On Olympian Architecture

The 2008 Olympics are going to be way better than 2004. Aside from the fact that Katie Couric and Bob Costas will hopefully be either dead or retired, the stadium looks like it will be absolutely awesome.

I'm not talking about the main stadium right now. While the main stadium looks like it will be quite nice, it doesn't really break any new grounds as far as stadium design goes (Although I haven't seen the inside yet, so based on the swimming stadium, I may yet be amazed). What I'm referring to is the often-overlooked Swimming Stadium.

The Swimming Center which they call the Water Cube, if they do go with this plan, is absolutely breathtaking. The building looks like a giant rectangular block of soap bubbles, or living cells. From afar it looks like a perfect rectangle, but up close, each cell is actually slightly bulbous, adding to the illusion of bubbles. Also, the cell comparison is particularly apt for the Olympic Games — thousands of individual specialised components, coming together and working in unison to create a more meaningful whole. The outer walls are supported by an irregular grid of white, bone-shaped supports, which are just visible under the bubble-skin, further adding to the illusion of some kind of mathematical interpretation of the human form.

While the outside is breathtaking on it's own (the choice of a monotone, deep blue structure creates an aura around the building — although the walls appear to be translucent, so light shines through from inside (or maybe is reflected through the translucent, curved bubbles) and creates a literal glow to the building)), the inside is where it really shines. Typically, stadiums are large rooms made of bare construction components. While architects generally try to jazz things up at eye level, the walls and ceiling are almost always left undesigned, and the roof is held up with bare structural tubes. I've always thought that if the ceiling is a maze of air conditioning ducts and pipes of various sorts, the architect hasn't really done there job. This is definitely not the case in the Water Cube.

The room is almost garish in it's simplicity. A big rectangular box, with two rectangular pools in the middle flanked on either side by bleachers. The colors are similarly deep and moody inside here, but wisely no structural elements are exposed — it looks as if you are really in a big room, rather than under a suspended tent roof. The only source of obvious light in the room is the pool itself (there is supplemental lighting shining up form behind the bleachers), making sure that there is no mistake what the center of attention here is — the athletes (which unfortunately seems to have been partially forgotten in recent games). The diving tower rises up form one end of the room like a monolithic pipe organ, also adding a subtle nod to the three-tiered podium for competition winners.

From what I can see so far, the jumbo-tron has been replaced by a floating circular holograph in the middle of the room, but this may have been added with artistic license. However, this would certainly be quite possible with a large ring of glass and a cluster of projectors in the middle, supported by near-invisible strings. I certainly hope this is actually the plan, as it would be a magnificent site, and further adds to the idea of the pool being the center-point — the screen are so unobtrusive that they literally disappear.

The one feature this stadium lacks, although I originally thought it had, is an Infinity Pool. When I first saw pictures of the outside of the stadium, I thought it was actually a photo of a raised pool (this shows how obvious the illusion of water is in this design). An infinity pool is one where one or more sides is raised above ground level, and is made out of a thing, shiny material (or in this case, glass). I thought that the pool was actually one of these, and illusions of what could be possible with this filled my head. I imagined the divers jumping into a seemingly regular pool to start their race (they could only use this gimmick on the longer races), and once they are in the water, the entire pool lifting up out of the floor, seemingly a solid block of water floating in the middle of the room, mimicking the outward appearance of the building itself. Alas, this is apparently not the case, so I'll have to submit my suggestion and wait for 2012.

All of this commentary is based on the video, (in the right sidebar) so please go watch it yourself and be amazed. I'm eagerly looking forward to 2008.

On the usability of BitTorrent

It's been noted recently by several people that while BitTorrent is an amazing piece of technology, the user interface so far pretty much stinks. Being an amateur UI enthusiast (that's not a phrase you hear too often, eh?), I took it upon myself to do something about it.

(Link to mock-up image at the bottom of the post)

I did most of the work in Interface Builder, with some screen-caps thrown in to emulate a working app (like partially-filled progress bars). The idea was to give it an interface that's extremely easy to use, and is similar to the other way most people are familiar with for downloading files — their web browser's Downloads window.

The biggest problem is making it easy for novices to utilise BitTorrent without having to understand the underlying technology, but without undermining the core concept of BitTorrent that makes it work so well — uploading. All current clients rely on you to keep the download window open after the file is finished to keep uploading. This is confusing to anyone who's not familiar with BitTorrent technology (Why keep the window open if it seems to be done?). To solve this problem, I did two things — separated Uploads from Downloads, and added Automatic Uploading.

