Linked List: February 26, 2010

Friday, 26 February 2010

Brent Simmons on Switching Away From Core Data to Direct SQLite 

Brent Simmons:

This isn’t about being a hardcore low-level developer or some crap like that.

Good follow-up too.

Rivet 

My thanks to The Little App Factory for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote Rivet. Rivet lets you stream your movies, photos, and music from your Mac to your Xbox 360 or PS3. It integrates with iTunes and iPhoto (and Aperture); changes and additions on your Mac are instantly visible on your console.

This week only, DF readers can save 25 percent with coupon code “DARINGFIRE2010”.

Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages 

An animated appraisal from Steven Heller.

‘Let It Beep’ 

Terrific interview with Jim Reekes, creator of the Mac startup sound. Starts out in Dutch, but the interview is in English. (Via Keith Lang.)

Update: One More Thing’s complete one-hour interview with Reekes is now on YouTube.

Mark Lamster on Las Vegas’s CityCenter 

I was there the week after Macworld Expo. Crystals (the high-end shopping mall) is a disaster inside; it feels like a maze. Aria is nice; its casino has an intriguing modern decor. Vdara seemed like a billion-dollar empty tower. CityCenter as a whole strikes me as a fundamentally bad idea — a massive complex in Vegas that doesn’t feel one bit like Vegas.

Lamster, attending the grand opening for architecture critics:

The absurdity of CityCenter’s urban gesture of separating its buildings now becomes apparent. The PR team has arranged for SUVs to take journalists from the Aria to the Mandarin Oriental for a cocktail party. The buildings are maybe 150 feet from each other.

(Via Kottke.)

Nexus One From an iPhone Developer’s Perspective 

Jeff LaMarche on the Nexus One:

To make matters worse, the sensors on the Nexus One for the four hardware buttons are not exactly aligned with the silkscreened icons. You have to tap noticeably above the button to get it to register. That was very frustrating for me until someone (from Google nonetheless) pointed out the mis-alignment. Up until then, I consistently had to hit the buttons three or four times to get it to register.

But even worse than that, the home button on the Nexus One is right below the fracking space bar on the portrait keyboard. Combine that with the not-completely-precise touch screen, and you have a UX disaster. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been typing and ended up leaving my application due to accidentally hitting the home button. Leaving an application mid-sentence is hardly a good user experience.

He’s got lots of other observations I agree with, but the above one is, without question, the biggest WTF on the Nexus One. It’s just bizarre.

Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein’s Letter to Employees 

He had me until the triple-bang to end the thing.