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uTorrent 3.0 features live streaming video and uTorrent Web, works with iPad and Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WordPress is a powerful content management system, and its popularity as a portfolio solution is enticing to many. There are a lot of themes out there that claim to do the job, but if you're as picky as me you'll find some pretty annoying flaws in many of them.

In my search for the best of the bunch, I installed about 30 offerings (out of the hundreds I looked at) and after trying them out and changing my mind a couple of times I finally settled down with a theme. This took me months, so I'm going to save you the bother and present the five free Wordpress portfolio themes that made my own particular shortlist.

SimpleFolio The Best All-Rounder

Despite being a tricky free WordPress theme to set-up, SimpleFolio by Omar Corrales is worth the hassle. For your troubles you'll get a clean and easy-to-navigate theme with a separate portfolio section (with the option to exclude portfolio posts from your blog) and a home screen to die for.

The home screen includes a JavaScript front-page slider to exhibit portfolio entries, which does a great job of making your work look awesome with its smooth transitions. There are a further three widgetized areas on the home page, so adding a contact form or Twitter plug-in is as easy as pie.

If you like the look of this theme and fancy giving it a go, then you're going to need a little help. There's a fantastic little guide over at WordPress Handyman which guides you through the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining your new portfolio. As always with WordPress, you can edit the style.css file to suit your personal tastes.

Vikiworks Infinity For Social Media Types

For an aesthetically pleasing, majorly customizable portfolio that's plugged in to Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, look no further than Infinity by Vikiworks. The free WordPress theme follows a three-fixed column style, and whilst not being widget ready could probably be modified with some serious Notepad'ing.

There are two PSD files to download as well as the theme, which makes customization in Photoshop that little bit easier. Blog posts themselves are presented in two thumbnail cover-style columns to the left of the page, so if you're not bothered about separating your work and your blog then this one's for you.

For the more courageous there's a sister theme called Mashup based on Infinity, only with widgets and a style switcher. The developer has appealed for help in completing it, and needs guinea pigs willing to give it a go. If you're not averse to beta testing, you can download Mashup here.

FolioGrid For Speed-Freaks, Designers, Photographers & Artists

This sharp looking offering from FrogsThemes has a little something for everyone. Utilising the tried-and-tested grid layout, the theme comes in a variety of colours and is easily altered with some handy CSS. All the styling is done through the theme's stylesheet, meaning you really can open up and customize this one.

The menu lives at the top of the page, and is always accessible from anywhere on the site, making it a cinch to navigate. There's some lovely use of jQuery for slick transitions, and the theme is widget-ready. For a fast and lightweight WordPress portfolio, FolioGrid does the job.

Fullscreen For Style-Conscious Photographers & Videographers

If photos are the order of the day then you may want to pay close attention. Fullscreen is a portfolio package developed by Graph Paper Press that delivers nothing but a menu and blog posts (represented by just images). It all makes for a very sexy looking clean interface, with some fancy JavaScript image rollover effects for added garnish.

One thing to look out for is some issues with the menu not displaying correctly in older versions of Internet Explorer, though some of you won't really care (and those that do can customize, of course).

Images can be implemented into posts using the WordPress media gallery, which makes for easy posting. If you want your photo or video work to be the main focus of your site, then this theme will honour your wishes.

Contrast The Black Sheep

SmashingMagazine once hosted a typographic layout competition for WordPress and Tumblr themes, and Paul Linder's Contrast didn't win. But that doesn't matter, because it's awesome all the same.

Using nothing but XHTML and CSS, it's lightning quick and beautiful to look at. Presenting you with a straight-up black and white home screen, Contrast is designed to be left as a portfolio rather than a blog as well.

As the focus is on text, many writers, copy-editors or web designers may find this appealing, though the minimalist design could suit anyone. It's bold, unique and quick.

Have you used any of these free WordPress themes? Got another favourite we've not featured here? Spread the word in the comments! Are you a photographer? Check out our very own photography PDF manual by Bakari The Essential Guide To Digital Photography.

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Simon Rogers / Guardian:
Wikileaks Afghanistan files: download the key incidents as a spreadsheet Key incidents from the Wikileaks Afghanistan war logs selected by Guardian writers. As a spreadsheet, with co-ordinates Get this data INTERACTIVE: These key incidents mapped Glossary of military terms

Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Major Corporations Are Downloading Those 100 Million Facebook Profiles off BitTorrent Remember that torrent yesterday that contained the personal information off of 100 million scraped Facebook profiles? I thought it was strange that the guy didn't sell this information, since many companies would be interested.

Facebook is sticking to its guns over its decision to remove support for application boxes on user profiles.

Members started reporting their profile boxes had disappeared earlier this month, but there appeared to be a reprieve after a slew of complaints. At the current time, some users still have application boxes on their profiles, but the feature is disabled for new accounts.

A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the boxes would disappear but did not elaborate on the reasons. As we announced last year, we will no longer be supporting profile boxes from applications, she told AllFacebook.com. People can more easily showcase their favorite applications by bookmarking them, or highlighting them in their application tabs. We're always evaluating new and interesting ways for people to express themselves through their connections with applications, and we'll continue to listen to user feedback about how we help make Facebook profiles even more useful and relevant.

One reader of AllFacebook told us that profile boxes were disappearing from all new Facebook Pages, yet not the existing ones. We have not been able to confirm whether or not this is the case though. There are plenty of small business who are frustrated with this change as it removes the ability to get new fans to enter their email address as well as add other types of calls to action. Whether or not Facebook plans on pulling boxes all together is unknown, however new Page creators have been reporting that the feature is gone.

In January, we broke the news that prolific Silicon Valley angel investor Dave McClure was to set up its own venture capital fund.

