Sat Dec 31, 2005
Obligatory 2005 Year in Review
2005 began at midnight on December 31st, 2004.
A bunch of stuff happened.
2005 will reportedly end tonight at midnight, after which it will be 2006, and more stuff will also happen.
And so it goes...
This Just In: Internet Access Does Not Equal Higher Test Scores
I really hate it when a reporter gets their facts wrong or attempts to put a alarmist spin on news in order to boost readership, as is the case with this review of a study conducted by University of Chicago Professor Jonathan Guryan by TechLearning.com. (Counter-productive free registration required.)
According to the review of the article, the billions of dollars that have been poured into Internet access for schools has been a colossal waste of money, since, as TechLearning claims, Internet access alone "didn't boost student learning".
But a careful reading of the actual article published by Professor Guryan shows that what was measured was not learning, but the performance of students on standardized tests. Could it be possible that learning and test scores are not the same thing? Is there, or was there, an expectation that having the Internet available in schools would boost standardized test scores?
I don't think that if you were to look back at what was said by policy makers or expected by the public when schools were being wired to the Web in the late 1990's that you would find many who said that kids need Internet access so they can do better on standardized tests. The idea behind funding the wiring of schools with eRate dollars and getting teachers and students on-line was that without Internet access to all schools across America a growing disconnect would exist between the digital haves and the digital have-nots. Poorer students in poorer schools would be left behind as their more wealthy counterparts raced to give their students access to the Web and what it offered. This so-called Digital Divide would widen and leave some kids without the skills they would need to function in a 21st century workforce. And, not coincidentally, none of those skills of appear on standardized tests.
Professor Guryan states that "Judged solely as a policy to close the digital divide, the E-Rate program registers as a success." That sounds a bit different from what the initial review of the article stated doesn't it?
But legitimate questions are raised by this study, not least of which are how schools are using the Web to deliver instruction. In the best cases, teachers use the Web to connect their students with the wider world of information and people in ways that were not possible 10 years ago. Students have access to primary source materials, scholarly research, information, and people in ways that were impossible in the days before their schools were wired. But in the worst cases, the Web is little more than an electronic babysitter that some teachers use as a way to keep their students occupied while they...well, I'm not exactly sure what those teachers are doing instead of teaching. But there's no doubt that the Web is misused each and every day in classrooms across the U.S. That's a problem with the teachers though, and not with the technology.
The study concludes with this:
In the end, the E-Rate program has helped get basically every school in the country hooked up to the Internet. The Internet itself, though, seems unlikely to be a silver bullet for solving the problems of America’s public schools.
I agree. Internet access does not automatically equate to good teaching or to solid learning, anymore than any other teaching tool does. I like to use the example of textbooks in a case like this. Every year there are billions of dollars spent on textbooks in the U.S., and yet every year we see continuing issues with so-called student achievement. Are textbooks to fault for that alone? Of course not. Textbooks and computers and Internet access are merely tools for learning. If those tools are not used properly it should come as no surprise when the outcome is not what was hoped for.
Fri Dec 30, 2005
Chanukah vs. Christmas
My favorite Jewish American Princess (Reformed) has a great posting at her GeekyMomma blog. Although this is late for Christmas, it's right on time for Chanukah. So what's the difference between Chanukah and Christmas? For one thing:
Christmas is a major holiday. Chanukah is a minor holiday with the same theme as most Jewish holidays. They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat.
Read more here.
Thu Dec 29, 2005
Blogs and the Lord of the Flies
I'm a political guy. And I'm a big fan of well-written and informative blogs. But I've never cottoned to the political blogs that are out there. Yes, I subscribe to a few RSS services to keep up on the news of the world and opinion pieces, but most of those are from what would be considered the evil Main Stream Media. But the whirling dervishes of the political blogs have always left me cold. Too much ranting coupled with too little thought and almost no reflection doesn't make for a good combination in my mind.
Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinel takes a look at the political blogging world today and comes to much the same conclusion in a piece titled Lord of the Blogs. I agree with her assertion that there are too many people with too much time on their hands and with ready access to a broadband connection and a bit of blogging software. I particularly liked her description of those she calls the "enemies of decency, humanity and civility - the angry offspring of narcissism's quickie marriage to instant gratification":
Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi. They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I'll say you're important if you'll say I'm important) and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.
