Google Wave makes my head hurt

After using Google Wave’s preview with some friends, I am left with mixed feelings and a dull ache in my brain. Google Wave, Google’s new collaborative messaging tool is meant to bridge the gap between email and instant messaging by allowing real-time “waves” to be hosted and contributed to in realtime by participants. Participants can add standard text comments/messages or include images and files via drag and drop. Participants can also add various Google Widgets and dynamic content like Google Maps, Wiki definitions on the fly, video conferencing and more.

I’ve been at it for a few weeks and while I’m impressed with the technology at hand, I’m not sure it makes collaborating any easier. Adding dynamic content via Widgets and/or Wavebots is hit or miss since Wave and widget developers are still ironing out the kinks. Conversations between numerous people still becomes confusing… and conversations that include utter strangers can be a bit daunting since every word you type is transmitted in real-time. It made me a little hesitant to interact- fearing my typing inaccuracies would be blatantly obvious.

I’m also not too keen on having to go to googlewave.com and have an entirely separate interface for waves.. I hope there’s a hook into gmail eventually, which I believe is where waves should live. I think waves should be utilized on a smaller level… perhaps used to wave about files shared in an email or a way to markup and discuss photos or other media with a link inside your email to the wave. Having full-on conversations with numerous participants at this point makes eyes go fuzzy.

The product is still in early preview and while I see the merit of sharing images and other media on waves versus emails and the ability to collaborate in real-time, I’m not sure it is actually any easier to collaborate.

Thumbs up to Facebook for ad relevance

Facebook added a “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” beneath their advertisement blocks this week. As a user, this is great because I can hit thumbs down on the singles/gay ads I keep seeing (even though I’m listed as interested in Women) and hit thumbs up on technology/advertising ads that I actually dig.

Moreover, as a publisher, being able to serve your ads to someone who actually gives a damn will be worth its weight in gold. Relevancy is just about as big a keyword as you hear these days. And its not surprising, considering how much information I (and other web consumers) are bombarded with daily. To get a user to click your ad in their inbox or on a banner is all about relevance.

With these tiny buttons, Facebook is taking a huge step on its path to owning the social advertising sector.

Time To Drop Designing for IE6?

I’ve been a proponent of steadily phasing out IE6 support but too many of my clients (and their at-home usability testers, hah) have IE6 inadvertently installed on their machines. You don’t know how many times I walk a client or friend through Help > About Internet Explorer and ask them to read me the version number and I was shocked to hear that they were still using IE6. “You should download Firefox or the latest IE 7.0 if you must,” I’d repeat again. A few years ago, IE6 users had more reason to gripe– it was installed on most machines at their workplace (businesses who’s windfall profits in the 90’s left their employees on Win98 machines with the latest in browsing technoloy; IE6!)

But it’s no longer the nineties, and after Facebook started recommending IE7 to IE6 users, Apple recently dropped it entirely for MobileMe service and others my ears have started perking up. I mean, Microsoft realease IE7 as a “high priority update” for Windows XP users, so that an automatic update was likely done on millions of machines. Continue reading ‘Time To Drop Designing for IE6?’

Add A Google Talk chatback badge to your site!

This lesson is geared toward a small business owner who has a web presence and a Google account. You can add a floating, ever-present Google Talk chatback badge to your site to your site in minutes that will let your website visitors ask you any questions they might have while surfing your website. Continue reading ‘Add A Google Talk chatback badge to your site!’

Wordpress Theme for Designers

I’ve just recently had to convert an existing website into a Wordpress site for a client. The good news was that on the whole, they wanted their existing site design to stay as close as possible while giving them the ability to add news, images and videos to their website without destroying the look and feel of the website. Thankfully, with the old design in place (albeit using tables for layout) I saved hours of creative and design time. Here’s the original and the overhaul I did. I cut down the page size by 50% and reduced the size of images and calls to the server by 50% as well. And I was finished in about 6 hours.

My theme development for clients used to be a pretty exhaustive process. For each project I’d start with a fresh install of Wordpress and hack up a theme’s PHP pages till it was tailored to fit. I’d go in and add classes and id’s on-the-fly during my CSS development. Adding and updating id’s and classes for the existing theme’s structure took needless time.

That was until I met Sandbox. Sandbox is billed as the themer’s theme. But its really a theme for CSS designers. Through some inventive manipulation of the code using some PHP functions, the authors have managed to add semantic CSS classes to almost every essential element for Wordpress. You can have different styles based on page, author, date, category… you name it. Just by putting classes on the BODY tag of the generated XHTML unleashes powerful design options.

Imagine… without and manipulation to the theme code itself you can do any of the following with just CSS:

• Hide unrelevant content based on page, post, category, etc…
• Improve your site’s print stylesheet to display print-worthy content
• Use images for your dates
• Make a “day” and “night” version of your site.
• Use custom backgrounds or graphical titles based on a posts’ category
• Use different colors for links, background and titles on your site based on the page or category.

I’ll keep going… in the meantime you need to go and preview the Sandbox theme and then get your hands dirty with it. You’ll feel like a kid in a sandbox again.

Killer Coincidence?

I was doing a little Googling of myself this afternoon and found this bizarre video. It seems a bit too coincidental, honestly. Watch the video here.

Radiohead Fans Have Collective Mushy Moment

The long awaited release of Radiohead’s follow-up to Hail to the Thief (2003) was on my iPod (and in my ears) 3 minutes after it was released to the world. 3 minutes. I didn’t have to wait in line at a Best Buy in the morning or wait for the UPS guy to deliver my pre-ordered album. No sir. I downloaded it instantly along with millions of other fans.

Radiohead has always been an envelope pusher; trying to bend and break the system. Outspoken about ticketing agencies and record label ripoffs, it was huge when Radiohead’s deal with long-time label EMI ended. Many people figured that an off-label release was imminent. Continue reading ‘Radiohead Fans Have Collective Mushy Moment’

Start your own web design business

I’m going to assume in this post that you have some experience coding XHTML/CSS and you can implement or hack up Javascript and you desperately want to start your own web marketing business. I’m also assuming that you plan on starting your web business on your own, for the most part.

Ideally, you should start an LLC or other limited liability company to front your web business. However, starting out as an independent contractor is perfectly acceptable (besides the pain in reporting your taxes.)

Continue reading ‘Start your own web design business’

Hijacking your laptop’s wireless connection with XBOX 360

So I got Xbox 360 last weekend on the day that I was supposed to house sit for my lovely friends Nancy and Richard. It was perfect since they have a 60-inch plus HDTV in the entertainment room. Sweet… I could envision hours of punch drunk game playing. It was all set up and working great but I wanted to connect to Xbox Live… get it online and see what I could download or play Gears of War with some online players. The Xbox ships with an ethernet jack and wire but the router was all the way up in the bedroom (which is a silly place to have it, if you ask me, Nancy… but I digress.) (Note: To save yourself the trouble, just pickup the Xbox Wireless Network Adaptor from your local Best Buy or gaming store.) Luckily, my laptop is always with me and they do have a nice wireless setup with some Apple Airports around the house. There must be a way to use my laptop’s wireless signal to get my Xbox online.

Indeed, there is. It’s really quite simple and I’ll give you instructions on how to do it.
Continue reading ‘Hijacking your laptop’s wireless connection with XBOX 360′

Top 50 Loose Ends on Lost

Well, you’ve got a few months to actually read this since Lost is on hiatus AGAIN, but the folks over at IGN have brought to light the top 50 loose ends on the show. And to this, I say, “Only 50?” Check it for yourself because I didn’t catch most of these or perhaps I’ve suspended my disbelief so permanently its never coming back. Word. Read it.