Yesterday, the man filed for the fund with the SEC, providing us with more details (hat tip to FormDs.com). The name will be 500 Startups McClure has long called himself the master of 500 hats and the initial fund will amount to max. $30 million according to the filing.

McClure has turned to 99 Designs to come up with a logo for the fund (my favorite so far).

Here's part of the brief for the logo design:

500 Startups is a new, edgy, risk taking seed fund which invests in early stage consumer internet companies.

Incubator/seed investment funds are popping up left and right and we're looking to differentiate ourself through edgier design. Our founder likes to swear. In public. A lot. Think Ari Gold, but for tech companies and without a suit.

We are not *not* your typical fund composed of a bunch of stiff white guys sitting around a board table. We're young. We're diverse (Women! People of color!). Our investments are blustering balls of sleepless eagerness, And the markets we're looking to dominate are murky and emergent.

Our values:

- Fun at All Costs authentic, down-to-earth, *real*
- Creative, Smart, Innovative Environment
- Learn & Educate at Same Time
- Move Quickly, Take Risks, Make [Manageable] Mistakes

Sounds like McClure, alright.

For your reference: McClure has been investing in early stage startups for years.

He is a direct angel investor in a half dozen or more startups, including Mint, Simply Hired, Mashery, bit.ly, UserVoice, SlideShare, TeachStreet and others. And he has invested in dozens more through fbFund, a $10 million Facebook investment fund backed by Founders Fund and Accel, and FF Angel, a Founders Fund early stage fund.

You Won't Like It

If you haven't used Vim before and you're looking to learn it - it's kind of like a first taste of coffee. Or beer. It's bitter, not particularly sweet, and you get pretty damn tired of people talking about how much they love it rather quickly.

But then the buzz kicks in. The buzz of "hey - you know when you get used to it - you kind of like it... and HOLY SH** I can sling some text now!". That's what I read in Yehuda's post, at least.

See there - I did it again - even while writing about that very aspect that you (if you're new to Vim) will probably not like: me crowing about how much I like it. Sorry - let's start again.

No Really - You Won't Like It. Unless...

Here's how typical coversations go with friends who code Ruby in TextMate:

Them: "So I see you're getting into Vim. What do you like about it so much?"

Me: "Well - Vim's focus is on editing, not text entry and"

Them: "Huh? What does that even mean?"

Me: "That you spend more time editing than you do writing"

Them: "Oh. Well I'm pretty happy with TextMate. You should write a blog about Vim."

Me: "I have."

Them: "Well maybe write about what you like about it."

Me: "I have"

Them: "Hmm - well I didn't get it. Maybe write a better one."

... which lands us at the feet of Yehuda's post. Vim is a hard thing to talk about - it's not terribly pretty, has a pretty hard-core "geek legacy", and is probably the most unwelcoming first experience you could want to have. Imagine trying to explain just how good Racer 5 IPA is (or better yet Deschutes Inversion IPA) to a person who's never tasted beer!

Yes, I just compared Vim to beer. In fact I've done it twice. I know that for the Vim-curious users out there this is going to sound strange - but it's the mindset I'm going to get into today - so let's get to it.

Sit back while I open up the tab - I have a frosty pint of Vim comin your way...

Vim Smells Weird

It's not like any text editor you've used. It's not like TextMate, it's not an IDE. It looks like the terminal (or console if you're on windows) and indeed - typing "vim" into the terminal will launch it - right inside the terminal!

The best description I've heard with regards to Vim is from Dan Benjamin in the Peepcode "Smash into Vim" screencast:

"It's precise: you'll feel like a text surgeon"

I remember hearing that and thinking "what a weird thing to say" - but it's where I think I'd like to focus first.

Text Surgery

Most programmers understand that the bulk of coding an application comes after the application is first written. Debugging, refactoring, adding new functionality - this is the bulk of our work. This is what Vim is all about.

Vim's focus is on editing - and the mode you work in (I'll talk more about modes in a minute) most of the time is Normal mode. In this mode you don't enter text - but you can deftly edit it.

With the exception of Emacs - just about every code editor out there (including IDEs) focuses on text entry. The editing of the text is lumped into the entering of the text.

Vim turns this entire concept around - the entry of the text is set aside for when you need to do it - editing it comes first. I'm sure this sounds weird - let's dive into some examples. I'll be using GVim on windows - everything will work using MacVim as well if you're on a Mac.

Your First Drag of Vim

To say that Vim is not very welcoming is a bit of an understatement:

When windows devs see this - well let's just say it's the last impression they have of Vim. What to do next is just not apparent, the tildes, old-skool icons, and blocky Lucida Console font send most people running for their familiar IDEs.

Assuming you're still reading - let's try another sip and see what happens.

Another Sip - Not as Bad as The First

This is where it becomes apparent that we're not working in a typical code editor. There's no "project drawer" - no indication of other files, let alone where the hell you are.

Yet Vim works (sort of) with the concept of a "project" if you want it to. When you first open Vim, you'll be in a "Working Directory" - the "root" if you will in which all commands will run (like making directories, files and so on - more on that in a bit). If you've opened GVim using the icon on your desktop - you'll be in C:\Windows\system32. To verify this - enter ":pwd" (Present Working Directory) - the status window will tell you where you are.

Yah - weird. That's OK we can change that really quickly. It's worth noting here that Vim doesn't want to be opened with an icon; it's built to be opened from a terminal by entering "gvim" (or "mvim" if you're on a Mac). Doing it this way will auto-set your working directory to the current directory.

First - let's change the default startup. System32 is a bit ridiculous - right-click on the icon on the desktop and go to Properties. In there, set "Start in" to be something that makes sense - a "Projects" directory - or wherever you keep your code. Restart Vim.

