Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog

Courtesy of Martin, welcome to PubFight. Be warned, this website may well suck up large amounts of your time and life. Basically you get presented with an X vs Y photo combination .. you click on who you think would win and then you get to see if everyone agrees with you and what the best comments on the fight were. Strangely addictive. For instance, I just got Ninjas vs Jedis, followed by The Empire vs The Go Uld….

I also got an email from Elmyra today containing the following:

• The Manager FAQ :: to explain managers to hackers
• The Hacker FAQ :: to explain hackers to managers

They’re very, very funny and worth reading by both sides!!

There’s also a fantastic bit on A Whole Lotta Nothing about someone who boycotts McDonalds because they make pizza

All these things amused me greatly today. As did the Extraordinary League of Gentlemen, which we just saw.

Section 28 has finally come off the statute books in England and Wales. Scotland, quite sensibly, got rid of it 3 years ago. Being a little more behind the time, here the House of Lords only voted it out in March.

Section 28 prohibited local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality or even gay families. This was bad enough, meaning that teachers could never (even if they wanted to) say “Well, Billy has 2 dads, but that’s just fine”, but the confusion surrounding this little legislative beauty meant that there was close to complete silence in schools over anything gay-related. Gay support groups for teenagers were shut down, teachers were fired and all sorts of similar silliness.

Well now it’s gone and hopefully there will be some progressive moves to improve the situation for all the young LGB kids in schools scared out of their skins for being different.

Also, one of the original doctors who said there might be a link between autism and the MMR vaccine has now said that there is not only further research to prove no link but also a real risk of a measles epidemic due to the record low uptake of the vaccine.

Elly also has an interesting post about the claims that Harry Potter books give kids headaches.

The World Wide Web Consortium has gone to the US Patents Office with prior art to be taken into consideration with regard to the Eolas “906″ patent.

Hopefully this will sort things out and then we only need to hope and pray that the collective sigh of relief we breathe doesn’t destroy the world, butterfly style.

Amazon now searches the full text of books, but apparently Google had been planning similar things as well. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a showdown?

Simon has joined a number of others in bemoaning the current state of basic computer security, with a particular focus on how difficult it is for an “average user” to keep their PC relatively up to date. It’s an interesting debate, but I would worry that Microsoft will decide to try and monopolise the anti-virus, anti-trojan etc market, rather than fixing the elemental security flaws in its software itself. More security blankets for users who know no better. Saying that, CNet news doesn’t think so.

Rereading that last paragraph, I realise that Microsoft will never give me a job, just based on my blog posts. That’s OK — I don’t particularly want a job with them, at least not now. On the other hand, this poor guy did and he got fired for what looks to me like a pretty innocuous blogpost. I hope whoever made that decision sees the amount of bad publicity it’s causing the company.

There’s a fantastic article in the Economist all about how the end of the world’s absolute dependence on oil (in its various forms) is possibly closer than we expect. It has a number of interesting points about how, scientifically, the revolutions needed to replace petrol as the main fuel of public and private transport really are underway, or just on the horizon.

The article ends though, with some criticism of how President Bush and the rest of congress are approaching this situation wrong. I say all power to them. Let them spend their time worrying about how to get more guaranteed sources of oil for less. Now, all the other countries in the world, let’s sneak out the back door whilst they’re not looking and go get ourselves some non-pollutant cars and cheaper energy and little green Startrek outfits. That way in about 10 years time, we can make a killing and retake the global economy by selling fresh air to America!

Following on from my recent post about ergonomics, I found that Simon is also advocating banishing RSI via the use of WorkRave. There was also an interesting discussion in the comments about how really what we need is for input devices to become more ergonomically designed, as well as a great link to someone’s testimony about the Dvorak keyboard layout.

Personally although I can see the advantages of the Dvorak layout, I don’t think I’ll be able to switch to it for a very common reason … I use computers all over the place. And I remember how bloody annoying it was when I still had my South African keyboard (the main difference is no ? sign and @ & ” are switched) and had to try use uni computers. Until I can know that I can easily and transparently switch layouts on any machine (perhaps some sort of webservice that I ping and get to reconfigure whatever keyboard I’m working on now, as well as put it back when I’m done) then I won’t switch. I don’t think I really type that much anyway

I found this today and it pretty much made me double over in laughter. I have no idea why on earth people would collect screenshots of toilets in videogames (anyone who can translate the text, I would love to know), or for that matter how Jason found it in the first place. But my word it’s random and I thought it deserved a bit of propagation.

