THE WEB CAN BE A BETTER PLACE TO SURF AND DO BUSINESS !
Last Updated: October 30, 2004
LucDesk wishes you, your family, and associates a very happy holiday season and prosperous 2004 !
[December 30, 2003]
John M. Grohol, Psy.D.: Finding Meaning in the Holidays and Christmas - "The holidays aren't about presents or Santa Claus. They aren't meant only for children (as some believe), but rather all of us. They aren't about seeing the family and having to sit through the stress of another family dinner. They aren't just for Christians or Jews or African-Americans or people who believe in something. [...] They are about finding something spiritual and wonderful about yourself, your life, and the people who fill it and make it special. Not to just give thanks or show appreciation through some materialistic and commercial sense, but to understand that you have a lot. [...] the real secret of the holidays and Christmas is that the love and joy of the season is about the love and joy we can choose to share with one another. You and the love you have to give are what make this world special."
[December 27, 2003]
ABC15.com: Techies to novices ponder how to store old e-mails - "The preservation of electronic data has become a hot topic among librarians and archivists. Computer disks decay. Technology is changing rapidly, with new operating systems rendering old data inaccessible. Computer experts might migrate information from one form of technology to the next, but the casual e-mailer probably won't bother. [...] Archivists say that a paper record has a better chance of surviving a century than digital records today have of surviving a few decades."
Chris De Herrera: What is in The Future of Windows Mobile Pocket PCs? - "I'm happy to see that screen rotation will be included in some future release because I think this is one of the things users want the most. It allows them to see more of specific applications such as Excel or Pocket Internet Explorer in the same orientation they are used to seeing on the desktop. With the addition of a keyboard, the Pocket PC comes close and closer to being a very portable desktop replacement." (via Gizmodo)
Guild of Accessible Web Designers - "GAWDS.org is an association of organisations and accessible web designers and developers - and it is designed to both promote and protect standards - not technical standards - but accessible web design standards."
[December 25, 2003]
Scientific American: Donald A. Norman argues that future machines will need emotions to be truly dependable
[December 24, 2003]
Wired News: The Internet Is a Very Sick Place - "But since we are a far more connected and computerized world in 2003 than we were in 1986, even the stupidest computer worms and viruses -- teamed with enough clueless users and badly designed software -- can do a significant amount of damage. The most troubling development this year, according to many antivirus and security experts, is that spammers and virus writers have evidently decided to partner, resulting in a demon love child virus-worm that both infects computers and spews spam."
Mark Cassino Photography: Snowflakes
Sara Lovering: cleveland circle snow
Raymond A. vanderWoning: snow covered weeds
[December 23, 2003]
BBC News: Caution over 'computerised world' - "A future where everyday objects have computer chips in them will have a dramatic effect on our lives."
[December 21, 2003]
Economist.com: The internet in a cup - "WHERE do you go when you want to know the latest business news, follow commodity prices, keep up with political gossip, find out what others think of a new book, or stay abreast of the latest scientific and technological developments? Today, the answer is obvious: you log on to the internet. Three centuries ago, the answer was just as easy: you went to a coffee-house. [...] Collectively, Europe's interconnected web of coffee-houses formed the internet of the Enlightenment era."
Christopher Hester: "By working on a minimum design we can avoid getting carried away, creating a page that really only works in the current version of your favourite browser."
Chessville.com: DGT Projects Electronic Chess Board - "The internet was a breakthrough for the chess world, allowing us to find and play opponents of similar strength from around the world any time of day or night. Now the DGT PROJECTS board takes this breakthrough one step farther, allowing the user to play internet chess using a real chessboard."
[December 20, 2003]
Joel Spolsky: Biculturalism - "What are the cultural differences between Unix and Windows programmers? There are many details and subtleties, but for the most part it comes down to one thing: Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers. This is, of course, a major simplification, but really, that's the big difference: are we programming for programmers or end users? Everything else is commentary."
[December 19, 2003]
Happy Hannuka!
Bill Thompson (BBC News): Is Google good for you? - "Perhaps it is simply that Google has become the Coke of the web. Sweet, available everywhere, and the first choice of the consumer."
