I think I’ve read just enough to know that it is time to go Mac. I’ll be looking into getting an iBook as soon as I get paid back for the trip to Oregon, within the next few days. Anybody want a brand new IBM T42? I would say it’s sparkly clean, except for the fact that it’s brand new in the box, so I wouldn’t know.

What’s the difference between Mac and Apple? I’ve asked this of many, but it doesn’t seem that anyone has the answer. My hypothesis is that Mac is the hardware (unless specified otherwise, i.e. Mac OS) and apple is the brand. So software titles are preceded by the word Apple (such as Apple Pages) while the computers themselves are called Macs. Am I right? Perhaps I’ll know soon enough.

I’m doing some usability testing today. It should be fun. Designing usability experiments is, or at least can be, very challenging. Sometimes you want to know more than “Is this button placed in the right spot?” or “Does the user understand how to print this document?” We wanted to ask something more like, “Is there sufficient user buy-in for this product?” and “Does the user think this system does things better than in in its analog equivalent?” Hard questions to answer, especially when you’ve only got 30 minutes to burn and a paper prototype to work with. We did some informal testing last weekend, and it went alright…but I’m still not sure we’ll be getting the information we really want.

Running is still going well. I went a whole 4.33 miles yesterday, if you haven’t already noticed. It was on a treadmill, and therefore dreadfully boring, but a cold front has moved into town. I’m not down with running in really cold or snowy weather…just don’t have the clothes for it.

Did you notice the runGrapher on the left of the screen? It was donated by Erik, and I thank him big time for it. I’ll add some more functionality in a bit…but for now it just shows you the relative distances of my last 5 runs. If you can think of some upgrades, let me know and I’ll think about adding them in (and actually do so when I get the time).

There are damn near a million books I want to read and projects I want to work on right now. Mostly, I’d like to build a prototype of the software concept a team I was on created in my third year of college. It is used for photo organization, and I think we did an exceptional job, but none of us had programming experience. Now that I know a little bit about Flash, perhaps I can mock it up. Actually, I’ll probably be using to help me get to know Flash better, because I’m not as comfortable with it as I would like to be…

Ok, I’ve gotta get up and get out. Piece.