Curiouser and Curiouser! on software

Software for Information Professionals

Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:39:02 +0100

I'm on the look out for software that improves my lot as an information producer/consumer. I came across this article by Peter Morville which talks about software for Information Architects.

He identifies the following categories of tool:

Automated Classification
Automated Category Generation
Search Engines
Thesaurus Management
Collaborative Filtering
Portal Solutions
Content Management
Analytics
Database Management
Information Architecture Productivity

(Note some of the tool urls are now dead. This article was written in 2001)

As an individual I'm more interested in personal solutions than enterprise solutions. This means that I like tools like Copernic Summarizer and Personal Brain which put me in the driving seat. But I hope to have my own servers soon so I'll be interested in bigger solutions too.

Do you have a tool that you swear by?

Rich seams of text

Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:58:40 +0100

Tools for mining text from the OpenDirectory.

Why Radio?

Tue, 16 Jul 2002 22:13:04 +0100

Hmm... Ya think?. See I think that all the cute little features that are being added to Radio are going to "in a few years time" bog it down terribly. However MT is a wad of perl code, which means it can be a point of departure for whatever anyone wants to do with it, without having to learn a proprietary "less than impeccably documented" scripting language (grumble grumble.)

However, initial ramp-up with radio can't be beat (to say nothing of the 40m of cloud space), so here I am.

I like radio alot, but I have to say the more compelling reason to use it over other blogging software is ease of setup & the year of service that comes with using radio.

As a developer, I've given up on trying to do really neat things with radio. It's just too hard to track down the documentation. [The Universal Church Of Cosmic Uncertainty]

» I think there are two different issues at play here: language and platform.
Is MT a better blogging system than Radio because it is a wad of Perl code rather than a wad of Usertalk code? I'm not sure but I guess so if only because of Perls popularity. Neither would be my first choice for writing a complex application but both are adequate to the task.
But the important issue for me is the platform. I would class MT as an application and Radio (along with Frontier) as a platform. In particular an ideal platform for delivering groupware applications.
Here's an example from my experience: About 5 years ago att UNL we were looking for a learning mangament system for lecturers to use to construct & deliver on-line courses. A question which stymied most vendors we spoke to was:

"How do you handle a lecturer who wants to update his module whilst on a cycling holiday in the south of france?"

For the most part they had no answer to the disconnected scenario and had to bluff or fall back to legacy software "Oh they can edit stuff in Word and then C&P when they get back." Right...
I can imagine constructing some very novel solutions to this kind of scenario with a combination of Radio & Frontier. I can imagine some novel applications for k-logging too.
It's the flexibility and power of the platform that I'm betting on.

liveTopics licensing. It's getting thorny

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:27:13 +0100

I've been thinking about licensing and how it applies to my business, to my plans for making my living.

I've used free software and appreciated it. I've bought commerical software and been happy to do so. I am happy to buy reasonably priced software - when I have the money. I don't expect, or even want, all software to be free. Now, for the first time, I am releasing software in the context of my own business, making a living. It colours things.

My plans for liveTopics means that it will, increasingly, be relevant in an organizational context. I anticipate a point where I could have commercial and non-commercial customers. I want to license liveTopics appropriately but my head is getting very sore trying to work that out.

I need help.

More on licensing

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:33:56 +0100

Maybe I should just GPL liveTopics and avoid the subject of money altogether.

Is there a way to make a living from software without licensing it when the source is freely available?

Making a living selling Open Source software

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 13:03:26 +0100

Okay I'm reading stuff about how to make a living "selling" open source software (free software as GNU would have it). It seems that the model held up by most people is Red Hat who sell Linux. A brief look at their web page indicates that professional services is a big part of their business.

Does anyone have a view on this model? How about "selling" a much smaller, less commoditized product, in the KM marketplace? I'm not sure...

More on licensing, closer to a decision

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 14:41:26 +0100

Okay I've just read the first document that is really convincing. It's by the guys behind Zope and discusses in detail their reasons for going open source. This is the first concrete business-plan backed reasoning I've come across and it makes for compelling reading. Just need to go check that Zope are still in business!

