C-based flight simulator with code shaped like an airplane….

Extra time with the tabs…

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) increased Internet radio’s royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent on March 2, 2007 which is unsustainable for the young medium. Read up on the issue and give your support to keep the InterWebs diverse and unique.

The deadline for action is about 2 weeks away. Do you enjoy internet radio? Do you value diversity and individual voices? Get more information here.

Ahh the good old college days… sleeping in until 10 or 11 am… wandering to class… avoiding homework for all hours of the night… pulling all-nighters and turning in code at 6 am. These engineering students are keeping the tradition alive by creating a post-it representation of Donkey Kong on the windows of their engineering building. Back in my day we would just build elaborate structures to allow us to hurl roommates down the hallway on rolling chairs….

Ahh college…

This is a little dated, but I just got a chance to read the xkcd archives and it really puts things into perspective.

Courtesy of xkcd

I think Don Imus is a grade-A capital-J Jerk, but I have to agree with Scott Adams on his assessment of what seemed to be missing from the resolution:

• Dilbert.Blog: Perfection No reasonable person can fault the Rutgers team for the way they felt in this situation, nor the way they handled it. And nothing could have prepared them for the sort of power they acquired overnight. Their coaches and advisors had never been in this situation either. And while the athletes achieved greatness, how could any of them know how near to perfection they were? Their point had been made. The message had been delivered. What was missing?

  Forgiveness.

  They could have asked Imus’ employers to rehire him, and in so doing, shown the world the difference between greatness and perfection.

Forgiveness would have been the cherry on the top of the perfect resolution. And it would have shown the world that you can forgive those who have wronged you. Clearly there is not nearly enough forgiveness being doled out these days.

The Web 2.0 Expo was a blur… was very busy all day and into the night. Since I’ve been back things have been very hectic at work and I feel like I need to work nonstop for several weeks before I might have a chance of catching up. Sorry I didn’t post more from the conference.

The slides from several of the presentations are here. Most of the ones I attended were very good – a few were boring and some were covering old stuff.

Highlights:
• Integrating user feedback into iterative improvements in agile development
• Using CSS nomenclature so that a designer can design the entire look of the UI and developers can input javascript properly – changes to either the CSS or the javascript shouldn’t affect each other and the designer can make look changes just by changing the CSS without breaking any javascript. This has a lot of merit – I need to find their slides and I’ll post them when I do.
• Microformats – I attended a few talks on these and went to the dinner with the group that’s working on the specifying various kinds. I need to read up on this, but it seems that this would be very valuable for some of the content on our publication websites, specifically the directories information.

More as I get time to digest….

There’s no place like 127.0.0.1

The Dinner:

I’m heading out to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo. If you happen to be also attending, or just in the area, shoot me a line or look for me in the back channels. I’ll try to post some from the show, but the schedule is completely packed and I haven’t quite figured out where I need to be at what time. More later…

• Tech.Blorge.com: Survey: most people know about Vista but few intend to upgrade While most online computers users are aware of Microsoft’s Windows Vista, few are intending to switch over to the new operating system anytime soon, according to a recent Harris Poll. The Harris Poll of 2223 US online adults in early March found that 87% were aware of Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, only 12% of Vista-aware respondents were intending to upgrade to Vista in the next 12 months.

Interesting numbers – very different from what Microsoft is claiming, but on for what I would expect. Moving to a new OS is pretty scary for most people, doubly so when the upgrade requires either massive hardware upgrades or a new computer. I’m fairly sure we saw a similar response when Apple originally started their OSX campaign. I was one of the first people to install it, but most people didn’t bother until they either bought a new computer that it came on or several releases later (10.3 I’m guessing?).

• Lost Remote: Things Web Viewsers Never, Ever Say In 2003, I wrote a piece called “Things Viewers Never, Ever Say” (part one and part two). It was simply a list of quotes meant to point out the silly things that newsrooms do in the course of a newscast that have little meaning to the viewer. Newsrooms have developed their own series of tricks and rules over the years, and it seems like nobody thinks of what the viewer is actually thinking anymore. In a major surprise, the thing took off. It was forwarded around (stripped of my name, of course) and spawned two sequels based on reader input. It was even quoted in a book, although it did not help sales. It has been four years, and it’s time for a new list. Plus, I’m taking back the word “viewsers,” since it seems to be catching on as a combination of web viewers/users — seven years after we first suggested it here at LR. So here are the “Things Web Viewsers Never, Ever Say”:

This is an extremely good example of the difference between what you want your website to do or say and what your visitors want it to do. Too often publishers forget that they have a website because other people read it. If it is too hard to read or find the content they want (and no, viewsers will never call it content), they will go elsewhere. Make your site easy to use and navigate – drop the flashing ads all over the place. You will get more traffic and people will stick around.