It's not just Pen drives, or USB drives, or iPods. Corporate IT has long been pretty out of the loop as to possible information theft methods.
Example: They told me my powerbook wouldn't work on the network. A SMB connection and 20 minutes later, I had pulled down the entire HR partition as a proof of concept for them.
Oops.
It was massively critical data, just a lot of forms and crap, but the point was that they have no idea what is capable with stuff. All one needs is access to the network. If I don't have that, my laptop becomes a firewire drive in a reboot ("T-connection" - holding down the T key while starting up a recent mac will make it a firewire device). What is next? pat downs at the door of the office?
First - Innovation and features are great in software, don't get me wrong, but why does Word have so many features that the office suite takes up 500 MB of hard drive space? Is it lazy code? or just insanely complex tasks? 5.1 fit on a few floppy discs and ran on my Mac SE with a better responsiveness than office 04 has. Boot times were less or equivalent.
Secondly - why do people ask MS to provide features that are better done by a seperate application? Do you really need massive page layout tools in word? Do you really need HTML editing in Word? etc. A word processor should be a word processor. 5.1 was that. 2004 seems to be that uber kitchen utensil that if you order in the next 10 minutes, you'll get a second one for FREE!
Third - And what is the intent of a small, cheeky paperclip guy popping up everytime I'm trying to do something and say "hey!" It's almost like the guy in the cubicle down the way that I just PRAY does not stop by my desk on the way to lunch or the bathroom or just because he needed a quick stretch, but he always does.
How does paperclip guy aid in usability of the product? Is there a better way to let new users (e.g. non geek, barely can turn on the computer kind of people) know about features without driving the world mad?
Any solutions? Or am I in a pipe dream of efficent, small apps that do things really well and don't try to be everything to everyone?
Outsourcing isn't necesarily the problem. Bad expectations is more of it. People expected to graduate and be working the next day. Once anyone's been in the work force for a while, they learn about changing up and going with the flow and new skill learning.
It's re-applying yourself. I have a friend who is an EE. He's also a guitarist who builds amps and effects. After slugging it out for a job opening with the Federal Gov't and getting offered the job only to be let go before his first day, he went more or less full time in the [OH SO HAPPENING!] DC music scene, building amps, effects, and repairing stuff for people.
Not necesarily for everyone, but if you want to ensure your job, find something that is not cost effective to be sent overseas. A plumber from India isn't going to be able to compete with the guy down the street.
And there's always opportunity for someone who has a great idea or a more efficent way to do something. Maybe not at yoru current company, but someone, somewhere, is willing to give it a shot.
Various friends in bands I know are about to or have spent between $20,000 and $30,000 JUST to record the album. Then hiring a top shelf mix engineer to mix it... then mastering. Even the cost of pressing 1000 copies is nothing in comparison to the amount of money they've spent to get a quality product.
Of course, I know people who've done the same thing and spent under $5k on recording. And the records don't sound quite so good.
Granted, I type this as my band is in pre-production to go in the studio with Ted Comerford and blow about $20k on tracking a ten song album.
But listen to a lot of local stuff, and you'll notice that it's missing that level of engineering and mixing that the general public is used to and now demands from most artists...
In regard to users who abuse the system, one of the things I love about/. is that it's user moderated. The community as a whole decides what is relevant data.
The logitics of who gest banned is an adders nest to be avoided as well. How is it fairly applied? What is deemed illegal on said boards? How woudl fair notice be given?
I have similar problems on boards we run, but we've gone for the standoffish side. As soon as we edit a post or start saying which users are valid or not as the owner of the system, we take on a far more expansive regulatory role. And that's not fun.
I thought the disinfectant scene was great. Of course, there's a bit of a preview in Maxim this month. Hot damn!
3d in a broader sense
on
The Future Of 3D
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Architecture is moving into 3d, but not in the traditional sense. CAD files, instead of simply being digital versions of paper files, are acctually becoming database related. When you draw a wall, you don't simply draw lines, you enter data about the wall, material, type, height, special notes, etc. All of which ties into a database. From this database one can generate a materials list and based on current market values, a price for materials.
If you add a door in plan, it updates in sectiton and perspective. The next release of Autocad and Microstation should both support this in full (according to what I've heard).
