Boiler Room

Ideas, names, thoughts, styling, branding, photography, mice. Anything goes.

Sunday, January 22, 2023 | Boiler Room

The Journey is inevitable, baggage optional

A SERIES ABOUT BUILDING MVPS

Have you ever had to move apartments? If you have, then you know that before you moved, you had to choose the right apartment, in the right neighborhood. Imagine now that you went from one neighborhood to another, looking for the right one, with a van carrying all your furniture. This excess baggage, while you are still testing the waters, is only going to hinder you.

Why building small apps with a long-term mindset is a bad idea - Part II
Monday, January 16, 2023 | Boiler Room

Why building small apps with a long-term mindset is a bad idea

A series about building MVPs

Have you ever tried using a hammer to knock a pin off the board? If you have, you would have known that you just end up hurting your fingers.

Creating a minimum viable product for a startup is a skill that is quite lacking in this world. I will share some stories and my two-and-a-half cents.
Thursday, March 8, 2007 | Boiler Room

Shshsh, Shut The Shutters and Şit!

I mean SIT!

About time! wouldn't you think? My last post was in August of last year, after which I was growing sick of my old interface, for many reasons. Here is why I have jumped to a new design.

Two years past since I dubbed myself as SHUT on MSN Messenger. SHUT THEORY blog was on the back of my mind ever since. The last design was based on elmota, although I had a shutters area (sort of my guilty little me!), I was never able to switch completely to this favorite name of mine
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 | Boiler Room

Exposure

First Annual CSS Naked Day - April 5

By the time this page is published, it will be most probably naked. April 5 (that is tomorrow) has been marked by Dustin Diaz as CSS Naked Day. In the spirit of supporting web standards, he wants to encourage a lot of people to go stripped of their css files.
Friday, March 24, 2006 | Boiler Room

Spam My Life Away

How I Fight Spam on All Levels

And I am not just talking about email spam, but rather spam of everything. Spam of redundant files on your desktop, spam of information when you hit search button on Google, spam of comments added to a blog, spam of little pieces clogging your nose – err, okay that last one is not avoidable!
Friday, February 10, 2006 | Boiler Room

Little things

Small enhancements to software makes a huge difference to users

I take notice. I am a UX designer, that may be the reason, but I take notice of all the little enhancements a new software version releases, that makes life easier. I do not have to read the release notes, it just comes naturally.

Now the IE7.0 is about to be released, and as described by the beta version, windows will open in tabs as in FireFox. Office word they came up with a window per document, and you have to ctrl+click to open a link. Outlook now is concealing the window tab from the taskbar when minimized, and previews first incoming email by default. Hotmail has a new notification that allows you to open inbox without opening email itself. And Word switches next line after a header to normal text.
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 | Boiler Room

To AJAX or not to AJAX

When is it a pain in the neck?!

Years ago when I started my professional career, I used to apply every new technology I put my hands on, on my homepage or on the current project I would be working on. Now I have grown up, and have grown out of it! It was clear to me that the less technology on
Sunday, December 4, 2005 | Boiler Room

Are we clear

Always use ClearType for HTML.

Always use ClearType setting by Microsoft, it is the future of typography

Recently Theorized

Sunday, January 22, 2023 | Boiler Room

The Journey is inevitable, baggage optional

Why building small apps with a long-term mindset is a bad idea - Part II
Monday, January 16, 2023 | Boiler Room

Why building small apps with a long-term mindset is a bad idea

Creating a minimum viable product for a startup is a skill that is quite lacking in this world. I will share some stories and my two-and-a-half cents.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 | Shutlogue

The year 2022 in one word, one more word

Here is yet another article, though I read no other one, about the year 2022 in lines.
Tuesday, December 13, 2022 | Copy

Crazy at Work, Atomic Habits, and Purple Cow

A quick review of Atomic Habits, Purple cow, and It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work
Monday, November 14, 2022 | Copy

Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America's Universities

How academia has become the center of foreign and domestic espionage—and why that is troubling news for our nation's security.
Friday, November 4, 2022 | Copy

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

A review of a book about the rise and dramatic fall of Theranos, and the idols created in Silicon Valley.
Saturday, October 29, 2022 | Copy

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

The book is a collection of short autobiographies of tens of ex-Soviets, before and after the fall of the USSR.
Monday, October 24, 2022 | Copy

El Infierno: Drugs, Gangs, Riots and Murder: My Time Inside Ecuador’s Toughest Prisons

This book is his own words telling the story from the time he was caught till released into Britain some 12 years later.
Wednesday, July 6, 2022 | Shutlogue

How I brought back a design from the dead

Nostalgia. That what brought this old design back to life. I have no regrets though. This attempt to bring back the dead, is for no other reason than fun. I just want to prove that it is indeed doable.
Thursday, July 21, 2016 | Shutlogue

ما بين الحديد واللحم، والفولاذ والعظم

تقاطع شيبويا في طوكيو يعتبر معلم سياحي، يأتي اليه السياح لالتقاط صورهم وهم يعبرون التقاطع. روّج للتقاطع عدة أفلام اتخذته رمزًا لطوكيو. التقاطع يبدو مزدحمًا بالسياح فقط! ويغذّي الزخم البشري محطّة شيبويا الرئيسية.