This is a new idea of mine, and I call it "DropBox". DropBox is a website that basically acts as an online database, private or not private, where anybody can sign up for free. Basically, when you sign up, you get your very own 'box' where you can drop anything you want into there. Have a Microsoft Word document you need for work? Put it in DropBox. Have a picture you want to put on a different computer? Put it in DropBox. Have a folder full of information, pictures, spreadsheets, movies, etc that you need for a different computer? Put it all on DropBox. So the idea is you put whatever you want into your very own box, and when you go to any other computer in the world that's connected to the internet, you can go to your DropBox and pick that file up. You no longer need a flash drive for school or work because you can just pick whatever you need up from DropBox.
So imagine this: imagine you have only a desktop at home and no laptop, and you have to get a folder full of spreadsheets for your company on your desktop. Just upload it to DropBox and it will be stored on there. Go to work, go to your computer at work, go to www.dropbox.com or whatever the URL should be, download it to your computer (downloading time will vary depending on file size), and there you go. You have whatever you need everywhere you go. Maybe you could also have a QuickLook-esque feature on DropBox where you can preview your files in an instant, in case you're not sure which file is which. Your DropBox will have to be extremely secure so that all of your precious files are protected from hackers, etc.
Just a handy little tool I thought up. It would absolutely solve my problems with school and trying to remember where my flash drive is. In fact, I don't have one right now since it's lost. If DropBox could be accepted in all schools and businesses, it could possibly become a great tool.
-Derek
Showing posts with label Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ideas. Show all posts
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Ideas: Mac OS X Snow Leopard
One thing that I think will be hard for Apple to do right now is come up with new ideas since Mac OS X Leopard covers almost everything. I hear that there will be the so-called "Cocoa Finder" and "Image Boot" (the latter I don't understand), as well as other features such as Microsoft Exchange support. Here are some ideas I have that could make Snow Leopard great.
Style is one thing. In the late, great Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Fake Steve Jobs parodied Apple by saying that the first things they think about are the commercials, the design, and the style, and then work on engineering. I think this isn't too far off, because Apple really puts style into their products. So with Snow Leopard, it would be cool if you could make the style go all-out. For example, I like the windows as they are right now: aluminum colored, properly shaded and textured, stylish. However, they could improve on it even more by letting you do stuff like choose different colors for the aluminum, as if the windows are colored like iPod Nanos or something. I don't like having a bunch of Safari and iTunes windows open on my desktop with them all being the same color, so if you could choose to color-code it, that would be great. You should also be able to do this with other stuff like folders, Word or Pages documents, the pointer, certain things like that. It would be cool if you could design your own color schemes on your computer by doing this. Just a minor idea. Also, they could make so that the textures of the windows can be completely different, like instead of aluminum, you could choose to make it shiny, glossy white, like their old iMacs. Or you could make it black glass like the iPhone, iMac, and MacBook screens. Just another idea about the windows.
But seriously, what useful things could they put in Snow Leopard? What problems do OS X users have all the time? I can't think of that many. It's just too reliable of a system to pick on. They might be able to introduce new software, but what could it be? Does Mac have an image editor program? If not, it needs one. The Spaces application could be updated so that it has at least six spaces for windows. Also, they could use an animation effect for when you're switching spaces, like if there are six spaces, it could look like a cube that you're rotating, and each side of the cube is one space. Each space can have a different wallpaper, color scheme, etc.
By the time OS X Snow Leopard comes out, new iMacs should be out which all have HD screens (unless they're already HD). Then you can watch HD movies using super graphics (NVIDIA, just like the MacBooks) on your huge 24-inch screen (which will be what the minimum iMac screen size will be). The 24-inch model will cost only $1199 at most, though I'd prefer they lower the price because of this bad economy. But if asking for a lower price with 24 inches is asking too much, then that's fine. But I expect huge screens. So with Snow Leopard, Quicktime should be drastically improved, so there aren't lines or squares of different parts of the video scattered throughout. I don't know if that's what it's like on a Mac, but that's what it's like on a PC.
Maybe in some places, icons will look like iPhone apps, where they look like squares with the rounded edges. More and more Apple elements are starting to look like that, such as the artists in iTunes 8's grid view, or MobileMe's web apps. Apple seems to like making things like this seem consistent among all their products.
Maybe Snow Leopard should also focus on useability. For a lot of people, computers are really hard to use for multiple reasons. Macs shouldn't fall for the same problems PC has. For example, maybe there should be an option that absolutely any text shown on the screen (except images with text in them) can be enlarged up to about four times its size. Since there's such a huge screen to work with, and since there's the Spaces application, there's no excuse not to help people who can't see very well.
I'll post more ideas for Snow Leopard if I think of any more.
Style is one thing. In the late, great Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Fake Steve Jobs parodied Apple by saying that the first things they think about are the commercials, the design, and the style, and then work on engineering. I think this isn't too far off, because Apple really puts style into their products. So with Snow Leopard, it would be cool if you could make the style go all-out. For example, I like the windows as they are right now: aluminum colored, properly shaded and textured, stylish. However, they could improve on it even more by letting you do stuff like choose different colors for the aluminum, as if the windows are colored like iPod Nanos or something. I don't like having a bunch of Safari and iTunes windows open on my desktop with them all being the same color, so if you could choose to color-code it, that would be great. You should also be able to do this with other stuff like folders, Word or Pages documents, the pointer, certain things like that. It would be cool if you could design your own color schemes on your computer by doing this. Just a minor idea. Also, they could make so that the textures of the windows can be completely different, like instead of aluminum, you could choose to make it shiny, glossy white, like their old iMacs. Or you could make it black glass like the iPhone, iMac, and MacBook screens. Just another idea about the windows.
But seriously, what useful things could they put in Snow Leopard? What problems do OS X users have all the time? I can't think of that many. It's just too reliable of a system to pick on. They might be able to introduce new software, but what could it be? Does Mac have an image editor program? If not, it needs one. The Spaces application could be updated so that it has at least six spaces for windows. Also, they could use an animation effect for when you're switching spaces, like if there are six spaces, it could look like a cube that you're rotating, and each side of the cube is one space. Each space can have a different wallpaper, color scheme, etc.
By the time OS X Snow Leopard comes out, new iMacs should be out which all have HD screens (unless they're already HD). Then you can watch HD movies using super graphics (NVIDIA, just like the MacBooks) on your huge 24-inch screen (which will be what the minimum iMac screen size will be). The 24-inch model will cost only $1199 at most, though I'd prefer they lower the price because of this bad economy. But if asking for a lower price with 24 inches is asking too much, then that's fine. But I expect huge screens. So with Snow Leopard, Quicktime should be drastically improved, so there aren't lines or squares of different parts of the video scattered throughout. I don't know if that's what it's like on a Mac, but that's what it's like on a PC.
Maybe in some places, icons will look like iPhone apps, where they look like squares with the rounded edges. More and more Apple elements are starting to look like that, such as the artists in iTunes 8's grid view, or MobileMe's web apps. Apple seems to like making things like this seem consistent among all their products.
Maybe Snow Leopard should also focus on useability. For a lot of people, computers are really hard to use for multiple reasons. Macs shouldn't fall for the same problems PC has. For example, maybe there should be an option that absolutely any text shown on the screen (except images with text in them) can be enlarged up to about four times its size. Since there's such a huge screen to work with, and since there's the Spaces application, there's no excuse not to help people who can't see very well.
I'll post more ideas for Snow Leopard if I think of any more.
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