Currently, at the firm I work for (RTKL - 1500 world wide), they do things by standard CAD drawings. They spend hours updating drawings with minor changes. The wonder of 3d chat or real time 3d interaction isn't the most exciting thing here. The most exciting thing to me is revolutionizing the workflow of traditional media types, especially in architecture, interior design, and industrial design.
The concern is, and rightfully so for copyright holders, how do you ensure that digital first use doesn't extend to x, y, or z. Currently, they take it too far (in the DMCA) and assume illegal use. This is not a good thing. But what's a solution that will, first, protect the rights of the copyright holders, and secondly, protect the rights of the users.
This permeates all events in a digital medium , but the people who enforce it are ones who really don't feel the hurt as much as john q musician or small time content provider. They don't want their work on Napster unless they gave expressed permission. To them, selling a record means paying the rent (usually self funded projects.)
in the sense of ebooks and libraries - what regulations could be in place to protect copyright holders (e.g., you can't KEEP a book from the library), but at the same time, allowing for fair use?
We're at the begining, and the minutia are yet to be worked out. but does anyone have potentially viable solutions? links? anyone?
At least in the 3d (renderfarms) and compositing (e.g. Shake) world it's been there a while
Pixar's Renderman runs on Linux, and due to the wonderfully low cost of Linux and the cheap method of build your own machine, renderfarms in racks tend to run linux at many post houses.
Also, Square has entered the arena with one amazing ray tracer. For the white paper inclined, this is pretty sweet. It explains Maya and how it works with their custom app on Linux using Parallel proessing via the Pthread library.
As long as George W is in office, you will see government say that "Business knows what is best for the American consumer".
please.
If that were the case, we'd all have 99 year loans and be buying all the worthless crap we could never need, but they've convinced us we do need. It'd be a twisted version of Demolition Man.
I want to see more government regulation. That's what regulation does. Protects citizens. Free market does NOT protect citizens. And it doesn't make for more competition in the sense of options. It makes for one big monopoly.
IP Law is Intellectual Property law, which pretty much everyone here should have heard about. The DMCA regulates the copyrights on those elements of intellectual property, therefore making it illegal to break an encryption scheme.
It's a law written by corporate suits and bought congressmen, not techies. Therefore it supports the interests of the corporations.
The kicker? RIAA and MPAA are constantly saying "were protecting the artists" - which is funny because with DVD, most of the people who worked on the film (Screen Actors Guild [SAG], Writers Guild of America [WGA] and the Directors Guild of America [DGA]) were fighting with the producers (represented by Jack Valenti and the MPAA) because they weren't getting residuals on DVD or Internet. Aka, the only people making money were the producers. Who have too much already. And trying to sway public opinion by saying "we're working for the artists". Same thing with the Napster suit.
The problem is this:
Who controls the copyright?
If it's an artist directly controlling it, then he/she has the right to license and/or give it away for free. With music, if you walk into a bar and hear "Hit me baby one more time" that bar is paying royalties to ASCAP/BMI/SESAC to play that song. Same with radio. If they don't and an ASCAP laywer hears it? Slapped with a hefty fine.
This doesn't happen on the internet because of it's transient and anonymous nature. I am all for protecting artist rights, but it needs to benefit the artist. Not some jacka$$ in a board room in new york who pays the artist 5 cents per record sold or the producers that make money while the crew doesn't (my sister's workin for her DGA membership, so I hear about this crud *daily*.)
Really, more power to them for makin that kind of money on a COFFEE POT. The event and the history of it is far more interesting that the actual item itself. Why put it in a museum?
Museums are already overflowing. The Smithsonian has more things in storage that on display to a ratio of 10:1 in certain departments. Why add to that? and why with a coffeepot?
The internet is a transient being. It is a constantly changing landscape whose historians are the users on it. The CoffeePot website will serve as more than an adequate reminder and is accesible to all people at all times (well, sans the government moderated internets in the far east). Placing this in a museum would be simply a waste of space.
Oh please, did you see Urban Legend II?
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 1
bad movie.
However, The Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween series were pretty tight.
See, what will happen next is that there will be a code red PREQUEL. Actually, three of them. And their titles will just absolutely suck.
And then they'll order drives from overseas. When will Congress realize that they can't control an interntational, non personal (you can't extradite the internet) entity?
The issue is that Americans have become stupid. Lawyers and corporations are more involved in government than citizens, and therefore, the rights of citizens are being raped.
