Month: May 2007

Daily tweets for 2007-05-25

  • One week until I leave for Greek Blogger Camp. I’m starting to get excited. :) #
  • Web Worker Daily is by far my favourite online resource for some time now. http://webworkerdaily.com/ #
  • Recursive recurssion is recursively killing my brain. And now I need to tell you something about that recursive recurssion that is kill… #
  • It’s shaping up! The system that I’ve spent the last couple of weeks building, is shaping up. I can see it now… :) #

On avatars

Avatars are those small icons with user photo or some other graphic. Avatars has been integrated with many applications and services in the last few years. ICQ and phpBB forums were among the first high profile, widely used applications, that allowed users to add an image of themselves. Since then everything and anything has avatars – all IMs, most forums, email clients, blogs, you name it. There are even several global avatar services (like Gravatar), where your image is assigned to your email address and then used by other servicse, such as blogs, where you comment and leave your email address.

There are two issues with avatars though. One is technical, another one is social.

The technical issue is that most people who use avatar-enabled services, are not technical enough to find out about the avatars. Or to get their own picture in digital form. So, all these people simply don’t use avatars at all. Their profile pictures appear as anonymous people. Not very useful for the rest of us, who have many people in our contact lists and want some distinction between different entries.

The social thing is with people insecurities and weird sense of humor. Instead of their real pictures, for these or that reasons, they prefer to use something else. Like pictures of cartoon characters, famous brands’ logos, abstract patterns, like green leaves, and stuff like that. Better than nothing, but not good enough. Why? Well, because most people’s creativity (or the time that they allocate for the choice of the proper image) is limited. As a result, I have three people in my contact list with Superman picture, two people with Peugeot cars logo, five people with monkey head shots, four people with … You get it. As a result, having parallel conversations with two or more people with the same avatar becomes complicated, and, way too often, messages are sent to the wrong recipient.

Is there a way to combat it? Probably not. As long as people have the freedom to put whatever they want instead of their image, some of them will choose to do so. And it’s not worth it taking this freedom from them. However, there is a way of stimulation (that’s what I’m doing now, no?). Some applications and services have succeeded more than others in pushing their users to use their own pictures rather than some abstract images.

One of these services is Google (GMail and GTalk). When I compare my contact lists from different IMs, GTalk has the most real phases. So, how did they do it? I am not sure exactly, but there are a few things I can think of.

First of all, is wording. On the settings page, the appropriate entry says “My picture:”. Not my avatar. Not my icon. But my picture. I guess most people understand it literally. My picture is something that shows my face.

Secondly, it’s simplicity. There are several ways a user can add his image. One of them, as mentioned earlier, is by going to Settings page. The link to Settings is right there, at the top of GMail page. And the picture section is again on the front page of the Settings page, not in the “Advanced” tab or somewhere even further. Those people who are more used to setting their IM clients, there is a way too. You can edit your picture through the settings of your IM application, since GTalk works with almost any IM client that supports Jabber protocol.

But the best of all, Google provides the way for non-technical people to get a nice picture of their own. It’s done via recommendation. Here is how it works. I am a GMail user. I am technically enlightened, and I have digital pictures of all the people I know (or almost all of them anyway). My mother is anther GMail user. But she is still learning her ways around the computer. So, I add her to my contacts. Google lets me set a picture for her. I can choose between the picture that I want to see in my contact list and the one she set for herself. I say – show me the picture that I chose. When I upload my favourite picture of my mom, Google asks me if I want to recommend this picture to my mom too, so that she could use it herself. I say “yes, please do”. My mom gets an email, something along the lines of “Leo decided to use this picture for your entry in his contact list. Do you want to use this picture for your profile? Click here for yes.”. That’s it. She does that single click and everyone else who she is a contact of, can enjoy a real face in their contact list. And she probably didn’t even recognize how cool that was.

I wish more applications and services took this approach. It would have made the web so much more personal and recognizable.

Going to Greek Blogger Camp

I’ve mentioned it to a few people already, and I wrote it here and there, but not, well, here. I’ll attend Greek Blogger Camp at the beginning of the next month. It’ll take place at Ios, one of many Greek islands, between 2nd and 3rd of June (that’s a weekend). I’ll fly from Larnaca to Athens, than take a ferry to Ios, and then will come back the same way on Monday. Expect lots of pictures, a few blogging posts, and plenty o’Twitter…

This trip covers a few items on wishlist in one go:

  • Attend a blogging event (conference/exhibition/whatever)
  • Meet more cool online people in real life. (Matt Mullenweg is one of the people I hope to have a pint with during that weekend).
  • Visit another European country. (Yes, I’ve heard that most Greek islands aren’t all that different from Cyprus, but it still counts as another country).

Also, considering that there are some pretty cool developments in the pipe for the Cyprus Blog Network, I thought it’d be fun to listen to smart guys before making a whole lot of mistakes (not that I will avoid making a whole lot of mistakes now, but at least I’m trying).

Next item on my (imaginary) todo list is:

  • Try using less brackets and parenthesis.

