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	<title>ia play</title>
	<link>http://www.iaplay.com</link>
	<description>the good life in a digital age</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:04:26 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>why your search engine (probably) isn&#8217;t rubbish</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Now all search engines struggle,  to varying degrees,  with the knotty mess that is natural language. But they don&#8217;t generally don&#8217;t get called rubbish for not succeeding with the meaty search challenges.
Rubbish search engines are the ones that can&#8217;t seem to answer the most basic requests in a sensible manner. These are ones that get [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/03/05/why-your-search-engine-probably-isnt-rubbish/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>e-commerce project: competitive review</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This article is part of a (rather drawn-out)  series about our e-commerce redesign.

Competitive reviews do what they say on the tin: they review what your competitors are doing. They are particularly useful in a busy, well-developed marketplace where you can find good matches for your site/product.
With our e-commerce project, my first step was to identify [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/03/02/e-commerce-project-competitive-review/</link>
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		<title>trying out the screen-reader experience</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m not a screenreader expert and if you are wondering how your site works in screenreaders it is worth getting it tested properly by experts. But if you just want to get a flavour of what it is like to use a screenreader or how screenreaders cope with particular types of content&#8230;then these tools might [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/03/01/trying-out-the-screen-reader-experience/</link>
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		<title>desecration in a good cause?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My basic librarian-ness is always a bit shocked by finding writing in books. But this is a bit different:

At first I suspected a personally prudish but meticulous scribbler. But there&#8217;s a more obvious explanation, of course. This book was used to record a Talking Book, a structured audio book that blind and partially sighted readers [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/02/25/desecration-in-a-good-cause/</link>
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		<title>RNIB Rushton School and Children&#8217;s Home</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve started work on a project for RNIB Rushton School and Children&#8217;s Home.
Rushton provides education, residential care, and therapies  for young people with sight loss, multiple disabilities and complex health needs.
I&#8217;m capturing requirements for an information system for the school and home.
Some of the constraints (like complying with the Care Act 2000 and OFSTED inspections) are [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/02/10/rnib-rushton-school-and-childrens-home/</link>
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		<title>worst drop down so far this year</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Drop-down menus aren&#8217;t inherently evil but they do seem to encourage all sorts of terrible behaviour.
HMCS CourtFinder includes a menu that is certainly the worst I&#8217;ve had to interact with this year, and probably for a quite a long time before that.

The list is incredibly long. But more damagingly it isn&#8217;t in *any* order that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/02/09/worst-drop-down-so-far-this-year/</link>
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		<title>topical navigation on CHOW</title>
		<description><![CDATA[CHOW has a nice example of topical navigation.

It&#8217;s cold, people are trying to eat healthily, and it is Superbowl time (for the Americans anyway). So the navigation includes nachos, snacks, braises and healthy recipes.
I&#8217;m very fond of this kind of navigation. For big sites it is rare than the navigation actually contains exactly what the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/02/08/topical-navigation-on-chow/</link>
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		<title>various commentators on the iPad and accessibility</title>
		<description><![CDATA[After some of the frustations with the accessibility of the iPhone when first launched,  I wondered what people were saying about the accessibility of the iPad.  There&#8217;s not masses of commentary yet and doesn&#8217;t seem to be any from anyone with any first hand experience (unsurprisingly).
This didn&#8217;t stop abledbody being unimpressed with the accessibility of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/01/29/various-commentators-on-the-ipad-and-accessibility/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>certificate in Contemporary Science</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So I&#8217;ve finally finished my OU Contemporary Science certificate. I&#8217;ve been doing this for years, signing up for modules whenever I felt my brain atrophy.
You can study all sorts of short modules but my selections had a distinct but unplanned biological and historical science slant:

Fossils
Life in the Oceans
Mammals
Archaeology
Darwin and Evolution
Forensic Science

I&#8217;m taking a break for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/01/19/certificate-in-contemporary-science/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>hello again</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Right then. Back to the blog.
Since we spoke last,  I have:
Given up my FUMSI editor job. Finished off my Open Uni Certificate in Contemporary Science. Passed the Requirements Engineering exam. Got an allotment and an extra chicken. Made croissants.
I&#8217;m particularly pleased with the croissants.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.iaplay.com/2010/01/18/hello-again/</link>
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