Persistent Inappeasable Mind - Comments

Matjaž Kljun: Fuel filler neck and the pump nozzle

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:16:43 +0000

I'm aware of how old habits and things in use are hard to change (separate taps are one of them :)). But why introducing round nozzles with unleaded petrol? I still remember bigger red nozzles and bigger black nozzles for diesel. But in the last 15 years all old big nozzles were replaced with smaller ones even diesel nozzles for cars. So (almost) all nozzles were replaced. I used to have an old Mercedes (it turned 31 last year when I sold it) with HUGE tank neck so I could use both big and small nozzles. I used to stop on pumps for trucks and fill my tank in less than a minute. I can't use these truck pumps anymore with my new Fiat. The square diesel nozzle for example would still fit in my old Mercedes neck (it was big enough) and it would still fit in my new Fiat with diesel engine. But it wouldn't fit in any petrol car. Something similar happened to universal phone chargers. Main players had to sit down and decide to make things easier for users. But in this situation the "environment" was in question and as "environment" is a very popular term nowadays it wasn't that hard.

Alan Dix: Fuel filler neck and the pump nozzle

nospam@example.com (Alan Dix) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:35:29 +0000

now wasn't there baby toy when I was little ... but of course it is all about standards, Standards, STANDARDS :-/ I'm not sure about the structural qualities of the different shapes (the bend at the end is hard!), but I'm sure do-able given will. The problems always is not having a good idea of where things should be but the path from here to there. Often the only time this can happen is when something new is introduced. This happened when unleaded petrol was introduced. The green pumps have a slightly smaller nozzle than the old red 4 start pumps. This was because many cars using unleaded petrol also had catalytic converters which were spoiled by using leaded petrol (far more costly mistake than the petrol in a diesel engine, although some turbos can suffer). So as the green petrol pumps were new it was possible to standardise on a different diameter making it almost impossible to put leaded petrol in an unleaded engine ... of course it was still quite possible to do it the other way round :-/ In electrics, there are regulations meaning that when you design a new connector for low-voltage equipment it has to be impossible to accidentally fit into any existing high-voltage plug. Here, as in the petrol pumps, it is only the new entry that gets designed, you have to live with the older ones.

Alan: Email: web and desktop categories and things

nospam@example.com (Alan) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:21:19 +0000

At 16:50 +0100 10/5/10, mkljun wrote: > > (c) > > Organization/maintenance: it seams I have missed you answer on Skype or you haven't answered yet. Here is the stuff form Skype Alan =============================== I recall longish conversatuon about it, but also not all the details!In a sense both are forward looking, why organise [10/05/2010 05:23:36] Alan Dix: However organisation seems to be driven by the current need to 'do something' with this file/emai [10/05/2010 05:24:01] Alan Dix: whereas maintenace is much more "better sort thinsg out so I can deal with things better iun future". [10/05/2010 05:24:41] Alan Dix: As you say future needs of org. more clear as it tends to involve thinsg that are part if an ongoing task (which may itself be long lasting) [10/05/2010 05:25:19] Alan Dix: whereas mainenance more about future, but possibly as yet unconceoved tasks [10/05/2010 05:25:25] Alan Dix: ... however ... [10/05/2010 05:25:49] Alan Dix: where does gthat put the web page you find by accident while doing something else? [10/05/2010 05:26:02] Alan Dix: the need to file it is current [10/05/2010 05:26:44] Alan Dix: but the potential future application not related to present task [10/05/2010 05:27:04] Alan Dix: it seems to me then we have at least three dimensions/properties connecting to organisation: [10/05/2010 05:28:16] Alan Dix: (1) the trigger for doing maintabce/organisation - need to file a thing, thins looking untidy, displacment activity as I should be doing soemtjing else, "I always file on fridays" [10/05/2010 05:28:31] Alan Dix: (2) clarity of future needs [10/05/2010 05:28:47] Alan Dix: (3) relation of future needs to current activity [10/05/2010 05:30:08] Alan Dix: Note (3) influences (2) - tend to have clearer idea of current needs [10/05/2010 05:30:15] Alan Dix: I guess also: [10/05/2010 05:30:46] Alan Dix: (4) how long is the time perspective: hours, days, weeks, months [10/05/2010 05:31:10] Alan Dix: ... all for now on this, but separet mail about other things ... =====================

