reviews

A New PickAxe

A New PickAxe:

Ruby3_cover_small

Ruby 1.9 is just around the corner, so it looks like a good time to create a new edition of Programming Ruby. So, I’m pleased to announce that the Third Edition of the PickAxe has just entered beta.

The book’s home page is at http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3.

Although 1.9 is largely compatible with 1.8, there are definite differences. And it’s been an interesting ride getting the examples in the book to compile and run with the current 1.9 interpreter. The book pushes the envelope in many different areas, and includes example code designed to illustrate edge cases. When I find these, I’m flagging them in the text and (if they look like bugs) adding them to the tracking system. But, so far, 1.9 is looking like a big win for Ruby.

[The original guide, which so many used to get started with Ruby. Looking forward to 1.9, and now reviewing this edition.]
Source: PragDave

Social Networks Aren’t Products

Social Networks Aren’t Products: On launch day, I found that traffic was very strong, but hardly anybody was signing up. I literally got more e-mails from people saying “what a great site!” than I actually got sign-ups. Same for the following few days. So I decided to try an experiment. I put up a preview screen saying we were taking sign-ups and allowing customers to build their profiles, but I hid the page that allowed site visitors to browse other profiles. In this way, nobody was able to see how many (or, more accurately, how few) other members of the site there were at the time. The next day, sign-ups multiplied by several staggering orders of magnitude.

I learned from this experiment early on a lesson that would repeat itself for the next two years: a social network isn’t a product as such. Rather, the product that a social network provides is access to a large pool of other people. Every social network, whether it be a subscription-based dating site or an advertising-funded general community, must grapple with this ineluctable fact. It’s what makes the rules for social networks different from utility applications like Basecamp and BlinkSale.

If a new member signs up for Highrise today, she can use the application, put in some contacts, appreciate the app’s interface and functionality directly and, if she likes it, leave a happy paying customer. Highrise with one customer is a product with one happy client who might just become an evangelist to others. On the other hand, a social network with one customer, even if it were infinitely better than MySpace in every regard, is a company with one bored and angry customer, which is to say: an utter failure. In the taxonomy of Web applications, social and utility applications are entirely different species. [Excellent grounded story.]
Source: Vitamin Interviews

Product pages: so much suck, so easy to fix

Product pages: so much suck, so easy to fix…

We’ll get to the practicum in just a moment but first, let’s talk — very briefly — about some super basic UX tenets:

  • Be nice to your users and customers (and potential customers).
  • Design as if your main goal is to inform and educate.
  • Be honest and forthcoming, while you’re at it.
  • Help your users and customers to do what they want, not what you want them to do.
  • Be consistent with your message and quality of service (and I’m including software design here, folks).
  • Scientific, measurable “usability” doesn’t necessarily make for a good experience.
  • Good design makes people feel good.

[Nice article… the graph was particularly helpful.]
Source: Vitamin Interviews

Amazon Announced Kindle

Amazon Announced Kindle: You’re going to see two kinds of reviews: bad ones from people who haven’t used it and good ones from people who have. It’s that kind of product—plus Jeff Bezos’s reality-distortion field isn’t as large as Steve Jobs’s. I have used it and if someone gave me a choice of receiving an iPhone or a Kindle, I’d pick the Kindle. [Here’s what I don’t like… Guy doesn’t mention that Truemors is carried before he starts opining (although he does note it with an exclamation point later on). Second he sets you up by saying “bad ones from people who haven’t used it and good ones from people who have.” which immediately dismisses the opinion of people who haven’t used one as invalid, and further suggests that anyone who has used on has written positively. Wow. No wonder he was a world class evangelist. It’s a bit overstyled IMHO. but check out Mark’s take on it, and Seth’s. Granted each with their own agenda, but still. My take? It’s a digital rights issue. BigCo’s are always trying to grab them and give nothing in return. Not such a good thing. I’m trying to teach my son right now that it’s OK to give away toys he doesn’t play with anymore. Same for his books. How does this lesson fit into these corporate interests? Not.]
Source: Guy Kawasaki

JumpBox Inc.

Applications | JumpBox Inc.: We take popular Open Source server applications, remove all the install headaches and make them much easier to use. We call our virtual appliances JumpBoxes and they are free to download and use. To earn our living, we sell access to enhanced features of the JumpBox platform and additional support options in the form of JumpBox Assurance plans. Feel free to browse around, there’s something in the library for pretty much anyone. [Nice. Where’s a Rails setup?]
Source:

MIT sues Frank Gehry

MIT sues Frank Gehry: stata-center.jpgI don’t know much about this developing story, but it’s interesting on its face… M.I.T. Sues Architect Frank Gehry – New York Times (and here’s a longer piece in the NYT):

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing renowned architect Frank Gehry, alleging serious design flaws in the Stata Center, a building celebrated for its unconventional walls and radical angles.

The school asserts that the center, completed in spring 2004, has persistent leaks, drainage problems and mold growing on its brick exterior. It says accumulations of snow and ice have fallen dangerously from window boxes and other areas of its roofs, blocking emergency exits and causing damage.

Maybe unfair, but one interpretation: award-winning “radical” designs aren’t great if they can’t keep snow off the emergency exit.

[There are all sorts of stories about famous architects and there rejoinders to complaints about leaky roofs… Frank Lloyd Wright they claim told one client who was complaining about a roof leak dripping on his chair to move his chair. Another comment was that you wouldn’t know it was a roof if it didn’t leak. It’s simple really, it’s just a question of priority. If you want something that amazes by its design and look it’s going to require trying new materials and techniques. If you’re trying to build stuff you haven’t built before, there is going to be a learning curve, and unexpected results. It’s the same thing that makes so many software projects “grow”, or “late”, or “overbudget”. Stick with stuff that’s been done many times before and it won’t leak or drop melting ice in front of doorways. But it won’t inspire or delight except in its utility. Fine if that’s what you want, but you don’t hire Gehry for that.]
Source: Good Experience Blog

TidBITS Blog Post: The Best (and Worst) of Leopard

TidBITS Blog Post: The Best (and Worst) of Leopard: Quick Look and Cover Flow. Together, these offer file previews on steroids. They’re utterly silly (“waste cycles drawing trendy animated junk” was my first thought) until you need them, and then they are just terrific. Being able to flip through a bunch of music or photo files looking for the right one, right in the Finder without starting up any other application, is really great.
Spotlight, Spotlight everywhere. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t mention what I think is the most important change to Spotlight, so I’m not allowed to tell you what it is. Suffice it to say that previously I didn’t like Spotlight very much, and now I do, so obviously they must have changed the thing about it that I didn’t like, right? Plus, I will now be able to search the past! With Safari, I can search for Web pages I’ve viewed, using whatever text within those pages I happen to remember. With Time Machine, I can search for files that no longer exist. Now if I can just find that $20 bill I had a week ago. [It should be good stuff… looking forward to it.]
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