Hey that wasn't so bad! We're moving forward... and feeling a bit light-headed (and after only 2 sips - Vim is fun!)

A Bigger Drink: Working With the File System

This is one thing I really like about Vim - you can manage files and directories rather easily right from within Vim. Now that you have Vim reopened in a directory that makes sense, let's do something fun.

First - let's confirm where we are: ":pwd". If you get stuck, ever, and can't enter commands and get lost - just hit ESCAPE. This will put you into normal mode where you can enter commands into Vim. You enter commands by pre-pending a colon - whenever you see ":" in front of something - I'm in normal mode and you should be to. It's a good habit to hit ESCAPE often to be sure of this.

Now let's create a directory

:!mkdir my_project

:!rails my_project

You should see the console pop up (if you're on windows) and some stuff happening - that's Vim executing some commands for you. Let's take a look at what happened:

:edit .

You'll use this command a lot - when you want to see the files and directories in your working directory (or a subdirectory therein). Notice that you also have some handy commands at the very top

Take a second to read those commands - you can do a lot here. Deleting and Renaming are something you'll do quite often - so get to know those straight away. Already we've picked up a bit of speed over conventional editing - there's no mouse involved here! No right-click/add file, no file explorer to organize your project.

I know that a few people will want to tell me about NERDtree. I happen to like the built in file manager - but many people like the visuals of the NERDTree plugin. Investigate!

Now, let's drop into our project and start editing it. Move the cursor down to "my_project" and hit enter. This will open up the directory which is either empty - or filled with a Rails project depending on what you did. Now hit "c" - this will change our working directory to the current directory, and we're ready for more.

Round 2 - Editing Some Text

Well that one went down pretty easily didn't it! I know I know - it's hard to stop at just one :). Let's move on here and do a bit more - let's write some Ruby code.

To create a file - simply use ":edit" again - but this time enter the name of the file:

:edit hello.rb

The first thing you'll notice is that it's probably a bit hideous looking. If you're using the default settings - well it will be. Let's work the code for now, and I'll show you all kinds of magic in a bit (code-completion, snippets, highlighting, etc).

What you should see is an empty file, and your cursor should be a big block (which is a visual cue that you're in Normal mode):

In the status bar down below is the name of the file, to the right of it is where your cursor is in the file itself. Let's enter some code in here - to do this we need to change modes (more on modes in a minute) to INSERT mode. Do this by entering "i" - you should now see "-- INSERT --" in the status bar. If you don't, hit ESCAPE and "i" one more time. Now enter this:

class Hello
  puts "hello there"
end
Hello.new

When you're done typing, a good habit to develop is to reflexively hit ESCAPE, putting you back into Normal mode. This has many benefits - such as when you say "oops!" and realize you need to change something - as you'll see in a minute.

To save this, you can do a number of things. You can do it the "Vim" way by telling Vim to write it to a file - ":w". You can also do it the "Windows" way by using Ctrl-s. If you're in MacVim you can use Command-S. Whichever one you like is up to you.

Now let's view our handy work:

:!hello.rb

This command is going to execute our new file for us - the "!" hands the command off to the console. What you should see next is our groovy "hello there" demo:

Hey that was pretty fun! Vim's starting to go down a bit easier now - what the hell let's do it again! If you want to rerun the last command - enter ":" to put you on the command line, then up-arrow to bring up the last command.

This Stuff Is Strong! Getting Your Vim Editing Buzz On...

Now we have some text, we've seen how we can manage files and work the command line - but this isn't at all what Vim is good at. Let's take a look at some editing.

Before we do, however - I'd like to talk about something Yehuda mentioned in his post:

Carl convinced me to use vim for the first couple of days pretty much exactly as I use Texmate ... I installed NERDTree on MacVIM, grabbed the most common vim packages, and was off to the races... For the first day, I clunked around by using my mouse's scroll wheel, clicking and highlighting things, and spending most of my time in insert mode. It was slightly less productive than Textmate, but mostly in the range of what I'd expect switching to a new tool. In short, while I felt a bit out of sorts, I was able to get plenty of work done that first day.

That's right where we are - you've seen how to do basic things with Vim and also how to enter text. With a reasonable set of plugins - you'll be right where you were with TextMate in no time.

But we don't want to go home yet! We just ordered another round! And this one is going to be a ton of fun as we've realized we screwed up a bit when we first wrote out code. When do we not? Almost no one gets it right the first time - and this is where Vim shines.

We've also just received word from the client - they want something to say "goodbye" as well as hello - so let's get crackin!

Let's create the new file - a little faster this time (make sure to hit ESCAPE first):

:edit goodbye.rb
i

and then our code...

class Goodbye
  puts "goodbye to you!"
end
Goodbye.new

and save with Ctrl-s.

Now let's fix our screwup. The client noticed that we said "hello there" instead of a proper demo - which says "Hello World". We have to fix the casing and a word - so let's do it.

As with most things, there are many ways to accomplish this - and I'm sure in the comments below someone will offer something more efficient - which is great! I'll show the 3 or 4 things I'd try... would love to hear from others with respect to their tricks.

I need to go on a bit of a tangent, however, before we start editing. I keep telling you that I'll explain more about modes "in a bit" - well that bit is now, and I'll make it fast. Vim has a number of "modes" that it will go into, depending on what you need to do. If you need to enter text - you go into INSERT mode. This resets the keyboard and various command sets to augment insertion of text.

If you need to edit - which is what you do most of the time (make corrections, move stuff around, refactor) - you stay in NORMAL mode. If you need to select blocks of text - you go into VISUAL mode, and so on.

