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.

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.

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.

Can I stop testing my applications and web designs in IE6? The answer is, yes I can!

The bottom line is that you should try to keep all core functionalities of your web application or website accessible to every user, but we are in the days of AJAX (dynamically loading information into a rendered page) and our view of plain websites has shifted into rich internet applications. Antiquated browsers like IE6 struggle to keep up. So, ditch em. But be graceful about it.

What to do?

• I recommend using Dean Edward’s latest IE7 javascript libraries that handle most of IE6′s CSS style issues and other bug fixes. You can drop the javascript code into your site and it will make a ton of your normal CSS fixes for IE6 non-existant.
• If you are using a great deal of AJAX and find that some of your features are buggy with IE6 and lack the resources or enthusiasm to debug and correct IE6 issues, I’d consider using the javascript from SaveTheDevelopers.org to let your IE6 users know they are using an outdated browser and an upgrade will let them get all the content and functionality.

At some point, as designers and developers, we need to take actions that greatly reduce our development time and Advil intake. This is one such measure… but do the research first. Ideally you should have an idea of just how many users you’d be affecting when you decide to degrade support for IE6. And, as always in CSS, writing basic definitions for all browsers/platforms and then writing enhanced CSS for standards-compliant browsers utilizing the new CSS3 revision will only help your cause.

Note: As of this article, the chat widget was available for both Gmail and Google Apps accounts. Also, important to note is that at this time the chat widget is tied to a single user, meaning it will only show availability for a single user. Leaving your Gmail app open during peak surfing hours would be a good idea. Hopefully, Google will work in a feature for Google Apps users that lets you use an e-mail alias (sales@yourcompany.com) that can notify a list of users on your domain of the incoming guest chat. But I digress…

Step 1: Get your Google Talk chatback badge code…

• For Gmail.com users: http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New
  
• For Google Apps users: http://www.google.com/talk/service/a/your-domain.com/badge/New (replace “your-domain.com” with your domain name tied to Google Apps)

Step 2: Grab the code below that you will paste at the bottom of your webpage HTML (just before the </BODY> tag. If you aren’t familiar how to do this, you can show your web designer this post as I’m sure they’ll be able to do it without much headache.

UPDATE: I’d neglected to include a style property below in my original post. It’s best to set a z-index of 9000 for the surrounding div. Z-index tells the browser on what three-dimensional plane or level it is on. Most page elements inherently are at 0 or 1 by default, but setting a high z-index ensures that no matter how complex your website layout is, the badge will be on top. If its still hidden, try increasing the z-index value.

UPDATE 2: Recently I found a help document that describes how to adjust the style of your chatback badge. Use my CSS and HTML positioning to help you render the badge, but use this help document to help you configure how your badge looks.

<div style=”position: fixed; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; width: 200px; height: 60px; z-index: 9000;”>   <!– Insert your GOOGLE IFRAME code from step 1 here –> </div>

Once you’ve inserted the code from Step 1 into my wrapping DIV code from Step 2, you’ll just need to insert it at the end of any page you’d like the chat badge to appear on. Paste the whole thing onto your website just before the closing BODY tag.

The final code should look something like this:

<div style=”position: fixed; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; width: 200px; height: 60px; z-index: 9000;”>   <iframe src="http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/Show?tk=z01...6r&w=200&h=60" frameborder="0" width="200" height="60"></iframe> </div>

I’ve included one on this page as an example. Look in the bottom right of your browser window! Let me know what you think of the tutorial! Good luck and happy returns!

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.

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.

Quietly on September 30th, Radiohead announced they were releasing their album on October 10th with a link to InRainbows.com. The album would only be available on the website. Anyone in the world could purchase a discbox which features a bonus CD with 9 extra tracks and two vinyl versions of the album, or just purchase the download to be available the day of the release.

Most fans, like myself, bought the discbox, which also included a download link. However, fans who bought the download only were prompted to enter their own purchase price. They decide how much they’d pay for the album. You could enter $0.00, $0.10, $1,000.00. Genius.

