How to blog – for the shirker

I have been blogging for five years now. See this link for all my blogs: http://sites.google.com/site/soumitrisarchive/blogs-and-sites(now that was a spruik! caught you!)
But seriously – are you a blogger who?

feels guilty blogging.
blogs when the family has gone to sleep.
checks your email for comments on your blog first thing every morning.
thinks blogging is not work – and [...]

Add Signatures to Gmail

If you have been following my posts this year you will already know that I have decided to complicate my life completely. What I did two weeks ago – to put a date to it and be scientific say ummm at 11 AM on 19th of January – was to say I was going to [...]

Alexa Rank

If you run a blog you are bound to be interested in how well your blog is doing. So I have a hit count of about 300-ish. Day before yesterday it was 408. Now you get the idea – I do check blog stats – I am a slave to them. My whole self worth [...]

Disease Management for Australia

Patient centered chronic care is a difficult one to set up and negotiate in Australia – a country with universal Medicare. Disease Management here is listed within the state’s agenda – but not separately funded.
Healthways – Investor Relations – News Release
Healthways International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Healthways, Inc. (NASDAQ: HWAY), today announced a five-year [...]

A Violinist in the Metro

I gt this in an email – and then looked it up in google – and found it there. I am going to post this – and then I will get off the computer. I will go to the next froom and giv my wife a hug. I will then potter about in the kitchen [...]

Laptops or mobile phones?

The OLPC versus the Mobile Phone – A False Dichotomy | MobileActive.org
The ongoing debate over the value of cheap and open laptops for users in developing countries as opposed to mobile phones continues, most recently with a post from Cory Doctorow in the Guardian UK. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, the most visible [...]

There is No Delete Button on the Web

Now this has got me worried – what are all the things I have said that are floating around.
The Unforeseen Consequences of the Social Web – ReadWriteWeb
Interconnected on the Web
While it’s exciting to live in an ever connected and always on world, the flip side that we have to accept is that we also live [...]

Saffer new book

Saffer on Service Design and how it just vaporises when you touch it!
Dissolving Service Design
I’m starting a revision of my book Designing for Interaction. It’s about three years old now, and lots of things, including my own perspective on interaction design, have changed in the four years since I started writing it. (Just as one [...]

Metaphors for sustainability

Metaphor Project: Current and Emerging Metaphors re Sustainability
This handy reference list of metaphors doesnot pretend to be comprehensive, although weperiodically add to it. Most important, it isdefinitely not intended to stop you fromthinking up new ones. The mainstream examples(marked with *) are mixed in with theprogressive ones deliberately, in the hopethat this juxtaposition will also [...]

Universal Health Care for China

Thats a 100$ per person. Will this build a health care system I wonder. It is a lot of money – and will produce some spectacular hospitals and infrastructure – like what we saw for the Olympics. If however they go down the path of service design, and community health – which then addresses both [...]

Failure: The Secret to Success

Thanks Raph for the Video link.

more about "Failure: The Secret to Success", posted with vodpod

small men … given unfettered power and authority, … do incompetent, stupid, and evil things

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (January 25, 2009) – The Bush-Cheney Wreckage
I’m reminded of something John Cole said the other day: “The moral of this story is not the danger for Obama going forward with his Gitmo decommissioning, the moral is that when venal, shallow, small men are given unfettered power and authority, [...]

Hear hear

First Words and Deeds—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)
We are not witnessing the articulation of a new “Obama doctrine.” Rather it is the triumph of tradition and experience over eight years of aberrant bad judgment.

I am struggling to make a comment about this

Speaker system built into mannequin – Boing Boing
Here’s Bob Turek’s MP3 player speaker system, built into a mannequin.
speakers, fiberglas mannequin, hand built stereo amplifier 36″ x18″ x12″ 2008
As part of my object remix series, this stereo forces the music source into [...]

Nussabum on Cottam and Leadbeater

The World Economic Forum–Lost in a Fog. A Design Manifesto for Davos. – BusinessWeek
“Moving from a system focused on needs to one more concerned with capabilities;Moving from services that are targeted to ones that are open to all;Moving away from a financially focused system to one focused on resources;Avoiding centralised institutions in favour of more [...]

Last week

This is the last week before I go back to work – the kids go back to school actually, so I can head off to do things.
Small snippets of info:
1. I am now totally converted to ‘cloud computing’. I have deleted my ‘mail’ accounts – and am into gmail. I still miss ‘mail’. All th [...]

How GM Lost Its Sales Crown to Toyota

How GM Lost Its Sales Crown to Toyota – BusinessWeek
It’s official. Toyota (TM) has finally surpassed General Motors (GM) as the world’s biggest carmaker. The global sales battle has been neck-and-neck for a couple of years. But Toyota ended GM’s 77-year grip on the crown in 2008, according to numbers that came out on Jan. [...]

WordPress Template Maker

Though only for PCs – at 99$ its a steal. But if you wait a bit you can get the option of templates for Joomla/ Drupal.
Artisteer – WordPress Themes and Website Templates Designer
Artisteer is the first and only Web design automation product that instantly creates fantastic looking, unique Website templates and Blog themes.

Import OPML to Google Reader

So now  have imported my RSS feeds from NETNEWSWIRE into Google Reader. And will shut down Netnewswire. The breakthrough came when I discovered that I could do the import – now I have to sit and recreate the folders.
Google Reader should import folders with the feeds!!
Google Reader: How to Import OPML Files | Google | [...]

Conversations With History – James Fallows

James Fallows on China-US issues.

more about "Conversations With History – James Fa…", posted with vodpod

Obama not quite so wholesome

Its a been a heady period – a bit like watching the Australian Open to see the rise and rise of a tennis star – and reading reams of autobiographical press that probe through interviews for ‘qualities’ that make this hero. These days we are indulging in Dokic and this morning there was tensing news: [...]

Cloud Computing

Last year Jeremy would come to see me about once a month. Jeremy is an ixd nut who is bouncing off all manner of walls in all parts of the globe. As an aside he is also doing his PhD and has inexplicably chosen me as his supervisor. While I may have some effect – [...]

Do Good Design book and resources

I have only just seen this – as a CSR resource it looks good. Worth a look.
Do Good Design
As promised in Do Good Design, here’s information that goes deeper, or that changes more often than paper can easily accomodate. We’ll keep adding as people keep asking. Suggestions welcomed!

Craft Market Stall Holders wanted

Craft Victoria : Craft Hatch
Craft Victoria is pleased to be partnering with the City of Melbourne’s, City Library to hold Craft Hatch – an incubator market for student and emerging craft designers.
The City Library is the centre for learning and creativity with up to 3000 visitors a day. Craft Hatch has been designed specifically for [...]

Things to do in a recesion

I posted this comment on Bruce Nussbaum’s blog:
Good on you Bruce for being so ‘topical’. First the transformation design post and now this recession post.
This aligns with a line I have been taking (this is a plug for my blog – so stop reading here!) in 2009 in trying to answer another question – [...]