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AIM BOTS!! (Henry takes a math test)

June 13, 2007 – 12:33 pm

When did AIM add even MORE aimbots? I just noticed that it’s gone from just “Moviefone” and “ShoppingBuddy” to a whole slew of worthless bots. Although I am a bit curious about this “Prof Gilzot” Bot, i’ll take the bait.

Well, here’s how my conversation with Prof Gilzot went:
12:29:42 PM hreonsrey: Hello
12:29:42 PM profgilzot: Welcome hreonsrey, I am Prof Gilzot and will help you with your SATs. I am a great reason for your parents to allow you to IM even longer than you already do! You can start testing right away by typing menu or learn more about me and my colorful past by typing more.
12:29:52 PM hreonsrey: menu
12:29:52 PM profgilzot: Here is a list of things Prof Gilzot can do. Type in a selection and enjoy!
1. Challenge yourself to a question.
2. How am I doing Prof?
3. Top 10 Results
4. New Questions Alert
5. Email Test Results
6. Refer a friend.
12:29:58 PM hreonsrey: 1
12:29:59 PM profgilzot: Here are the tests you can take.
1. Math Test
2. Sentence Completion Test
3. Vocabulary Test

12:30:01 PM hreonsrey: 1
12:30:01 PM profgilzot: Are you ready to take the Math Test?
12:30:03 PM hreonsrey: yes
12:30:04 PM profgilzot: Here we go and good luck hreonsrey!!!

If x + 3 is an even integer, then x could be which of the following?

(A) -6
(B) -2
(C) 1
(D) 2
(E) 0

12:30:23 PM hreonsrey: c
12:30:24 PM profgilzot: You are correct!

Are you ready for another question?
12:30:28 PM hreonsrey: not really
12:30:28 PM profgilzot: Hm? Type menu or help.
12:30:31 PM hreonsrey: help
12:30:31 PM profgilzot: Here is a list of things Prof Gilzot can do. Type in a selection and enjoy!
1. Challenge yourself to a question.
2. How am I doing Prof?
3. Top 10 Results
4. New Questions Alert
5. Email Test Results
6. Refer a friend.
12:30:37 PM hreonsrey: 2
12:30:38 PM profgilzot: Math Test: 100.0% (1/1 correct)

I can send you the full tests you have taken if you want. Just type 5 to proceed. To go back to the main menu type menu or help.

It looks like AIM is trying to stay relevant by providing some content. Interesting … I also had a fun conversation with Spleak (http://www.spleak.com/) She advised me not to sleep with Lindsay Lohan … thanks Spleak.

By Henry | Posted in Design, Usability, Web Development | Comments (0)

Faster Browsing

June 11, 2007 – 10:24 pm

I’ll never forget the first night I spent in the dorms at the University of Washington. I didn’t go to a crazy party. I didn’t even drink. I didn’t meet new people or see new sights. I got on the internet … fast.

This was September, 2001 and the broadband revolution was just getting started. I had a slick new Dell laptop that I’d bought for college and had used it for about a month at my parents house, on dial up internet. At the time I was a subscriber to a service called emusic, which provided legal downloads of a ton of music for a flat rate. I would download an album every once in a while, but had to expect that it would be an overnight affair.

That first night in the dorms I downloaded over 20 albums. Going from dialup internet to a 100mpbs connection to a core University network was quite a jump. I haven’t experience an increase in browsing speed like that in a long, long time.

I do have two tips that will help you browse faster today.

Fancy-Pants DNS

This first tip is something i moved over to some time ago. If you’re not familiar with DNS (Domain Name System), it’s basically the system that takes the human readable web addresses we’re familar with (google.com, henryrose.info, etc) and turns them in to IP addresses that our computers can understand. This service is generally handled by your ISP, but I recommend outsourcing the job to a pack of nerds.

The guys over at OpenDNS have worked hard to provide the fastest DNS lookups (along with a host of other features). You may think, how could translating the name of a website a little bit faster possibly make my browsing faster? Well it can, and the effect is amplified when you have content coming from multiple domains on a single page. For example if the site your looking at is on livejournal.com and contains images linked from flickr.com you’re already up to at least two DNS lookups. Complicated pages with lots of media resources can have many more.

Using OpenDNS couldn’t be easier, you’ll just need to change a few numbers in your network setup. The guys over there do a great job of explaining how to use it.

