Al Macintyre's Radio Weblog : Al's random interests while learning what can be done with Weblogging, and perhaps what ought to be done.

 

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Al Macintyre's Radio Weblog

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy. Do you hate the DMCA? You can make a difference. The U.S. Copyright Office is holding its DMCA 2002 rulemaking process and has published a notice of inquiry where ordinary citizens can try to have a "class of works" granted an exemption from the DMCA's anticircumvention section. Presented by EFF, I've written a guide on "How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy" [kuro5hin.org]
4:01:42 PM    

Monday, November 25, 2002

algorithm: Dictionary.com Word of the Day. algorithm [Dictionary.com Word of the Day]

One of my favorite words ... it starts with my name Al, it is based on my favorite subject in high school (Algebra), it is what my career pays me to do (develop solutions, usually in programs, to solve problems).


3:36:11 PM    

Picture of Al Macintyre posted to Ryze, for those of you who are interested in what I look like.  This was taken in 1998, me at my PC hutch before the PC upgrade, and before my recent furniture alterations, but it is a fiar representation.  I use the milk cartons to store papers because you can stack them, and see through the sides what in there, much better than the cartons that computer paper comes in.
3:29:24 PM    

Sunday, November 24, 2002

If you saw my post yesterday about the 12 kinds of Knowledge Workers, I have just now updated it, thanks to my source, Andrea Janssen identifying the original writer of this dynamite piece as 

David Skyrme.  I always want to credit the original writer of what I repost, if at all possible.


1:07:36 PM    

Saturday, November 23, 2002

This Post is Al thinking aloud how better to organize some recent stuff I want to explore.  I want my stories to become more focused. 

One acceptable type is detailing a relatively narrow topic like

  • Alternate Realities
  • Blog Books
  • BPCS Doc Sources
  • Link Types
  • Radio Doc Sources - this MAY be getting too large again, and need rethinking if it has outgrown its structure

Another acceptable type is providing a big picture, that can have many threads, with links to additional details.  But what is not acceptable, that I need to fix, is a story that tries to tackle several different topics, each of them in some detail.  Each topic, that needs detail, also needs to be in a separate story.

When I have a cluster of related stories or threads, then they need some summary index explaining briefly what is the function of each and how they hang together, like I do with

  • Al Categories
  • Radio Wishes
  • XXX not enough good examples =
    • I not been doing such a hot job here

There are a very few exceptions to this, which present challenges to avoiding becoming unwieldy, as shown in my Fri Nov 22 post to e-Radio Ideas about Blog Software.  Some stories that have become unwieldy by biting of more than they can chew and properly digest might include

  • Blog Money ... various ideas belong in different stories with this being the index to all the ideas
  • Search Engine Tips ... too many ideas in one story ... they need to split

I recently shared and posted some stuff on getting a handle on the size of the Blog Sphere.  Where did I put it, and where should I put more? 

  • e-Radio Ideas Category for Mon Nov 18 had the second of my two large analyses on how I think it could be done, in the suggestions and wishes department.  
  • Brain 2 Brain Category this weekend is sharing what has been added, from the perspective of existing resources that we might utilize better, by: A klog apart; Seb; Column Two; Group Forming; Curiouser; and others ... many more to check out than I know I will have time for.

I ought to take the links these guys provided and make sure they are in my Blog Software Perspectives, what I am now labeling a Do It Yourself Consumer Reports comparison of what different types of weblogs and weblog services exist, how to compare them.  The new (to me) stuff that are weblog directory Link Services - make sure they also go there.

I need a new story called Blog Census, with links to the actual pages where the various Link Services give their latest numbers, then chart how many they all had as of the same date, planning to update that picture at least once a month.  Give Blog Software Perspectives an index summary link to where Blog Census will have the detail.

The latest new data into Brain 2 Brain has some Link Services that I had not yet explored.  Review my e-Radio Ideas post Fri Nov 22 where I had made significant progress in the Blog Software family of stories, but still somewhat disorganized what belongs in Link Services as opposed to Search Enginie Tips.  I now think Link Services should be a directory of all I have heard of, looked into or not, like the Blog Software family lists first, explores second, while Search Enginie Tips will have an entry linking to a home page of the outfit while pointing to Link Services for more info as I figure it out.

