Happy Boo-Day. Such a silly holiday. Maybe it's because I spent many of my childhood years overseas, but somehow Halloween just doesn't seem like such an important holiday. I recall attempting to explain Halloween to my British friends. They shook their heads in disbelief when I told them that all you had to do to get a pillowcase full of candy is dress up in a costume and walk from door to door asking for it.
I think Jason and I are living parallel lives. My favorite book as a kid was also "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." I also recently saw "The Mummy" on DVD, and it did indeed suck.
Bastrology is astrology for bastards. I found this by doing a search on Altavista for "alien sperm." [Don't ask.]
So far, all the people who have commented (in email and on their web sites) about my mini-rant the other day are not the people I was talking about. If you're really paranoid enough to think I'm talking about you, email me and I'll let you know privately who pissed me off enough to inspire the rant. It's not who you think it is.
I don't really mean to pick bones here, but I'm wondering about a few things. First, someone the other day (it was Lane Becker -- see 10/13 entry) called into question the fact that Jakob Nielsen's web site, useit.com, doesn't correctly resolve if you use only "useit.com" instead of "www.useit.com". Jakob Nielsen, for those of you who aren't familiar with his work, is considered a web site usability expert. How does it look when he overlooks such a simple thing that can increase the usability of his site?
Secondly, webword.com (a fine usability weblog with lots of great content by John Rhodes) is breaking some usability rules. The site is barely readable in my browser of choice (Netscape) on my platform of choice (Mac) because it uses <FONT SIZE> and <FONT FACE> tags to force the defined font (Arial) to render how the site developer wants it, not how the end user wants it. I'm sorry, but 10pt Arial really sucks and is hard to read (10pt Arial in italics is even worse). [See screenshot.] CNet needs to be smacked upside the head for this, too.
Oh yeah, as you can see in the above screenshot, I'm using a neat little shortcut that the Netscape engineers thoughtfully included. Simply type "view-source:" in front of any URL and hit Enter/Return to view the page's source. Saves you a few seconds because you don't have to navigate with the menus.
If you really want to explore pervasive accessibility for your web site, try viewing your site in the WebTV viewer or on an actual WebTV machine. Astonishing.
While blocking spam from an entire nation seems a bit harsh, maybe it will serve as a wake-up call to our government to pass more anti-spam laws. I receive probably 20-100 pieces of spam every week. Over 90% of them originate from mailservers outside the United States, usually because the spammers are taking advantage of poorly secured mailservers at foreign ISPs and corporations with clueless sysadmins.
Epinion: South Dakota
Do you have unclaimed property? Here's a convenient state-by-state list of links to the Unclaimed Property Offices government-run web site(s) in each state. Quite a few of the states have searchable indexes of unclaimed property. If you discover that you're owed a boatload of money, feel free to send me a gift. My searches turned up nothing on any of my family members.
Which reminded me of this interesting site, unclaimedbaggage.com, which sells...well, items from unclaimed baggage from the airlines around the world.
From the NY Times comes an article on how the blind and disabled are using new technologies, including the web.
Apparently, the email Steven Champeon sent me the other day about Dogs in Elk came fgrom a Salon Table Talk discussion forum. Here's the same text, but this time with fake pictures.
Coke slogans. [Beware the unnecessary and gratuitous java applet] And Pepsi slogans.
Great little blurb on how the word "interactive" is being skewed, shaped, and mis-used by marketers.
"Grapes, like children, need love and affection" and "Skim milk does not come from skinny cows" and hundreds of other modern advertising slogans via the wonderful Advertising Web site at UT-Austin. My favorite is "Dick and Jane is dead" from the Encyclopedia Britainica.
New British slang. [via prolific.org, a new weblog for Europeans]
Dack Ragus has an excellent article called "Best Practices for Designing Shopping Cart and Checkout Interfaces" that everyone designing checkout pages for ecommere sites must read. While you're there, check out the rest of dack.com. Lots of great stuff.
Regarding Monday's Research Challenge, I completely forgot about the famous exploding whale video that is firmly entrenched into urban [net] folklore.
From 1995, comes RLE's rant about The Spot. You've been on the web for quite a while if you can remember when The Spot was hot.
The Rapture Index.
