InkSiene: New inking software from Microsoft Research, free install

InkSeine, Rethink your Ink!

If you don’t know what Microsoft Research does, go take a quick peek at their website. Microsoft Research is think tank at MSFT that explores, develops, designs, and tries to implement new technologies and thoughts. They are not harbored by having to make money. Its really just like a wonderful adult playground where your imagination is the only think stopping you.

They do some amazing work over there and some very interesting projects. They do everything from researching ways to display information, to ways to gather information from the bottom of the ocean. One thing I am particularly interested in is the project Ken Hinckley is working on, InkSiene.

Now the interesting aspects of this project are numerous, but he touches on some great things. Here is his list of features:

These are some of the cool features offered by InkSeine:

Blaze a super-fast trail by using radial menus for pen commands.
Just hover to preview the commands. Touch down in the center and
stroke towards the command you want to activate it.

Select existing ink right on the page to initiate a search.

Create queries in the context of your notes to keep track of searches,
reuse them, or return to them later.

Easily find emails, documents, ink notes, or web pages without
leaving your notes.

Drag links to the documents and web pages you find right into your
notebook.

and lots more…

I encourage everyone to go check it out and let me know what you think. To be honest, its not very often you get state of the art inking software for free, so go download and install it.

The interesting part about this is that Ken did this totally in a bubble based on user feedback. Rather than stick with the same methods as Windows, he went a different direction and innovated some remarkable things. I really like seeing something and thinking, “now that is smart.”

I currently have this running on a few machines to put it through its paces.

Check out his wonderful tutorial!

Sync and backup software

Here are the programs I am using or testing right now that all perform some sort of sync operation.

• Second Copy – $29, lots of profiles, lots of options. Needs to run all the time.
• Live Mesh – free, syncs with a cloud of 5 gig storage space. Very powerful and unique service.
• Windows Live Sync – free – powerful, does sync with other folders, but all the computers need to be online. Even if you are doing it on a network.
• Delicious Toolbar – I went to this for bookmark sync’ing because it does all browsers and it has some other decent functions like compare, tagging, etc.

Currently trying it out

• Good Sync – I am currently testing this one out. Not sure about it yet. Looks good, but only offers 3 simultaneous download profiles. You can do the paid version for $29 and do unlimited, but I don’t want to buy another piece of sync software. I like the look of the interface though.
• Sync Toy from Microsoft - free – small but powerful. Also has the ability to be scheduled in Task Scheduler so it doesn’t need to be running all the time.

Phased Out

• Google Calendar Sync - free – this only syncs one single google account and one calendar. Almost not worth mentioning.
• Foxmarks – they tried to turn this into a marketing thing. I had issues because it would only sync your bookmarks between Firefox installs and not IE.
• Sync2it – does bookmarks, but just not robust enough for any serious use.
• Cobian Backup – free, Open Source - theres also a paid version. I used it for a bit but he does not offer syncing. He only offers backups.

Where did all the interface designers come from?

Every week, sometimes a few times a week, I cruise related sites in an interesting way. I try to find an interesting story on one of the mob-media controlled sites, reddit or digg et al, and then from there I try to only click links without using the keyboard. I follow the rabbit hole from story to story in a sort of uncontrolled way. Its a great way to kill a an hour and also to go to sites that you usually wouldn’t find any other way.

The other day while following a design pathway through sites I started hitting nothing but “Interface Designer” websites. I’m not sure where all these people came from. Looking at their resumes it seems that most of them just got out of high school or are coming from unrelated fields. How does someone that has been an oil painter for 5 years now claim to be an interface designer. What sort of training or user experience background do they have? If you look at the examples or the recent projects of their sites, you see a few tiny sites they have designed but without much ‘interface’ involved.

That leads me to believe that “Interface Designer” is now the chic term for web designer. Why not call yourself a web designer? I think thats a pretty cool job title. It has been worn out over the years, granted. Everyone and their brother was a website designer in the late 90s. On asking them what they have done or what tools they use you find out that they are just starting and have bequeathed the title on themselves.

Will Interface Designer will be an ‘uncool’ term in a few years? Maybe.