At the moment I'm trying to work out where I'm going to be for the next two months. A trip to New York is fixed, but a trip to Europe is not. And then there's the maybe on Utah... too many dependencies! I find scheduling things stressful - the CompSci in me wants to find the ...
Typically, the first thing I do when I get home is put the kettle on. In fact if I'm working from home I'll get up around every 45 minutes to make more tea. Don Norman wrote about automating the process (so the coffee machine talks to the cupboard, fridge, dishwasher etc) and that would be ...
My boyfriend and I both hate filling up the car with gas. We live 3 blocks from one gas station, and 4 from another. The first time we went to the one 3 blocks away, and it was a giant pain as we tried to work out how to use it. The credit card terminal ...
On Tuesday, I went to an event at The Code Factory. Michelle Gauthier spoke for CapCHI on "User-Centered Design: A Cultural Challenge" (full details). I found it fascinating. I've been thinking about programming as a force for good a lot lately so it was great to hear an example about that. The talk was about her experience ...
After I gave my presentation the other week, someone asked a question. It was: So, basically what you're doing is data-mining? And I said, no, well yes, but that's not how I think about it. I see it as creating something that will help people understand their use of Twitter. The fact that I achieve this by ...
I was super excited this morning when I got an invite to Google Wave. I've read about it, but whilst there's been a lot of hype around it no-one seems to describe it such that I've really got it. Note - don't expect me to be any different, I tried to explain to my boyfriend ...
Recently, I tried to pay my Rogers (Canada) bill online. Considering that you’re trying to give them money they really make it very difficult for you. Eventually I managed to set up an e-billing account for my banking. Linking this to Rogers for some reason necessitated downloading Firefox, as it does not support Safari (this ...
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the “average user”. Who are they? What do they use their computer for? What do they know? And – I think this is the most interesting question: How much do they care about the things we [programmers] spend all our time on? I recently wrote a paper about Microsoft’s ...
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