END GAME

Even though it is pretty obvious by now, I guess I should take the time to declare this blog officially DEAD (and not just resting).

Thanks to everyone who's taken an interest, contacted me or just read my posts. It's been nice to know that there's someone out there.

What next? only time will tell.

Bye bye for now,
Mindful, your friendly neighbourhood Instructional Designer

The future of Spotlight and OS X (kottke.org)

A while back, I wrote about being able to create 'associations' between items as a way of quickly finding things. Looks like Apple has now got there:
The future of Spotlight and OS X (kottke.org)

Take two files, any two files. Say it's a PDF representing an invoice and a Photoshop file representing a poster you designed. You drag the invoice over the Photoshop file and a marking menu appears, giving you the option of establishing a relationship between the two files. If you want you can annotate the relationship. If you don't, you don't have to. The computer will simply note that a relationship exists.

Now extend that idea. Instead of it being two files, it can be two ANYTHING. Drag a contact from Address Book to a Pages document; up pops a marking menu asking you if you want to establish a relationship. Or an song from iTunes to a picture of your girlfriend. Or your daughter's birth certificate to her birthday in iCal.


Now, come on, surely that proves how prescient my ideas are ;0)

The clock that wakes you when you are ready

Never wake up groggy again:
New Scientist The clock that wakes you when you are ready - Technology

Backpack Preview #2: Reminders - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

I'm never satisfied with the way reminders/Task lists work in Outlook. There's nothing functional wrong, it's just that they never seem to be the useful tool they should be. I just can't set things up to give me the right mix of persistent reminders, reminders/views on semi-important tasks and reminders/views on background tasks. In fact, I often send e-mails to myself to remind myself of very important tasks so they are always facing me whenever I come back to my Inbox (which is often).

I suspect reminders/task lists are one of those things which are deceptively simple. Easy to build an application to provide the functionality, but very hard to design to become a useful overall organisation tool/life management tool. Perhaps the 37 signals guys are gonna come up with the solution:

Backpack Preview #2: Reminders - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

I suspect there are lots of simple tools like 'to do' lists that could become much, much more effective with a lot more observation/thought on how these things are actually used and how they can enhance daily life. These simple apps would be a good candidate for a way to show-off advanced user-interface techniques in a very simple application (e.g. proactive interfaces).

Mindful with more musing to do...

Bookmarklets - the future?

I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of bookmarklets, those handy functions you can pop on your Links toolbar in a web browser. In a way, they remind me of the software idea of letting customers buy a 'thin' version of an application and then adding parts as they see fit that suit their particular needs (and thus trying to avoid software 'bloat'). This also reminds me a bit of the long-tail view of software development, customised software/things for very small niches...

Hmmm.............i must ponder on all this when I get some time.............

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - William Morrow, 2005

Very interesting article on the psychology of white-collar theft and the factors that affect honesty:
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - William Morrow, 2005

When I studied psychology, I was amazed to hear about how economics was based on 'normative' or idealised assumptions of human behaviour rather than founded on observations of how people actually behave. Floored assumptions, floored conclusions I say. Economics should have a huge psychology component.

Jay Cross presents The Brief

Jay Cross presents an alternative to White Papers, the brief - HEAVILY influenced by the Manifestos produced at www.changethis.com


Always good to see a new way of doing things that has been thought through. In fact, I bet there are soooooooooooo many opportunities to take a 'tried and tested' method and do something better. Usually things become convention through history rather than being the 'best' approach.

An Elf's Progress - online RPG that won't destroy your life.

gradual challenge, fun, practice, experience, a non-threating environment, social collaboration, personal reward, immersion, story, personal meaning...looks like e-learning has got a WHOLE lot to learn from the gameplaying world
An Elf's Progress - Finally, online role-playing games that won't destroy your life. By Clive?Thompson

My childhood, seen by Google Maps on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Using google maps to produce a childhood memory chart - lovely personal use of technology:
My childhood, seen by Google Maps on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Google Maps and user experience (kottke.org)

In this post, Jason notes how many exciting new products actually use rather old technologies but in interesting, user-friendly ways. In other words the advance is in how you package the technology in a friendly, useful way rather than the technology itself:
Google Maps and user experience (kottke.org)

Reminds me of the Head First books, where the authors say that the learning techniques they use aren't new at all, but the context is new: using them for computer books (i.e. getting away from the computer book as reference tool paradigm). Old things, new uses...interesting..