Design Tip #3: Resizing Images - maintaining proportion

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One of the most common mistakes I have seen, in particular with corporate presentations, is images or photographs inserted with strange proportions.

Any visual object has a correct ratio of width to height, reflecting the original form in which the image was created or captured. However, when objects are inserted into powerpoint for example, and subsequently moved around, a common tendency is to just resize the image any which way, usually to satisfy space constraints or for respect of symmetry.

This in effect results in a design philosophy that has no respect for visual aesthetics, and one that also does not respect the original form of the object.

There are many ways to maintain correct ratio of proportions.

1. The simplest is to hold down SHIFT (Windows users) when resizing an image. In powerpoint and other MS Office tools, this will automatically resize the image width and height with the original ratio as a multiplier, leaving the integrity of the image intact.

2. In other desktop publishing programs, there is usually a check option (tick-box) that can be selected for the same effect.

3. In some professional desktop publishing programs, the automatic choice is to resize images while maintaining proportion. In these cases if you find that the proportion ratio of the image, the multiplier, does not allow you to resize an image for effective use within your document, then best practice is to continue to maintain proportions, but crop out some of the image so that you get a better size or better fit.

Healthcare (Electronic Health Records): Research Resources

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The below have been compiled primarily from research undertaken to develop a plan for implementing electronic health records.

- 1 - Academic Journals
Health Affairs
Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine
New England Journal of Medicine
International Journal of Medical Informatics

- 2 - Success stories in the implementation of EHR
Countries:
Denmark
Singapore
Canada (limited to some provinces)

Other:
Kaiser Permanente (California)
Care Connectivity Consortium (U.S.)
U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (though technology architecture now outdated)

- 3 - Prominent thought leadership in this space
Oliver Wyman
KLAS
World Economic Forum

Evolution of credit cards and related security protocols

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Evolution of the credit card
The credit card industry took off with the first "shoppers plate" by Western Union in 1914. This was essentially a metallic plate with the relevant details engraved, and the validity of the shoppers plate remained as long as the monthly tallied bill was paid off by the customer.

For use within a select chain of restaurants, the first plastic card was introduced as the Diners Club card. The first bank issued credit card was BankAmericard, which later went on to become American Express (mid-1900's).

The key takeaway here is that banks first introduced credit cards that could only be used locally, since a number of factors, including legal frameworks and interest rate applications, restricted their broader circulation. Gradually, networks were formed to broaden the use of plastic credit cards regionally, nationally, and internationally, with the first international electronic clearing house for credit card transactions established as VISA. MasterCard (initially Mastercharge) was a competitive response to VISA.

If you are interested in the details around credit card evolution specifically, do refer to some of the sources of information cited at the end of this post, they are quite comprehensive in their coverage.

Security protocols
Alongside the evolution of the credit card or personal finance industry there have been developments in the security mechanisms necessary to secure point of sale (POS) and online transactions.

It is important to understand that industry profits depend on a seamless and trustworthy transaction network that can engender trust and confidence among credit card holders (the end-users). Such relationships of trust can be enabled via secure linkages between the various actors in the ecosystem, namely the cardholder, the merchant, the merchant bank, the acquirer, the issuer, and finally, the local bank.

The key to modeling security in the credit card ecosystem, and therefore the key to fostering trust relationships, is the separation of the owner of the data, and the service being offered. Identifying critical transactions part of the service offering, and securing them, are key to this type of security model.

This approach, depicted below in Exhibit 1, is broadly indicative of the Secure Exchange Transaction (SET) security protocol developed by VISA and MasterCard. Though SET was never fully implemented, in my view the essential concept of separating ownership of data from the service offering remains central to effective security models.

Exhibit 1 - Security model for credit card transactions

Note that Exhibit 1 is from - Paolo Giorgine et al.'s Technical Report 2003 (see sources of information below) and has been adapted for use here with the additions in red.

POS credit card transactions also rely on similar security models, which do contribute towards resolving the asymmetry between privacy of information and access of information (a topic in itself that cannot be discussed here in any detail). POS transactions can "ping" for the balance on the credit card, while the credit card statement in full is not maintained in the transaction processing stream connected, thus maintaining privacy of the account holder and also providing requisite access to information.

Over time, other protocols such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards), and Secure 3D, have also been developed, and are in various stages of evolution and implementation. These have not been explored here fully. Security protocols can only be under a continuous state of evolution are the payment card industry also evolves.



