what users care about

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The homeowner's guide to systems development

When it comes to do it yourself home improvement projects I find myself in the position the typical small business ownerin with respect to computer systems: full of confidence that I understand what I don't and a bit bewildered that things turning out badly.These things always look easier than...

Tags: What users care about, Productivity, Development

Blog posts 2007-08-03

What really drives PC churn?

Most of the regular contributors to the discussions here appear to have at least some technical knowledge in the computer field and even those who profess allegiance to Microsoft clearly have some experience with its products. In contrast the overwhelming majority of business PC users have no personal interest in...

Tags: What users care about, Vistabulations, Productivity, Enterprise Policy

Blog posts 2007-07-24

Judging development project quality

I've developed what I think of as a forearm rule for forming snap judgements about the quality, and therefore likelihood of success, of software development projects. The rule is simple: exceptions are inversely proportional to quality.The rule applies most directly to project scope, but has a coding and design corollary....

Tags: What users care about, Infrastructure, Enterprise Policy

Blog posts 2007-07-23

Sharpening that personal productivity axe

As many of you will remember we had an extensive discussion here last week about my belief that externally imposed work processes ultimately lead to standardised ways of thinking about those work processes. Kind of a Nixonian thing: grab them by their work processes, and pretty soon their hearts and...

Tags: What users care about, Unanswered questions, Enterprise Policy, Apple

Blog posts 2007-07-19

Idiot frustrations

Sometimes the things non technical people do just amaze me - and I'm never entirely sure whether I should laugh or cry. Just now, for example, I heard a commercial on CBC-FM for their internet broadcast service which went something like this: "Just boot-up"...

Tags: What users care about, Enterprise Policy

Blog posts 2007-07-13

More on the Windows work process

About a decade ago I wanted to compare OCR error rates for various packages and in the process of doing that got an abject lesson in both PC work process productivity and the reasons people prefer it.What happened was that a client was setting up a Sun based Resumix system...

Tags: Enterprise Policy, General, What users care about

Blog posts 2007-07-12

How "Wintel thinking" reduces productivity

For many jobs there's a PC way and a Unix way. For example, I write these blogs using vi under either CDE (Solaris 10) or Gnome (Solaris 9) and just embed references and format information as I go along. The result is extremely portable because the text is independent of...

Tags: Enterprise Policy, What users care about

Blog posts 2007-07-11

What users want (5)

Jacob Nielsen is probably the pre-eminent spokesman for research on web usability and much of what he says applies about equally well to other applications too. Among his discussions is one labelled Usability in the Movies -- Top 10 Bloopers. Some excerpts: From #3: "The 3D UI:"...

Tags: What users care about, Vistabulations, Enterprise Policy, Development, General

Blog posts 2007-03-02

What users want (4)

Invisible computing. The easiest way to make a large system implementation fail is to under power the hardware - particularly during user training and pre-implementation pilot operations. The reason this works is that users want systems to be non frustrating - and the negative impact of one...

Tags: What users care about, Sun, Infrastructure, Enterprise Policy, Development, General

Blog posts 2007-03-01

What users want (3)

Aero, Aqua, Looking Glass, Glassfish; compelling stuff, right? Not for the typical business users - Want to know the truth? they dont care - as long as it works, doesnt feel slow, doesnt get in their faces, and doesnt force them to unlearn what they already know only to make...

Tags: What users care about, Enterprise Policy, Development, General

Blog posts 2007-02-28

Additional Resources

Childs rigged crazyquilt private network

The prosecution unveiled more details on the lunacy in San Francisco in court filings that urged the judge to keep rogue network administrator Terry Childs' bail at $5 million. The Chronicle reports that prosecutors say that Childs had over 1,000 modems secreted around the city, forming his own private network...

Tags: Network, Prosecutor, Networking, Productivity, Richard Koman

Blog posts 2008-07-24

Google opens Knol website, a wiki with bylines

In a direct challenge to the popular Wikipedia, Google opened Knol, an encyclopedia-like wiki site that requires writers to post their names and expertise. SAN FRANCISCO--Google opened its website Knol to the public on Wednesday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a...

