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The personal web log of Mike Lee, a web information architect living and working "I surf as much as I eat." curiousLee in...   Hiptop Nation aiyaa! Technorati GeoURL Blogstreet Daypop Stats Photo Friday Mirror Project Google Images The City Paper UMBC TechPort email me past monthly... 2000: 10.11.12 2001: 01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08. 09.10.11.12 2002: 01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08.09.10.11.12 2003: 01.02.03.04.05.06 07
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Monday, June 30, 2003
Water misty twilight
 I just missed the sweet spot of twilight tonight due to working late, but this shot made just after comes close. The color-tinted jets of water fog are from the water misting system built into our building's promenade. Makes a nice foreground to the Baltimore skyline doesn't it? I've been observing life more than thinking about my work lately and moblogging a lot via the Sidekick. Here are some highlights of recent posts on Hiptop Nation: I congratulate Mike Popovic, proprietor of Hiptop Nation on his trip to Japan Oh, and my iSight is arriving tomorrow! Friday, June 27, 2003
Usability is like...
... dieting. So says Steve Krug in a quote that came across the DC Web Women list today: Usability is like dieting; most people think it's a good idea in the abstract, but most of us don't really want to pay the price. And if you get people to take the leap, they're almost inevitably glad they did.To convince clients to pay for usability, we might indeed need a new kind of shameless evangelist that goes way beyond Jakob and Jared.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
The sheer joy of photography
I got an e-mail tonight saying one of the photographs I submitted to America 24/7 is in the running to appear in the national book to be published in November this year! And as a double page spread no less! There's a photo of the photo on Hiptop Nation. Wish me luck as I hope I don't end up on the editing room floor.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
The faces of us
 The ever-expressive May has launched a fun new project called aiyaa! for Hiptop/Sidekick mobloggers. Periodically, a theme challenge based on an emotion as facial expression will be announced on the site, and mobloggers will submit photos via e-mail. The photos will appear immediately on the site, which is powered by the same engine as Hiptop Nation. The first challenge is Spooked and you will find this Curious Lee in the fray. Be sure to read the About section for background on the site's name. I'm looking forward to future challenges, but ultimately, I'll take any excuse to see photos of May.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Testing on the tracks
Monday, June 23, 2003
Historic Baltimore buildings in miniature
Adam alerted me to Jeff Springer's Custom Model Railroad site which offers model kits of historic Baltimore buildings such as Central (Penn) Station, The Bromo Seltzer Tower, and The American Brewery. Jeff's address at Keswick Road means his workshop is probably a five-minute drive away. Time to drop him an e-mail about a photo-blogging visit. Update: Rose sends along another source for historic Baltimore building models. Thanks!
Everything's better with a camera
Thomas' blog points out the release of Apple's iChat AV which adds voice and video chat capability of OS X. To sweeten the release, Apple is offering the iSight, a nifty little firewire lipstick video camera that clips to the top of your PowerBook or iMac flat screen. With the iSight on my PowerBook and the DV palmcorder we have already, there are many interesting possibilities for broadcasting baby-related video between the PC at home, and the laptop in a remote location.
Dave Barry on journalism
Dave Barry provides an explaination on how, appparently, journalism really works. [Via Gawker. Heh.]
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Ga ga geek
 To whomever sent the newbie and Child Process ThinkGeek Kids shirts: we thank you! You made our evening. (Original mention of our baby news was earlier this week.) Now back to reading about the crazy pregnant lady.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Artbots 2003
Nice coincidence: I am going to be back in New York City the week before the EYEBEAM Gallery's annual Artbots show, so I'm going to stay into Saturday, July 12th to catch the exhibits. I spent a couple nights back in February sketching possibilities for submission, but realized quickly that I couldn't embark on a mechanical construction project while living out of a suitcase in a hotel. But I'm sure that seeing this year's show in person will inspire me to start some prototypes to enter in next year's contest.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Micro-bloggers
Microsoft Watch has a new piece which describes how employees' blogging activity has come under scrutiny now that a number of people are maintaining personal blogs. Apparently, Microsoft doesn't yet have an official corporate policy on blogging (such as at Groove), but the corporate communications team is holding a panel discussion today where employees will be given the opportunity to present their thoughts. This sounds like it will be a healthy dialog given how insanely smart Microsoft employees are, but sooner than later, someone will cross a line and compromise the company or a product. In this situation, Microsoft has an even higher power over an employee than control of her desktop operating system—they can stop issuing paychecks. And just a note to myself: this is a t-shirt I need to order to wear at work. Monday, June 16, 2003
My Update: I've restored the last two life phases originally posted on 6/16 that my former manager requested I remove a day later. I can now say this blog is significant enough to have been censored. Ok, here in a "big bang" of a blog post are the big changes to my life in just the first six months of 2003: Inception: My six-month odyssey in New York City resulted in the role of information architect becoming a permanent new position in AIG Corporate eBusiness. A super-worthy local NYC IA will step into the job on July 7. I'll return to AIG that week to make introductions and pass the torch on the projects I've started. The new IA will develop a global information architecture practice for this Fortune no. 9 corporation with influence over operations in 160 countries. As you can imagine, I've been through a kaleidoscopic swirl of emotions in the last couple months. This is all win-win happy news, and fodder for many future blog posts.
