My email is similar to the other instructors’.

I love the idea of dingbat webfonts, though I want someone to write an article on the accessibility of using them. http://j.mp/ccD34r

The idea is fairly simple: Draw up some beautiful flat-colour vector icons, wrap the whole set into a font, and then load it as a webfont to display the icons on your page. Simple and clean, right?

There are problems.

In effect, you will be littering your page with a list of ‘j’ and a ‘h m n p’ near the title, with some ‘s u f’ in some other places. What does it mean? It’s completely indecipherable unless you successfully load the font and have the required experience/cognizance to recognize the meaning of the shape. A lot of people just aren’t good with icons.

There are some standard solutions. Wrap everything up with plain-text mark-up, then add the symbol and negative-indent the semantic text away.
In browsers that don’t support web-fonts, and in screen-readers that read out text on the screen (which would be all of them), the code would still contain a bunch of odd letters or numbers everywhere.

Someone mentioned a page from Opentype in his post, where they make a characterset which has most of the letters blank, with the ‘W’ mapping to their logo.

So how’s this:
Make an icon set with most everything blank, and then put twenty-six icons in the capital spaces. Put the shopping cart in ‘C’, because ‘cart’ starts with ‘C’. In your shopping cart example, it could say “Purchase, go to shopping Cart” but the “, go to shopping art” would be blank, the “C” would be the shopping cart symbol, and you’d see “Purchase []” where [] is the symbol.

You’d be limited to twenty-six symbols, and each must be applied to the letter you’ll use to start its name (unless you don’t mind the text “caRt” or such).

Let’s take a look at something I just got:

*Please do not reply to this message*
————————————————————
You asked that we send you a summary of Meetup message board
activity. The following is a list of discussions with new
messages posted since July 14, 2010 12:17 PM.
————————————————————

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SECRET HANDSHAKE – THE WINNIPEG CREATIVE SOCIETY
Forum: The Winnipeg Creative Freelance Society Discussion Forum
============================================================

90 second quickie at portage and main
http://www.meetup.com/secrethandshake/boards/view/viewthread?thread=9571812
Latest message by Paul Clerkin on August 13, 2010 at 11:01 AM

–
Add info@meetup.com to your address book to receive all Meetup
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To manage your email settings, go to:
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http://www.meetup.com/jobs/

If you’re in Winnipeg, I encourage you to come to our monthly meetup. It’s a great little gathering of local creative/tech people.

Now, I signed up for email notifications because I’m just not going to check the site (which I never visit) every time I want to know if something new has been posted. In fact, the less I have to visit the site, the better.

When I sign up for email alerts on a forum or message board, I want to see something like this:

New discussion messages since July 14:

=================================
SECRET HANDSHAKE – THE WINNIPEG CREATIVE SOCIETY
Forum: The Winnipeg Creative Freelance Society Discussion Forum

90 second quickie at portage and main
Paul Clerkin on August 13, 2010 at 11:01 AM:
The Winnipeg Film Group is proud to announce an open call to our second annual 90 SECOND QUICKIE film contest. The 90 Second Quickie was created in 2009 by the Winnipeg Film Group to encourage the creation of new, micro films. Blown away by the shorts in our first year we are doing it again – this time bigger, brighter and bolder!

To visit the thread, visit http://www.meetup.com/secrethandshake/boards/view/viewthread?thread=9571812

–

To manage your email settings, go to:
http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/
Meetup, PO Box 4668 #37895 New York, New York 10163-4668

Even that could be shuffled around a bit, but there are some good practices:

• Keep cruft to a minimum
• Display the main information as soon as possible
• Give links to things
• Also provide fall-backs for plain-text email clients
• Give them (at least some of) the content from the site, so they don’t have to click and load additional pages

There are little points here and there. I encourage you to spend an hour reading it over, word for word, to discover for yourself what it means, because most of the internet has it wrong (quite like the iPhone 4 antenna issue, which has turned into ‘antennagate’, which is better described as ‘antennapaloosa’).
So what does that Google document mean? It’s a lot of high-level language with broad generalization and sets a framework for future law-makers.
To clarify, read Brian Fling’s Google, Verizon and an “Open Internet” from a Mobile perspective. He tells us all how wireless networks are different from wired networks (and believe me, they are).