Tags: Google Inc., DuPont Co., Web Site, Wikipedia, Knol, Wiki, Online Communications, Reuters, Google, encyclopedia

News items 2008-07-24

Facebook gets serious about app quality

Facebook at its F8 developer powwow had a bevy of announcements that garnered interest, but among the most notable were its efforts to improve the quality of applications on the social networking site. First, the brief recap of Facebook's news (statement, Steve O'Hear's takeaways, Webware and Techmeme...

Tags: Facebook, Larry Dignan

Blog posts 2008-07-24

News to know: DNS flaw; Amazon; Microsoft shakeup; Facebook

Notable headlines: Ryan Naraine: Researchers borrow from Google PageRank for network defense service Attack code published for DNS flaw Nate McFeters: |)ruid and HD Moore release part 2 of DNS exploit 'Spam King' escapes from federal prison iPhone vulnerable to phishing,...

Tags: Apple iPhone, Facebook, DNS, Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Xbox, Flaw, Game Players, Domain Names, Networking, Security, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Internet, Larry Dignan

Blog posts 2008-07-24

Parallels releases Parallels Server for Mac

I almost missed Parallels' announcement of Parallels Server for Mac. I didn't speak with company representatives. All I saw was a press release. It was nearly lost in a huge pile of other mail in my inbox. Although there are several virtual machine software products that support...

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Operating System, Virtual Machine, Parallels Server, Parallels Management Console, Toolset, Desktops, Apple Mac OS, Desktop Virtualization, Operating Systems, Servers, Hardware, Software, Dan Kusnetzky

Blog posts 2008-07-24

Live Webcast: Mid-Year Report: Malware, Spam and Web Threats in 2008

What's NOT happening in 2008? The web continues to be a vector for cyber threats. Incidents of spear-phishing continue to dupe users, and botnets are increasing in popularity amongst growing economies across the globe. Complex polymorphic viruses as opposed to the more mundane Trojan horses are getting...

Tags: Web, Webcast, Sophos Plc., Malware, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Cyberthreats, Viruses And Worms, Channel Management, Security, Marketing

Webcasts 2008-07-24

Hands-on: App Store Ad Hoc distribution

There's only one official way to get "legitimate" software for the iPhone 2.0 and iPod touch – via Apple's included App Store. The much-heralded service offers almost 1,000 free and paid application in numerous categories and has been well publicized over the last week. I recently had...

Tags: Apple iPhone, Developer, Advertisement, Apple Inc., Identifier, Digital Music, Digital Media, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Jason D. O\'Grady

Blog posts 2008-07-23

Managing growth - a followup to yesterday's guest blog

Yesterday, Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans wrote a guest blog for this column on "Starbucks' Dirty Little Secret". The blog is worthy of some followup, as well as some additional information that Dean shared with me about their corporate philosophy. Growth is good for a company,...

Tags: Trader, Blog, Dean Cycon, X2 Development Corp., Strategy, Management, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2008-07-23

Bausch & Lomb puts new CIO in charge of customer service

Eye care company Bausch & Lomb has given its CIO the customer service reins. On Wednesday, the company named Alan Farnsworth, senior vice president of customer service and information technology and chief information officer. Cutting through the rather bloated title, it appears that Bausch & Lomb has...

Tags: Customer Service, CIO, Bausch & Lomb Inc., Information Technology, Product Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Marketing, Enterprise Software, Software, Larry Dignan

Blog posts 2008-07-23

iPhone vulnerable to phishing, spamming flaws

Security researcher Aviv Raff left has discovered a pair of basic design flaws that could turn your iPhone into easy bait for malicious phishing and spamming attacks. According to an advisory from Raff, the iPhone's Mail and Safari applications are susceptible to a URL Spoofing vulnerability which...

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple Safari, Vulnerability, Spamming, Flaw, Aviv Raff, Phishing, Spam, Security, Spam And Phishing, Ryan Naraine

Blog posts 2008-07-23