Month: January 2003

Old British Newsreels Find New Life Online. British Pathe has put more than 3,500 hours of its old newsreels online, allowing users to receive low-resolution clips at no charge. By Jeffrey Selingo. [New York Times: Technology]

Plug and Replay: Cardless Kit Turns a PC Into a TV Recorder. Personal video recorders like TiVo are continuing their march into the living rooms of the land, but for TV fans who have nice big hard drives on their computers, the PC can become a personal video recorder itself. An all-in-one kit from Pinnacle… Continue reading Plug and Replay: Cardless Kit Turns a PC Into a TV Recorder

eWeek on Contribute: It works for them, even though there are definitely changes they'd like to see in the 1.0 version. But what caught my eye is how they noted a cycle, where Dreamweaver started off very approachable, but as it added more abilities it scared more people off, and how simple tools can be… Continue reading eWeek on Contribute:

Why are Safari and Sherlock two different apps? Great discussion over at Jason Kottke's place about looking at stuff in a browser and doing things in an application. I printed it out, read it, and just before I posted my own reply saw that he had already collected citations from other bloggers, so I guess… Continue reading Why are Safari and Sherlock two different apps?

Crossing the bridge of weak ties. Once upon a time (1998-1999) I wrote a book about software that could revolutionize how we communicate. That software, I thought, was the fully-deployed but poorly-appreciated NNTP newsreader and its companion server. Netscape had radically modernized these ancient tools, and Microsoft did a great job of cloning them. I… Continue reading Crossing the bridge of weak ties

Bob Frankston: VoIP is a simple idea and simply works. In the Times article, the Verizon spokesperson said that the Public Switched Telephone Network has worked well for many decades. That's true by comparison to the alternatives — no phone system at all. Now that we have alternatives the PSTN comes up wanting. [Tomalak's Realm]

Bob Frankston: Bad Coupling. Unfortunately the concept of simplicity is very difficult to grasp. It is “obvious” that as we add more possibilities systems must be become very complex and the “solution” is to add some intelligence into these systems. In reality it is this intelligence that is the real source of complexity by creating… Continue reading Bad Coupling

The disruptive Web. If you're creating a Web service that you hope will have a disruptive impact, the lessons are clear. Support HTTP GET-style URLs. Design them carefully, matching de facto standards where they exist. Keep the URLs short, so people can easily understand, modify, and trade them. Establish a blog reputation. Use the blog… Continue reading The disruptive Web

Geographically accurate Tube map. Prompted by a discussion about maps of the London Underground I had with a friend, I spent a few minutes searching for a geographically accurate Tube map… [xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE]

The Glass Wall. Until either my webhost or my bosses ask me to take it down, here is a document detailing the design process behind the BBC homepage… [xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE]