I Forgot My Mantra

Couplanding, 2012 (dir. Lucas Wagner)

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:49:14 +1000

Couplanding, 2012 (dir. Lucas Wagner)

SJNotificationViewController Tumblr, I made a thing yesterday...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:29:45 +1000

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Tumblr, I made a thing yesterday that might be of interest to you. It’s called SJNotificationViewController, and it lets you put dead-simple alerts/notifications in your iPhone app. It’s for letting users know that something is happening / has happened (an image is uploading, or there was an error refreshing a timeline, for example) without throwing up a big ol’ UIAlertView that blocks their workflow. Twitterrific uses notifications like this for showing how many new tweets there have been since the last refresh, or when it can’t connect to Twitter.

Above, you can see a video of a notification in action. They slide up from the bottom of whatever view they’re attached to, and then slide back down when you’re done with them. They’re customisable, too — you can set the text, the “level” of notification (red for error, blue for regular messages, and green for success), what happens when the notification is tapped, and whether or not the notification has a spinner to indicate activity. You can learn more about SJNotificationViewController on GitHub.

I don’t know. It’s a thing I made for a thing of my own, and it’s in its infancy, but I thought I’d share it all the same.

Just fixed a bug that’s been stumping me for days. So, a...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:13:57 +1000

Just fixed a bug that’s been stumping me for days. So, a DX crotch chop is in order.

Hey, bug I just fixed: I’ve got two words for you. SUCK IT.

Peeking I’d like to talk about a little iOS UI design...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:02:00 +1000

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Peeking

I’d like to talk about a little iOS UI design pattern that I like a lot. I’m not sure if it’s common enough to have a name yet, so I’m going to call it “peeking” for now.

1. An Example

The video above is of a list view. You can see that when you pull down (scrolling the list up past the first item), there’s a little bit of information. When you let go, the list view rubber-bands back and that information goes away. In this case, the list is of search results, and the bit of information is the term that the user searched for. By pulling down a bit on the list, you can peek at a bit of related information. It doesn’t make conceptual sense to put the search query in the list itself (since the list is of search results, and the search query isn’t a search result), and it won’t necessarily fit in the view’s title bar (besides, the title bar should be for describing what the view is/does).

2. Generally

I think you’d use a peeking view when you have some information that the user might need to be reminded of but would otherwise live another view (requiring the user to leave the current view). By including the information above the top of the list, the information’s out of the way if the user doesn’t need it, but only a pull-down gesture away when they do. Alternatively, you could use a peeking view when you wanted to provide users with a hint about what they should do. Users who already know what to do wouldn’t see anything unusual, but users who don’t know what to do could just pull down to see the hint and let go once they’ve seen it.

3. Other Examples

I don’t know of many other examples of peeking. If you try to reply to a tweet in Tweetbot, you can pull the compose area down and you’ll see the tweet that you’re replying to. I guess, technically, you can also see it in apps (Twitter or otherwise) that use pull-to-refresh — that little “pull to refresh” view also shows the last time that the app refreshed its data. If you know of any other apps that use peeking, or if there are other posts about it by other people, I’d love to hear about them. Answers enabled?

PSA: you can use Emoji in your folder names. Edit: I...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:35:00 +1000

PSA: you can use Emoji in your folder names.

Edit: I don’t mind a couple of these apps. The WWDC app was great during the week, but kinda unnecessary now (but I don’t want to take it off my phone, for some reason?), and the iTunes app is OK when I need it. Contacts, though? Get that outta here. It’s literally a strict subset of the Phone app. And my calculator of choice is Calcbot.

Well, you don’t get to type message names like that very...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:21:53 +1000

Well, you don’t get to type message names like that very often.

Modesty. (Admittedly, they were the best ideas.)

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:13:35 +1000

Modesty.

(Admittedly, they were the best ideas.)

♫ One of these things… ♪ What is this?

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:59:50 +1000

♫ One of these things… ♪

What is this?

So close!

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:21:15 +1000

So close!

I really, really hope that Merlin and Gruber (and you, for that...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:43:48 +1000

I really, really hope that Merlin and Gruber (and you, for that matter) know about Brickipedia, the LEGO Wiki. You can not only see the kits you had, but also — and I’d argue this one is even more fun — the kits you wanted really bad but couldn’t have (see above). Along with Wookieepedia, Memory Alpha, and Bulbapedia (deal with it), Brickipedia is probably one of my favourite niche wikis. It’s got detailed information about (seemingly) every line of LEGO, down to photos, kit numbers, and details about how each kit fits into the overall story of each line. If you played with LEGO as a kid, you should check it out. (You probably already have, though, because you have such great taste.)

