Did you know that you could Google in Klingon? Completely bizarre. But cool.
(Seen in the .sig for this /. post, by codexus)
Wireless in the classroom
In response to this article about the pros and cons of wireless ‘net access on campus, Robert Scoble presents a list of suggests as to how teachers can adapt. Rather than panicking and denying all ‘net access across the board, why not come up with ways to involve use of the ‘net in class?
So, teachers, why not turn it around? Why not see [wireless internet] as a fact of life, both in school, in your community, and in the work world, and see if you can use it to make your (and your students’) experiences better? Here’s some ideas:
Top ten web design mistakes
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen posted his list of the year’s top ten web design mistakes, and while it’s aimed more at commercial sites, I thought I’d take a quick gander and see if there are any that I should worry about.
- No prices: Hrm. Well, in general, I’d say that this one doesn’t apply. However, let it be said for the record that I’m often fairly cheap. Even free, given the right circumstances!
- Inflexible search engines: Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about this one. The search page for my site is nice and powerful, but I’m not enough of a coder to tell it how to correct for spelling errors. Bummer, too — that’s a nice feature.
- Horizontal scrolling: I try to avoid this one, however on a smaller screen or resolution, my archives page might need scrolling. Right now, I like the format I’m using, though, and until I find a better one, this will work. Anyone have any suggestions for a different design?
- Fixed font size: Yay! I got away from this one during my last site redesign. Something I don’t have to make cute comments or excuses for! :D
- Blocks of text: Guilty. Very guilty, in fact. Given the fact that I tend to ramble, I’m not sure how to approach this one, aside from spending some time going through Jacob’s articles on writing for the web, which I should do soon.
- Javascript in links: Lightly guilty here — while I’ve excised most of the JS links on my site, the ‘Show Smileys’ links in post comment forms still use it. I need to find a good way around that, I suppose (probably either displaying a small set of smileys and leaving the rest hidden, or just removing the smiley code entirely). Again, any suggestions? I’m leaning towards removing the code — they’ll still be available, but they’re used so infrequently, I might as well get rid of them in the comment form.
- Infrequently asked questions in FAQ: Not having a FAQ, this one doesn’t really apply. I’ve never gotten enough questions to warrant a FAQ, actually.
- Collecting e-mail addresses without a privacy policy: Well, again, this doesn’t really apply. While there’s a spot for e-mail addresses in my comment forms, they’re optional, and I don’t do anything with them. They just sit there.
- URL’s greater than 75 characters: I’m pretty sure I’m safe here. Some of my posts with obnoxiously long titles probably break this one, but they’re relatively few and far between. I’ve also been trying to keep my post titles shorter since I moved to an archiving system that names the files by the post title, rather than using generic numbers for names (such as 000735.php, for instance).
- Mailto links in unexpected locations: I think I’m good here. Every page has a fairly clearly marked “Email me” link at the bottom, and that’s it. Not hidden, available at all times, and not overly intrusive.
Not too bad, all in all, I’d say.
However, this does bring to mind a question. For those of you that visit my site from time to time — is there anything I’ve done here that bugs you? Or even if it doesn’t bug you, is there anything that you think might be worth my investigating? I’m starting to get into a mood to play with code and clean up some small areas that are bugging me, and I’m always open to suggestions. Feel free to let me know!
Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2003, everyone! Here’s a toast I learned from Casey years ago…
Here’s to you,
here’s to me,
friends shall we ever be.
Should we ever disagree…
…fuck you, and here’s to me!
A little crass, sure, but amusing. Hope the new year goes well for all of you.
Exhausted
Ugh…this sucks. I was supposed to be at work early today, so I could leave early (all that New Years stuff), so I set my alarm for 8:30am and went to bed.
Then I didn’t fall asleep until sometime after 7:30am due to a really, really nasty bout of insomnia.
Now it’s 11:45am, and if I leave the house immediately, I’ll get off work all of a half hour early. Dammit.
Oh yeah
By the way, I’m back in Seattle
Just in case you hadn’t guessed yet. Hm. Yeah.
The Christmas vacation was really good. Relaxed at home a lot during the days, and hung out with as many friends as possible during the eveings. As always, things got a little crazy towards the tail end of the trip, so I missed out on seeing a few people (most notably Royce, which I’m terribly sorry about), but on the whole, I got ahold of most everyone I wanted to.
