MindlessCode.net

General ramblings written when I really should have been doing other things:

1. Applications should keep track of the data they create:
   In other words, don’t make the user save data and remember where they put it. Use the email application model where you start the program and your data (email) is right there, stored “in the application.” When people lose files, it’s because they don’t remember where they put them. Usually they remember which program they used to create them (e.g., “I’m looking for a text document but I don’t remember what I called it (or where I put it)…”).
2. Tags over Folders:
   Folders seem to me to be an archaic way of sorting data. Tags are much more flexible because each file/piece of data can have multiple tags assigned to it. This applies to email apps too.
3. Use Fitts’ Law!
   Very generally translated to computers, Fitts’ Law says that the corners and edges of the computer screen are the easiest to find with the mouse. Current operating systems don’t use this as much could. Mac OS X has the menu bar at the top of the screen. XP/KDE have the start button at the bottom left. openSUSE has a cool thing where the “Slab” (start menu) will automatically come up when you move the mouse all the way to the bottom-left of the screen.

   It would help to see a lot more of this. I’d like to see window switching in 2 corners and possibly quick access to applications along one edge.

4. Quick Application and Document Access
   I spend a lot of time searching through my K Menu or browsing through folders in Konqueror to find a document. In fact, a lot of the time it’s much faster just to type the program’s name into the Run Command box and hit enter. Use one of the edges of your screen (see above) to bring up the most recently used apps and documents and allow the user to search for apps/docs (ala Beagle and openSUSE 10.2’s slab, but improved). For keyboard monkeys like me, let people type in the name of the app and just hit enter.

   The thing on the right is a rough approximation of what I’d like. It’s searchable (just type in konsole, Konsole is automatically selected and hit enter), it makes your most used accessible from the keyboard (activate menu and use keys to navigate). Make it pop up when I hit the right-hand edge of my screen and I’d be fairly happy.

   Most importantly: don’t make the user browse through the file system to find anything (this applies to attaching files to email too)! Use tags, full content searches, and “this app created it” for finding files.

And a lot more too. I really like what the OLPC team did with the Sugar interface–it’s a very cool reinvention of computer interfaces. Personally, I find the current state of usability of all computer environments (Linux DEs/Distros, Windows, and OS X) all equally appalling–and I suffer daily seeing people struggle with the basic concepts that “make sense” to nerds like you and me (because we think like computers), but not to normal people.

I couldn’t find a VMware virtual machine of Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) anywhere (I needed one for testing Autopackage). So, I created one:

• Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) VMware Image
  Compressed Size: 721M
  Uncompressed Size: 2.4G
  MD5Sum: b6d2b32e487859ef34fc5b1d0463a461

VMware tools are installed. The username and password for the user are “user” (w/o quotes). Security Updates are not installed.

Any of you smart people who know how to use Bittorrent are welcome to setup a tracker.

Note: The directory inside the tarball is called Kubuntu-7.05 (which doesn’t exist). Everything really is Kubuntu 7.04.

NOTE :: I had to remove the file because it burned too much bandwidth (1.4TB!?). If someone can host it, or setup a bittorrent tracker, send me an email (tajmorton@gmail.com).