Little peepel doing it for themselves

The last few weeks have been as volatile as they get in the stressy life of a tech writer in the world of web apps, open source and agile development - when the ink is hardly dry on a text string or a protocol before the terminology, the requirements and the brand itself are reinvented - again.

In the midst of this chaos, it seemed like a good idea to ground myself and my aspirations in an office. Bucking nigh-on 15 years of home-working tradition (ironically, my stint at Skype was the exception), I took an office in a new business centre at the end of my street. Home working has been good to me, enabling me to earn a reasonable income living in remote and idyllic places while being more productive in my writing which is, in its defining moments, a solitary task.

It has become more difficult for me to work from home - when the kids return from school they want to natter and too often I respond with "later, I've got to work right now" - sound familiar? So, I got an office and on Tuesday I moved in. The office has 2 desks and a filing cabinet and a view over the playground where my kids sometimes play. The children are on school vacation and my daughter has taken up residence on the second desk as my "apprentice".

Wednesday, my apprentice sets up a spreadsheet for my business expenses. To do so, she had to download and install Open Office, all done easily and without problem. Wednesday I also learn that OpenX, the main source of my current income, is moving HQ from London to LA - oops - who will pay my office rent? Time for some soul-searching.

Thursday, in the office before 9am, and a number of pings about OpenX news. My apprentice arrives and I put her to work on another spreadsheet but this time she is a "guinea pig" 12-year-old using Peepel. She captured my ideas on whiteboard first. Next, she set up a Peepel account. Then she entered the contents of a new spreadsheet which defines different rates for different tasks/expertise. Finally, my apprentice shared this with me through my Peepel account, which I was able to edit before returning edit control to her.

I've been a small business for a long time and have learned many ways and means of collaboration to simplify my work. Personally, I'm not a lover of Google apps because I don't trust their motives or the ability of a monster to deliver the goods for the individual. I'm impressed by the ability of Peepel to make it easier for me to collaborate with my daughter without a big learning curve or complicated downloads.

Smiling Irish fall foul of Quebec language police

On a business trip to Montreal, I was amused and slightly perturbed by an article I read in the Montreal Gazette about a local Irish pub, McKibbins. The pub is in trouble with the Quebec Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise (OLF) because a customer complained that they did not receive service in French. When the OLF inspected the premises, they were not impressed by the many antique, English-only adverts for Irish beers and other products. The antique signage must come down, the bar was told, or face a fine of $1,800 for each offending sign.

Bishop Street, home of McKibbins downtown bar, boasts not one, but three Irish bars, and an Indian, Brazilian and a Mexican restaurant among others. Down the street from McGill and Concordia Universities, the street reflects the multicultural dynamic that makes Montreal a great place to visit. Everywhere you go in this city, people slip easily and seamlessly between French and English - non-French speakers are never made to feel like outsiders here as happens in Paris. And if you stumble in your effort to speak in French, you get a smiling helping hand and not the cold reproof you encounter so often in northern France.

It is a credit to Quebec that it has retained a vibrant language and cultural identity in a nation and continent that is largely english-speaking. But, as a bilingual Irish person, I think that linguistic repression is counter-productive. I was brought up speaking Irish in an era when it was distinctly untrendy to speak our ancient language. The language was force-fed to every Irish schoolchild and you could not work in government service or qualify for university without it. Virtually all of my peers hated it and promptly forgot the little they learned as soon as they left school.

In the past 20 years, a seed change occured. The Irish language became non-compulsory for school leavers and, at the same time, the Gaelscoil (Irish language school) movement was born. A network of independent primary schools developed where Irish was the core medium of teaching and parents (many of whom spoke no Irish) were invited to play a much more proactive role in the running of the school. This spawned a new generation of bilingual Irish people, largely middle class, who were proud of, and knowledgeable about, their linguistic heritage. By removing compulsion, Irish was enabled to grow and flourish among an appreciative audience. The movement is so significant it has made its own entry in wikipedia.

En route to Montreal on this trip, I stopped in Bordeaux for a few days. The Bordelaise have a reputation for being bourgeois (whatever that means in this day and age!). I found them warm, friendly, and increasingly multilingual, unlike their northern counterparts. I had the same mix of french and english conversations with people there that I enjoy in Montreal, while in Paris they still cling to a monocultural attitude that the world has little interest in supporting. The biggest English-speaking country in the world is India and it doesn't seem to be doing their culture or economy much harm.

McKibbins is enjoying a certain notoriety and increase in business because of the media attention surrounding this bizarre story - they've made national TV - you couldn't buy that publicity as a side-street bar in Montreal. And they have decided to fight the language police (as they are known locally). On Monday they launch a website where visitors will be able to register their views on the matter - as they say in French - quel bordel. I know what I'll be voting as an Irish-English-French speaker.

The genius of Apple

With the huge resurgence in popularity and profitability at Apple, the importance of sleek design is clear. But I wish they would apply the same rigour (and some of their soaring value) to customer support. I spent five years in the Windows wilderness until I returned to Mac world three months ago.

All was peachy until Christmas night when the Mac battery stopped charging on Christmas Day. On close investigation we discovered that a staple was embedded in the magnetic power socket and was interfering with the contacts on the power adaptor. Even after removing the staple, the adaptor was not working and the magnetic pull was very strong. I went to bed and slept on the problem and the following day I tried again. The mac booted up, but only on the external power and only when the battery was removed. When the battery was in place, the mac booted but the screen remained dark - pointing to a power management issue.

