Many in Scotland find that their voice-activated virtual assistant can’t understand them …
The iPhone’s Siri doesn’t seem so smart in Scotland →
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Many in Scotland find that their voice-activated virtual assistant can’t understand them …
The iPhone’s Siri doesn’t seem so smart in Scotland →
Dutch ISP XS4ALL was ordered to block several IP addresses and domain names (presumably) linked to The Pirate Bay (full list here). In response, they blacked out their homepage.
Roughly translated from Dutch:
For the first time in history a Dutch ISP was forced to revoke access to a foreign site. The Den Haag court ordered XS4ALL to block several IP addresses and domain names.
The judge ruled that the freedom of information — a European civil right — is less important than the interests of the entertainment industry. A wrong decision. So XS4ALL will appeal.
XS4ALL has three issues with the ruling:
“BREIN” (to keep things simple: the Dutch RIAA) can update the blacklist any time they want
More on the XS4ALL Blog (Dutch) →

Impressive new addition to the list of javascript codec/file format implementations:
psd.jsis a general purpose file parser for PSD files created in Photoshop. Given a PSD file, it can parse out information such as image size and color modes, image resources, layer info, image contents, etc.
Written in Coffeescript. Works in modern browsers and NodeJS.
psd.js →
psd.js source (github) →

Cool concept, needs some technical/ux work though. Some quick quirks I noticed:
Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, MOONRISE KINGDOM tells the story of two twelve-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore — and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in more ways than anyone can handle. Bruce Willis plays the local sheriff. Edward Norton is a Khaki Scout troop leader. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the boy and girl.
Next to an impressive line-up: Directed by Wes Anderson. Due late May 2012.
Three days ago this was committed:
This is the parsing stage of
calc. The expressions are evaluated and expression trees are generated. CSS values are not created yet – that will happen in a subsequent commit.
Looking forward to the next commits, as this feature will make things — such as flexible columns with a little border in a responsive layout — easier.
Note: calc() already works in IE9+ and Firefox4+ (with -moz vendor prefix).
Over the past year I’ve made a lot of wireframes. This post is about some tools I’ve used and my findings.
I realize I’m coming from a slightly odd perspective here: I know how to work fluently with the Adobe Creative Suite, as well as write HTML/CSS (and some basic JS) fluently, whereas most dedicated UX practitioners can’t do either.
CriteriaThere are the things I find important in a wireframing tool:
Productivity: this is the #1 most important criteria: how productive does this tool make me? Does it have many shortcuts? It’s for this reason I don’t use any web-based software for wireframing. All of them have terrible shortcuts (bye bye Mockingbird and Mockflow!)
Handoff: if somebody else has to work on this wireframe, do they have an easy way to do it, what is the knowledge required? Your local project manager, client or dedicated UX practitioner might not be the Photoshop and CSS wizard you are and some projects require the wireframe to be editable by anyone. Some examples of easy-to-edit formats are Visio, Powerpoint and Google Docs drawings.
(It’s worth noting that if an app has a good “handoff score”, it probably doesn’t have a very good productivity score. E.g. a Google Docs drawing is great to hand off to someone with less specific tool skills, but sucks to be productive in)
Copy/paste ability: how easy is it to copy and paste text from the output file? Bonus points if the output file is the same file you need for the next “phase” (e.g. both wireframe and design are done in HTML and CSS).
As a testament to how important good copy/paste ability is: I once got a 10-page wireframe for a pretty well known Belgian usability expert that was an uneditable JPG, and was not able to get the source, so I ended up typing all of the text again. This happens all the time in business, and no, it’s not funny.)
Prettiness: I like to deliver a pretty product. Even if it’s a wireframe, I want it to be neat and clean. It should look like some thorough thinking went in it, not like someone slapped it together in 5 minutes (this is because, actually, some thorough thinking goes in my wireframes). Some software (e.g. Mockflow) makes it impossible to deliver a pretty products since their defaults are so bad (see: Powerpoint 2003).
Interactivity: how capable is the software of showing the interaction design in a good way? How easy is it (if possible) to make clickable wireframes?
Graphic tools: if the wireframing tool has vector drawing tools, that gives me a lot more freedom in drawing custom shapes. Using a tool that does not give you an easy way to draw any shape (e.g. HTML/CSS) is bound to lead you on to some very boxy designs.
Libraries: How many (good) libraries are available for this tool? Some tools like OmniGraffle and Axure have a lot of readily available templates and stencils (see: Graffletopia and Axure Widget Libraries page)
The wireframing tools I use: HTML and CSS aided by a little bit of JS and PHP