Radiohead didn’t rely on iTunes or any major record label to distribute their music to the masses, and it could be the most effective release of all time. They pushed the album to millions of consumers (albeit without album art for iTunes) instantly. I’m interested to know how many downloads there will be and how much money they earn before it is released in stores in 2008.

Most Radiohead fans were dying for that E-mail this morning. I just setup a filter in my Gmail to forward anything from Waste.uk.com with “activation code” to my cell phone and was texted immediately. At 2:35am EST this morning, I knew that millions of other Radiohead fanatics like myself were all experiencing the album for the first time, together. Thank you again, Radiohead.

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.)

Essential Reading

Before you even consider starting your web design/marketing company, I suggest you read and comprehend the concepts in the following books.

• Don’t Make Me Think – by Steve Krug
• Designing with Web Standards – by Jeffery Zeldman
• Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook – by Dan Cederholm
• Bulletproof Web Design: Improving Flexibility and Protecting Against Worst-Case Scenarios with XHTML and CSS – by Dan Cederholm
• DOM Scripting: Web Design with Javascript and the Document Object Model – by Jeremy Keith
• Transcending CSS – by Andy Clarke
• Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points – by 37signals
• Getting Real – by 37signals

There are numerous other books you could read as well. See what the pros list as their essential reading.

Find a Web Host

Unless you plan on acquiring and setting up your own redundant, load-balanced server farm, most small companies choose a web host to host their web servers. Depending on your needs, your monthly cost can be quite low.

• Dreamhost – I’ve used Dreamhost for years with a few long standing clients. Their support is great and they have great uptime. They’ve recently started supporting Ruby on Rails and offer a nice subversion repository as well as a permanent file storage and sharing solution. Like most hosts, they also offer a 1-click setup of major CMS/Blog and other open source software. No Cpanel and Fanastico for those who are used to it, however.
• Rails Playground – I do a lot of XHML/CSS for some Ruby on Rails applications and I’ve gotten familiar with the framework and I suggest anyone with an interest in programming web applications looks at Ruby on Rails. Rails Playground offers stable, reliable solutions to get your foot in the door using Rails and also offers Cpanel and Fantastico for your basic web hosting needs. I would start with a basic shared hosting plan and then when you need it, move to their VPS plans as they are affordable and lightning fast.
• Surpass Hosting – I’ve used Surpass for years and they are dirt cheap. I don’t mind telling you that I host this blog as well as several low-traffic sites through them for around $10/month. I haven’t even begun to touch bandwidth or disk usage limits and they have quick support, so if you want to start cheap, use Surpass.

Manage your projects better

Set up a Basecamp

The best way to keep your customers happy is if they are constantly in the loop. To achieve this goal, start a Basecamp site for your web business.

Basecamp is a web based project management software ideal for small teams. And since we are talking about a one man team, Basecamp makes sense.

Setting up your Basecamp for your company gives you the option to have a client login at http://yourcompanyname.clientsection.com to share messages, to-dos, milestones, writeboards and more. For me, Basecamp has helped shave off hours of miscommunication and phone tag.

Basecamp is a paid service, but the free plan offers you control over one active project. You can invite as many people to collaborate as you wish and can create up to two writeboards. I highly suggest using the Free plan until you need more projects. In which case, I use the Personal Plan for $12 a month and I can manage up to three projects. If I have more than three projects at a time, I know I’ve got to finish one of the others before I can take on another.

Budget, Budget, Budget

When working for yourself, its always a good idea to budget your time well. If you quote a client a certain number of hours you know you’ll likely go over the time budget anyway, but keeping track of tasks and hours logged will help you better gauge your time estimates for your next proposal. And, often times, clients will ask for a timesheet at least with your invoice and using an online time clock can certainly help.

• Tick is a fantastic timesheet application that you can connect to your Basecamp account to pull client and project information for your timesheets. There is also a dashboard widget available for Mac and PC which lets you run a timer and tell it what tasks you were working on and this info goes directly onto your Tickspot.com timesheets. The reporting option lets you save or print timesheets for given time cycles and can be attached to outgoing invoices to clients.
• If you need a simpler time-clock solution, I can also recommend Slimtimer. Slimtimer does not have the Basecamp integration but does have a web based timer and task management. The reporting tool is also useful. But if you have Basecamp, Tick is the way to go.

