May 12, 2008
Snackr: Don't Read Blogs, Snack On Them!
My coworker and friend NJ has created a new way to read and digest your RSS-syndicated news feeds in the form of a ticker-like desktop application built in Flex and AIR called Snackr. I've been using it to help him test it out for a month or two now and I have to say it's really cool. Prior to Snackr, I read a handful of the feeds I've added to my reader application (mostly those written by my friends or coworkers) and mostly ignored everything else. I just never wanted to spend the time to slog through that huge backlog of news in one sitting, and since I only opened my feed reader once a day at best, I didn't have very many sittings. But now that new feed items scroll by the bottom or side of my desktop, I can constantly glance over at the headlines and see if anything interests me. Plus it gives me something to do during a boring meeting or to kill time between tasks (although I'll warn you - it doesn't do much to improve your productivity!)
Some tips:
- You can drag the ticker to any of the edges of your monitor, including the edges of a second monitor.
- You can change the ticker speed via the preferences (second icon from the left). I like to slow mine down all the way since I find the default speed too distracting.
- You can add feeds just by copying the feed URL, clicking on Snackr, and then doing Cmd/Ctrl-V to paste.
Now, quit reading this and go check it out!
May 07, 2008
A Pattern Library for Information Design
I'm not usually one to recycle links, but this pattern library for information design was too good to pass up. Christian Behrens catalogs around 55 different ways to display information that helps application designers and others go beyond blasé bar and pie charts when a different visualization would be more appropriate. As I covered in the FIG section on Information Design, it's important to spend time getting content displays right by thinking of them as information design problems. This website helps us get better at that by giving us some concrete new tools and techniques to play around with. I'll definitely be keeping it around to refer to later.
Found via Ethan Eismann.
