Interesting TED Videos

Astronomer Clifford Stoll helped to capture a notorious KGB hacker back in the infancy of the Internet (1980's). I had the opportunity to listen to his Audio Book -The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage in the early 1990's. The book was a real eye-opener for me, and I credit Clifford for increasing my interest in computers and the Internet. Below is a fascinating Video of Clifford speaking at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Development) Conference.







Another fascinating video I came across this past week introducing a personalized projector and camera computerized device for faster and easier interaction with real-time information. The speaker in the video refers to it as having a "sixth sense." But it has nothing to do with Bruce Willis or "seeing dead people walking."

Infragistics - Awesome UX (User Experience) Patterns Resource

My First Blog Entry - So I'll Try To Make It A Good One

I first learned about Quince {(pronounced kwinse) a rich, interactive user experience (UX) design patterns library produced for the software community by Infragistics at no charge} at Devlink 2009. Quince includes a diverse collection of design patterns including ones from Amazon.com, MS Office , the IPhone, and the MAC OS. Each design pattern is accompanied with details on the problem it is designed to solve, it's specific solution to the problem, it's context, rationale, and finally implementation direction along with possible tools to use. Here is a screen shot below:


Here is more detailed information about the Quince site directly from Infragistics.
Infragistics also has a good blog explaining the "what" and "why" of design patterns and UX - User Experience patterns.


But, what really impresses me about Infragistics is another website resource called Sample Browser. This site contains working examples and side by side Source Code for the following and much more,

• ASP.Net controls
  
• AJAX enabled data grids
• Drag and drop Framework( including a really cool puzzle, and shopping cart)
  

( If you open the Devlink URL, Scroll all the way down to the last session).
http://www.devlink.net/Sessions.aspx

Understanding User Experience Design Patterns
Jason Beres
Patterns are constructs or objects that repeat in a predictable manner. For most developers, patterns are directly related to object oriented coding best practices, In this talk, you will be introduced to “design patterns” that will help you build better user experiences. We’ll explore UX patterns that can help you build great user experiences, and provide examples of how you can start using them in your development today. We’ll cover patterns that pertain to different kinds of user interface problems such as commands, data entry, information architecture, navigation, page layout, and data visualization through the exploration of the Quince User Experience Patterns Explorer..

Here is a picture of me at Devlink by the way: (bottom row, far right)