Nerg Sleeps

Realistically, Nerg must go to sleep for a while, mainly because the author must sleep. Now working nights or the first time in my life, time is simply lacking to think and focus properly on blogging in even my limited ability.

I have something else happening that is consuming my time in the most delightful way on the other side of the planet and will change my life forever if all goes to plan.

I scarcely have time to read all the stuff I need to research things adequately. If you can’t give your blog the attention it deserves then it’s time to stop.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by and especially those who took the time to comment. It’s greatly appreciated.

What next?

Surprisingly enough, especially for me, Nergalicious has been going for a year. So happy birthday Nerg.

Born out of the need to get my portfolio on line after being made redundant in 2007 Nerg started as an experiment where I would get my head around the WordPress interface so that I got my professional site right first time. It mostly worked, I’ve only had to update it a couple of times and I changed the template a couple of weeks ago.

Nerg has taken something of a back seat so far this year for a couple of reasons. Firstly there was helping out over at b4p, secondly freelancing has taken a lot of my time, both on site and working form home. So much so I didn’t post anything in February, but here’s the strange thing, visits to Nerg went up in February when I hadn’t posted at all. Not that stats should define a blog.

So many plans have fallen by the way side in the last 12 months. They’re not dead, but are in need of intense help. I still want to test software and that will come, just not sure when and that’ll make good blogging material, but very little positive has happened in the last year. Nothing to boost self esteem or confidence, just plenty of knocks and disappointments. Hopefully a corner will be turned soon and in a good way.

I always said to myself that I’d give Nerg a year and see how things are. I struggle to find my voice though. I don’t have the education or intelligence to write an award winning tech blog, but technical stuff fascinates me, especially user interfaces, no ones very interested in prepress and Pilgrim does a fine job of that. I don’t want to write about my life, because even fewer are interested in that. Right now I’m on the brink of disaster or success. Let’s see what the next 12 months brings.

Apple updates the HIG

Apple have updated the Human Interface Guidelines for Leopard. When I say updated, I mean it’s more like an act of necromancy. The HIG was largely neglected during Tiger times, with a great job being done by the Indie HIG, though that hasn’t been updated in a while.

The idea of a unified interface still appeals and Apple have got closer with Leopard, but is there a need for uniformity? With the web everywhere and each site having it’s own style, it’s obvious that a lack of uniformity isn’t hampering usability. People aren’t stupid, they know what a button is.

A lot of what’s in the HIG could be just as well served in SDK documentation, the HIG itself could easily be summed up as a guide line that makes developers and UI designers simply ask ‘Is this simple and beautiful?’

Sadly Apple has a problem complying with the HIG itself…

Make sure you do not change the behavior of standard elements. When you need a new behavior, design a new element for it.

Which hardly explains the behaviour of hierarchal folders in the dock since Leopard. At least give us a preference we can change.

Fake Steve on the Stevenote

I stayed in and followed the keynote live, had a feed from Ars going and Macworld but the best, a day later it must be said, came from the real ‘fake Steve‘. This part had me laughing out loud…

The reaction to the glowing reviews in today’s press have been astounding, beyond anything we could have imagined when we wrote those reviews several weeks ago.

If you’re not reading FSJ everyday you’re missing out. There’s also a brilliant cartoon on Joy of Tech. No, I won’t be buying a MacBook Air, purely because it’s the worst name for it I can imagine. Even if I had a need for one.

Hilarious

It seems Microsoft does have a sense of humor. I wish this a real book. Money quote

Offices are why big people get grumpy and say bad words.

The original link doesn’t appear to be resolving correctly, but aboutblank, a site well worth a visit, has a compilation for you. Check it out, very funny.