istartedsomething

In some Vista betas, where Aero wasn't finished yet, Aero's glass was a lot more transparent. This video shows some of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCDcekzU3cQ There were parts of Vista that were mostly glass and they still looked fine. The widget picker comes to mind: https://istartedsomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/gadget_1.jpg What Apple demonstrated in their first OS demo is not yet finished, and I'm sure they'll add some more frosted glass efects for legibility and such. What they show off in the video looks fine to me, and the explanation that comes with the visuals show that at least from a designer point of view, all of the weird stuff that jumps out in the macOS demo was violating the design principles. I loved Aero and I bet once Apple adds the diffuse glass to the places it need to for legibility, I'm sure this will look great too.

> I'm still rather baffled about how people look back fondly on XP, it looked like a toy for toddlers Agreed, yet somehow its Start menu is still better than what you get on Windows 10 these days: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rwZqf.jpg > ...installing the Zune theme was the first thing I did after a fresh install to try and tone it down. Everyone knows the best XP theme was Royale Noir! https://www.istartedsomething.com/20061029/royale-noir/

Microsoft seems to be the biggest current proponent of flat design, and I must say it's not so great for usability. When I see this: http://www.istartedsomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/windows8me… I have no idea what is and is not a button. I suppose it's all a button. But there are zero affordances in this UI. This is now finding its way to Microsoft's websites. On outlook, I can't quickly find the buttons to do key tasks: http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/story/70/00/001893/eb-new-outlook-three-… I think the reaction to excessive skeuomorphism is well founded, but removing all affordances isn't the proper way to move forward either.

Well... maybe not - http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110915/windows-store-to-provide-703… Then again, a lot of people think the 30% is worth it when compared to implementing your own way of selling things.

It's also worth noting that it can actually hurt your image if you try to bolt on virality when you don't know what you're doing. You can become a laughing stock. I'm reminded of recent failures by two of the largest engineering companies in the world. Microsoft: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090917/windows-7-now-with-extra-str… Siemens: http://www.lc-d-825.com/

I really like PowerPoint because you can simulate interactivity, it's easy, and it's flexible. A few links: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/interactive http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/09/07/10-minute-mock-prototyping-tips-f… http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071018/powerpoint-prototype-toolkit… There are tools specific to GUI-prototyping that have other upsides/downsides, a great list is here: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiPrototypingTools

Link to context if there’s interest, there was a macOS equivalent back in the day: https://istartedsomething.com/20080811/launching-aqua-taskforce-for-ma… Don’t bother clicking the links in the post, domains are squatted.

Reminds me the old "war" between AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. I think I recall that one the same day there was around 50 updates to those programs. Each update breaking something from the other and then one blinked and the stream of updates stopped and the 2 apps no longer spoke to each other. https://www.istartedsomething.com/20140420/msn-messenger-and-aim-insta…

There was also the never released Royale Noir, Royale Blue, Embedded, and Zune themes, which were even signed and didnt need uxtheme.dll patched. https://www.istartedsomething.com/20061029/royale-noir/ https://www.askvg.com/download-official-windows-xp-themes-no-uxtheme-p…

Context: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090228/microsoft-office-labs-vision…

Have they changed their policy on UAC not being considered security barrier on administrator accounts since W10? Windows was screwed for a long time[1], in practice not much better than running in SYSTEM all the time like in Windows 95 days. [1] http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090611/uac-in-windows-7-still-broke…

It reminds me that Windows Live Messenger blocked the share of YouTube links: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080510/windows-live-messenger-block…

The site uses the StartCom CA, which offers free SSL certificates. I like their service, but I remember that my old OS X 10.5 box does not recognise them, either. It seems to be a relatively recent addition: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20091010/microsoft-free-root-certific…

>This makes me even more angry at SourceForge and not less. YCombinator also invested in a company that did this. http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-… Here's pg's response: >2. The apps that get installed are "crapware." >This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711

YCombinator itself invested in bundleware. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130115/17343321692/why-are-y-combi… http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-… And pg justified it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 >The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things. The users are choosing to install the original app, not the bundled crap. This is sad.

Pretty much, yes - if there's a buck to be made and the law isn't being broken (in a way that will be meaningfully prosecuted), someone will do it. To answer your first question, someone from HN should surely about this given: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-… Extensive commentary at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806

Chrome is finally rendering fonts with the advanced DirectWrite font rendering engine. http://www.istartedsomething.com/20140412/google-chrome-35-beta-adds-m…

Multicolored fonts are supported by the text stack on Windows 8.1 ( and potentially by the opentype standard in the future?) http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130628/microsoft-adds-multi-color-f…

Here's the Bing Instant: http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch/ It's actually from a year ago. It doesn't automatically search for a predicted query, just uses what you've typed in so far. But you can mouse over the query suggestions to search for them.

This doesn't exactly answer your question, but this Bing-based live search is pretty awesome: http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch/

I probably saw an earlier tally: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090607/bing-vs-google-vs-yahoo-blin…

The author brings up several good points and examples about the way some British newspapers twist headlines and stories (I am assuming the headline is intended to make fun of the topic the author is writing about, as opposed to a generalization about all British newspapers). A more positive side of the British journalism tradition is that they can be far more skeptical, pushy, and hard-hitting when it comes to dealing with corporations and governments -- which is a good thing, IMHO. There's a brief example here with Apple's Phil Schiller from a few years ago that illustrates this point: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071117/taste-apple-public-relations…

Also, turns out one of Microsoft's updates to IE8 actually breaks this contest from working: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090617/internet-explorer-8-treasure… I can't reiterate enough how absolutely hilarious that is.

Here's a far more comprehensive article on it: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090516/windows-7-native-virtual-wif…

Paul, I'm one of the two people you're indirectly addressing with this HN post. (The second is Long Zheng.) I wrote here: http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-quietly-start… Long zheng wrote here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-… I'll respond to each of your items individually. 1. OK. 2. Maybe. Or more likely users are mistakenly installing these applications because the offer screen is made to look exactly like the EULA acceptance dialog seen in every other installer. But we don't expect this to be fixed. Anti-malware vendors have stepped in and are improving their definitions to catch this garbage but it's very much a cat/mouse game. (IM has been detected a few times, btw.) IM is very aware of this "threat" and designed their system around random domain names to mitigate detection issues as they arise. (Think about it -- Does IM, a legitimate company, really need to use fcgoatcalear.us and fcvalcsoi.us domain names? Come on.) 3. No idea where you got this information, given InstallMonetizer bundled software shows no actual EULA. The only EULAs shown during install are ones provided by the package author and the offer advertisers. Can you clarify this point, please? 4. Wrong. Existing IM bundles out there still send PII in the clear. This isn't something they can just flip a switch on and fix. (I saw IM edited their privacy policy…

This is hardly an apples for apples comparison. The quality and implementation of these features are more important that ticking the box labelled "voice recognition". Tellme is very similar to the original iPhone voice commands, requiring certain key words and syntax to be adhered to. Siri on the other hand allows for quite a bit of flexibility in how instructions are given, or in many cases instructions aren't given but a situation is stated. e.g. "I'm drunk" will prompt siri to bring up the number for taxi services in the area. Despite that difference the voice recognition in siri is also (in my opinion) far better, a culmination between it being very fast and in my experience suitably accurate. You won't see microsoft comparing them side by side, because it's a dismal race, but someone else did, read it here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20111124/tellme-on-windows-phone-vs-s…

You mean this: http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch/