Lecture on Chrome at Baychi

Great organization to check out:
Baychi

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Designing Google Chrome
Glen Murphy, Google

Pursuing a philosophy of "content, not chrome," the Google Chrome team sought to design a window manager for the web, a browser that would recede into the background and elevate web pages, applications, and entertainment to first-class citizens on the modern desktop.

Glen will describe the process and reasoning behind this approach, the challenges and user research involved, where Chrome is going, and how you can get involved.

Glen Murphy is Google Chrome's designer and an engineer on its front-end team. Prior to moving to California to work at Google, Glen bounced around Australia as a CS dropout, a dotcom-boom designer, a programmer of interactive installation artwork, an engineering lead, a Master of Design student, and a suit-wearing enterprise software consultant.

Artistic Entrepreneurship

some interesting reading. maybe there's hope for the right brainers yet.

http://www.artsentrepreneurship.com/
a class in N.C. about making money with arts.


From Ny Times article:
Transforming Art Into a More Lucrative Career Choice
Alex Quesada for The New York Times
Some artists have begun to figure out ways to make money and make art — aiming to end the notion that “starving” and “artist” are necessarily linked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/business/smallbusiness/27shift.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1

This article explores the topics of A whole New Mind and how they're really being put into practice.

Site Review - http://www.freedictionary.org

Eric Marshall
Site Review


http://www.freedictionary.org/On Information Design

* Who are the users?
Users are English speakers needing to look up a word. Could be any age or any level of English speaker.

* Information chunk (gestalt principle, amount information)
Information is kept to a minimum. Very sparse like google.

* Relevance (graphics, content, reading level, text)
Although the site is very simple the Google Ads are a little distracting.

* Labeling (visual with text)
Simple to use. "search" is only real label.

* Consistency (visual, text)
Definitions are formatted consistently.

* Detail (too much on one page or one screen)
Because it displays the results of several dictionaries there can be several screens of info. It's all text, so scrolls pretty easily though.


On Interactivity

* Orientation (Can you find the path, and know your way around?)
interaction is kept to a minimum. Search for word, or follow links of synonyms within definitions.

* Navigation (Branching)
The site is essentially flat. There is only one level within each definition.

* Functionality (Does it work?)
Yes, simple and easy to use.

* Information access (Multiple entry and exit? Logical path?)
again, limited choices make it easy to use.


On Screen Design
# Attractive (first impression)
Not really attractive. Only one bar of gold color at the top on home page. There are blue subheads on definition pages. I find the blue of the Google Ads links overpowers the understated search results.

# Resolution
n/a

# Color
Maybe overly simple.

# Lay out
one column. Easy to navigate and use.

# Readability
Very readable.

Eluminate

Last night we had class via Eluminate. Professor Foreman joined us from Taiwan. I've done class via Eluminate a number of times and it's always worked fine for me. I find it hard to sit at the computer and pay attention at times. In class the visual clues and interaction between people is important and I miss that. This was the first time I'd watched so many presentations through Eluminate and presented myself. I think it worked pretty well. One disconcerting thing is the lack of feedback. If you're totally bombing, or making people laugh in real life you'll get some feedback. On Eluminate you've got to plunge forward and hope you're making sense. Overall I was impressed with the ability of the class to make use of the different video and audio delivery methods, it was a useful experiment.

eSchoolNews.com, Digital Divide

Here's an interesting publication people might be interested in:

eSchool News

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=55665

Tue, Oct 21, 2008
'Digital Disconnect' divides kids, educators
Most principals think their schools prepare students for 21st-century careers -- but students disagree
By Maya T. Prabhu, Assistant Editor


he study found that 64 percent of K-12 students play online and computer games, and the average time spent playing is eight to 10 hours per week. Of the students surveyed, 51 percent said they would like to include gaming in school because it's easier for them to understand difficult concepts, 50 percent said they would be more engaged in learning the material, and 46 percent said they would be able to learn more in general...

twitter and football

Not really a mashup, but a fun use of twitter and football:
http://www.twootball.com/

Socialtext - Eugene Lee - Curiosity

As much as the great presentation on web 2.0 and enterprise, what I got from Eugene Lee of Socialtext was that he took the time to come and present to our class. He really embodies what he's talking about as one of the "nodes" of information, one of the people who has the connections and who adds value to organization by knowing people, by knowing where to look for something. The common factor I've seen in our presenters, is that they share an enthusiasm for their work and a need to put technology to use to help people. (I guess you have to be enthusiastic to make it 'till 10pm!)

Eugene asked us to think of a way Socialtext could could apply to learning in the workplace. We talked about the value of acquaintances, or "weak links" between people. If you want to find a job, you probably don't get it through your best friend, but through a friend of a friend etc. My idea is that these kind of social networks could more formally acknowledge "weak links of curiosity". Eugene seemed enthusiastic, passionate and curious about how to use technology. I think that the things I'm curious about and what I'm interested in are what I'll put a little time into investigating. These might be the things I have a good idea about how to use.

First, as with the phrase "soft skills", I'd look for a more positive way of saying "weak links", (or was it "weak ties"), anyway we've seen their strength, are they really weak?

Secondly, I think by keeping track of what a lot of people are curious about we can see what ideas are gaining traction, what's hot like the next meme, and we can provide a forum for a further investigation. Maybe it goes somewhere or maybe not, but often times people are thinking along similar lines. I think this is where learning and web 2.0 can come together. I was trying to see where this happens in the Socialtext software and I guess it happens in many places, but by enabling this collaboration, without having to make it into a major official project, by allowing it to be casual and possibly lead nowhere, without an agenda, we might learn a lot more than we think.

I'm also a musician and now am off to google Condi Rice on YouTube playing piano and send it to my friends...