staring at the white dot

The story broke yesterday but I've only got round to blogging it today. It might lose its novelty value quickly but while it lasted it might just be amusing to head in to John Lewis and kill every screen in the department with this little device: The TV-Be-Gone cycles through hundreds of standby codes to switch TVs off. The inventor tries to make some crass point about freeing the world from media but everyone knows this is just a comic-book style joke item. In terms of usability I guess it's quite apt, empowering the consumer and all that. Of course your actions might not have universal appeal. The flip side of the prank element is dealt with quite acerbicly by Gizmodo . The website to buy these things is - unsurprisingly - down due to bandwidth issues, try for yourself. There's a European version and a US-Pacific version apparently. I think £10 was the quoted price.

Anyway, in other news, I'm off to visit a new e-marketing and design agency in Norwich this afternoon Creative Sponge. Having taken a wander past their trendy King Street offices on a daily basis and taken an interest in their embryonic image via their site it seemed only right that I should meet the team behind them and find out more.

Right, time for a quick scoot round the web. It is Friday after all.

location location location

Having been asked to add a link to the theusabilitycompany on my main website smorgasbord-design.co.uk, I felt that now was the time to turn the corner and make the s-d site (an ageing workhorse of free usability information and one-time portfolio of my previous work...) into something a bit more up-to-date and content-managed. It used to be that I had time to update the site - it was, after all my only role. However, having secured more profitable daytime work I found the chance to chase my freelance dream was limited and I lost touch with the industry as a whole. This is the first chance to correct that mistake and start a blog where I can pass comment on usability I see around me and experience day-to-day. A little like Jakob but perhaps a little less learned? A work in progress.