Aside from the web-based tools, here’s some wireframing software I don’t use, and the reasons why:
Axure RPThe answer to the ultimate wireframing tool question is a bit disappointing: “it depends”. There is no ideal wireframing tool, most tools suck, and some tools are better for some jobs than others.
A very small man can cast a very large shadow.
Can’t wait ’til April 1st. Guiding soundtrack reminds me of Kanye West’s Runaway (Let’s have a toast to the douchebags)
RL7 is an eight foot tall combat robot. Only problem is he’s starting to remember once being human. Now on the run from an all powerful corporation that will stop at nothing to destroy him RL7 desperately searches for the truth behind his mysterious memories before it’s too late.
Now this thing ain’t even a trailer, it’s a short movie, that had no budget, created by The Incredible Hulk and Green Lantern concept artist Aaron Sims. He also had something to do with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and The Thing so it seems.
By getting some buzz, his eventual goal is to have a full feature film made on this idea.
We made zillions of improvements that cover the front end, the back end, and the parts in between to create a Vimeo that is bigger, faster, smarter, and more fun.
Opt-in at [vimeo.com]
Ever feel like your communication fails? Avoid this!
Reminds me of the (Belgian) De Wakkere Bakker commercials.

Look up HTML5, CSS3, etc features, know if they are ready for use, and if so find out how you should use them – with polyfills, fallbacks or as they are.
Awesome resource, listing all newish stuff, along with the fallbacks/polyfills you’ll need to use.
Also see When can I use and HTML5 readiness
Say hello to the Head-Up Display, or HUD, which will ultimately replace menus in Unity applications. Here’s what we hope you’ll see in 12.04 when you invoke the HUD from any standard Ubuntu app that supports the global menu.
To me, this seems:
Problem is that you have to know the name of the action you want to invoke. Sometimes — especially when you’re new in a program — you’ll want to skim through the menu/options to get to know the app or to get to the action you want.
However, it does seem like a quick jump to voice control: instead of typing, just say what you want. An ideal situation would be to keep the menu as we know it, and provide the mechanics/features of the HUD via voice control.
Introducing the HUD. Say hello to the future of the menu. →
Hilarious talk on Ruby/JavaScript funkyness, by Gary Bernhardt:
Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"
Via Lode. Original on destroyallsoftware.com

Megaupload Taken Down On Piracy Allegations →
Anonymous Attacks Justice Dept as FBI Shuts Down File-Sharing Site →
Worth noting: the takedown of MegaUpload is not the result of SOPA (which is back off the shelf), as SOPA hasn’t been approved yet (and hopefully never will — which could be the case as supporters of the bill are dropping out). The takedown however is a fine example of what SOPA could do.
This is… This is… What? What?! This is huge! This is like ten CDs in one. How many songs does it have on it?
(via kottke)
From an intriguing but impractical high-end niche to the industry standard in just four years.
— John Gruber (★)
Feed Google Image Search one transparent .png and then rewire the result as input for a new search. You’d get this:
That’s 2951 images.
NSFW warning: Obligatory flashing boob (it’s the internet, right?), screengrabbed from Spartacus: Blood and Sand (recommended TV show!), at around the minute mark.
After the Obama Administration publicly opposed against the act, SOPA has been shelved:
Though the administration did not issue a formal veto threat, the White House’s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form.
A few hours later, Congress shelved SOPA, putting off action on the bill indefinitely.
Putting SOPA on a shelf →
Controversial online piracy bill shelved until ‘consensus’ is found →

Mocality, Kenya’s largest business directory, received some confusing calls by customers in the directory. A bit of analysis led to Google, who was doing anything but not being evil:
Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been telling untruths about their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do so. As of January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted.
Google, what where you thinking? →

