Recommended Reading from Boxes and Arrows Website

I have found a few good books on the excellent Boxes and Arrows site covering 'the design behind design'. This site has lots of ideas about information architecture, design of user interfaces, etc.

Anyway these book are the books that I will read in that mythical 'when I have time' space I never seem to reach. As John Lennon said '...life's what happens while your making plans.' How true. Anyway check out the books below.

Universal Principles of Design
William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler
October 2003
100 design principles—concepts such as affordance, constraints, figure-ground, etc.—clearly explained. Includes many examples and illustrations. (As you’d expect, it’s also beautifully designed.)

Recommended by Jorge Arango on http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/oldies-and-goodies

Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (9th Edition)
Joseph M. Williams
December 2006
You write. You write all the time: stacks of email messages, instant messages, text messages, reports, rants, and reviews. And you follow rules. You follow rules you learned in high school: don’t begin a sentence with “But,” don’t end a sentence with a preposition, and never use fragments. In a time where writing happens more often than not and where the rules no longer apply, we need a book to tell us how to break the rules elegantly. Truth is, they were never meant to be followed in the first place. Williams, in this 9th edition, presents a stunning set of guidelines on how to break the rules, and how to diagnose the problems with your own writing.

Recommended by Liz Danzico on http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/oldies-and-goodies

Designing Interfaces
Jenifer Tidwell
November 2005
I have found Designing Interfaces to be an invaluable resource. It is a collection of well-organized UI design patterns for a wide selection of platforms, desktop, web, mobile, and other digital devices.

Recommended by Alecia Kozbial on http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/oldies-and-goodies

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld
November 2006
I just got my copy of the Third Edition of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Morville & Rosenfeld. The previous editions have always been favorites and a must-have for all of us. This is a book that has been critical for the development of our field. It seems like the book has been thoroughly revised; I see new screenshots and new subtitles everywhere. It has been updated to include social classification and navigation concepts, and all those other things we’ve been discussing since the last edition. Some advanced findability notions are also considered, as well as more depth on user needs, enterprise IA, and strategy. There’s also more on deliverables than ever before. While sticking to roughly the same amount of pages as the Second Edition, this book seems completely refreshed. I look forward to have a chance to sit down and read it cover to cover.

Recommended by Javier Velasco on http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/oldies-and-goodies

Buzzwords of the day

I found some words left on my performancing blog plug-in, so I thought I would share them with the world, that is all.

1. blog bouncers



2. link jackers



3. tag soup

NextSpace... A good newsletter for those wanting to follow future trends in the Library field

Source: NextSpace: OCLC Community Newsletter

I just wanted to wholeheartedly recommend the NextSpace: OCLC Community Newsletter which is has lots of good articles on technology and trends in the library. I particularly enjoyed their issues on Web 2.0 and Boomers vs. Gamers. They also cover issues like the 'long tail' effect, and ways to personalise the Web interface for library users.

Speaking of ways to personalise the Web I was recently introduced to Netvibes, a Personal Information Management System (PIMS) for things you are doing on the Web. It allows the creation of and linking of RSS feeds and other API scripted widget boxes that allow you to check multiple mail accounts, your ebay, local weather, etc.

Rex Libris... a comic for librarians

I discovered this while down at my favourite comic shop in Melbourne 'Alternate Worlds'. In this issue Rex Libris, a kind of New Jersey accented tough guy librarian, gets sucked into a book of monsters and tries to rescue a patron of the library. Some people in my course had talked about it before I think students who studied Children's Literature as an elective are aware of it's existence.

Anyhow I found it entertaining and liked this panel describing the role of a librarian and how it is not to seek adventure.

What the heck is Library 2.0?... here's a visual Meme map by bonariabiancu

Source: Uploaded March 16, 2006 by bonariabiancu
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bonaria/113222147/

I found this visual representation of Library 2.0 when looking through Chelsea Harper and Kate Watson's Powerpoint presentation on wikis and blogs and their use in the libray. I have always liked diagrams and visual explanations of concepts. I think the Japanese do them very well, with their comic (or manga) culture. I am also interested in the idea that games can increase digital literacy as put forward by Paul Gee in his book see info below.

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

by James Paul Gee

See this book for a very detailed (and more academic than I expected) look at video games and semiotic domains etc

Later when I find it on my flash drive again I will include a link to a great powerpoint presentation on games demonstrating how the complexities of an interface used be a typical role playing game (RPG) like the popular World of Warcraft prepares game players to adapt to many different software applications.

I have found something interesting to assist me with my research interests next year.

I was looking through the latest issue of Incite Magazine (Dec 06), and on page six there was some information about the Ray Choate Scholarship. The idea behind this is to investigate some aspect of reference services that will lead to better practice in this area. It sounds really interesting and I look forward to putting something towards this scholarship. For now that is going to have to go on the backburner as I have to get my employment and graduation sorted.

