Is this really the “Leading Java Resource?” There are no less than 13 ads above the fold, 15 company logos, a giant popup and to top it all off, a video that starts automatically. I can’t see a single line of actual content without either closing the gigantic ad or scrolling down. Amazing! Absolutely amazing.
Robert Scoble wrote about the idea of bad design being better for business here, which got me thinking about the sites I visit frequently:
The only well designed sites I visit on a semi-regular basis are:
Other non-designed sites include almost every get rich website ever created (and there are a lot and people make money on them), eBay–it’s not exactly ugly, but it’s definitely not going to win any beauty contests any time soon, useit.com – the number one usability site, Craigslist (as Scoble mentioned) and many others.
Of course there are tons of well designed sites that are successful such as everything by 37Signals, Flickr, Technorati, YouTube (arguably) and a million other websites and blogs, but still, the point remans that the sites I visit most (and I’m a web designer) are almost all either under-designed or in some cases, flat out ugly.
What does it mean? I’m not completely sure, but I definitely think that a few conclusions can be drawn:
I don’t, however, think that bad design makes a site good. I think that what keeps me coming back to all those poorly designed sites is the feeling that there are some extremely smart people behind them who maybe don’t have time to worry about the design. If they were better designed, I think that if anything, I’d be more likely to visit them.
Technorati Tags: design, web2.0, technology
Wow. Quicksilver never ceases to amaze! You can now create mouse gestures to do anything Quicksilver can do using a plugin called Abracadabra.
It’s a basic plugin, but it’s incredibly helpful. You needn’t be working for Coca Cola, o2, Citibank or any other big corporation to benefit from this extension, it works perfectly well on a home Mac that’s just carrying out small jobs.
To use it, first, go to your Quicksilver preferences, in plugins, choose “other plugins” to find plugins that aren’t installed and check the box next to Abracadabra.
Click the plus sign by Abracadabra (you probably have to have “Enable advanced features” set to Beta in the Application settings.
You’ll now have a new menu item called Abracadabra. Select it and add the sounds you want to hear when you do a gesture that is recognized or when you make a mistake and do an unknown gesture. You’ll also want to pick a key to use with Abracadabra.
Now click the “Triggers” category in preferences and create a new trigger by choosing the plus sign at the bottom then doing something you might normally do in Quicksilver such as committing something to SVN (or opening a folder or whatever you do with your Mac).
Now change the Trigger type to Gesture, and in the drawer that slides out, draw the gesture you’d like to make in order to perform the action.
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You’re done! Try it out by holding down option (or whatever key you chose) and performing the gesture. If you did it right, you’ll get cool green stars, otherwise they’ll turn red.
A few things have happened lately. One is that the Daily Press is running an article on bloggers and apparently I’m going to be featured. I had a phone interview and the photographer came over and took pictures of me standing by my computer :).
We decided to change the name of the Community of Success (mentioned below) to Enrichr – Pursuing Success. The main reason for the change is that we (there are three of us running the site) decided that Community of Success sounds, for lack of a better word, nerdy. Enrichr is a play on Flickr (obviously) and is a pretty good representation of the purpose of the site–to enrich people’s lives through providing knowledge and motivation.
I’ve also started documenting my efforts to find an investment property on that website.
I’ll take this chance to write about some good software I’ve found lately too:
1. MediaCentral – a program similar to Front Row but in my opinion better. It uses Spotlight to find media anywhere on your hard drive.
2. MP3 Trimmer – fully featured shareware with nag screens to merge mp3’s (or spilt them). I sometimes end up with audiobooks I’ve ripped from CD that are in a million files. This program rejoins them nicely. I also recently discovered you can join them in iTunes before importing them by going to Advanced > Join CD Tracks if you have them all selected.
3. Colibri – The real Quicksilver for Windows? Doubtful, but at least it looks similar. Free.
4. Loudblog – Very cool PHP software for podcasting. With Loudbot it can also be integrated with other blog software.
5. MODx – An interesting looking CMS that is “Web 2.0 buzzword compliant.” One of the few CMS’s that has looked interesting to me lately.
Technorati Tags: business, CMS, mac, macintosh, newwport news, real estate, realestate, software, technology, virginia
A couple months ago I wrote about how to find a great domain name. Since then, I’ve found several other tricks, related articles and sites… here they are:
1. Instant Domain Search – This is the site I’ve been using most. Start typing a domain name and as you type it shows you if it’s available or not. No submit button, no waiting, just good quick results. Can’t beat that. There is a similar site called Ajax Whois that’s not quite as fast (it requires verification), but adds the functionality of seeing whois results.
2. Domainers – Turns out there are people making a bit of money off buying and selling domains, or buying domains hoping people will land on them and click a link. By a bit of money, I mean millions of dollars a year. Business 2.0 has a great article on the subject.
3. Sedo.com – If the domainers article piqued your interest, check out Sedo–a quick place to park your domains to make money off ads or put them up for sale. I’ve parked a few there myself until I have time to develop them. If Sedo doesn’t meet your fancy, check out Afternic, DomainHop or DomainSponsor.
4. Looking for a different way to sell your hot new domain? Check out DomainState or DNForum. The former appears to be less trafficked and free while the latter is not free but is always buzzing.
5. All existing domains – This one is a gem sent from Beau (the guy who made Instant Domain Search). Fax in your address get access to a list (available over FTP) of all active .com and .net domain names. Very cool.
6. 2.99 domains – From Yahoo, sign up for them all at once because the offer is good for new customers only, after you’re signed up the price goes up to $9.95. I was able to get 5 domains for 3 bucks a pop. After that offer expires, I’d recommend checking out Namecheap. Their domains are 8.88 each and the tools to manage them are outstanding.
