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Washing dishes is one of my favorite activity. Although I like washing dishes, it doesn’t mean I love to see the pile of dishes especially cups and mugs.

I have this one simple rule for my family and me.¹ Each of the family member only has their own mugs. If you want to use it, you have to wash it. If you don’t wash it, don’t drink.

Prepare a separate set of utensils for guests. Also prepare a set of utensils for family. This simple rule can help you remove unnecessary utensils and cut down the needs to wash dishes.

1. As for now, I’m the only one abiding this rule. ↩

Capacitive buttons make for a worse experience in all cases, even if they make the phone look sleeker. The capacitive button cult must be stopped.¹

Keyboardless MacBook Air, no physical buttons. I’ve seriously considered the fact without physical click to provide feedbacks, it can be a painful experience.

Of course, that’s not all.

Unless you use your Mac without looking at the screen. The feedback you expect is not from the physical touch on the keyboard buttons. Instead, you expect the feedbacks from the screen.

The result was a design that required me to stop, take the iPod out of my pocket, look at the screen, carefully press the button I wanted, then verify that it worked onscreen, since there was no physical click to provide feedback.

The only feedback you expect from capacitive buttons is from screen. Therefore, implementing capacitive buttons as a keyboard is highly implementable.

And, the article is targeting phone in general. Therefore, capacitive buttons might works in some devices.²

1. The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped ↩

2. Laptop in general. ↩

Apple is well known for their boldness in removing features and parts from their products. It has killed optical drive and firewire before. There is assumption that they will eventually kill keyboard in the future.

Instead of killing keyboard, I think Apple will change how people perceive and use keyboard. This MacBook Air will replace the keyboard area with a solid glass displaying virtual keyboards. Let’s pretend that we replace the keyboard with an iPad displaying keyboards.

So, this piece of MacBook Air would be flat and very slim by eliminating the needs to install keyboard — no more keypads for you to press. Imagine the numbers of simple and beautiful features can be achieved from this approach.

One of the common problems I encounter is trying to insert special characters I rarely use. Most of times, I’ve to google which shortcuts are needed or I can insert it manually by firing Special Characters window.

Another example would be showing what we can type while holding opt+shift. So, if I hold these two buttons, the keyboard will display every special characters on the virtual keyboard.

The virtual keyboard can also add interactive elements depending on the currently active app. For example, while you’re using Photoshop, the keyboard would display the shortcuts icons instead of letters. Or, while you’re using iTunes, the keyboard will display icon for pausing, skipping, and adjusting volume.

This virtual keyboard can also serve as a indicator such as whether the iTunes is currently in shuffle mode. If it is under shuffle mode, the shuffle icon on the keyboard would light up. Toggling on and off would be very easy without the need to use mouse.

There are many ways how Apple can turn this area for more iOS control. Yes, you can sign on the whole keyboard, you can doodle, you can play Tap-Tap Revenge with custom interface. And guess what, you’re doing all of them horizontally instead of vertically — Steve Jobs stated touch screen for MacBook is a big no-no because of the vertical position.

I’m excited. Perhaps this is just my another silly thought on how MacBook Air would look like in the future.

I love words. I love beautiful typography. FuzzyClock displays the time with words instead of numbers. With beautiful typeface, FuzzyClock looks elegant in menubar.

It doesn’t have beautiful icon. So get a replacement for it. Install it, and you might fall in love with it.

And, if you use Menubar icons v2 by ~iAndrew, I have a few suggestions for you.

Download CodeBold and use the setting below.

If you plan to change the icon yourself, use official link. To use the modified one, use alternative link.

Download: Official | Alternative

It was one usual morning. I was on the way to work. I stepped into the bus and got myself a comfortable seat. It was pleasant because the bus was spacious.

Commuting is boring. Sitting alone in the bus without your friends is boring. Watching the people come in and out is not interesting. Some people were sleeping, some people were busy with their gadgets, some people were just like me, sitting with blank thought.

“Gadgets will turn all this boring commuting interesting”.

I don’t own smartphone, my phone can’t even access internet. Twitter is out of options. I don’t own portable console. Gaming is out of options.

I stopped a while looking at the opposite windows. Watching the trees and leaves, the clouds and the skies.

A simple question suddenly comes to my mind. When did I stop admiring the nature? When did I stop having curiosity towards nature?

The color of the leaves can tell us many things. People used to tell the change of season by just looking at trees. The leaves tell many stories, from the new grown leaves to the dying leaves. It manifests the natural cycle of life.

The fragrance of flowers surpasses the most expensive perfume in the world. I used to walk along the small bumpy road with many wild flowers grown in other people’s yard. The natural color of red, white, yellow, and violet still resides in my mind.

Watching the clouds drifting slowly during the day from the windows while laying down displays the simple form of tranquility. The blue sky and white clouds, the simple beauty of nature that has been neglected for a while.

Arriving to my destination, I’ve been paying attention to the color and shape of leaves, the color of sky and the movement of clouds. The warm of sunlight is so precious after forty minutes admiring the beauty and color of nature.