We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.Twitter gets it.
Tuesday, April 17th
Sencha Architect was the last thing I worked on full time at Sencha, and I’m incredibly proud to see its release today. Architect allows designers and developers to create Sencha Touch and Ext JS apps in an easy to use, drag and drop interface. I have seen similar tools in the JavaScript world for other UI/app frameworks, but I can honestly say: None of them come close to Architect in their power or flexibility. Check out the blog post for more details.
(Source: jayrobinson)
Monday, April 16th
Black Coffee
A few months ago, as an experiment to learn some new frameworks, I created a quick blackjack game in Spine and CoffeeScript. The game is not pretty, nor is it bug free: Notably, there are some issues with splitting and doubling down. Nevertheless, I’m open sourcing the app today, just in case it’s of any use to anyone getting started with these technologies.
Bugs and horrific UI aside, Black Coffee does know basic strategy, so it can actually tell you which play is “correct,” depending on the current hand. I hope to find some time to finish it out over the next few months, but hopefully there’s some value in open sourcing it in the meantime. Also: If you see a clear problem or way to improve, you know the drill: Fork and pull request!
Check out Black Coffee on GitHub!
Note: Most importantly, BC does not have semicolons at the end of lines. Amazing!
Friday, April 13th
I love this fantastical illustration work done for the Vimeo home & login pages, by NYC artist Ian Higginbotham.
Telling people what to do is lazy. Instead, try to convince them with argument. This is how humans interact when there’s no artificial authority structure and it works great. If you can’t convince people through argument then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.Ryan Tomayko, Show How, Don’t Tell What — A Management Style
Thursday, April 12th
Teehan+Lax have, at long last, released their Retina-ready iPad GUI PSD. Longtime readers will know that I normally post whenever Teehan+Lax release one of their Photoshop-based mobile UI sets, but this one is different: With the overall resolution in the new iPad, and some of the newer elements in iOS 5.1, the scale of this project was immense (as anyone following Geoff on Twitter already knows). It’s also quite interesting that the file was made in and requires the Photoshop CS6 beta:
It’s a free download right now and, in my humble opinion, one of the best releases of Photoshop to date. Its perfect pixel snapping, grouped layer styles and a few other features enabled us to create the assets with more accuracy, yet remain remarkably editable.
You’ll have to download the PSD to see all of the detail and labor that must have gone into making it. Congrats to the team!
Wednesday, April 11th
Big Google+ redesign puts focus on discovery, lets users customize layout
Looks great. Congrats to Chris Messina, Morgan Knutson, and team!
Friday, April 6th
Alex Clare - Too Close (Live Unplugged)
Dear dubstep “musicians:” This is how good you should sound without the effects. (via @moore)
(Source: youtube.com)
Wednesday, April 4th
Google: Project Glass
The concept certainly has some allure, but I dislike how the video omits showing how the user is interacting with the glasses, aside from some voice commands. In its current form, this feels akin to watching the initial teasers for Microsoft’s Courier: It’s a well-produced video and an intriguing idea, but does little to demonstrate actual viability. Here’s hoping this one actually makes it to production though.
I also enjoyed a parody of this video, Google Glasses: A New Way to Hurt Yourself