Alan: Email: web and desktop categories and things

nospam@example.com (Alan) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:17:03 +0000

At 16:50 +0100 10/5/10, mkljun wrote: > > (a) unification of personal information space was nicely divided by Karager in ACM communication in 2006 ... Although there is such a lot of overlap, the interactions between these trad. PIM research and sem desktop research seems relatively light. But I may not be up-to-date with this, anything you've seen that brings these together ... and of course sem desktop does not include string links to apps on wider web! > > Attaching files to emails is 'linking' but the original file in the file system and attached files loose their connection and attached file also looses it's semantics with the file system. absolutely, two isseus here: (i) one way linking - can navigate from email to file, but not the other way interestingly also a problem with sem web linked data! (ii) lost semantics - this is an example where the semantics is available at some point in the computer, but either forgotten, or unused > > (b) >> I thought of the "little app" I could do last night and it seams that we are almost thinking simultaneously the same thing. :-) > > It sounds simple but I'm not sure if the implementation is simple as well :). :-D > > The idea is to link URLs, files (hierarchy path) and emails based on tags... > >... > > The app could have a DB for all stored links and could show the relation file-email as email-file (the same for url-email as email-url). And visualize all relations in a graph like structures. this part will be straightforward > > Problem would be if a file is deleted, moved, renamed. structural change is always the most difficult! even harder when files are broken into bits or assembled > > The first step is to find if it is possible to add tags to a windows file system in an easy way. ... and I'm glad that is you not me ;-) I need to put you in touch with the people in Athens and Tripolis as they are doing this sort of thing too. Alan

Matjaz: Email: web and desktop categories and things

nospam@example.com (Matjaz) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:15:42 +0000

Hi Alan, (a) unification of personal information space was nicely divided by Karager in ACM communication in 2006 (attached file - it is also in the PIM book by Jones and Teevan). A summary can be found in my blog: http://pim.famnit.upr.si/blog/index.php?/archives/7-Review-of-Prototype-design-a-peice-that-was-cut-out-the-paper.html - grouping (in a folder or by tags) - cross referencing (urls in files and emails) Attaching files to emails is 'linking' but the original file in the file system and attached files loose their connection and attached file also looses it's semantics with the file system. With email-email we also have 'links' based on subject (thread), time (not only sender, folder). And time: 'linking' items based on the (aproximatelly) same creation time or sequential creation time mostly helps (if at all) re-finding information. These links are not based on task (or semantics) and I doubt that users do actually 'link' this information in a way I understand these 'links' (related to task). But they certainly are linked in the creation context. So the creation time sequence is just a context in which information was created. Users might as well remember the weather or the meeting or the on-line auction that happened in the same time period (hour, day, week). They might remember all other information items they created that week. Example: I need some information to complete a task; I know I have stored it but where, when, how; It was the first week in May; what happened to me then; I remember editing a file then for a meeting; try browsing folder; try remembering other clues ... But yes, these are the 'links' that are possible to create (implicitly or explicitly) with common software. Other groups mentioned by Karger are not durable (based on opened applications on the desktop) or are prototypes (RDF, tags in a file system ...) (b) I thought of the "little app" I could do last night and it seams that we are almost thinking simultaneously the same thing. It sounds simple but I'm not sure if the implementation is simple as well :). The idea is to link URLs, files (hierarchy path) and emails based on tags. But it would work only in few directions: - file (or folder) - url: adding an URL as a tag to a file or folder example: dragging URL from the address bar of a browser to a file or folder example: adding a location tag to a file could add URL to google maps - email - file (or folder): adding a file hierarchy path as a tag to the email example: a thunderbird extention could add a hierarchy path to a file as tag - email - url: adding URL to email as tag example: the same as previus one - url - file (or folder): a firefox extention to add a hierarchy path to bookmarked site as a tag example: dragging file over the opened web site in FF a site is bookmarked and a hierarchy path added as a tag - url - email: missing as I can no think of any email URI to be added to URL - file - email: missing -||- The app could have a DB for all stored links and could show the relation file-email as email-file (the same for url-email as email-url). And visualize all relations in a graph like structures. Problem would be if a file is deleted, moved, renamed. The first step is to find if it is possible to add tags to a windows file system in an easy way. (c) Organization/maintenance: it seams I have missed you answer on Skype or you haven't answered yet. Enjoy Scotland :). lp mk

