UPDATE: My account is back! Turns out I had test account(s) (as a developer) that weren’t officially “test” accounts by Facebook’s standards. I wish Facebook would have notified me in some manner. They should definitely be more careful with this if they want people to trust them with all of that personal data. This made me think a lot about how much precious “information” (memories) I trust they will keep available to me. Anyway, it is good to be back! Thanks everyone for your support and insights.
Facebook disabled my account, and didn’t tell me why. The other day, as I was trying to comment on a Lifehacker thread using their super-cool Facebook Connect integration, I received this message: keep on reading »
Twitter is all of the rage with the kids these days. No kidding. It’s all the rage with the webcocks* too. Here’s how to kick ass with Twitter, without being a webcock. These tips are written with the assumption that you are using Twitter for marketing purposes and want to be seen as influential, interesting, and helpful. keep on reading »
UPDATE January 25, 2009: Until further notice, all of the links to 4sli.de will be dead, as the code competition we built it for provided sponsored web space that expired.
It used to be, design work was presented in person. A pitch would be made in a board room, explaining the process behind a design, and it would be unveiled before the client. Nowadays, more and more design work is presented remotely, which is great for your flexible schedule, but takes all of the theater out of “selling” your work. E-mail isn’t very professional, PowerPoint and PDFs present version-control issues, and conference calls made over WebEx aren’t asynchronous for the hectic schedules of yourself and your clients. You just need a simple way to present work to your clients, on nice, professional-looking, clickable, web pages. That’s why we built 4sli.de. keep on reading »
Many web applications suffer from feature bloat. Their Product Development teams fall victim to thinking that just because one, or even two, or even three users suggest a feature, that it should be implemented. The result is a more complex application that requires more development time, more stuff that can go wrong, more maintenance. How do you prevent this problem? keep on reading »
I’ve encountered many back-end web developers who feel that there’s alot of mystery – even snobbery – behind visual design. There are plenty of rules of do’s and don’ts for web design out there, but I wanted to condense some of the theories behind design into a few simple concepts. I presented this at BarCampChicago so you know what to look for to understand the next great design you see. Check out the great video of the presentation that my shadow made:
I not-so-recently sat down with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery of 36point.com‘s Reflex Blue Show to talk about networking for designers – hopefully, without being a webcock – and to take my first sip of Mountain Dew in over a decade. Check it out here!
The one app I use more than any other on my iPhone is the timer. It’s great to be able to fully concentrate on the task at hand while waiting for a future task to be ready for action. Here’s just a few things you can use your iPhone timer for:
You’ve decided that working in an office isn’t for you. You don’t like doing the same tasks over and over again, you can’t stand the politics, and the commute is killer. More than anything, the idea that you have to sit in a certain spot between certain hours of every day is just asinine to you. So you go it alone – maybe you’re a business consultant, a writer, or a freelance designer.
The main problem the beginning Twitter user encounters is that they can’t manage all of the activity on their cell phone. Once you are following a few people, the number of updates coming to your phone will be overwhelming. Many people end up turning off their updates to their phone entirely – and then probably abandoning Twitter altogether – but it doesn’t have to be this way! You can still participate in Twitter and have the relevant stuff go to your mobile device while the less critical stuff is waiting for you on your Twitter home page. keep on reading »
I have a foot injury right now. The bottom of my foot sort of hurts. I could go to the doctor, but I don’t because of a couple of reasons. 1) I already know what he’ll say: “stay off it, keep it elevated, ice it regularly, and take ibuprofen” and 2) because while I’m one of the lucky Americans who has health insurance, my insurance totally blows. A simple checkup would probably cost me about $150.
Facebook disabled my account, and didn’t tell me why. The other day, as I was trying to comment on a Lifehacker thread using their super-cool Facebook Connect integration, I received this message: keep on reading »
Twitter is all of the rage with the kids these days. No kidding. It’s all the rage with the webcocks* too. Here’s how to kick ass with Twitter, without being a webcock. These tips are written with the assumption that you are using Twitter for marketing purposes and want to be seen as influential, interesting, and helpful. 
Many web applications suffer from feature bloat. Their Product Development teams fall victim to thinking that just because one, or even two, or even three users suggest a feature, that it should be implemented. The result is a more complex application that requires more development time, more stuff that can go wrong, more maintenance. How do you prevent this problem? 
The main problem the beginning Twitter user encounters is that they can’t manage all of the activity on their cell phone. Once you are following a few people, the number of updates coming to your phone will be overwhelming. Many people end up turning off their updates to their phone entirely – and then probably abandoning Twitter altogether – but it doesn’t have to be this way! You can still participate in Twitter and have the relevant stuff go to your mobile device while the less critical stuff is waiting for you on your Twitter home page.