Consider this post to be the answer to a question that I’ve been asked countless times- “Why do you love Macs so much?” Before I answer this question, a little backstory: I haven’t been using Macs for my entire life, nor was I brought up on them. My first experience with them was in elementary school, where I first saw the then-new egg-shaped iMacs, with their clear plastic casing. Back then, I just thought they looked nice, I knew little about their OS.
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Spyre Studios recently wrote a post about mobile office solutions, and upon reading it, I felt like writing about my own mobile office setup.

For me, a mobile office allows more productivity, as on the go there are way less distractions than at home. My location of choice is my local public library. It has power outlets, free wi-fi, water fountains, bathrooms, and is quite close to a commercial area with food. It’s almost perfect, except for the hard wooden seats. At least they keep me awake and focused, haha…
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Apple’s new Magic Mouse is quite an amazing piece of technology, with a very nice iPhone-esque scrolling feature. The trouble is that if your Mac doesn’t run Snow Leopard, momentum scrolling isn’t supported. This is a problem for those of us who do not want to upgrade just yet, or worse, for those who can’t upgrade due to no PowerPC support in Snow Leopard. Fear not, there is a solution! If you can follow instructions and are moderately tech-savvy, you can enable this useful feature. Read on to find out how.
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If you’re a Windows user, you’re probably all too familiar with the blue “e,” also known as Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer (or IE, as I’m going to call it) is a terrible piece of software. In this article I’ll be discussing mostly about IE 6, as it is the most commonly used (and problematic) of all of them. Why Internet Explorer sucks:

From a web developer’s/designer’s perspective:

1) It doesn’t render properly. IE 6 can mess up just about any layout, whether it’s complex or not. One of the reasons is the way IE renders CSS differently, and in some cases, doesn’t support some CSS at all. IE 6′s mistakes range from pixel gaps to complete layout destruction. Fixing this problem often requires alternate IE-only stylesheets.

2) It doesn’t support transparent PNG’s. Transparent PNG’s can save designers a lot of work and make complex, multilayer backgrounds easy. Of course, IE 6 doesn’t support transparent PNG’s either. There are ways of getting around this, such as using hacks to force IE 6 into submission, but they can be tricky to use if you want your XHTML/CSS to validate.

3) Javascript doesn’t always work in IE 6. Some scripts manage to crash IE 6 completely. Others cause it to lag unbearably. Smooth “ajax-ey” effects appear choppy in IE 6. There’s no real solution for this problem, though.

4) IE 6 causes problems when using Java or Flash embedded in a page. You must first click on the applet(s) to “activate” them. This can be rather tedious for users, especially with Flash navbars (which you should avoid anyway).

From an average user’s perspective:

1) IE renders pages much slower, meaning websites will load slower. Especially if they have a lot of scripts.

2) IE 6 crashes quite often, and until version 8, has no crash-recovery to restore the pages you were browsing before the crash.

3) IE 6′s download manager is unintuitive. For each download a new window must be opened, whereas other browsers put them into one, easy-to-find location.

4) IE 6 has bad style support, meaning webpages will not look as good as they would in other browsers.

5) By using IE 6, you are indirectly killing web designers/developers.

Please help to kill IE by downloading and installing an alternative browser, such as Firefox or Safari. 

User Interface design is one of the most important aspects of web design/development, as the UI is what the user sees. While this article mostly pertains to Web UI, some aspects may apply to software UI as well. Some basic rules for UI design:

1) Make it usable. This comes above all. The user must be able to use the UI without any help. If your UI is gorgeous and the user can’t use it, then the UI fails. When it comes to UI, put function over form. It doesn’t have to be pretty, as long as it gets the job done.

2) Make it cross-browser compatible. People will hate you if your UI only works in one particular browser. One obvious offender of this rule is MySpace (there’s so much wrong with that site, but that’s for another article). You can’t use the profile editor or the advanced features blog unless you’re using IE 6. Bad. You as a UI designer have to realise that people have different browser/OS preferences, and you have to work towards satisfying everyone.

3) Make it legible. Do not put very light gray fonts on a white/gray background, and don’t use red fonts on a dark background. The basic rule of thumb here is to not make anybody’s eyes bleed. If your retinas are immune to horrible colours, ask a few normally-sighted people to test/review your UI. Fonts should contrast against the background, and they should be simple fonts. No script fonts or anything like that.

4) Make it light. Unless you’re going for an “emo” look, make your UI light-colored. Notice that most programs and sites out there have light-colored UI’s, and that’s because they work well.

5) Use neutral colors. Don’t use super-vibrant colours for everything. A splotch or two of colour may be needed to highlight certain parts, but nobody’s going to want to use a UI that’s a bright tangerine colour. The colours (and graphics) should not be distracting. They should enhance the content, not distract from it. It’s best to stay away from super-bright colours in a UI if you don’t know whether to use them or not.

6) Don’t use fancy new-age coding/techniques in the UI. The UI should work in any browser on any system. Use proven techniques and code until the new-age techniques become ubiquitous. An example is CSS3. You shouldn’t rely on it. Rounded corners in CSS3 are okay to use, but don’t use obscure CSS3 and expect it to work everywhere.

7) User feedback is key. This means two things. The first is that you have to make the UI feel less static. Buttons and links should change color or something like that to show the user that they are in fact buttons and links. The second part of it is literal user feedback. On new or reworked UI’s, you should include ways for the user to give their opinion/thoughts on the UI. Usually it’s a contact form.

Links should be links. While yes, you can style links however you want, it’s best to stay with a tried-and-true underlined links. Underlined links instantly tell the user that they are in fact, links. The link color should stand out, and should remain legible even when rolled over. Also, don’t forget to style visited links!

9) Don’t rely on Javascript too much. While a completely Ajax-ed UI is nice to look at, not all browsers have Javascript, and not all people turn on Javascript in their browser. While you may be tempted to use the smooth little “slide” effects, keep them to a minimum. When used in excess, effects can be distracting, and sometimes annoying.

I’ll add on more stuff as needed. If you have any suggestions, contact me.