Got a good bit o’ loot, too, of course. :D A SPAM calendar and can of SPAM, Mississippi John Hurt’s ‘Live‘ album on CD, and a bunch of books: Robert J. Sawyer’s ‘Calculating God‘, Niccolo Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince‘ (2nd edition), Tanith Lee’s ‘The Secret Books of Paradys’ Books I-IV (in two volumes — Amazon only has them as four seperate volumes), and a 1911 copy of The Oxford Book of German Verse — auf Deutsch! Very cool.
Kevin and I weren’t able to do our usual Christmas Day tradition of going out to Son of River City Billards (and having Kevin completely whup my butt at pool), unfortunately, because thanks to the California-style smoking ban enacted in Anchorage at the beginning of 2001, SoRCB had lost all of their big-time customers, and have apparently recently closed down. So, rather than that, we went out to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers instead (my second time, his first). Not quite as interactive as a good few hours of clumsy pool, but still enjoyable.
I got to see and go out with quite a few friends while I was there, including Erica, Gracie, Darrell, Candice, Mary, and quite a few other people I know, both from the real world and the online world of the Yahoo chatrooms.
All in all, a very enjoyable trip.
Except for the 15 degree below zero weather. Ugh. I am so not moving back to Alaska. Ever.
But I’ll visit.
In the summer.
;)
Weblog publishing systems
Just a quick test here — the new beta version of NetNewsWire Pro has a weblog editor built in. Not bad, seems to handle things alright, and it is handy having the weblog editor built into the newsreader.
However, one definite strenth of EspressoBlog over NetNewsWire Pro right now is that EB lets me add categories to my posts, which NNWP doesn’t support just yet, so I’ll have to go back into this post after it’s up and add the category later. Bummer.
Looks like EB still gets my vote!
Neighbors
What does djwudi.com have in common with the blogs of a girl in the Netherlands, a guy in the UK, a guy in Georgia, a girl in Michigan, a girl in South Africa, a guy in California, Phil, Phil (a different one), and a guy in New York; somebody’s list of their .mp3 files and someone else’s list of their DVDs; homepages for a web hosting company and a web design company; more homepages for a shareware program for the Mac, a Mac developer in Georgia, and a web message board software package; and finally, John Gruber‘s post over his disgust with VersionTracker?
I haven’t got a clue. But that’s what you get when you do a “related” Google search to find which sites Google considers to be similar to djwudi.com. Definitely makes me wish I knew the criteria.
Nightclubbing, we’re nightclubbing…
So this guy wants to go into a nightclub, but the bouncer says, “Sorry, bud, you need a tie for this place.”
He goes back to his car and rummages around, but there’s no necktie to be found.
Finally, in desperation, he takes his jumper cables, wraps them around his neck, ties a nice knot, and lets the ends dangle free. He then returns to the nightclub.
The bouncer says “Well, OK, I guess you can come in. But don’t start anything.”
(Thanks to Etan)
The center of Anchorage
It’s good to know that even if it doesn’t have quite the status that it used to, in some ways, VINL is still definitely the center of Anchorage. I spent years hanging out at this diner in midtown Anchorage, and met quite a few friends there over the years. So, when tooling around Anchorage on a slow Sunday night, what to do but stop by?
It didn’t take me long to run into someone I knew there. In fact, I was still walking up to the door when I spotted Aaron coming in the other door — doubly amusing, since he and I have both been living in Seattle for quite a while now, but we ran into each other at VINL last Christmas season, too. We grabbed table 1, were joined in a bit by a friend of Aarons (who’s name I, unfortunately, can’t remember right now, but she knew me, and I’d met her from time to time over the years), and the three of us talked and caught up for a couple hours.
Later on, Erica showed up with her friend Eric, and when it got to be time to head off, I followed the two of them back to her apartment, and spent another few hours catching up with old friends. Was a lot of fun to see her and her son Deven again, as I’d not been able to catch up with her the last couple times I’d been through town.
Today, I think I’m about ready to head off and brave the Anchorage malls in some last-minute Christmas shopping. What better time to go shopping than Dec. 23rd, right?