February 2010 Archives (14 posts)
Writing For The Web
Elmore Leonard has 10 rules for writing fiction. Number 10 should be applied to all writing for the web:
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.
Jakob Nielsen has been telling us for years how people read on the web - they don’t. People scan text on web pages, picking out words, phrases and sentences.
Last week I was rereading Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think! and his advice on writing for the web is “get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.”
Are you writing for the web? Just remember that less is more. Omit needless words.
Posted in Web at 9:30 PM
Mac Utilities By Many Tricks
I wasn’t familiar with Many Tricks until today. They make some great utilities for Mac OS X that in some ways remind me of Beagle Bros. Software for the Apple II, back in the day.
Many Tricks has 13 utilities that you can sample for free while the company sets up a “new internal infrastructure”. Today I downloaded:
- TubiTunes - download and convert YouTube videos to your iTunes library in 1 click
- Name Mangler - batch file renaming
- Menu Bar Tint
- Desktop Curtain - hide desktop clutter when making screenshots
These utilities aren’t for everyone but as a web designer/developer on the Mac I find them very useful and they’re free for now. If you like the software, donate to Many Tricks.
Posted in OS X Software at 8:50 PM
What Is Under Your Bed?
This week I’ve been playing a few pranks on my 10-year-old son. While he’s asleep I position a large toy at his bedside so that it’s the first thing he sees in the morning.
On Monday morning it was his giant South Park Kyle doll sitting on a chair beside his bed. Wednesday morning it was his one-legged Superman doll reaching out to him.
Last night I positioned a pair of my pants and shoes to make it look like there was a person laying underneath his bed. I know. I’m a terrible father but he gets a kick out of it and thinks I’m nuts.
Posted in Observations at 12:18 PM
Adobe Reader Updater Certificate Failed
Adobe used to be a great software company but in the last couple of years they’ve developed a reputation of building buggy software that frequently crashes (Flash) or exposes your computer to security vulnerabilities (Adobe Reader). Adobe is the new Microsoft.
I was trying to update Adobe Reader for Mac OS X 10.5.8 when I came across this error message - Adobe Reader Updater Certificate failed to install. I clicked OK and my Adobe Updater attempted to update Adobe Reader again, and again and again.
Google revealed a few suggestions but none of them solved my problem.
I gave up on the software update in Adobe Reader and decided to download Adobe Reader and start over again. A clean install of the app seemed to work, for now.
I’ve never had a virus on any of the Macintosh computers I’ve owned over the last 20 years. After reading Protect Yourself from Adobe Acrobat and Reader Vulnerabilities, I’m wondering if I should just follow Rich Mogull’s advice:
Due to Adobe’s atrocious security record, I recommend that all Mac users not only immediately patch Adobe Reader and Acrobat, but make sure they set Apple’s Preview as their default PDF reader.
For now I’ll take my chances.
Posted in OS X Software at 7:38 PM
The Home Office Problem
The work is always down the hall when you have a home office.
I just finished watching Lost. It’s 10:30 PM and I won’t be tired for at least another 3 hours. I could:
- watch a movie
- go to bed
- read a few chapters from What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
- get a lot of work done while sensible people are sleeping
Seeing as my to do list keeps getting longer and longer, I’d better make use of the time, stop blogging, and get to work.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 10:30 PM
The Web In 1996
I was looking through some old stacks of Wired Magazine when I came across the May 1996 issue. It featured Jerry Yang and David Filo (Yahoo!) on the cover with a great article about search engines - Seek and Ye Shall Find (Maybe). I was struck by how much the web has changed in the last 14 years.
Remember when Lycos, Excite, and Alta Vista were some of the mainstream search engines? Consider that in 1996, Wired reported that:
- Yahoo! listed more than 200,000 websites with 20,000 different categories
- 800,000 people a day used Yahoo! to search
- there were approximately 500,00 searchable websites with 30-50 million web pages
- the entire web contained 200-330 gigabytes of text
Today’s laptops could easily store a text version of the web from 1996 but the size of the web was growing by 20 percent a month. There was concern that the search engines wouldn’t be able to keep up with the growth:
In two years, as the Web surpasses the roughly 29 terabytes in the current Library of Congress, will the inverted index become too large to feasibly store? Will it simply take too long to compute? Or will attempts at indexing the Web break down in some other, unexpected way?