As you can imagine, there are various commands for doing this - but to keep it brief and simple: you can always get into NORMAL mode by hitting ESCAPE. From NORMAL you can go into INSERT by pressing "i". You can go into VISUAL mode from NORMAL mode by pressing "v" (SHIFT-v puts you into VISUAL LINE mode - which works on lines instead of characters).

OK - now that we grok modes a bit - we need to shift out of INSERT and into NORMAL - so hit ESCAPE. You're looking at goodbye.rb - but we need to get back to hello.rb! This is step one.

Navigation is pretty simple with Vim - it's one of the reasons people love it. I'll show you three ways to work this now...

• type ":edit h" and hit TAB and then ENTER. This will tab-complete the filename, putting you back into hello.rb
• type ":b h" and hit TAB and then ENTER. This works with the "buffer" - a place where all the documents you've opened are hanging out in memory.
• type "CTRL-wv". This will open up a vertically-split window. "CTRL-ww" will move your cursor there, and ":b h" TAB/ENTER (as above) will open up hello.rb in the second window.

Programming Your Text

Many people have said this - in fact Dan Benjamin echoes it in the Peepcode screencast linked above - often times, when editing, it feels like your programming your code. For some people this is an extra mental step that's ridiculous - for others, who are used to it, it's as simple as... well coding in the first place.

The key to it is to plan your move. At first this is going to seem silly - but as you get used to it, you realize that the time it takes to recite the proper incantation and execute it is far less than the total time it takes to move your mouse, select your text and rewrite. And it only gets faster!

Let's fix the casing on "hello" first. We do this by using Vim's search ability - which is a simple forward slash "/":

/h [ENTER] n
rH

The search here is case-insensitive so it will highlight all the h's it finds once you enter the pattern (a single "h") and hit enter. You can move between the results by hitting "n" - or "next". Shift-N will move you backward. You can replace text you're sitting on by using "r" - in this case we'll replace it with an "H".

Next, I need to change the word "there" to "World". I take a second, plan my move, and execute. I'll do it in one of three ways:

2gg
3w
cw "World"

This is the longer way of doing it - but it's pretty quick nonetheless. "2gg" moves the cursor to the beginning of the text on the second line (if you can't see line numbers enter ":set number" to turn them on) - think "2 go go". "3w" moves you to the 3rd Word. "cw" is "Change Word" and it automatically puts you in INSERT mode - where you can enter "World".

A slightly less mechanical way would be:

2gg
:s/there/World

Again - moving to the second line, but this time we're using ":s" which means "Substitute". This is followed by a regex pattern to match, and the replacement text.

Finally - the easiest way to do this would be to remove the need to go to the line - and just do a global replace. This can be problematic if the file is large - you could end up matching more than you like - I'll show you a way around that in a second:

:%s/there/World

The only difference in this one command, versus the others, is the "%" wildcard, which tells Substitute to search over everything in the file.

Vision Is Getting Blurry

That last operation can be a bit destructive if we're not careful - so sometimes it's easier to match over a given range. To do this, we need to go into VISUAL mode - and we'll use a plugin to help us.

Matchit is installed by default with Vim and allows us to match the "natural" start and end of blocks of code - be it Ruby, HTML, XML, or whatever. To see this in action let's undo our last changes by pressing "u" (make sure to hit ESCAPE first to go back into NORMAL mode). You can also use CTRL-z/Cmd-z.

Head to the beginning of the method or class you want to change. You can do this by line number as above or, since the line we want is the first - use "gg" (Shift-G will take you to the bottom).

Now that we're here - enter VISUAL mode by using Shift-V and select the entire block (class or method - in our case it's a class) by hitting "%". Matchit will find "end" and select the block for you. If this isn't working for you - Matchit might not be installed (I've seen this with GVim). As an alternative you can enter "3gg" to go to line 3.

Now you can enter the same substitute command as above (without the "%") - and it will apply over the range.

I Need a Cab

I could go on - but this post is really long already. What I hope I have conveyed (aside from learning Vim is not unlike having your first beer) is that loving Vim builds on itself - and it does so with practice and reworking what you know.

Many people wonder why you would work so hard at a tool like this - and I'd like to end on that note:

• Vim is everywhere. My main machine here is a Mac, running MacVim. I have a Windows 7 VM running GVim, and I have an Ubuntu VM running straight up Vim. I also have an Apache server up on Amazon with vi that I can use over SSH! Each (aside from my server) uses my same plugin/configuration set so I'm at home on any one of them, coding in an environment I know and love.
• Vim is forever. The damn thing has been around since the dawn of time - and it will no doubt be around long after we're dust. The skills you pick up now will last you for many, many years - and you'll only get faster.
• There's a plugin for that. Code formatting, automatic comments, Rails-specific navigation and generation. Unit testing with RSpec or Cucumber. Git and Github. Syntax highlighting and code completion (using CTRL-n - check it out it's awesome!), and Code snippets. All of this, and a whole lot more can be mixxed and matched to create an environment that's just right for you.
• Help is Everywhere Aside from Emacs, you won't find an editor with a better help system - either through the builtin ":help" or online. It will be hard to get up to speed - but it won't be for lack of documentation.

Still Curious?

Great! I can't possibly fit everything into one post - my goal was to get your head into a good spot. The next thing to do is kick up the vimtutor (open a console and enter "vimtutor") - it will walk you through some basics.

Next, head over to Peepcode and watch both of their Vim screencasts. It's $18 well-spent as they're made to be watched over, and over, and over again.

Happy Vimming!

In modern web interface design, no other principle has been heralded and pushed onto us as much as the concept of user-centered design. User-centered design tells us that we should do everything we can to make our user interfaces as easy to use and as intuitive as possible.

However, a big part of designing user interfaces that are easy to use also involves figuring out what things should be a bit more difficult to to use. It's a counter-intuitive notion that's central to effective user interface design.

