Category: Legacy

Posted on by lhl

‘Holy crap I didn’t know that was there’ feature of the day:

PBCOPY(1)                                                            PBCOPY(1)
NAME
       pbcopy, pbpaste - provide copying and pasting from command line
SYNOPSIS
       pbcopy [-help] [-pboard {general | ruler | find | font}]
       pbpaste  [-help]  [-pboard  {general  |  ruler | find | font}] [-Prefer
       {ascii | rtf | ps}]
DESCRIPTION
       pbcopy takes the standard input and places it in the  specified  paste-
       board.  If  no  pasteboard is specified, the general pasteboard will be
       used by default.  The input is placed in the pasteboard as  ASCII  data
       unless  it begins with the Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file header or
       the Rich Text Format (RTF) file header, in which case it is  placed  in
       the pasteboard as one of those data types.
       pbpaste removes the data from the pasteboard and writes it to the stan-
       dard output.  It normally looks first for ASCII data in the  pasteboard
       and  writes  that  to  the  standard output; if no ASCII data is in the
       pasteboard it looks for Encapsulated PostScript; if no EPS  if  present
       it  looks  for  Rich  Text.   If  none of those types is present in the
       pasteboard, pbpaste produces no output.

man pbcopy for more info

Posted on by lhl
Posted on by lhl

John Gruber writes a really long piece poking fun at Eric Raymond and then talking about UI design. Now, I’m all for poking fun at ESR. He needs some ego deflation. But Gruber is so off his horse talking about UIs that it’s not even funny. UI design is certainly not “an art” that “requires innate ability.” One can argue about soft factors within UX and HCI, but usability can be tested empirically and distilled into principles. At the end of the day, good GUIs have to do more with adherence to principles and guidelines and a commitment to user testing than some sort of ‘genius’ sensitivity.

Also, while I wholeheartedly agree on having strong direction for successful UIs, the notion that this is somehow casually related (as implied) on ‘closed source’ software ‘produced by full-time professional engineers’ just doesn’t make any sense. Software engineers left alone would produce just as unusable preference panels regardless of whether it’s closed or open source (also, most OSS developers *are* professional engineers). The difference in interface quality lies with the commitment and focus of *usability* engineers and designers. And even with that effort you’re still not guaranteed anything.

Obviously I agree that good HCI is hard work. Along with documentation, it is often short-changed in typical OSS projects. I’d argue that most of these projects realize this, however they typically lack the expertise not only in the areas themselves, but also in even recruiting those w/ the proper skills to contribute.

Basically, good HCI has much more in common with development (standard practices, iteration, refactoring) than with making a movie (or some ridiculous notion of the genetically gifted ‘HCI savant’).

Posted on by lhl

Oh, ok, Google Mail has hit the newstands. So yeah. Google search for email. Good. Google mail to create a corpus for personalized search? Gooder. Now, Google Mail as foothold into rolling out digital identity and relationship management?

Like the browser and the operating system wars before it, the search wars is the latest iteration of what comes down to a battle for platform domination. Will the contenders be able to overthrow the reigning champ?

It’ll be fun to watch. Maybe more fun to participate?

* This is all analysis based on speculation and observation. I don’t have any proprietary information here (which is why I’m tossing this online).

[obsessing over ads in email is missing the forest for the trees]