beatnic - just wondering

So I did a turn at Online Information yesterday. I talked about implementing a content management system at the BBC (intranet). I think it went ok.

Peter Morville with Margaret Hanley at Online Information 2005

Great response from Peter Morville at the Online Information conference today to David Weinberger’s everything is miscellaneous thoughts on trees and leaves.

What happens to those leaves that get raked in to piles? They rot and become food for trees.

I think this is a really helpful way of seeing how in the end the leaves that are the folksonomies can feed the trees that are the traditional taxonomies.

Both ways of looking at things can have tremendous value and usefulness. Maybe when combined they become even more useful. The trick is finding clever ways to combine them.

A note in December’s which magazine (which I can highly recommend)

ID THEFT

Americans happily give away security details, shows research RSA Security.

70% told researchers their mother’s maiden name, and 55% revealed how they think up passwords.

I’m sure the figures would be very similar in the UK.

What baffles me is that despite all the amazing leaps and bounds in technology we’re still not able to come up with something more secure than our mother’s maiden name!

• You’re It! » Blog Archive » David W on ‘Everything is Miscellaneous’
  Thanks Timo :-)
  (tags: davidweinberger jimmywales)

• Top 100 names for baby boys in England and Wales
  Hit parade of first names from 2000 to 2004
  (tags: boys names)
• Yahoo! UK & Ireland Directory > Baby Boy Names
  No prizes for guessing
  (tags: boys names)

Fraud has hit the headlines again in the last couple of days after recent statistics revealed it cost the UK £16bn last year.

I’ve just been the victim of fraud after my bank card and PIN for the current account I’m opening were intercepted before they reached me.

Those responsible managed to withdraw several hundred notes before I happened to go online and notice.

I phoned the bank and had the card stopped immediately. They’re putting their crack investigation unit on the case, no doubt at vast expense. I wish them luck in catching the perpetrators.

So what I’m wondering is why don’t all banks foot the bill for sending all cards recorded delivery?

Surely it would cost a lot less than the amount spent investigating this type of fraud.

And as a customer I’d feel safer in the knowledge I had one less thing to worry about.

When it’s of an illustration according to Flickr.

Monkstyle.net who’s been posting illustrations to Flickr says:

I noticed a while ago that when I searched for photos using tags on flickr, that my photos weren’t showing. After checking through the Flickr faqs I discovered that this is because I have been marked as ‘NIPSA’ [Not in Public Site Areas] which means that my account is more or less hidden to people searching flickr for photos.

Flickr told him:

Flickr is a photo-sharing website, so uploading non-photos will flag your account as NIPSA.

So if you take a photo of your illustration and upload that will you be NIPSAd?

Anyway, it tarnishes Flickr’s warm and friendly user experience in my opinion.

Via Boing Boing

• Argus Center for Information Architecture
  No longer updated, but useful stuff on Information Architecture
  (tags: ia informationarchitecture acia)
• BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Door thwarts quick exit for Bush
  You couldn’t make it up :)
  (tags: Bush exitstrategy doors)

Japanese slang for a man with a combover hairstyle is “barcode head”

Heard on Anita Anand’s show on Radio 5 Live last night.

A loyalty card scheme that gives you points for not going to the supermarket.

Run by all the other places you can buy stuff in Haslemere, Surrey (UK).

Just heard on radio, no link yet.

[Update: found a link]

Can you think of an example of something that exists in one size and one size only and is manufactured for one purpose?

I can’t. Yet.

Some suggestions talking to colleagues (and my uber-pedantic reasons why they don’t count):

Red Nose - they make them for cars too
Earrings - I reckon they do different sizes
Make Poverty History rubber wristband - I had a fabric one earlier in the year

Any more for any more?

I’m full of admiration and respect for Tim O’Reilly but I get really wound up by what he’s coined “Web 2.0” or “web 2 point oh” as it seems to be pronounced.

It’s just the web. Nothing more nothing less.

Giving it a version number somehow suggests it’s something that can be commoditised, productised, owned.

It’s not like we’re living in “Earth 7.0″

Sure, there are ages of the web, but to suggest that there’s something called Web 2.0 implies we’ve been running up through minor versions of Web 1.0 and that sometime in the not too distant we’ll be pointing our handhelds at Web three point oh purlease…

</rant>

• Open Thread: Your best tip on doing presentations | 43 Folders
  Presentation advice in 66 comments and counting…
  (tags: presentationskills presenting)

New from Jon Hicks (who designed the Firefox logo):

Riffs is a recommendations engine, a place to rant and rave about anything, recommend and get recommendations. My main use for it will probably be to give music recommendations, but you could use it to rate and review a gig, movie, conference or meal you’ve just had. Perhaps you want to get users opinions of a certain digital camera? While this is the early life of riffs, there are already over 10 million items in the database, and we’ve tried to make the process of adding a new item as quick and easy as possible.

