Mobile User Interfaces

 

 

Have a look at the above four images… These are the home screens of the various mobile devices, major screen shots from Windows Mobile, Windows Mobile is very flexible and allows you to customize its UI the way you want. Anyways coming back to topic.

Looking at above four images, which user interface really appeals you? Now, if I am going to use new UIs for first time, it definitely appeals me.. for example iPhone UI is great, I love it.. it appeals me.. similarly HTC Diamond or HTC Touch Pro UI is very nice and appealing. I used all the above phone for several months. User interface is great, nice to play around with.. but then it starts getting boring more you use it.. more boring it seems.

I like to keep information at my fingertip. Basically you can say I am information greedy and I always want to have information when I need it.

Now, lets look at the screen shots of Mobile UI one by one from top left to right bottom. If you look at the first screenshot top left, first screenshot is very much normal, not appealing at all.. just shows time, owner of cell phone, how many msgs in inbox or emails in inbox, shows appointments and task list in home screen.

2nd Screen shot shows, time, weather, shortcuts to few programs and appointments.. but if I want to go from time to weather or shortcut.. I have to click or touch on relevant tab button.

3rd screen shot which is bottom left.. is kind of similar to 2nd one.. but provides more things on the screen.. like speed dial, preview of msgs, emails, pictures, etc… but for all this I have to click on relevant tab.

4th screen.. just shows me programs, nothing else.

Now, as a information hungry… 4th UI fails for me completely, I do not get any information easily.. I need to click click click and get the information I need. Time consuming.

looking at 2nd and 3rd, I do get information, but not much.. only a little.. and for more information again click.

1st screen… provides me information that I need just at a glance.. I dont need to click anywhere.. no need to scroll.. a great UI for information.

User Interface design and interaction wise.. 2nd, 3rd and 4th are great.. but does not give me enough information.. in which 4th one fails like anything.. 1st wins..

so on my cell I disabled all HTC cube or HTC Touch plug-in and gone back to my normal Windows Today screen.

I will be more glad and it will be more useful, if companies design user interfaces keeping information in mind rather than making people wow about the how it looks and how it animates, etc...

Technorati Tags: mobile,ui

ISO Image burning in Windows 7

Microsoft listened to its customers again, finally from Windows 7 you can straight away burn ISO images or in ur DVD or CD :)

Select image file and u will get Burn disc image option in tool bar :)

Are we animated?

well, yes title is correct. Are we animated? Have a look at the above advertisement, I am sure all of you have seen that and liked ad a lot.

After few days, in news channel we saw how this ads were made, and to our surprise this ads were done by wearing a suite and not animated characters, and we were all surprised, telling everyone that this ad is done by actually a real person wearing a suite.. I was also one of them. One day I was just sitting idle and thinking about ZooZoo ad, and thought I got was kind of amusing and funny for me. About 10-15 years back, if same ad was made and animated characters would have been used.. we would have surprised and said to everyone.. hey this ad is animated.. looks so nice.. you see what am trying to say? We are seeing so many animated things around us that for us anything which does not look real we think is animated. We forget that in earlier days people used to wear a suite and perform things like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc.. but now we have got so much into digital world, that we have taken each and everything granted that it is computerized. Day is very near when we will see everything done on computer.. whole movie with actors like Shahrukh Khan not really a human but animated character, and when we will see real person performing we will be surprised. I know it is very extreme thought.. but still doesnt it really sound funny we getting surprised knowing that real person is actually wearing suite and acting like a ZooZoo.

GTalk issue

WHERE THE HELL IS OK BUTTON?

No Christmas in Sweden without Donald Duck

Nice interesting read: http://www.thenewsvault.com/cgi/xtra.pl?go=12302934366

I like Donald Duck a lot over Mickey Mouse. I just love Donald Duck.. I can also do mimic of Donald Duck :D

btw, belated Merry Christmas to all.

Fennec Mobile Browser – Alpha 2

Mozilla has recently released Fennec mobile Browser’s Alpha 2 release.

more info here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081224-mozilla-releases-second-alpha-of-fennec-mobile-browser.html

Who says Footers are boring?

I was working on a web site and trying to look for few good footers.. Well, footers are not boring you can do a lot of things with footers, while I was searching on Yahoo!, I came across following link through digg.com

http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/25-stylish-website-footer-designs/

25 stylish website footer designs.

