Jakub Pawlowicz – Thoughts on life

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• Jakub Pawlowicz 11:02 am on October 27, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: cause, effect, human character, it (2), politics   

  Cause or effect? 

  In public opinion the technology industry people are considered as hairy, not-so-clean humans, wearing T-shirts and jeans, who drink coffee for breakfast, eat pizza for lunch, and chips for dinner*. Is it so because such people are attracted by IT industry or because IT industry produces/promotes such people?

  In public opinion politicians are considered liars. Is it so because liars are meant to be politicians or because if one becomes a politician he or she has to lie?

  The general question is: are you a cause of your character or an effect of your interactions with the society? I think both, but the society can’t deny your character. The effect can’t deny your cause. It will eventually come up.

  What do you think about it?

  *) I can assure you it is not 100% true. We do not eat chips for dinner…

   

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• Jakub Pawlowicz 10:29 am on October 20, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: apple (7), information visualization, mac, macbook, macbook pro (3)   

  Passion for engineering 

  I really like what Apple did with the latest revision of MacBook and MacBook Pro. This time they put a lot of attention into refining the external look and manufacturing process, and as usual for Apple they show passion in very every detail.

  Rather than looking at static images, go ahead and take a look at movie presenting the manufacturing process of new MacBooks. It’s perfectly well done, very well shot, and presented by Jony Ive (Apple SVP).

  PS) At the end of the movie they show how they optimized notebook packaging to reduce environmental footprint. Very nice, classic example of how combining animation with information visualization can explain complex matters the simple way.

   

• Jakub Pawlowicz 2:56 pm on October 14, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: banks (2), crisis (2), iceland, investment, recession (3)   

  Thoughts about investment banks 

  I found a really good joke in one of today’s newspapers. It goes like this:
  “What is it: 12 chairmans of investment banks lying at the bottom of the sea? A good start.”

  Little Monty Pythonish, but it clearly shows what people think about banks. Banks that misapplied people trust and earned money in risky businesses, which, in my opinion, was doing something very inappropriate and immoral. 

  Yes, immoral. Sure, the governments may have prevented this situation by forcing banks to follow “good business” rules, but they didn’t. So what is the morality of banks’ chairmans as they allowed this situation to happen? Looks like there is none. They don’t feel responsible for causing the crisis but they actually shed responsibility to people taking credits. But they are so wrong. Who’s business it was to earn money? It was banks’ business. They did it by persuading people the can owe another credit, effectively overheating the market. This is their responsibility and they should pay for it.

  Take a look at Iceland. Bankers invested people money outside the country in very risky interests, effectively dismantling economy of the 8th richest nation in the world. Stock has been closed for over a week, people savings and investments are frozen, and government falling apart. I hope bank bosses will get fired soon without any bonuses paid, or even will go to jail for “frauds”. This should be a “sentence” for risking other people’s money, for forcing us to pay for their mistakes.

  What do you think about it?

   

• Jakub Pawlowicz 10:26 am on October 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: analysis, cool, cross-platform, web analytics, web statistics, woopra   

  Cool Woopra 

  This post is going to be about web analytics. Recently I needed to decide what to use, as previously I didn’t have a stats tool tracking my home page. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you if I tell you I found Woopra when actually NOT looking for it. It’s always like this – if you don’t focus on looking for something it comes to you instantly. I found it while digging into  Viewzi site (I worked for them twice) and found they use it. I decided to give it a try and I like it very much so far.

  What actually makes it different? First of all it is highly visual statistics tool. Geographic data, charts, day-to-day visits, and live stats shows very detailed info in a visual way. For example, number of visits on the world map is shown as different shades, making it super easy to track. Looks like there’s someone at Woopra knowing the information visualization is essential to gather users’ attention, and I’m really glad they did it with their tool. Enough words, just take a quick look below to find it’s even better:

   

  

  Woopra desktop tool preview.

   

   

  The second reason is they provide a cross-platform desktop client for their service, which offers superior features and usability to many web tools out there. Yes, it’s a DESKTOP tool. Call ma old-fashioned but in many cases I prefer to use desktop tools to web ones. And this is a case.

  And last but not least, the stats results are super detailed, and you can sort and browse them by all categories (operating systems, browsers, screen dimensions, entry links, exit links, etc). It often makes more fun than real analytics, but analysis should be fun also.   

