Technology Archives

Hack’d

Posted at 9:43 AM

I spent yesterday cleaning up some awful link spam that littered several of the domains I own. Some crafty fellow had stuffed hidden links to illegal MP3 sites in the footer of as many index files as they could find. I thought it’d be a good idea to document it in case anyone else runs into the same dilemma. Plus, hey, an excuse to write a multi-paragraph entry. Go me.

I’m not exactly sure how the account was compromised, and I’d hate to point fingers without knowing. Could’ve been either of the two popular blogging software applications that are installed. Or it could’ve been a hack to the server in general. After some digging and some Googling, it turned out someone else had the exact same problem. A hidden directory was including a PHP file that was in turn including a .txt file filled with SEO spam and inserting it by IP address to most of my domains. I quickly deleted these files, but the links were still there.

The baffling part was that when opening any of the compromised files, the links weren’t in the source. Grepp’ing for the spam had it showing up in multiple files, but opening the file to edit showed nothing, leaving me to believe that the links were being dynamically inserted somehow. It took a helpful tech support agent to show me I’d fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book: the huge block of spam links was just indented a ridiculous amount. I hadn’t noticed the horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the text editor, and sure enough scrolling over approximately 10,367 pixels to the right, there the spam was.

So after cleaning up 20 or so index files, changing passwords and updating software, all seems well again. If you run into link spam, and the usual fixes don’t help, check your logs for suspicious .txt includes, and beware of the “massive indent”.

21 Comments

Decision or Bug?

Posted at 10:58 AM

I just logged a bug report after doing a little testing with the IE8 Beta. Overall, the progress and standards commitment in the latest effort is fantastic and exciting. Hats off to the Internet Explorer Team.

There’s one lingering decision that appears to have carried over though, and it’s an important one. I say “decision” since, by now, there clearly must be a reason why it’s still there. I’m also reminding myself that this is still a beta release. But the earlier we chime in on things, the better, right?

Here’s what I logged:

As with previous versions of Internet Explorer, the IE8 Beta also fails to resize text using the “Text Size” tool when fonts are sized in pixels. Most would consider this a bug, where the user should be able to trump any size specified by the page author, regardless of the unit specified. I remained boggled as to why this has been a consistent design decision.

It creates an accessibility issue for readers with poor or low vision, while making pixels a less than desirable choice for the page designer. In an ideal world, the designer should be able to specify fonts in any unit he or she desires (px, em, percentage, etc.) while the reader should have ultimate control over the size, using the browser’s controls. IE’s “Text Size” tool would appear to be broken when a reader attempts to adjust fonts on a page where fonts are sized in pixels. Surely confusing.

Thanks for listening, and keep up the excellent progress!

Disagree? I’d love to hear it :)

62 Comments

Dagen H

Posted at 5:20 PM

Inspired by a tweet from Mikipedia, I did a little Googling for “Dagen H”, the day that Sweden reversed its traffic from the left side of the road to the right side, 40 years ago:

On September 3, 1967, at 04.50 in the morning, the traffic everywhere in Sweden was directed over to the right side of the road and stopped. Everything stood absolutely still for 10 minutes, and at 05.00, when it started again, all road users in Sweden from heavy trucks to cyclists were already on the right side of the road, and they have stayed there since.

What’s even more amazing is that there were actually less fatalities and accidents during that September than in previous Septembers (although a possible result of people being more alert just after the switch).

But it could be proof that, even the most rigid and essential standards can be reversed if the warning is long enough and well-organized.

17 Comments

Because coffee can be Foamee, too

Posted at 11:19 PM

Non beer drinkers and caffeine fans rejoice: Foamee now has support for coffee. Just follow @ioucoffee on Twitter and follow the same steps that 1600 beer aficionados have followed over the past few weeks.

Send someone an I.O.U. for coffee like so:

@ioucoffee @twitterscreenname for being an amazing human being.

Then keep track of those I.O.U.s (for beer and coffee!) on your people page (here’s mine). Send beer. Send coffee. Send good vibes to all the interweb’s citizens.

Happy Holidays from your friends at SimpleBits.

Introducing Foamee

Posted at 10:00 AM

I think I’ve just created something that will change the web as we know it. But I’ll write about that another day. Instead, I’m going to talk about a fun new thing I launched last night. Actually, it’s a couple of things.

I owe you a beer.

I say this quite a bit. For friends, family, people that deserve a pat on the back. I also often forget to make good on the promise. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to keep track? And then also keep track of who owed you?

So, I decided to build Foamee (hey, there were plenty of abandoned ‘e’s lying around). It’ll keep track of who you owe beers to and vice versa. But don’t worry, this is NASN (not another socical network). Like you, I’m tired of creating another login, another set of friends/contacts, another avatar and more tears. So instead, Foamee piggy-backs on an existing one. As I was tossing ideas around, I realized a lot of the functionality: short messages directed at another person, web/IM/mobile messaging, etc. already existed elsewhere — so why not make things simpler and utilize the indispensable Twitter as a primary interface for the app?

Using Twitter’s API, Foamee will harvest replies and direct messages to create a barnacle-esque utility (props to Josh Porter for coining that) on the already-popular messaging service. If you’re already on Twitter, using Fomee is as easy as following ioubeer, then using specific syntax to announce an I.O.U. Beer to the world. We’ll repost these virtual pats-on-the-back, and also create a people page for anyone that sends a beer. Your people page will show who you owe, and who owes you. The sender or receiver also has the option of “redeeming” an I.O.U. via a direct message to Foamee, completing the deal.

I realize this is a silly (but potentially useful) service. And I’m excited to see where it leads, if anywhere. What it does now is incredibly simple (and there’s a reason for that, partially explained below). It’s also a shameless brand vehicle. How so, you ask?

Foamee Goods

Right out of the gate, there are two cool things to buy at the Foamee Store (because two weeks from now, when you’ve long forgotten about this little site, it’d be too late). T-shirts (of course) and I.O.U. Beer Coasters: a pack of six pulpboard coasters shipped in a drawstring cotton bag with a Foamee-branded Mini Sharpie. The coasters have a spot to write your name, perfect for handing out tactile I.O.U.s in person to deserving recipients. They work great in the mail as well. And they are awesome.

Special technical geek notes

Building this little app became a personal challenge. Could I handle the backend as well as the design? Could someone who primarily spends their time worrying about interface solutions roll up their sleeves and create a fully-functional product? And so the process of investigating APIs, databases and frameworks began. It reminded me of the old days, learning HTML (and later CSS) for the first time. Late night experimentation, utter frustration and then those “little victories” that make it all worth it.

Foamee runs on PHP, using the CakePHP framework, which turned out quite well. Cake uses the same model/view/controller setup found in Rails and other frameworks, has a good community and is dead simple to install and move around. I owe Jonathan Snook a beer for blogging about Cake (surely where I heard about it first). My code is likely terrible and other smart folks could probably bang out the same functionality in an afternoon, blindfolded and behind-the-back. But it works, and my familiarity with PHP coupled with my experience with Rails while working with the imitable Dan Benjamin on Cork’d and other projects (I owe him several beers as well) made baking with Cake tolerable for a noob like me.

