About time. And product. And being more deliberate.
As I mentioned over at the Kernest blog, I sent out the first batch of emails announcing a sneak preview of Kernest – the @font-face, type-as-a-service project I’ve been working on.
If you’d like to check it out and give your blog a font upgrade, drop me an email and I’ll reply with a password.
The preview will be running until July 16th when I give a public demo at The Foundation– you’re invite. It’s free.
See you there.
You know I’m a big fan of WordPress. For nearly 5 years, I’ve considered it the only online publishing platform worth considering.
I’ve built a number of plug-ins for it over the years(WP-iPodcatter, WP-iCal, WP-GotLucky, and WP-CaTT) of which I only use WP-iCal these days.
Since then, WordPress has taken off.
While they still have the 5-minute install, I feel much of the simplicity of the project has been lost.
While huge efforts have been made to make the admin side more usable and approachable, I’ve been having more and more technical issues with each successive upgrade.
Here’s a handful that come to mind immediately:
Now, I’ve no interest in migrating 5+ years of data – across countless installs – out of WordPress. Nor do I see another online publishing project as focused on simplicity, flexibility, and extensibility.
I also have no interest taking my chances on another destructive upgrade.
So, I’m experimenting with some ideas, and so far, I’m feeling optimistic.
I’m pleased to announce the launch of RealTimeAds.com – a advertising product now in beta testing at MinnPost.com
Karl and I have been building and testing the system for a couple of months now and I’m quite happy with it on three of fronts;
Interested in trying it out? Give MinnPost a call: 612 455 6953.
Yes, the RealTimeAds.com system uses a version of Cullect’s engine tuned for ad serving (verses feed reading).
For those of you following along, RealTimeAds.com is Secret Project 09Q02A.
UPDATE:
Here’s the official RealTimeAds announcement from MinnPost’s Joel Kramer
UPDATE 2: More from Joel Kramer, this time talking to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.
“We do believe Real-Time Ads will prove more valuable for advertising at a lower entry point.”
CagedTweets.com is a Twitter archiving service for businesses. Founder Andy Schroepfer and I designed, built, and launched in 6 weeks (in time to announce it at 140conf).
Got a crazy project you’d like to launch this summer? Call me – 612 345 9110. Let’s make it happen.
While net neutrality advocates are focused on the bandwidth side of net neutrality, this is the fourth instance in the past couple months of Google causing collateral damage in the name of safety, and not-being-evil.
I’ll agree that malware is an issue that should be stopped early.
I’m just not sure how far away malware is from communism.
Ultimately, issues like this are why Google (and Twitter) needs a number of viable competitors.
Attention web designers –
Sure. Helvetica is a fine typeface.
Just stop using it in your CSS stylesheets. Or at least stop specifying it first. Second. Or third.
There are more readable, more appropriate, and more distinctive, available for your website.
If you must specify it, how about putting it on the other side of ‘sans serif‘?
Yes, the same goes for you – Arial, Georgia, Verdana, and Times New Roman.
I’m floored it’s been 3 weeks since I’ve written anything here. Feels more like 3 days.
I’ve been working with a number of very cool start-ups and Kernest is the only one I’m able to talk about. Thankfully, all 3 are on track to go public this month. And I hope at least one does so I can get that much closer to my 2009 goal of releasing 1 revenue-generating project every 6-months.
Since I’ve got a few minutes – and it’s June – let’s see how I’ve been doing on the rest of those goals:
Daily walks – yes.
Inbox Zero – no. not even close.
Weekly Project Review – no.
Banishing To Do lists – no.
A Monthly First Crack Podcast – I’m ahead 1 month and have 2 prepped for editing
Quarterly small project release – behind a project
On the big ideas: I’ve definitely spent more time writing code and with people. Only slightly more time reading books. Everything else has remained static.
That felt good. Glad I took this moment.
The title of this post comes from #9 on this list.
There’s been lots of chatter about the sub-$300 laptops, dubbed “netbooks” and their ability to run OS X. After reading through the How-To instructions on hacking OS X onto a Dell Mini, my initial thought was:
By Step 5, I’ve already paid for a used MacBook.