Why Make Certain User Interface Items Difficult to Use?

I can think of 3 main reasons for making an interface element more burdensome to utilize:

1. When using the interface element is costly to the user if used by accident
2. When there's an overall improvement to the UI as a whole
3. When the cost of maintaining a feature is costly to the provider if used frequently

High Cost of an Error in Usage

When you accidentally delete a file or click on a button that you didn't mean to, there's going to be a cost. For example, recovering a deleted file in a traditional operating system such as Windows costs time. To get your deleted file back, you need to:

1. Minimize your current application so that you can see your desktop
2. Click on the Recycling Bin icon
3. Locate the deleted document in your bin (or type in a search term if you have many files in your bin)
4. Right-click on it to see and issue the restore command
5. If you want to continue working on the document, you need to reopen it

That's a costly mistake. Good user interfaces will have safeguards for this situation, such as obfuscating the visibility of the delete command and showing you a confirmation dialog that asks you if you really want to delete the file. Burdening the deletion process is a purposeful design choice to avoid the more costly event of accidentally deleting the document.

Example: Deleting Content in WordPress

In older versions of WordPress, when you deleted content by accident (such as that post draft you've been working on for a month), there was no simple way to recover from the mistake. There was a confirmation dialog window that asked you if you did in fact mean to delete the content, but if you're quickly going through, say, spam comments and deleting them one by one, there will be accidents. In older versions of WordPress, when you delete something, it was irreversible.

To fix this, WordPress added an additional feature called Trash. It works much like the Recycling Bin in operating systems that temporarily house files you've deleted in case you want them back.

Although it's now harder to permanently delete WordPress content since you have an additional step to go through to remove the stuff you deleted inside your Trash, by intent, the deletion process was extended and made more difficult to prevent the more costly event of accidentally deleting a post or comment.

Improving the Overall UI System

When there are a lot of interface items competing for your attention, the result is an intimidating and cognitively burdensome UI.

For newer users of the system, having too much noise going on all at once can slow down their ability to learn how the system functions.

But we want people to have ready access to all of these awesome features, so the tendency is to fit as many things as we can into our screens.

Fitt's Law

To help explain the value of making some interface elements more difficult to use for the overall good of the system, I'll borrow from Jeff Atwood's discussion of the opposite of Fitts' Law.

Fitts' law is a human-computer interaction (HCI) model that predicts the speed in which someone can move to an objective. It applies to any human-computer interaction situations that involve human movement and a target.

In the context of graphical user interfaces on computer screens, the model attempts to quantify the factors that improve someone's ability to, for example, point and click on an interface element such as a call to action button.

If that sounds too complicated, we can simplify the model this way: Things that are important and frequently used should be bigger and closer to the user^[1].

It makes sense: Bigger things that are closer to us are easier to get to and touch than those that are smaller and farther away.

So, if Fitts' Law states that interface elements that are essential to the user should be bigger and closer to them or in the context of a computer screen, easier to find and see Atwood looks at the problem in reverse and asks, "What should we do with UI elements we don't want users to click on?"

The answer is simple. By logic, we make those UI elements more difficult to use, locate, and find by making them smaller and more distant to the user.

Doing this forces us to prioritize what interface elements are more important. In turn, this creates visual hierarchies in our UI elements that help the user understand how the system works.

Example: Freshbooks

One of my favorite apps, Freshbooks, demonstrates this point well.

The web app's design smartly implements a logical visual arrangement of its interface elements to make things easier and more intuitive.

For example, in the Expenses tab, there are 6 commands you can perform from the top interface command set:

1. Add a new expense
2. Archive
3. Delete
4. Copy
5. Convert to an invoice
6. Search

Look at the variations in size, grouping and spacing of those commands. Some are close together, some are farther down to the right, Search is deemphasized.

Which command is the most important? Which one is the least important?

Counter-Example: Microsoft Word

Just because they're our favorite whipping boy, let me follow the trend and pick on a Microsoft product: MS Word 2007.

MS Word has a cluttered main menu, and there's not a lot of thought put in, in terms of Fitt's Law. They all seem of equal value and thus, it's harder to find the things you need.

How many times do you need to adjust your document margins or theme? Probably just once.

How many times do you need the Acrobat tab? (Never in my case).

Should all of these options be shown by default, or should they be hidden and more difficult to access for the overall good and simplification of the UI?

By hiding some interface elements or by making them smaller, you are afforded with more room to work with for commands that are truly important and often used (such as styling commands for bolding and emphasizing text).

High Cost to the Provider

Some features might be too costly to us as providers if they're used regularly. An example of this situation is in obfuscating or burdening the customer support process so that users are encouraged to help themselves before submitting a help ticket.

Let's use a real-world analogy to explore this topic: Toilet paper in public restrooms. Toilet paper in public restrooms are typically provided free of charge as a courtesy to bathroom goers. You can guarantee that toilet paper in these restrooms will be as rough as sandpaper and manufactured as cheaply as possible.

The reason this is so is that it's a free service. One of the ways to cut costs is to get the cheapest toilet paper possible.

But what if the public restroom operator had some spare money to spend? Should he/she improve the quality of their toilet paper?

Nope.

There are other benefits to keeping toilet paper as crappy as possible. By making toilet paper difficult to use, they discourage people from taking advantage of the offering unless they absolutely need to.

For instance, many would hesitate to take rolls of toilet paper home because they're unbearable to use and they probably have better stuff waiting at home. Some might even refrain from using public restrooms if they know that in five minutes they'll be at home and in the comfort of their own restroom.

It doesn't take away from the user; they still have the feature (toilet paper) but they're just less likely to use it if they can avoid it. There is no lack of feature availability, so it's okay.