An easy-to-understand HTML5 sectioning element flowchart to help you get to grips with some of the new elements in HTML5.
HTML5Doctor Sectioning Element Flowchart (PDF) →
Promotional video for Skillshare.
Skillshare is a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone. We believe that everyone has something they want to learn and something they can teach to others.
Interesting things happen when we cut out the middleman. In addition to reducing cost, we often end up creating an internal byproduct that can be productized and sold to a completely new customer. (Amazon Web Services is an example of this.) Sometimes the middleman’s market is so huge, that a freaking enormous business can be built simply by providing their customers a lower cost and more efficient option.
Everything I need to know about startups, I learned from a crime boss →
(via kottke)

This demo uses
getUserMedia(formerly known as HTML5<device>) to get data from a device camera, then copies it into HTML5<canvas>in order to analyse the pixel data. It then peforms facial recognition in order to superimpose a marvellous magical moustache.
Special Opera Developer Build required.

Magical getUserMedia moustache →
Opera getUserMedia Labs Build →
getUserMedia: accessing the camera and privacy UI (how to) →
Interesting video on how memory is done while “multitasking” on the iPad:
There are five sections to this video demonstrating:
- An app going from active to background to suspended
- Instacast HD requesting extra background time to finish a podcast download
- TomTom running indefinitely in the background
- Batman Arkham City Lockdown and Real Racing 2 HD competing for big chunks of device memory
- Batman Arkham City Lockdown forcing several smaller apps out of memory
PxLoader is a Javascript library that helps you download images, sound files or anything else you need before you take a specific action on your site (like showing a user interface or starting a game). You can use it to create a preloader for HTML5 games and websites.
As used in Cut The Rope. Resulting code when used looks like:
// Create the loader and queue our 3 images. Images will not
// begin downloading until we tell the loader to start.
var loader = new PxLoader(),
backgroundImg = loader.addImage('images/headerbg.jpg'),
treesImg = loader.addImage('images/trees.png'),
ufoImg = loader.addImage('images/ufo.png');
// callback that will be run once images are ready
loader.addCompletionListener(function() {
var canvas = document.getElementById('sample1-canvas'),
ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
ctx.drawImage(backgroundImg, 0, 0);
ctx.drawImage(treesImg, 0, 104);
ctx.drawImage(ufoImg, 360, 50);
});
// begin downloading images
loader.start();

Cut The Rope, originally on iOS, has been ported to HTML5, and is serving as a promo for IE10
In bringing Cut the Rope to a new platform, we wanted to ensure we preserved the unique physics, motion, and personality of the experience. So early on we decided to approach this game as a “port” from the native iOS version (rather than a rewrite).
Cut The Rope HTML5 →
Cut The Rope HTML5: Behind the scenes →
Cut The Rope for iOS →

jQuery.suggest is a simple inline autosuggest jQuery plugin. It takes an array of terms as haystack and suggests the user the first item that matches what has been typed to this point. The suggestion is updated with every keystroke. Tab or Enter will accept the suggestion and update the input field accordingly.
Dan Catt, who fell in love with Instagram just a little bit, and out of love with Flickr, just a little bit over the holidays:
Christmas morning was almost magical.
The previous year on Flickr was almost as magical, once people had a chance to sort through the 100s of photos they’d taken with their dSLR, pick out the best ones, run them through lightroom and then get a chance to upload them. It was nice to look back on the Christmas mornings that people had, rather than having.
In his follow-up post he notes:
Flickr is for the story I want to remember, Instagram is for the story I want to tell now.
My first Instagram Christmas, a nervous step away from Flickr →
Instagram and Flickr, the one where I refine my argument →
Web Typography for the Lonely is an ongoing collection of experiments and writings on web typography and the possibilities of standards-based web design. It aims to inspire the web community by pushing the boundries of what is both possible and practical in web standards in a manner that is compelling and exciting to the visually-minded creative.
Web Typography for the Lonely →
Most phones come with flimsy manuals with complicated language and jargon. These books, which can live on a bookshelf actually contain the phone. Each page reveals the elements of the phone in the right order, helping the user to set up the sim card, the battery and even slide the case onto the phone.