Matjaz reply: Email from Alan 31.5.2010 - paper and things

nospam@example.com (Matjaz reply) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:10:09 +0000

It took a while. I've been reading papers and making notes for tha last few days. So nothing new is happening. What about the meeting this week? On 5/31/10 10:24 PM, Alan Dix wrote: > 1. as we discussed I think you need a plan of something to do (data > collection, building or both) that adds data beyond the analysis of > literature done - in the calendar > 2. think of external human resources for you to tap into, doctoral > consortia, workshops, maybe a little later internship somewhere (Google, > Xerox, MS) for a few months (this depends on how fits with family of > course). done :) we discussed it last time on skype. > BIG ISSUES > ========== > We talked about this last time, the core issues that you have focused on > are: > linkage - for the human, whether or not expressed in the technological > system > importance > * means of entering personal space automatic vs manual Yep .. Task collections (and mental links) form from various sources. Paper documents, scraps (artifacts you'd cal them :)) and their layouts (placeholders), digital documents and their folders, locations, then email, calendar entries, (IM)conversations, web pages (even conversations on forums). My question is how users think about their information in relation to a task. So not limited to desktop only. I hypothesize that self assessed subjective importance plays a critical role in a life of a task information collection. I also hypothesize that task collections are more dynamic and tend to change more quickly than PICs as they rely on users' memory. The Q is what is "Self assessed subjective importance". The list of factors in a paper was taken from literature and coined by me. MOre on this later. > Also critically you focus on the fact that the first two are dynamic, > changing over time > > There are various relations between these, and for some you have > hypotheses (e.g. that self creation tends to correlate with importance). > > So for each relation either: > > (a) there is potential relation but you don't know what it is > (b) you believe you know the relation It's more in between :). I think I know :). It has to be proven. > For (a) and (b) you may: > (i) not know of any data/support, but have not looked rigorously > (ii) have searched extensively and have not found data or support for > your views > Further for (b) you may: > (iii) have support in the literature > (iv) a strong logical argument for the view based on evidence/data For (iii) so far no luck in finding anything. There has been some prototypes build for managing tasks (Kaptelinin - UMEA, Bellotti - TaskMaster, TaskVista, Jones - Personal Project Planner). But nothing how task collections form and disappear. There are some other papers that argue about information fragmentation. > Fort example, in a few cases when we last talked there were things you > say, but don.t have (written at least) support from the literature > suggesting case (b.i) or (b.ii). Working on it. > OTHER DETAILED POINTS > ===================== > > > page 3, section 2.1, defns of personal information > as usual this is making me think not so much what is the 'right' > definition, but what are the attributes that underlie these different > positions. For Boardman it is more about ownership, or at least > possession of information, whereas for Jones and Teevan, it is about > 'about-ness' who the information is about, if it is about me it is > personal information. Maybe there are other attributes, for example, > information of a 'personal' nature? I'm not sure what you mean with "personal nature". I thought about Jones' classification of information into 6 groups and I can't think af any other information that a person encounters which does not fall in one of these groups. When Boardman refers to PI he refers to one of the six Jones' groups (information under direct control). > page 3, items and structure > I'm sure I've mentioned this before. If you think of bookmarks, > the URLs as 'information items' are hardly personal, it is the > collection of them that is personal One groups of "personal information" defined by Jones is information that I experienced (example is a book from a library I've read and can always go back and reread it). So a web page I visited and haven't saved in my bookmarks can still be personal and be a part of a task collection I'm managing. > page 3, "PSI limited to a personal computer" > I know you prefer desktop things and for the purpose of this paper > looking at only PC PSI is fine. However, even if you retain a focus > primarily on the PC, I don't think you can tenably restrict your idea > of PSI to the PC, as so much of people's information is now elsewhere > on web sites and the cloud. I know :). But it will stay like this in the paper. Although the reserch was asking not about bookmarks, but about web pages - information stores on web. > page 9 where I noted it, but really about the whole paper > is there any sort of web portal with comprehensive review of PIM? > maybe Jones? > if not maybe we should start one?? What do you think about "Review". I'm constantly updating my blog and a section is going to be something like Boardman's page but more extended and categorized. And I'd ask other to collaborate on it (maybe wiki)? For now is just a