First Direct Web Site

Here’s a good example of how not to design a user interface. Yesterday I realised that I needed to pay my tax bill. My accountants had filed the return, it was just up to me to actually stump up the money. The deadline for payment is January 31st so it was a bit late to… Continue reading First Direct Web Site

Internet Mob Mentality

An interesting example of the mob mentality that is becoming more prevalent on certain parts of the internet (and, indeed, in real life). Yesterday Digg published a story claiming that O’Reilly editor Steve Mallett had “stolen” the Digg’s CSS definitions for his own sites. The response from Digg’s readership was immediate, nasty and, ultimately, completely… Continue reading Internet Mob Mentality

BBC Programme Catalogue

When I saw him in Amsterdam, Matt was talking about a secret project he was doing for the BBC. And now he has revealed what it is. He’s putting a web front end on the BBC Programme Catalogue. That’s a database that contains details of almost a million programmes that the BBC have broadcast over… Continue reading BBC Programme Catalogue

More is Less

Until recently I often used a website called TV Tome. This was the best place to go for information about TV programmes. It contained episode guides, cast lists and various other bits of trivia about all of your favourite programmes. Nice simple interface. A few ads, but nothing too intrusive. It’s not there now tho’.… Continue reading More is Less

Google Blogsearch

Either I’m missing the point, or Google’s new Blogsearch is missing the functionality that I’d use most – the ability to search for sites that link to a particular blog. I’m talking about something like Technorati’s blog search page or Bloglines’ citations service. Without this it really doesn’t seem to add much that I can’t… Continue reading Google Blogsearch

Popups Are Bad

I’m getting involved in a debate on the uk-netmarketing email list on the value (or otherwise) of web page popups. Another of the people in the discussion works for Eyeconomy who I’ve mentioned before. Like all people I’ve discussed it with, I hate unrequested popups on web pages. When one appears I close it down… Continue reading Popups Are Bad

Please Forget Me

The previous entry about Rojo (and, in particular, Aristole’s comment) reminds me of big complaint that I have about pretty much all web sites – which is that they like to make it incredibly difficult to close your account with them. Oh, I understand completely why that is. If you’ve registered with a web site… Continue reading Please Forget Me

Political Weblogs

Tim Ireland launches the Political Weblog Project where he aims to get as many elected representatives as possible using weblogs to encourage two-way communication with the people they represent. I think this is a great idea. And not just because he has nice things to say about my own political weblog.