Fuzzyblog has some interesting points about how to work from home successfully. In particular, I found the various levels of separation interesting … dressing in your office clothes, having your “office” separated from the rest of your space, fixed working hours and so on. I wish I’d found this list a year ago when I first started working part-time from home, following my summer internship. Through trial and error I arrived at many of the same conclusions (and, let’s face it, I probably wouldn’t have listened in the first place ) and it’s really helped me.

An absolute must for anyone who works, or is thinking of working, from home!

… although I did find some interesting things, from all over the place, and have sadly lost most of the parent nodes, so apologies to anyone who I nicked a link off and haven’t noted here. TBH, I mainly just don’t want to lose the links! More of the blogging as external memory.

All the non-dithering colours you could ever want to try tell the difference between.

A fantastic tutorial to teach you all about floats

How to set up a cron job (although I didn’t use that method in the end)

Listamatic — for very, very pretty lists

Some brief examples about CSS figures and captions

How to achieve the header + 3 columns layout, via Glish.com

I found this redesign very interesting to do, as I’ve never really used CSS before (I know, I know, I’m behind the times). I did find it quite easy to understand and very clean to use. I am quite impressed. So how late am I really? What’s replacing CSS and how soon?

Imagine there’s a big sign up. It will get sorted soon, I promise, but right now I need porridge

See you all in a bit…

“Later that same day……..”

Well, there’s a lot of things changed around here, not just the colour theme:

Thanks to Phil Ringnalda’s Blogroll Tutorial and Script and some help from Simon I’ve managed to get my blo.gs powered blogroll to appear and auto-update down the side.

I’ve also wrestled with CSS for the first time (despite Tony’s protestations I still think it’s not as hard as he says) and found it very useful and much cleaner than I’d expected. I should think I’ve committed all sorts of heinous crimes, though, so would my more in touch with webstandards friends (and anyone else for that matter!) please feel free to take a look, analyse and correct

Otherwise it was mainly a structural redesign and a “jeez this needs to look less like out the box Movable Type”. I think it’s better now, but have only tested in IE 6, Mozilla and Firebird, on a 1024×768 screen. If anyone finds it looks hideous (or just has comments on the layout) please let me know … I haven’t done many websites in the past and am happy to learn

Thanks!

This week’s OK/Cancel is all about ergonomics. It’s a great article and the case study where Loot and their changing approach is considered is really excellent. I agree that there are still major issues with the “right” way to sit and work at a computer … I’m very interested to see what comes of Tom’s brainstorming …

However, the best thing to come out of the cartoon this week is that one of the comments led me to Workrave — definitely my favourite bit of software for today. It’s a fantastic little program that runs while you work, reminding you to take “focus on something else for 30secs” as well as “stand up and walk around” breaks, all to help you prevent RSI. Made for Linux, but with an excellent Windows port, it can also keep track of how long you’ve worked on your PC today … and warn you if you start spending too much time.

Quality stuff!!

Also, you might have noticed that the blog’s had a bit of a redesign. I know some of the creases still need ironing out (like the blogroll dates — thanks for the advice on that, Si!) and the rest of the site needs sorting, but isn’t it prettier now? Also, does anyone know how the hell to assign multiple categories in Movable Type? It’s doing my head in!

I really did intend to come back and post some more the other day. But the train ride was long and I really couldn’t be bothered to plug everything in and start it all up, so sorry

It does mean, though, that I have a fair number of links to get out of my tabs:

Sony have brought out a new hi-tech version of an imaginary friend for all the lonely kiddies out there

This pretty much instant tree renderer looks absolutely stunning and makes me wish even more that I had a decent graphics card!

The Gender Genie looks really quite cool, but thought I was a guy (according to my writing style) 2 out of 3 times. No chocolate for you! Possibly though it’s not dealt to deal with lesbians particularly well

For anyone who hasn’t yet, please go and sign the Petition against EU Software Patenting … if you don’t know why you should yet there’s loads of info on the site!

There were some others but I think they’ve been lost in the mean time…

Dana Blankenhorn has some interesting things to say about Microsoft dissing their old products (as if the rest of the world didn’t already do that) to convince companies that they need to pay $400 per head to get the new Office suite. Also some interesting commentary about governmental involvement in forced upgrades, particularly the new DVD and CD protection stuff.