[December 18, 2003]
out-law.com: Too many homepages have broken links, says report - "One in seven consumer-facing web sites failed a simple link integrity test, revealing one or more errors severe enough to cause visitors to defect, according to a report based on a study of 239 well-known sites by analysts at Jupiter Research. The usability review, carried out this month, found that, of the home pages tested: 24 had broken links ("404" errors); 14 provoked server errors; five linked to sites with non-existent host names; and three pointed to servers that responded with server unavailable errors."
WebReference.com: We Are All Connected: The Path From Architecture To Information Architecture - "The web today is like a primeval village; there is no master plan, no general plan, no zoning ordinance, no architectural guidelines, and no building codes governing what you can build and how you should build it. This is a communal architecture. So the question is: do we actually need a big plan? A small plan? Or no plan at all? It's a question that may not have a simple answer."
Alan K'necht - "If we are truly professionals, we need to treat those whom we serve the same way good doctors treat their patients. We need to treat them with respect, provide assistance as required and more importantly provide diagnostics and treatments over the long term, to ensure that these patients will be around for a long time."
"How do you prevent your organization's intellectual property from accidentally falling into the wrong hands after spending all those hours building a security infrastructure? It all begins with education." (Intranet Journal)
[December 17, 2003]
Mike Healan: Computer? Or Computing Console? - "Inevitably, when technology swings the balance of power toward the common person, it leads to efforts to stamp out or restrict that new technology. An effort to restrict the power of personal computers is underway right now. The so called Trusted Computing movement is the most direct example of this effort. [...] Once 'Trusted Computing' becomes the standard in all new computers, the 'personal computer' will become the 'computing console', a device with limited functionality. Compare a PC to a Playstation game console. You can play games on both, but the PC allows you to do so many other things. The game console allows you to do only what its maker allows it to do. This is the direction that personal computers are taking."
[December 16, 2003]
Adam Turner (The Sydney Morning Herald): Space race - "Hardware designers almost seem to be getting to the stage of contemplating how many computers they can fit on the head of a pin. And that brings those responsible for functionality face-to-face with a miniaturisation paradox - already perplexing makers of portable devices. Productivity is intrinsically linked to usability. What good is a device so small you can't use it? Even if monitors and chassis continue to shrink, the traditional desktop set-up (keyboard, video, mouse, or KVM in the current jargon) still requires a monitor 15 or 17 inches wide, a full-sized keyboard and room to swing a mouse. [...] Despite all of our technological advances, clear space is still an important resource."
Bruce Schneier: Liability changes everything - "Computer security is not a problem that technology can solve. Security solutions have a technological component, but security is fundamentally a people problem."
[December 15, 2003]
John Walker: The Digital Imprimatur - "Computers and the Internet, like all technologies, are a double-edged sword: whether they improve or degrade the human condition depends on who controls them and how they're used. [...] Today, the problems are evident, and people are at work attempting to solve them. Whatever solutions are adopted (or not adopted--one may rationally choose to live with problems if the solutions are worse), are likely to be with us for a long time. Whether they preserve the essential power of the Internet and its potential to empower the individual or put the Intenet genie back into the bottle at the behest of government and media power centres who perceive it as a threat will be decided over the next few years. That decision will determine whether the long dawn of the Internet was, itself, a false dawn, or will continue to brighten into a new day for humanity."
CSS, Accesibility and Standards Links
[December 14, 2003]
The Complete History of the Internet - "Maybe not the complete history but a valid attempt. A complete Internet history will never be obtainable since so much of the history is fragmented, unfounded and unreported. This will not be a complete list but a work in progress." (via GeekPress)
Buzz Andersen - "It is the job of any UI designer to act as a mediator between the real and the virtual, but it is the measure of a good one that he or she gets the balance between concrete and abstract just right."
Adam Wolfson: Why Conservatives Care About Biotechnology
[December 13, 2003]
BBC News: "Most top UK websites are breaking new rules which require them to do more to protect web users' privacy. WebAbacus research found 98% do not give enough information about the text files which track user movements, or provide a single-click opt-out option."
Web Developer Information: The Future of WebSite Ranking - "The future of web search and website ranking belongs in the hands of all Internet users, but whether it ends up there depends on how willing they are to participate in that future."
Bruce Tognazzini: "The best design in the world is worthless if shipped riddled with bugs."
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