The Arkidect

Delightful New R160A Trains

2008-04-15T21:50:00.001-04:00

New York subway have finally made its step forward to the 1990's with a new set of trains, and I'm very pleased with them. It features a few good designs that are unique to the New York subway system. Here is my brief photo encounter:

As there are way too many stations in the New York subway, it is impossible to fit the whole subway map on the display. As a result, only stations on a single line are displayed. The use of a completely electronic display allows trains to be coordinated to run on other lines for peak hours. There is also a LCD monitor on the far left to allow display of various subway promotions.

This is a nice flushed detail for accommodating the altering roof heights. The black plexiglass blends in with the LCD display very well. Commuters are amazed by this detail as they ride to the Hipster Capital.

There are external speakers on every train. This is necessary for New York subway because it is almost impossible for MTA to install a speaker system on its 500+ platforms. Putting speakers on the train ensures that stations are announced properly instead of the train operator speaking gibberish.

Oh my, My Apple Genius!

2008-04-12T15:02:00.001-04:00

The song and music video, conceived by my talented activist great friend Miss Lauren Larken, criticizes the veil between a person being truly personal and a technical support acting personal for your services, while suggests that a corporate love is perhaps possible as well as we break our preconceptions and let our imagination go wild.

The kids staged a few improv dances inside and outside Apple Stores around Manhattan a couple weeks ago. I was in the dance, too, making fun of the Apple products that I love and hate, while handing out heart-shaped balloons that resemble their oh-so-glorious logo.

The video was released on Valentines' Day, and a few performances followed.

On the back side of the project, I also designed the animation for the opening and the karaoke session. Everything was done in Adobe AfterEffects and Illustrator, the same tool I used for the over-the-top Trillian Astra preview movie. (Watch it over and over again while it's still up!)

Faking the space with some simple polar distortion. Well, not so good.

Simple 3D layers and motion paths were used, plus a few custom space-y background effects inspired by tutorials of Andrew Kramer. His tutorials are intuitive and helpful, and I would recommend everyone to watch them if you are interested in animation effects more advanced than Flash.

"Subtle arrogance" through font weight: Notice how there is hardly a U, there is only i.

Imitating Apple is always educational, as you learn how to restrain yourself from using way to many effects while giving the products a nice professional finish. Just having a few pixels or centimeters off will ruin your composition, while picking the wrong highlights and shadows will end up looking like a fake. However, make sure you don't end up ripping off the whole design!

"A Good Skin"

2008-04-09T02:29:00.001-04:00

Not exactly a feat in design, but a feat in code optimization.

This skin was made as a proof of concept long time ago, when I designed the Custom Windows feature. As skins get more and more complex (Trillian Cordonata is 700+KB of hand code), the goal is to create a new subsystem that allows creation of skin in the least amount of code possible.

The solution is to have a base skin that encompasses everything that needs to be skinned, and to allow major parts of the skin (e.g. Contact List, Chat Windows) to be swap-able. It is unprecedented in any skinning engines in the world, as Trillian slowly becomes highly intricate and increasingly complex.

Originally based on Stixe, Custom Windows allow creation of skins that is semi-dependent on the base skin. The result is the ability for users to mix and match bits and parts of a skin, and the ability for skinners to easily create a skin as a weekend project.

"A Good Skin" contains around 20 lines of code, and only take an hour to bash out the graphics and codes.

Comparing the months and years spent on Trillian Cordonata, this is quite a feat.

You can download the skin here for a test drive.

An Icon for a Group of Chat Rooms

2008-04-08T17:21:00.001-04:00

Another day, another incremental build forward for Trillian Astra. As the new build 77 features a new Chat Room Browser UI design, I designed a few new icons to accompany it.

The main problem of a "Chat Room" icon is that there is hardly ever a general icon designed for it. A search on Google Images for idea reveals nothing particularly interesting:

Most designs retreats to the method used by Chinese characters as concepts get more and more complicated, i.e. 3 chat bubbles imply that it is not 1-to-1 conversation, thus a chat room or a conference:

This design would work, but, until the concept of "Chat Room Groups" come up in the Yahoo! Chat Browser. And very soon we would find ourselves drowning in the vortex of the most complicated Chinese character if we put forward such logic:

The solution is to replace the icon with a new concept. In this case, I drew a little House with a chat bubble blowing through its chimney to represent a Chat Room. As users learn that a house represents a Chat Room, they will also understand that a few houses represents a group of Chat Rooms. (Let's see how many other chat clients and chat sites would rip this idea off.)

I know, this is pretty minute, but it saves you from a bubble bath in the Chat Room Browser. :)

The Best House Ever

2008-04-03T13:25:00.001-04:00

Somewhere in East Hampton, architects (and artists, or poets) Madeline Gins and Arakawa had built a house that defies death. (NYTimes interview)

It's an adventurous sandbox enclosed within the protective shelter of a box. That's what fending off bears in wild nature cannot give you. The green ceiling reminds you that you are protected in the grace of architecture.

