Acts of Volition

Twitter  •  If Twitter were a phone company, you could only call people who used the same phone company as you.  •  iPhone  •  If the iPhone were a desktop computer, you could only install applications approved by Microsoft (or Apple).  •  DVD  •  If DVDs were books, you couldn’t read a book from …

A rule of thumb I try to use when looking for visual metaphors for actions or elements in an interface:  •  “If an element does not have an obvious visual metaphor, then it should not have an icon.”  •  I'm also working on a law that governs how to name laws after oneself, but I don't have a good …

As with every major release of Firefox since 1.0, I’ve had the privilege of working with Mozilla on their website updates for the new Firefox 3.5 release.  •  If you care about web browsers, you already know why it’s awesome, and if you don't care about web browsers, all you need to know is that …

I’ve written before about the boring but delightful benefits of standards. Another such standard is emerging in Europe this month. Most major mobile phone manufacturers have signed on to support a standard phone charger for mobile phones in the European Union. Such a grand display of common-sense …

UPDATE: We’re set for this position now - thanks.  •  My second home and second family, silverorange, is looking for a talented and motivated person proficient with HTML, CSS, and the general tools of web design.  •  A deep understanding of effective, attractive, usable, and standards-based …

We made a cool tech demo of some new Video features from the upcoming Firefox 3.5 (which is required to view the demo, of course).  •  View the Demo(Firefox 3.5 beta required)

While I often delight in how bad the headlines on CNN are, it’s nice to see someone is actually doing a good job. Jakob Nielsen writes about how the BBC has the best written headlines on the web.

The following things in my house have some kind of light on all the time whether they are in use or not:  •  Microwave  •  Camera battery charger  •  Laptop  •  Phone  •  Cell phone  •  Baby monitor (transmitter and receiver)  •  Smoke detector (x3)  •  Alarm clock  •  Cable modem  •  Wireless …

As usual, a great comic from xkcd. I’ve fallen for this misleading comparison myself: