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Archive for September, 2009

Tagging everything, for a reason

September 30th, 2009

Since the inception of this site, I’ve taken to the task of tagging every post with a stunning amount of tags. I tag the posts (and links) with as much information as possible in the hopes that it will add relational value when you’re searching in this site’s search application, or using some other search appliance (e.g. Bing, Google).

Running WordPress, I’m able to add tags to posts without working at it through a function of Simple Tags. It uses comment phrases to try and add tags based on simple keywords. If I use the word ‘WordPress’, for example, it will add a WordPress tag, even if I forgot to explicitly add it.

Also, the All in One SEO Pack adds post tags to the page META tags. While this isn’t apparent to the user just looking on the page, it helps search engines to figure out what the page is about. Additionally, like I wrote before, it also helps the built–in WordPress search appliance.

One application of all the tagging (besides search) is the use of the Similar Posts plugin on the reference links page. Their function is sort of, “I’m done with this page, now what do I do?” The use of tags helps figure out what will be relevant. Granted, this is done with a combination of human tagging, computer guessing, and dumb luck, but it seems to work fairly well so far.

But the big reason I am doing all this tagging isn’t just to tag everything. It really isn’t important that I’m tagging all this stuff, but why I’m tagging all this stuff. I tag all this stuff because, at some point, somebody will try and build upon an idea I write. Or will be looking for something completely different. Or looking for just this thing.

The main reason I tag everything is because I have no idea what anyone wants to know. Think of these tags as writer’s notes when translating languages. It’s a way to translate from my mind to the reader.

September 28, 2009

What The Trend? explains why something trends on Twitter search: If this didn’t exist, then somebody would make it. I wonder how long until Twitter just goes ahead and makes something like this for themselves, instead of using another, unaffiliated site? Seems a useful extension of their real–time search product, to me. #

Google adds Hot Trends into Search: Always nice to see something useful added to Google Search results. While I don’t believe this will hurt the appeal of Twitter’s real–time search, it will help explain why people searched for those results. #

QuickCursor: It adds a service to 10.5 and 10.6 that lets you edit text in any application you desire. Useful if you don’t want Safari to crash while you’re working on a long email. I use something similar with Textmate, so I know this will help people out, once they get used to it. #

Big Text: Another Text Ascii Art Generator. I don’t know why, but I love these things. The drop–down list is a drag, though. #

September 26, 2009

Stainless: Minimalist new browser that seems to fit somewhere outside of Google Chrome and Safari. Supports something they call ‘parallel session’, or the ability to log into the same site with different credentials. #

Mr T graphically explains the Konami Code: Dan Brown would be proud. #

Konami-JS lets you easily put the Konami Code on your website: For those of you who don’t know what the code is, it’s: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. Well, technically it’s Enter, but there’s no Start on my keyboard, so they changed it to Enter. #

September 25, 2009

WordPress jQuery contact form without a plugin: Trevor Davis creates this contact form using only the WordPress templating system and jQuery. #

Next On…: Shaun Inman comes up with a lot of nifty, web–related things. He came up with these javascript bookmarklets that add the ability to go to the previous and next posts. Useful if you’re using Safari’s command + [1-9] key command to quickly move back and forth in website archives. #

Fresh vs. Familiar: How Aggressively to Redesign: Jakob Nielsen reasoning why it’s best to make gentle changes, rather than go with spaghetti on the wall:
Generally, it’s best to evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design. I thus strongly recommend getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live for several years with minor updates. Before you release anything to customers, use techniques such as rapid iterative design and paper prototypes to thoroughly explore the design space and polish the usability.
#

Feverish Editing

September 25th, 2009

I missed something that I’m attributing to fiendish cleverness when I first looked at Fever’s sharing preferences. It seems that Mr. Inman wants you to edit them:

e-d-i-t

You can see it in the screen shot I took on my previous post, as well. It could be just random chance, as the folks that use those forms of social sharing are most likely to be the same people who buy Fever. But I’ll just have to stay with my supposition that he gave the subconscious cue to change the settings.

