This is a post
25 Apr2011
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum
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From Edison to google
14 Apr2011
A great read. Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Big Switch” provides an interesting perspective on
the history and commoditizationof technology. I never thought about mills as “technology” or a power generator as “technology”, obviously they are. The socio-evolution of these technologies is quite interesting, and this author tells a story (somewhat biased) that draws parallels into big computing, cloud, and other aspects of virtualization that are inevitbable.
- In: Uncategorized
Comparing cameras – a model website
12 Jan2011
As a professional web & applications developer and ammateur photographer I get asked a lot of questions about “what camera to buy” “what laptop to get” What CMS to select” Choices are hard to make for alot of folks who dont have exposure to these things on a daily basis. Sometimes I do have a good answer, but sometimes I find myself having to google it for them…
Recently I decided to deviate from my heavy Canon SLR 40D and try and find a high end point and shoot. In my deep dive on all of the camera sites I came across this GEM. http://snapsort.com/compare
Not only does it offer a great pro’s and con’s list for buying a perspective camera, I believe it is one of the best designed sites for “comparisons”. Give me the facts, and if I don’t know exactly what your talking about give me a quick and easy way to look it up. Take a few minutes on this site and let me know what you think
NYU Langone Haitian Relief Team Blog
23 Jan2010
We set up a great blog yesterday for the team of physicians and staff that went down to Haiti to offer much needed relief. They are using an iPhone application to update a Drupal blog at http://heart.med.nyu.edu
5 tips for finding the software product you need
17 Jan2010
1. find one product and type “product name vs [hit space bar]” in google or yahoo. Take a look at the auto completed suggestions — your new leads will appear
2. Take a few of the names you have compiled and do a Google or Yahoo search using the words conference and seminar. Find the keynote speakers at these conferences and spend some time reading their websites and blogs
3. From the various websites you should have visited by now you should be compiling a best of breed feature list. Sure, obviously you should know what you need with business objectives before even starting the process — however you may find some great common best practice features and correlations. Begin a comparison matrix as soon as possible.
4. Take a look at your top vendors (you should know the industry best by now) make a list of customers who use their software in your vertical market. Try and reach out to a few of them on Linked in. With a well constructed email, you should be able to find someone willing to share candid information about the product
5. Play buzzword bingo. Try and cut through the hype. You will start to see a lot of buzz words that really don’t have much to do with the quality or effectiveness of the software as it pertains to your business needs and or budget.
Learning to Live with kinks in an Application?
10 Nov2009
OK, so this is not a novel idea — but it struck a chord with me nonetheless.
I was driving up to my parents and decided to try out the voice command system on the iphone. Pretty darn slick, it recognized my multiple vowel last name when calling my mother. The weird thing though, it required me to manually select speakerphone after using a handsfree voice command. Why wouldn’t this default to hands free?
is this by design? A bug? An overlooked feature?
The funny thing is, I didn’t really care. It didn’t bother me that the phone didn’t have this feature. Then i began to wonder “why don’t i care”.
I began to list the potential reasons:
1. I am brainwashed into thinking apple can do no wrong
2. I am willing to over look minor inconveniences
Nope, none of these.
3. I am confident that apple will fix this – they are constantly improving their software
Yep, I think its this one.
Can confidence in a software development team mitigate the frustration of an end user? the thought that there are iterations, or incremental improvements based on user feed back is something I think we underestimate as developers. As I think about how i interact with people I am developing websites and applications for, I think about how I can mitigate frustration. I think the ability to deliver improvements and instill this confidence in the people who use software may go a long way.
Design tips from yahoo finance?
25 Aug2009
The new york times had an interesting article on how yahoo finance visits compare to google. I found a particular snippet very interesting.
James Pitaro, vice president of Yahoo’s audience group, said, “In our research with users, we found that the more information that was displayed on the page, the greater the anxiety.”
He said Yahoo deliberately adopted what he calls “the Apple model — simplicity in design; a clean, simple look, not overburdening our users with too much information on the page.”
This is a brilliant concept that we sometimes overlook as designers. “less is more”. When designing applications, or interactive websites I usually go through an exercise of labeling items on a page with a question mark. The question that needs to be answered is, is this a distraction? Does it really need to be on this page. Sometimes we tend to provide to much information on a page. I never put the term anxiety to what users are actually thinking, but I think it makes perfect sense. Sure, people can be exaustive when navigating a page, but if they are subconciously anxious — then you are not doing your job as a designer.
A great book that articulates this point is “Dont Make Me Think”
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/dp/0789723107
Apache Web Server Class – NYU SCPS Fall 2009
25 Aug2009
This fall I will be teaching another class at NYU: Apache Web server. There are not a lot of opportunities to learn Apache in a hands on setting. This course is applicable to all types of web developers. From front end designers, content management system operators, and back end systems admins. I will discuss several real world scenarios with the web server as it pertains to topics such as search engine optimization or security. For more details check out the course listing.
http://www.scps.nyu.edu/course-detail/X52.9805/20093/apache-web-server
Bing, the corporate niche?
22 Aug2009
So there I was…giving another presentation in our conference room at work. I was using the controlled desktop which uses windows Vista. Every time I opened up a new browser, it defaulted to Bing. Now, this is clearly an obvious form of pitching a product. We see it all the time with google built into firefox and the iphone.
What is interesting to me, is that Microsoft still has complete ownership of the corporate desktop. Sure, I use a mac at work, and I am not a zealot. I use windows when I need to, and there is no ill will.
Over the past few weeks i have seen Bing in a number of places, it just sort of snuck up on me. I personally dont think this will squash google, because it has to absolutely crush google in order to replace it as a search engine. Its just the ubiquitous corporate nature of Microsoft’s products that I find interesting. They have a tremendous advantage here and i suspect they will be cashing in on it.
The Social Life of Health Information
27 Jul2009
More than twice as many Americans went online for health information than in 2000. But the surprise is that the Web is rarely the only resource. Most people use online research to supplement, not replace, advice delivered by a health professional—and by family and friends. “Don’t count out Doctor Mom,” says Pew Associate Director Susannah Fox, who wrote the June report.