It's not realistic to rely on user's to keep the window open to keep uploading. Therefore uploading is handled by the application itself. In the preferences, you simply set the percentage of the original file-size you want to upload, and it's handled in the background. For this example I've set the default at 200%, but not being real familiar with how it works, maybe someone more intimate with BitTorrent could suggest a better default that would keep the download speed up.

The user can of course set their own percentage, but nothing below 100% (again, maybe a BitTorrent aficionado could tell me if this is too high/low). To encourage people to upload more, certain incentives are offered for higher Upload percentages. In this example, 800% gets you early version announcements (other people get announcements delayed by several hours, or maybe don't even get automatic version checking at all) and 1200% gets you access to source code. The latter will probably have to be changed, since source code access is not much of an incentive at all for normal users, and ideally this would be open-source in the first place — perhaps access to a newsfeed of BitTorrent news, or a BitTorrent download site? (This one would work especially well if an Official BitTorrent site were set up containing legal Torrents, as suggested by someone who's name I can't remember — the incentive could be access to premium Torrents, or the ability to post your own torrents, or even a newsfeed of new torrent files added).

If you desire even more control over your Uploads, you can check the "Keep uploading files until I stop them" option, which will do exactly as it says — giving you manual control over your uploads, as other clients do. To stop uploading you just click the "Clear" button in the Uploads toolbar (more on the toolbar below).

As for the interface elements not apparent in the image:

The Uploads view looks just like the Downloads view, except that the total file size would represent whatever percentage you have set in the preferences, unless you have checked the "Keep uploading files until I stop them" option, in which case there will simply be no total size, and the progress bar will simply be an indeterminate state progress bar (the one with the diagonal stripes).

Removing an upload or a download will not effect it's equivalent entry in the other view. So a novice user never even needs to venture into the Uploads tab — the downloads will be removed for the list when they are done (or when the user removes them, if they have the appropriate option selected in the Preferences) and the Upload will continue in the background until it reaches the set percentage. One more step is taken to ensure that users do not quit the app when uploads are going on: a dialogue box with something to this effect in it "You currently have files that are still uploading. Uploading files is what makes BitTorrent so fast for everyone, so it is strongly suggested that you keep the application open until all items in the Uploads list are complete." with buttons "Quit" and "Keep Open" ("Keep Open" being the default).

The columns in either Uploads or Downloads view can be used to sort results. the Name column will ort by name, and the Progress column sorts by percentage that is completed (maybe it would sort by the pure amount of data completed, but I think percentage would be more useful). If you have checked the "Keep uploading files until I stop them" option, then the Progress column in Uploads will be sorted by the amount of data uploaded.

The help buttons in the Preferences bring up a help page on the feature in question. However, rather than going into any more technical detail than is absolutely necessary, they focus instead on the results of changing these preferences and why you should or shouldn't do so.

The "Advanced Options…" button brings up a second Preferences window with all the standard BitTorrent options. Those which do not apply to this interface being left out, of course. I'm thinking that it may be better to not even include this at all, since most of these options are really Never, Ever, required.

When an error is encountered while downloading a file, in most cases it is not presented to the user. If a piece fails hash-check, just re-download it. If there is a problem connecting to the tracker or some other connection problem, it is re-attempted a few times, and then if it still cannot connect, the download stops and the progress bar is replaced with short descriptive text ("There was an error connecting to the server") and a retry button appears in the Progress column.

The toolbar is not shown by default, but has these buttons which can be added to it:

• Clear: removes all completed downloads (only if appropriate option is selected in Preferences to not do this automatically).


• Info: shows an inspector window with information on the particular torrent, including Comment, Author, Creation Date, Info Hash, Encoding, Etc.


• Reveal In Finder: show the file in the Finder (for completed files only, to avoid confusion when people open a half-downloaded file. Double-clicking the icon in the list opens the file in the default app, or if it is a folder, has the same effect as this.


• Stop: Cancels a download. The file is still listed (with a restart icon in place of it's progress number) until the user clicks Clear.


• Open With…: A pop-up menu of all applications that can open the file
  

That's everything I can think of now, so Here's the image.

This is just an interface. I don't have any actual coding experience, so I can't make this on my own. However, I would be thrilled if one of the major BitTorrent clients (maybe even the official one) would adopt this interface, or release a client with this interface. I would absolutely love any feedback at all on the design. It's quite possible that I missed something, and if that's the case please let me know and I'll amend it. Hopefully you agree with me that such a client would do wonders for the usability (and therefore the user-base) of BitTorrent, but I need your help. I'll respond to any comments or questions you leave.

A better Del.iocio.us poster

I've recently started using Del.icio.us, which is basically an online bookmark manager. It's nice to have access to my bookmarks regardless of what computer I'm on, and it has some cool social bookmarks aspects as well due to your bookmarks being public (better keep using your local bookmarks for more dubious sites). I only wish it had a way to import my hundreds of Safari bookmarks.

