Acts of Volition

Can anyone shed any light on why the time estimates in file copying dialog boxes in Microsoft Windows are so ridiculously inaccurate? Is this a difficult problem to solve? I know BeOS handled it remarkably well. What about other operating systems? Mac OS (classic or X), the linux GUIs, etc?

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are developing a concept computer code-named Athens to demonstrate technologies to be included in future products (serveral high-res photos are available). There isn’t much in this prototype that’s actually new and it’s more of a marketing tool than a technology demo …

A sharp distinction is often drawn between “using a computer” and “programming”. Using a computer might involve a simple action, like opening a web browser and reading the news. Programming might involved something like creating the web browser itself.  •  These seem like two different worlds …

Last year I was doing some painting with a paint roller. The arm of the roller broke and we were stuck with a half-painted wall on a Sunday afternoon (all the hardware stores were closed).  •  It occurred to me to see if the broom handle, which screws into the broom head, would also fit into the …

User interface critic and man-about-New Zealand, Matthew Thomas has outlined his view of the The ultimate Weblogging system. We’ve run our system against his checklist.

A few updates on my Mac experience since I posted the original review:  •  A two-button mouse makes a huge difference. OS X has fantastic support for the right-button. To say that Mac is based on a one-button mouse is no longer true. They just still sell a mouse with one button.  •  When browsing …

I’ve been conducting a user interface experiment with myself as the subject. A long-time Windows user and armchair graphical user interface critic, I have spent a week working in Mac OS X. What follows is my review of the experience.

When you spend much of every day in front of a computer (which you probably do if you are reading this), you come to know the intricacies and quirks of your software much as a musician comes to know the feel of their favourite instrument. Sometimes the smallest bugs can become the biggest …

Those readers not interested in web design issues, please pardon this post. For the rest of you, the following is a series of posts I made on the corporate intranet at work. We've been struggling with CSS font-size issues. It's nothing original, but it is my hope that posting the explanation of …