Foamee is hosted by the fine folks at Media Temple, and I owe them a beer (or twelve) for that.

The motivator here was fun. Fun to build, fun to create for, and (hopefully) fun to use. I’m hoping fun continues to motivate around here — for Foamee and for whatever else cures the constant desire to create. Special thanks to Biz Stone at Twitter for helping tap the keg last night.

A Type In the Right Direction?

Posted at 11:35 AM

We hear news that Webkit now supports the @font-face CSS property, enabling the designer to specify downloadable fonts in their web pages. I can remember getting excited about this back in June after hearing Håkon Lie talk about it during @media London (check out Richard Rutter’s thoughts on this as well). Legal and security issues will prevent us from using most fonts of course, but I like to focus on the positive here. There are some perfectly useable, free fonts out there — and more choice is better than little or no choice, right?

I wholehartedly agree with Jon Hicks, who writes:

Personally, I’m just happy that we’re reaching a point where we’re having this conversation!

Right! What’s important, I think, is that this helps move things along. Perhaps it will stoke the fire in terms of a real conversation between type foundries and browsers on how things could work while protecting the font maker. Then again, maybe it won’t.

Stephen Coles at Typographica writes something I’d like to counterpoint:

In general, web designers aren’t typographers. Their specialty is in the realms of interface, hierarchy, and navigation. Their training does not include making decisions about what typeface to use for long passages of text.

While this certainly could be true for many, it doesn’t mean that web designers can’t become good typographers — especially when given the chance with more of a variety of typefaces to work with. The worry that all web pages will be suddently ruined with crappy free fonts everywhere overshadows the fact that some good can come out of the ability to at least have a choice to use those crappy (and/or potential useful) fonts. Give us all a chance, eh?

For instance, and maybe this is fresh on my mind after releasing a *cough* icon-based pixel font *cough* just days ago, but imagine using a downloadble dingbat font for displaying icons instead of GIF or JPEG images. Suddenly text and icons become truly scalable together. Just a small example — but one I’d love to experiment with.

34 Comments

DingBit

Posted at 10:50 AM

I’m pleased to announce a new product shipping today over at the IconShoppe. Chameleon16 is a new pixel font for Mac and Windows, hand-crafted using only the finest pixels available. It’s based on the Chameleon Original icons that we’ve been hocking over here to support our growing latte addiction.

Initially, I’d thought to just convert the GIF images to a bitmap font so that the customer could change the color and add effects at will. The minimalist nature of the icons begs of it, and having the 16×16 icons in font format would sure be handy. But while I was at it, why not create new alphanumeric characters to go along with it, and create a real font in the same style?

As the name suggests, Chameleon16 is designed to be used at 16px. And like its pixel font predecessors, it also works at multiples of that base (32px, 48px, 64px, etc.) for retro, extra blocky goodness.

Since each character is a 16×16 tile, it admittedly has limited use for setting large chunks of text. You’re not going to use this font to display client invoices or proposals. But interesting things can happen when you start playing with kerning and line height, and I’m excited to see some interesting applications where it could be used creatively.

The TrueType font includes standard alphanumeric characters as well as the entire Chameleon Original icon set as alternate characters and costs just $39 bucks. As a special promotion, the first three orders also get a free copy of Bulletproof Web Design, Second Edition that hit store shelves last month First three orders received!.

Special technical geek notes

The process of creating the font was a learning experience, and I would compare it (at times) to removing stubborn wallpaper. I first created the characters in Photoshop, then used a program called BitFonter to turn those into a bitmap font, assigning each character, adjusting metrics, etc.

Over the course of the last six months or so I began chipping away it, navigating the spotty documentation, and teaching myself the wonders of font metrics, character encoding and more. In the end, I needed to create additional outlines of the bitmap characters and export these into TypeTool which could then generate a proper TrueType file (after having problems letting BitFonter do this). If I knew what I was doing this wouldn’t have taken long.

I avoided using something like Fontographer (also by FontLab) because I was creating a bitmap font and BitFonter’s pixel editor seemed a natural choice — and for creating and editing pixel fonts, it’s great (or at least slightly more intuitive). It’s the output and documentation that was confusing, and my respect for real type designers has grown tenfold after this little project.

So, my advice for those looking to create their own pixel fonts: learn Fontographer, or remember that you’ll need TypeTool in order to generate a TrueType file from BitFonter’s outlines.

Cork’d Finds a New Home

Posted at 10:36 AM

When Dan Benjamin and I launched Cork’d a year ago, our primary goal was achieved immediately: building something we personally wanted to use to discover and share wine. Twelve months later, it turns out other people wanted to use it as well, and we’ve had a blast listening to the community, improving the site and watching it grow (to over 20,000 users today).

One thing became clear throughout the evolution though: that the site always deserved far more attention than it received from its founders. We were building Cork’d on nights and weekends, and keeping up with new site features, member requests, etc. often took a backseat to other client work and dayjobs. Cork’d needed a new home — but not just any.

A New Home

After talks with companies large and small, we realized we didn’t want Cork’d to become just an advertising bucket for a media company that would most likely let it fizzle out. It was important to us to find a home that would get what the site does and how it uniquely fit in the wine world. We’re happy to announce today that Cork’d has been acquired by a newly formed company with Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV at the helm.

Gary has been changing the wine world as host of WLTV has built a rabid following of wine fans (“Vayniacs”, they’re called — myself included) with his energetic take on making wine fun — this is precisely the same mantra we had building Cork’d. But Gary also really knows wine — something Dan B. nor I can really claim. The recycling guy in my neighborhood knows how much I love wine (and regularly) — but that doesn’t mean I know wine. You know? To get an idea of the show, be sure to check out this video summary.

Gary really gets community. And with his mix of knowledge, energy, fresh take on wine, and his embracing of technology and the web, we’ve found a perfect fit. And that’s really what’s most important for the site — that Cork’d continue to grow under an organization that gets wine, gets the web, gets what Cork’d was trying to do, etc.

We’re excited that Gary along with Rails whiz Erik Kastner will be able to take the site to the next level (something it’s always deserved), integrating Cork’d and live tasting, having a real wine authority behind it. Cork’d will not only continue on — but it’ll get even better. For the last month or so, we’d been helping transition the site over, and out of that came some cool new features:

• A switch to the more widely used 100-point rating system.
• “Cork Board” on every profile page to start discussion between members.
• Easy import of wines for CellarTracker members.
• New identity and layout for Wine Library TV, to further tie the two destinations together.

Gary and team have more things in the works like support for OpenID, mobile and more. Dan B. and I will remain on as advisors, but we leave the site in very capable and enthusaistic hands. Cheers to WLTV and the future of Cork’d!

