My just delivered presentation to OZ IA on, Folksonomy for IA (PDF 4.3MB).
Now it is time to focus on other's presentations and get then finally enjoying Sydney and the surrounding area. I am thinking of heading to Manley for the Jazz Festival on Monday.
I have posted my two presentations from Web Directions for download: IA for Web Developers (PDF 14MB); IA for the "Come to Me Web" (PDF 3MB). Please e-mail questions and comments (found under the connect button (JavaScript needs to be on).
I will have a follow-up post in the near future (hopefully), in short Web Directions has been a great conference, run by and attended by utterly fantastic people.
Um, what does one do at 2am in the morning (after sleeping four hours and waking at 1am)? Blog.
I am finding that this long distance traveling has been really increasing my personal disconnectedness time this year, where the mind, body, and soul are not joined. Some call it jetlag, but it seems deeper. There were times yesterday where my motor skills just were shot (as they normally are with long travel on the first day). Other times my mind would just freeze mid-thought or sentence. It is not a bad thing, but more of a just "is" thing. It feels like the unfocussed blinking cursor syndrome, where a window on the desktop has a blinking cursor and you believe that if you type your text will show up there (the password box on a web form), but in reality it is some completely different window (like chat session) that has focus and displays the text as you hit enter to submit.
At a meal yesterday (brunch at Darling Harbor or dinner at Bondi Beach) I began to think that many cities are just replications of SimCity with similar architecture, where the cities are rather modern and/or developed in the mid-1800s. You can plop down a new structure that is similar to one from another city. Much like the new buildings in Darling Harbor look strikingly like the new Baltimore, Maryland Inner Harbor. Much of Sydney yesterday felt like something on the North America West Coast, as they were built and grew up about the same times in the mid-1800s and had similar cycles of growth over time. On Pitt street in Sydney, where it is a pedestrian mall, it really felt like there were some Commonwealth flourishes, like shopping arcades, put in San Francisco's Financial District.
This quasi-generic western culture Pacific Rim architecture washing tended to compound the personal disconnectedness I was experiencing. Not only was my being disconnected, but the physical markers of my surroundings were off kilter as well. I somewhat experienced that in Berlin last Fall with the new modern architecture around Potsdam Platz. I felt far more grounded and connected in Friedrichshain as it was not modern and had native architectural elements that were not pan-global.
When I travel to Europe I like doing my time correction to resolve the personal disconnectedness is Amsterdam as it is distinctly Amsterdam. I know internally that I am in a different city, different country, and different culture. But, in Amsterdam they speak English very well and are technically adept (often leading to better understanding of mobile usage and other technosocial interactions that are missing in America as it lags Europe with technical adoption on many many fronts.
Similarly, I found Innsbruck to be similar to Amsterdam in its distinctive architectural elements, but even its modern architecture was very germanic. Growing-up I was a model railroad fan, but many of the buildings were not similar to the architecture I knew growing up on the West Coast of the United States as the larger makers of pre-built buildings and models for model railroads was from Germany, the Netherlands, or Belgium (I really do not remember the name of the company), but when taking a train from Schiphol to Amsterdam many of the post-war-modern (World War II) buildings looked straight out of the scene set catalogs for modern railroads. But, there were many buildings in Innsbruck that had the same architecture mixed in to the Tyrolean architecture.
I made it to Sydney today. The flight, all 14 hours was not so bad (in part because I sat next to Derek) as the seats and services were good. I was surprised by bag made it as it started out on another airline. But, when I checked into the hotel my computer connector bag had gone missing on the trip, which had international power converters, connectors, dongles, headphone adapters, and a little widget I rely on for business. I was able to replace some of the important connectors (video to VGA and an iPod connector), but the other things will take some time.
One of the things that struck me is how much it seems like the West Coast of North America with the architecture and city layout. There were parts today that felt like Vancouver, Seattle, or San Francisco, but it is not. One thing that is odd is the sun is in the Northern part of the sky and the trees are do not have leaves as of yet. One things that is good is the time and date of this blog post should be accurate for the first time in months (I am working on fixing that as it is not tough, but it just takes a little time).
As I write this I am realizing my brain and soul have not quite caught up with where my body is at the moment. I am really looking forward to going to sleep tonight. I mean really really looking forward to it.
One thing I learned so far on this trip is how much of a mess the Los Angeles airport is. I have seen a lot of airports the past year, but LAX is really the pits. Nobody knew what terminal I needed to get to so I could make my connecting flight. The police officer sent me to the international terminal and pointed out that changing terminals means you go out of the terminal and walk outside to get to the next one or pass many to get to the one you need. After I was directed to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, I tracked down an "information person" who was holding a sign saying that. He had not heard of United, nor had he heard of Sydney, nor Australia (yes, I did say he was the information guy in the international terminal).
