Posted by Doug
Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:09:22 GMT
It seems “tagging” is all the rage with new web applications. The idea is simple and powerful: add tags (aka keywords) to items in some catalog and then allow browsing by those tags. I humbly submit Del.icio.us as the best implementation of this idea.
If you’re thinking about adding tagging to your web application, I highly recommend you play with del.icio.us for a while to get a feel for how they do it. At first glance it looks the same as flickr, smugmug, and pretty much every other site that has tagging. After you use it for a while you realize it’s much smoother than any of the others. What makes it so nice? It’s kind of hard to pinpoint, but I’ll try.
Adding a new entry to the catalog and tagging it is very fast. Reasonable defaults are given for about half the inputs. All of the inputs are easy to keyboard navigate (that is, no select boxes that might not support tab selections). You can type in new keywords with AJAX suggest as you type. It’s also got a list of the tags that you can click on to apply. It makes handy suggestions about what tags it thinks you might want to apply. Of course, these recommendations might not be that easy to do for other applications.
Browsing the tags is also well done. As I write this I realize it’s another implementation of opinionated software. The tags are presented in a “cloud”. This is a somewhat common implementation. All the tags are in a filled paragraph sorted alphabetically. The tags are given a more weighty font based on how many records have that tag. I first saw this on smugmug. However, the assuption is that each additional tag you click on is boolean AND-ed with the other tags. “Show me all the records that have all these tags.” It’s a drill down from least to most specific. Once you’ve selected a tag, it becomes a “not-tag” in the cloud. This makes it easy to undo the selection of the tag.
I’m sure there are other implementations of tagging and tag browsing that are very similar to del.icio.us’. I don’t really want to argue which is best. I just wanted to say, “well done.”
Posted in Programming, Internet, Community | Tags del.icio.us, tagging | no comments
Posted by Doug
Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:22:40 GMT
Here’s an article written by Bruce Scheier talking about the story behind the story. For those of you who don’t know, Sony BMG has distributed software on their music CDs that automatically installs on Windows computers that is hidden, spys on you and reports back to Sony, and can be exploited by others to take control of your computer. There’s a fairly sordid tale of how this has played out.
As usual Bruce thinks about things a little differently. Being part of the security industry, he looks at how his industry has responded to this incident:
That all the big security companies, with over a year’s lead time, would fail to notice or do anything about this Sony rootkit demonstrates incompetence at best, and lousy ethics at worst.
That’s a fairly damning statement, but well grounded. Why didn’t the various virus protection companies notice the Sony rootkit for the year it had been in the wild?
Posted in Security, Internet | Tags rootkit, Sony, virus | 1 comment
Posted by Doug
Wed, 09 Nov 2005 15:27:48 GMT
My buddy, Britton Fraley pointed me to Radiant Vista today. What a wonderful website! Most photo sites are either crap for design or over-the-top flash. This one has a wonderful layout and design. That’s just what encouraged me to look around. It’s the content that has me so excited.
I feel like the site could use a little more “about me” stuff. I didn’t really know what to expect as I was wandering around. Most of the site is Quicktime videos. The Daily Critiques are videos of the site contributors reviewing a photo. I like hearing their voice describe their impressions and critique. I like seeing their mouse pointer move about the image highlighting what they are talking about. I like seeing the improvements to the photos as they make simple adjustments to improve the image.
There is also a nice 16 minute video tutorial called, A Primer on Composition. Again, the mix of voice, images, and pointer is used for excellent effect.
But I’m saving the best part to last. There’s a PDF aticle on The Myth of Talent that pushed me to ecto to write this note. It’s an excellent affirmation of everything I had hoped about art.
...the truth about talent is this—talent is a set of skills you
develop over time through desire.
I’m an aspiring photographer. By no means am I good. I’m pleased to say my work has improved over the last year though. When people see me they don’t say “artist”. My past is not littered with examples of great works of art. By all rights I should just admit I’m not a talented photographer and stick to what I am good at: programming. But this article gives me hope.
He talks about why we buy into the myth that talent is a “natural ability of a superior quality”. I agree with the author, Craig M. Tanner, the biggest reason is fear.
Being labeled talented only means we have survived being untalented.
So for some period of time we have to be untalented. It’s the fear of doing badly that keeps us from “surviving being untalented”. I’ve talked about this fear meme before. When I was taking photography classes at the University of Cincinnati Communiversity, my instructor said that fear is the opposite of creativity. That was a powerful thought. This article on talent’s talk about fear is further reenforcement.
Even if you don’t think of yourself as an “artist” or want to be a photographer, I highly recommend this article.
Posted in Internet, Photography | Tags creativity, critique, fear, talent, tutorial | 3 comments