A thing I’ve been missing in Instagram — ever since I noticed that Path did it right — is that Instagram photos shared on Facebook were only an entry/story on your wall/timeline; The actual photo remained on Instagram and wasn’t actually uploaded to Facebook (*).
Behold, today:
Starting today, when you choose to share Instagram photos to Facebook, your images will automatically be added to an “Instagram Photos” Facebook album visible to your Facebook friends!
The photos will appear full-sized in the News Feed along with the caption that you’ve added to the Instagram photo, and a link to the image’s public URL. This change will also display your Instagram photos beautifully in your timeline.
Share Bigger Photos to Your Facebook Album →
(*) Yes, I know that could be achieved by using ifttt
Photographer Michael Chrisman used a pinhole camera fitted with photosensitive paper to make a 365-day exposure of the Toronto skyline from Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2011.
Year-long exposure of Toronto skyline produces ‘dreamy’ image →
WebGL + Shader Toy + Google Maps + Panoramic Explorer = StreetView Stereographic
Streetview Stereographic →
My house on Streetview Stereographic→
Color enables you to share “photos, videos and conversations” with a group of people who are at the same location as you. The ideal use case for Color, is for events with large groups of people – like a concert or conference. Color ostensibly allows you to share your experience with that group; as well as augment your experience by giving you alternate views and allow you to see things that you’d otherwise have missed.
Color →
Why Color May Be The Next Twitter →
The authors of Spoon, the PHP5 of my choice, have released a standalone version (née Component) of their powerful template engine.
This is the first version of the standalone template component. This is a complete rewrite of the previous version. There are no dependencies with other parts of the 1.3 version of Spoon.
Spoon Template Component →
Basic Documentation →
So, the first day of the new year is here. Happy new year everyone.
So much happened last year. I went freelance January 1st, and completed 60 varied projects so far. Some full websites, some website designs; helping small companies set up shop; sometimes working for a startup, digging deep into the HTML & CSS and iterating on features.
The most interesting project to me is one with national impact, which I hope I’ll be able to tell people about at some point in 2012. I’m striving for this year to be even busier than 2011 so if you need design work, get in touch.
I got my driver’s license. I moved to Antwerp. I re-visited New York for 2 weeks. I went to the Dutch Fronteers ’11 conference, and travelled to Ireland for Build. I organized two designer meetups: one informal get-together and one typographically themed evening with a professional speaker (Yves Peeters). I gave a talk called Design for Developers. I took up a big interest in photography.
I don’t have too many New Year’s resolutions, other than to keep doing what I love. 2012, onwards!
I bought an Android phone 4 months ago because I thought I was going to sell an Android project and wanted to research the UI. I set up the phone, I hated it, and never really used it again.
Said Android project never landed and now the phone is gathering dust on my shelves. I only ever use it to test websites in the Android browser (and only when doing — extensive — browser testing, it’s not part of my standard testing procedure).
Sometimes I think: maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance. I tried to use it. I tried to love it. But I couldn’t.
My intention is not to anger Android fans. I don’t hate Android. I love the concept of an open platform that people can tinker with and use to create whatever they want. Apple’s walled garden is flawed in a lot of ways (no demos, censorship, no fair competition if Apple already created [your app functionality]).
But if I look at Android as a designer I see a lot of faults. It’s UI is inconsistent: there’s HTC’s UI stacked on top of Android’s default UI, then whatever developers came up with in their apps.
As a user I can’t help but notice that Android is extremely slow, not only in rendering UI and switching screens but also in browsing. Why sell a phone that runs an OS it can’t handle a 100%? The Desire S is certainly not on the lower end of Android phones.
By almost any measure my iPhone is a better phone: the only thing I like more about Android is the notification system and being able to make your dashboard/home screen useful (iOS is particularly bad). But mostly it looks like somebody tried to rebuild iOS but failed at a lot of points.
The only reason I’m keeping it is to be able to test Android apps for clients and/or test new apps that are Android exclusive 1.
The nice thing about software is that it can improve. However, as a customer I’m locked out of Android improvements.
According to my twittering Android friends HTC is not likely to issue an update.
If I want Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on my phone I have to install a custom ROM, made by hobbyist coders, probably not very stable, which in turn voids my warranty. And if I do that, my device is not representative of the general population’s Android phone anymore, making it a bad testing device. Catch 22.
Maybe Android is a cool OS now – but if I want to see that apparently I have to buy a new €600 device. I just want to plug the phone into the computer and update it. This device is six months old. Why can’t I do this?
If you bought an iPhone 3GS 2,5 years ago you can still have iOS 5. Some features have been disabled, but you get most of the goodies.
Last night my car didn’t start anymore. I was testing the Windows Phone I got, which defaults to Bing search. I searched for “VAB” which is the organization to call when your car breaks down in Belgium.
Bing found a Wikipedia article on Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) as the first result. The next 20-or-so results were not what I wanted. In fact, looking through all of the search results the VAB site (url is at www.vab.be) was nowhere to be found.
Tried Google then: VAB is the first result. Because I use Google every day I lost appreciation of how terribly good it actually is.
Now how can I remap the hardware search button to Google?
Karl posted his 5 most read articles of 2011 (Dutch). Inspired by this I dug into Google Analytics to find out which pieces of content I created this year were popular. Seemingly the big hitters are the ones that teach things or reflect on craftsmanship and/or design in general. That’s not a real measurement of success (see: 9gag), but hey, it’s the easiest metric. In order:
Hopefully everyone is enjoying some time off these days. Happy holidays!

