downtide

The history here, is that Opera introduced tabs, and they were cheaper in terms of resources. Tabs in Windows were cheaper than many windows. Then tabs became a sort of replacement for Bookmarks, because bookmark UIs are so so bad. That's my take on it.

Gnome 3, started out suggesting that it would be a semantic desktop, allowing groupings associations of activities. That fell by the wayside, so the best thing left is to use something like virtual desktops to separate projects/workflows. But then you are pushed into multiple windows likely with multiple tabs.

I use multiple browsers on multiple devices, and bookmarking isn't that nice. I see why people end up using browser syncing and end up in vendor traps. On desktop, I can easily copy paste urls. Perhaps into my own mini-shared db for read it later style groupings. On mobile copying URLS is hell for me.

Imagine throwing tabs away. If windows were cheap again how could you best use a Window manager to manage them? It feels like this should be at the heart of your desktop. It would need to be more than 'recently used/accessed'.

I have tried running Firefox with the bookmark manager open and the history, but it has been really poor performance wise, and it's just not a nice interface.

Looking at my tabs today, I have a small grouping of shopping tabs, of things I might be interested in ordering. From about three weeks back. I know if I throw these into bookmarks, and even tag them, they'll still be lost. I should probably have dealt with that there and then. I tend to build up tabs in Firefox, once I hit the width of the browser with tabs and they scroll it becomes UI hell for me. So I try to confine to about 12, but that's easier said than done. And as said I run multiple browsers, at least four on mobile and four on desktop. Throw tabs into the mix and it gets ugly. But if this was reduced to something like a simple list of URLs, with some grouping shared between machines that I could relaunch easily, probably in the same browser I was using previously they'd feel much more manageable. And less crufty.

Going back to the shopping example, that's task focused. And it might be accompanied by a few notes written in another app, and I might want to share that with my partner via email etc. Associations have to beyond one piece of software.

And it has only gotten worse and worse. I still resort to Foobar2k on Linux under Wine, because it seems to be one of the only apps that has it all.

About as intuitive as comic chat - seems you need a mobile and phone number to get going with Whatsapp.

I'm surprised when it works.

I still don't know how to unpair on some black boxes. My partner has a speaker, and I think auto-pairing occurs if used previously, so we have a strange ritual of turning off bluetooth on other devices until it seems to correct itself when wanting to use it.

I've always assumed this was a UI issue.

I've had phones that have presented themselves as a pointing device to a computer. Some as modems. Some that have transferred/pushed files okay on some OSs, not others. I have no idea what's going on with Bluetooth most of the time, and it's quite infuriating. On Linux Blueman doesn't give much away. On a Windows PC I have, using Bluetooth kills WIFI, and requires a reboot to fix.

From a mobile perspective if I say try and transfer a file from a phone, it can turn Bluetooth on, fail and then leave it on.

Wireless headphones sound like a great idea though! But again not sure which protocols are being used. Again that's a UI issue, I've a streaming speaker - and have no idea about the stream quality of what I'm listening to. Oh for some simple feedback diagnostics.

I didn't see Whatsapp singled out in the article or by the parent. But good to know it has a simple UI.

There is a comment in the story about cross platform woes and incompatibilities.

I've never managed to install Whatsapp on my computer.

I'm reading this as you'd prefer something inherently intuitive. Which yes would be great. Some tools need at least some instruction and guidance.

Still with a lot of this tech, if someone sat you down for an hour and helped you, the barrier wouldn't be there.

I tried the Samsung app store briefly on my Android. I didn't last long with it, it was not that great, and reluctantly intstalled Google Play. It's yet another company trying to usher me into signing up, and trading my data privacy. The themes app for example, wants access to my contacts. Why?

Prefer the text only version, at least it reflows.

I'm exactly like that, if I feel the product has value, I can get behind it. I'm a good salesman for a 'good product'.

The flip side is that I have worked on many a drab project and site, that could have been improved with a little technical finesse, and simple UI overhaul, but there hasn't been the wherewithall from others. Hence perhaps an initially loved or cared for project has slowly declined.

I've also been at a startup, after many of the developers took the money and then departed. On a site that two founders had poured all their money into. People hadn't even the courage to tell them to quit, or throw out some un-needed features. That's almost heart breaking, but you do understand when those people have invested so much. I'm talking about remortagaging houses on a punt, to a pay a developer for a middle of the road product.

