Tag Archives: usability

Flattr, a great idea, a great video, great people behind

Flattr, a great idea, a great video, great people behind

Flattr is exactly what I dreamed of when I wrote my post about the donation-button-dilemma on open-source projects. Flattr, by the creators of the pirate bay, is a service that let’s you specify an amount you want to spend monthly, I don’t know what they plan, but let’s say 10€, and you can flattr any [...]

impressive, prezi and other ways to kill PowerPoint

I’ve to admit, I haven’t used PowerPoint for 4 years, mostly because no one wanted me to present anything. Times have changed, I had to do 4 presentations in one week lately. Being forced to communicate through slides, I experienced a bit, and here’s my conclusion.
The first presentation was built using Keynote, which is part [...]

First Impressions from Google I/O

Hey! I’m currently located in session room 09 and learning on how to code thee for android. Back to the headline.
After being opened by Eric Schmidt, the whole Keynote thingy mainly concentrated on HTML5 features. These features are really impressive, be it a video-tag, the canvas element ( max ), background-worker processes and [...]

Rails Development: Comparing platforms

And I know what I’m talking about! I’ve been doing heavy rails development lately, on all three major platforms. Start with OS X.
It seems every serious Screencast for Rails was recorded using the famous Textmate Editor on OS X. At first sight, Textmate may seem to be a pretty ordinary Text Editor. Well, it isn’t. [...]

Still working on usabilitizing the Web: ideas, cont’d

Hello, today I continue my list of ideas which would make the Web and Computers in General way more easier and safer to use. Although it won’t change anything, I just want to make you think about it and let me know your opinion.
I’m still a bit frustrated that there is nothing like a general [...]

A real open-source, usable, photoshop replacement?

Good morning, folks! Now I’m back in germany, still busy getting used to all this luxury again, including my Ubuntu-desktop. I also have Windows installed, but for some reason i prefer Ubuntu. Anyway, I’m really missing a real, free and usable Photoshop replacement here. For me, GIMP is just a nice little tool enabling one [...]

Sharer, Giver, whatever, Filesharing

A short note on a previous post where I talked about my project of a simple File-Sharing applications that basically works using drag’n’drop and some zeroconf to find other peers. I wasn’t exactly surprised to find something that matches that description pretty well, but here it is, it’s called giver and should run on any [...]

Windows 7 Superbar vs. Mac OS’ Dock

In case you haven’t heard about, since today, Microsoft’s Windows 7, the successor of Vista is available as a free download. Of course, it’s just a beta, and maybe they do it to distract a bit from not-so-well performing Vista, but anyway, if I had a PC, I’d certainly give it a try. But because [...]

Improving your Software efficiently: Talking to users.

Yes, I know, it sounds very, very odd. Users, bah, just keeping everyone from doing really useful stuff. Users, always finding bugs that turn out to be not-so-well implemented features. Users, not understanding the big ideas powering the programs we develop and the time we spend. Users, still using that outdated 5-year-old version of a [...]

Online Password Storage

Online Password Storage

I wrote one. Based on Rails, working reliable. The encryption is designed in way that prohibits even the database administrator to access them. I showed it to a few people. The response was that it seems that no one is willing to give away passwords.
But the project is cool. By installing a bookmarklet you can [...]