I wish Apple would hyphenate "code-sign," because every time I see "codesign" I think "co-design."

I just submitted this to Apple as rdar://problem/7031368:

I have been using Safari 4 for weeks and am convinced the new location of the refresh button is plain wrong. Conceptually I think of it as something that should be grouped with the other frequently used buttons on the left side of the toolbar. More importantly (and measurably), my mouse is *much* more often near the top left of the window than where the refresh button currently is:

• Most web pages put a Home link in the upper left.
• The Back and Forward buttons are on the upper left, as is the window's close button.
• If I'm looking at multiple tabs and I want to close or drag the tab I'm looking at, most often it will be one of the first two tabs.

Over and over again I start moving the mouse to the upper left, then remember where the refresh button is and have to change course, which is extremely annoying. Please at least provide an option to put a refresh button in the traditional location by customizing the toolbar.

It's odd that this bugs me so much, because I tend to strongly prefer keyboard shortcuts to mousing, and Command-R is a very easy shortcut to type. I'm not sure why I've been using the mouse so much to refresh. As for why I'm refreshing so much in the first place, I think I do it mostly on Facebook, though I also do it with YouTube pages that need to get reloaded to get unstuck, and with any page where I've been following comments.

This workaround occurred to me today: I added a link to the left end of the bookmarks bar with the name "Reload" and the URL javascript:window.location.reload(). Now there's a little less annoyance in my day.

At 6:30 AM there was a small line for the iPhone 3GS at the 14th St. Apple Store. I don't know if any of these people camped out all night like they did at the 5th Ave. store.

I'm signed up to get a new iPhone at this store, but that's not why I went out there at 6:30. I just happened to be up, and since I live half a block away it was just a matter of throwing on pants and shoes.

I was about to climb back into bed after posting this, but I just discovered the store is actually opening early today, at 7:00 — which was two minutes ago. Maybe I should head back out there and get my phone.

Alice Rawsthorn has an article in the New York Times titled "The Demise of ‘Form Follows Function’":

But our ability to work out how to download and play music on a Shuffle is largely determined by the design quality of the software that operates it — the “user interface” in geek-speak, or “U.I.” If the “U.I.” is well designed, you should be able to use the device so intuitively that you will not have to think about it. But if it is badly designed, the process will seem so confusing that you will probably blame yourself for doing something wrong.

That is why the first wave of U.I. designs sought to reassure us by using visual references to familiar objects to help us to operate digital ones. Take the typewriter keyboards on computers, and video game controllers modeled on TV remote control pads. As our confidence has grown, U.I. design has become more sophisticated, increasingly relating to our physical behavior, rather than objects.

Ms. Rawsthorn could be forgiven for being a design writer and not a tech writer, and therefore not knowing that nobody uses periods in the acronym "UI." But surely someone at the Times should have pointed that out.

The New York Times crosswords are usually extremely careful about fact-checking, so I was surprised to disagree with two clues in the past two months.

The April 20 puzzle had the clue "Googly-eyed Muppet" with ELMO as the answer. To me, googly eyes have pupils that move independently and randomly. Cookie Monster has googly eyes. I say Elmo does not. Indeed, Elmo with googly eyes would be disturbing.

The March 19 puzzle gave "Tai chi instructor" as the clue for the Japanese word SENSEI. Tai chi is Chinese, so this was a bad clue.

Come on, Wil, you're usually better than this!

UPDATE: I see from the Times crossword blog I was not alone in my reaction to SENSEI. But I don't see anybody else objecting to ELMO in the blog entry for the 4/20 puzzle.