Jason Kitcat

That syncing feeling

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date December 5, 2004

Last week I managed to finally get me a Blackberry. They're much harder to get hold of then one might think… Anyway eBay came through for me and I settled down to learn the ins and outs of this extraordinary device. The interface is not of iPod simplicity but it is very good when put next to my last experiences of Palm and Symbian interfaces. There really is no good need for a touchscreen in simple PIM applications.

Unfortunately Research in Motion (creators of all things Blackberry) do not support the Mac. So I had to buy some 3rd party software, PocketMac to get synchronisation working. It works great but it felt like going back 10 years when I realised I had to use a docking station and a Windows PC to update any software on the device. Why is syncing still such a fragmented higgledy-piggledy affair? I thought SyncML would sort this mess out but no, we still need to use the software equivalents of duct tape and string to get data in and out of these devices. We should should demand much more from the suppliers.

e-democ / e-gov

Interchange of Data between Administrations

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date December 2, 2004

The European Commission has an incredible service called IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations) which rounds up all sorts of great e-government news from across the EU. You can receive very detailed weekly emails on e-goverment and also Open Source in government.

Highly recommended.

IDA

notes from JK

So busy

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 29, 2004

Well I haven't been posting as often as I would have liked to recently. But I notice that many other of the blogs I enjoy are in a similar situation. It's that pre-Christmas crazy period when we all try and cram as many projects in as possible.

I spent three days in Antwerp last week and found the city to be quite wonderful, way above my rather low expectations. It's a beautiful place and I was struck by how well old and new buildings were integrated. I kept turning the corner and thinking “why can't we do that in the UK???” Our lack of wide avenues is a major problem but somehow architecturally we don't get 'there' very often. For example on the station development in Brighton they are proposing the most massively inappropriate 42 storey tower… more on Keith's site. It's all wrong, on the top of a hill, very unimaginative design. Pants.

I'm trying to a squeeze an article on e-voting out. It's looking at the US election and I'm surprised at how little there really is to grab a hold of, some glitches and cock-ups but nothing concrete. Did it all run so smoothly? We have no way of telling, which is the point really. I'm very keen to move on from e-voting so once I file the article it will be my last for a while unless something very dramatic happens.

technology

Link Tidy-Up

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 22, 2004

Here's a bunch of links I've been meaning to post for ages…

Stop juggling! How do we deal with the demands of modern-day life? The “Information, Silence and Sanctuary” conference in Seattle explored the issues. The organiser, David Levy, is a fascinating guy – I met him in Brighton last year. More…

Cute Mac t-shirts by Susan Kare (of Mac icon fame)

The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser. You want it to be useful, but it isn't. It just looks cool. If site mapping rocks your boat check out this rather dated Cybergeography site. Also see the OPTE Project which has some incredible Internet maps.

If you think that most people abuse PowerPoint then see Gettysburg done in PowerPoint, then Edward Tufte's book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint before reading this article in LinuxUser magazine [PDF] which reveals PowerPoint's origins with Whitfield Diffie and the Mac.

e-democ / e-gov

Simon Williams gets ready to blog

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 19, 2004

picture(3).jpg

voting

NMK/IPPR e-voting event write-up

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 18, 2004

A write-up has gone online about the recent 'E-voting: Policy & Practice' event in which I participated.

notes from JK

Info Lab 21

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 17, 2004

picture(3).jpg

technology

I’m lost… send gadgets

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 15, 2004

I got horribly lost in London today. I was accompanying a client to a pitch and admittedly our target was absurdly tucked away but… if I'd had a GPS enabled phone we wouldn't have walked in a huge circle!

I'm also sorely tempted by one of those 3G cards for my PowerBook (well the Vodafone one as they're the only ones to support Macs). GPRS via Bluetooth is ok, but rather slow. 3G data would make those delayed trains a bit more bearable but I'm not sure the Brighton area coverage is any good…

e-democ / e-gov

Unions and the Internet

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 13, 2004

Yesterday afternoon I attended an excellent IPPR/TUC event discussing how Unions can benefit from using Internet tools. Discussions ranged from getting general secretaries blogging to paperless direct debits. A very useful and productive event for all that attended.

One issue that I found particularly interesting was exploring how the Internet could help leverage peer-to-peer member interactions. So instead of requests going up to a union rep (or higher) and then down again, web-based member directories (such as we build every day for alumni associations, corporate networks etc.) could empower members to find the right people instantly. This cuts out the middle-man and really lets members see the richness of their fellow union supporters.

This idea is scary to many due to the potential loss of control over member communications and data protection issues. These are both surmountable, however talking to delegates it became clear that the real stumbling block was fear from branches of letting centralised union bureaucracies have their membership data in the first place… a tough political nut to crack.

There's a write-up of the event (before it happened bizarrely enough) on PublicTechnology.net. Will Davies (from the IPPR) has a personal blog entry and an official entry with links to presentations, papers and so on. Roger Darlington's presentation was particularly passionate about the power of technology. It was only when I got home and pulled up his site that I realised I already knew who he was – bizarre.

e-democ / e-gov

Links 13-11-2004

Post author By Jason Kitcat
Post date November 13, 2004

Accelerated Democracy is a series of skilfully constructed (almost real) scenarios on how technology could radically alter the way we vote. (Thanks to Louise for the pointer that led to me finding this site)

The ever thought-provoking Clay Shirky has unleashed another of his essays. “Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software” is an interesting analysis of social use of software and its implications in how such software might be best designed.

If you're a Mac user then you probably know and love at least one item of Panic software. Here's the story of their recently retired audio app, Audion. It's a great read.