So I agreed today to take on the role as User Experience Designer for trendi.com. It looks like this is going to be pretty fun. We’re doing a total overhaul of the front end and may be re-writing the backend as well. Right now the backend is in Python/TurboGears, but we’re thinking about trying to [...]
Yearly Archives: 2006
Reading: The 1984 Olympic Message System
December 21, 2006 – 4:27 pm
Today I read the Gould Paper “The 1984 Olympic Message System: a test of behavioral principles of system design”. (PDF from www.tol.oulu.fi) It was an interesting paper from a systems design perspective and I’m hoping I can draw from it some useful points for the designers and builders of modern web applications.
More after the cut, [...]
A quick Usability Bug
December 21, 2006 – 3:53 pm
I’m working from a coffee shop in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood today. Just now I went to the restroom and while I was there I washed my hands and went to dry them.
At this shop they’ve elected to use a paper towel dispenser that incorporates a motion detector to release the towels, presumably to promote [...]
Back to School
December 21, 2006 – 2:46 pm
So I’m going back to school. I’m going to MIT to study Human Computer Interaction and Interface Design. Sort of.
Here’s the catch: I’m doing it for free.
You might be familiar with MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. Basically they offer the syllabus and lecture notes for free online. Most of th readings are available for free online (Checkout [...]
Walking on Water
December 7, 2006 – 2:48 pm
Despite the fact that I am in fact an ordained reverend I cannot yet walk on water. Although, google thinks I can:
Google Transit Route from Home to Parents’
It’s official: I’m a Reverend
November 28, 2006 – 4:43 pm
This past weekend I performed my first official act as an ordained reverend in the Universal Life Church. I performed a wedding ceremony for my two dear friends Chase and Rachel.
It was fun to go down to Oakland and see them, as well as meet their families. Afterward I got the opportunity to visit some [...]
OtB Calendar: How my Javascript got fasttracked
November 21, 2006 – 10:56 pm
So a couple weeks ago I got assigned to build a calendar for On The Boards, a local theater group. It was nothing too spectacular, just a php calendar with a little javascripting for rollovers and for filtering the genre of performances that would be displayed on the calendar.
I didn’t have much javascript experience but [...]
Dissappearing Images in Camino
November 21, 2006 – 5:59 pm
We discovered in interesting thing about the Appleized version of Firefox today.
Consider, if you will, the front page at ontheboards.org. Now if you’re viewing this page in any browser other than Camino it should appear like this:
However we were finding that when one person opened the page in Camino it appeared like this:
The kicker? When [...]
Freedom on Two Wheels
October 11, 2006 – 1:28 pm
Last night i had one of those awesome experiences that reminds me why i ride a bike.
After a Safety Meeting a few of us were riding downtown. A friend of mine (who shall remane nameless to protect him in his lawsuit against his employer, fuck the man!) told me a cop was yelling at us [...]
My Asset Diet
October 9, 2006 – 6:01 pm
Like most of my classmates i operated under the assumption that upon finishing college i’d move on to a job with a comfy salary and start amassing all the wealth that a college grad ought to have. Whilst still in school I spent money and collected belongings at rate that far outpaced the meager income [...]
