markhollands.com.au

The gadget-lust I’ve been experiencing when I’ve been seeing iPhone 3G’s in the wild has been difficult to control, but the lack of any halfway reasonable data plan from any of the 3 networks has helped me to stop myself from committing to it for 24 months. I’ve been following the development of the OpenMoko open source handset movement for a while now. While the form factor isn’t quite as nice as the iPhone, its heavier and deeper than Apple’s release, the fact that all the hardware and software is open source is a significant selling point. I’ve been reading about the hoops that Apple has been making developers jump through in order to get their apps on the iPhone and it doesn’t sound appealing.

I just read about an effort by Techcrunch to create the OpenMoko equivalent of web tablet.

Here’s the basic idea: The machine is as thin as possible, runs low end hardware and has a single button for powering it on and off, headphone jacks, a built in camera for video, low end speakers, and a microphone. It will have Wifi, maybe one USB port, a built in battery, half a Gigabyte of RAM, a 4-Gigabyte solid state hard drive. Data input is primarily through an iPhone-like touch screen keyboard. It runs on linux and Firefox. It would be great to have it be built entirely on open source hardware, but including Skype for VOIP and video calls may be a nice touch, too.

I like this trend towards open source hardware. While it might take a while to reach the mainstream, as it matures it should get hardware manufacturers to consider whether it is cheaper to design a gadget from scratch or comply with the open standards.

A blogger’s persona is primarily conveyed by the content they produce. However, influencing the reader’s first impression of the site by imparting the essence of the blogger’s persona can help turn someone who might quickly lose interest into a reader who will come back many times.

Using a mission statement and a picture of the author are the two simple ways to quickly impart some of the blogger’s persona. Both of the sites that I have chosen to feature below have very well developed persona. They both achieve the aim of reaching their audience in distinctly different ways.

joi.ito.com

Joi has been blogging since before the word was coined and as one the most influential bloggers in the IT realm, his writing persona has a very personal and connected feel which is well supported by the design of his blog’s UI.

Joi is heavily involved with Creative Commons and the UI of his site really tries to emphasize community and interaction. The photo blog contains the many talented people that he works with, but it is rare that you will see a picture solely of the man himself adorning the top of his page.

A picture of Joi is almost hidden away at the bottom of the page. This unassuming nature comes across in his writing and it provides the site with a very intimate feel.

TuckerMax.com

Tucker Max takes an almost opposite approach. His site is adorned with a picture of himself, showing off the big, bold and alpha male persona which has made his writing so popular.

The first line of his mission statement, “My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole.” is pure Tucker. His writing is often outrageous and he makes no apologies.