Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Computers and Internet

  • Real Fakes

    You may have already seen the "Haiti UFO" video. Posted on YouTube a month ago, it’s already been seen by millions, and purports to show a real flying saucer.
     
    Of course, it’s a fake.
     
    The maker of the video has now followed it up with another "proof" video, this time purporting to show that the flying saucer is a small radio-controlled model being flown by a little old lady. The joke is that in both cases the flying saucer is not real – it’s a computer-generated model. As the article in the eSkeptic magazine says: we’re now definitely at the point where seamlessly photorealistic fake UFO footage can be made on an ordinary home computer, quickly and easily, using only a few hundred bucks worth of software.

  • Aarrgh!

    Sometimes I really detest the young. They will inherit the world. And all the things that we have fought for, they will not care one whit about. To them it is boring, old-fashioned, worthless. English Grammar for example.
     
    The bright young things over at the product team for Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger had an idea. Instruction manuals are boring. So, the bright young things decided to make an instructional video for Windows Live Messenger. "Sarah", their video avatar, is also a bright young thing, and she introduces the various features of Windows Live Messenger in a bright, perky, up-to-the-minute way.
     
    As you can imagine, I am metamorphosing into Victor Meldrew at the very thought. However, I did try to keep my negative thoughts at bay. Oh, I really did. But then, when Sarah started talking about the socialisation features of Windows Live Messenger, I regret to say that I completely lost it. She types in a personalised invitation, and what does she type?
    "Hey! Let me know next time your online!"
    Grammar 
     
    Dear god, is there no-one in the long chain, from the lowly web developer in Microsoft through the marketing hordes to the head honcho responsible for releasing this to the world, capable of recognising a schoolboy howler in simple English grammar?
     
    Apparently not. It’s "you’re", not "your" you stupid, stupid people.
     
    May you all rot in grammar hell.
       

  • Mabel’s Murky Past

    I see that the Wikiscanner has claimed another victim – this time Princess Mabel.  

  • Jealousy

    OK, so I know that it is very shallow of me, but I can’t help feeling a teeny bit jealous of Phil.
     
     

  • Geek Humour

    While it’s clearly a joke, the phrases uttered by the "designers" of this world-shattering piece of software are terrifyingly like the sort of crap marketing-speak that I’ve come to know and loathe. 
     
     
    Nicely done.

  • Be Careful Out There

    Job seekers using the Monster.com online service have been targeted by a particularly vicious trojan. I expect that variations will shortly follow. Be careful about that odd email inviting you to download a toolbar extension for your web browser…  

  • The Evil of Flash

    Very rarely, I come across a web site that uses Flash technology where I think: yes, that is good.
     
    Most of the time Flash is pure evil, and Flash developers should be lined up against a wall and shot. Tim Spalding gives chapter and verse on a case in point.  

  • WHS Is RTM

    That means Windows Home Server is Released To Manufacturing for those of you who are not acronymphiles.

    I, along with thousands of other folks, have been testing this software at home. I’ve found a few bugs, but most have been cured along the way. I’m still getting the “database inconsistency” bug, despite trying the steps to fix it. I see that Microsoft say that this bug will “more than likely be fixed by RTM”, so we’ll see.

    But one thing that is not yet clear is whether WHS will open up the ability to access all flavours of Windows operating systems via the internet. At the moment it does not, even though you might be forgiven for thinking that it does if you just listen to Microsoft’s marketing.

    Still, kudos to the development team for a product that has much to commend it.

  • Data Swarm

    There’s an interesting presentation that has just been posted up at the TED web site. It’s from the conference held last March, and is of Jonathan Harris presenting his work of visualising data found on the web. I feel that his work is closer to pieces of art than anything else.
     
     
    I like his We Feel Fine piece in particular. The feelings that you find out there on the web through this interface run the whole gamut from trite to profound to downright scary. His Universe piece doesn’t seem to work at the moment, so I can’t comment on that.
     

  • Google Maps

    Google has just added some improvements to its Google Maps application. And I have to say that I’m impressed. This web application is now very slick indeed, and far better than the Microsoft Streets and Trips application that I used to rely on for planning my trips. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at what Jeff Atwood found when he compared the two – and that was before the latest round of improvements to Google Maps.

  • Microsoft Surface Redux

    Someone’s redone the voiceover to the video about Microsoft Surface. I think this version is much more accurate…
     
     

  • Ideas Generator

    Lyndsay Williams has had a lot of bright ideas in her time. The trouble is, it now appears that she is too practical for Microsoft Research, her former employer. She would rather invent useful devices; they appear to believe that writing academic papers is what they are about. Strange.

  • Good User Interface Design

    Despite the billions that Windows Vista has probably cost to develop, the user interface still has places where the meaning is confusing, rather than clear. Take this example. As Jan Mikovsky points out, the important and salient facts are simply not obvious to the user. The likelihood that he or she will make a wrong decision is higher – and not even be realised after the fact.

  • Project Xanadu

    Project Xanadu was the first attempt to create Hypertext software. It was begun back in 1960 by Ted Nelson – nearly 50 years ago!
    Now, on the occasion of Nelson’s 70th birthday, version 1.0 of XanaduSpace is released.
    Somehow, despite the fact that the rival Hypertext system (the World Wide Web of Tim Berners Lee) has been sarcastically described as “the joy buzzer and the whoopee cushion of the Internet”, I don’t think that the more elegantly designed Xanadu has a hope of displacing its rival. Sometimes, technical elegance is not enough. Just being good enough at the right time and place is what wins the day. I fear Xanadu is doomed to being a footnote in the history of computing.

  • Touchscreens

    There’s been a rash of touchscreen technologies being demonstrated recently. Here’s another one, this time from the Cambridge branch of Microsoft Research.

  • Downtime

    The LibraryThing web site is having a spot of bother at the moment – the system is down. The silver lining is that the LibraryThing folks have challenged its members to create a bookpile that illustrates the downtime. Here’s my submission.
     
    20070613-1658-54 

  • Fry on the Internet

    Stephen Fry, national treasure, talks about the Internet.

  • Good Design

    I’ve mentioned Geni – the web-based genealogy application before. Even though it’s still in beta, it is very good. Part of that comes from its intuitive design, which makes the user experience feel easy and natural. Jan Miksovsky, over at flow|state (a blog devoted to good application design), points out how impressively the initial sign-up to Geni has been thought through and designed.

  • Jaw-Dropping

    I don’t know whether to treat this seriously or not; all I know is that my jaw hit the table upon reading about the Aphrodite Project Platforms.
     
    Although, I have to say that I don’t think that the designers have thought this through. I remember living through the 1970s when platforms were ubiquitous (I even had a pair myself, but we won’t go there). I also remember being in a hospital out-patients department sitting alongside my lover at the time who had just had a concussion via a skating accident. Suddenly, the doors burst open, and in tottered a gaggle of fashionable young ladies surrounding one of their number who was having even more difficulty walking than the rest of them. As they explained to the doctor, she fell off her platforms…

  • Beyond Windows

    So, Microsoft Surface has finally arrived. It may well punt the Windows model into the sidelines, but I’m betting that you’ll have to wait until version 3.0 before it will live up to the hype.