We Need Your Help: Screenshots
June 15, 2009 by rainwaterDo you have a cool screenshot of your Miranda IM setup? Post a link here and we may include it on the web site. We are looking to update our screenshots section with some newer screenshots that show off the power of Miranda IM.
Getting to know your users versus the privacy debate
April 11, 2009 by koobsOne of our long time regular users recently posted the results of two surveys posted on our German community forum that asked users what version of Miranda they used and how often they submitted bug reports.
While it only offers a small sample size on 2 questions, I believe the underlying desire to seek out and understand information about individuals and groups is something we can all relate to.
Fast-forward to the software development context, and the road gets very muddy indeed. There is and always has been a fragile but symbiotic relationship between developers and users. Developers want to exercise their creative and technical abilities to produce something they can be proud of, and users want to be empowered with tools that work with their goals in mind and take into account their individuality.
Why am I babbling on about intangible and nebulous words like empowered, individual and creative? You can’t do these things in any wholesome capacity without KNOWING the individual.
What has all of this got to do with Miranda? Here’s the punchline. We don’t know our users. We think we know our users.
Here is where is it gets hard. How do we move forward? Traditionally and still today there exists 3 main methods; Guesswork, Surveys and Software.
Guesswork – This is the defacto standard. It consists of anecdotal, intuitive feelings about the representative needs of the users. It has brought us a long way, but it suffers from some big problems. It is haphazard, fragmented and not quantitative.
Surveys – This is a method used to add weight and credibility to an argument. They can be very useful if structured correctly, interpreted within context and from an unbiased viewpoint. It suffers some problems too, including small sample sizes, misinterpretation and false inferences.
Software – This is where the software gathers key peices of information from a user and is put into a database where it can be sorted, grouped and aggregated. It suffers from some major roadblocks. Scope, Privacy and Trust.
The following issues come up when looking at the software approach to knowing your users:
- Purpose – What is all of this for?
- Transparency – How and why is it being collected?
- Incentive – What’s in it for me?
- Permission – Should I be asked to participate?
- Notification – Should I be told when I’m participating?
- Opt-in/out – Is it on or off by default?
- Scope – What information is being collected?
- Relevance – Is the information related to the purpose?
- Interpretation – How and what will it be used for?
- Feedback – Will you keep me updated?
I had a wonderfully charged discussion with a project team member I have a lot of respect for, and it became quickly and abundantly clear that this issue has some very deep and important roots that need to be understood and addressed first before any ambitious knowledge project is even tabled.
My motivation is to see Miranda the project and the software grow and evolve positively. I believe there is immense value in our users and contributors who would like to see the same. I believe that equipping ourselves with knowledge is a key component of that growth.
I welcome constructive feedback and critical thinking from the community about why things are important to them, and what we can do to make Miranda as a whole a better experience.
Edit: A couple of people have mentioned that the post left them baffled or a little unclear in it’s purpose. This was half intentional, and half indicative of how raw the thought process was when posting.
My thesis is that knowledge is critical, that we don’t have the amount or quality necessary to base informed decisions on, and that I’d (we’d) like to do something about it. Sharing thoughts and promoting discussion was a first step.
Forums Returns
September 17, 2008 by rainwaterDue to the forums outgrowing its current server, our host migrated the domain to a new location. We hope this will fix the database issues we have been having for the last few weeks. We apologize for the downtime while we worked this out. If you find any issues with the forums on the new server, please let us know.
The Miranda Options UI Problem
August 28, 2008 by koobsA long standing gripe for many of our users has been the overwhelming complexity and inconsistency of our main “Options” user interface. In my opinion there are two main reasons behind this which need to be taken into consideration before attempting to tackle the problem.
1) The goal of ultimate flexibility / customisation
One of the fundamental design goals of the Miranda project is to empower our users with a piece of software that can be modified to be as unique as the person using it, and it is a known fact that a large part of our userbase are what one can only describe as very technically savvy power users. This goal has meant the evolution of an addon ecosystem and community that is rightly the envy of many other projects.
2) Documentation & Guidelines
These two things are critical in the maintenance and growth of software projects in general, and yet they are often left behind as second-class citizens. Without documented guidelines and resources for our developers, we are destined to make the same mistakes, continually chase our tails and fumble in the dark.
On a positive note, two members of our community have been working for some time on potential solutions, and after tweeting about it yesterday (http://twitter.com/miranda_im) I’ve received a couple of requests from users to upload some screenshots.
