Recently getting access to the alpha version of OmniFocus (which, by the way, is going to be the ultimate GTD application) provided a good opportunity to re-assess my personal productivity.
Over the past months, without being able to pinpoint a precise cause, I’d begun to sense myself becoming less and less productive. Although somehow there never seemed to be enough time in the day to get everything done, the actual amount of useful output I’d been producing seemed to diminish.
My first real job was a co-op position with the Georgia Power Company back during my university days. The company bought us all Macintosh computers (Mac IIs), and I was introduced to desktop publishing with the Aldus PageMaker application (which, today, is known as Adobe InDesign).
I started using PageMaker and the office LaserWriter to prepare and print documents for school — reports, essays, anything really. Like most desktop publishing novices, my documents attempted to use every font, sizing, coloring and positioning option the program offered. The resulting documents were technically amazing (given the common technology of the day — monoface font editors and dot-matrix printers), but somehow were nauseating to look at.
I always wondered what was it that made professionally designed documents look so much better, and then I came to discover the realm of design. I bought two books by Robin Williams (the author, not the actor): “The Mac is not a Typewriter”, and “Design for Non-Designers”. These books changed my life! It’s amazing how simple concepts can have such powerful, dramatic effect.
After reading these two books, the aesthetic quality of my documents improved dramatically, and I soon discovered that a well designed document, even with weaker content, could achieve better marks than a difficult-to-read document, with stronger content!
Anyway, in the book “Design for Non-Desigers”, Robin introduces the reader to the four simple cornerstones of design — known as the “CRAP” principles — which, when applied, almost always produce a better looking document, layout or screen:
Today I was reading a book Alex ordered, “Designing Interfaces”, by an interface designer working at the Mathworks (makers of Matlab). It was very interesting to read about some of the psychology principles underlying UI design. In particular, the work of the Gestalt group theory psychologists, who concluded — interestingly enough — four principles:
I find it interesting, and exciting, to see such common denominators between disciplines.
Wow, it’s been a long time, but I’m back to blogging. Business has been going well, and that’s received most of my non-family time, but things are settling down, and some blogging time should free up now.
What’s new:
Bought an Apple TV and a new Phillips 32″ LCD screen. I’m in love! Oh how I’m waiting for the “Connect to iTunes store” button. That’ll be all she wrote for me.
Finished up The Wade, and it’s now on the market. The Wade is Henderson & Henderson’s latest home on Georgia’s Lake Lanier.
Launched the new MLK.com site back in February. MLK wanted a Flash site, so we architected a hybrid Flash/XHTML/CSS site using Flex and integrating with a back-end Ruby on Rails application. It’s one of the most advanced web applications we’ve built to date! (Dang do we have some rock stars in MakaluMedia!)
Won a contract to build a site for some successful people in the US, that’s going to make big positive environmental impact. Got a lot of high profile backing. I’m super excited to see where it leads!
Had to make a difficult business decision. Hope it was the right one.
Gotten heavily into GPS. More on that later…
Business wise, made the big decision to reduce our client work in the Spain office, and go for the development and selling of own product. We’re brewing on a few ideas, and hope to have the plate clean and ready to start work in September. If you’re a Rails developer with a passion for user experience, we’d love to talk to you.
Lost my digital camera, and replaced it with a Canon IXUS 850. I love the wide angle!
Was requested to make dinner tonight, and had the fun experience of trying to figure out where my wife would have logically stored the pasta sauce. Laundry room next to the vacuum cleaner? (It’s been there in the past.) Nope. Behind the paper towels? (been there too…) Nope. “Honey, where’s the past sauce?”… “It’s either in the laundry room, or behind the paper towels.” … “Uh, no, I’ve checked there.” [hair dryer starts from upstairs...] “Honey? Honey?” Great. Ah ha! Almost behind the coffee machine. Should have been obvious…
I’ve made an interesting discovery — Skype Support is run by a buggy computer system, code named “Sandra Valle”, that attempts to use artificial intelligence to read your mail, interpret it, and send out a canned response.
I placed an order for some Skype phones. They never arrived, even though the Skype website reported them as being delivered. Following is the transcript of my attempt to get assistance with the issue.
=============================
Hello Matt,
Thank you for contacting Skype Support.
You’ve contacted Skype Support which deals with Skype services (Skype accounts, Skype PC to PC internet telephony, SkypeOut, SkypeVoicemail, etc).