Grand Plan conclusions (Al's marching band music still to be played out)

  • Up top Blog Software Perspectives clarify what I mean by Do It Yourself Consumer Reports comparison of what different types of weblogs and weblog services exist, how to compare them.
  • Make sure up top Link Services clarity of statement what the purpose of that directory is aimed at.
  • Entries about Link Services now in Search Enginie Tips copy as is to Link Services.
  • Re-do Search Enginie Tips to link to the service, and point to Link Services for more info as I develop it.
  • Link Services new vision becomes like Blog Software, a directory of all the places that I find out about is first priority, info on each is second.
  • Make sure all the links from this weekend Brain 2 Brain are in fact in Link Services when relevant.
  • The original posts to Brain 2 Brain might be linked into Blog Software Perspectives where relevant.
  • Blog Software Perspectives already has some info about getting a handle on the size of our Blog Sphere.  Leave the basic question there, moving the detail to open Blog Census, in which Blog Software Perspectives will focus on the Do It Yourself Consumer Reports comparison concepts, pointing to other sites and pages for the details.
  • Use Blog Software Perspectives as my starting point for mapping ths stuff ... that way I can see if there is anything I already knew about that appears to be missing from there.
  • As I (re)explore each Link Services also add an entry to Blog Census, if I see the page with that kind of data.
  • As I make significant progress in this grand plan, periodically share a revised index to what I got done, via e-Radio Ideas to dws.Radio.FAQ.

12:30:35 PM    

Friday, November 22, 2002

My Blog Software Directory had grown to 14 pages and I have lots more I intend to add, but it was getting unwieldy for me to edit, and I suspect perhaps bandwidth hassle for some potential visitors, so I restructured the introductory content so as not to lose anything, but now have more focused stories.

Blog Books is something for you to print and hand carry to your local book store to help you look for particular titles, authors, publishers.  It lists a dozen titles, with links to reviews, summary of some contents.  Obviously I know more about some than others.  (3 pages)

Blog Software is my directory of relevant software out there that I am aware of so far, in which I have populated some of them with what they have in common or different. (now 9 pages). I am contemplating further breaking this down into chunks by contiguous letters of the alphabet such as
Blog Software A - B (2 pages) over 20 such as Blogger variants
Blog Software C - F (1 page) over 20 such as Dairyland
Blog Software G - J (1 page) about a dozen such as Graymatter and Grok Soup
Blog Software K - M (1 page) about a dozen such as Live Journal, Manila, Moveable Type
Blog Software N - P (1 page) over 20 where I named them but not yet know much about them
Blog Software R - S (2 pages) about a dozen such as Radio Userland
Blog Software T - Z (2 pages) about a dozen such as Tinderbox, Web Crimson, Weblogger, Xanga

Blog Software Perspectives is the do-it-yourself Consumer Reports comparison of what your Weblogging Choices are. (2 pages)

Blog Software MT and RU collects links to various people opinions pros and cons different suites. (4 pages)

Blog Software Start is introduction for beginners to this Blog Software collection, like Radio Doc Sources Introduction and Radio Start are for Radio Doc Sources, so that experienced users can skip that verbiage and go direct to the meat. (2 1/2 pages)

Blog Software Types charts what is involved in the major different approaches, that I have conceptually figured out so far.  (2 pages)

Link Services are for any weblog, not just Radio Users, a starting point for how to find out about other Weblogs that may be of interest to you.  I need to add the Random Blog links here also.  Much more to come here ... Search Engine Tips includes links to many services I have not yet checked out ... as I do so, I plan to write up here what each has to offer.  Most of them here do not yet have much explanation.  What happened was I had just started this thing, beginning to compare, then I got a flood of discoveries, whose links I put into the Search Engine Tips, planning to look into them later, and expand this. (1 page)

Enhanced Radio Tools is my directory of add-on software in which right now it includes stuff that works for Radio, plug ins for Browser, services for any Weblogging.  Later I plan to split this up into Radio only, Browser only, general Weblogging, and perhaps some of the major categories in there such as Comment alternative systems. (3 pages)

Search Engine Tips include a score of Weblog Directories you might consider for registering your weblog.  This is another story that has exploded in size and content that I may later split up by function: Traditional Places; Specialized Places; Weblog Places; Actual tips for using them; Links to tips for putting one or more on our weblog; Intro to all this. (10 pages)


10:14:04 AM    

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

I started a story on Identity Protection, which collects various ideas on what to do to minimize our risk of someone stealing our credit, and what should be done after an incident, beyond the standard advice.
2:08:39 PM    

