07/2007 Article Archive

  • July 31, 2007 in Business & Process

    Principle vs. Rule Driven Business

    I have found that creating very strict rules for how I run my business ends up having the opposite effect of what I intend. In fact I think I have actually been pretty arrogant in thinking that my rules could account for every future hurdle I might encounter. On the opposite side of the coin is a business that is run mamby pamby by fleeting whims which is just as bad. Somewhere in the middle is a principle driven business that is both controlled and flexible. It’s actually pretty easy to get into this mindset. First, lay out a very short list of principles by which you would like to run your business. Then whenever you are about to make a business decision, just ask yourself if your decision is in line with the principles that drive you business. Okay, maybe that’s an over simplification of the matter but you get the picture.

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  • July 27, 2007 in Product Reviews

    Giving Your Clients Control Over Content and Forcing Them to Keep it Clean

    Of course, by “clean”, I am referring to keeping the HTML clean. One of the biggest problems I run into when giving content control to a client is that they inevitably ruin my beautiful standards compliant XHTML templates by cramming ugly code right into the middle of it. It’s not their fault. They don’t know anything about HTML and every line of ugly code they are generating is being produced behind the scenes by a WYSIWYG editor. Never fear; there may be a solution. WYMeditor claims to force standards compliant code in an embeddable WYSIWYG editor. Up to this point, I have been using the open source FCKeditor for all of my projects but I am considering giving WYMeditor a try just to see if I can cut down on the ogre code.

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    • 892 Views
  • July 24, 2007 in Business & Process

    Particls: An annoying desktop version of NetVibes

    Particls is an interesting take on the whole NetVibes Phenomenon. It prompts you with real time alerts when changes occur on your favorite sites or RSS feeds. Sounds cool, huh? I don�t think so. I�m going to stick with NetVibes or PageFlakes for the same reason I canceled my Yahoo! IM account and stopped getting email on my cell phone � Sporatic and unpredicatble alerts equal low productivity. On-demand is the way to go.

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    • 885 Views
  • July 20, 2007 in Web Design Culture

    A Really Bad Design Rip Off

    31Three is a design studio with a popular blog I happen to read. Recently, they came across another group�s web site with a strikingly similar design to their own. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but this is laughable Check it out Here on Flickr.

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    • 1128 Views
  • July 17, 2007 in Web Design Culture

    The Semantic Web is a Utopian Dream... Welcome to Reality

    When Sir Tim Berners-Lee and W3C consortium first developed the concepts that would become the foundation for the semantic web, they were trying to address a serious issue concerning the web. Namely, that the potential of the convergence of knowledge found on the web could not be fully realized because of its organic and unpredictable nature. In other words, we had a big ugly mass of information and no easy way to index and share it. The Utopian solution of the W3C consortium essentially involves the cooperation of all web site designers in conforming to a set of rules that will make the information on their sites easy to parse, index, share, etc. For those of you heavily involved in the world of web design, this gospel is all too familiar. Of course, I do my best to design by standards but ultimately, that system is doomed to fail for two key reasons: 1. Technology is unpredictable. As soon as you settle into the standards that apply to one technology, a completely new one comes along. 2. Designers are unpredictable. Some are too new to know about standards and some are just too lazy to care. All accessibility issues aside, the point is that we are much better off preaching the cause of specific and limited information exchange in technologies like RSS. We need easy-to-use lightweight means of getting only the most pertinent information out. We don�t need a Utopian revolution.

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    • 903 Views
  • July 15, 2007 in Web Design Culture

    Rising Postage Costs: Death for Independent Printed Publications

    Postage has gone up in price several times in the last few years but what you may not know is that the last increase included an additional increase for magazines. For many small independent printed publications, unfortunately, this may be the beginning of the end. However, necessity is the mother of invention as they say. So as a member of the new media community, I would like to encourage my colleagues to use this hurdle as an incentive to push failing publications to the web. An internet model will sound like a great alternative to shutting down completely. Let’s face it; we are the future and this blow from the post office may just be the shock that forces the media industry to get creative with their delivery.

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  • July 12, 2007 in Product Reviews

    The "MyStickies" Firefox Extension Is an Excellent Collaboration Tool

    The world of online collaboration tools can be pretty hard to navigate especially if you are in the new media business. Everyone has a favorite and there is a new one hitting the streets just about every day. When it comes right down to it, though, the actual task they are all trying to accomplish is pretty simple: Show what everyone is thinking and doing. Right? Okay, sometimes it might be a little more complicated than that, but not often. So try using the MyStickies Firefox extension to share information about your web projects. I’ve been using it with my wife over the last week or so while she does some copy editing for me on a couple of sites. I have to say that I can’t imaging a smoother way to communicate about specific details on a web site. She adds virtual post-its to the site and I can log onto the site and see all of her comments and even leave responses. It’s always the simple ideas that work the best. This is a simple as it gets.

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    • 1353 Views
  • July 9, 2007 in Programming & IT

    jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library

    jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library -- Having a good ajax library to support your websites has become an important part of being in the web design business but libraries like the popular script.aculo.us require a lot of additional coding to produce something really useful. The jQuery library has a lot of the same cool animation functions but it also has a ton of prebuilt plugins that do the stuff you want. It could definitely be improved upon but in the future, it may be a one stop shop that will keep you from scouring the web for scripts.

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    • 1079 Views
  • July 8, 2007 in Web Design Culture

    Wired Magazine Takes a Cue From the Web

    Recently, Wired Magazine ran a promotion with Xerox in which they allowed subscribers to upload a photo that would then appear on the cover of a special personalized issue in July. Of course, I had to take advantage of the offer so as soon as I had a chance, I cropped a nice picture of my son covered in Spaghetti Os and uploaded it. We talk a lot about the web as the only future of information exchange but it will be a while before print is essentially out. In the meantime, there have been some pretty amazing developments in print technology that allow for some exciting new applications. Wired has taken the soul of MySpace (Personalization) and applied the same concept to a printed magazine.

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    • 868 Views
  • July 6, 2007 in Business & Process

    Try Referring Clients to Your Competition

    I’d like to think that I live my life by the biblical concept that it’s better to give than receive; but when it comes to business that principle can be a hard one to swallow. For example, there is a local designer here in Midland that I send clients to from time to time when I’m too busy or a client’s budget isn’t enough to get the job done. He’s a lot cheaper than I am and he doesn’t do much programming but I know he’s reliable. I’ve never actually met him but this week, to my surprise he sent a client back my way that needed some web functionality that was beyond his skill. Fortunately, we still live in a society that responds to good will (at least in Texas we do. Yeehaw!)

    • 0 Comments
    • 914 Views