Although starting a prototype on a computer is sometimes easier, it’s not the best way to visually problem-solve. When you need to ideate website layouts or mobile applications or to storyboard workflows and context scenarios, sketching is much more efficient. It keeps you from getting caught up in the technology, and instead focuses you on the best possible solution, freeing you to take risks that you might not otherwise take.
The Messy Art Of UX Sketching →
Now this is effin’ awesome: enter you address and get an interative WebGL powered Christmas card showing your house using Google Street View data. Here’s my house for example:
A Holiday Message →
My house on “A Holiday Message” →
The SOPA vote, which was supposed to be yesterday, has been postponed until after the winter recess. Nonetheless, it has already made its first victim: a firefox addon named DeSopa to bypass SOPA DNS Blocking has already been removed from the Firefox Addons Website.

When installed, users can click a single button to resolve a blocked domain via foreign DNS servers, bypassing all domestic DNS blockades and allowing the user to browse the site though the bare IP-address (if supported).
Most likely the plugin was removed because if SOPA comes through, the entire Firefox website (hosting the plugin) can be categorized as illegal … a fine and very sad example of what SOPA can do if approved.
✟ DeSopa Firefox Addon →
DeSopa source (GitHub) →
Looks like the Timeline Cover is the new creative outlet



Get Started : Most Innovative Facebook Timeline Covers →
That wobwobwobwob brostep didn’t exist back when dubstep originated. The stuff today is nearly a different genre.
— A user named Apclear on Burial’s Untrue
Yes, it’s true: I left beautiful Ghent behind. Wolf’s Little Store is now based in Antwerp, Belgium. Since Belgium is so small I’m pretty sure this won’t be an issue. Please update your records: the new address information is on the contact page.
Here is a simple application I built using jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap. Even though the application is simple, it covers some common requirements of mobile applications: database access through JSON services, multi-level master-detail views, parameter passing between views, etc.
Sample Application using jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap →
Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer is available as a Chrome extension and works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux).
Google Web Toolkit: Speed Tracer →
Set in the oldest Piano shop in France, it shows the story of a repairman who breathes life back into pianos, by harvesting parts from older pianos, or making them himself.
(via FormFiftyFive)
Imagine you’d write a crawler that connects to many torrent trackers for many torrents and then log all IP addresses that are also connected. Now, that’s exactly what You Have Downloaded does: it aggregates all public data and then exposes it.
We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler.
Although the site doesn’t track all traffic (and thus doesn’t have a list of all IP addresses — I for one have downloaded nothing according to the site … could swear I just pulled in a new Linux distro) it works rather well. The results aren’t surprising either. Typing in a IP address from one of the trolling commenters here on bram.us gives me …

Ouch!
Nobody wants to connect or discover. People want to talk, send email, chat, share, post to Facebook, tweet, and so on. They want to find old friends; they want to find new friends; they want to see if their brother went skiing on the weekend so they can remember to ask about it on Christmas.
Also cleverly remarked:
Why Find instead of Search? Because Find implies success, while Search is an action that may fail.
On the Tab Labels in the New Twitter App for iPhone →
(via ★)