Archives for the month of: February, 2008

Simplicity vs. Stupidity

February 29, 2008 //

It surprises me when sites make it difficult, if not almost impossible, just to directly download the mp3 of a podcast. Hasn’t everyone received the memo yet??

When I went looking for this podcast interview with Sir Ken Robinson, I found it here in Episode 88 of the MediaSnackers podcast. There’s a nice shiny Odeo player there, and a clearly marked way to sign up for the feed, but no direct download link. I don’t want to listen right now on the Odeo player. I want to listen to it in my car on the commute home. And I don’t want to clutter up my GReader with yet another feed right now just to get one simple episode. If it’s good, I’ll come back and subscribe.

But I’m nothing if not persistent. So I found that if you click on the title text (“MediaSnackers Podcast#88” just above the progress bar in the Odeo player), it will take you to the Odeo page which then has a link to the downloadable mp3 file. I wasted 5 minutes looking for that. I doubt many others would. I don’t even care about having to visit a second page to get the download link. But at least give some kind of clue that it’s there!

C’mon people!

And this is not simply a one-off situation either. I decided the other day to take a listen to the No Agenda podcast with John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry. Yes, Adam Curry for crying out loud.. one of the founding fathers of podcasting! Take a look at their page (http://noagenda.podshow.com). There is a play button - which me no want - and a “Get” button. A-ha! But there is no love in the deceptively simple “Get” button. That requires you to sign up or log in. Nowhere else on that page do I see a link to the mp3. You simply have to subscribe to the feed to actually download mp3 files. For shame!

Why are people still doing this? The idea is to make things easier not more difficult. Is it to generate extra page views? Is it some attempt at lock-in? Make your content and the experience engaging enough and I will stick around. Make it difficult and I will not.

Stupid.

Blogged with Flock

Categories podcasts, technology, web

Okay.. now I’m confused (Font Rendering Blues)

February 27, 2008 //

Okay. I am thoroughly perplexed now.

Opening up Flock tonight, something seemed a little strange. The fonts in my Gmail and GReader appeared thinner and lighter than I’m used to. This suprised me enough that I had to double-check that I hadn’t launched Firefox instead (it is late y’know).

Lo and behold the fonts in Flock are now rendering identically to the ones rendered in FF3, beta2. As you may recall in my post a while back, I was confused (and still am) as to why Flock rendered fonts so differently from Firefox even though it was supposedly based on the same rendering engine. In that post I gave various screenshots of to illustrate what I meant.

But now it seems that Flock is consistent with Firefox (was this a result of the Flock 1.0.9 update? Dunno.). And by consistent, I mean too thin and light for my tastes. I haven’t changed anything in terms of default font or font size settings - at least nothing I remember.

Here is a quick screenshot of how Flock was rendering before, and now:

At least Flock is now consistent with Firefox in terms of font rendering even though I don’t like it as much.

Also consistent is the fact that neither Flock nor Firefox font rendering seems to pay any attention to changes in the font rendering settings of Gnome. Aaargh…

Categories graphics, linux, technology

Cruel to be kind

February 27, 2008 //

I like Gnumeric, the no-nonsense Gnome.org spreadsheet project. I choose to use it because it feels lighter weight than Openoffice Calc, and it runs well on both Linux and XP. In fact, I recently recommended it to a spreadsheet novice friend of mine, explaining that for what he was doing, there was absolutely no reason why he would have to purchase MS-Excel.

I gave him a little demo of it (this guy has never used a spreadsheet before, so I had to show him what kinds of things you can do with one). And after that, I told him I’d send him an email with a link to the Gnumeric site.

Uhhh…nope. Not going to do it… Why? you ask?

I googled ‘Gnumeric’ and visited the site. It’s butt ugly. And not only that, it’s damn hard to find out where to download the windows binary for it. Ahh, my mistake. A little bit down the page, under the section titled ‘Getting Gnumeric From Third Parties’ there is a subtitle calling out Microsoft Windows, and a link to ‘1.6.3 Build 2’.

I know that Gnome.org probably doesn’t want to do any favours for Microsoft. But there is absolutely no way I could send this guy to that site and have him figure out how to download the windows installer file. 1.6.3 Build 2? WTF?

I know that this is a link to a third party pre-compiled binary. But why not title the link “Windows Installer File (version 1.6.3 Build 2)”? Why not make it a bit easier for Windows users (or any users for that matter)? Are we trying to shun the possible converts who actually don’t want to pay a ransom for Excel or aren’t willing to pirate it? If you really want to turn these people away, eliminating the link to the binary would be much easier!

Ahh cripes, I know there are plenty of ugly sites on the web. But the Linux and free-software community is capable of stepping up it’s game in this regard. Look, I’m not asking for a CMS system, or some wacky ajax-enabled web 2.0 site, I’m just talking about simple, easy to understand sites that promote the great products of the free-software world, not embarrass them.

Look at the Free Software Foundation. They’ve finally got a site to be somewhat proud of (despite the fact that I hate that goddamned Gnu character! - but that’s another rant for another day).

