Everything In Between

Paul Graham has a fantastic article over on his site about How To Make Wealth that I think anyone who can read should read.

Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.

There are always a bunch of interesting things on my plate, and sooner rather than later I’ll test the waters of a slightly new area. The problem with having so many interests, however, is that I keep jumping around from one area to another and never really learn enough about one thing to do it well. So here’s my early new year’s resolution: prioritize my interests, and (as much as it makes sense to do so) learn about them one by one. I’ll start with podcasting.

To that end, I’m going to regurgitate my old audio entries and turn them into true podcasts so you can get at them with iTunes and your iPod. The first entry is tested right here. Just subscribe to the podcast feed in Atom or the same feed in RSS 2 with a podcast-enabled application (like iTunes) and enjoy. (The podcast feeds are also linked to from the news feeds page, which lists all the news feeds I publish.)

Happy holidays, everyone!

Due to the fact that the old site’s forums were hacked (darn script kiddies), and all the content was deleted I’m closing that section of the site for now. It just wasn’t active enough to merit staying around anyway, really, and unfortuantely I don’t have a recent backup because (like I said) it hasn’t been active in forever.

I feel bad about removing all the good advice that was written there from the site, but chances are unless I reorganize the architecture of that section, it just won’t be seen anyway. Maybe it’ll come back to life in the future. Until that notice, however, the forums are no longer available.

Earlier, I was with my brother and we were talking about his new job as the Publicity Coordinator for the UVM Program Board. I don’t know quite what the situation is, but it sounds like he wants to make their current web site more relevant to the students. I applaud that effort. To that end, I showed him what WordPress, a blogging tool, might be able to do for them.

However, as I was going over the system with him I was reminded of this interview with Jefferey Veen, in which he says that most web sites and companies never need a CMS, and that it may very well fail in the first year anyway. According to Veen, the most important factor to consider when thinking about whether to use a new CMS is only the basics.

“What’s the absolute least you can get away with?” Initially, teams should get the super-simple solution working and, only then, start adding complexity.

This strategy is very sound because it focuses on the active process of getting content published, which is the ultimate goal. Here’s one area where blogging tools like WordPress really shine. At its roots, it is a super-simple mechanism for writing stuff that gets published on a web site. Contrast this goal with other, more “robust” CMS packages like PostNuke or Drupal, and it’s easy to see why the more one tool tries to do, the less effective it will potentially be for certain organizations.

Content management isn’t a software problem at all. It’s a process problem. By solving process problems, you often find you don’t even need software. Many companies buy software thinking that it will fix their process problems. But that’s like buying Microsoft Word hoping that it will make you a better writer.

(That’s not to say that PostNuke and Drupal are bad CMS packages, they’re just different, but I’ve never known anyone to be happy with either of these products when all they wanted to do was “get my page online.” Most of their features are overkill, either too complicated or too confusing or, even worse, not relevant for the average business web site.)

This “best tool for the job” philosophy is too often overlooked by webmasters who are rushing to get it all done. Analyzing a web site’s needs is the most important step towards building a site that works. And that brings me back to the UVM Program Board.

Starting from scratch they have a golden opportunity to define their workflow and create a process for creating content that works for them. WordPress might be a great tool to aid in that process because they have the content and the architecture they need to start using it right away. In other words, the role of their CMS will be to provide access to content to the appropriate people. Everything else is the job of a person. Veen says it best:

[…] a CMS is almost never a piece of software that you can buy and start using right away. Rather, they are platforms — frameworks for building custom content applications based on an organization’s needs.

So in short, Shir, congratulations on your new position as the Publicity Coordinator, and I’m proud of you for thinking of innovative new ways to use the Web to achieve your goals. That said, keep in mind that whatever you end up doing with the site, whether it’s using WordPress or not, remember that it’s all just a tool to get another job done. Keep the big picture in mind, and I know you’ll succeed.

Update: On further examination of their site, it looks like some sections might be using Moveable Type as a blogging system. Either way, the point I’m trying to make is that whatever system you use has to be compatible with the way you work, and the way you work needs to be planned out well before you start picking a CMS to install.

