[ via Nettime ] Lawrence Lessig was appointed as a special master (think domain expert) during DOJ v. MS. He’s got a new book out about the role of software architecture in the legal construction of cyberspace.
I’m pulling several quotes from an interview with him from Feed. This is definitely a book to read.
“LESSIG: We [...]
[ via Robot Wisdom ] How to roll your own “Page Not Found” error messages so they are pretty and helpful
For what it’s worth, imood.com (think of it as empathic instant messaging) has a funky command line user interface which allows you to enter shortcuts in a text box at the upper right hand side of the page. It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t know if it’d work well in practice. First, people would [...]
Today’s information architecture challenge: how to display the 90 word title to Fiona Apple’s new album.
My inner librarian wants this book. It’s a study of classification: the history, methods and effects. Classification affects perception. Consider that some of the WebLog lists consider this site to be a ‘general’ WebLog, while others classify it as a ‘technical’ site.
Link
[ via Freshmeat ] Sabren’s written a tutorial and some sample code for making search engine friendly URLs for PHP-driven sites.
Instead of /article.php3?id=342, you can have /article/342
[ Web Review ] The JMS Version: “The major powers of the Internet gathered together to create a markup language that would help end the Browser Wars. The year is 1999, and the name of the app is XHTML.” (cue theme music)
[ from All Things Web ]
“In the latter days of the 20th-century, the World Wide Web bears an uncanny resemblance to the automated looms of 19-century England. With over 1,000 different clients, countless plug-ins, woefully misnamed `helper’ apps, and other assorted gizmos, there are a lot of points of failure. It is sometimes fragile, and [...]
[ via JJG.net ] Metajournals opened a contest for redesigning their site. But for reasons beyond my understanding say: “Frame designs are allowed (and encouraged).”
The latest iteration of an analysis of a random sample of Web pages finds that page size is creeping upwards, and linkrot remains a problem.
Jakob Nielsen says that three years of evolution on the Web has spawned another set of mistakes, while the old ones linger. The new mistakes include: pop-up windows, links that make no sense out of context, and ads.
Jorn Barger suggests several things to do when creating a link to another site. The common theme here is provide as much information as you can: tell the viewer if you’re sending them to a Java applet or PDF file, provide a snippet, give them your opinion on the link.
In the Weblog and Glossary world, [...]
HTML::Mason, the Perl module aimed at web sites that publish articles from databases and other repositories, now has a home page.
From Cosmodrome: Edward Tufte’s recommended reading list.
Dan Lyke responds to a Web Review article (linked previously) on architecture and user interface.
When I can afford to build my dream house I want someone who’s trained in usability first. Later I’ll find an engineer somewhere, who may have architecture training, to figure out how to build the thing, but I’ll be damned if [...]