I am very interested in the current recipients project which is 'Investigating Blog and Wiki Technology for the Enhancement of Internal Reference Services Practice' by Chelsea Harper and Kate Watson. I am going to have a bit of look at their project tonight and hope to be able to contribute some of the sources I have uncovered in my exploration of blog and wiki issues.

All consuming... check it out for books, music, and movies I recommend

As most of my friends know I read a fair bit. In the words of Bill Hicks 'wellll looks like we got ourselves a reader!' One of the fantastic people I hung out with on my recent trip to Canberra wanted to know more about what I recommend in the way of reading materials etc. So I prepared this little list and tried to think of at least ten movies, books, and music that I like. I have fairly eclectic tastes and if I had more time I would describe why I liked each of these items. Anyways might do some more tagging later.

Check out my goodies on All Consuming then just select books, music, or movies from the sidebar.

Viruses are not scary... be afraid of the Bots

I have just been reading about bot attacks in Wired Magazine (Nov 06). Scott Berinato wrote an article titled 'Attack of the Bots' on p. 171. These bots have the ability to create huge DDos (distributed denial-of-service-attacks) and one company called Blue Security had their site taken down by bots because they were trying to provide an anti spam service which tries to flood the spammer with data. Unfortunately the site and related ISPs and other network servers were all shut down in the process.

Anyhow these things are real nasty and basically are controlled on high by Command and Control (C&C) operational software which usually move servers often to frustrate those trying to stop the bots. Even if you shut down one of these operational software programs there may be another one lurking somewhere else.

When the botnet underground means business and it is probably best to stay out of their way.

Meme - A definition

“an element of a culture or system of behaviour that may be considered to be passed from one individual to the another by non genetic means, esp. imitation.” -from The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (2004)

The best example of a meme in Internet world is BoingBoing: a directory of wonderful things, which is described Cory Doctorow in an interview as being “is a place where four eclectic people catalog every thing they think is interesting.” It has an audience every day somewhere in the realm of 2 million netizens.

That just blows me away. I am sure all types of marketing suits are trying to work out how to harness this potential. It also indicates how if you can sort information and filter it in a meaningful way on your website then you are providing a very useful and popular service. What is it that is so attractive about Boing Boing? I think it is also important to note that is a collaborative effort. Not the work of just one person.

The reason I became interested in Mr Doctorow is that I read a great article about the Metadata called Metacrap. His writing style is intelligent and funny and I respect his opinions. I hope one day other people can say that about my writing. I don’t think I have got to that level yet.

Australia’s copyright law breaks search engines

I was interested to hear about Phillip Ruddock and his role defending the copyright laws. Since the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with America copyright has been extended from 50 years to 70 years. It is making it difficult for those in the libraries who often have to verify copyright. Learn more about the changes in this article
An article from Boing Boing: a directory of wonderful things

RSS feed ’scraping’ is stealing! is it or isn’t it?

Check out these pages for a good article and debate on this difficult copyright issue. I wonder where Australian copyright law stands on this. Hmmm. I will have to check that out when I get some more free time.

seen originally on Breaking New Media News - Last 48 Hours - Monday Aug. 28th - Robin Good’s Latest News

Blogger says “it’s OK to steal, if they use RSS” « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger
On the Sclobleizer Blog Mgreenly says, basically, that by putting a full-text RSS feed out there it’s like giving everyone a license to copy my content and use it however they want.

Ahh, so if it’s easy to copy it’s OK to steal?

American copyright law says “not true.”

I think it is getting harder and harder to enforce the copyright laws which is one of the key factors to making laws work in the real world. It is similar to advertising on the web where people always try to ensure that you watch there ads. First there were pop ups then there were pop up blockers. People put up with banners so long as they don’t block what they really want to see. Being able to cut and paste using software apps you can filter what you see. The user/advertiser creator/copyright infringer battle continues.

Nowdays javascript is used to produce cleaner pages and customisable pages with the ads cut out. Where will it end?

What Tim Berners Lee has to say about Web 2.0

I really like this design and I agree with the quote by Tim Berners Lee.

So what is this Web 2.0 thing?

When I first heard about this Web 2.0 concept I thought it was some kind of concrete thing, like a new version of Windows OS or a new browser. Having read a little wider about it I’ve realised it is an abstract concept. According to the Wikipedia

Web 2.0 can also be called the

…”Participatory Web”, emphasizing tools and platforms that enable the user to tag, blog, comment, modify, augment, select from, rank, and generally talk back to the contributions of other users and the general world community

I don’t really know if we have had that much of a revolutionary step happen. I do think however, that organisation of the Internet has become more complex but I don’t know that has become any more useable. I am certainly interested in the development of collaborative tools and the so called ‘architecture of participation’.

