. If they’re not right for the job from the start, they never will be.

Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, in their book Peopleware.

Enterprise PC shop's switch to Apple hits an unexpected snag

2008-03-29T23:07:33-07:00

“I didn’t see this coming at all,” said Dale Frantz, CIO of Tacoma, Washington-based Auto Warehousing Co.

See the technology nightmare that changing over to Macs would be, right? Nope. The reason for Auto Warehousing Co.‘s difficulties isn’t the technology; it’s employees thinking that an Apple infrastructure is exorbitantly expensive, when, according to Frantz, it’s actually about $1.5 million cheaper than Microsoft’s.

[Frantz] spent the next month explaining to everyone who would be affected the many reasons for the technology swap. Among those is the more than $1.82 million the company calculates it will save over the next three years. That’s what it would cost to upgrade [Microsoft] software licenses if the company remained on PCs; in contrast, the total cost of switching to Macintoshes is $335,000.

Dvorak: The iPhone is No Desktop

2008-05-14T09:54:05-07:00

Venerable PC Magazine curmudgeon John C. Dvorak’s most recent rant argues that the iPhone is not going to replace the PC. Only problem is, no one ever said it would.

Everyone thinks that the iPhone is going to be the next major computing platform. Some even hope that it will replace the laptop as the primary PC platform.

Who, exactly, is hoping the iPhone will replace the laptop as the primary PC platform? And what does “primary PC platform” even mean?

Dvorak goes on to conflate the terms platform and form factor, and then introduces the problematic term model:

The desktop computer—whether it’s a Mac or PC—is the best model for computing—certainly better than an iPhone.

What are we talking about here? What does “best model” even refer to? What kind of “computing” are we talking about? Working on a giant spreadsheet, or checking our email in a cab?

This article showcases a complete lack of intellectual rigor. Dvorak, in typical form, is making cooky, idiotic, unsubstantiated statements to draw attention to himself. Either that, or he’s just an idiot.

Rosencrans Baldwin on Obama

2009-05-05T23:54:53-07:00

My sentiments exactly.

And then I say Obama is the first candidate in my voting experience who seems like he means what he says, and says what I feel. Who is of my generation; whom I get, and who inspires me. I’ve read his book, I’ve watched his speeches; I am head over heels, with no compunction. Because I feel myself taking a risk when I say I believe in him, since in my reflexive skepticism I rarely say I believe in anything. If Obama is elected president, of course the game will stay crooked; and instead of speeches we’ll get compromises; and something will fall apart. But for now I prefer the fantasy of what might come to pass, rather than the realpolitik of recent history.

From his letter published in The Morning News, March 18

A new era in web typography starts today

2008-03-23T21:25:36-07:00

Apple released Safari 3.1 today — the first major browser that I’m aware of to include downloadable web font technology using the CSS @font-face rule. This means that you can now spec non-standard fonts for your web pages without using workarounds like sIFR. Of course, this won’t become widespread until more browsers implement this technology.

Check out this test page (it’ll only look impressive in Safari 3.1) and the A List Apart article on how to implement it.

Immediate drawbacks I see:

could raise font pirating concerns, since URLs for downloading the source fonts are publicly accessible
it only appears to work with TrueType fonts, not PostScript or more modern OpenType fonts (though this makes sense since only TrueType has truly widespread support)

Apple design methodology: 10 to 3 to 1

2008-03-14T22:35:38-07:00

Apple senior engineering manager Michael Lopp reveals Apple’s process for designing software. Nothing shocking, but (obviously) good thinking, including these highlights:

create 10 different pixel-perfect mock-ups of how a feature could be implemented
whittle down to 3, then explore further
whittle down to 1
take months, not weeks, to do this
meet twice a week with the whole team; one meeting to be creative and come up with ideas, one meeting to talk about implementing those ideas

(Via IxDA.)

“The ones that said I was talentless, that I was chubby, that I...

2008-03-11T11:23:24-07:00

“The ones that said I was talentless, that I was chubby, that I couldn’t sing, that I was a one-hit wonder,” she said. “They pushed me to be better, and I am grateful for their resistance.”

