Due to Redhat basically changing their product line-up , I successfully installed Debian over the weekend on a spare machine and within an hour had the usual system up and running. I was very impressed with the install and with the actual distro itself – the packages are all installed where they should be, without masses of unneeded stuff. Recommended!

Seen some good stuff on the web recently.

Firstly a report from the BBCi’s redesign called The Glass Wall, which I found extremely interesting.

Then of course is the Macromedia Special reports. Will be looking into providing perm. links in the future.

Also take a google for the eyetoy – look s like a great PS2 toy.

Another day goes by, and the world redesign another 1000 websites or in this case 53 redesigns for www.useit.com, the home of Jakob Nielsen, in the ReUseIT competition.

I am all for a decent redesign of the distinctly under-designed usability site but the entries for this redesign seem really poor. The aesthetics of each entry is barly better than the original and they have no fluidity or balance, the usability – the sites talking point would be no better and indeed in most cases worse and alot put much emphasis on Jakob’s celeribity. Note to class – Must do better

Elsewhere in the news today, Microsoft has been xerox’ing other OS’s again and is bring out a vector graphics tool called ‘Sparkle’ for the release of Longhorn.
This tool is being called a Flash killer, though it has also been built to cope with creating interfaces for the upcoming OS. I wait in the wings to see what happens.

More great design links purged from the usual places.

http://www.thomaselsner.com/

http://www.ajberni.com/

http://www.creativebehavior.com/

enjoy!

Well this was something that I certainly wasn’t expecting – a collabration between IBM and Microsoft on the xbox 2.

Now this statement doesn’t go to say that it will drop x86 as its main processor, but as reported on arstechnica.com sources indicate this could be true – meaning that it could be sporting a G5 or member of its family.. Apparently this is because only IBM have the technology and knowhow to put this together – perhaps why Nintendo and Sony Playstation are also looking at the chip.

If this is the case then it should be great for gamers and hackers alike..

Back from Holiday in Rome and completely refreshed, there are many new developments that I can see, but the most significant addition to an e-commerce site award goes to amazon.

Their new search within a book featurea is a fairly significant move forward for the experience and usability of the site, but the integration into the normal search most be commended.