  Downsides? It’s still beta and there’s much work still to be done. But it looks very promising and if you look for a web analytics tool, you should give it a try. 

  Check out Woopra home page to get a beta tester license. They will be closing the beta programme shortly, so you need to hurry up.

   

• Jakub Pawlowicz 10:37 am on October 3, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: front end, goldenline (2), login process, social (2), Usability (2), ux (3)   

  Login screen done the wrong way 

  Today I’m going to talk a little about GoldenLine.pl, a polish social network, one of the biggest on our market. I needed to create an account there recently, and came across their registration & login process. Registration was standard and pretty painless. The interesting things started when I needed to login for the first time.

  Here’s how the login form looks like:

  

   

  Interesting, isn’t it? The very first question that came into my mind is what’s the default action? Signing up? It should be signing in as majority of users are ones who have the account. Something like this:

  

  I noticed this, as I made a mistake the first time I was signing in. The second time I did it the “right” way, but it isn’t the case. User should not adapt to the service’s interface. This is interface role to guide user by using right information visualization (like using right colors to highlight more likely actions). 

  The second thing: they should use the information entered in the login form to check if user have an account even if he or she clicks “Sign Up”. This is because user may forget about having an account in the system or they clicked a wrong button. If user doesn’t have it, then move to the sign up form, but with some fields already filled in (like email).

  Good systems already implement such preemptive approach (see Pragmatic Programmers as an example). 

  Right now I’m going to ask GoldenLine.pl what they are going to do with this. Stay tuned.

  Login screen done the wrong way - revisited « Jakub Pawlowicz’s Weblog is discussing. Toggle Comments

   

• Jakub Pawlowicz 12:36 pm on October 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bush, plan demystified, recession (3), rescue plan, stock exchange, us senate, usa, wall street   

  US help plan demystified? 

  First of all, it’s my speculation only.

  1. On Saturday president Bush presented a plan to donate $700 billion dollars to the US market;
  2. On Monday US House of Representatives voted down the plan, stock exchange indexes took a deep dive; (some) investors lost a lot of money;
  3. On Tuesday president Bush presented another “refined” plan;
  4. On Wednesday the House of Representatives US senate backed the plan;
  5. Stock indexes will go up (at least for a moment), investors will need to rebuild their wallets;

  My question is why president Bush presented 2 plans?! Doesn’t he have his people in the House of Representatives, who should tell him: “Look George, make it better or we turn it down!”. 

  I think it may have been well planned by someone, who knew the first plan would be rejected. Sell shares before Monday, buy them on Tuesday, and you just got richer. I am asking this, because it is not clear. And if nobody knows what something is all about, it is probably about money.

  PS) I’ve just realized it hasn’t been backed by House of Representatives yet. But let’s wait till Friday.

  PPS) As supposed House of Representatives backed the plan on Friday. Anyone surprised?

   

• Jakub Pawlowicz 10:55 pm on October 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: economical, learning, recession (3), spending less, wise   

  Learn to spend wisely 

  Recession. A very popular topic these days. Even in Poland, despite quite good growth rate, there are signals of slowing down. In US and western Europe it has started a few months/years ago, because of delays in mortgage payments, banks investing in risky stuff, people’s wallets depending more and more on credits and so on.

  Due to the recession, it’s a good time to consider spending less. But it’s a wrong assumption! It’s always good time to speak about spending more wisely! No matter what’s the situation on the market we should always tend towards a balance between what’s earned and spend. Why? As human beings easily adapt to propitious environment (that’s why we gain weight easily, and loose it not that easy!), once the good time ends, it’s simply very tough to adjust to the harder conditions, be it less money, more responsibility, or further way to work. Thus it’s wiser to ‘pre-adapt’. 

  A solution is to always leave a reserve: to spend less than you earn, to be more responsible than you meant to be (it always pays off!), drive economically even if you can afford for extra gas, or don’t buy 6th pair of jeans if you already have 5 in your wardrobe, and only one worn at the moment. Treat yourself like an investment and your wallet as investor’s one. No one wants to overspend. Try it and you’ll sleep better.

  Let me know what do you think about it. It works for me. It should for you too.