It happens to the best of us. We forget where we put things. Car keys. Flash drives. Yes, sometimes we even forget where certain files are on our computers. We can't really help you with the car keys and flash drives (although we inexplicably find things like that in the refrigerator here), we can help you out with finding missing files.
Coming from a Windows environment, you might be familiar with the graphical Search Files/Folder application. You know the one, it has the weird little cartoon dog that sometimes finds your files and folders, sometimes returns a lot of stuff you don't need, or sometimes doesn't return anything at all, even though you know it exists.
Linux also has graphical search applications. With them, you're able to configure your search parameters a little more tightly than with Windows (or maybe it just seems so, because we're not rushing to get the search done and make the freaky little dog go away). However, this usually isn't the quickest, or easiest, way to find your files.
This is definitely one of those times it's more productive for both old pro and new Linux users to use the command line. The confusing thing, even for some more experienced Linux users, is choosing which command to actually use to find the file or folder in question.
It seems like every week there's a new application hitting the streets that aims to turn your Windows Mobile device into an iPhone. If you really want an iPhone, you should probably just buy one. On the other hand, if you prefer Windows Mobile applications, but like the look of the iPhone program launcher, we can understand why applications like Pointui are attractive.
Pointui appears to be scheduled for a Jan 1, 2008 launch. There's not much info available on the application's home page yet, but there are a series of Flickr photos and the YouTube video you see above. Pointui replaces the Windows Mobile start page with a new home page that lets you launch applications by sliding from one to the next. The settings menus are also replaced by large easy to see buttons.
It's not clear that Pointui will make it easier to use a Windows Mobile device. In fact, it appears that in some situations it could take longer to find and launch applications than it would take using the default interface. But it's nice to have choices. One of the advantages of Windows Mobile for now is that the SDK is available, meaning there are tons of third party applications that let you customize your user experience. The iPhone SDK doesn't come out until early next year, and somehow we doubt the first thing developers will do is try to emulate the Windows Mobile experience on the iPhone.
So you're a software developer and want your program to have a shiny "ribbon" interface just like Office 2007? Well, guess what--Microsoft patented the hell out of it! This should not surprise anybody. However, there is good news for developers, or some of them, at least. Microsoft has announced that it has "created a royalty-free licensing program that will enable developers to build applications that have the look and feel of the new 2007 Office system applications." The license is perpetual, meaning once Microsoft grants you the license it can't turn around and revoke or change it later on. However there are, as you might imagine, some "guidelines" Microsoft wants you to follow when building your own ribbony apps, and they take the form of a 120-page document. Though the deal sounds largely positive for software developers, there is one significant catch: Microsoft won't license their ribbon UI patents for products that compete directly with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access. This is a sensible move for Microsoft, but a bummer for the makers of competing products who stand a lot to gain from making products that look and act just like the dominant office suite in the marketplace.
You can check out the press release and a canned interview about the new licensing program at the link above, but I heartily recommend you skip it and instead head over to Jensen Harris' blog. Harris is Microsoft's Group Program Manager for the Office UI and lays everything out in plain English. He also links to a preview of the guidelines (you have to sign an NDA to get at the full 120-page document) and a Channel 9 video in which he talks to Microsoft laywer Judy Jennison about the program.
In her never-ending quest for interface perfection, Lifehacker Gina Trapani has written a great Geek to Live tutorial called Consolidate Firefox's chrome. In it she teaches you how to pare down Firefox's menus, toolbar, address back, and bookmarks toolbar until all that's left is what you absolutely need. To be specific, you'll learn how to eliminate entire menus from the menubar, how to keep toolbar buttons hidden when they're not available, get rid of the Go and Search buttons, and how to organize your bookmarks for maximum accessibility and minimum clutter. The tutorial does require you to edit Firefox's userChrome.css, so if that makes you squeamish, well... now's as good a time as any to get over it.
The Windows Client team, the division of Microsoft responsible for the user interface in Windows Vista (and previous versions), has finally jumped on the bandwagon and started a blog: Shell: Revealed. The new blog is a place for Microsoft's UI developers to talk about the changes in Vista and communicate with developers and enthusiasts. So far the blog hasn't revealed anything especially stunning, but it does relate the quasi-interesting story of What Happened to List View. They're still getting the hang of this whole blogging thing, but for the Vista-obsessed it's a great addition to the ol' feed reader. (Also, I really dig the little egg logo.)
