We were a small team and I had many conversations with another developer tasked with building a payroll using the API I would provide. Some methods here, classes there, the odd helper function and I had an API and then we had a mini payroll running.

Then he showed me the code he had written and that smug grin dropped off my face. It was awful.

Perhaps this other developer wasn’t as great as I’d thought? Looking at the code though made me realise he had done the best anyone could with a terrible API. I’d exposed parts of this core payroll engine with hooks when it needed a decision. Its job was to run the payroll – a very complex task that involved storage, translation, time periods, users and companies. That complexity and context had leaked out.

Unfortunately it’s not a unique story – many API’s are terrible to use. They’re concerned with their own terminology, limitations and quirks because they are exposed sections of an underlying system developed by those responsible for the underlying system.

If you want others to have a good experience with your product you have to put yourself in their shoes. Whether it’s a UI or an API makes no difference.

You are not the user

That’s the real difference between writing the classes that form your regular implementation and those that make up your public API.

We had time to fix our payroll API. Instead of refining and polishing here and there we took the 20 or so snippets developed for the mini payroll and pruned, cleaned and polished until they looked beautiful. They scanned well and made sense to payroll developers unfamiliar with our package. When a third developer familiar with payrolls but unfamiliar with out package developed the necessary code for a fully-functional jurisdiction in record time with minimal assistance we knew we had hit our goal.

Sure implementing that new API was hard work. Instead of simple methods sticking out of the engine we had a facade over our engine but it was justified. They were two different systems for two different types of user with distinct ideas about what the system was and how it was going to be used.

Code First

Many years later I found myself on a small team of 3 people tasked with putting a brand new API on top of Entity Framework for configuring models with code the .NET world would come to know as Code First. I was determined to use my experience and avoid another complex API surface littered with terminology and leaky abstractions. Parts of EF already suffered from that problem.

So for the first few weeks of that project we didn’t write any of the code that would in fact become Code First.

Instead we decided who our user was – in this case a C# developer who likes writing code, knows LINQ and some database concepts but doesn’t know Entity Framework as people who did were already using Model First or Database First.

Then we wrote tiny sample apps and tried to find simpler and simpler ways to describe them in code. We’d often start on a whiteboard with a scenario and write the complete mapping. We’d then try and find conventions that would remove the need for most of it and then try to write succinct code to configure the rest. As the newest guy to the team I’d fight to keep EF terms away from the main API surface in order to reduce that barrier to entry and help drive adoption.

Finally we’d hit the computer and develop stub classes and methods to make samples compile and let us try the IntelliSense. This isn’t always necessary but if you want to develop a fluent API or provide lots of type-safety such as Code First’s relationship mapping it’s highly recommended.

We’d then revisit the samples later and see if they could be read as easily as they were written and figure out what problems people were likely to run into and whether we could solve them without too much noise. Sometimes this meant having more than one way to do things such as chaining the fluent methods or allowing a bunch of properties to be set (solved with an extension method class providing the fluent API) and how users could manage larger models (solved by subclassing EntityConfiguration<T> – now EntityTypeConfiguration<T> sigh – and allowing redundant specification for things like relationships that span more than one class).

We finally ended up with succinct code like this with IntelliSense guiding you along the way and preventing you from even being able to specify invalid combinations. The HasMany prompts the properties on Customer and it won’t show you WithRequired unless it is valid. In the case of Required to Required it will ensure that the WithRequired specified which end is principle and dependent. In short it guides you through the process and results in highly readable code.

Entity<Customer>().HasMany(c => c.Orders).WithRequired(o => o.Customer).WillCascadeOnDelete();

This process took a little longer but given the amount of use the API will get that time will be saved by users countless times over.

Code First went down incredibly well with both the target audience and existing EF users and inspired the simpler DbContext interface that became the recommended way of accessing EF.

I think it’s one of the nicest API’s to come out of Microsoft and .NET.

[)amien

PS. Martin Fowler has some great guidance in his book Domain Specific Languages.

Contact & calendar management

Contact and calendar management is truly awesome as I wrote about previously. With the latest mango release Twitter and LinkedIn get brought into this unified system and messages that start with a text message can switch in and out of Facebook and Live Messenger as available.

What has this meant? Over the last year I’ve barely had to maintain contacts. Whenever I need to get hold of someone the information is there. If I want to see what they’re doing, it’s there. You can pin people to your start menu so having it automatically pick up a photo from a service is another bonus.

My Windows Phone is better for this than any other system I’ve used including my desktops.

Gorgeous user interface

The metro user interface is beautiful to use. It’s clear, fluid and fast and makes using the phone a breeze. You can see why Microsoft are adopting a similar user interface for their upcoming Xbox dashboard and seeing how far they can push the concept in Windows 8.

Such a bright fast user interface works best on the AMOLED displays such as that on the Focus – the LCD refresh rates on the HD7 for example seem to struggle with scrolling resulting in a shimmering on the screen.

Tasty Mango

• Maps now includes both turn-by-turn directions (although you have to tap the screen after each one) and a useful Scout function that shows you nearby places to eat and visit.
• Multitasking is a breeze, just double-tap the back button and visually pick the image showing the app you want to switch to. Not all apps support this yet but it’s getting better.
• Voice has been underplayed – it’s like a mini Siri that can do a few things by voice activation such as calling people, finding places with Bing, opening applications and sending text messages. Just hold the Windows key to activate and speak :)
• Power saver is a life-saver and something that Apple should be copying given recent iOS battery issues. It turns off wireless, email checking etc. either when you know battery is going or automatically when low and gets you through the tough spots.
• Background music means not only can you play music in background with the built-in Zune stuff but even third party apps like Spotify can too! The controls and track names will appear on the lock screen and slide in anywhere you adjust the volume.

Hardware choice

I currently own a Samsung Focus on AT&T and regularly get to use both a HTC HD7 on T-Mobile and a HTC 7 Trophy on Verizon for testing.

Having a choice of hardware is great – you can pick the screen size (from 3.5″ to 4.7″), type, speed (1GHz to 1.5GHz) and specifications including slide-out keyboards, microSD expansion slots, a waterproof model and up to a 13.2 megapixel camera.

The negative side of having choice is that all the devices I’ve used have a combination of matt and shiny plastics none of which have the same quality feeling as the iPhone 4′s aluminum and glass. The LCD displays and the Super AMOLED with it’s PenTile display also don’t look as gorgeous as the iPhone retina display and has a sort of dithered effect with some solid colors when viewed closely.