I picked up an 8GB Mini 9 for $250 from Dell a few weeks ago and after going through the process – I can confirm that’s the case.
Worst part is, in the end you don’t have a MacBook.
First off, I purchased the Mini without a optical drive (cause it’s 2009 & it’s a netbook). This means I need a Windows box for the installation. Which means, I need to turn on the the only Windows box in the house: a 6 year-old eMac with VirtualPC.
Hours later – after confirming all the hacky bits of software were transferred and configured correctly, I headed back to the Mini for the install.
Nope, 8GB isn’t enough room for even the basic OS X install.
So, I ordered a $120 32GB Runcore SSD upgrade (the Mini won’t boot off it’s SSD slot).
Then, install the hardware upgrade, re-attempt the OS install, do a funny reboot dance (twice for good measure) and….Success.
Time to migrate the account information from the PowerBook….well, what will fit in <32 GB.
A long, complex, ill-documented, technically fragile process and in the end – a Hackintosh….definitely not a Macintosh.
But hey, sometimes the first piece of pie is the hardest to get out. The second always goes much more easily.
A while ago, I heard Someone Influential1 arguing that the problem with social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc, is that they are inherently interpersonal spaces designed and built by asocial people.
Who else happily spends that much time between-chair-and-keyboard rather than out, with, um, people?
As the argument goes, our actual social relationships are like good wine: built over time by an amalgamation of interchanges, contexts, signaling, emotions, subtly, nuance, and complexity.
All of these characteristics are lacking in online social network destinations. It’s almost if the current batch of social network sites has all the nuance and complexity of a junior high home room class:
“Are you my friend?’
“Do you like me?”
“Do you like me like me?”
The argument continues by declaring the risk with model: younger generations could see these social networks as models for actual social relationships – rather than the mediated relationship they are – and we have a generation of sociopaths who require every aspect of every relationship to be explicitly declared to simply feel loved and wanted.
I’m sympathetic to the argument and I’d be all up for grabbing the pitchforks and torches except….
Have you watched a program (drama, comedy, talk, ‘reality’, ‘news’, anything really) on television or watched a movie lately?
Pick anything.
Guilty of the exact same crime.
And so much worse.
At least online – the people have a chance at changing the system to more accurately describe their relationships. They have a chance to use online interactions as a compliment and extension of offline interactions.
In broadcast media – there’s no chance. All the dysfunctional, psychotic, asocial behavior is frozen in. Ready for replaying over and over again. Never changing, learning, or improving.
While it once made me cringe to imagine a generation growing up on throwing sheep at each other in Facebook, it now terrifies me to imagine a generation of people modeling their social relationships off Power Rangers, daytime dramas, ’24’, Oprah, American Idol, and just about anything sold on a DVD.
Bring on the friend requests and thown sheep.
1. I think it was Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling, Clay Shirky, or someone similar. I can’t find a link right now, does this sound familiar to you?
Admittedly, I haven’t watched any of the WolframAlpha demos. I could have no idea how it’s supposed to be used. Either way, I didn’t find it very helpful with the handful of questions that immediately sprang to mind.
I expect any new service to immediately show a unique characteristic. It doesn’t need to be fully baked. Just there.
"Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input" probably shouldn’t be that.
There’s an “easy” way for me (and I suspect others) to be immediately hooked on a new search find engine, display new, valuable, and unexpected results in a simple vanity search.
Though, the biggest challenge WolframAlpha has isn’t whether or not it is “sure what to do with my input” – its that I keep wanting to call it WolframHart
Maybe I’m doing this wrong.
Have you had success getting answers from WolframAlpha?
UPDATE 18 May 2009
Yes, according to Marisa Taylor at WSJ Blogs, I’m searching all wrong. WolframAlpha is for equations, numbers, calculations, etc.
Things I imagine the computers of mathematicians, physicists might need regularly.
Then again, given how advanced our mathematics is – there must be an equation for finding my keys.