http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:06:01 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/25597/Why_Microsoft_developers_need_a_style_guide/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25597/Why_Microsoft_developers_need_a_style_guide/ What your interface communicates to users can be just as important as what your software does, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister in discussing the latest edition of the 'Microsoft Manual of Style,' a style guide aimed at designers and developers who create Microsoft software, as well as those who write about it. 'The gist of much of Microsoft's advice is that a user's relationship with computer software is a unique one, and it's important to craft the language of software UIs accordingly,' McAllister writes. 'Occasionally, Microsoft's recommendations verge on the absurd. For example, you might not think it necessary to admonish developers to "not use slang that may be considered profane or derogatory, such as 'pimp' or 'bitch,'" but apparently it is.' Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:23:46 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Graphics, User Interfaces 3 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/25563/Wayland_Preparing_For_1_0_Stable_Release/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25563/Wayland_Preparing_For_1_0_Stable_Release/ This weekend at FOSDEM 2012 what Kristian Hogsberg is expected to say in Brussels will surprise many of you: Wayland 1.0 is gearing up for release as their first stable release. Wayland [a new X server for Linux] is supposed to be ready to take on the Linux desktop world. Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:50:33 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 44 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News Michael http://www.osnews.com/story/25303/Simplicity_vs_Customizability_in_Desktop_Design/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25303/Simplicity_vs_Customizability_in_Desktop_Design/ In the commercial software world, user interfaces are generally designed by one group. Like Microsoft for Windows or Apple for Mac OS. Those desktop environments were designed by one company who did things like user testing and statistical analysis to try and make the desktop they thought would work best. Linux is different. Large groups definitely DO perform user testing and statistical analysis, but one group can also say "Here's what we want" and, if they have the ability to code it, their idea comes into being. It's pretty amazing, when you think about it. Linux lets people create what they want. If you don't like what's out there, fork it! Or start from scratch! You're in control! Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:46:09 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Graphics, User Interfaces 77 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 Editorial Allen Boyles http://www.osnews.com/story/25225/The_Future_of_User_Interfaces_is_Brainwaves/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25225/The_Future_of_User_Interfaces_is_Brainwaves/ Within the last few days we read the news about Apple's Siri AI personal assistant, and about a brain implant that lets monkeys control virtual limps & feel virtual objects. I believe that if someone is to also combine a few more technologies (e.g. high-res eyeware, appropriate operating system changes), we will be looking at the next user interface revolution, after the inventions of the computer mouse and touch interfaces. Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:55:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli) Graphics, User Interfaces 48 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/25153/TOSP_Multi-Monitor_Survey_v2_Results/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25153/TOSP_Multi-Monitor_Survey_v2_Results/ "Like for the previous survey, there aren't much answers anymore after about one week, so I think it's time to thank everyone and close the survey, in order to publish the results along with some interpretation." As before, everything is released under Creative Commons CC0 license. Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:25:52 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hadrien Grasland) Graphics, User Interfaces 12 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25130/TOSP_Multi-monitor_survey_v2/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25130/TOSP_Multi-monitor_survey_v2/ "As mentioned before, the original multi-monitor survey had some serious flaws, which means that its results should be used with caution. I don't know if I can gather people around this again, but I wanted to try an updated, much cleaned up version of the survey, with results distributed in public domain just as before. Here it is." (from The OS-periment) Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:40:29 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hadrien Grasland) Graphics, User Interfaces 7 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25129/TOSP_Multi-Monitor_Survey_Results/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25129/TOSP_Multi-Monitor_Survey_Results/ "Okay, it's been about one week and there are not much answers anymore, so it's time to thank everyone who participated, close this survey, and publish the results, along with some interpretation." Everything is released under Creative Commons CC0 license, so anyone interested, please help yourself. Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:39:44 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hadrien Grasland) Graphics, User Interfaces 21 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25109/TOSP_Survey_on_Multi-Monitor_Setups/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25109/TOSP_Survey_on_Multi-Monitor_Setups/ "Recently, Brendan and I have been arguing about what can reasonably be expected from a multi-monitor OS (among other graphical stack things). We've reached the conclusion that nothing replaces real-world user data. So anyone interested, please answer this survey about multi-monitor setups and expectations ! (Results will be published here once the amount of answers has reached a steady state, I'd say in a month at worst)" (Source) Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:50:51 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hadrien Grasland) Graphics, User Interfaces 35 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25083/AMD_s_Open-Source_Radeon_Driver_After_Four_Years/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25083/AMD_s_Open-Source_Radeon_Driver_After_Four_Years/ While the BFS scheduler is getting ready to celebrate its second birthday, in just three weeks AMD's open-source Radeon graphics driver strategy for Linux will be turning four years old . . . which has ended up being a game-changer in the Linux world. AMD continues to support open-source hardware enablement on their latest graphics processors and recently even hired more developers to work on the code and documentation. How far have they come though in four years? Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:09:19 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 34 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News Michael http://www.osnews.com/story/25039/Designing_Command-Line_Interfaces/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25039/Designing_Command-Line_Interfaces/ Since we're on a CLI kick today, here's an "attempt at presenting some of the most important guidelines for CLI design." Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:42:44 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 23 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25035/Ode_to_the_Command_Line/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25035/Ode_to_the_Command_Line/ A couple of days ago I read a blog post by Stephen Ramsay, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Fellow at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. In it, he mentions that he has all but abandoned the GUI and finds the command line to be "faster, easier to understand, easier to integrate, more scalable, more portable, more sustainable, more consistent, and many, many times more flexible than even the most well-thought-out graphical apps." I found this very thought-provoking, because, like Ramsay, I spend a lot of time thinking about "The Future of Computing," and I think that the CLI, an interface from the past, might have a place in the interface of the future. Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:08:01 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 63 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/24727/Talking_Point_Overlapping_Windows/ http://www.osnews.com/story/24727/Talking_Point_Overlapping_Windows/ Back in the 80s, a GUI paradigm called WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer) began to establish itself as the new way in which most people interacted with a computer. When it comes to one of the most significant elements of that system, overlapping windows, I'm beginning to wonder, has it had its day? Thu, 12 May 2011 17:19:19 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 27 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News rhyder http://www.osnews.com/story/24724/Pinta_1_0_Released_Reviewed/ http://www.osnews.com/story/24724/Pinta_1_0_Released_Reviewed/ "Pinta, a 'lightweight' open source raster image editor, turned 1.0 on April 27, offering Linux users another choice for simple image editing. Pinta is intended to be a clone of Paint.NET, the Windows-only raster editor written in .NET. As such, it uses Mono under the hood, but it gains the ability to run equally well on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows. Is it a replacement for GIMP or Krita? That depends on what you need to do." What I like about Pinta is that I actually caused its creation in the first place. Wed, 11 May 2011 21:53:32 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Graphics, User Interfaces 28 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News kragil http://www.osnews.com/story/24570/Transparent_Monitor_Embedded_in_Window_Glass/ http://www.osnews.com/story/24570/Transparent_Monitor_Embedded_in_Window_Glass/ Samsung has developed a completely transparent solar-powered monitor that's designed to be used with ambient light. Though they're marketing it as a television, it's almost certainly going to be used initially as displays in commercial areas, and it apparently is also a touch-screen, opening it up for the coolest kind of kiosk you've ever used. See a video after the jump. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:06:46 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 34 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News http://www.osnews.com/story/24552/Four_Open_Source_Online_Image_Editors/ http://www.osnews.com/story/24552/Four_Open_Source_Online_Image_Editors/ If you use a photo editor to crop or convert your images, or to improve brightness, color balance and contrast, then you probably don't need a professional image processing suite. There are tons of web-based graphic editors that are available for free. However, if you are looking for self-hosted, open source solutions, you should definitely go in a different direction. Here's a list of four open source, self hosted online graphic editors. Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:21:59 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Graphics, User Interfaces 1 http://www.osnews.com/topics/47 News Pawel Wolniewicz