Plan-B for Software Documentation

The recent GNOME 3 hackfest in the UK got me thinking of my ideal desktop design - task oriented and controlling interrrupts

Here would be my vision of this:

• Have separate desktops for each task (open documents, web pages, chat sessions, e-mails, contacts, bookmarks, browser/search history, …) and that persists across login sessions (under a name) and ideally across machines (web sync like Mozilla Weave)
• When I start a task I might want to start with the desktop of another task (snapshot) or a blank slate
• Have a system to do fast task switching (like the multi screen desktops, but not limited to the number of those) and also a system that notifies me of activities that belong to other tasks (like chat responses, mail replies, etc.) Ideally filtered by a priority/importance level of the task intruding (or filter by the planned work - stuff relevant to tasks that I have planned to work on today or tomorrow –> scheduling)
• Make task contexts such as personal/work/hobby/moonlighting (or even sub contexts like projects) and allow me to switch between those and filter notifications with different filters for disruptions in those. For example notify me of the important private reply at work, but not of the important reply on hobby. But while in hobby notify me of anything that is important.
• Allow to set availability levels for IM with switching contexts (tasks with different priorities and task contexts) automatically. Sometimes even separate profiles.
• Allow the kind of scheduling that is indicated with the Task popper and within the time buckets a simple order/ranking to make a plan
• Give me desktop search with clear priority for task local results over global results.
• All tasks are archived, the waste basked is only task specific. May be have a Shredder to really delete things across tasks?

In simple terms give me a desktop per task (where I can have the relevant documents, contacts, e-mails, etc. just persistent around, even if they may be shared across tasks) that I can switch between easily and a virtual room that I can control what communication comes through the walls to intrude with the tasks that I’m at.

And I don’t start talking about sharing resources/documents across users for collaboration. That would be the ultimate virtual room/desktop, although who loves someone else rearranging one’s desktop, so I probably wanted my private view

Today, I re-checked to see if the BBBOnline website is still unsecured.

The good news is, the expired SSL Certificate is gone. Instead the online form which asks all kind of confidential business and personal information is completely unsecured (http:// instead of https://).

Apparently they BBB is not willing to invest $50-$200 in a SSL Certificate to secure my data I submit to them. Way to go Better Business Bureau!

My trust in the Better Business Bureau® just got shattered. I always thought of it as a useful and trustworthy institution. Here is why I don’t think of them highly anymore.

I was researching good practices in privacy policies for websites and came across a terrific page by BBBOnline.org How to craft your privacy policy. It is really well written and I found it very helpful. So I decided to learn more about their BBBOnline Seal program. So far so good.

It hit me in the face, when I did click on the little “Apply now” button at the bottom of the page. The SSL certificate of this terrific site is expired over a month ago.

An expired SSL certificate is more than a glitch, especially expired five and a half weeks. The very company that tries to dispense trust on the Internet can’t manage its trust certificate for a secure transaction? Shame on the webmaster of bbbonline.org and shame on the business leaders that have no control mechanism to detect such a vital issue.

We at Plan-B for OpenOffice.org do love feedback from our users. On average, about 50% send us back a thank you for our answers to their OpenOffice questions. Some of the best we publish on our testimonials pages.

Dear users and readers keep them coming. We love your feedback and appreciate a thank you any time. It is so rewarding!

Posting to claim my blog on bloglines




Contact me at kajkandler _a@T_ conficio.com

url: http://conficio.blogspot.com/
site_owner: Kaj Kandler
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site_name: Teaching software - one screencast at a time
site_description: I love to help people to understand their software. Screencasts are my tool of choice. My preferred application is OpenOffice.org

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