hi there!
I see you've stumbled on to my humble home on the net, Drive:Activated. My name's Sam, I'm an ambitious and driven uni student, residing in Melbourne, Australia, wanting to make my mark on our world. This is my site, which is mainly just my blog and some other bits. There's no definite theme to my blog, just anything that interests me, and currently that's web trends, startups, ideas and cool stuff. Check it out, leave me a comment, click on 'Who is this?' to find out more about me, or drop me a line by clicking on 'Let's Talk'. Hope you enjoy it!
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While I'm talking about operating systems, I have another gripe to vent. It has to do with one of the most integral parts of operating system interfaces. Yes, as the title suggests, I'm talking about the desktop. Conceived as a virtual replica of our desk, the concept works if you are the super...
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TV just isn't what it used to be. It isn't just an idiot box where we can flick it on, channel surf mindlessly, change the volume, and turn it off when we're done. Photo by aesterling on flickr It's not just about tuning in to some pre-programmed channel anymore - its about gaming (PS3...
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So here it is, the new design that had been promised for so long, complete with the 2.0 designation . The previous design irked me a bit, and while it was only a few months old, I decided to try a different design strategy. This new design is designed to fix the annoying bits of the old one. For this...
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Do people who design products actually try using them, or do they just put things where it's physically feasible, aesthetically pleasing, traditionally located and/or downright inconvenient just to piss us off? The computer industry is renowned for this, but it is definitely not the only culprit. First...
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Recognising the significance of RIAs, Sun is fighting Silverlight and Flash with JavaFX , announced at its JavaOne conference. Details seem a bit scarce at the moment, and there doesn't seem to be any demos going around yet. It'll be cross platform, and will use a variation of the Java language, the...
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While playing around with Paint.NET today (great free basic photo editing tool, essentially paint on steroids), and was pleasantly surprised when I got this as I went to close it: Isn't that more helpful than something like this: Of course, if you have Windows Vista, you would've seen the former type...
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There's been talk of the browser being a dying breed when RIAs come along, and while I agree partially, I still believe there's a place for it in the short-mid term for browsing webpages, and information, as well as for testing out RIAs. I mean, imagine if you had to download a desktop app everytime...
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No this isn't a post about how to use the current command line interfaces, which are power and cool, but insanely unintuitive for the average joe. This post is about the command line making a comeback, after being shoved away into a corner by its bigger, better, more popular cousin, the graphical user...
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There's a lot of stuff lately on blogs about user experience, and its not just about software. Seems like the days of manufacturers telling you what to do and screwing you around are finally changing; the newcomers (and some old ones) are now chanting the new cool - customer/user experience. The Enlightenment...
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I stumbled across a framework called Sidewinder today, designed to bridge the integration gap between web apps and the desktop, making web apps behaving more like traditional apps. I suspect its still in its development stages, as all the documentation seems to be focused on the programming side of things;...