My there! My name is Steve Kwan. User experience design is my passion.

Diary of a new Mac user: Week one

(November 28th, 2008 - 4:27PM)

Day 0:

• Bought a Mac from an Asian BMW driver in a dark alley. He seems legit.
• Opened the box to make sure the guy didn't take out the MacBook and replace it with a brick. Checked out the shiny case. Didn't get a chance to use it today.

Day 1:

• Turned on the Mac for the first time. Subjected to intro video with all sorts of swooping text flying at me.
• There's a pinhole webcam built into the Mac? Cool. I didn't even notice that until it tried to take my profile picture.
• Uncovered a few initial usability nits. Was not immediately apparent how to take my profile picture.

Day 2:

• Putting the Mac to serious use for the first time.
• Very cool UI - especially the gestures.
• The Dock is the worst idea ever. It seems like Apple went way out of their way to make the Dock as unlike the Windows taskbar as possible. Unfortunately, the Windows taskbar is far superior.
• Spotlight (the search) is totally useless. I tried finding help for the webcam and there was nothing there.
• I can't believe this thing doesn't come with a word processor. The text editor is crap.
• Girlfriend went to bed and turned off the lights. The MacBook automatically adjusted its brightness. Very cool.

Day 3:

• Started loading the Mac up with some applications. Very easy to install most apps. Microsoft Office caused problems. Big surprise.
• Comes with Apache pre-installed. Nice.
• Realized that the text editor was even worse than I thought. Tried to write HTML in it and it removed my tags. Very disappointing.
• Installed Firefox. Unfortunately it doesn't support all the cool gestures that Safari does.

Day 4:

• Pulled out my Mac at work. Lots of oohs and ahhs from co-workers.
• Trying to install Adobe CS4 on the Mac. Proving difficult to get the install files on there, as they're about 7GB.

Day 5:

• With Adobe CS4 and Office finally installed on the MacBook, finally starting to get productive.
• Liking the "Apple Experience" so far.
• Laptop is fast, responsive, and most programs work fine.
• Encountered the well-known Adobe CS4 trackpad gestures bug. Very annoying. Ran Apple Update, which included a trackpad update that hopefully fixes the problem.

Day 6:

• Getting underway with logo design in Photoshop on the Mac. Multitouch gestures are awesome, but Photoshop has a tendency to zoom in/out and rotate when using the trackpad.
• Installed Coda, a web development environment. Seems to work pretty well.
• Apple Mail is near useless. Gmail's interface is better.

Day 7:

• Finished downloading www.stevekwan.com onto the laptop. Can now update my website from the MacBook.
• Almost finished designing a logo. My first real act of productivity!
• Very happy with my Mac after the first week. Wouldn't say it's better than Windows, just...different.

This is why people don't care about local politics

(November 16th, 2008 - 1:15AM)

Yesterday the city of Burnaby held their local elections. Here's one of the guys who was running for the position of Councillor.

Here's the text:

COUNCILLOR CANDIDATE PROFILE INFORMATION

ZESWICK, Steve

The facts behind my candidacy

Most people at City Hall, the news media and the police have tried to put in jail. A judge sentenced me to a mental hospital for 14 days. Then I was for 6 months as an out patient. However, in 3 days, I was declared sane. Of the 8 doctors who seen me, one of whom seen me twice for a total of 8 seconds and asked me the same question twice, and walked out.

My son could not attend school as someone stole his watch (receipt of evidence). However, he retrieved the watch from the thief. We then had to send him to private school. In hockey, he was drafted by Grandview, only to have a player jam a stick into his eye. He was then sent to a hospital. He was out for one season.

I was accused of hitting a car travelling 30 m.p.h. by my neighbour. They collected $18,500 damages, even though judge said it couldn't be done.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Phone: 778-397-2747

This is precisely why nobody bothers to vote in local elections: they're ridiculous. Anyone can run (and "anyone" usually does).

I joked to a friend living in Burnaby that he should vote for Mr. Zeswick, but then I realized that he might be the only person who actually bothers to vote in the election - and although that would be good for Mr. Zeswick, it would be bad for the rest of us.

Recipe: Pumpkin pie protein shake

(November 13th, 2008 - 10:33AM)

I'm strict about my diet, so rarely do I find food that I'm allowed to eat that actually tastes good. My trainer inspired me to create the following recipe for a healthy protein shake.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup E.D. Smith pure pumpkin (or equivalent. Just be sure that the pumpkin has no sugar added.)
• 2 scoops (60g) ISOFLEX vanilla protein powder
• 2 cups skim milk
• 1 tsp Udo's Oil 3-6-9 blend. If you can't find this, any Omega 3-6-9 oil will do.
• 10 ice cubes
• 2 tsp pumpkin spice. You can buy this from Superstore. If you can't find it, you can create it by mixing cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and cloves.
• 2 tbsp Splenda

Instructions:

1. Blend to oblivion.
2. Enjoy!

Updated my resume

(November 10th, 2008 - 2:38PM)

This doesn't necessarily mean that I'm looking for new work. I just had to update my resume for a project I'm working on. It was really out of date and said I was working at my previous company. :)

You can check out my new resume on my resume page.