101 Classic Computer Ads

Just found following web site:

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/08/08/101-classic-computer.html

Shows 101 Classic Computer ads.. if you knows about earlier computer era.. this is must see for u all.. great stuff :)

Box and Reality

Below picture says it all

Xbox 360 Name

Following comic strip will give you idea on how Microsoft came up with name Xbox 360

http://i40.tinypic.com/xkneae.jpeg

of course its not true :)

Google’s Native Client plugin – Alternative to Microsoft ActiveX

Google has released a new experimental plugin called Native Client plugin for its browser, and Google aims to make it work on all major platforms and browsers. Google also claims that it will be a lot safer than Microsoft ActiveX.

My Note: Looking at past record with Google specially with Android, I seriously wonder how safer Native Client will be.. Google had made same claim earlier when Android was in Beta (BTW almost all products of Google are in Beta)

More info: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081209-safer-than-activex-a-look-at-googles-native-client-plugin.html

36-24-36

I was just talking about age.. dirty mind people.

Found this here: http://phatchicks.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2243721,prtpage-1.cms

Job Posting talks about Zune-Xbox and Zune-Phone

More info : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10126637-27.html

Usefulness to Career Success

Silverlight 2.0 Resize using Resized Event

I remember doing this in Silverlight 1.0, when Silverlight 1.0 released, I thought of giving it a try, I wanted to make sure that Silverlight application that I create should resize it self based on browser size. I am very much particular about width and height for the web sites and web applications, as well as for any other applications. I do not like pixel values much, I prefer working in terms of %, as it makes my application layouts dynamic and adapt to the preferred size of the user. I remember doing this kind of thing in Silverlight 1.0 using Javascript, discovering how to do it was a bit difficult but it was easy to do in Silverlight 1.0

Recently, I started writing an article for my web site http://www.learnitonweb.com/ article on Menubar in Silverlight, and I wanted to do layout in %s format or dynamic format. This time I was using Silverlight 2.0, which means using languages like C# or VB.NET, this is where I really thought it will be really easy to do that, and yes it is.. following code will do that.

in C#

public Page()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            App.Current.Host.Content.Resized += new EventHandler(Content_Resized);
        }

        void Content_Resized(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Width = Application.Current.Host.Content.ActualWidth;
            this.Height = Application.Current.Host.Content.ActualHeight;
        }

in VB.NET

Public Sub New()
       InitializeComponent()
       AddHandler App.Current.Host.Content.Resized, AddressOf Resized
   End Sub

   Private Sub Resized(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
       Me.Width = Application.Current.Host.Content.ActualWidth
       Me.Height = Application.Current.Host.Content.ActualHeight
   End Sub

Without resize you will see your Silverlight Application as follows:

Silverlight application with resizing

Windows Mobile Web Browsing

There is no good web browser available for Windows Mobile, Pocket IE is pathetic, half of things doesnt work in it, specially AJAX enabled sites, so I use Opera Mini.. but Opera Mini has its own issue, biggest issue is no copy-paste :( I really dont get it why people do not provide copy paste? including APPLE so called next gen iPhone.

anyways, Microsoft has been working on better version of Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile (IE6) you can have a look at it here - http://www.modaco.com/content/blackstone-blackstone-modaco-com/277328/modaco-custom-rom-for-blackstone-1-08-12-17-ie6-cf3-5-uc-1-19-based-more/

It does look amazing and makes browsing experience on mobile wonderful.

Toilet Paper Cheque

In Britain one man tried to pay his parking fees by writing a cheque on toilet paper, police officer refused and dragged him to a court, judge gave him funny punishment but at end winner is common sense.

More Info: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1096553/Payment-loo-Toilet-paper-cheque-lands-man-court.html

Xbox Arcade Live – Dash of Destruction FREE

NinjaBee recently launched game named Dash of Destruction for Xbox Arcade Live, which is available for free to download, game is pretty simple but fun to play.

You can add game here http://marketplace.xbox.com/games/offers/00000001-0000-4000-8000-00005841090B?cid=MajorNelson&partner=MajorNelson

More info here - http://majornelson.com/archive/2008/12/17/arcade-dash-of-destruction-free.aspx

Xbox Live India Offer for UNO

If you are an Xbox Live member in India, you have special holiday deal, UNO Normally costs 400 Microsoft points, but in special holiday offer, it will be available for 300 Microsoft points.

and worldwide Bomberman Live will cost 600 Microsoft points, which is normally priced at 800 Microsoft points.

