We’re pleased to announce that Jon Gordon, host of Future Tense, American Public Media’s technology broadcast heard on over 100 stations nationwide, will be joining us.

We’ve tallied up the resources we’ll have to play with, remix, and generally use as building blocks. These include 37 RSS feeds, 33 podcasts, a pair of Flickr streams, 10 discussion groups, 4 Twitter feeds, 11 blogs, a pile of videos, transcription samples and collections of commentaries and other content.

What would you make with MPR’s stuff?

1 Comments

• At 03 Jul 2008, justin wrote:

  A pirate radio station that played a prairie ho companion, the current tv. Guess they probably wouldn't like that, but that's the idea.

Anyhow, here’s a quick tip that, as far as I can tell, hasn’t been posted in a findable blog post anywhere.

The scenario: You’ve spend months and months building out a few MOSS farms. In hindsight, you maybe didn’t always keep track of every single database that was created, and all those failed installs didn’t help either leaving behind all those oddly named config databases. Now your DBA is asking you a simple question: “Which databases belong to which farm?”.

Seems like a simple question. There must be a simple answer, right? Oh yea, this is SharePoint we’re talking about.

First, the hard way to find your databases:

• Content DBs: These are actually listed quite nicely in central admin. At least they gave us that: APP MANAGEMENT >> CONTENT DATABASES >> select each WEB APP you want to see a list of content DBs for.
• Config DBs: This one was tricky and took me a while. Turns out this info is in the registry. Sigh. REGEDIT >> HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Secure\ConfigDb
• SSP Config and Search DB: This one was obvious in hindsight: Central Admin >> SHARED SERVICES ADMINISTRATION >> click the EDIT PROPERTIES drop down on the SSP you want to look at.

BUT…that’s still not all of the DBs. Specifically, the MOSS Help Search DB. Fortunately, after many Google searches and a few forum posts, Phread Langford gave me this great solution (and I slightly tweaked it):

Central Admin >> OPERATIONS >> PERFORM A BACKUP (which takes you to “/_admin/Backup.aspx”)

This page provides you a list of all items that are (or should be) backed up by MOSS. Lo and behold, there are ALL the databases listed! Alas, it also lists other things than the DBs, but it’s nice enough to tell you what each item is. Brilliant tip. Thanks, Phread!

Ok, it’s a minor point, not a revolution, but can we start calling it “ecommerce” now? Even as I type this, I’m being told by the spellcheck it’s E-commerce, but why bother with the hyphen? And capital “E”? Please. I’m going to ignore that and hope things change. 

Do you still say Web site? How about website from now on? Is that still a debate, on how to spell it? Do we need to capitalize “Internet”? Does that really make sense anymore? 

Any other words come to mind for you? 

2 Comments

• At 27 Jun 2008, Garrick Van Buren wrote:

  Dan - great post. Excellent. If memory serves, WIRED magazine declared it 'internet' (lowercase) a while back - maybe in their style guide.

  Hmmm. I wonder how relevant/current/appropriate that style guide is these days.

• At 30 Jun 2008, Darrel Austin wrote:

  Good terms(I agree, NO MORE HYPHENS): internet, email, web, website, ecommerce, blog

  Bad terms: webinar, blogosphere, intarweb, i-anything, ecast, B2(anything), viral, interstitial (just call it 'annoying ad'), SEO (Ok, the term is OK, just hate the busines)

Hello UX folks –

The next Twin Cities UX Meetup group will meet July 1 at the Monte Carlo. The topic will be “What’s interesting to you about UX these days?”. Come enjoy some delicious Monte Carlo cocktails and chat it up with your local peers!

Look for Garrick, in the patio if the weather is nice
If you have questions, throw them in the comments.

For your convenience, I’ve culled the 50-line job description to:

responsible for: search marketing, SEO, web site optimization, online advertising, social networks and blogs, viral marketing and grassroots events marketing, analysis of e-mail projects, including e-newsletters, e-postcards, online advertising and Web sites metrics.

Sound cool and exactly the type of gig you’re looking for?

Wait, I forgot one line:

Math Ability: Ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide in all units of measure.

How’s this go again? 2 cups to a pint, 2 pints to quart, 4 quarts to a parsec, 8 parsecs to a petabyte….

If you’re still interested, contact: Signe Peterson (speterson at caringbridge.org) their Senior Marketing Coordinator.

The latest deal breaker, iRise Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Axure Software Solutions 10 weeks after it receives a software patent (a questionable idea itself). Awesome.

Let’s say, iRise wins: eradicating Axure and leaving it’s customers without an ongoing supported tool. Think those customers will purchase licenses from the company that killed the tool they selected?

Me neither.

Feels like Adobe & Macromedia Redux, and I’m not happy with how that turned out.

I think I’ll stick with napkin sketches and HTML, kthxbye.

6 Comments

• At 05 Jun 2008, Nicole Netland wrote:

  Wish you could have seen it :)

  On Wednesday, with an iRise Sales Rep:

  Me: "Give me your 2 minute why iRise versus Axure."

