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…)

Are you a user of Facebook and Twitter? Finding it difficult and/ or quite time consuming to manage your digital presence? Then why not consolidate your digital life stream by letting Twitter do all the work for you and use it as a Facebook status management tool? (more…)

Photo owned by Thai Jasmine (cc)

I learned a lot in 2008… and I loved a lot as well. Read about some of the highlights of my year from music, books, design, the web and technology to Obama, going green, success and failure, who I am/ what I do and sticktuitiveness!

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Social networking is not exactly new to politics but as the web has evolved so have the strategies and tactics of political campaign teams and the online profiles of politicians. One thing that has struck me as very interesting throughout the U.S. presidential campaign this year was the overall design factor behind each candidate’s brand, graphic identity and website. A topic that I will be looking at in greater detail in a later post but for now I want to focus on the way in which Obama in particular has utilised the web and social media to promote his campaign. (more…)

Increasingly there have been reports such as this about social networking websites, in particular Facebook. So by setting up an account with Facebook are you significantly decreasing your chances of getting that next job or inadvertently black-listing yourself from a college course? Not exactly… (more…)