Ed links to a post on Seth Godin's blog. Seth has this to say about not re-inventing the wheel when it comes to web design: I'm going to go out on a limb and beg you not to create an original design. There are more than a billion pages on the web. Surely there's one that you can start with? If your organization can't find a website that you all agree can serve as a model, you need to stop right now and find a new job. Not a site to rip-off, but an inspiration. Fonts and colors and layout. The line spacing. The interactions. Why not? Your car isn't unique, and your house might not be either. If you've ...

From my horoscope this morning: With a limited number of options, you may feel trapped by your own familiar patterns today. Part of the problem is that you may have sacrificed independence for security. Part of the solution comes from being able to talk about it. Even if nothing dramatic changes right away, you'll still feel better once your frustration is out in the open. (Coming back from a few days in Chicago has been rough on my psyche.)

Because they can't even write proper course materials to teach basic concepts. About 2 years ago, when Jack was in 5th grade, I had a run-in with his teacher over homework which failed to acknowledge that both 36 and 25 are square numbers, no matter how they are displayed in an array. Same homework problem, albeit in a new typeface, came home with Sam tonight. I despair. In other AAPS news, a letter came home apologizing that the existence of the 'convenience fee' in the new meal account system "was not well communicated in the first letter you received." Well, no, the first letter said FREE FREE FREE and didn't mention much of anything about the regressive tax they're levying ...

Last year, the Ann Arbor Public Schools started using an online lunch money system. I could pay some money into my kids' accounts and when they went through the lunch line, whatever they chose (lunch, milk, muffins, etc.) would be deducted. I got a reminder email when the balance fell below $5 (an amount set by me) and I made payments in chunks of $20 (their minimum). I could even get reports of what they purchased (which is how I found out about the Muffin Boy Jack). There were no charges for the service - it was just really nice and easy to use. I'm guessing you can see where this post is going. This year they switched to some crappy outfit ...

I have some vague memories of a childhood visit to Michigan and Granny Fisher insisting on a trip to Greenfield Village. Very sketchy. But I think that was the last time I was there until today. Keith has a friend who works there and the place is completely rife with stock footage (and photography) possibilities. Since the boys are with us all week, we decided to take a trip out there today - both for family fun and for work. We didn't have to spend money to get in, but did buy lunch and a ride on the train. What a strange place, oddly interesting and mind-numbingly dull at the same time. Keith filmed his friend scything and I strolled around with ...

Once, a long long time ago, I got burned by a hardware failure and lost a lot of important data. Ever since then, I've backed up my data - especially with the relative cheapness of external drives, it just seems like the wise thing to do. Oh, I'm not perfect about it, and I don't back up every last byte, but I have all my client work mirrored off to another drive, and my very critical data is also backed up to an online service. Plus, I sync a lot of my stuff to my laptop, so all in all, I'm pretty well covered. So Saturday morning, I installed some new memory and when I closed the box back up, ...

Would someone please explain to me why they combine an expectorant, designed to make your coughs more 'productive' and get all that goo out of there, with a cough suppressant, designed to make you not cough? Seems dumb to me. Still not doing great. In fact, marginal at best. Keith made me get up and out of the house yesterday, and I think that helped some. I also suspect I threw my electrolytes out of balance - I have been drinking copious amounts of water (see above expectorant issue) but I haven't been eating much at all. The nice, yummy salty movie popcorn saved me, getting some sodium back into me. At least that's what I'm choosing to believe at ...

Second Life Finally gave it a try. I've called myself Mitten Beaumont, which seems like a porn name to me, but best as I can tell that's appropriate to the content. I didn't find adjusting my appearance too hard to do (I now have a grass shirt with flared cuffs), but as a newbie with no experience and no one sitting over my shoulder telling me where to go, moving around and visiting places was completely unintuitive and totally unproductive. I still have yet to find much of anything but porn, even when I tried to search for popular places and newbie places. I'm amused with the weird 'sitting' functions that let you strike a sunbathing pose or kissy pose, but beyond ...

I sometimes get asked to create html emails for my clients. I caution them about the perils - some people turn html off, it won't look the same for all readers - and do all I can to dissuade them, but sometimes they still insist. It used to be that you could write one and test it in IE and be pretty assured that it would look correct for the thundering hordes of Outlook users. Outlook used the same html rendering engine as IE, so it was usually pretty close. But Microsoft went and changed the html rendering engine in Outlook 2007. What did they use instead of IE? Word. Yes, Outlook 2007 uses ...

I've avoided the Film Festival this year. I've gone faithfully for the last several years running, and frankly, I just don't think I can take it this year. I've lost my enthusiasm for the genre - yes, genre - experimental is not an adjective and has nothing to do with the concept of using new techniques when you're using the word in conjunction with the word film; it's a genre descriptor like Modern Art (which has a specific meaning: art created in the period from 1890-1970 or so). So I've restricted myself to snarking from the sidelines this year. I figure, if they can put up the films that look exactly the same every ...