Wednesday, June 23, 2010 7:56 - 0 Comments
Internet News, Tips and Tricks, Toolbox

WordPress 3.0

I’ve been waiting in anticipation for the release of WP3.0 and now that it went full-bore, I’ve been way to busy to mess around with it. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to spending a few hours this weekend checking out the changes. In the meantime, here’s a good post from Craig Buckler at Sitepoint …

WordPress version 3.0 was released at the end of last week. It’s a little later than the intended May 1 release date, but WordPress is one of the most popular blogging and content management systems on the planet, so it was better to be late than cause issues for thousands of websites.

The update is the result of six months’ work by 218 dedicated contributors, culminating in 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements. So what can you expect from WordPress 3.0?

New Installer

WordPress has always been easy to install but it’s become even simpler. Few administrators will have to fiddle with the wp-config.php configuration file: all the MySQL settings can be specified within the installer panels now.

The new installer also allows you to specify the administrator ID and password. I suspect few people ever bothered to change it from the default “admin” in previous versions, so the facility to create your own ID will aid security.

New Interface

The WordPress 3.0 administration panels have received a polish. It’s hardly a radical change from version 2, but it’s lighter and feels slicker.

There are few obvious changes to the interface until you reach the Appearance section.

New Default Theme

RIP Kubrick: you’ve served us well and many websites use you to this day. Kubrick has been replaced by “Twenty Ten,” a new theme that has built-in support for child themes, background alterations, header customization, and drop-down menus.

The theme’s look and widgets can be customized within the administration panel, so I expect many people will never venture beyond the Twenty Ten theme. For those that do, there’s a new “Install Themes” tab that allows you to search for templates by color, type, and features.

Not impressed but then again, if they made a nice one, I’d be out of extra work!

WordPress Multi-user

WordPress MU was a fork that allowed hundreds of blogs to run from a single installation; it has now been merged with the main version 3.0 application. It’s disabled by default, but can be switched on by adding the following line to your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);


This could be the most important feature for web developers: you can create a number of websites using just one installation of WordPress. Updates are easier and hosting space is drastically reduced.

Custom Post Types

Pages and Posts were available in previous versions of WordPress:

• Pages were normally used for static content such as About Us or Contact Us pages.
• Posts would commonly be used for date-stamped news, articles, or blog posts.

WordPress 3.0 supports custom post types. For example, you could have a Product type that’s specifically used for items sold on your website. Product pages can then be treated separately; for example, have their own menu or search box.

Custom post types are configured using PHP rather than within the administration panels. Watch out for a full tutorial on SitePoint shortly.

Other Features

Where do I start? I suggest you visit the WordPress 3.0 Codex page for a comprehensive list.

Should you upgrade now?

I have no hesitation in recommending WordPress 3.0 for a new installation. But what if you’re upgrading from WordPress 2.x?

I’ve rarely experienced problems with the WordPress automated upgrade; it’s a quick one-click process that just works. However, my first attempt failed abysmally and I was left with a broken site. You should note that this was a test installation of 2.8.6 with lots of dodgy code and plugins, but you need to be wary: some themes and plugins are certain to break.

I would recommend updating a local test version of your site before attempting to upgrade the live server. Remember to back up your files and MySQL database, and you can’t go wrong.

If past experience is anything to go by, the WordPress team will almost certainly release 3.0.1 within a few weeks. If you’re especially nervous, you might be advised to wait a little longer …

PREVIOUS POSTS

• Innovation

  Monday, June 21, 2010 11:16 - 0 Comments
  

  The abuse of words like innovation, disruption, game changing and breakthrough is killing us. We’re tripping over our own egos, lost in the ignorance of romance for the vagaries of pseudo-thinking associated with these words. The more often people in a company use this word, the less likely anything worthy of that label is actually happening, as it’s often the confused and the desperate who believe simply saying a word again and again like a magic spell causes anything at all to happen.

  - Scott Berkun
  (via The Economist – thanks for great bookmark from 52WeeksOfUX)
  

  

• Apple v. Adobe, The Re-Match

  Thursday, June 17, 2010 21:47 - 0 Comments
  

  ZDNet reports that the battle between Apple and Adobe continues with the latest OSX update 10.6.4.  Reportedly the update provides an older version of Flash that Adobe claims to be less secure and outdated.  Apple counters that its installation corrects issues in (more current versions of) Flash that open up cross-domain request vulnerabilities.

