Designers like to make prototypes: something the “people” can never use. A recent Gizmodo article explains this well. But I will continue on a sub-set of this idea.

From Consumers willing to throw their money to the next best-thing, or the more rational, planned among us, we all do not care what a company “can” do. What they “could” do is like a carrot hanging in front of us. We all want the product or relationship which does-as-promised:one which is trustworthy.

Within today’s tech market I see 2 significant, praactical problems behind trustworthiness (aside from “theorhetical” or philosophic distrust in Capitalism or Modernism..)

Trouble #1:  What we treat as mere Commodity, is actually an incredibly powerful (all too powerful!) system for the promise to be fulfilled. Systems fail, especially when insufficient sub-ground (peat!) level knowledge and information is not accounted for. The correlate: What most people “take for granted” (read: take as solid ground, trustworthy) is only trustworthy under certain conditions, not under ALL conditions. The lack of info, concern & detail at this level is why things break for some people and not for others.

Trouble #2: Design/designers face/have created this problem. Designers, working in immaterial wonder-lands have all free-reign to imagine, imagine, imagine. We all wish time and space for this freedom for ourselves. As children, perhaps some of us had such time. Designers need feedback, and they need to take parameters early & seriously. If they cannot work within boundaries, they are not responsible designers, but children. If they cannot see the that they cannot see, harsh reality will exact their fate. But if no feedback is ever given to them, if they are protected from the “production” (materiality) phase, how can they learn?

My job just asked me to make a list of what a sister agency should look for in WP ppl. Googling left me with nothing (as all search results seem to have been taken over by SEO ppl lately), so here’s my addition to the mix:

Basic (unquestioned assumptions):
* XHTML syntax, CSS2,
* Browser testing-abilities: IE6-8, FF1-3,Saf3-4, Chrome1-2

WP Basics:
* Upgrading (and fixing when broken!)
* Knowledge of a set of plugins for these common problems:
* “I want a contact form (with these 9 fields)”
* “I want backups”
* “I want a photo gallery (with lightbox)”
* “I want twitter/facebook integration”
* “I want a podcast”
* “I want google maps on my contact page”

WP Intermediate:
* Build/mod a template
* Build/mod a plugin
* jQuery instead of simple, good-ol’-fashioned javascript

Technical/Back-end:
* Can fix ‘broken’ DB’s
* Clean MySQL WP DB from hackers
* phpmyadmin
* MySQL command-line

Users (Teaching skills):
* Guide clients/staff through changing templates, adding special parameters for templates, plugins, upgrades.
* Explain the difference between the 2 editing modes of WP, as well as how a post, page, excerpt are all used.

WP Access controls:
* Should users sign up?
* How to handle editors, admin, readers?
* Public/private posts/pages
* How are comments filtered & what signups required?

SEO:
* What the different HTTP Response numbers mean (#200, 301,302)
* .htaccess mod_rewrite for Apache/Linux servers
* forwarding old sites to WP pages
* forwarding old posts to a archive page
* making ‘pretty urls’ 301 (and why WP default doesn’t do it)
* maing ‘www.’ 301  (and why WP default doesn’t do it)
* The troubles with WP on MS/IIS Servers
* Why XML Sitemaps are good
* Why Google Analytics & Webmaster tools are worth it (and how to interp ‘em to clients)

Anything else out there?

I spent the weekend installing a wireless HP 3-in-1 printer onto a Dell WinXP laptop. I don’t mind doing so for my grandparents-in-laws, but it gets tough explaining to them why the wireless software wouldn’t install. “The box says wireless, why isn’t it wireless?” I know. I’m sorry you have to deal with poor management of software.

• When software installs, it should give options of what to install.
• When software installs, it should give useful statistics of progress, not 9 flickering bars and a KBps rate (from a cd!)
• When software uninstalls, it should remove everything. (including desktop icons to buy supplies!) This pseudo-overly helpful ploy of marketing is crap.

I’ve coined a term: limited computing. It’s the idea behind ‘Hardware Potential‘ I wrote a bit back, and the reason why I just bought a limited cell phone. I suspect it’s also the reason behind netbook adoption.

Simply put: Maybe computers aren’t supposed to do everything, but be task-specific appliances. (And based on the interest in desktop-theories, they do a poor job of such task-focusing!)

I max-out the hardware on my mac daily. My job requires it. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of having a job where I’m limited by my computing resources. But more intensely, I’m sick of having a computer appear like it can handle all I throw at it.

User-interface suggestions:

• Have the task-manager (Taskbar, Dock) show which apps are being hogs through simple color-recognition/visual intensity (bold, blackened out, etc)
• When I switch applications (alt-tab) show ratings of how bad an idea such a context-switch is! Or at least show how long it will take for the switch to become active!
• When I open a new application, show the likelihood of it running smoothly, or recommended apps to kill upon running this new application.

Fact is, my old Nokia N800 did this. I think my ARM-based WinMo 2003 device did this before as well. And I’m certain my new cellphone lets me run only 3 Java applications… and I’m OK with this! If I’m trying to do more than the device can handle, then it’s time to upgrade the device, or downgrade my expectations/idealism. Either way, both are better than me getting mad at a limited device that doesn’t realize it’s finitude.

Refresh Augusta was kind enough to let me speak tonight on Version Cue and Subversion at. Here’s the presentation.

Somehow, I don’t think Vin will take lightly to being called a girl. (As of at least 4/13/2009)

Whoops! Vin=Michelle?

Sometimes, just one in a rare while, someone has a good (understatement) idea. I’ve been trying for a long while to understand what a good, innovative, productive computer workspace would looks like. One that captures the needs of the task at hand, centralizing focus on that task, removing distractions, while providing context-relevant information on which to collaborate.

Friends, I introduce: Gnome Shell.

I really cannot express the genius I feel seeing this. The traditional desktop workspace is the down-n-dirty ‘workbench’. I imagine myself as Dr. Manhattan putting the pieces of the project together in this area.

Not to be lost in the mundane work area, (and, just like the mind!) there is also this overlay, which could hold the sub-tasks, associated projects and documents and email (all through tagging).

The mind, when organizing and planning has such an ‘overlay’, but when ‘in the zone’ of working on a task, interruptions and excess information is hassle. I can furthermore foresee another screen like the overlay, where you’re in planning mode, an overarching taskmanager. All the while, the user status on IM shows the availability for interruption (and optionally the task and how long/deep (subtasks/due date) you are into completing it!)

I like this. I only hope Gnome 3.0 will be the start of something huge across all Desktop vendor-designs. The cluttered desktop of windows-everywhere must end.

InfoWorld has a great write-up about a data-center project & what they learned from it. I’ve summarized and abstracted it here:

When you don’t know, you trust.
Differing experiences & personalities will trust different things:
D: themselves
I:  people: what they can get others to do/say.
S: what others say/face-value?
C: the information: their mind/face-value of what others say. They will not try to influence or change.

Details always trip you up:
Practical: some times things just don’t work.
–Execution problem
Idealism: some times you just didn’t think or plan enough (and you could have).
–Information problem

Consequences:
Think + Do everyone’s job in the process, from vendor information, estimations, ordering, manufacturing, shipping; environmental surroundings; temporal surroundings (future-proofing)

Information Errors can be minimized by having a diverse enough team that can think through each step, and communicate (listen!) enough to take each info-tid-bit to heart. Most personalities aren’t capable of valuing this, and those that are, aren’t usually forceful or influential enough to make their case known. Solution? Humility.