IDEAS

Congratulations Marek and Flore! Welcome to the wonderful world of wed lock

But that’s how I got introduced to wedsite.com. My good friend and non web developer created a lovely online experience to introduce us all to his wedding plans.

Big props to wedsite.com for allowing couples to communicate their very special wedding plans.

Now, this won’t replace the formal invitation, but there are so many ways that this is a fantastic supplement.

• more information
• will keep me up to date
• photos
• music
• background (As I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting the bride to be yet)

Moreover, their pricing is great and you can get your own domain and a keepsake CD.

BTW – 4 out of 6 people who signed the guestbook complimented the website

And no, I do not work or get paid from wedsite.com to say this. Being in the web world, I get tons of friends asking me how much would a wedding site cost and this is my response.

Project Sikuli is a new automation program that can be programed using screenshots. Yes, screenshots! You can automate anything on your PC or MAC using screenshots. Don’t believe me, check out the vid. Then check out the Project Sikuli site.

We usually have to rapidly prototype website UI all the time. We’re asked all the time, what’s the best program to wireframe within. Yes, we use OmniGraffle, Adobe InDesign, as well as Microsoft Visio to properly document UI screens and flows, but that’s usually not where we start.

Working with programs are usually slow and cumbersome; not only that, but they force us to think within their own limited set of constructs.

We start with a pencil, eraser, and paper. It not only helps us to produce screens quickly, it helps us to push ourselves to create multiple variations of screens to fully explore different interaction models.

“But Pinaki, I can’t draw?!?!”, you say. After I give you a mocking laugh, I’ll tell you that anyone can draw. Go ahead, pick up a pencil and paper. Draw a line. Now, draw a rectangle. Next, draw a circle. How about a star? If the objects on your paper can be identified by someone else, then you can sketch UI and wireframes.

Geekchix.org’s Ivana Jurcic posted a lovely collection of printable paper-based wireframe templates and sketch books. Perfect for printing and prototyping.

Thank you Ivana, for the great post and photo for our homepage.

Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web. The concept of thin clients are really starting to take shape in this operating system. In the video below they describe how all data will be stored in a cloud.

The experience of Chrome is built around the core tenets of speed, simplicity and security. This is a demo video to give you a feel for the Google Chrome OS user experience.

Here’s is a more high-level and entertaining overview and introduction to the Chrome OS.

Last year we run into the guys from 280 North, the makers AJAX applications like 280 Slides and Cappuccino. At the Future of Web Apps they unveiled Atlas, a visual development based off the Cappuccino framework tool that made us salivate.

Today they open the beta program! Hurry while the gettin’s good!

Check out this presentation on Atlas.

Found this on ign.com today and was awesome segment to watch of the very near future of motion gaming. The Wii was so revolutionary with it’s motion control that Sony and Microsoft are just now showing their developments in the area (way to catch up boys!). I guess something revolutionary should buy you at least a 2-3 year head start, I mean isn’t that what the iPhone has over the next closest phone Droid. BTW, David Spira has one in our office and man it’s pretty slick. Once the open source kicks in, unless they change their policies, its going to be lights out on the iPhone.

Check out the video below, it takes like 20 seconds and you’re hooked and asking where do I pre-order!

Breaking news…. but not broken by me

Ran into this over at Mashable. Have to admit, competition is awesome for the public in general.  If it wasn’t for Apple kicking azz and taking names in the last decade with the Ipod and Iphone, we’d all still have “Smart” phones like the blackberry… man I can’t stand that device…  (10, 9, 8, calm down now)….

Now it seems like any product coming out has to have an amazing look and touch functionality to even compete.  Now it seems Microsoft is throwing their hat in the mix with the Courier Tablet.  It looks amazing, and it’s even been rumored that an LW employee who is a hardcore Mac user (who will not be named) is looking forward to the device.  Hopefully RJay will let me play with it once he gets his hands on one… ooooops

Here’s some of the post:

“As we were clued into by earlier leaks, the Infinite Journal is the key metaphor for Courier. It’s like an enormous notebook for collecting pretty much any kind of content: clippings from the web, your own notes, diagrams and drawings, photos from the on-board camera, etc. Each item gets a timestamp and geotag, and you can add more tags for better searchability as well.

Several key “views” into your Journal are detailed in the leaked document, including a Smart Agenda that acts as a sort of a Cliff Notes representation of your entire journal, making important items visible at a glance. The Journal Overview is another style of at-a-glance window into the journal contents, with an integrated search interface. The Library is the main file browser metaphor that organizes everything by type. The left screen acts as a “favorites” tray where you can sticky your most important apps and projects in one place.

Also detailed is the Browser (pictured below), allowing you to easily clip content from the web into your journal. You can also flip through your history with a vertical Cover Flow-like index card system. Another handy organization metaphor is the ability to “tuck” items into the device’s spine to temporarily store something and move it from one section of your journal to another.”

Read the whole post here

Mike just forwarded two great links for designing websites in Microsoft SharePoint. Great read for all.

Real World Branding with SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Sites (Part 1 of 2)
Gives an overview and covers the strategy, architecture, and design portions of a website project.

Real World Branding with SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Sites (Part 1 of 2)
Gets into the nuts and bolts of developing the SharePoint site using SharePoint Designer

Well, I guess its not a secret before. I’m now salivating to see the Apple version even more. The competition will be good for driving prices down.

Check out the full article Gizmodo, Courier: First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet, there is also a video that shows the interface and interactions.

Found this great case study as I’m researching the architecture for our latest Intranet project that will be implemented in SharePoint.

We find that a good number of Intranet sites serve up a great deal of information to their audiences. Yes, audiences need to find information quick, but just as important they  need to easily understand the information structure on their first visit so when they come back their experience will be even easier.

Here is the SharePoint Team Blog post: How We Did It – Tag Driven Information Architecture using MOSS 2007 for the New Zealand Ministry of Transport

By the way, this is made it to the Top 10 Intranets of 2008 by the Nielson Norman Group.