RSS in Longhorn

Microsoft's next gen OS Longhorn is going to have lots of RSS goodies.

Via converjed

Books about Software

source: joelonsoftware.com

The average reading of a book about software is to browse through a 1000 pages API reference or doing "Hello World, Hello Whatever" learning type of applications in platforms X, Y and Z. Usually a software book is not the most exciting reading. But not all the books about software are the same.

I liked very much Joels Spolsky old no-nonsense "User Interface Design for Programmers" and I am looking forward to the his new book, The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky,where he collects a series of funny stories and anecdotes (that are quite serious and profound at the end) related to "anything software" written around the web by other authors.


source: amazon.com

I am also checking out "Head First Design Patterns" in which OO Design Patterns are presented as a storytelling/comic strip approach where the basic concepts are short developer stories of the reason of why the pattern presenting a problem that can be generalised and how is conceptualised and finally implemented (in java) in a very visual, easy to follow and sometimes amusing way.

The SmartHome Middleware

As this BBC articles details, the smart home vision is still out of reach for most of use. For most of use, the "Smart and Digitally" connected home of today is a myriad of cables, remote controls, control panels and a pile of never-read user manuals.

One of the key aspects of the smart home of the future is that every gadget can potentially talk to everything and "speak" the same language. That is Middleware and standards.

The IST FP6 Amigo project is developing an Open Source Middleware platform for Smart Environments and they are already publishing some of their initial results.

Tangint: Tangible Interfaces wiki

For anyone interested in tangible interfaces, there is a new wiki:

http://wiki.cct.lsu.edu/tangint/space/start


Via the British-HCI news service, this is some of the "blurp" in the email:

"Tangint is intended to service the international community of researchers, designers, artists, and other practioners in the area of tangible interfaces and (more generally) tangible interaction."

Unexpected Applications and Unexpected User Requirements

Formally or informally, it is view as necessary before starting software development to gather in one form or another user requirements. What about if you are creating conceptually different approach of using computers and you dont even know it?

In this PodCast, Meg Hourihan describes how their company (Pyra) started working initially in project management tool and end up with Blogger, something different and unexpected from the original goal, and far more interesting. Rather than having user requirements, one idea leads to the next one, to a new prototype, to mixing&remixing and to more ideas. One important aspects of such process could be that the users are the toolmakers and feedback and new ideas and insights can be obtained almost instantly.

Update: Although not 100% related, there is also some ideas that are related to "chains of ideas" in intersecting design spaces and organic/evolutionary development around the concept of ambiguity as a framework for design with this one as one of the key publications currently in this area.

UseIT: 10 years so far

Love it or hate it, 1o years in the making and still non a image to be seen on the website, UseIt celebrates 10 years of short articles related to usability heuristics.

http://www.useit.com