2005.10.02
So, looking over Ksenia's shoulder as she used her Mac laptop, I had a bit of an epiphany that helped me "get" the dock-centric UI a bit more. I was asking her if she wanted to get rid of some of the apps that she doesn't use from the dock...I know in her place I would want to keep it as uncluttered as possible. She declined because she kind of like the way it looked, but something about the exchange let me finally "get" the Dock a bit more...it ties together the way that most users probably only use a small number of applications on a regular basis, and the original Mac idea of being an "information appliance"...I now understand the concept of a user not really caring if they had windows open in that application or not, because...well, I guess the tasks are more strongly grouped than that. Only if you press the yellow button does it give that window its unique place on the Dock, so you explicity kind of say "I'll come back to this later", whereas the Windows view kind of assumes everything is a task you want to come back to, because the user is multitasking. Windows' taskbar is all about, well, tasks, but Macintosh has a view that's more application-centric than that. I think I still prefer the Start Button / Taskbar combo however.
Joke of the Moment
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"