archive.org

Archive.org is a way to look back over the web's relatively short history. Just type in a URL and you will see links to dates where an instance of a page was "archived," with starred dates indicating something changed. You can look back on the archived home pages of Yahoo and Google and see how they've evolved in terms of layout and design (notice how font sizes change from year to year in the Yahoo archives), and even subtle changes to each company's logo (was Yahoo's logo really bitmapped up until July 2002?).

Several years ago, in a distinctly different period of my life, I used to keep a personal blog, which shall remain URL-less. Though the majority of postings were fairly mundane, there was a lot of personal stuff that I would definitely NOT want, say, a potential employer, to have the ability to peruse through my prior postings. Archive.org allows you to do this by simply keying in the URL. Everything is still right there in black and red, or whatever horrid color scheme I thought was cool at the time. When I abandoned my domain name I thought that my blog would just go away. That is rarely the case: we leave a digital trail. Apparently you can prevent Archive.org from excluding your site, but who ever has the foresight to do that? Always be careful what you put in writing. It's probably out there somewhere.

Design Plagiarism

An interesting post at Design Observer got me thinking quite a bit about the idea of interaction design, graphic design (and all other aspects of HCI) and what constitutes an original idea. As fledgling interaction designers, we share ideas and use patterns and proven methodologies, and adapt existing widgets to our own purposes and liking. But where do we draw the line when we choose to "borrow" from someone else's work, especially when it is borrowed unwittingly? What about reusing code in interactive products? Copyright and intellectual property law probably have strict definitions as to what is protected, and how, but when it comes to ideas and their graphical or interactive representations, I think the lines get blurred. Can you copyright or patent a graphical layout, an interactive widget, or a page flow or process? Apparently you can: several years ago, Amazon tried (and succeeded) to patent their 1-click ordering method which raised the ire of the software community.

This makes me wonder though...how can I know if an idea I've come up with is really my own creation?

Google Calendar examined

So due to the fact that I'm leaving my job in three and a half days and my Work Outlook is about to go away, I took the plunge and started playing around with Google Calendar. The big drawback remains that it's incompatible with Safari, my browser of choice, but hopefully they'll decide to remedy that soon.

Anyway, I started playing around with Google Calendar and so far I like what I see. Much like Gmail, Googe Calendar is clearly an AJAX-enabled app that allows for very quick and responsive interaction, as well as drag and drop functionality. You can easily add events by clicking anywhere in the calendar view and bringing up a floating dialog box where you enter the appointment specifics. Clicking 'Edit event details' brings up another dialog where you can create recurring events, invite other people, etc. That feature, very similar to Outlook's 'Invite Attendees' feature, is one of the coolest features I've discovered so far. I haven't tried any of the importing or exporting features yet, so I'll reserve comment on that until I actually try it.

And also much like Gmail, I have a feeling I have yet to discover all the features of this application. But so far so good – as long as I don't miss any Cubs games or my first day of work, I'll give it the thumbs-up.

Google Calendar?

What, Google Calendar? Of COURSE Google made a calendar program. What was I thinking?

According to the description page, Google Calendar syncs up with Outlook and iCal and "other popular calendar applications." This may be exactly what I need: a web based application that's compatible with commercial systems. Unfortunately, it's not yet compatible with Safari, the browser I use most often. But I am very excited to see that this exists, and I'll evaluate the program as soon as I can access it.

Keeping it All Together

I am currently in the process of changing jobs. I recently accepted a position at a large consulting company doing User Experience work. In the remaining three weeks at my current position, I have to address the rather daunting issue of how I will manage my calendar, contacts, and other such personal information that is stored on servers and systems possessed by my employer.

After owning two or three Palm devices which were respectively lost and stolen, I gave up on keeping a physical Palm device, but still used the calendar software on my Mac. My employer of the past five years required me to keep an Outlook calendar that I was suposed to use for scheduling meetings and my general availability. I immediately hated Microsoft Outlook, mostly on principal, because it seemed clunky and slow. The main problem was that Microsoft stopped supporting Outlook after Mac OS 9.x and caused numerous crashing-type problems on my computer. To make matters worse, Mac Palm and Mac Outlook didn't have the ability to communicate with one another, and manually maintaining duplicate calendar entries in two different systems ceased to be efficent. This was especially the case for personal events that would impinge upon work time, such as doctor's appointments. So despite my initial misgivings as to the application's usability, because I didn't think I had any choice in the matter, I became a full-fledged Outlook devotee. At least it had a web interface so I could easily acces it from home.

Fast foward five years, and now I am leaving the company, and leaving Outlook. What do to with my contacts? What to do with weddings, Cubs games, concerts, family events scheduled months in advance? I'm sure my new employer will have a calendar and scheduling system, possibly even Outlook. But I have to do something with all of my information in the interrim. And I don't really think it's a good idea to have my entire personal life scheduled in my employer's database. During the next few weeks, I'm going to investigate possible calendar systems and evaluate their utility and usability in-depth, and pick one.

How does everyone else manage their personal information?

Hi!

Welcome, readers! This is the inaugural post in my HCI 445 design blog. I hope you find it to be an interesting and informative resource for all things designerly.