the book as poster

The power of visualization:

Data is not useful until it becomes information, and that's because data is hard for human beings to digest.

Brilliant idea by Godin, and a whole new set of options for pushing information in a visual way, taking it beyond a small infographic that is skimmed in twenty seconds.

- and lo and behold, somehow the g reader to blogger works again, or perhaps just for this link with this version chrome. Fingers crossed that the actual posting will work as well!
-...and the sun don't shine...

Internet is a book

A nice to the point tweet from Hugh kicked of this train of thought. With the announcement that iBooks can handle javascript it became clear that ebooks are digital files in their own right. And with the region CSS suggestion from Adobe (or the FT webapp or the Playoby one), the boundaries between "publishing" something as a fixed file as opposed to making it flexibly available is blurring a bit more.

A blog post is fixed, until it is edited. But a tweet is a self contained unit of content. Except when it is a retweet, or a reply, or garners retweets and replies - then it is a part of a conversation more than content. Right?

So that is where the "microblogging" comes in (and no, I don't include twitter in that bucket - due mainly to the lack of easy navigation and structure when compared to the others) - tumblr and posterous, surely many others as well [see wikipedia], but those are the two that I've played with myself.

Sitting between the possiblity of conversation in a blog (aka the comments, and sometimes pingbacks) - and the almost necessity of it at twitter, the microblogs make sharing posts and following users a central part of the experience.

But does that make them fundamentally different? Or just slightly improved for the users that want the whole flow rather than the main content?

How does it compare to publishing a "fixed" piece of content, be it on Slideshare, as a downloadable pdf, or in the form of an ebook?
Does the temporal permanence change how we as users/readers perceive and interact with the content?
Or is everything consumed in a "here and now" setting, rendering the packaging irrelevant to the usage?

hey everybody: ebooks are just websites built for special browsers. it should not suprise you that ebooks can do what websites do [1]

@hughmcguire 

And for some twisted thoughts brought out in music, the new single from Bjørk is streamable over on another tumblr - reminds me that I actually have three of her albums, and here they come into the play queue shortly... when this was written - pre-scheuled for release.

Digital wins most times. (now on Debut, track 04 - There's More To Life Than This - oh yes)

The big 450?

It took a bit of time, and quite a few stops and restarts - but this should be post number 450 here on the 3-3-3 blog. So still some room for growth, and perhaps a more planned celebration/recap on closing in on 500 posts or ten years (depending on what comes first/last...) Stay subscribed - RSS is the ONLY meaningful way to get the erratic posts.

The main topic of the day isn't all meta - but almost;

Information (..) could not only get that, but then she’d be given recipes specific to the location where she’s looking at the wine: chowder pairings in Boston and chili recommendations in Austin.

Quote from mr Brogan - don't get hung up on tech - sure it needs location awareness, some sort of id input (code, name, qr,..) and a database, but for the user it is all about getting more from their interaction with the wine, on her own terms.

Which is a good reminder - it is really easy to fall in love with shiny objects (be they iPads or CSS regions prototypes), especially when you spend most of every working hour either learning, developing, testing or debugging new stuff.

so how to keep the open mindedness needed to reboot while keeping things grounded? How to be playful and exploratory, yet at the same time focus on the everyday nuisances the users don't even really know they have?

Manhattan state of mind

One of the few comics I have on close to pre-order at Amazon is DMZ by Brian Wood, following the trials and tribulations of journalistic-hopeful Matthew Roth inside the hot-zone of Manhattan (the DMZ - civil war more or less rages in and across the US)

So reading the interviews over at Live from the DMZ is both great and a little sad, since it is in a way counting down to the end of the series (issue 72 in december). Volume ten of the trades just came out (and is making it way in my direction really soon), and if you haven't read any the first trade used is less than a latte at $3.35 right now in the affiliate box ;D

Interesting concept as well - a DVD style commentary to supplement each trade, giving room for more in depth than the normal page or two of intro in the printed edition.


The other mainstay of my comic diet, Freakangels, is also winding down - just a few more 'issues' to go. Being a webcomic has made the interaction and commentary directly available, with the Whitechapel Forum "to discuss this week's installment." creating a community along the way.


