Category: Things I think about

Need more bandwidth for Bar Camp LA!

Hi ChisSo go figure, CocoaDevHouse is streaming video and we’re having a hard time just watching it in real time owing to our meager 384Kbps connection at Bar Camp LA.

Fortunately we’re still a few hours off from the main event, but we’d love a hookup like we got from Etheric Networks at the last minute at the original Bar Camp.

Obviously if you’re able to help out — say, with an 80MBit directional wifi drop or some kind of new wave mesh network — we’d be eternally indebted to you. And yes, we’d probably blog about it a lot.

A lot.

So — if you know anyone, or know anyone who knows someone who once dated someone who ran over someone and lives in LA and has some sweet bandwidth to send our way, do let us know! Or at least blog this bad boy and get the word out. Let’s see if the internets really can connect ppl!

Drupal Camp NYC is looking for a venue

Drupal Camp BoyAnother offshoot of Bar Camp, Drupal Camp is looking for a venue in NYC. As Amit can attest, finding a venue, especially in NYC, is the hardest part of organizing a camp.

So, if anyone has ideas for May 13-14 — Node 101 folks? — please let Noel know on the wiki. More details on their planning page.

technorati tags: , , , ,

dotBen Out of Towner meetup tonight!

dotbenGood ol’ Ben "Bullshit" Metcalfe will be coming to town and is interested in meeting up with Brat Pack
2.0’s rebel rousers. He’s the fella who stood up to… ahem… "address" Mena at Les Blogs… and in his spare time, earns pounds at the BBC.

In addition, we’ll be talking plans for Bar Camp Ottawa and Indie Film Camp: Enric‘s camp on introducing and involving the independent film community in net syndication, promotion and distribution of their works. Come on by and join the conversation!

Bar Camp meets Fight Club … down under?

Tequp CoasterIf it is your first night at tequp, you have to talk.

And them’s the rules, except unlike Fight Club, but more like Bar Camp, you can talk about it after the fact. And judging from the description, I’d say it inherited a lot from Bar Camp:

tequp is a new collective focussing on innovative software and internet development. it is a passionate, informal and constructive meet. the main aim is not to share technological solutions, (although that is certainly an option) but to get to know locals doing cool stuff and share experiences of doing business.

started in melbourne, australia, it is hoped other cities join in on the tequp concept.

But here’s the nutty thing: according to my buddy Blake Burris (and father of this weekend‘s CocoaDevHouse), Cris Pearson, the mastermind behind the meet and developer of Comic Life, had never heard of Bar Camp before.

No, really!

Can you believe it?! Man, this whole accelerating serendipity thing is really starting to catch on.

The decade of user experience (redux)

I originally posted this piece on the Round Two website (the precursor to Flock) in April of last year, and it appears that I now have some corroboration from the Association for Computing Machinery. Of course I never finished the follow up post, but Andreas Pfeiffer seems to have hit the mark.

As a full time user experience architect and user advocate, it is my job to make technology more accessible, usable and more pleasurable to use. I do this work because I enjoy it and find it immensely important and fulfilling.

I know that the cultural artifacts that I produce (in the form of web interfaces) immediately affect the lives of people who touch my work. And if I don’t do my job well, they’re liable to experience frustration, annoyances or other less-than-positive feelings. Since I have utter control over whatever ends up on the screen (or output thru a screen reader), I have a duty and responsibility to make wise and measured choices so that those less-than-positive feelings never arise and instead are countered by feelings of empowerment, amusement and satisfaction.

It has occurred to me more and more over the last few months that my work is not at all unique, but a larger, more pervasive trend towards user-centered design. While there are still immense opportunities for taking improving the design of interfaces (both web and application-based), I believe that we are ushering in a decade of design innovation dedicated to improving user experience.

In my next post, I will discuss the four emerging families of user experience design and what they mean for web, application and workflow design.

Top 10 List of Zero Consequence

Top Ten Next BlogI’ve seen a few new “lists” pop up lately and I’m just like… “why?” I mean, most of the top 20 repeat the same dudes (and yes, I mean that in the masculine, not neuter, form — counting only 7 of cumulative 60 coming the female side of the aisle).

Anyway, without further ado, here it is, my Top 10 “Next Blog” from Blogger “un”-list, in the exact order that I clicked!

  1. Brew Blog by Clare Brew
  2. Pilgrim’s Path Daily by Pilgrim
  3. Mafootjes blog.. by mafo
  4. Matthews The Younger by Rob Matthews
  5. Millionaire Investments by Millionaire-Investments
  6. Try This Song by Ronaldo Acuna
  7. rosinhathais by thaisrosinha
  8. BumfOnline by Robert Huck
  9. Tim and Jim’s Awesome Blog by Tim and Jim
  10. Permanecer hermeneuticamente fechados sobre nós by pikiewikie

So there you have it. The everyman “un”-list of blogs as I came across them by clicking the “Next Blog” button on my defunct Blogger blog. Representing a multitude of views, tastes and hell, even languages and spam. Congratulations all!

The momentary return of FactoryCity

On hiatus

So I think I might be back up, though I’m not sure for how long. It started with losing all my comments last week. My host, TextDrive, restored from a backup and blew away 3 weeks worth of people’s thoughts and responses. Then I logged in the day after and all my posts and comments were gone.

Everything.

So I took FactoryCity down on Friday to poke around this weekend — and maybe get things fixed. Without word from TextDrive, I went into phpMyAdmin and repaired some tables — doot do doo — and I seem to be back in bidness. We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath. But the moment, FactoryCity seems to be back off hiatus, chugging right along.

(And if your comments aren’t showing up right away, it’s probably Akismet acting up. I talked to Matt, but it stills seems to be treating everything as spam, suggesting I’m not out of the woods yet.)