For any questions regarding hardware orders and other physical products on the Skype Accessories Shop we kindly ask you to contact the Skype Accessories Shop customer support team who will be able to help you with your order.
http://accessories.skype.com/info?&page=HelpTicketSubmit
Please make sure that the country shown on the top left of the page is the country you have ordered from.
If you have not yet placed an order in the Skype Accessories Shop, please do not choose the following categories:
Only for above two categories the order number is necessarily required
Sandra Valle
SKYPE SUPPORT
=============================
From: Matt Henderson To: Sandra – Skype Support
Hello,
The link that you provided below will not accept my order number. I have spent more than one hour going through your site, and couldn’t find any other option to request help.
Can you please provide some assistance.
Kind regards,
– Matt Henderson
=============================
On Jan 14, 2007, at 7:25 PM, Sandra – Skype Support wrote:
Hello Matt,
Thank you for contacting Skype Support.
You’ve contacted Skype Support which deals with Skype services (Skype accounts, Skype PC to PC internet telephony, SkypeOut, SkypeVoicemail, etc).
For any questions regarding hardware orders and other physical products on the Skype Accessories Shop we kindly ask you to contact the Skype Accessories Shop customer support team who will be able to help you with your order.
http://accessories.skype.com/info?&page=HelpTicketSubmit
Please make sure that the country shown on the top left of the page is the country you have ordered from.
If you have not yet placed an order in the Skype Accessories Shop, please do not choose the following categories:
Only for above two categories the order number is necessarily required
Sandra Valle
SKYPE SUPPORT
=============================
From: Matt Henderson To: Sandra – Skype Support
For goodness sake, will you please READ my email before replying with this boilerplate text.
I have placed an order with Skype, from the Spain store.
The telephones (Skype phones) I ordered never arrived, although from the Skype website, they appear as being shipped.
The Skype Spain accessories store feedback form will NOT accept my order number, 4565-0433533-001, therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE to submit a support ticket.
Please re-read number (3) ten more times, so that you stop replying to me with a suggestion to visit a form that won’t accept my order number!
If you do not respond to this email with some type of assistance, I am going to contact my lawyer, and begin a procedure to file a consumer complaint against this organization.
Kind regards,
– Matt Henderson
=============================
Hello Matt,
Thank you for contacting Skype Support.
Unfortunately, we have been experiencing extremely high volumes and as a result we are very sorry that we have not been able to get to your request for Billing Support in as timely a manner as we would like. As many issues have been resolved already, we are hopeful that your request is among them.
If your specific request has not been resolved, we genuinely apologize and will be happy to help you. Would you please try:
Knowledgebase – http://support.skype.com/?_a=knowledgebase User Guides – http://www.skype.com/help/guides/
Also, our forums are an excellent resource to help people get answers to specific billing issues.http://www.skype.com/community/forums.html
If your issue has not been resolved, and neither of these methods has helped, please contact us again, and we will do our best to respond as quickly as possible!
Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.
Sandra Valle
SKYPE SUPPORT
=============================
From: Matt Henderson To: Sandra – Skype Support
Hello there!
Thank you for your reply, and we apologize for the results of the last election. It really wasn’t our fault, even though the price of avocados has recently gone through the roof.
If you are in disagreement with color chosen for the cat’s socks, or the trolling motor that was stolen from the boat, please visit our forums, where users are happy to help with either. Some of them are even outstanding members of their own communities, and bank owners in the Caribbean.
Last, and certainly not least, please remember in your reply to make a small donation to your nearest zoo, in memory of Hunter Steve Irvin and the Dalai Lama. It could be tax deductible, unless we are presently in the year 2010.
Thanks again so much for your thoughtful reply. It is a pleasure to business with you, and the other coconuts at the outpost. And don’t hesitate to come back to me if this hasn’t cleared up the matter.
Sincerely,
– Matt Henderson
I’m happy to report we have just launched Word Count Journal:
Trying to get this app launched over the holiday period has been one of the most insane, yet bizarrely interesting, thing I have ever done.
I’m home in Georgia (USA), for the holidays. Our designer is home in Helsinki (Finland), for the holidays. Our developer is in Berlin (Germany). Our system admin is in Dublin (Ireland). The application key stakeholders are in New York (USA) and Hawaii (USA).
What a ride. Note to self: Never try that again.
Mr. Murphy, and his famous law, have been with us every step of the way. Network access to the code repository server got increasingly flakey during the countdown. Internet Explorer didn’t approve of any of our web-standards-based styling modifications. The Apple G5 on which we run Trac apparently got into a squabble with Apache and Python, and refused to let them play together any longer. Oh, and one family member had a gall bladder attack.
