11 November
2006
Static cling
For the past week or so the keyboard on my own silver 17" wide laptop has been dead, completely.
I got around to emailing Novatech support thinking I'd probably have to end up sending it back to get plugged in properly or that I'd not bother with that and open the thing up myself. But instead I got an email from them suggesting that I remove the battery and power cord and press the power button a few times to clear any static buildup.
And it worked.
In retrospect, like all these things, it seems eminently reasonable now. But I didn't think I'd have static cling in my keyboard.
Posted by
theSliver at
19:26
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15 November
2006
No longer Super Secret, The Venice Project
So, the veil is lifting the image in the crystal ball is sharpening and now I can reveal.
That the Super Secret Project is....
So, this may or may not mean anything to you, so a short precis follows.
The Venice Project is a product development based on lots of open source projects, proprietary gubbins and whatchamacallits to provide TV across the Internet. A TV experience on your computer.
You can queue up for the invitational betas, tokens and such at http://www.theveniceproject.com
More later...
Posted by
theSliver at
11:49
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16 November
2006
Being an idiot and causing people work
There used to be two things I was paranoid about when travelling, my passport and my air ticket. Now that air tickets are bits of paper or electrons and not gorgeous thick card with fare pay codes you could collect like a train spotter (Oh look I've got a K, oh a K is just a Y you can't change), I don't have to be paranoid about losing the ticket.
So all I have to take care of is the passport.
Which I've managed to do in over 20 odd years of travelling for work around the world.
Until Friday.
Continue reading "Being an idiot and causing people work"
Posted by
theSliver at
07:45
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Comments (5)
Letting comments flow
As I'll be keeping an eye on this more I'm letting the comments go through un moderated (comments, what comments?), so get your unrestricted medications here.
Posted by
theSliver at
07:49
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Comments (3)
18 November
2006
Like a Virgin, seen for the very first time
In many ways I'm loathe to speak too much about The Venice Project as an application until it really is public and available and people can have their own virgin experience.
You'll see a lot of the blogs talking perhaps about it being TV the way you want it, ( no onion rings please ), and that's one of the aims as is the encouraging of community behaviour. That, for me, isn't the first impact that people will get and which I try and retain and make myself remember when the damn thing doesn't work.
Unlike any other video experience on the net its not about downloads, its not about having an account (though we'll have them but they'll still be optional) and its not about watching stuttery first time run throughs then playing it again so you get it with a full buffer.
Its about starting it, a few seconds of black, and then TV, all the time. The first time you see that, that's your virginity lost.
One of the challenges following the first time is to try and keep that initial reaction throughout the experience, not by people thinking 'hey, this is amazing its still running' (that's the experience we have in developing and QA'ing it so you shouldn't have to), but by it fulfilling that initial promise both in the content that we deliver and in the ways that we deliver it.
Posted by
theSliver at
12:08
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Comments (2)
19 November
2006
And on the right...
I've added a new module thingy, which is the current collection of fellow travellers willing to be public about The Venice Project.
The chances are you'll find out different and probably more interesting things on these journals than mine (never did like that word blog), if only because they're all far friendlier than I am.
Posted by
theSliver at
01:08
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26 November
2006
Desire Lines
J taught me something yesterday. We went to Worcester to shop and have something to eat before going to the ballet and parked up in the car park towards Shrub Hill which is just by the canal. Its a relatively new car park and there's a path that runs from the bridge over the canal down onto the towpath that passes by at the lowest point and the most direct path to the road for the pedestrian. And its fenced off, there is no way round except by the planned entrance.
If it wasn't fenced off then there's no doubt that there would be a well worn, if muddy in the wet, path tramped by all the people that used their heads and worked out which was the best route for them.
In Planning these are called Desire Lines, the routes that people prefer over and above whatever it is that Planners would themselves prefer.
Which started me thinking as we trundled around Worcester how that applies to software and to the interfaces we allow people to use.
Continue reading "Desire Lines"
Posted by
theSliver at
11:38
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Comments (5)