Wrapt in Web

Twitter Subpoena demonstrates extent of Surveillance

2011-12-30T19:59:00.001-08:00

In an Interesting new development - Boston Police have issued a subpoena for information on all Twitter users that used the hashtag BostonPD or twittered occupyBoston. The information specifically includes Date and IP Address of account creation. I wonder how many established their accounts using a VPN? I know I didn't use one back then. It will raise interesting questions about the safety of International users. Sympathisers in other Countries with their own "Occupy" and protest movements can be exposed - in some cases with serious potential consequences. We await the Court decision with interest.

The moral: more than ever, be careful what appears in your social media stream - even if you are just following interesting developments and not actively participating. Your actions are being tracked. The subpoena appears below.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/76393350/Subpoena-on-p0isAn0n-OccupyBoston-BostonPD-d0xcak3

Indian and Chinese Entrepreneurs Leaving US

2011-05-01T06:09:00.001-07:00

Interesting Article from Venturebeats' Entrepreneur Corner. This US downturn is more serious than a mere recession - in part because of the fear of Foreigners that has rarely been a part of US public life in the past. There may have been many individuals with prejudiced views, but public figures stood for America as a great innovation capital for the World. To do that one needs to let people travel relatively freely. Enhanced border security and pat downs for every flight leg reduce the willingness of people to visit. Border Security personnel do not seem to be acting as though they are America's frontline of Welcome - people's first impression of arriving in America is likely to be harsh. In contrast China works hard to make visitors welcome. Immigration control officers each have a little 'voting button' where you register if you were happy with them or not. Every visitor votes. If America loses the innovation lead, other losses will follow.

Venturebeat says:

skilled immigrants are leaving the U.S. in droves. This is because of economic opportunities in countries like India and China, a desire to be closer to family and friends, and a deeply flawed U.S immigration system. It doesn’t matter whether we call this “brain drain” or “brain circulation”– it is a loss for America. Innovation that would otherwise be happening here is going abroad.
With all the stories we read about weak infrastructure in India, authoritarianism in China, and corruption and red tape in both countries, the perception is that these entrepreneurs are facing major handicaps back home. They have no chance of competing with us, so we have nothing to worry about, right?

Wrong.

Read the full Article

10 Things CEO's Need to Know about Design

2010-10-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Jason Purtoti was lead designer for Mint.com. If you want to know the key design decisions that affect visitors and generate a 'call to action' then this is the place to start. The transformation of the American Airlines site is one of the best User Experience (UX) stories out there.

This presentation doesn't have sound, but take your time to think about what each slide is saying. For the best experience, click through to SlideShare.
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10 Things CEOs Need to Know About Design

View more presentations from Jason Putorti.

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Web Site Makeovers - Case Studies

2010-10-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

How do you get visitors, how do you keep visitors returning and how do you convert visits to sales? If you want real-life practical demonstrations of how to do this, then do I have the video for you!

In this recorded presentation, Andrew Fingerman spoke to the folks at Telluride about Extreme Makeovers of Photography Websites. Using dozens of live examples, Andrew shows photographers how to turn a photography website into a more powerful marketing tool to attract new visitors, turn them into customers, and keep them coming back for more... but it applies to much more than photography websites.

His examples of how blogs are an integral part of the site, and examples of how web site owners have made them relevant are core demonstrations of the 'new' way the web works. This is no 'casual' presentation. It uses real life examples and works through what has changed and why it matters. It's worth putting aside some time. The 'technical difficulties' mean that sound drops occassionally, but persevere.

Andrew isn't a 'big name' outside photography, and this isn't some 'flashy' speaker on a podium. He's a coffee addict whose livelihood depends on doing.

Passion can see Beauty and Share it

2010-10-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

Making a promotional video beautiful and captivating. This brilliant (no pun intended) video from laughing Squid shows how it can be done - a pleasure to watch. Set to Alfred Brendel's lyrical Piano Concerto No.5 in E flat major, it shows the process from top to bottom of how ink is made. The vivid and even balletic video captivates us with beauty - the lush yellow ink folding into itself at the beginning is the hook that keeps us watching - the whole video - completely enthralled. Enjoy - and learn.

The Best Collection of Development Links I've Seen

2010-09-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

The best current collection of links on developing a major project or website has come out of the OzIA conference http://project.cmd.hro.nl/cmi/hci/toolkit/index2.php. It is the beginning of a toolkit that offers an overview of the methods and techniques which can be used throughout the user-centered design process.

This is the first release of the toolkit, which is assembling the resources. Next we can expect more context information - but what a wonderful collection. For more information contact Bas Leurs (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, b.l.f.leurs@hro.nl).

Can Yahoo be Saved - A Strategy for failure

2010-07-06T22:00:00.001-07:00

Know what your website does .. and does not do. A clear Vision or sense of purpose is a key factor that separates websites that succeed versus those that fail. A clear vision underpins all our design decisions. It helps us decide what functionality to include or exclude. Just because [insert trendy web site here - Apple, Microsoft, Google or Digg] does [insert fancy widget] is reason to be aware of a capability, but does not make it essential. Conversely, there are things your website HAS to do to win over your target market. When you don't focus, you will regularly fail to recognise what's essential. This is the situation Yahoo! seems to have been for the last several years.

It saddens me to write about Yahoo! in this context. I've been a member since March 1998, and a paying member for most of that time. It's apparently unbelievable to new web adopters that Yahoo! was once one of the great innovators. "Once upon a Time" they were leaders in tools we now take for granted - task list on same page as calendar, synchronization of data with the phone (or PDA in those days) and they developed a brilliant desktop search tool (that indexed USB drives and maybe even network drives - but my memory is unreliable here - it was a very long time ago).

The decline has been obvious for a long time, the missed opportunities, cost cutting the wrong things. So what has prompted this outburst (and planned, painful separation). The final straw seems trivial perhaps: Plaxo (Plaxo.com) has stated that they will no longer synchronize their data aggregation tool with Yahoo! because it has become too hard.

So what? Well let's look at why I used Yahoo! for so long, what did a paying customer like me join Yahoo! for. I'm a consultant operating a small to medium business looking for a low cost online place to centralize my personal and business information. It needs to be available to my phone, and any other application that uses my core contact, to do and calendar information.

Yahoo! was originally ideal. Each contact page has a unique URL so I can place that in, for example, a project management tool - click on the name, up comes the contact details, use it in a mind map of something - click on the entry and I can dial/email without having to interrupt workflow. Same with Notes - click on the URL and I can update the annotation. No PC-based package can offer that.

Now ... see what I almost, but don't quite, have - a low cost CRM. All the components are there - calendar, Notes, Tasks with due date and Contact details - all with unique hyperlinks. All can be synchronised to the Phone. Plus email with aliases (for paying customers). A centralized, accessible anywhere, collection of the information I need to run my life and my business. All wasted because while Google worked and worked to make synchronization of their data easy and pervasive throughout the web, Yahoo! have been tardy in making our data available to us. All wasted because they dropped the focus on paying customers and failed to do the next stage of development and connect the systems they already had.

Today, it is much easier to be assimilated by the Google Borg than remain in the Yahoo! camp. Google has, with focus and dedication, made it easy. But why is it so? Ease of data exchange is a priority with anyone that has the disposable income to use a smartphone. Isn't that the demographic to aim for? Which demographic contains IT journalists, bloggers, those who make recommendations to new users? Now look at your own websites - have you ignored Smartphone users or made data hard to get at?

As a sidenote, this is not a universal truth - just a general one: I've sometimes had to design websites for Indigenous or Rural and Remote communities where Smartphones are just not a priority - as always - know your audience, know your purpose.

Desktop search was another sad episode. I don't know the full story, but it looked to me as if Yahoo! bought in a package. One that I tried a couple of times and uninstalled each time. One that wasn't as function rich as the original Yahoo! product. One that doesn't touch USB drives (last I looked, I gave them a second chance before I installed Google desktop - that's it). The USB function isn't just important for me. Lots of people would overflow their local drive. However, for me it is crucial - I have 2 Terabytes of supplementary material I want indexed - training courses, white papers, coding examples and - if it's my turn to cook - recipes. Google desktop on my Mac still is nowhere near as good as the old Yahoo! desktop search, but it's reliable. Yahoo! started to lose me from the moment I had to install Google desktop search.

Increasingly, I'm even using Google Search for work. I don't want distracting news items or social 'stuff' distracting me when I have a task to complete. Surely this is something that Yahoo! could let me personalize.

Yahoo! continues to do some excellent things in small areas. Yahoo! Pipes is a great tool. However, the bright spots of excellence don't seem to be treasured and disappear in the surrounding smog of directionless missed opportunity. I'll keep my email addresses - I've had them a long time - but my contacts have moved to - you guessed it - Google as my central repository. How the mighty are fallen. All we can do is observe, learn and apply to our own websites. The web is always dynamic, and there is no place for complacency. So .. is there really a clear vision for each of your sites? If not, prepare to lose your visitors. Even a Yahoo! can fail.

We Lose our Self-Discipline when tired or Hungry - but why?

2010-04-25T18:50:00.001-07:00

Why do we go off our diets, or exercise programs, at the very time we need them - when we are tired or stressed? If we want to retain control of our lives, then we need to understand about the Biochemistry underneath these changes - and some of it is quite basic. Self-discipline needs glucose to the brain. Exercising self-discipline takes energy. Therefore we need to keep ourselves properly fueled, fit, and refreshed by proper sleep. It's so easy to enter the self-harm spiral, where we miss out on any one of these because of the pressure of life. I'm finding it hard to take time to exercise because work is urgent right now. It's the old conflict between what's important and what's urgent. Today, however, I'm just back from a break. Energized, not fit but fitter, and ready to write. Take a minute to read more about the science behind it so we can all manage our lives better.

Scientists have long argued that delaying gratification requires a sense of "self." Having a sense of personal identity allows us to compare what we are today, at this very moment, with what we want to be--an idealized self. Aspiring to this idealized self is what fosters uniquely human self-control powers.
Well maybe--or maybe not. New research is now suggesting a much more primitive explanation for our powers of self-discipline--one that brings us down a notch or two in the animal kingdom. Indeed, it appears that, even with our lofty aspirations, we may rely on the same rudimentary biological engine for self-discipline as our four-legged best friends. Here's the science.

Psychological scientist Holly Miller and her colleagues at the University of Kentucky knew from previous research that human self-control relies on the brain's "executive" powers, which coordinate thought and action. It's further known that this kind of cognitive processing is fueled by glucose, and that depletion of the brain's fuel supply compromises self-discipline. But is this a uniquely human fuel system? Or do less evolved animals rely on sugar-powered executive functioning as well?

Wray Herbert: Dog Tired: What Our Hounds Can Teach Us About Self-Control

Linux for Serious computing

2010-04-23T17:00:00.001-07:00

For those of us that are still wondering if open source has a role for mission critical application, the business site Focus has put together an impressive collection of examples.

It was not long ago when Microsoft Windows had a tight stranglehold on the operating system market. Walk into a Circuit City or Staples, it seemed, and virtually any computer you took home would be running the most current flavor of Windows. Ditto for computers ordered direct from a manufacturer. In the last decade, though, the operating system market has begun to change. Slightly more than 5% of all computers now run Mac, according to NetMarketShare.com. Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect. Below are fifty places Linux is running today in place of Windows or Mac. For easy reading, they are divided amongst government, home, business, and educational usage.

For full article go to 50 Places Linux is Running That You Might Not Expect

Reading on the iPad - how to get your books across

2010-04-15T06:58:00.001-07:00

Laura Miller from Salon has been waxing lyrical about the ebook reading experience on the iPad. Well, more than just ebooks, drafts, blog posts as well. It looks like her printer savings could save a minor deciduous forest. I've included this snippet because Laura notes two utilities she uses to load content.

My chief complaint with the iPad is that while it's the perfect way to read a collection of assorted documents in a variety of formats -- an assemble-it-yourself magazine, in effect -- it's not easy to figure out how to get this material into the device in the first place. Someone who's reasonably comfortable fiddling with computers can manage it, but if the iPad is supposed to be an especially friendly tool for the digital non-native, it needs improvement in this department. Here is what I can recommend:

Instapaper Pro: You know those interesting longer articles you keep stumbling across on the Web but don't have time to read right away? This app allows you to collect them in one place -- in your account on their Web page, but also on your iPhone and now on your iPad. It downloads the text so that you don't have to be connected to the Internet to read. The home page even features editors' recommendations, with stories from Vanity Fair, the New Statesman, the New Yorker and other publications. There's a free version, but give them the five bucks, you cheapskate, because God knows they've earned it.

GoodReader: If you want to read text or PDF files on your iPad, you'll need an app to load them into. This is a good one, and reasonably priced at 99 cents, but like all the rest, it has terrible support documentation, and figuring out how to use it is needlessly arduous. There are a couple of ways to load documents, including a pretty arcane method for doing it wirelessly. I prefer this much simpler option:

For article and instructions go to The iPad is for readers - Laura Miller - Salon.com

Leadership Failures under iPad pressure

2010-04-12T03:55:00.001-07:00

The NYTimes has reviewed the way the market is responding to the iPad launch. From what I can see, the market was stirred from the first speculation. Therefore we expect significant announcements over the next few months. For those of us that make technology choices, I noticed two quotes.

“We’re living in extremely exciting times right now,” said Olli-Pekka
Kallasvuo, the chief executive of Nokia. “It’s quite challenging to
define what industry we are in because everything is changing.”

The clear picture of a competitor that's lost direction and lost its strategic vision. Wondering what industry we are in? and admitting it? I won't be betting big on Nokia until they sort that out. The other perspective comes from the company that Microsoft's Ballmer relied on to help defuse the iPad launch - the HP Slate. The challenge for big Enterprise is to recognise turning points in their technology area and respond vigorously. HP has the people and the capability to compete ferociously. Unfortunately the following quote sounds just like the complacency that nearly took IBM under.

"H.P.’s version of the iPad is expected to be released by midyear. Notably, it will have a camera, as well as ports for add-on devices, like a mouse. Also, it will, the company says in a promotional video, “run the complete Internet,” including videos and other entertainment.

Phil McKinney, the chief technology officer in H.P.’s personal systems group, said in a recent interview that the company had been working on its tablet for five years. It delayed releasing the product, he said, until the price could be lower.

The company’s marketing department has been trickling out online videos of the device. This kind of early marketing is a change for H.P., which rarely talks about yet-to-be released products. Mr. McKinney, however, said H.P. had felt little pressure from Apple’s early move and would release its slate when it was ready.

“I have one sitting on my desk,” Mr. McKinney said. “We don’t react or respond to competitive timing and those types of issues.”

So .. is that two competitors down already? - perhaps. The article also implies that Microsoft is slow out of the starting blocks.

full story After
iPad, Rivals Offer Hybrid Variations - NYTimes.com

USB Drives have Security Hole

2010-01-10T17:34:00.001-08:00

Computerworld.com has posted this article on a hole in USB encryption. The AES encryption remains secure, but the routine that determines if the password has been entered correctly can be bypassed. Manufacturers have issued updates for the software. Check your drive now.

