The Intermission

I mentioned Adobe Thermo in an earlier post, but I recently found some more information that I thought was worth sharing. Peter Elst was able to snag a video of the Thermo demo at Adobe MAX in Chicago earlier this month. It’s just as awesome as you would hope!

If, as a designer, you’ve ever looked at a mockup you created and said to yourself, “I wish there was an easy way to make this just work” then Adobe Thermo is for you. After seeing how you wire together the parts of a mockup, it looks to be about as easy as you can make it. Well, it’s as easy as I can imagine it, which I think is saying something.

As Edna Mode from The Incredibles would say, “Words are useless, darling! Gobble gobble gobble gobble! There’s too much of it, darling, too much!”

[youtube ELM7rPiQyQY]

So I recommend you just watch the demo here. Be forewarned, the picture is really grainy. But if you’re interested in the next generation of rich internet applications, it’s a must see!

My only lingering question is about the fact that Thermo builds Flex applications, and I’m not sure how I feel about Flex. First, it’s an essentially proprietary format, like a Flash application. Even though Adobe has gone to great lengths to make Flex open-ish (e.g. announcing plans to make the Flex SDK open source), I would still prefer to build something that doesn’t require a special plugin. That’s strike one. Second, I’m not sure how accessible Flex applications are. Right now, the Flash plugin isn’t very friendly with screen readers and other assistive technology. That’s a potential strike two.

But, on the other hand, even if both of those turn out to be real problems, Thermo would still be a useful tool for communicating designs internally and to clients. Also, Flex is tied to another Adobe technology called Air, which promises to make Flex web applications into desktop applications that can run on Mac and Windows. So even if I can’t feel good about building Flex applications for the Web, it might still be a good option for desktop applications.

Bottom line: Keep an eye on this technology. I’m hoping it turns out to be great.

Yesterday included several nice pick-me-ups:

1. I finished my 6 month review at Bridge, and it went really well.
2. After a really, really long meeting (ending at 6:30 pm), I came back to my desk to find a voicemail from Chick-Fil-A. They drew my business card, which means my whole office will get free Chick-Fil-A sandwiches!
3. I play Jeopardy! via email with some friends from my last job. (One person has a Jeopardy! daily desk calendar and sends out the questions every day. You’re on your honor not to use Google.) This last week, I got every question right, including the Final Jeopardy, which means I won! (This does not happen very often.)
4. Sarah let me go out after work and buy some toys for my desk at work! I ended up with this sweet set of Magnetix (the smaller version of this set). It’s colorful and it spins, so it should keep my brain stimulated.

This past Friday, as I usually do, I perused the Amazon Friday Sale. One object in particular caught my eye: the “Merry Pet” brand Mansion Wood Pet House. Here’s a picture:

My mind immediately jumped to two reasons why I would never buy this.

1. If I’m going to spend $450 for a pet house, it should make my pet more than just “merry”. It should be the “Ecstatic Pet” Mansion Wood Pet House. Or the “Suddenly Perfectly Well Behaved” Mansion Wood Pet House.

2. I’m generally opposed to Keiko living anywhere that’s nicer than my home. Mainly, I’m worried that Keiko will spend one night in there, learn how to play pinochle, order a glass monocle online, and then come out the next morning telling me what to do. “I say, dear boy, would you mind fetching me that ball?” In my imagination, she comes out looking and sounding like Mr. Peabody.

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So I’ll steer clear of the pet mansion for now.

This morning, I was thinking about bags — like the kind you keep your laptop and notebooks in, not the kind that form under your eyes. To be totally honest, I think about bags more than normal people, so this wasn’t an unusual train of thought for me. Sometimes I feel like I’m that luggage guy from Joe vs. The Volcano…

Luggage Salesman: Have you thought much about luggage, Mr. Banks?
Joe Banks: No.
Luggage Salesman: It’s the central preoccupation of my life.

[…]

Luggage Salesman: This is our premier steamer trunk, it’s all handmade, only the finest materials. It’s even watertight, tight as a drum. If I had the need, and the wherewithal, Mr. Banks, this would be my trunk of choice.
Joe Banks: I’ll take four of them.
Luggage Salesman: May you live to be a thousand years old, sir.

As I walked from my parking lot into work, I watched a row of people who all had very different bags. One guy had a shiny black leather case with buckles, the second guy had one of those corporate-issue kevlar bags that comes for free with a corporate-issue laptop, and the third guy had some funny bag that was made out of wood.

In fact, I know the third guy from work. He’s a designer, so it makes sense that he would have a unique bag. That got me to thinking that, if I knew the other two guys, their bag choices would probably make sense also. I have a feeling that, generally speaking, peoples’ bags say a lot about them. And doesn’t that make sense? We all know that people judge by sight, and the first thing you’re often seen with is your bag. It says a lot about the kind of person you are and the work you do.

So what kind of bag do I have? I’m glad you asked.

I have a Tom Bihn bag called the ID. (In fact, it’s the same one in the picture on his website: black/steel/wasabi.) This bag is phenomenal. Honestly, I could write a blog post every day about why I like this bag and why his company appeals to me. But to get a sense, I recommend reading his FAQ page.

I’m not sure what having the ID says about me, except perhaps that I care a lot about bag quality! It’s an extremely sturdy bag, cleanly styled, with a moderate number of pockets. It’s big enough for a laptop, change of clothes, a notebook, and accessories — so it’s great for overnight business trips. But it’s small enough to discourage overloading (e.g. bringing more books than you could reasonably use).

