Don’t Auto-Update Safari Extensions

Lex Friedman (via John Gruber):

Thus, the mythical A Decidedly Un-Evil Extension, which could provide the definition of any word you double-clicked on, could seem noble and safe. After a few months of swelling popularity, the extension’s nefarious creator could update the extension with <iframe> evilness, and start gathering personal information about you, from the webpages you visit.

With auto-updating, you probably wouldn’t know that the extension had been updated. Even with manual updating, you have no way of knowing whether the new version has been vetted for security.

Safari Extensions

Finger Tools

Matt Gemmell:

On a touchscreen, you often have a simplified interface, with very few options, commands or tools. I was thinking about how to improve interaction in canvas-based applications (drawing, painting, charts, diagrams, etc), and it occurred to me that you often have fewer commonly-used tools than you have fingers. So, I created a UI concept/prototype that I call Finger Tools (or perhaps Touch Tools, or the Tool Glove, or some other such thing).

When you multi-touch, each finger is assigned a tool, which you can then use with a single gesture. Clever.