Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

CoCkaltelsSet — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:20:02 GMT

it s a test

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

EDUIPeZSOeoNVVrzH — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:08:30 GMT

asgw3.txt;4;15

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

NRRVkRkisdH — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:08:16 GMT

asgw3.txt;4;15

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

sohbet — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:29:06 GMT

very good ;)

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

Teplokru — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:37:42 GMT

Можно ли построить дом дешевле 1000 уе за метр? Можно комплексные решения от ТЕПЛОК из качественных аэроблоков позволяют строить быстро индивидуальные дома при цене квадратного метра до 300 уе!

Вы знаете существуют нормальные европейские технологии каменного домостроения малоэтажного например технология ИТОНГ и комплексные решения от ТЕПЛОК где высококачественные материалы и просте решения позволяют существенно экономить на возведении стен и отделке!

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

oyun — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:36:36 GMT

tesekkur

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

rüya tabiri — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:07:18 GMT

Thank You...

Bridging Chasms

Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:02:27 GMT

I have blogged previously about interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research. Now I want to turn

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

jcannon — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:29:52 GMT

@liquidat - The submission form is at the bottom of the home page for any questions you have.

BTW

einhverfr — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:07:22 GMT

That lecture of cybernetics and HCI was quite interesting. Thanks for the link.

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

einhverfr — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 02:02:35 GMT

@Paula;

Thanks for your insightful reply. Let me say why I think that cybernetics has a great role to play in HCI.

Every interaction between a computer component and a user or another component can be reduced to an exchange of information. This exchange is usually two-way but is shaped by the nature of the interface. Understanding how this breaks down (particularly including the density of the information travelling each direction) is, IMHO, one key to the choice of interaction styles.

For example, imagine I am downloading some files via FTP. Suppose I want to download the files to my floppy disk, I want to rename them so that the names don't conflict, and I am running Windows.

From the command-line, I can type:

ftp> get mboxfile a:\mail\June\2007.txt

If I want to do that through a GUI tool, it is far more difficult. The reason is that while the GUI tool is providing more dense information to me as a user (which may be helpful in getting a newbie to successfully use the software), the command interface is far less dense-- mouse clicks are less dense than keystrokes. In short, there are fundamental information tradeoffs in interface style.

Of course, we all get to hear from GUI or CLI zealots who think their way is the *only* way, but consider this: if you want to go to a web site that uses graphics to convey information (pie charts, for example), a GUI web browser is the right tool for the job precisely because it is better at conveying rich information to the user than it is at receiving complex commands. On the other hand, for system administration, nothing beats a CLI precisely because it is better at receiving complex instructions from the administrator than it is at displaying rich information to the user.

Obviously it is possible to have a hybrid style where a command-line drives a GUI app. Many older X apps worked via this style.

I think that understanding this tradeoff is key not only to choosing which interaction style to use but also to make the most of what one chooses.

Sure, psychology comes into play in terms of ensuring that the information displayed to a user is comprehensible and that the command language is something that can be committed easily to memory. But the core of the interaction remains information-based.

I mostly mention this because, like many others, I find many trends in interface design to be dubious, and many definitions of "user-friendliness" to be useless. Granted few if any of these come from HCI professionals, but they still constitute a great frustration.onals, but they still constitute a great frustration.

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

Paula Bach — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:39:13 GMT

I like your statement in the title, that HCI is an incomplete field. It makes me think about the question, How would we know if HCI as a field was complete? How do we know if any field is complete? HCI is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary and because it borrows from other fields, it may never be complete, but that's not neccesarily bad.

I am not too familiar with cybernetics. I have studied Shannon's information theory, but for HCI, the channels, even though they are human communication channels, are not always helpful at the level at which humans interact with computers. Human behavior is difficult to formalize as any social scientist will agree. HCI has a range of theories that encompass many levels of analysis from perception to group behavior. For a good overview of HCI models and theories see http://www.amazon.com/HCI-Models-Theories-Frameworks-Multidisciplinary/dp/1558608087.

I am not sure how cybernetics would fit into interface design. Again, it depends on the level of analysis. If cybernetics operates at a neurological level, then it will be useful for neuro interfaces, and the HCI community has not explored this area too much because such research would be better suited in artificial intelligence or cybernetics communities. Cybernetics society: http://www.ieee-smc.org/

This is an interesting topic, thanks. I found this from a few years ago: A talk given at Stanford about HCI and cybernetics at http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/abstracts/01-02/020215-pangaro.html

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

Paula Bach — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:11:33 GMT

I have heard of PhD students taking up to 11 years as well. I don't think how rapidly technology changes weighs too heavily on time to completion because research done for a PhD is usually some very small piece of a larger issue so even if the larger issue becomes larger because of new innovations, then the liklihood of the smaller issue being impacted is small. Although I bet it does happen in some cases where somebody solves a problem in the next release of a software product for example.

re: Greetings from the Open Source Software Lab

Paula Bach — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:04:55 GMT

The "allotted" time for a PhD is 4 years. However some people may finish in 3 year and while others take much longer. Factors that weigh into the time it takes include (but not limited to)funding and scope of the project.

Somethings else: Politicis and a submission form

liquidat — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 12:58:49 GMT

I'm really missing a "submit a question" form here at Port25 - how can you be dedicated to communicate with things like "the community" when there is no way at all to submit anything?

(And no, the community is not dead. I read quite some interviews and posts done by Bill and they all were nice to read - but the one about "community is dead" was the worst piece of text I ever read. It simply does not fit to the other interviews... who wrote that stuff for him?)

Anyway, since you have no submission form this post unfortunately does not deal with your research but with a total different topic:

I would like to know how the members of Port25 would try to explain the <a href="http://www.linpro.no/en/nyheter_og_events/2007/linpro_vant_frem_mot_microsoft">Norway story</a>. Seriously, that is the old Microsoft: a aggressive monopolist which does not even stop at introducing illegal/criminal terms of use.

How should anyone coming from the "other side" (meaning Linux community or simply other software vendors) should build up trust? Trust is a very important thing in the business, but with such terms of use I can hardly believe anything Microsoft says about "interoperability" - please, give me a reason to trust MS, because atm there is simply no reason besides hope!