Reviews

~ a review of BBC web design over time ~

One of my favorite news sources, the BBC's online news site (http://news.bbc.co.uk), just underwent a minor facelift. The changes, while aesthetically small, show improvements in usability and reflect the ongoing logical evolution of the site.

Here's a quick snapshot of how the interface of this influential site has changed over the years. For comparison purposes, all the screenshots below show the use of screen space relative to a 1024 x 768 display setting.

~ a comparative review of the political campaign websites of clinton, obama and mccain ~

Those of you who know me appreciate that I am so non-political that I verge on anti-political. Given that, you would probably never suspect me to post on the American political scene, but yet here it is.

This post comes on the heels of a request from the Web Marketing Association to review the websites of the two Democratic presidential contenders, that is, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The exercise proved more interesting than ever I expected, primary due to the insight it gives into the way the political machines are embracing the Internet and social media.

So, for all you armchair political observers, and also for those of you sincerely interested in these presidential puppet shows, I've assembled a quick snapshot of the Virtual Campaign Trail -- a overview of what the three leading candidates are doing online today.

The existence of a large and healthy crop of open source content management systems (CMS) is nothing new: Some claim more than 500 active projects are floating around out there in cyberspace. While the actual number of vital projects is most certainly much, much lower, the existence of relatively mature solutions like Mambo, Drupal and Plone prove that the open source CMS market is at the healthiest state in its history and that users now have more viable choices than ever.

n any organization the ebb and flow of email is a complex, fluid dynamic. The larger the organization, the more important it is to have a good handle on where those flows are going and how they are being managed. Two new Open Source products can help you get a grip on the flow.

Logicalware is a sophisticated mail management program targeted at organizations with significant email traffic. The system complements your existing email structure, acting like a switchboard directing and monitoring the flow of email traffic. Logicalware integrates smoothly with common mail servers including Outlook and Exchange.

I am well-known to my friends as an information junkie. Information overload? Ha! No such thing. I just need bigger barrels so I can get it into my system. This last week I found two tools that help me manage: PubSub and Great News.

Info junkies are loving the proliferation of RSS technology. If you’ve missed it, RSS is a syndication protocol that lets various content providers distribute their content in a semi-automatic fashion. As a consumer of information, you can subscribe (usually for free) to various RSS feeds to grab the headlines and article summaries as they appear. The system is not glamorous; these are summaries, not full blown articles, but the immediacy and ease of use make RSS a real winner.