Dubroy.com/blog

It’s finally feeling like spring in Toronto; 6° and sunny today. Here are some links to help you procrastinate on a sunny Friday afternoon:

• Thank god for Spotlight: A Mac user decides to experiment with saving EVERYTHING to the desktop and relying on Spotlight to find things again. Looks like the computer equivalent of compulsive hording. Hat tip: Paul J. Sherman/Usability Blog

• Where’s My Stuff? Beyond the Nested Folder Metaphor: Paul J. Sherman looks at the problems with the traditional file-and-folder metaphor, and points to some alternative interfaces that are inspired by the physical world. BumpTop is of course mentioned.

• Cool 3D, zooming tree browser: Not quite sure how else to described this…you have to see it.

• 3D molecular visualization UI using head tracking: Cool project from U of T that does 3D molecular visualization using head tracking, either using a Wiimote or face recognition.

• Less is More (More or Less): Uncommon Sense and the Design of Computers: Bill Buxton’s classic essay arguing that instead of convergence, divergence should be the dominant model in computing technology. For a while now, I’ve been meaning to write a post that provides a counterpoint to this argument.

• UI Design Patterns - Chris Messina’s excellent collection of Flickr albums showing user interface design patterns. Reuse, recycle, but don’t reinvent the wheel unless necessary.
• 1960s Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple’s Future (Gizmodo) - Shows many similarities between Apple products designed by Jonathan Ive, and Braun products from the 60s designed by Dieter Rams. Includes a great gallery of dozens of Rams’ most iconic designs.
• Exchange Information with Handshake - Design for a ring that will exchange contact information with another person when you shake hands.

• Building shaped like a brain - The International Neuroscience Institute in Hannover, Germany is shaped like a brain. Brilliant. Would this ever happen in North America?
• Software development: The Vast and Endless Sea - If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
• Eventlet - A Python networking library - A highly-scalable networking library which uses non-blocking IO through the use of coroutines. Requires the greenlets module, which adds coroutines to the standard CPython interpreter.
• Design evaluation of the Amazon Kindle - French designer Thibaut Sailly evaluates the physical interface of the new Amazon ebook reader, and suggests an interesting alternative design.
• The CANADIAN DESIGN RESOURCE » Elevated Wetlands - A functional sculpture on the Don Valley Parkway, and one of my favourite things in Toronto.
• Bright Blind creates fake windows - Makoto Hirahara’s “Bright Blind” can be hung on any window-free wall to create the illusion of a window covered by a venetian blind.