Watch this awesome cellphone UI developed by The Astonishing Tribe (TAT).

This 3D demo was developed by TAT for Mobile World Conference 2009 in cooperation with Texas Instruments. Foldout UI is a Cascades implementation on the Texas Instruments OMAP3430 platform (also used by the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and Nokia N900), using Open GL|ES 2.0 and hardware acceleration. The demo shows a unique utilization of 3D in combination with touch input. It challenges traditional UI paradigms with its flip-through navigation and foldout design. Realistic materials, physics, shaders and other effects give a real-life experience to the GUI.

[Gizmodo]

In last few weeks, Google has shown its new user interface (UI) to its random searchers. However, the interface is in testing phase yet. The new interface seems to be inspired from Google Wave. The first thing that you would most probably notice about it is a colorful bar on the left, which gives the user multiple search options. The users can easily apply different filters to the search results, like news, videos, maps and many more.

The new Google search layout also brings the option to filter your results by time, pointing towards a more real-time approach from the search giant. You can choose to see “recent results”, results from the past hour, 24 hours, week, year or a custom range.

The search bar is having a “Search” button of blue color to further improve the aesthetics of the page. The new interface is cleaner and bolder offering more options to its users.

The rumors about Google’s redesign are true, and you can try it for yourself with a very simple method.

1. Go to Google.com.
2. Once it loads, enter this code into your web browser’s URL address field:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

There shouldn’t be any http://google.com in front of that. Just that code.

3. Hit enter.
4. Reload or open a new Google.com page and you will have access to the new user interface.

It’s fast and sweet, although the changes don’t affect all the available sections.

[Gizmodo]

I think we can agree that yelling at people in frustration is not the best way to pass on information. (See yesterday’s post and comments.)

But when we’re playing in a group in a MMO, a lot of information needs to be communicated quickly. Are we trying to focus fire and if so, does everyone know what they are supposed to be hitting at any time? Do you need to ask another player to remove a debuff from you? Have you just used a cooldown that your tank or healer or dps needs to know about? Are you going to assume someone else’s role because they just died in combat?

A lot of our abilities are designed to interlock with each other. A buff from one player might significantly affect the abilities or optimal ability use of another. If you have debuffs, you need to know when to use them. When you think about it, that’s a crazy amount of information that needs to be assimilated quickly.

So how do we do it?

• Pre Pre-planning. This is where you discuss the fight and tactics in detail on a bboard before you even step into the instance.
• Pre-planning. If you know what will happen in a fight, you can pre-arrange the kill order, any crowd control, any other tactics, and roughly when significant buffs will be used.
• UI. We rely heavily on the user interface for information about when players have buffs or debuffs active on them. This is automatic information provided by the game (and the UI addons, if you use them) and doesn’t require anyone to actually say ‘I’m poisoned!’
• Flashy graphics. Some spells just come with very unmistakeable graphical effects that no one can miss if they’re paying attention.
• Boss cues. Some bosses will cue before they make a special attack with either a graphic or some kind of yell. Games don’t tend to use pure audio cues; I’d like to think this was in respect of deaf gamers but it’s probably just because they know a lot of people play with the sound off.
• Text and macros. Sometimes the easiest way to inform your group or raid when you’ve used a cooldown or buff is to macro in an automatic comment on group or raid chat when you activate it. eg. ** Just used Bloodlust ** The only problem is … not everyone reads text chat in the middle of a fight.
• Shout on voice chat. Best saved for if something really unexpected happens and pre-arranged plans have to change on the fly. Also probably best left for the raid leader.
• We don’t. No one says or types a word. We just assume we roughly know what they’ll be doing and go with it. (Really common in 5 man instances in WoW these days, or any content where it isn’t critical to micro-manage.)

Either way, it is a huge amount of information to process and I think regular raiders often forget how enormously overwhelming it may have felt when you first tried a raid, particularly as a healer or debuffer.

Broadcasting Taunts

Given the sheer amount of information flying around, I’ve always tended to the cautious side when I’m deciding which of my abilities and cooldowns to publicise. I was thinking about this lately because with the heroic beasts fight, we do a lot of tank switching in the first part. So I picked up an addon which would automatically tell people on the raid channel when I’d used various different abilities. What I really wanted was to let people know if a taunt had failed, but I figured I might as well add an inform about Shield Wall also (it’s a tanking cooldown).