Each time I wander into blogdom, I'm reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.
Demographics of the American Internet User
I've always read with interest the reports from the Pew Internet & American Life Project on the ways the people are using the Web, and the latest report is just as insightful. This time around a report on the demographics of Americans using the Web shows some interesting trends, particularly where men and women differ in their use of the Internet. A little snippet from their conclusions:
...our data show that men and women are more similar than different in their online lives, starting with their common appreciation of the internet’s strongest suit: efficiency. Both men and women approach with gusto online transactions that simplify their lives by saving time on such mundane tasks as buying tickets or paying bills.
Men and women also value the internet for a second strength, as a gateway to limitless vaults of information. Men reach farther and wider for topics, from getting financial information to political news. Along the way, they work search engines more aggressively, using engines more often and with more confidence than women.
Women are more likely to see the vast array of online information as a “glut” and to penetrate deeper into areas where they have the greatest interest, including health and religion. Women tend to treat information gathering online as a more textured and interactive process – one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.
via ClickZ Network
Wed Dec 28, 2005
Free this week: 1,415 Tutorials at CommunityMX
My partners and I over at CommunityMX.com have thrown open the doors this week to our complete library of articles and tutorials. During this Open House you can read any article you'd like for free. (Downloads of source files and PDF versions of the articles still require a subscription.) You can check out the articles by category here or see what your favorite author has written by following the links on the the author's page.
Let me just say that I'm a bit humbled to work with such a talented group of people. If you look at the book titles alone that have come out of our group it's pretty impressive. The Director and Dreamweaver and Fireworks and ColdFusion and Flash and even Flash Remoting books written by my partners could easily take up an entire section on web development at your local bookstore. Combine that with the active role that many of our partners play in the world of on-line discussions and community groups and the numerous articles published in magazines, journals, and at the (formerly) Macromedia Developer's Center, well, let's just say that I'm keeping good company.
Funny thing is that I've become such good buddies with most of these guys and gals that I really don't think of them so much as accomplished authors, but more as just good friends. Funny, smart, ornery, and talented friends. We're probably about as easy to manage as a herd of cats, but Ray West has done an admiral job of keeping things together for the last (nearly) 3 years.
So, enjoy the Open House. There's a lot of terrific articles and tutorials at CommunityMX that cover topics specifically related to the world of web design and development using (formerly) Macromedia tools. Of course with less than a week left for free access you'll be hard-pressed to work through all 1,415 articles and tutorials. One way to approach this would be to take a look at what each of our authors provides, as we all have our own specialties. Some examples:
Tom Muck for articles on ColdFusion and Flash Remoting and SQL
Adrian Senior for the practical application of CSS using Dreamweaver
Big John Gallant and Holly Bergevin for CSS theory and bug hunting
Jim Babbage on Fireworks techniques and photography
Kim Dudley for Freehand and print
Zoe Gillenwater for CSS design and integration using Fireworks and Dreamweaver
Paul R. Newman for all sorts of Flash goodness
Joey Lott on ActionScript
Tom Green on Dreamweaver and Flash, particularly Flash video
Heidi Bautista on ASP.net development using Dreamweaver
and Kim Cavanaugh for a grab bag of things from Fireworks to Flash to Breeze and more
OK, there are others, but I'd better stop before I feel obligated to list them all. But if you follow those links you'll have a good overview of what is offered and be able to dig in from there. Enjoy!
Tue Dec 27, 2005
My Cardiac Christmas
Our family partakes in an old Southern tradition every year--the consumption of large quantities of delicious, artery clogging greasy goodness at our family brunch.
This year was no different as we gathered at Mom's house. With brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, grandkids, and great-grandkids all around we sat down to a table groaning with good Southern cooking. And what was on my plate? Let's see, I think it was something like this:
Biscuits with sausage gravy (both homemade of course)
Scrambled eggs
Two kinds of hash-brown casseroles
Link sausages
Fruit salad (gotta keep it healthy you know)
Sliced tomatoes
Another biscuit with apple butter
Homemade pumpkin bread
Whew! I barely had room for seconds after all of that. Of course, there is the family tradition to uphold, so I did manage to get back for another biscuit and gravy fix after the first round settled in. Dad would have been proud.
