dsandler.org/wp

Quoth the stuntpilot: “Everybody says you cannot do it, until NASA
calls.”

For future reference, scorching your alliances and coalitions with other
nuclear nations in the process of chasing after the chimeric threat of
nuclear terrorism
might be
a lousy gamble in the long run.

I am, officially, the last person to get a Gmail account. Whuffies to Adam, who helped me out in this
regard.

Things that are immediately striking to me about the user experience:

1. Round-trips to the server are substantially reduced.
   Eliminated, frankly, for common navigation options. This is a
   huge win, as server latency is about 50% of the problem with
   web app interaction (the weak HTML control set accounts for the other
   half). Update, 10:47: When it has to hit the server, Gmail tries Real
   Hard to hide it; they make good use of one of my favorite webapp tricks: the
   image-url-with-side-effects. (“Star” a message and see what
   happens.)
2. Progressive disclosure all over the place. I
   don’t think I’ve ever seen a UI that was so chock-full of drawers
   and pockets, and I think this underscores Gmail’s focus on streamlined,
   relevant information (rather than the info-overload which seems to be the
   stated goal of apps like Outlook).

More thoughts (to add to the steaming heap of Gmail opinion already
out there) as I spend more time with the app.

Update, 10:48: One of the aspects that’s really tickling my
spider-sense is that Gmail combines the access-anywhere of webmail (and,
frankly, of mutt-over-ssh, my current email
solution) with just a little bit of the flash and feel of a desktop
app. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed using email as much as back when I used
Eudora in the mid-nineties, but since I need to get at my email from many
different places that’s not as much of an option for me. Gmail sprinkles a
bit of Eudora into the webmail mix, and you can taste it.

Idea: use basketballs as
fishing lures!

Let the Darin
g Fireball narration of Konfabulator vs.
Dashboard. The shared concept, of course, dates back to the classic
Mac OS “desk accessories” and even terminate-and-stay-resident apps for
DOS. What’s news to me is the substantially different under-the-hood
implementation of K vs. D, and that really makes all the difference. It
still sucks to be Arlo Rose,
but then again, how long should any of us expect to have
exclusive rights to a good idea?

Harry
Potter and the Half Blood Prince. (Clearly leaving my favorite
title for the seventh and final book, When Harry Met Voldy.)

Oh, the humanity: there’s actually a very thoughtful
and thorough review of Spider-Man 2 up at the ‘dot this
evening. (Some spoilers, but nothing really revelatory, mostly
consisting of some signposts to give you a little advance warning for
when the Very Best Parts of the film are coming.)