Usability niggles, Ubuntu

Ubuntu's next release will have one hundred paper cuts as a focus - fixing usability issues for users.

Here's my best pet peeves.

1. On windows, if I paste in a URL in an "open file" box, windows will fetch it for me, write it somewhere temporary, and give me that temporary path. Gnome is inconsistent - I can put a URL into a the 'Run' dialog, but gedit doesn't let me open it. However, if I start gedit from the command line, it will open it - gedit https://edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/
2. 'Choose another application' when opening a file from firefox gets me to try and look around for the path of an application. As a newer user to linux, I often have to fall back to the terminal, and use things like 'which gedit' to get the right path. If the run dialog can work out which application I want, why can't firefox.
3. With gedit, if I open a file which does not exist, it does not let me create said file - it just errors at me.

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/18995

TenGrandIsBuriedThere and Crop Cricles

I've always wondered if I had a part in spawning the firefox crop circle.

I posted to spreadfirefox.com back in 2004.

Amusing thought - Crop Circles
Posted by CloCkWeRX on Fri, 10/22/2004 - 16:42Firefox Marketing Ideas

:) Speaks for itself. Ties into the Nov. 9. mystery and ILoveBees ideas.

"Something is coming.
Something big.
Something alien to most of us...
Something that's from out of this world..."

First off, you need a field. Second, you need a manual. Third, you need a worried farmer.

Come 2006, they made the crop circle.

They give credit to some Mozilla folk.

Matt and John, Mozilla video interns, came up with the idea a few weeks beforehand. Fueled by the enthusiasm of Asa Dotzler at Mozilla, suddenly the crop circle was within reach. While at OSCON 2006 in Portland, the three of them ran into members of the OSLUG, and things really started to take shape.

Whoever really generated the idea, it gives me no end of pleasure that it's hitting back at the horrible Microsoft marketing campaign, bribing users to switch to IE8 while insulting the rest of us.