The Fastest Flip Alive

Coming from a journalism background, I 'm fascinated by traditional print companies arduous and, often, antagonistic transition to the web. Magazine and newspaper publishers view themselves as producers of a product when they should be applying a modern view. Print publishers are keepers, traffickers and recorders of information. They are content companies plain and simple. The industry has been slow to embrace that ideology and, subsequently, the web, like their music counterparts, because the new business model is far less lucrative than the print model, but the reasons behind the economics is another topic entirely.

News sites endure a love/hate relationship with Google. The search engine is the great reader gateway to their content if the company successfully navigates the SEO labrynith, which raises the hits and visitor counts tremendously. But Google also is accused of stealing content on the guise of news aggregation and collection, which hurts the traffic and content exclusivity of sites. In what appears to be a handshake in the direction of a happy medium, Google Labs has introduced Fast Flip. And like all Google products, feels like a hit out of the box.

The idea behind Fast Flip is for viewers to scroll through a horizontal line of articles like flipping through an issue of Time magazine. Various screen grabs of articles are displayed left-to-right on a horizontal rail. Readers use the navigation tools to slide the images in either direction for a visual sampling of that site's contents. Instead of a list of headlines, readers can judge the article on a combination of headline, site design, images and any other bell or whistle the site includes. Also, users can't read the full story in the Fast Flip frame. They must click on the page to trackback to the originating site for the full story.

I'm not sure if Fast Flip will catch on but a number of major media companies are participating. Some more enthusiastically than others. But you can already see the possibilities with the slick design. The side-scrolling is perfect for finger walking on the iPhone for example. Once you can customize a page for the sites and content you browse on daily basis, there will be another viable alternative technique for web browsing.

Give it a try.

HyperCool

After the class scavenger hunt last week, I was interested in researching Tim Berners-Lee to see what became of the man who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web. The professor, who also is a knight, was inspired to connect TCP and the domain naming system ideas with an earlier program he created based on hypertext. Once I realized hypertext didn't originate with Berners-Lee, I was distracted enough to change my blog topic after more research on hypertext.

The idea of Hypertext can be traced back to notational methods in early books that let readers know the word or phrase or person is previously referenced or defined somewhere else in the text. In 1945 Vannevar Bush wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly that envisioned a machine called The Memex, which used layers of microfilm to link stored, compressed information together for users. The machine used trails of branched pages to connect the information together. While The Memex never came into existence, Vannevar's vision of the machine's capabilities heavily influenced the thinking of two developers.

 

The Memex      

Douglas Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute developed the NLS, which stands for oN-Line System. The systems also included the first mouse and other now-standard technologies. The NLS is important to this discussion because it included the first use of hypertext in the 1960s. Simultaneously, Ted Nelson and Andries Van Damme helped develop the Hypertext Editing System (HES) for Brown University. Implemented in 1968, the system organized data into links and branching text (like The Memex) that could be manipulated by menus and labels.

These two systems, along with some other advanced programming at the time, are a major step in the hypertext evolution to the world wide web of today.

In full disclosure, I initially assumed Vannevar's story to be science fiction along the lines of H.G. Wells or Philip K. Dick. Fictional technology featured in stories decades or centuries ahead of its times always fascinates me, especially technology that is assimilated into everyday life (still waiting on that hoverboard!). While Vannevar's essay was a theory on the pacification powers of information and not a paranoid, post-war sci-fi cautionary tale, the essay's real world implications are no less significant.

Legacy of FAIL

Listening to Dr. Watson's intro lecture on database theory and management was a downer. Not because of his engaging elocution. But his comprehensive analysis and explanation about fundamental data collection, management and interpretation could've been used as an airtight closing argument against certain aspects of my company in the Court of What Not To Do with Data. The majority of data issues I'm wading through on a daily basis were caused by poor foresight in data collection and management a few years back. The picture painted of a nimble corporate entity built on efficient, robust data systems designed for quick reaction and solid forecasting is a paradigm to work towards...

If there wasn't a massive 800-pound gorilla scowling at you from across the room.

I learned a new swear word in the class: Legacy System. Yes. Legacy System (all caps like He Who Must Not Be Name). Next time someone does something ridiculously stupid, infuriating and stubborn but I lack the power to ask them to leave, I will refer to them as a Legacy System. While they're laughing off my stupid insult, I'll understand the vitriol of my comment (and regret it later).

Seriously, from firsthand experience, a Legacy System  can hamstring a company's progress by years. System inefficiencies gobble up man power (which costs money) on tasks that should be controlled by simple button clicks. Data spread throughout multiple systems can't be accurately compared, updated or tracked in a useful ways. And overall data management picture is a sloppy mud puddle.

This best way to describe a legacy system is like this:

Which data management system should we choose?

This one? This one looks good.

At some point in the future, you might have a problem.

And you might think you've solved it...so you go to lunch or home or an amusement park.

Good times...

 But Legacy System hates good times.

 Really? The system just did WHAT!?!

Legacy System reveals itself for the first time.

You threaten to replace it but, inside, you know how empty that sounds.

 

Legacy System mocks your hard work and effort with frustrating displays of inefficiency.

And that's on Monday...

(special thanks to Alien in Pictures)

One Giant Step...

Grad School.

After 8 years in the work force, I'm back in school (while still maintaining the day job). Despite the new academic black hole that's swallowing my time, my Tuesday and Thursday nights (goodbye Two-for-Tuesday wing specials and Thursday night football) and the recurrence of a childhood nightmare, homework, I'm energized. Shocking. The first few classes have been conducted in an engaging manner with an emphasis on function, practicality and implementation instead of theory, the aging cadaver most students hone their skills with. Or the upper might be this attempt at a bribe by the MIT department.

iPhone. Awesome. Drool (which won't damage the phone. Tested and passed!).

If my third grade teacher taught math with a Gameboy, I might be an engineer right now.

Even database programming is fun when you're told a goal is to create an app for the iPhone.

Actually, database programming, and programming in general, is similar to editing, which I do at my job. The premise of crafting a language to follow a specific set of rules and syntax is an easy concept. Learning the language is the difficult part.

So let's hope the MIT program goes better for me than Conversational French. Despite the high resale value, that text book made a great effigy at a Christmas party in college.

Then again, French III didn't come with an iPhone.