Side note of the post; the site is based on tumblr - a really good alternative for small and quick set-ups. Just like here on blogger you can adjust the template and add inn additionally custom html and css, but the post-types, dashboard, app and tablet (iPad) use takes things to another level.

Also the API looks like a real 'killer' for reusing tumblr content in a larger editorial setting (such as a full scale CMS)... just saying (and playing for now)

Flow like that!

Finally got around to testing out the Adobe CSS Regions Prototype today. And boy was that fun fun fun! As a proof of concept it is really stunning to see how well it handles text-flows between containers especially, but also around regions or objects - in multiple layers or stacks just like InDesign.

The download can be found in the Adobe Labs - it is basically a tweaked version of Webkit along with some sample html pages and the documentation that mirrors the intro article from early in May.

For setting up a flow all you need are a couple of target DIV's and two lines of CSS!

One for setting up the content source;
-webkit-flow: "main-thread"

And another for assigning it to the blocks; content:from(main-thread)

From looking at the FT.com webapp javascript code, and thinking about how I would attack it in terms of parsing the text, duplicating tags etc - this is scary simple.

One caveat is that, at least for now, you loose the ability to "target" the text in each container separately. You can adjust anything relating to the block element itself (margin, padding, background) - but CSS related to the actual flowing content has no effect. That means only one style for font-size, color etc. Which I'm sure makes sense from a performance standpoint on window resize, but is a bummer in terms of recreating a "true" magazine feels like a Wired page.

Hopefully that is something that could be added - but would require a bit more integration into the CSS rendering and parsing engine. Right now it looks like the content blocks are added as new containers (no inspector included in the custom build)

And it is important to note that it is actually CONTENT blocks - not just text level elements, but also images inline in the flow are slotted into the 'right' container.


On a sidenote; I'd love to see how aside works in the browser not just on the iPad, but that means bypassing their eight-step browser-sniffing script (reproduced at jsbin) in some meaningful yet simple way... guess I could try firebug breakpoint and just replacing the values?


- ....and the sun shines brightly outside despite the watch showing nine in the evening, summertime is really here again...

How to build Falling Water? With bricks.

Another dual header - but this one is from all the back in WIRED issues 17.11 and 17.12 (there were several other links, but they've mainly been surfed and tweeted, whilst these two need a bit more of a writeup)

I'm sure I'll be docked some geek points for admitting it, but I have yet to actually see Avatar, but it is on my list of likely short term BluRay purchases. The Wired piece mentioned that in order to boost the world of Pandora into the geekdom status it needs, James Cameron and the crew was putting out a lot of background information into the "pandorapedia". It has a bit to go in terms of matching Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki in terms of user involvement, or the official Lucasfilm Vault in terms of depth of content - but as a brand new property wanting to be taken seriously, I find it refreshing and inspirational.


The other tidbit for now (as the self  imposed deadline flies even further away, at least the post will be out by EOD US time?!) relates to the Lego Architecture series. So far they have put out three sets in the "architecture" branch, and seven in the "landmark" branch (with a new set for July "unveiling")

Frank Gehry is the man behind two of the three sets - both his Bilbao Guggenheim, and Falling Water (image on right/above from Lego.com) - it is only available online for $99 inside the US (the much smaller and simpler landmark sets go for $19 each). I must admit that it is almost tempting enough to go for something like JetCarrier to ship it over here, or trying out some friendly connections across the pond... if you've seen Twilight (movie) you've seen something like it with Hoke House

1 for 1, and 19 to go

Starting today, and running until next Monday (day before our national day, or 4th of July equivalent) - I'll by blogging two times each day. Once in Norwegian over at my wordpress playground, and once in English right here.


The direct inspiration was listening to Mitch Joel SPOS #251 - Do The Work With Steven Pressfield  discussing both the new manifesto "Do the Work" (free on Kindle due to sponsorship from GE), and the 'classic' The War Of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle (affiliate) which is now on the Kindle as well.

