19 May 2009 - permalink
Louis Gerbarg comments on Steven Frank’s thoughts on the state of computing (previously linked to from here):
I think we can get past the desktop metaphor, and I think it will be done by designing systems that do not have a filesystem as an exposed concept for the user.
I think to some extent this is what Apple (and many others) are attempting on a small scale with applications like iTunes and iPhoto. They provide access to data within files without actually exposing the file system. The media browser in Mac OS X 10.5 is another example of browsing files by content rather than structural placement.
I’ve argued that these applications should be plugins to the file system, views in a file browser if you will, but the idea is the same: Easy access to the content of files without worrying about where it is or how it is stored.
The AddressBook application, as Gerbarg mentions, would be close to useless if it didn’t allow Mail.app to read my contacts or drag-and-drop a vcard attachment to create a new contact. The key is connectivity, online and on the desktop and to the user and developer alike.
19 May 2009 - permalink
Biologist John Timmer of Ars Technica reviews Wolfram Alpha and has a some very important observations:
So, in essence, Wolfram’s asking you to outsource all the sanity-checking that should be done when obtaining information—does it come from a reliable source? Is it in keeping with other figures that are available? You’re just supposed to trust that the folks that populated the databases behind Alpha have done their job well. If they haven’t, it’s up to you to figure that out.
This is a major issue that needs to be fixed or the results will be of little more use than clicking “I feel lucky” on Google.
Wolfram Alpha remains an interesting approach to scientific data mining and input parsing. For now, however, I’ll stick with wikipedia, google and common sense (and books for deeper research). Computers are no match for knowledge explained by a human.
15 May 2009 - permalink
Stephen Wolfram, who famously built Mathematica, demoes what appears to have potential to revolutionize the way we look for information online.
The information presented from a query in the demo is nothing short of amazing, providing remarkable relevant and interesting facts and graphs. The ability of the Wolfram Alpha engine to calculate the results rather than relying on static text and combining or comparing different entities makes for some very intriguing possibilities.
It will be very interesting to see where this is going.
12 May 2009 - permalink
My second iPhone app, iBiffen, is available in the iTunes App Store today. Focusing on the Danish market, iBiffen displays a visually compelling list of posters for movies playing today at Copenhagen cinemas.
In Danish: Mit andet iPhone program, iBiffen, er tilgængeligt netop blevet tilgængelig på iTunes App Store. iBiffen viser en flot liste med plaketer for biograffilm idag i biografer i København.
Read more about iBiffen or download at the App Store
7 May 2009 - permalink
Todd Carmichael breaks the solo record for reaching the South Pole on foot. It’s a remarkable story
I have no water! That’s it. I have no water. If you don’t have water, you don’t have life.
Watch the amazing video documentary by Todd himself at the bottom of the story. Incredible determination!
7 May 2009 - permalink
John Siracusa on what magic is behind the RDF of Steve Jobs:
Though a good critic can influence the community of creators, in the end, he does not create anything himself. But take that critic and put him in charge of the creators. Make him, let’s say, the founder, CEO, and spiritual leader of several thousand of the most talented engineers and artists in the computer industry. What might happen then?
5 May 2009 - permalink
John Nack from Adobe’s Photoshop team has written a post about the PSD file format in response to a particular developer having trouble implementing a parser through reverse engineering.
File formats typically grow and change as the application incorporates more features. For old formats such as .psd (pre-1990), the result is obviously not as structured as if starting from scratch today:
Of its quirks, PSD expert Tim Wright says, “Most are the gradual result of discovering better ways to do things over 20 years, while staying compatible with older applications.”
Besides mentioning the open source graphics format FXG as an alternative, he links to yet another interesting article by Joel Spolsky on the complexity of Microsoft Office files:
A file format is just a concise summary of all the features an application supports. […] All of these subtle bits of behavior cannot be fully documented without writing a document that has the same amount of information as the source code.
Now that sounds almost like a definition of Kolmogorow complexity, but the point, of course, is that the reason for the apparent mess of these formats is a side effect of their longevity, added features and, particularly, backward compatibility.
Backward compatibility takes time and effort. This is why, for instance, Apple did not release the full iPhone SDK to developers right away, because they wanted things thought through to support backward compatibility (for a while anyway). It is also (part of) the reason small development teams can create products that appear to trump the established big players: They have no old software not to break.
There’s a metaphor coined by Ward Cunningham of Technical Debt to describe the eventual consequenses of poorly planned software. Sometimes the hundreds or thousands of man-hours put into old code bases and file formats to keep things backward compatible end up becoming a massive technical debt as was the case with Classic Mac OS (and likely old Windows): Starting over with a new foundation was the better way forward.
Websites do not really have the problem of backward compatibility (except for URLs), but the structure of databases and code face the same issue with implementing new features and scaling efficiently. There’s a tradeoff between patching new features onto existing design decisions and rebuilding the whole thing.
The bottom line is that there often are good, if historic, reasons behind seemingly poor decisions.
1 May 2009 - permalink
The debug bar for Zend Framework I released a few months ago has seen much more interest than I had hoped for. Thanks to everyone who mailed or commented with bug reports and suggestions!
To allow easier patching and contribution, I’ve decided to move the project to googlecode and at the same time rename Scienta ZF Debug Bar to something shorter and more descriptive: ZFDebug.
Andreas Pankratz is joining the development and has already made significant contributions by starting work on modularizing the functionality. We are currently working on implementing many of the features suggested for the upcoming version 1.5.
For now, visit the new home of ZFDebug and try the current version 1.4.1.
27 Apr 2009 - permalink
One week after submitting my first and free iPhone app, KbhTog, to the App Store, it is now available for download. KbhTog provides quick access to a map of public train and subway stations and lines in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Read more about KbhTog or download it at the App Store
25 Apr 2009 - permalink
Gordon Miller explains his first-run experience with a new Microsoft Surface, that does not respond to touch input when first turned on.
That’s the true cost of a poor approach to usability – it gets you a reputation that’s hard to shake.
Unbelievable!