I've poured months of time into projects that have gone absolutely nowhere also for one reason or another. Not personal projects I might add. I have lost time and not been paid either. But by comparisson with the above have just taken it on the chin.

I get that, but the more intimate you are with a product, it's also hard to see the warts, especially when it comes to usability. I remember using ebay for the first time, and absolutely loathing the experience. I had to get used to the product. And there is much friction. Transparant simple UI is very hard. I am always noticing troublesome UI areas, and usually when mentioned, I get the response: oh that's just the way it is. Luckily you later forget those initial irritations. Anyway, just saying however critical you are, you are likely not the best person to reveal insights into your own product.

I always wonder about small acrylic hairs and such that float about the house. In a bright room just flex your jumper, there's thousands of these weird impurities, and I can't imagine they can be filtered out easily before or after getting into the lungs.

The biggest shocker is when you disturb loft insulation. They claim it's not terrible (specifically if undisturbed), but floating glass strands can't be all that nice.

That's my take home. I hate being in a room that has no ventilation. I even get pains in my chest quite quickly. So have learned to always throw open windows if possible. All year round I have the kitchen window open when cooking. We don't bother heating the kitchen or bathroom (south UK rarely below 0). And I like to replenish stale air periodically by creating a deliberate draft for a few minutes throughout the house. If not it soon stinks. I am totally repulsed at the smell of burnt toast and lingering cooking smells, so wonder if that's a natural gagging response.

How do I run this?

I'm trying to work out if Signal can leak my contact information. And came across this piece. That doesn't really answer my question. In fact the more I read it, the less assurance I have.

Was this problem solved partially or wholly?

What a waste. What a waste. What a waste.

The demo locked up my machine while trying to add an event.

I don't like the working name/domain name. 'One View' itself isn't that bad. But I end up thinking of: "One's view", which sounds more like a comment board or Virtual reality app.

I like the zoomable/scrollable view that's a UI improvement. The add event form could do with some UI tweaks. I'm not the biggest slider fan, but that might be a better control for the reminders (with sticky graduations) (instead of a dropdown) and reduce the length of the form.

Some autocompleteness on the 'Where's could be good. Can you make time input easier?

Shifting between calendars needs to be very easy. I used to use Gcal, and I was forever putting events in the wrong calendar.

Cut and paste.

Why not just a magnet for the C?

I don't like the new or old logo.

.diary, .journal, .thoughts, .musings might be a better choice ;).

Wow 19 million for a couple of characters, that are an impish abbreviation of 'web log', for virtual placeholders. Does anyone even use the word blog anymore? It sounds soo last decade. How very odd. These vanity domains just don't do it for me, and this is one of the better ones.

1st birthday?

I like the categorisation aswell as a name (and version).

In your desktop environment, 'Open web browser' (as an action), can be associated with whichever browser you prefer. And perhaps a context menu on that to choose between many.

I prefer something like: Gnome file manager: 'Nautilus', to the browser: 'Web'. How ghastly.

To differentiate between many, like both of Windows' web browsers: Edge and Internet Explorer. You could say Windows web browser Edge. Or Edge; Windows' web browser. Windows itself is a confusing name, but that's another conversation.

I've felt the same thing with many Ubuntu releases.

Twitter makes for an easy way to publish and consume status feeds. And I like the shortform. There are other ways to do the same, but the tools weirdly are still not ready for mass consumption.

There is a little mention about it being hard to consume one's feed. And that you have to do a lot of work for little information.

I remember a few years back, there was talk that web tools that employed good filtering would be the next big thing.

I only use the default web twitter client, which does make it very difficult to consume the data. I page down on my feed a couple of times and that's about it.

How do other clients let you interact with your feed?

Even flashcards of tweets that I've missed wouldn't be that bad.

Another excellent idea I read about was storing solar heat in massive batteries underground. The battery being made of brick or stone, or earth. You catch heat in the summer and pipe it below ground, and warm up this underground store/battery (away from the water table). Because earth is also a good insulator the heat is localised. And in winter you reverse the process, drawing out the stored heat.

Roads get very hot in the summer (in some places), and if you could store that heat for residential units in the winter that may be better than turning into electrical energy.

I always think replacing traditional roofing materials with something that generates solar energy and keeps the rain off, makes for a good idea.

You can get solar tiles, but I have never seen them in the UK. I have seen houses with panels on top of existing slates/tiles.