A Learning Experience

The last year has been a tremendous learning experience on so many levels. Sure it’s just a little wine site that Dan B. and I created in our spare time — but the process of building, maintaining, and transitioning was filled with lessons and “ah, so that’s how this all works” moments.

Working with Dan B. taught me volumes about how Rails can be a fantastic environment for designers to create in. I’ve talked about it before — but the concept of using Subversion (SVN) and “chipping” away at the interface in real time made it a bit like sculpting the application. I’m hooked.

I credit Dan B.’s talent as a developer for being able to easily handle the real brunt of the work here — having spent most of my time handing over XHTML and CSS templates to clients and then walking away, seeing and learning how everything falls into place by watching Dan work his magic was invaluable. And fun.

Read more about the Cork’d acquisition over at Hivelogic.

What’s Next?

It’s been a busy Spring, with the Cork’d transition, large client projects, and a book revision in the works. But I’m looking forward to the Summer to brainstorm on the future. An office move, expansion and a new SimpleBits-branded product are all probable — we’ll just see how all the juggling goes.

SXSW 2007

Posted at 10:35 PM

John Allsopp said in Vancouver last month, “you bring people together and stuff happens”. He was referring to Web Directions North at the time, but you could certainly apply that to any good conference. And it’s true, there’s no substitue for meeting with like-minded people in physical space. Stuff happens that wouldn’t happen otherwise on either end of bits and bytes.

SXSW 2007 came to a close earlier this week, and the reasons for returning have been confirmed yet again: going to SXSW is about people. The panels and presentations are a bonus — but it’s primary asset (for me) is about connecting and reconnecting with people. People who share a common thread about the work we do and the stuff that matters in relation to that work.

SXSW was big this year. I missed the previous year, and so it seemed really big compared to 2004 and 2005. An overwhelming schedule, not enough time to see everyone, etc. Surely they’ll reach a point of maximum capactiy — but it doesn’t appear there’s a cap on attendees. This year, I put far less pressure on myself to stick in panels all day. Instead, I chose a few I couldn’t miss, then didn’t mind skipping a few because lunch (and interesting conversation) ran later than expected.

In terms of the overall vibe of the conference, I think Jeremy Keith nails it here:

… technology is being relegated to its correct role: a tool for allowing people to connect and share their stories. Whether it’s Ruby on Rails, Ajax, tagging or the World Wide Web itself, I got the feeling that what really matters now is personal communication — storytelling by any other name.”

It didn’t occur to me until after reading Jeremy’s post — but there was a real quality to the things people were excited about, talking about, working on, etc. That was motivating and inspiring.

I’d be on any panel with Brian Oberkirch. The guy just makes it easy. It was fun talking about something other than CSS, and our power session panel ran more like an interview about working remotely, outside the Bay Area and what that means in creating for the web. I wish we had time for questions though, as several people came up to the stage after the session ended and we all had some really interesting discussion that would’ve been great for the whole room. Ah well. I’m half-hoping they ditch the 25 minute sessions next year.

I was also honored and flattered to introduce Andy Clarke and Jason Santa Maria’s panel: Bullet Tooth Web Design: Plan Your Web Site like Pulling off a Robbery. The room was packed (and rightfully so to see those dudes) and the gag was a funny one. The best part was the continuation of the metaphor throughout all of the Q&A, with the audience framing their questions as if the entire thing was rehearsed.

All in all, good fun. I’m getting more and more out of the smaller, more focused conferences these days, but in getting the most bang for your buck, you can’t beat Austin in March.

Do the Collapse

Posted at 1:44 PM

“Pretty soon you’ll be using your iPhone”, said the attorney in the elevator just five minutes ago. He’d glanced at me checking things on my (now terribly outdated) Blackberry Pearl. Everyone’s talking about the iPhone. No, everyone is talking about it. Just goes to show how big an announcement it really was.

There are so many thoughts about this thing, but rather than add to the noise, here’s one I hadn’t yet seen mentioned: with a reliable browser on the iPhone (Safari) and all that it brings in terms of standards support, JS, DOM, etc., will we start looking closer at resolution dependent layouts (or other methods) for sites that would or could function as well as their larger screen counterparts?

We’re essentially talking about a fully-browsable web and everything that comes along with that in Safari. Just on a smaller screen. I realize that already exists to a certain extent with Webkit on the Nokia, Opera, and probably others, but the typical screen dimensions on a mobile phone are tiny. Seeing Steve Jobs turn the device and browse “widescreen” was eye-opening. That extra horizontal space could really increase the readability of non-mobile-specific sites as is.

The vulcan-death-pinch-squeezy thing for zooming looks great, mind you. Fluid layout for screens this small isn’t optimal, while multiple columns could just get too narrow (in the absence of min-width) — but I could see where leveraging the browser to adjust layout based on screen resolution could make things interesting in certain situations. And it’ll of course be fun to find out what this all means.

Free vintage SimpleBits sticker to the first person who names (without Googling) the band for which the title of this post is named after.

31 Comments

Reasons I Like Twitter

Posted at 10:11 PM

• I am a sporadic IM’r. At times, I find it incredibly distracting. Twitter is like the lazy-person’s IM. Post if you want to, listen if you want to. Or not.
• The character limit. For SMS of course — but limitations can often nurture creativity.
• Learning things about your pals that you otherwise would never hear. As mundane as they might be.
• Half conversations: “@dude55: you are so totally right on, and I believe what you just said was the most poignant, important, compelling sentence that has ever been posted to the internets.” I sure wish I had a friend named dude55.
• It’s lucky enough to have an “e”.
• It’s simple, focused and immediate.
• Because blogging requires too much time and thought.
• Yes damnit, I do want to know when you go to bed, or when you’re eating a burrito.

30 Comments

Pearly

Posted at 3:22 PM

Earlier this month I asked for advice regarding phones that can send and receieve email. Only two people in the comments mentioned the BlackBerry Pearl, but that’s what I ended up purchasing and have had it now for about 24 hours. What follows is a mini review of the device, this coming from someone who is new to the BlackBerry, new to the mobile web, and new to sending and receiving email using tiny keys. The short version: loving it so far.

There’s several reasons I ended going with the Pearl, rather than the other great suggestions (like the Palm Treo, or Nokia e62, for example).

1. I realized I needed to stay with T-Mobile as a provider. I have a pretty great, grandfather’d plan that was too good to give up going somewhere else. Isn’t a shame that devices and providers are so locked together?
2. T-Mobile’s unlimited web and email BlackBerry plans are cheaper than their normal internet plans. You don’t get access to HotSpots, but I figure as long as there’s carrier service, that won’t be difficult to miss.
3. The Pearl is tiny for a phone that packs a decent screen and 1.3 MP camera. I knew if it was bulky, I wouldn’t enjoy using it as often. It had to fit in a pocket.
4. I’m left-handed, so the normal-sized BlackBerry’s would’ve probably been awkward to navigate with the scroll wheel on the right side. The Pearl’s trackball works great, and it’s in the middle for either thumb.
5. My mobile phone is my business phone, so the call quality has to be good. It’s been fine so far — in fact audio coming in has been clearer and louder than previous phones I’ve owned. I’m not sure how I sound on the other end. I’ll have to call myself (wow, what should I say?!).

