SpringOne 2GX 2011

Chicago, October 25-28, 2011

Mike Stenhouse's complete blog can be found at: http://donotremove.co.uk

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<p>To get <a href='http://boxee.donotremove.co.uk'>my 4oD Boxee app</a> working I first had to convert <a href='http://youtube.com/user/4oD'>Channel 4&#8217;s YouTube feeds</a> into <a href='http://developer.boxee.tv/RSS_Specification'>Boxee&#8217;s format</a>. I&#8217;ve gone with the simplest thing I possibly could - just including the bare essentials - but it serves my purpose so maybe it&#8217;ll be of some use to someone else.</p>

<p>In a nutshell: you pass it a YouTube username, it gives you back a Boxee RSS feed. Done.</p>

<p>Here are some examples:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href='http://youtube-to-boxee.donotremove.co.uk/users/4od'>4od</a></li>

<li><a href='http://youtube-to-boxee.donotremove.co.uk/users/4oDComedy'>4oDComedy</a></li>

<li><a href='http://youtube-to-boxee.donotremove.co.uk/users/4oDDrama'>4oDDrama</a></li>

<li><a href='http://youtube-to-boxee.donotremove.co.uk/users/4oDFood'>4oDFood</a></li>
</ul>

<p>These days almost all my TV viewing has moved online. After much frustration I settled on <a href='http://boxee.tv'>Boxee</a> as my home entertainment center of choice, running on a Mac Mini sitting on my shelf. It started quite rough but it&#8217;s been constantly improving and the new version is great. My favourite thing about Boxee is the <a href='http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer/'>iPlayer</a> though. It puts almost all of my favourite TV content on Boxee. Almost all.</p>

<p>What&#8217;s been missing is <a href='channel4.com/programmes/4od'>4oD</a>, <a href='channel4.com'>Channel 4</a>&#8217;s IPTV service. Channel 4&#8217;s documentaries, in particular, are fantastic. Unfortunately when 4oD launched it was PC only. Last year they finally opened it up to Mac users but it was still limited to the browser, which is awkward to use from my sofa without a mouse. Awkward to the point of being unusable.</p>

<p>A few months ago, while waiting to be served at a pub in Soho, I overheard a man in a suit telling his colleague that Channel 4 were moving all their content over to YouTube. That sounded very exciting. Leaving aside the implications for the entertainment industry this meant that 4oD would have feeds.</p>

<p>Last week I happened across YouTube&#8217;s 4oD feeds and thought I&#8217;d try hacking a quick Boxee app together - mostly for my own benefit. Working with Boxee&#8217;s <a href='http://developer.boxee.tv/GUI_XML_Documentation'>UI XML</a> isn&#8217;t the easiest thing in the world but after a lot of reading, poking, twiddling and cursing I finally got something functioning. It&#8217;s very much <em>alpha</em>. Maybe even <em>pre-alpha</em>. But if you want to try it out here are the instructions:</p>

<ul>
<li>Launch Boxee.</li>

<li>Go to &#8220;apps&#8221;.</li>

<li>Down the left, right at the bottom under &#8220;extras&#8221;, is &#8220;repositories&#8221;.</li>

<li>In there is an option to &#8220;add repository&#8221;.</li>

<li>Hit that and enter &#8220;boxee.donotremove.co.uk&#8221;.</li>

<li>That should get you &#8220;Mike&#8217;s Boxee repo&#8221; and in there is &#8220;4OD&#8221;.</li>

<li>Hit that and go &#8220;add to my apps&#8221;.</li>

<li>Start it.</li>
</ul>

<p>The UI is limited, to say the least. 4oD channels are down the left; shows are down the right. Pressing right loads the show from the channel you have selected; left goes back to the channels. My biggest niggle at the moment is that loading channel content is a bit laggy. Let me know how it goes though! I&#8217;ll make improvements as I find the time and as I learn more about making Boxee apps. Or maybe Channel 4 have their own app in the works&#8230; We can hope!</p>

<p><a href='http://youmightnotknow.com'>You Might Not Know</a> is a place to share those little tips you&#8217;ve picked along this road called Life. These tips can be able absolutely anything. If you think they&#8217;re useful then someone else will too. Or that&#8217;s what we think, anyway.</p>
<script src='http://youmightnotknow.com/tip/62.js' /><script src='http://youmightnotknow.com/tip/24.js' /><script src='http://youmightnotknow.com/tip/70.js' />
<p><a href='http://drmaciver.com'>David</a> and myself have been busy working on the prototype for a while now and after much procrastinating we&#8217;ve finally decided it&#8217;s safe to tell people about it.</p>

<p>I&#8217;m rather proud of how simple it is at the moment - mostly thanks to some cunning ideas from David. Adding a tip takes moments and I&#8217;m finding it rather compulsive. We&#8217;d like to be to <a href='http://knol.google.com'>Knol</a> what <a href='http://tumblr.com'>Tumblr</a> is to <a href='http://wordpress.com'>Wordpress</a>.</p>

