September 22nd, 2008
Writing is something that can always be improved. While some people have a innate talent for writing, anyone’s writing can be improved by following the basic rules of style, taking time to proofread, and avoiding grammatical errors and pitfalls.
It’s also easy to fall into bad habits with writing and sometimes just recognizing them is enough to break out.
Here are five of my favorites posts on writing and how to improve your prose.
1. How to Write with Style - Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut’s essay on writing from 1999 offers eight points on how to write with more style. This is a wonderful piece that gives some great insight into the author’s mine and approach to writing.
Favorite Tip:
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.
2. Strunk & White’s The Element of Style
Even though you can get the most widely accepted guide to writing style online, I recommend buying this little book and keeping it on your desk at all times. A number of websites also offer quick summaries of the Strunk’s main rules.
Favorite Tip:
Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity.
3. How to Write a Thank You Note
Anyone who performs business of any kind should know how to write a proper thank you note. This post provides a six-point formula for crafting a classy note. When is the last time you sent someone a handwritten thank you note?
Favorite Tip:
I’m not going to go all Miss Manners on your ass and get into the social intricacies and delicate situations that surround thank-you note writing, as I was taught that a solid thank-you note will transcend all complicated situations—and I have seen no evidence to the contrary.
4. Ten Overused Words in Writing
Simplifying and cutting wasteful prose is a tip seen in almost every writing guide. This post helps by pointing out ten words commonly overused or misused by writers. You’ll be surprised at how many of these you use.
Favorite Tip:
Mark Twain made this comment about using “very”: “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” “Very” is a crutch for finding the right word to describe what you mean to say.
5. The Most Embarrassing Grammatical Mistakes
Grammatical mistakes are always glaring and ugly–no matter how good the writer’s prose. There are a number of common mistakes made by amateur writers. This post calls them out.
Favorite Tip:
If you keep your sentence structure simple, you are less likely to misplace a modifier. When in doubt, start with the subject, then move right away to your verb. This can lead to dry writing, but that’s better than inadvertently hilarious writing, like this: Having finished homework, the TV was turned on.
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Ben | Business, Work | No Comments | #
September 14th, 2008
A group of astronomers in Japan have created a new four-dimensional approach for visualizing astronomical data. The 4D2U Navigator project is a Flash application that allows you to navigate through the vastness of the known universe using time, distance, and mass to provide an immersive tour through space.
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Ben | Data Visualization, Interfaces | No Comments | #
September 8th, 2008
It’s surprising that the iPhone doesn’t have a native solution for MS Outlook task synchronization. Task management has become a core element of my work style and not having my task list (or the ability to create tasks) on the iPhone is an annoyance. Not even MobileMe has a task management feature.
I was able to find a nice workaround after some investigation. This approach is free and seems to work just fine.
You can create a free account at Toodledo.com and then use the free Toodledo synchronization tool to sync your data between Outlook and the Toodledo.com cloud. Once synchronized, Toodledo has a iPhone-optimized page for viewing, managing, and creating tasks.
Your task data is stored in the Cloud, and you can set the synchronization tool to auto-sync at a set time interval or you can sync manually. Total set up time was less than ten minutes.
Get a step-by-step set-up and install guide.
Chapura, the company that developed a number of Palm OS and Outlook sync tools, recently release KeyTasks. KeyTasks costs $9.99 at the app store doesn’t support categorization. KeyTasks also requires a yearly fee.
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Ben | Life, Technology, Work | No Comments | #
September 4th, 2008
Google made a small change to its report download option that may save SEMs time. You can now download a report graph as a PNG that can be cut and pasted into reports.
In the past, the data had to be pulled into Excel and then graphed. This took up a lot of unneeded effort—especially when drafting a quick campaign report. It would great to see Google support comparison charting and more visualization exports in Analytics.
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Ben | Google, Search Marketing, Statistics | No Comments | #
September 3rd, 2008
Chrome, Google’s new open source browser, hit the Internets yesterday with the kind of measured excitement we’ve come to expect from Google releases. After a day of experimenting, I’ve come to the realization that Chrome is the Mini Cooper of web browsers—small and speedy and well designed…but may ultimately probably lacking the “oomph” to get SUV drivers to switch. No one was surprised to see Google launch a web browser, and envisioning Chrome as the core of a web-based OS is by no means a stretch.
Don’t me get wrong, Chrome is pretty cool and they’ve integrated a handful of user experience elements that are surprising in their logic and brilliance. Here are four that struck me.
1. Dragging a tab to the desktop creates a new browser window
One of the new innovations in Chrome is that each tab is treated as its own browser. A nice byproduct of this functionality is the ability to create new browser windows by simply dragging a browser tab Chrome to the desktop. Browser tabs were a great innovation a few years ago, but can be somewhat limiting—viewing two pages side-by-side requires the spawning of a new browser window. Chrome makes a thorny process a lot easier.
2. Maximum Screen Optimization
Chrome barely seems like an application. Extreme care and attention was taken to minimize the profile of browser controls and navigation, opting to dedicate as much screen space to the main window. The top navigation and menu controls have approximately 33% less profile than IE or Firefox (and this at the default settings…no toolbars added). Anyone who works in UX understands how difficult it is to maximize controls without sacrificing usability. Chrome does a great job at this.
3. The Omnibox
The multi-purpose search and URL box might take some getting used to, but overall is a nice tactic for minimizing and optimizing input fields. Although Firefox’s awesome bar has a better experience and is more legible, they still support a separate URL and search input box. I like where Chrome is going with this.
4. Kill Screen
Chrome displays a “kill screen” when it detects an unresponsive page. While this may not be that useful with web pages in general, this could be an incredibly useful feature with application development.
Finally, Chrome is built for speed. While new features and functions are always welcome with web browsers, if they come at the sacrifice of speed they are problematic. At first look, the UX of Chrome seems to be a step back from Firefox and Explorer, but after some experimentation and use it becomes clear that Google is looking beyond features and envisioning browsing as a user’s core computing experience. This minimalist approach may make users uncomfortable at first, but it should not take long for Chrome to gain significant share of the browser market.
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Ben | Experience Design, Google, Interfaces, Technology, Usability | No Comments | #