There’s also the social network side of riffs. If you see someone with similar tastes you, add them to your riffrs, and keep up to date with what they’re reviewing. There’s a lot going on in there, but i wanted to give you a brief overview.

Looking good.

• Presentation Zen: Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic
  “to examine briefly the two contrasting visual approaches employed by Gates and Jobs in their presentations while keeping key aesthetic concepts found in Zen in mind” via Mark Hurst’s Good Experience
  (tags: stevejobs billgates presentation)
• flagrantdisregard.com Flickr Toys
  (tags: flickr flickrtoys)

• Ofsted - Reports Section
  (tags: education ofsted schools reports)
• Intranet Focus Ltd
  Martin’s chairing the session I’m speaking at later this month at Online Information on Enterprise Content Management
  (tags: intranet intranetfocus martinwhite cms enterprisecontentmanagement)
• Metatorial Services Inc. - Site Intro
  Bob Boiko’s company site. He’s doing the keynote on the Enterprise Content Management track which I’m speaking at end of November in Online Information in Olympia.
  (tags: bobboiko enterprisecontentmanagement contentmanagement cms intranet)
• virtual bathroom design
  Ta to Gavin Bell for timely link!
  (tags: bathrooms)
• we are goodtechnology.
  They are good technology
  (tags: agency design web paulsmates)

• holly marie art and design » Blog Archive » Print CSS, Mobile Design
  Useful links on designing for handheld and print
  (tags: handheld mobile print css stylesheet design webdesign)

Why do some magazine publishers bring out the January 2006 issue in November 2005?

So far, after a little searching, I’ve found this explanation from someone called Andy Walton in December 2000:

I see it as yet another form of the “the other guy does it, so I have to” marketing phenomenon. If you’re at a newsstand on November 25, why buy the outdated Nov. 23 Time when you can get the forward-looking Dec. 1 issue of Newsweek? Why buy the October Vogue when you can get the December Glamour at the same time at the same price?

Totally plausible, it would be good to hear what the publishers themselves have to say.

When and where did it start? Who followed who?

And does that mean that to “catch up” some publishers had to bring out two or three editions at once, or just skipped a couple hoping no-one would notice?

• IxDA Resource Library
  “The IxDA Resource Library is an annotated collection of content on all aspects of interaction design.”
  (tags: interactiondesign design userinterfaces userexperience)

• Derelict London.com
  A different way of looking at London. Crying out to move on to Flickr, geotag, RSS feeds etc. Thanks to my brother Jo for the link.
  (tags: London photography architecture urban)

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

I have no idea what 8th Grade is, I should find out.

The BBC is doing something along these lines with the Weekly Curriculum Quiz but of course being British doesn’t give you the code to boast about it ;)

Via Geek Noise

Hi, if you’ve arrived from thisisbroken, the original post is here.

Here’s something that I wrote back in February and have been meaning to put in a post on here for ages…

There are quite a few good guides to managing email.

The latest one I’ve read is this one by Mark Hurst who runs a consultancy in New York.

You don’t have to read all 38 pages to get the point, but you do need to read the first few sections which takes about 15-20 minutes at a push.

I’ve managed to keep an empty inbox for a fortnight now and felt inspired to totally clear my desk too.

So I sent the link round to immediate colleagues, two of whom have now also totally cleared their inboxes (and desks!), so there must be something in it.

You may already have a method that works for you, but if you don’t then this might do it.

The basic principle is don’t use your inbox as a storage device

This is followed by a simple formula based upon 5 types of email:

1. Spam - delete it straight away
2. Personal - deal with it straight away, delete it (or file it if you really have to, but not in your inbox)
3. Newsletters - quick read then delete. You’ll get another one soon
4. For your information - read it and file it if you have to otherwise delete it
5. For your action - read it, if you can do it now do it, if you can’t mark it for action and set time aside to do it. File it under actions, then delete or file when complete

Once your left with 4s and 5s it’s fairly quick to work out which one an email is

• FreePint - Enterprise Search Guidebook
  Martin White’s report
  (tags: work, intranet, search)
• MAYA Design: Aradhana Goel
  Specialist in experience design for complex, information-rich environments.
  (tags: design, experience architecture, information design)

• Resurgence issue 203 - A CULTURE OF SIMPLICITY by Leonard Koren
  (tags: toread)
• Methodology - General Methodology - Time series analysis and seasonal adjustment
  (tags: statistics, statistical analysis, stats, time series, series analysis)