Here are the important points:

Going open source will increase our user base by a factor of 100 within three months. Wider brand and stronger identity leads to more consulting and increased valuation on our company.
Open source gives rock solid, battle-tested, bulletproof software on more platforms and with more capabilities than closed source, thus increasing the value of our consulting.
Fostering a community creates an army of messengers, which is pretty effective marketing.
This is not the last innovation we'll make.
In the status quo, the value of packaging the software as a product would approach zero, as we had zero market penetration. What is the value of a killer product with few users? The cost to enter the established web application server market was going to be prohibitive.
The investment grows us into a larger, more profitable company, one that can make a credible push to create a platform via open source. Since our consulting is only on the platform, a strong platform is imperative.
Open source makes the value of our ideas more apparent, thus the perceived value of the company is apparent.
Our architecture is "safer" for consulting customers. With thousands of people using it, the software is far less marginal. The customer is able to fix things themselves or reasonably find someone to do it for them. Finally, the software will "exist forever".
Dramatically increasing the base of users and sites using it gives us a tremendous boost in "legitimacy".
The exit plan isn't about the golden eggs (the intellectual property) laid last year. It is about the golden goose and tomorrow's golden eggs. The shelf life of eggs these days is shrinking dramatically, and the value of an egg that no one knows about is tiny. Give the eggs away as a testament to the value of the goose and a prediction of eggs to come.
The community can work with us to dramatically increase the pace of innovation and responsiveness to new technical trends, such as XML and WebDAV.
Ride the coattails of the nascent Open Source community and its established channels such as RedHat. OSS has a certain buzz that is greater than its real customer-closing value, but this buzz is getting hot. Moving aggressively towards Open Source can make us a category killer for the web application server market segment.
We believe like hell in what we're doing. Others believe in us as well. We should follow our instincts.

Some of these issues are obviously more important to a company having taken investment with it's eye on a future IPO but I think they are all good, important points. Those that seem most applicable (and inherently good) to me I've marked in red. They seem very persuasive.

One implication is that the direction of my company will be entirely towards VAR services & consulting. I shall be abandoning the idea of making money from software licenses (for my own software).

Something to think about...

The real argument is e-gov should be open

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 22:53:14 +0100

In the former case its patents and proprietary file formats, in the latter case its misuse of the law. Where is the integrity in either case? So, lets use software written by developers who show each other respect and integrity, by developers who wouldnt lock down our choice and our data by legialation or non-openness. It isnt commercial vs. open source, but rather, closed against open. The Intellectual Property (and Thought) police against the common man. Lets not lose perspective! [TIG's Corner]

» Hmmm... I'm not sure that a law that specifies that governments have to use open source software is "misuse of the law". You may find it not to your liking, you may not agree with it, but I don't see how it's a misuse. Also I think it's very hard to legislate respect.

I do agree that the real argument should be about open vs. closed (read proprietary).

Licensing: My brain hurts

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 14:28:28 +0100

Here's something I don't understand:

My rights as the author and copyright holder of a piece of software I have written.

I just don't understand them. And, hence, I do not understand what I may or may not be giving away. Example: If I publish a program under the GPL am I still the owner of the software? In what sense?

I've had conflicting opinions about the merits of going open source for my liveTopics program. Before I make a final decision I want to really understand what I am doing either way and what I am, potentially, giving up.

Example scenario:

liveTopics 1.0 is published as an open source program under the GPL. For whatever reason though the project does not thrive. In the mean time I see commercial possibilities for the project with further significant development effort. I create version 2.0 of liveTopics.

Am I bound by my own license to release it under the GPL? Or do I have the right, as the owner, to decide I want to use a different license?

I'd really love someone to help me answer these kind of questions, it's frazzling my brain trying to understand this stuff.

Copyright expiry can work

Fri, 30 Aug 2002 11:01:14 +0100

Dave Winer on releasing MORE's source. (SOURCE:Scripting News)-OK, this makes sense now. I agree the system wouldn't work. Thanks Dave!

