Daniel Hardy

How Apple’s Safari Browser May Rise To Power

Love it or hate it, Apple’s Safari web browser has started making gains in market share. These gains have been small by many accounts but I believe Safari has a couple things going for it that currently Firefox and IE can’t compete with. Its ability to be easily embedded into and modified.

This ability does not come directly from Safari but rather its open source rendering engine, Webkit. This engine has proven to be extremely competent and lightweight. It also has one of the fastest rendering times available.

Because it is easy to work with and free(as in speech and beer) it is now being used not only by Safari, but Adobe’s AIR environment and you can even run Epiphany with a Webkit engine.

The mobile environment is where this browser will really get its wings from. Currently there is nothing that can compete with it in this area. It is extremely fast and allows users to view websites as they where intended.

Perhaps more importantly it creates an easy to use interface for navigating pages that where clearly designed for much larger monitors. This is the piece that really makes the difference. It renders the page in its entirety in a zoomed out view. From there the user can simply double click on an area to zoom in. Once zoomed in you can simply move around the page, or zoom out as necessary.

This combination, if unopposed may help vault Safari into a prominent position.

You know your are a nerd when…

So today I was out and about on the internet looking at the release schedule for the upcoming Ubuntu Hardy Heron release when I stumbled across the full Ubuntu release schedule .ics file. It dawned on me that I could simply add the URL to my new Google calendar and receive all the important dates of my favorite operating system. If you are a tried and true Ubuntu fanboy this should certainly not be missed, so go a head an join ultimate geek-dom.

My first Apple puchase

Well I finally bit the bullet and purchased an Apple product. I know it is hard to believe that someone who is such a technology geek and an interaction designer is just now getting around to purchasing an iPod.

In the short time I have owned the Apple iPod Touch I must admit that the user experience is unrivaled in its market. This isn’t to say that it is perfect, far from it. Apple does an extraordinary job of hand shaping the user experience from end to end. They seem to think of almost everything.

This extreme molding of the experience comes at a cost that most people never discuss. Apple controls every detail of every product they offer and they are not afraid of limiting the user’s ability to edit or modify the product to their taste.

In my opinion this is an ugly mark against against an exemplary user experience. As a user’s knowledge grows, so does their desire to “own” the product. By this I mean, that when a user becomes comfortable with how something works they often want to customize it to their taste. This can be something small like a theme or something larger like configuring obscure features or setting default behavior through out an application.

By limiting the user’s ability to personalize the product, Apple limits the user’s ability to grow to their fullest potential. It also limits their products ability to reach it’s maximum potential as user’s may not find the resolution to the problem their are seeking answers for.

Perhaps my view is a little biased because I like Linux’s Kool-Aid a little more than Apple’s. What do you think?

Google Hosted Services

Do you own a domain? Wish you could use Gmail for your email but retain that great address…. Well you can! If you act now you too could become a member of Google’s Hosted Service plan for the astonishing price of FREE!

Apparently sometime back Google quietly started offering a hosted service for people who wish to use their services but do so under their own domain name. This entry level plan which includes several great applications is free.

For this amazing price you get chat services, email, calendar, docs and more. The great part is that it is all based off your domain! No more yourname@gmail.com. Instead it will be you@yourdomain.com.

To get started visit Google Apps For Your Domain select the business one and sign up for a free “Standard Account”.  Be warned it does take a bit of work to get it all up an running.  You will be required to change your domains MX records and create a couple of CNAMEs for ease of access.  The great part is that Google will figure out what regestrar your domain is with and give you detailed instructions for just them.

Overall it can all be setup in a couple of min.

idea #412: Ubuntu Lite

Ubuntu recently released a new website that allows users to submit and vote on various ideas for the future of the OS.

To join the community I decided I would submit something I have wanted for along time, “Ubuntu Lite”. Read more about it at Ubuntu Brainstorm idea#412: Ubuntu Lite and while you are there be sure to give it a vote ;)

[Update] Blacklisted by Microsoft

I recently wrote a post discussing the strange behavior of Live.com.  It appears that the search results for “Daniel Hardy” have changed again at live.com.  They have returned to there original state.

This really makes me wish I would have taken a screen shot.

Digg’s new look

Digg.com has recently unveiled its new look and it sure is a “humdinger.” There are some good points like inline images and a more prominent bury button but overall I believe it is a step backwards in both graphic and interaction design.

On the graphics side the biggest mistake in my opinion is the failure to define a base font size. This means that the size is dictated by the default browser configuration, something that most people never change. For Windows Firefox users the default size is 16pt which is typically a little large for Web text. This gives the entire site a cartoon look. I understand that this might have been done for accessibility reason but there are other alternatives that would have allowed for a better controlled experience.

From the interaction standpoint many of the common feature such as digging, commenting, and burying have remained mostly unchanged. Personally I think the big failure here is the integration of video into the front page. This forced a redesign of the navigation which until now was excellent. In fact I have pitched similar designs and people recognized the similarities and even referred to it as “Digg style navigation.” While the new design maintains many of the elements of the previous it has added a drop-down menu system accessed through multifunction buttons. This can be confusing to casual consumers. With each click you may end up with different results.

Overall I think the previous design is better than this current iteration. Sure there are some interesting additions but I think they are really just feature fluff. I look forward to seeing how the public sees the new changes.

[Update] I just found this post. It looks like there might be other problems with the new Digg.com redesign.