<p>We have a hundred things on the todo list but at this point we&#8217;d just love to see a few people playing with <a href='http://youmightnotknow.com'>You Might Not Know</a>. Let me know what you think!</p>

<p>Towards the end of last year I had the privilege to be invited to speak at the rather marvellous <a href='http://ted.com/tedx'>TEDx</a> event put on by <a href='http://codeworks.net'>CodeWorks</a> up in Newcastle. Each of the talks was filmed to the exacting TED standard and the result is a very slick-looking video of me rambling on about some of my favourite things.</p>
<object class='slides'><param name='movie' value='http://www.youtube.com/v/yyhVjMzcmwA&hl=en_US&fs=1&' /><param name='allowFullScreen' value='true' /><param name='allowScriptAccess' value='always' /><embed class='slides' src='http://www.youtube.com/v/yyhVjMzcmwA&hl=en_US&fs=1&' allowfullscreen='true' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' allowscriptaccess='always' /></object>

<p>On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of speaking at <a href='http://www.tedxnorth.com/newcastle09/'>TEDx Newcastle</a>, kindly organised by the good folk at <a href='http://www.codeworks.net/'>Codeworks</a>. My talk was about the memory of experiences.</p>

<p>Unless we make underwear or the like, our products probably spend most of their existence in the memory of our customers. In Stories and Experience I run through what we can do to help ensure that the experiences we design become memorable stories after the fact.</p>

<h2 id='slides_on_slideshare'>Slides (on <a href='http://www.slideshare.net/mikesten/stories-and-experience'>Slideshare</a>)</h2>
<object class='slides'><param name='movie' value='http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=storiesmk3-1-091002100010-phpapp01&stripped_title=stories-and-experience' /><param name='allowFullScreen' value='true' /><param name='allowScriptAccess' value='always' /><embed class='slides' src='http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=storiesmk3-1-091002100010-phpapp01&stripped_title=stories-and-experience' allowfullscreen='true' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' allowscriptaccess='always' /></object>
<h2 id='books'>Books</h2>

<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0141014598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492044&amp;sr=8-1'>Blink by Malcolm Gladwell</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492085&amp;sr=8-1'>Influence by Robert B. Cialdini</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irrationality-Stuart-Sutherland/dp/1905177070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492112&amp;sr=8-1'>Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Hacks-Tricks-Using-Brain/dp/0596007795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492128&amp;sr=8-1'>Mind Hacks by Stafford &amp; Webb</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/0141040017/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492390&amp;sr=8-1'>Nudge by Thaler &amp; Sunstein</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Predictably-Irrational-Hidden-Forces-Decisions/dp/0007256523/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492556&amp;sr=8-2'>Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quirkology-Curious-Science-Everyday-Lives/dp/0330448110/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492613&amp;sr=8-2'>Quirkology by Richard Wiseman</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sources-Power-People-Make-Decisions/dp/0262611465/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492625&amp;sr=8-3'>Sources of Power by Gary Klein</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tricks-Mind-Derren-Brown/dp/1905026269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492640&amp;sr=8-1'>Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Scientifically-Proven-Ways-Persuasive/dp/1416576142/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1254492666&amp;sr=8-1'>Yes! by J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, Robert B. Cialdini</a></li>
</ul>

<h2 id='links'>Links</h2>

<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/memory_is_more_important_than_actuality.html'>Don Norman&#8217;s jnd.org / Memory is more important than actuality</a></li>

<li><a href='books.google.com/books?id=mR2B-FdDzDoC'>Knowledge and memory: the real story, Robert S. Wyer, 1995</a></li>

<li><a href='nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html'>How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.spotd.it/2009/09/books-manufacturing-processes.html'>Manufacturing Process for Design Professionals</a></li>

<li><a href='alumni.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/projects/themail/study/index.htm'>Themail: visualize your email conversations</a></li>

<li><a href='http://overheardinnewyork.com/archives/015249.html'>You&#8217;re Kidding Yourself If You Think Those Things Don&#8217;t Matter</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2008/06/08/uietips-article-the-wheres-and-whens-of-users-expectations/'>UIEtips article: The Wheres and Whens of Users’ Expectations</a></li>

<li><a href='http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/cues-the-golden'>Cues, The Golden Retriever - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design</a></li>

<li><a href='berglondon.com/blog/2006/01/16/ready-at-hand-and-present-at-hand'>Ready-at-hand and Present-at-hand</a></li>

<li><a href='climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/05/kathy-sierra-creating-passionate-users-web20expo-berlin/'>Kathy Sierra: Creating Passionate Users</a></li>

<li><a href='guardian.co.uk/money/2007/jan/06/careers.work5'>How to be remarkable</a></li>
</ul>

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