February, 2008

You can now contact me directly from my website using Google Talk. The chat feature is currently on my about page. I tried to put it in the header, footer, and all sorts of places and it just clashed with my little birdie.

For months comments have been closed on my blog due to a flood of spam. And I still haven't gotten around to working out the bugs on my contact form (case of the cobbler's shoes). Hopefully this will finally allow me to connect to my visitors. So drop me a buzz. If I fail to reply straight away, I'm just a little swamped in that good ol' day job.

I spent a majority of my week trying to recruit usability testers with little success. Then today I came across a great question on LinkedIn about remote usability testing. There's a lot of wonderful tools out there to help you recruit and conduct remote usability testing. Another great list is on remoteusability.com.

Hopefully I'll find a chance to try a few of these (on my limited budget). It would be interesting to test the usability on these usability tools. I especially like the video on Ethnio.

Two of my favourites all rolled into one - sushi and chocolate. San Jose based Koo-Ki Sushi offers these delightful treats made of fine chocolate and crisp rice cookies instead of raw fish, vinegar, and rice. You can order them online by the single piece or a combo box. What a perfect Valentines present (hint, hint). 

Etsy is filled with highly creative handmade crafts for sale. Just have a look at this mask made of coiled, sewn, polyester horsehair braid. Your party friends can also watch your beverage travel up the drinking tube and see it glow under a blacklight! For a mere 45 bucks, this gem of a mask could be all yours. I just love it.

The pace of technological innovation is inspiring and thought provoking. Whenever I come across some cutting edge technology, my head starts spinning with ideas and ways it can be used. Today Smashing Magazine put together a great compilation of 15 Stunning Cutting Edge Gadgets and Technology. After seeing just a few of these, I'm ready to break out my top secret ideas book and start jotting down some thoughts. Imagine taking Johnny Chung Lee's Wii idea one step further and using it for real time video in emergency situations. Shazam!

As I sit here nibbling on (another) granola bar for lunch, I came across this yummy recipe for Greek Spinach Potpie. I think will be perfect for my guests this weekend. Friends are coming to stay and we're planning to do some sledding, xcountry skiing, Wii playing, and breaking out the Apples to Apples (never played, no idea what its all about). I think a dish of this lovely pie will keep us going through the weekend. Great find.