Archive for November, 2007

What designers do

Friday, November 30th, 2007

The framework I wrote auto-generates forms based on the definition of a table in the database. These forms are usually quite ugly. The advantage of these auto-generated forms is that they speed the initial set up of a site – I simply define some database tables, based on what the client has told me they want, and the framework auto-generates the form.

On the TSR site, we are still cleaning up the rough edges. Laura Denyes, the lead designer on this site,  is transforming the rough and ugly forms. After enhancing the clarity and improving the use of space, we hope to leave the user with a better experience. You can see Laura’s work in this before and after image:

Before and after - the transformation of a form on the TSR site - an example of the work of Laura Denyes, the designer

Posted in design, designers, forms, laura denyes, the second road, usability, user experience | No Comments »

The changing cost of cell phone use becomes a central aspect in the life of teens

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Danah Boyd has a great post up about how the cost of cell phone use shapes the social life of teens:

I’m fascinated by how U.S. teens build intricate models of which friends are available via mobile and which aren’t. Teens know who is on what plan, who can be called after 7PM, who can be called after 9PM, who can receive texts, who is over their texting for the month, etc. It’s part of their mental model of their social network and knowing this is a core exchange of friendship.

Psychologically, all-you-can-eat plans change everything. Rather than having to mentally calculate the number of texts sent and received (because the phones rarely do it for you and the carriers like to make that info obscure), a floodgate of opportunities is suddenly opened. The weights are lifted and freedom reigns. The result? Zero to a thousand text messages in under a month! Those on all-you-can-eat plans go hog wild. Every mundane thought is transmitted and the phones go buzz buzz buzz. Those with restrictive plans are treated with caution, left out of the fluid communication flow and brought in for more practical or content-filled purposes (or by sig others who ignore these norms and face the ire of parents).

Posted in cell phones, danah boyd, teens, texting | No Comments »

Plesk can be a pain

Friday, November 16th, 2007

I had to do some system administration on the company server yesterday. I’ve two things to note.

1.) This is a nice list of commands for user management.

2.) Plesk makes normal system administration a nightmare. It sets up its own config files that override the defaults for most of the software on a Linux system. While Plesk makes some tasks easy for non-technical people, it makes normal system administration (where you ssh to the server) a real pain. You can follow some tutorial exactly, like the directions for adding a user on this page, and your work has no effect. Last night I was able to set up a user account, but was not able to set a working password. Turns out the passwords were controlled by Plesk.

[Added later:] Okay, I’m an idiot. I was trying to create a user account like this:

useradd -groot -Gadm,wheel,psacln -s/bin/bash -p947364 -d/home/lawrence -m lawrence

The helpful tech staff at RackSpace wrote (in reply to my question) that this command expects the password to be encrypted. So the correct way to add a user (at least on a RackSpace server running RedHat Linux) is as follows:

1.) ssh to the server using some non-root account

2.) after you log in, su to root

3.) run the above command without the password

4.) then run this command:

passwd lawrence

5.) then type in the password you want for the user “lawrence”

Posted in linux, plesk, sysadmin | No Comments »

Someday, I will learn the ‘bash’ scripting language

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

Found this useful tutorial: Advanced Bash Scripting.

I’ll post it here so I can find it later. I’ve promised myself that one day, I shall be able to write all kinds of shells scripts. I’d like to be able to automate any kind of activity that we need to have happen on the server.

Posted in bash, bash scripting, programming, scripting, sysadmin | No Comments »