September 24, 2009

Cabel Sasser turns the Windows 7 Party into something interesting: Proving once again, it’s always funnier when you censor the cussing. #

Rise of the Tablog: Nick Cernis has a gripe with blogs becoming too centered on production, rather than just being stuff people write:
It’s frightfully hard to write a blog without feeling that it must do something: even the most humble blogger is encouraged to create a unique selling point, target a ‘laser-focussed niche’, embrace social media, spawn viral content, track stats, and have a dedicated marketing drive; they must teach and inspire, build ‘authority’, start a ‘conversation’, and foster a ‘community’; they should seek out a purpose, a gameplan, a revenue stream, and an exit strategy.
While I agree with most of what he writes, different people will always have different ideas about what great content is. That’s why we get posts like this ever few months. This essay seems like another part of the regular cycle of ‘blogs are dead’ that never seems to stop showing up. #

September 23, 2009

The 7 signs your UI was created by a programmer: The ghosts of Visual Basic 6 are coming back to haunt me. These are spot on, with this being my pet peeve:
6. Not implemented message boxes
Ahh, the GUI equivalent of source code TODO comments. Of course, it’s an in-house software give-away; no commercial (desktop) software would be brazen enough to ship with bits of functionality dangling from the stumps of buttons and menu items.
#

iPhone Design Template Sketchbook: For the people who need paper to be creative, I guess this will work. Nice if you’re just brainstorming. #

Insert WebKit into Internet Explorer with Google Chrome Frame: Google trying to find ways to beat the Internet Explorer problem. #

Lots of advice for that new Apple notebook: Especially for the batteries. I did not realize I needed to do this. Stupid modern technology.
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time.
Apple recommends you discharge the battery once a month. Now you tell me. #

September 22, 2009

Six Degrees of Wikipedia: Like the Kevin Bacon game. Interesting to see how much of Wikipedia relates with the rest of Wikipedia. Or, in some cases, doesn’t relate. #

Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking: I’m not sure how this question came up again.
Q: Does this mean that Google will always ignore the keywords meta tag?

A: It’s possible that Google could use this information in the future, but it’s unlikely. Google has ignored the keywords meta tag for years and currently we see no need to change that policy.
#

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity: The first one sets the tone:
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
While I won’t agree with all that’s written here, it sure sounds like the author got most of this right. Taken in context, it all makes sense. #

The Mac OS X Name Game

September 22nd, 2009

A while ago I wrote about the problem of naming an operating system after an animal. While it takes the technical jargon off it, and it becomes more manageable from a marketing standpoint, it makes it incredibly difficult to put in context. This is a redux of the same rant I had on a day when I got tired of people calling that operating system ‘Leopard’.

If I hear Mac OS X 10.5 called ‘Leopard’ one more time, I think I’m going to start that killing spree I’m always going on about. Oh, and now it’s even better, with the ‘Snow Leopard’. And just to keep upping my urge to kill, people trying to be cute are calling it Snowy Leopard. Prison is sounding more and more like a workable option.

You see, Apple came up with this nifty convention of code–naming the operating system by some large cat name. With each 10.x iteration, it’s given the next version a new, feline–inspired code–name. While cute and fun in 2004 (and somewhat kitsch), it’s grown beyond its usefulness.

Here’s a fun game: let’s put these in order:

Puma
Leopard
Tiger
Cheetah
Panther
Jaguar
Snow Leopard
Lion

Got it? Here’s the answer:

Cheetah
Puma
Jaguar
Panther
Tiger
Leopard
Snow Leopard
Lion

Simple, really, because, in every bit of writing you ever find, you’ll see something like this: Mac OS X 10.4 Panther. Honestly, there’s not any need for either the numbers or the name. Pick one, and it makes it easier to define. Cheetah is 10.0, Puma is 10.1, and so on.

