Archive for the ‘Web/Tech’ Category

Posted on October 8, 2008 - by deCadmus

Heckling Goes High Tech

Confronted by a candidate who refuses questions from voters and the media alike, Democrats take their queries to new heights with a high-tech heckling system [via Gizmodo] –

At a Sarah Palin rally in LA on Saturday, the California Democratic party rented a digital billboard across the street which displayed questions for the veep candiate sent by text message. Granted, even if Palin did read them, she wouldn’t be able to recall which ones she read specifically. But still, quite awesome—I hope both parties get creative with tech like this, it’s a fantastic way to reach voters.

Posted on July 28, 2008 - by deCadmus

Various and Sundry

• It was only a matter of time before Rupert Murdoch’s poisoned hand of glory made itself manifest on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. I shouldn’t have imagined, however,  it would appear so blatantly, so soon. Talking Squid takes ‘em on in a blog ditty entitled, Sanity Finally Snaps at Wall Street Journal.
• It’s clear to me the Internet has brought about changes in my own reading habits, and my reading habits go back, er…  a ways. (As I child I essentially started at one end of the local library and read my way to the other.) In one of the more thoughtful pieces I’ve seen on the intersection of the Internet and reading, and the resulting impact on literacy, the NY Times asks, Online: R U Really Reading?
  

  Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

  Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

  See also: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

• Finally, get thee to Subterranean Press for their irregularly offered Grab Bag Sale! It’s like Woot!, but with words!

Posted on May 13, 2008 - by deCadmus

Woopra — Crack for the Web Stats Junkie

If you’re at all obsessive about who’s visiting your web site, what they’re looking at, and whether or not your visits are trending up or down or sideways, then my advice is don’t — don’t even *think* about — hooking up with the Woopra beta program.

Let me be more clear: Woopra is crack for the web stats junkie. To say merely that Woopra offers a real-time view of who’s on your web site and what they’re doing there is to short-change the product by 99%. It’s got eye-candy of all sorts, from its geographical world-view to its jazzy trend-lines to its scrolling ticker of current trend factoids. Oh… and did I mention that you can start a live chat with a web visitor if you like?

Sure I’ve got some bones to pick… nits, really. For example, while Woopra *does* have a Mac client it requires the latest beta of Java, which in turn runs only on latest version of OSX, to which I haven’t yet migrated. And so I’m running the Woopra client in a Windows XP window in Parallels’ Coherence mode. (Come to think of it, that’s pretty slick, too.)

So go ahead and take a look at Woopra if you must… but don’t plan to get anything else done for a while.

And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Posted on April 7, 2008 - by deCadmus

Wayback: Back the Net Day? Hooey.

I’m taking a day off. Yes, really.

In lieu of the new and stunningly original piece of pith (I could have phrased that better, I’m certain) you were expecting to find in this space today, I offer this from the Bloggle Archives, circa April, 2001.

It’s a beaut if I do say so, myself.

Dear Netizen:

Your help is needed.

Fueled by a “viral lack of confidence,” the Internet economy has slipped into a recession. If this trend continues, you might soon lose access to your favorite online store, greeting card site, news source, music site or financial chat group. Imagine the Internet without Excite, Yahoo! or Amazon.com.

But you can help the Net regain its respect. We must band together and send the world a loud, clear message that the Net will not only survive, but thrive.

That’s why we’re asking you to demonstrate your dedication to the Internet. On April 3, join us in “Back the Net Day.”

Michael H. Tchong
Editor & CEO
ICONOCAST Inc.

Dear Mr. Tchong:

I can appreciate that you feel threatened by the current state of affairs on the Net… we’re in what’s probably an overly-corrective downturn, and the costs in terms of both human and financial capital have been severe. Just the same, it was precisely this kind of hollow media hype that led to the grossly inflated capitalization of the “Internet economy,” and the grossly inflated expectations of its investors. [Not to mention the grossly inflated egos of media hucksters, but you're far more familiar with that than I.]

I find it highly unlikely that yet more hollow media hype — which is what your “Back the Net” campaign is — will serve any useful purpose. Especially hype that sows the seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt [FUD]. The Internet has been around a while now, long before it provided either you or I with our milk money. I’d wager the Internet itself isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Now, Net based companies with business plans that don’t translate into revenue… those are another matter, entirely.

