Wow!
Nussbaum on the OLPC
http://blogs.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2008/05/the_end_of_the.html
In this article, he talks about one thing in particular that was of great interest to me ( and Christian Beck ).
The lesson here is that however brilliant the innovation, it needs to be appropriate to the context and the culture. It needs to fit in and not be imposed. And it needs coalitions, teams, to support it. In fact, in the case of education, which is extremely politically sensitive in every country, OLPC should have developed both the design of the computer and the pedagogy with the Indian and Chinese teachers and administrators, not for them.
In fact, this makes a better abstract for my thesis than the one I actually wrote. But more importantly, design needs to evolve as a field, and adapt to different contexts and cultures. Design ‘here’ is not design ‘over there’. It is a ‘duh!’ statement, but one that is not understood or accepted by many people. And from a personal POV, I am excited that I was on the right track
links for October 17, 2007
Ten Videos to Change How You View the World Not my words, that’s just what the article’s called. These videos are pretty heavy, from TED Talks. I just stumbled on them last night, havent had a chance to listen to all of them. Very diverse, and interesting.
And if you havent heard, Radiohead’s new album is out, and it’s free. Pretty cool of them, and looks like they understand the industry better than most.
links for October 15, 2007
I subscribe to 50 or so feeds, and I know some people who read a whole lot more. So, I figured that I would make a shorter list of stuff I read and make a “links for the day”.
Help Redesign GIMP The UI of GIMP is being redesigned, thankfully. and user suggestions are open. would be an interesting exercise to do
Glenn Kelman’s financial model an extremely useful article/tool for early stage startups
An article by Robert Scoble that is an example of “everything’s that is skewed about the valley”
Need an alternative OS? A ubuntu HOWTO: Part 1
Ubuntu is a GNU/Linux based operating system that you should install, today. I have been using ubuntu for a little over 2 years, and apart from getting stuck a few times, it has been great. I have always been a linux-wannabe, not having the geekiness to use it but would still use it and spend hours browsing on the web to figure something basic out. Now, ubuntu solves it for you. You dont need to be a geek, you dont need to know shell scripting or anything.
Why would I want to switch to ubuntu you say. Some reasons…
1. why not?
2. coz Windows is a pain in the ass
3. its free. which means you dont need to spend hundreds on the OS, or pirate it.
4. its less susceptible to viruses etc. Well, a lot less. But I should warn you here though. One of the primary reasons this is true is coz well, most of the users are on Windows machines, and virus writers dont see a decent ROI for trying to infect a Linux machine.
5. coz you are bored, and would like to try something cool.
6. coz you can act cool and high and mighty.
So, what do you use your computer for?
1. browsing the internet
2. listening to music
3. watching videos
well, ubuntu does all that for you. and well, if there are some things that you absolutely need to do in windows…
1. you can install Windows inside it, and whatever apps you need.
2. it can do cool stuff like Vista, but without the uncool stuff.
3. you can keep your existing Windows install if you lack RAM or are scared.
In this series, I will guide you through
1. the installation
2. installing apps
3. running windows inside ubuntu
4. desktop effects
Hmm, maybe this wont be a true HOWTO, as there as so many good howto’s there, and I will link to them where appropriate. But I will also try to fit in problems I have had and seen other people moving from Windows to Ubuntu have had and hopefully glue it together.