The development of decentralised, collaborative tools will hopefully boost communication and interactivity both in corporate intranets and between organisations and their users. Already wikis are widely being used by companies for this purpose. However there is always the problem of ‘knowledge as power’. People who are worried about maintaining their postions in the organisational hierarchy may be unwilling to share their knowledge for the greater good. Also many people have domineering personalities and may only be interested in sharing a wiki if they control the way content is delivered.

However, on the whole I think these lightweight content management systems (CMS) are very useful and I am interested to see how they will be further developed.

Trying to get more of an idea about Web 2.0 I read an article called The amorality of Web 2.0 which I have highlighted interesting ideas out of below.
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: The amorality of Web 2.0

‘perpetual betas’ (one of the Web 2.0 articles of faith)

This is one of the things that annoys me about the use of technology having to constantly update to the next big thing. I remember reading a humourous book about computers I think it was by Dave Barry and he said that computers are great for people who like to tinker and fiddle. The idea of being able to control and filter information is half of the attraction for me of customising my GUI with new browsers, plug-ins, and extensions.
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: The amorality of Web 2.0

Without a rigorous editorial process they will never achieve encyclopedic greatness, but on the other hand, it’s still a handy reference. It’s not as if they’re spreading disinformation on a mass scale, there’s just a general quality problem.

I thought this quote captures some of what is wrong with Wikipedia.

I also think there is more than a grain of truth to the idea that perhaps Web 2.0 is just an aesthetic movement. Here’s an example of the Web 2.0 school of graphic design.

Digg’s getting gamed… what we really need to do is learn to question, and learn to trust

Personally, perhaps it’s just how my brain is wired up, but I connected the dots between “Digg popular = traffic”, “lots of friends = lots of diggs” pretty much right away. But is it worth the backlash doing it so blatantly? I know kids with 1000 friends on MySpace, how easy would it be for them to do?

Source: The Secret Group-Digging Conspiracy | Performancing.com Chris Garret Aug 18 2006

I think Chris Garret has hit the nail on the head with what can be oh so wrong with the latest system of organising web stories with social ranking. It always seems to come back to the issue of trust. Trust ratings and other systems are always open to manipulation but in the end I guess you just gotta trust somebody.

Del.icio.us… Deliciously hard to remember URL.

Del.icio.us… Deliciously hard to remember URL. August 19, 2006
Posted by infomanblog in Uncategorized. trackback , edit post

Can’t remember the del.icio.us website URL ? Read this » Digital Inspiration

‘http://delico.us http://delic.o.us How Do I Spell Delicious. Where do I put the dots ? The world’s most popular bookmarking service - del.icio.us - is also the most ugly URL on the internet that gets even more confusing when typing the web address by hand.‘

Source: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/04/cant-remember-delicious-website-url.html

I totally agree with this article what are they thinking with this URL? I just don’t understand what it is supposed to mean. I think I will have to investigate this further when I have more time. This just doesn’t make any sense at all. I guess it is all about marketing you want a name that isn’t been used and hasn’t existed before. Like sony this is a good idea because if you pick an existing word it may have other meanings in other languages or have another ‘euphenistic’ meaning.

An interesting Website with an interesting ranking and relationship system

Liveplasma: music, movies This site is a really interesting visual creation. It is basically a music and movie database but the way the data is displayed visually is very interesting. The halo around the band or movie you have entered indicated it’s popularity and then genres of music that are related in someway are linked. You can zoom in and out and it also displays a discography or details of the director’s movies. An interesting approach that encourages serendipidity. I think this is probably an ontology based creation as it seems to require more that just a simple hierachicial structure to create it. What do you think?;-)

Can ’social ranking’ be useful? Is it already too greatly effected by viral marketing?

I was just looking at some headlines on the Wordpress site somewhere and I noticed this article about Digg. I have only just heard about the Digg site from talking geek with someone at work a few weeks ago. He told me about this site maintained by Kevin who used to host this darkside segment on the now defunct Techtv Cable TV channel.

I used to watch Techtv way back when I lived in Canada. It had a lot of new about the computer world and most regulars on the show are still around now doing blogs and podcasts etc.

Hmmm… just thinking I should start a glossary section for any new terms I introduce on this infoman blog of mine. It could be helpful for people who are not familar with some the geek nomenclature.

Getting back to the subject of the digg article originally seen on Par!x ‘Digg Assigned to an Ecommerce Class.’ (17 August 2006) had been written about this girl trying to get an article ranked highly on digg for a class assignment. The comment thread itself seemed to have several off topic posts that were viral marketing or spam. Are we ready for the meta meta meta web. How can these socially ranked sites provide quality information when people are clearly trying to manipulate them?

Anyway real tired but thought I had better put a first post on this site before retiring.

Over and out