Archive for May, 2001

Good article on multilingual

Published by Tom on 31/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Good article on multilingual websites. Not too many definite conclusions, but c’est la vie. 2:17:26 PM

Some good ideas on designing mobile applications. “Good application design requires thought about intent, context, and technology. Intent is what the user wants to do with an application; context is the user’s environment and how he or she got there; and technology is how the application is delivered” 1:41:23 PM

Great article summarising the Kaycee case: “It was like a story being reported by locusts,” Mr. Cadenhead said of the diligence of the Scooby Doos. “They swept in and just pulled facts out of the air.” 1:35:50 PM

Everything you wanted to know about DDoS attacks. Steve Gibson of GRC fame takes you through a DDoS attack in remarkable detail. 12:50:19 PM

Interesting link on developing

Published by Tom on 30/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Interesting link on developing FAQs using binary trees. 1:12:20 PM

Dead right ‘Mouse-trapping’ has to be a bad idea. The browser is bad enough - breaking the back button just can’t be sensible. 11:47:02 AM

Weak but interesting guide to a way of widening the focus of usability studies. I liked the experience engine. 11:44:20 AM

I like the idea of a traffic light changer. Can you imagine how grim life would be if we all had one! Forget collaboration, everyone would defect in a gridlock Prisoners’ Dilemma. 11:39:45 AM

Interesting bet on the future for Microsoft Office and other applications. Essentially, the subscription model will roll in and owning software will roll out. Nuff said. 11:07:03 AM

Good site on IA. 11:02:43 AM

Good sense of humour

Published by Tom on 29/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Good sense of humour in this article about how interface design is important [lies, damn lies: Word needs 30% more key presses and 100% more mouse movements than an “optimal” word processor. 6:25:53 PM

I agree - the keyboard isn’t dead yet. 6:21:46 PM

Wireless LAN roaming could be a killer app. It might mess up 3G (again), though. 1:34:32 PM

Apart from the guys’ unfortunate name, this is a fascinating white paper from IBM Research: Fostering the Collaborative Creation of Knowledge. Worth a read in my free time! 1:29:58 PM

Fascinating experiment in online KM: I.B.M. Meets With 52,600, Virtually. A project called WorldJam tried to get some good ideas from 1 in 6 of IBM’s employees. That’s a lot of people. 1:22:16 PM

Super funky new Compaq designs. We’ll prototypes, anyhow. 1:16:52 PM

I hope people sort

Published by Tom on 24/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

I hope people sort this out soon! The CDDB was one of the first great ideas of the internet. 5:17:12 PM

I imagine that this will be banned: Duration of Yellow Lights Shortened To Yield More Traffic Ticket Revenue. 5:10:15 PM

While this is an interesting case of faking identity , it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. People have always done this (fake degrees, awards, etc) and some get away with it, some don’t. If anything the story says that the dotcom bubble was so ridiculous, people didn’t even bother checking that someone could do a job before employing them. 5:03:34 PM

Good little piece from Amy Wohl on software pricing. Which made me think: where is the charging component / service in Hailstorm and other related ventures? Without this, the magic “pay 20cents to get a stock quote in your Word doc” can’t work. 2:00:34 PM

It’s a cracker! Emailing banker bonks his Korean chickies. 12:31:52 PM

Purple is the colour to be! Our new brand isn’t so new after all… 11:35:24 AM

So The White House

Published by Tom on 23/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

So The White House vandal scandal wasn’t. Basically the incoming administration made it all up and the press corps loved it. How many other “press events” actually turn out to be nothing because no-one goes back to check on them? 12:16:45 PM

Clay Shirky on the demise of centralised network security. Just as computer engineers laughed at the BBC micro in the 1970s because “computing was too difficult”, so network technicians are laughing at current users. Once we’ve drilled SOAP / XML-RPC through port 80, what can a security administrator do? 12:06:26 PM

More fun about virtual

Published by Tom on 22/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

More fun about virtual worldsVirtual crisis-management at Ultima Online. 2:11:25 PM

Great satirical election site. 1:57:10 PM

It’s the whole trail

Published by Tom on 21/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

It’s the whole trail idea again:Majestic Invades Your World. Interactive game / mystery which plays you as much as the other way around. 12:30:51 PM

