Month: June 2002

Time.  Computer automation, recessions, and white collar work.  The new economy rush towards productivity continues. >>>But until now there has been no holistic approach to networks — just efforts to make storage or servers more efficient on their own, Horn says. And though the recession has shrunk technology budgets, financial constraints often encourage this kind of enhancement… Continue reading Time

CNet.  Internet music distribution entrepreneurs should give it up.   They should focus on becomming an independent label with a lean cost structure.  I agree.  This should have been the model for MP3.com (or at least it was when they started out). >>>As anyone who has spent any time with a major will tell you, these are… Continue reading CNet

J R R Tolkien was an information architect. Gerry McGovern on Tolkien as an IA. Information architecture is concerned with the organization and layout of content. It is a discipline that has evolved over centuries, finding its roots in writing and printing. J R R Tolkien was a master information architect. He created complex genealogical… Continue reading J R R Tolkien was an information architect

Faucet Facets: Best practices for multifaceted navigation. In “Faucet Facets”, Jeffrey Veen proposes that there are better alternatives to rigid hierarchies (i.e. those that don't support multiple parents or broad terms (i.e. polyhierarchy)). Faceted classification being all the rage with IAs these days, he proposes best practices for designing navigation based on a faceted approach.… Continue reading Faucet Facets: Best practices for multifaceted navigation

Building Brand into Structure. Walk into any K-Mart. Then walk into any Target. You'll see similar merchandise (substitute Martha Stewart for Michael Graves), similar target audiences, even similar prices. The difference between the stores is brand. If you followed usability gurus like Jakob Nielsen blindly, brand would have little to no place in information and… Continue reading Building Brand into Structure

Public Lettering: A Walk In Central London. This site is based on a walk by Phil Baines for his graphic design students which was then written up for the 1997 ATypI conference… [xBlog: Visual thinking linking | XPLANE]

Amazon Memoir: The Oft-Told Story. Yes, it's another dot-com memoir. Yes, it retells an old story. But Mike Daisey's 21 Dog Years: Doing Time at Amazon.com is also a pretty good read. Review by Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]

Ghosts of Xanadu. Backlinking crudely approximates the two-way linking feature of an early hypertext system invented by Ted Nelson called Xanadu. Nelson coined the term Hypertext—the linking of information and a system for viewing it—in 1963 (its actual invention is thought to be by Vannevar BushD in 1945), but his project was hampered by the… Continue reading Ghosts of Xanadu

DevShed: Getting Started with PHP Fusebox. The Fusebox web methodology may change the way you approach architecting data-driven web applications. The latest version of Fusebox is the most scalable and effective incarnation of a “web box” – style architecting approach. Created by Steve Nelson, Fusebox has been further popularized by the arrival of a PHP… Continue reading DevShed: Getting Started with PHP Fusebox

Free Agent Nation. I recently read the book Free Agent Nation (which has a website). It’s about people like me: free agents, consultants, writers, independent developers, home office folks. If you’re a free agent or thinking about becoming one I recommend this book to you. It was fun to read—inspiring, even. And it opened my… Continue reading Free Agent Nation