Friday, December 12, 2003

Musings on technology

I came across a great article (from 2000) about what a Blog is and why they are so great. It is written by Kevin Kelly, a technology visionary - co-founder of Wired magazine, editor of the Whole Earth Review and currently, publisher of a neat website called Cool Tools (which I read about in Monday's NY Times).
So, why has blogging become so popular. Self publishing is appealing - and blogging let's you have your say and share it with anyone is the world for free. The web is wide and deep, and blogging is a way to share this diversity with others. The links you add in your blog take your readers deep into the web and show them your web neigborhood.
I am really enjoying being a blogger. Besides sharing my thoughts on various topics, it will be my personal archive of all the interesting stuff I come across on the web. My favorites folder does not have space for all these random sites I come across. Blogging allows me to put them in context with what I was thinking/doing at that point in time when I came across the site.
Today, I returned to a site I found a few weeks ago - Joel on Software, to see what new things were on there. I was thinking about software development and some of the issues that I face as a project manager on development projects. Joel had a great recommendation for a book - Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering. A true gem of a book. You just have to read the table of contents (see link) to get a sense for some of the pitfalls of any development project. Like: The most imprortant factor in software work is the quality of the programmers. I totally agree. Developing software is hard. And a majority of people are not made to do it. Sure, you can dabble in it. My first semester at KU, I was a computer science major. My first class in programming was disaterous. Thank goodness. If it was good, I would have plodded away at it. But I was doing so badly, that I decided to change my major. I love technology and I would like to always work in the technology sector. But I am not a programmer. I don't think like one. And when you come across a talented programmer, you realize why your efforts are mere dabbling.
Here is an interesting approach to redesiging a website - Harpers.org (great magazine). I came across this article while I was on the XPlane Xblog - a good site for information design and architecture. The Semantic web - hmmm - I need to read this article a few times, but my first impression is that Paul Ford has found a powerful way of relating and linking content on a site. Here is a fictional piece by him about how the semantic web could turn out.
Back in Blog
I am a blogging perfectionist. That is my excuse for not having an entry for alsmost three weeks. I want each entry to be a perfect capsule of comment and links. And as busy as I have been over the last couple weeks, I have not had the time to mull over each post.
My other excuse: I was in Phoenix for thanksgiving and my cousin's computer had dial-up access, which was soooo slow compared to the broadband access I am used to at home and work. Spoiled.
Doggie is still with me. My brother Mimo has named her Husku. She looks like a small husky. I have no idea what breed she is. Mimo's girlfriend has named her Goosfand Sag - Farsi for swan dog - she finds the names of animals in Farsi amusing. I still call her Doggie.
I will be on my way to Bombay in less than 24 hours. Three and a half weeks of down-time, family-time, friend-time. I am going to read Tolkien's Return of the King. I only read the first few chapters of Fellowship - the first book. But I would really like to read through a full book before I come back and watch Return of the King. I will also carry along The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (click the link to read the review by one of my favorite reviewers - Michiko Kakutani of the NY Times).
I will also have a whole load of unread New Yorkers that have been sitting on my kitchen table. There are so many good articles that I don't want to miss. I try each week to read the Comment section, the poems and cartoons. And then over time, I try to get to the longer articles.
I am debating whether I will take along my book on Information Architecture that I began reading a few weeks ago to get myself up to speed for my current project (redesiging our Intranet). Have I told you - I am really enjoying this project! I have always wanted to work on a web project. I was an early adopter of the web and am so in love with it. You know how people say that they watch too much TV. Well, I spend a lot of time on the web and don't watch TV. Yesterday as I was driving home from work I was thinking, you know, I can't judge people for how much TV they watch. I spend a lot of time on the web and that is not particularly "better" that watching TV.
Anyhow, I digress. I am looking forward to all the work we are going to put into redesigning our Intranet. I did some Usability testing this week (go here for the Guru of usability) and it was so great to get feedback on our early designs. There were a number of small changes and adjustments we made that has improved our design. We are going to do a lot more usability testing as the project progresses, and if anything, it will help us develop a site that will be useful as well as easy to use.
As I have written before, I am all for breaking down heirarchies, and the democratic sharing of information is one way to do it. Web based techologies allow the sharing of information in a powerful way. The web is not a bunch of pages and links - it is about the connections and the relationships between people and things. And a well designed intranet with good content and tools will help break down some organizational barriers and improve productivity here at LCRA.

Monday, November 24, 2003

Doggie
A lost dog showed up on my doorstep on Saturday. Diane and David were here helping me trim trees and rake up dead leaves (which I refer to as "natural mulch" in the spirit of what I call my "no maintenance yard"). We let her into the back yard since she kept walking into the street almost getting run over a couple of times. Well, she is in the house now, lying on the floor next to me as I type. She is a small white dog - sweet and gentle - with a dark brown bandit like mask on her face. I am not sure what kind of dog she is. She has no collar but has been well cared for with good teeth and trimmed toe nails. I call her doggie. I have not named her yet because I don't know if I am going to keep her. I have put up signs all over the neighborhood, but no one has called yet. I seem to think that she is not far from home, but I may be wrong.
Although I love dogs and would love to have one someday, I am not sure if I am ready to take doggie in. She is sweet and I am already falling in love with her, but I do hope her owners call and get her. I am sure they miss her company terribly.