So what kind of bag do you have? And what does it say about you?

Sarah got this video from her mom, and I thought it might be fun to share. It’s a woman named Anita Renfroe singing a compilation of mom-type advice to the William Tell Overture. Enjoy!

Mom’s William Tell Overture

Microsoft Announces Office Live Workspace - Like a “SharePoint Lite”

Ars Technica reports on a new “software plus services” offering for Microsoft Office. Office Live Workspace is basically just 250 MB of online storage that’s exceptionally well integrated with Microsoft Office. If you’ve ever shared files that are stored on SharePoint, I expect this will be very similar. This will be more notable if I find out that OLW provides all the nice check in/check out/versioning features of SharePoint. If so, this is a nifty little service.

I’m not quick to praise Microsoft, but SharePoint is a pretty nice piece of software. Well, “nice” might not be the right word. It’s extremely powerful and extremely complex. For a lot of applications, though, it’s an obvious choice over other web portal offerings. I’m hopeful that OLW will be simpler in proportion to is lesser feature set.

Use Coke’s MyCokeRewards to Get a Free Coke

All you have to do is enter a special code and tell them where you ship your free 20 oz. Nice This one comes courtesy of TechBargains.

European Finance Group is Worried about the US Dollar

Understandably, the leader of the G7 (now called G8?) is concerned about the declining value of the dollar. An article in the International Herald Tribune explains his plea to the US to do something to reverse this trend. I’m sure this plea is based on the interests of his and other countries, and less based on his concern for the US. But it still shows that other countries are worried about a recession in the US. And if they’re worried for their own sake, maybe we should be worried for ours.

Alternate Sleep Patterns (or, How I Got Through College)

Do you remember that Seinfeld episode where Kramer learns about how DaVinci didn’t sleep at night, but instead took little naps throughout the day, and then he tries the same technique for himself? I actually used this technique fairly often in college. If I had to stay up late to finish a project, I’d prepare by taking a 30 minute nap and then washing my face. All in all, I’d say it worked pretty well. But, in retrospect, I have no idea how I got by with so little sleep in college.

Well, Wired has a how-to page that describes how to Cheat on the Need to Sleep. Apparently, there are legitimate techniques that are intended for use in situations that require people to be awake for long periods of time. For example, if you’re in a long distance solo boat race. The techniques are similar to what Kramer tried, except a little more sophisticated. Here’s my favorite part of the article:

Scientists say that a successful midday nap depends on two things: timing and (no kidding) caffeine consumption. Experiments performed at Loughborough University in the UK showed that the sleep-deprived need only a cup of coffee and 15 minutes of shut-eye to feel amazingly refreshed.

1. Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.

2. Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze, you’ll get what’s known as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness.

3. Limit your nap to 15 minutes. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which handles functions like judgment. This gray matter can take 30 minutes to reboot.

So what have you found online that’s interesting?

I have a habit on this blog of complaining about something, and then quickly finding out that problem has already been solved (perfect example). Well, I say that’s good! Go on, World, give me less to complain about!

In this case, I recently complained about the state of rich prototyping tools, but then today I heard about new beta software from Adobe called Thermo. I’m fully expecting to love Thermo. Adobe’s article on it is extremely short winded, but it sounds very promising. In essence, it lets you draw a user interface (which I love doing in OmniGraffle and Visio) and then wire it up to act like a real website, without writing code. But the code it generates for you is actually usable! A developer can take the UI you’ve mocked up and turn it into a working Flex website.

If Thermo works as I understand it, then it solves all my major complaints about prototyping tools. I still get to draw my UIs, plus I can add interactivity without fiddling with code, plus I can turn my prototype into a working solution.

Of course, I’ll reserve final judgment for when I get to use it. For example, I’m guessing the rich interactions I have to choose from will be somewhat limited, especially at first. I could see Thermo providing a drag-and-drop interaction, but maybe not something more exotic, like an AJAX window resizing interaction. Version 1 will probably still require some hand coding to get just what you want. Nonetheless, I’m excited! Adobe, I’m ready to be a beta tester!

For a little more information, I also found an article at MacWorld magazine.

Apple is already well known for it’s original Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), which have been deprecated by the new Apple Human Interface Guidelines, tailored for Mac OS X.

Now, Apple has introduced a HIG for the iPhone. The document is primarily about making web applications that look good and work well on the iPhone. I skimmed through it, and I don’t see too much that’s ground breaking. Basically, if you’re an iPhone web designer with much design sense, the HIG will save you a few hours of trial and error. Still, it’s cool that Apple is providing one. It suggests they’re taking iPhone development seriously at a time when they’re clearly cracking down on unapproved 3rd party iPhone applications.

One interesting thing that jumped out at me in the iPhone HIG is this picture of a “Multiple select element”.

I haven’t used the iPhone much, but I’m interpreting this to be something like a drop-down list, but with the ability to select multiple options in the list. If this convention is something we can apply to normal, non-iPhone web pages, then it would be a huge space saver in some instances. Can anyone who has used this widget before comment on its usefulness?

The multiple select element is described in the iPhone HIG here:
iPhone HIG > Metrics, Layout Guidelines, and Tips > Be Aware of Default Control Styles

As a side note, for those interested in iPhone development, you should check out the Interactive Gestures Pattern Library, (the brainchild of Dan Saffer). It’s a wiki designed to collect touch interface design patterns, such as those used in the iPhone. The goal is to create a set of touch interface best practices, so as touch interfaces take off, all our future devices work similarly.