Here’s hoping the Nokia Lumia 800 raises the bar.

Most favorite apps available

The thing that really made the iPhone were apps. The good news is the best ones are also on Windows Phone 7 too often making better use of the display through the metro style they adopt.

There are of course many extra great applications and games available in the marketplace and games usually count towards your Xbox LIVE gamerscore :)

Some notable omissions still exist including Pandora (can play on the site though) and Skype (only a matter of time given Microsoft’s acquisition).

Some cool extras

Hidden features

• Calendar can skip between months and years in month mode – just tap the month for a selector
• Calculator can turn into a scientific one when rotated left and a programmer one when rotated right

You can also check and tweak all sorts of settings via the diagnostic options.

Microsoft’s extra free apps

Microsoft put together a bunch of slick small free apps that perfectly complement the metro style look and feel. They include:

• World Clock – Lets you setup a number of clocks around the world. Useful if you often converse with people in other time zones.
• Tranlsator – Text translation tool that also pronounces translations between English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
• Weather – Simple and convenient weather application that supports multiple locations.
• Unit Converter – Translate between various lengths, areas, volume, capacity etc.
• Stocks – Keep track of your stocks and the indexes.
• Shopping List – Simple shopping list management.

The niggley bits

While most of the WP7 experience is great there are some rough edges that even Mango hasn’t yet sorted out.

Overly sensitive buttons

It’s actually great having a back button and prevents wasting screen on a back button like iOS does. The problem however is that both the back and search buttons are overly sensitive. It’s difficult to hold the phone in one hand and use it without your thumb hitting the pesky back button. It’s unfortunately something even the Xbox 360 slim picked up with the eject mechanism which is suitably annoying when putting away a controller.

Microsoft should add code to limit button presses to a distinct no-touch, touch for 0.4s, no-touch process.

Volume control

For some reason the phone has only one volume control that is shared by both applications and the ring-tone so if you’re the sort of person who like your phone low and your music loud you’re going to be constantly shifting back-and-forth and in my case that results in either embarrassing rings when it should be silent and silent rings when it should be working.

The volume control needs to be context sensitive. When in an app or the background music player is active adjust the audio volume otherwise adjust ringer volume.

Equalizer settings

There’s no sound equalizer settings so if you don’t like the sound coming from your speakers or headphones you’re stuck with it.

Build in a system-wide equalizer that at least affects the background music player.

[)amien

Here’s a few ideas I hope will prove my point.

Play games

The Rather Difficult Font Game
This game shows you some text in a certain font then asks you to name the font from one of them in the list. It isn’t as difficult as the name sounds!

Deep Font Challenge
Head down to the shooting gallery to blow away the letters from the typeface he wants or doesn’t want.

Cheese or Font
Hmm, it’s odd how cheeses and typefaces often have similar names. See if you can tell the difference.

Kern Type
Many fonts contain extra information telling the computer how to adjust the spacing between individual pairs of letters. If you think of an AV for example the top of the V might start before the A ends or be very close. This game lets you move the letters around until you think you have optimal spacing then you can see how well you did.

Shape Type
The ultimate font game! See if you can reshape disported letters back to their original forms by adjusting the lines and bezier curves. The computer will score your efforts by comparing to the original.

Find a font

FontShop newsletter
This newsletter is both infrequent and interesting so it gets to come directly to my inbox. It contains interesting new fonts, news and designer spotlights and is a great way of discovering new typefaces to use.

IdentiFont
Asks you a series of specific questions about letters in the font on a continual process to narrow it down to the hopefully right one.

WhatTheFont
This tool is a little more automated, upload the picture and it should identify the letters although you may need to fine-tune the recognition (also available as an iPhone app)

So you need a typeface infographic
This flowchart takes you through a bunch of decisions to choose a typeface. Don’t expect to find anything too original though!

Smarten your site

If you have a web site you might want to look at using a custom font to help stand-out from the crowd now that they are compatible across many browsers. Yes, I should do this for damieng.com :)

Font Squirrel
Font squirrel have a great site full of many free fonts and have prepared the necessary font and CSS files required for the subset available for use on web sites.

Google web fonts
Google have almost 300 fonts available in their free web font directory right now and with just a couple of clicks can provide the necessary HTML, CSS import or Javascript necessary to use them in your pages. The fonts are served up from their servers too so you don’t need to worry about files or bandwidth.

Fonts Live
Monotype’s hosted service is similar to Google’s but contains just their own commercial fonts including well-known ones such as Museo, Gill Sans, Bodoni, Rockwell and many of Microsoft’s typefaces. Prices start at about $40 a year for small sites (250k visits a month) but they have 30-day free trials.

MyFonts WebFonts
MyFonts have a huge collection of fonts – some 40,000+ – most of which are available to use on the web for the same price as buying the font. This makes it cheaper than FontsLive but you need to host the files and CSS on your own server.

Offline fun

Playing cards
These Helvetica based playing cards are very stylish, bold and modern. If you’re going to play cards why not do so with something a little different.

Typographical calendar
Get a daily dose of typography in this compact little desk calendar. The designer’s equivalent of a word-a-day.

Helvetica The Movie
Not just a movie about the design of this iconic font but also the modern movement it was part of. If you like this keep an eye out for Linotype: The Movie due in Feb 2012.

Typography t-shirts
Zazzle has a lot of typography t-shirts as does TypographyShop and Ugmonk.

Create your own

If any of that has been enough to pique your interest why not have a go at designing your own font?

FontStruct lets you start simply by building your own from a library of pre-build shapes you place on a grid. It’s like LEGO for typography and is very easy go get started.

If you have an iPad then you can also try out iFontMaker for an easy way to make hand-drawn fonts (it lacks fine editing facilities). I actually used a Pogo Sketch for my Damien Typewriter  but it is too soft so you could try other styluses. Once you’re done it publishes to their web gallery where you can download the TrueType font and a Web Font too.

If you enjoy that but crave more control then try the free FontForge editor which runs on many platforms and lets you create real fonts or hack apart other peoples (remember to not redistribute changes to other peoples fonts unless the licence allows it).

If you get stuck on some letters then try my favourite Designing Type book that devotes a page or two to each common character and shows how a number of well-known typefaces express it.

