RasterWeb!

Are you a Mac user forced to use a Windows machine while at work? Here are a few tips…

Install lots of open-source software: jEdit, Firefox, etc. avoid those Microsoft applications whenever possible. (I tried using Word and it started to drive me mad!) At least familiar applications will help ease the pain.

Pretend it’s Linux: Ok, I know, it’s nothing like Linux, but you are not going to get the user experience of using Mac OS X. It’s going to be ugly. Just image you are using an old Linux distro with a really crappy window manager. Sure, you won’t really have a nice shell, or everything else that makes Linux (or Mac OS X) what it is. This will take some real imagination.

Create a PDF: Any Mac application that can print, can create a PDF. Not so on Windows… Luckily, with Ghostscript and a little tweaking you can make Windows print to a Postscript file and then convert that to a PDF. A pain, but doable…

That’s all I can think of right now. If you have to use Windows at work, I’m sorry for you. If you’re lucky, you get to go home and use a Mac. Everyone should be that lucky. :)

Well, I managed to attend the Milwaukee Web Design May Meetup, and it was a good time.

It was hosted at Byte Studios in the Third Ward (a block from where I used to work) and about a dozen people showed up. There was a good mix of design and tech, and there were no specific topics, we just sort of discussed whatever was on people’s minds, or answered whatever questions people had.

I’ll most likely be at the next one if my schedule permits. I’m wondering if the group would be open to presentations, there’s a number of topics I’d like to present and discuss…

I plug my iPod in at least once a day to sync it. I would like this to be seamless, but it is far from being so. About half the time my iPod does not show up in iTunes, and I need to quit and relaunch iTunes. This is a pain. More of a pain though, is when iTunes shows me this dialog box:

In case you’re wondering, I “set up” my iPod about 6 months ago. When this dialog comes up, I have a routine which includes hitting ‘Cancel’ and then going into the iTunes options under iPod and resetting things like “Enable disk use” and resetting all the Photo options, and turning on the syncing of Contacts and Calendars. Again.

This is getting painful as hell. My user experience is suffering! Any iPod geeks know of a cure? (Yes, I’ve run the iPod updaters Apple ships to me through Software Update. Any other ideas?)

When a potential customer fills out a form and submits it, they might make a mistake. Hey, it happens, but that’s why your web developers wrote code that will send the form back to the potential customer with a message kindly telling the user what field was missing or filled out incorrectly. When we say kindly, what we mean is that an average human, not a web geek, can understand the language. Good: “The username you selected is too long, please choose a shorter one.” Bad: “ERROR: user_id too long!!!” Which message would you rather see?

I’m also sure your developers took the time to make sure they pre-populated the fields the potential customer filled in correctly so they are not forced to fill them in again. Not just the text fields, but the radio buttons, checkboxes, drop-down lists, textareas, etc. You’d be surprised how many developers don’t do this. Yes it’s extra work, but who would you rather to do the extra work, your developers, or your potential customers? (Hint: The developers should only have to do it once.)

Make things easier for your potential customers. Hopefully this will change them into satisfied customers.

As we mentioned in Business Website Tip #253, when potential customers come to your site, there is a good chance they are looking for information. There is a chance they do not want to watch a video or Flash animation before they are even brought to a page on the site with navigation or actual copy they can read. If you really need to show some sort of video or animation on your site, at least provide a skip button, so the majority of users who want information can bypass the theatrics and get to the information.

The people of the web thank you…