[Nottingham] [Talk] Thurs 07/01/2010 A GUI Past & Future

[Jim Moore]

idea for the website: put the content on a google account (7.5GB there
so plenty space!) and link it via an iframe on an ICQ account (the
iframe takes care of the ads n other assorted "goodies" that ice likes
to foist on you) to take care of the ddns problem right there at the
registrar end eg www.thiswebsite.com redirects to
http://members.icq.com/12324567a/ which loads an iframe from your
server (single page there which takes about 0.0001sec to load, how's
that for efficiency?) and everything else from a googlemail virtual
drive. That's what I used to do for my local content before I
discovered Apache (and the associated bandwidth overhead that
threatens to melt my modem every time someone hit one of my client
sites) and WAAAAY before Google Mail offered a method to mount your
account space as a network drive. OK, the Google/ICQ method is a bit
cheesy and mixing relatively old tech with relatively new tech, but it
works and it's /free/.

</ramble>

Cheers,

J

On 1/10/10, Martin <martin at ml1.co.uk> wrote:
> Martin wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> Happy New Year!
>>
>> And I hope all enjoyed whatever festivities or just a nice quiet break.
>>
>> For the first Thursday meet of the year, we have:
>>
>> A GUI Past & Future
>> ===================
>>
>>
>> Whilst doing the Christmas rounds, I was in discussion with various
>> people about how we 'play' with all things players, computers, and
>
>
> And a good if very select session was had despite the cold and snow. One
> geek was showing off a very smart if overly small smartphone for
> go-everywhere connectivity and ssh to back home. Still not sure I'd be
> able to use it with my super fat fingers... And it looks like netbooks
> still rule ok! Anyone seen anything of the new ARM-based machines soon
> to come out?
>
> Nicely varied discussion with only very brief mention of Christmas.
> Looks like true geeks already do have all their toys! There was a short
> but deep little discussion on language and the use of language and of
> how the same written text can be interpreted in many very different ways.
>
> That was a very good reminder as to how 'help files' and manuals can be
> completely unhelpful to users. Also, it backs up many comments I've
> heard that users just do not read what is on the computer screen in
> front of them. I was reminded for over the Christmas period for the
> plethora of trivial 'computer problems' that seemed to gravitate to me
> for fixing 'computer things' for others. Largely, users do not
> understand and have no interest in *any* of the jargon or architectural
> details that we are naturally immersed in with computers...
>
> From that I've a good few ideas for a possible User Interface direction
> beyond what the Moblin user interface is just now lightly touching upon.
>
> I think the biggest hangup for everyone with the mainstream GUIs is the
> very flawed and inconsistent results produced when using mouse buttons:
>
> one click for select;
> two clicks in quick succession for select-and-action;
> click-and-hold to drag something;
> many variations if keyboard keys are pressed also.
>
> That list is typical but those results are not consistent even on the
> same one desktop! For example, one click on a desktop object might
> select it whereas one click on a taskbar object on that same desktop
> will act like a double-click!
>
> Note: A typical user reading this rant of mine will likely not
> understand what is meant by the term "a desktop object". You're at an
> advanced level if you do understand.
>
> Also consider that most people find the double-click to be almost
> impossible to do physically without at least some practice... And there
> is always confusion caused by why or how only one of a sigle-click,
> double-click, or a right-click might be needed...
>
> There must be better ways... (That are intuitive or can be randomly
> guessed and that do not require any deep menus or /any/ manuals...)
>
>
> The Navvy is getting nicely revamped and is already looking an awful lot
> brighter. The beer was good although you need to like Banks bitter. And
> their ADSL + WiFi is finally getting hooked up.
>
>
>> I'll also be putting together a few ideas to post a calendar of talks
>> for the year. What would you like to hear? What interests?
>
> Next foodie social is at YO! Sushi on Tuesday 19/01/2010 pending a
> certain person acquiring discount vouchers for us all. This time we'll
> aim for an earlier start than usual to hopefully be able to get in there
> before any queues.
>
> Next talk 'n' beers is about what happens from switch on of a PC through
> to seeing a desktop displayed, and why it takes such a ridiculously long
> time. Anyone with details of how to speed up that process will be very
> welcome to add comment!! All at the new brighter Navvy on Thursday
> 04/02/2010.
>
>
> We've got a clean calendar at the Navvy for this year both for events
> and for which days to meet. Anyone got any preference what talks, or for
> alternate days?
>
>
>> And are there any volunteers to revamp our long dormant website? (A lot
>> of work was put into the old drupal site. Either resurrect that or at
>> least retrieve the content?)
>
> No takers on that one :-( ... so far?
>
>
> Cheers All,
> Martin
>
> --
> ----------------
> Martin Lomas
> martin at ml1.co.uk
> ----------------
>
>
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