I flew in to the one with American Airlines and it was decent. But, where I needed to go was United and that was a dump. The security screening set-up is pathetic as they have very little space and had TSA officials nearly falling asleep. The signage in the terminal had to have been the worst of any airport I have been to. Not only that, but I was able to get into the premium flight lounge, which was falling apart, as the electrical sockets were falling out, the bathroom has holes in the wall, and the lights were burned out in one part of the main section. This was a premiere lounge? Meh.
I am very happy to be in Sydney and looking forward to seeing people at WebDirections 2006 (wd06) and OZ IA.
I have finally posted my Understanding Folksonomy: Tagging that Works (4MB PDF) presentation from d.construct. I have been presenting the content in this for nearly 2 years and have been iterating it. I have been wanting to get the Folksonomy Triad out in public as it has been getting really strong response in the 18 months that I have been using it (in the last 9 months I turned it into an animation that really drives the point home). I have not done a movie of the presentation yet, but that could be coming in the next few months.
I have not been posting the presentations, as the size has been increasing and when they get blogged elsewhere the bandwidth shoots up. But, I have been playing with Amazon S3 to store these files at lower cost and eat less bandwidth. I have been playing with the Python and Ruby scripts, but when Jeff Barr demonstrated the S3 Firefox Organizer I knew it was made really simple to upload, set permissions, and grab a sharable URL.
I flat out loved Studio 60, the new Aaron Sorkin show. It is the best thing on tv hands down. The premiere was fantastic with the opening framed around a dead-on rant of the current state of television in the style of the movie Network (the only downside for me was they had to state it was just like Network over and over - let people be smart and media literate). The tirade was dead on and the scenarios and construction of tension was well done.
I have missed good television (last season 24 caught my attention, but the show Lost has not fully grabbed me (the social interactions outside of the show and the web-based value and social interactions generated by the show have my interest, but personally the show does not grab me. The last shows I deeply enjoyed were both ones that Aaron Sorkin drove, West Wing (while Sorkin was involved) and Sports Night. The other bits that I have enjoyed in recent years have been HBO series and movies, particularly Band of Brothers.
Much else on American television has been rather boring, patterned, and predicable all while being written to a level of the lowest common denominator. There are other exceptions (The Simpsons) in comedy and satire, but they are rare. All I can say is thank you for Studio 60!
Things here are a wee bit busy of late. I have been getting myself accustom to local time again and doing final preparations for the trip to Austrialia to speak at Web Directions and the OZ IA. I will be presenting "IA for Web Designers/Developers" as well as "IA for the Come to Me Web" at Web Directions (a few tickets may still be available, check soon - I could not urge you enough to go to Web Directions as the quality and subject matter is stellar and well worth the price) and a Folksonomy and Tagging that works presentation at OZ IA.
If you are in the Australia region and heading to the event or just want to meet-up, please let me know (using thomas at this domain as an e-mail address). I will be around in Sydney through Labor Day.
I have also been tightening the schedule for Fall work at InfoCloud Solutions, please contact me soon as I have some limited time still available.
I am back home from the d.construct trip, which included London and Brighton. The trip was very enjoyable, the d.construct conference is a pure winner, and I met fantastic people that keep my passion for the web alive.
The d.construct conference had Jeff Barr from Amazon talking about Amazon Web Services, Paul Hammond and Simon Willison discussing Yahoo and its creation and use of web services for internal and external uses, Jeremy Keith discussing the Joy of the API, Aral Balkan presenting the use of Adobe Flex for web services, Derek Featherstone discussing accessibility for Javascript and Ajax and how they can hurt and help the web for those with disabilities, myself (Thomas) discussing tagging that works, and Jeff Veen pulling the day together with designing the complete user experience.
Jeff Barr provided not only a good overview of the Amazon offerings for developers, but his presentation kept me interested (the previous 2 times my mind wandered) and I got some new things out of it (like the S3 Organizer extension for Firefox.
Jeremy was his usual great presenting form (unfortunately a call from home caused me to miss the some of the middle, but he kept things going well and I heard after that many people learned something from the session, which they thought they knew it all already.
Paul and Simon did a wonderful tag team approach on what Yahoo is up to and how they "eat their own dog food" and how the Yahoo Local uses microformats (Wahoo!).