While adults put expensive toys (e.g. stereo, cars, gym equipment) inside their house, in this case, all those expensive toys happened to be a playful (and challenging) landscape.

This is like playing in a MMORPG/Second Life sandbox in your Xbox or Playstation, but now magnified to reality... but what isn't?

You can climb around the landscape the house, and reach the orange electric socket on the ceiling.

The artists declared that the design of the house is not to make you accept reality, but to defy it.

It's the best house ever, yet.

A Blank Vista Logon Screen

2008-03-29T09:26:00.001-04:00

After having installed Windows Vista for a year, I got a little bored by the blue and green Aurora logon screen. Since I'm not particularly interesting in having outer space, sexy women, XP-inspired landscapes or some arbitrary corporate graphics as the background of the screen, I decided to make my own:

A blank screen.

It turns out that this is the best background in my opinion. Though very likely to be opposed by the marketing department for its lack of product identity, or to be criticized by the head of the graphic design department for being lazy, the black background seems to be the best transition between the computer turning on till the wallpaper shows up after logging on.

The black blends with the edge of the monitor screen, very much so the way the Vista design team decided that a maximized window should have a black edge.

I had also flashed my BIOS for a blank boot-up screen as well to match the whole experience.

To create a black Vista logon screen is easy. Simply go here to download a free copy of Logon Studio Vista, courtesy of Stardock. All you need to do next is to create a black bitmap in any size. Here I made it in 640x480 and saved as a PNG. The UI of the software is fairly simple, and that's what makes you think that it is a safe process to customize your logon screen.

Mourning

2008-02-24T04:22:00.001-05:00

Little turtle - R.I.P. 2006 - 2008.

One of my little turtles had died this morning.

On Graffiti and DRM

2008-02-22T04:12:00.001-05:00

This is my off-topic take on the news of Adobe crippling Flash video with DRM, from BoingBoing:

Seth Schoen, staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and one of the world's top DRM technical researchers, has written up an analysis of the DRM that Adobe has built into the latest version of Flash for videos, which prevents video viewers from making mashups and re-edits of the video they see on the net.
Amazingly, Adobe seems to have entirely missed the fact that the reason that the Flash video format has taken off is that it's so fluid, versatile and remixable -- not because they sucked up to some Hollysaurs and crippled their technology.

Lots of computer software begins its life as a tool for piracy, then turn 'legitimate' later on. This will be no exception.

Speaking of mashups and re-edits, I can compare them to graffiti. I'm not saying that there is no good or interesting art that comes out of it, but these day I have an ambivalent feeling that the cost is just too great to make these activities desirable.

In graffiti's case, lots and lots of public facilities and private houses are vandalized just because someone wants to write their name on it, while decaying neighborhoods, disrespecting other users and wasting a lot more money than needed in restoration.

Yes, I know that there is a Banksy in 1 of 100000, and I know that some homeowners are so open that they let everyone graffiti their house. (Besides, those who are committed to do it will find the leeway.)

In the re-edit/remix's case, lots and lots of videos are just exact duplicates of the original, or just plain horrible work, just because someone wants to tell the whole world instead of his friends one single joke, while encourages the use of the medium for piracy and opens up an irreversible flaw for author who just wants to release their videos as CC:BY-ND-NC.

Yes, I know that there is a (you name it) in 1 out of 1000000, and I know that there are plenty of filmmakers who happily lets others cut their film into pieces. (Those who are committed to remix will find the security loophole.)

With that said, I'm not saying that I support DRM. But I think the DRM is more acceptable - if it is not forced on all videos, and if the author has the choice on whether the video will have it or not.

Anyone who can shred some light on this dilemma is welcome. :)

New Direction

2008-02-22T04:04:00.001-05:00

Hello all, sorry for forgetting to post here for quite a while. It has been great times for me, since I'm busy with work and a few great projects with my friends and for myself had started.

I noticed that while it is hard to type anything specifically for the blog, I realize that I type a lot when I am writing in response to blogs or forums. Therefore, from now on I will also post those epic essays of mine here as a record and for all of you to read.

Switching Channels...

2008-01-09T20:36:00.001-05:00

There were two major tech sites on the Internet in the Blogging Age: Engadget and Gizmodo. To satisfy their readers' neverending lust for gadgets, they chase after new releases like paparazzi. To entice their readers, they introduced humor, and later wit. And when the readers become bored by wit, they introduced sh*t-talking, to harmonize with the anonymous comments that were as disrespectful. When even sh*t-talking is not enough, they introduce rumors, false rumors, biased reviews, and disposable reviews that did not even bother using the product fully but focus fully on the joy of bashing. And last of all, photos of girls to make you think you are reading Maxim Magazine.

Of course, there is a limit of how much of these "humors" an average reader can take. Therefore, occasionally, when the editors realize that their readership is falling, they would clean up their act a little bit and do some better reporting.

However, as their readership increase again, the quality of articles decline.

I found myself switching back and forth between these two sites back in the days. The switch is now over. I doubt I want to read either of the sites. There are much more interesting topics to be obsessive about, and there are a lot more other sites that would be willing to spend the time to give unbiased and insightful reviews of gadgets.