It took me a bit to get used to how Push email works. I have my main IMAP account set up and assumed I’d see everything in my inbox. Instead, it’ll push emails to the BlackBerry, where they’ll be until you delete them. You have the option of the delete also removing them from your mail account. But there’s a cool feature that lets you “Delete Prior” messages from your inbox. It’ll make them disappear from your BlackBerry but not your main IMAP account. Handy if you want a clean slate, and want to only see new incoming messages when you’re away from your desk.

As far as the keyboard on the Pearl goes, well that’s the tradeoff for the tiny, candybar form factor. It has what BlackBerry calls a “SureType” keyboard setup. There’s two letters per key, but they’re set up in a QWERTY formation. It really works quite a bit better than I thought it would. If you ignore what’s happening on screen while you type, it’ll get the right word nearly every time based on the letter combinations. I’m impressed. It’s not like typing on a normal keyboard, of course. But short replies will be no problem — something I’d never attempt on a normal phone keypad.

Finally having a decent web-enabled phone to really play with has been eye-opening. Seeing what sites have a media="handheld" stylesheet, or which sites sniff and serve a mobile-friendly version of their site automatically. From my limited time playing with it, it’s clear that there’s so many different methods for handling mobile content. One thing’s for sure, lean, unstyled markup sure is helpful, even when there’s not specifically a mobile version of the same site. We really need Cameron’s book.

So all in all, I’m quite pleased with the Pearl. It’ll take some getting used to, but it’s certainly a helpful improvement. And will hopefully help me work less, stay away longer, etc.

During my tenure at a failed dot com in early 2000, in between margarita parties, all the VPs where saying “the mobile web is going to change the world!”. This was 6 years ago. Everyone believed them of course, and dumped millions into mobile products that weren’t ready for primetime. But now (and I’m admitedly late to the game) it really feels like there’s momentum here — real stuff happening, “affordable” access, etc. Interesting times.

33 Comments

Mobile Email?

Posted at 7:48 PM

So I’ve been thinking of getting a mobile device suitable for sending and retrieving electronic mail. Here’s how I imagine it’ll help me work less: simply knowing that I don’t have an important email sitting in my inbox while I’m away. I don’t plan on reading email everywhere I am, but rather just having the ability to put out any fires, or attend to urgent stuff from time to time might allow me to stay away longer. Maybe there’d be some peace of mind knowing I don’t have to hurry back to my inbox — then again, maybe it’d drive me nuts.

So I wonder what your experience is with mobile email. I’m looking into something that:

1. Can connect to IMAP
2. Is a decent phone as well
3. Has a QWERTY keyboard (tiny tiny of course)
4. Isn’t gigantic

Blackberry? Treo? Sidekick? Nothing? Let us know, o’ untethered ones.

90 Comments

One Hundred

Posted at 10:03 AM

Maybe it was the antique car show we drove by this past weekend, but something got me thinking: what would I be working on 100 years ago? In other words, today I design web sites and other related web things for a living. In 1906, I doubt I’d be doing the same (and if I was I’d be insane).

One hundred years ago, radio was in it’s infancy, so there’s an obvious parallel there: a new, exciting technology that increases communication. But really what we’re doing is creating stuff, and I’m not sure I’d be building radios or telegraph equipment. I’m not smart enough for that.

Typesetting? That could be closer than radio, but typesetting was far from being something new in 1906. So maybe it’d be something less obvious, like a “Wheelwright” or a “Confectioner” or even a “Newsagent” — actual professional titles for the early 20th century. And don’t they sound cool?

Regardless, it’s interesting to look back and draw similarities, especially if you do the same looking forward. Will anyone be designing web sites in another 100 years? Will I be doing this in 10 or 20? Who knows.

56 Comments

Pairing Wine and Microformats

Posted at 3:34 PM

While working on Cork’d, I realized this was a perfectly fine excuse to implement some microformats. What goes great with a nice 2003 Pinot Noir? Meaningful markup, naturally.

We’re currently using three microformats on Cork’d:

• hCard (for member profiles)
• hReview (for wine reviews or “tasting notes”)
• rel-tag (for indicating tag links)

Our implementations aren’t perfect, but it’s a start. The rest of this article will talk about how we implemented hReview for member-entered tasting notes (example) and specifically how I used CSS to style the markup.

Cork'd Update #2

Posted at 8:29 PM

I’m going to try not to post general Cork’d news here, instead saving it for the Cork’d Blog, but we’ve just rolled out some new features that are too big and exciting not to talk about. I’m looking forward to sharing more design-specific stuff here at SimpleBits, but I’m not looking to bore those that aren’t interested in wine (and/or wine web sites).

We’re (Still) Listening

Member feedback has been enormously valuable since we popped Cork’d (now just 2 weeks ago). We’ve been listening to what you guys want to see implemented, evaluating what makes sense, and acting on it. So far, every new feature we’ve added has been a direct response to member feedback. Dan B. has been working feverishly on turning “it would be really cool if…” into reality. And that’s been really fun. A true wine community has been born.

There’s a real difference between being a hired hand on a project for a specific amount of time and someone who has ownership as well as passion for what they’re working on (ownership and passion can be exclusive as well, but combined, they pack quite a punch). The short-term, part-time attention of a freelance designer or developer can often lead to clunky, duct-taped solutions after the contract is over and the site is actually being used by real people. Cork’d has been the complete opposite situation, where we’ve been able to launch a product that would be considered “done” under most circumstances and then react to member feedback using the same attention to detail that went into the initial construction.

Now, on to the brand-new features that we’ve just rolled out to help make Cork’d even better.

Browsing and Advanced Search

Many members requested an easier way to browse wine on Cork’d. Now you can find wine by category, varietal, region, winery, year, price and more. If you want to look under the hood to see all the great wines being added and reviewed on Cork’d, here’s the place to start.

Speaking of finding wine, there’s now a brand new advanced search that allows searching a term in addition to refining by any of the categories mentioned above, and sorting the results as well.

Buddy Messaging

Another frequent request was the ability for members to communicate with each other. Now they can with the new buddy messaging, built right into the site. Send messages to your buddies or other Cork’d members. Tell them you love them. Tell them often.

Bottle Quantities

Own more than one bottle of the same wine? Then you’ll probably want to denote and keep track of that in your Wine Cellar (a list of wines that you own). Now you can add and edit quantities for wines both in your Wine Cellar and Shopping List (a list of wines you want to buy). Managing your wine collection just got a whole lot easier.

Etc.

As with our first update, there was also more than a handful of other tweaks and improvements, like showing more information in wine lists, suggesting related wines on wine review pages and more.

A sustained “thank you” to all the members for continued feedback and suggestions. You’re helping us make Cork’d better and we think that’s pretty cool (plus, we like making Cork’d better). Stay tuned here for more nuts-and-bolts thoughts on the design of the site, and be sure to subscribe to the Cork’d Blog RSS feed for future updates and other cool news.

