Facebook. It certainly hasn’t gone the MySpace route with me. I still use it constantly, and let’s face it: it’s gone way past being just a social network where you “Like: photos and… “Poke” your friends.

(I really never understood the nature of “Poking”)

And the iPad? Same story. I began using thinking I had bought the most expensive “toy” in my personal adult history and today… I do everything from editing photos to even creating actual work deliverables on it. 

Naturally, It was expected that I would use the iPad to use Facebook…

Now, I remember when this first app came out. It didn’t come without a few design inconsistencies. Some things have improved, but overall there are still a few things that could easily get the redesign treatment… and here they are:

The “Share” Button

Apple originally introduced the box-coming-out-of-the-box icon as the “Share and Print” button. Here’s an example of that very same icon being used in Keynote… for the iPad:

What’s happend with the Facebook iPad app is that they’ve basically repurposed this icon to be… just about anything, such as saving photos: 

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Taskflo.ws was created with the intentions of making it a repository of all things Interaction Design, Technology & The Web.

It still intends to stay like this…

…except (as you may or may not have noticed) the last post here was since August.

2010, that is.

A lot has happened between then and now. A lot.

I simply have not had time to write & share my thoughts on these very important areas of my life. Not at length, anyways. This one of the many things Twitter has been great for: keeping me with what’s relevant —and keeping me relevant.

I’ve been working (as fast as possible) at changing this. I still believe trying to contribute to the community at large with thoughtful posts is a great practice to maintain.

But first, I’ve been working particularly hard at completely revamping my main website: diegopulido.com

This is my main (personal) blog; my portfolio & overall the main hub of my online presence. It’s taken a while to look (and then modify/tweak) a great theme to go along with all the existing content + all the content there is to come.

This effort is nearly finished. Once I am finished doing some final “house-keeping” on it’s appearance and content, Taskflo.ws will follow with more post, more often —as originally intended.

I leave you with a screen shot of how my main website is currently looking on Mobile Safari.

(Yes, it’s optimized for mobile!)

Thank you for reading. I hope to bring this site back to speed too as soon as possible.

Most users on the web are “click happy”: they tend to rapidly click on the most eye-catching action item without paying much attention to the rest of the site.

I see this happen during the usability tests I conduct at Pearson. More often than not, participants end up clicking the first link or “next” button they see whilst missing information that is relevant to the goal they are trying to accomplish.

Here is what I find interesting about this “phenomenon”: despite the fact that part of my work as an interaction designer involves observing this type of behaviour and making sure that participants don’t miss important information on screen, it has now been proven that I am just as vulnerable as anyone else.

Thank you, James Cunningham.

Earlier this week, Twifficiency —a web site that offers to calculate your “efficiency” on Twitter based on your interactions on it— spread across the Twitterverse posting the scores of those who wanted to know their… “twifficiency”.

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I like using You Tube to listen to rare versions of my favourite songs, but I don’t like to constantly have to reload a page if want to listen to anything more than once —gladly, I have found a solution: it’s called Fake.

Fake is a web browser for Mac OS X that allows for easy web automation. It comes from the same creator of one of my favourite Mac applications: Fluid.

The list of things you can do with Fake is intriguingly long. Anything from placing focus on a specific HTML input element; executing various combinations of else/if statements; dispatching specific mouse events, and even the ability to run any AppleScript script is possible with this application.

Evidently, you can get some really complex actions accomplished with this browser —or really simple ones, like having a video on You Tube play as if it were on “Repeat 1”. Here you can see how easy this is to achieve using Fake.

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(I wonder if Gary Hustwit approves of this app)

HelTweetica is a free Twitter app for the iPad that caught my attention a while back —mainly due to it’s simplicity.

Initially, I didn’t think much of it. Then, one day whilst watching a World Cup match, I decided to use my iPad to see my Twitter stream as I worked from home with the laptop -and the match- both in front of me. If you are one of the many who experienced the biggest sporting event in the world with Twitter by your side, you know how important it was to keep up with the Twitterverse during matches.

I started by opening my iPad client of choice: Twitterific. It crashed after a while. Then I moved to Twittelator for iPad: not the best client as far as readability goes. Then I moved to TweetDeck: somehow it crashed as well. 

Then I remembered: “…oh yeah, there’s that other app…”

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Google Reader is without a doubt my central location for reading RSS feeds. I use it to subscribe, organize and read feeds. I usually alternate between using Gruml (Google Reader client for Mac) or simply using the web-based version.

When it comes to the iPhone, no one does it better than Reeder. This application gathers all of your feeds, folders, starred post…etc —all exactly how you have it setup on Google Reader and presents them beautifully (in a paperback-like sepia colour). Besides looking great, this application has a particular way of allowing you to navigate through post, by either using a set of arrows, or swiping and holding (up or down) to see the next one, and so on.

It is the only application that has ever made it desirable to read RSS feeds on such a small screen. 

Then, the iPad came. With it, came a number of iPad-specific RSS Reader applications (some of them available even before the iPad went out on sale).

Out of the few applications available on launch-day, I decided to try Feedler (free) without being really impressed. Then I purchased Headline ($5).

Worst waste of 5 US dollars. Ever.

I won’t go into much detail  with Headline. I’ll just say that it’s the best example on how to utilize the iPad’s screen real state in the most inefficient of manners.

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Thank you, iPad.

I feel a good chunk of my new-found free time* is going to be spend trying to mix/make/play music on the iPad.

iElectribe, Looptastic HD, Beatwave. These are only some of the applications made for iPad that will allow anyone to become a pseudo-DJ for microscopical fraction of the price it would cost with the physical counterparts of these devices.

I decided to grab a camera and record my first interaction with the KORG iElectribe application (an iPad version of the same physical artifact). I grabbed a simple “naked” beat and added various different sounds, pitches and effects as I went. Looking back, I can hear myself trying to emulate some of the beats in Justice’s “Let There Be Light”.

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Not too long ago, I was extremely excited to get a Nokia N900 in my hands. I had been reading heaps about all the things it could and just how open and versatile of a mobile device this was.

The impression I gathered was that the N900 is a hand-held computer that just happens to make phone calls. In all honesty it was all that —and more. Many people asked me “Why? Don’t you have an iPhone?”

Indeed, I do. Nevertheless, one of the reasons that drew me so much to the N900 was just how open and malleable it was. With Maemo 5 as it’s operating system (which is all Linux based) and Nokia’s reputation as the best mobile device maker in the world, this was something that just felt right.

I didn’t take me long (even before buying it) to realize that the experience of downloading applications for the N900 would be diametrically different than that of the iPhone’s AppStore. We all know that Apple reserves the right to approve or reject any application available for the iPhone (unless you “set it free”). This was also rather appealing and refreshing —especially after being an iPhone user from the day it came out. I never wanted to be one of “those” people who carry two mobile phones by choice.

With the N900, it was different…

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