People and companies are literally making a ton of Christmas videos this year, some are traditional, most are very boring... but then, this video arrived yesterday.
I have run into a rather strange problem. Two days ago I got an email from my hosting company that baekdal.com is too big for them to handle. They wrote:
We have all seen the funny ads from Apple where the Mac guy outshines the PC guy in almost every aspect. But Apple wasn't really the first company to use that idea. Back in the mid '80's, Compaq ran a number of ads where they made fun of IBM. And since it is Friday we could all use a little fun.
Create with Context has conducted an extensive usability test of how people use the iPhone. It makes for very interesting reading.
It is rare that I get to show you some of the things I do for a living, but today is an exception. I recently finished a project for 5 fashion companies. It is a special web experience for the iPhone. And it is something that I am quite excited about.
I finally finished setting up Baekdal.com on Facebook, and it is now the official channel in the social networking sphere.
I Just working on something over at Facebook and notice this... What am I? A porn site?
The best advice this week...
Baekdal.com is not a political blog, nor do I intend to turn it into one, but last night I was reading a book and came across this quote. It kind of reminded of... well... you probably know what I am thinking of.
In March I wrote about how you could trick YouTube into playing a higher quality file, and since then YouTube integrated that option into its interface. Now, however, Mr. Doob shows us how to get super HD video from YouTube... (Or what I would call a bigger, yet ingenious, version of crappy video resolution).
We all know the iPhone revolutionized the Smartphone market, and that everyone else has been playing catch-up. But today we saw the best proof that everyone is simply copying the iPhone.
Yesterday, Jared Spool talked about that MyCokeRewards.com (the place where you used the numbers you find on the caps on coke bottles) doesn't work on mobile phones. As he said:
One of the big problems with technology is that it is impossible to keep up - unless you happen to be a billionaire, which, unfortunately, I am not. Remember when I said I had bought the new HTC Touch Diamond 2½ months ago? Now HTC is coming out with the HTC Touch HD, and I want that instead.
Microsoft takes on PC and Mac... And, you know, I actually think the new ad is quite good.
Oh nooo... the monster is loose... run for cover!
A short while ago, the social network Meetup launched "Unplug Your Friends. They want to get people away from the screen and into the wild and scary thing that is commonly referred to as the real world.
This is why I don't adopt best practices. When something gets to that point, it is already being replaced by some new and innovative method.
What happens if you mix NVidia with MythBusters? You get to play with paint guns - a lot of them.
I am currently working on a project where individual authenticity is the key - or to put it in plain English - where you cannot pretend to be somebody else. And that is not easy.
Baekdal Design, the design section of this site, is now one year old. I started showcasing design because I thought it would be a good supplement to my articles, and that turned out to be one of the most successful website launches I have ever made.
We have all seen the latest iPhone ad from Apple, you know, the one where they say everything goes twice as fast. Today, a friend of mine sent me a video that might put things in a slightly different perspective.
Jessica Hagy has illustrated what Web 2.0 is all about, in what must be simplest form possible.
Lenovo has announced a new laptop which has a rather nifty feature - a built-in Wacom tablet. This is a brilliant example of combining products. I sure would like my laptop to have a built in Wacom tablet (then I could create doodles anywhere).
We recently discussed the modern browser's ability to zoom and thus make website more readable. The problem however is, that while it is easy to zoom in on text without losing quality, it is an entirely different thing with images. How good are the modern browsers really at zooming in on images?
Every now and then I get an email about font sizes (I wrote some articles about it in the past). But why worry about it in the first place?
Baekdal.com is now available for the iPhone on a special site named baekdal.mobi. The new site is optimized to give you the best browser experience using an iPhone.
I just discovered that I have now been using iTunes for 2 years, which in itself is not really important. But during that time I have purchased music and audio books for the total value of $1,578...
Today I am launching a new section here at Baekdal.com - called Future Trends. This section will focus on emerging technology, future trends, interaction concepts, and many of the amazing experiments that people make every day.
I am currently in the process of re-designing the "future" section of baekdal.com.
Every year I got nuts about Le Mans (at least according to some women). Not only do I watch the race, I also create a ton of other stuff to make the entire experience more fun. Visit baekdal.com/lemans for more.
