Designing Interactions is a really cool, 700+ page, full colour book written by Bill Moggridge - one of the founders of IDEO. It contains interviews with a bunch of top notch interaction designers, and explains a lot of processes and feats designing modern technology from the past couple of decades; everything from designing the mouse to modern video games is covered here.

I recommend checking out this book if you have even the slightest interest in design. Props to Drew for pointing this one out to me.

I'm really not into posting big long essays about topics. Lots of people do, and for the past year I've been seeing what it's like to get my opinion out there. While I certainly have everyday opinions, I have little enthusiasm for posting them. And although this is supposed to be a personal blog, a better title would probably be "Thoughts on Technology" or something to that effect.

Overall, I really want this blog to be a lot more personal and a more accurate portrayal of my life. Believe it or not, I don't sit around all day thinking about Mac technology. :) This means more opinion about other things going on in the world, reviews about books, movies, music, etc. Of course, I'll still post about what I've been doing and cool technology stuff if I find it interesting.

Wait, stop! Don't hit that unsubscribe button just yet. While my future plans for blogging may sound boring, there will definitely be interesting stuff. I'll also be posting here a lot more often, so you'll want to stick around. Seriously.

Stay tuned in the next week for the new and improved "Dustin MacDonald's Blog".

With the new year well underway, I figure it's time for an update on what I've been up to lately.

First of all, I'm finally wrapping up high school, but still thinking about pursuing post secondary education. I'm really not sure what exactly I'd want to learn there, and the options are less appealing every time I look at them. I'd also like some time to try out independent software development for a while, so at the very least I'll probably take a year off before thinking about it again. Any advice in this area, however, would be much appreciated.

Second, as some of you may already know, I am working on a new software venture with some friends of mine. It's been in development for a few months, and will be unveiled later this year. I'm not going to say much about it, but I will say that I've learned lots about software and design since a few years ago. This new project will really show off the knowledge I've acquired thus fur; stay tuned on my blog for more information.

It's amazing how much I've grown to appreciate technology and great design in the last five years. I've really been inspired by companies like Apple, Flickr, Nintendo, 37signals, and countless others. These sorts of companies practice elegant design with innovative technology, aiming to make our lives simpler and more enjoyable rather than more complex. At the same time, I think there are lots of areas in the tech world that could really benefit from some serious redesigning. I see a clear opportunity that I'm not about to pass up; technology is definitely an industry I want to be a part of in the future.

This will be a really exciting year. With life prepared to shift into full gear, I'm more ready than ever to start making a difference. And the beginning is 2007.

(Photo: Stratosphere, originally uploaded by user sharply_done)

Think 1.0 by Freeverse is a pretty cool idea. It's a free application that puts a simple solid background behind the app you want to focus on. This is a great way to get rid of distractions while working on something important.

The user interface is a little weird, though. The main function- putting focus on an application, should be simple and easy to do. And to a certain extent, it is. When you launch Think, you're greeted with a panel (the "Illumination panel") that makes you choose which app you want to focus on. Once you've found and clicked this app in the panel, Think starts to do its job, and also puts the icon of the application in the "Think" bubble. Simple, right?

There are actually a few problems with this user interface. First, chances are my active application is already the one I want to focus on, so I shouldn't need to choose it again. Second, the behavior of Think's dock icon is confusing. I don't know how many times I've clicked the Think icon to try and activate Safari, only to have the "Illumination panel" reappear so that I need to choose the app again. This is especially confusing when the Safari icon is in the Think bubble.

Even worse, the "control panel" appears to have limited value. Do I really want to change the color and opacity? What's the difference between quitting Think and disabling it?

So why not have something like Time Machine? You'd activate the application in Mac OS X (if it's not already active), click the Think icon in the dock, and have the background applied right there with no interruptions. Once you're done, you'd simply click the Think icon again and the background would fade away. This would be a much better interface.



It sounds like I am being picky, but a user interface is one of the most important parts of an application. For an application that promotes less distractions, it should not be confusing to use. It's still a great idea, so I'd love to see it eventually changed. With the way it is now though, I won't be using it anytime soon.