Pssst. Your Flash Drive Isn't Secure

SanDisk Corp. and Verbatim Corp. have joined Kingston Technology Inc. in warning customers about a potential security threat posed by a flaw in the hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption on their USB flash drives.

The hole could allow unauthorized access to encrypted data on a USB flash drive by circumventing the password authorization software on a host computer.

GSM Calls cracked with $1500 and OS Software

2010-01-05T02:58:00.001-08:00

In news that should concern any Government Agency or business person darkreading has published news of a planned presentation on just how easy and cheap it is to crack GSM phone calls with current technology. GSM is an encryption that 80% of mobile phone companies relies on to keep conversations secure. Maybe that was appropriate when the standard was adopted, but increased computer power and algorithm development has overturned that view.

Researchers Prepare Practical Demonstration Of GSM Encryption Cracking Technology - wireless security/Security - DarkReading

"GSM has been considered insecure for some years -- however, it is a huge development that the theoretical attack on the GSM encryption cipher is now a reality," says Stuart Quick, operations manager at Henderson Risk Ltd., a London-based security and risk management services firm. "There is now a very real and imminent threat that GSM voice communications will be compromised, and users must start to consider how they can increase the security of their valuable/commercially sensitive calls they make."

The demonstration could also cause some companies to consider separate encryption of cell phone calls, according to one vendor that offers such technology. "Our research shows that 79 percent of organizations discuss confidential or sensitive information at least weekly on mobile phones," says Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO Cellcrypt Ltd. "The news that GSM has been cracked will be very worrying for anybody who discusses valuable or confidential information over their mobile phone."

Body Language - OK or Not OK?

2009-08-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

I saw this little heading and photo on Huffington Post, and I couldn't resist. I don't want to make any comment on the rights and wrongs of the situation - the couple Jon and Kate have enough to worry about. The question that springs to mind looking at the body language in the photo - is this what a reunited couple looks like, or just a couple willing to sit in the same room?

The Best Crutchwork you'll see

2009-08-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

I came across this doing work - yes truly! I was checking out the web sites built with the wonderful new component for Joomla - K2 developed by Joomlaworks (K2 is free by the way, so I get no commission for saying this). K2 is now supported in new Joomla themes developed by RocketTheme (and several other theme producers). K2 adds the best of Wordpress and Drupal to Joomla. Anyway, I went to one of the example sites, Weber State University Cultural Affairs and there this clip was, playing automatically. The WSU site is a great example of elegant design, and the clip is a brilliant piece of performing art. Two wins in one! So... here's the clip for you - enjoy!

More info has come in: Bill Shannon is a self-taught conceptual dancer who uses his crutches to perform his incredible choreography around the world. He was born with a double Hip degenerative disease. Bill Shannon is for real, he isn't gliding along on wheelie shoes and he isn't a stunt man.

Performance Art with Sand - Wonderful

2009-08-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

It's wonderfully reaffirming to see people that develop new and creative ways to express themselves. Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII. Without the web, this ephemeral art would disappear or be limited to a local audience. Instead it is preserved and shared. A thankyou to Huffington Post for finding the video link.

Twitter Usage Strategy and Guidelines Shared

2009-08-05T19:26:00.001-07:00

Social media is an important tool. It also carries risks, with little forgiveness of mistakes. On the IGBAPR blog I have posted an entry to share a Twitter Guidelines Template from a UK Government entity. Every corporate entity or Government agency should have a policy that they communicate to staff. Thi example provides an excellent basis to start.

Kevin rose on Twitter Usage

2009-08-03T00:21:00.001-07:00

Techcrunch scored a famous guest blogger - Kevin Rose on how to use Twitter. Some of these ideas are reasonable common sense. The underlying assumption though is that there is a strategic reason for your Twitter usage and online persona.

Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
537 Comments
by Guest Author on January 25, 2009

This guest post is written by Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg and the cofounder of Revision3 and Pownce. Kevin, who has over 88,000 followers on Twitter (making him the second most followed after President Obama), also “bloggs” at kevinrose.com. He is an investor in Twitter.

Sometimes Less is More

2009-08-03T00:03:00.001-07:00

One of the best, simple articles on website designs. Focus on the core principles. Pin these to the wall (electronic or physical).

4 Principles of Good Design for Websites
4 Principles of Good Design for Websites
written by: Andrew Houle / stashed in: Articles / 03.21.09

4-principles-lg

One of my absolute favorite design books is, Robin Williams Design Workshop. It looks into practical design theories and showcases awesome examples. One of the areas of focus that I’ve taken into all my designs are the four major design principles. They include: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.

This post will discuss those four principles as they relate to web design. By keeping these design theories fresh in your mind, you will be sure to design cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing sites.

Challenges for the ICT Industry

2009-06-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here's the closing address I gave the Digital Technology Summit 2009 on the challenges and opportunities for the ICT Industry. If you are a Gov2.0 person you will find this very 'Cathedral' versus 'Bazaar', but you must bear in mind the audience I was addressing. It also started a little more abruptly than I intended because the conference was way over time, and people were worried about catching planes. There was no audio or video recording available apart from my little camera, so the sound needs volume up to catch.

DTS2009 Close, Quicktime Streaming format, (75Mb)

8 of the Best SOCMED Flash Mob moments

2009-05-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

The tools of connectivity - the mobile phone, email and twitter enable a new phenomenon - the flash mob event. Like all forces, it can be used for good or evil. Here I've collected some of the best examples. This is part of our Keeping up with the Internet Memes series - web behaviours and the best startups - web nostalgia in the inspirational Understanding the Dance.

Sound of Music - Antwerp Central Station

More than 200 dancers perform "Do Re Mi", in the Central Station of Antwerp. Dance and music routines take rehearsal - just 2 rehearsals created this spectacular! These 4 fantastic minutes start on the 23 of march 2009, 08:00 AM. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical of "The Sound of Music".

High Five Escalator

My favourite of the improv everywhere projects - it creates smiles on a bleak morning. I like the way it shows how easy it is to make someone's day happier. The full story with background pictures and interviews is on the iproveverywhere site.

Unexpected Performance - Stansted Airport, London

Stansted Airport, London. 7 hidden cameras. 14 undercover actors. 1 unexpected performance. Some people love it, some just let it all wash over them unmoved. The passengers are as fun to watch as the performance.

No Pants

The Improvanywhere no pants day got a spectacular boost in 2006 when a Cop arrested participants. A month later a judge dismissed all of the charges. It is not illegal to wear your underwear in public in New York City. The publicity (reported by news agencies around the world while David Letterman made two monologue jokes about it and staged a No Pants Cab Ride as a parody) led to continued spectacular growth. Now this is no longer the "secret" event with a few participants in the know - it's become almost a parade. Fun to watch though!

No Shirts (111 Shirtless Men in Abercombie and Fitch)

In the interests of equity - if we present no pants, then we'd better present no shirts. It's fascinating to see how corporates that promote topless models cope with a situation like this. The best bit is that 2 guys were thrown out while they were actually buying $45 shirts! Isn't this performance art at it's best?

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The Freeze Mob

NYC - Frozen Grand Central Station

The inspirational classic freeze mob. Replicated across the World it's a great concept. The video was put together professionally too - top production values. Arguably one of Improveverywhere's greatest projects.

Paris, France - The largest Freeze Mob

This video is the compilation of 20 videopodcasters, who covered the event. Around 3,000 people froze on the Champs Elysee.

Trafalgar Square Freeze

At 3:30pm on a secret cue, almost everyone in the square froze. For 5 minutes the participants held their positions, and then magically everyone unfroze. The participants in Britain take the performance art aspect of the frozen positions in innovative directions.

Free Commercial Bonus Video!

Liverpool St Station, London, UK - The T-Mobile Dance
This doesn't really count as performance art because it was organised as an Ad. But it's still fun! Watch the moment Liverpool Street Station danced to create this special T-Mobile Advert.

Pirates, Blurred Responsibility and Filters

2009-04-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

While we are trying to use the Internet effectively, there are many groups that see it as a problem to be managed or eliminated. I've come across a group of people trying to get Facebook classified for Pornography, nudity and sexuality. What happened to personal responsibility here? Choose your friends on Facebook, and you won't get any surprises. The 'censor everything' movement didn't start with Facebook, but now the censorship model has so much steam up it can take almost anything out.

At first I was pleased when France and New Zealand had highly restrictive laws. UK - three strikes law? Fantastic - they've always had good software skills so we need to stop their development in its tracks. Less competition for us - that's good. Then Australia and now Belgium got into the act. Australia censors some religious, health and anti-abortion sites. Belgium now censors anti-paedophile sites.

This is now getting totally out of control - every Person and business dependent on the Internet needs to step up and save the Internet from serious closure. I'd like to show you what finally sent me 'over the edge'. OpenDNS is a great tool - I use it on my SOHO network as an additional layer of protection, plus it allows me to stop categories like "Instant Messaging" if homework isn't done (Yes, that affects me and my business but not for long because it is a great motivator). I went to check how the community rated Facebook. It has two tags voted up, and I think they are reasonable - Instant messaging, Social networking. However, just look at the other classification tags that someone has thought should be applied to Facebook.

Let's talk about "Religious" and "Politics" for example. Any regime (Australia, China, Belgium, UK, NZ or France) that now wants to turn off "Religious" content - and that is always a popular one for any Country with global censorship - would also deny access to Facebook - just because someone, somewhere creates content of this type. It is not created by Facebook, and it is not pervasive either. There needs to be a more clear understanding of the separation between platform and content.

Fig 1 - The Classifications that have been requested and voted on for Facebook as at 25 April 2009. Note that each of these needed a Sponsor!

This issue becomes important for Bittorrent. One of my companies uses Bittorrent to get (licensed, paid for - and I shouldn't even have to say that folks) software that we can't easily download any other way. The PirateBay sideshow does not help. The PirateBay case wasn't about technology. I have heard the technical arguments about how and where content versus metadata is stored. Technical arguments are valid for a site like Mininova that sticks to DMCA rules. PirateBay lost based on a Business argument "Intent" - seriously paraphrasing - if you didn't intend to support Piracy, why are you called "PirateBay" and why didn't you take anything down? It is that fundamental intent issue that means Google can perform a technically analagous task with much less business risk.

Diversion: I personally believe that the cheeky email responses on the site are what did them in. A word to the wise - don't taunt people. I had given a talk about a year before the case where I said this would upset some seriously 'alpha' people who would be perfectly happy to spend as much of other people's money as it took to get even.

The message that gets into the public though is "Downloading is wrong". Some might be, some is very right. The distinction between the content and where the service that transports or indexes it is crucial to the effectiveness of the Internet. I will also concede that there are 'naughty pictures' on the web - I've seen some. Is this adequate justification to bring it all to a halt? Back to Facebook for a minute - I've found friends - many of us have- through Facebook. What are we losing if it can get a silly set of censorship tags? Let's not forget the Amazon disaster where they tried to keep the extremists happy at the expense of their users.

We all have to step up now, individuals and businesses, or we will lose it all, and much faster than I thought.

Steps to Gov2.0 - BBQ discussion

2009-04-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

The inaugural Gov2.0 Barbecue was held in Canberra on 17 April 2009. I'll add more Gov2.0 voices over time, but I'll start with two. Nathanael Boehm - a practitioner in the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Reform has been using blogs, twitter and discussion areas to connect with a geographically and jurisdictionally diverse group of stakeholders for over 6 months.

Kerry Webb is working at a preparation stage - helping define guidelines and policy for Gov2.0. This work is essential for widespread deployment of Gov2.0 and for use of web2.0 techniques in large organisations. Senior management needs the assurance that 'it's OK' to use the tools and that there are mechanisms to minimise harm or recover from problem situations. His talk covers some of the issues that affect, enhance or impede the adoption of Gov2.0.

Twitter struck Again

2009-03-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

The "let's bash Twitter" meme is alive, well, and fortunately still keeping it fun:

Keep Your Online Profile

2009-03-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

Keeping up a consistent image across the web and keeping your content fresh is vital to good business and strong relationships. We've talked about some Web 2.0 aspects already, but your online profile is a key part of your personal and business web 2.0 brand. Profiles must be kept fresh. With a little upfront effort, the task of maintaining multiple profiles can be less tedious, freeing up time to better connect with other people. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and YouTube are just the start of it - for people active on social websites, you could have several dozen social media profiles.

Keep an Inventory

The first step is to exactly know where you have a social media profile and where you do not. Start by checking with Check User Names, which will search dozens of popular social media websites to see if your username is active. Check any you normally use. If any don’t ring any bells, see if it’s yours or if somebody already owns it.

Preserve (Reserve) Your Identity

Mashable Tip: Always keep note of other people using your most common username. Making sure people don’t confuse you for somebody else is important for friends, potential employers and particularly if your business is on the web.

Therefore it's important to sign up for the most popular social networks regardless of whether you are going to use them all. This prevents someone else taking your online presence, being mistaken for you and it protects an account that you may want to use later.

This doesn’t mean you should be active on all of these services. Take a long, hard look at all of the services available and your time constraints and choose the ones that pique your interest the most. Keep some focus when choosing platforms. For the rest, place a note on your profile with contact information and links to your favorite social profiles.

Organise, Centralise and Synchronise

Keep track of your email accounts and other feeds. The best tool for me has been netvibes.

One tab has all my email accounts on one page, plus twitter feed and facebook feed. Another tab has various modules plus direct links to all my sites, my client sites and any admin areas. Netvibes starts every time firefox does.

Do not become a Robot, but keep similar tasks together. For example a common action on social media is sending an update that you have updated your blog. Normally, you would have to copy and paste this type of message into Twitter, Facebook, and so on. With services such as Ping.fm and Twitterfeed, this can be done without any work on your end. Find tools that can help you spread you reach without eating up your time.

Atomkeep is a cool tool for updating all of your social media profiles at once - it connects to your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other accounts and allows you to change bios and profile pictures with one action.

I also use PeopleBrowsr to create a more dynamic dashboard for special events and handling the group concept. It combines multiple sources of information in one place. PeopleBrowsr is an online visual dashboard that combines your Web profiles and connections. For an event like SXSW it has created a centralized dashboard for SXSW and all conversations, parties, and events related to the big festival.

If you’re unfamiliar with PeopleBrowsr, the site functions similar to TweetDeck providing users with a column view of status updates and custom created groups, but it also combines your friends and updates across a myriad of other social sites like Flickr, Facebook, FriendFeed and LinkedIn for an all-in-one Web-based view of your social world.

Flowering Gum (Non IT)

2009-03-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

The hum sounded like a swarm. I'd noticed the dead and exhausted bees on the driveway, the ants tidying up their surprise feast. I just couldn't see the swarm. I step back to survey the tree. A tree that survived the 2003 Bush fires that destroyed a fire truck on the road 50 yards from here, and burnt out the 2 houses behind it.

And then I realise. The tree is flowering. The hum is the noise of thousands of insects, not just bees, finding food and drink at the end of a parched Summer.

Weeks of drought, the occasional bush fire, and sometimes, just sometimes, days of nectar. Days to enjoy and savour. May you have days of nectar this year.

...

Coffee and Code - Watercoolers and Social

2009-03-01T01:33:00.001-08:00

How do we keep connected with our Peer groups. It's a challenge (consultants never have problems - only challenges) for sole practitioners to people in multinationals. The thing is, we need to communicate across all the boundaries, corporate stovepipes, etc. We also need to keep productive.