Aral was somebody I did not know before d.construct, but I really enjoyed getting to know him as well as his high energy presentation style and mastery of the content that showed Flash/Flex 2.0 are fluent in Web 2.0 rich interfaces for web services.
Derek was fantastic as he took a dry subject (accessibility) and brought it life, he also made me miss the world of accessibility by talking about how JavaScript and Ajax can actually improve the accessibility of a site (if the developer knows what they are doing - this is not an easy area to tread) and made it logical and relatively easy to grasp.
I can not comment on my own presentation, other than the many people what sought me out to express appreciation, and to ask questions (many questions about spamming, which is difficult if the tagging system is built well). I was also asked if I had somebody explain the term dogging (forgetting there was a rather bawdy use of the term in British culture and using the term as those people who are dog lovers - this lead to very heavy laughter). Given the odd technical problems at the beginning of the presentation (mouse not clicking) things went alright about 5 minutes or so in.
Lastly, the man I never want to follow when giving a presentation, Jeff Veen rocked the house with his easy style and lively interaction with his slides.
I am really wanting to hear much more from Aral and Derek now that I have heard them speak. I am looking forward to seeing their slides up and their podcasts, both should be posted on the d.construct schedule page.
The trip also included an overnight stay in London on the front and back end of the conference. Through an on-line resource I had two last minute rooms booked at Best Western Premiers that were great rooms in well appointed hotels. The hotels even had free WiFi (yes, free in Europe is a huge savings), which was my main reason for staying at these hotels I knew nothing about. I really like both locations, one near Earls Court Tube Station and the other Charing Cross Road and SoHo. The rooms were well under 200 U.S. dollars, which is a rarity in central London. I think I have a new place to track down then next time I visit London.
I had a few impromptu meetings in London and an accidental chat. When I first got in I was able to clean-up and go meet friends Tom and Simon for lunch at China Experience. We had good conversations about the state of many things web. Then Tom showed me Cyber Candy, which I have been following online. I was then off to Neal's Yard Dairy to pick-up some Stinking Bishop (quite excellent), Oggleshield, and Berkswell. I then did a pilgrimage to Muji to stock up on pens and all the while using Yahoo Messanger in a mobile browser (a very painful way to communicate, as there is no alert for return messages and when moving the web connection seems to need resetting often).
That evening I met up with Eric Miraglia for a great chat and dinner, then included Christian Heillmann (who has a great new book (from my initial read) on Beginning JavaSctipt with DOM Scripting and Ajax) in our evening. The discussions were wonderful and it was a really good way to find people of similar minds and interests.
On my last day in London I ended up running into Ben Hammersley as he was waiting for a dinner meeting. It was great to meet Ben in person and have a good brief chat. Somehow when walking down the street and seeing a man in a black utilikilt, with short hair, and intently using his mobile there are a short list of possibilities who this may be.
My trip I had a few full English breakfasts, including one in Brighton at 3:30am (using the term gut buster), which was my first full meal of the day. The breakfast at the Blanche House (the name of the hotel never stuck in my head and the keys just had their logo on them, so getting back to the hotel was a wee bit more challenging than normal) was quite good, particularly the scrambled eggs wrapped in smoked Scottish salmon. The food the first night in Brighton at the Seven Dials was fantastic and a great treat. Sunday brunch at SOHo Social in Brighton was quite good and needed to bring me back from another late night chatting, but the fish cakes were outstanding. The last evening in London I stopped in at Hamburger Union for a really good burger with rashers bacon. The burgers are made with only natural fed, grass-reared additive free beef. This is not only eco-friendly, but really tasty. I wish there were a Hamburger Union near where I work as I would make use of it regularly.
As it is with nearly every trip this year, the time was too short and the people I met were fantastic. I really met some interesting and bright people while in Brighton and I really look forward to keeping in touch as well as seeing them again.
I will get to d.construct in another post, but on the way up to London on the train from Brighton today I sat next to a couple guys who were going to do a jazz combo gig, but when they stepped off four guys sat in their seats along with a guy they just met. The four guys (Tomme, Laurie, Pete, and Mat) make up Bad Sandwich and were on their way to London to play at the Battle of the Bands at Rock Garden Club in Covent Garden. I really enjoyed chatting with them and their friend Robin (whom they had just met).
The Bad Sandwich guys explained they payed a heavy funk, which made me think of a band from San Francisco, the Smoking Section, that was a favorite band in the late 80s and early 90s. Tomme gave me a sticker for their band that had their MySpace page (putting it on the cover of my laptop was not smart as I had to close the lid to read it then open the lid and type). I checked out their page and sampled a little music, it was quite good and a free live concert did not sound so bad.