  From ZDNet

  The discussion comes amidst an ongoing war of words between Apple and Adobe over over Apple’s refusal to support Flash Player on its iPad and iPhone devices. In April, for instance, Steve Jobs outlined his criticisms of the Flash development platform in a blog post.

  In addition, this is not the first time Adobe has sent out a warning to users over an Apple update. In September, the company said that an Mac OS X update issued in August was shipping with a superceded version of Flash Player. It also noted that the Apple’s update was downgrading people with more recent versions of the player to the earlier edition.

  That does not appear to be the case with this week’s Apple update, according to Adobe security response programme manager Wendy Poland.

  I still can’t say that I am a Maconvert though Jen has me spinning the apples all over the house.  As a developer, I can’t say I’m in love with Flash either.  What I can say is that there are very specific rules that good web developers and designers abide by, one of which is that cross-domain requests are a very real and very scary threat.  Having taught a semester’s worth of web security and really digging into the issue of XSS, HTTP vulnerabilities and phishing schemes, and all the while developing Flash apps that have these apparent holes, it is easy to think that a malicious developer could easily design around this problem.  So kudos to Apple if in fact they really did fall back to plug up the problem.

  I probably shouldn’t take sides.  Adobe has been well aware of the problem but it’s difficult at best to plug up every vulnerability across every platform out there.  Apple is doing what it can to protect its users.

  So what’s the point?  The point is – be aware that there is a problem and that it is your responsibility (assuming you’re a developer) to cover it – not just the product makers.

  

• ExtJS = Sencha

  Tuesday, June 15, 2010 19:13 - 0 Comments
  

  So amongst some of the other hidden news of the day, the former ExtJS has now re-branded itself as Sencha.  Joining forces withthe jQTouch and Raphaël projects, brainchilds of David Kaneda (rock-star UX/UI dude) and Dmitry Baranovskiy, I expect to see real great things from the new child.

  Though quite honestly I don’t use ExtJS in favor of pure handcoding and maybe a smattering of minimal jQuery, it’s still a real formidable framework, though Ext’s (sorry, Sencha’s) exploration into HTML5 and CSS3 is probably the best collaborative work on the web so far.  The best part of it is the basic open source system and Ext Designer, which I only recently tried out for the first time.  jQTouch and Raphaël will still both remain MIT licensed.

  According to the post on its site:

  We’re choosing Sencha as our name because it evokes next-generation software development and it’s easy to remember, spell and pronounce. Sencha — the name of a popular Japanese green tea — is in the tradition of Java, and represents a new level of development. It feels memorable to us.

  I’m real intrigued with Raphaël after my recent batch of Advanced Scripting students churned out some really fantastic HTML5 vector graphics.  Will have to try and carve out a few minutes to play around with it.

  In any case, best of luck to the new venture – sounds like a real winner in the making!

  

• A Cautionary Tale

  Tuesday, June 15, 2010 7:25 - 4 Comments
  

  via anonymous donor in one of my favorite tumblogs – Clients From Hell – but one of the most well written accounts for up-and-coming (meaning student and novice) web developers…

  ---

  I’m sure none of you are strangers to being asked to do favours for friends and family. I’m here to tell you that while there’s nothing wrong with doing a favour for someone you love now and then, always draw up a contract and terms of service, no matter how small or minimal the project. I don’t care if you’re doing it for free – make them sign a contract.  In this case, I assume complete responsibility for the following situation because I mistakenly worked from trust. I should also warn you that this reads more like a bad romance than anything else, but hey, I wouldn’t wish the following on anyone.

  Background: I’m a 22-year-old university student with aspirations of practicing rural medicine. I’m also a freelance web/print designer. It’s my sole source of income, and it’s what I do to put myself through school. I don’t have much of a social life because I balance a full-time university schedule with twenty to thirty hours a week of volunteer and paid design work.  I wouldn’t change a thing here. I’m happiest a-codin’ and designin’, and I count myself as pretty lucky to be able to make a living from my hobby while I’m working towards my doc dreams. (more…)

  

• MacMini Update

  Tuesday, June 15, 2010 5:33 - 0 Comments
  

  While waiting for Apple Store to get their s— in gear so I can pre-order the iPhone for J, I’m reading that lost in the hoopla, Apple also snuck in an update to the Mini. Personally I love Mini’s – small, compact, and powerful for the price, but these new updates throw it over the top.