The Mercury’s title sums it up: Professor’s battle exposes abysmal copyright law. The DMCA is going to disappear, I hope, but how on earth did it get through? Just shows how powerful the entertainment industry is. Maybe Bush won’t be as close to Hollywood as Clinton was? 11:46:18 AM

Would you wear a watch like this? Every movement you make and sound you make recorded for someone else’s reward? I can see some really nasty privacy issues here: imagine linking the “what song am I listening to” part to the “what songs do I own” part… 11:43:09 AM

Great idea for an

Published by Tom on 17/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Great idea for an article and well worth a complete read: Evolution of a Home Page - 3-Column CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) Home Page. 5:24:32 PM

Fixed wireless sounds like an interesting new development: Broadband’s Next Wave: Wireless? 5:14:32 PM

I suppose I should have expected online gaming cheats to be pretty teched up, but this is really over-the-top. Aim bots, fake video drivers, etc, etc. 1:06:16 PM

I am very unconvinced. The basic ideas are good, but they are badly implemented in a usability sense: A search engine goes beyond Google. 10:16:43 AM

Interesting summary of US copyright law as it applies to P2P filesharing, more specifically Napster. 9:40:49 AM

Interesting article on negotiations

Published by Tom on 16/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Interesting article on negotiations from McKQ 5:43:56 PM

Interesting article about knowledge management from the McKinsey Quarterly. 5:33:17 PM

Astonishing if true: you can mimic quantum interference type experiments using light. This makes everything that much easier to do, and means, e.g. that superfast database searching could be much nearer than we thought. 4:49:05 PM

Great article on an example of the equally great fishbowl process. 3:20:12 PM

Complete madness: Mob phreakers

Published by Tom on 15/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Complete madness: Mob phreakers rule Vegas phone network. Therefore probably true… 1:42:34 PM

Great article about the use of blogs in storytelling for KM in businesses. 1:18:41 PM

Focus groups don’t work

Published by Tom on 14/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Focus groups don’t work any more. 5:08:13 PM

Useful piece of software to help you remove attachments from your Outlook mailbox. 9:36:52 AM

Yet more UI sites that I haven’t read. This one is called ForUse. 9:20:34 AM

Reasonably clear exposition of why consistency matters in web design. In any design, actually. 9:13:24 AM

Quite a freaky article about trust relationships in geographically dispersed teams. Something I’m having to deal with right now… 9:03:25 AM

An encyclopaedic article on the psychology of e-mail. 8:54:26 AM

Great UI site that

Published by Tom on 10/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Great UI site that I haven’t read much of before. 5:24:57 PM

Interesting story of an FBI honeypot arrest. Will it all be permissible? 1:40:43 PM

Research recommended by a

Published by Tom on 09/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Research recommended by a colleague: Mainspring, Executive Edge. 10:17:42 AM

And now (well, it’s really then, now) Frictionless Commerce. There’s, of course, a dotcom based on it. 10:05:59 AM

The Web User bill of rights. 9:43:45 AM

23 steps to make

Published by Tom on 03/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

23 steps to make an e-business. Ironic, but useful. 1:03:08 PM

We have to respect Tog: Internet Perspective. The internet collapse isn’t anything unusual, and predicts a vibrant, healthy industry. 12:51:00 PM

I can’t wait to

Published by Tom on 02/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

I can’t wait to see what people come up with as new Windows startup logos. 10:23:41 AM

If this GreenFolder thing works, it’s good news. 10:21:04 AM

Not a bad summary

Published by Tom on 01/05/2001 in General. 0 Comments

Not a bad summary of a fairly extraordinary situation. “Several websites detail a man’s murder, while others tell of robot insurrection. The matrix of online puzzles surrounding Steven Spielberg’s A.I. is becoming a cult phenomenon of its own.”.

While you’re there, try the community site set up to chronicle what’s going on. 3:33:38 PM

If the claims in thisarticle are true, the whole idea of free to use music (and therefore any digital information) may be under challenge. Play a watermarked song out loud in a noisy room and speak over it and the watermark can still be detected. 3:20:30 PM

This cannot be serious. But I like it anyhow. 10:17:51 AM

It had to happen. In Japan as well. Sheesh. 9:03:29 AM