I really enjoyed this article and the examples Helen Tran used.
Design
The inner workings of mechanical keyboards
Ever wonder what the difference was between mechanical and soft keyboards, other than the feel of the keys? This article contains everything you could ever want to know about the mechanics behind the mechanical keyboard. I love the animated GIFs that show the different types of switches in action. [via TidBits]
Navigation bars in Web design
I agree with most of what Kendra Gaines has to say about navigation bars. I don’t mind some controlled navigation1, whether in the sidebar or on the top of a site. I don’t believe that we’ve gone too minimal overall, because I think we’re giving users what they want—or maybe that’s what readers want access to—that’s the content. If you make readers jump through hoops to read your Web site, you’ve failed, regardless of the design element you’re talking about.
In other words, not a bunch of hierarchal Flash menus with 100 items in them. That’s unruly and not necessary. You failed. ↩
Fantastic traction assist for buses and trucks
I love good design. This video shows off a traction assist system that is mounted under buses and trucks. The system design and the video itself are both well done.
Flexible CSS cover images
This is good if you use cover images.
Steve Jobs mosaic created completely out of computer keyboard keys
I wish I understood how these sorts of mosaics are created. This must start life as a photo, no? Amazing work.
Design elements that will die
Interesting list.
CSS3 Keyframes Animation Generator
I bet this will get a lot of use.
QuarkXPress as an afterthought
As the big dog of desktop publishing in the ’80s and ’90s, QuarkXPress was synonymous with professional publishing. In fact, it was publishing. But its hurried and steady decline is one of the greatest business failures in modern tech.
I don’t know I’ve seen so many professionals that relied on an application, hate the app and company as much as Quark.
iRing gesture controller for iOS
Multitouch gestures are an important part of iOS. The iRing expands gesture detection beyond the screen. As the software that brings gesture detection to life gets better, I expect we’ll see more of these hardware assistive devices.
OckCorp kickstarts a Bluetooth padlock
The Teo padlock is different. It uses an L-shaped locking bracket (rather than the traditional U-shaped bracket everyone is used to). And it uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) so you can unlock the padlock from your phone.
Things designers should know about copyright
I’m not a lawyer, but there’s some good stuff in here.
CSS Blend Modes
Every year brings some new exciting things in design.
CSS Gradient animation trick
Nice.
AnandTech review of the new Mac Pro
This is the review I’ve been waiting for. When I am in the market for a new camera, I always make my way to dpreview.com. Anand Lal Shimpi brings the same level of geeky goodness to his reviews.
Mac Pro teardown from iFixit
The new Mac Pro is built to be taken apart. This well-executed teardown from iFixit shows off the engineering excellence behind the Mac Pro design.
The teardown starts by removing the cover. Slide the lock-switch, pull off the cover. So easy. Truly a thing of beauty.
Mac Pro teardown: Great pics, socketed CPU
Other World Computing took a Mac Pro apart, stripped it to the very core, and shared the pics on their site.
11-acre portrait create from sand, grass, and soil
Simply incredible.
A week ago, Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada unveiled his latest public land-art project, “Wish,” as part of the Belfast Festival. “Wish” depicts a portrait of an anonymous girl spanning 11 acres of land that can only be seen from the highest points in Belfast or, for the best view, from an airplane. The face is formed from organic materials like sand, grass and soil, all of which were donated by local businesses.
This project took several years for Gerada to finish. He used satellite technology and manually placed 30,000 wooden pegs on the field, finally “drawing” the face with nearly 8 million pounds of soil, sand and rock.
Amazing cube that can jump onto a corner, balance, and walk
The Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control in Zurich has developed the Cubli, an incredibly cool robotic cube made up of motors and momentum wheels that can hop up onto one of its corners and stay there, even if you give it a push.
CSS turns 17
Happy Birthday CSS.
Hands on with the new Mac Pro
David Pierce gives a nice little tour of Apple’s newest superstar.
It cuts a striking figure, despite its relatively small stature. It’s also incredibly dense, far heavier than I expected. Ten inches tall, 6 inches around, and about weighing in at around 11 pounds, it’s definitely meant to be held by its bottom instead of its top lip.
What does a UX designer actually do?
Well, there’s no typical day, however there is a grab bag of techniques that many UX Designers rely on at various stages of a project.
Like many professionals these days, there are a lot of different things involved.
Data stickies, a graphene alternative to flash drives
Data stickies is a design concept, but not necessarily a pipe dream. There’s some real science here.
dataSTICKIES are conceptualized to be made in graphene, a ground-breaking new material which is a flat mono-layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two dimensional honeycomb lattice with a minimum thickness of one atom. A paper thin sheet of graphene has the capacity to carry huge volumes of data.
The cost of double-winding your MacBook power brick
Last week, I linked to a tweet that showed a picture of a double-wrapped MacBook power brick. This tweet (and others like it) spawned a ton of discussion, both pro and con, on wrapping your brick this way.
The linked article is Wired’s take on the issue.
How iOS 7 is impacting Montessori education
The linked article talks about the impact that Jony Ive’s decision to scrub skeuomorphism from iOS has had on the Montessori experience. Very thoughtful piece.
The proper way to wrap a Mac power cable
Are you kidding me? All these years and I never knew this. Genius.
David A Smith, incredibly talented ornamental glass and sign craftsman
David A. Smith is a traditional sign-writer and designer. He works with high quality ornamental glass, a wide range of specialty tools (such as a sand blaster) and materials (gold leaf, custom paints) to create breathtaking works of art.
Qualcomm’s me-too beacon announcement
Now Qualcomm is shipping their version of the Apple iBeacon.
Gimbal is a comprehensive context aware, proximity platform for brands to engage their customers’ mobile devices with highly relevant communications using a powerful combination of physical location, activity, time and personal interests.
Taxidermy mouse chess set
Yes. You read that right. From the description:
This delightfully deceased taxidermy chess set is sure to get peoples attention. Every mouse was a unique creature in life, making each piece of this set a one of kind creation. Hand stuffed by me, but created by the guy upstairs (or whoever you believe created mice).
Primary: A Match 3 game for artists to mix primary colors
Unlike other match 3 games that just match, at Primary University, you’ll learn to mix primary colors (Red, Blue and Yellow) to create secondary colors (Green, Orange and Purple) to make matches, create power-ups and solve puzzles.
People will have fun with this, no doubt. It’s made for iPhone and iPad.