10 Best Intranet Designs of 2001 (Alertbox Nov. 2001)

10 Best Intranet Designs of 2001 (Alertbox Nov. 2001). Quote: “After selecting the 10 winners from more than 50 nominations, it is clear why most design annuals focus on the graphical appearance of designs. It's easy to pick designs that look good. It's a lot of work to dig beneath the surface to assess features… Continue reading 10 Best Intranet Designs of 2001 (Alertbox Nov. 2001)

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Back from a Thanksgiving hiatus. I had a fun time in St. Petersburg and Sarasota, Florida.

Alan Cooper

Alan Cooper: “My advice to Microsoft is to abandon the browser. The browser is a red herring; it's a dead end. The idea of having batched processing inside a very stupid program that's controlled remotely is a software architecture that was invented about 25 years ago by IBM, and was abandoned about 20 years ago… Continue reading Alan Cooper

Knowledge Logging with Conversant

Knowledge Logging with Conversant. Quote: “Most weblogs make aggregation of related information extraordinarily difficult. For example, I've visited a number of weblogs that have commentaries related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but none of the weblogs I visit have a page where I can visit to see all of the posts they've made related to… Continue reading Knowledge Logging with Conversant

Build your own Database Driven Website using PHP & MySQL

Build your own Database Driven Website using PHP & MySQL. 4 chapters from the above book have been posted on the above web site. An extensive basic primer for the innocents who have yet to encounter PHP and MySQL. [PHP Everywhere]

Screen

Screen, the new book by Jessica Helfand is very well written, insightful, and just simply beautiful. I read about half of it going to and coming back from a party in Queens (that's about 2 hours train time). I think this book will become one of the handful of design books in my library that… Continue reading Screen

Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor: “John Robb, who served in the U.S. Air Force special operations unit and is now president and chief operating officer at Silicon Valley-based UserLand Software, has been thinking about asymmetry and its consequences. I asked him how we could use the power at the edges of networks and society to counteract the bad… Continue reading Dan Gillmor

Robert Scoble: I've been thinking about what I'd do if I were in charge of Microsoft right now and what I'd do to turn things around.

Dear Bill and Jim,

Here's how you can turn around public opinion of Microsoft.

1) Fire your PR firm. They ain't doing you no favors and we doubt you're listening to them anyway, so get another one. That'll trigger to the market that something is different about Microsoft.

2) Try something different. We all are stuck on Microsoft software. We ain't going anywhere (I keep wishing I could switch to Linux or the Mac, but I am not willing to give up ClearType, sorry). So, stop treating your customers like jerks. Get rid of product activation.

Give us choices of new features. I know that on the next OS you'll put in an anti-virus program. Instead of giving us only one choice (which will weaken your defense against viruses) give us a choice of three or four different ones. Pay three or four different companies a fair fee to include them into Windows. Same with camera integration, and anything else you feel like putting into Windows. Don't do the AOL thing, give us choices. Make Windows like a supermarket where we have to decide between 30 brands of soap. If you do that Windows will not be attackable by Linux and customer opinion will turn.

3) Stop taking yourselves so seriously. Whenever I meet a Microsoft employee lately they sound embattled. It's like they don't know how to have a conversation again. Hint: do you start a date by saying “I'm better than all the other guys” and then you force the woman to pick up the dinner tab? I don't think so.

So, let's turn it around. Admit your software sucks. Hey, it's proprietary. It's full of patents. It's full of security holes. It's full of bugs (well, OK, Windows XP is getting better on the bugs area, but enough folks are still having troubles so you can still admit it's shitty software).

Oh, and your developers have to talk to closed black boxes since you really aren't sharing source to Windows yet. (Linux developers get to see inside their OS, so they can better build apps that integrate with the OS well). Go to a bunch of shows. Admit your software sucks. Hand out T-Shirts that say “We Write Sucky Software.” OK, I know this is a little over the top, and not likely to pass muster with your shareholders (screw them!), but I'm trying to get you guys to show a little humility. There's no better way to do that than to self depricate yourselves. When someone at a conference stands up and says “Microsoft Sucks” say “yes it does, now how can we work together to make it less sucky?”

4) Help developers out. That doesn't mean leading a cheer at the company meeting of “
developers, developers, developers

Robert Scoble: I've been thinking about what I'd do if I were in charge of Microsoft right now and what I'd do to turn things around. Dear Bill and Jim, Here's how you can turn around public opinion of Microsoft. 1) Fire your PR firm. They ain't doing you no favors and we doubt you're… Continue reading Robert Scoble: I've been thinking about what I'd do if I were in charge of Microsoft right now and what I'd do to turn things around.

Dear Bill and Jim,

Here's how you can turn around public opinion of Microsoft.

1) Fire your PR firm. They ain't doing you no favors and we doubt you're listening to them anyway, so get another one. That'll trigger to the market that something is different about Microsoft.

2) Try something different. We all are stuck on Microsoft software. We ain't going anywhere (I keep wishing I could switch to Linux or the Mac, but I am not willing to give up ClearType, sorry). So, stop treating your customers like jerks. Get rid of product activation.

Give us choices of new features. I know that on the next OS you'll put in an anti-virus program. Instead of giving us only one choice (which will weaken your defense against viruses) give us a choice of three or four different ones. Pay three or four different companies a fair fee to include them into Windows. Same with camera integration, and anything else you feel like putting into Windows. Don't do the AOL thing, give us choices. Make Windows like a supermarket where we have to decide between 30 brands of soap. If you do that Windows will not be attackable by Linux and customer opinion will turn.

3) Stop taking yourselves so seriously. Whenever I meet a Microsoft employee lately they sound embattled. It's like they don't know how to have a conversation again. Hint: do you start a date by saying “I'm better than all the other guys” and then you force the woman to pick up the dinner tab? I don't think so.

So, let's turn it around. Admit your software sucks. Hey, it's proprietary. It's full of patents. It's full of security holes. It's full of bugs (well, OK, Windows XP is getting better on the bugs area, but enough folks are still having troubles so you can still admit it's shitty software).

Oh, and your developers have to talk to closed black boxes since you really aren't sharing source to Windows yet. (Linux developers get to see inside their OS, so they can better build apps that integrate with the OS well). Go to a bunch of shows. Admit your software sucks. Hand out T-Shirts that say “We Write Sucky Software.” OK, I know this is a little over the top, and not likely to pass muster with your shareholders (screw them!), but I'm trying to get you guys to show a little humility. There's no better way to do that than to self depricate yourselves. When someone at a conference stands up and says “Microsoft Sucks” say “yes it does, now how can we work together to make it less sucky?”

4) Help developers out. That doesn't mean leading a cheer at the company meeting of “developers, developers, developers