Well I haven’t written in a while as I’ve been very busy with work, life and play.
At work we’ve been busy launching new products and services, I’ve been trying to spend as much time with my wife and daughter as well as preparing to move and umpteen other things that I have on the go. As a result, This site is going to become more of a who am I site, with a sprinkle of ideas, thoughts and fun stuff that hopefully someone might find useful.
The kotatsu is a Japanese table that looks a lot like a coffee table only it’s heated and would make an awesome workstation. It looks especially warm and comfy today considering I’m working from home on a snow day!
(Via Core77.)
Anyone who likes to text is probably familiar with “predicative text”—you start typing a word and the phone guesses what you’re trying to say so you don’t have to type the whole thing and you can go on to the next word. Saves my thumbs some effort on my blackberry. Pretty neat. I’ve always wondered how it worked as it seems to always know the word I want to type but on second thought, maybe it’s really influencing what and how I am saying and I would have said something different had it not suggested that word. Hrmmm… Here’s an example:
Helvetica. You’ve all seen it, but you may not have realized it. “Helvetica” is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Check it out:
There’s a great article over on ReadWriteWeb about the new social expectation of “everything for FREE”.
Just a few decades ago, people had low expectations and worked hard to make living. They did not know free and never expected it. Now, the opposite trend is happening, with free becoming expected online. Will the new generation, the one that expects something for nothing, work as hard to maintain the high standards of living that we created?
Good question! As a new father this is an issues I’ve already pondered and questioned. How I will raise my child to values and respect the same things I do? It’s a question I have yet to answer.
But, as a web developer I see “FREE” happening almost every day. Customer’s endlessly question paying for our services and expect that most things should be done for free, or at extremely cheap rates. The articles points to a number of factors why the “FREE expectation” has been taking hold however one thing not discussed is the perception of the internet. Many people still see the internet as a “toy”, or perhaps some “computer thing” that their eight year old niece is “really good at”. They don’t understand that anyone can use the internet and do interesting things but it takes professionals, people who’ve been educated, trained and work in the industry, to advance it and make it better. Those professional have earned and deserve the same respect that any other professional deserves and shouldn’t be compared to someone who isn’t qualified. How many times have you heard something like:
“Oh, well my son says he can code my business’s web site in a few hours so why are you going to take weeks and charge me all this money?”
Well, I could build you a small house in a few days out of scrap wood but would you really want to live in it? Probably not. I’m not a building professional, the same way some kid is not a web professional. It takes experience, effort and a lot of sweat and tears to make all those “FREE” things happen and it’s frustrating that most people fail to understand that. How would you like it if everyone expected your talents and hard work for free?
I just finished reading Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman over on A List Apart and I must say I haven’t read a better summation of web design and why it is so misunderstood.
Mr. Zeldman sums it up in a great definition:
Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.
I couldn’t say it better. My design passion and education was honed in paper and ink but I didn’t and don’t fail to grasp the Web as the medium it is. The web allows all users, viewers and readers to interact with and adjust their environments, flexing and moulding my carefully crafted design to suit their own needs.
Designers coming from a tightly controlled world of print—where every drop of ink is identical for every admirer—often see the web as limiting, or as Mr. Zeldmn points out, they don’t see us web designers as “true” designers. However, I believe that we as web designers are not limited by our tools, in-fact, we are set free. We are not forced to constrain our works so that one satisfies all. Our can adapt and change, it is meant to become what each person wants, in their own way.
Our sole job as web designers is to encourage others to interact with our work and in return, rewarded those people with a fulfilling experience. Designers who fail to understand that symmetry and consistency for every viewer should not be the ultimate goal, are doomed to failure and will never achieve the definition of Web design proposed above. They will be destine to sell real-estate not build cathedrals. They’ll become Helvetica, not Rosewood.
Sometimes we take technology for granted and something small make us sit back and think “Wow!” That just happend to me. Tonight I was sitting at the kitchen table working on a technical review for an upcoming PHP book while my wife was playing with my giggling daughter, singing songs and reading books. While singing, my wife turned to me and asked:
“What are all the words to the Cookie Monster’s “C” is for cookie song?”
I started singing “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me…” but then we realized that was the only verse we remembered. I instantly popped up a browser window, “googled” for “C is for cookie”, clicked the first hit which was a link to a YouTube video and about 10 seconds after the question was posed, my daughter was giggling to the original Sesame Street recording…
That’s just cool. Instance access to almost any information, available on demand, whenever you need it. It sounds like a tale of science-fiction but it’s something I take for granted all the time. Need a recipe? info on a movie or a trailer? phone number? driving directions? Those and many more things are at our fingertips whenever we want them. I can only imagine what will be available tomorrow!
