Author: Victor

Meg’s site led me to Dinah’s, who wrote this truism:

“There is something really satisfying about clearing out the piles of stuff in your email box to give you a sensation of lightening your load. Illusory perhaps, but it is as if each of those undeleted messages is a string going to your head and it feels so delightful to cut some of them.”

PB’s site led me to meg’s site. Another pleasantly witty character. I usually despise hyperlinks that aren’t underlined, but by using day-glo yellow on a black background they stand out enough to be perceived as links (and that’s the difference I guess, that the highlighting mechanism has to say more that simply highlighting, it has to give the impression of functionality).

And she manage’s to use black backgrounds without looking pretentious, very nice.

This site is updated using Blogger, a cool system (content management application or CMA in the lingo) based on Pyra that lets you post HTML updates onto a web page to create these wonderful interstitial thought publishings referred to as weblogs.

Anyway, I went back to Blogger’s discussion forum to figure out how I could correct an HTML error of mine that screwed up the edit feature of that post, which effectively screwed up the entire page. Luckily this guy pb is on top of the show stopping stuff and created a neat little fix for careless folks like myself.

Poking around his own ‘blog had me thinking “This guy’s pretty cool!” He reads Peterme, Memepool, likes the music of David Byrne, and is a programmer too. It’s the people with two genuinely developed sides of the brain that impress me.

Apparently the Blogger people are still working on the archiving feature, so this page will grow and grow until they role that out.

I wonder if anyone has done a usability study of webrings. They seem a contradiction in terms – web implies hyper-navigation (originating with hypertext) and ring implies linear navigation – you go around from one site to the next in order. Thanks, but I’ll see you at a nicely categorized site like Yahoo!.

More on the Strida. Everyone keeps commenting on the bar that rises up from between your legs that curves into the handlebars. The fear is that, in an accident, your crotch would be pressed into the bar. While I see the possibility I don’t think most accidents force the body into such a simplistic straight-forward motion, but maybe I’m rationalizing.

Another note on sizing and the Strida : on the tall end it’s not a question of whether the bike is adjusted well or not, it’s a question of whether your knees will hit the handlebars or not.

Day three with the Strida …

I figure out that the Strida bag is assymetical and the bike will only fit in one way. The other way it’s like trying to get a futon cover around a futon mattress, only impossible.

Carrying this thing on the subway is weird. In the case it’s a drag on a crowded train, too much of a hassle. On a non-crowded train without the case I get even more wild-eyed looks and smiles and questions. This is good or bad depending on your need for attention/self-conscious ratio.

I forgot how much I enjoy riding through New York City on a bike. It might sound weird to others, but it’s a thrill. Part of it is definitely the risk involved; bike messengers are the closest thing we have here to the tough, romantic image of a cowboy.

If you read my report on the Strida and end up buying one please let me know! I’m providing this report as a good Internet citizen but would appreciate compensation in the form of their referral program.

Day two impressions of my Strida bike (see below for background):

I should start by stating what the purpose of my purchase was. I commute by train between New York and New Jersey, USA which is about 15 miles. Although my house is very close to the train stations, the destination station in New York City is 1-2 miles from work, so the bike would be nice for this leg. Additionally, I’d like to use the bike for getting around town, to do everything from going to church to picking up a few groceries. My regular bike, a Bianchi Eros road bike, is too valuable and too loaded up with touring accessories for these purposes. A simple, foldable bike for short distances seemed the perfect solution.

Incidentally, I’m 6 feet 3 inches tall and weight about 190 pounds – definitely on the high end of Strida’s range. Even in it’s highest position the seat can’t be adjusted in the same way you’d adjust a more conventional road bike, but since the bike is only intended for short distances it doesn’t bother me much, even with my problem knees.

I took the bike on it’s first ride today. It was an exhilirating ride. One guy on the sidewalk shouted “Nice bike” and another approached me at a stop light and asked a few questions about where to get one. This thing is it’s own rolling advertisement.

The ride, for having such small wheels and an aluminimum frame, is surprisingly supple. It seems the seat is mounted in such a way as to bounce a bit, cushioning your butt. Even over the local cobblestone streets in the SoHo section of New York City (e.g. Mercer Street) the ride wasn’t bad and handling was good.

Normal handling reminded me of being 7 years old again (a beautiful thing) what with the fixed gear and small wheels. You don’t steer so much as you careen, very much like you’d see a young child riding a bike. I thought this was a function of age and motor development but I guess it’s more a function of bike design.