Wow. Very nice design.
Let me tell you a little story. I spent my high school years in a pathetic little town called Kalkaska, Michigan. Last year, the residents of this town voted to approve a $6 million bond issue (a lot of money for such a small town) for a new sports complex. Here's the kicker: In 1993, this very same town made national news headlines by shutting down its entire school system in March (a full three months before the end of the school year) because they had no money left. Why did they have no money left? Because the residents voted to turn down a millage that would have kept the schools open. So, now your kid might not be able to spell or show you where Africa is on a map, but hey, he can ice skate anytime he wants.
"It's one thing to support someone's First Amendment right to use live television to criticize the government or show a controversial piece of art. It's another to support someone's First Amendment right to use live television to blow a chicken." [via Obscure Store]
bofhcam.org is a parody of the JenniCam.
Builder.com critiques Fatbrain.com.
Salon: How the Internet Ruined San Francisco
Mini-CamRant: [archive link] Without naming names, I'd like to point out that a whole lot of sucking up and ass-kissing is going on in the world of weblogs. I routinely get emails from people wanting me to link to their site and send them my reader traffic. (If it's a good site, I'll mention it or add it to my rotation. If it sucks, don't expect any response from me. If it crashes my browser, I will probably say something negative about your site, exactly the opposite of what you expected.)
What pisses me off the most are the weblogs (again, not named) who link to every article and essay published by a larger and more well-known weblog/site. In return for this ass-kissing and incestuous linking, the larger weblogs praise the ass-kisser, even though the ass-kissing weblog in question is nothing more than a bunch of daily links to news articles (with no added opinion or voice of their own) and very few original essays. How can people call it a weblog if it doesn't have a personal voice?
Whatever happened to linking to something because you liked it or because you thought your readers might share your same views? It seems these days, that some weblogs exist only to stroke the already-large egos of some people who will remain un-named.
So, the next time I publish an essay or CamRant, ask yourself if what I'm saying is worth a link from your weblog or site. If you agree with what's being said, then support it by providing a link. If you disagree, don't feel that you have to link to it. Or you can link to it with an explanation (and opinion) of why you disagree. But, for God's sake, stop linking just for the sake of linking.
I like to say "ass-kissing" a lot.
Microsoft was hacked over the weekend. Here's a mirror.
Some readers emailed in with some funny anecdotes that are related to yesterday's Research Challenge:
epinions.lycos.com [Hmmm....]
FEED Magazine has an article that says the "supermodel eggs for sale on the Internet" story is a hoax.
This picture reminds me of Otto the bus driver on the Simpson's.
U.S readers, be sure to watch Jeopardy! tonight to see the first blind contestant in the show's history become a 5-time undefeated champion. This guy is amazing.
I'm liking the new design for Whim & Vinegar. Jen did a good job with her color choices, and hasn't overwhelmed the viewer with too much eye-candy. The two-column layout is becoming more and more popular, especially with weblogs. You don't see it as much anymore on ecommerce sites and portals, who are trying to maximize the usage of every square inch of screen real estate. It turns the page into a cluttered look with banner ads and marketing boxes everywhere. (The new Altavista design, for instance.)
Aeiwi is a new search engine (directory) that takes a slightly different approach to web indexing. [Interesting!]
NY Times on Epinions [again].
I really hate the new Altavista design. What are they thinking? Web designers should rally AGAINST this type of mediocre design that is becoming more and more pervasive. Yes, it is possible to design for functionality but still be fresh and new. There's no reason why all portals and search engines need to look alike. Research Buzz has some early comments.
Of course, then you've got people who, instead of figuring out their own layout, lift it from somewhere else. [Thanks to astute reader Jason Kottke for pointing this out.]
A search on Altavista for "animal carcass obliteration" turns up a link for the Cat Fancier's Association web site. Weird.
I wonder why this site was shut down.
Philadelphia New Media People: siliconphilly.com
Research Challenge: I give up. This weekend my brother and I heard on Michael Feldman's "Whad'Ya Know" radio show, a hilarious description of an instructional brochure called "Obliteration of Large Animal Carcasses" or something similar. It was developed by the Missoula Parks & Recreation Department or the Missoula Department of Agriculture. I've been searching for this document on the web but have turned up very little. Let's see what you can find.