[)amien

Typographica opened today with a critique of the Roboto font which boils down to this:

The similarity to Helvetica is obvious but that similarity can be drawn with many modern typefaces – the other comparisons are tenuous indeed:

• FF DIN has little resemblance other than having straight edges on rounded letters. Lots of faces do that. Envy Code R does extensively :)
• Myriad is more open in it’s whitespace, ends t with a slant and features a different approach to shoulders on mnpqr
• Ronnia only shares the single horizontal stem which is also present in many monospace bitmap fonts

Yes, some of these differences are subtle when you put them side by side but subtleties are what give the typeface its character.

There are only so many ways to draw letters with consistency and readability especially if you want a modern sans look. That’s exactly why copyright refuses to cover letterforms in the USA.

So coming to the font itself at first glance, yes, on my laptop it doesn’t look as pretty as Helvetica when blown up for comparison but here’s something you should consider.

Typefaces are designed for a specific environment

Consider the following typefaces:

• Bell Gothic has big counters and deep ink-traps so that high-speed printing on cheap paper retains the form
• ClearView Highway is designed to be quickly readable with headlight glare
• Cambria has many little flourishes that only look good with sub-pixel positioning

Use a typeface outside its intended environment and you’ll easily believe it’s a bad design, ugly or unrefined as those very characteristics that made it great for that environments completely fail to fit new surroundings.

Even the famous Helvetica has an environment of whitespace, bold colours and clean-lines where it shines. That makes it a top choice for corporate logos.

Roboto is the work of independent type designer Christian Robertson and until I see it on a Droid device I’ll cut him and Google some slack – from the screenshots I’ve seen online it looks like a good fit.

You have to at least respect Google for continuing to improve typography by commission fonts. Microsoft are the only other major UI player doing this as Apple’s sole contribution to typefaces in the last 10 years has been a hack-job on the open-source Deja-Vu Mono to rename it Menlo, move some bars around and to trash the hinting in the process so they have something to replace the ageing Monaco with.

If you want to download the font yourself here is a complete set of the files taken from the SDK (unlike the other zip floating around this one has all variants + the licence).

Download Roboto Font Family (ZIP of TTF) (399 KB)

[)amien

Looking across our site as the various lists of products we display today the significant views are:

• Browse games by department
• Search results
• Promotions (e.g. Deal of the week)
• Game detail (shows downloads available beneath it)
• Avatar item browse

These views also have sorting options and a set of filters available for things like product type, game genre, content rating etc.

So we had a couple of options:

1. Write controller actions that expose the results of specific queries as RSS
2. Introduce a mechanism whereby any of our product result pages can render as RSS including any user-defined filtering

Our web marketplace is written in ASP.NET MVC (like most of xbox.com) so while option 1 sounds simpler MVC really helps us make option 2 more attractive by way of a useful feature called ActionFilters that let us jump in and reshape the way existing actions behave.

ActionFilters

ActionFilters can be applied to either to an individual action method on a controller or to the controller class itself which applies it to all the actions on that controller. They provide hooks into the processing pipeline where you can jump in and perform additional processing.

The most interesting events are:

• OnActionExecuting
• OnActionExecuted
• OnResultExecuting
• OnResultExecuted

Writing our ActionFilter

The first thing we want to do is identify that a request wants the RSS version. One way is to read the accepts header and switch when it requests mime/type but this can be a little trickier to test,  another is to append a query parameter on the url which is very easy to test.

Once we’ve identified the incoming request should be for RSS we need to identify the data we want to turn into RSS and repurpose it.

All the views we identified at the start of this post share a common rendering mechanism and each view model subclasses from one of our base models. For simplicity though we’ll imagine an interface that just exposes an IEnumerable<Product> property.

public class RssEnabledAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext) {
        var viewModel = filterContext.Controller.ViewData.Model as IProductResultViewModel;
        if (viewModel == null)
            return;

        var rssFeedTitle = FeedHelper.MakeTitle(viewModel.Results);
        filterContext.Controller.ViewData.Add("RssFeedTitle", rssFeedTitle);

        var format = filterContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.QueryString["format"];
        if (format == "rss" && rssFeedTitle != null) {
            var urlHelper = new UrlHelper(filterContext.RequestContext);
            var url = QueryStringUtility.RemoveQueryStringParameter(filterContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.Url.ToString(), "format");
            var feedItems = FeedHelper.GetSyndicationItems(viewModel.Results, urlHelper);
            filterContext.Result = FeedHelper.CreateProductFeed(rssFeedTitle, viewModel.Description, new Uri(url), feedItems);
        }

        base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
    }
}

This class relies on our FeedHelper class to achieve three things it needs:

1. MakeTitle takes the request details – i.e. which page, type of products, filtering and sorting is selected and makes a title by re-using our breadcrumbs
2. GetSyndicationItems takes the IEnumerable<Product> and turns it into IEnumerable<SyndicationItem> by way of a foreach projecting Product into SyndicationItem with some basic HTML formatting, combining the product image and setting the correct category (with a yield thrown in for good measure)
3. CreateProductFeed then creates a Syndication feed with the appropriate Copyright and Language set and chooses the formatter – in our case RSS 2.0 but could easily be Atom 1.0, e.g.

public static SyndicationFeedResult CreateProductFeed(string title, string description, Uri link, IEnumerable<SyndicationItem> syndicationItems)
{
    var feed = new SyndicationFeed(title, description, link, syndicationItems) {
        Copyright = new TextSyndicationContent(String.Format(Resources.FeedCopyrightFormat, DateTime.Now.Year)),
        Language = CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.Name
    };

    return new FeedResult(new Rss20FeedFormatter(feed, false));
}

The FeedResult class is a simple one that takes the built-in .NET SyndicationFeed class and wires it up to MVC by implementing an ActionResult that writes the XML of the SyndicationFeedFormatter into the response as well as setting the application/rss+xml content type and encoding.

Advertising the feed in the head

Now that we have the ability to serve up RSS we need to let browsers know it exists.

The ActionFilter we wrote above needs to know the title of the RSS feed regardless of whether it is rendering the RSS (which needs a title) or rendering the page (which will need to advertise the RSS title) so it always calculates it and then puts it into the ViewData dictionary with the key RssFeedTitle.

Now finally our site’s master page can check for the existence of that key/value pair and advertise it out with a simple link tag:

var rssFeedTitle = ViewData["RssFeedTitle"] as string;
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(rssFeedTitle)) { %>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="<%:rssFeedTitle%>" href="<%:Url.ForThisAsRssFeed%>" />
<% }

This code requires just one more thing – a very small UrlHelper which will append “format=rss” to the query string (taking into account whether there existing query parameters or not).