To illustrate the last two paragraphs, here is a graph I drew up:

One Year into Windows Vista

2008-01-05T17:04:00.000-05:00

I had used Windows Vista for a year.

Microsoft, in many ways, failed to market the product. It used the word "Wow" to describe how great the new operating system is. Yes, the OS is not bad, but "Wow" is too subjective a word to be used.

For geeks, Vista is not a "wow", because Microsoft had disclosed way too much information for the 5 years of its development. No matter how good the product is, the excitement is already over for the geeks. New features, in the days of Instant Culture, are the most exciting only when it is unvealed, not when it is being used.

For normal people, Vista is not a "wow", because it does not save them from their bosses, does not help them finish all the work of the day quicker, and does not attract lovers. And it crashes when the graphics driver is poorly written.

For frat boys, Vista is not a "wow" because it is not a status symbol.

For Apple fanboys, Vista is of course not a "wow". (Is it just me or is Leopard way too grayish?)

It is a not-so-bad transition, nevertheless. Perhaps it proves that the operating system is slowly graduating to an infrastructure - like the power grid, water supplies or your sewage pipes - an upgrade is not about marketable excitement anymore. It is about "It just works".

Anyway.

"Astrogirl" - Pentium 4 3 GHz, 1.5GB RAM

The first computer switched over was my home computer, a year ago. (Specs are listed not to show off, but to show you how poor I am.) It seems pretty slow and sluggish in the beginning (and it is sometimes pretty sluggish, like how the text does not appear immediately in Windows Live Writer as I am typing right now), but it seems to improve over time and updates. I plugged in my old hard disk to run Windows XP another day, and realized that the old system loaded up much slower.

In my first install, I had UAC turned off. However, I clicked a wrong link a month or two later in a hazy dreary night, and my computer was filled with spyware. I reinstalled Windows as a result. Soon I realized that most of the UAC dialog pops up when I arrange my Start Menu items. Once I got through that stage, UAC is not so bad. (Someone please make a software to make Start Menu arrangement less annoying?)

I am most satisfied with the ability to view photos nice and big in Explorer and Windows Photo Gallery. Other than that, it seems I could have done most of the tasks in Windows XP... Besides, Windows Live Photo Gallery is now available for XP as well. The new Network Center and diagnostics tool is a great addition though.

"Elian" - Xeon 'Irwindale' 3.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM

The second computer upgraded was my office computer, a couple months later. Work is important, so if the work computer is down it would be disastrous. The computer also seems slower after the upgrade, in spite of a better graphics card.

One biggest problem after the upgrade was the incompatibility of critical programs. Flash 8 would switch between scenes very slowly (It bugs Scott a lot, a hell lot), and Flash CS3 was not released half a year later. Paint Shop Pro XI is also painfully slow when saving files.

"Bluebird" - Pentium 4 2 GHz, 768MB RAM, Laptop

Before Christmas I upgraded the hard drive of my laptop (It seems very urgent at the time, but now I forgot why, hmm (ah, out of space to install CS3)) and a reinstallation of the OS as a result. It had always been running XP Chinese Edition, so I installed the Chinese version of Vista for it. To my surprise, the OS is very fast to load - probably because it doesn't use Aero. However, Microsoft Windows Vista cannot find the drivers for the Microsoft Wireless Adaptor Card. Therefore, my laptop hardly ever has Internet access.

"Alfie" - Celeron 2 GHz, 1 GB RAM

The last computer I upgraded was my family's computer. Although Aero is not running in this system, to my disappointment, Windows run very slow here. It also takes me a while to find all the drivers.

After one year, Windows Vista is not too bad, but is entangled with speed and hardware problems. I am currently building a new computer these days, and hopefully this will finally be a speedy computer. I still have very hazy memory of a very slow Windows XP Beta 2 on my Pentium II 300 MHz PC though.

I Made It I (A Zune Mod)

2007-11-13T16:55:00.001-05:00

Poor grammar of the title aside, after picking up a refurbished mocha-colored Microsoft-made media player (known as "Zune") from Woot!, I am pretty satisfied with owning a fully functional yet unnecessary piece of commodity: Although my cell phone does pretty much all of what it does, having a dedicated player not draining your cell phone battery is nice.

Since it is colored in mocha, it is now lovingly named "Turdis", a music dork reference to a line in one of Radiohead's songs, and the apparent color of a certain type of organic matter. It plays most of my songs (My library is 60+ GB), it never crashes (hahaha), and it showcases album art proudly.

After the update today, it gained a very nice and graphic (i.e. flat) interface with big fonts, and a formidable section dedicated to podcasts, which means "Portable O-something Device Casts".

I was fine with the mocha color for a while, and it was a delight once in a while to see a subtle green glow around the border, when the device is shone in the bright rays of dawn. That effect is known as "double-shot".

However, that's all the moments when the player actually look good.

