I figure I better get my albums of the year for 2009 in before February is over, sheesh.
There weren't many big albums for me in 2009, but the ones that made the list this year feel a little different than previous years.
One of the greatest effects to emerge from the iPhone influence is that web designers care a little more about alternate browsers. We've had technology to present alternate presentations of content for years, but other than working around browser quirks, few did anything with the knowledge that a user might have something other than a full screen 1024x768 browser running.
Today, many major sites have a mobile version, and quite a few have mobile versions specific for the iPhone. This is great for users. They get the content they want, in a package suitable to their device. Well, mostly.
There is still work to be done. Even the mega-brands, like pro sports leagues, seem to trip up a bit when building their mobile sites. As a sports fan, and a mobile Internet user, here is my take on two of these sites. The NFL and the NBA.
This image shows both the homescreen you get, along with a full page of scroll to give you a better idea of the experience you'd have if you were actually holding an iPhone in your hand.
What strikes me immediately is how little of the first screen actually contains content. Both sites include their logos and a Menu button. I don't know why I'd need a Menu button, but I get why the logo is important.
The NFL site hits me with some ads. I guess I can understand that. The NBA site does as well, but for its own products. I especially like how the NBA ads say "Click Here". For starters, no one clicks on mobile devices. They tap. Second, I really hope we get to a point where we don't have to tell people to "Click Here". It's like painting "Drive Here" in the middle of a highway lane. Are there still people waking from their Rip Van Winkle and whipping out an iPhone?
Both sites contain worthless headers like "GAME CENTER" and "SCORES". How many helmet to helmet contacts does it take before you are unable to recognize a score? Do we really need to waste the space to tell me something I already know?
Overall, I really like the NFL site. Once you scroll down a bit, you get a perfect mobile view. You see teams, scores, and the network they are playing on. That is perfect. That is exactly what I want and expect. Move the "Week x" links to the bottom and we're really talking.
Then there's the NBA. Here you see 3 views of the site, about a month apart. The most you can ever see without scrolling is the scores of two games. Even then, they don't seem to bubble the in-progress games to the top, so you have to scroll past info you've already been alerted to, possibly for a few hours while you follow the games of the day. The rest of the screens are filled with even more worthless stuff like a "Mibox" (what the hell is that and why should I care) and links to the D-league.
Hey NBA, NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE D-league. Why would you waste this precious space on routes out of the site that your user specifically just came to? The funny thing is if you go to nba.com, the D-league link isn't prominent at all. What made you decide that mobile nba.com users were the ones that needed to see giant links to the D-league and the WNBA?
I guess what I'm asking for is a simple experience.
I'll try something fresh this time around. Rather than individual tracks, I'm going to give you 5 dj mixes I'm feeling right now. I listen to a ton of continuous mixes. I have 149 of them sitting in iTunes right now.
Perhaps it is just the folks I surround myself with, but it seems like clutter is getting a lot of buzz these days. My decluttering journey kicked up a few notches a few years ago when I became a father and my family moved to a larger house. Along the way, I've come across some things I wouldn't have considered clutter years ago. Here are 7 of those things. Maybe they'll spark you to look in different directions while you simplify your life.
Magazines - I blame my father for this one. He had a wall of car magazines in the basement. Stacked shelf after shelf. He enjoyed the magazines so much, he felt he had to keep them because surely he'd want to read them again some day. Even with this pre-warning, I found myself subscribed to more magazines than I could read. I couldn't just throw them away. I had to read them. I also found myself saving magazines like my father had. I now get 4 magazines, more than I want, but I look forward to them arriving and very much still enjoy reading a physical magazine, so I'm happy. Protip: If your magazine has a binding spine, you can tear out the pages you've read and recycle them right away. I started this when I'd take magazines on business trips to save weight in my carry-on bag, but now I use it all the time. I don't waste time figuring out what I have and haven't read and it feels good to be making progress in the magazine.
Gift cards - Fake money as I like to call them. They fill our wallets and purses. They fall in value from ridiculous fees. I especially hate them because they drain me mentally. I know the value of a dollar. I can't not spend them. We have a new focus to try and spend (or regift) these as soon as we can, but at the same time, I don't want to buy things we don't need, so it is a challenge. Any ideas on getting rid of gift cards?
Honestly, this is 5 of the month and a half ago, but I was feeling them at the time and I want to burn that in to the Internet memory forever.
I'm pretty meh on Safari 4 so far. The top sites thing isn't something I'll use. Coverflow previews are neat, but haven't used them. Tabs on top are ok, but I'm finding myself confused. Here's how.
If you have a window open, with tabs, and then click a link that opens a new window, Safari creates that window in such a way that the tabs from the old window appear attached to the new window! 
Yes, there's a line here that is smooth in the regular window, but this interface is new. My brain doesn't know that yet. Second, it seems there is a slight color variation with the active and inactive windows. I'm sure that's great if you aren't colorblind. Doesn't do jack for me.
This is bad because I try to click the tab that I think belongs to my window, but it doesn't. It seems Apple could fix this by simply creating the new window 5 pixels lower, or higher.
I've recently gotten into Boxee. I've been aware of it for quite some time, but I always thought it required far more mucking to install than it actually does. Boxee is only useful to me on Apple TV. It's interface is decent, but not great. I see no reason to use it while I'm sitting at my computers. While sitting in bed in from of my TV, that's another story.