Then it was the opening of presents, telling of jokes, and playing with the dogs and the kids.
All followed by a nice long nap after waddling home.
Ah! Christmas! There's nothing quite like it.
Fri Dec 23, 2005
The Answer Guy: My wife says she doesn't want a Christmas present...
Dear Answer Guy:
My wife and I decided this year to get a new household appliance for Christmas and took a solemn vow not to get each other gifts. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I'm wondering if not getting her a gift is really OK. What do you think?
--Practical Hubby
Dear Practically a Moron:
This is one of the oldest dodges in the world. First, the significant other decides on a big ticket item for purchase that she knows you might otherwise kick up a fuss over at any other time of the year.
"A new stove? What are you talking about?! 2 of the burners are still working on the old one," you say. Of course she then comes back with, "Well, if we give it to each other for Christmas then we don't have to give each other gifts. We get the stove (washer, new kitchen, major remodeling project, fairly expensive vacation, etc.) and no presents for each other. Deal?"
Of course, I understand the temptation of accepting this deal. After all, that frees you from the drudgery of trecking to the store or (shudder) the mall to get her something personal. And Lord knows guys are genetically engineered to do almost anything other than shop. Better if we could make her something or perhaps kill a wild animal.
But the truth is most of us are lacking in the making-her-something skills we need these days, and it's getting harder and harder to find wild things to kill. Much less find the woman who is impressed by having some fresh deer meat or salmon or kingfish in the freezer.
So, it's natural to say "Sure honey. No presents for each other this year. We'll spend the money on (appliance, trip, remodeling project) instead."
Fool.
Of course you should go ahead and get the big-ticket item, but you'd darn well better have something under the tree on Christmas morning. Maybe not something expensive, but something personal for her to let her know you're thinking of her. And no, lingerie doesn't count. That's thinking about you.
I recommend jewelry as the sure-fire gift that almost all women will appreciate. Think of it as the modern equivalent of coming back to the cave with a large beast draped across your shoulders.
But don't for one minute think that you can get away with not having a present for her on Christmas morning.
Wed Dec 21, 2005
Scary Prediction: Intranets to Embrace User Experience....in 2006
Now why would the prediction that company intranets would embrace the user experience in 2006 be scary? Because it makes me wonder what happened this year, and the year before, and so on. Do you mean to tell me that companies have been spending wads of cash to develop intranets that live people can't actually use? Why, that would be stupid wouldn't it? I guess if you then pulled employees away from productive work for long periods of time so they could be trained to use your intranet then...oh wait. That would be stupid too.
And yet it is a scenario that is searingly familiar to those of us who work in large organizations. The challenge of course is to design for usability rather than being forced to teach how to use an application or service after it's been rolled out.
Shiv Singh at CIO Watch has an excellent article titled Intranet Trends to Watch for in 2006 in which he discusses the usability trend and makes the case that this isn't a case of poor design from the outset, but demand driven by the user.
A few years ago, employees barely cared about their company intranets. Today, they’re using their intranets so much that they expect them to have the simplicity and usability of Google or Yahoo! Furthermore, in many large companies, the intranet serves as the official face of the company. Companies with unusable and complex intranets are doing a huge disservice to their employees.
He also goes on to discuss the fading away of the company blog, but the continued growth of RSS and an increased demand for AJAX-type features that require fewer page refreshes and trips to the data warehouse for information. He also has a few nice words to say about Flex.
...the possibilities are endless with Ajax and other similar technologies and tools like Macromedia flex. Expect to see nifty, task oriented, highly interactive Ajax and flex based applications on your intranet fueling the next wave of user adoption.
A worthy read gleaned from Column Two.
It's the Teacher, Stupid
I ran into an old colleague at the school district cafeteria yesterday. "L" is a bright, dynamic, and talented science teacher that I had the great pleasure to work alongside during her first few years in the classroom. Like so many teachers I know she is also caring, hard-working, disciplined and determined to see her students learn.
It always gives me hope to see these teachers. The ones that work hard every day in their classrooms despite whatever new requirements, testing standards, or theories of better learning roll down from on high. Because if you look back at public education in our country you can see how often we've tried out new things and "reformed" education. The latest push for "performance accountability" through standardized testing is nothing but the latest swing of the pendulum.
