August 2004 - Posts
Last week Robert Scoble posted an interesting article written by MS researcher Kevin Larson titled "The Science of Word Recognition".
What I found particularly interesting was that when we read, "Fixations never occur between words, and usually occur just to the left of the middle of a word."
This may explain a spelling error I made last night that I did not catch immediately upon proof reading.
I spelled the word "Fairfield" as "Farfield".
When reading, my eye seemed fixated on the "rf" part of the word first, thus eliminating most of what was before it. I also think that because the "i" is relatively close in shape to "r", the "i" appeared hidden, compared to "Faerfield"
It'd be interesting to know how many uncaught misspellings occur when the letters to the left of the fixation point are incorrect versus to the right of the fixation point. I'm sure that word length also is a factor.
The study also says that "that our perceptual span is roughly 15 letters ... we are using additional information further out to guide our reading."
I finally caught the misspelling only after I focused on the entire word of the text, without reading ahead.
Reading an entire document this way is quite dizzying, but it seems to be an effective way to catch spelling errors.
My bank's Web site offers both an e-mail option and phone number for contacting them. I decided to send them an e-mail. Three days later I finally received a reply, which I could have received almost immediately over the phone ( I know I could have called in the meantime).
I was annoyed because I figured if customer service is going to offer e-mail as a contact option, then it should be nearly as quick as a phone call. It seems offering an e-mail option and not replying promptly is worse customer service than not offering an e-mail option at all.
I'm sure there are scenarios that are better suited for e-mail exchanges than for phone calls, but the bank should go the extra step and provide customers with expected e-mail response times or idea usuage guidelines.
Were my expecations unreasonable? Was a same day reply too much to ask?
I have sent plenty of customer service e-mails and have received plenty same-day replies (as well as a few no replies), so I figured my expectations were not unreasonable, especially for a (smaller) financial institution.
A reader who wants to self-publish a book asks me for my thoughts on hiring a professional editor.
I'd have to say generally it's a good idea. It's always good to have extra sets of eye balls validate and criticize text and code. Of course, it depends on who you get. I am not familiar with the freelance editors in the market, so I cannot provide personal recommendations. On more than one occasion, I've seen references to Melanie Spiller's blog and "content consultant" services.
I'd like to ask readers, fellow bloggers, and book authors to leave their recommendations in the comments section of this post.
Also, it would be helpful to distinguish whether the editors' strengths lie in writing, development, or both.
Thanks!
This may seem obvious, but once in a while an editor may not receive an article from an author, and it should be up to the editor to follow up.
While authors are encouraged to follow up with the editor, the editor should send a query if he or she hasn't received the article a week or so after the expected submission date.
As soon as the editor receives an article, he or she should follow up with a reply acknowledging receipt.
If authors do not hear back from the editor within a couple of days of submitting their article, they should not hesitate to follow up with the editor.
Responding to CNET's question, "Are blogs worth the hype?," former New York Times editor Howard Raines says, "While their overall journalistic contribution can be debated endlessly, some of the medium's drawbacks cannot be ignored. Studies show that their voluntary nature is a huge detriment, with 25 percent of blogs being abandoned within a year of their inception. And Fark.com's recent declaration that its contributors don't hold themselves 'to the same standards as (The New York Times)' probably didn't do the genre any favors."
I'm not going to critic the very specifics of his comments, mainly because he doesn't really say anything.
Whenever a new medium, technology, product, industry, etc. enters the markets, the same always happens: many players, much hype, many failures, many comparisons, many criticisms, a few survivors, fewer successes.
With blogs, however, the criticism is extra heavy from some because they're seen as competitors to the ones who do the criticizing.
Therefore, I find it ironic (and expected) that many of the more popular bloggers have turned to criticizing the media.
Only time will tell, but I wonder if the independent spirit of bloggers will be able to resist possible acquisition attempts by large media companies and withstand potential lawsuits from the same monolithic entities?
A colleague of mine just pointed out the latest story on netcraft.com -- “LinuxWorld Expo Site Powered by Windows Server 2003” on IIS 6.0.
It appears other IDG sites run on some version of Windows as well. IDG.com runs on Windows 2000 using Lotus Domino.
Larger media companies that cover a wide range of technologies often standardize on one core set of technologies. While I can certainly see the financial value of such decisions, some discretion should be used to determine how far is too far.
Yes. 15Seconds.com runs on Windows and IIS.
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