Unlike the iPod, this Zune is deeply discounted. And unlike the iPod, it does not have a shiny surface - being flat and matt is a nice aesthetic, too. Since it costs less than a hundred, it does not hurt to experiment and modify. So last weekend I decided to spend a morning modifying it.

I posted the process on Instructables if anyone are interested.

I am pretty satisfied with the result. I now have a player of my own, and it is not even available in Zune Originals. It is nice that we have alternatives that do not look way too pristine to be modified or touched, so that I can ruin it any way I want.

Yourself versus Your Zombie-Self

2007-11-07T01:02:00.001-05:00

This is not about Halloween. It is about a strange world with a bizarre copyright system and record industry: Your own work can be used to compete with your own work.

Here's news: It's Radiohead versus Radiohead! While Radiohead had previously announced to release their new album "In Rainbows" on their own on December 3rd, their previous record company decided to release all the previous Radiohead album, which they own the rights of, as a box-set just 7 days later, as an aggressive response to the fact that Radiohead decided not to continue the contract with them.

Can an ordinary person tell the difference? Can even a fan tell the difference? In fact, can a fan even be zealous enough to follow through the band's principles, i.e. not support their previous record company by not buying the box-set, instead of succumbing to their own desires?

Of course, it's not like Radiohead will lose money in this case. It's still their work. The difference is, in the former case they earn 100% of what they created, while in the latter they earn perhaps less than 10%.

A record company is supposed to be simply a company that helps an artist to advertise, reproduce and distribute his work. Back in the days, it was necessary because it would be impossible for an artist to raise money to get their own record reproduction equipment, and to get a crew to advertise and distribute their records. And of course, after decades of lack of negotiation skills, artists lose their grounds to entrepreneurs, and nowadays artists only earn less than 10% of what they created, and get locked into long "six album deals". Six albums is most band's or singer's lifetime, if they are lucky enough to release two.

I can foresee this happening to anybody, including myself, because I hardly own any rights to my current works either. Say, if my company were bought, I would own nothing more, despite 100% of the artwork and user interface design comes from my hand.

Temptation of Saint Anthony

2007-10-30T16:44:00.000-04:00

So the story goes: One night, Anthony the Great was faced with great temptations. Lucifier, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Martyrs, the Magicians, the Pagan Gods, Science, Lust and Death and the Monsters came out to stray him from his belief that isolation is the truest form of worship. And of course, our persistent protagonist survived all temptations and came out to be the greatest.

And somehow the story inspired and is translated into a technological commodity such as a Trillian skin. You are now the protagonist and have to survive from all these temptations, as angels and devils are in constant conflict on your very Contact List. Slay the devil with the sword in 90's-style violence. And which friend to trust and not trust? (Ok, that's a long stretch.) Wait, and if Science is one of the temptations, should you just ditch your computer all together and become Amish?

Nevertheless, here it is, the skin, appropriate to the atmosphere of Halloween: a pagan holiday that is in constant (now non-existent in the modern world) conflict with All Hallow's Eve.

Here are the steps to install this piece of holy parable/blasphemy on your Trillian desktop:

Download skin from http://www.arkidect.com/files/Temptation-Build1.zip
Extract to Trillian\skins folder, and it should form "Trillian\skins\Temptation of Saint Anthony" by itself without you creating a folder.
Go to Trillian Astra Preferences -> Skins -> Custom Windows
Select "Temptation of Saint Anthony" from the list. Very tempting, huh?
Click "Apply Skin" at the bottom.

Important Note: This skin works for Trillian Astra only. To get the functions you normally get from the menus, you can right-click on the contact list window, or right click on the Trillian system tray icon.

Now, here's the hint, grab the sword and slay the demon!

Happy Halloween!!

Think Different (Part 3)

2007-10-08T18:41:00.001-04:00

This is a 3-part series on porting Trillian across platforms, particularly Mac OS X. It would make more sense if you start reading from Part 1. Thanks for your interest!

Coherence across platforms

Meanwhile, the second question is the coherence of the product between different platforms. If the user switches between Web and Mac OS X often, it would be nice if their experiences are around the same. Our web version is a very delicate replica of the Windows version, so that transition between Web and Windows is very smooth. Users don't need to re-learn how to use again, as it is conceived as one single product. It would be not convenient if in one OS the toolbar is at the top, and in another the toolbar is at the bottom.

In order to provide a familiar experience for all Trillian Astra users across the platform, we use the same skin through out. While we made a lot of changes to accommodate the ease of use in Mac OS X, the form of the contact list window remained the same - with its signature curved bottom housing a variety of controls - and it works well for the identity of the instant messenger as well.

The OS X version of Cordonata has an overall flatter "lacquered and polished steel" appearance that is based on Leopard. I am not completely sure about the darkness of the window yet, but it seems most windows in Leopard are very gray. We have also flattened the bottom buttons to follow the new toolbar buttons in Leopard.

Font choice varies across the platforms. It makes sense because certain system fonts do not exist on other systems. Default font of respective operating systems are used as a result, while in Flash we will try to adapt to both.

