Orsburn (Static Content)

UPDATED 06/07/2013 Pandora no-longer makes the webOS version of its player available. While quite obviously a piece rooted in opinion, a subtle nod is offered to Palm for the excellent interface work it did with webOS .  Since it’s initial release with Sprint in June 2009, Palm quickly slipped into relative oblivion.  With the recent purchase of the company by HP coupled with new product releases set for the summer, webOS may become relevant once again.  If so, then perhaps a whole new lot of users will come to appreciate the consideration that was taken with the webOS user interface (UI). An example is the popular webOS application for the even more popular Pandora Internet radio service.  And as it turns out, the company has a collection of screen captures for the various mobile platforms that have native applications for the service.  This happens to double as a quick way to compare the interface elements of other platforms by using the same applic...

At one point, not too long ago, Zinga ’s YoVille seemed to be the game everyone on the social networking site Facebook was playing.  Well that, and the same publisher’s Mafia Wars .  Now, it seems that players have moved on to the next game, and the next after that, so a curious screen capture taken from the YoVille splash screen may not be as relevant as it once was.  None-the-less here it is, so that all may see, Scott Van Pelt of ESPN and his caricature-ized rendering of his own Mini Me . Scott Van Pelt is on the left YoVille character

Google ’s Gmail service is wildly popular and quite good.  And while this should not be considered a review of the service, as much as a commentary about one aspect of it, I will point out a couple of my observations. It’s fast.  At least the bulk of the time, in about the same time that a normal search with Google returns results, clicking a message opens not only the message but all related messages as well.  This includes messages that were sent in response to a previous message.  To be sure, Mozilla ’s Thunderbird and Apple ’s Mail have been using message threading for years, but I never used a mailer that “grafts” sent messages into the threads as well.  It’s a sort of neat feature.  I’m not sure if I prefer to have it, but some friends have told me they love it. There are no folders!  Google has taken the concept of a folder and converted it to one of labels.  You don’t move a message to a folder, you apply a label to it.  The be...

Oh, the pangs of providing very popular software and challenging its users to download it as many times as possible.  Such is the situation with Mozilla and the rollout of its Firefox 3.0. With the costs associated with bandwidth consumption being a consideration for sites that provide downloads, and especially so for those that provide popular content and software, it's amazing that such a challenge was even considered—let alone publicized.  Regardless, the point is moot since Mozilla seems unable to keep up with the demand spawned by the company's invitation anyway. While I acknowledge and credit the organization with being able to keep up with the traffic it has by 11:00 AM EDT, my repeated attempts to download the browser have all ended in futility.  On some discussions I've read here and there users are reporting both success and failure.  Mine has been a case of repeated failure, as the closest I've come so far has been to fully load the main page at www....