Somehow, Skype, instant messaging, Trac, Skype, Basecamp, email, Skype, Red Sky Cafe’s Wifi system and coffee, a bit of Skype, and a good deal of tenacity got us through.
So WCJ is launched, and that’s good. Looking forward to see what kind of acceptance the app has. In the first two days of operation, we already have about 140 user journals created! (And that’s not counting any private journals!) So it’s looking good.
And we’ve got some amazing stuff on the way in 2007.
Next planned launch: Just around Easter! Hmmmm…
This past summer, our family has spent numerous weekends exploring the mountainous areas of Andalucia. In particular, we’ve been exploring the areas around GaucÃn, the valley behind Ronda containing Benoján, and the next valley up the road containing Villaluenga. For each location, we’ve located tourist maps containing listing of local trails for hiking.
Unfortunately, many of the trails around these areas are not well marked. For some, it’s even difficult to find them at all. And once you find the trail, it is, in many instances, easy to get lost once you start hiking.
The obvious solution to this problem is GPS. There are a couple (here and here of good websites containing descriptions of hiking trails, and downloadable GPS tracks and routes to aid in navigation. (In fact, as I would understanding it, it should make navigation dead easy.)
So, I’ve recently purchased a Garmin 60Cx GPS device, and have entered the seemingly mysterious world of Global Positioning System navigation.
Purchase. I decided to purchase my GPS through eBay, namely via a seller in the US. I was able to buy the device for about 60% of what it sells for here in Spain. Natively containing the US base map, the seller included a version of MapSource MetroGuide. Unfortunately, the software is a bit out of date — version 6, when the latest is version 8. Furthermore, MetroGuide is the least favorable mapping software sold by Garmin, and I will likely soon purchase the CityNavigator product.
In addition, as the 60Cx device accepts microSD cards, I upgraded the stock 64MB card to a better 1GB card. My hope is that I can carry around all the maps and routes I’m interested in, at all times.
Setup. For my purposes, a GPS isn’t that useful unless I can have it communicating with my computer. I use an Apple MacBook, and unfortunately Garmin hasn’t gotten around to developing OS X compatible software. Furthermore, many of the tracks/routes, etc. that I’ve found use a format compatible with a Windows shareware product, OziExplorer.
Fortunately, there is a great solution — Virtualization! I have purchased a license for the Parallels virtualization program for OS X; however, I’ve had problems getting it to recognize the Garmin device when connected via USB. A friend then passed me a beta version of the forthcoming VMWare Fusion product, and it works perfectly! (In addition, I find the VMWare product generally superior to Parallels, and will certainly be buying a license when it hits the street.)
So, under Windows XP, running as a guest OS under VMWare, on a MacBook running OS 10.4.8, I am successfully communicating with the Garmin 60Cx. Fantastic!
So far, I’ve installed:
Practical Matters. Now that I’ve got my system all setup and (apparently) working, it’s time to figure out how all this GPS stuff works. On that note, I’ve already run into a number of conceptual issues I’m presently trying to figure out.
Right now, I’ve used MapSource, and the MetroGuide Europe product, to download (to the Garmin GPS) all the maps necessary to provide full coverage of Spain. This was about 40 MB, and more than 50 small map “chunks�. Question: How can I determine that the device stored all this data on the microSD card, as opposed to some internal memory?
Another question: Is this something I even need to worry about– i.e. if the internal memory fills, does the GPS device automatically switch to the card when receiving data?
Will software that interacts with the device “see� both the data on the card and any internal memory the device has?
Let’s say I purchase CityNavigator. Should I first delete all the MetroGuide maps before installing the CityNavigator maps? How do I do that? (I didn’t see an option in MapSource for deleting maps.)
Let’s say I have full coverage of Spain via CityNavigator maps, and then I decide to send a special topological map of some area I’m going to be visiting during the weekend. How can I tell the GPS that for this particular area, to use the topo map instead of the CN map? I have seen in the “Map Setup� area a hugely long list of maps, and it would seem impractical, if not impossible, to identify which of the maps are the two that overlap, in order to disable one.
I’ve seen that MapSource is document based– i.e. you can save and open multiple MapSource documents, each of which can contain any number of active maps, waypoints, tracks, etc. Why would I want multiple documents? Wouldn’t I want one single document that perfectly reflects the data presently on the device? If I open another document, and download all it’s data to the device, will it delete any additional data it finds on the GPS– i.e. is the concept of “downloadingâ€? to the device with MapSource the same as “synchronizingâ€? the active MapSource document to the device?