You know the worst part? Not people complaining about spam because actually no-one complained. I got the impression it was felt to be generally useful. Nope, the most difficult part about automatically informing your group when you use an ability is that … they automatically also get informed when you press the button by mistake.

You don’t realise how naked this makes you feel until you try it. I mean, OF COURSE I press taunt at the wrong time sometimes. So does every tank who ever lived, unless they have it bound somewhere really inaccessible. If it’s not being broadcast, you just whisper to the other tank afterwards and apologise. They’ll shrug it off, we all do it. If using taunt by mistake means it wasn’t up when you really needed it then you can always fake that it missed or failed. But if you broadcast your abilities, then suddenly your entire raid becomes a backseat driver. Or at least it can feel that way.

So one positive side to broadcasting my taunts and cooldowns? You can bet I’m way more careful with them now. There’s no doubt that it’s made me a better player, in that sense at least.

About three years ago I’ve been trying this OS since it was in Edgy version, some friends has gave me an information about it, and gave me my first ubuntu’s CD. A years after that, my mentor (actually my docent)  gave the formal instructional method for installation and briefing configuration. It is always fun to have a new knowledge and of course it burst me up to conduct my own PC with ubuntu.

The biggest problem for the early situation was I didn’t have an internet connection to have online repository, so I was stuck fora while, until my docent give me a tips for it. He gave me a complete repository for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn distribution for about 20 GB… yes it was a big pain for my hardisk spaces! ough! but it worth fit!
Later I wrote the instruction and having an easy software installation locally for sure! and of course a lot of my friends ask me for teach them with the same method…

Right now I’ve been using the latest ubuntu version, named Karmic Koala distribution or Ubuntu version 9.10 but it’s not a Life Time Support Distribution (LTS), but I thinks it really worth fit to try from a zero installation, not from upgrade version. So now I want to tell you about the instructional methos for install a brand new ubuntu, with Karmic Koala distribution.

First of all, we have to get the Ubuntu installation CD’s that we can get from ubuntu official website or from other place, while there’s local domain or from around the world with a lot of  language version. For you that have an IIX or Indonesian Internet Exchange Connection, you can get it  from local university that gave a lot of support for us, such as from kambing.ui.ac.id or you can buy the CD’s from juragan.kambing.ui.ac.id, well if you confused you just have to search in Mr. Google for the last choice…

OK, let’s try the preparation section in the next page!

First off, with the overhaul of the UI my current one is completely hosed.  Luckily, I just happen to follow the LOTRO Interface RSS feed and noticed the Multibar Clean Toolbar UI.  This only works with the Mirkwood client, but for me I really like it as it is nice and clean.  Notice the buttons on the bottom are customizable just like the normal UI – I’m not sure I’ll stick with those, but I’ll usually either have my whole inventory up or just the first bag.

I also decided to check out one of the survival skirmishes – sadly the only one I had access to was the small fellowship one, but figured I’d give it a go.  Sadly real-life was not cooperative and I didn’t get very far, but it is a very cool idea that I can’t wait to check out more once live hits.

I’ll also include some stat comparisons, which aren’t 100% accurate as my legendaries from live and bullroarer aren’t quite exact nor are my traits.  However, I did notice that on live I’m at 19% incoming melee so I’ll have to figure out what I’ll dump to get back down to the cap.  Most likely it will be runes/settings but I haven’t decided yet.

Live stats:

Bullroarer (mainly the thing to look at here is the UI and morale jump)

長尾( Long Tail) 這個名詞已經出來了一段時間了,最有名的是將八二法則打破的傳奇,由亞馬遜公司所創下的圖書銷售成績。今天,不是要老調重談,主要是最近看到了一篇”The Long Tail in 4 Minutes” ,覺得這個以影片為教學的方式,有別於 Plain English 的簡單風格。如果你已經知道什麼是長尾,那你看這支影片會非常有意思。首先,我們還是看一下 WikiPedia 的定義。

