dfbills.com blog

Sunset on the Hudson river.

Vimeo is sporting one of the best mobile errors I’ve seen.

Ohmigosh!
Sorry, there was an error showing this video. Why?

● No mobile version of this video (yet)
● You don’t have permission to see it
● Neptune not in the 8th House

All is not lost! Click here for the non-mobile version of this page.

Nothing like a tasty operation. Oddly enough, one of the candies is a crab!

Hmm, simple Bluetooth pairing, does this “just work?” Yup, apparently so.

Let’s see how well the keyboard works.  Oh, yeah I’ve been typing all along.  Yes, the typing works great.  I wonder what this looks like on iPhone 4.0.  

Hmm, exactly the same… yes indeed… can anyone tell what I’m typing on?  Nope, I’m afraid not.  Sorry to be silly, but this just has to be done. 

Function keys on the Apple Bluetooth keyboard can control the brightness, iPod (very cool), toggle the onscreen keyboard, but not return to home.  Also, arrows don’t navigate very well.  The arrow controls seem to be pretty inconsistent.  Not a lot of UI elements know what do to with the arrow presses. 

PS: Ooh, command-a to select all and command-c to copy works great!  Too bad there’s no command-tab.. oh well, maybe in 4.0.

Update 1:

Keyboard commands that work:

Tab between fields (tab)
Select all (command-a)
Cut, copy and paste (comand-x, c, v)
Select letter (shift-arrow)
Select word (shift-option-arrow)
Select line (shift-command-arrow)
Select to end of document (shift-apple-up or down arrow)
Delete previous word (option-delete)

Wish list:

Shortcut for Home (available with Apple iPad hardware keyboard)
Shortcut for Search (available with Apple iPad hardware keyboard)
Switch app (command-tab)
Lock screen
Keyboard shortcuts for more apps
Safari controls (command-l for location bar in safari or command-t for new tab)
More consistent scrolling via arrow keys

Paul McFedries sent a great new word today via Word Spy-

Thumbo: An error made while using the thumbs to type, particularly on a mobile device keypad. [Blend of thumb and typo.]

I sure see a great number of thumbos on a daily basis, but I might need a stronger word to describe the email I got yesterday-

We ciumld orreebt

Maybe a new one using the words Novocain & Thumbo?  A thumbocaine typist?

Here’s a new one (to me)- Twitter’s “Find People” function is not available, so we see the following message:

Twitter is stressing out a bit right now, so this feature is temporarily disabled.

How cute.  Who doesn’t get stressed out when a hundred million friends are asking you questions all at the same time?

Wow, that 696.7MB download looks like it’s going to take a really, really long time!  Or is it going to take me back in time?  I’m really not sure.

Yes, this is a nice way to show your users that the service is unavailable.

Great job, Aardvark.  I’ve the additional screens as well.