Jozef Nagy's blog

Top 10 UI Design Principles

  • Know your user
  • Let the user control the interaction
  • Capitalize on what the user already knows
  • Maintain consistency at the interface
  • Provide effective feedback
  • Expose the interaction to the user
  • Minimize reliance on user memory
  • Minimize the impact of user error
  • Aesthetic matters
  • Always test your interface with users
  • Nikon D50 Usability Assessment



    Nikon D50

    Product Description

    The Nikon D50 is a digital SLR (dSLR) camera. It uses the same large lenses as older 35mm film cameras use, but has a digital sensor instead of film. Because of its digital sensor, it's able to display the images it has taken on a large LCD on the back of the camera. There are more specialized controls on this camera than on a beginner's “point and shoot” camera. The large number of settings also requires additional feedback to the user which is not relevant on a point and shoot camera.

    MIT supports Ron Paul

    According to DailyPaul.com:

    Early this morning a group of MIT students decided they would take a
    stand against the emerging police state. Some supported Ron Paul and
    dropped a 60' long "Ron Paul rEVOLution" banner over the main campus
    building visible from the Charles river and much of Boston. Others
    chose to display a banner reading "Remember Remember the Fifth of
    November." Together they make an extraordinary sight. Please see the
    photo below.

    Why Infrared Still Matters For Mobile Devices

    The other day at the office I was posed with a problem. It was a simple one that in 2007 still can't be solved as easily as it should. I had a 2 GB SD card with pictures on it that needed to be emailed to a secretary. Sounds simple enough. The workflow should be:

  • Insert SD card into laptop's SD slot
  • Window pops up displaying contents of slot
  • Select all files
  • Right click, Send To -> Email Recipient
  • Put secretary's name in TO: field and click Send button

    Alas, that's not how it works. Using my work laptop, this was the following workflow:

  • Insert SD card into laptop's SD slot
  • Slovak National Anthem

    The national anthem of the Slovak Republic is based on a folk song adapted to patriotic feelings in the revolutionary 1840s. It speaks poetically of lightning strikes over the Tatra mountains and urges the Slovak nation to wake up.

    In March 1844, when the linguist and codifier of the literary Slovak language Ludovit Stur was sacked from his post of deputy professor at the Evangelical Lyceum in Bratislava, several of his students left the lyceum in sympathy, Janko Matuska among them. He wrote new lyrics to the melody of a traditional folk song "Kopala studienku" (transl. "She was digging a well..."). His work later became the Slovak national anthem.

    During the existence of the common Czechoslovak (later Czecho-Slovak) state (1918-1939 and 1945-1992), the first verse was used as the second (Slovak) part of the Czechoslovak anthem, the first part being the first stanza of the Czech patriotic song "Kde domov muj..." (transl. "Where is my home..."). This produced a rather inconsistent piece of melody, because the Czech part was relatively majestic and peaceful, describing the beauty of the Czech land, while the Slovak part was rather vital and militant, rousing people to a fight for freedom.

    In 1993, when Czecho-Slovakia split into two countries, the Czech Republic kept its part of the old anthem unchanged, while Slovakia added the second stanza of the original song by Janko Matuska to its half.

    Download the anthem.

    Nad Tatrou sa blýska, hromy divo bijú,

    Best OS for photography?

    Digital Photography School is having a discussion on the OS of choice for post processing of photography. Note that this isn't a discussion about the software used, just the OS. Here's my take on it as a former Windows XP user now switched to Kubuntu Linux.

    I run Kubuntu Linux on my desktop machine. It's a free and maintenance-free OS. Don't even get me started on all the time I used to spend just keeping my copy of Windows XP updated, virus free, malware free, etc. The switch to Linux has been great. And this leads into our discussion. As a result of the switch, I spend less time maintaining my system and more time using it as a photography tool. Imagine that.

    We're hiring at Blue Cross Blue Shield!

    My team at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA is looking for a System Support Analyst to aid in production support. The candidate would be working with Access, SQL Server 2000, a legacy mainframe, Oracle Applications (a financial system, not the actual DB), and some other systems. The most important technical skills needed are in order below.

  • MS Access - Must be proficient and have prior experience. We need a real hacker to maintain our Access production databases. Oftentimes changes have to be made on the fly to live production systems.
  • SQL - Beginner to intermediate. Has to be able to write it from scratch (cannot rely on the Access Query Designer)
  • Shutterstock.com Review - Sell your pictures online

    Shutterstock.com is a stock photo service which pays $0.25/download for any images you upload to their site. At first I was skeptical, but it seems like a good way to earn passive income. Shutterstock has grown in size as well as their payout to submitters. Not long ago they were paying out $0.20/download. The increase in payout is consistent with their growth as a business. Remember that the payout is per download. This means that the same image could earn you multiple payouts.

    How Auto-Focus Can Go Wrong

    This Easter 2007 I gave my Nokia 50D to some friends and family members. Unfortunately (myself included), not everyone knows the first thing about taking a proper shot.

    It still amazes me that people can completely ignore how auto-focus works on a digital camera. I'm not talking about consumer point and shoot cameras. I'm talking about more professional digital SLRs. Even with a point-and-shoot the focus is generally set to the center of the frame. As such, if your subject is off to the side and you point and focus the camera as below, what else can one expect? Note the sharp focus of the couch and the obvious blur of your humble webmaster. To be fair, a deeper depth of field could have solved this, but as it were, the f stop was too high and the shutter speed too slow, thereby reducing depth of field.

    The 10 Commandments of Drinking (in Slovak)

    We found this lying around our house the other day while rebuilding our bar. It seems fitting enough.

    Come back soon for the English translation.

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