from the adaptive path newsletter:

"Five years ago, Robert Reimann wrote a seminal article for the Cooper Newsletter called 'So You Want To Be an Interaction Designer.' Like many people, I read the article and said, yep, that's what I want to be. I took Reimann's (good) advice and found both work and training as an interaction designer.

"Now, thanks to my book, I find myself in the odd position of people asking me how to become an interaction designer, what it means to be an interaction designer, and what do I really do all day? And while Reimann's essay is still a great place to start, I want to embellish on to his advice with some of my own."

→ read the entire article

from the adaptive path newsletter:

"Over the last few years, more and more people have begun to recognize that design can be a vital component of strategy as well as a driver of business value. You only have to mention successes such as the iPod, Netflix and Target to generate near-universal agreement that design creates business value. Unfortunately, citing examples oft-used in traditional business magazines isn’t enough. Although an entire industry has grown by applying design methods to business, many practitioners in the field lag in their ability to communicate business cases for design initiatives, perhaps subscribing to the notion that such efforts are beyond their domain of expertise."

→ read the entire article

collective machinery is a website dedicated to exploring and facilitating collaborative multimedia, internet-based, and locative production. Toward that end, our site is an open "forum" (wiki-powered). Anyone can add pages, edit existing content, and ask questions.

Conceptually, collective machinery is divided into two areas:

1. General topics—Discussion area for people to share information and tips on topics such as phonography, photography, APIs.
2. Specific projects—Actual collaborative projects that want to use collective machinery to organize/promote their collaboration.

→ collective machinery
→ how to play
→ all recent changes

[ wow, who's a web developer ]: Sometime late March 2006, Microsoft lost a patent battle with Eolas, which will affect the ActiveX functionality of Internet Explorer. By now [if you use IE, bah—go Firefox] you may have noticed it: you must click any HTML elements using <object>, <applet>, or <embed> to activate them.

Microsoft has posted their solutions and work-arounds, but we agree with Jason [from ripper.rhetoric]: we want a solution using JavaScript and the DOM that will dynamically solve the problem on any page it's attached to.

Unfortunately, we haven't had the best of luck with Jason's solutions.

[[ … ]]

Adobe/Macromedia also promise a JavaScript workaround for this behavior and provide information on preparing websites with active content for announced browser changes. Note:

Some sites will not be affected by the change. The updated browser prompts users to click before displaying active content coded using <object>, <embed>, or <applet> tags that are inline in an HTML file. However, HTML pages that use tags generated by external script files (like JavaScript), such as sites that use complex Flash detection scripts, should continue to work normally with no change.

[[ … ]]

hmm… the Adobe solutions are nice, [and look like they work] but moving the <object> to an external JavaScript file means we can't easily insert FlashVars via ASP or PHP.

back to the labs… more later…

After batch-geocoding the tour stops for Orphan Productions and plugging it into Google Earth, Stephanie turned to the labs for help. Her request: a Google Maps mashup and an explanation of how we did it. The map should display all of the band tour stops and a continous line should connect all of the points.

As you wish:

• → the map
• → the explanation

Wasn't aware, but I guess you can use JavaScript to extend applications like Adobe Illustrator and MaxMSP 4.5.7. If you're interested, check out 020200's blog.

APIs (application programming interfaces) we'll be using in our latest project:

• del.icio.us
• Google Maps
• Flickr
• Platial
• Technorati
• YouTube

P.S.—We tossed this into our bestiary along with links to the following validation services:

• W3C HTML Validator
• W3C CSS Validator Service
• Feed Validator (for Atom and RSS)

the training camp kept us so busy, we didn’t have time to upload most of the photos we took or to write much about the experience during the event. day zero, one, two, four, five, six, and seven all have new photos and expanded content, so, even if you saw them before, check ‘em out again. View everything training related by using the MCAD tag.

A few, final images taken throughout the week:

ah, Denny’s	day one of training camp. i was going to sit next to Charles, but my computer was broke (no, Bill, i didn’t break it)
day three self-portrait	OTB
no one exploded any hard-boiled eggs	day five—Charles in clean pants after the incident
OTB parking lot	day three self-portrait

so, this is it. we’re certified and we’re done writing about the training. time to start actually developing some .NET applications.

day seven: the last day, the final exam, and the short, sweet drive home.

the last time we’ll eat breakfast @ La Quinta	…
good-	-bye
MCAD	MCAD

day six: "they’ve abstracted a lot of the difficulty…"

6:14 am

is it over yet…

by noonish, the material (1,000 or so pages) has all been covered. nothing left to do but review and prepare for the final exam tomorrow. exhausted, Charles and i head back to the hotel to review our beds.

a study in La Quinta:

after eating dinner and studying @ Denny’s for a couple of hours, we look for somewhere else to smoke and study. a futile sweep of suburbanland (places to smoke or study, but nowhere to smoke and study) puts us back at Denny’s. one of the servers makes fun of us.