clutter
I work as a web designer. That’s not really apparent from this page, but I assure you, it’s true.
I spend a lot of my time reading about the internet. “Web 2.0″ is a topic that gets a lot of attention on various websites. I think some of the principles of this loosely-organized movement are valuable, but most of them aren’t. That’s not really what I want to talk about today, however.
Recently I was speaking with a friend about a sketch from SNL that involved Christopher Walken and a centaur. You’ve probably seen it. I had not. I lamented my situation. I told her that approximately 300 of my friends have at separate times, told me about the wonderfulness of this sketch, and I was afraid I would never see it, considering I don’t have cable and rarely watch tv.
She had a simple answer. Youtube. I had not thought of that.
I never think of Youtube. It took me forever to catch on to netflix, and even then, the appeal was mostly that I could pirate the dvds.
By the way, the video is not on youtube, but here instead.
Some other new developments that I often read about but am in no way interested in for personal use:
Ruby on Rails
Ajax (of the superfluous variety)
Twitter
Hosted Blogging Platforms
MMO(RP)Gs
3d video games (esp. those based on a 3rd person perspective)
Ubiquitous IM
Most content management systems
podcasts
Quicksilver (or Butler or Google Desktop)
GTD software
day planners
smartphones
Electronic can openers
Threadless
etc.
I am forced to conclude that I am somewhat averse to new technology. The most illustrative example from the above list is Quicksilver and similar application launchers / finder replacements.
I have tried many of these programs. They are well designed, and I can see that they are useful. But I never seem to be able to integrate them into my daily work flow. Perhaps I’m just too accustomed to the finder.
But really, I think it’s that I don’t see the point. It’s not that difficult to launch photoshop. It’s right there on the dock. And inside photoshop, there’s a list of recently opened documents. So if I want to work on the file that I had opened yesterday, it’s about four clicks. With Quicksilver, I would hit some arcane keyboard combination, begin typing some characters in the filename (which I would have to remember), which would bring up a list of matches. I hit the arrow key to get the correct one, and then enter. That’s about 6 – 7 keystrokes, depending on how specific my original search string is.
That doesn’t seem much better to me. What it does seem like is something that is really oriented toward using the keyboard instead of the mouse. Which is fine, when I’m in photoshop I use the key commands like crazy. Also, I imagine some people don’t like these programs because they aren’t good at typing, but I’m fine with it, so I don’t think that’s the issue.
I think, really, that instead of making things faster and easier, these programs really just move file navigation away from the mouse and onto the keyboard. Which I’m not a fan of. The keyboard is for typing. The mouse is for moving around. It’s nice to have that option, though. Sometimes you don’t want to reach all the way over to the mouse, but by and large, the bulk of the navigation I do in the finder is with the mouse, because that’s how Apple intended it. It works well for those purposes, I think.
Anyway, that’s not the real point of this entry. I planned to discuss how I’m not really blown away or really interested in this new wave of technology. Don’t get me wrong, there are a great many things that I have studied that I love, some of which are:
text messages
CSS layouts
Open source blogging platforms
Firefox
the web standards movement
IM when I have time to jibber-jabber
ipods
Nintendo DS and Wii
the availability of decent resolution video on bittorrent
Battlestar Galactica
etc.
In my mind, the “good” things are significant improvements over the technology they have replaced. The “bad” things are just nonsensical, time-wasting, buzzword-producing distractions.
That’s fine for the masses, and since I am a web designer, I pay attention to these things. It’s part of my responsibilty. But for myself, I’ll stick to the finder and old-fashioned dvds, thank you.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Well, it’s been almost a year. Have you changed your mind about any of this stuff? I agree with you on a lot of it, but I’m loving AJAX, even though I know it’s not cool to call it that. I’m fascinated by threadless because I had classes with one of the founders, but I’ve never bought a shirt. Podcasts — can’t live without them — (if you’re into science fiction or short stories Escape Pod is definitely worth google).
August 5th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Well, I still agree with most of it. AJAX is great as long as it serves some sort of function. Threadless is interesting as an experiment, and I’ve since met a lot of people that work there and it seems like a great company. But I just don’t like many of the designs that get produced. They seem so precious.
I have started listening to some podcasts, mostly stuff on NPR. I should totally check Escape Pod. Thanks! And thanks for being the first person to leave a comment on this sorry excuse for a blog!