disambiguity

graduation

so, I did something a little different yesterday afternoon. I went to UTS and graduated from my Masters of Interactive Multimedia. What a bizarre experience a graduation is. At times I wasn’t sure if I was in a university or a Catholic church! At any rate, after a three year slog, I now have my piece of paper. Hoorah!
talking to two of my lecturers after the ceremony (they both wearing the floppy hats you get to wear once you achieve a PhD) I commented on how much more comfortable their hats looked. They noted that there are several important advantages to having a PhD under your belt. The comfortable hats for one, but also having a great response to the question ‘is that Ms or Mrs’.

a compelling reason to think of a great PhD topic I think

trailer for sale or rent…

if you’ve got a bit of work that needs doing in the next month or so, I have a little time available. It’s the perfect amount of time for an IA review or some usability recommendations. Or perhaps you have a bunch of wireframes that need working through. I’m Sydney based but well set up for and experienced in offsite work. Contact me via leisa.reichelt at gmail.com

excellent adventures in the UK

So, here’s some exciting news. In just under a month I’m heading off on an excellent adventure. I’m going to live in London for a while!

Yes, I’m probably about a decade late for this typical Australian rite of passage, but I’ve been busy with work and uni and the like… and I don’t think I’d be much chop working in a bar in Shepherd’s Bush. So, now’s the time! (more explanation here for those who still think I’m mad)

We’re taking a well earned break on the way, travelling via Singapore and a gorgeous island in Thailand, and touch down 2 July 2006.

At this stage, there are no set plans re: where to live, where to work and all of that malarchy. I wonder if I can ask you excellent people for your advice.

In particular, I’m keen to find out where the smart people work. The ones who are creative, intelligent and passionate. The ones who are inspiring to work with, who get to work on great projects, and where everyone looks forward to going to work every day. (Well, most days.. I’m a realist).
I’d also love to hear stories of adventures like this that you’ve had or that you’re having now (or that you’re planning) and lists of things that we *must* do / see / eat / drink / experience.

I’m going to try not to bore you too much with travel excitement on this blog, so we have a travel blog set up, if you’re interested.

30 sleeps to go!

Photo Credit: Malias on Flickr

the blog searchengine experiment (tag=actnow)

so, i’m having a bit of a play around with some of the new and not so new blog search engine offerings. There are lots of ways to compare them, but I’m just going to start with one. How long does it take before a blog post is indexed and searchable.

I’m going to test it with the ActNow post I wrote earlier today (mostly because I want to see if other people are blogging about it - come on, you know you want to).

I’ve just run my first test at 11.30pm on Wednesday night (eh, I sooo should be in bed). Here are the results:

Technorati - [updated 1.30pm 11 May 2006] not found - ok, now this is weird. Earlier, my post was found. Now, it seems to have gone missing in action. Bizzaro. Stay tuned for more. Previously, found (11.30pm 10 May 2006), plus about 5 other posts that reference actnow.com.au. Last check 7.06am 11 May 2006 - no change.

Sphere - not found (first check: 11.30pm 10 May 2006). They still doesn’t know I exist. They have Grant’s post though. And only that. (Interesting, they don’t know Trevor Cook exists either… I’m less with the miffed now). Last check 7.06am 11 May 2006 1.30pm 11 May 2006

Gnoos (beta) - [updated] found (7.06am 11 May 2006). Looks like the post was indexed overnight. Annoyingly, it is putting Planet HCI’s link to my site above the actual site link, but that’s not a major drama. (previously:11.30pm 10 May 2006 not found. Now Gnoos does know I exist… the post just hasn’t hit the index yet. Gnoos found Trevor’s post though. That’s all.)

The Australian Index - found, with one other (Trevor’s)

Feedtagger - nothing found. Annoyingly (in this case) I had to choose a location before I could put in a tag to search… it didn’t come back with anything. (Not even a message to say it couldn’t find anything). Last check 7.06am 11 May 2006 1.30pm 11 May 2006.

AustralianBlogs - nothing found. And, what’s with the search results page? I thought I’d hit a wrong button and gone off to another site or something… how about you re-skin that page so that it’s less red and more AustralianBlogs? Last check 7.06am 11 May 2006 (search was VERY slow at this time)1.30pm 11 May 2006

Ansearch - not found. wow! I’m impressed with these search results. Ansearch has found pages that I’m not sure it was even meant to find! There’s not a blog amongst them though. Last check 7.06am 11 May 2006 1.30pm 11 May 2006

OK. I’ll try to update first thing in the morning. I have an early flight to Canberra though and probably not able to get online much throughout the day.

