maniacal rage

I've written about my obsession with finding the perfect mouse before. I've had so many mice the past few years and I've still yet to find the right one.

For the last 16 months or so I've been using an extremely cheap but surprisingly good Logitech LX7 USB cordless mouse. I say surprisingly good because at under $40, I expected it to be a total piece of garbage. It works well, however, ignoring the fact that it has a huge dongle and loses its connection all the time. It's also completely hand-neutral, so it's comfortable with my left hand. In fact, if it weren't for the disconnections, occasional skipping and such, I'd be perfectly happy with it.

But I want the perfect mouse. I want something that works well all the time, is comfortable, and never makes me think about the fact that I'm using it. So I'm always looking.

People always tell me the wireless Mighty Mouse is great. I know people who are huge fans of it. They say that it's much better than the wired version and that it works really well. They're liars.

I bought the original wireless Mighty Mouse and declared it shit immediately. One year later now, I've just purchased the newer model (which I was hoping had some improved internals rather than just changing the color of the side buttons to white) and I'm declaring it equally as shitty.

Quite frankly, the Mighty Mouse is one of the worst things Apple has ever designed. Wired or wireless.

For starters, the wireless version is laggy. It's not smooth at all. The default tracking speed when you pair it for the first time is insultingly slow. No one on earth would want it at this speed. Cranking it all the way up will give you a normal tracking speed, but don't attempt to move the mouse slowly and deliberately, because it's total crap on that level. It's imprecise, jittery, and, well, not to sound like a broken record or anything, total shit.

I noticed the wired Mighty Mouse that came with Katia's new iMac was better about click-detection (you know, the whole problem where the mouse requires you not touch one side when clicking the other for it to properly register a click), but the wireless model is not at all. Same stupid problem. If you finger is even one millimeter over the line of the side button, your clicks drop into a black hole. How the hell does anyone use this piece of shit?

Quickly, now, since I'm screaming out loud and losing my mind: The scrolling ball is a horrible design decision, it doesn't work that well and it gets too dirty too quickly.

Seriously. Apple. Change this. If anyone on earth could build the perfect mouse, I thought it would be you. But this isn't it.

I'm sure there would be many more options open to me if I wasn't left handed, but such is life. In the mean time, I'm going back to my LX7 for now. I'll just occasionally yell when it loses its connection. At least when its connected it works well.

This is your last chance to help me get a few of my SXSW 2008 panels into the festival. If you haven't done so yet, please take a few moments to vote for them. It's quick and free—all you have to do is register on the panel picker and then vote high for these five panels:

• Creating a Professional Podcast
• Perfect Product Launches: Releasing with Style
• Interface Design & Development Behind the Scenes
• Design is Not a Restaurant
• Embracing the Prototype: Moving Your Project Forward

And if you're planning on going to SXSW and have a panel you think I should vote for, feel free to send it my way.

For a long time, HDR was all the rage on Flickr. Every day, when I browsed the interestingness pages, they'd be crammed full of god awful HDR images. If you don't know what HDR is: It's the process of taking several versions of the same photo (each at different exposures) and tone mapping them together. It can be used to create really nice imagery, but its even easier to ruin photographs with it. Most of the photos uploaded to Flickr with the tag "HDR" are terrible. But for some reason, it was a very popular kind of crap, so for weeks on end interestingness was all crap HDR photos. Luckily (at least for me), that has started to die down.

At the same time, another annoyance has gained more popularity. I'm talking about the whole, "I'm an admin for a group called X and we'd love to have your photo added to the pool." This is so very annoying. If I wanted to add my photo to your group pool, I would have. If I cared enough about the subject your group is related to, I would have found a group. If I didn't, I probably don't care. When I get a new activity notification, I am absolutely incensed to find out that it's one of these comments. For a while I would oblige, but that stopped a while back. Now I just delete the comment immediately.

What's particularly annoying about these requests is that they often come up for the most ridiculous or random of groups. Rarely will I get a, "I'm an admin for the group called Mountains of Europe" comment. But I will get something along the lines of, "I'm an admin for the group called Men Who Wear Belts." What is the point of that?

