'IA for tiny stuff' at the Miami IA Summit
I was recently in Miami for the 2008 IA Summit, talking about how to apply information architecture and user-centred design principles to the world of widgets and gadgets. You can read a write up of my fluffy animal filled presentation, or view the original slides on Slideshare. There is also an mp3 version of the talk available from Boxes and Arrows. Or, you can forget about the widgets entirely, and just read about my trip around Miami's Art-Deco district, or my review of the Miami Herald website.
Read: IA for tiny stuff: Exploring widgets and gadgets >>

My Favourite Tipples in Free Pint #252

I'm in this week's Free Pint Newsletter writing about my five favourite tipples. No, despite the 'pint' in the name, I don't mean mojito, rum'n'coke, frappé with Baileys, tequila or 'any fizzy lager will do', but my five favourite websites.

Frankly, upon realising that I wasn't going to be able to list any websites for downloading music, video, pr0n or cracked software, I was slightly stuck as to remember what else the interweb was for ;-)

In the end I opted to list sites that had been useful for me in the last couple of months, which meant the list centred a little bit around getting my MacBook set up and running with gorgeous free goodies. You can read why in the newsletter itself, but the five sites I nominated were:

• Open Source Mac
• Eeeuser
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Sphinn
• Graffletopia (illustrated below)

That also meant that I didn't list loads of great and useful websites that I use all of the time, but that are like the 'background radiation' of my interwebs. So hat-tips are due to Google (and Gmail, Analytics, AdSense), Bloglines, the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Times Online, Chipwrapper, Fancy A Pint, Wikipedia, IMDB, UK Nova, Mininova, The Pirate Bay, Amazon, LinkedIn, Expedia, Last Minute, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Outpost Gallifrey, Bytemark, Mycroft Project, Feedburner, Typepad, StumbleUpon etc etc etc...

Posted by Martin Belam, May 9, 2008 - 2 comments so far  - Add your comment 
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Recent links on currybetdotnet

• Ethnographic study on how young children interact with the web » Putting people first
  "Consumer Reports WebWatch released the results of an ethnographic study on how children interact with online environments. The study used ethnographic methods and focused on young children, ages 2½ to 8".
  (tags: children internet research ethnography)
• abstract pointillist | Chris Heathcote: anti-mega
  "Presenting the abstract pointillist powerpoint toolkit. 20 slides that can be used for any presentation. Cut, paste, copy, crop the slides to create an abstract of your ideas that you can then talk to and through".
  (tags: presentations chrisheathcote powerpoint)
• information architecture & interaction design - part one :: ia play
  "Essentially the job descriptions are very similiar. They must mention wireframes to be an IA, the UX prefix may widen the job to include visual design, UI designer is probably more techie and a usability prefix will mean more emphasis on user testing".
  (tags: ia ux iaplay karenloasby)
• Burma - Why The Silence? - Sky News - Viewpoint Blog
  "I've been surprised by how little comment there has been so far on the [Burma] story...does your lack of comment equate to a lack of concern?". First comment from Ben Wilfield? "Sod Burma".
  (tags: burma skynews comments)
• EeeUser.com » eeeuser.com EeePC 900 in-depth review
  Astonishing in depth review of the new EeePC model.
  (tags: eeepc linux laptop asus)
• Florian goes AWOL
  "Kraftwerk founder Florian Schneider has been notably absent on the opening dates of the band’s current US tour. There’s no explanation from Düsseldorf for the no show, and not likely to be one".
  (tags: kraftwerk)
• Emo on the web: exploring a subculture - Times Online
  "This darkness and introspection can seem alarming to parents who drop in and see what looks like a glorification of unhappiness, but most online emo hangouts reveal little different from run-of-the-mill teen angst". Wow, a sensible article about emo.
  (tags: emo timesonline teenagers)

Recent posts on currybetdotnet

A 'guest' review of the Miami Herald site
Whilst I was staying in Miami for the IA Summit, I couldn't help notice the building for the Miami Herald. It is near the waterfront on Bayside, and looms out at you as you cross the bridge from Miami Beach to 'Downtown'. So I thought, since I was a guest in their city, maybe they could do a guest spot in my newspaper website reviews. I had a quick look around the site to see what sort of online presence...

Read the full post - Published May 8, 2008 in Newspapers

Looking at the 'new and improved' Telegraph news section
Last week The Telegraph launched the latest part of the re-vamp of their site. Ian Douglas posted a blog entry about it, making the point that it wasn't just about the design, but about changes at the back-end as well: "It’s much more efficient and easy to use, and the news team has been very pleased to get rid of the old system that was fiddly and demanded too much messing around with XML tags." Like The Guardian and the...

Read the full post - Published May 7, 2008 in Daily Telegraph, Newspapers

'Sorry - this page cannot be found': How newspapers handle 404 errors - Part 2
A comment when I started my recent 'Newspaper Site Search Smackdown' series of posts prompted me to go and have a look at which British newspapers use sitemap.xml files. As it turned out, it was only the Daily Mail and The Scotsman which I noticed, although The Telegraph and The Mirror and Metro have them as well. It meant that I got to have a close look at the 404 error pages generated by the others. I thought it might...

Read the full post - Published May 6, 2008 in Daily Telegraph, Newspapers, The Independent, The Sun, The Times

'Sorry - this page cannot be found': How newspapers handle 404 errors - Part 1
A comment when I started my recent 'Newspaper Site Search Smackdown' series of posts prompted me to go and have a look at which British newspapers use sitemap.xml files. As it turned out, it was only the Daily Mail and The Scotsman which did (well, and The Telegraph and The Mirror and Metro), which meant that I got to have a close look at the 404 error pages generated by the others. I thought it might be worth running through...

Read the full post - Published May 5, 2008 in Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Newspapers, The Guardian

Wonderful Wifi at Walthamstow Central Library
The ratio of moaning and complaining to praise on this blog is always far too much of the former and not enough of the latter, so I thought I'd just write a few words in praise of the web services offered at Walthamstow Central Library by the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The heart of the library is a listed building. It was where, in the 1970s, I first started getting addicted to reading the Doctor Who Target books. The...

Read the full post - Published May 4, 2008 in Walthamstow