Ding Dong the Mac Server is Dead

24 hours later the site makes a triumphant return to the web. Thanks to a fried power supply and logic board, the Hydra of a G4 running OS X Server unsupported finally died. I knew it was coming...the noise from the power supply was deafening for the last week or so. Nevertheless, it died last night.

So the server had to be moved and rebuilt on my G4 Gigabit Tower. Now I am in the market for a new PC for my everyday use. I doubt that it will be a Mac this time around. Yes, that is sacrilege coming from me, but the cost of Apple Iron right now is just too rich for my blood.

Links: 2004-08-27

• kissthisguy.com - - The Archive of Misheard Lyrics
  (categories: humor music )


• 36 Hours: In Bar Harbor, Me.
  (categories: Travel )

Kittens, Kittens, Kittens...everywhere

Rhonda and I recently made the decision, that despite her huge animal allergies, to adopt a menagerie of pets to add to our new house and family.

It all started on Tuesday, when we adopted Rudy an 18 week old kitten from Alex and Deanne. He is a cute little long hair, but the adoption process did not and has not gone smoothly.

Much to his and our disadvantage, Rudy is scared of Kitty Taxi's and riding in the car. Both of which were necessary to get him home. The whole way he yelped and clawed trying to escape. When we got him home we took him to his own little safe room and let him loose, where he promptly wedged himself under the frame of the lower trundle of our trundle bed. Unfortunately that was the last we have seen of him in almost 3 days. Despite our spending time in the room with him and also giving him his space, Rudy has yet to make an appearance in our plane view. Hopefully he will come around. There are some signs of this...he has started eating and using the litter box, but that is just about it. We plan on giving him enough time to settle in and get used to us. Sometimes, that is what it takes.

Separately, we also adopted two little kittens from a family in Manteca. They are both 6 weeks old and extremely friendly. We brought them home last night and we had them set up camp downstairs in our family room. While cute and cuddly and a wonderful bundle of joy, they also brought along with them another unwanted bundle of joy...fleas. Rhonda and I hemmed and hawed about what to do...after all they are both too young to be sprayed by most OTC flea meds...but we ended up giving them baths to clean them up. Surprisingly enough, they didn't mind the water.

The next stop on this wild ride, once Rudy settle in, is a nice little trip to the vet to get our family checked out. In the meantime, Rhonda and I are clearly outnumbered in our own house.

20 Minutes of Commuter Bumper Sticker Bliss

Seen on my way to work this morning while travelling over Paterson Pass from Tracy to Livermore:

Somewhere in Texas is a villiage that is missing its idiot.

Expanding Content & Change

I wanted to make a quick post and let folks know about a few changes that are imminent here and also on the other sites I run.

First of all, I am starting to write about User Experience again (UXP to use an Art-like acronymn). So, you will notice that the "user experience" topic is back on the left nav. I stopped posting things here awhile back about the field because I was mentally tired and also in the face of so many blogs on the subject.

However, in the time that has elapsed I have worked on several projects that have combined defining Global User Experiences, multi-lingual localization, and the concept of 1-to-Many Content Publishing. These are things that I am particularly interested in when balanced against usability to international audiences. Based upon my experience in these areas, I feel that I have some truly unique insights to share as well as comment on. So, the UXP blog is back.

Secondly, work is steadily progressing on illuminare. This is a domain I have owned since 1996 and was at one time the backbone of my independent consulting business. However, as I became more involved in corporate usability work, my time for consulting ended. So, illuminare is going to become home to a new black & white fine art photography photoblog with other revenue based business tie-ins.

Finally, my personal site is a little stale. So, over the next few months you will see a few concept user interfaces put out there for testing and public evaluation. Several of the changes are already out there on the site in one form or another, so the next steps are really a gradual evolution of the site. Some of the thoughts I am entertaining is possibility of segmenting off the more general blogs topics onto a another site or moving away from a more standard type of blog that is just too common on the web.