Example: Download Feature in Design Instruct

I'll use an example closer to home. On Design Instruct, everything is free: You don't have to pay a subscription fee to access the site, you don't have to register to use any site feature, and you don't have to jump through hoops to download stuff (such as Photoshop files and freebies).

On similar sites that provide free downloads, they'll often have large call to action buttons placed prominently at the top of the web page, enticing the user to download their source file.

In retrospect, on Design Instruct, the download feature is at the very bottom of the tutorial, as a link with a purposefully intimidating heading ("Download Source Files") and link name ("some_file_name").

Our reasoning is to discourage the feature's use unless you really need to. This is because the download feature, although great for our users that need it, costs us an arm and a leg in bandwidth and servers (we need a dedicated server and CDN just for these downloads).

The download option will be used more by long-time readers who are already familiar with the interface and less by one-time visitors who'll never return to the site again.

The objective here is simple: we want to prioritize our resources in such a way that the readers who've been with us longer are the ones that are likely to take advantage of this feature.

Example: Minimizing Free Signups in Basecamp

Another example where this concept can be seen is in Basecamp's pricing page. Basecamp offers a free plan, but they'd much prefer you sign up for their premium plans.

In the screenshot below, I'd wager that many people miss the "free plan" option and find it more difficult to click on because of the option's size and position, especially when compared to UI elements around it.

Even though they want to make this option available, minimizing free signups versus premium signups is the objective of this screen.

Further Reading

Here are a few articles related to this topic.

• The Opposite of Fitts' Law
• Visible Narratives: Understanding Visual Organization
• Visual Hierarchy 52 Weeks of UX

References

1. Fitt's Law

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About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He's also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development and a book author. If you'd like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

WordPress is a powerful content management system, and its popularity as a portfolio solution is enticing to many. There are a lot of themes out there that claim to do the job, but if you're as picky as me you'll find some pretty annoying flaws in many of them.

In my search for the best of the bunch, I installed about 30 offerings (out of the hundreds I looked at) and after trying them out and changing my mind a couple of times I finally settled down with a theme. This took me months, so I'm going to save you the bother and present the five free WordPress themes that made my own particular shortlist.

SimpleFolio The Best All-Rounder

Despite being a tricky free WordPress theme to set-up, SimpleFolio by Omar Corrales is worth the hassle. For your troubles you'll get a clean and easy-to-navigate theme with a separate portfolio section (with the option to exclude portfolio posts from your blog) and a home screen to die for.

The home screen includes a JavaScript front-page slider to exhibit portfolio entries, which does a great job of making your work look awesome with its smooth transitions. There are a further three widgetized areas on the home page, so adding a contact form or Twitter plug-in is as easy as pie.

If you like the look of this theme and fancy giving it a go, then you're going to need a little help. There's a fantastic little guide over at WordPress Handyman which guides you through the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining your new portfolio. As always with WordPress, you can edit the style.css file to suit your personal tastes.

Vikiworks Infinity For Social Media Types

For an aesthetically pleasing, majorly customizable portfolio that's plugged in to Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, look no further than Infinity by Vikiworks. The free WordPress theme follows a three-fixed column style, and whilst not being widget ready could probably be modified with some serious Notepad'ing.

There are two PSD files to download as well as the theme, which makes customization in Photoshop that little bit easier. Blog posts themselves are presented in two thumbnail cover-style columns to the left of the page, so if you're not bothered about separating your work and your blog then this one's for you.

For the more courageous there's a sister theme called Mashup based on Infinity, only with widgets and a style switcher. The developer has appealed for help in completing it, and needs guinea pigs willing to give it a go. If you're not averse to beta testing, you can download Mashup here.

FolioGrid For Speed-Freaks, Designers, Photographers & Artists

This sharp looking offering from FrogsThemes has a little something for everyone. Utilising the tried-and-tested grid layout, the theme comes in a variety of colours and is easily altered with some handy CSS. All the styling is done through the theme's stylesheet, meaning you really can open up and customize this one.

The menu lives at the top of the page, and is always accessible from anywhere on the site, making it a cinch to navigate. There's some lovely use of jQuery for slick transitions, and the theme is widget-ready. For a fast and lightweight WordPress portfolio, FolioGrid does the job.

Fullscreen For Style-Conscious Photographers & Videographers

If photos are the order of the day then you may want to pay close attention. Fullscreen is a portfolio package developed by Graph Paper Press that delivers nothing but a menu and blog posts (represented by just images). It all makes for a very sexy looking clean interface, with some fancy JavaScript image rollover effects for added garnish.

One thing to look out for is some issues with the menu not displaying correctly in older versions of Internet Explorer, though some of you won't really care (and those that do can customize, of course).

Images can be implemented into posts using the WordPress media gallery, which makes for easy posting. If you want your photo or video work to be the main focus of your site, then this theme will honour your wishes.

Contrast The Black Sheep

SmashingMagazine once hosted a typographic layout competition for WordPress and Tumblr themes, and Paul Linder's Contrast didn't win. But that doesn't matter, because it's awesome all the same.

Using nothing but XHTML and CSS, it's lightning quick and beautiful to look at. Presenting you with a straight-up black and white home screen, Contrast is designed to be left as a portfolio rather than a blog as well.

As the focus is on text, many writers, copy-editors or web designers may find this appealing, though the minimalist design could suit anyone. It's bold, unique and quick.

Have you used any of these free WordPress themes? Got another favourite we've not featured here? Spread the word in the comments! Are you a photographer? Check out our very own photography PDF manual by Bakari The Essential Guide To Digital Photography.