So!
When you get right down to it, what can we really do?

• Cap bandwidth
• Charge per-gigabyte
• Create a tiered system of separate internets
• Charge more all round
• Destroy Hollywood
• Create a foundation for peer-to-peer networking
• Others

You can’t cap the bandwidth. Throttling might be fine, but most people get so little, anyway, and they can still download hundreds of gigabytes a month. Frankly, fast bandwidth is necessary, or you’ll spend hours a day waiting for your pages and things to load.

I’d be all for charging per-gigabyte, except that providers invariably would charge too much. I would love to believe they could do some research to find out how much people need, and then create a simple stepping chart of prices, but they are either incredibly stupid or are greedy liars—they say you can visit so many webpages and get so many emails with whatever bandwidth, when really you can’t.
See the Rogers Data Calculator. It looks like they’ve made some improvements, lately, but they still say a webpage is 289 KB. I wish that were true, but it seems a lot of pages I visit are several megabytes in size. (Still, it seems fair, right now.)
A good per-gigabyte system should start off small, because basic internet access is very important. If people really want to torrent a bunch of videos, games, and music, they can pay for all that. Imagine if you could get a basic internet connection for $5 or $10 per month.

Obviously, creating a tiered system wouldn’t work, because everyone would have to pay a premium just to get basic bandwidth (although you already do). Worse, this would extend into the internet itself, and you’d subscribe to certain sites the way you subscribe to cable channels. Imagine only being allowed to go to the most famous and corporate sites.

Charging more all around won’t work, because they’re already charging us exorbitant amounts for relatively pitiful network connections.

Utterly destroying Hollywood and hunting down any famous musicians would reduce the amount of traffic downloading torrents. This obviously isn’t going to happen. (Though it would make a great movie!)

Most of the network traffic is duplicates: mailing lists, illegally downloaded movies, millions of upgraded FireFox installers, and the most popular YouTube videos.
If we could lay some protocols, programs, and infrastructure to allow local copies to be shared between local machines without hampering the network, it could really reduce the amount of bandwidth being used for large files.
CDNs already take care of the top-level branches, where the internet backbones would otherwise need to duplicate content, but that data still needs to be downloaded separately each time someone in that region requests the file. We need a way for this content to be managed AFTER the end-of-line provider downloads it.
It would basically be a Fractal Internet. The big pipes shuttle to the smaller pipes, which will share with the even smaller pipes. I don’t know if any research has been put into this, yet.

This is a Daily Drop Cap from Jessica Hische. I encourage you to take a look at her typographical wonders.

Here’s an example:
Because it’s hard to show high-resolution samples on low-resolution screens, I’ll show you a low-resolution example. This illustrates the difference between two screens; but the size depends on your own screen’s density, so the numbers aren’t absolute.

Take Monitor #1 and Monitor #2. Both are about 11.8 inches; but Monitor #1 has a resolution of 1024×600 pixels (1186px diagonal) while Monitor #2 has a resolution of 341×200 pixels (395px diagonal).
Pixels per Inch. 1186 pixels per 11.8 inches is about 100 pixels per inch. 395 pixels per 11.8 inches is about 33.4 pixels per inch.

Having few pixels per inch means your computer has very little to work with, and the images will be blocky. Having a large number of pixels to work with means your computer can display hairline textures, possibly at the limits of human perception.

Monitor #2 has only 33 pixels per inch, or a little over 1000 pixels in an entire square inch. Monitor #1, meanwhile, has 100 pixels per inch, which is 10000 per square inch. Nine times as much detail!

If you want to see how a hypothetical screenshot would look, see Monitor #1 and Monitor #2.

Some other numbers: Most monitors today are around 100 ppi. Laptop screens might be a bit more high-detail, at 120 ppi or so. At 280 ppi, you’re nearing the edge of human sight. Some people can see more, and others less. The iPhone 4′s screen is about 320 ppi.

So, now that you’ve seen the difference of high vs. low, you’re probably wondering what it all means.
When you look at the example above, you see how the text went from nearly-illegible to crisp and neat. You can probably still see pixels, though, if you looked hard at those letters. In the near future, monitors and screens will all be nearing 300ppi, and those letters will look beautiful. We’ll also have more design options than ‘no line’, ‘thin line’, and ‘thick line’.

Here’s the thing: There is little support for high-density devices.
Windows, the most popular operating system, has only the barest functionality, and is only truly usable on screens with height of at least 720 pixels per hundred ppi (720 for 100 ppi; 1440 for 200 ppi). (Rough numbers, of course.)
Most web-pages automatically set your text to something like 12 or 16 pixels, which is too small to read on a 300ppi screen (think of reading 5px font on your current screen). They also usually set elements of the page to specific pixel widths, which means the proportions will be all wrong and the text will overflow from their boxes.

We need to call on web designers to design for the multitude of screens we have, and to put the power into the browser’s hands. Front-end developers need to work with designers to make their layouts flexible.

When I was going to the Fringe Festival with my younger brother, he had pointed out a sign somewhere, and I was dissecting the typeface. I think it must have been Clarendon. Then he smacked me, and I realized that the sign was printed in English, and that it was telling me something. It’s like my mind has narrowed to three or four topics: I’ll keep an eye out for typography, logos, and design, and I’ll completely miss all the other stuff around me.
So yes, a return to basics is necessary.

When walking up to the side door of my brother’s house, I noticed a “USE THE SIDE DOOR” note by the front porch, out of the corner of my eye, and knew instantly that it was set in Calibri. The first thing I said to my brother, when I walked in, was to ask if he had recently purchased Microsoft Office 2007.

Yes; he had.

Typographically, it was like blowing my nose and then staring at the damp tissue. I’m an embarrassment to myself.

• 1.8 GHz “Medfield” Atom (Z7xx?)
• 2GB DDR2 low-voltage RAM at 800 MHz
• At least 48 hours standby
• About 12 hours light work
• About 8 hours video playback
• 1080p HD playback with HDMI output
• 720p HD recording
• 1366 x 720 screen at 5.5″ or so
• About 1″ x 3.5″ by 7″
• Far better graphics power than the Z5xx series
• One or two USB ports
• Wireless B/G/N
• High-definition sound

I’m kind of expecting that they’ll cap the battery life at six or seven hours, and then just scale the battery down, but I hope they don’t. There’s a magical point where you can go an entire day without worrying about the battery, as long as you charge it overnight, and they should bring the battery to that level.

As well, I’m pessimistic about the screen. Most likely, they’ll keep the old 1024 x 600, especially for such a small screen as I’m looking for. The next step up is 1280 x 720, which is HD 720p, but most of these devices have a wide-screen aspect ratio that would put it at 1366 x 720. Meanwhile, some old games allow a step in resolution from 800×600 to 1024 x 768, so I’d want something at least 1280 x 768. And that’s why you don’t hard-code these numbers into your programs, kids: ten years down the road, aspect ratios and such will change and your programs won’t work as well on systems that would otherwise support it. I’d be 48 pixels away from being able to play certain games, if I had a 1280 x 720 or a 1366 x 720 screen.

Another thing about the screen:
Those who know me know I’m excited for OLED technology to make it to the mainstream market; but OLED screens are just light coming out of the diodes, which means you can’t see a thing when bright sunlight (or another source) washes it out. I’m wondering what happened to the screens we saw on the Gameboy Advance and similar systems, where bright sunlight was actually beneficial. I’m also wondering if it’s possible to use a thin reflective LCD, without a backlight, on top of which sits a thin OLED screen, which renders the same view and is visible in darker climes. You’d get the best of both worlds; because you wouldn’t even need the OLEDs’ light when you’re in direct sunshine, and you wouldn’t see the LCD (much) when using the OLED screen in the dark.
There may be engineering problems limiting those LCDs to 16K colours (also, price; also, OLEDs at high densities), so I’ve got to do more research on the matter.

Also, on that note, I’m kind of annoyed that we’re restricted from turning the brightness down to near-zero on these devices. Sure, I wouldn’t do it often, but the option would be appreciated.

