No willpower at all
Remember when I said that Alberich needed a head of his own, but that I couldn't afford it? Well, both halves of that statement were true - but the second half seems to have been irrelevant.
This is Alberich, smiling back at you through a 20 inch Apple Cinema Display. He seems to be happy.
There was, of course, no software to install and no settings to change. Plug it in, turn it on, it Just Works.
Attaching this huge monitor revealed yet another tiny way in which Apple is really very good indeed. Look at the position of the icons on the background; note that there are three colums of icons on the right, a column of icons on the left and a column in the middle. Well, this is the same arrangement that they had on Alberich's previous (shared) head, which was five inches smaller and differently proportioned. Clever old Apple figured out which icons were previously positioned relative to the left edge, and repositioned them near the new left edge; likewise the right edge; what was in the middle remained in the middle.
Everything is just where I left it, although the screen is twice as large as before.
Why would anyone but a masochist buy anything else?
In other news you may have noticed that I (almost) always cause external links to open in a new window, which opens automatically above the window in which you were reading my blog. Well, various useability experts have declared this to be a bad idea, because this appears to break the "Back" button: the new window has no history, so clicking Back doesn't return to my blog. The theory states that amateur or occasional internet users are confused and irritated by this behaviour, and further that non-amateurs already know how to open a link in a new window should they wish to do so. I am generally in favour of following standards where these exist, and am therefore thinking of abandoning the new window in future and letting such links replace my blog when you click them.
What do you say? Does anyone care either way?
posted by Udge @ 14:57
5 Comments:
Appears to break the "back" button? That's ridiculous. I prefer my links to pop up in a new window, so I don't have to wait for the old one to reload when I go back to it.
But it's not a big deal. Mostly I
right-click and select "open in new window," anyway.
But -- 'breaks the "back" button' could only apply to very inexperienced users indeed. Seems to me, anyway. Maybe I'm forgetting.
Alberich looks very handsome.
I vote for the new window. I always put my links in that way after seeing others do it. In case I end up following a trail of links, I then can just close the window and go back to the origin rather than hitting back a few dozen times.
Awesome new hea for Alberich!
As for the links - I prefer having them open a new window. I like being able to go to another window, look around, and then close it to get back to original window. Personally, I hate using the back button and waiting for the page to reload (even with a cable modem).
Breaks the back button? Are you kidding? Can people just not figure out to close the new window? Sheesh.
I'm for the new window but I always forget the code to set it up and end up not doing it most of the time.
Five votes in favour (counting mine); none against. The motion is carried.
I found the notion very dubious, but I was willing to entertain the doubt. I know from my database costumers that a great number of computer users are unable to conceptualise what the machine is doing. The desktop-and-folder metaphor is utterly incomprehensible to many users, believe it or not.
I remember my mother's difficulties in accessing Hotmail from a French computer: she was so disturbed by the different keyboard layout and the French words in the menu, that she simply could not register that Hotmail itself was in English! So I am very cautious about what users will understand.
Georgette uses the words "file", "field", "window" and "list" as though they were synonyms; you can imagine that this makes for interesting bug reports! But I shudder to think that she speaks to our customers in exactly the same way. I shall have to do something about this, somehow.
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