regular html with few sections. > page 9, "we create a folder structure in advance..." > Azrina called this 'prospective folder creation' > http://www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/HCI2006-folder/ Cited :). It was tricky to add a poster to bibtex. I thought it would have an @ by itself. I just put it in the @mics category. > page 10/11, para bridging the pages > this is very close to a sort of model of the nature of importance and > this is emphasised both by the extracted bullets and also the italicised > text at the end of section 3.3. What is the model of nature of importance? Is there such a model I was searching (http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=subjective+importance&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=1) for subjective importance and I can't find anything related to giving a value to things. In the design of everyday things (norman) there's explanation that things have certain subjective value but nothing much except that we care more about self created things and things we buy for memories (trumpery). Bergman has something in a paper User-subjective approach (http://www.tau.ac.il/education/homepg/ofer/Homepage/tusa.pdf). Other than that these four factors were extracted from various sources. > page 11, the bullet list of 4 factors > to what extent are these (a) common sense, (b) justified by data in > the literature, (c) defensible from theoretical argument I thought of asking someone from phychology department. And in the preliminary study asking people what makes the information important. In most of the papers it is only mentioned that information item was important to praticipants. But never what makes it important. At least I haven't found any literature addressing this (Iportance PIM). > page 12, top para, "no support for short-term notes or remarks" > really important point. it makes me think of those installation disks > or zip files, where instructions are created by using long file names > for empty files! There was another idea for a killerapp (let's just call it this for now). Let's say that users manage information of different format in different tools because they apply different managing techniques to each (cite Jones or Boardman). File is the most important hierarchy (cite the same and others). If I take an open source (like WinSCP) file manager and add drag and drop from a web browser to a Folder activity (a floating windows related to a folder) and let users stick notes to it (See attached image)? And then have a file manager to manage links (fight fragmentation) and tasks? Folder activities window is unique for each folder (just reading a hidden txt file in a folder). It could be closed (only title bar hanging from the top of the window). Due dates could be aggregated together from several folders ... And then it could data-mine text for dates, places, etc. and link those to google calendar or something similar. > page 12, 2nd para from end (in itals) > "burden ... across tools ..." > In fact little support even within tools! For files, a small folder > could be seen as creating a link between contents, but even large > folders is quite diffuse as a 'link'. As soon as items are in different > folders for some reasons no linkage possible (except maybe aliases) > > page 13, first big para of 4.1, user study > People may be happier to give data if instead of simply a questionnaire, > they had something that offered them some functionality > This is what Richard B did, but it was always disappointing that he had > not got suitable permissions to re-use the data gathered. See above. > page 16, 2nd para and table 1. > text in the para says "of 24 created files ... important 15 days ... > but table has max days at 14. Corrected. > page 16, 2nd para from end > I'd guess device would make a difference, e.g. iPhone is mostly about > viewing and poor at creating > > page 16, last para, last 2 lines > I was wondering whether the cross folder semantic links are persistent > ones, or more dynamic Should I mentioned this? > page 17, email importance > it would be fascinating to know how well ratings of importance > correlate with actual future use Let's leave that for a study. > page 18, 4th para., "The same web site was often marked as created, > found and received ..." > Are these things like blog with comments, or multi-author wiki? more like news sites (comments). One was a footbal club site. I thought that users are sometimes searching for a specific news, sometimes leave comment to a news and sometimes they might receive a link in an email from the same site (if they are following it with friends together). But I don't have this data. It would be interesting how users assess information on such sites? Is such a site a collaborative work (crowdsourcing)? > page 18, 3rd para from end, > "none of them were social networking sites" > Given heavy usage data for social networking this is surprising. > Two reasons spring to mind (i) your uses are not typical (maybe > nerdy types?) or (ii) participants do not think of social networking > sites as 'web' sites? Not really sure. > page 19, 2nd full para, lack of long-term projects. > If you can create a suitable instrument to gather more data, then it > will be interesting to see whether this applies to PhD students! I can add that as a part of the research :). lp mk > ============= END ================ > 01_prvo_okno.png