After days of installing stuff and trying it all out, I’ve gotten a handle on what I’ve just bought. Originally, I was looking for something to replace my netbook and my DS as “the thing I carry around.” As it turns out, the netbook is simply better at some things—Keyboard, ethernet cables (LAN), and touch-pad navigation (I’ve gotten good enough to play Diablo II on it).

It turns out there’s also a really big difference: Wi-Fi range. The N5 can’t see access points my HP Mini can, which is a breaking-point.

Long story short, the N5 simply cannot replace my netbook. I’ll use the Mini at home and pack it in my bags when I go places.
Meanwhile, I’m finally able to carry a PC in my pocket wherever I go, no matter where that might be (besides the sea-floor).

Since 2008, I’ve been carrying a Nintendo DS as my pocket-thing. It’s served me well, and it has let me play music, view re-encoded video, or play a couple games while I was on the go. It’s fairly limited, however, and has no good text-editing capabilities. Its touch screen is only 256 x 192, and the second screen isn’t touch-sensitive. It has only 4 MB of RAM, and the two processors are 33 MHz and 66 MHz.

All in all, the N5 blows the DS out of the water. Not only does it emulate most of the games I’d play on the DS (though DS games play a bit slow on an emulator), it doesn’t require me to re-transcode video and will play 720p. The storage space is tremendously larger, too. I’ve found a program called GMapCatcher that lets me save Google Maps offline, so that replaces the mapping program I’d used in my DS.
The DS is slightly smaller and has controls suited to gaming, but that’s about it. I can make due.

A good netbook can, for all intents and purposes, replace a desktop machine. The Viliv N5, though, can’t replace your main system. The wi-fi is too weak, the keyboard is borderline crappy, and the navigation methods slow you down too much (unless you’ve got a good stylus).

So, my original intent was to replace my DS and my netbook. What would I need?
Basically: something about two inches longer (the real killer is that some keys are smaller than others, because they couldn’t fit everything), with slightly-better battery life, strong wi-fi, and a more responsive touch screen.

I’m disappointed that the Viliv N5 isn’t absolutely perfect, but it’s still a good machine. I’ll be using it a lot in the next few years (until Medfield devices start coming out)!

There are a few things the N5 does fantastically:

• An infra-red nub for mousing, rather than some sort of capacitive bit. Also, resistive-touch screen. Those two combined means I’ll be able to use the device perfectly while wearing gloves in the winter.
• Deliciously high resolution. I’m getting iPhone 4 syndrome, where I look at my regular monitor and do a double-take at all the blocks everywhere.
• Those tiny keys are actually almost perfect for playing games. I can nearly use the W/A/S/D keys as a directional pad, with my thumbs. I’ve been playing NES games.
• The form factor is a joy to hold. It’s not glossy, so you need to be pretty greasy before fingerprints start showing up. The screen is sheer plastic, though, so I have to keep my hands off the front of it. (I usually use a fingernail for the touch-screen.)

There are a couple things I’d have changed, if I were them. First, there’s no ‘context menu’ button on the keyboard, so you have to get the cursor to an item and right-click. The rest of the keyboard makes enough sense. Also, the thing cost over $700, so does it really have to come with Windows 7 Starter? You can’t even change the desktop wallpaper. I futzed around with the settings and services and performance options enough that I somehow ended up with a much-more-compact classic look (Win98-ish).

Final recommendation: It’s a nice device, but it competes more with smartphones than with laptops and netbooks. It can do nearly everything you want, but it’s weaker in some areas. Meanwhile, it also has far less battery life than a smartphone, and doesn’t generally take calls, so you’ve got to carry some sort of phone around anyway.
This is best for someone who’s out and about a lot. There’s nothing better than being out of the office and still being able to do everything you’d usually do with a laptop (albeit more slowly).

I’m normally the most thrifty person ever, so $760 is a lot. Really, though, it’s better in almost every way (except where it’s equal [except for the keyboard]) and fits some of my other requirements: It’s small enough to fit into my pockets, the battery lasts six hours or more (I’ll see how much I can squeeze out of it), and the SSD is fast enough that I’ll probably see some good speed from it.

I’ll also be able to sell two other devices for a total of $500, if I want to, so that lowers the price.

It’ll probably arrive in two weeks, so I’ll look at it thoroughly when I get it!