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Tchong. I back the Net every day. I’m probably the most determined supporter of the Internet I know. Day after day I teach, I consult — I’ve even been known to evangelize — on the Internet’s capacity to create intimacy between companies and consumers, for their mutual benefit. Certainly the Net has the intrinsic ability to do far more… but frankly, we’re still struggling with the basics of spatial navigation and information design, meaning and metaphor.

So, Mr. Tchong, if you don’t mind, I’ll just get back to work. I’ll try today, as I do every day, to make the Internet a more meaningful, more useful place — one site at a time.

Best regards,

-deCadmus

Posted on March 28, 2008 - by deCadmus

Wayback: The Web Is Not Walden Pond

From the Bloggle Archives, circa March, 2002. I wrote this as an antidote to what struck me as a surge in misplaced web design ideals; ideals that, in fact, turned out to be the beginning of ‘Web 2.0,’ for all that’s worth. I think it’s as relevant today as it was six years ago…

The Web is not Walden Pond… and attempts to make it so through increasingly stark simplicity are well-intentioned, but badly aimed.

Simplicity often belies the truth. The truth if the web is that it is the most mind-boggling array of unstructured information that has ever been. And it’s growing exponentially, and it will not stop. It is increasingly the de facto body of reference for all of us. It will inexorably be the sum total of explicit knowledge on our planet. How do you simplify that? By making it “…as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

As simple as possible…

Consider the works of Matisse and Picasso. Not your style? Try Keith Haring. Simplicity is alluring. A line-drawing can evoke far more than it actually reveals, by distilling the subject to its most essential form. It’s not coincidental that great art illustrates this… there is more than a little art to conveying the very essence of something.

…but not simpler.

Mere simplicity can dilute meaning. Consider Starbucks coffee stamps… at-a-glance labels that would tell you what the coffee in the bag is all about. Starbucks coffees are — very simply — Bold, Mild or Smooth. Does it really suffice to say that Sumatra, an earthy, dry-processed Indonesian coffee with loads of body and a caramelly finish is bold? Or smooth? It’s both, and then some, isn’t it?

On the other hand, consider Google. Google’s apparent simplicity belies the complexity that lurks behind its interface… it is arguably the web’s largest, most relevant and most capable search engine. Would Google be so effective if not for its extraordinary clarity of purpose?

Design — be it product design or interface design — can be simplified to the extent that it is no longer meaningful, or useful. Simple can be obscure. Simple doesn’t scale. Simplicity does not make a very good design goal. Instead, simplicity is most effective as a method to achieve a different design goal… clarity.

Posted on March 13, 2008 - by deCadmus

Maple-Bacon Goodness Spoiled by PayPal

When there is a confluence of links — when not one, but two sites I visit every day features links to the very same interesting new thing — I can’t resist. And so I learned of Lollyphile, and their Maple-Bacon Lollypop.

With the exception of Maple-Bacon Cupcakes (with Maple Frosting) this is perhaps the most wonderful food-related thing I’ve yet learned of. And since my lobbying efforts with my local professional cupcake-baker have heretofore fallen on deaf ears (c’mon Sharon… you know you really want to make them!) it might seem that placing an order for some Maple-Bacon Lollypops would be just the thing to sample the presumed salty, savory, sweet goodness that is a Maple-Bacon Lollypop. There’s just one problem… Lollyphile uses PayPal for their shopping cart.

I had a PayPal account for years. I paid for eBay actions with PayPal, I purchased coffee, I made donations of various sorts to one non-profit group or another. Then one day PayPal inexplicably forgot who I was. My account — poof! — disappeared. My attempts to login, and to try to verify or reactivate my account failed. So far as PayPal is concerned, I no longer exist… I suspect the small sum of money that was in my PayPal account similarly evaporated.

To cut to the chase, I no longer do business with PayPal. Consequently, I can’t complete a purchase with businesses who offer only PayPal as a payment method. I suspect — actually, I’m certain — that I’m not alone. There’s lots of folks who’ve been burned by PayPal. Lots. (Note to any company that does business on the Internet: when there are numerous sites on the web dedicated to nothing more than collecting customer horror stories about doing business with you, maybe you have a problem worth looking into. Just sayin’.)

My point — and I do have one — is not that PayPal is evil (and to be honest, I don’t think they are; I think they’ve made some stupid mistakes and pissed off a lot of their customers, but stupid does not equal evil.) My point is this: if you’re a new company just getting your feet wet and selling online, and you’ve hitched your wagon to a payment system that doesn’t serve 100% of your potential customers, then that’s a percentage of sales you can write off, straight off the top. Can you afford that percentage? If you can, then you’ve either got really deep pockets (in which case, why would you limit yourself to PayPal?) or maybe this is just a hobby (in which case, knock yourself out, and have a great time!)