In the end it really matters little to the truly good teachers.
Those teachers have never been satisfied to see a child left behind. They don't need multi-colored charts to tell you which children are struggling. They've spoken to the child's parent, or have come to the conclusion that the child has no responsible adult in their lives when no parent will take the time to meet with them. They've seen the child fall asleep in class because there is no discipline at home. They've seen children with bruises. They've had to report child abuse to the authorities.
None of that is measurable by the latest performance metrics, and yet it is just a small part of what a good teacher does.
What good teachers have always done.
Because despite knowing the children in their classrooms may have challenges at home, or may be lacking in some fundamental skills needed to succeed, great teachers work hard to find a way to reach every child in their classroom. They follow the curriculum, they do as they are told, and yet they also find time to reach out and care about all their students. They think and plan and modify their assignments so that every child has a chance.
It doesn't really matter what you throw at these teachers. Have all the meetings you want, introduce lots of new reforms that please the voting public. Print lots of reports and build elaborate testing structures that give you lots of data. It won't really matter to good teachers.
They are in the classroom because they love their work and they love their students. No education policy is going to change that. And that's a good thing. Because in the end education is all about the teachers, stupid.
Tue Dec 20, 2005
Microsoft's School of the Future
An interesting set of documents and a few blog-like entries have been posted at the Microsoft School of the Future project page. It's interesting to note that even with the resources of one of the world's largest companies behind the project the push to advance and reform education has met with many of the same obstacles that are faced in schools all over the country.
This is an obviously worthwhile endeavor, although it does harken back to some of the industrial-age education experiments from the 1920's. As passionate as I am about the role that technology can play in creating better classroom learning experiences for students, I remain a skeptic in many regards. No matter how good the technology or how grand the vision high-quality education has always and will always come down to one primary thing--the skill and passion of the teacher in the classroom.
That said, there are some interesting documents available for download at the site and some excellent discussion topics. The school's stance on the role of research and evaluation, for instance, is one that I find refreshing in a day and age where too many "school leaders" think that education comes down to kids completing standardized assessments and administrators reading multi-colored reports on how well students are learning.
To ensure a continuously evolving, integrated curriculum, the professional staff, led by the director of research and innovation, should incorporate the latest findings in research and development from business, technology, and educational institutions. In addition, the school should act as a learning laboratory where staff and students can design, carry out, and evaluate appropriate projects to enhance the teaching and learning process.
via Main Function
Blogging 101 at Community MX
My latest offering at Community MX went live this morning--Blogging 101. We're beginning a new series of articles on blogs and blogging leading up to the release of a new blog-style JumpStarts design package later this week.
In this 20 minute Breeze presentation I discuss blogs from the perspective of a web developer who's clients might be wanting to learn more about blogs or who's clients might ask them to create a blog. I take a look at what blogs really are, how blogs are being used, and the different options available in hosting and server-side technologies.
Finally, the presentation wraps up with what I consider to be the 6 rules for having a successful blog (not that I necessarily follow them all here mind you):
1. Be interesting.
2. Be focused.
3. Be relevant.
4. Be persistent.
5. Be conversational.
6. Be active.
This presentation is free for subscribers to Community MX or available for a small fee.
Mon Dec 19, 2005
Is It Wrong to Pick Out Your Own Christmas Present?
Lovely daughter and I went out on a Christmas shopping excursion yesterday afternoon. One of the very few that I'll be subjecting myself to this year since I really loathe the mall shopping experience. I know. I'm an old fart.
But luckily for me my wife had on her list of things that she expects...I mean wants....a new wristband to hold her iPod Shuffle when she's out for a bike ride.
Oh.
Well.
A trip to the Apple Store. That's different.
So off we went, braving the Sunday traffic to the far western suburbs where the mall rises on an artificial hill like a veritable beacon of commerce. Into the Apple Store we go, and within a few minutes the necessary item has been procured. But heck, now that we're already here we might as well look around some. Oh. A keyboard. Man, my keyboard at home is really grotty. Here you go daughter, this is for your Mom to give to me.
And gee. Instead of inconveniencing wife and daughter, who really have no clue what to get me for Christmas, why don't I pick up a game? Not that I'm a big gamer, but daughter enjoys giving these to me each year, so I might as well get one I'm likely to play. Here you go, this is for you to give me.
