Inactive

This blog is no longer active. Enjoy the back-log.

Shortcuts of the Day

[Ctrl+Enter]

While writing an email, this will send the mail. This won’t save you a lot of time, but I like slamming the [Enter] key to really send the email.

[Win+S]

If you have OneNote running its task, this will take a screen clipping. I prefer to send these to the clipboard by default so I can paste them into whichever application I’m using.

[Win+PrintScreen]

New in Windows8. Will actually take a screenshot and save it to your Pictures folder. Notice the camera shutter effect when you do it.

[Win+C]

Will bring up the charms menu. Not that useful, but kinda nice.

Microsoft UX Dev day (follow up)

As I mentioned last week, I went to Microsoft’s UX dev camp. It was a great day where the presenters mixed theory with practical group exercises. A great way to learn, and a great way to spend a day. I worked together with a wonderful team from Stockholm firm Nansen.

The Nansen team were good enough to write a blog post (in Swedish) about our shared efforts, which can be found at their corporate blog. Give it a read!

UX-Dev camp at Microsoft

Today, I will be attending a UX-Dev camp with Microsoft Sweden. We’re currently at Stockholm’s Modern Museum getting ready to start the day off. Developers are starting to trickle in, and I’m looking forward to the day to come.

I’ve been working in secret on a remake of an old application that I did for Windows 7. I’m remaking it for Windows 8 as a training exercise.

Installing and activating Windows 8

This will be a short post. I just wanted to give two quick tips on the installation and activation of Win8 for developers.

 

Installation

 

When installing Windows 8, the easiest way is to just download the ISO file (from MSDN Downloads) and burn it to a DVD. However, since not everyone has a DVD drive these days, there is also the option of installing Win8 via USB.

 

 

1. Download Windows 8 ISO file

2. Get your USB drive (at least 4GB)

3. Download and install the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool.

4. Use the tool to load the ISO file onto your USB drive.

5. Reboot computer with USB plugged in (remember to check that your computer boots to USB).

 

If everything went well, you should then boot into the Win8 installation program.

 

Activation

 

The past days, the biggest issue for developers trying to activate their Windows 8 copies has been that their MSDN serial-keys doesn’t seem to work. I ran into this issue myself earlier today. There is however a rather quick solution:

 

1. Start CMD in elevated mode (type CMD on the new start screen, right click and select “Run as Administrator”).

 

 

 

2. type the following command:

 

   slmgr.vbs -ipk “YOUR-PRODUCT-KEY”

 

3. Press [ENTER]

4. You should be activated

 

 

Fear of heights VS love of swimming

I’ve always considered myself to be a water-person. I love swimming, I drink copious amounts of carbonated water, I prefer to play blue decks in Magic: The Gathering games. As a water-person, I have a completely rational fear of heights.

The Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao in China have recently built a unique swimming pool, located 24 stories above street level. And when I say above, I mean directly above.

I’m thus torn between my wanting to swim in such a cool pool and my crippling fear of looking down once in the pool.

Thanks Geekologie! Source: CNN

Terms of Service; Didn’t read

I’ve often and loudly complained about the bizarre nature of EULAs (End User License Agreements) and ToS (Terms of Service). For each and every service and program we use on the web or on the desktop, we’re basically signing an unread contract stating what liberties we’re offering to the service provider or what they can ask of us in return. I would venture to guess that 99% of the time, the EULA is completely skipped by the user. This is of course in part because the user doesn’t have the time or legal knowledge required to read a full EULA for each service he/she wants to use. However, removing EULAs isn’t an option either since companies needs to be able to control their service. What to do?

A suggestion I presented a few years ago to a friend was to only allow EULAs to claim five to ten visual icons and up to 500 characters of text. The visual icons would in a creative commons style inform the user in what way his information/content would be used and what kind of behavior would be expected from the user. In this way, the user would be able to quickly grasp what the service agreement entailed, and the service provider would have his ass covered.

The people that are actually doing something

In recent news, the site “Terms of Service; Didn’t Read” has started an effort to keep EULA authors in check. Instead of imposing their system on the EULA authors, they keep their own record and rating of each popular web service.

