Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sorting for Humans : Natural Sort Order

How to solve the following problem when comparing or sorting strings:
1.1
1.10
1.11
1.2
etc.

1.2 should come *before* 1.10, etc., but in a naive sort it does not.

See also the C# code he cites: http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2007/12/13/natural-sorting

Subversion Authentication With a Windows Domain

Really quite easy, according to a colleague.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Technology Review: Blogs: Ed Boyden's blog: How to Think

Technology Review: Blogs: Ed Boyden's blog: How to Think: "When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. One of the things I proposed was to teach a class called 'How to Think,' which would focus on how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure. In the process of thinking about this, I composed 10 rules, which I sometimes share with students. I've listed them here, followed by some practical advice on implementation."

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Tactics for Reducing the Subjective Experience of Down Time

"Time indicators

The formulae below all depend on use of a time indicator. The following choices of time indicators are listed from most to least desirable.

1. Estimated and remaining-time indicator. Place this either in a modal dialog or in the status bar at the bottom of the window.
2. "The system is alive" indicator. When it is impractical to offer the actual times, show an animated object that will let users know the system has not frozen. For longer waits, choose the rolling barber pole often found in status bars or other large animated object. For shorter waits (less than 10 seconds), you may use, instead, an animated "wait" mouse pointer, such as a spinning ball or animated hour glass.
3. "I hear and understand" indicator. When the expected wait is of short enough duration (less than 2 seconds) that displaying elapsed time, etc., is meaningless, display the hour glass."