So, a few minutes in I'd picked out two gifts I'd really like to have, instead of things that I have to pretend that I like on Christmas morning.
Is that wrong of me?
Nah.
Fri Dec 16, 2005
Free Christmas Vector Graphics
A few years ago I found a catalog of stencils in a craft store that I really liked. Of course, to make them work in my vector-based designs they needed to be digitized and transformed into vectors. It took a little while, but ultimately by scanning and tracing the images with Freehand I had a nice collection, which has been on sale at Community MX for some time.
This year we are releasing these images as a Christmas gift to all of you out there. As you can see in this sample, these are simply stencil shapes rendered as vector images, but with a little work in your favorite vector editing tool (Fireworks, Freehand, Flash, Illustrator) they can be much more. Heck, you can always blow 'em up, print 'em out, and use them as stencils again if you want.
Download the whole Christmas-themed Black Line Masters package and you'll get 64 Christmas and holiday vector images to use any way you'd like.
Merry Christmas from me and from my partners at Community MX!
Just for Fun on a Friday
Things been a bit tense with the holidays and that stuff you're dealing with at work? Why not create your own South Park Character? Can't hurt to have a little fun sometimes.
Via Idle Hamster.
Thu Dec 15, 2005
Circle the Date With Fireworks and Flash
My latest tutorial at Community MX is live today. Circle the Date With Fireworks and Flash is another "how can I do that?" type of tutorials that demonstrates the workflow you can achieve between two different software products. In this one I demonstrate how to use the Pie Autoshape in Fireworks to create a segmented circle that can be used in Flash as an animated mask. The end result is a little visual effect where a circle appears over the date on a calendar.
This tutorial is free for subscribers to Community MX or available for a small fee to non-subscribers.
Wed Dec 14, 2005
Who Gets Their Faith from a Nativity Display at City Hall?
Here's something I absolutely don't get. All the blather about public displays of sanctity and love for the Baby Jesus and the rightful place that He plays in the Christmas season. I mean, I get the Baby Jesus part, but what is up with these Christians? Not the go to church and worship the Lord kind of Christians that I grew up with, but these in your face and you'd darn well better like it you commie rat bastard Christians who have popped up this year. Has someone been slipping steroids into the holy water?
Here's the thing. Since when did the private faith of these people require expression in a public place? And not only in public, government property, but in retail establishments too. You're going to boycott Target because someone somewhere thought they heard from their sister's cousin that employees were instructed not to say Merry Christmas?
Shouldn't you be expressing your faith in church and in the way you lead your daily lives? Shouldn't you be interested in the teachings of Christ and following his teachings? Shouldn't you be doing something constructive with your faith? But no. Apparently faith of a certain type is expressed by listening to TV talk show hosts and TV-ready preachers.
Since when?
Now when I was raised my folks expressed their faith by going to church. 3 times a week, every week. Without fail. And all of the kids went along too, since that was just what was done. My folks lived highly devout, even fundamentalist Christian, lives, but somehow managed to do it by actually internalizing their faith. They expressed their faith through prayer and fellowship and bible study and in the way they lived their lives. Not once do I remember my Dad saying that we ought to round everybody up and head over to City Hall for a good dose of religion.
Religion was something you practiced at church and in your home and in your attitudes and your life.
City Hall was where you went to pay the water bill and register the dog.
So excuse me if I don't get what the fuss is all about.
My faith and my beliefs are part of my personal life. I don't need any help from the government in that matter, thank you very much.
Cross-Browser Page Animation Tutorial
Following a link from Design Nation about the new Apple Developer's Center, I came across this great article about cross-browser JavaScript animation.
This would make an excellent lesson for those of you who are teaching JS fundamentals. The article does a nice job of covering the basics of JS while providing enough "hey cool!" factor to rope your kids in.
Tue Dec 13, 2005
Designing for Chunkability
A very interesting read this morning on a topic dear to my heart and some of the work I'm doing with interface prototypes. In Give'em Room Folks : The Importance of Open Space In Design Rich Ziade discusses the way that viewers of a web page initially scan for meaningful information before deciding where the important bits are.