Monday, November 18, 2002

www.netcrimes.net and Misdemeanors is the latest book I have taken a look at.  It is written great!  Each chapter is a mixture of stories of real problems for real people, showing us what it is to be a victim of out-of-control: cyber-stalking (get help via www.haltabuse.org if you a victim of this); identity-theft (more kinds than I knew about, which means I need to say more in Identity Protection than what was implied by Stop Identity Theft because my Banking Stories may have distorted my vision as to where the greatest threats come from, www.cybersnitch.net has advice how not to become the next such statistic); hostile people out there posting stuff that pretends to be from you; spam; hoaxes; all sorts of frauds; what you ought to do about it, with tons of useful links.  Some of these connections will be making their way onto my web site in future postings.  Some have already come here, although with a somewhat different spin than that of www.jahitchcock.com J. A. Hitchcock.  Here are some wonderful starting points.

  • www.trf.k12.mn.us/lhs/shutthedoor.html = safety brochure to help schools and law enforcement understand about anonymous e-harrassment and what can be done about it
  • If you want spam or want more than you already getting, then sign up at www.iwantspam.com
  • If you sent $ in the mail to some place to buy something that was communicated to you via the Internet, and you now think you have been cheated, prompt contact with postal inspectors can put a scammer in the slammer www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect
  • Got questions about computers and the Internet? Check out http://whatis.techtarget.com and www.askanexpert.com
  • Do you suspect that there are programs hiding on your computer that should not be there?  I not talking viruses & trojans but spyware.  Check out www.cexx.org/problem.htm and www.lavasoftusa.com
  • Let's suppose someone might be impersonating you and behaving in a disreputable manner, you can keep track of yourself online by submitting your first & last name, or your e-mail address to www.tracerlock.com and they will e-mail you when it finds a match (I know I am in a LOT of places legitimately)

2:19:18 AM    

Thanks to me checking my referers from time to time, I am finding many more links I want to check out than are humanly possible to do so.

Lots of links to Weblogs in Education from Edublogs by Sarah, and her thoughts on using weblogs as a writing / content / synthesis / collaboration Tool by Teachers.  McGee has lots of great essays on Knowledge Management that includes Blogs in Education.  Also check out my links from Blog Books and Blog Software stories.

Sébastien Paquet's weblog is Seb's Open Research & his great article, with an immense volume of heavy duty links for us to explore, should be occasionally reviewed on weblogs role in rise of personal knowledge publishing.  Seb's Weblogs by Profession is a directory of professions active in weblogging, in which for many, but not all, he has links to directories for each of the professions that he lists.

    • Educators and (old) Teachnology
    • Journalists - I have found that Journalists sometimes do a great job of explaining technical stuff, when they themselves are also using that technology.
    • Knowledge Management people
    • Lots more

    • 1:10:49 AM    

    Sunday, November 17, 2002

    Over 70% of Hoosiers are non-smokers.  This means that a shocking 30% smoke, so we need to think how best to help non-smokers without being too nasty towards our smoking brethern. Americans for Nonsmoker's Rights www.no-smoke.org might disagree with my view.  For me, I consider second hand smoke in my face to be as rude and hostile as if I was to piss in the face of a smoker to put it out.  But a civilized society needs ways for different cultural interests to co-exist peacefully. Phillip Morris and Monitoring the Future (see links below) indicate that nationwide, perhaps 30% of high school students start smoking.

    http://www.smokefreecommunities.org/ is a site, where I live, in Evansville Indiana where you can order a guide to area restaurants that honor a principle of providing smoke free eating.  Previously most area restaurants did not get it ... they adjust what part of the restaurant is smoke free, and what part is for smokers based on smoking popularity, irrespective of what an area was previously used for, or which way the airconditioner is blowing the air around.  This guide is in essence a directory of restaurants where no smoker is allowed to light up inside.

    Stickers are supplied that we can stick on the bill we pay at some other restaurant saying we'd come there more often if in fact it was smoke free.

    Allegedly second hand smoke is a leading contributor to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome ... I had a younger brother who died of that, and yes, one of my parents was a heavy smoker.  Second hand smoke kills approx 53,000 Americans each year.  I have a hard time believing the number is that high.