So the goal is to get back into blogging on a more regular schedule, by doing it for an hour every day (at least) over the next ten days. At the same time I plan to re-read WoA digitally, taking new notes and highlights, then comparing those to the ones in my paperback copy - which should be ample food for another post or three along the way.

#dothework and #keepmehonest are the slogans - and both tweeting about it and posting this is an attempt at that: stating it to help myself do it.


And yes, in a bit of break from form, that is my actual twitter account, not hiding it but not really promoting it either - this blog was always supposed to be more about my need for reflection through formulation than anything else (ref image gallery in the sidebar)

Paint me a picture, cut me a film

Riffing off of "the other" Chris Anderson, and his TED talk on video as the great enabler for new innovation in a broad sense, "the wired" Chris Anderson promoted the maker-agenda in issue 19.04 of Wired;

"There are also so many really great websites where people can share their projects. We have Instructables and iFixit and Etsy and Make and Hack a Day and our own Adafruit. So people who used to do this stuff alone now have even more community. It used to be just freaks in garages; now it’s freaks in garages working together." - Limor Fried of Adafruit

It is the same in web development - with new bite-sized video tutorials popping up every day, from the to the point experimentation of jQuery for Designers, to the slightly more quirky Rails for ZOmbies. With the ability to chose or mix and match between the written word (and most importantly copy the code) and the video presenting it gradually and immersively (not a word, but mayhap it should be?), learning picks up pace.

The video in and of itself is also good, because it can be consumed in a more "leisurely" way that a written tutorial, giving more room for reflection since you are listening rather than reading, often leaning back rather than forward. iPad and tablet based reading slightly excluded - whilst it is a more relaxed setting and mode, for code related tutorials it is less useful since jumping into JS Bin to test is a slight hassle compared to cmd-tab'ing or even ctrl-tabbing within the browser.


"We’re a tutorial company. We’re a project company. We do video shows and tutorials and teach people, and then there’s a gift shop at the end" [p2]

The sentiment in many ways mirrors some of the discussion regarding books and authors in the digital economy; you buy the e-version of a story for $4.99 - but if you really love it and want to display it (or simply support the author, be a patron of the arts), you get the $29.99 special edition hardcover with bonus short story and illustrations. I subscribe to this view, as promoted/explained by amongst others Michael Stackpole in his blog - and as 'lived' by both up and coming authors such as Scott Sigler with his Galactic Football League series, and truly established authors such as Tracy Hickman, doing a subscription based book with his wife.

On a side note I'm still a bit peeved with Mike&Mike at the Dragonpage for not pushing the guest authors about lack of digital version (like a Kindle version of Song of the Dragon, I'd have bought it last July, and pre-ordered vol2 by now!) - especially when talking so much about new models as they did with Tracy



- ...and the sun shines brightly, 'tis a feeling of summer in the embrace of May ...

Flashing design

Yes, another minor design tweak for the blog (shouldn't affect the RSS feed to much ;D)
Figured it was time to try out some webfont use, and to push up the font size a bit - ease of reading being a major point with me after using the iPad (and now the iPad2) for 3/4 of a year
Still using one of the predefined templates as a base - content is king here, I'll do my coding and CSS tweaking at work instead

Easter hacking nights

this is an extended draft and sort of placeholder posting - it started off with just getting the basic points in before chrome did a belly up, or the mbp gets a reboot for system updates - still to come is a bit of background and some meta

So, now that Easter is coming to a close here in Norway as well (yes, we all take monday off as well - another public holiday to tide us over after winter, and part of the reason we have no official breaks between summer and xmas) - it is time to finish off this post on the subject of easter hacking.

I've spent a couple of hours some days over the last week trying out some different techs, sort of an extended but split up hackday. I guess that is part of the reason I enjoy working in my current job as much as the previous consulting gigs - spend my days doing and learning things that really get the juices flowing.

Another part of the 'goal' for my part, was the same as during the official company hackday #2 earlier this spring; getting to know the Macbook Pro a bit better as a working tool - outside of testing and learning a bit about iOS development that is. So setting up things like homebrew, finding out how to play nicely with Terminal, getting !# working in textwrangler and discovering the outliner in xcode were as important as the coding in and of itself.