In fact, if you go the Gnumeric download page and use a developers toolbar or browser option to turn off all CSS styles, you’ll actually find the site clearer and easier to navigate. That’s a testament to something, I’m just not sure what.

Now for all of you people who will read this and say “Quit complaining, get off your arse and do something about it!”, I’m currently investigating how things work over at: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb.

Blogged with Flock

Categories linux, technology, web

Forty and disappointed…

February 26, 2008 //

Hide your easy-to-chew foods… I woke up today somewhat disappointed.

My back doesn’t hurt, my joints don’t ache, I don’t own a hairpiece and I’m not particularly grumpy about anything.

I’m now 40. Is there some rite of passage before I can experience the pleasures of entering my fifth decade on the planet?

I have started going grey (over the past 3 years) in my sad excuse for a goatee. Maybe I can pick up a box of Grecian Formula and touch it up..

At least if my writing here starts getting crotchety, you’ll know why.

Categories family, life

Episode 054 – Scrapbooking Effect

February 25, 2008 //

I’ve just uploaded Episode 054. This must be a record for me, because normally I’ve been a month between screencasts. Must be getting bored in my old age. More on that tomorrow.

Categories graphics, inkscape, screencast

I gotta start RTFM’ing

February 21, 2008 //

Every once in a while (translation: too often) I find out something useful about an application that I’ve been using almost daily for a long long time. Usually that means AutoCAD, but in this case it’s Google Reader. I never knew that clicking those double arrow marks at the right end of the post titles in list view would take you directly to the site in question instead of opening the rss post in gReader.

While most of the time I’m content to browse in list mode and expand any interesting posts, sometimes I just know I want to visit the authors site. This only saves a click or two, but heck, that can matter sometimes.

Categories technology, web

Why is Firefox 3 font rendering just sucky compared to Flock?

February 14, 2008 //

I noticed that Firefox3 Beta 3 was out a day or two ago. I was eager to try it out since one of the features mentioned was improved font rendering in Linux. It’s always been surprising to me that font rendering differs between Firefox and Flock since they’re both based on the same engine (I think). I’ve always found Flock’s rendering of fonts to be much more pleasing than that of Firefox.

So after downloading FF3 Beta3 tonight I was really hoping for an improvement. Sadly I didn’t see it. Maybe it’s just me and my tastes, but across all sites, Flock’s display of fonts is still much better. I’ve got both browsers set up with exactly the same settings for fonts and display settings. Below are some comparison screenshots. On all of them, FF3Beta3 is on the left and Flock is on the right. Have a look and tell me if you understand what I’m on about here. Maybe there is some setting in Flock (or FF) that I’m missing or don’t understand. I’d like to use Firefox sometimes, but the fonts just look generally anemic to me. Also interesting is that FF3 seems to render the small round ball icon on Earl’s site (Meandering Passage) - the one within the post - a lot more crisply than Flock, so maybe it is improved. I just don’t any improvement in the font rendering.

Categories Uncategorized

Husband v 1.0

February 12, 2008 //

Perhaps this is old, and maybe everyone’s seen this one before, but I thought it was funny. The part about Mother-in-Law 1.0 made me almost snort out my coffee…

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0
and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system
performance — particularly in the flower and jewelry
applications, which operated flawlessly under
Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other
valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal
Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs
such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6
simply crashes the system. I’ve tried running Nagging
5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment
Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.
Please enter the command: ‘I Thought You Loved Me.exe’
and try to download Tears 6.2 and don’t forget to
install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0
should then automatically run the applications Jewelry
2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can
cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5,
Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad
program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it
runs a virus in the background that will eventually
seize control of all your system resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0
program. These are unsupported applications and will
crash Husband 1.0 .

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it
does have limited memory and cannot learn new
applications quickly. You might consider buying
additional software to improve memory and performance.
We recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck, Tech
Support

Blogged with Flock

Categories family, humour, technology

A Simple Keypad – Inkscape Screencast

February 10, 2008 //

Pluto aligned with Mars this weekend and I actually managed to create and post a new Inkscape screencast. This one demonstrates how to simply and quickly illustrate a keypad (numeric or otherwise).

Categories Uncategorized

Screensaver recommendation.. yes, I said screensaver

February 9, 2008 //

No I’m not selling snake-oil or malware..

I’ve never been a big fan of screensavers. In fact, I don’t think I ever used them in Ubuntu and I’ve been running it for 2+ years now. But for some strange reason I decided to check them out last night on my Linux box here at home. A lot of them are your standard run of the mill stoner-art type of thing, and a great many are of the more nerdy, geek-centric sort. But I have to say that I love the Skyrocket screensaver. It’s basically an animation of a fireworks display with random flythroughs and camera angles. It’s done well too with a moonlit sky, clouds and nice lighting effects.

I think it comes standard with Ubuntu (not sure with which release) but a quick Google search revealed it’s actually originally a windows screensaver with an OSX port available as well. Check the download page on this site for info.

Blogged with Flock

Categories linux, technology