Other Trillian-centric behaviors are kept in spots where familiarity between Trillian products weighs more beneficial than familiarity between Trillian and OS X, and where there were no precedents in Mac OS X. For example, we use the same toolbar in both Windows and Mac to showcase all the IM services the user is using.

So this concludes my 3-part series on porting the design of Trillian to Mac OS X. Please feel free to send me comments on what you would expect on the designs of Trillian. Thanks!

Think Different (Part 2)

2007-10-08T18:15:00.001-04:00

Coherence with Mac OS X

There were two stages in the design of the windows. While critics may say it is unnecessary to design anything new with the use of HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) from Apple, it is in no doubt instant messaging requires a large variety of new controls.

For instance, Apple had to introduce chat bubbles in iChat to distinguish individual messages in a conversation. In the contact list, there are no standards between how contacts are laid out. Some have two lines, some have one line. iChat has buddy icons in the size of 28x28, which is not a nice size as it has to shrink down a buddy icon usually 48x48 or 50x50 in size. It is also difficult to pick which control to use. Windows Live Messenger for Mac is the only messenger that uses the true list control from OSX, while iChat simply do away with groups for tidiness.

Tabs are also another questioned area in OS X. While iChat in OS X Tiger have tabs at the bottom, iChat in Leopard moved the tabs to the left for the new Source List look, and Safari still have tabs at the top. Yahoo! Messenger followed suit to have tabs at the bottom to be as 'authentic' as possible.

Therefore, custom controls are needed no matter what, but the question is how we can design it so it looks like a part of the OS.

Of course, the necessity of custom controls is not the license to go crazy in the design. In order to pay respect to the users of Mac OS X, we paid attention to a lot of details so it can be easier to get used to.

We made numerous small changes in the base version of Trillian Cordonata, the default skin of Trillian. Of two most obvious changes, the window buttons are moved to the position where OS X users are used to. The Zoom effect also maximizes the contact list to its content only. We are also going to make the scroll bar comply with the system setting so the arrow buttons will fall into the right place. The glow and selected states of list items will also correspond to the color settings in System Preferences.

And in fact, concepts from Mac OS X were referenced heavily in the design of Trillian. For example, the Trillian preferences window is based on System Preferences in Mac OS. Even though it has a Windows look in the Windows version currently, the Mac version will spot a Mac look with authentic controls. The design of the skin also has a feel of a 'remote control' in mind, similar to the widgets on Dashboard, or the controls of the Apple DVD Player.

In future, we would hopefully allow the possibility of having other interfaces. While I would love to see a 'normal' OS X window or a minimal black slate window also, the current plan is to develop Cordonata first, which is essentially the superset of these other alternative skins. Those other skins may be beneficial to those who only uses IM on a Mac.

Next up, I'll talk about how Trillian Astra for Mac lives well with its brothers on the Web and on Windows.

Proceed to Part 3...

Think Different: A Lesson in Porting

2007-10-08T17:52:00.001-04:00

With the release of the alpha of Trillian Astra for Mac, there are lots of comments and controversies stirred up by the new design of the software. In the following 3-part series, I will attempt to explain the reasoning behind the design and open myself to critiques and comments.

iTunes: a straight port

Apple's Mac OS X is the Mecca of desktop user interface design. Despite how many times Apple itself breaks its own interface guidelines with iTunes, Time Machine or Dashboard, such new experiences are justified by good logic and craftsmanship, no matter how they deviate from the norm.

As we move along in the future of software, I envision that the distinction between downloaded desktop software and web software. And this is how the design challenge began.

Designing between Platforms

Microsoft Office: a culture-specific port

We first saw software from OS X coming to Windows (e.g. iTunes, QuickTime), and software from Windows coming to OS X (e.g. Office), when their user bases were distinct, i.e. Mac users always stay in Mac, Windows users always stay in Windows. That was relatively easy. Windows and Mac OS X could be a metaphor of two different nations with different culture. One could simply translate the software directly into another and call it done, or one could also design the software to be culture-specific. The latter means that, Office for Windows have a Windows layout and Windows features, while Office for Mac have a Mac layout and Mac features.

Adobe Photoshop: an in-between port

And then we also had software that are designed to work on both platforms (e.g. Photoshop). Back in the days, they were mostly professional software. Such software exists as its own entity; their users will be unhappy to relearn the software if they switch OS. Therefore, it is always interesting to look at Adobe and Macromedia products, in the way how they designed the UI to make users of both OS-es happy. In my observation, Adobe is getting more aggressive these days introducing its own UI elements, while still respecting the fonts and metrics of the OS.

And now we have the third type of software: Software that is always connected, across operating systems and across platforms of desktop, web and device.

So here's the challenge: Design a unified interface across all OS platforms, desktop and web, while retaining an identity. This is Trillian Astra.

Admittedly, Trillian Astra is one of the few first software out there that attempts such triumvirate. Here at Trillian, a lot of users use IM across OS-es and devices. For example, one would have a Mac at home, while a Windows PC in the office, and also an iPhone on the run at the same time. There would also be users who have a Windows PC at home, and always on the run in libraries and Internet cafes. The user does not stay at the same platform all the time in these cases, as we encourage them to use Trillian across the board. In this point of view, coherence is not simply between the software and the operating system, but also between the software in these different incarnations.

