The Washington Post’s Wonkblog has a depressing story about the inability to solve a seemingly straightforward problem with technology that will resonate with anyone who works in information technology. In this case, aid agencies are trying to get people in developing nations to stop using indoor cooking fires and use stoves that are safer and more energy efficient instead. Indoor cooking fires kill around two million people a year and are horribly inefficient. They produce emissions that cause global warming. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of agencies that give away stoves and provide training to replace them, the long term effectiveness of their efforts is very low.

In software, I see this all the time. Many users are incredibly resistant to changing tools, even if mastering the new tool would greatly increase their quality of life. What I have also observed is that people compartmentalize their interest in trying new tools. Someone might resist upgrading Microsoft Office but constantly seek out the newest fishing tackle available. Or a designer might eagerly upgrade to the latest version of Photoshop but refuse to learn a few Unix shell commands that would make their life much easier.

I’d love to see a study that measures the correlation between a willingness pick up new tools and career growth. My belief is that a willingness to adapt to new tools is a key to remaining economically productive over the long term, unless you have a very highly specialized set of skills that remains in demand.

John Gruber weighs in on the increasing popularity of a service that adds a citation to the user’s clipboard when they copy text from a Web site:

It’s a bunch of user-hostile SEO bullshit.

The first time I saw it in action, I was amused by the novelty, but these days I’m in the Gruber camp. What I hadn’t realized is that not only does the service (provided by Tynt) add a citation to whatever you copy, but it also notifies the server that you copied text in the first place.

He also explains how to block Tynt using the hosts file.

Last week Firefox developer Alexander Limi posted about rough edges in the Firefox installation experience on the Mac. His article attracted a ton of thoughtful responses, and he posted a follow-up today discussing the options he looked at and describing the new installation experience that will be featured with Firefox 3.6.

The problem and solution are an interesting case study for user experience designers. Most Mac users are fine with the way the installation process, but clearly it is confusing to some users, and when you’re talking about an application with millions of users, it’s a big deal. What I liked about the way this worked out is that Limi clearly put a lot of thought into his original post, and the community responded with a ton of good ideas that led to an even better solution that the one he came up with. Now a lot of people are going to benefit.

This really is collaboration on the Web at its best — and I would hate to see it pass by unremarked upon.

On another note, the design of Alexander’s blog is just awesome.