Invoice your clients

Let’s face it. Our main goal here is to make money, right? Well, we could just whip up some word documents to invoice our clients. I was doing that for years and it worked wonderfully. However, when we get into hosting below, I found that I needed an automated system to bill my hosting clients on a recurrent basis.

I use Blinksale. Sure, there are a few major invoicing applications out there that you could use, but I find the best value is at Blinksale. Blinksale lets me have my own transparent billing software. I have an address at http://mycompany.blinksale.com where I can add and settle invoices when I receive payment. The best feature are the recurring invoice templates that you can assign to certain clients. You charge your client $30/month every three months and Blinksale will send that invoice out for you on time each quarter.

Other great features include tax setup, invoice reminders and web-based invoices. You can even include links so that a client can pay directly through Paypal. Do you have some old fashioned clients that need hard copies in the mail? Great! Blinksale will let you buy stamps in bulk and they will mail your invoice for you.

Add White Label Services

How can you make your one person operation look like a boutique design shop? Offer some extra marketing services to your clients to entice them to jump on board with you. You design their website and maybe even their business cards, letterheads. Can you also offer some solutions like a content management system or E-mail campaign service without having to learn a complex programming language?

Let your clients send HTML E-mail campaigns

If you know HTML/CSS then that’s all you need to know to let your clients create, send and manage high-impact E-mail campaigns. Mailbuild is a nifty white label E-mail campaign solution perfect for a web designer. It allows you to create your own branded website (http://yourcompanyname.createsend.com) that your clients can log into and send E-mail campaigns. Sign up for a free account to get started and create an HTML template or use one provided for your clients. Mailbuild charges your client to send HTML E-mails to an E-mail list based on the number of recipients. Mailbuild also gives you the ability to markup and pocket the profit from using their service making it an ideal way to enhance your services and incur no out-of-pocket expenses.

Use a Content Management System

If your client needs the ability to update their own website and don’t want to be tied down to your company for minor site updates, your best bet is implementing a Content Management System. You can use Joomla, Drupal or any number of Open Source software that you install on your web server and customize to fit. However, sometimes these programs can take a ton of time to setup and usually do more than your client requires. If you use a hosted white label CMS like Light, you can brand your own CMS backend and design custom templates for your clients. Light is built for designers and has a very simple templating system. They are constantly releasing upgrades and if a basic no-frills CMS that you can brand as your own is what you are looking for, you should probably see the Light.

Google is Awesome

Google is here for you, so use them. Google provides many free services to help you enhance your client’s capabilities when trying to reach target markets or collaborate within a company.

Gmail

Google’s free web-based E-mail provides you with 2 gigs of space for your E-mails and links you to other popular Google products like Docs and Spreadsheets, Calendars, Personal Start pages, Video, Images, etc. Its always a good idea to open a GMail account using your company name because you don’t need to use your hosted E-mail solution and bog down your server with your extensive E-mail correspondance. Let Google handle it. But if a client also needs an E-mail address, have them use Gmail, too.

Google Analytics

There are numerous web analytics services out there to track visitors, referrers, time on site, most popular content, etc. but no one does a better job at it than Google Analytics.

All you’ll need (as with most Google Services) is a regular GMail account and you can automatically deliver enhanced web traffic reports in PDF format to your clients via E-mail.

Google’s Analytics application is loaded with reporting features and AdSense tracking for campaigns, and its simple to use; just add a line of javascript at the bottom of any page you’d like tracked and you’re done.

Google Apps For Your Domain

Google Apps for your domain offers a viable free solution for any of your small business clients. If they have a business in which they need to collaborate more effectively, you can have your very own GMail, Calendar, Start Page, Docs and Spreadsheets all living at http://yourcompanyname.com.

You’ll need to know a bit about DNS changes and be comfortable using your registrar’s administration to allow Google to accept your mail and serve start pages, docs and spreadsheets and calendars to your own subdomains (start.yourcompanyname.com, mail.yourcompanyname.com, or calendar.yourcompanyname.com for instance.)