I wanted to add some context and background to the problem before I did that, and hopefully generate some excitement around what some of our plans are in the near future. On that note, here are two screenshots that are teasers to ideas that FYR and Nullbie have been playing with. Great work guys :]
FYR’s concept is a modernisation on the existing form, moves the plugin filter control, and adds a option searching function.
Options Concept #1 (FYR)
Nullbie’s concept is quite a change in strategy, introducing ideas like contextual grouping and a simplification of categories and minimising overly complex hierarchies and nested groups/trees
Options Concept #2 (Nullbie)
I find both very interesting and full of potential and would love to hear from anyone who’s interested in providing feedback about whats important to them and why, or anyone who’d like to help with coming up with guidelines, conventions or design patterns for elegent and usable user interfaces.
For more information on how you can contribute to the Miranda project, see our How to help wiki article, or come and have a chat with us on IRC
Miranda IM gets Twitter fever
July 18, 2008 by koobsYou can now find us tweeting away at our official Twitter home, so feel free to follow us and share your ideas on what you want to know :D
Miranda IM v0.7.8 Preview Release #1 Now Available
July 18, 2008 by rainwaterMiranda IM v0.7.8 Preview Release #1 is now available. This preview release is meant for TESTING PURPOSES ONLY. It is recommended that you backup your database before installing. The preview release cycle is meant to address any outstanding issues before any final release to the public. Any feedback you can provide is greatly appreciated.
Do not overwrite your mirandaboot.ini file when upgrading over an existing installation. If you are unsure of how to do this, please use the installer.
Enhancements
- SSL library included to provide ssl support
- ICQ: Improved client detection
- Jabber: Enable StartTLS by default
Bugfixes
- Safer port opening for incoming connections
- Language pack translations did not always translate correctly
- ICQ: Skinned protocol icon was sometimes incorrect
- MSN: Improved BBCode processing
Note #1: This build includes a new SSL library. It is important that we test this on as many systems and setups as possible. Your feedback on this is greatly appreciated.
Note #2: If you are using Jabber and the jabber.org server, please try testing with TLS enabled in the Jabber options. This server will be requiring this option in several more months so it’s important that we test it out using the new SSL library.
Report Bug to the Bug Tracker
Release Discussion
Download
- Unicode: Installer | Zip | Debug Symbols
- ANSI: Installer | Zip | Debug Symbols
Miranda IM v0.7.6 Preview Release #1 Now Available
May 05, 2008 by rainwaterMiranda IM v0.7.6 Preview Release #1 is now available. This preview release is meant for TESTING PURPOSES ONLY. The preview release cycle is meant to address any outstanding issues before any final release to the public. Any feedback you can provide is greatly appreciated.
Note: Do not overwrite your mirandaboot.ini file when upgrading over an existing installation.
Report Bug to the Bug Tracker
Release Discussion
Download
- Unicode: Installer | Zip | Debug Symbols
- ANSI: Installer | Zip | Debug Symbols
Miranda IM v0.7.5 Preview Release #1 Now Available
April 28, 2008 by rainwaterMiranda IM v0.7.5 Preview Release #1 is now available. This preview release is meant for TESTING PURPOSES ONLY. The preview release cycle is meant to address any outstanding issues before any final release to the public. Any feedback you can provide is greatly appreciated.
Note: Do not overwrite your mirandaboot.ini file when upgrading over an existing installation.
Report Bug to the Bug Tracker
Release Discussion
Download
- Unicode: Installer | Zip | Debug Symbols
- ANSI: Installer | Zip | Debug Symbols
New RSS Feed URLs
April 25, 2008 by rainwaterWe have changed the location of our RSS feeds to new location. The new urls are located on our own domain. The old RSS feed locations will continue to work just the same as before so if you are currently subscribed to any of our feeds, they will continue to work without any changes on your part. You can find the location of the new feeds on the about page.
Addons Developers: Help Needed
April 17, 2008 by rainwaterIn order to get Addons up and running we are having to use a backup from 6 months ago. Before we can make the site live we need for all Addons authors to update their plugins at the new temporary url. If you have trouble logging into the site, please let us know (there is also a password recovery system). Also, if you have any issue updating and/or adding a new file please let us know so we can work out any of the kinks.
You may notice some quirks (like the front page doesn’t update). These are just display issues that we will resolve soon. At the point we feel like the site is ready, we will move the domain back to its original url.
For users of the Addons site, please be aware that the site is incomplete and may not always be functional. I would advise everyone to hold off from using the site until we move it back to its normal home.
Here is the temporary url:
http://author.addons.miranda-im.org