The effect of putting aside time to communicate and socialise is counter intuitive. Many years ago, when programmers punched cards, Managers noticed that the programmers would gather around the water cooler at the back of the punch room and chat. There is a quick solution to that sort of wasteful behaviour - the water coolers were removed. The outcome, however, was that productivity dropped. The coolers were put back and productivity went up. So what was happening? The exchange of problem solving, competition, energising and other aspects of social exchange were helping workers achieve breakthroughs, or take diffeent approaches to existing problems. Today, for the solo practitioner or an expert isolated from like-minded individuals, meeting with peers in real life is a challenge.

One approach is Coworking. Coworking is cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents. Basically, start with a shared office and add cafe culture. This ensures there is desk space, backup and so on. (Thanks to @NathanaelB). The Concern I have now is that there are usually fixed costs - like a monthly access fee - that none of us want to take on during a serious downturn. That brings us to the next best thing. Some places have a "Freelancers Friday". The coffee and code is more like an open invitation to drop in. Of course, we'll have to watch just how much coffee we consume.

The Coffee and Code post by Joey deVilla was sent by @timoreilly.

Coffee and Code #1

Yesterday, I held the first Coffee and Code day at Toronto’s Urbana Coffee, at the corner of Bay and St. Joseph Streets. The Coffee and Code plan is a simple one: about one day a week, instead of working at the home office or Microsoft’s Toronto or Mississauga offices, I set myself up in a wifi-equipped cafe somewhere in Toronto. As a result, instead of being tucked away, I’m easy to reach, where you can walk up, join me for a coffee and talk about Microsoft, programming, the industry or just about anything else.

Urbana’s Bay/St. Joseph branch used to be a hair salon, which means that its south half, where the stylists used to work, has plenty of power outlets. Although their wifi requires a password, it’s clearly written on the chalkboard behind the counter. As long as you buy something, they don’t seem to mind people hanging out all day – I was there at 11 a.m. and stayed for a full seven hours.

I love it and I'm now looking for suitable cafes with free wifi.

Elitists, Rennaissance Man and the Nuclear Option

2009-02-26T01:40:00.000-08:00

The Good News is that we can break through some of the Clutter. The bad news is that we way we do it can destroy our personal brand overnight.When the rules change they can change utterly. Stephen Fowler, an environmental entrepreneur who develops biofuels, considers himself an educated man, and boasts of an IQ of 158. Educated in the old definition of "book learnin'" he may be. He describes San Francisco as one of the few places in America he could live with its Opera and Music. He describes with affection (some might suggest affectation) a mythical Europe of civilised thought and behaviour. One can ignore crude Australians such as myself that question how an Englishman could be called 'European' (the technical Australian term is "Pommie" as in 'that Pommie Bastard').

His world has come crashing down however. He has apologized in a statement posted on his wife's blog for behaving "like a complete jerk" and has resigned from the boards of two nonprofit corporations for reflecting badly on the organizations. How? Why? In a way - because he wasn't educated enough. Several News organisations and the fun Huffington Post have described the massive fallout from appearing in Wife Swap and insulting the incoming Wife who hailed from Missouri. The reaction has affected his business and his wife's business. It has also affected the perception of potential business partners and friendships. Perhaps he thought noone he knew would be watching. That was probably true on the night, but Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and, of course, email started a flash fire amongst those that knew the couple, then anyone that knew someone that lived in Missouri, and finally spread across the Planet. When I say 'finally' we are talking a matter of a few days.

There are two parts to this - one is understanding the flash fire and what we have unleashed with the technology. @Stilgherrian pointed me to this article by Mark Pesce The Nuclear Option. I won't summarise the article because it is worth a read in whole. It addresses how something like Twitter combined with normal human behaviour transforms communication and creates unintended consequences.

What does that mean for us. One is that noone reading this will ever make the mistake that Fowler did of fouling his own nest. Was it hubris? (who cares what the viewers think of me?). Perhaps in part, but it was also a lack of education, a lack of literacy - technological literacy. The challenge for us all, is that the definition of 'educated' has moved on. Can one be educated today without a knowledge of Science? without an understanding of the technological world we have bequeathed to our children? Those of us who are parents need to be able to engage our children online as well as offline. Those of us that are in business, need to be aware that one mistake can blow up, and need to nurture our brand. Even those of us that take a relaxed view of life, need to keep a little watching brief on what is running in the back channel or we can be in real strife.

As Fowler discovered, ignorance is no protection. In fact, ignorance let it blow out of control. The only response that seems to work effectively is full, clear and immediate communication. Get on YouTube. Explain or apologise. Excuses leaked through 'friends' or spokespeople don't cut it. The world has changed - like it or not.

We will truly have our 15 seconds of fame - but remember as the big celebrities do - the Paparazzi are everywhere... little brother is watching. The future is here.

Keeping up with the Internet Memes

2009-02-25T19:28:00.000-08:00

Understanding the hidden rules of the Internet, the origins of web behaviours and the best startups in the web arena just takes a small trip through web nostalgia in the inspirational Understanding the Dance.

Now we bring you a new list of Internet memes. Advertising copywriter Greg Rutter has compiled everything great about the Internet and put it on one web page. Youshouldhaveseenthis.com is a list of 99 videos and websites that any Internet analyst needs to see — and probably already has. As with any list like this it contains plenty of trivia from our society - and also some inspiration. The 'best Wedding Toast' was one I hadn't seen before - and it is impressive.

Coffee - The developers essential tool

2009-02-18T15:47:00.000-08:00

I'll go back to serious topics soon, but I saw this little thing on the need for coffee. It's a little weird but any programmer will understand it exactly. Over in Alistair's Utilities I've put a section on Coffee makers in the 'essential tools' ads, so you know where I am coming from in the debate! Excuse me, i just have to top up...

le Café - Oldelaf (english subtitles)
by Boebis

The Keyboard is Yours!

2009-02-10T02:40:00.000-08:00

There I was, happily typing away, when I realised I had someone present that wanted to play. The reason I stopped typing and left this little fellow to it, is that I've been bitten by one of his colleagues (now deceased - very thoroughly deceased at the time - I don't like being bitten). Some people will tell you these spiders are not aggressive. True as far as it goes... leave them alone and they will leave you alone. Accidentally brush one, however, and they go berserk. He's gone now as you can tell because I'm typing again. Perhaps to a better place. I used to spare them .. but not after I got bitten.

From Wrapt in Web

The End of Jetskis

2009-02-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

Now THIS is the best fun on water I've seen for ages. I want one now. Right now.

Water-Powered Jet Pack

Walking with Friends

2009-02-01T04:03:00.000-08:00

I've talked about 'Stayin' Alive' in 2009. We've looked at our first gadget - the PC on a low speed treadmill, constructed one and started using it. What about our friends? especially our animal friends?
Read the Full Article ...

Parties and Meetings

Probably the classic party with treadmills - I never get tired of watching this one - OK Go and the "here it goes again" Treadmill Dance:

Of course, all your friends have to bring their treadmills too. If you can get a setup like the Salo office here, then meetings can be held while walking:

Cats

Some Cats just seem to love the exercise. It's important to let them decide when they've had enough.

Cats can enjoy walking with you on the treadmill too, so long as it is at an easy pace for them. They seem to feel like they're on patrol, going on a hunt with you.

It's not for all cats of course. This one is not planning to walk anywhere:

And this is an example of exactly how to introduce your cate to the treadmill. It's a first time experience, although the video is obviously slightly longer than normal to catch the process.

And finishing cats with a cute white Persian:

Constructing the Treadmill

2009-02-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

In the Introduction we've talked about why keeping up activity is so important for life and success - especially for Geeks. I have to explain right up front that I just put this together as a prototype. I'm going to 'do it properly' real soon now. The problem is it has worked so well for so long, it's only when I go to show the photos of what I did that I realise how 'quick and dirty' my method is. The good news? It's easy.
Read the Full Article ...

Setting up a Treadmill

Slow speed operating requires a treadmill that has at least a 2 HP motor (continuous output ) or 2.5 HP peak. The treadmill should have a cushioned platform. I bought one from Rebel Sports with “D” shaped rounded arms. Flat projecting arms are also suitable for a flat desktop. Make sure the cooling fan airflow can still reach your body.

The PC can be mounted on a tilting platform taken from a mobile computer desk (Freedom Furniture used to have an ideal model). This can then be clamped to the treadmill structure. I bought the newest one from Officeworks and the box lid shows the original table. The tilting structure means that part of the platform remains level for the mouse pad, and more importantly, coffee. So how did this master craftsman attach the table? I just took out the table top and clamped it to the side bar. The red objects in the picture are really just the red clamps.
Shameful but true.

Note the dictation headset. Dictation is the perfect application for the walking worker. Skype calls, phone calls can all be done. Just don't start puffing or the other party might hang up on you.

If you are not used to being on your feet, there's another thing you should think about. good walking shoes and foot protection. Heavier walkers might need gel cushioning and arch support.

Inner soles for shoes start with low cost and lightweight pads:

These have little cushioning, but can be washed to keep shoes fresh.

Next are gel shock absorbing pads. They are very effective (provided the dog doesn’t chew through
the gel encapsulation - and yes that is experience talking).

Be aware that they come in major shoe size groups and the outer edge is trimmed by scissors to shoe size. They have the advantage of thinness and can be worn with most business shoes.

Then there is sculpted support like the Scholl Gel foot support with removable arch support. The coloured arch insert can be swapped over three degrees of hardness.
These work with most business shoes but many sports shoes have an inbuilt arch support that interferes with the correct positioning of the Scholl support. If you are having problems then get proper advice on your walking style and correct footwear early. I know the Saturday morning clip showed a woman in heels, but I have to admit to reservations, particularly if walking over most of a day. If you are not used to this - start slowly, maybe in multiple sessions before joining them into longer units of walking.

Next we look at walking with friends.

Stayin' Alive in 2009 - Gadget 1 - PC workstation on Treadmill

2009-01-21T17:58:00.000-08:00

I can see Bart Simpson ordered to write 10,000 times '2009 is going to be a difficult year'. Certainly there are 10,000 plus blog pages that start that way - I've written a couple myself. So how do we stay alive and healthy when we have to work in front of a monitor for years. It doesn't matter whether the stress comes from the next article, or keeping the zombies at bay - Our bodies are designed to be mobile, need to be mobile and clog up like the intertubes on Inauguration Day if we don't keep mobile. So.. how do we do it? Here's the first gadget I built:

A PC workstation on a Treadmill.
Read the Full Article ...

It's really easy to do, and it is fine for emails, twitters and the occasional thought for driving GTD software. The secret is to buy a treadmill that is powerful enough to go really slow - 1 mph (about 1.5 kph). This is a 'natural human strolling pace. People have lost incredible amounts of weight from it (Believe it or not I've lost 22 lbs or about 10 Kilos - I show noone the 'before' picture). If you will read on, I have the Mayo Clinic research references (for those of you unable to accept my clear authority on the matter without confirmation), how I put it together, plus some helpful hints for walking. I also have found some interesting videos on using it for pets to exercise. The secret for cats seems to be to keep it slow.

Why?

Improved alertness and productivity at work, the ability to concentrate throughout the entire day, enhanced fitness and weight control without spending hours in the Gym away from work or family – these are all good reasons. Or, as my wife calls it, “bizarre”. It started because of the findings of Dr James Levine
– an obesity and nutrition researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

Activity levels have declined, and he and many other obesity researchers say that decline, more than increases in eating, is to blame for rises in obesity. What has changed is the artificial environment: there is far more opportunity today than in the past to be sedentary. And some people may be genetically predisposed to seize that opportunity. (New Weight-Loss Focus: The Lean and the Restless; By DENISE GRADY, New York Times Online, Published: May 24, 2005).

As you read the following quote, bear in mind that SCRUM Project Management meetings are supposed to be held standing up - serendipity!

"Given an environment that lets people sit for hours and hours a day, they will," he said.
A solution, then, may be to change the environment, to make moving around easier and sitting still less convenient. At meetings, Dr Levine stands instead of sitting. Talking on the telephone, he paces around. In his office he has a treadmill in place of a desk. He got it last year when he saw the data from the study comparing lean people and obese ones. "My computer is stationed over the treadmill," he said. "I work at 0.7 miles an hour."

"You have a natural tendency to want to move your legs. Zero point seven is the key. You don't get sweaty, you can't jiggle too much. It's about one step a second. It's very comfortable. Most people seem to like it around 0.7."

For him, the treadmill has eliminated the afternoon slump, when a lot of people feel sleepy and crave candy bars or caffeine. "I've become convinced we really can generate an office environment where people are on the move and are happier," he said.

Dr. Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University, called the Science paper "great," and added, "I believe the data; it's done correctly and an interesting set of findings."

The NY Times noted that Nonexercise activity (NEAT) can account for a significant portion of the calories burned in a day, anywhere from 15 percent in a sedentary person to 50 percent in someone who is very
active. Standing takes more energy than sitting, and strolling along at just one mile an hour burns twice the calories of sitting.

So this gadget is all about living through 2009 and perhaps even thriving. I encourage the kids to watch their programs while walking on it, and try to do so myself. I keep a stopwatch by it to measure how much time I use it every day.

Next: Constructing the Treadmill, Walking with Friends

Are you Bulldozer or Speedbump This Year?

2008-12-31T22:00:00.000-08:00

Stayin' Alive

Chaos Paves the Way for Creation - i-Ching

If you stand in front of the Bulldozer of Technology change you are just a Speedbump on the Information Superhighway - Alistair Nicholson, IBM IT Strategy Course, Singapore 1999

Ten years on from "the Internet will change everything", 2009 presents the next version of disruption - disruption in business, technology and personal lifestyle. I just pray that no one will call it 'Disruption 2.0'. The good news is these challenges also create personal and professional opportunities. The opportunities arise because of the combination of economic and technological change -- the sort of "perfect storm" -- that influences our career path for the next decade (at least). Back in 1999 our IT Strategy course was divided into two camps - one (the mainframers) had Amazon driven out of business by the 'bricks and mortar' advantage of Barnes & Noble, the other (early adopters and web developers like me) that thought Amazon would understand the web better, and keep its customer base.

Amazon has survived, and thrived through a serious meltdown by understanding and 'infusing itself with IT' to use Tim O'Reilly's phrase. If I'm to get through this year I'll need a pretty good infusion myself, and I'm sharing where my path is taking me. Feel free to use what you can. Over the next few weeks I'll develop effective personal and professional strategies by assessing the economic cycle, the main technological and business changes, and our business and personal plans. (Enter Bee Gees Stage left singing "stayin' alii--ii- iive").

Let me be clear though - this is a time of great disruption. There is opportunity, but it is deadly opportunity. Wrong moves will end in checkmate, serious removal from the Island. I found an interesting re-analysis of the Chinese character for Crisis:

It is basically true that the modern word for "crisis", wei2-ji1 or wei1-ji1, is analyzed as "danger" + "opportunity"... The main meaning of the xiesheng character ("wood" added to "subtle sign") is "trigger of a crossbow", clearly related to the idea of a subtle but powerful military moment. Derived meanings include "weapon" (in general), "key object or idea", and "turning point" or "crucial moment". ...