At about 00:50 AM GMT, this site was successfully attacked by one of the latest SQL injection attacks that have been flooding the web and infected more than a million websites worldwide.
Identity theft is an annoying thing. It is when somebody else uses your name as their own and I have been the victim of this 3 times now.
The comedy group "Idiots of Ants" has made this hilarious video about the perils of Facebook. I couldn't agree more.
Seth Godin recently published this excellent ad for the one thing we all hate - meetings.
Big news for all those web developers who annoyed that del.icio.us is already taken, and wants to get a similar cool sounding domain name.
Some of my readers have told me that my site is occasionally slow. And I agree. I have noticed it myself at times. So I took a look at my statistics - specifically how much bandwidth that is being used. And it's a lot.
I was watching a video about Twitter, and one thing that caught my attention was when they said "People Twitter in average 3 times per day". My guess is that they are extremely wrong - or rather that the stats are misleading them.
Icons has allowed interaction designers to create a friendly face for otherwise complex things - like saving a document, email text, backing up your hard disk etc. But then the world changed, and today, none of the traditional icons makes any sense whatsoever.
Yahoo has created a new site - for women - call "Shine". The interesting thing about this site (apart from its nice design and content) is the way it introduces itself to newcomers.
Eric Burke posted this "screenshot" illustrating the complexity of company applications. And he is right. I cannot tell how many times I have seen enterprise applications that look exactly like this (or even worse at times).
It comes as no surprise (to my long time readers) that I do not particularly like Google AdSense. It is just "one of those things" that constantly annoys you.
Yesterday, Carmine Coyote (one of my favorite bloggers) published this picture. It is a good example of how we should approach working with a computer - and I couldn't agree more.
Last week Jessica Hagy created this simple illustration - and I think it is true in most cases.
A spammer has violated baekdal.com to send out spam emails in my name. This is something that I am very angry about, since I hate spam as much as anyone else. And, let me assure you that I am not the sender of these emails.
The Common Craft Show has created yet another video. This time they are explaining what Twitter is in plain English.
Futune Magazine recently interviewed Steve Jobs, and while there have been many such interviews in the past, this one is filled with great advice.
Seth Godin recently appeared in the "Will It Blend" show - one of the most successful examples of Viral Marketing.
In the midst of all the things going on at Mix08, Apple asked the media to come to a special iPhone SDK Roadmap announcement.
Google Russia has created the most elaborate Gmail tutorial I have ever seen. Even though the instructions are pretty basic, and you will not learn anything new, I will give them 10 points for creativity and effort.
YouTube has long been the place to watch low-quality videos. While most other video sites allow you to see videos in high-quality, YouTube has stubbornly stuck with its abysmal 320x240. But there is actually a way to boost the quality.
Today, Lenovo launched its new ThinkPad X300 - which many newspapers have named to be a serious contender to the MacBook Air. "PC Pro" even went as far as to say "The X300 is an astonishing piece of design that brings something entirely new to laptops". I have never heard so much crap in one day.
I know this is incredible geeky, but I just had to post this.
In both my yearly trend forecast and my rant against social networks I advocated for more valuable social networking applications. I'm sick of having to pretend to be a teenager to be "social". Luckily, a shift is forming and more and more social network initiatives can be used by everyone.
So... You didn't have time, opportunity, or [insert any other excuse here] to go to the Interactions 08 conference. But fear not, "Putting People First" has published a list of (almost) all the presentation videos for you to consume in the comfort of your home.
I am looking for a freelance "Motion Graphic Designer" or an "Interactive Art Director" for a number of web projects. The job involves turning campaign images, text and graphics into a movie or an interactive experience (using flash video or some other web technology).
January is always the month of cool posters - and this January is no exception. Here are 3 cool posters that have found their way to my inbox.
I promised a friend to put up some images of my new improved home office. I spend about 50% of my time working from home, and recently upgraded my home environment.
I am "sometimes" asked if I have a profile on MySpace, Facebook, Linkin etc... and I get a couple emails every month from varies people inviting me to be added to their profile as a "friend". So, I thought I would clarify why I rarely answer or take action to any of those requests.
I really do like The Common Craft Show - and how they explain web concepts in plain english. Yesterday they published yet another one: "Online Photo Sharing in Plain English".