The thing about the internet we all realize now is that it gives you a level playing field. You don't need a deal with DC to publish a comic. You just need Flash. And that will create a lot of extra stuff out there that the end user must weed through. But then you'll find something really cool and also free.
like this. or the stuff they were doing at lucasfilm.
It's a whole new alteration of the technology. And it's pretty cool.
Re:source code for windows?
on
Share The Pi!
·
· Score: 1
So wait, the Greeks used Windows? How the heck did they make any good architecture on THAT platform?
Hmm, maybe their city state setup was a direct result of networking difficulties in the early compiles of Pi... VPNs just weren't quite up to snuff
[/sarcasm] // john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
I work about 45 - 55 hours a week at my real job, and then about 20 doing freelance. While I do get paid hourly, I make four times as much doing freelance as I do at the job... Hmm. hard choice. As said above, being in NoVa is almost as bad as San Francisco bay area prices. Being on a team of 8 in a huge company (1200+ worldwide), each of us working enough overtime to pay three more people entirely. but no, they just ask you to stay late again and again. And the resumes keep flowing in the door.
Also - we're all massively underpaid for the nationwide averages as multimedia people. but since it's an architecture firm, they justify that we'd make much less as architects (while convinently ignoring that we bill 2 - 3 times what the architects do per hour.) // john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Well, if OS X was running on the linux kernel, it would be pretty straight forward. I think it's the issue between people who use FreeBSD or BSDi vs those who use Linux and it's variants today. (or LinuxPPC vs. NetBSD). Are the apps avaialble? And "Can I work on this system?" I think people who use LinuxPPC because they wanted to use Linux on a mac will stay with it. Those that wanted to use LinuxPPC to get any unix variant on a mac will probably be more prone to switch mainly due to the following reasons:
1. backwards capability (classic layer)
2. large developers porting up to the BSD core (Alias/Wavefront porting Maya for example).
3. Possibility of payed tech support with Applecare
[This assumes that most LinuxPPC users use the mac because they like(d) the mac, it's applications, and it's hardware, but wanted to either outfit an older machine to serve as part of their network (OS X won't run without a g3/g4 chip) or have an iMac or something that they have linux on because, well, it's that good:)]
I don't think people will Leave linuxppc outright, but they might slowly migrate to OS X over the course of the next 2 years or so as the system develops further.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Peer to peer issues arise becuase, let's face it, the majority of internet users really don't know how to do that much with a computer these days. Especially in the home market.
Take your family (i'll take mine for this example):
Dad, early adopter of technology, but a bit slow to pick it up. Still has patience to pick up and read manual. Will eventually learn it if it's something that is useful and more functional than his current modus operandi
Mom, uses it because she can email friends - still a novelty to her. Has some patience, but gets pissed when it just doesn't work right (e.g. Netscape 6 email client)
Me - piss off parents by knowing key commands within 10 minutes of using any software. Regularly think it's in the best interests of the family to overhaul machines.
Sister - "Where's the power switch?!?" mention the word "RAM" and she just says "I just want to type papers and surf the net damnit!!!"
Little brother- knows the key commands in five minutes. Damn tech kid
So the issue is that a piece of software needs to be easily usable to a wide variety of netizens. It needs to be invisible to the user. They should say "give me this" and there it should be. Napster does this fairly well, and with such a large user base, especially in the college level, it's easier for someone who is more like my sister to have a friend teach them what to do in a short amount of time.
Freenet won't be sucessful until it can make that interaction layer invisible. As much as I'd love to see a console spitting off commands as I implement them in the GUI, most users have no desire or use for this. They don't want to know WHY their car works, they just want it to work. And they don't care why it broke down, just fix it already.
Sad to say, but most users out there expect computers to be like cars, but know at the same time that a crash is only a keystroke away.
On that note, File, save.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Monopolies in any sense kill competition. No matter who is a "competitor," if it's the David (e.g. Linux or Apple) against the Goliath (of Redmond), the task is sometimes so great that it can't be sucessfully accomplished. It doesn't help that the media is constantly looking for a new "David" to fight Microsoft, pushing its stock through the roof until they don't make Microsoft suffer immediately. Then their stock falls and they are seen as a let down.
Bad Media. We slap you on the hand.