The result of this is we can now just add [RssEnabled] in front of any controller or action to turn on RSS feeds for that portion of our marketplace! :)

[)amien

IBM CGA Adapter (1981)

The IBM PC’s first color graphics card was known as the Color Graphics Adapter.

Unusual characteristics

• Mix of serifs and non-serifs depending on space
• Off centre ‘|+:’
• Squished ‘Q’ to avoid using descender
• Wide ’0′
• Inconsistent ‘t’ point and lack of serif on ‘j’

Rationale

The large bold letters work well on the low-resolution displays at the time and many of the quirky were unlikely particularly noticeable there.

Influences

Unknown.

Apple Macintosh (1984)

Apple’s second attempt at a GUI (after the Lisa) was the Macintosh. The system font was called Chicago initially as a bitmap font which was replaced with a scalable TrueType version. With Mac OS 8 it was replaced with the similar Charcoal typeface and then dropped entirely in Mac OS X which uses Lucida Grande for the UI.

This font was dusted off again in 2001 and with a few minor tweaks became the system font of the iPod (classic & mini) until the higher resolution color display model.

Unusual characteristics

• Proportional letters not fixed-width
• Some symbols are not bold at all ‘#%”/\*@^`’
• Lovely flourish on ‘&’
• Curve on ‘a’ actually touches the lower bowl
• Designed specifically to avoid diagonal strokes (jaggies) on the Mac’s low-res screen

Rationale

The high-resolution display let the designers really pay attention to detail and even though it was only monospaced it really looks beautiful for the time. It was little wonder that when Jobs went to NeXT they went with incredibly high-resolution mono displays again (at least initially).

Influences

It’s unlikely they were digital.

Commodore Amiga 1.x (1985)

The Amiga started with ex-Atari engineers desperate to design a 16-bit machine that was eventually purchased by Commodore. It offered incredible graphics and sound for the time that put Mac’s and PC’s to shame. Despite shipping with many fonts and supporting proportional text the default system font was the fixed-width Topaz/8.

Unusual characteristics

• As well as some letters touching some symbols such as ‘\/’ touched horizontally allowing nice ASCII art
• Unusual lower-case ‘g’ somewhere between double and single story
• Unusual almost comic-like ‘!’
• Some non-bold pixels for flourishes on ‘t&’
• Pixels missing on some curves ‘aS’ especially obvious in low resolution
• Over-extended ‘r’ looks odd in any resolution
• Alternate Topaz/9e – 10×9 (2 for descenders) – modified some glyphs like ‘g’ and available from Preferences as Text 60

Rationale

The Workbench booted in white-on-blue (shown) and was intended for use either with their own Commodore monitors or home TVs. Despite the choice of a serif font it worked quite well on these displays although interlace was quite unusable without specialized displays.

Influences

Very similar to the IBM CGA system font, very likely to be derived from there.

Technical

The Amiga shipped with it’s own font editor called ‘Fed’ found on the Workbench Extras disk in the Tools folder.

Commodore Amiga 2.x (1991)

Commodore’s update to the Amiga saw all sorts of changes in the ROM and Workbench for the GUI including some revisions to the font and the ability to change what font the workbench used.

Unusual characteristics

• Over-extended top of ’1′
• Open elements on ‘%@’
• Messy ‘Q’ is hard to distinguish
• Alternate Topaz/9e – 10×9 (2 for descenders) – modified some glyphs like ‘g’ and available from Preferences as Text 60

Rationale

The Workbench booted in black-on-grey (shown) and the new font looked a lot more friendly as well as being a more legible choice for home TVs.

Influences

Obvious modification of the prior 1.x font to remove serifs and improve legibility.

Technical

WBScreen allowed you to choose which font to display in Workbench including some of the proportional fonts included.

Atari ST Low/Medium Res (1985)

The Atari ST was Atari’s answer to the Commodore Amiga after they failed to purchase back the talent and technology. The machine’s GUI was based on GEM from Digital Research.

Unusual characteristics

• Descenders are cut very short on ‘pq’ despite ‘gy’ not following this style
• Inconsistent positioning between ‘,’ and ‘;’
• Ugly braces ‘()’ from the 8-bit font retained

Rationale

The font was very clear and worked well in both square pixel (low resolution) and rectangular pixel (medium resolution) modes.

Influences

Almost identical to the Atari 8-bit font but with the capital letters, symbols and numbers extended a pixel higher (inverse symmetry was no longer a concern) and more consistent/cleaner lower-case letters ‘sj’.

Technical

It is possible to change the system fonts used by the GEM desktop using the ST Font Loader.

Atari ST High Res (1985)

Unusual characteristics

• Very tall letters – some glyphs 14 pixels high but still only 6-7 pixels wide
• Avoids every trace of a serif except usual ‘Iil’ monospace hack
• Short descenders on ‘pq’ still
• Inconsistent choices for ‘c’ and ‘R’ and ‘w’

Rationale

Given that this screen mode was only available on high-resolution monitors it is very rectangular and failed to really take advantage of the unique situation in which it would be used.

Influences

Very likely based on the medium resolution font with some redrawing.

IBM PC VGA (1985)

Unusual characteristics

• Very tall letters – some glyphs 14 pixels high but still only 6-7 pixels wide
• Top bar of ‘T’ is two pixels thick
• Too-high double quotes ‘”‘ also styled inconsistently
• Another bubbly ‘!’ like the Amiga’s Topaz 1
• Inconsistent sizing between ‘,’ and ‘;’
• Very large ‘$’ even bigger than the capital ‘S’

Rationale

A reasonably nice serif font that gave a serious look if somewhat inconsistent in places.

Influences

Very likely based on the medium resolution font with some redrawing.

Technical

Can be overridden by tools like fontedit.com.

[)amien

It’s quite easy to find bitmap copies of these fonts and also scalable traced TTF versions but there’s very little discussion about the fonts themselves. Let’s remedy that by firing up some emulators and investigating the glyphs.

Commodore PET (1977)

Commodore’s first business machine was the PET which came with a built-in monitor and a full character set unlike other machines at the time.

Unusual characteristics

• Primarily sans-serif but serifs present on ‘BDJa’
• Slightly stylized ‘£’

Rationale

The font is good choice for the original PET and it’s original monitor. It was unfortunately also used on the Vic-20 despite having half the screen resolution where it made a poor choice.

Influences

While not visibly influenced from anything else an almost direct rip of this font appears to have been used in the Apple Lisa debugger.

Technical

Unknown.

Apple ][ (1977)

Apple's first professionally built computer was the Apple ][ which from rev 7 onwards added lower-case letters.