Sources of Information
Paolo Giorgini, Fabio Massaci and John Mylopoulos, "Requirement Engineering Meets Security: A Case Study on Modeling Secure Electronic Transactions by Visa and MasterCard", Technical Report # DIT-03-027, May 2003.

Steve Worthington, "Affinity Credit Cards: A Critical Review", International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, Volume 28, Number 11, 2001.


About the Author
The author holds a Masters degree (M.A.) in International Relations, University of Ottawa, Canada

On a loss of words

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There comes a moment, when feelings are aplenty, but there are no words
When forces of attraction and repulsion are doled out, and directions are set forth

You have to accept this with humility, and pray that you have understood correctly
To err in that courtyard might be human, but the fear remains nonetheless

Intensity does accompany a loss of words, though the urge to write is there
Patience, fortitude, and a slowing down ... cannot really be expressed

Sweetness, falls down from the heavens

Supercharged!

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Lightning bolts and thunder! Sounds of the universe rumble
Lightning bolts and thunder! Electric and warm the effect

Lightning bolts and thunder! The initial despair and subsequent clarity
Lightning bolts and thunder! intuitive the prayer

Supercharged! a merciful glance
Calm, collected, quiet, tranquil ... supercharged

From philosophy to technique

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A colleague of mine, whom I respect very much, said the following:

From philosophy, to art, to science, to technique!

You cannot conceptualize without a philosophy on the subject, and then general dabbing in the matter is art, to rationalizing your initial experience, to perfecting it into a technique.

Is there a bias in this statement against art?

Would you instead say science is no doubt rational, but to apply it to life is essentially an art?

Design inspiration and nurturing creativity

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Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, has given this beautiful talk on TED.com on what inspires creativity, and how it can be nurtured. Its so true! Any artist will recognize what she is talking about, for we have all been in that moment.

The moment where you lose your self, and the inspiration takes over, to create something new, something beautiful. She mentions that the Greeks also recognized this, this divine inspiration that feeds creativity, something you cannot command.

Any artist should really watch this:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

On being sorted

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Who we are?
Where we came from?
Where we are going?

No matter, for it is sorted. No matter, for it is simple.

When it is so, there is none left but One.

On blessing and its intricacies

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Blessed are those who are in the presence of divinity
Blessings for those who seek out such a presence

Commanding, crystal clear and pure is the energy
The link gradual and strong

Eager the wait, and long the desire
Blessings received are not uncommonly so

Design Concepts #2 - Information Visualization (Macro/Micro)

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Been a while since I wrote, and this post is not about dpi; nontheless, information visualization is just as good a topic! (and perhaps not as boring as dpi).

Information Visualization has seen a boom recently, and more particulary, in the last couple of years or so. Disparate applications have popped up, but all rely on the central concept of making use of visual design to better represent information.

Edward Tufte is one of the prominent authors in this field, and he has been writing about this for some time now. One of his concepts (and I am not quoting him directly, so I could be using some of his terminology in my own way) is on macro/micro design. This is a technique whereby you create an information visual that both captures a larger theme, and yet has individual areas where the viewer can "zoom in" to see detailed, or micro, inforgraphics.

The result is a more engaging visual, one that is more apt to delivering a story visually. This has strong applications in the corporate environment, where C level executives like to see a lot of information in one powerpoint slide. Using macro/micro visuals one can harness the power of an image to convery a thousand words, and yet embed another few thousand in micro areas.

Design Concepts - #1 - What are pixels?

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I have been working with images, designing websites, and creating multimedia content for around 10 years now. Amongst the software I have used: Micrografx Simply 3D (not sure if it still exists), Adobe Flash, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks.

This post (in a series of similar ones) is mainly about image manipulation, and concepts such as pixels, scaling, vectors, resolution, dpi, ppi etc.

One of the basic points to remember with images is that they consist digital information, and in images, the smallest amount of digital information is a pixel. You might have seen someone point to an image and say, this one is pixelated. In this case portions of the image, or maybe all of it, is visible as squares, giving the image a rough and jagged quality, and it is difficult to make out what the image is.

These squares are pixels! Pixels pixels, if you say it twice it sounds almost like pixie, which for some reason I relate to Tinker Bell in Peter Pan. Aannnyyway, returning to the matter at hand...

The apple above is pixelated, you can see the squares outlining the jagged edges.

Pixels make up and image, and when you say an image is 800x600 it just means there are 800 pixels going across for every 600 pixels going down.

