I have a new job at Canonical. Before I started, rather than inflicting a new way to interact with a computer on my own life I thought I should test Ubuntu out on my mother. In her own words: “I can be your lab rat” – very nice of her I am sure you will agree. Thank you mother! Now, all my memories of ever building or re-building any machine are always connected to a very late...
My mother is off to travel the world. She has retired from the sometimes rewarding often frustrating world of teaching in a modern world, her children can take care of themselves so she has packed her bag and is leaving us! As one of the results of her life’s work to date, it is my job to ensure we all get to find out what she is up to. So here goes: 1) The first 6 months of her journey...
My mother was very pleased to announce to me that her Skype ‘hearing aid’ had arrived. It is too easy to forget that the terminology we [people that ‘work with computers’] use all the time just isn’t used or understood by others. I had a moment with a client the other day – “why don’t you ask them [the participants] if they have narrowband or...
I spend a lot of my time watching people. Mostly I do this as part of some user research piece or the other but often it is because I am just nosy and like to see how people go about doing things. I also eavesdrop. Apologies to all but in my defence, I do pick up on the odd interesting tit-bit of information or the occasionaly interesting anecdote. I was visiting my mother recently and she wanted...
Ivanka Majic works in technology. She was Head of Design for Ubuntu, service managed Digital Marketplace through to beta, was acting director of digital for the Labour Party. She lives and works in Brighton where she works with the council’s digital first team, does a bit of teaching at Sussex University, and works with her husband on projects like restaurantsbrighton.co.uk and the BRAVOs. She has also started a podcast with her friend Michael which you can listen to at grandpodcast.com.