  Amongst them include an upgraded enclosure to unibody aluminum – much beefier than the plastic job my old one has. And the body has a new panel on the base giving it access to the memory slots. Plus they’ve added HDMI which makes it soooo much easier to connect it up with my HDTV (rather than having to put the MBP flipped open right next to it).

  But of course the killer one that caught my attention – not because I am so into the 3D idea but simply because of iStream’s involvement with it – is the addition of Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics, one of the foundations for Nvidia’s 3D Vision. Killer.

  Posted on TUAW
  Buy the base model for $699 or the SL Server version for $999 at Apple Store

  

• Are you an (iPhone) preemie?

  Monday, June 14, 2010 20:49 - 0 Comments
  

  Tomorrow morning the iPhone 4 goes on pre-order. Are your fingers poised over the keys to make that pre-order or are you going to wait for it to go in store and check it out first?

  Sooner or later, I figure I am going to have to make the plunge. I’ve been using a first-generation Android and while I’m happy with it, it really hasn’t lived up to my expectations. Granted it’s pretty memory deficient being a first-gen (CC’s phone runs mondo faster than mine and it’s only a second-gen) but with a little coddling and a mod, it’s done well (better than that stupid WinMo Dash I had before it).

  Not to mention that I’m getting an awful lot of pressure from the better half who is dying to do video chat. I have to admit that the overall package is pretty impressive, so maybe for once I’ll be happy with one. At least until I have to keep rebooting it. Ahh technology.

  

• The Local Maximum

  Monday, June 14, 2010 14:36 - 0 Comments
  

  From 52 Weeks of UX

  
  Photo courtesy of Andrew Chen via 52 Weeks of UX

  Do you ever feel that your design has become stale and that despite your making lots of little changes to it over time without any big overhaul there is just no way to drastically improve it?

  If so you’ve probably hit what Andrew Chen calls the “Local Maximum”. The local maximum is a point in which you’ve hit the limit of the current design…it is as effective as its ever going to be in its current incarnation. Even if you make 100 tweaks you can only get so much improvement; it is as effective as its ever going to be on its current structural foundation.

  The local maximum occurs frequently when UX practitioners rely too much on a/b testing or other testing approaches to make improvements. This type of design is typified by Google and Amazon…they do lots and lots of testing, but rarely make large changes. (Except, of course, Google’s homepage background change this week, which was quickly reverted)

  While a cycle of smaller improvements is better than the dysfunctional design processes most of us are stuck with, one of the criticisms of this type of extreme optimization is that it’s always and only incremental: you can only make a few small changes at a time and therefore your design evolves slowly. And if you’re doing rigorous testing, by only changing one variable at a time, then you’re only changing one small part of your application in each iteration. This work cycle becomes dependent on how fast you can run tests. For Google and Amazon, who are blessed with millions of visitors per day, this is no problem because they can run tests extremely quickly. For most people building web sites, low traffic volume can be a huge hurdle because it means that tests have to run longer and thus slows down rate of iteration.

  To illustrate the notion of local maxima Chen uses the example of a photo upload application, pointing out there are many ways to improve an offering by optimizing what currently exists. You can A/B test the current photo upload page, send out more emails reminding people to upload, add more calls-to-action to upload, etc. It’s easy to both design and test these options.

  But after a while these low-hanging fruit get few and far between and as UX designer you have two choices: continue to try ever-increasing alternatives (optimize) that are small enough to test or to try and make a bigger, structural change that really shakes things up (innovate).

  Chen points out that other approaches to improving a photo app besides optimization would probably have a higher return. These include:

  * Repositioning the product for a stronger value proposition
  * Going after a different kind of audience to target their needs
  * Recalibrating the “core mechanic” of the product to make uploading photos a natural part of using the product

  Because these changes are much larger than a single design element you can effectively test, making a change to them requires making a daring design decision. Someone has to step up and take a chance based on their intuition: what they think will work instead of what testing has proven works.

  In order to design through the local maximum we need a balance between the science-minded testing methodology and the intuitive sense designers use when making big changes. We need to intelligently alternate between innovation and optimization, as both are required to design great user experiences.

  One strategy we might employ is to optimize until we reach a point of diminishing returns: design until changes just aren’t having a big effect. Then, stop optimizing and return to other kinds of analysis to figure out the next steps. Conduct interviews. Do user testing. Give surveys, ask questions. Find out the biggest existing pain points instead of focusing on tiny design elements at this stage. Focus at the activity-level. What are people trying to accomplish? What are their higher-level goals? What aren’t people doing that we want them to? What big hurdles keep them from taking the next action? This level of insight will allow you to make those bigger changes.