Found this today. I bet he will grow up to become a web designer - sounds like one already... :o)
As you might have noticed, I haven't published anything new since Christmas, but that is because I am taking some time off to rid myself of all the stress that I had been building up in December (an extremely busy month).
Here is a bit of information that you can digest over Christmas. Seth Godin recently released a new eBook (for free) about how to build websites and traffic - including blogs.
Regular visitors might remember when I blacklisted Google AdSense about 3 months ago. They accused me of cheating their system, by artificially boosting my ad revenue - something I did not do (at least not on purpose). So I blacklisted Google, and started to look for another ad supplier.
Bill Scott, the former AJAX Evangelist for Yahoo, recently gave a talk about Rich media interaction - or more precisely the pros and cons of many the modern interaction methods that are being used in today's websites and web applications.
The CommonCraft Show has made an easy to understand video about blogs - or more exactly - what blogs is all about.
The Richter Scales has made this funny video about Web 2.0 bubble - funny...
Coca Cola is known for its wonderful Christmas commercials, especially the Coca Cola trucks that bring Christmas with them wherever they go... And today the magic came to my little part of the world .
There are only two people in the world with the name "Thomas Baekdal", so I am pretty easy to find. But what if your name is "James Smith" or "Mary Smith" (the most common names in the US)?
Here is your chance to really learn about Silverlight and WPF. Lynda.com has published 4.5 hours of Silverlight training videos to get you started - presented by Mike Harsh from Microsoft's Silverlight team.
Today Amazon released the very first "real" eBook - "Kindle". It is a device that enables you to read books, newspapers, blogs etc. no matter where you are.
When Apple's iPhone was unveiled, a lot of usability professionals expressed concerns that the touch-screen interface might prove to be harder to use - despite its impressive user-friendly design. Now it seems that they are right - at least with some part of the iPhone user experience.
When you buy something from Electronic Arts, they recommend that you should create a backup of your downloaded files. Good advice, except that they are not really up-to-date.
Northern Europe has just experiences its first winter storm, and with it came the risk of flooding. Not being shy of getting my feet wet, I went out hunting for water.
Is this where Google is heading? Total domination?
We have seen more and more blogs, viral campaigns, and websites made to create fake publicity for a specific product. I wrote about one of them about a month ago.
I did plan to write a relatively long article about how to create effective presentations, but then I watched this funny video which said it all in less than 4 minutes:
As you might have noticed this site has gone green - at least for the duration of this month. The purpose is to raise awareness to the "planet crisis", more specifically that we need to do something to prevent global warming.
It might just be me, but isn't the new Mac OS X Leopard just a bit to grayish? - I might even go so far as to call it lifeless grey...
I have been working on a lot of projects lately. Most of them were very small in size, but all of them required that I came up with some kind of idea.
You might remember Michael Wesch's last movie "Web 2.0", which swept through the blogosphere. Now he has made another one exploring the changes in how we store, manage, edit and share information.
Seth Godin has compiled the most insane list of good resource I have ever seen (I need to take a year off just to read it).
A List Apart has finally published the findings from their Web Design Survey conducted in April (after a rather astounding long waiting time).
Vincent Flanders have created a list of the 15 worst website mistakes people have made since 1995 - and will continue to make until 2015 - because, as he writes, "It's human nature to repeat mistakes".
I just watched John Meada's presentation at TED about simplicity. Worth a look:
What? a pink site? I have temporarely redesigned Baekdal.com in pink.
We have seen an explosion of multi-touch examples over the last 6-12 months - From pure technical demonstrations, to stunning rich media presentations like Microsoft Surface. But, almost all of them looks and works the same way.
It's October and that means you should "get ready to go pink".
ComputerWorld recently "revealed" 8 secrets to why Apple is make such successful products. They are:
Microsoft has launched their own little Babelfish - perhaps better known as an online website and/or text translator.
I recently watched Psychologist Dan Gilbert's excellent presentation on happiness. It is from 2004 - but I think the message is just as fresh today as it was back then.
Today Microsoft released Silverlight 1.0 (final version), which isn't that spectacular since the version we need is actually Silverlight 1.1 (coming out later).But, since I am "fiddling" with Silverlight I immediately went to download the latest version - and that turn out to be a bit of a marathon.