The mail application gives you GMail with chat functionality and an easy-to-use interface so your client can add users, E-mail lists and forwarding accounts.

The ability to customize a start page for that company works as well because you can add any Google Dashboard Widgets and RSS feeds from trade news sites, and all are at a glance with your calendar and inbox.

Webmaster Central

Your client want to be listed in search engines? The place to start is with Google and Webmaster Central lets you see your site’s status in Google’s search index as well as use powerful tools like Sitemaps to ensure all of your pages are listed in Google’s index.

What You’re Worth

Take a little time before you start developing your own website or a client’s and actually figure out you’re hourly wage. Typically, you’ll be charging an hourly fee based on mockups or outlines supplied by a client and you’ll need to know what to charge.

The folks over at freelanceswitch.com have created a handy hourly rate calculator which does all the hardwork for you.  Try to be accurate when using this tool and it’s quite helpful.

Be Passionate

As you can see, as a web designer you can start your own web business for only dollars a month. However, you can’t put a price on passion. You should only move forward if you plan on pursuing your goals with passion. You must be passionate about delivering a solid product and also about staying on top of the technology as it changes everyday. Because if you are passionate about your work it will show and that will keep your client base happy.

Get Started!

If you’ve read this whole article, its safe to say you want to get out there and start your business, so determine your business name, secure your domain name and hosting and start your Basecamp. Use the tools above to enhance your service offerings and you should be able to work independantly and build yourself a profitable and enjoyable business.

Indeed, there is. It’s really quite simple and I’ll give you instructions on how to do it.

First things first…

1. Connect to a wireless network – Connect to a wireless network and make sure you can access the internet. If you have trouble with this step, you’ve got bigger fish to fry and should at least check out troubleshooting your wireless network.
2. Hookup your laptop to your Xbox 360 – With your laptop powered up and connected to a wireless network, connect your laptop to your Xbox 360 by an ethernet cable (standard internet wire seen coming out of your router.) One end should plugin to your xbox and the other into your ethernet port on the laptop where you’d normally hook up your ethernet wire.

For Windows XP users:

1. Make sure you are logged in as a computer Administrator.
2. Go to the Control Panel (click Start, click Control Panel).
3. Double-click on Network Connections
4. Right-click your Wireless Network Connection adaptor and click Properties
5. Click on the Advanced tab, then check Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.
6. Click OK
7. And finally…Turn on your XBox and connect to XBox Live.

For Mac OS X users:

1. Click on the System Preferences icon in the Dock.
2. Select the Sharing preference pane.
3. Click on the Internet tab.
4. Start Internet Sharing. (Note: Make sure that you are sharing from your wireless connection to computers using built-in ethernet).
5. And finally…Turn on your XBox and connect to XBox Live.

It smells, it makes me smell and it turns my lungs crispy and black. That’s right, we’re talking about cigarette smoke. Sure, I love to walk around the city with a smoke in lip or accompanied with a glass of wine, but do I really need to have a smoke 10 minutes after I get up in the morning? Or everytime I get in the car? Or every 20 minutes while at work? No. I could easily save all these plastic memories but is it worth my health?

I’ve noticed it most in the past few years with my singing voice. I imagine my lung capacity is 40% of what it was before I smoked. I know that cigarette smoke gave me a “rustic” tone to my voice which I actually like, but I’d love to be able to take in more air to support longer, truer notes. That’s not the only reason I’m quitting. I’m quitting so that I don’t have to lie about it to potential girlfriends. It makes me look weak. We started a kitty here at work and Mike and I (who smoke like its going out of style) are giving $5 everytime we want to smoke. If we want to smoke, we can only at the office during the week and must pay $5. The winner after a few months takes both kitty’s. That’s really whats going to get me going. I hope Mike is weak. He’s not in the office yet but I hope hes hurting and weak so at least I can make some money out of this trying time. (The whole next week I may be a bastard, but please understand.)