I’m a little confused about the practical roles of tracks and routes, and the association of waypoints to each. Let’s say I want to record a path I’m walking and then publish it on the web– what is the best process for this? Should I simply start the track recording when I begin, and then save it when I’m finished hiking, and simply publish that? Is it necessary/desirable to add “waypointsâ€? to the track? (Is it even possible to add a waypoint to a track? Does it then become a “routeâ€??) Or, should I use the “routeâ€? concept?
If a track doesn’t contain a waypoint, how can I tell the GPS to “Go To” the beginning of the track? i.e. how can I use the GPS to help me find the begin point of the track?
As you can see, I’ve still got a ways to go before I have my head fully wrapped around the practical concepts of using a GPS. Any comments would be greatly appreciated — either in the comments here, or via email to matt (at) makalumedia (dot) com.
Today our company launched a new website for Henderson & Henderson, LLC (which happens to be another company in which I’m involved.) H&H build one- to two custom dream homes per year in north Georgia, typically on Lake Lanier.
Henderson & Henderson, building north Georgia homes on Lake Lanier.
Over a period of a few days, MakaluMedia user experience designer Alex Bendiken (yeah, the Slashdot guy) and I worked together to specify and comp this site, and within just a few more days, Alex had it all up and running.
I couldn’t be more excited about it– I think it’s beautifully designed (very much in the Alex style), is fully built on WordPress, exploiting some its “Page” key-pair features to pull in Flickr images and specify the Google maps coordinates, and even to specify the state of the properties (“sold” or otherwise). And, hopefully, the site will be very “findable”, as its ultimate objective is to help market the properties.
Web application development is so much fun these days. Between Ruby on Rails (for custom applications), Drupal CMS (for complex publication and collaboration applications) and WordPress (for the small/medium complexity applications), just about all the bases are quite well covered.
My good friend Diego just launched an information portal dedicated to information related to the nearby beautiful pueblo of Ojén, just 10 minutes up the road from Marbella, and the famous home of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias.
Be sure to check it out: Ojen.net
For anyone interested, I just posted some life and business lessons learned over on the Summit weblog.
I love Rory Blyth. This post is hilarious, and reminds me of the parking ticket machines at the Málaga airport.
A good point was made this morning, that my recent posts have consistently been critical of Spain, and that some perspective would be in order. And that’s true. While this country, or more particularly this area of this country (Andalusia), is probably the most laid-back, non-serious place I’ve ever been in my life (short of Nepal), you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere on this planet offering a higher quality of life. (And perhaps those things go hand in hand.)
I hope everyone gets the chance, at least once during their life, to experience trying to get something done in Spain.
We’re involved in the eternal build-out of our new office space. During this time:
After asking for confirmation three times, we received notification, after two months, that our building permit was denied for “a missing paper”.
No less than three of our providers have gone out of business. Somehow, we managed to avoid being financially impacted by any of these, but they did contribute to the nearly one-year delay in getting the whole project finished.
We’ve had a new air conditioning system blow over and self-destruct, because the installer didn’t think to secure it to the roof of the building.
Our neighbors agreed to let us piggy-back on their wifi internet access, due to something we discovered so unbelievable (yet so believable) that I can’t even write about it here.
About two month’s ago, we signed a contract with Jazztel, a local telecom provider, to install two ISDN lines, and symmetric DSL internet access. Today — again, two months later — a technician from the installation company Jazztel subcontracts to showed up to install and set everything up. It was a short visit, that went like this:
Technician: Howdy! I’m from Conduitomatic, here to install your Jazztel telecom system, which, by the way, I give about 1% chance of actually working.
Me: Good to see you! (To self: It’s about time.) What’s that about not working?
Technician: Well, due to the technology Jazztel use, the DSL line won’t sync up unless you’re within 1.5 km of the nearest phone exchange. You’re about 4 km.
Me: You don’t say.
(Several minutes of tinkering by the technician…)
Technician: Yep, no way, this doesn’t work. You’ll have to find another provider. Maybe Telefonica?
(Several minutes of technician doodling on my whiteboard trying to explain the difference between Jazztel technology and traditional ISDN lines, during which I learned, repeatedly, that VoIP means Voice-over-IP.)
