Question Dashboard for stackoverflow.com (plus meta, serverfault and superuser) – page analyzed and indicators shown for key information.

Downloads:

stackoverflowQdashboard hosted at wittman.org

stackoverflowQdashboard hosted at github

Greasemonkey (Firefox) and GreaseKit (Safari) compatible.

stackoverflowQdashboard.user.js:

SEE Configuration section for available options.

Microwave Ovens: Failure is not an option.

In our household if the microwave breaks down, I have less than 24 hours to relieve the crisis. And by 24 hours I mean 24 minutes. Kiefer Sutherland has (or had—I have no idea) a whole television season to work things out. I have no such luxury (nor budget). Our kitchen/meal-making workflow keeps three boys and two adults ready for action every day. It’s kind of a big deal.

Here’s the problem. I don’t need a 42-button cockpit control panel just to heat food and beverage. I want to see two dials. That’s right, no buttons, just two large, easy-grip dials. Power and Time. Really? YES. Leave the worst of the worst to pure software, thank you.

The diagram at the top of this post is a shot across the bow of the microwave oven product design and manufacturing frigate. *the sound of a pee-shooter pellet plinking against a steel hull*

This 2-dial diagram is my rather rustic (i.e. pathetic) rendering of a microwave user interface (UI) concept. Many a kindergarten student could draw something superior to my sketch, but here’s the point: This ubiquitous home appliance needs a consistent, familiar face to interact with.

In today’s world, when I walk up to one at work, or Aunt Betty’s house, or a school, a hospital—you name it, they’re everywhere—I know I’m about to be reduced to an idiot pressing buttons in random formation.

Is it digits + power + digits + start?
Or digits + power~power~power + start?
Or maybe time + digits + (power optional) + start?

Aiiiiiiiiiihhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Maybe it’s just me.

Where to go from here?

1. Standardization: Every standards compliant microwave oven features common UI (the 2-Dials or whatever the ultimate design is).
2. Customization: Add all the secondary features (set time, cooking programs, etc) you wish to meet product line/model goals, but don’t infringe upon the standard, prominent Time/Power UI.
3. Dialog: Get the appliance end users talking about points 1) and 2) with industrial designers and manufacturers, their reps, their rep’s lawyers and their lawyer’s lawyers—don’t leave anyone out, and stir things up. VCRs are finally dying out and taking the “blinking >12:00<” debacle to its shallow grave. The Microwave is not a lost cause, but if we wait for expensive, next generation touchscreen models to roll out into the mainstream, it will be too late. The shiny new things will be, predictably, overly complicated and each brand-component partnership will design it be impressive as a store demo (i.e. virtual/real button bloat and focusing on how many pie chart shaped whirling LED activity indicators are present).

So maybe the iPhone quickly becomes the snap-in UI faceplate to your breadmaker, blender and yes, microwave, and indie Mac developers sell you a no-nonsense interface from the App Store for $0.99. But this won’t happen to the low-end models which are the ones you mostly see outside your own abode. High tech fantasies won’t help here (do they ever?). Although, while we’re on the topic, the iPhone-can-plug-into-anything ruminations were, joke or not, well under way over a year ago (*waves to Matt* <— with a simple little invite I could make that a Google wave, hint hint).

Dream Come True

The dream, the vision even, is you step up to a microwave at a friend’s house, a cafeteria, a dormitory, the office lunch room, you reach for the standards-based common UI and operate it by muscle memory. Wait for your piping hot morsels. Done. Microwaves for human beings.

So, take the diagram and clean it up, improve it; or crumple it up, shoot for three points and share a completely different design that is the definition of simplicity and effectiveness. Or wordify your thoughts: write a comment here or an entire blog post of your own; leverage those internet-borne social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed Facebook) and join a wider conversation.

I won’t rest until the Microwave Oven UI Standard (MOUIS) Project is fully baked. But I need your help.

I’m not worried about the realization of Skynet, you know, the total domination by autonomous machines. I’ll just be devastated that the robot overlords will think our microwave contraptions were designed for them, and not for us.

