As I revealed recently, I’m a freelance web designer. And I just redesigned my main page. Before, it sort of looked like a vanity site, not a business site. With lessons from the estimable Mr. Tufte and others, I hope this one has more useful information and lets more of my personality come through. Let me know what you think. (And I could use some work, too.)
Category: words mean things (Page 157 of 223)
The Boy Who Cried “Blogger”
Let me just get this straight right at the beginning: I love Blogger, and I love Ev. He and his former colleagues created a revolutionary web application that has allowed thousands of people to publish easily on the web. For this, he is to be commended highly. Highly.
But come on. Blogger hasn’t added a useful feature since I started using it, 18 months ago. First there was the vaporware of Blogger Pro, where the hundreds or thousands of people eagerly willing to support the app by paying a small amount for it were thwarted. And since then, quite often Ev will come on his blog or on the main page of Blogger and say something like, “Big stuff coming. Not sure when, but soon.”
Nothing. Nada. Zip.
I realize that he’s just one guy, and he can’t spend a lot of time developing if he’s just trying to keep the thing running, which from recent evidence is a job in itself. But then, please Ev, don’t drop vague hints about “great new stuff” that won’t happen. It’s just mean. If there really is something coming, tell your loyal subjects what and when. These vague announcements are incredibly frustrating, and I bet I’m not the only one who feels this way. For all his greatness, Ev has squandered more goodwill than George Bush Sr. after the Gulf War.
I’m still amazed that there aren’t any real challengers to Blogger. Hard-to-install, techie server apps like Greymatter and Movable Type are fantastic, but they don’t pick up the mantle of easy publishing for everyone. I for one would like to see Ev keep that award. But it doesn’t look good. Prove me wrong, Ev.
Simpsons Quote of the Day:
“How many gazebos do you she-males need?”
-Chief Wiggum
Like Red Meat? Try the Red Meat Construction Set. Incredibly fun (and funny). (via MeFi) For more options, there’s StripCreator.com.
“[President Bush] is asked who did this, and he says, ‘Evildoers.’ Evildoers. And that’s all I need to know. I don’t need to know the details. I don’t need to know the background. I don’t even want to know.”
-Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor
That’s great, Bill. Good job. We all know how unquestioning, blind obedience to authority is *so* American.
Out of curiousity, I watched “Smallville” on the WB last night. Or, as it should more accurately be called, “Superman’s Creek.” Turns out Tom Welling is thankfully a little more everymanish than that freakish and disturbing ad would have had you believe, but he’s still not a good actor. And how many teenage villains can populate Smallville before the tabloids descend? After all, this series is supposed to be set in present day. Thumbs down.
Fight Terrorism every time You make a Call with your new,
low 4.5 cents/minute Rate
Bravo to all those enterprising Americans who have used 9/11 to sell everything from crappy clip-on flags to a used Buick. Now, haphazardly-capitalized spam e-mail tells me that I can fight terrorism by switching my long distance carrier. What a wonderful world. As if this weren’t enough, this HTML spam also has an animated graphic of a – surprise – flag, superimposed with the words “Over 800 Free Minutes.”
Make it stop.
Last night, I impulsively bought a text ad on Metafilter advertising ‘words mean things’. It’s a cool idea, and I thought, it’s cheap, so why not? Apparently, it was too popular. So I got in just under the wire.
It’s come to my attention recently that a lot of people who are regular readers of ‘words mean things’ don’t know what I do for a living.
I’m a freelance web designer.
[pause to let snickering die down]
More on that later, but first I wanted to run an idea by you. I recently read a cool book called “Branding Yourself Online,” and one of the suggestions is starting an e-mail newsletter to promote yourself and your services. I’m seriously thinking about starting one, with ideas for people to improve their business web sites. I’ve worked on the web since 1996, so I think I have more than enough ideas to make a good start of it. What do you think?