Unusual characteristics

• Uppercase letters can touch descenders on the line above as the full height is used
• Only first 7 columns per glyph otherwise would have been 35×24 text
• Vertical stems for '[]{}’ are 2 pixels wide (bold)
• Very small slashes ‘/\’
• Upper-case is consistent although ‘A’ is very angular, ‘G’ unpronounced
• Lower-case less consistent – ‘gf’ has soft curves, ‘mw’ square, ‘nhr’ ignore curve of ‘u’
• Numbers – unusual ’3′ but ’96′ over-extend

Rationale

The font is well suited to the default high-contrast white-on-black (often green-on-black) given the machine was intended for use on their own monitors.

Influences

The upper-case, numbers and symbols were copied from the Signetics 64 × 8 × 5 character generator 2513 chip used in the Apple I and II in revision 0 to 6.

The later Texas Instruments TMS9918 Video Controller Chip used on Sega, Nintendo, Colecovision and TI/99 machines re-used this font with only a couple of pixels changed.

Technical

Changing the font requires replacing the 2 KB 2716 pinout ROM with your own EPROM or alternate ROM.

Atari 400/800 (1979)

Atari’s entry into the home computing market put out some very capable machines with all sorts of hardware tricks (the creative geniuses behind it would go on to form Amiga). The same font was used on all Atari 8-bit models from the original 400/800 to the XL and XE models in the late 80′s.

Unusual characteristics

• 6 pixels uppercase causes some vertical imbalance especially on ’9′
• Braces are overly bold being 3 pixels wide.
• Less than and greater than symbols are too tall.
• ‘MWw’ make great use of width to nice effect
• Bar on ‘G’ too low, ‘U’ overtly square, ‘X’ very blocky, ‘S’ does not extend enough

Rationale

The machine boots in a low-contrast blue-on-blue and is designed for use with TV’s which explains some of the odd characteristics above like the square U to distinguish it from the V. It is likely the 6-pixel choice is to allow the letters to be centered when using inverse letter mode.

Influences

Unknown.

Technical

One byte per row, 8 sequential bytes making one glyph. You can reprogram this by poking address 756 with the page number of the new font (default of 226 for ROM location 0xE000).

POKE 756, 226

Acorn BBC Micro (1981)

The Beeb, as it was affectionately known, has its own font which could display in three different modes – one wider and one narrower but many users might not recognize it all as it booted into ‘Mode 7′ utilizing a Videotex chip (used in the UK for text-on-TV and travel agents as well as in France for Minitel) that had a different font of its own.

Unusual characteristics

• Drops bold in tight spaces e.g ‘$&@’
• Outlines the tail on the ‘Q’ to make it much clearer
• Unique and beautiful ‘*’
• Does not extend low bar on ‘e’ as much as expected and ‘f’ seems to wide
• Vertically squished ‘?’
• Style of single-quote ‘ is inconsistent with comma

Rationale

The machine generally shipped with good quality monitors and the combination of high-contrast colors and this bold font made it very readable indeed.

Influences

It’s quite likely it was influenced by the Atari 8-bit font but with larger capitals and ascenders and a much more consistent look.

Technical

The system font is stored at 0xC00-0xC2FF with each character being represented by 8 sequential bytes (left pixel is high bit).
You can replace the font used by system text routine OSWRCH (0xFFEE) using the VDU command 23 followed by the ascii code and then 8 rows of data, e.g.

VDU 23,65,11,22,33,44,55,66,77,88

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1982)

Sinclair’s successor to the ZX81 added color and lower-case letters – again preserving the upper-case and numbers from it’s predecessor but finally mapping them to ASCII. This font was re-used on Jupiter Ace and Timex machines but the ZX Spectrum was the most popular.

Unusual characteristics

• 6 pixels uppercase leaves many unevenly balanced ‘BEFS’ and ‘X’ with ugly 2×2 center
• Full stop is 2×2 pixels (bold) but colon, semi-colon and comma are not
• Capital ‘MW’ are very slight with latter hard to distinguish from ‘V’
• Uneven styling ‘c’ omits curves, ‘e’ is soft ‘g’ is not, ‘f’ and ‘k’ are thin
• Only the copyright symbol uses to the top row of pixels

Rationale

While the machine has a default high-contrast scheme the video output was poor because of the quality of the RF modulator and home TVs it was connected to. It looks like the designer decided to increase spacing between letters after the ZX80 from one to two pixels which greatly limited what could be done with the letters themselves. This was likely done for the same reasons it was done on the Atari 8-bit – namely to allow the letters to be centered when using inverse text modes.

Influences

Sinclair ZX81 (no lower case), ZX80 (7 pixels wide).

Technical

The system font is stored at 0x3D00-0x3FFF with each character being represented by 8 sequential bytes (left pixel is high bit). You can replace the system text routine (RST 10) by poking the new fonts memory address into the system memory map at 23606/23607 minus 256 bytes (the first 32 characters are non-printable, 32×8 = 256)

LOAD "newfont" CODE 49152, 768: POKE 23606, 0: POKE 23607, 191

Commodore 64 (1982)

Commodore took to take their success with the PET and applied it to the home first with the VIC 20 and then later with the wildly successful Commodore 64.

Unusual characteristics

• Inconsistent shapes/style across ’147,&<>@Q’
• 2×2 pixel of ‘.’ is not carried through to ‘;:!’
• Ascenders not as tall as capital letters

Rationale

The bold font was essential for the low-quality TV’s Commodore were aiming at. The inconsistencies across the font may have been intentional to help make the letters look different (A vs 4, 1 vs I, 7 vs T) given the limitations of the displays or just poorly implemented (see below).

Influences

Lower-case is identical to the Atari 8-bit font and likely copied wholesale as they do not match the upper-case well. Symbols, numbers and upper-case are a bolded version of the PET font that looses the serifs and also could explain the odd reproductions of 1, 2, 7 & 4.

Technical

See comment from Paolo below for details!

Amstrad CPC (1984)

Alan Sugar’s foray into the UK market came a little later than the other 8-bits in 1984 with the Amstrad CPC series.

Unusual characteristics

• Full use of 7 pixels for upper and 1 pixel for lower means glyphs can touch
• Serif choice is unusual and not consistently applied because of space constraints
• ’0′ is wider than would be expected (copied from
• Very distinctive curves on ‘CGOQ’
• ‘X’ looks like a different style because of high mid-point

Rationale

Sugar wanted the machine to look more professional than other home computers at the time. The choice of a serif based font to look like PCs which also featured serifs (at a higher resolution) reflects that desire.