It's easy to forget all of the computing operating systems that existed before Windows, Mac OS, and the various flavors of Unix / Linux. But if you ever feel like taking a walk down memory lane and checking out some screenshots of some of the oldies, check out the Graphical User Interface Gallery over at Guidebook. There are a bunch of beloved bygone GUIs, as well as a few that I had never heard of. What the hell is IRIX or Visi On? It seems the gallery is pretty full-featured, but unfortunately needs some help filling out the galleries on some of the more obscure OSes. It's still well worth a 5 minute perusal.
Curious where KDE is headed? KDE programmer Stephan Binner has posted a cool sneak preview screencast of "Kickoff", the brand new start menu that will be debuting in openSUSE 10.2. The redesigned menu looks pretty slick, incorporating a search box at the top and tabs at the bottom for flipping between your favorite programs, recent programs and documents, my computer and all programs (which have a hierarchical interface reminiscent of Apple's iPod and file dialogs). It looks like a pleasure to use, which is exactly what the Linux desktop needs.
You know, the desktop hasn't really changed that much since 1984 when the original Macintosh debuted. Windows still work pretty much the same way they always have, and so do desktop icons. Now we have things like the Start menu and the dock, and widgets basically everywhere, but apart from pretty colors, rounded corners, and transparency, the desktop today would probably be pretty recognizable to a time traveler from 20 years ago. If you're feeling nostalgic, this site has a screenshot timeline of the evolution of the desktop since 1984. Of course, 1984 wasn't the invention of the GUI, or even the WIMP paradigm--the former distinction belonging to NLS way back in the 1960s, and the latter to the Xerox Alto, developed in 1973.
Speaking of new looks, Microsoft's design site (which I didn't even know existed) has a page on some of the new design elements in Office 2007. We've heard plenty about the ribbon, of course, but the site also goes over Office 2007's three themes (sky blue, OS X silver, and Vader black), as well as the new application icons that are coming soon to a desktop near you. Office 2007's new aesthetic is certainly striking and will no doubt serve Microsoft well in catching eyes. But I'm still not sold on that odd circle menu, and chrome and gradients are nothing new. I'm almost surprised that they didn't throw in a little wet floor effect just for good measure.
Firefox 2 Beta 1 may be nearly feature-complete, but there's one thing missing still: the theme. Mozilla designers are still working on the theme that will be the default when the final version of Firefox 2.0 is released. Some mock-ups of the theme have been posted to the Mozilla Wiki, and people who like the Firefox 1.0-1.5 theme will be relieved that it stays true to its roots. Most elements look almost exactly like their ancestors, but a keen eye will notice that everything is, well, shinier. On top of a new luster, some elements have been tweaked to make their functionality more apparent. For example, the Go and Search action buttons are now styled to be more strongly associate them with respective input fields, and the feed icon now glows briefly when a feed is found to draw more attention to it.
By now you've probably seen a few screenshots of the new "ribbon"
interface that will replace the menubar and toolbars in Microsoft Office 2007. It doesn't seem so mysterious to me,
but then I'm not really Office's average use case. If you want a better idea of what using Office's new interface is
really like, I recommend this streaming preview
video (direct link to WMV stream) that Microsoft has put together. It's a 13-minute marketing piece so be prepared
for some awkward scripted dialogue from Real Microsoft Employees (Dear Product Manager Julie Larson-Green: The camera
is over here. Please look at it.), and unless you're a corporate executive you'll probably get the gist of it in the
first five minutes. Personally I'm excited about the new interface, but then I only use Office a couple times a month
and am used to picking up new interfaces at the drop of a hat. For the average cube-dweller, I'm not yet convinced that
it wouldn't cost companies a bundle in time spent relearning.
"The default [user
interface] of Firefox has not been altered since the launch of Firefox 1.0. It would be presumptuous to assume that the
way in which users interact with their browsers has gone unchanged between that time and our planned 3Q2006 release date
for [Firefox 2.0], and even more presumptuous for us to assume that we got things 100% right with Firefox 1.0."
That's how Mozilla's Mike Beltzner starts a post
to the Firefox development newsgroup in which he describes the changes he and his fellow developers have in mind for
the next major release Firefox. In his post he includes an interesting (and kinda retro) ASCII mock-up that displays
some of the proposed changes, like moving the Go, Reload and RSS buttons inside the URL bar to better show their
relationship to the current page, moving the Home button and bookmarks search into the personal bookmark toolbar, and
so on. Click the link for Beltzner's complete proposal and several pages of commentary from the Mozilla developer
community.
It happens to the best of us. We forget where we put things. Car keys. Flash drives. Yes, sometimes we even forget where certain files are on our computers. We can't really help you with the car keys and flash drives (although we inexplicably find things like that in the refrigerator here), we can help you out with finding missing files.