You access your bookmarks via a personal page on the delicious site, and you add a new bookmark with a link you put in your bookmarks bar. The problem with this link is that all it really does is loads a page on the delicious site with a form for entering your bookmark, and then reloads the original. This is workable, but not ideal. I really like the way Safari does bookmarks — no frills, right to the point. The great thing is, to the best of my knowledge it would be possible to make a version for delicious that looks and functions just like the browser's default new bookmark window, through the wonders of Javascript. I'd love for someone to make a new delicious poster script that pops up a javascript alert box with a couple of text entry fields for Name and Tags (the hard part would be giving a list of your tags you already have, but even the standard delicious poster page doesn't do that). Is there some limitation of javascript that prevents this? If not, someone get going on it!.

On the Design

Obviously, this is a default Blogger template. And while it is quite beautiful and by the quite talented Todd Dominey, it is still just a template, and not something that really expresses the purpose of this blog or says anything about me. I plan to eventually create my own design (and I may go with one that I have sitting around already mostly done), but I have made a promise to myself first — I will post here for awhile (probably about a month or two, depending on how frequently I end up posting) at which point I will step back, take a critical look at my content, and decide wether it's worthy of continuation, and a better design. I have a habit of getting too cuaght up in the design proccess, and neglecting the content. This approach will let me give the content the love it deserves, and also will perhaps mean the end result is a design more fitting of my content.
(I've put this in the sidebar as well, as I feel it's important to keep around as a little background.)

The Robo Maid

A few hours ago I saw an ad on TV for the Robo-Maid. The best I can tell, it's a combination of a metal cage with a swiffer-sweeper style "electrostatic dust pad" on the bottom and a weasel ball. That's right — as far as I can tell, the "Robotic Ball" which powers the Robo-Maid is in fact just a weasel ball. It seems to have an lcd display on it, but other than that it looks like and acts like a normal weasel ball. Perhaps unfortunately, it does not come with a weasel attached (It would probably help to collect dust). As the weasel ball rolls along on your floor, it pushes the metal cage along with it, apparently collecting dust.

If you've never seen a weasel ball in action, it basically rolls in a drunken fashion until it runs into something, at which point it's drunken spinning causes it to turn and go the other way. I'm guessing the removal of the weasel from the equation helps them get a less drunken motion out of their Robo-Weasel-Duster. This purely random brownian motion, I suppose, does mean that the Robo-Maid will eventually cover most of your floor, provided it doesn't get stuck in a corner (something that I'm afraid will happen all-too-often with a weasel-ball–powered duster).

While this is obviously another product which, through the use of clever advertising, will be made out to be much mor eaffective than it is so the inventor can make a quick buck .If you watch the commercial, which conveniently starts playing as soon as you load their site, you can see that the never show it in action for extended periods of time, and make it seem as if it's fairly goal-oriented, crossing the room in straight lines until the job is done. I have no doubt that it will cross a room in a straight line when someone pushes it in that direction before the camera starts rolling, but I'm sure it will be less affective in real life. Also, I can't help but think it would be quite loud.

However, despite all this, I wonder if perhaps it would actually work. The noise could be an issue, and the effectiveness of "Electro-static cleaning pads" is up for debate, but otherwise I can't help but think that it's a fairly clever adaptatino of the Weasel-Ball concept. And to you, the clever Sir or Madam who came up with this ingeniously ludicrous idea (which the Invention Channel apparently thinks is a gold-mine), I applaud you. I hope you make lots of money. And I'm sure it will sell like hot-cakes — after all, it's "All the craze in Europe, going for $60!"

Lack of Titles

I noticed that blogger by default does not let you give a title to your posts. I'm no sure if this is how it worked before the google buyout, but it's interesting. You'd tihnk that most poeple wouuld want a title for their posts, wouldn't they? Perhaps this is a little hint that google is supposedly so good, that you don't even need titles anymore – it can find out what the post is about merely by the content.

I've been using Safari as my sole browser for quite some time now. I used Camino (then Chimera) ever since it came out up until shortly after Safari was released, and even then I thought it was an excellent browser. However, Safari won me over with some of it's features � mostly small things here and there.

For several months now, Safari has been getting on my nerves. THe main reason has been it's unreliability � this probably is largely due to the fact that I use it more than anything else, but Safari seems to crash more than anything else on m system. Also, it keeps getting slower as you have it open. Today I noticed Camino .8b mentioned on someone's blog, and thought I'd try it out. I downloaded it only to discover that I already had it installed, but rather than closing it right away, I stuck around. Suddenly Camino doesn't seem that bad. Then I downloaded the newest Omniweb beta, and it seems real cool as well.

