Author Archives: Vidar Andersen

News

We need your votes!

Our bootstrapped startup Gauss – The People Magnet (@getGauss) has made it to the @LeWeb Startup Competition semi finals! Now we need you to vote for us and help us spread the word so we will be one of the 16 startups allowed to pitch at the @LeWeb finals in Paris in December.

Here’s how:

1. Visit http://is.gd/gaussleweb and click the “vote” button to the right of the video.

2. Spread the link http://is.gd/gaussleweb to everybody in the universe!

3. Come back and visit http://is.gd/gaussleweb every 24 hours until November 13th and give us another vote by clicking the vote button to the right of the video.

Thanks! <3

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News

Gauss – The People Magnet

I’ve been way too busy lately and should probably have filled you in on what the hell I am up to these days much earlier. Anyways – here’s the lowdown.

As I alluded to a while back, I’m co-founding a new tech startup in the social/local/mobile space. It just took a hell of a lot longer than expected to assemble a willing and able crew of bootstrappers to make it happen, but now it’s finally happening!

Introducing ‘Gauss – The People Magnet’!

Did you ever find yourself wondering if you are missing out on meeting interesting relevant people around you right now? Gauss (@getGauss) answers that question for you; It discovers, helps you with approaching, connecting and actually meeting up with the people relevant to you around you right now.

Gauss (@getGauss) is a real-time proximity based discovery and introduction engine. The first product we’re shipping is an iPhone app; a People Magnet for your pocket.

You connect the app with the social networks and services that you currently use (like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc), pocket the magnet and carry on. Gauss will instantly start with discovering and attracting relevant people to you.

Gauss aims to reduce the seeming randomness of serendipitous encounters and the hassles related to approaching and connecting with relevant new people in lasting and meaningful ways.

Gauss is also the unit of measurement of a magnetic field, named after the legendarily awesome German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Be sure to sign up and spread the word for an early beta access if this sounds like your kind of thing! You can read more on the Gauss Blog.

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News

Hella Hamburg

I (and most likely almost all of you) never thought it would come to this; I actually completed a half-marathon, the Hella Hamburg Half-Marathon. Yay!

Albeit on inline skates.


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Albeit with busted ball-bearings. In cold gusty head winds. In the pouring rain.

It was a literal hell on wheels – imagine chewing on a tablespoon of sand and you’ll get a feeling for how smooth and effortless my ball-bearings were turning – but at least I didn’t quit. I kept going until I crossed the bitcoin games casino finish line. Only to skate in to the right (but the wrong) side of the time recording mat. Doh!

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Oh, well. Finishing instead of throwing my skates in the Binnenalster and quitting the race was enough of a victory for me.

Mental note to self: Bring an extra set of ball-bearings or skates to the next competition.

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Lessons Learned

5 Things I’m going to STOP in 2011

In the spirit of the time honored tradition of new year’s resolutions, I thought I’d share what I’ve decided to STOP doing for 2011 and beyond.

So without further ado, let’s indulge in some modern day voodoo / sympathetic magic / psycho-cybernetics / egotistical self-justifying cathartic mumbojumbo, shall we:

In 2011 and beyond, I will:
 

  1. STOP underachieving to stay within my comfort zone (see 2.)



    2. I guess you could say that I’m a notorious underachiever. It’s a lazyness an energy conservation kinda thing, I venture. Thermodynamics and all that. I guess being “really good” doesn’t make you “remarkable”, though. I don’t blame anyone but myself, but school and being a slave salaryman for years certainly made me lose the will to live reinforced the path of least resistance in me.

    START stepping way out of my comfort zone by going back to being self-employed, founding and bootstrapping a new startup – and moving together with my long-time girlfriend.

     

  2. STOP working hard at waiting for someone else to pick, deputize, knight or crown me (see 1.)

    3. START taking matters back into my own clammy hands and leave the greasy pole salaryman rat-race. Who’s the boss now? Well, I am. I alone am now responsible for my success – or failure.

     

  3. STOP only doing what I’m good at (see 1.and 2.)



    4. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should be doing it. Have you ever thought about that?

    START throwing myself off cliffs, forcing me to learn how to fly whilst falling.

     

  4. STOP not focussing my time and energy (see 1. 3. and 5.)



    5. Passion comes easy – I seem to have unlimited amounts of it. Focusing it is hard – I have seemingly unlimited interests and fleeting distractions.

    START focusing, disciplining, killing all but one of my pet projects (or at least put them in suspended animation or better yet – put them up for adoption, delegate them or give them away), working towards ONE goal doing ONE thing at a time on ONE project, putting my skin in the game, committing the time and resources, going out on a limb, sticking my neck out and risking failure.

     

  5. STOP criticizing (see 3. and 4.)


    6. START giving, helping, praising more than receiving, criticizing, chiding. It’s easy and cheap to be negative and criticize or comment without taking the time to reflect and suggest solutions and improvements. But, as Carnegie reminded us: “Be lavish in your praise and hearty in your approbation.” and as Lincoln said: “A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”. I’m OK, you’re OK. I guess not everybody’s OK, but we’re both OK, OK?

If you catch me relapsing, feel free to verbally abuse and humiliate me in public and on the Internet.

What are you going to STOP doing in 2011?

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Software, Usability

Quick Thoughts on How to Improve the Download Experience in Internet Browsers

Update: It seems Safari 5.1+ together with OSX Lion’s “All My Files” Finder view implements something similar as I suggested. Funny!

Update 2: It seems Apple did add the animation for the downloaded file swooshing down to the download folder with OSX Mountain Lion. Double fun! Coincidence, or is somebody in Cupertino listening? :)

Update 3: 2023 saw Google Chrome adapt a very similar UX. Lulz.

After a recent discussion on @twitter with @limi and @philikon on the difference between the Firefox and Chrome Internet browsers, I started thinking about why I still find both browsers lacking in the download experience department.

For an excellent primer on how the different Internet browsers currently handle downloads I highly recommend reading @Limi’s blog post and come back to revisit this post.

I do not know about you, but I hate the Firefox Downloads window like the redheaded stepchild it is. The web-page-in-a-tab solution from Chrome (yeah, yeah, yeah – I know Opera did the tab thing first, but who uses that browser besides you?) doesn’t quite jive with me either.

I did a quick & dirty mockup of how the download experience in the browser could be improved.

Introducing the Browser Downloads Docking Menu

Browser Downloads Docking Menu (quick & dirty mockup)

I would think a slide in/out dock menu for downloads would be a better solution. This way you’ll always know where your downloads are and it enables context (page and download file viewable simultaneously, guaranteed) and visual/ spatial cues (e.g. in an OSX version you should animate the download file flying into the downloads dock menu).

Visual / Spatial Cues

Visual / Spatial Cues (quick & dirty mockup)

I think it’s important to visually show that the user’s intent to download has been registered, where the download can be expected to be found and what you can do next. If the dock menu is not out/showing already, it should slide out first, showing the user how and where.

Filtering & Recovery

Filtering & Recovery (quick & dirty mockup)

Some sort of parameters to adjust list view of downloads should be added, but not visible to the normal user as default. Should be extremely easy to understand and use for normal people. Should change and filter view live/realtime. The big fat “Show all” button is there to secure that the user can feel confident that she’s seeing everything and that all filters are off/reset.

Your Opinion

What do you think? Are you happy about the current download experience in your browser? How would you make it better?

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