A perfect example is a recent comment Katia received on one of her Nova Scotia pictures, in which you can see her feet on the rocks above an algae-filled pool of water: "I'm an admin for a group called Keen Shoes..." Now, granted, she noted in the description that "Keens rule!" but seriously? A group for photographs of Keen shoes?

We've been working hard for a while and we're finally ready to release the pilot episode of Maniacal Rage TV! Rather than boring you with a lot of details, we think you should just go and watch it right now using the built-in player. Or you can download a higher resolution version.

And don't worry—new episodes of both the video and audio versions of our show will appear in the post feed automatically. You don't need to sign up for a new feed to get the TV episodes!

We're thrilled to release this and we hope you enjoy it. You can send us feedback via the forums or by sending us email.

The iPhone rebate system is dead simple to use. Just give them your phone and serial numbers and they text you. I had my store credit in under a minute.

You have to have activated with AT&T to get the credit. Apple says:

You must activate your iPhone with AT&T prior to submitting your claim. Once you activate, return to this page after 24 hours to request your credit.

Makes sense (since it involves an AT&T system text message), but I have a feeling a few of my friends in Canada and Australia who bought the phone a while back and just recently SIM hacked it to work in their areas are gonna be crying this morning.

The primary reason I redesigned yesterday was to get back some of the simplicity I started with after my reboot in 2005. People who know me (especially in the web development realm) know that I like to talk about simplicity a lot. It's the base of all of my thoughts on web and application design and I always strive for very simple things that work well.

"Simplicity" should not be confused with "lacking" or "incomplete."

For what they are, weblogs can become complicated very quickly. We're talking about a collection of writing (interspersed with photos, links and such from time to time), and yet I'll frequently see weblogs that have three or more columns. If you have two sidebars, you're probably complicating things.

My primary interest in running this site is to write. I've noticed the more random stuff, structure or layout metaphors I add to the site, the less I write. And usually, the writing is more fractured, unfocused and sloppy.

In 2005, I banished all the old content and started anew with an extremely simple layout. No comments, no archives, no titles, just searching and content. Over the past two years, I've slowly crept back to complication and this is an attempt to get back to that better place.

I said it back then and I'll say it again: Getting rid of post titles and comments is the best thing you can do for your content. I've been without comments for over two years and I don't ever plan on bringing them back. I turned titles on for the last design and immediately regretted it. I am so thrilled they're gone again.

If you like the background image of this new design (which, by the way, I've referred to as "rainbow brite"), then you might want to download a higher-resolution version for your desktop.

Get them while they're hot.

I've also included an iPhone wallpaper, which is also now available in the iPhone wallpapers section of the site as well.

Update: I've uploaded a new zip that contains two more sizes: 1440x900 and 2560x1600.

I've redesigned again. It's getting to the point where even if people like the new design, they get angry. Apparently, redesigning on an average of every three months for two years is a little much.

When I look back at the archive of recent designs, I remember each design lasting for a lot longer than it did. I think my problem is that all the work I spend on each design adds invisible length, so by the time I release it I feel like it has already been a month. I tire of designs quickly. And so I start again.

The irony is that I don't consider myself a designer. I say that all the time. People will approach me for design work and I will say, "Sorry, I'm not a designer. I can't do that." I think what I have to finally admit is that I am designer—but only for my own stuff.

To give you a good example of the kind of feedback I get now when I redesign, consider this conversation I just had with Sean Madden:

Sean: Goddamn you and your new design.
Me: Well, it had been more than a month.
Sean: I'm not sure whether to be angry or relieved.
Me: EXACTLY.

Which sort of sums it up. I promise, I'm not redesigning just to anger you. Well, at least not most of you.

If you haven't done so yet, please take a few moments to help me get a few of my SXSW 2008 panels into the festival. It's quick and free—all you have to do is register on the panel picker and then vote high for these five panels:

• Creating a Professional Podcast
• Perfect Product Launches: Releasing with Style
• Interface Design & Development Behind the Scenes
• Design is Not a Restaurant
• Embracing the Prototype: Moving Your Project Forward

And if you're planning on going to SXSW and have a panel you think I should vote for, feel free to send it my way.

A new episode of the podcast has been released. We talk about popsicles and children and sea monkeys. And we've got a commercial for an awesome new product.

Listen to the new episode now with the built-in player and if you haven't already, subscribe.