Links: 2004-08-23

• Blogs and blogging: advantages and disadvantages
  (categories: Blogging Blogs )

Links: 2004-08-22

• etherfarm: etherblog
  (categories: PhotoBlog Photography )


• fiftymillimeter
  (categories: PhotoBlog Photography )


• file : a collection of unexpected photography
  (categories: Photography )

Links: 2004-08-21

• Business lessons from Star Trek: The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (Rule #49: "Everything is worth something to somebody".
  (categories: Business )


• ourTunes
  (categories: Music )


• Olympians largely barred from blogging
  (categories: Olympics )

Links: 2004-08-20

• How eight pixels cost Microsoft millions
  (categories: )


• The fans by timothy archibald: Oakland Raiders
  (categories: )

The Color Blue Question

A large part of what I do is sell ideas. Sure, I develop IA stuff, do usability, and design navigation systems, but it all comes down to my ability to sell an idea. I have sat through thousands of design review session with Senior Stakeholders where everything was going well until I got the dreaded "Color Blue Question"

Now, for the uninitiated there are questions that always come up in meetings such as "How does that work?," I don't agree with you, " or "I am confused by this therefore it must be difficult to use" All of these types of questions can be addressed with either further explanation, agreement to disagree but finding a path to move forward, or more importantly rebutted with actual usability data or research. Those types of questions are even under the most trying circumstances manageable--even at worst case as the facilitator of the review you can reach a compromise and maintain the heart of your design.

However, there are times (and they happen more often than you think) where people object and have a preference because they just do. Those types of instances are what I like to call a "Color Blue Question." These types of questions tend to come up most after we have already agreed to the overall user experience and design, but have not yet shown a creative design skin on top of the skeleton.

Sooner or later when we show visual comps, someone will say "I don't like the fact that a country selector is grey, I think it should be blue" or "I believe we need to have a additional graphic here..." usually these items are small, but they can at times compromise the overall user experience of the product. Unfortunately, in most of these cases "Color Blue Questions" are ones that you could probably argue against, but in the end you will never win. They are in fact stakeholder preferences that are very hard if not impossible to overcome.

So, when faced with a "Color Blue Question," I constantly am asking myself as to how much of an impact is it on the overall user experience and if it is worth the political capital to fight it. In those situations I only choose to fight if it truly compromises the heart of the design and will adversely impact the User. After all, that is who I am representing in the sessions in addition to my clients. Even if I know that I may loose the argument, if it is serious enough a single raising of the hand on a very critical item being challenged by the dreaded "Color Blue" may be necessary.

In the end this type of objection (as I said earlier), is a preference. After all it is very hard to refute a statement that falls into the genre of "I like the color blue because I like the color blue"

So say it once and say it with pride, "I like the color blue, because I like the color blue." Now, go think of a way to challenge that kind of statement while still gaining agreement on the larger issue and you will know what I am talking about first hand.

Links: 2004-08-18

• creativepro.com - Framed and Exposed: Making Sense of Camera Sensors
  (categories: Photography )


• What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?
  (categories: politics )


• The Onion: CIA Asks Bush To Discontinue Blog
  (categories: politics )


• PTLens
  (categories: Photography )

Feature Creep: The Real World of Digital Music and the iPod

Heard on gizmodo this morning....

Real has earned a lot of press lately for reverse engineering Apple's Fairplay digital music rights management system. (For those of you who've been in another dimension for the last year or so, Fairplay is the component of Apple's digital music format that restricts songs purchased through the iTunes Music Store to limited use - an attempt to insure that the iTMS won't be recast as a piracy mill.) In an almost swift response, Apple lambastes Real for their efforts and drops hints about Real perhaps getting crosswise with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If Glaser had stopped there, he might right now be counting the ranks of his supporters in the digital hippie community. Yet Real has forged ahead with a blatantly anti-Apple Web site, an online petition, and then another online petition to replace the one loaded up with anti-Real comments. You'd think all this is due to Glaser and Real's overwhelming drive to butt heads with the almighty Apple, but you'd be wrong.

The editorial is well rounded and points out to the fact that Real is really helping to make Apple's argument that Fairplay should not be open given Real's heavy handed handling of its campaign.

Read the full editorial and also here is a link to the original petition (with comments allowed) before Real pulled it

Links: 2004-08-17

• RollingStone.com - Inside Clear Channel - How the company's domination has made the airwaves blander and tickets pricier
  (categories: Music )


• New CIA Director Wants Power to Spy On, Arrest, U.S. Citizens
  (categories: NationalSecurity politics )


• Generate CSS layouts
  (categories: CSS WebDesign )


• firefish photography
  (categories: PhotoBlog Photography )


• Navigation Stress Test
  (categories: IA Usability UXP )


• Information Architecture Heuristics
  (categories: IA Usability UXP )

Space Technology and Pressure Suits

A very interesting look at space technology: Gallery of Space Suits

Pixo's iPod development deal

The story behind Pixo's involvement in developing the iPod, is detailed in a San Francisco Chronicle

Concert Review: Van Halen

After nearly a decade of being out of circulation, the band reunited with Sammy Hagar has hit the road touring the country. Rhonda and I went to see Van Halen the other night at the Oakland Arena.