Thanks to my friend Christynn I have found QuitNet and after signing up it told me that every year I quit smoking I would save $1,551.25. And also, every year I was still not smoking, would add 1 month, 17 days and 9 hours onto my life. Sweet. I’m gonna be around for a long while, suckas. In about a year of not smoking I will reduce my risk of cancer and heart disease by 50% of where it is now. Within 3 days I will be rid of nicotine in my system. Within 10 years of quitting I will have reduced my risk of heart disease and cancer to right around if I never smoked at all, so, here’s lookin at me in ten years.

I found a great article entitled Do It Yourself Lightbox on Joseph Holt’s website. I followed his directions and 15 minutes later and $80 lighter, I had my very own lightbox. I’ve posted my pictures here so you can see the results. I’m pretty excited about it, myself.

I used a Trisuit cracker box because it was colorful and had depth and was the best thing I could find in the office that day. And, I like Triscuits, big deal.

It certainly seemed like destiny after Endy Chavez’ unbelievable game saving catch to rob Scott Rolen of a two-run homer that would have put the Cards up 3-1. It seemed like destiny when the Mets had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth with Carlos Beltran at the plate. But, it wasn’t so. Adam Wainwright shut down the Mets in order after giving up two leadoff singles, and the Mets’ brilliant season was over.

This team is something special. I’ve said it from day one. I think no one gave them a chance against Detroit in the series if they’d made it, but I’ve watched this team all year. I must have only missed ten games tops all season and from what I saw on that field was the most exciting team in baseball with an offensive powerhouse 1-6 in the order (before Cliff Floyd’s achilles acted up) and a stellar bullpen. Sure, our starting pitchers are aging, but our bullpen always picked them up. With Reyes, the leagues most electric player leading the charge for the Mets all season it was apparent if you’d watched them just how productive they were. They played small ball, they played power ball and had great pitching and defense behind them all year.

After the game last night I was truly shell shocked. This is going to take some time to get used to. Mets fans aren’t used to this and to all the Yankee fans that were calling up WFAN after the game complaining about the Mets fans’ whining and crying; We’re just not used to these let downs like Yankee fans are. Excuse us please, but I hope we never get used to it. I feel like a Cubs fan. I guess, “There’s always next year.”

Little did I know that mostly (if not all) of our core partners were not very adept at computers. And this whole business relied heavily upon computers; the website, databases of restaurants around the country, the whole works. First things first, we needed a place to collaborate and share ideas and get things done. I was stuck between a rock and hard place because I knew that we needed some computer-based solution for our project management, but these old dogs were a little rusty.

I had used Microsoft Project before and even implemented a project management program called ActiveCollab on Breathe Fitness’ website to help their employees track projects and track time. Most of these programs were insane. Confusing UIs and too many features often confused the user before they even started. Especially Microsoft Project. The only thing that saved Project was it was in an Outlook-type interface that most Windows users were already familiar with. But, Project made it extremely difficult to manage projects because all of the clunk that got in the way.

Enter Basecamp. I stumbled upon basecamp a few months earlier as all the buzz about “web 2.0″ applications was being slathered across the web.

The emergence of a new framework for deploying web applications called Ruby on Rails was born and it was all the rage. In combination with the now-realized method of updating information on a webpage without reloading the entire page (now famously dubbed AJAX) gave new hope for a web that was more like a desktop app than a static website. And, since RoR built AJAX capability right into the framework, this made the new framework all the more appealing for starving application developers. This collection of new technologies and their potential application to web sites was dubbed “web 2.0″. It was the next best thing since sliced bread. Ruby on Rails became so popular that in August of 2006, Apple announced it would ship Ruby on Rails with Mac OS X v10.5 “Leopard”.

A Brief History of Basecamp and Rails

The guys at 37signals built Basecamp using an old pre-hypertext processing language called Ruby and created their own semantic, extensible framework that made scripting the Basecamp application a breeze. After they released Basecamp, they took their source code and released it to open source. The named it “Ruby on Rails.” Basically, open source is a term for any source code that is free for the public to use, test and contribute to. This new source code was for an application framework that was built with the Agile Web philosophy and had basic features like blogs, messaging, and AJAX helpers built right in for faster application deployment. And Rails assumed lots of things when you set it up, so you didn’t have to waste time configuring miles and miles of XML code that told the application how to handle information. The claim that Rails let you deploy an application ten times faster than any other framework or language, was supported by a 15 minute demo on creating a blog on the Ruby on Rails site. You can create a custom blog system in fifteen minutes? Wow. Rails was born from Basecamp. But, I digress.

