Windows Volume Gestures

Windows Volume Gestures

When you’re driving down the freeway and your favorite song comes on the radio, I bet you can reach out and adjust the volume knob without ever taking your eyes off the road: your muscle memory kicks in, and you instinctively know where to reach without even looking. This is a practical demonstration of Fitts’ Law.

PSA: Microsoft asks you to set your Xbox Series to Energy Saver Mode

PSA: Microsoft asks you to set your Xbox Series to Energy Saver Mode

At launch, the Xbox Series S/X systems were very inefficient power-wise, drawing nearly 30 watts of juice in standby mode, 24 hours a day. With 12 million consoles sold and counting, this was projected to require 4 billion kWh of electricity within just a few years. This is as much as a year’s output from a large power plant, releasing more than 3 million tons of CO2 into our air just to power consoles that weren’t even being used. Things have improved, but it needs you to flip the switch.

Disabling Browser Throttling

Disabling Browser Throttling

Not long ago, a new feature made its way to Chromium (including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge) that aimed to reduce CPU utilization and boost battery longevity. But this occlusion calculation and throttling feature can also cause problems for situations that don’t work when your browser puts a webpage or tab to sleep – such as using your web browser as your phone system.

UX Matters: Windows Mail

UX Matters: Windows Mail

I need to give some tough criticism here. The Mail app in Windows 10 is so unreliable that it really diminishes the perception of reliability for the entire operating system. I have for so long wished that I could write a blog post about the virtues of using it for all the great shell integration, but I can’t.