Personally I agree that if the market thinks this is pants then they just won’t bother.

I have to run off back to Bath now, but will hopefully post again later. Some more links just need sharing!

Nelson Mandela is allowing his prisoner ID number (46664) to be used to identify a theme tune and a concert to raise the awareness of Aids across the world, the BBC reports.

Personally I think this is really really important. Part of this is because I am South African, so statistically around 40% of the people I grew up with are already or will be infected. But part of it is because it really really scares me that the attitude in the Western world is so “not our problem”. To be perfectly honest, the better levels of education with respect to Aids, HIV etc in South Africa probably mean that more of those I come into contact with in the UK will end up dying of the disease than those I grew up with.

Micro$oft are putting big brother controls into email although if this is as buggy as the rest of Outlook then I figure it will be a false security-blanket for the naive.

Perseus reckons most people abandon their blogs surprise, surprise; and Newsday figures that terror profiles are ineffective.

Also, at the end of the day, anyone with internet access can learn to be a terrorist. What will make them into actual terrorists will be some spark … of belief, of psychosis, of duty. How the hell do you survey that??

Outsourcing is all the rage these days. Some people get remarkably het up about the idea, others take a more measured view. But what is the net effect? Is outsourcing really cheaper in the long term? Is it a Good Thing (TM) or a Bad Thing (TM) … or is it just somewhere in between?

My main thought is that it’s understandable. I can see why people who are disadvantaged by offshore outsourcing are upset. I can also understand why the companies are doing it … cost saving is a major driver in a world where there is little else to build competitive advantage on these days. Why spend money on something that you aren’t that sure your company is good at when you could have someone else, who is good at it, sort it out, leaving you to focus on what you really rock at? And finally I can completely understand why the companies and countries being outsourced to want the work. After all, work is work.

I think what’s missing is real, rational discussion about what is realistically going to work and what isn’t. A distinction between teething troubles (like the accent understandability issues that Sue kicks off about … did you know that Indian callcentres are already training their employees to “mask their Indianness”?) and the more permanent issues, like time zones. I really don’t think we’re going to change the shape of the Earth all that soon

(Note: Google thinks I may be wrong….)

At the end of the day, some things are much more conducive to outsourcing than others. Sending all your call centre work off to another country where the people want the career (not just a transient job, as the attitude definitely is in the UK) seems a great idea to me. After the language barrier is overcome, consumers will get much better service from someone who sees a future at that desk, with that headset, than from the 16 year old school dropout, the student working part-time, or any of the other range of stereotypes that tend to inhabit call centres in the Western world.

On the other hand, I have had personal experience of how the time differences can really adversely affect a project being jointly developed between workers in India and the UK. I’ve been up at 4am just to get a headstart on a problem and on a number of occasions I’ve noticed the contractors on the other side of the world still working mid-afternoon UK time … definitely long after they should have been home with their families. So it really doesn’t seem to work too well for our personal lives for a start, but how about the company? How does it fare?

Well, on paper it looks good. Skilled programmers in India definitely go for a lot less than those with a similar level of expertise over here. Cost savings are immense, except for the time wasted on both sides due to misunderstanding, miscommunication and time difference.

Now some people will say that the time difference is a bonus … that you in effect get to have a 12 hour working day without paying anyone extra. This would be true if project tasks followed on from each other exactly … so I work on something, hand it over to the guys in India and by the time I get in the next morning they’ve had a 5 hour head start working on it.

Now, I suppose this could happen … it just didn’t with my particular project. And with that in mind if I were in this situation again then I would probably organise things quite differently. But I have a feeling that complex inter-development is really unlikely to work on this model, with the present state of communication. Emailing doesn’t help, instant messaging doesn’t help the fact that I’m home asleep when someone has a query.

But possibly, this is exactly where project blogs and the like can come to the rescue. If we could communicate just as well across thousands of miles as I know we would if we were all sat at desks in each others near vicinity, then the combination would be unstoppable. After all, the Indian guys I have worked with so far have tehchnical skills FAR superior to mine. On the other hand, the real advantage I bring to the table is the ability to understand the business side, to translate for the programmers.

So what’s the next communication revolution? What’s going to make groupwork across thousands of miles every bit as easy and effective as sitting next to someone and pointing at their screen?

Training is a fantastic idea. In order to secure real adoption from any workforce, or actual realisation of software’s worth, it is an absolute necessity. But it is not the be-all and end-all and it is definitely NOT a replacement for good usability.