Though the bike is small and folds into a relatively small size I’m still hesistant to take it onto a crowded subway train, even in it’s bag.

“If 85 percent of child cyclists wore helmets for one year, we could save up to $142 million in medical costs.”

— Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute

Their stats page reveals some interesting facts:

Men account for 7 times the death rate of cyclists over women.

Cycling deaths happen more often at night

“Ninety-seven percent of bicyclists killed in 1997 reportedly weren’t wearing helmets.”

A high percentage of cycling injuries are head injuries.

Just received my Strida today. I want to jot down some notes that I can eventually compile into a whole page of impressions – there’s a serious lack of opinion on the ‘Net about this interesting bike. I haven’t even ridden it yet but…

Just for the record I’m dealing with the Stida 2 here, not the original Strida which I don’t know much about. Mine’s serial number 000951 – the exclusivity of it makes me giddy :-)

I ordered it from their web site and was happy they used the excellend Yahoo! Stores for e-commerce. The marketing part of the site is well designed and executed but could use more detailed information for detail hungry types like bike fanatics (I’m assuming people willing to try an unusual bike like this leans toward the fanatical state of mind, though they certainly don’t have to in order to appreciate this bike).

Original order was back ordered a week (bikes are made and shipped from England). They notified me promptly. In fact, there was no lack of helpful phone calls throughout my experience with them, though their email response averaged 2-3 days which could be better).

They mistakenly didn’t put my company name on the address label and UPS was unable to deliver it to my workplace, which delayed the delivery 7 days (an eternity when you’re waiting for something this cool). Luckily UPS stored the package locally, sent me a postcard notifying me of the problem (how did the postcard make it to me without a company name I’m not sure) and then redelivered once they had all the information. Again Strida’s assistance was as helpful as possible, but the original mistake was a drag.

My initial out-of-the-box impression was as exciting as I’d thought it’d be. The folding/unfolding procedure is easy, though locking the wheels together takes a little more effort than expected and the two plastic pieces that clip together seem kinda fragile but no problems yet.

The whole thing reeks of good design. Every piece feels solid and rounded and pleasing to the touch. It’s as if the designer brainstormed saying “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” and came up with a ton of great little ideas, a bunch of which made it into the final design.

There’s a slick little hole in the seat “post” that holds an Allen key for making adjustments, though it’s too small to fit to adjust the seat, contrary to what the manual states. I called them and they said a second Allen key should be taped either to a postcard in the manual or, in my case, inside the packaging box (good thing it hadn’t been thrown out yet!). I guess they increased the size of these bolt heads. Wonder why – increased strength? Supply problems?

They have a couple of really big stickers with the usual warnings: no wheelies (they’d be very dangerous on this bike), stunts, etc. I applaud their safety efforts, but they’re a bit annoying to take off.

Another Blogger test – does the first post of October archive September’s posts like I think it should??

Expanded bashing of WebCriteria (see original earlier in month):

I feel compelled to offer the contrarian view because this product scares me! Our usability tests are done with demographically targeted individuals, but WebCriteria uses one agent (“Max”) that falls short of even a generic human. Max doesn’t understand content or is influenced by it, he has a perfect memory, he doesn’t back track, and he doesn’t know how to perform a search.

WebCriteria’s objective measures, like load time, are certainly useful. But other measures like accessibility are too cookie cutter for my taste. They don’t take into consideration, for example, visual ways to direct the user’s attention.

Notice the subtle Jedi mind trick in their documentation:

“The WebCriteria Accessibility measurement does not consider all the factors that affect ease of navigation in a web site. Obviously the user will be affected by compelling content, clear wording and offers of free cars. Nevertheless Accessibility is an effective measure of the effect of the structure of the web site on ease of navigation.”

Also, their “freshness” measurement basically says new = good. What if we’re dealing with classic content that shouldn’t or couldn’t change? While we could provide disclaimers explaining the limited usefulness of WebCriteria’s results, I’m afraid clients will forget this, instead feeling justified in making decisions based on hard cold statistics.

It’s interesting that in most areas of knowledge we look to experts for authoritative information, yet when it comes to our most important and visible news we rely on general corespondents for the story. Why have a “White House Corespondent” that tries to cover everything from foreign debt to national health care? Why not a health care corespondent that covers all health care issues?

Obviously, there are logistic issues involved. But soon, being at the “press” conference won’t be a factor; a corespondent will just tap into the feed from home or the office and supplement it with context and analysis,publishing the result.