Sorry, Lollyphile. Let me know when you’ve got a safe, trustworthy merchant service and I’ll be happy to buy some Maple-Bacon Lollypops. Meanwhile, best of luck.

Posted on August 26, 2007 - by deCadmus

This Modern Life

It’s remarkable the ways the Internet has transformed us. We’ve been quietly beguiled by technology that doesn’t look or feel like, well… like technology. We’re connected — inexorably, insidiously connected — in ways that just a few years ago we might not have imagined, and yet today we take wholly for granted.

For your consideration, Roger Mummert’s slice of modern life via the NYTimes travel section — At a Family Gathering, an Internet Cafe Breaks Out.

“Do you mind,” one in-law asked, as I rounded up bedding and fretted over having enough milk in the fridge to fill 12 cereal bowls in the morning, “if I just pop onto the computer and check my e-mail?”

“Oh, yeah,” remarked another. “Maybe I could just track my son’s flight from D.C.”

“Ooh, perhaps you could print something out for me …”

That was my first inkling of how the vastly expanded electronic and informational needs of houseguests would flavor our time together.

Welcome, to this modern life.

Posted on August 24, 2007 - by deCadmus

Woz: Why Robots Will Never Make Coffee

What’s not to love about Steve Wozniak?

Think of the steps that a human being has to do to make a cup of coffee and you have covered basically 10, 20 years of your lifetime just to learn it. So for a computer to do it the same way, it has to go through the same learning, walking to a house using some kind of optical with a vision system, stepping around and opening the door properly, going down the wrong way, going back, finding the kitchen, detecting what might be a coffee machine. You can’t program these things, you have to learn it, and you have to watch how other people make coffee. … This is a kind of logic that the human brain does just to make a cup of coffee. We will never ever have artificial intelligence. Your pet, for example, your pet is smarter than any computer.
— Steve Wozniak

I have no doubt that robots *can* make coffee. I’m certain there are coffee-making robots in Japan right now. But I’m pretty confident that they’ll never consistently make, say, a really good cappuccino. There’s just too many variables at play.

Now, however, thanks to Woz I hold out some hope I can teach my dog to make a decent cappa. Right after I can teach her that my socks really aren’t chew toys.

Posted on August 21, 2007 - by deCadmus

iPhones, Black Holes and Stickin’ It to The Man

The state of Vermont is a black hole so far as AT&T is concerned… they offer no direct cellular service here, only a roaming agreement through Vermont’s regional carrier, Unicel. Which is neither here nor there, unless you want to buy an iPhone. And then it’s… well, anywhere but here.

When Apple revealed early this year that it had inked an exclusive agreement with AT&T for the iPhone’s data service the collective groan from techies and Apple enthusiasts across Vermont was audible…

“It was a pretty big letdown,” said Don Mayer, CEO of Small Dog Electronics, an Apple dealer in Waitsfield. “I would have much rather seen them come out with a variety of carriers so places like Vermont won’t be left out in the cold.”

‘Course, there’s always some who want to strike a blow for parity… or just enjoy a fairly nifty gadget:

A digital ax is hanging over John Canning’s head these days.

Two weeks ago, Canning bought an iPhone, a new gadget from Apple Inc. that combines a cell phone, iPod digital music player, and Internet and e-mail applications. That made Canning something of a risk-taker. The device is tethered exclusively to AT&T Wireless, which offers no service in Vermont and threatens in legal documents and media interviews to terminate the contracts of anyone who buys an iPhone while living here.

Curiously, if AT&T should cancel Canning’s contract he would still have a Wi-Fi enabled, widescreen iPod that runs Mac OS. He could continue to surf the web, and download tracks from iTunes and videos from YouTube. He could get Google maps and directions, and check his email. And he wouldn’t have to pay AT&T another red cent. Which, as it happens, is precisely what some folks have wanted all along.

Posted on July 19, 2007 - by deCadmus

Simple Cyphers Every Muggle Should Know

If you’re a fan of the Harry Potter series — and I am — this last run-up to a book release has you sort of twitchy. Spoilers — or potential spoilers — lurk around most every corner, and sometimes in seemingly innocuous places. (more…)