Madonna, quoted during her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction March 10, 2008. (See the article at nytimes.com.)

No room to spare: creating a product definition statement

2008-03-07T12:37:16-08:00

Apple released their iPhone Software Development Kit yesterday for developers looking to build bona fide, native iPhone apps. Along with it, they included a new version of the their iPhone Human Interface Guidelines.

Apple’s HIGs are fantastic in how readable they are — they’re written in such simple, inviting language. (Check out the icon design guidelines for Mac OS X.) No jargon that you’d usually see in this type of technical guideline documentation.

One thing in particular that struck me in the iPhone HIG is a section on creating a product definition statement (requires free registration). An excerpt:

Before you begin designing your application, it’s essential to define precisely what your application does. A good way to do this is to craft a product definition statement—a concise declaration of your application’s main purpose and its intended audience. Creating a product definition statement isn’t merely an exercise. On the contrary, it’s one of the best ways to turn a list of features into a coherent product.

How cool is it that Apple is providing guidelines not only for how an application should look and feel and behave, but even a process for how you should go about conceiving your application?

The HIG continues:

A good product definition statement is a tool you can use throughout the development process to determine the suitability of features, tools, and terminology. It’s especially important to eliminate those elements that don’t support the product definition statement, because iPhone applications have no room to spare for functionality that isn’t focused on the main task. [Emphasis added.]

This idea of creating a definition statement at the outset is so important; it could apply just as well to someone starting a company, or even just writing an email. In either case, it’s so easy to get distracted and to lose sight of your core goal. In today’s information-overloaded and attention span-underloaded world, we rarely have “room to spare”.

Good writing is good user interface design

2008-03-04T23:14:56-08:00

Writing is an exercise in user interface design. You have to think about your readers — anticipate their expectations, their level of knowledge about your subject, how much time they have, and so on — and then craft your text to accordingly. Just like good UI design, good writing is all about respect.

I’m always blown away by the lack of consideration shown when someone forwards an email or sends an email with an attachment and no additional description. Can you imagine plopping a package into someone’s lap without saying a word, and walking away in silence?

When you’re crafting your next email (or whatever you’re writing), think about the interface you’re designing between your message and your readers. Give ‘em a little respect!

Gruber on product reviews: the feel of it, not the think of it

2008-03-03T07:48:18-08:00

John Gruber, in his interview with Shawn Blanc, discusses his approach to writing reviews:

One of my favorite quotes of all time, probably my very favorite, is this one from Stanley Kubrick: “Sometimes the truth of a thing is not so much in the think of it, as in the feel of it.” A lot of times when I’m reviewing something, what I’m trying to do is capture the feel of it, rather than the think of it.

I think he usually succeeds in capturing “feel”. Wil Shipley’s first-impressions review of the MacBook Air is a great example of this, too.

Safari 3.1 to support downloadable web fonts, and paves the way for offline web applications

2008-02-08T11:36:32-08:00

Safari 3.1, for OS X and Windows, is getting some major upgrades, including downloadable fonts (finally, a true sIFR replacement, something designers have been pining for forever), advanced CSS capabilities like transforms and animations, SQL data storage, and enhanced Javascript DOM functions that will make some scripts run hundreds of times faster.

Apple really seems to be pushing the envelope with Safari, but in a standards-compliant way. With the SQL and Javascript enhancements, Apple is positioning Safari as the premier platform for web applications. They’ve got something up their sleeve, with last year’s port of Safari to Windows and with MobileSafari on the iPhone — should be fun to find out what it is.

Collect information with Google Spreadsheets

2008-02-08T12:35:30-08:00

Amazing new feature in Google Spreadsheets — it’s the perfect tool for informal surveying, and it’s a cinch to set up. Set up a spreadsheet, create a form that you can email (or post a link to) in a couple of clicks, and then literally watch the data populate your spreadsheet.

I’m planning on using this as a registration form for a client. Much easier (for me) than getting a form on the client’s website to populate a database, and then pulling the data back out. Hopefully there’ll eventually be a way to tie together Google Maps and Google Spreadsheets, so we can automatically map every registrant by ZIP.