I mostly want to share with you how I used Basecamp to help streamline our communications. The strength of RoR and its founding fathers at 37signals is simplicity. Give the users only what they need for their application. Strip out everything you don’t think is necessary to the application. Once you’ve done that, strip out a few more features, ad nauseum. And it works. With Basecamp, you’ve got a simple, less-is-more interface that doesn’t let you do a lot of things, but the things you can do, you can do well.

How We Use It

Basecamp’s core component is its message system. Users on the site can write messages and categorize them. They can let other users know about the message through e-mail if they choose, but it creates a place where information can be written and stored. No more endless e-mails back and forth about a subject and copying in your entire sales or marketing team, they just login to the Basecamp site and can see all messages they’d like. We use messages to relay important conversations we’ve had, our progress on the website, minutes from meetings and general messages to our team.

The next feature is to-do lists. You can setup a list of things you need to do and when they are done, check it off. Anytime you do something and check it off, it shows up on the overview page that a to-do was completed. You can create as many to-dos as you’d like. I created specific to-dos for Marketing and Sales, and since I have so much on my plate; “Chris’ List”. You can even assign to-dos to a certain user. You can tie to-dos to certain milestones (which I explain below) on the horizon to keep you on track. Keeping track of things that need to get done just got easier. If anyone on our team wants to see what’s been done, they can just login to our Basecamp site and see all the to-dos that were completed or any messages sent, comments to messages, all in one place. And since my partners are old fashioned, when my boss asks me what I plan on doing this week, I just goto my to-do list and goto FILE > PRINT and print it out. Basecamp does a great job of printing a legible, easy to understand version of to-dos, messages, everything.

Milestones are essentially deadlines, but, they are called Milestones because it gives you more flexibility. I can use milestones to remind everyone of important meetings, launch dates, and, of course deadlines. That is the beauty of Basecamp. You make it work for you. You figure out what Basecamp can do and you work your business model around it.

Another great feature are the writeboards. Writeboards are a place where users can write content and other users can add to and edit the page. All of the revisions are available and it gives you at-a-glance all the changes that were made to a particular document. We use the writeboards to write content for the website and print materials, as well as keep a running list of competitors and goals. And everyone can contribute.

The file system is a nice bonus with the paid version of Basecamp. I had originally setup an FTP server to keep all of our important documents in one place. But, constantly, I would be called out of my office to help coworkers put files up there even though I showed them how to copy and paste just like in Windows Explorer. It was a headache. With the file system, you have the option to host the files on basecamp’s server but they capped your limit of space depending on the package you bought. The great alternative is using your own FTP server (which I’d already setup) and then you tell Basecamp where it is and the username and password and it sets it up for you. Now, our team can attach a file to a message and this gets placed on our FTP server, or they can upload a file independant of a message and categorize it however they want. And anytime you re-upload a file, it overwrites the previous version. Pretty neat.

Lastly, the chat feature was added to Basecamp. 37signals also launched Campfire which was a standalone web app to help communications and kept a running record of all chats that happened. You can see what people said through a whole topic. Setup a room based on a topic, invite some coworkers to it, and type away. After Campfire was launched, the 37signals crew quickly integrated it into Basecamp. So, I setup a Campfire account (which is free) and set our Basecamp site to interact with it. Now I don’t login to campfire ever, it’s right in my Basecamp. Now everyone can communicate in realtime from anywhere in the world. Neat.

In Conclusion

At first, I was skeptical that our “old dogs” of this company would be able to use Microsoft Project or open source solutions built in PHP because most had too many features. I introduced them to basecamp within the first week and got everyone started by just putting messages up. Anytime a coworker e-mailed me directly, I told them I wouldn’t read it unless its on Basecamp. Basecamp keeps everyone honest. We can hide messages from other companies that use our Basecamp to reach deadlines (like our application developer, who would login and see his to-do list and write messages to me about his progress) but everyone in our company can see all the messages. You can see what’s on someone’s to-do list and if they’ve done it. Everything’s in the open and there are no secrets. It keeps everyone here accountable.