Words I Can Easily Type With My Left Hand

Posted at 10:22 AM

• qbert
• stewart
• draft
• sward (weapon used by pirates)
• trace
• a
• qwacc (an animal sound)
• great
• freeze
• zedra (a striped, four-legged mammal)
• assert
• we

Introducing Cork'd

Posted at 9:59 AM

I like wine. I’ve even touted it’s ability to act as a design enhancer. The problem with wine (for me, and for many) is knowing what’s good. There are infinite choices out there. It’s overwhelming. Oftentimes, I lean on the suggestions from friends — people that probably know more about wine than I do.

When I finally find a wine that I like, it’s always impossible to remember it for the next trip to the store. Some people keep a journal, writing down what they thought about the wine in a notebook. But wouldn’t it be great if you could do this online? And wouldn’t it be also great if we could share those lists with our friends through a simple, free interface? And while we’re at it, wouldn’t it be the bomb.com if this same interface allowed you to review the wine, tag it, and set up lists for wines that you want to buy or that you own in your cellar?

Introducing Cork’d. A brand-spanking new site devoted to reviewing and sharing wine created by Dan Benjamin and myself. We’ve been working on this for quite some time. Just the two of us. Call us the Bartles & Jaymes of the wine web world (wait, no, don’t do that).

What is Cork’d?

The basic gist of Cork’d is this: after painlessly creating a free account, you’re able to keep track of wines you’ve tried in your Wine Jounal. You can rate, review and tag wines (more on that below), and these “tasting notes” end up attatched as comments to each wine in our database. You can also build a Shopping List of wines you’d like to buy (think of this like you would a Netflix queue), and a Wine Cellar for wines that you own. Keeping track of what your friends are tasting is as easy as adding them as a Drinking Buddy. You can also recommend wines to your buddies after you’ve rated and reviewed a bottle.

We have a partnership set up through wine.com, where a selection of their bottles have seeded the Cork’d database with about 1200 wines (which will grow as members add their own bottles), each with a link to buy that wine right away. But we can also see other cross-promotional opportunities by getting involved in the meat-space wine community. There are endless ideas flowing about connecting with wineries and vineyards, other wine blogs and podcasts. We’re really looking forward to watching it all grow.

Tasting Tags

The idea of tagging a wine may sound absurd — but when we started to realize the benefits, it became a must-have. We call them tasting tags, and by applying keywords like “oak, pepper, vanilla, berry” to a wine, we’re then making it easy to find similar wines based on those flavors. If you like oaky wines, for instance, then it should be easy to find them.

Why and How

What’s funny about Cork’d when looking at it for the first time, is that it’s pulling in many of the current technologies that have been brewing out there, and applies them to… wine. And why not? This is something Dan B. and I built quite simply because we wanted to use it. We’d been trading favorite bottles, realizing there would be an incredible benefit to keep track of things through a web interface, building a community around it, and making it easy to subscribe to buddies and wine lists. It had to be.

It’ll also be interesting to continue to talk about what we learned by building a web application with a team of 2. Working with Dan B. is a natural fit, as our areas of expertise overlap only slightly (design/ui/development), and where they do overlap actually made things run all the smoother. I was continually amazed by the way Dan approached building the app in Ruby on Rails, the speed, the structure, the way he thinks about a problem for a while, then takes all of about 3 minutes to write the working code — he’s a developer who designs in code. And I’m sure he’ll have much to write about regarding the process, including his already-published thoughts on the launch over at Hivelogic (far more thorough than mine).

This was a giant learning experience for me in terms of dipping my toes in Rails, becoming more familiar with Subversion (more on this later), and in using these tools as a collaborative and iterative way of building a web application. It’s a gratifying way for a designer to work on a large project, chipping away at things in real time, using real data — it’s a bit like sculpting. An evolution.

Go Forth and Uncork

I’m excited to share much more about the site over the coming weeks and months, and we’ll be rolling out some additional features and tweaks. But until then, if you dig wine (or want to start digging wine), then head on over and, um … uncork — Cork’d.

Inside the Net Interview

Posted at 11:55 AM

Chatted with Amber Mac and Leo Laporte last evening, and the resulting conversation (roughly 40 minutes) is now up and ready for consumption in the form of Inside the Net Episode 19.

It was an honor to be on the show, where topics included SimpleBits, web standards, books, current stuff that’s happening, iterative app building and other hopefully interesting things.

Appetite

Posted at 11:47 AM

Dan’s recent post about software got me thinking. Maybe you’re like me, where you love trying out cool new apps. “Wow, this is great! It’ll save me time and I’ll be far more productive”. But after a day or so the excitement wears off and you’re back to pencil and paper, or storing things mentally, or doing things without that exciting app again.

For general web work I tend to stick to the basics only: Photoshop, BBEdit, NetNewsWire, Transmit, and all the goodies that come bundled with OS X. I suppose the only oddball would be the Backpack Dashboard widget. I’ve found it to be one of the only productivity apps (if I may call it that) I use with any sort of frequency. I prefer the widget over the web interface, although I’m not sure if that means anything. It’s been useful for keeping track of little client bits, unpaid invoices (for which I should be using something else), etc.

Actually I’ve just thought of a few that might be worth mentioning: Iconographer (for creating favicons) and SuperDuper! (recommended by DB and used as my routine backup solution).

I’ve always considered myself a “Power User”, but damn… maybe that’s wishful thinking.

40 Comments

Smart-Ups

Posted at 5:06 PM

While chatting with a friend about the recent influx of smarter web start-ups: “smart-ups!”, I exclaimed, patting myself on the back, and thinking I was the bomb.com. Guess you had to be there.

I know, I know… the last thing we need are more buzzwords (and this one probably already exists elsewhere). But more importantly, starting a web company in 2005 is far different than starting a web company in 1999. People are smarter, hindsight is 20/20. Less money is needed. Less people are needed. I look back with laughter on my days at the failed MyWay.com in 1999: the hierarchy! The salaries! The sheer number of employees working on one, single web site! It’s never been easier to get an idea out the door.

What are you waiting for?

55 Comments

Shuffle FM

Posted at 12:06 AM

I rarely listen to commerical radio (usually in the car), but I’ve noticed a new(ish) radio station here in the Boston area, 93.7 Mike FM. Their motto is “we play everything”. This means you’ll hear Loverboy, then Jim Croce, then Ashlee Simpson. I’m guessing the new format has something to do with the rise of shuffling on the iPod and other similar devices (are there other devices?).

I have two reactions to this: a) well, that’s sort of cool. At least they’ve broken out of the commercial radio mold of playing the same 12 songs a day. And b) is this just background sound for people that don’t like music? A sort of “Russian Roulette”, where the station bets on playing something that you’ll like… eventually? What’s the demographic they’re going after?

