The Coloured Keyboard » Software

On User Experience..

Nuno Morgadinho — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:56:02 +0000

“But it wasn’t until we’d invested an additional 400 hours improving the user interface — fully two thirds of the overall development cost — that we felt we had a minimum viable product — i.e. a product that delivered the core functionality, and within an experience so delightful that the users would want to tell others about it.”

http://makaluinc.com/blog/2011/07/minimum-viable-product.html

Service Design, The Lizard Brain and Arduino

Nuno Morgadinho — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 23:01:22 +0000

I was introduced to the concept of Service Design by Nuno Rod, an interesting and needed discipline. Watch this video for a visual introduction to the concept.
My friends at Artica showed me the video “Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain“, a must watch.
Found out about the portal “Falar Global“, seems interesting enough, pity it doesn’t contain a feed in the main page.
Watched the Arduino documentary, well not all of it, but it doesn’t mean you have to do the same.

Productivity Tools

Nuno Morgadinho — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:25:21 +0000

Modern Warfare 2

Nuno Morgadinho — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:49:07 +0000

Most modern games amaze me but some more than others. It is no surprise that the game industry deals with the bleeding edge of computer graphics and that’s one of the reasons I recently took more interest into games again, because every time I look at the graphics of my PS3 games I gaze the television in a mixed feeling of respect and fear.

Although I haven’t bought yet the latest kid on the block, Modern Warfare 2, I think the numbers and technology involved is worthy of reflection:

You can play on-line against other gamers
It is available for PC, PS3 or XBox360
At whatever time of day you find half a million other gamers
It took the makers 2 years to develop
Cost the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster
Had sales worth 550 million dollars in the first 5 days.

1Password: Because Your Memory Sucks!

Nuno Morgadinho — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:58:45 +0000

If you’re on a Mac go and install 1Password, period.

No more struggling to remember all those usernames and passwords.. and it integrates beautifully with Firefox, Safari and more recently also with Google Chrome.

At least try it, seriously. I’m yet to find a person who is unhappy with this software.

Improve Your Productivity with Things on Mac OS X

Nuno Morgadinho — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:22:23 +0000

If you’re on a Mac and looking for an easy and stylish to-do list software you might want to consider Things. It has a slick interface, allows you to keep items organized for different contexts (home, work, etc) and best of all (for me at least) you can very easily add tasks to it in one simple step using a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Space in my case).

With a version for the iPhone that syncs as well, this might be the productivity tool you’ve been looking for years now since you first read that wonderful (but hard to put into practice) book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. The cons will probably be the price and it being a desktop app but maybe you can live it that?

I’ve been using it for over a month now and so far I’ve been happy with it. To be honest it hasn’t boost my productivity. These things are like buying news shoes for running: the shoes won’t do the running for you!

Invoic€xpress – Software de Facturação

Nuno Morgadinho — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:24:02 +0000

Para freelancers e pequenos negócios que precisem de um software para facturação, podem dar uma vista de olhos ao Invoic€xpress. Já suporta o formato SAFT-PT que desde 1 de Janeiro de 2010 é obrigatório e também facturas electrónicas, entre outras funcionalidades.

É um serviço totalmente web-based e tem um trial de 30 dias grátis para se experimentar. Após o periódo de trial, consoante o plano escolhido, paga-se uma pequena mensalidade por mês, mas é também possivel adquirir pacotes de facturas a vulso por um preço fixo (para quem não gostar de pagar mensalidades).

Fica a dica. Aproveitem e se experimentarem e gostarem digam qualquer coisa.

p.s. O Invoic€xpress é um produto da RUPEAL.

Empresa em Portugal vs Silicon Valley

Nuno Morgadinho — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:23:31 +0000

A INEO, na sua mais recente newsletter, trouxe à baila outra vez a sessão intitulada “Da Ideia à Empresa” que o co-fundador, CEO e Business Development Director da Critical Software deu na Take Off 2007. Se ainda não ouviram vale a pena ouvir o Gonçalo Quadros falar um bocadinho sobre a história desta empresa, que é das mais reconhecidas empresas portuguesas no mundo.

http://ineo.pt/2010/02/podcast-goncalo-quadros-critical/

Do outro lado do oceano, as histórias são bem diferentes mas também valem a pena ouvir :) Aqui fica um vídeo de um painel com 6 estudantes de Stanford que criaram empresas nos seus 20 e poucos anos.

“Six young Stanford grads and entrepreneurs — Steven Garrity, Clara Shih, Kimber Lockhart, Jeff Seibert, Josh Reeves, and Tristan Harris — share their experiences starting companies and raising capital. While being in their 20s may seem to be an obstacle to outsiders, they said they “flipped” this liability into an asset — focusing instead on their raw ability to bring innovative ideas to life. They advise all young entrepreneurs to be persistent, opportunistic, and scrappy. “

Internationalizing Your WordPress Plugin

Nuno Morgadinho — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:16:32 +0000

We call “internationalization” to the process of setting up software so that it can be used in different languages. In my case I had a plugin with text strings in English and I wanted to add a Portuguese translation. In wp-config.php I set up the WPLANG variable to pt_PT:

define ('WPLANG', 'pt_PT');

I then used poEdit, a localization tool that works with Mac OS X and that can be downloaded from the poEdit download page. In poEdit, from the File menu select ‘New Catalog’. Fill in the information there and in the ‘Paths’ tab put the plugin directory. In the ‘Keywords’ tab add the missing entries so it looks like this:

At this point it should recognize all the text strings in your code and present a screen where you can add the translations. After that be sure to save the file as pluginname-pt_PT.po, preferably in a directory called ‘translations’ or ‘locales’ (but anything will do). After that you’re all set. In your code you should load the translation like this:

load_plugin_textdomain ( 'your-plugin-name' , FALSE , '/your-plugin-name/translations' );

And strings should have the form:

_e('Choose a Category','your-plugin-name');

That’s it. Let me know if you run into troubles :)

Resources & Further Reading for the Geeks:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin
http://codex.wordpress.org/I18n_for_WordPress_Developers
http://urbangiraffe.com/articles/translating-wordpress-themes-and-plugins/
http://urbangiraffe.com/articles/localizing-wordpress-themes-and-plugins/

Marathon Training Applied to Startups

Nuno Morgadinho — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:01:52 +0000

Today I’m going on a Fun Run so I’ve been reading on how to prepare myself. I found this nice website with guidelines and tips on preparing for the Marathon and what I realized was that the mental strategies they discuss can be applied for anything you want to obtain. I thought it might be a refreshing read if you’re stuck with a boring project or something you’re having trouble finishing off. Or even if you’re starting a new project it might help. We know that with the right mood and the right mind-set everything is easier. The question now is how to trigger your mind into that state. Like they say on the article: “arriving at the starting line in less than the ideal state of mind can have a devastating effect on your performance”.

Mental Rehearsal/Visualization – The process of creating pictures or images in your mind.
Imagery – Playing out/imagining in your mind the way you wish for an event to occur.
Self-Talk – The “voice” in your head that can be trained to provide positive affirmations during adversity and tough times.

from http://www.marathontraining.com/marathon/m_psycho.html

Do you use any of these techniques already?