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"However, tonight, Charlie Cheever, a lead engineer on the Facebook Platform, has written a lengthy essay on the differences and tradeoffs between FBML and iframes. His conclusion? “I think I’d use iframes.”"
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Great PDF-presentation on usability (via Matkalla.org).
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"This week Facebook is expected to migrate all users to the redesigned version of the site, almost six months since the initial profile redesign announcement. Today, we look back on the three major stories that have arisen during this process: user backlash, app declines, and application bookmarking."
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"Having done an amount of cell phone research lately, I’ve had the not-so-pleasant experience of seeing the level of quality of certain cell phone vendor web sites. Therefore, I’d like to compare Nokia vs. Sony Ericsson."
Archive
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"Below is my master website marketing checklist covering over 400 specific items over 23 topics. These topics include things such as website development, SEO, usability, accessibility, etc. This list doesn't cover any "how tos," which are essential ingredients to successful online marketing, but sometimes you need to first know what to do so you can then discover how to do it."
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"Esteetön tietoyhteiskunta - Suomi eurooppalaisessa vertailussa. Jouko Kokko (STAKES, ITSE -ryhmä) on tehnyt tiivistelmäesityksen MeAC -tutkimuksesta."
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"Rockbox is an open source firmware replacement for a growing number of digital audio players. It has been in development since 2001 and receives new features, tweaks and fixes every day to provide you with the best possible music listening experience. Rockbox aims to be considerably more functional and efficient than your device's stock firmware while remaining easy to use and customizable."
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"Henriksson ei usko, että poliisin virhearvio sivujen suhteen heikentää suomalaisten luottamusta lapsipornon suodatukseen." (sic)
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w3c.org contains child-porn, doesn't it? Perhaps not…
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"We decided to plough the history of the entire Internet, from the roots of its underlying technology, to the Web properties that helped it explode, the litigation it endured on the way and disasters companies have suffered as a result of the Net's popularity. We've picked 50 of what we think are the most significant moments, in ten categories spanning almost 40 years of Internet history: "
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Google's 10th birthday - interactive timeline.
As my personal blog is nowadays more of a link blog than a real, live blog, I thought I’d just as well share some thoughts with all my soon-to-be readers about blogging!
There’s a wonderful cartoon about blogging at Online journalism Blog, which states the “5 states of blogging” (via Marjut/matkalla.org), drawn by Alex Hughes and concepted by Paul Bradshaw. The five states, according to Bradshaw/Hughes, are:
- play
- feedback
- community
- fame
- exhaustion/death
As for myself, those states go quite well together with my own experiences as a blogger.
And what exactly are my experiences?
Blog A:
My first blog was (and still is) an anonymous (or relatively anonymous) blog about my life. Soon it became a travel or “Erasmus” blog as I was in Germany some years ago as Erasmus exchange student. I used it as a way to notify my family and friends about my life and stuff over there - saved me a fortune on phone bills. After I came back to dear old Finland it became a personal ranting place about my daily life for a couple of years till I got bored and pissed with the amount of people who knew me as the writer.
Statistics:
- Type: travel blog / personal blog (ranting)
- Established: 2003, Q4
- Active?: No / random blog postings
- Main intended focus group: relatives, friends, finnish web community
- Estimated amount of (”active”) readers: 5-20
- State: 5. exhaustion/death
- Language: finnish (random bits in english/german)
Blog B:
My second blog worth mentioning was a natural followup of the previous one stated above as too many people already knew who wrote that particular blog. Couldn’t really write anything personal as someone always was hurt (or thought him-/herself hurt). And as the first blog was in finnish I wanted to write in english, too, and anonymous once again. Wanted a place to vent my rants and not so politically correct ideas about my personal life. Wanted a place for me, not for everyone. So I put up a new blog. First 2 years plain anonymous, today I have told perhaps four people about it. Still write the blog, nowadays not so often…
Statistics:
- Type: personal blog (ranting)
- Established: 2005, Q3
- Active?: Yes / random blog postings
- Main intended focus group:myself, random web surfers, lately a selected group of friends
- Estimated amount of (”active”) readers: 5-20
- State: 2. feedback / 3. community
- Language: english
Blog C:
Third blog mentioned is actually the first incarnation of blog B, in finnish. Long story short, told too many people about it, got bored and sick with all the shit written there. Nowadays dead.
Statistics:
- Type: personal blog (ranting)
- Established: 2005, Q1
- Active?: No.