7. A ton of other name finding tools. My last post generated some good ideas in the comments. Here are tools that people recommended:
8. DomainsBot – I mentioned this one in the previous article, but since then they’ve pulled a few more tricks out of their sleeves. They now have a Lab where there are a few really cool tools.
So.. there you go, more tools for finding domains than you can shake a stick at. Enjoy.
We recently flew US Airways for our holiday travels. I was unimpressed and thought I’d note a few of their shortcomings as examples of how not to run a business:
1. Not enough information. It was very rare to get any information on where we were in the flight, how far delayed we were, why there was a delay or any other information. I’ve flown on other airlines where they had a screen showing exactly where you were on a map of the world, with US Airways, we were in the dark.
2. Inconsistent. On the way to our destination they served pretzels and had a good drink selection on both flights. Both flights also had grouchy stewardesses. On the way home all the stewardesses were great but both the 5 hour flight and the 1 hour flight they didn’t serve even a light snack and there were only about 4 drinks available.
3. Uncomfortable. The airports didn’t have nearly enough seating for the amount of people on the flights–people ended up sitting on the floor and at other terminals. Once on the planes, the seats were much too close together, the fabric on the seats was old and obviously worn and there weren’t enough pillows or blankets for the passengers. The movies were bottom of the barrel as well.
4. Unconcerned. Two of our four bags were lost for more than 36 hours and finding out anything was almost impossible. From the moment they were lost we were constantly given the “I don’t have any information, try calling…” line. We had to make 2 trips back to the airport and about a dozen calls before we finally resolved the issue. No one we talked to was even remotely concerned about the situation.
These are only a few other examples from this flight. I could definitely add to this list.
It’s amazing that with airlines like Virgin, JetBlue and Southwest trying so hard to gain customers by taking care of them and making them comfortable that US Airways still hasn’t seen the light. I think this is a perfect example of a business that hasn’t caught up with the times and one that will suffer because of it.
I’ve been learning Ruby on Rails for the past few months. Along the way, I’ve found several similar frameworks in other languages:
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I haven’t tried anything but the real thing (and I’m loving it) but I thought the list was a pretty good indication of the amount of hype and energy surrounding Ruby on Rails.
Technorati Tags: rubyonrails, technology
Since writing very critically about independent podcasting, I’ve been trying to prove myself wrong. I’ve since listened to many podcasts, and found a few things that seem to make or break a podcast from the point of view of a listener.
1. Multiple voices. None of the Podcasts I currently subscribe to are produced by one person or feature a sole voice. All are either in an interview format or are the combined efforts of more than one person.
2. Under 1/2 hour. Occasionally I’ll find a podcast that I can stand to listen to for more than 30 minutes, but I’ve found that to be the exception rather than the rule. The biggest tendency of podcasters seems to be to ramble about random, unrelated things. It’s entertaining occasionally, but usually is hardly interesting. I’ve found that Podcasters that limit themselves to under 30 minutes usually hold my attention more and have me looking forward the next issue rather than pushing it off for later.
3. Real Content. If you can write a blog entry that could contain all the information in your podcast, do that rather than making a podcast. I will only listen to a podcast if I think it has information I can’t glean quicker by scanning a blog entry. Real content to me is an interview, a recording of a conference or panel, a story, art–read me some poetry or play some music, meaningful conversation between two or more people–stuff I can’t necessarily get by reading a blog.
4. Great audio. This almost goes without saying, but since so many people still don’t get it right, I’ll add it here. Make sure the volume level is normalized, that you don’t cut off highs or lows and don’t convert a high quality audio file to a low bitrate mp3. If it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t matter how good the content is, I’m not going to listen.
I still only listen to about 3 or 4 podcasts. My favorite format by far is the interview. I’ve fallen in love with Podtech.net‘s podcasts which are almost always entertaining and informative–and under 15 minutes. The others I listen to are actually mostly not regular podcasts–I enjoy listening to Y Combinators startup library, Evening at Adler from DrunkenBlog, the Ruby on Rails podcast and occasionally one or two others.
Technorati Tags: podcasting, technology
Dear Google and Sun,
Thanks for making the connection between the JRE and Google toolbar for me. I hadn’t realized that because I wanted your runtime environment I also wanted to clutter up my browser a bit more. Makes sense now though. Maybe while you’re at it, you could also bundle in some other cool browser extensions I didn’t know I needed.
-Marcus
Dear AutoDesk,
Hands off Maya! Leave her alone. The Personal Learning Edition & Mac versions are good.
-Marcus
Dear Macrodobe,
Well, you’re it now. No competition. What’s next?
-Marcus
Dear Weblogs Inc.,
Are you sure you want to be the next Nullsoft?
-Marcus
Dear Apple,
October 12 better be good. It’s been way too long.
-Marcus
Dear Upcoming,
Congratulations on becoming Flickr’s newest sibling. Seems like Yahoo’s doing good things these days.
-Marcus
Here’s something to keep an eye on – Tumblelogs. Basically a blog with quick posts consisting of pictures, quotes, links and whatever else is on the mind of the author. Tumblelogging is bound to grow–as of today there are 540 Google results for “tumblelog.” I predict 10,000 within 6 months. I’m not sure of the origin of the word, but the best I can tell it was coined here. The best example (by far) is the gorgeous Projectionist website… a site that has forever changed the way I think about blogging. Amazing.
I can definitely see the need for a CMS that supports this style of blogging. Hopefully Lifecapsules will fill the need.
[UPDATE: That didn’t take long–10/12/2005 – 12,100 results from a search for Tumblelog]