Not sure if I’ll be able to check again throughout the day. Actually, I’m not really expecting a significant change in results within the next 24hrs (although, I could easily be wrong).

Feel free to update in the comments if you have a moment and the inclination. It’s a good way to check out each of the sites.

Gadgets I’d buy from CeBIT06

So, I popped into CeBIT this morning. Afterall, I love a gadget as much as the next girl. I don’t think I’m exactly their target audience, but there were still somethings that I found interesting. Here they are:

• Wacom Tablets: now, this isn’t new, but when I had a play with one this morning I was thinking to myself, how much more fun would it be to do wireframes using a device like this and software more like Illustrator. Does anyone out there do this? I can see a few problems with it, particularly if you needed to have multiple people working on the files…. but I bet for some projects it would be amazingly fun. (And much less with the old wireframe RSI)
• Maxtor OneTouch Mini Edition External Hard Drive: I’ve been putting off buying some kind of hardware to backup my lap top and have been using boring DVDs instead. And now I know why. I’ve been waiting for this little darling to arrive. It’s the iPod Nano of external storage. I *must* have one. Immediately.
• The Open Source Guys were out in full strength. I’ve been thinking about doing something with an opensource project - as in, contributing some time to a project to help it be a little more user friendly. Had a chat. They’re very friendly. I’m going to look into this more. Anyone out there do any work with any open source developers? They gave me a CD so that I can play around with their open source version of Photoshop and Illustrator… I shall report back
• VOIP was everywhere. I was looking for something I could use at home. Didn’t find anything.
• PTG Global and Hiser were there. They didn’t have any fun showbags though.

OK. That’s my quick, on the fly report of CeBIT from a non-hardcore-techy perspective.

Have you been? What did you think?

ANZAC Day 2006

It’s ANZAC day in Australia today. Today we remember the sacrifices that men & women far braver than I have made in the interests of peace and freedom in our country. If you have a moment, take a look at the great Australians at War website. This site was launched 5 years ago - it’s really stood the test of time. In particular, check out the Through My Eyes section. Great content, beautifully designed.

abominable movie adaptations of books (via Kottke)

Jason Kottke has a list on his blog today of movie adaptations of books and which he has seen/read.

Personally, I have had too many horrible experiences of movie adaptations almost obliterating the beautiful mental imagery I had of favourite books.

So, who wants to make another list with me of movies adaptations where warnings should be given to anyone who has actually *read* the book that watching the movie will irrepairably alter their relationship with said book.

I’ll start: 1. The English Patient, 2. Possession, 3. Oscar & Lucinda ,4. Portrait of a Lady
Bring it on. (no, not the movie. That’s a call to action)

Who’s coming to see Cory?

assuming I can get out of work in time, I’m hoping to go over to Bondi Junction and see Cory Doctorow talk about ‘the digital future’. Reviews of the Melbourne talk sound good. Details of the Sydney talk are here.

chinese spam?

is it just me or have the spammers in China gone crazy lately?

Looking at my spam folder in gmail, not only have I been getting a whole lot more spam than usual (all beautifully captured in the spam folder thankfully), but it all seems to be in Chinese.

Bizarre. You too?

monkey lessons (step away from the nut)

Cameron Reilly posted earlier a story that he heard somewhere about how to catch a spider monkey, or more importantly, how important it can be to let go of the nut.

In order to catch spider monkeys, hunters in South America simply walk through the jungle and drop heavy containers on the ground. These containers have very a narrow top and a wider bottom. Inside the containers the hunters drop a special kind of nut which is particularly attractive to the monkeys. Sometime later, the spider monkeys come down from the tops of the trees, smell the nut, but the tops of the containers are so narrow they have a tight squeeze to get their hands inside. Once they grab the nut at the bottom, their fist is too large to remove if through the opening. And the containter is too heavy for them to carry.

So instead of letting go of the nut, the monkeys just sit there until the hunters come back, pick them up, and throw them in a bag.

The spider monkeys are not prepared to let go of a small nut in order to gain their freedom.

This story and Cameron discussion around it, really resonates with me at the moment. There are some nuts that I’m kind of holding that I think I might need to drop. All of this discussion that I’m engaging with around process and documentation - that’s one nut. There are a lot of people out there who are clinging to the nut (the ‘old’, familiar process) and who are going to be trapped because they won’t let go… but then, at the same time, I think others have just grabbed another nut in place of the other (e.g. Getting Real methodology), which seems like a more attractive nut, but which is not necessarily a good nut. And probably not one worth getting trapped for. (Am I wearing this analogy a little thin?

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