Getting Started - The Installation
Well, you need the latest version of the OS. So, you can either download it and burn it to a CD or order it for FREE. So, go here to download or here to get free CDs. Now, I will skip ahead to you having a CD and you put it in the CD drive and reboot your system. Make sure your boot sequence is CD first and HDD second, which will enable the ubuntu install cd to load. And ubuntu will boot. Isnt that cool? Well, its not installed yet though. Once it boots up, and yes it will be slow as it is running via CD, click on the “install” icon on the desktop. The next stuff is straightforward, entering timezone and stuff. If you need help with that, check out this video. But you really dont need help here, that is until the PARTITIONING. And I will try to help you through that part. What this step does is physically allocate space for ubuntu to live in. Say you have a 80 GB hard drive, you can allocate 40 GB for Windows and the rest for Ubuntu or something. When you get to the partition manager, you will see details about your present hard drive. you want to partition it into 3 - existing windows, swap and linux. “swap” is where ubuntu will write data in to allocate RAM better. what this means is, lets say you are using 500 MB of your RAM and then run a memory intensive app. ubuntu will store the 500 MB on the swap, and thus have more RAM for you now. I recommend around 1 GB for the swap. In the “details” for the swap partition, select “swap” from drop down. For the linux partition, select “/” for mount point. Now, its gonna look like this image. There are cooler things you can do here. Like setting up a common data partition, where Windows and Linux can write into. And a separate /home for you, which is equivalent to My Docs. If you want to do that, look at this post. Or if you want to partition from Windows, look at these videos. Dont worry, this is the hardest step, but if you understand what and why, it makes it easier.
And the easiest thing of course, is to install ubuntu and ubuntu only. This means you dont need to do any partitioning, except for the swap.
After this agree to install GRUB, which will let you boot into ubuntu or Windows. And thats it. And when you reboot, select the ubuntu one and you will login.
Installing apps
Click on System on the top menu, and inside “Administration” select “Synaptic Package Manager”. Select whatever app you want and it will be installed. If you need apps that arent in there, you need to expand your repository list or just go to the application webpage, download it there and follow its install instructions. Expanding your repository list basically means looking for applications from a wider variety of sources. Applications you might wanna look at are
- vlc media player
- mozilla thunderbird
- pidgin internet messenger
And lets install some codecs while you are at it. open up “terminal”(Applications->Accessories) and paste the following
sudo apt-get gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg.
What does “sudo” mean?
su means superuser. So, sudo tells the system to do some task that requires higher privileges as there are tasks that modify your system. It is basically a mechanism that makes sure you know what you are doing. so, if you have other people using your system, it prevents them for screwing around with it.
Lemme know if you need help with your installation. I can guide you through more pointed problems if necessary.
privacy, freedom and the Bill of Rights - social networking
well, facebook is getting into people-search. and that means Facebook Profiles Will Appear on Google Next Month. With a bunch of people-search engines like Spock, Wink etc, it seems obvious that Facebook has entered this. Facebook has always been ahead of the curve, and very clear that it was going to not sell but actually be big on their own. Buying Parakey, and making good decision after good decision in the way Facebook functions like opening up the API and becoming a platform has propelled Facebook to new heights. But one problem might be that Facebook has always been about privacy, and letting you be searched breaks that policy. Of course, Facebook allows you to set your privacy setting so that you cant be searched, but I think allowing searching has a negative impact regardless.
And what is even more scarier is companies like RapLeaf. I read this excellent article by Stefanie Olsen about how your personal data is public. The opening lines of the article are
In the cozy Facebook social network, it’s easy to have a sense of privacy among friends and business acquaintances. But sites like Rapleaf will quickly jar you awake: Everything you say or do on a social network could be fair game to sell to marketer.
Well, with facebook not being so cozy anymore by itself, and RapLeaf prowling around, I think privacy, security and ownership of data are going to be more important to people than having 5000 friends. And of course, freedom. Issues similar to this has led Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington to blog about the fundamental rights of people using a social network.
We publicly assert that all users of the social web are entitled to certain fundamental rights, specifically:
- Ownership of their own personal information, including:
- their own profile data
- the list of people they are connected to
- the activity stream of content they create;
- Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and
- Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.
Sites supporting these rights shall:
- Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
- Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
- Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
- Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.
The actual article is available here.
To me, this is kinda a good thing. Coz now there will be networks which are PRIVATE inherently. I do not want to make 5000 friends. I want many micro-networks, with segregation and privacy between them. You might say it is still possible to get it on Facebook, but I disagree. My friends adding a bunch of content about me, tagging photos etc is violation of what I want, and I cant run around and keep track of what my friends are doing about me. Maybe what I want is stupid, and not possible on online social networks or misses the whole point. But I can still want what i want.