I was surprised to see everyone taking to this solution so quickly. Soon, colleagues who prided themselves on their inexperience with computers would gush about how they completed their entire to-do list and uploaded a document to our basecamp site for everyone to review. We were productive. Everyone communicated and we were getting things done. Thank you, Basecamp. (You’re welcome, Chris.)

Every time it would load in IE, I would get an error message saying: “Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site, Operation aborted”. Damn IE. So, of course, the first thing I did was search Google for this error involving Google Maps. I came across an interesting blog post by Ryan Grant explaining a quick fix. I tried a few of his methods but none worked because we were calling the script from a rails view and the javascript for the Google Map is in the head of our layout so we couldn’t place the javascript after the BODY closing tag.

A comment on his blog post helped me find the right solution to keep the javascripts in the HEAD tag and call it with the “setTimeout(showMap());” in the onload method in the body tag. Worked great. Thanks Ryan and friends!

UPDATE: It seems that I was incorrect and I am still working to resolve this problem. I think that we need to use the cartographer helper in rails. I noticed that we weren’t using the helper and were just hardcoding the call to the jscript in the html view. I will be working on this all next week. I’ll let you know what happens.

I grew to dislike Gold, too. He was in every pot, pushing chips around and hitting flops. He was getting cards. There were only a few moments in the tourney where he may have faltered, but because of his huge chiplead, he never took a big hit.

I think there’s a certain way to behave at a poker table and, especially at a final table. When I think about big money poker tournaments, I think of players like John Juanda, Phil Ivey, Sammy Farha, Texas Dolly, Howard Lederer and Johnny Chan. Class acts. You are about to don a very sacred bracelet and win a lot of money. Be humble. Chan, it turns out is Gold’s mentor. Almost his foil, Chan watches silently as Gold noisily intimidates other players. I can’t imagine Chan’s reaction to Gold’s tawdry performance.

I’ve got to give some credit where it’s due. He put all the players on tilt. Most of them knew he was just getting hands, and some would call just to see if he really was bluffing or had a hand every flop. Often times when other players would think they were trapping him, Gold would have them out kicked our have a higher pocket pair. The chips were coming in spades. Sorry.

The thing is, Gold’s drama with the bodyguards and his loud, obnoxious behavior helped him take control of the final days of the tournament. Word was getting out after the first few days that Gold was amassing huge chip stacks and moving all in with absolutely nothing. King high, was the rumor. He pushed all in with K high, everyone folded and he showed the bluff. As the tourney wore on and most players saw no end to Gold’s domination, and, well I’m sure some people were pissed off. I would be. He’s not particularly good at playing but he truly played his part well.

Dressed in all black on the final days, he was a poker player’s worst nightmare. A loud, unpredictable player with a huge chipstack that he was shoving all over the table. Players waited for a decent hand and moved all in and Gold had over pairs on them. At one point Gold was on a complete bluff and needed one of two 7s to hit the board against trips or something and he pulled it. From there on in, it was just a matter of the details, who’d be second, third and fourth. Even until the last hand where he goaded a call from Paul Wasicka when he had the best hand, Gold always had the momentum. His entourage and bodyguards were in full effect and he’s going to need them.

One week after the tournament, a lawsuit was filed against Gold by Bruce Leyser. Leyser claims that Gold had agreed to split half of his earnings in the tournament with Leyser in exchange for Gold recruiting celebrities to wear bodog.com (a popular gambling site) apparel.

I’m sure he’d like to hire more bodyguards, but as far as I know, his winnings are being held by the Rio after an injuction from a judge pending review of the case. Gold’s lawyers had until September 15th to answer to the judge.

A little background

I used to do building maintenance in Neptune, NJ during the fall of 2001. My tasks involved sweeping the sidewalks, taking out garbage, vacuuming hallways, etc. It was a fairly menial job, but it paid the bills. I had to carry around a walkie so that when “Mac” called I could do what he wanted. He was the live-in super there. Old guy, real funny. But he didn’t really call much as time went by. In truth, most of the time I hung out in the pool house reading for most of the day. Those were the days.

