Month: April 2006

Another class complete…

I’m so glad my final project for Applied Design of Software User Interfaces (ENP166) is over; indeed the class as well. The class sessions were awesome to sit in: the teacher, Michael Wiklund and ta Allison work together at the teacher’s design firm so they had all sorts of real world stories to draw upon. Much better than the dry academic stuff a “real” professor usually would have to share.

The class ended up being pretty grueling in terms of workload – the first three or four weeks had a project every week; there was the pet adoption web site design, the art museum tablet pc like guide book design, the airline in-flight entertainment system design and prototype, capped off by the bicycle computer/navigation system team project. Lots of practical experience with the phases of UI design working through conceptual models, ui structure maps, templating, visual design and prototyping meant lots of time in front of computers using omnigraffle, free mind, fireworks, the gimp, and flash.

Even given all the experience gained using the tools, I’m afraid I didn’t learn all that much. I don’t know if I’m in an in one ear, out the other rut right now, or I was just usually so tired for class having been up late the night before finishing projects – I can’t rattle off some of the buzzwords like some other people in class can. Hopefully $3000 worth of stuff stuck upstairs somewhere.

22 Dollars poorer, 30% less productive

My Viewsonic vp171b display crapped out all of a sudden late last week – just late enough in my school project to be somewhat bearable. It would flicker for a moment, then the backlight would shut off. Turning it off and on a few times usually resulted in it working for a few more hours. I only got the display in October 2005, orthopedist so its under warranty, but still a pain in the butt. $22 to ship it to California and 3-4 weeks without my second display. Good thing I don’t plan on working on anything so involved as to require a second display for a little while.

I’m sure some people must be capable of managing all of Flash’s pallette windows, including the terrible excuse for an editor present in the actions pane without two monitors, but it escapes me how. Semi-interesting Flash note: I did get to find out that the Flash IDE crashes when its running on a second display that gets unplugged.

My team’s logo

At some point I’ll make a lengthier update praising Macromedia Fireworks capabilities – the more I learn about how to use it, the better it gets (especially the pen tool!), but for now I wanted to show off share this logo I created for my class project team. (For some context the project is to design the interface of a bike computer that would include GPS maps as well as all the usual bike computer stuff)

Tireless Logo

Fenway Frisking

The security at red sox games doesn’t make any sense. Apparently only men are a threat, because they receive a cursory pat down the sides. Women pass right on through. (though I’m sure the discriminating female terrorist would be tripped up for storing her anthrax in her vera bradley, because purses and bags are searched.)

What is the point of such half-ass security? I’m sure the pat down wouldn’t detect a firearm or some other munition in the small of one’s back, and they didn’t even touch anyone’s legs. This is like banning nail clippers on planes (yes I know they aren’t banned anymore). Maybe it makes someone feel better, but it doesn’t make a lick of difference to any actual security.

Soledad slaps away the race card

I just saw this great interview between Soledad O’Brian and Rep. Cynthia McKinney. Backstory is that the Rep. wasn’t recognized by Capitol Police going though security, felt insulted, tried to keep going, got grabbed by the officer, and then hit the officer in the chest. Now she may have charges filed against her for assaulting an officer. So the Rep. tries to call it racial profiling, starts blabbing about discrimination, minorities, the war in iraq, a potential strike against Iran, anything but the issue at hand, which is her side of the story about what happened.

Soledad does a great job at relentlessly shutting down Rep. McKinney nonsensical tirades. Bravo!

Headphone upgrade

A couple of weeks ago I lost the cap (earbud cover) to my apple in-ear headphones. Probably not worth the $40 I paid for them, but a lot more comfortable than the ones that come with an iPod, so I was disappointed to find that apple did not sell replacement caps.

Googling one day, I stumbled upon this page which indicates the ear sleeves from some high-end headphones would fit the apple headphones. Hooray! I opted for the more permanent flex sleeves rather than the disposable foam sleeves recommended there, and now they’ve arrived from amazon I’m pleased to say they fit, and work great. Makes the headphones have a lot more bass too. Maybe too much?

Spring Fever

Last Friday after work I succumbed to spring fever (it was ~75 and sunny!) and rather than heading for the T and home, aimlessly strolled from my office in Cambridge down to the Charles, over the Longfellow bridge and along the esplanade, finally ending up by Hynes convention center. It was nice to see people out an about again, walking, running, riding and rollerblading. There even some boats out sailing (though I don’t particularly fancy sailing this time of year because the memory of that river being frozen is all too fresh).

Anyways, after that setup there’s a few things I noticed while waiting on Newbury street for Kristi to arrive for an ice cream rendezvous:

Newbury Street is lousy with girls walking down the street, one arm clutching a shopping bag and the other holding a phone talking to someone about how much of her daddy’s money she’s spending. I found it quite amusing that a group of dreadlocked semi-goth girls came walking down the street, making fun of the spoiled girls by all holding pretend conversations on pretend phones.

In a scene that tugged at my heartstrings, I watched this man discover that his bike had been mortally wounded while he was shopping. It was one of those chill cruiser bikes, like a 3 speed with metal fenders, and it had been chained to a sign with one of those “U” locks. Unfortunately, his ailing steed had either fallen or being pushed down, and then stomped on by some passing man or machine – but more likely man because it was on the street side of the signpost. So the man walks up to his prone bike, pauses for a second. He looks around, picks his bike up, releases the lock and drops the kickstand, then steps back. The rear wheel is grotesqely bent, and the fender and the tire are one. He consults with someone, hopefully a friend in this time of need, then after a what seemed like minutes of him inspecting the bike, proceeds to walk off down the street, wheeling his stricken transportation with the wheel dragging behind.

The whole time, it was like watching someone discover their pet had been killed – I wanted to run over and give him a hug.

I was amazed how noticeable the difference in air quality between the esplanade and by the convention center, over the mass pike – the river was cool and clear, but over the highway it reeked and my sinuses burned – and its not as if these locations are all that far apart. Of course I write this from Somerville which has the regions highest rates of asthma.

There were some great Boston scenes in this video. (seen here)