ABC Science News reports that 4 new Kingdoms of Life have been discovered by researchers in the high alpine environment of Colorado, USA rewritting History & Textbooks of Science and Microbes.
Until relatively recently, a “kingdom” was the highest level of classification in the scientific taxonomic system that places all forms of life into hierarchical categories, they are made up of divisions which themselves break down again into classes, then orders, families, genus and finally, species.
Reloade in NetNewsWire Sites Drawer
Thanks to Brent Simmons from Ranchero Software’s NetNewsWire for adding Reloade in the XML RSS feed tabs on the new version of the software, currently on 1.0.3.
NetNewsWire is a easy to use RSS Web news reader for Mac OS X that can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs quickly and easily.
Update (2005, 2011): Ranchero has been purchased by NewsGator, and has since been bought by a company called Black Pixel.
The Reader App is hosted also on a new domain name
http://netnewswireapp.com
Here is a link on Wikipedia
The 12th International WWW Conference
There is an interesting article in Wired today on yesterday’s speech by Tim Berners-Lee at the 12th International World Wide Web Conference in Budapest, Hungary currently being held from 20-24 May 2003. The article comments on his views that commercial interest threatens the future of the Web and also briefly comments on issues surrounding Web Services and the Semantic Web.
Creating useful 404 (Page Not Found) pages
Madhu Menon posts a useful article on ways in which to best guide users when they encounter a webpage that doesn’t exist or has been moved from a website. The article shows examples of bad use and also recommends techniques on what best features to adopt.
The 404 Research Lab is another useful resource site on Best Practices with guiding users when errors occur, it also has a Pros, Cons sections and a History of the 404.
Converting images to sound
Listening to Triple J’s J-Files tonight while driving home, I came across the technique used by music artist Aphex Twin (aka Richard D. James) to convert imagery to sound, which he used on one of his track & CD’s a few years ago.
I found the idea to use imagery and transform the data contained in digital imagery to sound fascinating, and I decided to find out more on the technology used.
Here are some technologies using similar techniques, the most surprising was this Mapping article by a product called vOICe which can convert live video and still images-to-sound and is designed for the blind.
The technology has been shown in Siggraph ’98 among other technology-graphics conferences, worldwide.
Comparing Mac OS X Versions
MacBuyer’sGuide.com has a list that compares OS X 10.2 Jaguar with the 10.0 and 10.1 releases. So, if you are running an OS X version prior to Jaguar you might want to check whether a particular feature is supported in OS X 10.2.
Hopefully this list will be updated once Panther is out…
Multiplayer Flash Game
I’m aware that a multiplayer Flash game with the intention to shoot your opponent’s members might not be something that fits in a time of war agression under the disguise for fighting terrorism, but out of at least three reasons Tankmania is worth taking a look at: potential of Flash as interactive and collaborative medium, entertainment and last not least: this game IS addictive.
I reckon to give Tankmania a try.
Colin Moock's study of Flash Form submissions
I recently came across this interesting article in O’ReillyNet.com by Colin Moock on the differences in the submission process of Forms in Flash and how it is still far more complicated that HTML, even after the release of MX’s Flash UI components.
Switch apps like in Windows
Ok, it’s not new, but worth mentioning to newcomers (and I believe there are quite a few every day) to Mac OS X: Proteron offers a window and application switcher for Mac OS X, called LiteSwitch X. Worth giving it a try since the download is free (though you have to pay USD14.95 to register) and you even get free technical support if not registered.
Custom icons for OS X
If you are a fan of BeOS (sold out to Palm, Inc. end of 2001 BTW) and use Mac OS X (or are forced to;P) or if you would simply like to have some different OS X icons, you can now change OS X’s standard icons with BeOS-style icons. mc.clintock.com provides an easy to follow instruction of how to change OS X icons.
The new OS X 10.3 code-named Panther
Here is an interesting first look at the new version of Apple’s OS X 10.3 Operating System code-named, Panther, due for release soon.
Image Source: Apple-X
User Experience Conference Chicago and London
Here are the dates, summary and list of speakers for the User Experience 2003 conference which is happening in Chicago (Sept 21-25) and London (Oct 6-10).
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Brevity Vs. Usability
Here is an interesting article by IBM’s developerWorks on Web Architecture which looks at the need to articulate messages in interfaces and how it can often be more important than usability. The article is titled, Brevity vs. Usability.
Verbosity and brevity is a much discussed area in interaction design.
What is brevity you ask? Here is a definition by Dictionary.com, and refers to being consise in word use, an example includes, the text in navigation items should be short and descriptive.
Natural language is coming to a computer near you
Wade Roush from Technology Review comments on the goal to make natural language the norm when searching for any type of information, anywhere. The article titled, Computers That Speak Your Language, looks at the next generation voice recognition software that finally holds up to a proper conversation and could revolutionise next gen customer service.
Here is also a related article in Technology Review titled, Natural Language: Beyond the Conversation.
Differences in LHS and RHS navigation
Here is a useful and interesting journal paper on navigation comparisons for high traffic websites with main navigations on both the left and right hand sides.
The research questioned current leading Web design thought that the main navigation menu should be on the left hand side, and was conducted by James Kalbach and Tim Bosenick from Razorfish Germany.