One of the most idiomatic modern expressions incorporating this character is shi2-ji1, "time" + "trigger", meaning something like "turning point" or "key moment in time". The concept of seizing the correct moment is of great importance in traditional Chinese thought, military and otherwise.

I know the word 'opportunity' is substituted for 'problem' in corporate speak - but think of this 'opportunity' as a turning point in a battlefield full of violent, armoured, fighting warriors armed to the teeth, with half of them trying to turn you into one of the corpses strewn across the ground... 2009 is THAT sort of opportunity.

There are New Shoots Emerging

The commentators I respect agree on this - imitators will be swept away, but there is venture capital and market share for people that do something real. Peter Rip from Crosslink Capital explains some of the reasons in "The coming Venture Capital Boom".

... I see the today’s carnage as much as everyone else. This year is going to be tough. .. But the forest will begin its renewal because Life Goes On, and with it ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and innovation..... We will see dozens of these opportunities in the coming years, but it requires an investment discipline tethered to public market realities about who are likely buyers, why, and at what valuations.

The second phenomenon to emerge from 2000 was the re-invigoration of the Web. As with every wave of innovation, much of the activity became more imitative than innovative as this matured.... The venture money that went into most of these imitations will soon be written off.
.....
So why am I so sanguine about the prospects for venture capital as everyone seems to sound the alarm about Recession, the lack of capital, and the fear gripping the markets? It is simple:

Venture capital returns are predicated on scarcity of risk capital. It has been all too abundant. That will change.
Many good businesses will be left on the beach as the rest are washed out to sea – the remaining VCs will invest in them and both the entrepreneurs and VCs will get rewarded as the survivors gain market share and become successes in the economic recover[y].
The economic recovery plan of the new Administration will be massive and favor investments in productivity-enhancing growth sectors like information technology and energy technology.

We also need to think through what Depression 2009 would look like to ensure we are looking for new developments in the right place. This will be similar but different to what has gone before.

Social and Cloud are Real, Real, Real

How many cycles have we seen now? They all start with some bright idea. Gradually the ideas change into practical applications. This is the tipping point, but also a difficult time to risk clients or career. The 'sensible' manager will just have to point to promoters of the technology (and a few ever-present disasters) to show how 'unsound' it is. Managers and organisations that behave that way will arrive too late and lack the skill set needed for the new technology.

It is a fundamental strategic planning error "playing the man not the ball", but an easy debating style. The problem is that the tipping point occurs at the very moment the first effective tools enter the market enabling commercially viable implementations.

The story from that moment is the same - whether it is adoption of PC's, Unix midrange servers, NT Servers, web sites, Relational database, online editors, high-level development languages or web-based email - rapid momentum becoming explosive. At the end of the process that same manager expressing that same idea ridiculing the technology is considered incompetent, hopelessly inefficient and a liability to the organisation.

So, this means more change, but we have to deal with it because it's reality - it's part of what IT is about. The Obama campaign changed the view of Social software techniques for managing activity. Once Harvard Business School starts blogging about it, the outcome is foregone. Harvard had several blog articles out the morning after the election. In fact it is such an orthodoxy that Doc Searls is calling social another bubble.

“Social” is a bubble. Trust me on this. I urge all consultants on “social ______” (fill in the blank) to make hay while the sun shines. Even as the current depression deepens, lots of companies are starting to realize that this “social” thing is hot stuff and they need to get hip to Twitter and the rest of it....
Meanwhile, here’s the challenge: make the Net personal. Make relationships personal. Equip individuals with tools of independence and engagement. That’s what VRM is about.

Social is colliding with technology outsourcing to create the new Web 2.0, enterprise 2.0 beasts. Language for opening up the technology options moved from leading edge to hit the mainstream in 2008; Cloud computing, Software as a Service (SaaS), application service provider (ASP), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Are you prepared? Are your people prepared? Are you sure? Look at this:

Robert Scoble (Fastcompany, Scobelizer.com) started the year with a cool product that prompted The story of 2009? Enterprise disruption?. He found a product that has let me finish a Web 2.0 environment for building Business Service Transformation skills for a very low cost. He said:

So, why did this catch my eye? First, they are taking something very expensive, Business Intelligence charting and dashboarding, and making it free. That alone is pretty disruptive. ...

But don’t focus on that disruption.

Instead, look at the bigger picture. Here they are using Google spreadsheets to bring you live, collaborative, business intelligence. Watch the second video to see how different this is from most of the “old-school” approaches that haven’t yet built on a platform designed for the web from the start.

See that’s the real disruption: there’s a new platform being built. Right now it’s ugly and incomplete. But every year it gets better and better. Will 2009 be the year when lots of you try out a web-based collaboration suite like the ones from Zoho or Google?

However, we must be careful how this is interpreted. Many will go for the comfort of a 'quick fix' and familiar letters. The point is not that successful organisations use Web 2.0 or SOA or whatever. It is that they are using IT to do their business better - focusing on the Institute of Government Business Mantra of "more effective and efficient business Processes" through technology. Tim O'Reilly puts it this way in the Power of the Real Time Enterprise:

What do Google, WalMart, and MyBarackObama.com have in common, besides their extraordinary success? They are organizations that are infused with IT in such a way that it leads to a qualitative change in their entire business.
I get frustrated when I see people highlighting use of social media--blogging, wikis, twitter, customer feedback systems like Dell IdeaStorm or MyStarbucksIdea--as if they were exemplars of what has come to be called "Enterprise 2.0."

So what can you do to survive? Here are my personal short term action items, yours might be similar:

Action: Make sure YOU understand the emerging technology for Social and Cloud computing.
Action: Make sure you have a plan to use this for your own career.
Action: Make sure your organisation or business has a plan to use Social and Cloud computing, train the staff, create new and adapt existing systems.
Action: Make sure your organisation isn't going to be destroyed by Social and Cloud computing. If so, move now, not soon, now!

Create Something with Meaning

Tim O'Reilly has been through these cycles before. He keeps saying that to get through downturns "do stuff that matters".

Work on stuff that matters...
Exert visionary leadership in our markets....
Be prudent in what we spend money on....
These are all things we should be doing every day anyway. Sometimes, though, a crisis can provide an unexpected gift, a reminder that nobody promised us tomorrow, so we need to make what we do today count.

Tim O'Reilly is suggesting that although the guy that developed a "Fart" application for the iPhone made $40,000 in two weeks, this superficial 'eyecandy' application is fleeting, and will evaporate in difficult times. We can survive this downturn, if we understand what is changing and what is emerging.

Understand the new social and Cloud implications. Understand the way the economy is reshaping. Plan well. Train yourself. Train your staff. Bon chance.

Business Survival needs good IT People

2008-11-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

What a ridiculous proposition. How could embracing web 2.0 and having a good IT strategy be important for business survival in a recession/depression? Or even anywhere near the top of the list. This sounds like spending money.

Well, yes it is spending money, just like wages. One lesson that is common from all our previous experiences is that strategic shortcomings are punished hard in downturns. When we learn lessons from the Great Depression we have to make sure we adjust for a world that really is different (telephones, TV, internet, for example). How could IT and Web 2.0 be important though, for a washing machine manufacturer for example? How can a web site and good IT affect their sales? Surely only Geek-based businesses have to worry.

Our washing machine broke down two days ago and we rang our trusted repair technician. He won't repair that brand any more. I asked him why not? Reply "their website is crap". In what way? "well, to give you an example, of the last 7 orders we put through it for spare parts, 5 were wrong. It wastes our time, which costs us money, and the customers get annoyed because of the delays and blame us, so we don't touch them anymore". His recommended brand? - Bosch or Miele. Our replacement brand - not the one we have now, even though I was happy with it. Sure it can be fixed by the outfit in town that doesn't care what they fix, but the point is that they don't care. People that don't care usually cost a lot more in the end. I'm not going to drill down to the cause - it's probably a poorly implemented parts catalogue. What I am interested in is that I am lost as a customer through a poor website, and the Company won't even know it has happened. It's not the customer-facing part of the site - it is the maintenance person part. There is no obvious way to measure the loss of my custom, nor how many others are lost as well.

What has fundamentally changed is the way customers interact with businesses and each other. There's good news in this because transforming technology gives us future growth. There's bad news in this because managing by, and measuring the wrong things will kill a business stone dead. The toxic effects of bad measurement have been discussed before. It's affecting the new crop of IT people - the very people that will save their organisations - but the organisations don't even know it.

Business (including Government) is still slow to recognise the importance of web 2.0 to future survival, and to identify their own people that can help them. I recently responded to a Twitter stream from a 'thought leader' - an influential networker, who needed to explain what he does in 'value adding' to his own IT management.

Yeah, how can IT or even HR (who should be making the call on productivity) measure the efficiency and quality of work I perform ..
.. that I've leveraged through my professional social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn etc?

YOU are 'peer reviewed' as worth following on a daily basis by 573 people (twitter followers) - the peer review bit is key
HR does not measure quality. So give them stats. Training.gov.au has nn unique hits and 17 committed (daily) followers from zero [in just a few days]

So why aren't we asking these questions? These are the very people that will lead our organisations to better efficency and effectiveness. At the very least they will see us through to survival. What do you know of your people -

who blogs,
how are their blogs rated by peers,
who Twitters,
how many followers do they have,
how many retweets,
who is monitoring the twitterspace for mentions of your organisation, service or product?

Right now is the time to update your business and IT strategies for what will be the toughest year we will have ever faced in our working lifetime. Are you ready? Are you measuring the behaviours you need to have a future?

More Management lessons from Obama Campaign.

2008-11-14T20:56:00.001-08:00

Well, in my earlier post (8 factors for Web 2.0 Business Success) I said the Obama victory would have an impact on how management theories for Enterprise 2.0 and business agility would be applied. Huffington Posts' Daniel Debow believes that the clear results from the new way of doing business and the ongoing communication with the Obama base will convince business to move and adopt faster. Success is a real convincer.

Daniel Debow: How Fast is Bottom-Up Coming Up? What Does Obama's Internet-Powered Election Mean for How Business is Managed?

This week, I attended Don Tapscott's book launch for Grown Up Digital. Don's latest is a follow-up to his two prior best-sellers, Wikinomics and Growing Up Digital.

Don didn't disappoint. He outlined two key trends that are changing the way businesses are organized: Internet-based, bottom-up collaboration; and demographics. Don focused on the Net Generation's entry into the workforce and their use of the Internet as a communication and self-organization platform.

I loved the talk, but wondered: "How long will it take for traditional business people to really start changing their organizational structures, social norms, and expectations to account for the reality of the Net Gen?" Will this change occur over the next 12-24 months? Will it take a few years? Or will it take a decade or longer? Will it wait for the Net Gen to take on more senior management roles and force business to redesign around Net Gen models of communication and collaboration?

I don't know for sure, but I think the shift to "bottom-up" is going to happen a whole lot faster than most business people imagine.

When I talk to people about Rypple's goal of re-inventing performance management and professional development as a bottom-up, collaborative, and self-organizing process that integrates work with learning... light-bulbs go off. People get it, which is great.

But, I wonder... how long until the early majority start to get it and change how they do business?

Up until last week, I didn't think the mainstream population took this stuff very seriously. Sure, people heard about Linux software being built in a open source fashion, but... hey, that was just a bunch of tech stuff, right? There have been dozens of stories about corporate wiki-style innovation. But these were just gimmicks and experiments, right? And while everyone (not under a rock) got YouTubes emailed and chatted about (and maybe joined) Facebook, most people were cynical when they heard how things are "different" with this generation.

The Harvard blogs were out the morning after the election. Umair Haque posted Obama's Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators said:

It's a momentous day for America - and the world. Barack Obama is poised to take the reins of the Presidency.

So how did this unlikeliest of candidates do it? How did Obama utilize radically asymmetrical competition to shatter Washington's toxic, bitter 20th century status quo?

The most critical part of the story is the organization Obama built. Though conservatives are still arguing that Obama has little executive experience, nothing could be further from the truth.

Barack Obama is one of the most radical management innovators in the world today. Obama's team built something truly world-changing: a new kind of political organization for the 21st century. It differs from yesterday's political organizations as much as Google and Threadless differ from yesterday's corporations: all are a tiny handful of truly new, 21st century institutions in the world today.

This is just qthe start of the analysis. If you are a manager or a strategist - it is time to get across what just happened and understand why.

Low cost high speed broadband access for rural and regional communities

2008-11-14T18:12:00.001-08:00

Low cost high speed broadband access for rural and regional communities - could it be reality?

CNET reports a step closer to delivering phone and broadband services over powerlines with strong backup and service providers. IBM bringing broadband over power line to rural America | Cutting Edge - CNET News

IBM has been hired to help rural Americans get broadband access using power lines.

On Wednesday, Big Blue announced it has signed a $9.6 million contract with International Broadband Electric Communications to bring the technology to rural America where it hopes to deliver high-speed broadband connectivity to millions of people who otherwise wouldn't be able to get it. IBM and IBEC, which will build and manage the networks, are working with over a dozen electricity cooperatives in seven states, The Wall Street Journal reported.

For years, people have hoped broadband-over-power line technology, or BPL, would allow power companies to become the third alternative in the broadband market, competing against cable operators and telephone companies. But technical limitations and interference issues with local emergency radios and short-wave ham radios have stood in the way of mass adoption.

In recent years, new modulation techniques supported by other technological advances have helped BPL evolve. Most services today are capable of delivering between 512Kbps and 3Mbps of throughput, which is comparable to most DSL offerings.

In rural areas in particular, BPL technology could finally bring high-speed Internet access to people who otherwise couldn't get it. Traditional phone and cable companies often find it too expensive to deploy new infrastructure to provide service to the far reaches of rural America.

8 Factors for Web 2.0 Business Success

2008-11-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

There is a 'Tipping Point' in how business is conducted - public sector or private - that the Obama campaign has highlighted. American or not, supporter or not, every manager/strategist must recognise that something important has to be learnt from that campaign. Like Senator Obama, Ron Paul reached an audience and retained a presence that would have been impossible 8 years ago. Business is as much about communication as Politics is. The new tools are essential for business too. That's why companies like Oracle so keenly embraced a PR 2.0 (Public Relations 2.0) strategy.

Governments are reviewing the efficiency and effectiveness of their service delivery. The Australian Government is running presentations for their Departments on Web 2.0. The Department of Finance website, somewhat ominously, states "The Government and particularly the Minister for Finance, the Hon Lindsay Tanner, has a keen interest in this area and is promoting increased use of Web 2.0 applications to engage with the public and to enhance government information and service delivery."