What to do if you win the Lottery. [via Strange Brew]
Prediction: Sometime this week, we'll see in the news a report about a couple getting arrested for public indecency because they were recreating the Ally McBeal car wash love scene.
Sweet love of God, Cinnamon Altoids!
New Weblog: Periodically.com
Bezos to B&N: I can piss farther than you.
The Atlantic: Epinions, Weblogs. I'm too tired right now to comment on this piece, but Ben makes some good points and some good observations.
New issue of The Fray is up.
I don't understand. Why would you buy a goat over the Internet? For $10, you can "share a goat." [Sick things come to mind.]
Somebody should build a site that does nothing but collect parody sites. A parody portal, perhaps. Add this one: microsith.com.
eBay: Elephant Dung Artist Supplies. [While supplies last] This is obviously a satire.
Probably fewer updates than usual this week. I'm quite busy.
No matter how many times I see it, this makes me grin all over. Clever! [Found at Scripting News]
Giant car-eating metal dinosaur tours America. [No, really.] It's like the Iron Giant on a bad hair day. More.
Depite Chuck's disgust for the Orbitz soft drink, I love the stuff. Too bad you can't get it anymore. It's like a fruity Jolt with a lava-lamp texture.
Heh heh. I was geting bored with my Epinions profile photo. So, I decided to be creative. Last month I found (in my mom's garage) an old high school yearbook art & logo book from the 1970s. It had loads of examples of really old corporate logos, and cheesy illustrations. There was an entire page of "PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE" drawings that work perfectly for what I wanted to do. I scanned them in, and dropped them into a random_image script. Now, when you go to Epinions profile, you get a random piece of cheesy 1970s yearbook clip art. Whee!
Microsoft continues to screw up. They sent out 80 million emails about Y2K to their "customers." I received this email, yet I've never bought a Microsoft product, registered a Microsoft product, or subscribed to one of their newsletters. I do believe I entered one or two of their contests, but that certainly doesn't make me a customer of theirs. I treated it like the spam it is and reported it to SpamCop. It will be interesting to see how their abuse team responds.
Sigh....I keep getting lame hoax-type emails being forwarded to me by the clueless. This one was about AOL and Microsoft merging, and that Microsoft would pay every person $241-$245 who forwarded the email. Microsoft would know this by "tracking" your email if you "are a Microsoft Windows" user. Argh! People, are you really this dumb? I hang my head in shame at how gullible some seemingly intelligent people can be. Still, my favorite email hoax has to be the "Internet Clean-Up Day" hoax.
Right, I agree that the keyboards suck, but isn't this just a bit juvenile?
Great interview with the late Tibor Kalman, self-taught design guru.
Oh my, this is simply unacceptable. Long distance carriers are now charging a $3/month "no-use" fee if you don't make any long distance calls. Please, if you get charged this fee, contact your carrier, contact the FCC, and tell everyone you know that you will not accept this. Make noise, folks. Somewhat related is my rant about How the Phone Companies Are Ripping You Off.
Kanoodle's real-time search queries. [People sure are looking for crazy stuff.]
Fray Day 3 pictures are up. Too bad I missed it. Looks like it was a lot of fun.
This is odd. Yahoo has an entire category for Mr T. vs. X pages.
Hey, I've been here. But not here. Or here.
Dave Barry takes a humorous look at working from home.
Match the NYC locations with the movies they were in and win.
Shift: Why Your Fabulous Job Sucks
StudioB: Computers and User Expectations
PhilG: Why Bill Gates is Richer Than You.
The Will Hertes Letters are funny, but not nearly as funny as Paul Rosa's Idiot Letters, which have been collected into a book.
Michal Wallace on writing good Epinions.
How to remove the Netscape "Shop" button.
From Infozech:
Epinion: Lives of the Monster Dogs
I'm watching The Iron Giant tonight. It's a screener copy from work. The good news is that Warner Bros. is planning plenty of marketing for the VHS/DVD release including:
Paranoid?