長尾（或長尾效應, The Long Tail）一詞最初由 Chris Anderson 發表在2004年的《連線雜誌(WIRED)》[1]中，用來描述諸如亞馬遜和Netflix、Real.com/Rhapsody 之類網站的商業和經濟模式。是指那些原來不受到重視的銷量小，種類多的產品或服務由於總量巨大，累積起來的總收益超過主流產品的現象。在網際網路領域，長尾效應尤為顯著。長尾這一術語也在統計學中被使用，通常應用在財產的分佈和詞彙的使用。 (source from Wikipedia)

接下來,我們再看看影片的呈現方式

很特別吧,把學習作得像節目,重點是在內容的說詞,單簡扼要,不拖泥帶水,這個是數位學習精準的特性。

I haven’t had a whole lot of time recently, but I’ve updated the color palette (see the original colors back here) and drawn some new artwork for the Sea Glass look and feel. Kathryn has been plugging away on the implementation, working hard towards an initial release, which is still a ways off.

I’ll let the images do the rest of the talking!

Note that we haven’t settled on the color scheme for the Windows window chrome — suggestions and requests are welcome.

Although I have yet to have time to immerse myself in CS4, I ran across a post by Neven Mrgan showing the different slider bars found in Photoshop CS4.  Below are a sampling…

It is a general guideline, that a similar design be used when the user is performing the same or similar action. Usability.gov’s guideline states “Allow users to perform tasks in the same sequence and manner across similar conditions” (Guideline 2:3).

In the case of the sliders, it is unnecessary to have multiple designs for the same control. The first three sliders are all performing the same purpose, to allow the user to select a value from a range of numbers. They each show the title, the value, and the slider.

The 4th slider is slightly different and shows the blending of two layers, and therefore needs an additional slider control. There is little to no reason for there to be different arrows.

The only slider pictured here that I can make a justification for variation is the last one. The blending of the two colors along the slider is helpful in determining the desired color mix.

I’m unsure why all the inconsistency in the design of this great program. It seems as though they’ve kept sliders from previous versions and improved upon them as new features were included, but never took the time to update the old ones. Hopefully by the time the next version comes along they’ll have taken the time to not only include some amazing new features (content-aware scaling comes to mind) but also improve the ease of use of the system by sticking to some well-established guidelines.

—-
via SwissMiss

e-Learning for kids 提供了國小學生學習內容的教具,很適合老師在教學時拿來運用,裡的的內容包含了六大類課程,

1. 科學
2. 英文
3. 生活與健康
4. 語言藝術
5. 數學
6. 電腦技能

以下為首頁畫面,注意左上角……揪甘心…有中文

一點進去,啊…這中文的翻譯,不予置評

在選擇課程時,這個網站會列出每門課程適合的學習年齡,在老師運用時,也可以參考

我試了一門課,有關除法的觀念

點進去後,馬上閃過這個畫面,原來這裡的課程是由重量級教材製作工具 Lectora 的原廠來製作,嗯,應該很有看頭

在課程進行中,除了講述之外,所運用的媒體與生活中相附合,那就是 Pizza ,Pizza 的顏色及對孩童的吸引力,是非常夠的,加上在課程進行的過程中,計算的部份會有輔助說明,很適合老師上課時播放後,再與同學作互動

在講述過程中,每一段大概不超過1分鐘,左下角向右的鍵頭就會提示,要進下一段

互動,那是一定要的元素啦

我又看了別的課程,結果看到一個很妙的設計,現在我們看到多媒體的課程大多都是用Flash製作的,不過,使用者的口味越來越重,所以教材的設計也需要運用更多的媒體。越多的媒體,就會造成Flash還是需要經過下載才能觀看,這個我想大部份的人都知道,但我在開這門課程時,它的設計讓我笑了~~

我當初一看到那個球,我以為我進錯畫面,難到這是新的遊戲學習模式,不過,點一點球還滿好玩的,後來發現下面正在 Loading…  ,這是個貼心的設計啊,使用者可以在等得的時間玩點點球的方遊戲,這可能是會讓使用者留在線上觀看的好模式哦。

Body Parts 也是不錯的課程,讓小朋友用手動的方式,知道自己身體的構造

裡面的內容包羅萬象,趕快去看看