  And when the time comes to make the bigger changes, when you decide to jump from your local maximum to some other design possibility, make the decision with conviction. But don’t forget that the optimization has only just begun.

  

• Fast CMS Deployment with jQuery and Web Services

  Sunday, June 13, 2010 22:03 - 0 Comments
  

  This week we’ve been working on a quick digital asset manager for the upcoming Wimbledon. Last year, Delta Tre produced a massive, well designed system to handle the metadata and media transfer between the UK and the partners in the US. They had months to build it. This year we had 2 weeks. Granted we had some experience with the system from last year and that we’ve been toying with our own Director and VWAP systems, but we decided that in the interest of time (10 business days) and resources (2 developers) that we’d take a different approach.

  Rather than take a traditional page-design approach, we architected the database and interaction to be slim and exchangeable. First, the database was managed by use of two .NET-based Web Services written in C# that ingested via POST marking transaction success with 32-character IDs, output via XML and with multi-purpose edit functions using switches and variable inputs. Next, the authentication was built on a combination Basic and session-based approach using ASP – quick and efficient and easy to modularize should the system need to be moved to another platform. Finally, the front-end was built on a single HTML page with jQuery and jQuery UI to support the large number of Ajax exchanges and interactive features.

  The result is a clean, easy to use, transportable DAM-CMS capable of complex transactions (multi-tiered, synchronous updates), hooks to a Silverlight-based rough cut editor from Southworks, and most of all, easy and quick to modify without affecting the production environment. By deploying a single jQuery-based controller separate from the parser and presentation components, new objects could be introduced to the interface based on a modifiable, dynamic XML document at login (or pushed in real-time, even after the user had logged in).

  

  Some of the things we learned seem pretty silly but in fact were critical to the project completing in such a short amount of time.

  First, segregate all the processes – by constructing the database, the web services, and the interface separate from each other, different developers could rapidly deploy all of it and mesh together quickly at stop-points each day. Chandler and I (with a big assist from Srini and Mio) were able to work independently and merge as he completed parts of the web service, or make changes as parts of the interface came together. Likewise, during testing, changes to the interface and sequence could be done in real-time and re-tested within minutes instead of having to go back to the drawing board. This was eased by the fact that issues could be easily attributable and divisible to interface or back-end, and handled separately.

  Second, it’s the little things that make a difference. Providing small visual cues – update notifications at the top of the page that disappear, Ajax loader starburts, highlighted labels and input boxes – all give the user information, information that helps them get through difficult or tedious and complex processes (for example, in creating a VOD asset, a user had options that might require upwards of 50 different pieces of information – eliminating unnecessary components on the screen made it easier to get through).

  Finally, architect it but be flexible. Changes happen, and while developers and project managers all try to keep scope creep from happening, we all know that in the real world, so does feature change. It is unrealistic to assume that projects will get started 6 months before the deadline. It is also unrealistic to assume that, in such a project with a short deadline, that you’ll remember to include everything. Likewise, it’s also unrealistic to assume that during the process you’ll realize that the planned interface will work – prototyping is great but it takes time and testing that you may not always have. Being able to be flexible by following a basic interface design, using modular builders (in jQuery UI or other framework) and XML-based instruction sets, and providing error catching systems in both the front-end as well as the web services makes the project continue to move, even when not all the parts are correct.

  

  In the end, we had a lot of hiccups and it didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped but it did get done and delivered on-time. The client goes to training in 9 hours and there will likely be another round of changes, but that we were able to post a full-featured DAM CMS in such a short amount of time gives us new methods and targets for the future.

  

• Economics of Internet Porn

  Thursday, May 20, 2010 8:10 - 0 Comments
  

  [MatSays: though most of this is can be filed as a head-slapper "duh" it does nonetheless pose some interesting research statistics - basically stuff that pretty much every adult webmaster already knows but didn't have solid evidence or numbers to back it up and really didn't want everyone else to know]

  by Christopher Mims via Technology Review
  How the Internet Porn Business Works>: Researchers set up adult Web sites to study how the industry makes its money and spreads malware.

  A first-of-its-kind analysis of the online porn industry reveals the economics, and the vulnerabilities, of the shady world of online adult media.

  If you want to know how the online adult industry works, you must become a part of that industry. That’s what five security researchers from The Technical University of Vienna, Sophia Antipolis and UC Santa Barbara did in an attempt to get a handle on how the adult industry makes money online. And they found that it’s exposing everyone who consumes its wares to previously unsuspected levels of malware.