Now here is a key concept. Images CANNOT be scaled UP without losing quality. This is in fact a fractal quality (more on fractals here) since a similar notion occurs in many other aspects of life. Water only flows from higher ground to lower ground naturally, the grace of God will only manifest itself if you are humble and so on.

Similarly, you can reduce an image in size, but you cannot make it bigger without losing quality, or, without making it more "pixelated". If you are just creating an ordinary document such as a word or powerpoint document for use at work, the image quality might not be a big issue. However, if you are creating a high quality brochure for example, and you use a 300x500 image set at 72dpi, then it is likely that your image will look grainy in the final result. That is why services like Getty Images exist since they provide professionally shot images at a veyr high resolution.

I realise I threw in "dpi" as a concept in the example without explaining it, so that is what the next post will deal with. Baby steps are good...

Poetry of the Saints - Kabir Sahab and Kumar Gandharva

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Recently I came across the Kabir Sahab project, led by the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. I watched a series of videos in which they present the work of Kabir Sahab through the extraordinary voice and life of Kumar Gandharva, a respected Indian classical singer. My favorite one is Ud Jayega Hans Akela, and you can listen to an excerpt here.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because once in a while it would do good to listen to actual music!
Here are the words:

Ud Jayega Huns Akela, Jug Darshan Ka Mela
Jaise Paat Gire Taruvar Se, Milna Bahut Duhela
Naa Jane Kidhar Girega, Lageya Pawan Ka Rela
Jub Howe Umur Puri, Jab Chute Ga Hukum Huzuri
Jum Ke Doot Bade Mazboot, Jum Se Pada Jhamela
Das Kabir Har Ke Gun Gawe, Wah Har Ko Paran Pawe
Guru Ki Karni Guru Jayega, Chele Ki Karni Chela 


and in english (of course, lost in translation applies here):


The Swan Will Fly Away All Alone,
Spectacle of the World Will Be a Mere Fair
As the Leaf Falls from the Tree
Is Difficult to Find
Who Knows Where it Will Fall
Once it is Struck with a Gust Of Wind
When Life Span is Complete
Then Listening to Orders, Following Others, Will Be Over
The Messengers of Yama are Very Strong
It's an Entanglement with the Yama
Servant Kabir Praises the Attributes of the Lord
He Finds the Lord Soon
Guru Will Go According to His Doings
The Disciple According to His


You can also find more songs of Kabir Sahab sung by Kumar Gandharva in the album Nirgun Ke Gun. The audio is available through the Canadian iTunes store.

Sketches of the Impractical - #2 - Magnet based power generator

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This one is a simple enough concept. Take some magnetized plates, and just as an accordion moves, the plates are in relative motion to one another. The change in magnetic field possesses the potential to be picked up by other devices, which in can turn it into electricity.

Please do not ask me where I get the energy from to move the plates in the first place. Remember, these are impractical sketches!

Sketches of the Impractical - #1 - Flight Pod

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This is the first in a series of "sci-fi" sketches, for lack of a better name. 

A flying pod!? Umm, this one does not exist, except on paper, and it definitely does not fly, yet. Do not ask me why i chose mercury as a liquid fuel. Some characteristics of this super-impractical flying pod are:

- It is sensitive to spiritual consciousness, the more the better

- Speed and maneuverability unlimited, depend on the person

- It is super silent: has no moving mechanical parts

Architecting the Semantic Web

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Tim Berners-Lee gave us the Internet. His contributions on design issues and about the semantic web are fascinating reading.

The semantic internet is the next version of the internet which is more intelligent. But it is not artificial intelligence. Its funny how all those predictions the movies have been making have either not materialized at all or just the opposite seems to be happening. One commonly accepted prediction is that computers will get intelligent and assist us in making sense of information overload.

Remember the cool touch interfaces shown in Minority Report? Or the more recent interface used by Iron Man to design his suit? Well they all rely on a computer that is more intelligent, and does a whole lot of processing my itself, giving us exactly what we want to know, by itself!

Well, developments on the semantic web and the writings of Tim Bernes-Lee show that that instead of the machines getting more intelligent by themselves, we, humans, have to MAKE them more intelligent by improvisations such as the semantic web.

The semantic web will basically link together information in a way that allows nuggets of data to be picked up from several sources, and combined together to provide a deeper meaning. The technicalities you can read on Tim's page, but the point is that we have to hardcode the internet with new layers of data so that computers are able to read it and derive meaning.

Tim writes about this very simply in his post on the roadmap to the semantic web.