Robert Scoble comes under heavy criticism
For his SEO+Google vs TechMeme, Mahalo, Facebook speculation. But does he really deserve it? Like he says, he was just speculating on a Sunday morning. Whether his argument was wrong - only time will tell. Because stranger things have happened. But the severe backlash he faced from the blogosphere is because of his reputation. If you are trusted by the community, you cannot afford to be wrong or say things that are controversial. Which I think is bull. What is wrong in musing out loud? Maybe he should have been more clear that he was speculating rather than predicting that such an event was going to happen. Or maybe he should have used the 3 applications as examples rather than as the vehicles to bring about this change.
Personally, I enjoy reading and watching Scoble. He is very insightful and asks good questions and joins in the conversation. I liken him to Harsha Bhogle( those of you who are not Indian or do not watch cricket will not know him. He is a cricket commentator), asking and probing the other person in near-perfect fashion. To read about the criticism Scoble is facing, look at the following links and in particular the comments. Wired. Admit mistakes. Cant be more wrong.
20LEGEND
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer retired yesterday, after struggling with a knee complaint for over 2 years. Ole was out for almost 2 years, and made his comeback last season and scored 11 goals, but suffered a setback again, and finally decided to call it a day.
You remember people, footballers in this case, for various reasons. However great you are, you might be remembered for good things and bad. Cantona is remembered for not just being a genius, but for his kung-fu kick. Roy Keane will be remembered not just for his presence and steel, his magnificent performance against Juve in the semi-finals in the champs league in ‘99 but also for his tackle on Haaland and his incident with Shearer. But Ole, you cannot say anything negative about Ole. Even THAT tackle, when he ran back a million yards and fouled Rob Lee outside the area and was obviously sent off, he was given a standing ovation. You can read a lot more about Ole the links at the bottom. While I never got to see Keano play in person, or Cantona, or Beckham, I did get to see Ole play. And more importantly experience and understand what he means to the Old Trafford faithful who made their own banner for him - 20LEGEND. People who dont know better will see Ole became a legend when he scored against Bayern in the dying seconds of the game to steal a victory. No, Ole is not a legend for that one incident alone. He is a legend coz he lives and breathes United, and gave his all for the club.
Guardian. Unfortunately, the Rob Lee tackle is off YouTube.
Wikipedia. Or just Google for him.
SEO resistant search
Scobleizer has an interesting article, actually 3 videos about SEO-resistant technologies, and why he believes they are going to change the search industry. Makes very interesting watching. Check it out. If you dont have time to watch it(30 mins or so), I have a gist of his talk below.
He essentially talks about 3 different technologies, TechMeme, Mahalo and Facebook. And how Google works - PageRank and all that. He points out the drawbacks of SEO consultants, and how they can get some listings appear high on Google’s results. And he starts to explain how the 3 things listed above will provide better results.
TechMeme started by its founder keeping track of 1000 tech bloggers(like Scoble, Kawasaki etc) and what they talked about and linked to. And he built up a pattern, or a fabric as Scoble calls it. So, if Scoble gets an exclusive on say, the iPhone, and writes about it, it is not going to appear on TechMeme. But if other people who are part of the fabric of TechMeme start to write about it, and they will link each other back and forth, they will appear on TechMeme. And stuff stays on there based on how often it is talked about, how linked it is etc. The fabric has since expanded, but the point is that it is close to impossible for SEO people to get in on this. Because they are not part of the trusted tech blogging community. And the only way they can get in is by buying someone off.
Mahalo is a people based search engine. Mahalo pays 100 employees to look at new pages and rate it, and sort it. Again, it is hard for SEO people because they have to buy off a significant number of these 100 people. Even if they do succeed, it will probably not last for long as those people will do stupid stuff, like recommending articles and pages that they shouldnt, which will result in their termination.
Facebook is added to this list because it has a strong social graph. And that is the foundation of Scoble’s talk. How social graph is going to change the searching process. But one obvious problem is that the social graph and the fabric is not going to scale. As it is mostly human powered, built on circles of trust, how will one reach those topics which arent really talked about? or when there are TOO many topics for these people to cover and rate? Well, thats one reason why Scoble says it is gonna take 4 years for this to happen.