A bookmarklet and greasemonkey script that translates friendfeed posts and comments from one language to another (e.g. Farsi to English, German to French, English to Simplified Chinese, etc). Source language of each entry/comment is auto-detected and converted to chosen destination language.

Bookmarklet (bookmark/favorite script) & User Script (greasemonkey/greasekit)

Note: the bookmarklet is currently only packaged to translate from language X (as detected by the code) to English. The user script (below) is configurable, which means you can change the destination language as needed.

UPDATE 2009-06-27: All supported languages are now pre-packaged in user script and bookmarklet form.

UPDATE 2009-07-02: Real-time translation now possible! Translate both individual posts as well as the friendfeed stream as it live updates.

UPDATE 2009-07-03: Alternate configurations for user scripts and bookmarklets now available. By default, translations performed on a stream will only show the translated text and in single post view (click the timestamp), the original and translated text is shown. The alternate configuration
keepOriginalTextInRealtime ON causes the original text to be shown in single post and real-time stream mode.

Screenshot – “friendfeedTranslate“

Google Translate service utilized for language detection and translation.

Each comment on a friendfeed post is analyzed individually, so it’s possible to convert a mix of languages all in one thread. For example, if languageCodeTo is configured for English (‘en’); and there were German, Farsi and Simplified Chinese comments, each would be translated respectively to English.

Instead of using auto-detect languageCodeFrom, you have the option to set it explicitly in the Configuration section of the script. When viewing a single friendfeed entry, near the upper right corner by “Tools”, the link to perform the translation will appear (e.g. Translate Farsi to English).

Links

Script Installers: http://wittman.org/projects/friendfeedtranslate/install/

Script Project Page: http://wittman.org/projects/friendfeedtranslate/

Script hosted on userscripts.org: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/52225

A greasemonkey script that inserts a clipboard widget into a FriendFeed page to locally save (cookie-based) FriendFeed entry links.

Links on clipboard can be cleared all at once or individually. The clipboard is scoped to the URI directory path (so, a separate record of links is maintained). There are at least two scopes: base (friendfeed.com/) and rooms (friendfeed.com/rooms/).

Screenshot – Clicking “Clip“

Screenshot – Clipboard widget

Downloads

Source Code: http://wittman.org/projects/friendfeedclip/

Installer: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/45914

A greasemonkey script that removes default SmugMug Categories [or more precisely, whichever ones are defined in the categoriesToHide variable of function removeCategories()] from form select on create new gallery interface.

Other features beyond cleaning up the category dropdown for new galleries will likely be added in a future version.

Downloads

Source Code: http://wittman.org/projects/smugscopecustomsmugmugui/

Installer: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/45261

Custom filtered, linkable gallery listings of your SmugMug photo and video collection.

EDIT 2009-02-28: The beta is now here: SmugScope.

A greasemonkey script that replaces link text with an image (inserts an img element in DOM) within friendfeed comments where the URI has an image extension.

Example by code:

Cygnus Loop Super <a href="http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-000992.jpg">http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGE...<a>

becomes

Cygnus Loop Super <a href="http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-000992.jpg">... <img src="http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-000992.jpg" height="100px" style="vertical-align:middle" /><a>

Example by rendering:

Cygnus Loop Super http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGE…

becomes

Cygnus Loop Super …

Downloads

Source Code: http://wittman.org/projects/friendfeedcommentimg/

Installer: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/42196

This script leverages two other free utilities: 7-zip and wget.

Downloads

• Ziparcy – v0.8
• Ziparcy Repository
• Zip Documentation (in the script comments)

Mandown syntax follows all the rules of Markdown (as implemented by the Showdown Javascript port) with the exceptions detailed below. The exceptions (they’re a feature, not a bug, really!) exist to offer a portable, web-centric documentation format.

The design goals are:

• Run-time Rendering – the power/simplicity of Markdown without build-time compiling (dynamic Markdown to HTML happens client-side via Javascript acting on the Mandown source).
• Portability: Can run from desktop OS file browser (local drive or network file share) or any web server of choice—as is.
• “Baked-in” Screenshot UI features.
• Human Readable Source Displayed in the Browser viewport if scripting is disabled or not supported.

Downloads

• Mandown – v0.6.1
• Mandown Repository
• Mandown Documentation

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