4th Workshop at MPSTME – Day 2

2nd day of 4th workshop was ok ok.. less students turned up.. and students were ok ok, questions were ok asked by them, but it was good.. did ado.net with windows forms, then asp.net and ado.net with asp.net

when I ended.. Mr. Ketan Shah (Head of Student Department) presented me with a trophy, you can see the trophy attached below as in image.

would like to thank Mr. Ketan Shah, Mr. Abhinav and two more students who were with me. Thank you.

3rd Workshop at MPSTME – Day 2

2nd day of 3rd workshop was really interesting and great.. students were more enthu about learning things, and very interactive and quized me a lot, and I just love that.. and yeah no stupid questions.. all good questions. Nice students I would say.

So today we started with ADO.NET in Windows Forms, and then we did a bit of ASP.NET and ASP.NET ADO.NET and ended 3rd workshop.

2nd Workshop at MPSTME – Day 1

I was supposed to start workshop at around 2:00 PM, but due to earlier late schedule.. I started by 2:30 PM and ended by 5:00 PM.

Took basics of .NET and Intro to ADO.NET and Windows Forms.. and ended workshop for day 1.. tomorrow we will be starting more on with ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows Forms.

Tomorrow will be having really long day.. 10 AM to 5 PM… and then I got meeting. Looking forward to tomorrow.

1st Workshop at MPSTME – Day 1

I was supposed to start workshop  at 10 AM, but I reached late there by 10:20, but figured out they were also a bit late.. I assume because of me.. and we starting workshop by 10:38, I am very sorry for being late but anyways, I started my workshop with basics of .NET Framework at 10:38.

Took basics of .NET and Intro to ADO.NET and Windows Forms.. and ended workshop for day 1.. tomorrow we will be starting more on with ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows Forms.

Was planning to take few pics.. but camera battery gone down.. will catch few pics tomorrow.

Few hilarious Pranks

At bottom of page I have put the source from where I picked up the videos, they have mentioned about 2008 top videos.. but I wouldnt really agree with that.. anyways, I have just re-ordered according to my preference.

1 Butter Floor

I found this prank the most hilarious, basically because of the kind of revenge they are taking and reason behind the revenge.

2 Hair Dryer

Girls without proper hair will look ghost.. to prove that this prank works best :)

3 Wake up

If done this in right way.. this would be really great.. I have played this kind of prank.. but instead of loud sound.. we used toothpaste or shaving cream.. put it on hand of a person who is sleeping.. and then on his face you try to do few things.. and when he puts his hand on face to remove it.. its hilarious.

4 Fake Date

This is really one of the best prank you can do on someone, but issue is that, it requires a lot of time.. trap a friend by fake girl id or something.. ask him to meet up somewhere.. and surely he will come to meet up.. but dont turn up.. or you yourself only turn up.. its very hilarious.

 

5 Cereal Bird

I found this prank good.. but also a bit bad.. because there is a dead bird used.

6 Cling Film Over the Door

This is really good one.. I just wished lady had something in her hand.

7 Chicken

This is really long long video.. 50 chickens in room.. just see how you can throw out chickens out of room :P

8 Foil

This is pretty hilarious. Everything covered in foil.. when ur friend arrives and he finds it.. it will be very difficult for him to take out each and every coin out of foil and pay.

9 Newspaper Cover

Newspaper cover is pretty good, same as above.. just look at the end of video.. and see something interesting.

10 Fill up Room with Ballons

hmm, its ok.. but still good.. friend room completely filled up with ballons.

Source : http://www.roombuddies.com/blog/2008/12/best-pranks-to-play-on-your-house-mate-2008/

Workshop at MPSTME on .NET Framework

I am going to have four workshops in 2 days starting tomorrow, workshop is going to be at MPSTME college in Mumbai, they have a local user group running in college, starting 10 AM in morning till 2 PM and then second session from 2 PM till 5 PM.. same schedule for the next day that is Sunday as well. Topics that I am going to cover is basics of .NET Framework, Windows Forms, ASP.NET, Windows Mobile and Silverlight.

I am pretty excited about it, as it is going to be after a long break :)