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Calling all Lawrence area web geeks
Over the past several months, I’ve received quite a few e-mails and other “hellos” from web designers, developers, and similar in Lawrence or the surrounding areas. Seems there’s a larger community here than I might have expected. As such, I’ve been thinking about trying to get people together for a meetup of some sort.
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Jeremy Keith: Ghost in the Machine Tags
Jeremy picks up on Richard’s machine tag ideas (which I linked yesterday) and implements them on his blog. I should do this too — it would fit nicely with the other Flickr API stuff I’ve been doing.
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Daring Fireball: Rip This Joint
I mostly agree with what Gruber has to say in a response to criticism over his defense of Apple’s Hello TV spot. And, it’s well-written, as you’d expect from John.
Tangentially, I think one of the points of confusion over all this rip-off-or-not business is that there’s a world of difference between the law and the morals of individual creative people.
Creative people, and especially web designers, have gotten up in arms a lot lately over things the law would laugh at. What you call a rip-off often would not be seen as any kind of wrongdoing in copyright or trademark court. Copyright doesn’t protect ideas at all, and trademark is pretty lenient about logos and other marks that “look pretty similar.” So just because you’re upset that someone has a logo that looks like yours doesn’t give you any legal ground for focing them to cease and desist (you have the right to ask, of course, but they have the right to ignore you, too).
So next time you’re upset because someone has appropriated your idea or design, maybe think twice before saying, “you’ve stolen my intellectual property.” Because, more often than not, you don’t know the law well enough to know if that’s really true (I certainly don’t!). Instead, say what you do know: “I think you got this idea from my original work and I feel cheated that you used it without my permission.”
In the case of Apple’s Hello ad specifically: there’s absolutely no way it is copyright infringement in the legal sense. But is it a rip-off? Definitely. Is ripping something off without breaking the law morally wrong?
Well, that’s for you to decide. Everyone’s morals are different.
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Richard Rutter on machine tags and ISBNs
I think Flickr’s machine tags are a great idea, and Richard’s got some nice ideas on how to use them. I’d love to see the same basic machine tag format used on other web services, so as to become some kind of a standard. Good stuff.
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Khoi Vinh on Design vs. Art direction
“[Art direction] is where, as designers working on the web, drop the ball.” says Khoi. “We fail to follow up on the many hours of labour that we put into the online magazines, the news sites and even the blogs that we create. Rather, we defer the act of laying out the content to publishing systems and databases. We may painstakingly tailor design to match a workfl ow, but we rarely venture into the murkier arena of responding to the specific content.” Amen, brother. Great article.
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DOM Scripting: The Ajax/Flash continuum
“Flash isn’t a diry word. Sometimes it’s a better solution than Ajax.” A-fucking-men, Jeremy. Keep beating that drum.
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They didn’t study.
A collection of hilarious answer students put on test when they didn’t know the right one. Good stuff. Thanks, Khoi.
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Christian Marclay says iPhone ad is a rip-off
Someone needs to tell Christian Marclay that you can’t copyright an idea. Ideas are simply not protected under copyright law. While they’re at it, someone should tell a lot a web designers this, too. Even if something is a rip-off of an idea, that doesn’t make it illegal.
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One of these days I'll stop buying every product Apple makes….
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One of these days I'll stop buying every product Apple makes….
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Adobe Creative Suite 3
Adobe now has full information about CS3 on their website. I want, I want.
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A List Apart: Ruining the User Experience
Aaron Gustafson (who is a helluva nice guy, and super smart to boot) has a nice piece on ALA which deals largely with sites that require JavaScript. Aaron seems to advocate that one should never require JavaScript in their web app, but rather use it only as an enhancement to improve the UI for that visitors with JavaScript enabled (and this, coming from a JavaScript guy).
I don’t quite agree with Aaron here. I believe there are cases where it’s fair to require JavaScript in a web app. We make all kinds of techniqual requirements for desktop apps (you must have x amount of RAM, you must have such-and-such video card, etc.) , and I don’t see why it should be any different online.
That having been said, we should only make these requirements in cases where the app simply isn’t possible with them — which is definitely not the case in the examples Aaron uses in the article.
Overall, I agree with the sentiment that we should always try to make our apps work without JavaScript. But, I also think there are cases where that simply isn’t possible.
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CSSVista for Windows
An app that lets you edit CSS and see the results live in both IE and Firefox at the same time. Clever — could be a very useful app.
I presume this is possible because both IE and Firefox have their rendering engines separated from the browser itself and embeddable in other apps (Apple does the same thing with WebKit on the Mac). I said it in Pro CSS Techniques, but I’ll say it again: I really think the separation of browser and rendering engine is one of the single greatest technology advancements in quite a while from the perspective of the web designer/developer.
