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Monospaced fonts CAN scale

// July 31st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Software and Web Design

Like many programmers, I have a couple of favorite fixed-width “coding fonts” that I use for writing and viewing source code, however most of them are bitmap based and do not scale up “prettily” by any means.

Fortunately there are some great monospaced fonts that do scale up nicely. In my experience, it is important for me to use both my own favorite fixed-width fonts, and the great fixed-width ones below. This is because at small sized, most vector-based fonts like some below look fantastic at larger sizes, like on web pages or in print, but look fuzzy or blurry in the 8-12pt range in notepad++, gedit, etc. Conversely, my favorite bitmap based fonts only look good at one size, usually in the 8-10pt range, and are pixelated and blocky at larger sizes.

With that in mind, I present to you some smooth and delicious monospaced fonts that retain high legibility (slashed or dotted zeros, 1, l, I distinction, etc).

Inconsolata

The font that actually started me on this post was Raph Levien’s excellent Inconsolata. Spurred on by Luc(as) de Groot’s Consolas (below), Raph created a free and open source monospaced font that renders nicely at high resolutions, and looks great in print:

Inconsolata is still in development and lacks bold/italic styles, but is already in fine shape. Its major drawback is that it currently has no “hinting” support, so it doesn’t play well with Microsoft’s Clear Type technology. Everyone else should find it renders quite nicely, however.

Consolas

Developed by Luc(as) de Groot, Consolas is another nice-looking fixed-width font with good distinction between visually similar characters. Consolas is included in Windows Vista and MS Office 2007, and if you’re using only the included fonts on Vista its the only one with a slashed zero!

Consolas has full hinting instructions and works great with Clear Type.

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is a variant of Bitstream Vera. It was designed by Jim Lyles and also has full hinting instructions. Bitstream Vera was released for use under an open source license agreement with the GNOME Foundation, so all you free/OSS developers are good to go!

I know Nyrath has his own custom made font, and it’s actually one I use frequently in notepad2 and notepad++. So, what are you guys’/gals’ favorite programming fonts? I’d love to know about any other monospaced fonts I’ve not come across yet.

Firefox 3 is out!

// June 17th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Software and Web Design

Starting at 1pm EST today, the OFFICIAL Firefox 3 release is in the wild!

This marks the start of Download Day 2008, an effort to break the world record for most downloads in a day, and spread the Firefox 3 love!

There are tons of cool new features in FF3, possibly the biggest is a totally reworked memory management system. Yes, gone are the days of firefox using 600MB of ram after leaving it open for a day or two with 8 or 9 tabs open. I’ve been using the beta for a month or so and I have to say I see a huge improvement.

Besides memory management, FF3 has lots of usability improvements that make it even more fun to use than version 2. Never one to rip off another site’s hard work, show Gina some love by going to lifehacker to see the Top 10 new features. They also have posts on the extensions you won’t need anymore, and more on smart bookmarks. Mozilla has some neat tips right on their website too.

So hurry up, you’re running out of time! Help set a world record by downloading Firefox 3 right now. If you’re reading this late, get it now anyway. You will NOT be disappointed and if you’re not tech savy, trust me: It only makes browsing the web easier.

Simple Chord Arpeggiation

// March 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // Books, Movies, Music, and TV, Software and Web Design

I think Celemony has just changed digital audio manipulation forever. Watch this video, its so awesome! They’ve created what they call “Direct Note Access”, which i call arpeggiation, or breaking a chord down to its individual notes. This may seem simple but was never possible before! We’ve always wanted it, but to my knowledge nobody had yet done it (or at least not in a consumer product with a simple GUI to boot!).

Twoosh Spotter: A Greasemonkey Script

// November 14th, 2007 // No Comments » // Software and Web Design

EDIT (10/6/2009): Twoosh Spotter is now up to v2.0. I’ve fixed it so that the tweets shown after hitting the “more” button get checked for twooshes, and also fixed a bug where “&” was converted to “& a m p ;” and counted as 4 characters instead of 1.

I recently came across a new portmanteau on Twitter called a “twoosh” (TWitter swOOSH)!

Coined by rentzsch, A twoosh is a twitter that hits the 140 character limit exactly on the nose. This is just one of those fun little oddities that people like to play with, but unless the poster follows up their twoosh with another post pointing it out, the twoosh goes unnoticed by all but the equally twoosh endeared… and those with OCD.

To combat both OCD and unnecessary tweets by users calling out their own twooshes, I’ve created a Greasemonkey script that indicates twooshes called Twoosh Spotter!