With a bit of free time over breakfast, I was fiddling with my personal site and looking over my bookshelf. I decided to make an Amazon guide to “becoming a front-end web design guru” based on many of the books in my ever-expanding collection. So without further ado, here it is, my guide to becoming a front-end web-design guru, featuring the most varied and useful set of 20 books I have ever read:

The Grim Truth

Let’s face it. These days, any Joe-shmo with Microsoft FrontPage can call himself a web developer or designer. But web surfers can tell the difference between a professionally designed site and a site designed by your dentist’s brother’s roommate’s best friend’s boyfriend. To be professional, you have to design with web standards in mind, focusing on usability and accessibility. And it has to look good — really good.

The Tools You’ll Use

First, you’re going to need to stock your toolbox. Start with the basics. Learn how to manipulate page layouts with (X)HTML and CSS by reading Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design. Occasionally, you’ll need a dash of JavaScript Design. Finally, learn what works best by Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity.

Building It Right

The Zen of CSS Design : Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter) is possible for you! Building professional web sites means Building Accessible Websites (With CD-ROM). No matter how good your design may be, it won’t mean anything if it doesn’t load quickly, so don’t forget to always Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization. Then put it all together to create Bulletproof Web Design : Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS. But you’re not done yet! Help people find your site by giving it Search Engine Visibility.

Really Good References

While you’re doing all these things, don’t be afraid to let curiosity get the better of you. Expand upon the projects in the previous books by doing things differently, doing things your own way. As you tinker, you’ll come across situations in which you don’t know how to do something. For those situations, use the following must-have references to quickly look up information about a particular technology.

For (X)HTML: HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition
For CSS: Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition and CSS Cookbook
For JavaScript: JavaScript Definitive Guide

Helpful Bonus Books

Read The JavaScript Anthology : 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks to learn even more about what you can do with JavaScript and how to solve real-world problems with DHTML. Get more usability insight from Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed and Don’t Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition). Arm yourself with an arsenal of Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook (Pioneering Series) to take on The Real Business of Web Design.

Learn all the Secrets of Successful Web Sites if you’re involved with larger-scale project management, or if you’re of the entrepeneurial bent, find out How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Business, 2nd (Home-Based Business Series) or How to Be a Successful Internet Consultant.

Oi. Another sleepless night. Not for any bad reason, really, so no worries. It’s just that I’ve been consistently staying up ’til way past bedtime. I blame the strike because I’ve been cooped up in this neighborhood for way too long (and because I can). As a result, I’ve been unable to stop myself from pulling those crazy all-nighter coding/studying/working sessions that I’m infamous for.

They’re really not healthy, and I know I should stop, but i just can’t. I even made it a personal rule a while back, and I’ve been good about it and every other rule ’til these past few days. Maybe it’s the fact that Sara’s away. I hate to sound corny (sometimes) but I really have nothing to look forward to at night anymore. Sleep isn’t really something I want to do when it means thirty minutes of feeling lonely each night. And I miss cuddling.

So I’ve been coding and studying and working late at night to make myself stay awake. It didn’t really matter since I couldn’t go anywhere anyway. I was planning to get several gifts, but the strike meant I couldn’t get to them. Enter the Internet (and my generous brother), stage left, which saved the day as far as gifts are concerned.

But there’s still one more gift I need to buy, and since it won’t ship on time, I now have a reason to get out of the house tomorrow. Of course, seeing as how it’s 5:40 in the morning right now, if I go to sleep then I’m going to wake up at 3 PM again, and that just won’t do. So I’m staying up this night in the hopes of resetting my sleep patterns yet again. Maybe I’ll even get more studying done. (I hope I’ll remember what I read.)

Oh, and all the late-night coding has led to some improvements around this site, such as several new WordPress plugins. The most notable of these is the Subscribe To Comments Plugin, which will send you an email alert whenever a comment that you’re subscribed to is replied to. In other words, when you leave a comment, check the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” option to be notified of followup comments to your comments via email (uh, duh).

Um, what else? Ah, yes, Maymay Media’s contact page and several other sections got a minor upgrade too. The contact page was the biggest deal, because it was well past due for me to include additional information from the sender in the messages I get from it.

