Keyboard Accessibility to OS X via QuickSilver

QuickSilver is a little OS X application that provides keyboard access to virtually all applications, system tasks and data. Why, you might ask, would anyone want to bypass the slickest mouse-driven interface in the (commodity) computer world?  Well, maybe you wouldn't want to, but for power users, for whom a mouse interface just slows them down, it could be the answer to their frustrations and dreams. And it is.

It's late night, the house is quiet, headphones blazing, and you're working on a design project. On the screen is the Illustrator work space and a half dozen palette and inspection widgets, and nothing else -- just the way you like it. Ah, time for THE PLAYLIST. [Cmd-Space] pops up a tiny window. Type "it" and the iTunes icon comes to view. [Tab] "s" [Tab] "thpl" and the action Search "The Playlist" pops into view. [Enter]. The screen clears and you flow...

A few keys and hints on the keyboard and iTunes starts another playlist. And that's just for play. Try it with your work tools, combine scripts, *nix utilities and Automator. You're stompin'!

Yet, trying to explain to many newbies what QuickSilver does is really difficult! The GUI generation is so married to the mouse that there is nothing in the story to grab hold of. More often than not evangelism is rewarded with blank stares. OK. Think with me. I read things like "...find what stuff on your system is accessible to you through Quicksilver's interface...". Bingo.

You can access via personalized keyboard commands any kind of searchable content on your system and on a network. You can't do that in a GUI if you can't see, can you? Yes, add to QuickSilver's list of uses -  assistive technology for visual disabilities. Web and desktop applications receive the good favor of the community of less-abled users, as well as power users, when they provide a good keyboard interface. QuickSilver is that, in large. However, I find one important feature lacking - voiceover does not announce the content of the noun and action panes. That is a serious problem for users that want to learn new techniques with the interface. But right now, people can get the immediate benefits of binding hot keys to applications and common operations; that also means that staff of disability service units have a new tool help their clients.

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Bad Mashup: Phishers Love Your Social Data

I think a lot about social Web services, the naiveté of users/consumers and the social contract between those services and you. On the one hand the Terms of Service of many social sites are distinctly anti-social (the subject of an upcoming post). On another hand, and far outside your social network and service provider, are predators that have free access to your data (by the way, not necessarily under your control, as suggested above). Those predators - the phishers of your assets, and you, make a nasty mashup in which you have nothing to gain, and stand to lose a great deal. All this seems to add up to our living in a sad period of time when you, a member of an online social network, are being rewarded for posting your content by getting the shaft from many sides.

In another post I'll talk about the Terms of Service, where you enjoy the benefits of membership in a social network, but lose control of your content and personal information. It would be theft if only you hadn't agreed to the terms. In this post, we'll just talk about how you hand over to thieves, literally, the keys to your castle.

When you post your contacts to Facebook, or to Linked-in, you expose to the public information about yourself. That's what social networking is for, right. It seems harmless, even useful, to display for all the world to see information about who you know, where you live, what your interests are, and your thoughts about work and play. In a protected environment it would indeed be harmless, and when you're looking for a job it could indeed be very useful. But while you are writing on walls and extending your network, a spider is harvesting your FOAF data, your contacts, your profile, your contact information, and other data. And using your data, someone or something is crafting an attack in which one of your contacts is spoofed in an email message with a personalized message, the purpose of which is to direct you to a compelling Web site in which you eagerly hand over your user id and password to a very private account that holds your tangible wealth. Nice, huh?

In a high profile (and controversial) experiment in which students at a Big Ten school were sent phishing emails from their friends and buddies - spoofed, of course, with data harvested from social networks. 72% of them handed over their user accounts and passwords. Seventy Two Percent!!!

Don't run and hide. Don't rip down your Facebook account. Just think about the data you post, and stop to think before you log in to a web service that your friend recommends. Better yet, send a text message and ask if the email was legit, and while you're at it, ask about the service. Look at the URL, and Google the service - do things match? Hey, your friends are no way as smart as you are, eh?

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