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How to beat Google, part 1
Rich Skrenta has some great ideas here. I only disagree with number five, which says, “forget interface innovation.” I disagree in large part because I agree with number six, seven, eight, and nine — which are all about interface innovation. But aside from that little inconsistency, these are great tips on not just how to beat Google in the search area, but how to approach your competition (i.e. how you should be similar and how you should be different) for any web product.
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Apple may credit iTunes album purchases
This would be really great if it happens. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought a track or two and then had to re-buy them when I wanted the whole album. It makes sense for the labels, too, as they are desperately trying to revitalize sales of entire albums.
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Doc Searls: How to save newspapers
Lots of good tips here. These are all things we’ve been trying to do better at The Lawrence Journal-World and our other World Company properties. I think you’ll see more of this come to fruition when we launch our redesign — which should be in the next few weeks.
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Python web development and frameworks in 2007
A very fair and complete look at the various Python web application frameworks available today. Gives Django a mostly positive review, and some good constructive criticism. I would respond to just this one part:
I would really like to see Django focus on modularization. The easier it is to use Django’s components with other frameworks (such as the URL dispatcher, the templating system, the ORM), the more people will end up using them, and more bugs will be spotted and more functionality added (like more tags and filters for the templating system). If this were the case, time spent duplicating functionality to be easily used outside of Django, such as Jinja could instead be used to work on what already exists. This is a win for everyone involved. In addition I’d like to see it made easier to use components from outside Django inside Django itself. For example TurboGears and Pylons both allow you to change a few lines of code to use a different templating system. Integrating that and functionality like this into Django would be very powerful and would alleviate the issues some people (myself included) have with specific Django components.
I wouldn’t dare speak for the Django lead developers, but as someone who sits next to a few of them every day, I’d suggest that this is not something that will be high on their priority list. Why? Simple — they don’t need it. The Django lead developers — and, in fact, most of the Django community — use the entire Django stack, top to bottom. That doesn’t bode well for interoperability with other components being high on the priority list.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. What it means is that people — like jp here — who “would like to see” this functionality improved should get to work on patches to implement it. It’s open source, after all.
That’s the beauty of open source. The fact that there hasn’t been much development effort in this area is a pure and true indicator that maybe it’s not as “needed” as some would like to believe. If it were really “needed,” someone would be working on it.
Bottom line: interoperability with other components is, in theory, a useful thing. In practice, almost no one really wants it, because they use the entire Django stack and simply don’t need it. If you really do need it, then go work on it. Use the source, Luke. :)
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AppleTV & Harmony Remote Step by Step Guide
I got my Harmony working with my AppleTV, but I left out a few features — I’ll probably redo the setup with this guide when I have time, as it looks to be a very complete setup.
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SonSpring: LogoMaid Rip-offs
So the web design community is all up in a huff over this company, LogoMaid, who has crafted logos that look a lot like those from Apple, GodBit, and SimpleBits. My take? People should relax.
Yes, these guys are rip-off artists. Yes, it’s pathetic and lame. Yes, I would probably be irritated if they stole my work, too. But, if you stop and think about this logically instead of reacting so emotionally, you have to ask yourself: how does this hurt Apple? How does it hurt GodBit? How does it hurt Dan Cederholm? Answer: it doesn’t.
The kind of thing can only hurt two groups of people. The first is LogoMaid themselves, who clearly are going to have their business ruined over this. But who cares? They brought it upon themselves. The second is companies or people who have purchased LogoMaid’s work. These people were manipulated and conned into paying for something that could get them sued. They have good reason to be very angry, as LogoMaid — at the very least — has cost them money, and at the worst could cost them a lawsuit from Apple.
But Dan, GodBit, and Apple are not hurt by this. Not one bit. So while it’s perfectly understandable that they would be irritated, I’d suggest they shake it off and relax a bit. You’re not really going to let a third-rate rip-off artist get you down, are you?
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Mike Davidson: Security By Sexiness
The “Hot Captcha,” in which the system pulls photos of nine people (men or women) from hotornot.com and requires you to pick the three “hot” ones in order to pass the test. Freaking brilliant.
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TweetyPy: Python-based CLI client for Twitter
Stuart Colville gets his feet wet with Python by building a simple Twitter client. Fun.
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O’Reilly Radar: SF Chronicle in Trouble?
“We talk about creative destruction, and celebrate the rise of blogging as citizen journalism and Craigslist as self-service advertising, but there are times when something that seemed great in theory arrives in reality, and you understand the downsides. I have faith both in the future and in free markets as a way to get there, but sometimes the road is hard. If your local newspaper were to go out of business, would you miss it? What kinds of jobs that current newspapers do would go undone?”
