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It was of course the Marquis de Sade who once observed from his observatory of mankind that was the asylum of Charenton that "Those who define are the masters." In that he not only summed up the most important issues of our time but some of the most trivial. I speak here of the very minor footnote to Internet history which is the misguided Occupy Flash site and the shadowy figures behind it that prefer to not come forward.
One of the oldest tricks in the book when you're on a tight budget and looking to purchase goods or services is to go for one of the least expensive offerings of a high-end provider, rather than one of the most expensive from a business that focuses on the low end. Have lunch in a top restaurant, for example, and order just a single dish, washed down by mineral water. You'll eat well in a memorable environment and pay little more than for a more copious offering in a forgettable establishment. If your focus is on the quality of the experience, not the quantity, this approach can't fail.
You might think that after a day of updating the Graphics.com site I'd be only too ready to shut down my systems and go walk the dog. Alas, I'm dogless and have yet to convince the cats to leave the building. So instead my attention typically turns to my admittedly narrow sphere of interests: playing the Renaissance lute, practicing pendulum dowsing and learning about food. I find food fascinating in all its forms, from the raw ingredients themselves and the history of how they were used in different times and places, on to their ultimate expression in restaurants. Especially the restaurants of France, given that's where I now live.
Speculation has been heavy of late that Google is poised to introduce a new service that will attempt to stave off Facebook's otherwise inevitable quest for global domination of the social space. So if you came across someone who was the lead researcher for the social web at Google, tasked with advising design and product teams on creating successful social experiences, you'd probably figure they were close to the epicenter.
You probably never noticed it but one of the language options when installing major software applications is Canadian English. Huh? Sure, there's American English and British English. But Canadian? What does that consist of, beyond referring to a case of 24 beers as a "two-four"? As always, Wikipedia can tell you way more about this topic than you want to know, but the gist of it is that we Canuks employ an English that blends American and British usage, while adding some usages that are uniquely ours.
Goodbye Verdana. Take a hike, Arial. After suffering through a decade and a half of purgatory, website designers are now finally free to take advantage of the typographic riches of those creating print publications. Bring on the dancing girls! Let the festivities commence! Or has a new nightmare only begun?
Earlier this summer I began a look at the alternatives available to those of us who have domains on our hands but neither the desire nor the resources to build them out to full-blown sites. Beyond simply using the domain parking provided by your registrar, what are the possibilities?
If you've been involved in web work for a while, you've probably accumulated at least a few domain names. These could be for sites you planned to build, but never got around to. Or ones you launched but then dropped when the concept didn't pan out. Or even wacky ones you registered on a whim, just for fun. After all, for just a few bucks it won't set you back much more than a MacLunch to be the proud owner of a shiny new domain name. But as these start to pile up, the renewal costs can become significant. Get those emails often enough from your registrar reminding you that your account has been dinged again and a little voice starts saying, "Just why the heck have you spent the last ten years paying for HarryPotterSucks.com?"
Sometimes it's only years after an initially bad experience that you finally embrace something that once seemed repugnant. Take opera, for example. While I periodically give it a shot, I just haven't been able to develop a taste for what many feel is one of the highest achievements of Western civilization. I chalk my aversion up to a traumatic exposure to the works of Florence Foster Jenkins.
The above photo was taken at the exact moment when a website designer, having finished a complex new site for a client, belatedly thought to check how it displayed in Internet Explorer 6. Been there, lately?