Let's drill down into what and why a bit more. The article from The Huffington Post The New Organizers, Part 1: What's really behind Obama's ground game is one of the few 'must reads' about the campaign that examines the management structures and the communication tools that were brought together to make the campaign effective. Key activities I can see here are:

Recruiting people that are interested - heavy use of advertising and social media.
Allocation of basic 'test tasks' - note the transfer of empowerment and communication tools for reporting results. Also note that there is a complete set of instructions and a backup person to go to for help - all online.
Assessment - easy to overlook that all advancement is on the basis of assessment.
Allocation of new roles to fit the person's skills - not the 'holes' in the organisation - using the virtualised organisation to get the person's input to where it is needed e.g. a person in one location phone banking in another. Even tasks like door to door canvassing could use people bussed in from elsewhere.
Empowerment and full briefing with support materials and training courses - yes I've mentioned this before but three things are important here - empowerment comes after assessment (again), empowerment is given clear direction through support materials and training and there is constant engagement - not monitoring, but awareness.
Maintaining engagement - whether donor or volunteer the regular news keeps you involved and feeling that you are part of a larger movement - and there is always someone online to help you - quickly. (Have you ever been in a Bank and seen the internal staff having to wait on the same phone queues as we do - it wastes everyone's time and leaves us all feeling secondary to profit - your call is valuable to us - well answer it then). Constant engagement means that all levels of the organisation know what is happening above and below in a collaborative way - not a directive/enforcement way.
Finishing the job of communication - 2 days after the election one of the other major campaign sites was still asking for phone volunteers.
Fundraising - why did I put this last when it grabbed the headlines? Because it was the result - the outcome - of doing the rest right. Ron Paul also used the web effectively to raise funds, although his power brokers did not react to social pressures in the same way. It was about more than funds.

Some these factors translate into business directly. TS14plus is a clothing company for the Woman with Curves. Every day one or other of the management team sends out an email to all staff and shops with news about the TS14plus world. A new shop has opened, there is above target turnover in a store, an opening sale here, an event there and new stock just released. It is upbeat, semi-formal, professional but community - and it helps keep the franchise engaged as a community across Cities and States - and going gangbusters when other clothing stores are feeling a chill wind.

Engaging staff, volunteers and donors is not easy - it has to be done right - but the path is clear. How do we reach customers and stakeholders? Oracle finds that clients respond to the 'voice of genuine experience'. White papers have a role, the academic framework and list of product features is an essential part of informing clients - but what they really respond to is a real person and a real voice. The pasteurised, neutralised language of the traditional white paper doesn't create enough of the trust relationship - it forms part of the foundation, but not the motivation to act. Oracle took action and created the Oracle Blog Centre where any authorised blogger (note assessment before empowerment) is allowed to blog, and the community rates the blogs up or down. Clients and stakeholders help Oracle identify their MVP's (a basketball term - Most Valuable Player) and they get all the second level information (e.g. what are the hot topics right now, where are ou problems) that social software communities offer.

What else can social software show? This example is from The Network Thinker blog. The article Complete Polarization analyses Amazon book buying data to show the extent of political group polarisation during the lead up to the 2008 US Presidential Election. Using the data to gain behavioural insights can give important strategic direction. This example helps explain why political comments in blogs drew such strong reactions during the immediate lead-up to the election.

An associated blog is Network Weaving. In one article it discusses using twitter (Triangles on Twitter) concluding "Connect on your similarities and profit from your differences".

Imagine the information about us, our organisations and our competitors that a similar analysis of Twitter would reveal.

How

So where do we start? How do we find out what this means? Glad you asked. PR 2.0 The Social Media Manifesto – Integrating Social Media into Marketing Communications is where I would start

Why

Because you want you or your organisation to live on the web. Doc Searls has written succinctly about the difference. "A question arose: Why are there so few visitors to our websites? Millions use their services, yet few bother with visiting their sites, except every once in awhile.

The answer, I suggested, was that their sites were buildings. They were architected, designed and constructed. They were conceived and built on the real estate model: domains with addresses, places people could visit. They were necessary and sufficient for the old Static Web, but lacked sufficiency for the Live one.

The Web isn’t just real estate. It’s a habitat, an environment, an ever-increasingly-connected place where fecundity rules, vivifying business, culture and everything else that thrives there. It is alive." Read the rest of this Harvard article if you are serious about your web presence.

What

What is Web 2.0 anyway? Participatative Anthropologist M Wesch probably explains it best from the links in Understanding the Dance - Web 2.0 through Youtube - brilliant videos.

When

Do it now. A community organiser has shown the World what can be done. Governments are training staff in it. EDS is sponsoring training sites. Leading companies are using it to reach customers in a trusted relationship. The time is now. The wave is here.

New IT Policy for Obama Administration

2008-11-06T17:40:00.001-08:00

The new policy for IT in the USA is up. For the full text follow the link:

Technology | Change.gov

Science, Technology and Innovation for a New Generation

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”

— Barack Obama Presidential Announcement Speech in Springfield, IL 02/10/07

Web 2.0 Inspirational Startups

2008-09-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tim O'Reilly from O'Reilly Media, Inc., Enterprise Radar - yes - THAT publishing empire is talking about how Web 2.0 (c) is changing into something that interacts with the real world - sensors, people, user created content. He addresses the inspirational and vision aspects of startups - going for the big idea. Ordinary ideas and me too are already funded and won't attract more. During the talk Tim refers to several sites - I've put links to some of them here:

23andme - 23andMe's mission is to be the world's trusted source of personal genetic information. They offer a high-density, custom genome scan. Data is used for research as well as personal health information.

Benetech - Benetech emerged out of the pioneering work for Arkenstone, the world leader in reading machines for the blind. Seeing the value in providing affordable tools that greatly empowered the reading disabled, Jim Fruchterman was inspired to found a business that utilized technology to serve social causes. Benetech was born.

Understanding the Dance - Web 2.0 through Youtube

2008-09-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

An Anthropological view of Youtube and Web 2.0 sounds sterile - but is one of the most fascinating lectures you will see when it's the participative anthropology of M Wesch. Terms like Networked individualism take on a real life. If you want to think more about the social networkig side of Internet, this is a key starting point. Thanks to Tim O'reilly and Dave Weinberger for initially Twittering this.

I've included the earlier Web 2.0 video he did that is referenced in his lecture. Brilliant, compulsory.

The 6 Most Inspirational Videos You Haven't seen

2008-09-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

How do you find inspiration without Anthony Robbins? Don't get me wrong - I love his videos - but we've seen them (I hope you have). We've all seen the dying Professor and the Marathon Dad. What inspiration is there that will make us think differently? Here's my suggestions. Take it away and excel.

Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes

Why do people succeed? Is it because they’re smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success. Watch this several times and study the detail in the slides. It's all there.

Crayfish Attack

I've heard of Sharks going for your legs. Rocks and Freshwater Crayfish eating your legs - well that's different. Somebody has to eat a bit more of this guy to slow him down though.

Malcolm Gladwell and Spaghetti

The reason I love listening to Malcolm Gladwell is that one never knows where the story is going. It starts with spaghetti and ends up providing serious insights - and NLP suggests you get the insight you are looking for. Deft lateral thinker, detective of fads and emerging subcultures, chronicler of jobs-you-never-knew-existed, Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce -- and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.

The Numbers - Time to rethink

We know it's a changing World. The technology, the opportunity, the potential. But do you really understand the numbers? This video implicitly asks you to stop and think about what it means and where the trend is driving.

Shining Eyes- The Inspiration of Benjamin Zander

On the surface, this is something about Classical Music - and that's true, but there is so much more here when one understands what 'one Buttock playing' means. Look for the shining eyes.

The Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Address 2005

You've heard of it - but have you actually heard it. Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks-- including death itself-- at Stanford University's 114th Commencement on Sunday in Stanford Stadium.

Where is this going - and are we looking ahead

2008-09-07T23:04:00.001-07:00

Creativity - is this just a buzzword - a fad? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same respect.... that when the children in school today retire it will be 2065 - yet we don't even know what the World will look like in 4 years.

Mistakes don't mean a person is creative, but if you're not prepared to be wrong you won't come up with anything creative. Our companies and our schools stigmatise mistakes... they are the worst things we can do.

13 Points on why Startup Web Sites Suck - and 1 that's good

2008-09-06T17:53:00.001-07:00

Scoble has visited the startups from Demo - and he doesn't mince his words:

"I visited each website from the list of Demo finalists.
Boy, do they suck. Really, really suck.

Does no one understand how to market themselves?

It’s amazing to me that not a single Demo website has learned from the lessons of Gary Vaynerchuk’s Winelibrary.tv. Now THAT is a Website that knows how to market! (Interesting that Gary runs a wine store that sells $50 million a year, yet no one looks at his style as a great way to market your service/product yet)."

So why does this matter? because we need to ensure our web site grabs the visitor straight away on landing, and leads the visitor in. So there is one that works: -

Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Startups: your web site sucks «

Ones that caught my eye?

1. Quantivo. Nice design, gets to the point. Uses video. Makes me want to click into the site.

Um, I visited every single company on the Demo list. Amazingly lame companies. Amazingly lame web sites. Is this it? Am I missing something? How did these companies get $18,000 to go to Demo?

So who were those finalists?

Accordia Group, LLC; New Rochelle, NY;

Adapx, Inc.; Seattle, WA;

Alerts.com, Inc.; Bellvue, WA;

Arsenal Interactive, Inc.; Mountain View, CA;

Asyncast Corp; Campbell, CA;

Awind Inc.; Junghe, Taiwan;

beeTV; Milano, Italy;

Best Buy; Minneapolis, MN;

BizEquity Corp.; Spring House, PA;

Blue Lava Technologies, Inc.; Honolulu, HI;

Cerego; Tokyo, Japan;

Cinergix, Pty Ltd.; Melbourne, Australia;

Clintworld; Boenningstedt, Germany;

CoreTrace Corp.; Austin, TX;

crowdSPRING, LLC; Chicago, IL;

DesignIn, Inc.; Marblehead, MA;

Dial Directions, Inc.; Alameda, CA;

DOCCENTER; Omaha, NE;

Enterprise Informatics, Inc.; San Diego, CA;

Familybuilder; New York, NY;

ffwd.com, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;

Fortressware, Inc.; Mountain View, CA;

Fusion-io; Salt Lake City, UT;

G.ho.st; Ramallah & Modin, Palestine and Israel;

Green Sherpa; Santa Barbara, CA;

Infovell, Inc.; Menlo Park, CA;

Intelius, Inc.; Bellevue, WA;

Invision TV, LLC; Bethesda, MD;

iWidgets, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;

Kadoo Inc.; Washington, DC;

Koollage, Inc.; San Jose, CA;

Mapflow, Ltd.; Cork, Ireland;

Maverick Mobile Solutions, Pvt. Ltd.; Maharashtra, India;

MeDeploy; Hamden, CT;

Message Sling; Worcester, MA;

MeWorks, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan;

Microstaq, Inc.; Austin, TX;

MixMatchMusic, Ltd.; Burlingame, CA;

Momindum; Paris, France;

OpenACircle.com; Dallas, TX;

Paidinterviews, LLC; McLean, VA;

Paragent, LLC; Muncie, IN;

Photrade, LLC; Cincinnati, OH;

PlanDone, Inc.; Petaluma, CA;

Plastic Logic, Ltd.; Mountain View, CA;

Qtask, Inc.; Burbank, CA;

Quantivo Corp.; San Mateo, CA;

Radiant Logic, Inc.; Novato, CA;

RealNetworks, Inc.; Seattle, WA;

Rebus Technology, Inc.; Cupertino, CA;

RemoTV, Inc.; New Haven, CT;

Rudder, Inc.; Houston, TX;

Semanti Corp.; Alberta, Canada;

Sim Ops Studios, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;

SitScape, Inc.; Vienna, VA;

SkyData Systems, Inc.; San Mateo, CA;

SpinSpotter; Seattle, WA;

Telnic, Ltd.; London, England;

TetraBase, LLC; Boothwyn, PA;

The Echo Nest Corp.; Somerville, MA;

tikitag, an Alcatel-Lucent Venture; Antwerp, Belgium;

Toolgether; San Mateo, CA;

TravelMuse, Inc.; Los Altos, CA;

Trinity Convergence, Inc.; Durham, NC;

TurnTo Networks, Inc.; New York, NY;

UbiEst S.p.A.; Treviso, Italy;

UGA Digital, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan;

Unity Solutions, LLC; Clearwater, FL;

Usable Security Systems, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;

WebDiet, Inc.; Henderson, NV;

Xumii, Inc.; San Mateo, CA;

Zazengo, Inc.; Santa Cruz, CA;

See for yourself how your own site measures up.

Inspirational Video for the day

2008-09-06T17:39:00.001-07:00

Tim O'Reilly sent this around with the provocative question - "and what can't YOU do today"?

Music One Note at a Time

2008-09-05T19:46:00.001-07:00

The Newcastle Council sponsored this fascinating experiment. Instruments set up in a Church. Anyone can wander in and play a note on any instrument. People were not there together, but their input is edited into a composition - eerie, beautiful and yet human.

How could we apply that to our sites? How can we invoke the human touch?

Backwards Piano - a Bit of Fun

2008-09-05T19:25:00.001-07:00

All the 'backwards video' tricks are tried in the background while the piano is played - backwards. I'm curious as to just how hard this is to do. It looks as if he is reading the music backwards to do it. It's here because we all need a break occasionally. Life's too serious otherwise. Thanks pandasmash.com! (site possibly NSFW). Enjoy

The Web changes everything - Can you have Version Control and Security?

2008-09-04T21:25:00.001-07:00

We developed our ideas of Corporate Network support years ago. Careful release cycles, software tested and the invention of practices such as program testing, integration testing, system testing and deployment testing. Steady, planned and paced. Make no mistake - these practices were developed for real reasons.

Right outside our firewalls today, however, is the raging chaotic storm that is the Internet. New vulnerabilities have attacks emerge in the wild in three to five days. A significant delay to patching a browser can have serious consequences faster than ever. Taking the time to test patches for 3 months before applying and deploying them - prudent practice 8 years ago, is arguably an act of irresponsibility today.

Agility in Operations Management and systems administration separates the protected in-house applications such as Office and desktop from the external facing applications (web services, VPN, Browser), and provides rapid response on the external facing without sacrificing governance. Even desktop applications require regular update now. Open Office issued an urgent 2.3 to 2.4 upgrade. Microsoft have issued critical patches to address vulnerabilities in MS Office.

What liability rests with IT management when an organisation has not applied patches quickly when the patch and the reason are in the public domain? What liability is there when outdated browsers are deployed? In concession to IE6 users, IE6 is still under maintenance by Microsoft, but is your copy really up to date? If it is one patch and 5 days behind, your security may be an illusion.

I hate to say it, but when it comes to external facing software - patch and patch often.

Is the Linux picture wrong?

2008-08-28T18:39:00.001-07:00

People get roasted in religious wars, and I try to avoid them. I think the existence of linux is really important for the IT industry, and I personally use Linux servers for a couple of sites. However, sometimes the rhetoric overtakes reality. For many ordinary users, Microsoft Windows and the products that run on it are just what they are looking for. It's now emerging that Brazil may sell lots of Linux desktops (the Government is concerned about an economy dependent on windows), but over 90% those machines end up running Windows within a very short time.

Brazil: An emerging market faces challenges - CNET News.com

A big part of this has been a government-backed "PC for all" program that subsidizes the interest rate for some models, though only those with Linux qualify.

"They do not accept Microsoft," Clarke said.

That said, some estimates show as many as 18 or 19 out of every 20 machines sold with Linux ultimately are converted to some form of Windows.

"There was a retailer in one of the countries that sold their systems with Linux," said Gartner analyst Luis Anavitarte. "They made a survey of clients within the first 30 days; 95 percent were already on Windows."