Maybe this simplified story will shed some light on the realities of software development. Had we been forced to release the source, I don't think we could have sold our investors on taking a chance on us, or realized the great return we got from the Symantec deal, and gone on to develop more software. The system you describe just wouldn't work, you wouldn't get any of it. Basically, I would love it if the source for MORE were released. I think it would be a humantarian contribution of the first order, but it's not mine to make.
[Roland Tanglao's Weblog]

» Okay I wasn't going to jump in on this but I think Dave may have misunderstood Lessig's proposal. I think 10 year copyright expiry could work.

This is what I understand from Larry Lessig's proposal about copyright expiry after 10 years:

The source code would be de-escrowed after 10 years. But only the source code whose copyright has expired. By publishing a new version (e.g. Version 2) of the software you establish a new copyright checkpoint. Your version 2 doesn't get de-escrowed for 10 more years after it is released.

So here are my reasons:

I do not think that the possession of a 10 year old version of the software is going to put you in a competitve position against the holder of the latest & greatest source code. It would be like trying to market Windows 3.0 against Windows XP.

If investors had the choice between a company who kept the source code proprietary forever and one who had to publish after 10 years then I agree, they would pick the former. But this will be a level playing field. Everyone will have to publish their source code after 10 years. It won't be an issue.

Of course maybe I've misunderstood Lessig..?

Beginning to market your software

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 09:20:32 +0100

TidBITS: Marketing Software, Part 1.

A great article on Marketing Software in todays TidBITS

"You may have an application, and it might be truly useful (rather than a candidate for MacHack), but you don't necessarily have a product or, more importantly, a solution. What's the difference? A pencil is a product, but it's not a solution."

A good read for anyone in the software business. Also the first time I've ever read an article and actually contacted the author to query about their services. We'll see what comes of it.

[rebelutionary]

» Thanks Mike, A great article. Timely to as I was just thinking about productising liveTopics now that the non-commercial license is finallly worked out.

What a crock of shit

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 14:57:23 +0100

So, ever since I installed Service Pack 1 for Windows XP

Outlook 2002 runs painfully slowly. Where it used to be fine, now it takes 4-5 seconds after I click a message before it appears in the preview pane. Clicking multiple messages to delete spam also takes 2-3 seconds each.
My start bar menus now flicker. Even when the mouse is stationary I can see it flickering like it's constantly redrawing the menu.
Same thing for all my context menus.. Bah!
My QuickCam software crashes and I can't undock any more because "Your camera cannot be stopped. Please try later" Yeah, right.

So the net result of my upgrade?

I have a new, more invasive license
I have a machine that is slower and less reliable

Well thanks for fucking nothing you M$crosoft shitheads.

I declare XP1 to be spam!

Software tools for information overload

Fri, 04 Oct 2002 12:40:23 +0100

Tinderbox, Mind Map Pro, and Inspiration 7 overview (v0.1).

[The Universal Church Of Cosmic Uncertainty]

» Mike's review of Tinerbox, Mind Map Pro and Inspiration is too long to repost here but is a fascinating insight into three interesting pieces of software.

I have been interested in Tinderbox for some time. It was through Tinderbox that I got into weblogging in the first place and I wait with anticipation for the Window port to come out.

Anybody got a wrench?

Sun, 13 Oct 2002 19:30:49 +0100

So, a description of services, I should be able to whip that up in a couple of minutes shouldn't I? Turns out its a bit of a chase your own tail problem for me.

Services I can offer fall under three broad categories:

Consulting
Implementation
Product

Way back, when the madness first gripped me, it was on my mind to be a consultant. I'd done product and implementation and really wanted to move to where the decisions are made. Unfortunately I didn't heed the warnings. Consulting is about 80% network and 80% reputation. You could probably survive with either and thrive with both. But neither...? Right.

Now implementation skills I have. No problems there. I can hook & eye systems together with the best of 'em. I also have a budding application in "!livetopics". If I could just choose between them I should be okay right? Turns out there's a problem though.

Because there are no klogging consultants in the UK, there are no pilot programs already in place. Nobody needs implementation services if they aren't implementing things. Rats. Well then how about product?