Friday, June 13, 2003
Storytellers congregate (and blog about it)
Oy, more conference coverage to read. This time from Digital Storytelling Sedona. It's all good!
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Mike meets baby doll
 I wasn't back in town but a few days when I got an e-mail from Rachel Whang, co-owner of Atomic Books, asking me to pose for her blog. Apparently she's a fan of curiousLee. Rachel carries a plastic doll around and photographs Baltimoreans with it for posting to Baby Doll's Blog. She's even nailed Mayor Martin O'Malley! Rachel says people are amazingly indifferent to posing with a plastic doll. Of course I had to blog the blogger too. We're pictured above in the bookstore where I'm holding the doll in the foreground, and that's Rachel behind me—she's quite a doll too.
The business of blogging beautifully blogged
Thanks to the nimble fingers of Denise Howell and Heath Row, you can follow the just-concluded Weblog Business Strategies Conference almost verbatim. With all the rain, this is a good week to read conference transcripts.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Amy's DUX 2003 notes
   Wife Amy has been sending daily e-mail dispatches and Sidekick photos on her adventures in San Francisco where she attended the DUX 2003 Conference last week. Now that she's hunkered down to a series of usability tests for the rest of the week in SF for AARP, she's had time to start typing up her conference notes. Enjoy! Update: Over at Boxes and Arrows, Erin Malone offers five lessons learned from the conference. Update: I've added the rest of Day 2 of Amy's conference notes to complete the document.
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Glorious bed rest
I spent a rejuvinating day in bed reading, napping, surfing, watching movies and reading periodic e-mail dispatches from Wife Amy, who's roaming around San Francisco for the rest of the week. Aside from a couple walks, doggy was curled up in various configurations around my legs. What a treat it was NOT to have to scramble to the train station at 7pm to catch the Amtrak to New York! My rejuvination gear:
Now I'm ready to be my introverted best this week. Friday, June 06, 2003
Baltimore welcomes me back
 The Lindstrand Hi-Flyer Balloon at Port Discovery presented me this spectacular view tonight of downtown Baltimore from an altitude of 400 feet. This was a resounding welcome back to my home town, and a wonderful way to end a momentous week at work. Update: Oh alright, here. (176kb JPEG)
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Diet asterisk
 This is the cool shape formed in the bottom of a plastic soda bottle by one remaining gulp of Diet Coke. Update: It was just by sheer chance that this post went up just before the new Photo Friday theme of "packaging." Anyway, it was Friday already elsewhere in the world...
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Incredibly helpful
Gordon Meyer notes on his blog, Usable Help, that he has updated his extensive gallery of onscreen help interfaces. The collection has grown by a third to about 190 examples. This is a resource that should be in the bookmarks of every application developer. Note: all the examples are from Mac OS software.
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Monday, June 02, 2003
My five for America 24/7
I envy the professional photographers who were able to spend 'round-the-clock arranging logistics and stalking subjects for The America 24/7 Project. After very full days at work, I just managed five photos that I thought were somewhat worth submitting. I've bent the rules about pre-publishing the images as some of them are already on this blog, but who cares—I didn't want to wait a year to share them. Here's a screenshot of thumbnails of the five I submitted to the project's Snapfish gallery last Sunday. My favorite is Empire Moon.
A high-flying graphics gallery
The Marvelous May points to The Dryden Research Aircraft Graphics Gallery where you'll find an extensive, copyright-free collection of vector-based line art of all manner of aircraft. In addition to the F and X series planes, you'll also find the SR-71 Blackbird and the Space Shuttle. After you swipe some of the EPS files, slide across to the sister section of photographs.
Sunday, June 01, 2003
One man's passion for lighting lives on
I was excited to see in last Wednesday's Baltimore Sun that the assets of The Mt. Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting will be acquired and partially displayed by Baltimore's Museum of Industry. The curator of the 60,000 item collection, Dr. Hugh Hicks, died in the spring of 2002. He took with him an intense passion for collecting light bulbs of every kind with the goal of having one of every type ever made. Though he didn't reach his goal, he inspired the thousands of visitors who came to see his displays in the basement of his dental practice in Mt. Vernon. I photo-blogged my last visit to the museum in March 2001. I'm looking forward to The BMI's re-opening of the collection in the fall.
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