Me: Thank you very much, sir. Would have been nice if the Jazztel salesman could have mentioned the problem two months ago. I’ll get in touch with Telefonica.
I can really only blame myself. What more should I have expected from a technology company whose website comes up empty if you remove the three w’s:
Today was, as I’m coming to learn, just another typical day in southern Spain:
On the way to work, I stopped by the computer hardware wholesaler, who called yesterday to report that my two new hard drives and printer were in and ready for pickup. At the shop, I discovered that, unlike Germany, you can’t just pickup stuff and then conveniently pay later by bank transfer; you have to pay prior to pickup. (Too many problems with people not paying, apparently.) Ok, no big deal.
Seems one of our local clients has decided they don’t want to pay, and will no longer answer the phone or respond to emails. We were supposed to meet them in their office yesterday afternoon to discuss it. When I arrived to work this morning, my colleague reported that they had closed the entire office before he arrived. Seems not paying is a common thing with local clients.
We were supposed to have a sofa delivered to the office today, to be paid cash on delivery (of course.) They promised to call first, before making the delivery. It just happened that precisely when I had to run off for an errand, they arrived, without calling ahead. After some quick mobile phone negotiations, I was given 15 minutes to get by scooter to the sofa store to pay. I broke some traffic laws, but managed to make it, and now we have a new sofa on which I’ll collapse after finishing this post.
The air conditioner in our new office stopped working last week. The Carrier tech came by this morning, and discovered the roof unit had, no joke, blown over. He and I picked it up, restarted it, checked that it was ok, and I agreed to call the installation company to come secure it. Half an hour after the tech left, the unit stopped working again. The installation company arrived in the late afternoon to have a look.
While looking at the interior air conditioning unit (in the ceiling of the bathroom), the new bathroom light fixture that the electrician installed yesterday exploded in dramatic fashion, nearly killing the air conditioner guy. So I called the electrician, and he’s coming out tomorrow to have a look.
Meanwhile, the air conditioner guy discovered that when the air conditioner starts running, the voltage drops from 220 to 205, and the unit cuts off to protect itself. Apparently nothing’s wrong with the air conditioner, it wasn’t damaged by the fall, and the ball’s back in the electrician’s court. Called the electrician back, and he said it’s probably a problem with the local electrical company, but he’ll check it out when he comes tomorrow to look at the exploding light fixture.
And with that, it’s about time to go home. No wonder wine and sangria are so popular in this culture.
For the past few months, I’ve been doing something I’ve wanted to do for many years — take guitar lessons. My instructor is Mario Solis Sola, and he’s fantastic. Very friendly, and a great teacher. He’s presently looking for new opportunities in the area, and we decided to help him out with the production of a small website where his CV (resume) and contact details are published:
http://www.mariosolissola.com/
If you’d be interested in learning to play the guitar in the Marbella area, he comes highly recommended!
After what happened to me today, I will do my best never to do business with Telefonica (the main Spanish telecoms provider) again.
Today I went to a friend’s house to install (a) his new Telefonica ADSL wifi (wireless) router, and (b) his new Apple iMac, which, in theory, would access the internet via the wifi router’s wireless network.
After plugging in the router, a Comtrend model CT356+, all the LEDs successfully came on, but I couldn’t see the wireless network using the Apple Airport software.
I called Telefonica tech support, and explained that I have their Comtrend CT356+ router, and that the device is not broadcasting the wireless network. And this is where my bad day began.
Telefonica: Ok, sir, we first have to conduct some tests to confirm that your network is not available. Can you startup your Windows XP machine please?
Me: I’m using a Macintosh.
Telefonica: Oh, just a second please. [On hold...] Sir, I’m sorry but Telefonica doesn’t support Macintosh.
Me: This has nothing to do with the platform. I’m trying to tell you that the router is not creating a wireless network.
Telefonica: Yes, but you could have mis-configured the router.
Me: The router comes pre-configured.
Telefonica: Oh, right. Well, anyway, I’m sorry, but we don’t support Macintosh.
Me: So what are my options?
Telefonica: Either find a PC, or we can send a technician that you’ll have to pay for (if the router proves non-defective.)
Me: If I had a PC with me, what would you do?
Telefonica: We would conduct some steps to confirm that a network isn’t available.
Me: What steps would those be?
Telefonica: I can’t tell you.
Me: Can I speak to the second-line support please, or your supervisor?
Telefonica: No, there’s nobody else here.
Me: Of course there is. Please transfer me to your supervisor.
