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Friday, March 30, 2001
The gun isn't the problem, it's the moron using it. My favorite politician shows us the proper way to check if there's one in the chamber ... al with gun
Thanks to Michael Rivero for the pic ... What Really Happened
Posted by matt @ 03:42
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Tuesday, March 27, 2001
Howard Rheingold brought up a point on technology and problem solving that I had not thought of before.
A tool is not the task, and often the invisible, social, non-physical aspects of a technological regime make all the difference. ... Just because we know how to make things doesn't guarantee that we know what those things will do to us. Or what kind of things we ought to make. ... Perhaps knowing how to think about technology is a skill we will have to teach ourselves the way we taught ourselves previous new ways of thinking such as mathematics, logic, and science.
THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2001
Just as the age of enlightenment brought with it a new way of thinking perhaps we are ready for a new enlightenment. A method of thought that melds rational and mysterious processes. A method of the madness so to speak. Has there been a new dawn of thought in this post-modern age? Not universally, pockets of specific beliefs have sprung up but there often seems to be just too much information for humanity to settle on any specific post-modern ideologies. Hell I can't even figure out these new video games, how am I supposed to be receptive to an epidemic of thought that may sweep it's way through the world? Perhaps I'm trained to feel that the answer is far more complex than it should be. Too much science brings too many holes. Consider the big bang theory. It states that the universe as we know it came out of an explosion of a small dense mass, however it fails to explain where this small dense mass came from. Things like that are what we need to have a grasp of if we are to understand how technology can truly be used to augment human processes. To understand this is far beyond science ...
Posted by matt @ 11:36
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Monday, March 26, 2001
It's about time Google started bringing back some useful features of Deja's design. Right before the switch I was reading all posts containing the phase "dell inspiron 8000". Limiting the search to the day would return a managable list. Then google swopped in and screwed everything up. Why on earth wouldn't they figure this stuff out before the took over? One day I looked and everything was different. It's like looking in the garage and finding a Hot Wheels in place of your Mercedes.
Google acquires Deja's Usenet Archive
I'm sure someday Google will surpass the usability of what deja used to be. They're pretty good at that stuff. But they certainly did start this off by screwing it up.
Posted by matt @ 12:27
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Saturday, March 24, 2001
Christina Wodtke at elegant hack makes a note on the immoral design of the Real Networks products, Real Player et. al
Why have then been able to get away with this stuff for years? I've never really gone near their stuff more than twice, immediately deleting it from my system after a couple hours. The program works fairly well. They obviously know a few things about programming. Certain features though are non-functional, I believe on purpose. I installed the latest version of Real Jukebox about a month ago, went though it meticulously. Satisfied that I had found everything, I rebooted and put in a CD. Real came up, ignoring my setting it not to. I checked the config; it was set not to come up when a CD is loaded. After tinkering around a bit I tried it on another machine, same problem. Finally I removed everything. Or so I thought, now there's something left in the registry looking for the little real player icon that had replaced the standard cd icon. I've neglected removing this from the reg to remind me of my eternal hatred for Real Networks. Their intrusion on the user is sickening. What they're doing certainly isn't illegal but it shows a complete lack of integrity in their products. I simply will not listen to real audio files. windows is bad enough ...
Posted by matt @ 04:35
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Friday, March 23, 2001
el magnifico should take care of some business.
Posted by matt @ 07:55
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I love this Think Different image. Seems like a lot of the same thinking though.
Posted by matt @ 07:46
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a piece of paper ...
"This is the most advanced digital input screen ever developed," he declares. "It has very high resolution, perfect contrast, and costs a fraction of a cent to produce. Any graphical interface can be printed on it, and you get years of full-time education, paid for by the government, to learn how to use it. It will not be beaten in our lifetime."
Now it get's interesting:
By the end of this year, Ericsson will bring to market a pudgy-looking ballpoint called the Chatpen. It will be the first of a new breed of writing instrument invented by Anoto that will allow you to send email and faxes directly on paper, with no personal computer or wireless tablet in sight. ... check out the rest of the article ... Wired 9.04: The Hot New Medium: Paper
Posted by matt @ 07:39
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Thursday, March 22, 2001
Matt Klee in the March/April 2000 issue of Eye For Design makes a great point about using paper to start a project.
The reality is that it's very difficult to keep the entire team involved in the process if each person is creating her own HTML pages at her desk. We've seen that most usability problems stem from someone with key information not being involved in the design process. With paper, everyone can gather around one table with their eyes on the same design and each team member can contribute as the design unfolds.
User Interface Engineering
Earlier in the article he speaks to the developer why thinks he can work quicker on the computer.
Certainly, you can use HTML (or Visual Basic, SuperCard, or other rapid development tools) to create mockups, but you may want to consider whether you have enough people who are proficient with the tool you’ve selected.
Only considering the people who don't know html is a mistake. Too often I've gotten stuck beginning a project trying to make something that can be reused. To have a final draft coming directly out of a rough draft takes far more comfortability with the medium that I have. The magic always gets lost somewhere in the etheral layer between the bits. I'm not saying I don't have the know how; I can create just about any html trick in a text editor. What I am saying is that I came from paper. There's no way I'm going to be more comfortable with a machine than I have been with paper. I think it's futile. Does that piss me off? No, not really. My kids will probably like the machine better. I don't think I'll complain. It can be much faster.
My plea is this. If you grew up doing most of your early creative design on paper or some other physical medium, think twice about jumping right to the computer.
Posted by matt @ 07:39
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Rory J O'Connor does a great job at summerizing what we're all thinking, or should be:
Devices and interfaces need to be made simpler; the interface or Web site should closely match the task the user wants to accomplish; the brains of the device should work to adapt to the user and the task, not vice versa.
Back To The Drawing Board
Posted by matt @ 11:47
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Wednesday, March 21, 2001
Trying out this new weblog program. Greymatter from Noah Grey. Qute a nice app. My complements on the engineering. Follow the icon at the bottom of the page to get it.
I'll post links to the old usercore archives at the bottom under "old archive".
Posted by matt @ 10:34
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