Influences

Very similar to the IBM CGA font with some adjustments (fixes) to the horizontal positioning of some symbols. Many characters completely identical and some bearing style similarities too (wider 0, X choosing one side to be longer than the other). Some other characters bear similarity to the BBC Micro (Q uses the same trick to keep it distinguished) and a number of symbols and lower-case letters being the same where serifs would not fit.

The Amstrad CPC manual shows the system font but is different in some areas. It is possible it is a transcription problem (z is shifted up one pixel, missing pixels on ’37PRz~’ and extra pixels on ‘#b’ ) although it could have been an earlier version from the designer as ‘rG?’ are subtly different.

Technical

Redefine using the Amstrad BASIC command SYMBOL that takes an ascii code and then 8 comma-separated values one-per-row in much the same way as the BBC with the VDU 23 command. SYMBOL AFTER must be set first e.g.

SYMBOL AFTER 32
SYMBOL 65,11,22,33,44,55,66,77,88

MSX (1983)

The MSX differs from the other machines here in that it was a standard rather than a specific machine. It was very popular in Japan and did hit UK shores although I only knew a single person that had one apart from our school which had acquired several Yamaha models to control MIDI keyboards. Given the multiple manufacturers it’s not surprising that some models had slightly tweaked fonts but the one shown here seems to be the most popular.

Unusual characteristics

• Full use of 7 pixels for upper and 1 pixel for lower means glyphs can touch
• Only 5 pixels wide for the letters
• Pixels touching on the curves of ‘db’ etc. look quite ugly
• Very angular curves on ’5′

Rationale

An unusual choice that feels very quirky.

Influences

Most likely influenced by the Apple ][e.

Technical

Unknown.

Mac users should try Cathode – a retro terminal emulator I helped add some of these fonts to.

For more system font analysis read the sequel Typography in 16-bits: System fonts.

[)amien

Customs & immigration

Be prepared for cross-referenced questions and mandatory fingerprinting to make you feel like a replicant even though you’ve done nothing wrong and your eyes don’t glow in the dark. The gatekeepers at immigration are all-powerful and take their job seriously so you should too as I found out when I had a case of the giggles.

Some countries need a Visa to visit and while the UK (and Guernsey) doesn’t coming to a job requires a work visa. Mine took a mountain of paperwork and a lot of work (for Microsoft) to get an all-important H1-B which means you have “mad skills we need”. The application is field before April 1st and there aren’t too many applications that year (there is a limit) and everything is ok you start work on October 1st for 3-years (extendable to 6).

Once approved you get an I-95 card stamped into your passport. You turn this in when you fly out of the country but if you’re driving up to Canada and coming back soon they may let you keep it. Scan it after you arrive and don’t loose it as it takes over 3 months to get a replacement and they’ll need the number as they can’t look up.

The TSA

The Transport Service Authority are the guys and gals tasked with keeping air travel safe.

Taking off shoes is compulsory because somebody hid a bomb in a shoe. Liquids are only allowed in tiny quantities because somebody planned a liquid bomb and many airports want to bombard you with x-rays or technologies to peek beneath your clothes because somebody blew up his underwear.

The Americans are pushing back against this last-threat-chasing approach and loss of dignity but Congress have no idea what it’s like as they fly private charter flights. For now you can at opt-out of the potentially dangerous x-ray and wave machines.

Airports

US airports are much like everywhere full of shops and restaurants for you to roam while you wait but most feel less crammed than Heathrow or Gatwick (with the exception of JFK).

Seattle’s main airport (SeaTac) has free WiFi which is unusual but welcome – it has that in common with Guernsey’s airport.

Rail

Trains in the US were a casualty in love affair with the car. The routes and timetables are limited with high fares high and long journey times. The lack of investment is quite apparent and a real shame as it’s hard to watch the beautiful country and road at the same time.

Esteemed entrepreneur and philanthropist Warren Buffet is pouring money into rail – whether this is an investment or a charitable donation time will tell.

Bus

Busses are regular and punctual in Seattle and some offer free WiFi. The reserved lanes let them blast past the traffic at busy times and even the rnon-Express routes can be quicker than driving at peak times.

The time-table at each stop lists not when the bus will arrive but when it starts the route from somewhere else which save printing a time-table for each stop but also renders it useless. Fire up your mobile device with an app or Google Maps although the latter throws curve balls (and not just for buses). I wondered if was a ploy to disrupt the Microsofties but a visit to San Francisco showed it just as confused in their own backyard.

Anyone hoping to catch a bus in downtown Seattle should be aware that many routes downtown are inside a large underground tunnel beneath the roads and the entrances are not clearly visible. Don’t be standing in the cold for ages before jumping in a cab.

Roads

Do people drive SUVs because of the potholes or do they cause them?

The naming and numbering system is simple and the biggest begin with I for interstate because they span more than one state. In Seattle this includes the I-5 which starts at Mexico, comes up through California and Oregon and right through Seattle before turning into the BC99 at the Canadian border and on towards Vancouver. We also have the I-405 which runs parallel to the I-5 but only from Seattle to California and the I-90 (not to be confused with the immigration form of the same name) which starts in Seattle and spans across to Boston on the east coast. Interstates are like English motorways and there is nothing like them Guernsey.

Highways are smaller and get just a number. The most popular here are the 405 that runs north-south parallel with the I-5 for a while but on the east-side and the 520 east-west between downtown Seattle and Redmond via Microsoft HQ which runs almost parallel with the I-90. Both the 520 and the I-90 cross Lake Washington which sits beautifully, if a little inconveniently, between downtown Seattle and “Eastside” where everything else exists. They are comparable with dual-carriage ways and there is nothing like them in Guernsey… well, maybe the 50 meters leading up to the town roundabout.

Traffic

The speed limit in Guernsey is 35mph so getting comfortable with 60mph can take months. I’m never sure it will feel completely natural but there’s nothing wrong with being alert and edgy on these roads.

Driving at 60mph means I want to leave the proper distance between myself and the car in front. Unfortunately that space will immediately be filled by three cars and a semi-articulated truck. There is no sweet spot where you get good stopping distance nobody will fill.

Be aware that people drive with little concern for their own safety let alone yours.

Lights

Many towns and cities are laid out on a grid and almost every intersection has traffic lights.  I wondered why so many sit on highway traffic jams when smaller roads exist and now I know it is impossible to keep momentum through the grid.

You do get to turn right at red lights after stopping and yielding though – unless a sign says otherwise.