    For related sites and topics, check out

    For people who smoke and want to try to kick the habit, check out

     


    5:03:10 PM    

    McGee has created a dynamite essay on categorizing knowledge that is just too large for my Radio editor to handle me taking out what I did not want to repeat.  I suggest you go read the whole thing, then perhaps we will all link to it with our comments.
    3:00:50 PM    

    Friday, November 15, 2002

    [Ernie the Attorney]  QUOTE Oops!  Honey, I forgot to redact the document! - giving your opponent a document with sensitive information exposed is not a good idea.  That's why people use black markers.  But what about electronic documents?  Anyone ever hear of "meta-data"?  Please, people.  Let's be careful out there.  If you are an attorney and don't know what I'm talking about (especially if you use Microsoft Word) read this. UNQUOTE [Ernie the Attorney]

    In earlier posts I have shared how Word documents can contain all sorts of stuff you not want to share, and how unscrupulous people can send you what seems like an innocent document, but it really contains software that acts like a virus to do Industrial Espionage.  That is a great link by Ernie to an article on www.law.com about electronic documents in general.  It is not just Microsoft stuff you have to manage.


    3:10:08 PM    

    [Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE Vanity TV: a new scam. Teresa Nielsen Hayden has an excellent piece on vanity publishers and scam artist agents, linked up and down the whole grifting Web. Link Discuss UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]


    3:02:07 PM    

    Topic: Spam = Unwanted e-mail advertising

    USA Today and my local newspaper Computer Business Pages have different stories on recent FTC (US Federal Trade Commission) efforts to protect consumers from inappropriate use of unsolicited e-mail, but not from the majority of this unwanted stuff.  Spam is not illegal in the USA federal laws, although it is illegal in a dozen states, but efforts are being made to get rid of those laws.  It is a continuing battle between interests that want more spam, and people who want less. 

    The newspaper stories that I link you to above, include information on those industry associations of spammers that are fighting to legalize much more spam into our e-mailboxes, and make it more difficult for us to filter it out.  It is estimated that almost 1/2 of the e-mail today is spam, and the FTC has testified to Congress that the growth in fraudulent spam threatens to undermine consumer confidence in online commerce.  Consider for example the 1-900 technology, which had great promise, but its abuse by unscrupulous marketers destroyed all public credibility.

    This year the FTC ran a test called Spam Harvest in which they setup 250 e-mail accounts that were posted various kinds of places, 175 in all, in association with expressed interests, then they monitored how fast those accounts got spam and of what kinds.  They found that it did not matter what you allegedly interested in, you likely to get spam across the spectrum of topics being advertised. 

    For example, e-mail addresses posted to sites for children, generated

    • 38% of the spam was suitable for adults only
    • 24% was work-at-home offers
    • 10% was for hallucinogenic drugs

    As a result of this FTC investigation, they sent warnings to 100 spammers informing them that their messages were fraudulent or deceptive under federal trade laws, while charges were brought against 4 spammers whose messages were designed to induce consumers to turn over personal financial information, thinking it was going to legitimate financial institutions, or other similar schmes.

    • Chat rooms generate the most spam the fastest.
    • News Groups and Web pages are close behind.
    • 86% of e-mail accounts planted above were spammed.
    • Free Personal Web pages, such as weblogs, that placed e-mail addresses in plain sight.  Those e-mail addresses became spammed 50% of the time.  There is a lesson there to webloggers.
    • 27% of e-mail addresses posted to message board discussion groups got spammed.
    • 9% of e-mail addresses on e-mail service directories were spammed.

    Past posts on related information:


    1:03:31 PM    

    Thursday, November 14, 2002

    I have added Stop Identity Theft which has my proposed solution to a problem that causes grief to far too many people today.
    12:45:57 PM    

    Wednesday, November 13, 2002

    e Week has a big story on where the jobs are in the USA for computer people.

    There are a lot of us who are somewhat depressed about the economy, large layoffs all over the place, dot com melt down etc.  We can forget that while the economy may be bad overall, there are always places with growth and stability.  They move around the country as geography and technology evolves.  Some industries have not suffered in the current economy, such as biotechnology, health care, defense spending, which has led to growth in computer jobs some places.  e-Week analysed data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources, and concluded that the best areas of the country to relocate to, if you want to be where the computer jobs are:

    • New York's Capital Region
      • Thanks to IBM, Eastman Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Corning, and other companies, this area was a tech center long before the dot com boom.  In 1999, NY ranked 4th in the nation for attracting venture capital, and 3rd for R&D spending.  This seven county region, consisting of Albany, Troy and other cities, continues to have a strong economy for growth in computer jobs.  One of the newest companies here is looking for experts in bioinformatics, such as analysis of DNA sequences for nanotechnology.  Check out www.hightechNY.com for current job openings.
    • Northern Virginia Beltway
      • Defense Contractors are booming with approx 5,000 IT jobs going unfilled.  Background checks for a good security clearance can take 18 months.  Biomedical also has great prospects.
    • Southern California's Inland Empire
      • East of Los Angeles created 29,700 new IT jobs in July and 26,000 in August, the highest rate in the nation, because it has become a major center for distribution, thanks to inexpensive land, a diverse industrial base, including industries that are today's drivers of tomorrow's economic growth.

