Blog of Much Holding

Two days of driving later, I am now firmly ensconced in a suite with the wife and brood in San Antonio, Texas. I will continue my semi-normal sporadic postings momentarily. For the two people who normally read my blog, my apologizes.

Hooray! More scenes! More action! More Ledger!

First off, to my old friend John Champion (who told me last week he had not even seen the third series) – DON’T READ THIS. OK, for everyone else, this page has almost a scene-by-scene preview of Saturday’s episode.

This set of blueprints (yes, I know, blueprints for fictional equipment and spaceships are uber-geeky but hey, I gotta be me) will be coming out this fall. I’m on the waiting list. Sigh.

Many nuWho fans have already seen this, but I showed it to my wife the other day (who I think is even more obsessed with Doctor Who than I am) and thought it would be appropriate to embed here to…

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I’m thinking that Donna is going to be revealed as something other than a “temp” that the Doctor just happened to meet twice (the end of this last week’s episode certainly laid the groundwork/telegraphed such a reveal). So here’s who…

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EW published a list of the “New Classics” – the top 100 movies from the last 25 years – and the editors’ selections were… well, really bad. Here’s their top 10:  1. Pulp Fiction (1994) 2. The Lord of the Rings…

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By Michael Arrington

Nika Smith wrote a post on the Google blog today showing the evolution of Google chat before it launched in early 2006. Google does extensive testing of new products using employees as guinea pigs (see our post on the pre-launch evolution of Gmail) as well as outsiders brought in to test software and interfaces in their usability lab.

I had a chance to see the lab a few weeks ago. It’s a small room with a large flat screen monitor, along with a desk and computer. It also has a number of discrete cameras (and a microphone) that keep an eye on the user herself as well as the screen. Around the corner is a second room where Google employees can watch people interact with the software real time. The room has a couch and a chair along with two screens and speakers to monitor the lab. See the image to the right.

The Gmail Labs team took us through some of the pre-launch iterations of Gmail chat that were tested in the lab. Most of these weren’t included in the Google post, so I’ve added them below. All of these were eventually abandoned as the team moved towards the much more low profile chat window at the bottom right of the Gmail screen we see today.

[Editor’s note: Nothing so far on why gmail continues to suffer from serious security issues. But maybe that’s seen as a security issue and not a usability issue?

Try telling that to someone who left their gmail account running on one computer, then logged on to the same gmail account on a different computer with no idea their private email was on show to all the world on the first one. Any Googletastic insights into why this bizarre oversight continues to exist welcome – editor@usabilitynews.com.]

Here’s an International poster. The most coolest thing? Duke has the cheek scar (from the original 12″ figure!) Hooray!

I woke up to news that George Carlin had died, and almost immediately said the 7 words you can’t saw on television in response. Carlin was one of the funniest men on the planet, and he will be missed. 

I have attended Star Wars Weekends at Walt Disney World in Florida for three years running… until this year. A family reunion in Texas and an aggressive plan to reduce our consumer debt prevented that from happening in ’08 (and…

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Yes, more nuWho stuff… Here’s our first look on video of Davros, from next week’s Doctor Who series finale (part one). [youtube]-dD1Yr-9O3w[/youtube]

BRILLIANT episode, and yes, it did have plot holes big enough to fly a Tardis through, but all I can say about that is “Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey.” Lots of reviews here. All us folks in the states need to…

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Another hat tip to Mark Evanier from Newsfromme.com for pointing me to this: Joe Cocker’s performance from Woodstock, translated for the clear-headed. Very funny. [youtube]T4_MsrsKzMM[/youtube]

My old pal John Champion of DVDGeeks posted another great article at TrekMovie.com about the FedCon debacle, this time shining a light of the wonderful actor John Billingsley (from Star Trek: Enterprise) and his wife Bonita and how they helped…

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MGM just announced they will be putting out six James Bond movies this fall for the first time in high-def… Details here. But.. The initial titles… Hmm. Dr. No? Good choice. Live and Let Die? OK, first Roger Moore Bond, that’s cool……

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