Everyone here goes through on orange and call it ’squeezing the orange’. Don’t squeeze too hard though or it’ll be red and you’ll find a souvenir to capture the moment for prosperity arriving in the mail and a bill for $70.

License

Get a license as soon as you arrive even if you don’t intend to drive. Rental companies are confused by a Guernsey driving license, bars only accept passports and US drivers licenses and insurance takes how long you’ve had a US license into consideration. Domestic flights require government ID and carrying your passport everywhere is a liability given how hard it is to replace your passport, I-94 and visa. Trust me on that.

The test is easy. Sit down in front of a PC for traffic rules and regulations (most of which are like the UK except regarding school buses.

The DMV is efficient once you get to the front but getting there can run to hours so Go to their web site, find all the offices and keep an eye on wait times for a few days to spot a good time and location. If you can’t find one go and pick up your number, subtract 15 minutes from the wait time and then go and have lunch, meet friends, start a family and then come back and take your turn. In my case it was 2 hours better spent elsewhere.

Insurance

Is going to be expensive at first – your maximum no-claims-bonus isn’t going to help so get that license early.

With more people comes more danger and add in crazy hospital costs and litigation the policies will need high limits and people should be careful on the roads. They’re not in both cases.

Accidents

Accidents are common and we sat in traffic for over 45 minutes while somebody had a Carbeque (car on fire).

As a pedestrian I’ve been almost hit 3 times. Some factors I suspect are:

• Rear windshield (windscreen) wipers are rare – drivers never look behind
• Orange turn signals (indicators) are often absent – a flashing red brake light is much less obvious
• Automatic and cruise controls exist – concentrate on anything but driving
• SUVs, minivans and trucks obscure the visibility of all around them – and give a false sense of saftey
• Drink driving is less strict – many will happily drive after a few
• Lack of spacial awareness – also a problem in supermarkets with carts (trolleys)

Automatic vs manual

Driving on the ‘right’ side of the road isn’t difficult. The steering wheel can still opposite the curb so all is well unless you drive an import (don’t) and its easy for the entire left-side of your body to fall asleep with nothing to do.

All rentals are automatic.

If you do buy a manual (or stick as they like to call it) then choice disappears quickly, fuel economy improves and resale gets harder. We went with a Subaru Impreza for AWD winter ski trips and a hatchback for transporting stuff. You’d be shocked at how few models support manual AWD hatchbacks that aren’t an SUV here.

Don’t let this put you off, it’s a great place to live, work or just visit… but bring a raincoat.

[)amien

So how have things been going?

Physical

Compared to the iPhone 3G the Focus is much more comfortable.

The larger screen size means a wider and taller phone but with less surround it’s not unwieldy – far from it. In fact the phone sits far more comfortably in my hand than the iPhone did. This is partly because it’s a better match for the size of my hand, partly because it’s a little lighter but mostly I think because the bevel is a lot more subtle and less steep and awkward than the iPhone’s shiny-pebble inspired design.

On the flip side it does look and feel a little cheaper and less solid but a small part of that is because the back of the phone flips off like many other allowing you access to the battery, sim and memory expansion slot. The dedicated back and home buttons below the screen help keep the display clear of chrome and give the apps the space they need.

The major disappointment for me here is the screen. While it is very bright and has great contrast if, like me, you hold it rather close to your face you can see a dithering pattern caused by the unusual LED subpixel arrangement called PenTile on every colour except green. I’ve learnt to hold it a little father away as the text rendering is very nice otherwise but compared to a friends iPhone 4 the screen is a letdown.

User interface

Until you’ve used the Zune-inspired interface (part of an overall design strategy called Metro) it’s a little hard to put it into words. Static screenshots certainly don’t do it justice as it’s all about movement and flow in a way other devices aren’t.

Starting from a tiled home page that gives you a peek into your mail, messages, people and games through a gorgeous combination of animation, text and imagery that keeps the page feeling fresh and alive – a spirit that is carried through the rest of the device – not just with the built-in screens and features but also into many third-party apps (more on that soon).

In a way it feels like a window onto a bigger world behind it instead of a subset of that world crammed onto a small screen. It’s like the difference between a mobile web browser that scales in and out on a whole page versus a mobile-optimized page that lacks detail and finesse.

As many will know my wife and I are primarily based on Apple technology but even after a week with the Focus my wife announced (with a slightly sad face) that her iPhone 3GS felt old – even with iOS 4.1 on it. I have to admit the same feeling. Sure the iPhone is cure but the icon-and-list approach with the odd red circle to indicate some activity now lacks engagement.

Part of Microsoft’s advertising campaign has been the get-in-get-out approach and the home page and email works really well here. So much so that it’s broken my 3 year ritual almost instantly in that I now check my email on my phone each morning when I get up instead of using the laptop to do the same. If I can find a good Google Reader app then the laptop might not open until I get to work.

I had an initial worry when I first turned it on as there were a bunch of AT&T applications and tiles installed however it let me remove all the ones I don’t want or use (e.g. U-Verse) Score +1 for consumers over providers :)

Mac integration

I’m in a minority among friends as I actually like iTunes. It sorts, it plays, it lets me get audiobooks, podcasts and legal music quick and fast. I’ve also used it to rip a fair number of my own tracks from CD and bolstered my collection with tracks from Amazon MP3 sometimes (like their $3.99 Tron: Legacy deal). Sure I wish it allowed plug-ins for different music formats – I have a soft spot for chipmusic – but apart from that it’s been quite pain free.

iTunes however only likes to play with iPods, iPads and iPhones. Other companies have hooked their devices in unofficially in the past and Apple have been sure to quickly break it.

Thankfully Microsoft haven’t let the Mac fans out in the cold and provide the Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac.

The software does an okay job at sending music and videos from your iTunes library over to your USB connected phone although obviously DRM-protected content isn’t going to work.

What was disappointing however is even “Purchased music” from iTunes won’t actually play on the Windows Phone even though it syncs. I’m assuming this is a bug as there isn’t any DRM here (that is marked “Protected music”) and the file format is Dolby’s own AAC not Apple’s so I don’t see why it shouldn’t work.

It also won’t sync your Mac’s Address Book and Calendar’s directly however there is a way to do this quite easily indirectly – see below.

Contacts

Enter your Facebook name and password and it will fill your contacts from Facebook with each getting their own ‘what’s new’ etc. Like most people this isn’t exactly what I want but I took the opportunity to prune 100 people I never speak to – an option also exists to only supplement existing contacts on the phone with their Facebook pictures and feeds.

