BrainFuel

Hivelogic has a great post about workspaces, and “getting in the zone” to do creative work. I’ve been thinking about this more as I recently started working from home, contracting as part of a virtual team for a remote client. Although my home office is quiet and comfy, I do miss the energy of having others around, at least when I want them. Even with email, IM, and twitter, I still feel like a hermit. I like the idea of “coworking” but from the examples I’ve seen, it’s a bunch of folks dumped into a big room with shared tables – not much private space, and perhaps too much potential distraction. One of the commenters make what I see as the best suggestion – have an office which opens onto a common area where you can interact with others, and even leave your door open at times, but be able to close the door when you really need to concentrate.

Here is a great bunch of screenshots and analysis of a certain “Web 2.0″ style, where sites are designed with horizontal groups of content. Contains a two dozen or so example screenshots.

Wonder what it would be like if you could use the iPhone's gesture-based interface on a really large screen? In one of the coolest video's I've seen in a long time as a UI geek, inventor Jeff Han shows off a futuristic user interface much like the sci-fi screen Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report.

(you might see a commercial first)


Here is the accompanying Fast Company article.

My unnecessary commentary: We're going to see all kinds of very cool apps using this technology in the next 5 - 10 years. (Artists? You thought the Wacom Cintiq was cool?) I don't understand the technology they're using for the touch tracking and sensitivity, but this is quite a leap beyond a mouse-based GUI.

A friend from work passed this one along to me.

Don’t know much about the author but I’m linking to his site from the graphic.

Well, not quite for dummies, but there are several new javascript libraries that will give daunted developers a head start in creating their own animated scrolling, sliding, and fading divs. Want your web apps to share the spotlight with favorites like flickr, gmail, and tiddlywiki?

Here are some toolkits / libraries / APIs I came across today that are worth a look. Please add to the list if you know of another. Some of these may be beyond the average web designer’s ability to utilize, but larger teams with dedicated developers will make good use of them.

Dojo Toolkit
(a demo mimics Apple’s Dock)

moo fx: a superlightweight javascript effects library
“moo.fx is not a replacement for script.aculo.us or other effects libraries. It’s just a little alternative for people (like me) that do not need more than just simple, basic effects (and want to keep their filesize small).”

script.aculo.us builds upon the Prototype Javascript Framework

WebWork
“WebWork is a Java web-application development framework. It is built specifically with developer productivity and codesimplicity in mind, providing robust support for building reusable UI templates, such as form controls, UI themes,internationalization, dynamic form parameter mapping to JavaBeans, robust client and server side validation, and muchmore.”

Just found Wikipedia’s entry for AJAX, which has a big list of libraries including some of the above but many more.

PS:
I would like to know if anyone has seen a guide to replicate flickr’s “edit a photo title without refreshing” behavior. Their javascript for this is beyond my desire to reverse-engineer, but this functionality would come in very handy in a web app I’m building the UI for.

Great review of a preview Macromedia did last night for the local Flash users group. It looks like MM finally fixed some things that have been broken for a long time and are “going out with a bang” as far as the unique Macromidia brand, before it’s swallowed completely by Adobe. I’ve missed WYSIWYG support in Dreamweaver since I started coding advanced CSS quite a while ago.

Just got back today… more photos to come in my flickr stream but these two feature the preferred method of human transportation in northern Peru.

Prefer yellow?

…Or a dash more danger?

Airstream has a new motorhome with a roof that opens automatically into a huge patio for you and 15 others to enjoy a nice barbeque. I didn’t even know the company still existed, but they do! The site has a nice retro-duotone look.

Now if only that could be combined with the amphibious TerraWind RV – it would be the ultimate luxury yacht slash motorhome ever! Sometimes I wish I had just a million or so in disposable income