At the time I was doing a musical in New Brunswick, NJ at the Cabaret Theatre called Blood Brothers. My friend Jay was the director and it was a lot of fun. I didn’t have a leading role of any sort and most of the time I was portraying a child and just being silly. It was a good show and I’d like to think I helped strengthen the ensemble who, too, were strong. I had been having a rough week when this story unfolded. I must have been stressed out about a girl, maybe. Damn you, spacedog. I really can’t remember why, exactly, but I know it was a rough week with tech week and all that. I’d wanted to get up there real early just to relax and go over lines before the show. But, there was going to be a small kink in my plans.

The day before

I was at work one day doing the usual. I was getting hungry so I went down the street to the Wawa where I get my sandwich which is comprised of turkey, munster cheese, mayo, pickles, lettuce and tomato. I return to the quiet poolhouse where I ate my sandwich. I miss Wawa subs. I read a bit more of The Green Mile before I finally got my ass up.

I grab a hose from the shed and start dragging it out to the hookup so I can spray down some walkways. I hear something above me. Sounds like a helicopter, but it’s too low. I look up to see a black helicopter flying awfully low right above me. I thought it odd, so I looked up and made the universal “You got me” shrug. I keep moving. Did some dirty work, blew some leaves, et all.

It was a quiet afternoon. After work, I went back up to New Brunswick for rehearsal and probably played Spades with Meg, Shan, Jon and Matt. An uneventful day, for the most part.

The next day

It was business as usual, except that I needed to meet the kid whose job I took over so that I can give him his final paycheck. I pull up to the condos and park my car. I’m looking for some kid I’ve never seen before , when I see the figure of someone in a parked car. I approach. He’s African American with a decent sized afro. My kinda guy.

I say, “Hey. Jim told me to give you this.” I looked for a response.

“Cool.” he said.

And that was that. I gave him his check, I shook his hand, and I went promptly to the poolhouse before I started working.

Some 15 minutes later, I snatch up some garbage and bring it out to the front near the dumpsters. At this time, I see a resident of the condos who I’ve spoken to before.

“Fine morning.” I said.

She replied that it was, indeed a fine morning, but that it was a shame about all the activity in the area.

Now that she mentioned it, I had noticed the activity. This place is usually dead. The town, the condo, all dead. Most of these people are in Florida in November. I asked her why it was so busy lately, exactly.

She replied, “Didn’t you hear? A little girl was kidnapped from Spring Lake yesterday and they think the guy is from around here.”

I said that I didn’t hear of it and thought to myself, “Hmmmph.”

This was the last thought I had that day that wasn’t to the tune of, “WTF is going on?” At that moment, a dozen unmarked cars ripped into the parking lot, pulled up in front of me with their guns drawn (or not drawn, it happened real fast.)

“Freeze!”

I must have looked behind me, because, surely they weren’t talking to me.

They were.

They were definitely talking to me.

To be continued . . .

Some folks thought he’d announce a widescreen video iPod.  Other’s thought they were upgrading to 640×480 resolution.  Nonsense!  Just some upgrades to the current gen5 to gen5.5 with a 3.5 hour increase on battery life and a 60% brighter screen.  Oh yea, and they’ve got it at 80gb for the top model now.  Some also speculated they’d stray from hard-disk storage since Samsung has introduced big capacity flash memory players, but that’s not out yet either. I guess the coolest things were the tiny shuffles they are releasing and the new nanos which are reworked and also will come in different colors.  Perfect for your favorite preteen.  I dunno, check it out.  I’m a little disappointed.  I ordered my gen5 the day of the press conference a few months back and now theyve upgraded the battery and the hard drive for those who buy it now.  Come on, Steve.  At least its nothing I can’t live without.

• Get the whole run down of the press conference.

In short, here’s what Steve announced today (also from Engadget):

• Apple launches “enhanced” 5.5G iPod
• 2G nano announced!
• iPod shuffle now “world’s smallest MP3 player”
• iTunes 7 with iTunes Movie Store announced!

And finally, Apple to release iTV video streaming box in 2007