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This afternoon I was having a discussion with a leading app developer about the future of virtual goods on the Facebook Platform. One thing that came up during the discussion was the idea of a centralized virtual goods system on Facebook. It's something that I first described when Facebook announced that they were killing the gift shop next month, however it has increasingly become a center of focus for me personally. With all these applications selling virtual goods, why isn't their an easier way to show off the goods that we've purchased?

With Facebook ramping up their Credits product, it's not completely ridiculous that the company would kill off their gifts product, however the core idea was pretty smart: let people purchase virtual goods as well as receive those virtual goods as gifts from friends and show them off in their profile. The tie between virtual goods and identity is a critical component of any burgeoning virtual goods ecosystem. Somehow, Facebook has a massive virtual goods ecosystem without this key association (the one between virtual goods and identity), however I don't believe this is sustainable.

The main flaw with the existing system is that when a user stops playing a game (like FarmVille for example), the virtual goods from that game do not transfer anywhere. In other words, all the money that was spent (which will soon be Facebook Credits) ends up being money that was spent on content that was not retained and had no lasting value. Tied in as part of the Facebook profile, those virtual goods can be saved forever. Most obvious is that virtual goods serve as digital artifacts that form a core component of an individual's online identity.

Given that Facebook profiles serve as the primary representation of an individual's digital identity, it's only logical that virtual goods would become integrated and allow the application experience to live on, once the application is gone. This would not only increase the volume of transactions to take place with Facebook Credits, but it would also benefit the entire ecosystem. According to people I've spoken to, this concept is something that Sean Parker has personally pressed for, as well as other execs, however Mark Zuckerberg is not as big of a fan of the concept.

However the internal political debate is playing out isn't really that relevant though. The main point is this: Facebook must provide some sort of central archive for individual virtual goods within the profile to help further the virtual goods ecosystem and accelerate usage of Facebook Credits, something the company is currently focused heavily on.

It's becoming clear that Google is getting ready to launch a social networking platform to challenge Facebook. Most recently, The Wall Street Journal reported last night that the big social gaming companies that dominate Facebook are in talks with Google to launch on its platform, too.

Can Google get social? For many years the tech community has said Google just doesn't get it and doesn't stand a chance moving beyond search and into social technology. Too many failed attempts have left people feeling cynical. This latest effort might be different, though. We asked five of the smartest people we know in social technology if they thought Google could pose a viable challenge to Facebook.

Sponsor

It's a Stretch...

Scott Beale, founder of Laughing Squid and long-time geek gadfly

"It seems to me they are very different systems: Google open vs. Facebook closed. Or is the thought that Facebook will be eventually as open as Google? Posting photos to Facebook is like sending them down a black hole. It would take a major shift for that [Google effectively challenging Facebook] to happen. Google is a utility: email, search, video, etc."

Above: Beale and Thurston, photo from Laughing Squid

Buzz is Closer Than You Might Think

Iain Dodsworth, founder of desktop social stream reader Tweetdeck

"I think Google can and will effectively challenge Facebook. Perhaps in part around Buzz - a product which is far from on its last legs and has great potential with a few tweaks -probably around the positioning of the service rather than the functionality."

Neither Company Has the Right Culture for Social Technology

Kaliya Hamlin, co-founder, Internet Identity Workshop

"A ceratin kind of social 'way' of being inside the company is informing what gets built and that healthy social systems are not driven by 'fight.' It works for now, but I don't think it is a viable model for choosing how to design 'social software' in the long run.
That's not just at Facebook, either though. The culture of agression is pervasive in Silicon Valley, including at Google."

Right: Hamlin, by Doc Searls

Gaming May Be the Wrong Approach

Ben Metcalfe, leading product design consultant and iconoclast

"Looking at how many of these companies make money, I also think it will be a bumpy ride for Google's 'don't be evil' mantra. ?Google are the masters of context-advertising around text and now video, but in games there is no context - which is why there is still crappy subscription and lead-gen monetization going on by many companies in this space. I don't know whether Google has the authority in that space nor whether it is in line with Google's wider values. "

Google Won't Kill Facebook, but Something Will, Someday

Baratunde Thurston, Web Editor at The Onion and international smart guy

"I put the odds of Google overtaking Facebook at 30 percent. However, I put the odds of Facebook eventually going the way of Friendster, Myspace and Pointcast Networks at 100 percent. No one stays on top forever. No one."

It's becoming clear that Google is getting ready to launch a social networking platform to challenge Facebook. Most recently, the Wall St. Journal reported last night that the big social gaming companies that dominate Facebook are in talks with Google to launch on its platform, too.

Can Google get social? For many years the tech community has said Google just doesn't get it and doesn't stand a chance moving beyond search and into social technology. Too many failed attempts have left people feeling cynical. This latest effort might be different, though. We asked 5 of the smartest people we know in social technology if they thought Google could pose a viable challenge to Facebook.

Sponsor

It's a Stretch...

Scott Beale, founder of Laughing Squid and long-time geek gadfly

"It seems to me they are very different systems: Google open vs. Facebook closed. Or is the thought that Facebook will be eventually as open as Google? Posting photos to Facebook is like sending them down a black hole. It would take a major shift for that [Google effectively challenging Facebook] to happen. Google is a utility: email, search, video, etc."

Above: Beale and Thurston, photo from Laughing Squid

Buzz is Closer Than You Might Think

Iain Dodsworth, founder of desktop social stream reader Tweetdeck

"I think Google can and will effectively challenge Facebook. Perhaps in part around Buzz - a product which is far from on its last legs and has great potential with a few tweaks -probably around the positioning of the service rather than the functionality."

Neither Company Has the Right Culture for Social Technology

Kaliya Hamlin, co-founder, Internet Identity Workshop

"A ceratin kind of social 'way' of being inside the company is informing what gets built and that healthy social systems are not driven by 'fight.' It works for now, but I don't think it is a viable model for choosing how to design 'social software' in the long run.
That's not just at Facebook, either though. The culture of agression is pervasive in Silicon Valley, including at Google."