Some of the points of this article - relating to the AT&T debacle - are the approach of a brainwashed Redmondite... "We have standardized telephone jacks, so therefore we need a standardized operating system". It's more directly geraed at "innovations" suuposedly allowing for future innovation.
Microsoft buys all the innovators.
Hmm.
Don't break up Microsoft, but put a closer eye on them than the CIA had on the Kremlin in the cold war. // john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
It sounds hokey, but it's dead on for government sites, take Jakob Nielsen to heart with a lot of his key points. Also, make sure that the content is in a logical location and makes sense for the user to find it. If you can, hold beta test rounds with users who have never seen the site before, and video tape them. Get issues. Fix them. // john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Slashdot Mirror
It's not just Pen drives, or USB drives, or iPods. Corporate IT has long been pretty out of the loop as to possible information theft methods.
Example: They told me my powerbook wouldn't work on the network. A SMB connection and 20 minutes later, I had pulled down the entire HR partition as a proof of concept for them.
Oops.
It was massively critical data, just a lot of forms and crap, but the point was that they have no idea what is capable with stuff. All one needs is access to the network. If I don't have that, my laptop becomes a firewire drive in a reboot ("T-connection" - holding down the T key while starting up a recent mac will make it a firewire device). What is next? pat downs at the door of the office?
First - Innovation and features are great in software, don't get me wrong, but why does Word have so many features that the office suite takes up 500 MB of hard drive space? Is it lazy code? or just insanely complex tasks? 5.1 fit on a few floppy discs and ran on my Mac SE with a better responsiveness than office 04 has. Boot times were less or equivalent.
Secondly - why do people ask MS to provide features that are better done by a seperate application? Do you really need massive page layout tools in word? Do you really need HTML editing in Word? etc. A word processor should be a word processor. 5.1 was that. 2004 seems to be that uber kitchen utensil that if you order in the next 10 minutes, you'll get a second one for FREE!
Third - And what is the intent of a small, cheeky paperclip guy popping up everytime I'm trying to do something and say "hey!" It's almost like the guy in the cubicle down the way that I just PRAY does not stop by my desk on the way to lunch or the bathroom or just because he needed a quick stretch, but he always does.
How does paperclip guy aid in usability of the product? Is there a better way to let new users (e.g. non geek, barely can turn on the computer kind of people) know about features without driving the world mad?
Any solutions? Or am I in a pipe dream of efficent, small apps that do things really well and don't try to be everything to everyone?
Outsourcing isn't necesarily the problem. Bad expectations is more of it. People expected to graduate and be working the next day. Once anyone's been in the work force for a while, they learn about changing up and going with the flow and new skill learning.
:)
It's re-applying yourself. I have a friend who is an EE. He's also a guitarist who builds amps and effects. After slugging it out for a job opening with the Federal Gov't and getting offered the job only to be let go before his first day, he went more or less full time in the [OH SO HAPPENING!] DC music scene, building amps, effects, and repairing stuff for people.
Not necesarily for everyone, but if you want to ensure your job, find something that is not cost effective to be sent overseas. A plumber from India isn't going to be able to compete with the guy down the street.
And there's always opportunity for someone who has a great idea or a more efficent way to do something. Maybe not at yoru current company, but someone, somewhere, is willing to give it a shot.
Be your own boss!
Various friends in bands I know are about to or have spent between $20,000 and $30,000 JUST to record the album. Then hiring a top shelf mix engineer to mix it... then mastering. Even the cost of pressing 1000 copies is nothing in comparison to the amount of money they've spent to get a quality product.
Of course, I know people who've done the same thing and spent under $5k on recording. And the records don't sound quite so good.
Granted, I type this as my band is in pre-production to go in the studio with Ted Comerford and blow about $20k on tracking a ten song album.
But listen to a lot of local stuff, and you'll notice that it's missing that level of engineering and mixing that the general public is used to and now demands from most artists...
Acrobat Distiller 6 Beta can be found in various places online. OS X native.
ArchiCAD is pretty good, but is slightly overkill for just a CAD app (of course, so is AutoCAD).
Yup yup. Well, Apple's got 4 Billion in the bank. They can throw around 2 million like pocket change.
Why do I feel like i just woke up as Jonathan Price in "Brazil"?
"no, no, no. i don't have three people in my household, it's just me and my wife"
"well, the computer said three people. computers are never wrong!"