Matjaž Kljun: Texmaker and Xetex on OS X

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:44:15 +0000

Thank you! That worked like a charm :) /usr/texbin/xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex

Philip Bliss: Texmaker and Xetex on OS X

nospam@example.com (Philip Bliss) — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:31:22 +0000

Hi there, I had the same problem--force-restarting Texmaker gets old FAST! You can solve it by setting the command line to /usr/bin/xetex -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex

Matjaž Kljun: British taps 1

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:35:21 +0000

Thank you for this historical background on this issue. I'm looking at this taps from the experiences I had so far. Maybe I'm used to running (warm) water in the house because I have used it for all my life. Returning to the history. UK had had water supply companies already in the 19th century supplying water to private houses. While in the part of the continental Europe (where I'm from) the water supply on the big scale happened only after the WWII. May villages and towns on the Adriatic coast (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia) had public wells, where people (woman) were gathering and chatting while they came to fill up their bowls (or clean clothes). After the waterworks were build, almost all taps were of mixer kind (mixer taps were invented in 19th century). My grandma's house (from 19th century with running water installed in the fifties) had a mixer tap, our apartment (build in 70's) had a mixer tap and I'm not sure if it is possible to buy separate taps. I'm also sure that the regulation of water supply was strict as it was based on the German model and that anti-return valves were obligated as taps in my grandma's house are over 50 years old. In countries I've visited so far (USA, almost whole Europe) I always used mixer taps. And tap water in these countries was always drinkable (except some places in Spain and Greece). That's why separate taps look so strange to me. And for the record: many students from continental Europe find separate taps strange :). Some links (that don't explain the historical background of separate taps) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_%28valve%29#Water_taps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply PS: in many western movies, cowboys are showered by ladies holding a bowl (watering can) with a rose :). So running water in the house was not that strange in the 19th century :).

Alan Dix: British taps 1

nospam@example.com (Alan Dix) — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:20:03 +0000

Going back, bowls and baths were filled with water from jugs or pans heated on the fire. You then washed using the water in the bowl. The idea of using 'running water' inside the house ... well next thing you'll have people standing under spouts of water like under a waterfall. So there are historic reasons for separate taps. However there are also technological reasons also. In the UK only the hot water systems has a header tank in the roof, the cold water comes to your tap directly from the mains. The hot water system is therefore a source of potential contamination and there is a whole raft of legislation and rules intended to prevent contaminated water entering the public water system. Mixer taps are relatively recent and have to have anti-return valves to prevent water being sucked back into the cold-water main in case of loss of pressure. Also you may notice shower have funny little loops that the hose goes through, which are there to prevent the shower head falling into the water in the bath/shower tray and potentially sucking back dirty water./ I don't know the history in other countries' water supply. Maybe more have individual cold header tanks, which then limit contamination to the household's own water supply. Also in many countries it is recent that tap water was drinkable anyway, so it may just be that Britain was unusual in having public water that it was worth protecting?

mkljun: Executable script in OS X for standalone windows software

nospam@example.com (mkljun) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:34:38 +0000

Sorry but I don't use Crossover. I use Wine bottler and its precompiled Wine.dmg image.

cavin: Executable script in OS X for standalone windows software

nospam@example.com (cavin) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:51:01 +0000

how can i find startwine in the Crossover

mkljun: Leave my hierarchies alone - integrating desktop search engine and file manager

nospam@example.com (mkljun) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:27:37 +0000

Yes, I do. I like it so far (except for some bogus automatic spam posts which I could probably get rid of with one of the many addons).

Jeff Schnarchen: Leave my hierarchies alone - integrating desktop search engine and file manager

nospam@example.com (Jeff Schnarchen) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:31:58 +0000

Do u use Serendipity on your blog pim.famnit.upr.si? Are ya confident?

Michael: Backing up Mac OS X to a Windows machine

nospam@example.com (Michael) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:09:40 +0000

Thanks for this. I only wish I had found this before I decided to reformat my 2TB hard drive so I could still have used the drive on windows.