The band opened up with "Jump" from 1984 and proceeded into a series of songs from the Hagar days. Aside from Sammy Hagar's enthusiastic energy and devotion to singing, and Alex Van Halen's incredible 20 minute drum solo, the rest of the band's performance was a complete disappointment.

Eddie, who's known for his brilliant guitar playing and high energy on stage, was noticeably subdued. Instead of being into the concert, he appeared to be more like the power bass player from 90's grunge, with head down and very subdued. This in of itself would not have been so bad if it hadn't transcended into his guitar playing. It was very noticeable on several occasions where Eddie was completely missing in his playing of songs like Panama, Jump, and Dreams.

Unfortunately for Van Halen, the high point of the show was Sammy Hagar. His midpoint acoustic solo (sans the rest of the band), and his wonderful update to "Right Now" just carried an otherwise lackluster performance. In many respects this was a vindication for him for being unceromoniously dumped years ago.

While I came away with the impression that Sammy Hagar was having a ball, I also got the feeling that the rest of the band put aside their differences to just make money. Hey, music is a money business, but generally bands get back together and play because they want to, not because they need to.

What a shame. One of the great bands of the 80's has been relegated to a nostalgia act that is fading.

Links: 2004-08-16

• AIFIA | Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture | Home
  (categories: professionalassoiciaitions )


• IBM Globalization | uuslash
  (categories: Branding Globalization )


• The New Yorker
  (categories: Politics )


• MoveOn PAC
  (categories: politics )


• Usability test software tool: Excel data logger
  (categories: IA Usability UXP )


• The Living Room Candidate
  (categories: politics )


• Digital Web Magazine - News - How to apply for Information Architecture jobs
  (categories: career UXP )


• Maelstrom 3.0 Binaries
  (categories: Games Mac )

On the Record: Craig Newmark

The SF Chronicle is running an interesting one-on-one interview with Craig Newmark, which ranges from topics including how CraigsList got started, to the recent eBay purchase of a 25% stake.

Links: 2004-08-14

• Comparison Between Left- and Right-justified Site Navigation Menus: Kalbach and Bosenick: JoDI
  (categories: IA navigationdesign UXP )


• Olympic History
  (categories: Olympics Sports )

eBay Takes a Bite

Yep, EBay takes stake in Craigslist.

Color Study: Schemes from Other Sites

WorkingIdea has a whole series of schemes from various sites and products.

Apple iPad: Newton Cadillac Redux

Thanks to Alex for this great link off of gizmodo.

It looks like there are potential rumblings of Apple re-entering the Slate PDA Market. You say, "Wait, when did Apple market a Slate PDA?" The answer is they didn't, but the original concept of the Apple Newton was an 8" LCD version that was called the "Cadillac," which had an 8" LCD screen and offered full wireless networking...all back in 1991 (If I can find a picture of it I will post it).

If this rumor ends up being true, you can absolutely bet the handwriting recognition powering this iPad will be the very same Rosetta Newton handwriting technology that was in the old Newton 2000s. That technology was imported into Mac OS X and redubbed InkWell. No matter what you can say about the Newton, it had and still has the world's best natural handwriting recognition engine.

Goodbye Julia Child

A source of inspiration in the kitchen, and the source of many voice impersonation skits back in high school...Julia Child died today at the age of 91

View of Inbound Links and Their Influence on the Blogosphere

From del.icio.us:"Inbound links do not indicate either readership or influence"

Political Machine In Action: Kerry Swiftboat Contraversy

Well, as Dan indicated in his post, there is a lot of political banter about Kerry's military service. The conservative view of the whole situation is rather interesting. No matter how you slice it, both sides of the political machine (RNC and DNC) are in hyperdrive to either fan the flames or put them out with the whole Swiftboat thing.

Since I am on the Kerry list serve, I got their end of their defense, which is really designed to rally the Democratic party faithful. I am sure there is a similar campaign in opposition...Rhonda will let me know about that as she is a registered Republican.

Ah, election year politics...it almost makes me want to run for office.

I'm interrupting John Kerry's dispatches from the road to tell you about something that will make you angry, but which is important for you to hear.

We knew it was coming: the Bush campaign and several allied right-wing groups are using August to launch a vicious smear attack against John Kerry. They think we're vulnerable this month because while George Bush is still able to raise money for attack ads, Kerry had to stop fundraising at the Democratic convention last week. They're taking this opportunity to go for the jugular.

