Infinite Web Design

We’re glad to say that people are really enjoying BoomVote. They’ve been giving away piles of cash and prizes since the site launched. We’ve also added some great features like the Battle Mode - the winner gets both votes and are working on more. Anyhow, if you haven’t signed up yet you’re missing out. It’s a great time waster and you’ve got a great shot at winning some extra pizza money or free gear.

www.BoomVote.com

I know the Day the Music Died was marked by a plane crash, but today was a day that music was reborn for me. I’ve been a bit down on new music of late, with nothing really resonating with me. Perhaps it just means I’m getting old and set in my ways. Regardless, I’m really excited to discover that the spirit of the Push Kings lives on. Everybody Else appears to be carrying on with Carrick Moore Gerety at the helm turning out pop hits that make me want to roll down the windows on this first really nice day of the year and sing along while I drive (yeah, I know I never leave the house but that’s for another day). I’m really excited for when their full album hits the stores next month. It’s actually the first album I’ve looked forward to in a couple of years.

Carrick’s brother Finn is leading Finian McKean, which appears to be rather less fun, free spirited rock than Everybody Else. Ah, well one for two isn’t bad and I’m really glad to hear that the ridiculously catchy spirit of the Push Kings lives on. If you have the chance pick up everything the Push Kings ever did and keep an eye out for Everybody Else’s new album.

(via Boing Boing)

I thought this really excellently highlighted the absurdity of the official response to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF) ads in Boston. The people in that city should be scared, not of the light bright ads, but of the people in charge of protecting them.

Jesus was a carpenter. He built things out of wood before he got into the whole Son of God / Prophet / Messiah thing. He was known for being relaxed and groovy and exceptionally forgiving and fault tolerant. If the Church is to believed he befriended Mary Magdalene despite her being a whore, if the Da Vinci Code is to be believed he married her. I imagine that when he built a staircase he built it to work even when someone jumped up and down on it, slid down it on a rug, stacked scrolls on it, or used it in some way other than walking up and down the middle of it. He built it to be resilient. I bet that staircase wouldn’t completely collapse even if one of the steps cracked a little. Of course, that’s how it should be.

Tim Berners-Lee and his contemporaries took some lessons from Jesus when they designed the system for the Internet. Like Jesus’ staircase the Internet is forgiving and fault tolerant. It doesn’t shut down when used in new or unexpected ways. Bits of data are regularly lost when sent somewhere yet your email to Grandma arrives complete because the system is designed to be fault tolerant and survive errors. The Internet and World Wide Web are one of the coolest, most world changing technologies ever. Web technologies work and have spread and grown in popularity because they are forgiving and fault tolerant.
Continue reading What Would Jesus Build?

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on an Australian Federal Court Ruling against mp3s4free.net on appeal. The reporting indicated that this could hurt search engines, YouTube, bloggers, and anyone who might link to copyrighted material. However, I think that this may be overreacting to what is in essence a pretty reasonable ruling by the court. Anyone who has read this blog knows that I am not a fan of the RIAA or draconian copyright enforcement. I am a staunch supporter of fair use and balancing the very real interests of the people who collectively grant copyrights via the government and the content creators who are trying to profit from their work. In this case the site was trying to skirt the law by only linking to MP3’s rather than hosting them. However, the intent was clearly to help people download music they had not paid for for use in ways that has little if anything to to do with fair use and an awful lot to do not paying for the music.
Continue reading Australian Court Rules Against mp3s4free.net

(via Boing Boing)

Valour-IT is a non-profit that is providing wounded U.S. soldiers with laptops loaded with voice recognition software. These laptops help soldiers who are struggling to cope with new disabilities to communicate with family and friends and empowers them by providing a tool they can use even without the use of their hands. This is a great cause and well worth your support if you have even a few dollars to spare. You can donate online or by sending a check through the mail.

This is a great opportunity to bring up again the topic of accessibility and how important it is that the web sites and software we build be made as accessible as possible to help out those who can’t use a keyboard, mouse, and monitor effectively due to disabilities. Accessibility on web sites is often talked about only in terms of working with screen readers for visually impaired people, however there is a wide range of disabilities such as motor impairments as a result of injury that can keep someone from using a web site. While it’s not sexy or even very interesting to most customers, focusing on accessibility is good business because it opens doors to customers, and it is simply good, by helping out those who are already struggling to overcome a disability.

(Cartoon from Cox & Forkum, purveyors of fine political cartoons)

At some point in time it happens to everyone, you make a mistake. Sometimes they are big, sometimes small and sometimes they are perceived by others to bigger or smaller than they are. How you handle your mistakes can make a big difference in your relationship with a client. There are no hard and fast rules for handling these things. You have to apply some judgment based on the people you are working with. Are they fixated on blaming someone or on fixing the the problem? If their focus is blame, then you are dealing with a dysfunctional, paranoid culture, the type of environment where CYA (Covering Your Ass) is the most important activity you can participate in. If their focus is on fixing the problem then you’re in luck, assuming you are willing to work quickly to correct your mistake and move forward.

Web sites change quickly and are made by people. This leads to bugs and typos and other problems slipping through. Sometimes the pace of development and changing technologies means that you miss an update to a standard or the new best practice. Well, the bad news is you screwed up. The good news is that you don’t need to ship anything to fix it, you just have to update the site and FTP the changes to the server. Sometimes the error was a simple oversight and sometimes you didn’t know something you should have; either way you fix it, learn from it, and move on.

Handling the Blamers

Some people aren’t happy unless they have someone to blame. If they can’t move on without a scapegoat then own up to the mistake, point out your fast response once the mistake was pointed out, and assure them that you will do everything you can to prevent it from recurring. It takes a lot of the wind out of their sails when you cut off their finger pointing with a blunt assessment of your mistake. Just don’t dwell on the screw up, focus on the fix and your plan to move forward. If they continue to focus on blaming you for the mistake instead of the positive changes you just made they come out looking bad to everyone else.

This one is just from me, Brad will have to post on his Spartans when March Madness comes around, but this is a truly historic couple of days for the University of Michigan. Today the Michigan family lost a legend in Bo Schembechler. Bo was a giant who helped shape the proud Michigan football tradition.

Tomorrow our football team faces Ohio State in one of the biggest games ever. Bitter rivals, the top two teams in the country, and the winner gets a shot at the National Championship. Today was a sad day to be a Michigan fan, tomorrow will be a great one as we cheer our team to victory in Columbus.

Go Blue!

Russel Davies writes about how to be interesting (unrelated to the recent brouhaha surrounding the Flickr interestingness patent). This seems to be related to the phenomenon of homophily (the tendency to associate with people like yourself). By stepping outside of your comfort zone to learn and try new things you are breaking from the personal inertia that binds so many of us to our boring daily routines.
Continue reading Being Interesting

(via O’Reilly’s Radar)

Homophily refers to the tendency to associate with people who are like you. This is as common in chat rooms as it is in elementary school lunch rooms. There is a natural tendency to seek out and associate with other people that are like us in some way. It makes us feel like we “belong”, like we are not alone. Sometimes this is harmless and even beneficial, as when quilters find each other and form a club. They get satisfaction and enjoyment out of their shared interest. Sometimes it is very bad, as when young men and women with radical inclinations find each other and push one another toward terrorism, strengthening one another’s resolve to kill. Generally the effects are somewhere in the middle, bringing us together with like minded individuals but limiting our exposure to new and interesting people or ideas.
Continue reading Homophily