You will find global PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, though the country also has some homegrown brands, most notably Positivo. Among the less well-known brands is Itautec, actually an offshoot of a leading Brazilian bank. According to Wikipedia, it was Itautec that was the first PC maker in Brazil to sell Windows 3.1 preinstalled and localized in Portuguese

Get all your Internet Memes in one Hit

2008-08-28T15:54:00.001-07:00

And now for something completely different .........

a fun little parody quickly traversing all the recent internet 'memes' set to a rocking version of 'we didn't start the fire'. I'm not too old for this .. this is what keeps us young!

Technorati Tags: Internet memes, humour, internet

Keep your iPhone secure with 4 clicks

2008-08-27T20:20:00.001-07:00

Gizmodo have just described a security hole in the current iPhone system, and what to do about it. Fortunately securing the phone just takes 4 clicks.

Huge Security Flaw In IPhone 2.0.2: Huge iPhone Security Flaw Puts All Private Information at Risk

There's a huge security problem in the latest iPhone 2.0.2: if you have your JesusPhone password protected, using a very simple trick gives anyone full access to your cellphone private information in Mail, SMS, Contacts, and even Safari. The two-step trick is even simpler to the one used in the past to gain access to the phone to install unlocking cards or jailbreak. Fortunately, there's a way to avoid this obvious security breach until Apple fixes it.

The Importance of Dark humour

2008-08-26T14:49:00.001-07:00

A wonderfully reassuring post from Readers Digest for the IT person facing the occasional bit of stress argues that dark humour is a critical tool for coping. The article also discusses the importance of 'self-affirming' jokes versus 'self deprecating' in terms of health and cancer survival.

Every day of my life, I thank God for dark humor. I subscribe
wholeheartedly to this idea, first put forth by Woody Allen: "Life is
full of misery, loneliness, and suffering--and it's all over much too
soon."

What is it about humans that makes us want to laugh when logically we
should cry? Well, for one thing, dark humor is a form of bravery.

Using Twitter - Understand Why

2008-07-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

This item just poured forth when I saw a cry for help from a person who is new to Twitter, has just developed a Web site and has a really good story to tell -- but doesn't know how to get it "out there". Several friends have asked me exactly the same question. Firstly an introduction.

Twitter was originally envisaged as a simple way for friends and family to keep in touch. Having a nice cup of coffee? Just Twitter it and those who care about you get a little "touch" through the ether and can be with you in spirit. Of course, it quickly became far more than that.

For example, journalists like John Dvorak use Twitter to perform bulk surveys or research from their large user group of followers (the REAL Dvorak at the time of writing has over 27,000 followers). Looking at some of Dvorak's "cranky geek" type comments, some of these responses are useful but those grains of value are hidden in a great bulk of dross. Mr Dvorak also directs followers to significant articles.

Another type of use comes from Tim O'Reilly. Mr O'Reilly has positioned himself as an information provider. A quick read of his tweets will show that he is exposed to a wide range of content from personal meetings, reading and a highly active network of contacts. He then shares what he feels to be the most significant of these items with his group of followers through "reweets".

Yet another "commercial" type of use comes from sites such as Joomla where announcements or special releases can be made simply. If announcements are more complex then a link to the release page is provided.

So what does this all mean, and how do you do use it to build followers and traffic? To start with, have a clear picture as to what your Twitter channel is for (Remember you can have more than one Twitter identity). For Example, a company that did tours and provided transport around fishing and tourist areas might focus on upcoming events, what the fishing conditions are today, and post a short link to the last wine area tour. Clear links to the Twitter feed(s) Together with a description of the feed should be placed on the site and handouts given to every person that participates in a tour or goes fishing in the area ( local fishing clubs, fishing shops, small ads in the paper).

Secondly, try and build a community or network of information providers. For example, drivers should have a mobile phone where they could report weather, traffic conditions, accidents, roadworks and possibly even police patrols. Retweeting this information to a transport Twitter feed would be really useful for any drivers in the region. Update it early enough and it would be mandatory reading for any commuter before leaving the house in the morning. Ideas like this should build immediate and relevant traffic - if it is the audience you want. Is it the audience you want? That's the question you need to answer first.

Generalising around these examples to try and extract strategic principles we might say;

Twitter is useful if you think you can build an interested, relevant group of followers;

this means that you have to have something to say to them that they will be interested in on a regular basis;
and it must be useful enough that they will deal with irritating computer type thingies like twitter;
so it must be content that they will be obsessed about (for example fisherfolk and fishing conditions), have a personal aspect (they want to know when and where the photos of their individual trip to the wine country are posted) or have enough links to their general interest (they want to relive their holiday of a lifetime by proxy through other recent trips so they follow the feed).

Restating this in a slightly different way, Twitter is all about information provision. People like Dvorak and O'Reilly who really "get this" have enormous feeds - It's their business. What the rest of us need to know is who we want to communicate with and what we want to tell them. In business, if you are not sure why you're doing it and what the benefit will be, there's probably a better use of your time and resources. For the right purposes though, Twitter can be a really fun way to reach out and truly communicate with people who could turn out to be quite pleasant.

There is one small cautionary corollary I must mention. There is a really capable and professional consultant that I follow. Beautiful photo, white shirt, tie and a nice smile. His twitter feed, however, can include language and political comments that are at odds with his daytime professional image. It doesn't worry me, I'm happy to follow him -- but remember, when you communicate on the Web it is all too easy to communicate far more than you intend.

Aggregating Directory Information

2008-06-17T02:41:00.000-07:00

A recent project has been aggregating directory information from a variety of organisations supporting General Medical Practitioners (Family Doctors). The Primary Health Care worker needs access to current, accurate information regarding health service providers. The project is based on Open Source Infrastructure. We have created a set of video introductions to the Health Services Provider Directory that talk about the design isdsues and show some of the user interface. We thought they might be of inteest. These are links to YouTube. If they do not play correctly, please check that your network administrator allows YouTube.

Directory Introduction
Health Services Directory Part 1 - Introduction

Everyday Usage
Health Services Directory Part 2 - the User View

Administrative Issues
Health Services Directory Part 3 - Updates

The Administrator UI
Health Services Directory Part 4 - Administering Data

How does Google Manage Mac desktops

2008-06-11T15:05:00.001-07:00

Redmonk has published an interview on how Google manages Mac desktops. Later in the interview it mentions that Linux desktops will be managed through the same tool.

People Over Process » Puppet at Google - RedMonk Radio Episode 48

Nigel has been using Puppet to manage “many, many thousands” of Mac desktops used at Google by developers and others. He tells us how he got involved in using Puppet last year during WWDC last year and quickly applied its use to managing Google Mac desktops.

Open and Transparent vs Setting Limits

2008-06-09T00:25:00.001-07:00

I've been on both sides of the negotiation. The need to keep Government acquisition open, and yet how do we reward organisations that come up with new approaches that may provide a better solution if we just take their good ideas, and then go to the market with them.

Risking Another Frontline Disaster | ZDNet Government | ZDNet.com

The Wall Street Journal says in an editorial that FCC chair Kevin Martin is about to screw things up again on the public wireless Internet front. The first time around Martin tried to rig the D block auction to hand 700MHz spectrum over to Frontline Wireless, formed by former commissioner Reed Hunt. No private party wanted to play with Frontline under the restrictions the FCC put in place, the Journal says, and the auction crashed and burned.

Now its time for a new auction and this time the FCC wants to require the winner to offer free wireless Internet that filters out porn. Apparently the Journal wants these auctions to happen with no regulations, continuing the lack of public Internet infrastructure, but they do have a point on the question of whether Martin is rigging this auction for another favored player.

It just so happens that Mr. Martin’s proposed auction seems tailor-made for the business plan put forward by M2Z, another politically connected Silicon Valley start-up looking to enter the wireless broadband telecom market.

M2Z is backed by the venture capital outfits Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint Ventures and Charles River Ventures. It’s also backed by Democratic Representatives Anna Eshoo of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who’ve introduced legislation that would require the FCC to auction this spectrum to a company with a business plan that looks a lot like . . . M2Z’s. Ms. Eshoo’s district is home to Kleiner Perkins and Redpoint; Mr. Markey’s is home to Charles River.

IM Improves Office Efficiency

2008-06-04T17:31:00.001-07:00

Science Daily has published research showing that Instant Messaging (IM) actually reduces interruptions and improves efficiency in office environments. The security team won't be pleased though.

Instant Messaging Proves Useful In Reducing Workplace Interruption

Employers seeking to decrease interruptions may want to have their workers use instant messaging software, a new study suggests. A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University and University of California, Irvine found that workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not.

How secure is YOUR System - really?

2008-05-29T22:34:00.001-07:00

Revision 3 is a well-funded, reputable operation. They know what they are doing. Yet Media Defender (MD) managed to find (or place possibly) illegal copyright material on their website. When the material disappeared, this may have triggered a ferocious Denial of Server attack by MD. Bit torrent files have become essential to the Health sector and open source communities (the only way we could download the last version of Fedora successfully was to revert to using a Bit Torrent client). This article explores what happened and it's important for management as well as techies to understand our exposure to potential problems like this. The core belief underlying ITIL today is that our business (Government or Private) absolutely relies on our systems. For Rev 3 the costs will be added up, and this will be a case study worth following.

Revision3

Inside the Attack that Crippled Revision3

on May 29th, 2008 at 07:49 am by Jim Louderback in Polemics

As many of you know, Revision3’s servers were brought down over the Memorial Day weekend by a denial of service attack. It’s an all too common occurrence these days. But this one wasn’t your normal cybercrime – there’s a chilling twist at the end. Here’s what happened, and why we’re even more concerned today, after it’s over, than we were on Saturday when it started.

Why should I Deal with You?

2008-05-20T20:05:00.001-07:00

Staying with the theme of motivating the workforce and keeping your company in business ....

Why Should I Do Business with You? - Harvard Business Online's Bill Taylor

This consultant, whose firm has conducted thousands of “mystery shops” and interviews with front-line employees at retail banks, told the gathering that during their visits, his researchers always ask bank employees a simple question: “As a customer, why should I choose your bank over the competition?” And two-thirds of the time, he said, front-line employees have no answer to that question—they simply “make something up on the fly.”

How can any business expect to outperform the competition when its own employees can’t explain—simply and convincingly— what makes them different from the competition? This question isn’t just for bankers. Gary Hamel, the influential strategy guru at the London Business School, makes the case that most companies, in most industries, suffer from a kind of tunnel vision: They chase the same opportunities that everyone else chases; they miss the same opportunities that everyone else misses.

Seriously Different - Offer New Employees a bonus to Quit

2008-05-20T19:23:00.001-07:00

Game changing practices. True insights are rare but Bill Taylor has gone on a rave -

I spend a lot of time visiting with companies and figuring out what
ideas they represent and what lessons we can learn from them. I usually
leave these visits underwhelmed. There are plenty of companies with a
hot product, a hip style, or a fast-rising stock price that are,
essentially, one-trick ponies—they deliver great short-term results,
but they don’t stand for anything big or important for the long-term.

Every so often, though, I spend time with a company that is so

original in its strategy, so determined in its execution, and so
transparent in its thinking, that it makes my head spin. Zappos is one of those companies. Two weeks ago, I paid a visit to Zappos headquarters in Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, and spent time with CEO Tony Hsieh
and his colleagues. I could write a whole series of posts (and just
might) about what I learned from this incredible operation. But I want
to focus this post on one small practice that offers big lessons for
leaders who are serious about changing the game in their field—and
filling their organization with people who are just as committed as
they are.

Bill Taylor has been around - his resume includes:

agenda-setting thinker, writer, and entrepreneur. His new book, Mavericks at Work, has been a New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller. As cofounder of Fast Company,
he launched a magazine that earned a passionate following among
executives and entrepreneurs. He is an adjunct professor at Babson
College and a former associate editor of Harvard Business Review.

Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You Should Too - Harvard Business Online's Bill Taylor

So the value proposition is a winner. But it’s the emotional connection that seals the deal. This company is fanatical about great service—not just satisfying customers, but amazing them. The company promises free, four-day delivery. That’s pretty good. But most of the time it delivers next-day service, a surprise that leaves a lasting impression on customers: “You said four days, but I got them the next morning.”

Zappos has also mastered the art of telephone service—a black hole for most Internet retailers. Zappos publishes its 1-800 number on every single page of the site—and its smart and entertaining call-center employees are free to do whatever it takes to make you happy. There are no scripts, no time limits on calls, no robotic behavior, and plenty of legendary stories about Zappos and its customers.

Agile techniques - Why User Stories

2008-05-17T01:15:00.001-07:00

Extending the discussion of Consulting Techniques and adapting Agile, approaches, this article by Mike Cohn is still relevant today. I've included a snippet from his discussion with a meaningful example. The bottom line is that a clear story line is critical to ensuring a report is effective.

Mountain Goat Software - Advantages of User Stories for Requirements

IEEE 830–style requirements have sent many projects astray because they focus attention on a checklist of requirements rather than on the user᾿s goals. And lists of requirements don't give the reader the same overall understanding of a product that stories do. It's very difficult to read a list of requirements without automatically considering solutions in your head as you read. Carroll, for example, suggests that designers “may produce a solution for only the first few requirements they encounter.”6 For example, consider the following requirements:7

3.4) The product shall have a gasoline-powered engine.

3.5) The product shall have four wheels.

3.5.1) The product shall have a rubber tire mounted to each wheel.

3.6) The product shall have a steering wheel.

3.7) The product shall have a steel body.

By this point, I suppose images of an automobile are floating around your head. Of course, an automobile satisfies all of the requirements listed above. The one in your head may be a bright red convertible, while I might envision a blue pickup. Presumably the differences between your convertible and my pickup are covered in additional requirements statements.

But suppose that instead of writing an IEEE 830–style requirements specification, the customer told us her goals for the product:

* The product makes it easy and fast for me to mow my lawn.
* I am comfortable while using the product.

By looking at goals, we get a completely different view of the product: the customer really wants a riding lawnmower, not an automobile. These goals are not user stories, but where IEEE 830 documents are a list of requirements, stories describe a user’s goals. By focusing on the user’s goals for the new product, rather than a list of attributes of the new product, we can design a better solution to the user’s needs.

Consulting Tricks - Finding Subheadings

2008-05-17T00:54:00.001-07:00

An old consulting trick is to work out what you want to say in a series of phrases, and then expand the content under each phrase with the evidence and detail. This creates a coherent structure for the report. Mike Cohn has a template he uses (more detail on the link) to collect requirements. Add some templates for higher level stakeholders - e.g. Executives, shareholders, Government, that may not be able to participate directly, and you can use this across the management spectrum.

Advantages of the "As a user, I want" user story template | Mike Cohn's Blog - Succeeding With Agile™

Advantages of the “As a user, I want” user story template

In my user stories book and in all my training and conference sessions on user stories I advocate writing user stories in the form of “As a , I want so that .” While I consider the so-that clause optional, I really like this template.

How the Web will change with Gen Y

2008-05-16T17:14:00.001-07:00

A thoughtful overview of changes. The unknown, though is how the financial meltdown will change those who have never experienced a serious recession if it becomes prolonged.

Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web - ReadWriteWeb

Gen Y is taking over. The generation of young adults that's composed of the children of Boomers, Generation Jones, and even some Gen X'ers, is the biggest generation since the Baby Boomers and three times the size of Gen X. As the Boomers fade into retirement and Gen Y takes root in the workplace, we're going to see some big changes ahead, not just at work, but on the web as a whole.

Wii strikes again - Hack an electronic whiteboard

2008-03-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Code from Johnnylee.net. This video is a great demo of how to create an electronic whiteboard on any surface where an image can be projected. It uses the Wiimote control and software from Mr Lee's site. Now this is impressive! I'm not sure what the IP situation is regarding the multi-touch aspects though. The demands of technological innovation are outstripping the IP system. Watch and enjoy.

Mind reading technology becomes commodity

2007-03-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

Project Epoc

This release for developers has appeared:

Based on the latest developments in neuro-technology, Emotiv has developed a new interface for human computer interaction.

Project Epoc is a headset that uses a set of sensors to tune into electric signals naturally produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expression. It connects wirelessly with all game platforms from consoles to PCs. Project Epoc now makes it possible for games to be controlled and influenced by the player's mind.

Engaging, immersive, and nuanced, Emotiv-inspired game-play will be like nothing ever seen before.

Going to the site, there's a set of tools to use the input from this standard headset. Combining this with the Wii bluetooth handset can create a truly immersive gaming experience.

Minority Report type UI working

2007-02-09T22:15:00.000-08:00

The interface business continues to grow in sophistication. This example is made by Perceptive Pixel.

be impressed - be very impressed!

unintended consequences of licensing enforcement

2007-02-09T22:10:00.001-08:00

A headmaster was tried after he acquired a improperly licensed copy of windows for the school. Response: if licensed software is causing problems - stop using it.

Russian schools abandon Windows after piracy scare

Schools in the Perm region will soon quit buying software from commercial companies, said the region’s Education Minister Nikolay Karpushin. The announcement was made in line with the report on ensuring 'license purity' in the region’s schools.

According to Karpushin, schools would start using freely distributed software like the Linux OS, Russky office and Open office desktop apps, Ekho Moskvi reports.

The flavour of Linux being used will be one of the cheap localised Russian Linux distributives in Russia.

Now the Online Game is Core to the Franchise

2007-02-07T21:18:00.001-08:00

Disney are building the online game as the core of their "Priates" franchise. Free to join - pay to upgrade. Can they do it?

Disney To Launch Free 'Pirates' MMO This May - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Disney Online will offer the legions of fans who have flocked to see Captain Jack Sparrow in movie theaters a chance to star in an original video game adventure for free with "Pirates of the Caribbean Online."
ADVERTISEMENT

The massively multiplayer online game, slated to launch in the spring in conjunction with the May 25 theatrical release of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," will bypass retail and be available via a free download at www.PiratesOnline.com

Can LED's really have this impact?

2007-01-19T19:25:00.000-08:00

I know this is a little off topic - but look at the figures for money and CO2 saved!

Cheaper LEDs to light a green path? | Tech News on ZDNet

The future of light is plastic, Cyberlux says.

The company, which specializes in light-emitting diodes, plans to reveal in about four months prototypes of a new style of white-light LEDs that would both cost substantially less to manufacture and provide more light than conventional LEDs.

Combined, the two advantages would enable light fixtures based on LEDs, which are now relatively expensive, to better compete with traditional lamps based on conventional glass bulbs and fluorescent lights, according to Cyberlux President Mark Schmidt.

..............

Approximately 22 percent of the electricity consumed in the United
States goes toward lighting, according to the U.S. Department of
Energy.
To make matters worse, traditional lightbulbs are incredibly
inefficient. Only about 5 percent of the energy that goes into them
turns into light. The majority gets dissipated as heat. Fluorescent
bulbs are much more efficient but aren't as prevalent, particularly
inside homes. LED advocates say their devices will beat fluorescent
bulbs.
In a speech last year, DenBaars said that if 25 percent of
the lightbulbs in the United States were converted to LEDs putting out
150 lumens per watt (higher than the current commercial standard), the
country as a whole could save $115 billion in utility costs,
cumulatively, by 2025. That would alleviate the need to build 133 new
coal-burning power stations, he said.

In turn, carbon emissions in the atmosphere would go down by 258 million metric tons.

Zudeo now Public

2007-01-17T02:04:00.000-08:00

P2P company Azureus has a new video-sharing beta in the works called Zudeo, which is up and ready for users right now.

Zudeo supports long-form full-resolution and even hi-def video in addition to the video podcasts and indie music typical to video-sharing sites.

For long-form stuff that you want to watch or distribute in a higher resolution than streaming video--like the 69-minute "Reefer Madness," online now!--a solution like Zudeo makes sense. For shorter/lower-rez stuff, though, why not go with a lighter solution like YouTube (and one that doesn't require downloading a client app)?

Aspiring video distributors: Zudeo hosting is free while it's in beta, and the site says they'll host your content free for at least 12 months no matter when the beta testing wraps up.

Video presenters! Zudeo also provides links to your content that you can embed in blogs and other sites.

Next Skype video project unveiled

2007-01-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

Can Skype do it again?

Hands On with Skype's Joost/Venice Project - AppScout

Skype's Internet TV project, formerly called The Venice Project, got its real name today: Joost. The video service is still in beta, but the Joost team says it will be more open than before, so if you've been waiting for an invitation, you can start holding your breath now (we didn't get ours until last week).

For those that haven't heard of this yet, Skype's video service has pretty high ambitions. It's not meant for grainy webcam videos, nor is it the place to find recent Daily Show clips. Joost is looking to make its mark with original content streamed with as little compression as possible, and to give regular ol' TV a real run for its money.

I took Joost for a test drive this morning, and it looks pretty slick besides the occasional beta bugs (for instance, it isn't working with IE or Safari right now for some reason). Joost uses a local video player client that interacts with the Web to stream videos using an H.264 video codec, and there's a modified Mozilla browser built over it all so the client will work with pretty much any OS.

Web News - become a journalist

2007-01-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! are wanting to formalise the use of the public to capture news - video and photograph.

You Witness News

Were You There When News Happened?

Upload your photos and video here to have them considered for use in articles and features on Yahoo! News.

Lookalike fonts

2007-01-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

Interesting for designers wanting a free font that is similar to a commercial one.

Which fonts look most like Helvetica? What's a good substitute if you can't find Staccato? Many times companies will produce their own versions of another font. Occasionally the names will be similar such as Lithos and Lithographic. But often the names are totally dissimilar as in Perpetua and Lapidary 333. This list will help you find many of these lookalike fonts, font aliases, clones, and close-match fonts. It's not a comprehensive list by any means, but it is a start and encompasses typefaces from many well-known sources including Monotype, Bitstream, Adobe, Corel, and Linotype AG.

Best CES 2007 Photo Blog

2007-01-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

What a mad place - I love the Paris Hotel - it looks like the set for "Moulin Rouge".

CES 2007 Photo Blog - CES 2007 Coverage by PC Magazine

When it comes to CES, we can try to explain the crazy events, technological miracles, and eye-popping booths, but in the end, seeing is believing. To that end, we present our CES 2007 Photo Blog , your ticket to the show floor. Click on the slideshow on the right to learn what we learn and see what we see.

Kill the download button army

2007-01-08T00:27:00.000-08:00

I haven't used this yet but download squad have found this interesting utility for professional bloggers:

Well, if you're someone that wants to offer your users the ability to easily subscribe to or bookmark your site, but want to avoid littering your site with all of these site-specific icons, check out Add This. Add This allows you to put a single image link on your site to take your readers to a dedicated bookmarking site page, and another for feed readers. Once there, they can choose the service they'd like to use, and perform the function they're looking to do.

Web 2.0 startup advice

2007-01-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

Good advice for new systems too. Worth a check.

. It ... seems like many of these startups could use some guidance to help them find their way. With goofy names, varying user experiences and questionable goals running amok, we figured it was time to lay down some ground rules. Check out our seven tips to help Web 2.0 startups be all they can be:

1. Help me make the move: New blogs and communities need easy tools to let their users integrate some sort of blurb about their new hangout on their other sites and communities. For example: I've been playing with Vox for a few weeks now, and just recently they introduced a badge tool that puts together all the HTML users would need to insert in another blog sidebar. This makes it easy for users to tell existing readers they have have (or are moving to) a Vox blog. While it's a smart move and I'm using a badge on my personal WordPress blog, this generator should have existed the day Six Apart, and all who follow in their footsteps, flipped the switch on their service.

Looking Glas UI released for Windows and Linux

2006-12-28T03:49:00.000-08:00

Alistair's Utilities - The Good and the Free

Fantastic News - Looking Glass Desktop released for Linux and Windows!
I've been waiting for this news since the first concept release. Linux desktops now come of age. The Ubuntu system has a version dedicated.

Sun's Looking Glass 3D Desktop Released - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Looking Glass, which was first shown off in 2003 and released as an open-source project in 2004, allows users to run a Java-based desktop environment on top of Windows, or on Linux or Solaris. The software allows certain applications to be run in a "2.5D" environment, allowing them to be rotated in 3D space to maximize the available desktop space.

The interface also includes a launch bar along the bottom middle of the screen, similar in appearance to the Apple OS X's Dock.

According to the developers, Looking Glass includes several interesting features not included in either the Apple or Windows OSes: the ability to "fly" left or right to a new virtual desktop, or to use the "back" of a virtual window. Windows can also be organized on their "side," allowing a "bookshelf" view of the available windows.

Looking Glass Interface -- Shared Workspace View

Users can download the new Looking Glass interface from Sun's Web site.

Kanguru 32GB Flash Max Drive KFDM-32G at TigerDirect.com

2006-10-29T01:42:00.000-08:00

Another gadget has snuck into the blog. 32 Gigabytes on a normal-looking thumb drive! Gadzooks!

Kanguru 32GB Flash Max Drive KFDM-32G at TigerDirect.com: "Kanguru 32GB Flash Max Drive
The Kanguru Flash Max is a high strength, high capacity USB2.0 flash drive that stores up to 32GB! The Kanguru Flash Max sports a rugged aluminum exterior housing that provides durability and ultimately extends the life of the drive. Operates on Windows, Mac and Linux, most without any device drivers.

The Kanguru Flash Drive Max comes complete with KanguruShield security software, allowing Windows users the option of password protection for secure data. The KanguruShield software allows users to resize and format the flash drive space into public and/or private partitions. Setting up the KanguruShield security software is easy and user friendly!"

furniture plus computers plus cables plus a sane family? Yes, almost

2006-10-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Built for the High-Tech Household - washingtonpost.com

Finally, a piece of furniture that reflects how we really live. Imagine a cabinet/desk/console that recharges multiple cellphones, docks iPods and provides Internet access and data ports for laptops.

From Clipart Blog ...

Sligh's new multitasker ($2,945).

This multitasking design is so new, it doesn't even have a name. But it's being touted as a command center for families and households because it organizes the overload of high-tech domestic gadgets and entertainment components piling up in America's kitchens and front hallways.

In a period of weak sales for most home furnishings, manufacturers introducing lifestyle solutions for 21st-century living were the ones that drew attention at last week's High Point Market, the twice-yearly design powwow that attracts industry executives, retailers and journalists from around the world. Store buyers crowded around the new designs as though they were concept cars at an auto show for one reason: They're useful.

Oracle grabs a stack

2006-10-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Oracle support for Red Hat Linux is the news of the day. Enterprise support at a reasonable price for the Linux stack gives Oracle more control over the platform, customers more security, and raises the question why Oracle support for their own product can't be as cheap. ZDNet has a feature on the issues.

» Ellison offers full support service for Red Hat Linux at half the price | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

He listed key issues that are slowing the adoption of Linux and Oracle database grids running on Linux. Most glaring is true enterprise support, which is unavailable from Linux vendors. Bugs are not necessarily fixed in the versions companies are running, but fixed in future versions, Ellison said. To get the fix you have to upgrade, which Ellison said isn't acceptable to Oracle's large customers. In addition, Ellison cited expensive support from leading Linux vendor ($1499 per year for a 2 processor server, he said) and concerns about intellectual property indemnification.

As of this moment Ellison announced full support for Red Hat Linux. "If you are a Red Hat Linux support customer, you now have a choice. You can easily switch from Red Hat to Oracle support, and we will back port your bug fixes, indemnify you from intellectual property problems, and charge way less than half what Red Hat charges," Ellison said.

"We are not trying to differentiate ourselves from the Red Hat code. We will synchronize our system with Red Hat releases," Ellison added. "We are not trying to fragment the Linux market."

Oracle is taking Red Hat code, taking out trademarked material, putting in bug fixes and compiling it for customers for whatever version they have. Oracle created an Unbreakable Linux Network and customers can receive software updates incrementally. Red Hat customers don't need to remove anything from their servers if they bind to the Oracle Linux Network, which takes about 90 seconds.

The benefits of Red Hat open source code has spawned a serious competitor to its business.

The goal is to enhance and speed the adoption of Linux and make it mission critical in the datacenter.

55 Million Blogs, and Now a Service to Track Them - New York Times

2006-10-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

55 Million Blogs, and Now a Service to Track Them - New York Times:
A new business model - using tools like technorati to track client's profile. NYTimes required free registration to go to article (NYTimes is worth it anyway - and they don't pay me for this).

"“A year ago, brands were saying, ‘Oh no, not the blogosphere,’ ” said Peter Hirshberg, chief executive of Technorati, a blog-tracking service that last week, in partnership with Edelman, provided results of a global survey of blog use. “Now they’re saying, ‘Great, this is an opportunity.’ ”

Now the Edelman public relations firm is sponsoring development of new Technorati sites in French, German, Italian, Korean and Chinese, involving an investment of “several hundred thousand dollars.” Several of those services, which supplement Technorati’s existing English-language and Japanese sites, began operating in beta (a kind of live test) this month. Until February, they will be available exclusively to Edelman and its clients. After that, the information they generate is to be opened to the public.

“It’s a way of determining in very short order who’s talking positively about you and who’s talking negatively,” said Richard Edelman, chief executive of the public relations firm.

Monitoring blogs can be a huge logistical challenge. There are more than 55 million of them around the world, according to Technorati, and the total is growing by thousands every week.

Some large corporations have employed specialists like Brandimensions and Nielsen BuzzMetrics to track online chatter about their products and services. And some ad agencies are moving to incorporate such services into their own offerings. Edelman already monitors scores of blogs devoted to following individual clients of the firm, like Wal-Mart Stores."

Idiosyncratic and Personal, PC Edges TV - New York Times

2006-10-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

Idiosyncratic and Personal, PC Edges TV - New York Times:

At the time of posting, this required free personal registration and logon with the NYTimes. It's an intersting anecdotal introduction to the changes in our behaviours that have made youtube an investment. My own Institute is putting educational videos up on youtube as a combination public service and awareness exercise. It is clear that others are doing the same.

"Idiosyncratic and Personal, PC Edges TV
By DAVID CARR
Published: October 16, 2006

Last Wednesday, I was working late but left the office in time to watch the second episode of ABC’s “Lost.” But when I got home and booted the computer to check messages before hitting the couch, I happened to notice one of my twin daughters at a far-flung Big 10 campus was live on Yahoo! Messenger.

