Some really interesting metrics from JESS3 for AIGA on the state of the internet.

JESS3 – the State of The Internet by JESS3 for AIGA Baltimore

Yes, I know it’s probably too early to be talking about this, seeing at Wave is still in its preview. But I’m a little bit disappointed in it. This is probably just because the web app isn’t feature complete. Still, at this point I can’t see myself using it as broadly as it was represented in the announcement video.

For one, it’s just confusing to keep track of who is writing/changing what when you have multiple people working on the same wave. It’s also tough even to reply to other wavelets that are sitting there. Some of the UI still seems really rough and not at all intuitive. Maybe they’re working on this.

But I think that that is my biggest issue with it. It’s so confusing to work in that I just get turned off to it. At least in IM you know who is talking when. In Google Docs you can save and edit – though the changes by other people don’t display in realtime. I guess the collaborative part of it is the point. It’s a realtime wiki, basically. And I suppose that’s okay. But it certainly doesn’t feel ready for all of the other tasks it was suggested for when Google premiered it.

Oh well.

I’ve still got a few Wave nominations. Anyone want one? First come, first served. (You can also tweet @joelgoodman)

These are the slides for my week 2 class. It’s all about stylesheets and how to use them this week.

I’ll use these slides during my class on 07 September 2009.

Wow. It’s already been a busy week.

We released the new Athletics site at work that I have been developing for the last few months. That was Monday. I have gotten far fewer comments than I expected. And no news is good news as far as I’m concerned. Overall I’m pretty happy with it. Everything at work just seems to overwhelm me right now, so it’s good to have a major project out of the way. Check it out if you want: http://www.gcpanthers.com

I did a project for Randall a couple week ago. I’m only going to say this: I coded the design as a WordPress template in about 2.5 hours.

I’ve got a few projects on deck now (freelance speaking). One of those is a new WP template for a friend from back home. It’s a fun project. And I feel kind of bad because it’s not going to take that long to code, I just haven’t had much time the last few weeks what with work and preparing for my class. But it’s coming in the next couple of weeks. She’s got a really great blog and I’m excited to be a part of getting this design out for her. Check out tea@elevensies »

I start my first bout with teaching college students on Monday evening. I’m really excited about it, but have a bunch of work to do. I need to put together a better keynote presentation and finish up the first assessment for them. I need to get a feel for what they already know about web design. So I’m going to “test” them the first evening. They’ll get points just for taking the assessment, no matter what they know or don’t know. So hopefully the students will forgive me for a test during the first class.

If you’re interested, I could still use help creating questions for that initial test. Check out my previous post and leave the question you think I should ask.

Anyone else notice the idiotic Mac v. PC flame wars going on again? I don’t want to add to it–in fact, I didn’t even want to pay notice to it at all. But people are dumb and I’m tired of them being so.

Disclaimer: I’m a Mac user. But I’m sure you knew that.

I must say though, Windows 7 is looking mighty nice. I’m excited to play with the next release candidate. But will it make me switch back to a Windows PC? Probably not. I’ve chosen my plight in life and I’m much more content now, using OS X on my MacBook Pro, than I ever was using a PC.

Windows Desktop with BlackBox circa 2003

In high school and first three years of college I was a total PC guy. I built computers quite often, went down the computer fair in Pomona, CA, overclocked… all of it. Even dual booted Linux a few times, trying to get used to Slackware and Dropline. I did a lot of open source, used various shells (I loved blackbox for a while), blah blah blah. I was a PC nerd.

But I always liked Macs. Junior year of high school was my first significant introduction with the platform. I had a video editing internship at the local megachurch and we used a Media-100 editing rig with a PowerMac. At school, in computer graphics class, we had the first and second series of iMacs to do editing, photoshopping, etc. on. And I loved them. In fact, the more I used those Macs, the more I liked them. Especially after OS X released.

When I worked at a camp we did our video editing on a PowerMac as well, in Final Cut Pro 2 (horrible software!). So I used the tool fit for the jobs. I built my desktop PCs, but after working at our college’s IT Helpdesk on so many Dell laptops I quickly decided that I wouldn’t by a name-brand Windows-based laptop. Too many problems with them. But I’ve had minimal problems with my Macs.

So the point: Stop Hating! It’s a computer. Just because someone has a different preference than you doesn’t make it bad. Macs are not inherently better than PCs or vice versa. Macs are better for me and the way I use a computer in the same way the Windows PCs are better for some programmers. Design-wise, Apples locked that objectively. But if you don’t care about design or UI, it doesn’t matter.

