Firefox Minimum Print Font Size

I've been frustrated with font sizes when I print documents and playing games with zoom level, etc. But it turns out Firefox has a good, general solution: no more playing around.

Firefox allows one to set minimum print font size. In limited testing, it works well, as it should, since the browser should be able to re-flow text for changing font sizes. Other browsers probably have some similar mechanism, but this is for Firefox:

Preferences | Content | Fonts&Colors | Advanced | Minimum Font Size

I set mine to 11. It does sometimes use more paper, but several times I've seen a printout, and tossed it directly into recycling and tried again.

Alternatively for nerds: Open about:config, find the variable font.minimum-size.x-western, and set it to your preferred minimum font size.

See also: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/font-size-and-zoom-increase-size-of-web-pages

Google F'ing With Blogger Again

Google, over the last several months never hesitating to replace a decent user interface with a bad one, is again F'ing with the blogger interface. Lovely (not). Why the rush away from usability?

Gmail's New Interface: Stupider than I Originally Thought

As bad as I originally thought Gmail's new interface is, it's worse. They have hidden the 'choose font' button behind a T. Sure, T stands for font. I get it. This is what it looks like:

The T between the underline and the font size selector is for choosing font. Blogger, and every other GUI I use, uses a stylized F for font. Perhaps Google thinks it's powerful enough to change the word from 'font' to 'tont.'

This is just more evidence that Google's new interfaces for Docs, Gmail, etc., are not well thought-out and are simply change for the sake of change. Overall, replacing words with obscure pictographs and then using letters that have no apparent relation to their function are slaps in the faces the user community.

What, Pearson Learning Solutions can't figure out how to make a PDF?

Check out this atrocious user interface from Pearson: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/8544872e#/8544872e/16

Web Pages by People Who Don't Understand Algorithms

I've used the Online Etymology Dictionary a few times and basically like it. But it's used to look up words. Words have spellings. To browse, picking the first letter, then the second, then the third, etc. would make the most sense. Did I mention that words have spellings? This would be easily implemented as a trie. Instead, we're expected to pick the first letter, and then use a number, like page 23 of the letters starting with 'b'. Two explanations: (1) whoever designed the page didn't care; (2) whoever designed the page didn't have a software background, and so never thought to use a trie.