    There's an article of tips for relocating, and one on the methodology they used to determine the three top areas.


    10:33:05 PM    

    Tuesday, November 12, 2002

    This month I have continued to update many of my stories.  Those with the most additions and updates are shown below with links to the respective stories.  The most volume of recent input to my stories categorized here as NEW A B C D.

    • Alternate Realities - This Science Fiction Topic has nothing to do with Radio or Weblogging how-to.  Here I basically try to explain the Games Dimension, with a few movies, and I plan to do books later.   This is NEW in the last few days.   It could well be that this concept is so alien for some people, that it is as difficult to explain to newbies as it is to do documentation for weblogging.
    • Blog Books - still stands at a dozen choices - I have now got my hands on a couple of them, and I have inserted brief overviews of what their contents are all about.  C
    • Blog Money = a few more ideas. D
    • Blog Software directory - I have not added much in the way of new links to software providers, but rather most of my recent additions have been expanding details about what each has to offer that is different, and links to more info. A
    • Blog Software Types - this is a NEW story (2 pages long) started today, supplementing my Blog Software directory, by helping understand the fundamental differences that are out there - off-site / on-line / Radio mixture, and stating major advantages and disadvantages with each kind.
    • BPCS Doc Sources - This has nothing to do with Radio or Weblogging.  BPCS is the ERP at my day job.  Documentation Sources is a recurring hot topic in some discussion groups, so I thought I would create something conceptually similar to Radio Doc Sources, and this is a NEW story (8 pages so far) built up this weekend.
    • Link Services is a story that I started last month, and periodically been adding to, with respect to syndicating your weblog. D
    • Heaven Dimension - This Science Fiction Theology has nothing to do with Radio or Weblogging how-to.  I have been a long time Science Fiction fan of Alternate Realities and I came across a depiction of Religion in a novel that I thought was extremely well done, although to some people this might seem a rather controversial notion.  NEW
    • Radio Doc Sources - directory of links to different people who supply documentation for Radio users ... just a little amount added so far this month.  D
    • Radio Start = a few more links for beginners. D
    • Search Engine Tips - this keeps growing with links to cool things we can get from different sites.  C
    • Understand Radio Categories = additional nuances.  C
    • Understand Radio News Aggregation got a major rewrite expansion (now 6 pages), to clarify some jargon and concepts that had not previously been spelled out in what I thought was a satisfactory manner.  I am now making heavy use of analogies, comparing aspects of this to how TV News shares the headlines. A
    • Understand Radio Referers - periodically I add additional nuances to this big picture. D

    4:14:00 AM    

    John Hiler has a dynamite overview of Blog Software Types, from the perspectrive of what might be deisrable to an end user, which I am just summarizing here.  I have added a bit to his conclusions.  This post has stuff in the format ... if you are THIS-GOAL then the best weblog software tools for you mght be one of the following.  This does not neccessarily imply that if you are NOT that goal that you should steer away from those suggestions.

    If you want to run a community discussion group blog similar to Kuro5hin or Slashdot, then the best Weblog software for you might be: LiveJournal, Manila, pMachine, Scoop, or Slash.

    If you are a programmer who loves to play around with open source software, then perhaps the best for you would be Bloxsom, Moveable Type, or Radio Userland.

    If you are an end user who just wants to publish your own web pages with a minimum of hassle, then perhaps good weblog software for you would be Blogger or Moveable Type.

    I am still sufficiently a beginner at all this to see what if anything is incomplete about this picture.


    2:21:20 AM    

    Monday, November 11, 2002

    [Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

    Open spectrum explained for the laity. Seattle Times has run a great story on the group of "lawyers, engineers and telecommunications analysts" who are lobbying the FCC for cognitive radio and open spectrum.

