Year: 2008

Googley Design Principles

Very much in line with the image explaining simplicity of user interfaces, comes the list of Googley Design Principles:

1. Focus on people—their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today’s and tomorrow’s business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people’s trust.
10. Add a human touch.

Anyone doing any sort of user interface work should learn these by heard and repeat them as every morning mantra.

~~50 Ways to Help the Planet~~ is an excellent initiative. These are 50 simple, straight-forward tips for how to make a little bit less of an impact on our planet. You probably already do some of these things. You’ll probably never do some of them. But chances are you’ll find some things in that list that you won’t mind doing.

Here is the list of things as applied to me and my family. You should probably read the original list first though.

Continue reading 50 Ways to Help the Planet

Some people never learn

Web Worker Daily reports:

With Microsoft’s announcement this week that Outlook and Outlook Express will no longer support desktop access to Hotmail accounts raises some interesting questions on data portability.
After 30th June, Microsoft’s Windows Live Mail application will be the only means by which desktop and offline access to Hotmail accounts will be supported. This effectively means that a Hotmail user’s messages continue to be imprisoned within a closed ecosphere of services and applications. OK, smart people won’t be using Outlook, Outlook Express or Hotmail, but millions do and many have years of messages archived that they may wish to continue accessing outside a web-based interface.

I guess some people never ever learn. Microsoft has screwed its users times after times, and yet there are still millions of them who either trust it blindly or are too lazy to spend a few moments of their lives to look for alternatives. I have no pity for them anymore. They deserve what they are getting.

Smokin’ Aces

$Smokin\' Aces$

I just watched a criminal action with a bit of drama – “Smokin’ Aces“. And I liked it. There were some really good things about. The photography was creative, fresh, and interesting. Costume design as a part of character development was outstanding. Especially those Nazi punks … they looked and behaved like they were no less than “Rammstein” band. Bloody scenes were as bloody as they should be in such a movie, and the humor had a nice black scent to it.

One other thing that well was the cast. There are a lot of characters in this movie, and there is not much time to develop them or to go into depth with each. But it wasn’t a problem – everyone performed really well. Sometimes it felt like the good old “Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels“. It wasn’t that good though.

Overall, a very decent movie for the fans of the genre. 7 out of 10.

Black Snake Moan

I just watched a really powerful movie – “Black Snake Moan“. High quality, and I’m not talking about the DVD copy.

I liked this film from the first seconds. Before it even started, it positioned itself as a blues movie. And I love blues. Gladly, the blues vibe, the atmosphere, and the soundtrack lasted through the whole film. Some great stuff there, with the “Black Snake Moan” song scene being one of the best music scenes I’ve seen in the movies.

I liked the story and the way it was told. It was very worked through. Sometimes predictable, sometimes unexpected, but really followed through. Probably the fact that the director Craig Brewer was also the one who wrote the script has something to do with it.

Also, there was really good acting. Samuel Jackson played a character who was (or at least looked) much older than he is. He did a really good job at that. Christina Ricci, that little girl from the “Adams Family” … well, she’s not little anymore. And she’s steaming hot. But not only that, she is a good actress too. Her character in this movie was rather complicated, but she managed it just fine. Justin Timberlake pleasantly surprised too. I just recently watched a film with him, and he is so different here that I didn’t even recognize him until the closing titles. This guy too can act. And he seems to be picking up quite a lot of practice recently. Also, there were quite a few good supporting actors in the film, so that the whole thing felt like real, like they are indeed inhabitants of a small rural town.

This film, although entertaining, is not purely entertainment. It feels like it was done, because the filmmaker had something to say, something to show. There are a few things to think about during and after the movie…

Overall, a really nice film. Strongly recommended for any fans of good acting, drama, and or blues music. 8 out of 10.