Shameless plug: Jason Fried (formerly of Spinfree), Ernest Kim (formerly the creative director at Organic's Chicago office), and Carlos Segura (the man behind T-26 and Segura Inc) have joined together to start a new company called 37signals. This combined talent should prove to be something awesome. Forget the huge corporate web shops that charge multiple millions of dollars per account, and hire these guys, who will get the job done right, the first time, and for a fair price.
CamWorld Essay: Why Epinions Might be the Next Amazon
Epinion: Hearts in Atlantis
I'm becoming more and more disappointed with the articles in Industry Standard. When the magazine first started, the articles and the writing were great, unbiased, and well-researched. These days, I'm lucky if i do more than skim their headlines. For instance, this article about consumer reviews would have been worlds better had the author mentioned Epinions.
Competition for Epinions market (consumer reviews):
Iwin.com is another one of those contest/sweepstakes/games sites. Not sure yet if I support them or not. A good rule of thumb with sites like this is to always enter with a free email account from Yahoo or Hotmail. That way, if they sell your information, your email account doesn't get abused.
Would you trust Microsoft with your credit card number?
Epinion: Hey Mr. Producer!
Note: I changed the default colorscheme from grey to your browser's defaults (light grey background, blue link, purple visited link). Those of you who have colorsheme cookies set won't notice any change.
A U.S. map of where various weblogs are located in real space. [Cool, I was actually planning on doing this, but never got around to it.]
ArtsJournal.com looks promising, but they really need to lose the java navigation on the left. How awful.
It started with Yahoo. And then Google. Now we've got Oingo. Hmmm....
From the CHI-WEB mailing list archives:
International Semaphore Flags. [In case you ever need to communicate with someone from a distance, perhaps on a boat.]
Hmmm, for a chance at $10,000 I can hit reload 10 times a day.
Whoah, freaky. [Found at anthonyjhicks.com weblog]
Why would I ever want to buy a Slurpee pencil?
This ought to be amusing. [via Interesting People]
How'd I miss this one: Pursed Lips is a weblog about sex, specifically "sex in the news."
David Ogren has a good essay on how stupid some of today's spammers are.
I desperately want Bob Garfield at AdAge to blast the new Dodge "Different" ad campaign. About the only thing different about it is that they blatantly stole Apple's "Think Different" campaign. Not very original, huh.
It's funny how the human mind works. For the past few days I've been re-visiting an old favorite of mine, Bob Garfield's ad reviews on AdAge.com. Every time I'd see the name in print, a little light bulb would "ping" in my head, which told me there was a correlation with some other information in my brain. So, I'm drifting off to sleep, and "pow" it hits me. One of the main characters in Stephen King's new book, "Hearts in Atlantis" is named Bobby Garfield. Funny how our brains work, isn't it?
Pillow Book is a journal with plenty of unique and original content. Its tagline: "An online journal with a Japanese theme live from the ancient city of San Francisco."
LinuxWorld has an excellent article AOLServer. It's quite technical, so if you aren't interested in high-end web servers, dynamically-generated sites, and CMS packages, then you might just want to skim it. [Thanks Luke.]
Xander Mellish's stories are amazing. It's fascinating that she used to post the first pages of her stories as posters around NYC. [Found at mrbarrett.com]
ClickZ: In Praise of Plain Web Sites
Bob Garfield of AdAge echoes my thoughts about Ford's live Ford Focus commercials.
Robert over at Bump.net discusses OS favoritism/bigotry, weblogs, and the problems of quotes being taken out of context.
Hmmm, maybe I should try out for this game show.
Apparently, the best fried chicken doesn't come from Kentucky. It's at a small hole-in-the-wall in Iowa.
Epinion: England
I am starting to write more Epinions. I really enjoy what they are doing and love to contribute. If you aren't an Epinion member, but want to support CamWorld, allow me to sponsor your membership and every Epinion of your's that is read generates revenue to help pay for my site hosting fees.
"The primary difference between us and our competitors is that we aren't paying large portal fees to gain market share at a loss," Quinnell said. "We want to gain market share at a profit."
Barnes & Noble buys Babbage's for $215M. [Wow, that's cheap.]
Loads of ultra-geeky Internet stuff at Cisco's Internet Protocol Journal.
I'll say it again, these live Ford focus TV commercials really suck.