  Peddling Porn in the Name of Science

  By setting up their own adult websites, the researchers, who will present their paper on June 7, 2010 at The Ninth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security at Harvard University, discovered that 43% of the clicks that arrived at their own adult website belonged to users whose browsers were vulnerable to a known exploit in either Adobe Flash or handling of the Microsoft Office or Adobe PDF document types.

  Lead researcher Glibert Wondracek and his colleagues spent a total of $160 to acquire 47,000 clicks from sellers of adult traffic, known in the industry as traffic brokers, of which 20,000 could have been exploited to build a botnet, according to the researchers. The researchers discovered that they easily could have leveraged their investment for a hefty profit by serving as the vector for a Pay-Per Install affiliate program, which in one instance offered $130 per 1,000 installs to drop malicious code (malware, adware etc.) onto exploited machines.

  To assess how much malicious code is being injected into users’ browsers by adult websites, Wondracek et al. custom-built an automated web crawler to download the content of almost a half million URLs spread across thousands of adult websites. Incredibly, 3.23% of those pages “were found to trigger malicious behavior such as code execution, registry changes, or executable downloads,” five times the prevalence of malware discovered by previous research on the subject.

  In a back of the envelope calculation, multiplying 3.23% by the percentage of internet users who view porn (42.7%) or even just the percentage of men who view porn while at work (20%), by the frequency with which porn is accessed, suggests that internet porn is a major vector for infection of vulnerable machines.

  The Peculiar Economics of Online Porn

  A likely explanation for the high rates of malware on adult websites is the almost total lack of policing or enforcement by the brokers who move traffic between adult websites. According to Wondracek et al.’s analysis of the economy of online porn sites, 9 out of 10 are “free” sites that host image or video galleries and make money by directing traffic to pay sites or even to one another. This traffic is monetized through traffic brokers – the majority of which do not even visit the sites in their affiliate networks, according to experiments conducted by the researchers.

  Unlike online ad placements by Google and affiliate marketing schemes by Amazon, adult sites do not rely on code that resides on the sites sending them traffic that could help verify that traffic is generated by humans and not click bots. As a result, the researchers found that it would potentially be quite easy to defraud not only users, but the traffic brokers and for-pay porn sites that enable the vast ecosystem of free adult media sites. (No users or brokers were actually harmed in the course of this research, which was vetted by the legal department of the Technical University of Vienna.)

  The intricacies of the elaborate system of traffic arbitrage that have grown up around the world of porn traffic direction on the web are way beyond the scope of this blog post, but it’s possible that the rest of the media world could learn a thing or two from the way that for-pay adult sites have created a seething ecosystem of traffic affiliates constantly skimming clicks and pennies off of one another.

  On the other hand, it’s just as likely that these techniques wouldn’t work for traditional media, because users don’t appear to be as motivated to read news as to find porn. How else can we explain the fact that in the course of the experiment, users clicked many times on single links that were randomly directing them to anything but the media they were apparently after – a practice widespread among free porn sites?

  

• Google Font API & Google Font Directory

  Thursday, May 20, 2010 7:10 - 0 Comments
  

  Yesterday Google announced a new initiative to provide extended web font support through the Google Font API and the Google Font Directory.The Font API provides a cross-browser methodology for using any of the fonts in the Font Directory in a web page with a simple line of HTML.  The result – richer, textually styled web pages with SEO semantics intact, crisp scaling in browser zoom mode and accessibility to screen readers.

  For years, the only other options were to use images (which then lose the semantics and made it difficult to update over time) or sIFR (which still rocks and can provide much more extended support for very unusual fonts).  Now you can add Font API support with:

  <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Tangerine' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
  
  body { font-family: 'Tangerine', serif; }

  Produces (though this is an image):

  

  According to Google, the back end system converts the font into a format acceptable to the browser (including MSIE6), serving up only the weights and styles you specify, and can be cache headered in order to optimize/improve performance over the span of the site.  They also work with HTML5 and CSS3, so transformations like rotation and drop shadows still works.  Currently support exists only for Western European languages (Latin-1) but I’m pretty sure that will expand quickly once it takes hold.

  Nice job!

  Read the Google announcement here.
  See the fonts available in the Google Font Directory.