Good questions to ask. Although I have the utmost faith that local newspaper can survive — and even thrive and grow — I have just as much faith that many won’t. This is a make or break time for local newspaper. Either get on board with the new world, or die.
What happens if your local paper chooses the later route?
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Django .96 is available
New version of Django is out. Now includes all new forms library and testing framework. Also, note that many Dreamhost servers have older versions of mySQL, so you’ll need to change your database setting to “mysql_old” for Django .96, which now expects newer versions.
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HP acquires Dango-powered Tabblo
Word from the guys at Tabblo is that they will continue to develop using Django inside of HP. Awesome news for Tabblo and Django. Congrats, guys!
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Modest Maps: A Clean Slate for Your Maps
A BSD-licensed display and interaction library for tile-based maps (Yahoo, Google, etc.) in Flash, written in ActionScript 2.0. Basically, this gives you a totally clean map, with no default display for markers, widgets, etc. — so that you can build the interface bits as you wish, rather than being beholden to the ones Yahoo, Google, and the others give you out of the box. Great idea.
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Apple TV hacked to run XviD, other formats
That didn’t take long. For what it’s worth, I’m quite pleased with my Apple TV thus far. Works really well.
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Twitterholic says I’m the 79th most popular Twit
…which is ironic, as I basically never use Twitter.
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News Corp. and NBC to take on YouTube
This is about as likely to unseat YouTube as the Zune is to unseat the iPod. That is to say, not chance in hell.
By and large, traditional media companies are losing to tech companies and web startups. Why? Basically, because they’re followers. Very few of them have the foresight to snatch up the brilliant young minds in the web world, and instead just follow the leader (in this case, YouTube). But the Internet seems to favor innovative and first-to-market products. Traditional media hasn’t released many of either.
(All that having been said, there are a few traditional media companies who get it…thank God.)
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Django snippets: Unobtrusive comment moderation
Probably the simplest way to add Akismet filtering to comments in your Django site — and without changing Django’s built-in comments app.
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Behance Action Book
The Action Book is a spiral bound pad with a suede-like cover that adds a comfortable element to practicing the “Action Method,” which is apparently a GTD-ish task management system. I’m not sure I could get used to using paper instead of a computer to manage this stuff, but if I could, I would totally use this. Beautifully designed, especially if you’re a Helvetica-loving grid groupie like me.
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Highrise: Early stats, Cases for all, the new Solo plan, and more disk space!
I’m really impressed by 37signals response to their customer’s feedback about the pricing structure and limitations of the launch version of Highrise.
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What’s wrong with music notation?
A lengthy article on why programatic music notation, especially that output from Finale, is less-than-perfect. Good stuff, especially if you’re into typography (as this is basically musical type).
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The fastest-looking scooter ever.
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The fastest-looking scooter ever.
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Mark and Richard’s “Web Typography Sucks” audio
The podcast is now available for one of my favorite sessions at this year’s SXSWi. Follow along with the slides as you listen.
I made a couple of comments at the end of the session, and was surprised to find out, when I listened to it back, that I’m actually not completely appalled by the sound of my voice.
I now dread hearing the podcast of my own panel that much less.
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Dan Webb: Flash vs. Ajax: It’s time to expand your toolbox
The contingent of web standards-oriented designers and developers looking to add Flash to their bag of tricks without compromising their ideals is growing. w00t.
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LJWorld: Mining’s Legacy: A Scar on Kansas
Another beautiful piece of interactive journalism and multimedia storytelling from The Journal-World. This one was designed by Nathan Borror with assistance from Christian Metts and direction from David Ryan.
This is an early attempt at something we’ve been talking about for a while, but are just starting to really do. That is, to take a story and tell it the way it wants to be told. Wether that’s video, audio, text, photos, infographics, or anything else — the important thing is the story. This is in contrast to most newspaper companies, who still hold text-based pieces as the cornerstone.
Take a look around. You’ll find that many sites are doing videos and photos and such — but rarely are they first-class citizens. Usually it’s a basic text-based story layout with a few additional bits of multimedia in a sidebar somewhere. We don’t want to do that (at least not exclusively). If the best way to tell a story is through a video with some supporting text, then we want to use video with some supporting text. We don’t want the fact that we’re (historically) a newspaper company to keep us from telling stories the way they’re best told.
Besides the “mediums besides text can be first-class” approach, this is also an example of taking a big, multi-part (even multi-day, in print) piece and giving it an art-directed design all it’s own online. You’re going to see a lot more of this from us in the future.
And besides that, it’s yet another sneak preview of the design direction for the new LJWorld.com, which should launch this month. Check out the tight 16-column grid!
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Nathan's “Dan Rubin Face”
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Nathan's “Dan Rubin Face”
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Probably the drunkest guy I've seen in a LONG time…
Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with Simply Measured, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my past clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, Django, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
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