- Main intended focus group:myself, random web surfers, lately a selected group of friends
- Estimated amount of (”active”) readers: 5-30
- State: 5. exhaustion/death
- Language: finnish
Blog D:
My first so called professional blog (Hypermediaa ja elämää) at TUT HLab. Whole blog was at first a platform to publish answers for students’ home assignments. Established first at blogger.com, then at wordpress.com and finally at HLab’s own blog family. At some point turned to a professional researcher blog about accessibility and blogs as communication methods. Died as I got a new job.
Statistics:
- Type: professional researcher blog
- Established: 2005, Q1 (at HLab Q1 2007)
- Active?: No.
- Main intended focus group:students, research community
- Estimated amount of (”active”) readers: 5-150
- State: 5. exhaustion/death
- Language: finnish
Blog E:
The re-incarnation of blog D at it’s own address (ilkka.kaikuvuo.com), actually this very blog. Changed the language to english. Nowadays focus mainly on links, but should write more.
Statistics:
- Type: professional researcher/ethusiast blog
- Established: 2008, Q1
- Active?: Yes
- Main intended focus group:students, research community, potential employers, enthusiasts
- Estimated amount of (”active”) readers: 5-30
- State: 3. community
- Language: english
Blog F:
Underwent a major surgical operation last year, was at sick leave for 4-5 months. Started writing the blog with my mobile phone when I was at the hospital, to vent some of my feelings. Later turned into link collection of the operation and so on. Perhaps intended as a place where peers could get some support, didn’t sadly become one.
Statistics:
- Type: personal / targeted blog (operation)
- Established: 2007, Q1
- Active?: No.
- Main intended focus group:relatives, myself, peers
- Estimated amount of (”active”) readers: 1-10
- State: 5. exhaustion / death
- Language: finnish
Conclusions
My own experiences support the given blogging model, although I might describe myself as a lone wolf blogger - no need for community most of the time. Most of my blogs are alrady dead or will be quite soon, major reason being exhaustion or annoyance with the so called community (to be frank: commenters).
I have had over ten blogs during the last five years, of which two with my own name (and face). Of the anonymous blogs perhaps a third is pseudo-anonymous and the rest more so.
My blogging career contradicts strongly with my job at the moment as I can’t/won’t write about my work (NDA’s are nice things, aren’t they?). Perhaps in the future I have better possibilites to blog also about my work (and not only about my research inteterests), time will tell.
I still want to keep on bloggin’!
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"We humans were not designed to work behind a computer all day. In fact we were not designed to be in the office all day. We find it hard to concentrate, only drink coffee, and don’t relax sufficiently. Here’s number of programs that tries to coach you into more productive or healthy behavior."
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"The paper argues that today’s “attention economy” will be succeeded by a “recognition economy,” in which opportunities for design will continue to increase: “Compulsory self-responsibility will force consumers to optimize their self. This self will call for deliberate decisions and new orientation frames. Identity will become a management assignment. Recognition will become the new key quantity.” The result is what the authors call “Egonomics - an economy geared to the own self.” Egonomics comprises of the following pillars: Body: Healthstyle; Security: Authentification; Relationships: Connectivity; Recognition: Reputation; Self-actualization: Creativity."
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"Now the Sonic Lighter iPhone app brings the sacredness of group flame to iPhone users everywhere. Not only can you create fire of your own, but Sonic Lighter allows you to simultaneously light iPhones around you."
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"Älä hae munkkilatinaasi kaukaa ulkomailta. Suosi suomalaista, ota tekstisi täältä". Some ad agency's lorem ipsum campaign, pretty nifty.
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The history of well known logo designs.
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Actional demo.
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"Deletionpedia is an archive of about 63,552 pages which have been deleted from the English-language Wikipedia."
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"The World Wide Web Foundation seeks:
* to advance One Web that is free and open,
* to expand the Web's capability and robustness,
* and to extend the Web's benefits to all people on the planet.
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"This article presents a wide variety of mistakes, misconceptions, over-indulgences, intricacies, and generally silly aspects of modern accessibility"
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"So how do we build enhanced experiences while making sure all users get a functional site? By testing a device’s capabilities up front, we can make informed decisions about the level of experience to deliver to that device. "
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"Fire Vox is an open source, freely available talking browser extension for the Firefox web browser. Think of it as a screen reader that is designed especially for Firefox.
In addition to the basic features that are expected of screen readers, such as being able to identify headings, links, images, etc. and providing navigational assistance, Fire Vox provides support for MathML and CSS speech module properties. It also works on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. "
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"With 75%1 of the US population and 65%2 of the UK population having internet access at home, it is imperative that websites are designed to be both accessible and usable. The WCAG Guidelines, introduced in 1999, go some way to helping web developers create accessible websites—but …we must look further than the guidelines if we are to create websites which are accessible to users with disabilities and the assistive technologies they rely on."
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"This is an example of form context highlighting using CSS only"