I admit that I am primarily thinking of software and web-applications rolled out to a corporate organisation … but that’s because this is the field I work in currently. And too often my own IT organisation seems to have focused too much on training and not enough on the usability of the system. The net result: the “roll out and run” phenomenon, leading to reduced use and realised utility of a system over a period of time.

Let’s think about it this way: say we develop a fantastic new product called EasyRelationships (ER). When we roll it out, we train the entire organisation on how to manage their relationships using ER. Everybody is able to make full use of the software and it makes everyone’s lives much better. The onus of training new people in the organisation is left distributed amongst the users themselves … they should train new members of their teams, etc, according to how the team tends to use the software.

Ideal? No. Functional? For a while. Unfortunately, those who use a system are not necessarily the best trainers. Also, if the system is easy to use, they assume it’s obvious to anyone new to the system … it isn’t, so system abuse begins. On the other hand, if it’s NOT easy to use, then over time their gripes with the usability issues of the software increase (as the shininess of the new tech rubs off with use) and all you hear are complaints. People begin to talk about the software as useless and a waste of time. This is essentially de-training creep.

Now that I’ve had my little rant about the whole “Training is everything” paradigm, I’ll finally get round to the TUBA scoring system that came into being as a result of this week’s OK/Cancel cartoon. Although as the discussions note this might not be the ultimate paradigm for feasibility tests as well as production planning, it is still a very handy and eloquent weapon to be added to the arsenal we now have for convincing developers, backers, business people and anyone else who happens to pick a fight with us in the street, that Usability is a Good Thing (TM).

Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox (the 200th), focuses on the victories he believes he has won over major corporations, but also on the importance of archived content. Nielsen reckons that most of his articles receive 80% of total readership once they have been archived.

This is pretty phenomenal and definitely, as he points out, support for archiving content. From the other side, however, it is also a real incentive to put dates on all your content. I use Google whenever I have a question about something. Google is fantastic, but tends to just give you the best content answering your query, rather than the newest. I’ve trawled through numerous articles and only been able to work out how old it is from the folder (eg …/archives/2001/10/) in which it resides.

As the amount of info on the web just gets bigger and bigger, this sort of basic tagging is going to be more and more important, in my opinion. Blogging has caught on, as have many (but not all) of the big news sites. Hopefully the importance of dating content as well as archiving will become obvious to all!

Reading Terry Bisson’s Made of Meat again today set me to wondering about how we must look to an alien race such as those conversing in the story. Presumably, the closest thing to sentience that we would have to their mind would be the internet. The description of the Planet’s flora and fauna in Alpha Centauri forming a sort of consciousness by their (to them) random interactions made me think of this.

The internet is a load of electronic impulses, transferring information. There are particular centres of knowledge (as in neural networks, although the structure is lacking) and dysfuntional areas. If an alien race traded in electricity and fibre-optics, rather than “meat” as the story so aptly categorises us, then maybe all they would notice would be our burgeoning power systems (are blackouts losing consciousness for an electricity network?) and the bytes working their way across the fibre-optic mesh.

Is the Internet the new Borg? Does the way that something shows up on one blog and eventually works it way across the entire blog-consciousness show a primitive state of the “we all know everything” approach of the Star Trek cyborgs?

I’m having something of a strange day, in case you were wondering.

This very interesting article, via Si, is all about how reducing the visual complexity of your website isn’t necessarily a good thing, particularly if you don’t reduce the actual complexity at all.

I think this is great. Far too often people approach heuristics with the view to adapt their current design to obey the rules, rather than designing with best-use in mind. If you’re not going to change the fact that you have to go through a chain of 5 different submenus, whether they’re on the same page or not, then why bother?

I can’t remember where the quote’s from, but I was once told that it’s all about giving people the information they want, when they want it, where they want it.

Another interesting insight was this:
Hiding critical information isn’t just annoying for users. It may also have an impact on the bottom-line of e-commerce sites. Another study by UIE has shown that when product lists provide insufficient product details, people will buy less.

That is just so true. It annoys me so much when you go onto a technology website and all you get is “Hitachi Hard Disk” in the product description. Well, that’s why I went to the “Hard Disks” section, you know? I kinda guessed that much! Glad someone’s pulling ideas like this together … maybe the web will become an easier place to shop as this type of thing is absorbed.