    In an ideal world, the FCC would treat the airwaves like a highway system nobody owns and enforce rules governing how people use its lanes without crashing into each other, the group says. And in cases where this isn't possible, the FCC would allow people to drive across other people's "property" as long as they keep a low profile and don't do any damage.

    Given this freedom, inventors and entrepreneurs would invent new vehicles and new ways of using the highway, the thinking goes. Consumers would finance the development of the airwaves by buying the devices that suit them best and abiding by the rules of the road that prevent nasty accidents.

    But to make this vision a reality, the devices need a slice of the spectrum that would form a virtual park or an airwaves commons where equipment makers and others could experiment. In addition, common protocols — industry standards that allow devices to understand each others' communications — and rules are needed to prevent accidents and to make sure everyone gets a fair shake.

    Link Discuss (Thanks, Howard!) [Boing Boing Blog]

    Let's hope the FBI crew that's checking up on War Chalkers, also reads this perspective.  I also think there may need to be some standards to avoid electronic smog, where equipment is controlled by signals delivered by wireless, but the wireless can also pick up signals from unrelated activity that is sharing the same spectrum.  If the controller cannot tell the difference between the authorzed control signals and the unrelated traffic, then something can crash, which can be very dangerous if that something is robotoic, transportation, medical, public services, etc.


    12:00:46 PM    

    Saturday, November 09, 2002

    I just started a directory of documentation sources for BPCS which is an ERP from SSA GT.
    3:39:40 AM    

    Wednesday, November 06, 2002

    [kuro5hin.org] has started a discussion in which the comments are worth studying because of lots of great links.

    Common Errors in English. When writing the most cut and dry articles everyday, one must express that the more importantly exact same phrases as to not encounter dilemmas.  Ain't it a shame that you can't find a guide while surfing the internet to help with the problem of grammatical errors? UNQUOTE by Frank Crist at [kuro5hin.org]


    1:16:39 PM    

    Tuesday, November 05, 2002

    [Tomalak's Realm]: Scott Berkun's uiweb.com: QUOTE Top Reasons why ease of use doesn't happen on engineering projects. In reviewing all the email I've received at this website, and the experiences I've had teaching and consulting, I've tried to catalog the different reasons why projects didn't result in easy to use designs. UNQUOTE [Tomalak's Realm]

    This is great. The reasons each come with discussion of how to fix the problem.

    • Ease of use was not stated as an explicit project goal.
      • Any development project must have clearly defined goals that team leaders agree to, one of which ought to be ease of use for end-users of the product, combined with a set of trade-offs.  If we cannot do everything desired (schedule slips), how important is this goal?
    • Ease of use was not defined in actionable terms.
      • Designers tend to focus on that which is clearly defined, such as features, performance metrics, defect rates, time schedule, which means that user friendliness can get ignored if it does not also have spelled out what is needed to satisfy the end users.  It is critical to spell out what it is that is being lost if someone decides to cut it out.
      • Before the project specifications are finalized, the team leader needs to make sure customer needs have been properly researched.
    • Decision makers don't see the trade-offs.
      • An element of quality is the productivity of the end users of the product.
      • The needs of end users, to efficiently perform the product functions, must be researched, before the product specifications are completed.
      • For many end users, they prefer something that is easy and efficient to use, than something that is robust and never crashes.  Most of us want both, but as time and budget run out, typically some goals are sacrificed, so it is important up front to have a set of priorities which goal to cut first / last.
    • Unseen impact on ease of use on system / code architecture.
      • Think prototyping and error messages.
      • Think User Interface mapping out very early in the overall design.
    • Confusion over how to use customer data.
      • Data does not solve problems, people do.
      • Thus it is critical that the data not be misinterpreted or misused.
    • Confusion over who the customer is (user vs. customer vs. client).
      • The person who will be using the product is often not the same as the person who pays the development bills.
      • Document the needs of both, and how conflicts in expectations to be resolved.
      • You don't want to be communicating to users in geeky jargon, but in terms of business goals.
    • Technical focus dominates the view of the project.
      • Team leader needs to balance the various perspectives.
    • Diffusion of design authority (too many cooks).
      • Best way to manage this is to have one person, or a small number, define vision for the project.
      • Then other people design their aspects of the big picture, within the shared vision.
    • Feature based design vs. scenario / task based design.
      • The primary value of software is not in its repetoire of features and capabilities, but rather in the ability of its users to complete the tasks for which they aquired this computer product.
      • It is not good enough to have features somewhere within the package that can get the job done.
      • End Users need easy navigation to getting the job done, whatever the job might be.
      • Having a usability engineer in the quality assurance testing staff is essential.
    • No connection made between business goals and ease of use.
      • If the project specifications and team leadership fail to make clear how important ease of use is to overall sucess of the project, then this aspect is one of the first things to be cut, and one of the main reasons why projects fail at many corporations, after they have invested millions of dollars into some conversion.
    • General Incompetence.
      • Teams need to be led by good examples, to avoid getting dysfunctional teams.
      • The worst kind of bad decision making is where something is not communicated until it is too late to fix.
    • The wrong people are involved.
      • The right people are those who are able to effectively balance several key attributes.
        • Compassion for other people.
        • Abstract Problem Solving Skills.
        • Ability to effectively communicate design ideas.
        • Experience crafting designs and observing other people using them.
    • Lack of familiarity with the creative process.
      • It is essential to understand a variety of disiplines and how to cross their boundaries and balance them.
      • Adequate time needs to be allotted to various different development phases.