Seth Godin recently talked about Web 2.0 in an interview with Selling Power. Take a look:
If you have been using Flash within the past year, you also know about the annoying "click to activate this control" in Internet Explorer. But now Seattle Post reports that Eolas and Microsoft have agreed to settle the matter.
Google used to be a good company but it is really just another advertisement company - driven by greed and generally being selfish egomaniacs. They have become evil, and here is why.
CatalogTree has a nice collection of diagrams, graphs, info graphics and other elements used for visualization. Most of them is made for the print world and wouldn't work on the web, but it is always interesting to see how other people visualize things.
What do you get when you mix the Icelandic singer Bjork with a multi-touch computer? Well, unfortunately you get incredibly bad music. I mean the best place to hear it would probably be from a large concrete bunker some thirty-seven miles from the stage.
Here is a very interesting video about the changes we face in an ever shifting world - and the importance of preparing for the future.
I have always wanted to make a site about design and today I made just that. Baekdal.com now features a dedicated section to "Design Inspiration".
I am currently re-arranging several areas of this site, changing some of the backend functionality and adding new features - all LIVE.
WEB2DNA is just mind-boggling. I made it one Saturday afternoon because I was feeling bored and rather silly. I never imagined that people would actually use it. I was wrong, it has been huge success.
Writing on a computer is a great leap forward. We have spell and grammar checking, we can edit our documents, and prevent small accidents from happening:
I do not particularly like Second Life. I think it's a waste of time - especially when you mix it with work related activities. IBM, Sony, Sun, and Dell all embrace it - but I think Time explained this phenomenon very well when they wrote:
Things have not been going well since George W. Bush decided to leave the US government's MasterCard at the bar. Especially not for people like me - who doesn't even live in the US.
Eoghan and Dave have created an amazing statistical tool to get "Actual Browser Sizes". Their new product is called FoldSpy - and it's free.
I was browsing around Amazon today (read: wasting money), and came across this book. I think I will buy a new one...
This has to be one of the best examples of "it is not my job" I have ever seen. "Not my job" is when people do stupid things, and they know it, but it is "not my job" to fix it, so it stays broken.
Sarcastic Gamers has made a slightly different version of the Microsoft Surface promotion video - funny stuff.
We all know that first impressions are important - as in the first time potential customers come into contact with your company. This is the time when you want to make the all important personal connection.
One of the key success criterias of developers and usability practitioners is to create application that runs so well that nobody realizes that it is there. This is something you want to aim for - allowing people to focus exclusively on creating instead of the interface elements, dialogs, system processes and whatnot.
Yes, I'm in my silly mood...
There has been quite an attack against HTML based emails the last few weeks - probably started by Zeldman's post about the same. But they forget about the advantages of HTML formatting.
This was one thing I never expected to happen, but Apple has release Safari for Windows. They claim that it is twice as fast as IE7 - but it does have a cool text-field resizing feature. The days of annoyingly tiny text fields are over.
The big news today - everywhere - was the joint interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. It is really funny and interesting stuff.
A week ago I wrote that I was in the process of writing an article about how to make sense of Google Analytics. Since then a number of people have asked me when I planned to publish it. Well, soon...
Google has redesigned their analytics package to what seems to be a much more user-friendly and illustrative rich interface.
Getting loads of money and loving your work is much better than being underpaid and grumpy...
I am one of those people who do not like dentist. I mean I have nothing against the people, just the tools they use. They are evil things that cause you nothing but pain and misery - or rather I used to think that.
Liferhacker pointed me towards Freelance Switch, a great resource for would-be and established freelancers - or even to semi-consultants like myself.
Microsoft "just" released Silverlight. What is Silverlight? To put it plainly - it is Microsoft idea of a Flash player, but instead displaying flash animation, video and applications, it plays WPF content (or more precisely what we used to call WPF/E).
Have you ever wondered how many megapixels our eyes are capable of? I have, and it turns out that we can see with the astounding detail of 576 megapixels. That is 30 times better than any HDTV. It is similar to a computer screen running with a resolution of 32,000 x 18,000 (try designing a fluid website layout for that...)
There was recently a very interesting seminar at Stanford University about interruptions - specifically how to make better reminders and notifications in your products.
I was recently asked what I think about placing elements in unusual places. One example could be to place the search bar in the lower left corner vs. in its usual upper right.