  

• The Ten Commandments Of User Experience

  Tuesday, May 18, 2010 12:52 - 0 Comments
  

  At least according to Nick Finck and Raina Van Cleave at SXSW [via Slideshare]

  

• Developer wants to stick an H.264 fork in Firefox

  Monday, May 17, 2010 7:40 - 0 Comments
  

  by Lee Matthews via DownloadSquad

  I’d love for fifteen or twenty minutes to go by without my Google Reader barfing out yet another piece of software patent or “HTML5 video codec war” news, but that’s how it is. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the video tag didn’t become standardized until HTML6 or 7.

  One serious downside to the lack of consensus is the fact that your browser may very well not have built-in support for some video files embedded with the tag. Firefox, for example, is running with Ogg Theora and won’t be bolting on H.264 support. Apart from patent issues, there’s a $5 million price tag to be paid to MPEG-LA if Mozilla did want to support the codec, and they still wouldn’t be able to include that code in their open source.

  But developers love to spin remixes of the Fox, and it only makes sense that someone would take matters into his or her own hands. Enter Maya Posch, who has launched the Wild Fox project on SourceForge. The plan: add H.264 support to Firefox’s stable branch using libavcodec or GStreamer.
  Posch feels “that decisions have been made due to patents which do not apply in most parts of the world.” He continues, “The Wild Fox project aims to rectify this by releasing builds with these features included, builds which will of course only be available to those not in software patent-encumbered countries.”

  That sounds useful, right? A nice, pre-packaged Firefox build with H.264 support? Sure it does, but there’s a potential pitfall.

  While you would probably be able to download and install Wild Fox even in the U.S. and Korea (two of the patent-encumbered countries), Thomas Holwerda of OSNews warns that you’d be doing so at your own risk, saying “MPEG-LA has clearly stated that it will sue unlicensed users (and is clearly not afraid to do so).” Their director of Global Licensing, Allen Harkness, has said “where a royalty has not been paid, such a product remains unlicensed and any downstream users/distributors would have liability.”

  Yes, that means MPEG-LA could come after you if you choose to browse with Wild Fox. However, it’s infinitely more likely that they’d target Posch and Wild Fox.

  

• Fire the “web designer”

  Friday, May 14, 2010 18:03 - 0 Comments
  

  brian cray via sebastianwaters:

  You’ve hired the wrong guy. After reading David Airey’s forget about design and Andrew Maier’s User Experience Designer vs. Creative Director I’ve come to the conclusion that the role “web designer” is a cheap ass effort to fudge a graphic designer into a role requiring two entirely separate fields of knowledge.

  Web teams still need graphic designers to communicate visually appealing messages. And graphic designers moving from a print team to a web team should stay graphic designers. What’s needed to compliment a web team’s graphic designer is someone to account for the complexities of human-computer interaction (HCI). Surely a manager in any field can’t expect staff to adopt a completely opposite, complex knowledge base overnight.

  Welcome the missing link: User experience designer.

  User experience design is a blend of usability, information architecture (IA), and user interface (UI) design.

  A web-based user experience designer is charged with learning about users and creating interfaces that match website goals and user needs. They deliver interaction specs and simple mockups to the graphic designer as a framework for user-centered visual communication. Then, of course, the web developer makes the interaction work.

  Don’t mix up the two roles, user experience designer and graphic designer. Neither should do the others’ job. They should never be blurred into “web designer.”

  If you’re going to make the leap into a more complex communication channel, account for its complexities or it’ll bite you in the ass when your competitors “get it.”

  

• 3D is coming, jury is still out

  Friday, May 14, 2010 13:24 - 0 Comments
  

  It’s no secret that 3D is probably the “next big thing” for video, both broadcast and online.  After the plethora of 3D-enhanced box office movies the past couple of years, television is jumping into the melee and online providers are quick to follow suit.  At iStreamPlanet we’ve been working with a couple of partners to provide true high-definition stereoscopic 3D workflows for clients by combining all sorts of new technologies, including Smooth Streaming, Silverlight and others (that I’m pretty sure I can’t talk about – I’m sure an NDA is flying around legal somewhere).

  

  I have to say that of everything I’ve seen, I am truly impressed with the quality that has been achieved in online scenarios, including live event video.  Yes, live.  Many people saw the recent big broadcasts of events like NBC’s Winter Olympics and others, some of the first to feature a broad distribution of Smooth.  Having been in online video for the better part of 14 or 15 years, it was truly a day of reckoning to see some of it come to fruition.

