nStation

I use Microsoft Paint occasionally. Its features are limited and functionality is basic. But for regular people, Paint seems to be the tool of choice for a random doodle or running an office captioning contest. Readily availability can’t be the only reason. Hear goes my two cents on the matter. More »

Paint.NET (paint-dot-net, or PDN) is probably the best freeware out there for quick and easy pixel manipulation for Windows. Although it doesn’t boast Photoshop or GIMP like features, simplicity and super-fast startup time makes it a modest substitute for a fully blown graphics application. The PDN plug-in repository makes it even more interesting with a whole array of great plug-ins. This post is about 7 interesting plug-ins I stumbled upon while exploring the plug-in repository (Forum) that may be potentially useful web designers and UX designers alike. More »

Most web projects are initially done locally. When doing multiple web projects on the local computer (the ‘nstation’) you run in to the problem of managing them. This is because only one web server can run at a time on the standard web port. Well… you can run multiple instances of the same web server on different ports. But that’s not the way forward if you are serious about testing, etc. An alternative is to make directories and use folder names as part of the URL. This however results ugly URL names like nstation/project_name and framework-based projects render issues on production environments. More »

A man goes to a store, sees something nice (say, a teddy bear), checks whether it is available elsewhere for a better price and eventually buy it for the lowest price available. A man sees a computer game, checks its price, if the price isn’t lower than a few bucks, pirate it over his internet connection or borrow a copy from a friend. That’s the background of most modern software pirating stories. The teddy bear analogy is used here for the sake of simplicity and proof of concept whist regardless of the commodity we may use in comparison, software pirating is happening at an unbelievable rate. More »

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important to a web master. SEO is the governing factor for a web site to appear on all major search engines’ first page. Top search engine spiders index web pages based on the way they ‘see’ them. If your site is not getting listed for the right query string combination then it is a hint that search engines do not interpret your web site’s content properly. The easiest way to interpret a web page like a search engine spider is to use a text-only web browser such as lynx. But if you are a windows box guy, then this means unfamiliarity in large part. More »

Google showcased their Android prototype and its UI to the public at the IO conference. I noticed an interesting design pattern on Android UI icons: they are left hand oriented. Usually in a right hand dominated society icons are designed in the same orientation. An exception to this is the Apple Mac OS where most icons are neutral oriented. Left hand oriented icons are rare; especially when they are done by professional. So this is something new to the design community from Google. More »

I am an all-time portable app user. If there is a portable app version of a software package I like, I’d go for it rather than the installer package. Most of these applications are easy to use, free or open source and well written. What most users don’t realize about portable apps is that they do not require a portable USB drive or a portable hard disk to work with; they work like any other regular windows application. So this post is in a way, a testimonial on portable apps and how I use them to ease the burden in reinstalling applications on Windows machines. More »

I stumble upon many software packages with silly names. In my opinion the name is the single most important attribute of a software package. Despite its brand value the name should be clear, legible, and easy to use. The name should signify the type of usage. In layman's terms the name should say it all. Names like ‘Child Control’, ‘Ape Ripper’ and ‘IsItUp’ would possibly confuse the user on the corresponding software package’s typical usage. More »

I’m somewhat new to blogging. When I decided to change my static site to a dynamic site I ended up using WordPress as the engine. The designer in me however didn’t allow me to use someone else’s theme but to make one on my own. The current theme1 you are seeing on this site is the fifth iteration of the effort. When I started designing this theme, I didn’t have any expertise on WordPress. The principles of blogging were completely new to me. I looked into many other blogs to figure out the essentials of theming. Ironically most themes were structurally the same except they looked different in presentation. But is this commonly accepted structure really usable? This is what I discovered. More »

Flickr is my favorite photo sharing service. I always start from Flickr search whenever I want an insight to a real-world scenario. The irony is that sometimes the most interesting photos seem to have missing the All Sizes button. As a result the photo cannot be downloaded even if it’s declared public. Flickr hides the source URL of the image by using a decoy ‘space ball’! This post explains how you can overcome this issue with a simple trick. More »