Another observation is that this particular station has no DJs (from what I gather). Just pre-recorded station bumpers, commercials and random songs. I imagine this keeps the cost of running a station like this to a minimum. Just hit shuffle and go.

I also wonder: are there similar “shuffle style” stations popping up in other parts of the world?

104 Comments

New Odeo Stuff

Posted at 4:20 PM

There’s some cool new stuff being rolled out over at Odeo. Firstly, a new audio page, with a streamlined Flash player, space for photo, etc. Also, in the spirit of casual content creation, you can share audio with only your Odeo or email contacts (existing users will want to listen carefully to the end of the aforementioned (or aforelinked?) message for info on other damn cool new features).

The Sound of Elephant

Posted at 4:53 PM

I caught an interesting movie last night on HBO: Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant”. It’s a compelling film, and terribly disturbing, almost mirroring inspired by the high school shootings in Columbine.

What struck me most about the movie was the sound. Lots of ambient room sound — no ADR. It made a world of difference, with the camera often following the untrained actors around a Portland, Oregon high school. You could hear the dialogue just as it would sound if you were actually in the room. It’s as if you’re there, observing things as they happen. The result comes off like one long take of a film.

There’s a sound category for film awards, and instead of explosions and Foley artistry — “Elephant” should win for its sound recording being such a large part of the experience.

33 Comments

Mighty Mouse Reflections

Posted at 4:11 PM

On Wednesday, I had to buy a new battery for my 1.5 year-old PowerBook. Apparently they don’t live that long, and I was getting a whopping 10 minutes out of a full charge. PowerBook batteries aren’t all that exciting, but I also brought home a Mighty Mouse, which is only slightly more interesting.

53 Comments

Electronic Mail is Not For Everyone

Posted at 5:56 PM

A true story: Sally works as a marketing & promotions director at a reputable book publisher. She deals directly with authors on a daily basis, communicating primarlily via email. This is by far the easiest way to shuttle documented information back and forth. It is also the year 2005, where one might consider “electronic mail” as common as peanut butter, or even Neil Diamond.

64 Comments

Ballad Lighter 2.0

Posted at 6:38 PM

Observered while watching a televised Duran Duran concert on high definition television: During the retro ballad “Save a Prayer”, instead of holding up the customary lighter, much of the crowd at Wembley Arena raised glowing mobile phones to the air to create the intimate atmosphere that is the “power ballad lighter thing”.

Does this mean that Duran Duran fans are now non-smokers? Or maybe Wembley doesn’t allow smoking. Or maybe everyone was bored and already talking on the phone when the song came on, and it was more convenient to lift that in that in the air, rather than dig out their lighter. And then again, this could mean that the average person is now more likely to have a mobile phone, than a lighter on them (while watching Duran Duran—an extremely scientific metric).

Whatever it means, Duran Duran is still touring—and people with mobile phones like it.

50 Comments

Weeding Feeds

Posted at 8:11 PM

Following up on last week’s thoughts on feed confusion and multiple XML feed formats, Nick Bradbury offered a handy tip in the comments that I’ve implemented here for this site.

22 Comments

Feed Confusion

Posted at 3:46 PM

I’ve been thinking about feeds lately. Partly because of my recent reshuffling of the feeds here on this site, and equally due to Molly’s recent Where is Your Feed? post.

I merely offer an outsider’s perspective. I don’t study the specs on the 3,749 versions of RSS, nor the newer Atom format, but rather like many of you, I’m a user of these formats.

I realize the debate has been going on for years, with the hopes of creating a single unified standard. But as it stands now, many sites offer a bevvy of formats for the same information: RSS .92, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, etc. Here at SimpleBits, I offer both RSS 2.0 and Atom. Movable Type and other publishing engines make it easy to auto-generate these flavors, but frankly I’d be much happier just offering one version and sticking to it. As simple as it is to create templates, it’s still easier to only have to deal with one.

But I’m wondering where this is all going? Will we forever continue to support multiple RSS formats as well as Atom? Is Atom succeding as a successor to RSS? Will this stop people from using the term “RSS” to describe an Atom feed? It’s all very confusing — and that’s coming from someone who actually understands some of this stuff. Orange XML buttons, RSS buttons, Feed buttons — there’s no one standard for naming it, not to mention what format it actually uses.

One could argue that it doesn’t matter — that the CMS does all the heavy lifting, and why should I care if I’m pumping out 20 different files with the same information in them? But that sounds awfully familiar. In the world of web design, we know that it doesn’t have to be that way — that a single lean, meaningful XHTML file can alleviate multi-version hell. We just need that single, lean, meaningful RSS/XMLfeed/Atom file as well. Maybe?

I know that plenty of smart folks are working hard on this stuff every day. I’m just noting the current state of XML feeds (I suppose the only safe name to call all this stuff) as seen by someone who isn’t an expert.

37 Comments

The Cheapening of Music

Posted at 2:16 PM

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine still working in the music business said something that struck me: “music’s been cheapened”. I agreed immediately, not knowing exactly why, but gave it some more thought. It relates to how technology will affect music — not how we listen to music, but how we digest it, buy it, perceive it.

Let me first say that I love the iPod, and the device has even allowed me to rediscover music that was previously boxed away in racks of old CDs. The technology is wonderful, making it so easy to carry around your entire record collection at all times. But is the art of recording an “album” — an LP — in danger? I guess that’s what I’m questioning here.

One of my favorite rituals has always been going to the record store and buying a CD or two. The physical act of purchasing something, taking it home, opening it up, lookng at the artwork, reading the lyrics, etc. Will that become something of the past? Probably. For years we’ve been hearing things like “yeah, but you’ll be able to print out your own artwork to go along with the digital downloads”. Somehow that just doesn’t sound as nice.

The album as an artform

Creating an album — not just a collection of songs, but an entire “experience” has long been an artform in and of itself. It’s part of what got me interested in design early on: studying the packaging design and album artwork of bands and artists I worshipped. The collection and artwork combined with a group of songs recorded within the same time period always seemed like a time capsule of what the band was doing at that moment. But with the ability to buy a single song immediately via the web, will a shift materialize? Will we go back to the days of 7” 45s, where the single ruled?

When my friend said that he believed music has been cheapened, he was referring to the fact that music is now everywhere. It’s in your cellphone, on the web, on your microwave, TV, toys, etc. It’s even a marketing tool. It’s become easier to get, but will that affect the music itself?

The web site “album”?

What has become crucial is the band’s web site — the depot for news, info, photos, music, videos, etc. It’s possible that the web site will become even more important as digital distribution gains even more steam. Perhaps an “album” will really be a web site devoted to a group of songs released at the same time. Each “album” will stand on it’s own like an archived article.

I don’t have any answers, of course. We’ll just have to see how it all plays out. The Compact Disc is the end of the line as far as a physical medium for music — but even as technology progresses, I hope there continues to be a way of relaying the special qualities that only a packaged album can deliver.

50 Comments

Apparently, Mouse Pads are Soo 2004

Posted at 12:25 PM

While checking out at the Apple store recently, I had an interesting conversation:

Me

Do you have any mouse pads?