We need you to join us in this fight today by supporting the Democratic Party.

https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.html

The worst of the current wave of attacks is coming from a Republican-funded group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." (I'll call them by a more accurate name: Swift Boat Veterans for Bush.) The group is led by a longtime Republican operative and financed by GOP contributors with strong ties to George Bush. Its function in the overall Republican strategy is this: tear down John Kerry since Bush has no record or vision to run on.

The swift boat ad is full of lies. Thirteen men who never served with John Kerry lie about knowing him and viciously attack his record. It is a new low for the Republicans.

Every time they have attacked us like this, it has only made us stronger. When they ran dishonest attack ads (like the unbelievable new one on the air right now), thousands of new supporters flocked to our campaign to give us the resources we need to fight back on the airwaves.

Now that the general election has begun, they're hoping things are different. They're going to be sorely disappointed because we are not alone. The Democratic National Committee is well prepared to take on this fight.

And therefore I'm asking you: everything you did for our campaign, please do now for our Democratic Party. Give the party the resources it needs to fight against these right-wing attacks:

https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.html

The Democratic Party is responsible for putting organizers and volunteers into the field and turning out the millions of votes we need to win. We literally cannot win this election without the party.

https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.html

You and I know that if we so much as yield an inch to George Bush and the Republicans this month, we'll live to regret it. In fact, we may live to regret it for four long years. Join with me in supporting the Democratic Party today.

Thank you,

Mary Beth Cahill
Campaign Manager

From a non-partisan perspective it is an effective way to rally the supporters...

Campaign Moments

A photographer's journal of moments from the past few Presidential campaigns

We Never Learn from History

1966 speech by Robert McNamara on national and international security:

"The decisive factor for a powerful nation already adequately armed is the character of its relationships with the world."

I find it ironic that we are in the same position today with respects to our attitude towards our realtionships with international powers and alliances in our quest to preserve our security and fight the war on terror.

Update: Migration of RSS Feed Complete

Q: "Wait a minute, you just announced a change to your RSS Feed. You're making the switch now? That was a short 'few days.' "

A: Yeah, well I got the new feed to work the way I wanted faster than I thought,

As previously announced, I have decided to migrate my RSS feed over to feedburner. The reasons for this are too many to list, but essentially maintaining multiple versions of my RSS feed for all of my blogs has become a pain. Couple that with my extensive use of de.licio.us and the need for change became clear.

Feedburner gives me the power to post one RSS feed and have the feed automatically adjust to the RSS reader (even if it uses say rdf or atom). No fuss, no muss.

So after today, the only official RSS feed for artfernandez.com will be reachable here. If you have your RSS reader pointed at any of the older feeds, you will need to update your bookmarks for the full and complete site and content experience.

Cool Aerial Photography Series

Amazing aerial photography by Yann Bertrand

Co-pilot attacked by passenger's pet

Heard on de.licio.us...Co-pilot attacked by passenger's pet

Now Publishing via del.icio.us

de.licio.us artfer01 bookmarks and clippings are now available.

The Art of the Parlay

Daring Fireball has a great article exploring the myth that Apple could/would be Microsoft if only they had licensed their operating system. This myth has oft been purported in technology and business media. In many respects the argument that Apple would have succeeded if they licensed their OS ignores the reality of PCs and the Mac technology of the time.

Moving RSS Feeds Permanently

I'm now using Feedburner to process my RSS Feed. All other RSS feeds will be dropped over the next week.

So if you want the full site experience or if you are using Bloglines, point your aggregators here.

New Features...del.icio.us enabled

Starting this week, there are a host of new features and services coming. Starting off with enabling my bookmarks for you all to use. Thanks to the del.icio.us server service.

A History of Apple's Operating Systems

A fascinating look at both the interfaces and strategies from Cupertino

NY Times compares TiVo to Apple, saying it faces a struggle in a market it helped create

NY Times compares TiVo to Apple, saying it faces a struggle in a market it helped create (One of their biggest problems is the cable companies' leveraging their monopolies.)

Mildly Entertaining...The Apple Product Cycle

Thanks to Jason O'Grady for this one. In one smattering and very entertaining article we get to run through the insane world of how a small little fruit company with "only 2% market share" gets 98% of the PC world's attention when it comes to new product announcements.

Even an ardent (albeit jaded) Apple user can't stop laughing at this...an insane and entertaining look at Apple's Product Cycle.