"!liveTopics" is a knowledge-logging application built on "!radio". But that makes it an application without a market (at least in the UK). If there is no existing market and no consultants out there fostering a market that leaves a big hole where the customers should be. Anyway we all now how difficult it is to be a software company post-1999.

And last but not least: Where's the leaky pipe?

I've referred a few times to Geoffrey Moore's leaky pipes metaphor. That, in todays market, company's will only spend money to fix their pressing problems (their leaky pipes) and then only if it looks like the leak will get worse soon, and then only if the fix can pay for itself. I'll also note in passing that Moore says that business by referral becomes even more important in a down market. Nobody wants to trust a software company anymore.

Hence my recent interest in framing klogging as the solution to a leaky pipe kind of problem. I believe that if this is possible then many of the other pieces might fit into place. But so far I haven't found the a compelling pipe for which klogging will be the wrench. It still all too "a better tomorrow."

So, that's the problems. The challenge is in 28-days or less to turn this around and create a compelling statement of services.

All suggestions warmly welcomed!

Anthracite Software

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 12:27:35 +0100

My Response to Larry Lessig.

Documents about Chandler talks about various "killer features". Killer features are intended to kill something. If Chandler kills Outlook, we'll have Chandler where we used to have Outlook. Nothing really changed except now no one is making a dime instead of the Bully making all the money. The consumers will love it of course and learn to take free software as the norm. How dare you charge money for what should be free? The service sector will eventually get nothing in return because consumer software will be so easy to use and customize that they won't need any help. The book industry will live a little longer. No wonder Tim O'Reilly is so strongly pushing open source and free software. How about free books too Tim?

[Don Park's Blog]

» This argument seems to boil down to:

Does the software industry have a right to survive?

I would argue that it does not, and that it should survive only so long as it serves a purpose.

Now, obviously, as someone with a background (albeit not such a long one as Don) in software development this is a sore point for me. I too would like to make money from the things I create. Would I relish the idea of a group of open source developers blowing my business model by undercutting me? No, of course not. Will it happen? Yes, eventually I believe it will. I just have to be ready for that.

I think that what we are seeing is the beginning of the end of software as a production business. Any attempts we make to shore up the traditional software industry will be no more than protectionism and about as effective as government attempts to shore up coal and steel when it was undercut by cheap foreign imports.

In the future those who develop software will do so because of a love of the craft (and true craftsmen may still be able to sell what they product in niche markets) or because they can sell services on top of that software.

That's what I think right now.

Microsoft Blogger

Fri, 01 Nov 2002 15:26:17 +0000

Anil Dash: Microsoft's Weblog Software. [Scripting News]

» The only thing wrong with this is that Microsoft won't use the words 'weblog', 'blog', 'weblogger', etc... They wouldn't use such old tired terminology when they could invent new and improved (and trademarked) terminology of their own!

Another IDEA convert

Sun, 08 Dec 2002 10:24:57 +0000

When IDEA v3.0 was released recently I thought I would evaluate it again and I'm glad I did. This is a good software.

I've used every version of JBuilder and seen it mature from a piece of crap, to a great IDE, and on to a rather swollen mess. I don't think the IDE part of JBuilder has improved much in the last few releases, Borland have choosen to concentrate on other areas. IDEA on the other hand is impressive. It works very smoothly, it's features are intelligent (like folding that works, and fantastic code completion). It also has the best refactoring support I've seen so far. As a coders tool IDEA looks very good.

About the only significant downside for me is the lack of a GUI builder. I guess if you're only doing J2EE based (I'm not qualified to evaluate the J2EE support) that's not a problem. For me, it is. I don't particularly like the JBuilder GUI designer or the code it creates, but it is better than nothing.

So, in short, IDEA goes on the wish list.