Now, I wonder what I would “google” to find a good place to hide for hide-and-seek?
As a general rule in my professional work, I always work my hardest and do the best job possible no matter what the task. Sometimes, that means staying up late nights staring at a blurry computer screen or rising very early to cut grass at the local golf course.
Any job done right takes hard work, especially building a business from the ground up. I helped start one before I finished university and believe me, there were many late nights and worried moments when we all had to push hard to keep ourselves going. That extra effort and desire to be the best is necessary to be a success in the professional world but a story in a recent post over at Common Craft reminds me to keep it all in perspective:
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village and an American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
“Not very long,” said the fisherman.
“But then why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” Asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go to the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play guitar and sing songs… I have a full life.”
The American interrupted “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the bigger boat will bring, you can buy more boats until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling fish to the middle man, you can go directly to the processing plant and maybe even own your own plant. Then, you can leave this little village and direct your enterprise from Mexico City or even New York City!”
“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.
“Twenty, maybe twenty-five years.” replied the American.
“And after that?”
“Afterwards? Then it gets really interesting, answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big you can start sellingstocks and make millions!”
“Millions? Really? And after that?”
“After that, you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends!”
Yes, how true. Working towards a lofty goal can lead to rewarding and fruitful outcomes but what if it’s at the expense of the things you truly care about today? What the story above reminds us is we should strive to live the life we love—today — and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about professional work or just kicking back relaxing with friends and family.
And always remember to take a look around, don’t burn yourself out trying to achieve what you might already have.
(Now I have to go stick Cheerios on my nose so my daughter will eat her dinner—Don’t ask.)
With the recent non-release of the Firefox 3 beta, there’s been a few posts on the new features but they focus mainly on the product specific glitter. What I’m most excited about is the improvements and additions to the underlying rendering engine—that’s where I spend most of my time.
A few great improvements are:
inline-block and inline-table values are now implemented—finally.rgba() support for ‘color’—which along with Safari’s support is a big step to eliminating all those solid colour translucent PNG images (are you listening Internet Explorer?).window.getComputedStyle() now supports all CSS properties.Obviously, we can’t all just jump on translucent color and cross site XMLHttpRequests until all the major browsers implement the same features but at least this might help push some to move a little faster. We can only hope.
Every get the feeling that your professional skills are getting a little dated? With a lot of projects on-the-go at work, I’ve found my “post-it-note stuck to the monitor” approach of task management was failing me. At the same time, my business vocabulary was a little “turn-of-the-century” as well. So I decided to do something about it.
First I tackled time management for all the emergent “little things” on my daily todo lists. Time tracking is just boring and I’ve never found an on-line or software solution that worked well over an extended period of time. As I mentioned earlier I stumbled across the Printable CEO series and it’s solved this problem perfectly. I can’t stress how great it is. For me, you can’t beast a pen in hand and a piece of paper casually sitting on your desk. Ink on paper is the easiest and most comforting solution to recording tasks. Not only do these forms keep me on-top of my todo list and keep me focused on what’s important, they’re also fun to fill out. Colouring in all those little bubbles reminds me of the relaxing evenings I spend colouring with my daughter and her crayons.
Next up was long term planning. I considered a few project management packages such as Microsoft Project or Omni Plan but decided they were overkill for what I needed. Besides, I want planning to improve my time, not take more of it away. I only need to keep track of a few large projects with just a few people so a simple shared calendar would do. Exploring my hard drive iCal seemed to be a perfect fit. Since I just installed Leopard, the todo’s and calendar combination also proved extremely useful, especially with all the tight integration with Mail.
My only new issue now was keeping things in sync across my personal and work computers. Copying files across the net or on memory sticks was a pain so I finally took the plunge and signed up for the .mac service that’s always been prodding me on my Mac. For a small fee, Apple keeps all my computers in sync for me and I only have to sit back and relax. It also includes a bunch of additional bonuses such as online a file storage as well as bookmark, email, calendar and system component syncing. Maybe now I’ll send my Mom an Apple iCard for christmas.
Lastly, I needed to update a lot of my professional skills. I keep myself up-to-date with all the web related technologies and trends but my overall business and professional techniques are a little stale. After getting through the organizational changes I mentioned above, I also realize I had little time left to devote to self-improvement. Really the only “free time” I had left was the two hours a day I spend in the car commuting to work. I figured I could use that a little more wisely so I fired up iTunes and loaded up my iPod with some great podcasts including:
So now I’m managing my time wisely, keeping on top of my tasks and picking up more knowledge and skills while I drive to work. Not bad considering it was only a slight change in my daily routine. Now I just have to mark off half an hour for “Blogging” on my Emergent Task Planner…