Top 10 Things That Tell You You've Been Working In The Web Field for Too Long

It occurred to me awhile ago that I have been working on the Web, well, since there was a Web to work on. That roughly translates to 1994-ish. As I came to that stunning realization I began to think about all the things I did that now really date me.

So, with that realization, here is a top 10 list of things that (if you remember doing them as part of your job) tells you if you have been working in Interactive Media for too long.

1. You remember learning Macromedia Director and developing CD-ROMs
2. Your first project on the web involved bending Mosaic 1.0 to your will so you could make it look like a web page.
3. You got involved working on the web With no prior experience, but got the job anyway because you showed interest in learning.
4. You had the title of "WebGuru, Web God, or The Web Guy"
5. You can honestly remember being in Design sessions where usability was not even talked about. The only thing we wanted to do is "Be on the Web and make it look cool"
6. You can remember having food delivered to your desk by WebVan at all hours of the day.
7. You can name all the hidden Easter Eggs in Netscape 2.0 (and be able to tell people how to get to them even now!)
8. You learned how to program in RainMan for developing pages in AOL.
9. You can remember coding and developing sites with nothing but a plain text editor (note pad) and PhotoShop 2.0
10. Your first experience with the Web in 1994 was working on The Well.

Chord for Change

Heard around the Web...Bruce Springsteen's concert series in key election battle ground states. Can a few entertainers make a difference in swaying votes? Well, depending upon the political pundits on both sides of the aisle that you ask, the answer is yes. With an election so close and the votes that are up for grabs squarely with the Independent voter, the candidates (yes, even G.W.) are doing everything to reach out.

On that note, I ran across a great op-ed piece in the New York Times by Bruce Springsteen on why he is getting involved in all this and the need for change.

What's telling about all this is not so much a story about some entertainer getting political, but if you read between the lines and see how he has not been politically active in the past and then see how he along with so many others in this election season are getting involved. It is really telling of how politics and elections are moving away from the rubber stamp approach to campaigning, but more in the role of grass roots efforts.

The Everyman Photo Contest

The Everyman believes that anyone who has ever taken pictures in their life, has taken good pictures. One of the primary differences between professional and non-professional photographers is how reliably they can get the good shot. Because, photography, like any art, is meant to capture a moment, convey a feeling, tell a story, it is erroneous to believe that in order for a photo to be effective or artistic it must have formal composition, ideal lighting or, and most importantly, be taken by a professional.

Fun! Just think of the entertainment value in selecting 3 images from my negtative portfolio to enter into the contest.

PowerPC on Apple: An Architectural History

Ars Technica is running a follow-up to their recent chronology of events leading up to the development of the Pentium with a detailed look at the development of the PowerPC processor. It is an interesting story, that reminded me of all the happenings back in the beginning between Apple, IBM, and Motorola to bring the PowerPC processor to desktop computing.

I found the article to be a fair and balanced look at the PowerPC.

Time to Shill for Support

Well, you can blame it on my family background, my social upbringing, or on the fact that in college my major and career ambitions were in the world of politics, national security, and foreign policy. No matter how you slice it I am actively shilling for support and donations this political season.

Once every four years I get the bug, like a rash that refuses to stop itching, to get involved. I guess that I never reconciled my decision to not pursue a life in public service like so many other of my family members.

So, I am shilling for support for a little presidential regime change. I am an ardent supporter of the Democratic nominee, John Kerry for President of the United States of America.

You can call me a Liberal, a tax-and-spend fiend, or whatever, but when it all boils down to it, deficit spending, a reckless means of conducting foreign policy, and meager response to National Security is no way to run a country.

To my friends that are Conservatives, I can see it now with all the comments that are likely to come. I say, "bring it on." I will discuss the merits of the Democratic policy platform with you...on merits alone without the partisan rhetoric.

I am up for a healthy debate and yes, I am drumming up support for the Kerry-Edwards national campaign.

iPod and Audio Books

Since my daily commute to-from work racks up a total of 2 hours, I have been using my iPod on a daily basis to listen to music, etc. Let's face it, aside from NPR and the traffic report, radio is basically dead air and beholden to corporate radio music programming. Definitely, not exciting.

The latest fad for me, which is consuming those hours stuck in traffic is listening to audio books. Yes, they have been around for awhile...they used to be called books on tape, but with Audible's digital equivalent and their presence on the Apple's iTunes music store I have been purchasing audio books like crazy. And, unlike hard-copy books, which I never have enough time to read, I have increased the number of books I have "read" this month by a factor of ten.

What a nice use for an iPod!