What surprised me, though, was that I spent more time deciding which options to add than I did coding them. This goes to show me how much I’ve learned since I first created the site. No longer do I question if I can do something, but rather how long it might take me.

I’m also studying quite a bit from the AppleCare Technician Training course, preparing for the ACDT exams and my upcoming Apple interview (the latter of which I’ll say very little about here). I’m learning more than I can remember in one go, but it still feels good. I learn best through hands-on experiences, not through reading coursebooks, so I’m going to make a very serious effort at getting my hands on some sick Macs to fix as soon as I can. This will probably take the form of launching the Mayday Tech Support web site ASAP.

Ah, and I almost forgot: I’ve been starting to take a close look at Microsoft’s .NET Framework and, more specifically, ASP.NET. There’s money there, and it would be extremely beneficial to know how to swim in the Microsoft waters. So a recent opportunity has afforded me the chance to get Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, and I’m using it as a learning tool for the time being.

I think that’s it. Now it’s time for breakfast.

Seagate, one of the largest digital media manufacturers today, is buying almost $2 billion of stock in their competitor, Maxtor. According to the official announcement, Seagate says they will hopefully reduce product costs.

“Seagate is excited about the opportunity to achieve greater scale, reduce supply chain costs, and leverage combined R&D efforts across a broader product set. With the increased scale of the combined company, we can reduce overall product costs and provide more innovative products at more competitive prices,” said Bill Watkins, Seagate CEO. “We believe this is a strategic combination that will provide value for our shareholders as well as benefits for our customers.”

This makes sense, and I’m all for saving money, but storage is so cheap for consumers these days that I find myself wondering how much cheaper they’ll be able to make it. My guess is that rather than lower prices, we’ll simply see larger capacity drives being offered. Bring on the free space.

[via the Tao of Mac]

Update: ArsTechnica has a good summary of the news and some brief speculation on what this means for consumers. In it, they touch on one of the points I made above:

As the cost per gigabyte has decreased over the past several years, pressure has been building on the major drive manufacturers to increase capacities and grow their market share. With the PC market poised to continue growing, home theater PCs becoming more popular, and users demanding more and more storage space for content of all sorts (I’m looking at you, HDTV lovers), demand is likely to be strong for the foreseeable future. The new question is whether consumers will enjoy the same upward trends in storage capacity and downward movement in price now that there are fewer players fighting for market share.

And so I have. Shiny new version of WordPress, shiny new, er, default template. Yeah, I know. But I want a personal project to give me some sort of break between the actual work-work and the studying for the ACDT certifications. It’ll be my coffee break coding stuff. Thing. Which I’ll work on tomorrow. When I have some capability of writing in full sentences. G’night. Oh, and naturally, if things start going haywire and you spot some bugs, do let me know. Thanks.

Here’s an early holiday gift to everyone who’s asked me about how to sync their Safari bookmarks, Address Book contacts, iCal calendars, and Mail accounts without purchasing the $99 per year .Mac account from Apple: use MySync. From the web site:

MySync provides the Mac-to-Mac syncing capabilities of .mac, without .mac

Instead of syncing your data via Apple’s servers, MySync runs in a Master-Slave configuration on your local network.

MySync uses the Apple Sync Engine built into Tiger, just like .mac and Apple’s iSync.

Tiger supports syncing for the following data types: Bookmarks, Calendars, Contacts, Keychains¹, Mail Accounts, and Mail Rules,
Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes.

As more applications utilise Apple’s Sync Engine, MySync will automatically support them.

Since I have a .Mac account (and yes, of course I use it for more than just syncing), I haven’t bothered to try this program out. If you do, I’d like to hear how well it works for you. Happy holidays.

Whatever you’re doing on your computer, you’re going to be using documents of all shapes and sizes. It’s very likely that a lot of these documents are very similar to each other. (Just think about how many emails we write each day.) Instead of starting from scratch each time, use a template so basic elements of your document are automatically created each time you need a new one. Mac OS X makes creating templates extremely simple by allowing almost any document to be marked “as stationery.”

Whenever you open a document marked this way, your Mac will open a copy of the document instead. I use this feature daily not only to create templates for things like letters and invoices but also to ensure consistency in my work.