Unfortunately, none of them have it all right, but I think I may switch back to Camino for a while. It just seems to get it best out of the three. I really like the interface, particularly how much more responsive it is. However, Safari still seem to be the fastest at rendering pages, and also seems to have the fewest display bugs. I know it'll probably never happen, but I think there is a lot for Camino to gain if it abandoned the Mozilla Core and used WebKit. since it's sole purpose is to be a lightweight, OS X-native version of Mozilla that's unlikely, but it would give all the plusses of Camino's UI, with all the plusses of WebKit's speed.

Here's a quick overview of some of the pros form all three that I feel would make the perfect browser when combined.

Pros:

Camino:

• Native toolbar, good-looking widgets. Overall, Camino does a good job at following the Mac UI guidelines, with a little bit of common sense thrown in (although, I don't think quite enough.)


• Fast, responsive interface. This super-browser would for the most part be a straight port of Camino as far as the interface goes.


• Small Interface. I kid of like the grey metal border that Safari gives you over Camino's white, but it's not a big deal. I just wish there was more distinction between the page you're viewing and the status bar.

Safari

• Fast rendering. This is about the only unique feature that Safari has and the other's don't at this point.


• Good-looking tabs. They're not perfect, but I think Safari's tabs are better than Camino's. The aqua tabs just don't work very well for displaying web pages, especially the new Panther ones that aren't even tabs. Also, Safari makes it easier (not to mention prettier) to drag a link to the tab bar and open it in a new tab, or an already-existing tab. However, all of this is nullified by OmniWeb (see below)


• Spell-checking. Another one of the things that would be fixed by simply using WebKit, Spell-checking in all text-boxes.


• Keyboard short-cuts. In general, Safari's keyboard shortcuts don't necessarily make more sense, but are much easier to use than Camino's


• Sparse use of favicons. This may be a personal preference, but I don't really think that favicons have a place in by Bookmarks Menu, or on my Bookmarks Bar. They don't give you enough information to be used as an accurate way to quickly find what you're looking for (especially since many sites don't have on e at all, or even worse, have a poorly-designed one). They just make it harder to get what you're looking for. This is particularly evident in the Bookmarks Bar, where the favicons aren't all neatly lined up in the left column. Giving each bookmark an identical generic icon is not any better � in fact, it just gives you even less information. This might be something to leave up to a user preference. In fact, that's one thing Camino needs � more user preferences. I'm all for simple, but you can't simplify to the point that you hinder the user experience, which is what Camino has started to do in some places.

OmniWeb Introduces lots of new thing that haven't really been seen in a browser before. Some of these things are really great, but there's simply too many new features, and most of them detract form the experience by adding unnecessary bloat to the application.

• Tabs. The way OmniWeb does tabs is genius. Basically, it works like this: web pages by nature are vertical. With few exceptions, there is a limit to how wide you can practically make a window and still enhance your experience. However, you can always use more vertical space. The maximum useful width is conveniently narrow enough that you can make your window small enough to have plenty of space on the edges. Therefore: put the tabs over there. Omniweb just takes the tabs off of the top of the window, where they're horizontally lined up, and lines them up vertically on the side. It makes so much sense. You can fit easily 4x as many tabs on-screen, and it allows space for a scroll bar, so no more using a little sub-menu to see tabs that don't fit on screen. Plus, they went one step further, with the introduction of thumbnail tabs. It was a logical step on OS X, where photorealistic icons are a natural companion, and often-times substitute to text labels. If you wish, OmniWeb will present each tab as a square tile containing a miniature picture of the actual web page, along with the title underneath. It's surprisingly useable. Plus, it makes it natural to drag a link and plop it between two open tabs, as they conveniently slide out of the way. You can even watch the page load by looking at it's thumbnail. This is definitely a keeper.


• Protecting Page State. If you have a bunch of tabs open in a window and try to close it, you should be asked to confirm. It just makes sense. Losing all of the articles you have neatly stacked up, preparing to read, to a careless mouse click is just as bad as losing something you just wrote in a text editor. Especially on the internet, where you probably followed a trail of links to find them , and have no idea where they reside. An opportunity to save these tabs for later makes sense too.

I haven't mentioned FireFox, because I really don't think it has anything to offer. It may be faster than Camino, but Safari is still the fastest if you ask me. Other than that, it only takes a step backwards, with the non-native GUI.

I could write a lot more, but I tihnk these are some basic things that would make a really killer browser. Now I'm tired, and going to sleep.

superbrowser.png