[via blogs.adobe.com]
Category: Design
Hardcore Neat Freaks, Rejoice
Whether you’re embracing your decluttering OCD, or simply looking for a way to prevent electrical shock hazards under your desk, the setups shown in this post provide several useful examples for tackling the mess that lies under your desk.
Hit the link for some crazy photos. The one with the Mac Pro and Mac minis strapped under the desk is a stunning work of engineering.
[via @zacattac.]
Flickr Find: eWorld’s Closing
Flickr user sonnyhung has posted some screenshots of eWorld’s last moments. Here’s some background on eWorld:
Apple’s marketing and promotion efforts were at best indifferent. The service was only available on the Macintosh, along with e-mail only support on the Newton handheld. Apple was in a challenging financial position at the time and CEO Michael Spindler told the Online Services Group that significant marketing for the service could not be provided so eWorld shipped on new Macs with only an icon on the desktop and a brochure in the box. There was also little if anything in the way of media marketing for the service. The promised Windows version of eWorld was not launched following a decision by Apple’s senior management to position eWorld as a unique service for Macintosh owners.
Simple and Refined
John Gruber, on Tweetie for the Mac:
There is much to like about Tweetie for Mac, but what I like best is that it is visually quiet. Most of the new desktop Twitter clients I’ve checked out try to show more at once. Twitter by its nature is inherently distracting; I want a client that doesn’t exacerbate it.
I couldn’t agree more. The program is freaking unbelievable for a 1.0 release. I’ve been using it all day and haven’t found anything I dislike.
Tweetie for Mac Unveiled
Tweetie, the popular iPhone Twitter client, is about to land on the Mac. A longtime user of Tweetie, I was excited to see Macworld’s “first look” at the upcoming software:
Tweetie sports a healthy dose of visual flair without trying to get you drunk on whooshing around. Clicking between your friends’ tweet list, mentions, and direct messages, for instance, will quickly slide the current list up or down to make way for the new one. Clicking the icon of a second account in the left sidebar will slide it up to the top of the window and reveal its own buttons for mentions and direct messages. Double-clicking a reply will employ a fancy fade-zoom, revealing a list of all the back-and-forth tweets by participants. For a functional UI finish, small blue badges appear next to the timeline, mentions, and direct message sections to inform you of new messages. They also appear below the icons for your other accounts, so you know whether it’s worth switching over.
Dell Adamo Has Nice Insides
iFixit has done it again. This time, they took apart the new Dell Adamo, and holy cow, I want to open one.
Saying Goodbye to Homepage
Yesterday, Apple sent an email to all MobileMe customers:
On July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you’ve already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.
Made of Pure Awesome
The 22nd Annual Rube Goldberg machine contest saw many fun attempts at comical inefficiency this year, including this Super Mario machine entry from engineers at Penn State.
This makes me happy on so many levels.
‘It was our Manhattan Project’
CNET, on Google’s server hardware:
Typical data centers rely on large, centralized machines called uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)–essentially giant batteries that kick in when the main supply fails and before generators have time to kick in. Building the power supply into the server is cheaper and means costs are matched directly to the number of servers, Jai said.
“This is much cheaper than huge centralized UPS,” he said. “Therefore no wasted capacity.”
Wedges and Logos
Zlok has a brief piece up about Rob Janoff, who invented the Apple logo. Here’s some direct quotes:
For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up. I just stared at the wedges for hours.
At first the Apple logo was black to save on printing costs - remember, this was 1977 - but Jobs wasn’t happy about that:
Yellow and Black: The Study of a Bulldozer
I came across a bulldozer this afternoon:
A Tour Through Windows 7’s Past
CNET has posted a nice collection of sketches and screenshots documenting the developement of the Windows 7 user interface:
Much of the early work in coming up with the Windows 7 desktop was done not at a computer, but in freehand drawings. Some was on whiteboards, others on notepads or scraps of paper. “We would sketch on anything available, (Microsoft designer Stephan) Hoefnagels recalled.
The best thoughts that have come to mankind over the years were drawn on scraps of papers and on napkins.