I would like to start a conversation with any UX designers out there, and I hope we will have a better reach to do this with the release of the Mac edition. Please feel free to drop your comments in.

Next up, I will talk about how Trillian is designed to be coherent with Mac OS X.

Proceed to Part 2...

A Cavallo

2007-10-01T12:45:00.000-04:00

It is essential for an artist to get out of his own realm and look for something that will excite him. Taking a break from all the tech talks, here are some of things I am helping out with recently in real life.

I always have a passion for creating an actual object in reality. Back in the days in Hong Kong, I had hardly any access to tools to create my own objects. The only choices are paper and Lego. RISD was heaven to me because I could access all these wonderful tools for creation that I had never seen before: table saws, metal molten casts, and all sorts of carving tools.

After graduation, my access to such machines were gone. My current job as the designer of Trillian is good and challenging, but I hardly have to leave my computer. There wasn't a lot of places for me to work on projects unless I rent my own shop (expensive) or go to an artist colony like 3rd Ward (far).

But, anyway, let's get into the gist of what I had been helping out in free time:

This is "A Cavallo", an art piece designed by Quill Hyde for Burning Man 2007 and beyond. I had been a lot happier since I was working on this project. The exercises involved in the welding, grinding and transportation of steel, the friendly and vibrant work crew (We meet often!), the smooth planning and management by Quill, and of course, the fresh air outside an air-conditioned office, are all refreshing.

The 'machine' is a very well-designed carousel, including a 2nd-level catwalk allowing the control of 6 rhythmic fire torches, a live music stage with custom sculpted speakers, and 6 steel horses circling up and down gracefully. The horses have an interesting origami folded look, that balances nicely between geometry and organic forms. They all have a different character, as portrayed by their surface finishes and a symbol on their heads.

The art piece was prominently shown in Burning Man, as we cruised around the desert every day and night with our wild music and carnival-esque faire. It was well-documented by a lot of participants in the festival, and it was also featured on New York Magazine. But this is not the end! We are trying to find more ways to show the carousel outside Burning Man. A ride in Halloween Parade would be cool, but some city ordinances prevented it from happening...

If you live around New York City and are interested in these wild horses, feel free to stop by our fundraiser in Red Hook next Saturday (Oct 13) night! We are giving out a quarter-sized steel horse in the raffle.

For more information, visit http://www.acavallo.org/!

Supermassive iPhone Black Hole (Ordeal Part 4)

2007-09-10T03:08:00.001-04:00

All your songs and videos in your pocket? No, more like in your black hole, known as the "Other" files - gone and inaccessible since there isn't a file finder - in your pocket.

This is what exactly happened after a series of self-triggered connecting and disconnecting of the iPhone. The audio and video files self-destroy into a pile of rumble. The hours I spent closing monitoring and synchronizing these files are wasted.

Don't even think about the iTunes Music Store on my phone. The DRM-ed songs I buy would be erased in a sync error, or a wipe-out.

All I can hear is the constantly beeping two-tone 'connected' sound of the iPhone, orchestrating with the two-tone 'device detected' sound of Windows Vista. The podcasts and videos I prepared for this morning's commute is no more: the last chance of me forgiving this device is gone. Very very sad.

I checked all points of potential error:

USB port: Unlikely. It is the second USB port on the motherboard, and it is a USB 2.0 connection.
The USB cable: Unlikely. It is the original cable that came with the box.
Port connection: Possible. Is the Apple hardware that badly made? But it's possible. I unplugged and plugged it a few times yesterday already for the AT&T activation.
iPhone firmware: Possible. It is not the most updated. But then, the firmware update download never completes for me.
iTunes and the iPhone hardware driver for Windows Vista: Most likely. After all, iTunes never really got fixed for Windows Vista. Numerous reports can be found around the Internet even in the latest version.
Windows Vista: Unlikely. If it is the problem, my previous Windows Mobile phone would have never worked properly.

So kudos to the Apple software development for PC. You guys have created the worst software experience, and spoiled all the goodness of a good piece of hardware your company had made.

I'm returning the phone tomorrow, so that the total loss will be kept minimal, i.e. $30.

Spot the Error! (Ordeal Part 3)

2007-09-10T01:10:00.001-04:00

iTunes never fails to amaze me:

Besides the infinite amount of error 3259, this "8.2MB of 7.3MB" progress bar shoots through the roof of my patience.

Nevertheless, I was able to play around Safari browser and Youtube during dinner. Those were fun and great pastime, I must say (I was watching "Hipster Olympics" showing the corner of Bedford Ave and North 6th Street, exactly when I was passing there, and that was quite a wonderful feeling). But then, I'd rather look for Windows Mobile alternatives of those softwares before I explode due to the incompetence of iTunes. Windows Media Player, in contrary, had never given me sync errors like those, and it would show me exactly which files are synced.