Hiring a KM system, the old fashioned way

Thu, 02 Jan 2003 15:33:34 +0000

I read a lot about calculating ROI for Knowledge Management. I also hear a fair amount about problems with doing so. I think this is because:

the value of knowledge is, in general, not well understood, e.g. how much is a new product worth? (it's particularly difficult when considering the risks involved with developing new knowledge and the opportunity cost in exploiting it)
the relative value of different chunks of knowledge can be hard to estimate
it's often hard to know what impact a KM system has had in capturing or leveraging knowledge, particularly before the fact
knowledge is so tightly interwoven into the fabric of what we do that it can be hard to make sensible comparisons

In many ways I am inclined to think of ROI as a red-herring. Here's my theory:

At some point, somewhere, some accountant said: "Hey! We're spending all this money on IT equipment, but what does it ever do for us?" Then some clever person with a background in selling plant equipment or something said "let's use a funky calculation to make it seem like it saves lots of money." And they did, and, fortunately, nobody ever went back to check the figures. This quickly became the industry norm because the purchasing process was now so much easier "Look, the ROI numbers are great!" Then came the great budget squeeze, the sky fell and everyone is wondering how to justify spending. Suddenly we're stuck with ROI and we don't really know what it means.

I'm not saying that ROI is specifically bad, just that it may not be applicable in all cases and that coming up with some arbitrary way of calculating things to satisfy the bean counters seems a poor justification for using, or not using, a knowledge management approach.

But is there another way?

I think so.

I believe that knowledge is a fundamental aspect of our work. If it wasn't then why would you bother with interviewing to fill new positions? With job specs? With resumes? If knowledge wasn't important then the first joe off the streets could fill any position (the goal of any turnkey business).

So when you hire a new member of staff you are really buying packaged knowledge off the shelf. Recruitment agents are really nothing more than knowledge shops! (And like all shops the service and quality of the product may vary).

But when you hire new staff members do you ask "What's the ROI on this position?" Well I guess you might, but I think it is more usual to work a different way around:

"We need to do X. Hmm... we don't have anyone available. Okay let's hire someone. What's the market value of those skills? We can't afford that!! Oh, alright then..."

and so on. A job description gets posted, resumes are sorted, interviews are held, someone is appointed. Usually on a 3 or 6 month probation period. At that point you decide whether to keep them (the need is being fulfilled) or let them go (their not right for the job, or the situation has changed).

The key point for me is that the determination is not what is the ROI on this person but does the need get fulfilled at a price we can justify. It's more about needs & their fulfillment than it is about costs & investment.

And so, I think, it should be for knowledge management. I believe companies would be more successful if they took the approach that buying a KM package was more like hiring a new employee or two (the capital costs are likely not dissimilar for SME's).

Start with an understanding of what the needs are that must be fulfilled. Ask how much it's worth to you to fulfill those needs. Get the software on probation. Run with it. Then buy it, or go back to the market.

I think you will find that, by the time you have a firm understanding of what your knowledge needs are, you will more than understand where the ROI comes from (even if your calculator displays it as "a suffusion of yellow!")

Comments?

Transmorpher 1.0 announced

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 16:44:50 +0000

Transmorpher 1.0

Fluxmedia and INRIA are pleased to announce the availability of Transmorpher 1.0. Transmorpher is a software tool for defining and processing complex transformations of XML documents. It can accept external transformations (e.g., XSLT stylesheets) and provide a simple transformation language offering unit transformations (suppression, renaming, regular expression substitutions and query facilities). In addition to generating, transforming and serializing XML documents, it features constructors like merging, dispatching, querying, iterating, and composing transformations. These transformations can have several input and output streams. New implementation of these constructors can be plugged in Transmorpher. Transmorpher can be used as a compiler, an interpreter, a Ant task, a Servlet generator or embeded in another program.

Transmorpher 1.0 is written in Java 1.3. It is the first full implementation of Transmorpher as presented in [1]. This version does not put emphasis on performances that we will consider in ulterior version but on functions. Transmorpher takes advantage of external resources (XML parsers, XSLT servers, Regular expression substituers and many other optionnal components). A graphic user interface, FlowComposer(http://www.fluxmedia.fr/flowcomposer/), is under development at Fluxmedia.

Transmorpher is available to everyone (sources included) from http://transmorpher.inrialpes.fr under the GPL license (other licenses possible). Transmorpher is a joint development of the Exmo team(http://www.inrialpes.fr/exmo) of INRIA Rhône-Alpes and Fluxmedia. Its development is being supported by a ODL grant from INRIA.