I clicked on “View my Webcam,” as did Erin, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin, and suddenly I had the chance to inspect the disturbingly large ring she recently had implanted in her lip. Live video may seem straight out of the Jetsons, but I have the computing skills of Fred Flintstone. Still, between my PC and my daughter’s Mac, we managed to get a serviceable video chat going, assisted by speakerphones on cells.

My 9-year-old wandered over and, once she saw a live image of her now distant sister, acted as if I had invented electricity. We made Erin drag her new friend Sam into the picture so we could give him the once over. “He’s kind of cute,” my wife whispered sotto voce as she craned over my shoulder. (I’m reserving judgment until I can menace him in person.) Then we pinged Meagan, Erin’s twin sister up the road at University of Michigan. As soon as she accepted my invitation to view the Webcam, she exclaimed, “You’re here!”

One thing led to another and we ended up watching the strangely compelling treadmill dance from the music group OK Go on YouTube, which clicked through to a parody, which led to, well, you get the idea. It was “television” with an audience that could be counted on a single hand but compelling enough that “Lost,” my one piece of appointment viewing for the night, was quickly forgotten. Madonna might be scheduled to mud-wrestle Britney Spears on premium cable and I’d"

Paris Motor Show: Venturi AstroLab electro-solar hybrid - AutoblogGreen

2006-10-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure that this item has a proper place in my blog, but an electric car that recharges from mains and photovoltaic cells is pretty exciting. Shame the price is over $100k. Even at today's prices that's a lot of fuel, although also a lot of Carbon.

Paris Motor Show: Venturi AstroLab electro-solar hybrid - AutoblogGreen: "Venturi claims it is the first electro-solar hybrid vehicle. It can charge its batteries either from the sun via the flat upper surface covered with photo-voltaic cells or by plugging it into an outlet. Questionable aesthetics aside this is a technologically-interesting vehicle. The manufacturer claims that even the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the production process will be offset by other environmental actions, hence the label 'The CarbonNeutral Company'."

Volume Activation 2.0: Another Potential Vista Gotcha? | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

2006-10-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

As if the security concerns weren't enough for corporates! now we hear this:

» Volume Activation 2.0: Another Potential Vista Gotcha? | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com: "For those who’ve yet to hear about it, Volume Activation is a new digital-license activation technology aimed at businesses. It’s part of the larger “Software Protection Platform” that Microsoft is constructing to combat piracy.

In short, Microsoft is not going to allow enterprises to operate on an honor system, when it comes to proving how many copies of Windows they’ve paid to license. Just like it does with individual Windows users, Microsoft is going to start requiring companies to authenticate their new versions of Windows within 30 days of installing.

Microsoft is planning to incorporate Volume Activation 2.0 into Windows Vista Enteprise, Windows Vista Business and Longhorn Server. Microsoft is not planning to bake Volume Activation into Vista Ultimate – even though some customers will be using that product in a business setting."

Note from School - Reason for absence

2006-09-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

I've been very quiet for several weeks. A number of reasons including personal - but one has been the implementation of a new medical education community site deployed across mutiple jurisdictions: Commonwealth, State, Regional and Local Government with Stakeholders including the aforementioned Government organisations, Professional colleges, Universities, Medical Practitioner Organisations, Employers, Students, and participants all in the mix. Here is an introductory video on the system, so I hope it will help you to excuse me for going silent for a while.

performance tests on php, perl and cgi

2006-08-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

Keith Winston reports on a test he conducted comparing the three typical open source tools. I expected php to perform well because it supports some pretty high performance sites in real life. The full report is linked, but the essentials are clipped here.

NewsForge | LAMP vs. LAMP

That said, the results of these tests show that for many common Web programming tasks, PHP (mod_php) has a slight performance edge over Perl (mod_perl), based on the majority of the HTML generation tests. In the MySQL test, PHP also edged out Perl. I suspect the MySQL results are a reflection of the database drivers more than the interpreters.

Both mod_perl and mod_php have an enormous performance advantage over standard CGI, as expected. Standard CGI not only doesn't scale very well, but gains no advantage from concurrency. Under load, it could bring a server to its knees quickly.

A Simple solution for Vista upgrade and WGA woes

2006-07-31T20:14:00.000-07:00

I've Just read 2 articles. The first describes the "upgrade matrix" for Vista options. One of my machines runs XP Pro 64. The only option there is a clean install. That was quite a surprise! A clean install and re-install of main software takes 1.5 to 2 chargeable person days. It really is quite expensive and a last resort action.

My Tablet will only go to Vista Business or Enterprise, and the M$ pricing history for Business software has always been pretty aggressive. The other XP Pro machines also can only go to Business or Enterprise. I want to keep one environment M$ to ensure client compatibility, so that will mean one machine with Vista Business and the new Office. That won't be cheap, and therefore I really do not want to buy any more copies than I have to. I'm identifying the Windows software that I just "can't" do without and moving it to one of two machines - a laptop for mobile work, and a desktop/server for static development.

Every utility I use is re-evaluated - is it multi-platform? If not, is there a multi-platform alternative? Although functionality, not price, is the main requirement, the answer is usually in the open source arena. This is a trend that will impact software suppliers. The assumption that customers will automatically move to Vista has a questionmark over it. I've been using Open Office as my main work platform for some time to ease the transition and test for compatibility issues. I'm ready for Vista conversion and the following linked article just confirms my "Vista upgrade" strategy.

WGA and Activation Failures Don’t Faze Redmond at American McGee’s Blog

A few days ago Windows XP on my primary work computer decided that it wasn’t a legal copy. Strange since the copy running on there was pre-installed at the time that the machine was built by Alienware. There used to be a Windows serial number on the back of the machine, but the sticker has since fallen off. What’s worse, as soon as I started receiving the dreaded, “You may be a victim of software piracy…” notices, I also started noticing increased system instability. All of this culminated in what I can only assume was some form of malware infection, a hardware crash (related to my soundcard), and a pretty complete system failure.

I was angry for a moment, but then I realized: I don’t much like Windows anyway. So I wiped the offending garbage from my machine and installed Ubuntu Linux. All in all a painless process.

The truth is, Ubuntu “out of the box” is a little lacking (can’t play proprietary video formats, run PC apps, is missing much needed apps, etc), but with the use of an installer script called Automatix, I now have a free, highly functional, and stable OS. And it’s pretty to boot.

Matthew Newton from PC World has an article on installing and using Automatix at

Free Agent: Ubuntu's Missing Batteries Automatix makes supercharging Ubuntu Linux as easy as point and click.

Apple doubles laptop market share in a quarter

2006-07-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

I don't want to keep blogging about Apple - I haven't owned one since Apple II (and it was a Medfly - a clone, actually) but changes in trend - inflexion points - are always interesting - and I think we are seeing such a change right now.

TMO Reports - Apple Laptops take 12 Percent of the Market || The Mac Observer

The MacBook and MacBook Pro are selling well enough to push Apple's take of the U.S. portable computer market in June up to 12 percent. During Apple's second quarter earnings report, the company noted that its laptop marketshare was at 6 percent in January.

Mac and Open Source

2006-07-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Mac support for multiple OS's is starting to generate some serious "wind beneath its wings". Reports are starting to trickle in on the iPod generation going straight to Apple for the college computer. Odd things are happening as the changes ripple through with early adopters giving way to more mainstream users using Macs for Mac and Linux.

O'Reilly Network -- How Does Open Source Software Stack Up on the Mac?

Recently on the O'Reilly Radar, it was noted that several well-known Mac folks are switching to Ubuntu Linux. One of them, Mark Pilgrim, directly juxtaposed several of Apple's stock apps to open source software (OSS) alternatives on his blog, and this got me pondering how well Apple's stock apps really stand up to some of the alternatives out there--especially from the OSS community. For that matter, how many high quality OSS alternatives are there for Mac users?

It turns out that OSS is doing amazingly well for the most part. As might be expected, there are still some gaping holes to be filled, but in many others, Apple would do well to start taking notes. I'm going to take a brief look at the landscape for some of the most common stock apps and assign each of those application categories some health grades. The more high-quality alternatives to Apple's stock apps there are, the higher we'll grade the category's health, and vice versa.

The Technology is just the Tool (Repeat)

2006-07-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Successful human facing systems are all about people issues, and not primarily the technology. Obviously there is the discipline of getting the technology to work underneath the covers, but that will benefit none, if the human aspects and the business issues are ignored or poorly handled.

Tonio Loewald's Blog

One of the best stories I've heard about Apple's history concerns Ellen Hancock, whom Gil Amelio brought into Apple as Chief Technology Officer. Her role is pretty much overlooked these days, but she is responsible for pulling the plug on Copland, looking for a viable replacement, and -- ultimately -- acquiring NeXT, Steve Jobs, and Avie Tevanian (her successor).

Anyway, back to the story which I am reciting from memory. Ellen Hancock comes in to work and she is the most senior woman -- ever -- at Apple, surrounded by a lot of cocksure guys. She holds a meeting with her key reports and during the meeting utters the following statement. "One of the things that's always puzzled me about Macs is why when I have a Windows .exe file on my desktop and I double-click it, it doesn't just work." The reaction is one of utter consternation. How could anyone working at Apple, let alone its new Chief Techology Officer, be so utterly clueless. And then it starts to dawn on them:

1) She has a PhD in Maths.

2) She has done serious shit at IBM.

3) She's right.

Not long after this, Virtual PC added a feature which actually allowed .exe files to "just work" if you double-clicked them.

DMCA and Copyright affects Design Decisions

2006-07-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

I've just been asked for a design recommendation. The problem: with an education/repository product a user can link to an external image. If the site is a secure site, and the image comes from a normal unsecured site, then IE will present a message warning that secured and unsecured items are mixed. Users can select this message so that it doesn't repeat. So far, one would think there is no problem - all the software (even IE) works as designed.

However, the client feels that this is not user friendly and wants to ensure that the message does not appear. While I am sympathetic, complaining about the way IE works is a little like complaining about the weather - we may be sympathetic, but doing anything about it involves building expensive structures.

One option considered, and quickly dismissed, was to hobble the editor so that images from non-secure sites could not be displayed. This is not acceptable for an educational community where resources may be found anywhere.

The major alternative was to set the editor up to copy the image automatically from the originating site onto the educational site so it is published from a secure server. I didn't like this option either, but the clarity of definition only fell into place when I watched Episode 17 of cranky geeks. Professor Larry Lessig, Stanford Law School, discussed the legality of external links to images versus taking a copy of the image.

The summary is that, (in the absence of explicit permission) while the law may be murky about the legality of linking to an image on another site even with attribution, taking a copy and putting it on your own site without permission is clearly on the wrong side of the law. Therefore, setting up an editor to automatically copy an image from any target site (therefore bypassing checks for permission) will create sites that will almost certainly infringe the rights of others. The user of such a system, and possibly the developers, will have difficulty framing a defence.

The unconsidered option is education. If users must belong to a secure server, they need to understand the reasons, and the likely occurences. The oldest rule of software design is to use software as it is designed, and not to artificially constrain it, when a litte user education may be a lot less complex.

Why do Cars have brakes? Why do Systems have Security?

2006-07-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

Sun published this interview with a challenging take on Identity Management and Security - opening up the system!

EDGE - Identity Management - An Interview with Sara Gates

A contrarian view on cars, brakes and Identity Management - An interview with Sara Gates

Named as one of the top three most important people in the identity space by Eric Norlin of Digital ID World, Sun's Vice President of Identity Management, Sara Gates recently spoke with Laurie Wong, Sun's Software Product Manager about how organisations can drive business value through Identity Management.

Q. During your last visit to Australia, your keynote was a stand-out success. Everyone that attended still recalls your question, "Why do cars have brakes?" as well as your contrarian, not so obvious, answer. So can you tell us why cars have brakes and what this has to do with identity management?

A. Absolutely, and let me start by saying I look forward to visiting Australia again very soon. So I posed the question, 'Why do cars have brakes?'. Well cars have brakes so they can go fast!

There are some fundamental changes happening in our industry. Security is now about opening up businesses. In the past security was all about closing the business down, locking it up. Increasingly security is what will let us open things up and do it in a way that's good for customers and good for the business with an appropriate level of risk.

Cars have brakes so that they can go fast, and Identity Management is, we believe, the brakes on the car of the network that will let you go fast.

Bringing Systems Management to Smaller Clients through Open Source

2006-07-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

Start-ups team to push open-source boundaries | CNET News.com

The Open Management Consortium, founded in May, is a grouping of small companies seeking to bring open-source business models to systems management, an area dominated by larger companies.
High Impact
What's new:

A consortium of small vendors have attracted entrenched enterprise systems management vendors which are expected to join the open-source standardization effort.
Bottom line:

The creation of the consortium highlights how open-source business models are starting to influence the stodgy world of enterprise systems management.

great web design tool - test in big range of browsers

2006-06-28T03:10:00.000-07:00

now this is one of those ideas you see and think ...

Test your web design in different browsers - Browsershots

Browsershots is a free online platform where you can test your web design in different browsers. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will automatically open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server

Is the Semantic Web the end of Google

2006-06-28T01:55:00.000-07:00

This is a thought provoking article that deserves more of a response. The Institute of Government Business is supporting some open source projects like Metanode that are implementing semantic web concepts like the health and aging thesaurus in a health educational community. The seeds are there ...

Evolving Trends » Wikipedia 3.0: The End of Google?

The Semantic Web (or Web 3.0) promises to “organize the world’s information” in a dramatically more logical way than Google can ever achieve with their current engine design. This is specially true from the point of view of machine comprehension as opposed to human comprehension.The Semantic Web requires the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and make new conclusions, not simply match keywords.

one design gallery feed to rule them all!

2006-06-28T01:28:00.000-07:00

CSS Galleries: aggregating web design inspiration

CSS and web design galleries are great. But there are so damn many of them. Wouldn't it be nice to have one site to visit, and one feed to subscribe to. CSS Galleries makes your life easier by aggregating the major design showcases into one simple RSS feed.

Web Designers - you have to change your defaults now - most used resolution changes

2006-06-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

OneStat.com - About Us - Press Box

Amsterdam - June 25 - OneStat.com ( www.onestat.com ), the number one provider of real-time intelligence web analytics, today reported that the screen resolution 800 x 600 pixels has signficantly decreased since July 2005. More and more internet users choose for screen resolution 1024 x 768 or higher.

The finding has important implications for web site designers because most web sites are designed for a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

The screen resolution 1024 x 768 has reached an all time high of 56.15 percent. Users with monitors set to the most common resolution 800 x 600 for web sites have an approximate 12.04 percent global usage share. Almost a year ago this percentage was 18.23 percent.

Colour for web sites - short sharp quality article

2006-06-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Blue Anvil Design :: Website & Logo Design ::

This article explains the use of colour, what colours signify, and how to find colours that fit with each other in your web pages.

In the web design world, one of the main mistakes made by designers is the incorrect usage of colours. Bad colour schemes can make your site look unfriendly, amateurish, and inaccessible.

This article will identify common mistakes with selecting colours, how to create good colour schemes, and accessibility issues that arise from colours.