(For the record, I’m on Gruber’s side re: specialised LEGO kits — build the thing in the instructions once, and then disassemble it and mash it up with the other kits you have. Have you ever seen a pirate-themed space ship? It’s the coolest. I do agree that having Star Wars™-branded LEGO makes the kid want to “play Star Wars” specifically, rather than just play “Space”. When you have a Han Solo minifig, any ship you put him in is still Han Solo’s ship, not just a spaceship with a guy in it. Is one better than the other? I don’t know.)

(Like you care about my thoughts on LEGO.)

(cf. this week’s B2W)

I like to name devices myself in the Apple Provisioning Portal.

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +1000

I like to name devices myself in the Apple Provisioning Portal.

Keeping Track of Movies You've Seen?

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:07:58 +1000

I like keeping a list of the movies I’ve seen. I started doing it in January last year¹. At first, I used Daytum, but then Daytum got bought by Facebook and the Daytum iPhone app stopped working. Next, I built a dumb mobile website called Miz on Seen (I know, it’s the worst pun) and imported my movies from Daytum. That worked fine, but it’s not great.

This year, I’m looking for a more native solution. Is there a (nice) iPhone app that will let me enter the name of a movie I’ve seen, the date/time I saw it, and maybe a star rating or some notes? I’ve typed words into Google, but I can’t find any.

How do you keep track of the movies you’ve seen?

According to my calculations, I watched 119 movies last year, so about 2.2 movies a week, which I’m pretty happy with. Some repeats, though — Alien a couple of times, Lost in Translation a couple of times, MacGruber something like twelve times (I really like that movie). ↩

John Hughes, on the set of Weird Science. I don’t like...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:02:00 +1000

John Hughes, on the set of Weird Science.

I don’t like Weird Science anywhere near as much as some of his other movies, but the guy looks like a badass here.

Christmas French Toast Brunch! (I used egg nog instead of milk....

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:04:10 +1000

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Christmas French Toast Brunch!

(I used egg nog instead of milk. That’s what makes it Christmas-y. Also that it’s Christmas.)

MM: That’s a tough one. Apologetica?SS: Yeah. I...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:57:00 +1000

MM: That’s a tough one. Apologetica?
SS: Yeah. I thought, one idea is just me or somebody shrugging in the shapes of the letters.
MM: That’s pretty good!
SS: I figured W would be easy.
MM: Y’know what’s great about it? It’d be hard to make and it’d be hard to read. “Is that a T or an F? God, Scott looks sad.”

It’s almost Christmas time! Celebrate by revisiting what I like to call the You Look Nice Today Christmas Special, “Christmas Is Near”. (This part isn’t particularly festive, but it’s one of my favourite Scott Simpson bits. For a slightly more Christmas-y bit, see “Top Secret Santa”, which closes out the episode.)

The Apple Collection, 1986 After a rough day windsurfing,...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:47:46 +1000

The Apple Collection, 1986

After a rough day windsurfing, the Apple sweatshirt is just the thing. And a perfect companion to our sweatpants.

Apple made a windsurfer.
Apple made sweatpants.
Kickstarter. Now.

(via MeFi)

"THIS IS A TASTE BUY ART TO APPRECIATE IT yea its the new one yea i kinda feel bad putting it here..."

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:22:00 +1000

“

THIS IS A TASTE BUY ART TO APPRECIATE IT

yea its the new one yea i kinda feel bad putting it here but people like louis ck gotta realize without torrents and the net he wouldnt be anywhere bc honestly louis i know ur here and i know u mite be mad at me but u gotta realize not everyone has paypal , not everyone has credit cards, some people use net lounges, some have barely money for food, art = comedy should be shared with the mass , and Believe me u can judge the popularity more from the torrent downloads then the paypal sales, also if people like it , its easier to buy on there ipad/ipod or personal/work computers…more buzz = more fales

Hope you understand louie sorry

”

- The world’s dickiest asshole.

(By the by, you’ve bought Louis CK’s new standup special, haven’t you? Of course you have. I know — duh-doy. I was just asking. Jeesh.)

I’m not 100% sure why, but I kinda think it’s...

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 14:07:12 +1000

I’m not 100% sure why, but I kinda think it’s important to have a photo of yourself at different points in your life. It felt right to document my now-self on this little trip I just went on, even if it’s only useful for my future-self. (Also, if you’re reading this, future-self, please excuse that you went through a phase where you liked taking high-contrast black and white photos. Just know that you liked it at the time.)

"There are some exceptions to everything, but that’s called style, not structure."

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:57:53 +1000

“There are some exceptions to everything, but that’s called style, not structure.”

- Dan Harmon, outlining his storytelling structure.

George Lucas without a beard! Look at that dude!

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:22:00 +1000

George Lucas without a beard! Look at that dude!