I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend. maybe take a drive in the country. But no, I’m stuck with my once a year bitchin’ head cold. Spent yesterday almost totally in bed, but did drag myself out to see Blade 2 - and it rocks. Better than the first one. Added bonus - we got to see the trailer for Episode 2. After the disappointment of Episode 1, I don’t want to get my hopes up, but it looks good. Really good.

Lisa Guernsey thinks the web is boring.
Derek Powazek has a good rebuttal and some counter ideas, and here’s my take.

One of the first things I learned about the net was that the good stuff was not going to be handed to me. I would have to go find it. That really hasn’t changed. There is an embarrassment of riches out there, but you still have to be an intrepid explorer and discover it on your own. Mass media does not work like this, so the difference is hard for some people to understand or accept. When the quality content doesn’t just appear like magic for them, they get bored and go away. I feel sorry for them, ’cause they’re missing out.

“What attracted many people to the Web in the mid-1990’s were the bizarre and idiosyncratic sites that began as private obsessions and swiftly grew into popular attractions: the Coffee Cam, a live image of a coffee maker at the University of Cambridge; the Fish Tank Cam…. The Web was like a chest of toys, and each day brought a new treasure.”

So the mass audience has tired of the carnival freak show? So much the better.

“the rate of growth in new sites and unique visitors has slumped in recent months”

Uh, maybe that has something to do with the economy?

And as for the web not being a frontier…. I think that just depends on the way you look at it. Sure, the freak show has moved off the main drag, but there is so much discussion, creativity, and free education just sitting out there waiting the be taken advantage of that I don’t see how anyone could get tired of it. Instead of passively watching pictures of coffee cans or playing at being voyeurs, now people on the web are interacting with eachother. We aren’t treating it like mass media’s ugly stepsister any more - we’re using it for something entirely different.

Regarding the “It’s like walking down the streets of Tijuana.” commercialism problem - the author isn’t looking in the right places. I *build* ecommerce sites for a living, and I have no problem finding non-commercial or semi-commercial places of interest. But then again, I am *not* your average surfer, so maybe my expierences are atypical.

Well, welcome to createsomething.net. Hopefully, this will be the last time I have to set up redirects from one host to another.

In spite of the fact that I do this stuff for other people all the time, It’s just so giggle inducing when I’m finally doing it for myself. Must get back to real work now…..

Well, I thought friday was going fine. Work all day, cash paycheck, buy groceries, and relax at the bookstore for an hour. Cool, huh? Then I get home, and there’s a message from my boss on the machine. Turns out a quickie addition to a client’s main page did not meet with approval, and had to be removed. So at 9:00, I find myself *back* at work, fixing the page. Yeesh.

Die Hard is playing in the background, and I’m thinking that if you put all the snarling bad guys from all the old action movies together in the same room, it still wouldn’t be as scary as the world is right now.

Dog mauling verdict: Guilty on all counts
I’ve been following this case for a while, and as a pet owner, I am glad beyond words. I’m greatly saddened that the dogs have been put down, but I bask in glee that the arrogant, irresponsible, self involved, yuppies who thought that keeping two large, active, and aggressive dogs in an urban apartment was a remotely sane idea. Folks like this give all pet owners a bad name.

Papryus is one of those very nice but tragically overused fonts. Usually when I see it, I’m prejudiced against whatever it’s being used for, regardless of what it is. So when I find an example of it being used and I actually like it, someone is doing something very right. Hilde Schneider-Mott has done this with her portfolio site, and I have to make mention of it.

Being a pretty pictures junkie, I’m always looking around for new photographers whose work I can ogle, drool over, and wish to hell I could reproduce on my own. Stphen Voss is the target du jour - lush, super saturated images that just pop out loud.

The Wrong Way to Use CSS in Page Layouts
Or, if you’re going to try and “ride the wave of the CSS flood”, please take the time to learn how CSS actually works.

Due to the inconsistant handling of header margins in the different browsers, I’m considering changing all my header tages to custom SPAN tags. The standards nazi in my head says no, this would be bad; and I’ve been priding myself on using structurally correct markup. But the design junkie (also in my head) says that it would be so nice to get the padding and margins more consistant on the higher end browsers. IE6 and NS6 are computing the margins differently, so I’ve either got headings in NS overlapping text, or headings in IE with a larger gap between header and text than I would like. Readabillity still being more important, I’m going with option 2 for the time being. And it doesn’t look bad in IE, just not *quite* right. Gah.

There’s a raging debate on Webdesign-L right now as to the merits of Flash, and it’s gotten me thinking about and clarifiying some of my attitudes about it.

#1 - I like TV, but it’s not the web. It’s not even close. TV gives no choices. I have to view what they give me, when they choose to give it to me. (Programming the VCR will only go so far, and I can’t afford TiVo)

On the web, I can find what want, when I want it.

People are not satisfied with TV. Look at the “100 channels and nothing to watch” truism. Look at how broadcast stations are trying to remove Tivo’s commercial skipping abilities. The more choices a viewer has, the less power a TV broadcaster has.

If we make the web just like TV, we will be doing a disservice to all those who are on line for something other than an entertainment experience. That’s not just a lot of people here (north America), but a lot of people *all over the world*. I think that’s short sighted, and misses the point of the medium.

#2 - I have problems with the attitude that people *must* want rich multi media and without this the web will always be the ugly duckling cousin. I feel this talks down to the majority of people. Yes, some people go to some sites to be entertained, and this may or may not be done with flash/multimedia. But people use the web for a lot of reasons other than entertainment. (Communication, research, education, business…..)

If some marketing guy decides that I need a full immersive flash experience just so I can find a decent recipe for chicken stock, there’s a problem.

#3 - Flash requires the purchase of (expensive) proprietary software. HTML requires a text editor.

Flash is very good for some things, but it’s not good for everything. *Nothing* is good for everything everywhere.

#4 - Flash is to the web as magazine ads are to TV ads. Pushing HTML developers into flash as if it’s the only way to go is akin to telling someone who makes their living designing ads for printed magazines and billboards that all those magizines and billboards are about the be replaced by video screens and all their work will now have to sing and dance like a used car commercial. If you think this isn’t a problem, think of all the craptastic, low budget, self produced ads for local businesses you can find on local cable stations. Communication via moving pictures is a specialized skill. It is *not* something everyone can do.

Case in point:
After almost four years of going to college for written communications, I was shoved into a series of documentary and digital video classes. I was able to operate the software/hardware just fine, but my work still sucked because I had no idea how to get what I wanted to say across in a multimedia envionment. Being a multimedia designer is *not* the same as being a web or print designer. Insisting that one is better than the other is meaningless. You would not ask a video director to lay out your new trifold brochure or
come up with your new letterhead/logo would you?

Ok, so it’s starting to feel a little warmer…. I’d still like it if I could wear a light jacket outside again. Bundling up in my winter coat every morning is depressing. Of course, if I were still living up north, I’d be seeing snow until May. Maybe I should just be happy with what I’ve got.

Funny… no, make that freakin’ hilarious quote of the day, from Jane, about Andromeda:

“Two downloaded eps today (Under the Night and An Affirming Flame), and suddenly I’m all curious. Who are these people? Why is this show so disturbingly interesting? What’s up with the Dildo of Death that Dylan’s wielding, and did the Commonwealth really routinely arm people with them? (Jane tactfully skips the make love, not war joke.)”

I’m still giggling. And it really is a great show.