Tales, Truths, & Tolerisms » Technology

Modal, Pop-Up, & Layer Confusion

Jonathan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:06:17 +0000

So during my time at Autotrader, my co-workers and myself were guilty of using the terms Modal Window, Pop-Up, and Layer interchangeably do describe something that displayed to a user in a dialog box fashion.

Yesterday, a co-worker of mine was kind enough to point out that my requirement of “the system shall display a Modal Window” was totally incorrect because I was butchering the true meaning of the word. So needless to say I did what most people would do…I went to Wikipedia…

Modal Window – “a modal window is a child window that requires the user to interact with it before they can return to operating the parent application, thus preventing the workflow on the application main window.”

Pop-Up – A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and popup or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right mouse click. A context menu offers a limited set of choices that are available in the current state, or context, of the operating system or application.

Twitter??

Jonathan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:55:10 +0000

I honestly have not completely understood the fascination with Twitter but I am just going to go ahead and keep using it. I guess since I was an early adopter of Facebook, Myspace, and Livejournal I am all about social media trends but I am not sure if I understand the $250 Million valuation of Twitter.

I guess I feel that until I have more than 20 people (who I really know) who follow me and vice versa, then I will feel the adoption rates on the tool still have a way to go for that valuation. Secondly, I have heard all this buzz how Facebook is trying to emulate Twitter…but in my mind (as a middle to late adopter)…it seems twitter is just a big ol Facebook Status Update without the other cool Facebook stuff…

Biodegradable Gum

Jonathan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:38:21 +0000

So CNN has a nice green article about new, biodegradable gum which will turn to dust after 6 weeks appearantly.

The New Green Gum....

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/04/03/chewing.gum.bio/index.html

My main question is that supposedly the gum comes from a tree deep in the Mexican Rainforest. For some reason I can’t imagine the actual cutting down and processing of these trees being very “green”. Then again the gum will be purchased from various Co_Ops so I guess that means we will be seeing them in Trader Joe’s soon…