Veteran’s Day
In the 11th minute, of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month… Thanks to all now serving and those who have served.
Reflections of a Train Wreck
Perhaps Mike Lupica summed up the last 30 days of Red Sox baseball best: “It was like Mookie’s hit took 30 days to roll between Buckner’s legs.” Any Red Sox fan with half a brain could not have been shocked by Wednesday’s epic failure. With the exception of Ellsbury, Pedroia, Aceves and Scoutaro, this was a team that either gave up in early September, or flat out never really cared to begin with. I could get into the numbers, such…
Widgets – The Special Sauce for Android
Since January I’ve been rockin’ the HTC Evo 4g after being a long term iPhone user thanks to a ludicrous encounter with AT&T’s braindead customer service team. In that time, I’ve found the Android experience to be a great one, and in many ways, it’s an improvement over the old iPhone. I finally pinned down the primary reason the other day: widgets. You see widgets on the Android phone allow me to put the information I want to see right…
The Forgotten 404 Page
There’s a page on your site that never gets any love. You don’t really spend time thinking about it, your readers hate it when they see it and Google dings you for search if you don’t have it set up correctly. The lowly 404 page… Admit it, you probably don’t even know what yours looks like. Why should you? You setup everything right on the site, then no one should ever see it. Wrong…no matter how well you run your…
Gone in 60 Seconds – Survival at Sea Edition
I saw the video on the news the other night of these guys who’s boat sank and one was able to film the entire episode with his helmet cam. It was truly scary stuff for any boater, but for me, having been through the same ordeal, it was utterly terrifying. Many of you may have heard the story, perhaps told glibly after a few too many beers. The truth is, that’s generally the only way I can tell it. On…
WordPress Scalability
I know why I turn off many of the “tech experts” and “internet celebrities” – they’re wrong so often it makes my head spin. Take Chris Pirillo today on Google + pitching Tiki as a CMS, as an alternative to WordPress or MediaWiki. The statement as to why he doesn’t like WordPress was very plain: “it doesn’t scale”. Bullshit on that I say! It most certainly does scale and I’ve proven that over the years. Geek.com alone used to withstand…
America at a Crossroads – Death of Privacy and the Rise of the Machine
We live at a critical juncture in history. Technology has reached a point where it is not only tool which we use to control the world around us, it is now potentially becoming a way for the world to control us. Yes, I sound like I should be wearing a tinfoil hat as I write this. But the truth is that right now, in Massachusetts we have the state police actively scanning the cars on our highways for wants, warrants,…
Welcome to the “Leper Colony”
Google + and Facebook both present an interesting question to us eventually; what do we do when we are asked to (or already have) friend someone we’d really rather not have amongst our friends. Blocking a user is rather extreme, and often, I don’t want to take the chance that someone might find out I blocked them. Often I have trouble with people who are too verbose, posting 30 tech articles a day that I have no interest in reading. …
How to know your Web Designer Isn’t…
I’ve had the opportunity over the years to work with some real first class web designers. People like Mark Hentschel, Jill Cole and Bill Hall, just to name a few. Unfortunately, there have also been a bunch on the other side who’ve billed themselves as web designers and weren’t…so here’s a list off the warning signs that you’re dealing with a web designer who isn’t a web designer. The design arrives as a flat jpg image that looks like it’s…
Thoughts on Google + After Limited Use
Okay, I’ve used Google + for a couple days now which makes me utterly qualified to render summary judgement on it. I like it. At least enough that I’ll keep using it for the short term. I think it quite possibly will bridge the gaps between the public stream which I use Twitter for, meatspace friends who I keep on Facebook and the working world which I avoid on LinkedIn. Here I can have them all and keep them segregated…