Day: February 10, 2008

Brent Simmons has written a detailed account of the decisions he made in designing the series of dialog boxes that pop up the first time you run NetNewsWire.

Although it’s written primarily for other programmers, his post is perfectly readable by the rest of us. It’s not so much about programming as it is about thinking carefully about users’ needs and expectations the first time they run a strange piece of software.

Based on the recommendations of a couple of online sources, and the fact that it’s now free, I thought I’d give NetNewsWire a go. And well, let’s just say I won’t be going back to using Google Reader anytime soon. Configurable, fast, easy to use, and when you tie it into a dedicated tool like Marsedit you have all the tools you need to turn you into a power blogger. Just look at the post rate for today…

(Via Sore Eyes.)

…in movies, at least. Michael Moran over at the Times nails the cliches that still strangle most mainstream movie SF at birth. I can think of few SF films released in the first few years that don’t have at least five of these in there somewhere. Primer, maybe.
Interesting that there’s a YouTube embed in the article to Aeon Flux – which seems to have all ten!

(via the Forbidden Planet blog)

After a long lie-in, I cooked pancakes and bacon for the Clare. Then, after washing up and tidying the kitchen, I spent the morning catching up on correspondence, writing letters to the local council and my MP. As it’s a sunny day, we drove out to a couple of garden centres, where I bought bread flour, making sure it was milled with wheat from local farms. On the way home, we bought seed potatoes, which I chitted. I put some dubbin on my spring boots, and then settled down to write this blog post, with a cup of tea and a Tunnock’s teacake by my side.

Oh, good grief. If anyone can tell me at which point I turned into Richard Briers, and supply me with a time machine so I can go back to just before that point, give my past self a slap and take him out for strippers and beer, I’d be eternally grateful. Thank you so much.