Chilled Out Bearded Man

The firmware upgrade today on the new G1 seems to have taken the phone from cool to slick. It still does not feel as smooth as the iPhone, but lots of things are better.

The desktop widgets have nicer smooth shiny gray borders.

The screen seems to come out of standby faster than before.

When programs/apps load, they fade in and out more smoothly and quickly.

The buttons on the built-in gmail app are much prettier and not clunky like the old ones.

Also, there are now checkboxes on the gmail list of emails, so that you can apply an action (such as archive) to multiple emails. This is familiar from the traditional gmail.

And there just seems to be nice font, border and background improvements throughout.

One issue that I encountered was that on the first restart after the firmware update, all of the icons on the desktop were missing. This resolved itself when I restarted, again.

What else did people notice?

If you need a simple refreshing movie to clear your head, you can watch the movie Henry Poole is Here. Its about a man and life. Its simple.

I came across this beautiful design work:
http://www.lee-magazine.com/

This is so aesthetically pleasing. The artist did a wonderful job with the visual elements.

Unfortunately, the design is not very functional or practical.

1) The homepage is currently serving as an about page:
The homepage should not be an about page. The homepage is meant to get the user into the content. Don’t waste time introducing the site. The user will find the about page if they are confused about the site. They probably came here for a reason, anyway, so they have an idea of what they are getting into. The beautiful navigation content on the page is too far down. It should be front and center.

2) The page realestate is being wasted:
- The logo is way too big and takes up too much space.
- The woman’s head is nice, but maybe it could be smaller.
- The “about” content does not need to be here. This needs to be actual content that gets the user involved in the site.

3) The navigation is disconcerting:
- The bottom of the right navigation is off the screen for me. I don’t want to “navigate” down to find more navigation.
- The right navigation seems like it should be worked into the left navigation. This would save space and make things more organized.

One thing that is very impressive about the design is that it is designed using the Drupal CMS (”Content Management System”). Drupal is very good for dynamically managing large amounts of content, users, and administrators. Creating the template for this design and making it work throughout every page was probably a very large task. But once it was done once, every new page gets created dynamically and the only thing that needs to be added is the new content.

All in all, to improve the user experience, I would say that the visual appeal needs to come in a close second after the functionality.

What do you think?

Try this quick and fun experiment.
Run this in Internet Explorer or Firefox. Then try it in Google’s Chrome Browser.
http://balldroppings.com/js/

For me it is much, much faster in Google’s Chrome Browser than in other browsers.

Are you seeing the same result?

If you have any questions about society, the economy and why things are the way they are, then watch the Zeigeist films. They offer many real world solutions to some of our biggest societal, cultural, and financial issues.

WARNING: This beautiful movie may blow your mind! (At worst, it will get you thinking.)

You can watch the movie for free at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

If you enjoy the Zeitgeist movie, I would love it if you write a comment with your highlight or your personal commentary on the film.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I heard the Raconteurs song Level from their album Broken Boy Soldier today on Pandora. The song was good, but when I checked the site, that’s when the name Raconteurs really stuck in my head.

http://www.theraconteurs.com/site.html

The site is designed to look like an old computer screen and it only accepts keyboard input. Brilliant.

Often, sites are either pretty, functional, or creative. In this case, the designer managed to capture all three.

Click on the middle image on the bottom:
http://www.rebeccagoldings.com/art.html

My vote is for the beard in the middle row on the right.
What’s your favorite?

Here is some delicious web site design for you:

cherry.com

I might have mentioned the next one in the past. My heart beats in overtime evert time I visit the site.

cityofdavid.org/

I love the simple beauty of this one combined with its practical functionality. Watch the dot for a bit before you click it:

joyjacobs.com/

Its a movie about a man-boy who gets sent to boarding school to prove the point that boarding school should not be outside the law of the land. He proves that some lessons learned in boarding school are great for saving the world…

If you’re idealistic and believe that the world can be fixed, and you wake up everyday hoping that today will be better, and Ayn Rand wrote about your idealistic humans, then see this movie.

- ChillyB

This movie isn’t green…

Its drama. Its scifi. Its Korean. Its a mystery. Its a horror. Watch this movie. Its good. Its clever. Its innovative. Its creative.

Check out the Imdb review here.