Apple Guy

Uh, what?

Me

Mouse pads. Do you carry them?

Apple Guy

Mouse pads? *chuckles arrogantly* No, we’ve never carried anything like that.

Oh. But I’m from the camp that thinks they’re a necessity — even when using an optical mouse. Having it slide across the desk without any sort of traction just doesn’t cut it. Not to mention the woodgrain on the desk occassionally throws off the tracking.

So I head over to Office Depot — an office supply superstore. They have mouse pads. But all of them have patterns and designs on them. American flags, Grand Canyon panoramas, Faux water droplets, etc. I can forsee these patterns being a problem for optical tracking. So I leave the store empty handed.

I realize I could order a zillion of them online somewhere with no patterns, perfect for optical mice. But I’m merely documenting an observation, that the value of the mouse pad is just overlooked by so many. And I’m shocked that Apple doesn’t try to capitalize on selling the coolest mouse pad ever created. Someone needs to tap this untapped market that’s been poorly tapped thus far.

I remember buying my first Mac (a Classic II) and it came with a free Apple mouse pad. It was a great one, with a slipperly plastic surface. I wish I still had it, but it’s gone. Where to, I can’t say. perhaps it’s now part of something larger.

133 Comments

PC Mini?

Posted at 10:40 PM

Is there a PC equivalent to the Mac Mini? I’m looking for a cheap PC to run Windows strictly for testing designs. It doesn’t need to be fast, it just needs to be inexpensive, with the smallest footprint possible.

I’ve been using Virtual PC for the Mac for a long time now. It’s convenient and works fine, but it’s dreadfully slow — not to mention the version I have isn’t compatible on newer, dual processor G5s (where I’m sure it’d run faster). So, my other option is: set up a bare bones Windows machine for testing without spending a ton of money and taking up a lot of desk space. Share with us your secrets.

75 Comments

Typecast

Posted at 3:41 PM

Typing was a required course in high school. I hated the class at the time, but boy, am I glad it was required. Typing properly is certainly helpful as far as workflow is concerned. If I hadn’t learned how to type, would I have learned later — or would I be hunting and pecking?

The reason I bring this up, is because I recently witnessed someone hunting and pecking with unbelievable speed. Just using their two index fingers with rapid and forceful precision. I was amazed, and this person was probably typing as fast as I do (using all ten fingers). The noise was incredible — a machine gun ferocity. I don’t recall the delete key being used at all. Impressive.

I would think that capitalization and special characters would be significantly slower using the hunt and peck method, but after witnessing the amazing index finger typist, it seems that it’s possible to keep up with the best of them.

I’m curious, do you type from the home row — or do you hunt and peck?

164 Comments

When Can We Hide From IE5/Win?

Posted at 10:32 AM

Maybe it was the tiramisu talking, but Doug, Ethan and I were having a conversation recently, where we half-joked about hiding styles from IE5/Win. Extreme? Too early? It’s a question I’ve been pondering a bit, and Ethan’s been thinking about it even more, with his decision to hide his site’s CSS from IE5/Mac.

My curiosity lies in browser stats. Naturally, here at SimpleBits, I’m told that 2% of all traffic comes here by way of IE5/Win. Surely, a percentage low enough to begin thinking about hiding styles — but the readers here, are highly skewed. What I’m more interested in, is getting a rough estimate on the perecentage of IE5 users across the web in general. What is IE5/Win’s percentage on high-traffic, mainstream sites these days? The number can only be going down.

Thanks to Paul Maiorana, my colleague over at Fast Company, I can tell you that roughly 4% of their users visit FastCompany.com using IE5/Win. The audience for FC is skewed as well, and so my hope is that you’ll do a little investigating of your own, and perhaps we can pull together a non-scientific poll on the state if IE5. Feel free to leave numbers in the comments.

I can remember early on in my experimentation with CSS, thinking it was risky and crazy to hide styles from Netscape 4 — that was years ago, and the amount of users at that time was roughly 2% as well. At what point can we say it’s been long enough for the next browser in line?

IE5/Win’s support of CSS2 is far from perfect, yet it is possible to get things looking close to other standards-aware browsers. But that consistency doesn’t happen without added time, frustration and necessary hacks and workarounds. Up until now, I haven’t thought twice about not trying to get things looking the same in IE5/Win. But can you imagine being Box Model Hack free? Can you imagine just not having to worry about the poor support for CSS that adds a significant amount of time to the development process?

You could also imagine sending IE5/Win a basic set of CSS rules that does everything but layout — much in the way that Doug was suggesting a basic stylesheet that all devices (including handhelds) could render that’s devoid of anything too complicated. IE5/Win is capable of complex CSS — but it comes at a price that we’re all well aware of.

So when will it be time? For me here at this site, it could very well be tomorrow, or next month. 2% is a comfortable number. And that 2% will be always be able to read and use the site without any loss in functionality. We’re never talking about cutting people out, rather we’re talking about moving forward — and perhaps taking as many people along as we can. Lots of questions. Lots to think about.

108 Comments

Transmitting

Posted at 12:20 AM

A few months ago, I wrote about my search for the perfect FTP client — and how I didn’t think it existed yet on OS X. I still don’t. But I’ve recently purchased Transmit from the fine folks at Panic Software and have been giving it a spin.

It’s fast, responsive and has some nice configurable toolbar options (shortcuts, previewing files, etc.). I still think that the one feature it’s missing (and I’ve emailed a feature request to the company) is a “column view” for navigating server directories, much like that found in the OS X Finder. It’s become such a natural way to view hierarchy for me, and with that feature, Panic would be the best FTP client in the history of FTP clients. For now, it seems to be the best FTP client in the history of FTP clients currently available for OS X.

My main complaint with RBrowser, which I had been using exclusively for a long time, was it’s sluggishness — and inability to transfer large, deep directories without freezing. Transmit wins on the performance meter — hands down.

Also, the icon. It’s one of the better OS X icons I’ve seen. Why? It’s fat and chunky (easy to click) and looks cool when it’s bouncing up and down (if you like that sort of thing happening in your Dock).

72 Comments

BBBetter

Posted at 2:54 PM

For me, BBEdit is one of those applications that I just have too much time invested in. What it does is rather simple, and there are dozens of similar apps out there that accomplish the same thing. But having used BBEdit for so long, exclusively — it’s like an old baseball cap that fits just perfectly after years of wear. It’s just comfortable.

That said, I finally upgraded to version 8.0 and have found the single feature that made it worth the purchase: the Documents Drawer. Instead of having multiple windows (one for each file) scattered all over the desktop, they’re now contained in a single window. Toggling between or closing each file is handled in the new drawer that sticks off the side. This is good.

Now, I know what most of you are saying — this feature is in every other text editor out there. And it probably is. Nothing ground-breaking being introduced here. But if you’re a BBEdit user, there is reason for celebration.

I’m sure there are many other new features to be discovered, but this one makes it worth the upgrade alone.