Information Visualization - Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology

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The Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, and in particular their Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA) is great at depicting visualization of information. You should check out some of their work.

The basic concept is simple. We are all confronted with information overload now, and the more we turn towards "social connectivity" (an oxymoron by the way), the more information we come across. How do you make sense of it all? Especially for practical purposes?

Well if you are a designer and if you like to make use of your skills to depict patterns in information, and how the changes in information produce meanings which we can use practically, then you have information visualization!

Information Visualization/Design

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This is the quasi-discipline of visually dealing with the vast amounts of information we encounter today.

I have always been interested in this but never gave it a name until recently when I read this article on BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8381597.stm

Another very resourceful author on this subject is Edward R. Tufte, who has produced a number of books on the topic. The one I read most recently is "Envisioning Information".
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_ei

Broadly he covers information design principles such as "macro/micro design", "layers and separation", "small multiples", "color and information" and "narratives of space and time". It is refreshing to read something that is appealing and obviously correct on principles for presenting information visually. I have been a freelance web and print designer for at least a decade now and this is a great book for anyone to read! Especially if you are looking to enhance your deliverables at the workplace.

My next post will relate Tufte's discussion of envisioning information to systems philosophy.

On self-discipline and Michel Foucault

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Some political theorists credit the French philosopher Michel Foucault with a theory that explains quite beautifully the self-discipline society imposes upon itself in the twenty-first century.

The simple example Foucault uses is Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon" which is the concept in which a prison is designed in such a manner that "a single guard can watch over many prisoners while the guard remains unseen".

In a similar manner, we choose today to discipline ourselves through the use of unseen rules and regulations. However, I am not sure whether this applies more so in Western socities than it does in the East?

Is the presence of self-disciplining of this sort one of the reasons why the "discipline" one observes in everyday Western society, and I am talking about everything from picking up your dog's extrement yourself to standing in perfect queues to going to extreme lengths to holding open doors to everyone (perhaps only in Canada), is admired by many?

Because at least in the workplace, one of the places where self-discipline of this is most obvious, the kind of self-discipline mentioned above also spills into efficiency of other sorts and is rewarded. Everyone knows this one, the more disciplined you are the better you work and the more you choose to govern yourself through unseen regulations.

Anyway, if you do decide to look into Foucault's theories let me warn that they are insanely boring and that I skipped or most of my university readings assigned to him.

I am not against the use of self-discipline, and obviously others have cited the use of self-discipline in circumstances and theories that are much more enjoyable to digest.

So, this is basically a warning to avoid reading Foucault.

Design Tip #2: Swapping/Replacing an image in Photoshop CS4

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Another inanely simple tutorial from moi, but I could not find it in Google right away using these keywords.

Objective: Replacing an image in Adobe Photoshop CS4. For example, modifying a template slightly by placing one image where another exists

Step 1: Choose the layer on which the image is placed
Step 2: Right click and choose "Replace Layer Contents"
Step 3: Choose the image to replace

Photoshop maintains size and position and places the new image over the other.

OS: Mac OSX Snow Leopard.

Dubai as a financial center

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I was surprised today to see the BBC report that European share markets are depressed due to Dubai's financial situation.

I just got back here after roughly 9 years in North America and during this short span of time Dubai has managed to link itself thoroughly to the global financial market. No doubt the news that Dubai is unable to pay some of its debts (around $80bn at time of writing) is bad, but you have to hand it to the UAE government, it should be praised for putting its name on the global financial market.

Back in university I wrote an article for my Global Political Economy course on financial markets. Of course I reported on the obvious that the financial sphere runs heavily on intangibles, on human emotions and I cited "irrational exuberance" as one of the tendencies of this new age market phenomenon. Perhaps such irrational exuberance also applies to the UAE's housing market?

I also wrote that the financial markets first emerged as a form of betting on risk. Risk has slowly emerged and is still emerging as the new form of global governance. North American and "first world" markets developed betting on the linkage of their markets to those of "secondary and third world" markets as a form of risk management. This enabled them to "control" some of the risks emanating from sourcing their raw materials etc from other markets which were deemed risky either due to political or other concerns.

Hence the interlinkage of world markets and the resulting speculation in globally linked financial markets emerged as a form of risk management which slowly convoluted into more advanced forms of hedge betting.

Dubai has also allowed itself to become a part of this globally linked financial sphere and one of the advantages is that it can become a player in managing the risks that emanate from such a linkage. The other side of the story is that the right capabilities and human resources are needed to manage such linkages.