Years ago, I wanted a smartphone so I could write down all the blog posts I compose in my head when I’m away from a computer. Now that I have one, I end up reading Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus instead, and I compose blog posts in my head when I’m away from both my computer AND my phone. Maybe I just need a pencil and notepad.
Tag: Imported Post
Most people don’t know how to use Ctrl+F
Wow: A researcher studying the way people use computers found that most people don’t know how to search for a word on the current page!
Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don’t Know How to Use CTRL+F
Google’s resident search anthropologist, Dan Russell, dropped this incredible statistic on us. And no, he couldn’t believe it either.
To someone used to using computers, it seems so basic, but I guess if no one shows you it’s there, it’s the kind of thing that’s not easy to discover on your own. (via Slashdot)
The article doesn’t actually say which side of the 90/10 split people using toolbar buttons or menu items to search fall on, but it does mention people paging through an entire document to look for something by eye.
Web Intents
Cool idea: Google is designing a “Web intents” system for web apps similar to intents in Android. For those who haven’t used Android, “intents” allow apps to register actions they can take — such as “I can share (or edit) images!” — and other apps to hand data over to them. That way your camera app doesn’t need to know about every possible image-sharing or editing app you can put on your phone.
Now they’re extending the idea to web applications. There’s a JavaScript-based proof of concept, and they’re planning to add native support to Chrome.
Originally posted on Google+
Update: While it would have been cool, Web Intents never got off the ground. Paul Kinlan describes what happened.
The Late Train
I haven’t really kept up with the photoblog since moving a few months ago. I’ll try to get back on track with a new post each week.
This is Aviation Station along the Los Angeles Metro Green Line, the closest station to LAX. (It doesn’t actually stop at the airport, but you can take a shuttle bus.) It’s also the nearest stop to my office. Before I moved, I’d sometimes take the train up to this point and a bus the rest of the way to work.
One night I was working late and missed the bus. Somehow convinced that the next one wouldn’t be by for an hour, I decided rather than sit and wait, I’d walk the mile and a half to the station. Three or four buses passed me, so it didn’t save me any time, but it was interesting to watch the planes line up for landing, and I caught this view of a train leaving the station as I was arriving.
Comic-Con: Down the Barrel
Comic-Con International sold out this weekend. The convention isn’t until July, which makes the January sell-out surprising enough…but tickets didn’t even go on sale until this past Saturday, and were all gone by the end of the day!
In past years, tickets haven’t been a problem. This year, they’ve become as hard to get as convention-rate hotel rooms. And those? The con hasn’t even announced when they’re going on sale.
This is the view from one of the escalators in the San Diego Convention Center lobby. One of my friends once referred to it as the “Death Star Cannon” view, inspired by the shot of the inside of the cannon firing near the end of Star Wars.