connectedness

Last week I attended the MESH conference for the second consecutive year and once again the issue arose around evaluating the use of social media technology by a commercial enterprise.

It's been just almost a year since I focused my professional attention onto usability for web applications and launched this web site. I've known for about eleven-and-a-half months that, as a hybrid between a blog and a business web site, this site has significant issues. My goal was to see if I could mix my personal perspectives with a professional profile. The experiment is over and I'm not afraid to say it's a problematic mix and change is required.

For a few weeks now my left brain has been absorbed in the details of implementing a client's web site. Being wedded to a tight deadline and having already done all the loose, creative design stuff, I'm now focused almost exclusively on solving the challenges of writing computer code in what is still a new territory for me. It's a great way to get to know the nitty-gritty details of how to build a modern, 'AJAX driven' web application.

Does technology have to be highly advanced in order to feel like magic?

A few weeks ago I spent two and a half hours standing (literally) at the counter of the US Airway check-in counter trying to secure a ticket to San Francisco using a free travel voucher. (No, the online efforts just didn't work for this one. Another story.)

I used to call web surfing a good cure for insomnia.

Back in the pre-broadband days I could barely stay awake for the length of time it would take to download an average web page. Many web sites defied the odds and loaded their pages with luscious graphics but it was sheer torture to watch them trickling miserably onto the screen. Imagine being very hungry and sitting in a cordon bleu restaurant watching your Vichyssoise brought to your table, one spoonful at a time. Argh!