[1] Jérôme Euzenat, Laurent Tardif, XML transformation flow processing, Markup languages: theory and practice 3(3):, 2002 (a pre-version is available at http://transmorpher.inrialpes.fr/wpaper/)

Contact: transmorpher-dev@inrialpes.fr

From xml-dev@lists.xml.org

This looks like a very interesting piece of software for augmenting XML processing in cases where XSLT is required, but too complex or unable to perform certain operations. Or for structured processing involving a number of operations in sequence. I like the sound of the FlowComposer as well.

Looking for my next aggregator

Wed, 08 Jan 2003 23:15:36 +0000

Okay this is a real problem with the Radio news aggregator. There is an RSS item that I know is in there somewhere, I saw it this afternoon, but I can't find it.

It has been buried by a mountain of new items. As far as I can tell the only way to find it again is to delete enough items that Radio will show it on the news page again. Oh I guess that I can find the feed URL and fake a URL for the Zoom feature to display all items from that feed... (since the feed doesn't appear on the news page at all right now).

As I come to depend more and more upon RSS to keep track of the life & work of the people I am becoming friends and colleagues with I am increasingly finding that the Radio aggregator doesn't cut it. This is just one of a number of items that are bugging me and I don't have time to address, even if I thought it was a worthwhile exercise.

I'd really like to try out some of the alternatives. Can anyone recommend any aggregator software? It must run on Windows (so don't suggest iNews) and ideally it should be written in Java (but that's just a nice to have).

Plans and licenses

Wed, 15 Jan 2003 23:16:30 +0000

After all the pain I went through last year I can't actually believe I am doing this, however, I am thinking of changing the license for liveTopics from my custom license (the LSLA) to use a Creative Commons license.

My current plans are to release two editions of liveTopics tentatively dubbed the Personal and Collaborative editions.

liveTopics Personal Edition (PE) will be basically continue to be free for non-commercial use as liveTopics is now. Of the license available I think the:

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0

seems closest to the spirit of the LSLA. liveTopics PE will include all of the Table of Contents & weblog based features that most people are using now, but it will not include any of the topic mapping functionality.

liveTopics Collaborative Edition (CE) will include the ability to create topic maps (in both XTM and XFML formats), the ability to do trackback pings on topics (ala Phil Pearsons TopicExchange), and be able to output topics in RSS2.0 to enable smart aggregators. liveTopics CE will support commerical use.

I am considering a price tag of $65 (USD) / £40 (UKP) for a CE license.

I'd be interested in any and all feedback on these plans. They are by no means definite (other than that all of those features will be available in some combination, somehow).

The purple cow of knowledge

Tue, 18 Feb 2003 11:25:37 +0000

I've been reading In Praise of the Purple Cow in which the author, Seth Godin, proposes that, in order to be truly successful, a product must be remarkable. His claim is that being very good is also failure. These days everyone is good or very good, you have to be remarkable to stand out and get the notices (good and bad).

The purple cow idea jives very much with what I've read of Gary Hamel's notion of how revolutionary approaches create new markets and deliver profits. Unless you also invest in new purple cows then building upon success is the road to stagnation. Ask AOL, Palm and Yahoo. This idea feels right to me.

Which lead me to thinking about knowledge management products and how so many of them are good, but hardly remarkable. Personal Brain is a remarkable product which was never exploited. The Wiki idea was remarkable, but none of the Wiki software I've used has been. In fact when I think about it, the whole field of KM is dominated by the idea of being good enough.

For example OpenText Livelink is a very successful KM product. Which gives you some idea of the state of that market. Livelink is a well-dressed document management system. Hardly innovative, definitely not purple cow territory. But it's been successful. Why is that?

I think the answer is partly about OpenText being an aggressive sales driven company, partly that the KM market is dominated by large, conservative, corporations, and partly because the whole market is ripe, waiting for a real purple cow.

Can anyone say "Moo!?!"

Free XML editor

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 09:28:02 +0000

Altova Offers Free Software License for Authentic 5 Browser Enabled XML Document Editor.