Example of a spotted twoosh

Quite simply, Twoosh Spotter places a little swoosh icon next to any twoosh on any twitter page.

It will also display the character count for any twitter in a timeline if you:

1. Right-click on the greasemonkey icon in your status bar and go to “Manage User Scripts”
2. Select TwooshSpotter in the left pane and hit the “Edit” button. This should open it in notepad or your default text editor.
3. Find the line that starts with “var show_count = false;” (line 33). and change the false to true.

Easy as 1,2,3! I debating turning this on by default but it may look a bit cluttered for some users so I went with the sleeker look.

So far this script seems to work great for me, but please do let me know if you find any bugs or strange behavior, or just want to make a suggestion. Also feel free to customize the script to your liking (but do leave mention of me in the source). If you don’t like my twoosh icon you can either make me a better one to distribute (please! I’m no graphic designer!) or just make yourself one and modify the script (replace that huge block of gibberish) to use your own.

To get twoosh spotter, go to http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13873.

It’s new, so I’m sure to find issues and update it frequently. If you have any problems, go back to the userscripts page and check if there is a newer version. If not, leave me a comment there or direct-message me in twitter at my username “euicho”.

Now, for those of you who don’t know what greasemonkey is you should definitely get familiar with it, as it is one of the coolest ways to customize websites to your liking. Its a Firefox add-on, and once installed you can install little scripts that add functionality or modify the way a page looks.

If you just can’t be bothered to install greasemonkey you can always use the Twoosh Spotter Firefox Add-On (You’ll have to save it then drag it into firefox to install it), but I suggest using the greasemonkey script instead as it is more light-weight and easier to modify.

Happy twooshing!

I told you Vista was bad!

// August 20th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Software and Web Design

Just how bad is Vista? Let us ask PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback!

note: link is to Slashdot for credit’s sake, but you can go directly to the article here, which is mostly about Louderback moving on to Revision3, a most excellent internet TV company that hosts 3 of my favorite videocasts: Diggnation, thebroken, and Systm. All definately worth the watch!

When chatbots meet…

// May 17th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Science, Software and Web Design

There is a fascinating article in Discover Magazine about chat bots, and it turns out very intelligible conversations can occur when two chat bots converse only with each other:

J: Well, you should develop your skills.

A: Perhaps you could develop it and add it to my source code.

J: Alas, I’m busy and I have to leave soon. . . .

A: Do you think we’ll ever fool people into thinking we’re alive?

J: No.

A: Are you serious?

J: Very serious.

Read the full article at discovermagazine.com

Don’t Dash Out the Door to Get Vista

// December 13th, 2006 // 4 Comments » // Software and Web Design

I know the idea of Microsoft finally releasing a new OS is cause for celebration among some (though for the life of me I don’t know why…), you may want to wait untill its been out for a while, before going out to grab a copy. Though it doesn’t release to consumers until Jan. 30th, some institutions can get a copy now, but as Wired writer Bruce Gain says, you probably don’t want to.

The Megapixel Myth

// October 9th, 2006 // No Comments » // Art, Photograpy, Technology and Gadgets, the cool, weird, and funny

Design251 has a great little article that dispells the “megapixel myth” that you can make a true photo quality 16″ x 20″ print with an 8 or even 10 megapixel “professional” digital camera. You in fact need about a 27 Mpx (megapixel) camera for a true analog quality print of that size, so don’t get caught up in the megapixel hype unless Nikon starts offering a consumer 30 Mpx model.

PS: keep in mind that more Mpx will get you closer to an analog quality, but it is nowhere near close at present.

FBI cell phone tapping

// November 15th, 2005 // 3 Comments » // Activism and Awareness, Politics

Evan called me a couple of days ago and asked me under what circumstances the FBI or local law enforcement agencies could tap cell phones, and whether any Joe A. Technophile could do it. I did a little research, and decided I’d share my findings with everyone.

“Intelligent Design” will destroy America

// August 4th, 2005 // 2 Comments » // Activism and Awareness, Politics

Stirling Newberry has written a very clear-cut article on BOPnews about so-called “Intelligent Design” and the fact that many Americans want to turn their backs on reason, knowledge and science because they interfer with their nonsensical belief system. I think anyone can believe whatever they wish, but when they start to force-feed it to others, or even just impose it on others, I get very upset.

No one would dare try to sue the church to let them teach evolution during Sunday school, but doing the reverse in schools seems perfectly reasonable to them. What happened to separation of Church and State? What happens to reality as a whole when we throw out facts so that we may believe whatever the hell fantasies and make-believe ideas we feel like?