  There must be something behind this. Last July (2009), YouTube quietly added a feature to its video player that allowed one to watch presumably 3D-enhanced video uploaded by visitors by adding yt3d:enable=true to the tag.  Nvidia has been leading a charge to release video card and monitor combos that support 3D Vision – a software/hardware (glasses) solution that I have to say is pretty cool, albeit pricey (sorry, I’m not a big techbuygeek – I don’t run out and buy the newest stuff just because its there).  With all respect to the latter – there is some really kick ass stuff available on the platform.

  But frankly, for me, I still don’t get the hype.  I may be really old school but the fact is that I just don’t get why I would want to watch everything in 3D.  I just don’t see the value or the sparkle. Apparently, I’m not the only one (ok, I never was – my entire department, the very ones who are developing the components, have always questioned it) – even Francis Ford Coppola calls it a “juvenile abomination” and ‘just a way to “make you pay more money”.’  And Roger Ebert says “Hollywood’s current crazy stampede to it is suicidal,” adding nothing to the movie-going experience.

  Ha. Figures.

  To be fair, the stuff we’re working on is largely for sports, and in a way I can actually see where some types (basketball, hockey, boxing) might actually benefit and get some enhancement from it.  But not everything.

  And that’s where the problem is.  Like every other “big thing” (ahem, iPads, iPhones, Android, blah blah blah puke) there is a mad dash to be first simply for the sake of being first, and then a mad clamoring to jump on the bandwagon.  Why? The point being that putting stuff into 3D just for the sake of being 3D and without having content that fits it (or worse, forcing the content to be) is just plain stupid.  Let’s leave 3D (and all it’s contingent hardware and software reqs) to content that suits it.  Like horror flicks.

  Content is king.  Still is.  Always will be.  But don’t f— it up by trying to enhance it with something totally unnecessary.  Chrome on a pencil doesn’t make it write any better, and doesn’t even necessarily make it any prettier.  It just makes it clunky and prone to fingerprints.  Same thing with 3D.  Keep it in check and keep it special instead of the norm and we’ll all benefit.

  

• A Farewell to Facebook

  Friday, May 14, 2010 7:28 - 0 Comments
  

  By Jason Clark via DownloadSquad

  My friends think I’m crazy … overreacting. I’ve gone and done it, though.

  I’ve deactivated my Facebook account.

  My privacy settings were set to be as restrictive as Facebook allows, and I still didn’t feel comfortable with it. Not because I have anything to hide, but because I don’t trust Facebook to not use my information (and that of my friends) for evil, or even to adequately protect it.

  What’s the big deal? Like me, you might be thinking, “I have nothing to hide. Who cares if Facebook collects personal information and sells it?” That’s a fair statement; pretty much every large company we do business with today does that. The problem here is that Facebook tells us that we can trust it, but then it repeatedly changes the rules on us to suit its own needs. Facebook is within its legal rights to do this, but that doesn’t make it right. (more…)

  

• UNLV Proves Shortsightedness

  Monday, May 10, 2010 19:02 - 0 Comments
  

  Inevitably, Informatics gets the ax. In its unbelievable short-sightedness, the program has been cut. If it weren’t for the fact that I have gone this far, I probably would just drop out now. Maybe I still will. At the very least, I see no point in continuing to try and beat dead horse by continuing to teach at a university that has now let so many people down.

  Read UNLV’s President recommends which programs should be cut via ktnv.com and the full 15 page dipshit report here.

  [05/10/10 @ 2:30p PST] The plot (and plight) thickens as I have tried for two days now to access the Dept. of Informatics web page to no avail.  Has it already been deleted by OIT?  What the hell is that all about?

  

  On a personal note, all decency aside, President Smatresk, the Faculty Senate and the JET and PRC can all go F themselves.  I spent a bit of time soul-searching last night, thinking I may try to channel my energy and desire to work on a PhD and work into a different program, but the more I thought about it, the more I got pissed at UNLV and Nevada as a whole for being so grossly short-sighted, so now I’d rather go spend my tuition dollars somewhere else where the administration (and government) actually thinks about what the importance of a program is rather than purely considering current dollars.  Nothing like a budget deficit to put yourselves into an even faster tailspin, and only increases my spite towards programs that I think should have been looked at more closely but weren’t even considered.