Telefonica: No, I can’t because I would first have to confirm those steps.
Me: The steps which, for some reason, you can’t tell me?
Telefonica: Yes.
Me: What is your name?
Telefonica: Bruno Castaño.
Me: Thank you, Bruno.
I can’t tell you how frustrating this kind of experience is. You know what you’re talking about, but you have no way to get past the front-line support imbecile. So, I went off and found a PC notebook that had a wireless network card, and went back to my friend’s house, and called Telefonica (and spoke to a different person, of course). I described the situation, and we began proceeding through the oh-so-mysterious steps that Bruno couldn’t discuss:
Telefonica: Can you please go to the wireless networks area of the control panel, on your Windows XP machine.
Me: I’m there.
Telefonica: Ok, are there any networks available in the box that lists the “Available Networks”?
Me: No, it’s empty. (To myself: “Of course”)
Telefonica: Thank you sir, that means the router’s not creating a wireless network. I need to pass you to our second line support.
It’s a darn good thing that at this point, I didn’t happen to see a Telefonica technician walking by on the street outside, or the poor chap would have received a quick crash-course in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu’s more painful holds.
Telefonica: Hello, sir, this is Miguel. I’m going to walk you through the steps to reset your router.
[...At this point, we spend the next 30 minutes in total confusion. Nothing Miguel described worked as expected, the router didn't reset like he described, and finally each of us was convinced the other was out of his mind... Then the following happened...]
Me: Look, Miguel, I happen to know how to access the router’s admin area, you know, the web page that says, “Comtrend ADSL”, and…
Miguel: Wait! Did you say “Comtrend”?
Me: Yes, why?
Miguel: CRAP! My colleagues told me you had the Zyxel router! No wonder we’ve spent the last 30 minutes in total confusion!
Me: –sigh–
Miguel: If you’ve got the Comtrend router, then I know exactly what the problem is. There is a known factory configuration mistake with that device; it’s broadcasting on channel 12, and it needs to broadcast on another channel (3 or 4). Since you know how to access the admin area, you can modify that directly .
Me: Done, and it’s now working.
All in all, this little episode cost me over three hours of my time. And to add insult to injury, most of that time spent calling a Telefonica number, to cost of which is shared by both parties. (Not to mention the fact that Telefonica is shipping a router to people that it knows is mis-configured at the factory!)
So, like I say, I will, as far as possible, never do business with them again.
Technorati Tags: spain, telefonica
I don’t know whether it’s the lively coming and going of people, the aromatic smells, the taste of a great coffee, the change of pace, or a combination of them all, but I love hanging out in coffee shops. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t shut the Powerbook, slide it into its Waterfield sleeve, throw that into my Timbuk2 messenger bag, and head off to work for a few hours in a local cafe. And here in Spain, there’s no shortage of good ones!
Given that I couldn’t find a good local online guide, I decided to build one myself, CostaCafes.com, — as much a resource for myself, as for the public. So far, it’s been a blast to put together (even though it hasn’t netted me any free coffees as I’d planned!)
Our company’s design director, and my good friend, Mike Rohde, was recently featured in an article from the Milwaukee Area Technical College. Be sure to check it out:
http://www.matc.edu/matc_now/Mike%20Rohde.html
Mike was our first employee in MakaluMedia, way back in 1998, and has been working as our Design Director ever since. He ensures that everything the company produces — whether a man-machine interface for a satellite tracking system, a corporate website, a desktop application icon, or a system user’s manual — is well designed.
Mike, with a classical design background, is an excellent example of the modern designer that made the transition from analog to digital with the realization and appreciation for the extent to which classical design theory and fundamentals are just as applicable in this medium as in print.
We’re thrilled to see his work and accomplishments recognized in articles like this. Congratulations, Mike!
PS: Mike also maintains a personal weblog which you might also want to check out.
Scott Adams, on the Dilbert Blog, asks whether you’d return $1,000 dropped accidentally by a billionaire. He goes on to say:
A certain percentage of the population believes that God is watching them with one hand on a lightning bolt and the other on the trap door to Hell. About half of that group will also keep the money, under the theory that if God wanted the billionaire to have it, he never would have let him lose it in the first place.
In anticipation of the arrival of my new video iPod, we just purchased and downloaded the first season of “Lost” from the Apple Music Store. I don’t plan on watching the video on the iPod, but rather playing it through the A/V cable to the television.
I hope we like Lost as much as we enjoyed 24.
Technorati Tags: family