Safari

I hate to be a total fanboy, but Apple’s Safari 3 is a pretty sweet step forward in terms of page rendering speed. While I’m not sure I believe the numbers that Steve Jobs claims, i have noticed substantially faster load times, particularly for pages that use lots of javascript.

Pages such as GMail, Flickr and other so called Web 2.0 services use lots of javascript to make the page feel interactive, like a desktop application (think MS word). Safari seems to be the fastest at figuring out what all that javascript means, and making it work for you, the end user.

So there you have it, with these two tweaks to your browsing setup you should notice a substantial upturn in your speed. Enjoy!

By Henry | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Facebook App: Bikes

June 7, 2007 – 5:04 pm

So a while back I was all hott on the plan to make a bike-centric social network, but the market got crowded and I got lazy. But now that Facebook has opened up to third party developers I think i’ve got an opportunity to do it for real.

Keep you eye out for Facebook Bikes!

By Henry | Posted in Bikes, Web Development | Comments (0)

Google Indexing Content created with JS

March 12, 2007 – 11:59 am

Here’s an interesting article discussing whether the googlebots are able to index content published to a page using javascript.

It wasn’t long ago that people were concerned about whether google was indexing dynamic pages created with server-side php/asp/etc. They do. I’m sure they’re working on getting the Javascript content indexed too, but this serves as a good reminder of why as developers we must keep our content accessible.

By Henry | Posted in Usability, Web Development | Comments (1)

Update

March 6, 2007 – 11:46 am

It’s been forever since I’ve posted over here, so, quick update.

For the last month I’ve been working on a game designed to teach teens some consumer skills. It’s bankrolled by the National Consumer’s League and is … almost … really cool.

Anyway it’s bee a lot of php which has been good experience. Also some XML and Flash, another two things that are good to work on.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about the project is having some say in experience decisions (mostly because I build it up ;) ). But working on something that’s designed for kids is an interesting problem space that I haven’t thought about a whole lot before.

A big part of the project has been reworking some exsisting php to allow for the rapid rebranding and re-deployment of the game. For example,  we used to just offer the game to high school students in the fall, but now we’ve got rebranded versions for a spring semester competition, as well as for middle school students.  Re-purposing the existing code has taught me a great deal about architecture for this site of web application.

Ok… now to fix the last  round of bugs, yeah right.

By Henry | Posted in Contracting, Design, Usability, Web Development | Comments (2)

Henryrose.info redesign

January 8, 2007 – 6:01 pm

So i’m working on a redesign for the whole site. Obviously the existing design was something i just slapped together to get up.

When it comes down to it my site is like an audition. If it’s bad it reflects really poorly on me. So… the pressure is on.

Man it’s nice to have full control over every aspect of a project, but it’s also hard to define boundaries for yourself.

EDIT: So i’ve started implementing the new design, but i can only work on it here and there so it’s going to look kind of broken for a while. Sorry!

By Henry | Posted in Design, Web Development | Comments (2)

A new chapter or just another project?

December 22, 2006 – 12:57 am

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 leverage the hipness of Ruby to get a good developer on board.

In any case I’m excited to put together some user groups and get my research started.

By Henry | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

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, including my dream for a cool use of the web for large scale usability testing.

Read More »

By Henry | Posted in Design, Usability, Web Development | Comments (3)

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 a sanitary environment.  I’ve seen these systems several times and generally think it’s a good idea. A simple icon can inform a user that they just need to wave at the machine and it will give them what they want (towels).

However, this particular design dispenses only about a half inch of paper for each pass of your hand in front of the sensor. I assume this decision was to reduce the total amount paper used by the system, a noble cause.  But, in order to dispense even enough paper so that the end of the paper sticks far enough out of the machine for the user to grab it requires 5-6 waves of the hand. And in order to get a sufficiently large piece of paper requires almost twice as many waves.

Could they not have designed the system such that the first wave released 3 inches of paper, and subsequent waves realeased only 1/2 inch?  That would eliminate the frantic hand waving that’s currently required to get a piece of the towel, but also discourage over use of the towels by requiring great effort to get more than the initial 3 inches.

Just a thought.

By Henry | Posted in Design, Usability | Comments (2)

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 Google Scholar). Of course you can’t get credit for these courses, but you can certainly get an education. And that’s pretty damn cool.

By Henry | Posted in Design, Usability | Comments (1)