There are more detrimental flaws than nice details in the iPhone + iTunes combo that leaves me less and less love for it. My fantasy of showing off the phone to friends in Hong Kong is not worth the headaches of sync failures every day.

Four days left with this phone.

The iTunes + iPhone Ordeal (Episode 2)

2007-09-09T18:52:00.001-04:00

Nothing seems to motivate me better than rage, apparently. Have you ever seen me writing two blogs in a row? No, except the current issue that I would refer to as "iPhone ordeal".

Either the iPhone is destined not to be my kind of phone, or I am in a really odd situation, the frustration is real.

Despite the promise from an AT&T representative that their billing system was being updated in the early morning until 7AM, iTunes still does not work in the afternoon. I called again, and it turns out that I am still using the old (pre-Cingular) AT&T account, and they had to manually switch over.

The activation went on smoothly afterwards, but then here comes the iTunes ordeal:

The first screen you can see in iTunes is a black window, as if the software has crashed.
While Windows Vista is brilliant enough to be able to detect the photo storage of the iPhone in Windows Explorer each time I reconnect the phone, iTunes sometimes would be dumbfounded, sat still and could not detect the device.
The iTunes browser is the slowest browser I had ever used. Pages had a barber shop progress bar that only indicates pages are loading does not indicate any progress.
The skinned buttons have not tactile responses. Sometimes you cannot really tell if you had clicked a button, or if iTunes is just hanging.
Podcasts and iPhone update downloads constantly failed half-way, as it does not fare well in 'slow' Internet connections. (P.S. I'm using a EVDO connection.)
My photos were never synchronized properly. Every time I tried to disconnect and reconnect, it will halt in the middle, giving me this dialog:
The calendar took three syncs to get it right. In fact, I can never tell if iTunes had ever attempted copying anything to my phone.

Meanwhile, the iPhone experience has been not too bad so far. I was able to browse web pages, set up my contacts and wallpapers, and so on. The novelty factor does wear off pretty quickly though, however. There are a few annoyances so far:

It takes quite a while to find the contact I want to dial to. Since it does not have a dialpad-based contact search like Windows Mobile does, I have to remember everyone's last names in other to find them. I have 100+ contacts, and even though I have a good memory of last names, it is much slower to find a contact here than in my WinMo.
Besides, it takes too many steps to get into the dialpad, since there is no hardware dialpad anywhere.
The squeezing and un-squeezing finger actions is not very accurate. While it works fine for casual browsing of photos, the finger flicking makes it too easy to jump around Google Maps accidentally, and wastes bandwidth and loading time as a result.
The mail application marks everything from my mailboxes as unread. Worse still, there is no way to mark all mail as unread.
Gmail is treated as a POP3 mailbox. And I don't understand why mails that I wrote would end up in my Inbox.
There is no easy way to sync Notes.
There are no voice recorder software available.

So my iPhone refund countdown has officially begun... It will properly be due this Thursday. It is going to be a lot of hassles, dealing with the Apple store refund and the AT&T switching back process, but it probably will worth all the headaches I will get by using iTunes.

The iPhone Activation Ordeal

2007-09-09T02:26:00.001-04:00

Since my phone, which could play videos, songs, browse Internet and look up Google Maps, and which had been working like a horse for 3 years, was broken, in the wrath of the deserts sands from Burning Man, I had to buy a new phone today. I miss the convenience of having all my contacts and files sync-ed.

So I bought an iPhone. You know, my company is developing a software for it. And I led that project, in fact.

But if there is anything wrong with the design of the iPhone, it is the activation process. It is an absolute failure.

First of all, I have to close iTunes now because it keeps stealing focus of my windows every minute. I can't type at all.

So here is the story.

Once I opened your pristine box of the iPhone, I took out the phone, the dock, and everything, and I am greeted with no instructions. Ah, yes, it's a touch phone, so the instructions must be on the first page of a pamphlet called "Finger Tips".

And I read the first instruction: Download iTunes. Of course, if you cant wait to turn on your phone (which you need to hold a button somewhere at the top right), you will be greeted with the same instructions as well.

Why iTunes? I have no idea. I thought this is a phone, not a music player. But anyhow, I am forced to download a nearly 50MB file, via my slow broadband connection. That alone took half an hour of waiting.

iTunes itself required the installation of two of the most annoying components: Apple QuickTime and Apple Software Update.

And iTunes itself is a horrible software. Enter Key does not work. After you entered all your details in the iPhone wizard, enter key will not bring you to the next page. The software is very unresponsive as well, compared to Windows Media Player. There is no hierarchy to speak of when browsing your media. The giant list of all my 7000 songs in the Music Library is illogical. It is impossible to scroll through the whole thing. Want Podcasts? Want album artwork? Oops, you need an iTunes Store account. Everything points to an iTunes Store account, actually.

It had been more than an hour since I called AT&T. I checked my AT&T account on their web site, and verified that the rate plan had already been updated, as they wished. However, Apple iTunes still told me that my voice plan is not compatible with their phone, and passed the blame on AT&T. Way to go, Apple. It's totally your fault now and I'm waiting. Worse, you don't even have a proper technical support phone line that I can find easily.

