Archives for: June 2007, 28

Atlantis ISS together in one phenomenal picture

This image is a huge leap past anything I've seen before, the amount of detail is far beyond what other people have managed to get from the ground (albeit they were using far smaller telescopes), usually most photographs show a T-shaped object fly through the field of view, but the amount of detail in this is incredible.

Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station together in orbit

This is a photograph of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station together, taken from the ground. Atlantis is the lower-left of the image, it is facing away from the telescope and so you can see the engine nozzles, it casts a shadow over the rest of the station. The solar panels to the right of the station are what have just been installed. You can clearly see one of the stations two robotic arms and can easily identify all the separate modules of the station.

Things in orbit are difficult to photograph, as they can pass overhead in just a couple of minutes so getting the telescope to follow them is a difficult challenge.

This is one of the most impressive images I've seen on APOD in a sometime.

Apple's inconsistent user interface

Apple's UI on Windows is an absolute train wreck. Below is a screenshot of QuickTime, Safari and iTunes running on Windows XP, I'll only install these applications in a virtual machine, I won't let them near my Windows Vista box, I don't want more background apps running all the time that don't need to be thank you. None of the applications in this screenshot are focused.

Anyway the first thing that strikes you is that ugly grey colour, I don't know what Apple's obsession with it is exactly, but it doesn't look good. Especially on Windows XP (where bright Fisher Price colours rule by default), and it looks terribly bad on Windows Vista, which actually look good.

Obviously they don't bother following the UI guidelines for Windows (not that Microsoft do anymore either), and they'd rather impose their own window frame upon you.

Apple's inconsistent UI

So what have we got wrong here?

1) Different shades of grey.
2) Different fonts, Safari is all blurry.
3) Different shading of fonts, Safari looks in focus when it's not.
4) Different sliders, Safari is the bright gel, yet iTunes is gray when not focused and just a plain blue when focused.
5) Different size and colour arrows on the sliders.
6) Window controls (close, maximise, etc) are different colours, and different sizes.
7) The resize icons in the bottom-right are different colours and sizes.
8) Search icons are different shades.
9) File menu is in line with the title in iTunes, yet a line lower in QuickTime and Safari.
10) Apple is used in the QuickTime title, yet not in the other applications.
11) The buttons between applications are completely different styles.

From a control stand point they even behave differently, QuickTime for example won't maximize, it just gets a bit bigger. iTunes can be resized by dragging the window frame, yet Safari you need to go down to the resize area and drag the window around.

So what else is there that I've missed?