Each positive and negative trait is given a weight to determine the services final rating (A to F). A trait can weigh between 5 and 100 points.

For instance, Facebook.com has three positive additions/exclusions in their EULA which add up to 45 “positive points”. However, Facebook’s EULA inclusion which allows them unfettered access to ALL your content has a negative weight of 90(!). Although Facebook is currently unrated at ToSDR, I have a feeling the end result won’t be very good.

Site HERE

Thanks to IDG

The allegory of the carbonated courtesan

My one constant liquid addiction in this world is easily recognized by anyone close to me. The effervescent enabler, my carbonated courtesan, sparkling water. With the exception of when I’m abroad, I’m often found with a glass of Ramlösa nearby. The brand Ramlösa has gone through several changes during the past years. Moving from a simpler, more refined look towards a more detailed, inviting look. Take their citrus flavored water for example. Five years ago, the citrus flavor was represented by a yellow circle (lemon) and a light green circle (lime) overlapping each other creating a venn-diagram.

Old design (left), new design (right).

The simplicity in the old design was striking. Representing the two well known fruits with just two circles and using white-space in order to create the illusion of a paper label. The new design is much richer in graphic presentation, but not as elaborate nor as clean.

I’m torn between these two designs, which in my mind kind of represents the two different styles in interface design today. Either you do a well thought out, clean and classic interface like Windows 8 and Windows Phone’s Metro. Or you do a rich interface with a lot of polish and graphical excellence like Apple or Samsung. If you just put in the time to make sure what you do is the best it can be, it will be beautiful.

I can’t decide right now which I like the most, just like I can’t decide which of the two interface-styles appeals the most to me. I know this though, I love Ramlösa, and I’ll continue to drink it as long as they keep making it.

Rogue machine punishing human masters

On the topic of humans using computers to perform extraordinary tasks. I read about a rogue computer rebelling against his human masters and kicking them where it hurts the most; right in the wallet. According to the New York Times, a group of High Frequency Trading (HFT) machines went out of control yesterday.

High Frequency Trading (HFT) has become popular the last few years. By using statistical analysis and market prediction, the HFT-machines are able to predict (with a margin of error) which stocks are worth buying, and which should be sold for a profit. The HFT-machines can make thousands of trades each minute, some are kept for a few hours, some for only a few seconds. Based on computer algorithms, the value of the trade is determined and either kept or discarded. At the end of the day, there are no stocks kept, only the profits remain.

The trading group Knight Capital lost $440.000.000 (that’s over three billion SEK) in about 45 minutes. Due to a glitch in a software patch, the machines suddenly felt an urge to kill all humans purchase bad stocks such as RadioShack, Ford and American Airlines. When the error was discovered, it was already too late.

I think that the take-away from this is twofold. First, check your damned code (seriously)! Secondly, at the rate we’re developing as a technocratic society, I really can’t see any other future than one where machines one day (say 200 years from now) glitch up and starts killing all the humans. 10.000.000.000 dead in 45 minutes. 

Maybe we should take a breather and ask ourselves: is this the way we want to go? Is technological advancement always beneficial? What do we wish future generations to endure because of our constant hunger for progress?

 

Björk, the mad scientist of alt-pop

Yesterday, my wife and I went to see one of our all time favorite artists in concert for the first time. Björk, the mad scientist of alternative pop visited Stockholm for the first time in what feels like forever. At the end of a concert which felt like a mix of music and sensory assault, we learned that many of the instruments which the band uses are actually custom coded applications. On top of this, Björk’s latest album Biophilia was released both as a regular CD and as an interactive application. I find it interesting that computers are becoming such a large part of some of the music we experience.

At one point during the concert, one of the band members were strumming four tablets as though they were harps. The same band member also controlled two giant tesla coils which Björk used to create a unique sound.

I wonder where we go from here. Most concert performances are certainly controlled by computers by now, but Björk also uses programming to create something unique that couldn’t have been done without a computer. I’d like to see what else we can do.