Sunday, November 23, 2003

Presentations: To Point or to PowerPoint
Even the name of the product is hyperbole. And yes, I have used it often, but have realized more and more how limited slide presentations can be. Five or six often vague bullet points on each page - what a waste of paper. Two pages of a well written document is richer with information, and since it is written with full sentences, will probably make sense when it is read a few days later - even by someone who was not at the presentation. Sure, bullet points are a powerful way to make a point (no pun intended). But they also are an effective way to hide what really needs to be said.
Ed Tufte, the guru of information design, rails against PowerPoint in a 28 page essay and in a poster (a one slide poke in the face of the product). If you would rather save your $7, here is a summary of the essay done ironically, in the style of a PowerPoint outline. It is titled aptly - PowerPoint Remix.
PowerPoint works well when you have graphical information you want to share. For example, if you are presenting screen shots of various web page designs. When you have text to present, hand out a written document using full sentences. You will save paper and your audience will leave the room better informed. As this short article states, PowerPoint is not evil, people who misuse it are.

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Friday Night DVD: Adaptation
I thought of renting the extended version of LOTR2: The Two Towers, but was not up for a long watch. So - Adaptation - with Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper.
This exchange in the movie is the takeaway. Susan Orleans (Streep), the New Yorker writer is doing a story on John Laroche (Cooper), the orchid theif:
John: Do you know why I like plants. Coz they are so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.
Susan: But it's easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. You know, they just move on to whatever is next. For a person, adaptation is almost shameful. It is like running away.
I bet John would beat Susan in a game of poker, even if he was dealt a bad hand.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

LOTR 1
I watched the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring this evening. It is the third time I have seen the movie. These lines struck a chord. Frodo and Gandalf are in the Mines of Moria, resting.
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this would have happened.
Gandalf: So do all who have to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces in the world besides those of evil.
As another wise man I know said: All of us are dealt a set of cards - some good, some bad. What we are to do is decide how to play them.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

What I've been listening to this week
I picked up an Undeworld CD last week - A Hundred Days Off. The second song - Two Months Off is just the juiciest - put on a pair of headphones, turn it up and you wont stop swaying till the beats fade away almost nine minutes later. Love it! Hey, here is a song by them called Rez!
How about a guitar drenching: The Verve - A Storm in Heaven. Their first full length album that I have been listening to a lot the last couple weeks ("a nineties psychedelic classic" as one fan site put it). I wish some of the songs were longer - much longer. They seem to be getting up a head of steam before the song ends.
Art is the science of enjoying life
I read this great quote in the 25th Anniversary special edition of the Science Times (NY Times Tuesday supplement): "Amidst all he attention given to the sciences as to how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts , which are conventionally considered "useless," will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life.
John Maeda is the Muriel Cooper Professor of media arts and sciences at the Media Lab of MIT
Well said John.
Hierarchies
One of my favorite things about the NY Times is reading the columnists on the Op-Ed page. Yesterdays column (registration required) by David Brooks was super. Even consumerism in America is democratic. That is what I love about this country. Not that I think consumerism is a good thing, but he is making a good point and he ends the column with this zinger:
"Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a rather important book on how, in America, the democratic personality supplants the aristocratic personality. The democrat smashes hierarchies. The democrat is interested in everyday happiness, not lofty excellence. The democrat simply does not acknowledge the existence of social class. Nobody is above me and nobody is below me. We are all equal, and we are all Lucky."
That is what I love about the US - hierarchies can be breached.
On a similar note, I came across this article by a former software developer Joel Spolsky (who now owns a software company) who writes about two very different work experiences at two tech companies - Microsoft and Juno. At Microsoft, hierarchies are meant to be breached. When I live in Seattle for a year after grad school, I worked at a Starbucks a couple blocks away from the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. My good friend Darrell was working there and I had a real desire to work there too. Mainly because it sounded like a really good place to work - - intense, but good.
On a final note, to continue the thread about good design, here is a great example how Joel Spolsky really worked hard to create a well designed working environment for his software developers. He calls it a bionic office. I call it a great place to work.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

I had lunch with a former classmate Geoff Helt and we had a great conversation about design. I briefly mentioned a book by Virginia Postrel - The Substance of Style. I wish I had time to read it.
I came across an interesting site yesterday on Patterns for Personal Websites. I would like to use some of these ideas in creating my own website, which I sort of began last week, but abandoned and chose to start this blog. Although Patterns for Personal Websites does not have the depth of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language for physical spaces, it is a thoughtful and useful work.