Google Wave is considered one of Google’s big failures today. It was bloated, had a crowded UI, suffered from feature creep, and, while it was online, it was pretty useless, since nobody was on it and it was hard to get invited. And yet, if Google gave it a proper overhaul — drastically simplified, removed … Continue reading »
Filed under Thoughts …
Why we shouldn’t make a LibreOffice for iOS
The Document Foundation is currently planning to port LibreOffice to two mobile operating systems: Android and iOS. Being an advocate for open-source software, for privacy and free speech and against monopoly and lock-in, I’m not too thrilled with the planned iOS version. An operating system is only as good as it’s software, and as long … Continue reading »
…how penguins might rule the world… Part 1
You know those videos Microsoft Labs make, where they try to “envision the future” by basically putting an animated screen on everything, from credit cards to newspapers to all the walls in your house… (btw, am I the only one who thinks this is a dystopian future rather than a utopian one?) I’m also going to … Continue reading »
Simple customization
Over the past several years, there have been a lot of discussions around the OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice user interface, and most of them seem to lead to “Give us all the various UI options: toolbars, ribbons, sidebars, etc.”. It’s nice to have a flexible core and it’s always good to be able to change the UI if … Continue reading »
It’s all about UX
Microsoft announced the new Windows 8 interface yesterday and, although it’s not without its flaws, it seems to be simpler, more intuitive, and easier to use than any of the current touch-based and perhaps even mouse-based interfaces right now, except maybe Chrome OS. It’s gotten me a bit worried, because now interfaces for Linux-based operating … Continue reading »
Suite Utopia, or What ODF Needs to Change the Game
If you use ODF, you’re in the minority. If you use Linux, you’re in an even bigger minority. So if you’re like me and happen to be in these minorities, then you should know how hard it is to avoid Microsoft’s proprietary formats and fonts and you’ve likely also gotten complaints about your documents (whether … Continue reading »
Nautilus nostalgia
I must’ve seen this mock-up before, but I forgot about it. If I remembered, that might have saved me the trouble of mocking up Tap from scratch. (Now that I look back at Tap again, I agree that my mock-up was unnecessarily complex and unwieldy.) This mockup comes from a group of Gnome enthusiasts: Garrett LeSage, … Continue reading »
Why there’s a need to reinvent the file browser
While web browsers have evolved amazingly rapidly over the last few years, thanks in no small part to Firefox and Chrome, file browsers have evolved at an extremely sluggish pace. Sure, over the years we’ve had some innovations like improved search and file previews, but for the average user, file managers are still woeful at … Continue reading »
Why We Can Do Better than the Ribbon
There’s a bunch of people who like the Ribbon. And there’s a bunch of people who don’t like it and either keep using Office 2003 (or earlier), use alternatives like OOo and LibO, or crankily use one of the ribboned versions of Office. I actually think the change from Office 2003 to Office 2007 was … Continue reading »