The most direct inspiration for actually exerting some mental energy over the holiday, was the latest "manifesto" from the Domino Project - "Do the Work", which is basically a short and intense version of "War of Art" also by Steven Pressfield (and finally available as a kindle digital version - need to get one and replicate my highlights to store them, so I can relend the book)

Have been doing quite a bit of Java work lately, but with a solid dose of jQuery and CSS thrown in. But being raised 'multilingual' - started off with Pascal and C++, later spent quite some time with both VBA and Java - the allure of jumping into something new was strong. And with so much talk about both server side javascript (node) and jQuery coming to Rails 3.1, the scene was set.

There are some long planned wired posts coming up as well - several small stacks of back issues just waiting to be 'processed' so they can head down into storage.



First off;

some server side javascript - node.js

Experimenting With Node.js And Server-Side Javascript post from Ben, I ran through the basic set-up from another tutorial, then re-wrote his code to work for node 0.46 version -had to make some minor changes to the code to get it running on node version .46 (response.writeHead and .end rather than -close)

possible next steps include looking into more framework type solutions, like geddy, and getting npm up (after reading up a bit on the brew 'controversy' background)


then on to a long planned excursion

testing nosql style database solutions - couchDB

This kicked off with the Nettuts tutotial and some background info, got the system up and running quite easily, before getting sidetracked into organizing and cleaning up my iTunes library. Thus ended trip the second a bit on the early side, but the iPad still has the O'reilly book all prepped and ready to go. Planning to do some small jQuery based test before calling it good, but we'll see what comes first.


the final lap was,

traversing the maze of information to get Ruby and Rails on track

The best info seems to be the 2008 mac dev article, even if rails 3 differs in some ways (action script/server no good, had to use /rails and server as option), it was a nice read. Really useful advice for using xcode as well. It gives you syntax highlighting, but also quick access to basic rails commands along the way including DB migrate.

So now the expense app is taking shape, planning on taking some time for webcasts later - and maybe even read up a bit on ruby in and of itself... not so much learning these tools to use them right now, but more to understand a bit better how the work, and get a glimpse into what it would take to learn them more fully for everyday use.

One thing I really enjoyed was the ease of switching output formats - sure the scaffolding puts up default html output, and includes an xml option. But one single simple line of code got me full json export. Not such a big deal in and of itself, but it sure makes it easier to see how we could plug a small rails app into a bigger java/jsp based site - care of a simple jQuery call. Sweet!



All in all I'd say it had been a productive easter so far. Probably helped a bit to be out of it for the days leading up to the holiday, thereby cleaning out the mind in terms of daily tasks (pushing the task list back a bit once more, but only one real task from my planning board that is still open going into the next sprint)


NOTE; lots of localhost links - for my own reference, remembering what goes where in terms of ports, but if you follow the tutorials they should work in part along the way


...and the sun feels great in the afternoon, almost like summer already...

Gutenberg of Arabia - #18days

"Today, it occurs to me that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be the Gutenberg press of the Middle East, tools like his that enable people to speak, share, and gather"

Buzzmachine, Jeff Jarvis [Gutenberg of Arabia]

Interesting post, and the story plugs that it makes for are quite profound;

could the use of social media not only usher in a new wave of democracy to rival the "fall of the wall" in the late 80-ies, but also spark of a "reformation" type event for Islam as well? Bringing the religion and the region into the new millenium on our calendar and re-igniting the old scholarly culture of co-existence?

Show them the money?

How should you treat your best customers?:

"But what if you define 'best customer' as the person who brings you new customers through frequent referrals, and who sticks with you through thick and thin? That customer, I think, is worth far more than what she might pay you in any one transaction. In fact, if you think of that customer as your best marketer instead, it might change everything."

Great post by Seth Godin, simply putting another moniker on the segment or group turns the perception around. And thereby also the scope for what kind of activities to consider, the communication and then some.

-...and the sun is somewhere for 2011, but not to sure where...