Epinion: James: "Laid"
Don't forget to play my "Dream Lotto Numbers" tonight. [See Monday's entry for details.]
Gee, I don't see Apple publishing such nonsense about the Windows OS. It's akin Amazon posting on their site a list of "Reasons Why You Shouldn't Buy From Barnes & Noble and Borders.com."
Wonderful writings about NYC and more.
The Hippo Song.
Everything you ever wanted to know about DangerMouse.
The Alternative Dictionaries: International Slang.
The Blair Warner Project.
Wal-Mart is delaying the launch of their e-commerce site until after Christmas.
Research Challenge: I need to know what company is doing Wal-Mart's e-commerce back-end. Is it an IBM e-business client?
Jen Kitchen points me to this press release that signifies that Broadvision might be the culprit. For more about Broadvision, read Peter Merholz's enlightening Broadvision Sucks page.
Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh my. CNN has this page that will calculate what your draft number would have been in 1969. Lower than 196, and you'da been drafted. [Found at Pop Culture Junk Mail] My number: 124. Wow.
Epinion: Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark
A while back, I implemented a simple script that displays a random "ugly" picture for an Epinions profile. If you want to use this, feel free to cut-and-paste this URL (http://www.camworld.com/cgi-bin/rand_image.pl) into your own Epinions profile image location field. There are about 35 images in the random directory. [And if you aren't an Epinions member yet, feel free to let me sponsor you.]
My brother dares me to enter this picture in this contest. I also have a 900-page "Developing Word" book acting as a superb monitor stand for my Linux box.
Richard M. Smith's Advanced Web Programming. [Lots and lots of very useful info for site builders and web designers. Bookmark this one.]
Snarg. Kind of like jodi.org, but a bit more artistic. [Warning: not for epileptics.]
A Foreigner's Guide to America. [Tongue-in-cheek]
Purina Puppy Breed Selector.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Underdog.
Sigh, there's more than one OS, ya know. I dread the day Microsoft owns/controls everything, by default.
Last night I had a dream about winning the lotto. It was so vivid I woke up and wrote down the numbers: 2, 5, 7, 12, 20, and 40. If you win with these numbers in your state, send me a nice gift.
100-inch TV for $9.95. [Beware the infamous P.T. Barnum quote. This document itself is an important and enlightening read.]
Reader Erik Kosberg informed me that this quote is mis-attributed. Here's the fascinating story behind it.
This is unacceptable! The builder of this FAQ on HDTV is using javascript to count how many seconds you have been at their page. When you go to click the browser's back button, you're presented with a dialogue box saying "You have been here only 68 (or whatever) seconds. Order the expanded FAQ blah, blah, blah..." Disabling the browser's back button is a huge usability no-no. How pathetic can you get?
Adam Sandler's The Peeper. [Flash Required. 17 years or older only, please. Kind of disturbing.]
Joe's Cool Site of 50s-70s Design. [Awesome, the retro-design geek in me loves this resource.]
Art Frahm: A Study of the Effects of Celery on Loose Elastic. [Also kind of disturbing.]
The Jar-Jargonizer.
Who else thinks Ford's live TV commercials are a great concept, but are really poorly executed? [And java with an automatic javascript pop-up on their front page. Bad, bad, bad.]
My good Danish friend, Massimo, continues to inspire with a clean re-design of his site.
David Farber: Living in the Global Information Infrastructure -- some concerns
"Right. But I don't see why the laws of physics should be violated to sell orange juice."
Hey kids, they're fake.
I knew it! Ding Dongs, King Dons, and Big Wheels are all the same thing! [via Pop Culture Junk Mail] This reminds me a lot of the story I wrote in college called The Doughnut King.
Ha ha, this is great. Strange Brew is compiling logos that use a swoosh and/or planetary rings. We're actually going through a logo re-design right now at Borders.com, and the logo our design firm came back with has a ring around it. We vetoed it right away, of course.
From the Archives: The actual Marmaduke cartoon that ran on June 2, 1999.
DevShed: Interview with the developers of Midguard.
WebTechniques: Developing Component-Based Pages with HTML::Mason
Rather than support GreyDay by turning all my pages grey, I'll let you decide. If you want to support GreyDay, simply choose the grey colorscheme.