Yes, I have completely redesigned this site - again. I guess it was the spring air that made me do it. I wanted whiteness, spring colors and a fresh experience.
Ryan Stewart has written a list to help you decide when to make applications for the browser vs. developing a desktop application.
Today I learned that one of my favorite bloggers Kathy Sierra is threatened with death threats. Yes, you did read that right - death threats. Was is the world coming to? What makes a person do that? I cannot imagine how terrible this must be to Kathy, but I am sorry to hear about it.
My trusty computer has crashed beyond the point of recovery - and with it my emails, documents, calendars... you name it. I do have a backup, but I will not be able to restore it until I get my new computer in 10-12 days.
My trusty computer has crashed beyond the point of recovery - and with it my emails, documents, calendars... you name it. I do have a backup, but I will not be able to restore it until I get my new computer in 10-12 days.
When I wrote about the New York Times Reader, about a year ago, it was an interesting concept. It is a news reader based on WPF, it looks really good but it also has it shares of problems. One being that it only displays news from the New York Times (I don't want to start a new program for each type of news I want to read).
One of my hobbies is to watch the marvels of the universe unfold before our very eyes, like last night where we could see the first of this year's two lunar eclipses.
Bill Moggridge from IDEO recently hosted a great seminar at Stanford University on the difficulties on designing interaction (in relation to his new book).
Every year, a Norwegian company called NetLife Research publishes a "Bad Usability Calendar" - illustrating common usability problems in the form of a calendar. I really like and it is a good thing to put up in your office or project room.
I am currently looking for a new computer bag and I want something that looks good. NOT something that looks like this:
My city is literally drowning this weekend, as the rain and storm is creating massive amounts of water. At this moment my car is stuck (but still on dry land), but I can forget about going shopping.
I sometimes have to draw on a whiteboard. But when I do, it very often looks like something from a 6 year old child - just much more boring (no colors, only boxes, frames, buttons and labels etc.).
Google has released a new version of Sketchup, adding mostly presentation effects (see new feature list). Sketchup is the most user friendly 3D modeling tool I know - and a tool I have been using for varies projects (mostly private stuff).
Updated: Link to Steve Jobs Keynote (see below)
Bill Gates recently presented Microsoft's take on the future in terms of consumer electronics at CES (Consumer Electronic Show 2007).
This new design is only one week old, but I am already beginning to hate the colors. It's not me, it's not right.
I must admit that in terms of reliability books are better than computers - masterly illustrated in these ads.
Jesper, over at Justaddwater.dk, have published a set of very funny html image jokes.
I have made a number of changes to the content of this RSS feed. It has grow substantially in size and amount of posts. I have added 2 new sections to Baekdal.com, and since this is my main RSS feed it includes everything.
You know, I am usually too lazy to stand up and walk over to the trash can - instead I toss whatever I want to throw out (and usually misses). But, these guys rocks!
Don Norman has posted "Chapter One" (Word Document) of his coming book "Cautious Cars and Cantankerous Kitchens: How Machines Take Control". He writes about how machines are starting to take over our lives, limiting our freedoms. And, illustrates that we need to approach usability and HCI very differently instead of designing them to be our slaves, we need to design them to be companions.
Gayna Wiliams from Microsoft recently gave a lecture at Stanford University about how they evaluated and managed usability during the development of Windows Vista. It is a very interesting look at how the big companies do things.
2007 is here. With it comes new plans, a fresh start. And, what better way to start a new year than by redesigning Baekdal.com - and adding new things?
Christmas is just around the corner - and I want to wish you all
The move of Baekdal.com to a new and stabile server is complete. You are now on the new server.
Today is big day. It is redesign day. This particular redesign has been underway for more 6 months.
Update: I did not complete the update as planned, due to some last minutes changes to the core of CMS system.
Welcome to the new improved Baekdal.com. Finally some would say, at least those who knew how long this redesign has been underway.
Baekdal.CMS now also supports Atom and RSS feeds. So now your newsreaders can correctly update the two feeds.
After struggling with TypePad's CMS system for quite a while, I finally decided to stop using it on this site. Instead this site is now powered by Baekdal.CMS - and a very unusual way to use 404 error handling. I will publish more information about Baekdal.CMS - and why I quit Typepad the next couple of days.
Notice: This promotion is over. Sorry you missed it!
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