(As of 2:20AM, i.e. 8 hours later, it is still not working. Clearly, the AT&T web site had been updated with the new plan.)

Comparing a Windows Mobile, the setup process of the iPhone is a disaster. For a Windows Mobile, you install Outlook and Windows Mobile Device Center. Outlook, comparing iTunes, is a full-featured PIM. Besides, you don't even need to install all these things if you just want to make a call. The phone will just work when you turn it on. No locks and activation.

I know, Microsoft introduced the concept 'activation' to the mass. Adobe soon followed. And Apple made it ugly.

I am returning the phone next week, if the experience continues to degenerate.

Kibbles 'n Bits

2007-07-30T16:56:00.001-04:00

I whipped up this 'logo' in an hour or two for my friend Ryan in the early early morning. It was a fun exercise and I think the result is great (commercially acceptable and great), and it includes all the cliches you can expect from me for my level of skillz: flat-style Illustrator shapes, nice shadows with transparencies and hue-based color changes, round and nicely-fine-tuned cartoons, and an overuse of stars on top "i"s.

It is also very "2000's indie", in the way that you got: handwriting fonts written by real hand not a computer, Web 2.0-style rounded fonts, ribbons, shape resembling a classic emblem but drawn like a cartoon, and lots of irony featuring animals running around happily in a environmental-friendly cage. Oh, humanity! (Originally I want animals running around with syringes to increase the sense of subtle irony.) My stand towards humans owning pets is ambivalent. I guess animals do want to be our friends, but I guess they think we are dreaming.

Anyway, I should do more time attack exercises like this and I'm glad I took the challenge Ryan gave me. So... now let's start earning some money!

Things Learnt From Making Trillian for iPhone

2007-07-08T03:15:00.001-04:00

Phew! The week was quick! The idea of making Trillian work on the iPhone did not come around until two weeks ago, when we are convinced that Trillian Astra may be able to run on the phone.

There are a few engineering challenges concerning the connectivity of a mobile device, and design limits due to the size and processing power of the device. Since the iPhone is designed as a gesamtkunswerk (a total work of art), my main concern is to create a user experience that is as coherent with the iPhone itself as possible, while still retaining a brand identity: something that won't make an iPhone user feel like they are contaminating their dear phone, while keeping Trillian users proud.

Here are some quick things that just come out of my brain in regards of designing applications on iPhone:

Ergonomics: After dissecting the iPhone UI, I concluded a very simple rule: Buttons need to be the size of a finger. And it cannot be too close to each other.
Metrics: Apple keep sizes of things fairly straightforward, everything is around multiples of 10 pixels, which translates to 1/16 of an inch. A button is usually 40 pixels tall, which is a quarter of an inch.
Color: The iPhone interface, in fact, uses very similar hue ranges as Trillian Astra. But then all these are just guessing unless we can actually take screenshots from the phone.
Interface Inconsistencies: While reading from the iPhone applications, I realize that their interface is actually not very consistent: Sometimes the bottom is black, sometimes is blue, sometimes it's used as a status bar, sometimes a toolbar. Some screens are black, some screens are white. Nevertheless, it is still pretty tied together because it's intuitive and minimal enough.
Font: Apple loves Helvetica on the iPhone. Humanist fonts seem to go out of style when Microsoft begins adopting them in Windows Vista. Surprisingly enough, the phone includes Helvetica's archnemesis, Arial, probably for viewing Google, who is obsessed in the font.
CSS Compatibility: Most of the time was spent on getting the perfect CSS. I coded all the HTML using just <DIV>'s for reusability. It was a great experience to code a web page that works for just one browser. Makes you wonder why we should all suffer from browser wars. Safari on iPhone also spots some CSS3 features that other browsers don't have, and I can use them happily with no worries.
Testing: You need to have an iPhone to test no matter what. Safari for Windows or Mac may help you verify your stylesheets, but it will not reflect the exact rendering on the iPhone and the way user interacts with the application.

With that said, I have yet to get an iPhone... I know, it's harder to design if I cannot immerse myself into 'knowing' the device I am designing on.

Sorry for the Lack of Blogs...

2007-06-11T15:22:00.001-04:00

Here's a funny:

It's almost two years I had been working at Cerulean Studios. Only a few things had changed since then, I don't feel I had grown any more mature, but perhaps I had grown older as exposing my bare flesh in the open and wild world.

I had learnt that everything is unstable, but I need to feel stable while I can. I had moved twice, by myself or with the help of lots of dear friends. I had dealt with numerous legal issues and I learnt how to get help from lawyers. I learnt how to juggle my finances, while saving money and earning credits. I finally understood the importance of networking, and still striving to make new friends (or occasionally one or two enemies, unfortunately). I had been slowly learning how to manage my time, and be more responsible and responsive.

These are a lot of things that you don't learn by putting yourself in the greenhouse of colleges. During these two years, not much significant artwork had been made, but a pile of letters, whether business or personal, were read or written.