The Web in 2010
In 2010, Jerry Yang and David Filo are dumping Yahoo! shares after Yang botched a deal with Microsoft who wanted to buy Yahoo! Today, Goggle owns search and Yahoo! struggles to survive but far more interesting is the enormous size of the web:
- The first Google index had 26 million pages in 1998
- By 2000 the Google index reached a billion pages
- On July 25, 2008, Google announced that it had discovered one trillion unique URLs on the web
- The web contains at least 19.59 billion pages (as of Feb 15, 2010)
At what point does indexing the web break down and fail? Is this even possible with the insane number of data centers that Google owns and maintains?
Posted in Web at 5:03 PM
Find Waldo
The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay went through my friend’s neighbourhood in Vancouver today. I watched the live webcam for a few minutes, didn’t really see Andy, Lisa or Samuel but they assure me that they were there. Right beside that woman in the yellow coat.
Go Canada!
Posted in Observations at 4:50 PM
Sometimes You Have To Look Back A Little
Think back to 1990. Imagine if I told you that Apple was still around in 20 years. What if I told you that Apple released a tablet computer that was the size and thickness of a regular pad of paper? You wouldn’t believe it.
If I told you that this computer had 64 GB of storage, let you watch movies, and only required your fingers for input you’d probably laugh. The funny thing is, that it is 2010, the iPad exists and a lot of people are upset that it doesn’t do more!
Greg Knauss has a really nice post called The Days of Miracles and Wonder that describes our discontent with the iPad and Obama among other things.
Sometimes you have to look back a little, to appreciate the world you live in today.
Posted in Apple at 11:04 AM
Radio Canada
Science + Sons is working on a new product called Radio Canada. For listeners of CBC Radio 1 and CBC Radio 2, this is the ultimate radio in a beautifully designed enclosure of maple and aluminum.
I saw a prototype of this radio at the Interior Design Show in Toronto and would love to have one of these radios sitting on my desk. You won’t be able to purchase one until October 2010. Check the Science + Sons website for more details.
Posted in Technology at 4:39 PM
EW.com’s Massive Recap Of ‘Lost’
Jeff Jensen at EW.com has a massive recap of last night’s Lost season premiere - ‘Lost’ recap: What’s Your Worldview?. Before you read that article, you’ll want to start with Confused by the ‘Lost’ premiere? Never fear! Damon and Carlton explain a few things about the start of Season 6, in which the producers of the show give us a few clues.
Jensen’s column for EW.com is one of the best I’ve read at explaining the most popular show on the planet. Each episode of Lost is rich with obscure references, from Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories to philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Jensen makes sense of these references and offers some valuable insight to the mysteries of the show.
If you’re one of those people that has an endless appetite for Lost then I suggest you alos check out Totally ‘Lost’.
Posted in Television at 8:38 PM
50% Off Kinosmith DVDs
The Kinosmith DVD shop is having a 50% off sale for the entire month of February. Just use the promo code WELCOME2010 to receive 50% off of your order.
I saw The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins at Hot Docs last year and it was great. It had a brief theatrical release so if you want to see it again, you can for just $15.
Kinosmith also has L.A. Without A Map, directed by Mika Kaurismäki and starring avid Tennant, Vinessa Shaw, Julie Delpy, Vincent Gallo and Johnny Depp. I haven’t seen this but for $12.50 it is the other movie I would pick up during this sale.
Posted in Movies at 5:00 PM
Iron Man Sticker For MacBook
How cool is that? An Iron Man sticker for your MacBook. I don’t have a MacBook but if I did you can bet that I’d head over to Etsy and order one of those stickers now!
Posted in Apple at 4:51 PM
REWORK
37 Signals is at it again and this time they have a highly anticipated book coming out called REWORK. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have written a collection of essays on what works for their highly successful company.
In what may be a first, REWORK has released a video trailer to promote the book. More trailers will be released leading up to the launch of the book.
The early reviews from Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos praise the book. I like this quote from William C. Taylor, founder of Fast Company magazine:
The brilliance of REWORK is that it inspires you to rethink everything you thought you knew about strategy, customers, and getting things done.
All of this buzz and the book hasn’t been released to the public yet. I’ll be getting my copy on March 3, 2010 when it gets released on Amazon
Posted in Books at 4:22 PM
New Judge Dredd Film Won’t Be Dreddful
Sorry, I couldn’t resist a headline like that. There is a new Judge Dredd film coming out and the creator of Dredd says that it won’t be as bad as the original which starred Sylvester Stallone.
Danny Boyle is producing the new film which is reportedly going to be a “high-octane” action film. I didn’t mind the original film but it will be interesting to see what Boyle and his screenwriter from 28 Days Later does with the material.
Posted in Movies at 1:45 PM