It also helpfully pulled in my Gmail contacts and in the cases where I have a contact card in GMail for somebody on Facebook did a good job of joining them up. Some it seems were automatic possibly based on email addresses and full names. Others had recommendation when I went to join that were always correct and in a handful of cases I just had to tell it which ones to join up manually because they had changed their name on Facebook.

In some cases I merged three cards for a single person – their semi-public Facebook profile and photo, their private telephone numbers from GMail and their semi-public Windows Live details for messenger and Xbox.

Finally I added my Outlook/Exchange account – all worked flawlessly and for each account you get to choose whether to bring in contacts and calendars and in most cases mail (but not for Facebook).

The result of all this is that my phone is now the best contact list I have on any device. It combines them beautifully in a way no other device I’ve owned has and not once in the three weeks since I set it up has it got confused, lost details or had sync problems.

Very sweet… unless of course your primary contact information is your Mac’s Address Book as any Mac-owning iPhone owners will be.

Getting Address Book contacts onto Windows Phone

Please forgive the SEO-tuned heading but I didn’t find any useful information online and want to share this simple technique with others :)

You’ll need a GMail account to make this work (it also works with Google Apps for Domains too), simply:

1. Copy any important details from your GMail contacts manually into Address Book if you need to
2. Wipe out your GMail contacts (you could always backup with Export first if you want but don’t re-import)
3. Open the Address Book application and head into Preferences
4. Choose the option to sync “On My Mac” with Google and hit configure to enter your GMail details
5. Delete the GMail profile from your Windows Phone 7 and then re-add it (otherwise it won’t sync phone numbers)

This means you’ll have your Mac contacts at your fingertip in GMail so make sure your GMail account has a secure password and follow their steps to ensure your account is well protected.

Reception & call quality

I was nervous about getting back into bed with AT&T for another two years. I need coverage at work and home as I don’t have a dedicated phone at either location and many times AT&T had left me with only a single bar to get by.

I am somewhat confused that I get 3-4 bars on the Samsung Focus in both locations and I’ve yet to have the chopping up or disconnecting of calls that I attributed to AT&T when using my iPhone 3G. Stranger still is that when I have had 1 bar (one place in my apartment) I am actually still able to make calls without it cutting out or dropping. My iPhone taught me never to try with 1 bar…

Visual voicemail is gone as I guess that was an Apple exclusive but I’ve only had a handful of voicemail messages over the last 2 years so I doubt i’ll miss it.

Camera

The camera seems pretty good and has some HDR and anti-shake options as standard as well as limited bunch of image effects. It also does video but I haven’t tried that yet.

Marketplace

You sign into this with your Xbox LIVE credentials and once you’re there it’s not a far off experience from the iTunes store except that it has a lot less apps. While it’s good you don’t have to wade through so much junk to find good stuff there are some omissions too like Hulu and for many people they’ll be missing Angry Birds and their favorite games and apps. I also haven’t found a good Windows Phone-like navigation app although the built-in Bing app is no worse than the Google Maps app on the iPhone that occasionally gave me nonsensical (drive into the ocean) or wrong directions (Seattle hotel being off by 2 blocks).

On the plus side some favourite sites have their own apps and they have fully embraced the metro user interface to provide a great experience – these include IMDB, eBay, Facebook, Twitter.

The bad side here is that the marketplace you’ll be presented with is the one your Xbox LIVE account is associated with and once you’ve set-up your phone YOU CAN’T CHANGE IT!

For me this means I can’t get Netflix on my device as my Xbox account is set to USA. Previously Xbox didn’t let you change your country but recently introduced a facility to let you migrate your account to one of several new countries they now support. I’m hopeful they’ll let more general country changes next year as I’m not giving up my 8800 gamer score and cool gamertag (damieng) without a fight.

Summary

There are a whole bunch of extra things I haven’t covered here including the Bing maps, Office docs, Xbox LIVE, Zune and the various apps. I’ll either update this article or post another :)

I haven’t switched my iPhone on in three weeks. There are a few apps I do miss but they’re also on my iPad.

[)amien

There are a whole great new set of features, my favourites are below… note that some of these are not available in non-LIVE locales.

1. Avatars

Avatars are no longer just for the console but are escaping out onto the web and Windows Phone 7. With the new Avatar Editor you can create your own avatar or modify your existing one with a new easy-to-use interface from your browser.

The new Avatar Marketplace lets you search and find cool items for your avatar to wear and try them on right-there in the search pages. Head on in either by game or by lifestyle (brands) (click the little grid icon to see sub-brands such as your own university’s sports team!).

Because these guys are 3D animated they require Silverlight to be installed on your machine (the streaming videos on xbox.com also require it)

2. Marketplace search & results

A brand new search function means we get much better results than before, fuzzy matching and some dynamic filtering options that appear on the left-hand side letting you dig down into family friendly games (e.g. bt game ratings).

Another cool use is to search for your favourite band and see what tracks and packs they have available. Then head to the game filter on the left to see only the ones that work with your game (e.g. Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Dance Central etc!)

When you visit the product detail page it now shows the images and streaming video inline (goodbye popups) as well as game add-ons showing which games they work with – useful for those music track packs!

3. Hand-picked promotions

Our content teams can now put together collections of themed hand-picked games, add-ons etc. that you can you filter, sort and explore from such as the new Kinect games or family-friendly fun (these will be per-region so might not exist in yours yet).

Gold and family gold members should keep an eye out for Gold exclusive offers or pricing!

4. Streamlined account creation

It’s now easier-than-ever to sign up for a free Xbox live account. Less questions, less steps and we’ll give you a randomly-generated gamertag you can change for free later when you’ve had chance to decide on the perfect name for your game-playing alter-ego. (We’ve seen some fun auto-generated ones during the development cycle including FirmJunk,

5. Compare games with your friends

Okay, you could compare games before but the new UI is better and there’s a cool hidden feature that lets you compare against multiple people at the same time.

To do this head into My Xbox’s Game Center and choose a friend to compare with. Now, notice the url at the top of the page? Put a comma after it and another gamertag to see three… or another comma and a gamertag to see all four (the maximum) side-by-side.

6. Family center

New with this update is the Gold Family Pack which lets you get four gold subscriptions for $99 a year and lots of cool family features including play time reports, gifting points, allowances etc.

There are a whole host of extra features to be seen at xbox.com including mobile-to-web gaming, improved messaging, simplified UI etc. so go check them out!

[)amien