Last September, usability expert Jakob Nielsen wrote a column on how to milk text ads for all they’re worth. When Christophe Bruno tried to do the same, in a more poetic manner, Google pulled them.

Maintaining that balance between design and usability is a constant struggle for designers, and often leads to deadly dull sites or flashy, overly designed ones. IBM, in critiquing Apple’s Aqua interface, offers another example of why usability and design can be at odds.

Looks like Sympatico will be following the cable companies lead by offering different broadband services levels. According to globetechnology.com (a sister company to Sympatico), there will be three levels:

Admittedly, I’m not a network expert, but unlike the cable services, these caps seem to be more a way to get more money from the subscribers. Still, compared to the U.S., the fees are still cheap.