The problem with this, however, is that without stating what ‘Cheetah’ is, you’ve no perspective. Even in writing this, I continue to mess up the order. It’s just too confusing going by the accepted convention of animal names. That’s what my next quiz demonstrates.

Put these in order:

10.7
10.4
10.0
10.6
10.3
10.5
10.2
10.1

I’ll guide you to Wikipedia or Google to figure out the answers to this one. The point being, after seven public releases of Mac OS X, it’s time to retire the big cats, and go with the more logical, numbering convention. I don’t even think I’m out of line with Apple’s marketing strategy.

I think. I could be wrong.

Unnecessary additional rant on 10.5’s packaging

For some reason, Apple decided to not even use any actual Leopards when they got their promotional material for 10.5’s launch. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, nor does it now. I think somebody got a clue, because 10.6 is just silly with pictures of snow–covered leopards.

Photoshoped, bloodless snow–covered leopards, but I digress…

Take a look at that box. See any fur? No, you see the spiral of some fictional galaxy, far, far away. It’s the way they’re showcasing Time Machine, the spiffy new backup technology that’s one of the planks in the upgrade campaign. Really, the only place you’ll see any fur is on the disk itself, and not on any of the promotional material, and not on Apple’s website.

Furless Leopard

No, it’s all about things that are not mammals. Except the name. Stop it, already.

September 21, 2009

The Data Liberation Front: Google being serious about being open. I’ve often wondered why they offer so many ways to get your stuff out of Google apps (e.g. like all the data you can pull out of Analytics). Their motto:
Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google’s products. Our team’s goal is to make it easier for them to move data in and out.
More places should do this (*cough* *cough* Facebook Twitter MySpace etc etc etc *cough* *cough*). #

Georgia and Verdana typefaces become credible: I consider this a rather stunning announcement, considering the source (Microsoft). #

The HTML5 drag and drop disaster: A fine rant about something that Microsoft came up with that has somehow survived, and made it into HTML5. It should not have:
Web developers MUST NOT (in the sense of RFC 2119) use HTML5 drag and drop. They should use old-school scripts instead.

….

In fact, it’s so outrageously bad that I’ve gone on strike. I refuse to do any more research on drag and drop. Go do it yourself. Or don’t bother. Whatever. I don’t care.
#

Thin Text in Safari: Mac OS X 10.6 changes the way text is displayed in Safari. This WebKit–specific code fixes the display in Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5 and later. Fixes a problem I didn’t even realize I had. Thanks fellas!

[via] #

Iconic Art: Felix Jimenez shows his favorite icons from his Mac. The attention to detail on these things is amazing, especially since the upgrade in pixels beginning in Mac OS X 10.5. It also shows widowed text on the Dictionary app. This bugs me because I expect Apple’s icons to be picture (and grammar) perfect. #

Aggressive Graceful Degradation: Jonathan Christopher on how to properly deal with the problems associated with Internet Explorer 6. He gives his best reason to continue working with the ancient browser in the first paragraph:
No matter how much it may bother us, IE6 is still quite a hot topic around our little community. Two camps have recruited their groups and each seems quite comfortable with the accepted stance on their side of the fence. To one segment, IE6 is literally a bane of existence, and taking active aggressive measures against IE is daily practice. The other side, however, sucks it up and deals.
#

September 18, 2009

The Ultimate Productivity Blog: Doubtless this will make its rounds on all the various productivity and “Getting Things Done” sites, with their patrons endlessly discussing how this will improve their efficiency. Instead of working. #

Picasso, Copying, Stealing, and Woodshedding: I have to wonder if somebody was reading my mind this morning. I was thinking about how Picasso mastered so many other forms of art than the ones you probably remember. Knowing that, it makes sense that his most famous quote made more sense when you put it in context. Joshua Blankenship does that. #

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Archive for September, 2009

Tagging everything, for a reason

Feverish Editing

The Mac OS X Name Game

Unnecessary additional rant on 10.5’s packaging

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