Right: Hamlin, by Doc Searls

Gaming May Be the Wrong Approach

Ben Metcalfe, leading product design consultant and iconoclast

"Looking at how many of these companies make money, I also think it will be a bumpy ride for Google's 'don't be evil' mantra. ?Google are the masters of context-advertising around text and now video, but in games there is no context - which is why there is still crappy subscription and lead-gen monetization going on by many companies in this space. I don't know whether Google has the authority in that space nor whether it is in line with Google's wider values. "

Google Won't Kill Facebook, but Something Will, Someday

Baratunde Thurston, Web Editor at The Onion and international smart guy

"I put the odds of Google overtaking Facebook at 30 percent. However, I put the odds of Facebook eventually going the way of Friendster, Myspace and Pointcast Networks at 100 percent. No one stays on top forever. No one."

People love to personalize things that they own to make those items stand out among other similar items that other people have. We can see examples everywhere such as people painting their houses with different colors, styling their hair, using and customizing different themes for their blogs, putting their laptops into colorful cases, and customizing the ringtones for their phones.

If you own an iPhone and you want to use your favorite songs to personalize it, but you don't want to pay another buck for each song that you already own to have those songs converted into ringtones; here's a fun and free way to do it.

The Preparation

For those who love Garageband, you can use that amazing music maker to create ringtones. But for today's discussion, we'll use a small free program called MakeiPhoneRingtone.

This program can quickly turn your favorite songs into iPhone-compatible ringtones. However, there are limitations to this feature: you can only use AAC files, and the ringtone duration is limited to 40 seconds. A set of preparation steps is needed prior to the conversion process. But don't be afraid as we can do everything using iTunes.

• The first step is to convert the songs from MP3 into AAC. Open iTunes Preferences menu or use Command + Comma.

• Open the General tab and click the Import Settings button.

• Choose AAC Encoder from the Import Using field, and choose iTunes Plus quality from Setting for the best quality.

• Find the song(s) that you want to use as a ringtone, right click and choose Create AAC version from the pop up menu.

• You can also access this option from Advanced Create AAC Version menu.

• The song(s) will be converted by iTunes into AAC, and the process will take about several seconds for every song. After that, right click on the converted song and choose Get Info from the pop up menu.

• Choose Options tab and set the Start and Stop Time to fit the 40 seconds duration. If you want to go the easy way, just choose 0:00 for the start time and 0:39 for the stop time.

But why go the easy way when you can go the fun way? You can set the start and stop time in the part of the song that you like the most. Play the song and notice the time of the beginning and end of your favorite part.

Even though you can adjust the precision to one-thousandth of a second to get the perfect timing if you want to, my experience has told me that one-tenth precision is enough. For example, you can set the time to 1:12.5 (one minute twelve point five seconds) or maybe 3:42.73 (three minutes forty-two point seventy-three seconds).

This might look tedious, but I personally find the process of determining the perfect beginning and ending of the ringtone fun and addictive. The 40 seconds limit just make the estimating game more challenging.

Then repeat the Create AAC Version process to the adjusted song, to get the less-than-40-second fragment.

The Making Of The Ringtones

• After getting the perfect slice of the song, right click on the item and choose Show in Finder.

• Open MakeiPhoneRingtone and drag that short AAC Version (with the .m4a extension) to the app.

• If the edited song is more than 40 seconds, you'll get a warning (and an offer to try a paid audio editor by the same developer).

• If you do everything correctly, you'll get your ringtone in iTunes' Ringtones folder in just a blink of an eye.

• Repeat the process for other songs.

Syncing & Using Ringtones

• To make sure that your newly created ringtones find their way to your iPhone, go to the Ringtones tab and check the Sync Ringtones box before you synchronize your phone.

• Then click the Sync button.

• In iPhone, you can use different tones for different person. You can also use customized ringtones for your Alarm.

• To assign a ringtone to a contact, select a person and tap on the ringtone option. Choose one of the Custom tones and tap Save.

• The same thing goes for assigning custom ringtones to your alarms. Open one, tap Edit and slide right. Tap Sound and choose your preferred sound.

After using the method several times, I began to look at (or listen to?) my song collection differently. Now I always try to find parts of the songs that would make cool ringtones.

What about you? Do you personalize your contacts with different tones? Do you know other free methods to convert your favorite songs into ringtones? If so, please share using the comments section below.

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Users of competing platforms have had the ability to configure unique "profiles" - a particular setup of wallpaper, launcher, ringer and dock settings - for different times of the day and different scenarios for some time now. It hasn't been until now, with Profiles (which can be downloaded from the PreCentral Homebrew app gallery) from homebrew developer Diov, that webOS users have had an easy to install way of configuring and managing profiles on their phones.

Profiles allows you to configure up to 11 profiles, each with its own unique launcher, dock, and wallpaper set up. The program comes preconfigured with both Day and Night profiles, and users can create their own by setting their phones up how they like, hitting "edit mode", and tapping one of the profiles.

Like many of the custom app launchers that have sprung up in the App Catalog in recent times, I find the Profiles to be inelegant namely due to the minute-long restart of the UI manager - which causes the phone to be completely unusable - every time you switch profiles. That's certainly not the developer's fault, however.

It should also be mentioned that this is beta software. Accidently tapping a profile without first saving your current configuration will cause it to be erased - meaning that any launcher page settings will be gone. A few of us here at PC HQ have also experienced some conflict with customizations based on launcher patches. Update: this has been resolved in the latest version. Be sure to check out the forum thread for the app.

Thanks to Braden for the tip!