This isn’t 1997. The flame wars are done. No matter how much Microsoft or Apple are trying to make you believe they aren’t, the simple fact is that it doesn’t matter. You buy and use what you buy and use, and you are not obligated to justify it.

Yeah, that last post. Forget it.

I totally forgot about WordPress’ XML-RPC features and that I could use a service (like PixelPipe) to update it. I looked into using this new service called Posterous – but it was too restrictive in having to verify emails to be able to post that I had to abandon it. Doesn’t work so well when I have 6+ people needing to use the service to update the blog and Twitter.

But PixelPipe offers a common email upload and will update everything including YouTube. So. Awesome. That’s the plan. I’ll have to do some testing (and I think LunarPages breaks the XML-RPC capabilities… I can’t get it to work on this or any blog on my server) to see what the formatting is like, but I think this will be a better solution.

I got a NAS!

My D-Link DNS-321 came yesterday and is running well. Although… I haven’t put any data on it. I’ve sort of been messing with fun plugs and features and stuff.

The greatest benefit to this NAS is the Linux kernel underneath. That lets me add whatever features I want (within reason and skillset anyway). So I’m busy setting up Bonjour (for our Macs), Firefly (for iTunes sharing), and a bunch of other things.

I need to brush up on my Linux commands… because I am way out of practice when it comes to working in a terminal. But it’s going okay. I’m gettin’ there.

Photos of the NAS to come, I hope. If you’ve got tips for working with the DNS-321/323 PLEASE let me know in the comments or with the Contact link at the top. I’d appreciate any help I can get.

Hope you’re having a good week!

Conversing with people over social media is no different than conversing with someone on the phone, or through a letter. I don’t understand why people still think there’s a disconnect between the internet and outside world. Is this the 90s?

I think that William Gibson touched on this in his book Spook Country. One of the running themes is that there’s this second layer on top of our physical world, that always exists even if it isn’t always seen. The premise is that these two layers are merging to a point where there is no longer a difference between what is physically there and what is virtually projected.

But past that, we shouldn’t even think in this layer analogy. The people we interact with online are flesh and blood persons with thoughts and feelings and opinions regardless of the medium we choose to interact through.

There’s a lot of questioning and attacking from certain circles, right alongside the curiosity and exploration and excitement those of us in love with social media are generating. Many of my HigherEd web colleagues have been talking about the recent media explosion over Twitter.

@bradjward tweeted:

So mainstream media is talking about Twitter a lot. Good? Bad? Why? Seeing mixed reactions from the crowd.

@jesskry tweeted:

Im sick of the media trash talk about Twitter’s ‘What are you doing’ icebreaker. We’re doing much more than that people. Much more.

People aren’t just hanging out on Twitter, shunning real life. Twitter is real life in that we are communicating on any number of personal, professional and other topics that pertain to how we live.

Just this past week I’ve had help in choosing a new chair for my desk at home, thoughts on web design projects, invitations to visit friends in other cities, and have stayed up on world events.

I think that is what scares traditional media. They can’t control when people get their news anymore. They are at the mercy of rapid-fire communication and at a loss on how to adapt and use it. But it’s not so much about strategy as it is about embracing changes in the communication landscape.

There is definitely a huge paradigm shift happening and like history has demonstrated, those not embracing the inevitable end-result will lose out and probably be bitter about it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand it–a lack of understanding does not equal *bad*.

New tech will always scare the established old-fogey power — look at what’s going on with Hulu and Boxee — but the traditional, physical world will eventually meld with the digital, electronic world and we’ll see that there really is no difference anymore. And those of us who keep pushing will see things get better and better.

So, with all of the updates Apple pushed out today to their products, the 15″ MacBook Pro also got itself a bit of a boost in the processor department. It now has the same speed as the 17″ MBP. I called them up to see about getting the upgrade. I’m within the 14-day return period.

I was hoping I might be able to drive out to the Apple Store in St Louis and return it. But because I have a “custom configured” (read: a remote and iWork added – nothing done to the computer’s configuration itself) model, the rep said I’d have to RMA it and ship it back, probably with a 10% restocking fee.

Since I can’t wait two weeks to get a replacement with all of the projects I’m working on, she offered me a $50 price protection credit. So that’s cool. I’m getting $50 back for keeping a computer I am already very happy with. I am a little bit bummed, because I was waiting for that first hardware refresh and missed it by two weeks – and didn’t get my MBP until 8 days after the order.

But! The $50 goes a long way to un-bumming me. And my MBP is great anyway.