Technology waiting list

This started out as a rather simple idea of a blog post, but something tells me that it’ll end up as a really long list…

I love technology – software, hardware, firmware, hacks, cool features, performance boosts – you name it. So with all the recent technological advances, I should be pretty happy, right? Well, I am. I love how things are evolving. However, we are not in heavens yet. There is plenty of stuff that is missing, and there are a whole bunch of improvements yet to happen to the existing technologies.

Here are just a few things that I am waiting for.

Operating system

Linux (and other open source software) is the way to go. I am a firm believer of that. I’ve been using Linux for a few years now and I really enjoy its improvements. Here are the things that I’m waiting for in this area.

  • Better hardware support. Yes, I know that Linux supports more hardware than any other operating system ever did or does. But there are still things that don’t work at all, that are semi-supported, and that require a great deal of Sysadmin Black Magic â„¢. The question “Will this piece of hardware work?” is still in the air, though much less frequently than it used to.
  • GUI polish. Modern Linux GUI applications look as good as ever. But there is still room for improvement. I want it slick and sexy. I want my eyes to rest and my creativity to flourish when I look at my desktop. I want people to uncontrollably whisper “Wow…” when they see my desktop. I want 3D graphics, fonts, liquid windows, animations, transparency… And I want it to work fast and need as little configuration as possible.

Applications

  • Move to web services. I want everything to move towards the web. Work in the browser. Period. If application can’t work in the browser or makes no sense in the browser (like the browser itself), it should import data from the web, store configurations and settings on the web, and export and backup itself to the web. I want everything off my computer. I want to be able to access everything I need or want from any computer. And I want full interoperability and open formats for everything.
  • Browser stability. Browser is the major application on my desktop. I don’t depend as much on any other piece of software. I spend 99.99% of my computer time in my browser. So it should be always available and it should never crash. I know we have session saving and restoration now. And that’s good. But it’s not enough. I simple want it to always be there. Every second. Every millisecond.
  • Browser speed. I want it to work fast. I used to want it to be flexible. We got there. I have thousands upon thousands of plugins, extensions and themes for my browser. I have a few browsers to choose from. I am happy with features. But I want them to work fast. Every millisecond counts. Scrolling, switching, pre- and post-processing, theming, resizing – whatever I want to do it. And it should be as fast with all those extensions and plugins that I am installing on top of it.

Web

Web is the fastest growing area of information technology now. There is no question about it. We’ve achieved a lot, but there is plenty more.

  • Speed. I want it all and I want it fast. ADSL is pretty affordable these days. But it’s still slow as hell. I want both uploads and downloads to be fast. And I want them both much faster than anything I’ve seen so far. “Speed of light” and “now” are the key words here. Also, I should be able to enjoy the same with any web-enabled device, be that a photo camera or mobile phone.
  • Easier publishing. We’ve got to the point where my mother can use the Web. Now I want my grandmother to be able to do all those things and more. People should not be afraid of technology. Learning technology should be measured in seconds or minutes, not weeks (touch typing skill) or months (software development). I don’t care what we need to do. If we have to throw out everything and start from scratch – I see we do it. My grandmother has a lot to tell. It’ll be worth it.
  • Coverage. This is not so much a web issue per se, but it is very related, so I thought I’d put it here. I want to be able to access the web from anywhere in the world. I want it to be so accessible that I don’t ever have to think about connectivity. It should be as available as air (no, I don’t mean air in industrial areas), because it’s getting as important.

Gadgets

  • Drop those price tags. Five years ago I had a choice of mobile phones for 30 CYP. Today, in the same shop, the cheapest mobile phone I can buy is 40 CYP. And it’s the only model for that price. Everything else starts from 60 CYP. This is insane. From the perspective of the end-user, these phones do the same thing. They call and accept calls, store address book, and have ring tones. Sure, now we can have several calls in parallel, store thousands of people in the address book together with multiple numbers, emails, URLs, and even pictures of the person. And these days we can have ring tones in mp3 rather than in MIDI. But these all are the details. Function-wise – they are all the same. We could even use the web (sort of) before. That WAP thing, as ugly as it was. Now we get real browsers and stuff. But it’s still way too expensive. Cut in the price in half and I’ll be changing my mobile four times as often. Just for the sake of it.
  • Improve web integration. I want to access the web faster. I want to have the functionality that I am used to on my other devices (laptop, desktop, PDA, etc). I want to synchronize my data (pictures, address book, calendar) with my web applications.
  • GPS and radio. Continuous data streams are marvelous. They should be incorporated into any device out there. GPS and radio are the examples of these. GPS constantly updates the user on his current location. Radio provides a stream of news, thoughts, and entertainment non-stop. I want GPS and radio receivers in my mobile phone. I want them in my photo camera. I want them in my key ring.

Wires

Wires should simply disappear. We don’t need them. I want all my data to travel wireless. I want all my devices to produce energy out of thin air. I don’t want to see another piece of cable in my life. Ever again.

Transport

Travelling is way too slow, complex, and expensive. We are in 21st century already, and according to many futurists from the past, we should have teleporters by now. I know, projects get delayed often, but, c’mon guys, too many people are waiting for this. I want to travel from point A to point B in less than a minute. And I don’t want to spend more money on it than I do on a bottle of fresh orange juice. If it makes it any easier, teleporting can be limited to this planet for now…