rcgs

Enjoyed this – very entertaining!

I've used Notational Velocity for years, but couldn't get a working binary on latest MacOS/Chips and the newer variants I found seem to miss the mark on what made Notational Velocity great (imo).

So I'm working on an electron version[1] that has what I remember of the core UX. I wasn't the best user of NV – I'm sure it had features that I didn't use. If there are features that it had that you used, I'd certainly like to be aware of them.

[1] https://github.com/ralphsaunders/nv-electron

It still feels like these dialogues are really only something lawyers could think is a good solution to companies employing invasive/overbearing uses of customer data.

My gut feel is that most users don't understand what "tracking" really means and simply want to enjoy digital experiences without having to engage with the "what & how" that comes with modern platforms. My partner (and I reckon many other "normal" people) loves the ads on Instagram and enjoys the personalisation on YouTube & Netflix.

The current solution of "be transparent and it's okay" just forces decisions onto consumers that they do not want. The "good" solution outlined in this article (accept/reject) is a big yes or a big no – a green light for everything vs a red light for nothing.

There needs to be further regulation in this space that defines legal vs illegal uses of user data beyond the principals laid out in GDPR. The regulation should aim to define the "what & how", relieving the burden of choice from users and removing this "consent and it's okay" loophole for invasive use of data.

Early Bird Edit: https://earlybirdedit.com/

I hate scrolling through twitter, so I built a service to email me the best tweets in my feed. It's self signup and there's a discount code in the signup process if you'd like to be an Alpha user/avoid the fee.

A handful of friends are using it and for the most part it's doing what I wanted it to do.

Not sure what the future holds given the recently cancelled 3rd party apps debacle.

P.S. I adventured into writing this on the Firebase stack (Firestore and Cloud Functions). Probably wouldn't again – the cold starts are simply too slow and the mitigations they suggest haven't been effective.

It’s shocking Amazon aren’t doing anything about this instance when the issue is raised directly. How can a store be complicit in selling bootlegged items and when confronted with it do nothing?

If it is indeed endemic in some categories at Amazon then surely the leadership at Amazon are aware. Do they just not care?

If I were a publisher I’d be furious at this situation. A regulator really needs to investigate and make Amazon police this more effectively.

Surprising no one who has been paying attention.

As much as this may really damage the sector I work in, I’d cherish the clarity a stance like this could provide.

There are many businesses trying to be compliant whilst maintaining access to metrics their business depends on.

Compliance is very difficult at this time as the legal advice is shifting in different territories and there is conflicting guidance when you start to dig into it.

Id rather see a selection of activities and tactics entirely banned/regulated rather than this directive which is clearly too open to interpretation.

Just sharing my experience - you may be dealing with something slightly different.

I burned out in a job, and went straight into a new one that was less demanding.

I didn’t try to do much at all for a while. It was more than a 18 months later when I had the itch to do more again.

My takeaway from this has been - be thankful and enjoy the process - don’t try to force things.

What a meandering read.

gf is a game changer! Great article – hard to soak up so much knowledge at once. Bookmarked.

The difference really is that the Apple store is a monopoly.

It’s like there’s only one supermarket where you can sell your products, but they can still compete with you as you described.

Mobile devices interpret it differently because of the hide/show browser UI they often have.

This mirrors my experience in the MENA region (where a lot of staff are from asian cultures). It's hard to encourage people to work independently when they're coming from a "do what you're told" culture.

What do people make of ICO's recommendation for production servers to have antivirus software installed? Is this a standard approach to Windows? Is it generally accepted?

Please excuse my ignorance.

I think this is the 3rd or 4th time Opera has been reborn in recent memory? I actually quite like where they're going with the user experience. But who owns Opera now?

It's a shame really. 2.5hrs a week isn't a huge commitment, especially if you're able to work it into your day, e.g. commuting to work.

Hey, you put CSS in my JavaScript!

Surely this could be done in a smarter way, using one of the many CSS preprocessors to replace the variable mapping done by `classes()`?

After all, the `render()` template just needs to reference variables!

It is possible to do that without the variable assignment in JS...

    [].forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll('div'), function(el) {
        el.classList.add('new');
    });

Though with frameworks like Angular or React I'm beginning to question whether we should ever be writing code like this at all.

It's a vim plugin that prompts you to commit your changes after saving a file `n` number of times (20 by default).

Which is how we got the Ribbon. It was intended to place the most commonly used features front and centre.

So how come we ended up with something that placed all the features front and centre?

To pay someone $500 and then not want to spend an hour with them making them understand your product/idea/whatever seems like a bit of a waste of money to me, likely making the results hit and miss.

Or have I misunderstood and you're saying that for $500 finding a designer than can hold that conversation is unlikely?

Not quite. No one voted for the coalition.

Just because something is functionally acceptable, does not mean it is well designed.

To be honest, it comes of as a bit miffed.

Typography is hard, if only because it's quite subtle until you really start paying attention to it (in everything). How good or bad a typeface may be is irrelevant beyond a minimum quality, e.g. it's kerned well, it has been pixel hinted. It's simply a question of appropriateness.

The reason Arial is often, arguably inappropriately, slated as a bad font is because it stacks up poorly against other fonts in the situations where it's appropriate. Helvetica is more sterile, balanced, and tasteful — it does most of the things Arial does, but better. The only advantage Arial has over Helvetica is at smaller sizes on the web, where the head of the t, tail of the g, and terminal of a help to make the characters more distinguishable (in theory).

So beyond quality, it's about what's more appropriate. Then of course you've got to set it well, but that's practice.

> When you are going into a wiring closet wearing a mask over your face to hide your identity, you pretty much know you are "doing something wrong."

I disagree. You know you're doing something that isn't allowed and will get you into trouble, but you might feel that it's morally right to do so.

I realise this is the beginnings of the bot, but I'm surprised at how small it is.

Like vim?

I can confirm I am. Not sure how to fix either.

Adobe are the incumbent in this space and, seemingly, will continue to be. There is so much in Photoshop (and other Adobe software) that could be improved from an experience point of view. Simple things like the layers palette need a rethink; there are small inconsistencies with many of the tools; and the software is generally buggy. Often when I get frustrated with the software it's usually over something that one infers is still there due to legacy.

There are a lot of more niche tools coming out which do look really promising, but there are a couple of issues:

1. Professional software is often quite pricey, and understandably so. Even if a company offers a 30 day trial, that sometimes isn't quite enough to evaluate a piece of software.

2. The new tools are rarely compatible with PSDs and other Adobe file formats. I have to sympathise with the software creators here, Adobe file formats are a complete mess, nevertheless it's a required feature for anyone who wants to work with other companies within the industry.

It's a shame really, Adobe's monopoly on creative industry type software is holding everyone back, but no one is really in a position to do anything about it.