    4:32:08 PM    

    I wrote up Alternate Realities in Games to help clarify the topic for my earlier Heaven Dimension story.  Alternate Realities in Games should primarily be of interest to fans of Science Fiction Gaming history.  About half of it is the big picture of what was out there when I was a player, and about half of it outlines my contributions.
    2:42:54 PM    

    I have started a Heaven Dimension story which may be of interest to Science Fiction fans who are not deeply religious, which explores God's dimension within the context of SF's Alternate Realities genre' of Time Travel.
    1:12:27 PM    

    Radio Tip: Check out http://www.blogrolling.com/  I found out about this in the book Blog On by Todd Stauffer (see Blog Books for more info on that book and many others), then I went to the Blogrolling site to start reading their documentation. Over 80,000 sites have been Blogrolled using this service.

    Doubtless you have seen many people maintaining long lists of navigation links on the sides of their web pages.  I plan to explain about that in my Link Types story, but in the mean time use Jenny Levine's Radio Docs 101 how to.  For someone, like me, who is a relative beginner to HTML, it seems like a big hassle to maintain this kind of thing. Well let http://www.blogrolling.com/ do the dirty work for you.  Allegedly it can work for any of the major Blog Software choices.  I plan to write this up in one or more of my stories, after it sinks into my brain which one it belongs in.  You go to this url, register (it is free), and create YOUR blogroll, where your links will be stored.  They provide the code to be inserted in our Radio for it to display the blogroll provided - documentation to read because Radio is but one of many software packages that can use this.

    Once we have populated whatever we want to populate into this http://www.blogrolling.com/ service, we will need to republish Radio, from Open Radio Application / Radio / Republish, or whatever the equivalent deal is for people on some other Blog Software.  Jake Savin has written up documentation for how to make this work for Radio Outliner.

    There's a couple different ways to add more to the list.  You can do one at a time type in title, description, url, then let http://www.blogrolling.com/ manage the collection for you, or you can get a Bookmarklet (I thought that was a Moveable Type feature that Radio Userland did not have, but now I see it is an optional feature added to our Browser ... see my MT compared to RU story) on your Browser Favorites toolbar.  When you surfing the Internet and see a cool site you want added to your Blogroll, you can click the Bookmarklet, and up pops a window for you to edit what you want to say about this site, click add, and now it is added to your Blogroll.  Your Radio Application does not need to be running on your PC, because this is added to your Blogroll at the http://www.blogrolling.com/ site, thanks to communications from your browser, while your Radio weblog has a standard link to this outfit.

    http://www.blogrolling.com/ provides us with cut and paste code to put in our Radio Template Preferences so this will work.  At least that is the theory.  I have not tried it yet.  You need to visit http://www.blogrolling.com/ to backup your Blogroll because what is on your PC with Radio is the code to access your Blogroll in http://www.blogrolling.com/

    This is integrated with www.weblogs.com

    Careful, you do need to read the FAQ on this.


    12:21:45 AM    

    Friday, November 01, 2002

    Risk Management tips in Oct 2002 Praxis includes ways to hide your e-mail address from spammers, yet still make the obvious to real people (see in my Search Engine Tips the many ways to get at people's e-identity), also what viruses trojans worms etc. threats and Microsoft Vulnerabilities are going around and what you can do to protect yourself.
    11:19:12 AM    


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    Last update: 11/27/2002; 4:01:53 PM.

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