Get The Knowledge – a collation of online articles by the people at Techdept.

Internet explorer: microsoft plans ‘silent’ updates

TechDept — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:00:21 +0000

From January, Internet Explorer (IE) users will be automatically updated to the latest version of the browser.

Microsoft said it was starting the project to update millions of machines to improve security online.

Future updates to the browser would be applied without a user’s knowledge to help beat scammers catching people out with fake updates.

For BBC News: Technology, 16 Dec 2011.

Need help with responsive testing?

TechDept — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:00:17 +0000

Resolution Test changes the size of the browser window for developers to preview their websites in different screen resolutions. It includes a list of commonly used resolutions and the ability to customise that list. It also gives users the option to turn on Google Browser Size, more info on that here.

By Ben Beckford for Chrome Developers Tools.

Here’s how people look at your facebook profile, literally

TechDept — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:57:07 +0000

When potential dates, employers and friends glance at your online social profiles, what do they see? EyeTrackShop, a startup that runs eye-tracking studies for advertisers, helped Mashable find out by applying its technology to the profile pages of popular social networks.

The study used the webcams of 30 participants to record their eye movements as they were shown profile pages fromFacebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Klout, Reddit, Digg, Tumblr, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Pinterest at 10-second intervals. What participants looked at on each page and in what order is recorded in the images below.

By Sarah Kessler for Mashable, 30 Nov 2011.

What people love and hate about the iPhone 4S

TechDept — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:22:47 +0000

Here’s a look at what people love and hate about the iPhone 4S from ChangeWave Research.

As you can see, people love Siri, the ease of use, and the nice camera. They hate the battery life and the fact that it doesn’t have 4G.

By Jay Yarow and Jon Terbush for Business Insider, 01 Dec 2011.

Design the invisible to tell better stories on the web

TechDept — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

For design to be meaningful we need to tell stories. We need to design the invisible, the cues, the messages and the extra detail hidden beneath the aesthetics. It’s all about the story.

From verbal exchanges around the campfire to books, the web and everything in between, storytelling allows us to share, organize and process information more efficiently. It helps us understand our surroundings and make emotional connections to people, places and experiences.

By Robert Mills for 24 Ways, 14 Dec 2011.

Designers behind facebook timeline: 5 keys to creating a UI with soul

TechDept — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:25:57 +0000

Nick Felton and Joey Flynn say that when creating a page to tell someone’s life story, you have to throw out the UI rulebook and study how people recount memories.

For most of computing history, interfaces have been about function. Word processing programs help you compose documents. Banking websites help you make transactions. Sites like Flickr help you display and share photographs.

But Facebook’s Timeline (the new version of the user profile which is slated to be released to the general public “in the next few weeks”) wanted to do something more: It wanted to convey a feeling. Two feelings actually: The feeling of telling someone your life story, and the feeling of memory–of remembering your own life.

By E.B.Boyd for Fast Co Design, 19 Dec 2011.

Guess what the biggest topic on facebook was this year

TechDept — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:05 +0000

The death of Osama bin Laden.

10 percent of all status updates (in English) mentioned Osama bin Laden in the days following his death, according to a Facebook blog outlining the top ten global trends in 2011.

Coming in second was Green Bay Packers beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Charlie Sheen was winning in March, if you recall.

Each month engagement centered around the hottest current events. For instance, conversations about the Royal Wedding were really popular during April. Mentions of the marriage shot up 600-fold, according to the Facebook post.

By Boonsri Dickinson for Business Insider, 07 Dec 2011.

Dropbox’s attention to detail on their download page

TechDept — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:00:41 +0000

Sometimes good UX is about being clever. Sometimes it’s to make the user happy or smile. However, when the success of your product depends on new, possibly inexperienced users successfully downloading and installing it, good UX is the difference between success and failure.

I love what Dropbox has done here. I’ve noticed it for years and mentioned it in talks and to friends but I wanted to call it out here because it’s so thoughtful.

When you go to download Dropbox, here’s what you see on Internet Explorer. Note they’ve used a three step tiny screenshot sequence. Each of them isn’t a real screenshot, but rather “evocative” of the thing an IE user would see. For example, the second User Access Control dialog isn’t real, but it’s close enough that it makes the point while still fitting into width of the page cleanly. Their Welcome to Dropbox Setup screenshot is the same way, distilling the essence of what’s coming while keeping the design consistent

By Scott Hanselman for Scott Hanselman’s computer Zen, 07 Dec 2011.

Is google chrome the new IE6?

TechDept — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:30:34 +0000

Let me tell you about a browser. An innovative browser that was the first to implement new Web technologies that allowed for greater interactivity. A browser with a striking new interface. Chrome? No: Internet Explorer 6.

There’s a reason that Microsoft’s browser took over 95 percent of the Web browser market from Netscape (Firefox’s ancestor): IE6 could do things earlier browsers could not. There was dynamic HTML, CSS, and yes, it even had new security features.

But over the years, problems with all these unique capabilities reared its ugly head. Every major Web site started to target IE, to the point that the sites didn’t function correctly or fully in other browsers.

By Michael Muchmore for PC mag, 02 Dec 2011.

Gravity-defying goats

TechDept — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:32:20 +0000

Using moves that would make any rock climber jealous, Alpine ibex cling to a near-vertical rock face of a northern Italian dam in summer 2010.

This and other pictures of the goats have been circulating online recently, particularly in emails claiming the animals are bighorn sheep on Wyoming’sBuffalo Bill Dam, the rumor-quashing website Snopes reported in September.

In truth, Adriano Migliorati snapped the pictures at the 160-foot-tall (49-meter-tall) Cingino Dam (see map of the region), the Italian hiker told National Geographic News via email. The goats are attracted to the dam’s salt-crusted stones, according to the U.K.-based Caters news agency. Grazing animals don’t get enough of the mineral in their vegetarian diets.

By Christine Dell’Amore for National Geographic, 01 Nov 2011.