December 17th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Browser Size does just what the name implies. Enter a URL, hit "go" and you'll see just what percentage of the internet will see what without scrolling. Scrolling isn't quite the bugbear it once was, but for certain types of pages immediate impact is still very important (campaign landing pages are a good example,) so having this as an easily accessible tool is really nice. Sure, designers have these guides in Photoshop and developers can resize the window with the Web Developer Toolbar, but this handy web-based tool is just the kind of thing to use in a meeting.
For an example of the output, here's this site put through the wringer:
Read the rest of this entry »
September 15th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
I upgraded to Tweetdeck 0.3.0 and I was almost immediately looking for an alternative. There are a few reasons for that (the disappearing columns bug, watching it auto-shorten an already short url) but the biggest issue was the change they made to the behavior of the close button. What did they do? Well, with almost every other application on my machine (and all of the trivial ones*), when I click that red X, the application closes. Exits. Stops doing what it's doing. The ones that don't (my antivirus software springs to mind) actually need to run all the time. I don't need Tweetdeck running 24/7. I often need it to just go away (using Fiddler with Tweetdeck running is maddening.) But yet, in Tweetdeck, if you click close, it actually minimizes to the systray.
Read the rest of this entry »
July 13th, 2009 by Rob Larsen
Okay, okay… I'm guilty. The title is provocative and slightly misleading. I do care about developers. Developers are my people and I want nothing but the best for them.
That said, when I'm sitting down planning a site, application or component, my first thought isn't about making things easier for developers. It's about making things easier for users. If I can do both, great. The world is just that much nearer to perfection. If not, whenever possible I'm going to err on the side the user by trying to make the site they see better/stronger/faster.
(well, maybe not stronger…)
That's why I cringe when people enthuse about how easy something was to implement.
"That was great. I just had to write two lines of JavaScript and I've this cool Ajax component."
Read the rest of this entry »