79 Comments

Double Meanings and Search Terms

Posted at 11:28 AM

From the SimpleBits inbox just a few days ago:

I enjoy your Skoal Classic product, but 4 times within a 2 month period I recieved mint Skoal in a can marked Skoal Classic, at 7 dollars a can, living in Canada, this can add up rather quickly. I am a loyal consumer but not knowing what is inside a can of Skoal Classic does make me look for an alternative. Wondering what your organization will do.

At first glance, I’m a little confused. So I run a search for “skoal” and sure enough, result #7 makes everything cystal clear.

Skoal means “cheers” (or equivalent) in Swedish, and was part of the title of a notebook post I had written about a recent trip — but it’s also a popular brand of chewing tobacco. The double meaning was compounded by the fact that a comment on the SimpleBits entry had actually mentioned the words “chewing tobacco”. Perhaps an odd coincidence.

Seeing how people search for, and assume credibility from, those results is what’s interesting to me. It’s apparent that some may not look closely at the results, but rather, if a site appears near the top — they must know what they’re talking about. And they will solve my problems.

I’m afraid I can’t help those that are receiving mint Skoal in a can marked Skoal Classic. But I sure wish that I could.

44 Comments

I Bought a Printer

Posted at 11:32 PM

For the first time in 12 years, I own a printer again. My last printer was purchased alongside my first Mac—a StyleWriter (back when Apple still made printers). And just yesterday, I parted with a whopping $39.99 for a new one.

Forty dollars. This amazes me. What also amazes me is the speed. For forty bucks I expected this thing to take 5 minutes to warm up, but it seems rather fast. This little thing surely is the bottom of the line as far as printers go—but I just needed something to print envelopes, invoices and Journey lyrics.

For an extra $100 I could’ve splurged for the printer/scanner/fax/copier/coffee maker. But I don’t need those things. It was hard enough just coming to terms with the fact that I needed a printer.

I’ve been meaning to buy one for quite awhile. But there was always the thought of extra wires, one more thing to plug in, cartridges that’ll need refilling, paper jams, etc. that perpetually turned me off on the idea. There was always something about printers that annoyed me. But the need won, and I’m now getting used to the idea of being able to transfer bits to paper.

Geting by without a printer for so long hasn’t been all that difficult. In the past, there was always the office printer to take advantage of. But recent trips to Kinko’s to print out a single sheet of 8 1/2” x 11” was starting to seem ridiculous. Occasionally, they wouldn’t even bother charging me for such a small job (a plus).

I should mention, that for $40, you get a printer with no way to connect it to your computer. The box didn’t even mention the lack of a USB cable, or even list the required cable in the “system requirements”. So back to the store I went, paying $17 for a 3-foot USB cable. The cable cost almost half as much as the printer. What an age we live in.

59 Comments

Denied

Posted at 2:27 PM

I suppose this is supposed to make sense, it being MSN, and I being on a Mac—but sheesh…

43 Comments

Wireless City

Posted at 1:16 PM

I’m writing this entry sitting in a café in downtown Salem. Nothing new and exciting with that concept. But what is exciting is that I could be writing this entry from the juice bar up the street, the museum, or any number of spots around town.

A privately-funded, free, open Wi-Fi network has opened in Salem — and spreads across a major portion of the downtown. SalemOpen.net is responsible for setting up the project, getting the city and businesses involved, often getting them to help out with the recurring costs. A similar network was set up on Boston’s Newbury Street a while back, but this is on a much larger scale.

Normally, Wi-Fi “hot spots” are often available by businesses willing to set up the network and eat the costs themselves. But the idea here is to make the entire city “hot” in order to provide free access to anyone.

It makes sense from both a business and community perspective. Here I am, getting out of my closet/office (a much needed activity these days), spending a little dough at the café. The access is free, and I may be inclined to come back — not only this café, but any of the other businesses that are within the network.

If other cities haven’t already set up similar networks, I’m sure they will. Imagine if every city started offering free access — getting people online that might otherwise not be able to afford it. I won’t delve into the security concerns this brings up.

And I predict that the number of beverage-related laptop illnesses will dramatically rise. You heard it here, first.

29 Comments

Exercising Power and Other Notes

Posted at 3:51 PM

While working out at the gym today (a rare occurrence), I was looking around the room, noticing that everyone was stepping, pedaling and treadmilling away. And then it hit me — what if all gyms around the world were all plugged into some sort of global turbine? We’d have a constant source of clean power!

I was then reminded of a stroke of genius I once had somewhere around the 3rd grade. My idea was to install a small hand crank appliance in every home througout Earth. Everyday, your duty as a citizen would be to crank the handle for a set time — nothing strenuous, say… 5 minutes. Perhaps a bonus system could be devised to award those that crank longer than they need too.

Anyway, the general idea was that, by the power of numbers, we’d all be powering the world. Self-sufficiently.

Other Notes

In unrelated news, I’ve moved some things around recently — adding a Publications section to house articles, tips, and other works that aren’t web sites themselves. This is also where the Photos section now lives, in case you miss it from the primary navigation.

I’ve also unceremoniously dubbed the weblog portion of the site “Notebook” (neither exciting, nor out of the ordinary), adding a tab to the navigation that brings you to the archives page for date, keyword or category browsing. Yay for site news.

And in unrelated to the unrelated news, I’m turning 30 tomorrow. Normally, I’d never think to announce my birthday. Everybody has them. Every year. But I suppose it’s a milestone worth pondering. I feel numb to it at the moment — and I think this makes perfect sense. People over 30 will probably tell you that turning 30 is no big deal, perhaps even saying that it’s “great!”. People under 30 will tell you that they don’t want to turn 30 — that it seems “old”.

So here I am stuck in the middle not sure what to think. It’ll work itself out in time though.

63 Comments

Harold Bluetooth Gromson

Posted at 10:39 PM

While searching for info on Bluetooth, I came across this little nugget of info from University of Utah. I had no idea that…

Bluetooth® is named for Tenth Century Danish king Harald Blåtand, known in English as Harold Bluetooth Gromson, who is reputed to have been so fond of blueberries that his teeth were stained blue. The Bluetooth symbol is a bindrune that combines the runes for Harald Blåtand’s initials — “h” looks like an asterisk.

I have no doubt that eating a large amount of blueberries regularly would stain the teeth blue. However, I’m not exactly sure how that relates to cutting-edge wireless technology.

Regardless, one of the reasons I was doing a little Harald Blåtand research (I’m going to refer to the technology by its original Danish name) was trying to find out if the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse work with two Macs. Meaning, if I have my laptop and tower in the same room, can I control both with the same Bluetoo— excuse me, Harald Blåtand keyboard and mouse.

One issue I could imagine would be that typing and controlling the mouse would happen simultaneously on both computers. That could be a problem — but perhaps there’s a way for it to work. I’ve had a tough time finding an answer online, so if anyone has already experimented with this, be sure to leave a comment.

38 Comments