  

• Wednesday, May 5, 2010 21:35 - 0 Comments
  

  One thing I love about summer…I finally get to devote some attention to my posting

  

• Eloquent Javascript

  Wednesday, May 5, 2010 21:33 - 0 Comments
  

  Being a teacher is both wonderful and exhausting. I love being around students – it is truly fun to watch them find their way through this maze we call Web design and their own enthusiasm keeps me on my toes. But at the same time it is exhausting, particularly when after repeated attempts to explain something from every angle I can think of, the idea still doesn’t sink in.

  I have always told my students that the best way to get backup help is to go to the bookstore, site down, and read 10 pages out of each book on the topic, and find the one that “speaks” to them. A teacher’s recommended text, the school’s required textbook, it’s rare that student find them legible or helpful (I think my logic teacher went out of her way to find the most confusing book on Earth). Find the book that they understand and start working. Work every day. Work at least 15 minutes or 30 minutes every single day, doing the exercises over and over, changing little things, until the whole concept is solved.

  But not every great book can be found at the store. Of course there are the online standard – w3schools.com for example – and the plethora of smaller resources. But it is always a treat to find an online resource that has both extensive resources and is also an easy, if not opinionated, read.

  Such is “Eloquent Javascript,” authored by Marijin Haverbeke. I remember coming across it a few years ago but a posting on DownloadSquad reminded me of it. It is available in its entire text online (in HTML) as well as via downloadable PDF. As with most good resources, I recommend grabbing the PDF (and if you’re ambitious, a local copy of the HTML) before the perishability of Web documents steals it away.

  

• 10 Ways Designers Can Earn More from Projects

  Thursday, April 1, 2010 7:34 - 0 Comments
  

  Took me years (unlike the 18-year old author) to learn the advice dished out in this incredibly good post – every once in a while, take stock of where you stand as a designer and keep these in mind.

  [authored by Matthew Carpenter at Six Revisions, images courtesy of Six Revisions]

  When it comes to expanding per-project revenue, service businesses are at an immediate disadvantage. As our “product” is essentially our time, increasing income on a per-project basis almost always comes with extra work and an increased time commitment. Office hours increase, personal time slips away, and before we know it, the “extra” $300 weekly income has turned into little more than lost time.

  

  Product-based businesses have a distinct advantage when it comes to increasing revenue. Rather than increasing per-hour costs or per-project estimates, all that’s required is an increase in scale. Expand your operation, ship more units, and earn more money. While service businesses can take a similar approach–more employees, more projects, and relatively more income–scale can again become a problem.

  These ten approaches to per-project earnings could help you boost total revenue and profits. Of course, they’re not foolproof, and some businesses will inevitably invest time into a strategy only to have it prove ineffective. However, they do work, and with the right balance of time investment and experimentation, they could become the changes that drastically increase your per-project, per-client, and per-hour revenue. (more…)

  

• Save UNLV Informatics

  Wednesday, March 24, 2010 22:16 - 0 Comments
  

  We have reached mission critical now.  UNLV’s President announced yesterday that he has received the list of proposed cuts in order to balance the budget for the next fiscal year, seeking a $4 million elimination of expenses.  Amongst the recommendations was to eliminate the ENTIRE Department of Informatics…my program is about to die a very untimely death.

  I am, along with the tenured and professional faculty of the Department, urging all students, and anyone who might agree and offer opinion, to write to the President, the university committees and the Board of Regents, urging them to reconsider keeping the department.

  Update: selected letters written by students speaking out about the proposed cuts are here.

  But I expect myself to be a leader of sorts, an instructor by example, and hence I am posting my letter here, openly, so that anyone who does not understand the dilemma might find it worthy of opinion.  For those who do not know what informatics is, you can read about it on the UNLV Informatics Web Site, but more importantly, here is a succinct explanation from Michael Dunn, the founding Dean of the School of Informatics at Indiana University, where Informatics as an academic college was incepted and created.  He says:

  • Informatics studies the application of Information Technology to the arts, sciences and professions, and its uses in organizations and societies at large.
  • Informatics is a response to the data/information/knowledge gaps caused by billions and billions of bits
  • Informatics is the discipline of science which investigates the structure and properties (not specific content) of scientific information, as well as the regularities of scientific information activity, its theory, history, methodology and organization. The purpose of informatics consists in developing optimal methods and means of presentation (recording), collection, analytical-synthetic processing, storage, retrieval and dissemination of scientific information. Informatics deals with logical (semantic) information, but is not involved in qualitative estimation of this information. Such an estimate can be carried on by specialists alone, in the specific fields of science or practical activity.

  Below is the letter that was posted on the UNLV website, posted here.

  (more…)

  

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