obso1337.org

Redefine yourself with this interaction architect job title generator.

My favorite: Information Deity

Runner up: Digital philosopher

seele :: Nov.23.2005 :: General, Humor, Work :: No Comments »

I made the mistake of adding my old Duquensne computer science email account to Kontact today without first checking it on the server. There were 11,458 messages (99.9% spam) since July. Oops. I realize this mistake only after I downloaded the first 2,000. I quickly cancelled the operation and SSHed in to the compsci.duq.edu server so I could clean out the account without hurting Kontact.

I have an ebay account I created way back in 1999 before it became *the* online auction house and went through its major policy changes. At the time, all you needed was an email address to sign up and bidding was completely anonymous. No credit card account, no mailing address, no PayPal. Obviously that had caused problems in the mass market, its still nice having a semi-anonymous account. So nice that I opted to keep my compsci.duq.edu email address associated to my ebay account so I didnt have to give them personal information (such as a credit card or PayPal account).

Hence my need to have better tabs on my email account and adding it to Kontact.

Im usually always watching items on ebay, but dont usually bid. The last item I bought was my Fujitsu Stylistic 5010 Tablet PC. Now I have 30 minutes until I find out if I am the winner of a wonderful accessory for it: a leather portfolio case. Pretty nifty, eh? On my list of things-to-get-from-ebay include a bay battery for my Fujitsu Lifebook P2120, a European plug for my power adapter, and a small portable IR keyboard for my Tablet. The plug and the keyboard are proving to be the more difficult to find. The battery is a little rare, the external bar battery is much more common to find.

seele :: Nov.19.2005 :: General :: No Comments »

So it seems as if winter has finally arrived in D.C. now. It was around 0C this morning and very cold for the short 1 block walk I have from the Metro station to the office. No snow yet, but I doubt its too far off. Its a little warmer here than in Pittsburgh but Ill have to scrape my windows in the morning just the same.

Not sure whats going on this weekend. The new Harry Potter movie comes out this weekend, so Justin and I might take a week off from the movies. We have a lot of errands to run so well be running around just the same. It would be nice to get some Christmas shopping done before the post-Thanksgiving rush, but we havnt really gotten any ideas from people.

The next few weeks of holidays are going to be great for my work schedule. Next week is Thanksgiving and a 3 day work week. The following week is the OSDL Desktop Architects Meeting in Portland (Oregon) so that will be a 2 day week. Afterwards its just a hop-skip-and-jump to Christmas and New Years.

This first year in D.C. went by both slow and insanley fast. I think both of us have learned a lot about each other, our selves, and what its like to live in a huge city (compared to Pittsburgh). Well see what the new year will bring, but we still have some time left in the first one to go.

seele :: Nov.18.2005 :: DC Metro, General, Life :: No Comments »

Lack of information about the user is one of the largest hurdles towards OSS usability. User research hasnt been a typical part of the KDE development process, software is available for download anonymously at no cost, and not many marketing or demographic studies are done.

seele :: Nov.15.2005 :: General, KDE Dev Blog :: Comments Off

Learning applied to a finite set of knowledge (knowledge base or KB), such as the interaction and functionality of an interface, can be described in a sigmoid curve. It helps describe the learning process, as well as visualize “the learning curve” and “memory retention” humps in beginner and advanced users.

seele :: Nov.10.2005 :: General, KDE Dev Blog :: Comments Off