My contribution for Ada Lovelace Day is dedicated to Susan Kare.

Susan Kare, the “Mother of GUI”:

Have you ever used a Macintosh computer? If yes, do you know the key on the bottom left of your keyboard that says  “command”. Can you picture the cloverleaf-like “infinite loop” symbol beside that? Or how about the the “Happy Mac” icon image to the left? Kane designed them.

OK, so you’re not a Mac user. Do you know the fonts Geneva, Chicago and Monaco? Kane created them.

How about Facebook – have you ever received or given a “gift” on Facebook? You know the pixel images that you can send to a friend? Kare designed many of the icons for the Facebook Gifts application.

So, you don’t use a Mac, you haven’t heard of those fonts and you’ve never been on Facebook?! Have you played Solitaire? Kare designed the graphics for the computer game. (more…)

Photo by Aristocrat (cc)

Today, 24^th March 2009 is the first Ada Lovelace Day. Bloggers around the globe are invited to write a blog post about  a women in technology that they admire. The aim is to highlight female role models and encourage women to become leaders in technology.

What does “in technology” mean?

It’s up to you how you interpret the phrase “in technology”. We’re not just interested in hardcore ninja programmers, but any woman who creates, invents, or uses any technology in an innovative way. Feel free to interpret it as widely as you like.

- From the website FindingAda.com

Who is Ada Lovelace?

Ada Lovelace is today appreciated as the first computer programmer. (more…)

While checking my personal e-mail on Yahoo! today (another) flash overlay advertisement disrupted the simple task that I was trying to do. Sure, this happens now and again but what was different about this one? Well, when I clicked on the ‘close’ button it opened the link to the product that was being advertised in another tab. So, I closed that and clicked ‘close’ again, thinking that I must have made an error and have missed clicking the ‘close’ button the first time (I was clicking ‘close’ quickly in frustration afterall). But no, it did exactly the same thing. While I’m not a fan of pop-up flash advertisements that cause me to be distracted from what I was originally doing, when I click close, I expect the ad to actually close! (more…)