[bangs head on wall]
Browse at 3, 4, or 5.
/. is that it's user moderated. The community as a whole decides what is relevant data.
In regard to users who abuse the system, one of the things I love about
The logitics of who gest banned is an adders nest to be avoided as well. How is it fairly applied? What is deemed illegal on said boards? How woudl fair notice be given?
I have similar problems on boards we run, but we've gone for the standoffish side. As soon as we edit a post or start saying which users are valid or not as the owner of the system, we take on a far more expansive regulatory role. And that's not fun.
I thought the disinfectant scene was great. Of course, there's a bit of a preview in Maxim this month. Hot damn!
If you add a door in plan, it updates in sectiton and perspective. The next release of Autocad and Microstation should both support this in full (according to what I've heard).
Currently, at the firm I work for (RTKL - 1500 world wide), they do things by standard CAD drawings. They spend hours updating drawings with minor changes. The wonder of 3d chat or real time 3d interaction isn't the most exciting thing here. The most exciting thing to me is revolutionizing the workflow of traditional media types, especially in architecture, interior design, and industrial design.
This permeates all events in a digital medium , but the people who enforce it are ones who really don't feel the hurt as much as john q musician or small time content provider. They don't want their work on Napster unless they gave expressed permission. To them, selling a record means paying the rent (usually self funded projects.)
in the sense of ebooks and libraries - what regulations could be in place to protect copyright holders (e.g., you can't KEEP a book from the library), but at the same time, allowing for fair use?
We're at the begining, and the minutia are yet to be worked out. but does anyone have potentially viable solutions? links? anyone?
Pixar's Renderman runs on Linux, and due to the wonderfully low cost of Linux and the cheap method of build your own machine, renderfarms in racks tend to run linux at many post houses.
Also, Square has entered the arena with one amazing ray tracer. For the white paper inclined, this is pretty sweet. It explains Maya and how it works with their custom app on Linux using Parallel proessing via the Pthread library.
http://www.squareusa.com/kilauea/
As long as George W is in office, you will see government say that "Business knows what is best for the American consumer".
please.
If that were the case, we'd all have 99 year loans and be buying all the worthless crap we could never need, but they've convinced us we do need. It'd be a twisted version of Demolition Man.
I want to see more government regulation. That's what regulation does. Protects citizens. Free market does NOT protect citizens. And it doesn't make for more competition in the sense of options. It makes for one big monopoly.
It's a law written by corporate suits and bought congressmen, not techies. Therefore it supports the interests of the corporations.
The kicker? RIAA and MPAA are constantly saying "were protecting the artists" - which is funny because with DVD, most of the people who worked on the film (Screen Actors Guild [SAG], Writers Guild of America [WGA] and the Directors Guild of America [DGA]) were fighting with the producers (represented by Jack Valenti and the MPAA) because they weren't getting residuals on DVD or Internet. Aka, the only people making money were the producers. Who have too much already. And trying to sway public opinion by saying "we're working for the artists". Same thing with the Napster suit.
The problem is this:
Who controls the copyright?
If it's an artist directly controlling it, then he/she has the right to license and/or give it away for free. With music, if you walk into a bar and hear "Hit me baby one more time" that bar is paying royalties to ASCAP/BMI/SESAC to play that song. Same with radio. If they don't and an ASCAP laywer hears it? Slapped with a hefty fine.
This doesn't happen on the internet because of it's transient and anonymous nature. I am all for protecting artist rights, but it needs to benefit the artist. Not some jacka$$ in a board room in new york who pays the artist 5 cents per record sold or the producers that make money while the crew doesn't (my sister's workin for her DGA membership, so I hear about this crud *daily*.)
Down with the man. yeah.
Museums are already overflowing. The Smithsonian has more things in storage that on display to a ratio of 10:1 in certain departments. Why add to that? and why with a coffeepot?
The internet is a transient being. It is a constantly changing landscape whose historians are the users on it. The CoffeePot website will serve as more than an adequate reminder and is accesible to all people at all times (well, sans the government moderated internets in the far east). Placing this in a museum would be simply a waste of space.
However, The Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween series were pretty tight.
See, what will happen next is that there will be a code red PREQUEL. Actually, three of them. And their titles will just absolutely suck.