I made it to Rock Garden in time to see Soul Step and the rest of the bands (I will get to Soul Step in a moment). Bad Sandwich guys were very appreciative that I made it, but after they played I may have been the one that was happier. Bad Sandwich is killer. Utter killer! They were really tight with Pete (lead guitar), Laurie (bass), and Mat (drums) just in were in tight sync. Tomme has an insane amount of energy, is very charismatic on stage, and proved to be very good lead singer for this band. The music kept me wanting to get out of my seat and just move. My head would not stay still and I could not hold back a big smile. This guys were just fantastic. They were just heavy hard funk and really want these guys to do well as I really really want to have them making more music for me to listen to.
The band prior to Bad Sandwich was Soul Step with a rock, soul, blues, and rockabilly all blended wonderfully. They were incredibly good showmen and served up great music. Ryan Burns (lead singer and bass) was fantastic and if Roland Orzibal (Tears for Fears) were to have done similar music in his early days Ryan is channeling that showmanship. Joseph Warwick on lead guitar was really really good and kept showed an excellent range. The drummer, Krissi Carter had the showmanship skills of a big band drimmer, she was just stellar and their music really showed off her talent. All together this trio made music I wanted to buy on the spot and keep listening to (unfortunately the music on their site does not do justice to their live experience and a good studio session could make them equal or better than their live performance. I really with them well as I really want to want to keep listening to their music as well.
The Battle of the Bands involved a vote, which went to a heavy metal band most in the club were grumbling about. I don't quite feel bad about Bad Sandwich or Soul Step not getting voted forward as they were really impressive. Bad Sandwich seems to have a decent following and all the other bands really thought they were excellent. I can not wait for these two band to get good recordings out as I really want to buy them. I also really want to see them live, again and again.
Go give them an ear and if you are lucky enough to be in England they are well work going to see them as well.
Storms tonight are flickering our power and messing with connectivity. I hope all is better tomorrow.
Many of us around the digital design profession consider visual pixels our domain, information as content and its structure is our in our domain, and the ease of use as part of our domain (all of this depending on what label or design community we align with). Strings do not fall into the design camp. By strings I mean data strings, which include date stamps, URLs, identity strings, etc. These often fall through the cracks.
In the last year or so these have become quite important to me as I look at the URLs on this site (vanderwal.net) and they are not as friendly, readable, or guessable as they should be. There is no understanding what http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog62 will lead to. Do people actually care about this?
I find not everybody cares about data strings, but some people do and many devices and services do too. We know many people do not pay attention to their address bar when surfing the web, but when they copy a link to send to a friend or IM a friend, they often look at the URL as a double-check. This is where confusion comes in, they have no idea that blog62 is the post they are wanting to share and it takes them out of a simple flow if they want to make sure it is the right thing.
Not only do people care by devices and services care about what is in strings. When a site is scraped by a search engine one of the important components in weighing the validity is the words in the string. If "blog62" were some thing that I wanted to ensure had optimal opportunity to surface in any of the major search engines I would want to ensure some key terms were in the URL that was being scraped and used. To the search engines 1862 means very little.
The goal is to have these data strings human readable, which leads to text that machines can read and used in algorithmic and automated filters and optimization tools. Not only do URLs need help, but so do date strings. Date strings should be easily understood and they should be labeled with relevant time zone if time is displayed as well.
Again I turn to my own blog and its less than optimal state of being for my fodder. Since Fall of last year my vanderwal.net site has been hosted in Australia (a wonderful hosting company Segment Publishing (SegPub)). Part of this means that my time stamp for posting my blog entries grabs the local date and time. Since last Fall I have been blogging from the future, or so readers have been thinking. In a couple weeks I may actually be blogging from a the local timezone for my blog, but it is something I need to change.
One complication I have is I post content from various timezones. I could make all dates local to where I post, or choose the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as a default and label it properly as such. One of the things that the date and time stamp for posts does get mostly right is it is understandable. Many times we see sites with the tech generic "2006-7-23T2:44:03Z" rather than a more easily human readable "7 July 2006 2:44:03AM GMT".
I hope these examples from my own site (a self-built blogging tool that I have not touched much since 2001 or 2002, which I use but not fix or move away from) help illustrate the confusion unattended to date strings play. If we care about the experience for people coming to our sites we build and design we need to care about the little things, the details, like URLs and date strings.
[Yes, I will fix my site eventually. I have been waiting for that magical downtime to sort through porting all my posts and related metadata into a real blogging tool, as I really do not see me finding the time or desire to start tackling all that I want and need to fix in my own dear little tool.]