Altova Inc. has announced the public availability of Altova's XML document editor product Authentic 5 under a free software license. Authentic 5 is a customizable, light-weight, and easy-to-use XML document editor. It allows business users to create and edit content through a web-enabled interface that resembles a word processor. Authentic 5 supports WebDAV and HTTP, with real-time document validation and multilingual spell checking.

[From Cover Pages Newsletter]

Checking it out now. I already use XML Spy but this might be a better choice when editing markup for my new website (which I am hoping to deploy using xSiteable)

Thank you Altova.

Follow your nose (almost)

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 14:14:18 +0000

What are you looking at?. This morning a friend of mine, Luca Reginato, who works at SrLabs in Padova sent me this very cool movie. Using a technology that they are developing, he tracked his eyes movements while browsing my weblog. The blue spot you will see in the movie shows where he is looking, the larger the spot becomes, the longer he has been looking at a specific item. It's really amazing. While today these services are available mainly to large companies (with large budgets), I'm trying to convince Luca that such a service made available at affordable prices would not only make sense, but be profitable. How much would you pay to have this kind of feed-back on a site you are designing or that you already have? [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog]

This is way cool. I want a version of this software for $99 that runs on my PC and uses my webcam.

InfoPath: Golden path or mantrap

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 11:18:09 +0000

OneNote and InfoPath.

I just saw the demos for OneNote and InfoPath. OneNote is just a glorified Notepad, no where as good as NoteTaker is. InfoPath, on the other hand, is going to be a catalyst, an monster underwater earquake that will start a tsunami of changes across industries. Its going to generate Office suite upgrade momentum as well as Microsoft server and middleware software sales. Buy Microsoft stock. Their revenue will rise sharply in the near future because of InfoPath. I am not exaggerating, folks.

[Don Park's Blog]

Reading Don's blog these past few months I've come to trust his judgement on this kind of thing. The InfoPath demo certainly offers some attractive possibilities. Looks like M$ may have a winner.

Of course the usual M$ questions remain:

Not browser based, back to the proprietary client
XML forms but not XForms
How easy will it be to work with non-M$ platforms

I guess that the last question is, ultimately, key. If InfoPath is just another Web Services Architecture client (and something that propels that future) then it's a good thing. Otherwise...

How to win a customer

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 16:23:51 +0100

Well now this is very interesting. This morning I emailed the authors of SnapZ Pro X (which most of the Mac cognoscenti are using to make nice screencam-movies) to tell them why I wasn't planning to register (it's to do with how the program runs, rather than the capture functionality itself). I confess I did so with little hope of a response and little hope that any response would be polite or helpful.

I remember one occasion where I emailed a company with an online MP3 catalogue to say that it would be much easier to browse if they actually had categories and an A-Z rather than just putting a random bunch on each page with a next button. They asked me what the hell I was talking about. I tried to explain why browsing was a good thing and got a response along the lines of "You are an idiot. We are glad you are not a customer!" What a great way to build your business!

So I was a bit surprised this afternoon to get a personal response from David at Ambrosia software which began:

Thank you for the feedback. We often get ideas for ways to best improve our products from customers who've decided not to purchase it.

What a great start. He then went on to describe some of the historical reasons for the way the app works, hinted it might be rethought in an upcoming version, and offered me a reasonable workaround.

Polite, informed, listening, helpful. I think I may register as much as anything to support a company who seems to understand what customer relationship (especially with non-customers) management actually means.

Two thumbs up to Ambrosia Software, Inc!

Great flow

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 11:54:24 +0000

Despite being very money conscious right now I shelled out $20 on Friday for Flow. I can't remember where I got the link from but I'm damned grateful because it's great.

According to author Karlheinz Essl, Flow:

Generates an ever-changing and never repeating soundscape in real time that fills the space with flooding sounds that resemble - metaphorically - the timbres of water, fire, earth, and air.

I now tend to leave it running while I work and I find it really helps me to get into flow state and ignore distractions. I also find it quite restful in the evening before bed.

Definitely recommended.