Apple telephone support advised me to take it to my nearest Apple store - in Exeter, quite a distance from me. I had to ring and book an appoinment with a "genius" - another two day delay and a half day's time. The genius replicated the behaviour and said I'd have to leave it with them for investigation. He also suggested that the staple might invalidate my warranty.

When I said that it's pretty shabby to have to leave my three month old computer with them and not receive a replacement, the genius said that BMW would probably not give me a replacement car if they found a banana skin shoved up the exhaust pipe. I fail to see the connection between shoving a banana skin into something and not noticing that my socket has attracted a small, neighbouring object. And the bottom line is, if my car breaks down, it's easy to find an alternative. It is not easy to find an alternative computer where you can transfer your applications and files in a seamless manner.

Why is it not possible to rent a replacement machine at a low rate while your machine is in for repair? Before you buy, all the literature tells you why you must buy this product, how it will transform the way you work and socialise. But when something goes wrong, there's no hurry now, you'd better learn to manage without it!

Number crunching in the garden

This time last year, my social networks stretched to Skype. LinkedIn and a dormant blog. Nowadays, I must perform a growing number of housekeeping tasks to keep on top of a busy online lifestyle.

Today I went to delete some Facebook groups and was intrigued by the numbers.

I love Openads has 70 members and is administered by seven of the winning team at Openads. These people and this software is a major highlight of my year.


The Skype Developer group has 56 members but represents a platform delivering millions of software extras for Skype. Three of the group administrators no longer work for Skype.

The Techcrunch group has a surprisingly modest 282 members. Mike Arrington isn't among the two administrators - is this an oversight, a mistake or deliberate?


Om Malik is miles ahead of Arrington with more than 2,000 members in the GigaOM group. Personally administered by the great guy himself - the personal touch matters it seems.

With an exciting almost 1,000 members, the off-valley tech commentary proves its value and interest and benefits from personal supervision from key staff.

At 123 members, the Blognation group wasn't rounding up members like Om or RWW. But Blognation Belgium group (111 members) and Blognation Canada group
(60 members) showed the potential reach of the troubled project.

The Tech Writers, at 134 members is a fine size for a group that receives nil activity or administration. Membership is safe and requires no effort I guess. I will try to get some input going soon.

At the bottom of the scale are 10 Social Hermits. This group is a friendly cave to hide when the social whirl gets too much; a space for peace and contemplation.





Finally, off the richter scale, is 6 Degrees of Separation with a whacking 3.3 million + users. Gaining hundreds of thousands of members per day, and run by a Steven Jackson (sole admin) from London, author of a recently published thriller. I have absolutely no idea what this is about but it seems to be working - go spam go.

Hearing things on Skype

Today I was going to blog about curtains at Blognation - an elegant closure to a sorry tale. But my atttention has been distracted by something far more interesting and positive; a series of tutorials to help blind people to use Skype.

A blind lady has put together a series of voice tutorials to help blind people navigate their way around Skype. The navigation uses various scripts to translate Skype menus into the JAWs application that helps blind (Windows) users interpret the content of computer windows. As a sighted person, I closed my eyes and tried to visualise my way through the complex menu focus and commands but I could not follow the JAWs instructions which were way too quick for my poor ears. But JAWs users prefer to control the speed setting to speed past the page elements they already understand (or don't want) to reach the element that concerns them. At that point, they can reduce the speed until they are familiar with that element.

For all their focus on usability, few web 2.0 products are designed with accessibility in mind. Of all the sites using AJAX to create a drag and drop user interface, how many consider the needs of blind viewers? Of all the sites that incorporate sound and video, how many factor in deaf or blind users? When bloggers add widgets to their blogs to enrich the user experience, how many examine the impact on disabled users? And when programmers write the UI code, how many consider the learning curve for blind users when they make UI changes? These are serious considerations for web 2.0 developers because, with freedom comes responsibility. If you want to push your product into various institutional markets, accessibility is a basic entry requirement.

I learned about these tutorials in a public chat frequented by Skype afficionados, staff, developers and general onlookers. The developer of the Chat Translator for Skype has been working with Marrie (the blind tutor) and other blind volunteers who helped him build accessibility into his Chat Translator extra. This application manages some of their accessibility issues because JAWs will only read chats from the window that is in focus and if multiple chats are ongoing, messages will be missed. The Chat Translator overcomes this issue because you can set an option to read all chats aloud.

Before my Christmas package from Skype last year, I enjoyed early previews of the Chat Translator and discussed the possibilities for people with disabilities at some length. But I failed to make a sufficient business case for participation and then I had some basic survival matters to focus on. This was not the first time that Skype glanced at the area of usability and disability (a.ka. accessibility) as Stuart Henshall wrote about in Skype Journal over two years ago. But each previous concept was shelved in the face of more compelling business priorities - it's all a matter of priorities I guess.

Usability is a big word these days and grabbing UI feedback from Jo(e) User prior to development is an essential part of the meagre budget of many web 2.0 startups. But usability has many elements and blind readers have an awful lot to teach us about it. Shut your eyes and visualise your way around your application and you will lose your way. Try to figure how to navigate between internal and external widgets, between mandatory and required fields in forms, around flash images and google maps . . . Blind users must develop an internal mind map of their computers, remembering vast sequential routes to information and target pages. By working with these users, developers can gain deep insight into usability.

When this chat came up this evening I had a thought. If everybody in this chat donated a few bucks and a few hours, we could build this type of development into common practice. We could incorporate user feedback from some of the most savvy users on the web into our UI design - and it need not cost much when you incorporate these principles into site and UI design from the get go. If you are interested in donating 20 bucks and 20 hours to this simple goal, please leave a comment. If more than 10 people offer to help, we'll set something formal up - otherwise - thanks for the interest.