Lauri Kieksi

I may be a complete amateur when it comes to DSLR photography, but at least I’m an enthusiastic amateur. These and a number of other fresh shots on my Flickr photostream.

In this day and age of blooming ICT businesses, what’s a web guy to refer to himself as? It seems that both “web designer” and “web developer” as terms have become muddled in recent years, with a tremendous amount of overlap in how they’re used and what they refer to.

To further confuse things, the web is now seen as an interface platform, both in the sense of website front-ends being thought more of as user-facing interfaces used to manipulate database-driven data; and in the sense that new kinds of web applications are starting to become increasingly common, forcing us to think harder about things like crossbrowser usability, interface conformity across multiple kinds of devices ranging from mobile devices to desktop computers, and so on.

I often call myself a web designer, or a user interface designer. Sometimes even a web developer. It all depends on who I’m talking to and what kind of responsibilities I’m being entrusted with at the time. Of course, it goes with the territory of working in a company that numbers in the 20-something range instead of employing hundreds or even thousands of people: each employee has a wider range of responsibilities. It certainly never gets boring. The flip side is it’s sometimes hard to know which track your career is heading down.

I actually kind of like the sound of that… “Web Guy”. I should get that printed on a set of calling cards.

So, sure, the iPad may just be an overgrown iPhone. But this teaser shot of Mixr, a fully-featured, multitouch DJ app, should give you a sense of just how awesome apps designed for an oversized iPhone can be.

The oft-recited mantra “it’s about the apps, stupid” rings true again. The iPad might technically be just an oversized iPod Touch, but four times the screen real-estate transforms the device into something else entirely, as long as the apps are there to support it.

The issue of actions leading to data loss and their place in the overall UI is a point that’s come up quite often in some of the projects I’ve been involved in recently. Jeff Atwood raises some very good points about the placement of such UI elements. I don’t really use Gmail’s web interface (I mostly use my iPhone and Mail.app to access my Gmail account), so I never really realized how poorly some of their UI decisions have been thought out until I saw this article.

This video of Content Aware Fill, supposedly coming in Photoshop CS5, is a real shocker. This is photo retouching on autopilot, for actual-honest-to-goodness-real.

I’ve used Photoshop since version 4, and I don’t recall ever being this excited for an upcoming feature. Adobe, I don’t know how you came up with the math behind this wizardry, but… I love you. Adobe Systems, Inc… will you marry me?

Opera Software submitted Opera Mini for iPhone to Apple for App Store approval and is now hosting a competition to promote the browser: whoever guesses closest as to how long it’ll take Apple to approve Opera Mini wins a brand new iPhone. Notable, although totally obvious in a PR sense: those silly Norwegians won’t let you guess “never”. You need to register for a My Opera account to participate.

I might have to take the plunge with MacUpdate’s Spring 2010 bundle if only for Hydra and Parallels Desktop 5. Considering they’re both $79 by themselves and the whole bundle is only $49.99, it doesn’t really matter if I never end up using any of the other apps included. And if I do, hey, bonus.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has deemed the symbol to meet its standards on form, function, values, cultural impact and innovation.

The only other European-born players in the 600-goal club are Finnish countryman Jari Kurri (601) and the Czech Republic’s Jaromir Jagr (646).