I had the privilege of chairing a symposium organized by the Irish Manuscript Commission which invited participants from a variety of Irish cultural institutions to discuss issues arising from the new Europeana Data Exchange Agreement. Presentations from Jill Cousins, Director of Europeana and her colleagues, Georgia Angelaki, Paul Keller and Lucie Guibault sought to bring clarity to the new agreement and the issues emerging from the online presentation of digital cultural artefacts. Read the rest of this entry »
strikingly random thoughts and 'maximum data existentialisation'
Archives for category: Technology
Sure enough O’Reilly have introduced a new version of their iPad: The Missing Manual series, aptly named iPad2: The Missing Manual. Like all Missing Manual series, content is at the overview level attempting to cover the complete range of questions a new user might have of a particular technology. The book has all the good stuff when it comes to troubleshooting though and this is a particularly good missing manual.
Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K Janert is a simply superb, solid and exhaustive synthesis of instruction, workshops and hands-on exercises designed for those serious about conducting professional data analysis. This is not a lightweight undertaking. This is a serious get-down-to-it and do-it-right kind of manual. The author (as has been mentioned elsewhere) is passionate about his subject and it shows. He knows how to convey the most complex concepts in an approachable and effective way.
In The Art of Community, Jono Bacon tackles the task of explaining how to attract, build and maintain productive collaborative online communities. Bacon has had impressive credentials to author such a book and draws from his experience skillfully. With over ten years experience in the open source community he has the hands-on experience with initiatives such as community manager for Ubuntu, KDE and OpenAdvantage.
The book is organised logically with a healthy selection of applied chapters in designing a strategy, understanding the sociological aspects behind community formation, through understanding community health and dealing with issues that arise. Read the rest of this entry »
I feared the trackpad. I am not the biggest fan of the trackpad. I gather that my namesake, the CTO at Synaptics is responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs as the trackpad gained laptop cred during the 1990’s and 
so I feel a little loyalty if only by association. However, my favourite means of input is the TrackPoint — the little red nubby (that becomes less red real fast) that the IBM ThinkPad is most closely associated with. This is a very personal area. I know many users that could just not get used to using a single finger on an ultra-sensitive tiny joystick. The cursor and they could not become friends with the TrackPoint in the equation. Random survey indicates most people still carry a mouse with them and connect it — this is the case for TrackPoint as well as trackpad users. I am glancing around the coffee shop right now and frankly I am the only one relying on the built in tracking device. There’s a lot of users with big mice and small mice, but mice nonetheless. There is even a user carefully balancing one on the arm of an easy chair — that can’t possibly be comfortable. Read the rest of this entry »
I make quick note of the announcement of Nokia’s new Haptikos technology previewed at the Red Ferret Journal. 
The technology takes the touch screen that we all know (and love ;-)) and coordinates audible and tactile feedback that allows for simulation of screen keytaps. The comparison with the iPhone’s multitouch is obvious, but one cannot but wonder how gestures could be vastly improved if you could actually feel the pinch on screen. Seriously. This seems the direction that Nokia is working and this preview explores a few of the little technical details that have challenged engineers thus far and still stand in the way of more sophisticated physical interactions with the screen. ‘Nuff said…this is an amazing technology trajectory. Nokia has very limited coverage at their ‘Way We Live Next’ website.
Information Aesthetics, a consistently clickable and notable blog, has Fernanda Viégas reporting back from the
InfoVis Conference in Sacremento this week. She has posted a geat summary of the keynote address by Matthew Ericson. Brent Fitzgerald blogged yesterday about the panel that he, Fernanda, Martin Wattenberg and Hans Rosling are presenting as well. Taking a look at the conference programme, I could not but wish I was there. Thanks for Fernanda (and hopefully Brent) for giving us an experience as close to being there as possible.
By the way, today is the day of Fig, 7 Brumaire, An CCXVI.
Update: Something local and exciting: Social Networking Week at the University of Toronto. Fernanda is speaking on Friday.
Perhaps there is an inner historian within me. The latest spate of reviews featuring the iPhone versus this challenger and that has me thinking that at the pace that we move today we don’t take enough time 
to reach a little further back to consider our forward progress. This case in point, everyone evaluating the iPhone or the iPod Touch (hereafter ITouch — as I am sure Apple would have rather called it) seems to be pitching it against the Nokia N95, HTC Kaiser, or the latest Blackberry. All appropriate for being the current flavour of the market — and when it comes to cell phones, they have such a limited shelf life. How long does the average phone remain current these days? Despite Apple’s slight revamp of the iPhone, I will go out on a limb and suggest that it may have greater longevity than most. However, not because for technical prowess, but to Apple’s marketing panache. Nonetheless, as I look at the comparisons, I am struck that we might best be able to gauge how much of a technical marvel it is by comparing a little further back. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s always amusing and often telling to compare where we are now to where we thought we’d be. Whether through sci-fi novels, advertisements for the house of the future, or in this case prints from an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (bnf), 
facets of the futurethink can provide a particularly prismatic view of past preoccupations. Paleo-Future Blog has a nice collection of images of life in the year 2000 from the BnF. Natalie has weighed in on how prescient these illustrations actually are.
One thing that springs to my attention is the sense that the future was going to free us from contact with the ground. Flight seems to make so much more possible. Read the rest of this entry »
I attended a wildly animated, wonderfully amusing and thought provoking keynote talk by David Weinberger entitled ’The Business of the Miscellaneous’ at the Annual General Meeting of the CIRA this afternoon. Weinberger claims that society has solved the threat posed by information overload by creating more information. Additionally, he claims, the blurring of the line between the metadata and the actual data has further eroded the authority of the traditional media and given a newfound credibility to sources such as Wikipedia. A credibility that he asserts that comes from trust built on transparency. Read the rest of this entry »