I had a sleepless night last night after my beautiful new laptop – weeks old – suddenly decided it was incapable of booting last night. After a quick consultation with James it became pretty clear that this was situation serious.

leisa: so, should I be panicking about the back up situation?

james: yep

As I do with most things that concern me but which I can do nothing about at the time, I decided to forget about it as best I could, get some sleep and call a mass gathering of prayer for when I booted up the laptop in the morning.

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• UsabilityNet: Getting started with user centred design
  can’t get enough (tags: UCD usability)
• Current style in web design
  Sums up the current state-of-the-art in graphic design for web pages, and identify the distinctive features that make a web page look fresh, appealing and easy to use….
  (tags: design interactiondesign inspiration)
• Predictions for a Web 2.0 social experience
  (tags: web2.0 SocialNetworks socialSoftware)
• Information Architecture models
  a nicely designed overview of some simple IA models
  (tags: informationarchitecture)
• Navigation models for web sites
  nicely designed list of some navigational models for websites (maybe a little out of date…, where’s the tag cloud?! kidding, kidding)
  (tags: navigation informationarchitecture interactiondesign)
• Albumart.org – CD and DVD cover searchengine
  Type the name of a CD/DVD or artist in the searchfield below and Albumart.org will find hundreds of covers within seconds! Nice Ajax interface.
  (tags: ajax music search)

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I went and renewed my drivers license at the RTA this weekend. They have that process down pat now, and although its well supported by technology, its the overall experience that is impressive. Here’s the process:

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Another strange mix today. In amongst the Chuck Norris (I finally found one I liked!), and more gorgeous work from SoFake (yes. I’m a fan, but I think I’m almost done now), there’s a bunch of interesting but more academic stuff around searching and navigating. Interesting, if you’r into that kind of thing.

• //gtmcknight.com: Steal These Buttons
  via attariboy. here’s a site from which you can steal (his words!) all kinds of buttony goodness. Its particularly useful for all those feed type buttons that you’re likely to want, but this guys has buttons for every conceivable purpose… button to the extreme.
  (tags: interfacedesign butons blog graphics)
• Supr.c.ilio.us: The Blog » Chuck Norris Facts 2.0
  i am still laughing about this one. I can hardly choose which example to share with you, Lets go with:
  “Chuck Norris has an open API. His right leg, coming straight at your face.”
  (tags: humour web2.0 chuck-norris)
• Overheard in the Office: The Voice of the Cubicle
  Ah. Priceless moments. Some funny because they mean to be, many accidentally hysterical
  (tags: humour)
• Bloug: Ignoring Information Needs
  Some thoughts on measuring the effectiveness of IA and the difference between users who know what information they want, and those just browsing
  (tags: informationarchitecture)

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