imran*

Author: Imran Ali

  • Where 2.0

    With it’s AJAX-ian user interface, remixable maps and numerous mashups and spinoffs, Google Maps kickstarted the current wave of innovation in UI design and locative media. MSN and Yahoo predicatably leapt into the fray with their own competing services, however it’s worth keeping an eye on old standards like Multimap.

    Multimap Following a link inside a Wikipedia entry, I discovered that Multimap now cleverly overlays maps onto aerial photos (kinda like Google Maps’ Hybrid view) in the area around your pointer….a nice UI touch, providing an intuitive mechanism for juxtaposing map and photo information. It’d be great to see this extended to other locative data such as property values, crime, population and photoblogs.

    See an example here…

  • DENIM

    Denim_1 Perfect. DENIM is an application that lets designers literally sketch a site structure, informally, with some conditional logic and at varying levels of abstraction.

    DENIM fills a huge gap in the web creative’s arsenal of tools – Dreamweaver does’nt need more fancy widgets…it needs integrated, iterative tools like DENIM enabling the designer to sketch, refine and detail as requirements become clearer and more focussed. Tools like DENIM can enable the designer to work iteratively and directly with the client.

    Download for Windows, Mac and Linux here…

  • Singing Messenger

    SingingimTwo days ago, my MSN Messenger client began singing to me. At first I was puzzled, there were no applications other than Messenger running and yet I could distinctly hear Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin emanating from my VAIO’s speakers.

    It turns out that the National Health Service has been buying advertising for its Anti-Smoking efforts within MSN’s client – the ad creative includes a lo-res sample of Sinatra.

    Now, though this type of ad content is certainly attention grabbing, it’s also monumentally irritating and annoying…as bad as hunting for elusive Close buttons on overlay ads in web pages. MSN needs to consider some guidelines for advertisers in its IM client…perhaps the NHS campaign was an exception, due to its subject matter, however, I rue the day Messenger starts to popup ads around every conversation and message notification…

  • Ikea Bullet Time

    Bullettime <yawn>Yes, that Bullet-Time</yawn>, the much overused Matrix-style photographic effect…however, this time quite tastefully applied to an online Ikea campaign.

    I wonder if it was inspired by the floating prices and product names of Fight Club’s satirical ‘Ikean’ apartment sequence.

    You can see the Ikea clip here… (Flash required).

  • My Delicious Long Tail

    A couple weeks ago Nivi, a fellow FooCamper, laid down a challenge – to create an application that would interrogate a del.icio.us user’s bookmarks and return a list of the most frequent sources…in essence visualing the Long Tail of a user’s bookmarks.

    Pascale Van Hecke answered the challenge (winning $50!). So here’s my del.icio.us long tail:

    salon.com (27), wired.com (27), news.bbc.co.uk (24), imran.typepad.com (15), spiked-online.com (13), nytimes.com (11), flickr.com (8), news.com.com (7), wanadoo.typepad.com (7), longtail.typepad.com (6), guardian.co.uk (6), bbc.co.uk (6), telepocalypse.net (5), corante.com (5), foreignpolicy.com (4),
    en.wikipedia.org (4), foe.typepad.com (4),
    …
    erickaakcire.net (1), turbulence.org  (1), xtech-conference.org (1), 37signals.com (1), pleasurecards.com (1), rssmix.com (1), big-boys.com (1)

    Surprisingly, my ‘tail’ is pretty long…from a distribution of 571 sources, only 48 yielded more than one bookmark – ranging from Salon.com to Ian’s personal site. It’d be interesting to see this visualisation, and others, built directly into del.icio.us as a concordance of a user’s sources, not just their tags.

  • The Tango Project

    The Tango Project Tango is a collaborative effort of a variety of free/open-source software designers and artists to work towards unifying the visual style of the free (mostly Linux) desktop…so far Tango have published a style guide and a set of base icon library.

  • SimpleBits

    SimplebitsFollowing a link from Fiona, I found that the lovely, simple and intuitive designs of Rollyo, Odeo and other recent startups were all undertaken by the same agency, SimpleBits.

    The SimpleBits site includes the founder, Dan Cederholms’, blog, his publications, four lovingly crafted sets of icons and of course a portfolio of work. Expect to see SimpleBits’icons making their way into various TR applications 😉

  • Roadmap to Ramadan

    Years ago someone gave me a planner consisting of thirty personal targets that one should aim to complete within the month of Ramadan. I never managed to follow the planner, but I intend to do so this year…and also to share, so here goes:

    1. Send a neighbour some food for Iftar.
    2. Feed a homeless person.
    3. Feed a poor person in another country.
    4. Greet everyone with a smile and salam today.
    5. Pray all five daily prayers in congregation.
    6. Donate money to charity.
    7. Read a section of the Qu’ran daily with the aim of completing the Qu’ran by the end of Ramadan.
    8. Contact family and friends you haven’t been in touch with for a while.
    9. Perform Taraweeh prayers.
    10. Pay your Zakat-ul-Mal – if you’re unable to do so, give extra to charity.
    11. Provide food for Iftar for thirty people.
    12. Undertake I’tikaf during the last ten days of Ramadan.
    13. Memorise a portion of the Qu’ran every day.
    14. Invite a less fortunate non-Muslim friend to Iftar.
    15. Make Du’a for less fortunate Muslims around the world.
    16. Raise money for charity.
    17. Make friends with a non-Muslim and tell them about Islam.
    18. Pray Isha and Fajr at the mosque.
    19. Read a book about Islam.
    20. Watch less TV.
    21. Refrain from backbiting.
    22. Perform Tahajjud and other extra prayers.
    23. Seek forgiveness a hundred times a day and forgive others.
    24. Dhikr, say thirty-three SubhanAllah, thirty-three Alhumdulillah and thirty-three AllahuAkbar after each prayer.
    25. Zakat ul-Fitr.
    26. Give a gift to your parents to show your love and appreciation.
    27. Visit the graveyard or attend a Janaza prayer and make Du’a for the deceased.
    28. Visit a sick person (70’000 angels seek forgiveness for you when you do this).
    29. Remember to write your will if not done so already.
    30. Attend a gathering to gain more knowledge about Islam.

    I’m going to cross one off as I start doing each activity…and hopefully get as close to thirty as I can by Eid-ul-Fitr. I guess it’s more a collection of desirable good deeds than a set of actual compulsory tasks.

    If I figure it out, I might try porting the targets to 43 Things or Ning and try add a social dimension…so time to reboot your souls people. Get Busy.

    —

    UPDATE: I’ve managed to get through about a third of the tasks, mostly the personal rather than social ones, but on the whole the list helped me to bring some focus to my Ramadan…next year, I’ll have a better approach. Inshallah. For the time being, I do feel renewed, cleansed and a little optimistic for the first time in almost two-and-a-half years 🙂

  • Beyond Usability: Designing the Complete User Experience

    Jeffrey Veen’s recent talks, on Beyond Usability and Designing for Web 2.0, given at Web Essentials are now available for download as PDF slideshows and MP3 podcasts here…

    Beyond Usability: Designing the Complete User Experience is a great whistlestop tour on why the broader user experience is increasingly more important than usability alone.

  • The Blessed Month Of Google

    God Well its now the month of Google, so I can’t Google, Google or Google between the hours of Google and Google…thirty more Googles then it’ll be the end of Google, I’ll celebrate Google and then it’ll be back to Google again.

    After recent patent filings on socialnetworks, moonbases, gigamail, photos, muniwireless and maps, seems that Google has designs on Islam.

    Next up – WikiQuran.