Hooking your MacBook up to the TV to watch Hulu is doable, but it really isn't a good solution. It requires a bunch of temporary cables. Requires you adjust your power management (or wiggle the mouse every few minutes). Worst of all, it owns your notebook while you are watching TV. You can't DO ANYTHING on your computer while it is attached to the TV.
Boxee on Apple TV is great because it brings you Hulu, CBS, and others in a usable format. Nothing new to hook up. It just works. Control it with a remote instead of a keyboard and mouse. The full Hulu experience is there. You see all of the commercials, you see the branding. It's all there.
So then Hulu's partners go and gets stupid. It isn't Hulu, but rather the content providers. You'd think Hulu, who has built the number one destination video site for legal, full, television episodes wouldn't be dumb enough to slap its users in the face, even when the content providers tell them to. As @peterrojas says, Boxee is no different than a web browser. I say Boxee is actually *better* than a web browser for the content provider. Boxee, especially on Apple TV, is running full screen. Users are likely focused on the TV experience, and aren't jumping into a spreadsheet during the commercials. They're watching them.
Hulu also has the unique ability to know who I am. I'm logged into Boxee. They could work with Boxee to make me logged into Hulu. They'd know who I am. They'd know what I watched. They'd know what commercials they've shown me. This has to have value. This has to be better than forcing me to either not watch their content at all, or go get it from a gray/black market source.
Shutting down Hulu on Boxee will NOT send me back to cable. The sooner Hulu and the content providers learn that, the better.
Ok, this was really just a reason for me to play with my camera, iMovie, and YouTube uploading, but an annoying bug none the less.
The coverart that is displayed does not match the track that is playing. Switch to coverflow and the coverart is correct. Switch back and it is still wrong. Flip to the details and the mini coverart is correct. Odd. I think this has been there for quite a few spins of the firmware.
And note to self, small text overlays don't encode well at YouTube quality :) That fail is all on me.
I like to rate stuff. Movies from Netflix, songs in iTunes, photos in iPhoto - they all allow ratings of 1 to 5 stars. I make use of these ratings in all of these apps. I started to wonder if I have similar distributions of love-like-hate across different types of media. So, of course I made a really geeky bar graph!
When the Apple LED Cinema Display was launched, I was immediately drawn to the multi-headed cord that supplied video, USB, and power. This was no iMac, but it was again attacking the number of cables you need to snake around your desk. A single power drop to the floor is fantastic...but only if you're using a MacBook or MacBook Pro.
I won't admit that the Mac mini is dead, and the number of rumors surrounding it suggest it is ready for an update (but we've heard that many times before). I'm wondering if Apple would release a new Mac mini with a MagSafe connector. Certainly the desktop computer is a different beast than a notebook. People shout "I wouldn't want my computer to shut off when I trip over the cable!". To those folks I say, why in the world are you tripping over your computer's power cable? Do you trip often? Do you drink a fair amount? Do you like to host double dutch tournaments with your power cords in the living room?
Personally, I'd me more than happy with a MagSafe connector on my desktop. I can't say I've ever tripped over the cord of my desktop, so I'll take the risk that it'll get yanked out at an inopportune time in exchange for fewer cables.
That leaves the cost argument. Folks in the market for a Mac mini aren't the target market of an LED Cinema Display. However, since that's the only display Apple makes, that would be a nice little carrot to get them to spend the cash.
Here's hoping for a new Mac mini in '09. Let's see what it brings. My mockup including the Mac nano is included here. If Apple really does this, I'd expect the cables out the back.
Just a fun idea for your kids or those with a kid's heart. Cookie cutter for the shape. Peanut butter works as glue for the ornaments.
Make one and post a link to the picture. You know you want to!
Let's start the rant.
Earlier this week, we had the misfortune of a dead battery in our Toyota van. How it got that way is a whole other rant. For whatever reason, we were unable to jump it (I still don't know what I did wrong). Roadside assistance to the rescue! We had such a service as part of purchasing the vehicle. Here's where the mess started.
Getting someone on the phone was no problem. It was the conversation topics that were the problem. 95% of the conversation was spent gathering information they already have. They wanted our name and address. Sure, no problem, you need to identify me. I can handle that. We then spent over 5 minutes convincing them that our address really does exist, and has for nearly 4 years. You can blame the map companies for this one, but we'll get to that.
Here are some other things they needed to know:
Public transit in Cedar Rapids had a bit of a shakeup this year. With all-time record flooding in the city, our Ground Transportation center was damaged, as well as many of the neighborhoods that the buses blaze through (and some of the buses themselves).
The city has made the best of what they have. This includes a new hub at Parking Lot 44, south of the regular GTC. It also includes some new stops, less frequent buses, but also later running buses.
My iPhone optimized Cedar Rapids bus schedule, CRbus, is now up to date with the schedules posted on August 22nd. Sorry for the delay. I wasn't riding the bus much in the last few months, so it wasn't a priority for me. [CRbus was launched here]
Let me know if you find any errors in the data. The city doesn't provide the data in an easily consumable format, so there's a lot of hand editing involved.
Keeping a list of things to do is something most everyone does. I certainly do. Crossing something off those lists is one of the most satisfying things I encounter in a day. Traditionally, I keep these lists on scraps of paper and consolidate to a larger, heavy (to signify importance), piece of paper every so often. This works, but it certainly has disadvantages.