And then they'll order drives from overseas. When will Congress realize that they can't control an interntational, non personal (you can't extradite the internet) entity? The issue is that Americans have become stupid. Lawyers and corporations are more involved in government than citizens, and therefore, the rights of citizens are being raped.
like this. or the stuff they were doing at lucasfilm. It's a whole new alteration of the technology. And it's pretty cool.
So wait, the Greeks used Windows? How the heck did they make any good architecture on THAT platform? Hmm, maybe their city state setup was a direct result of networking difficulties in the early compiles of Pi... VPNs just weren't quite up to snuff [/sarcasm]
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
I work about 45 - 55 hours a week at my real job, and then about 20 doing freelance. While I do get paid hourly, I make four times as much doing freelance as I do at the job... Hmm. hard choice. As said above, being in NoVa is almost as bad as San Francisco bay area prices. Being on a team of 8 in a huge company (1200+ worldwide), each of us working enough overtime to pay three more people entirely. but no, they just ask you to stay late again and again. And the resumes keep flowing in the door. Also - we're all massively underpaid for the nationwide averages as multimedia people. but since it's an architecture firm, they justify that we'd make much less as architects (while convinently ignoring that we bill 2 - 3 times what the architects do per hour.)
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
1. backwards capability (classic layer)
2. large developers porting up to the BSD core (Alias/Wavefront porting Maya for example).
3. Possibility of payed tech support with Applecare
[This assumes that most LinuxPPC users use the mac because they like(d) the mac, it's applications, and it's hardware, but wanted to either outfit an older machine to serve as part of their network (OS X won't run without a g3/g4 chip) or have an iMac or something that they have linux on because, well, it's that good :)]
I don't think people will Leave linuxppc outright, but they might slowly migrate to OS X over the course of the next 2 years or so as the system develops further.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Peer to peer issues arise becuase, let's face it, the majority of internet users really don't know how to do that much with a computer these days. Especially in the home market.
Take your family (i'll take mine for this example):
Dad, early adopter of technology, but a bit slow to pick it up. Still has patience to pick up and read manual. Will eventually learn it if it's something that is useful and more functional than his current modus operandi
Mom, uses it because she can email friends - still a novelty to her. Has some patience, but gets pissed when it just doesn't work right (e.g. Netscape 6 email client)
Me - piss off parents by knowing key commands within 10 minutes of using any software. Regularly think it's in the best interests of the family to overhaul machines.
Sister - "Where's the power switch?!?" mention the word "RAM" and she just says "I just want to type papers and surf the net damnit!!!"
Little brother- knows the key commands in five minutes. Damn tech kid
So the issue is that a piece of software needs to be easily usable to a wide variety of netizens. It needs to be invisible to the user. They should say "give me this" and there it should be. Napster does this fairly well, and with such a large user base, especially in the college level, it's easier for someone who is more like my sister to have a friend teach them what to do in a short amount of time.
Freenet won't be sucessful until it can make that interaction layer invisible. As much as I'd love to see a console spitting off commands as I implement them in the GUI, most users have no desire or use for this. They don't want to know WHY their car works, they just want it to work. And they don't care why it broke down, just fix it already.
Sad to say, but most users out there expect computers to be like cars, but know at the same time that a crash is only a keystroke away.
On that note, File, save.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Monopolies in any sense kill competition. No matter who is a "competitor," if it's the David (e.g. Linux or Apple) against the Goliath (of Redmond), the task is sometimes so great that it can't be sucessfully accomplished. It doesn't help that the media is constantly looking for a new "David" to fight Microsoft, pushing its stock through the roof until they don't make Microsoft suffer immediately. Then their stock falls and they are seen as a let down. Bad Media. We slap you on the hand. Some of the points of this article - relating to the AT&T debacle - are the approach of a brainwashed Redmondite... "We have standardized telephone jacks, so therefore we need a standardized operating system". It's more directly geraed at "innovations" suuposedly allowing for future innovation. Microsoft buys all the innovators. Hmm. Don't break up Microsoft, but put a closer eye on them than the CIA had on the Kremlin in the cold war.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
It sounds hokey, but it's dead on for government sites, take Jakob Nielsen to heart with a lot of his key points. Also, make sure that the content is in a logical location and makes sense for the user to find it. If you can, hold beta test rounds with users who have never seen the site before, and video tape them. Get issues. Fix them.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/