  Rep: "Well first, we just filed a patent infringement lawsuit against them..."

  In terms of whether Axure clients would consider buying iRise after eradication - not sure they even could. The price points are apple and oranges - or cadillacs and kias.

  Lastly, I keep wondering if as we become more agile - truly, and are able to have working prototypes within weeks of project initiation if these tools like iRise (which don't produce any code) will become shelfware.

• At 05 Jun 2008, Garrick Van Buren wrote:

  Nicole, re: agile-ness removing the usefulness of these stand-alone prototypes, I completely agree.

• At 06 Jun 2008, Fred wrote:

  A *LAWSUIT*???? That is so ridiculous. Our community is very small and typially we all play well together. This is just *bad business practice.* Axure is kicking their asses because it's good and it's affordable, so out of spite they try (in an absolutely crazy fashion) to sue Axure out of business. There are other ways to be competitive. Jerkwads.

  While I am admittedly an Axure fanboy, I have had no problems recommending iRise over Axure when the situation warrants it. But now that is over. I wouldn't recommend to clients that they work with a company that practices business in this way.

  Regarding Agile... Aren't working prototypes expensive? You have to retain additional coders to manage them. Plus, making changes has got to be slower than making changes on a wireframe and regenerating. As far as I'm concerned, a prototype is the designer's playroom. It's where we can fail merrily until we get it right. Failure becomes less of an option when a) you're dealing with code and b) that code will end up in production

• At 06 Jun 2008, Garrick Van Buren wrote:

  Fred, working, easy-to-modify, html & javascript prototypes _can_ be expensive. But considering the price of either of these tools, I'd put it about even.

• At 06 Jun 2008, Jay Morgan wrote:

  @Fred: You better step back from your computer if you're going to stick with that plan of avoiding products in a patent law fight. After all, IP is much bigger than UX. Let's not be too self-centered about UX community being the turf for this fight.

  Now, as a person who is inbetween prototyping tools :D, I'm happy to be reading "Sketching User Experiences" by Buxton and having Dan Brown's Deliverables book in hand. I might just join GvB and use paper.

• At 30 Jun 2008, Darrel Austin wrote:

  Jay:

  It'd be great (if your willing) if you'd post a review of said book!

One of the oldest and most relevant user interfaces is the book. Books generally include page numbers, blocks of text and if you’re lucky, a built-in book marker. Generally you navigate a book in a consecutive manor via chapters or sections. What’s not to love about books?

Enter the dictionary

Webster and friends seem to have this notion that words need no relevance to a given subject. Your average book usually associate and gather paragraphs into a given chapter or section. It puts the sentences and words in a specific context. A sentence talking about love in one chapter may not have the same meaning when used in a different chapter.

In the case of dictionaries, contextualizing a word would benefit its usability and overall usage. If I had a dollar for every time I used a word out of context, I could be a venture capitalist. Grouping words that share a given context could benefit their use in speaking and writing. Our literature would be cleaner, concise and smart. Our verbal communication would make more sense and help communicate meaning effectively.

If it ain’t broke

I know, I know. Why fix the dictionary? So I ask, when was the last time you enjoyed readaing the dictionary? As far as usability for the dictionary, the process of actually reading it as both reference and literature is painful, if not unbearable. Also, the thesaurus is not much help in this regard. Words with the same meaning have equal chance of being used out of context.

The dictionary would be enjoyable if I could find words based on context and or subject. These subjects/contexts could include subject-matters, social situations, greetings, etc. Instead of it being a pile of word puke, it could be a tool that evolves with verbal and written communication. When someone uses the word “suck”, what is it communicating in a given context such as when someone fails a test or vacuuming a floor.

Conclusion

All in all dictionaries are nothing but tolerable. Words based on context would evolve our literature into something that all can understand and learn quickly. I’m not demoting the dictionary as relevant tool in and of itself, but its usefulness could be increased simply by grouping words into contexts. You’ll find that a lot of words overlap contexts. I’ll go as far as saying that the english syntax would be more succinct if it were all based on contexts. Viva la revolution for the dictionary!

1 Comments

• At 03 Jun 2008, Darrel Austin wrote:

  I have an older edition of this book on my desk. Might be in the ballpark of what you are wishing for:

  http://www.amazon.com/Random-House-Websters-Newer-Faster/dp/0375700838

Congrats Jay.

Make sure you know the rate you’re billing out at, figure out how much money you’re bringing into the company, and how much of that you are seeing. If you’re utilized more than 80% of the time (and that’s already probably too high…) ask about when you’re supposed to find the time to develop your skills, recharge your batteries, evolve. - Peter Merholz

Thank you Peter. This had to be said.

2 Comments

• At 22 May 2008, Nicole Netland wrote:

  I love it. I wish I could figure out how to live it.

• At 25 May 2008, Darrel wrote:

  I recall one job where we employees had the idea to read one design magazine a week and summarize for the rest since we would never get to reading them all individually. We then got an email from management reminding us to make sure we entered in a billing code into the time management system so that we could properly track the amount of time we were reading trade journals.

  *sigh*