Archive for January, 2007
Pain
The last two weeks have been dominated by pain. First, the sharp stabbing kind; second, the persistent all-conquering kind. My well-behaved body rebels in unpleasant ways. So I’ve felt elderly. I’ve felt exhausted. Not just the wincing and the grimacing, but also the mental effort required. To be constantly aware of one’s posture, being forced [...]
The Joy of Geek
Decided to put my name down for BarCamp London (or, at least, to sign up for the pre-sign up helper list). It’s a chance to get out of the flat, and spend a weekend discussing geek stuff in a sweaty office. Perfect.
1st Rule: You do talk about Bar Camp.
2nd Rule: You do blog about Bar [...]
January bookmarks
Very busy recently: travel and long hours. Enjoying it. Some recent links of interest:
Secure passwords keep you safer (Wired) - less trivial than the title suggests. It’s inspired me to kickstart the depressingly large task of updating all mine.
So you want to be an Interaction Designer 2006? - Dan Saffer updates an important 2001 article.
Thinking [...]
A novel way to escape the City ban
Cardiff City fans have been banned from attending the Wolves game next week, a move which has been roundly condemned by the FSF and supporters’ groups throughout the country. So, in a lovely gimmick, 30 City fans have decided to hire an airship to hover over the ground, so that they can watch using binoculars. [...]
Web productivity tip
This did the rounds a couple of weeks back, but I’m passing it on since it’s been invaluable.
Set your homepage to about:blank.
That’s it. I don’t fire up a browser unless I have a task in mind - per day it’s saved me probably 15 mins of aimless surfing, and freed 15 mins of productive time [...]
iPhone: lovely, but get over it
Delegates “screamed”. Twitter ground to a halt. The shockwaves of a simultaneous nerdgasm shook the very core of the internet.
Yes, it is a lovely phone.
My first thoughts are that it looks extremely promising, although like Dan Saffer at Adaptive Path I will reserve judgement until I see exactly how they’ve implemented the OS and touch-screen [...]
One person, one vote
Just made my choices for the ATP vs The Fans weekend.
Shipping News
The Knife
Rachel’s
Sightings
Stereolab
Tapes ‘n Tapes
Battles
Part Chimp
Wolf Parade
Band Of Horses
Likelihood of any of them being chosen: approximately nil.
At least I’m being a bit different though: the leaderboard is currently topped by some utterly predictable bands: Mogwai, Explosions [...]
357 and counting
It may be one week after the event, but I think I can just about get away with the resolutions post. And yes, I am eating more healthily / getting more exercise and so on, but I don’t consider that a resolution. It’s just something I want to do.
So here, instead, are my goals for [...]
Information design of the Nottingham tram
Just to redress the balance a bit, here’s some design I love - the Nottingham tram timetable.
Click to see 1024×768 pixel version. I’ll try to seek out a proper high-res version of this though, a blurry low-light shot doesn’t do it justice.
What I love most about this is the way it combines sheer information density [...]
Design - not always sexy
I bought several books to increase my design knowledge, including Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, which I’m currently ploughing through. What these books don’t mention is that, as a by-product of their excellent instruction, they turn you into a picky, irritable design bore, eager to point out why everything in the world is [...]