Before a user can start making such a decision, he has to first break up all of that data into digestible pieces. Studies have shown that we don't scan such pages in any predictable way. Instead, we sort of zig-zag around. We delineate this blob of information into chunks that we can take in, think about and ultimately act upon. It's sort of like noise-reduction for information. We first reduce the noise and then we listen.
One of my personal design mantras has been that when you try to make everything important ultimately you end up with a design where nothing seems important. This article captures the role that whitespace in a design plays in the task of calling attention to the parts of your design that you want getting noticed in different ways.
via OS X Code
Mon Dec 12, 2005
How About Some Honesty on Scripps?
Palm Beach County was presented with a unique opportunity two years ago. The Scripps Research Institute chose our county as the site for its new East Coast branch, bringing with it new industries in the emerging field of biotechnology. In exchange the scientists of Scripps Institute gets great weather (well, except for that hurricane thing), lots of recreational opportunities, and perhaps most importantly, a huge pool of potential and very wealthy donors. All good right?
But then something all-to-common in boom states like Florida happened. Real estate developers and home builders and paving contractors saw a great opportunity. If the research site needed by Scripps could be packaged with a huge tract of undeveloped land in such a way that the taxpayers could fund all the infrastructure needed for both Scripps and a whole bunch of new homes and shops and gas stations and McDonalds and Starbucks and all sorts of important things, we could open up the very last undeveloped chunk of Palm Beach County. We can push through our large-scale development plans attached to the coattails of Scripps, and we can make Big Money.
Big.
Money.
Never mind that the land in question was on the edge of an important watershed. Never mind those pesky Corps of Engineer studies that you're required by law to undertake when you want to develop something this big with an impact this large. We'll just wave the magic Scripps wand over the whole deal and it will magically happen. And of course we have plenty of lapdogs-in-waiting to fawn over this deal and help get the public support we need to make this happen. Here Mary! Here Warren! Here Ken! Here Jeb! Heel! Sit! Gooooooooood doggies.
This is not shockingly new, or even necessarily illegal. Politicians of both parties have been standing on their hind legs to please powerful groups since Pontius Pilate did it way back in 33 A.D. Probably earlier.
But you know what I wish? I wish just for once the politicians would come clean and be totally honest. Why can't we hear something like this from the pro-development bunch?
"We support the development of Scripps at the western location for the following reasons:
1. We can build lots of stuff along with the research institute. Mostly lots of homes.
2. This will provide lots of jobs in the construction industry.
3. Lots of jobs, because we'll need roads, sewers, schools, more roads, drainage, more roads, stores, parking lots, gas stations, and more roads to support all the new homes and traffic, and oh yeah, that research institute thing.
4. We want the taxpayers to foot the bill for most of that.
5. We want to make huge profits for our companies.
6. Really, really big profits, 'cause you taxpayers are going to do more paying than we will.
7. But that's OK. We think people should get wealthy in this country, and we want in on some more of that. Hey! We'll spread it around! We won't be paying much in the way of taxes--not compared to 10 years ago anyway--so we'll have even more disposable income. And of course we do need our toilets scrubbed and lawns mowed and our boats waxed and that adorable pair of $3,000 shoes.
8. Think of all the tax money all those new homes and stores and Starbucks will generate. Of course it won't be enough to cover the cost of the things everyone will need after we get all the homes and stores and Starbucks built, but the other kind folks in the city and county will chip in on those."
I don't expect I'll ever see that statement, but maybe some brave soul out there will decide to come clean and tell it like it is. Hey, I'm in favor of jobs and growth and a vibrant economy, but why must we be duped into it by politicians who are beholden to the construction industry?
Things have come to a head here in Palm Beach County over this issue. A federal judge (yeah activist judges!) ruled that the proposed development did indeed violate a whole ream of regulations on required environmental impact statements and halted the housing part of the project. Oh that research institute? Oh yeah, you can build that, but you can't run power or sewer or roads to it until you get the proper permits.
And so it looks like sanity will prevail and the Scripps Research Institute will go in the place least-likely to damage the environment or require major infusions of public money for infrastructure. And the continued (and probably inevitable) march to develop every square inch of our county has been delayed a bit. But at least for now Scripps will be properly co-located with a university, be close to existing roads and stores and Starbucks, and still have lots of room for growth.
My regret is that we never really heard the truth from the mouth of any elected official. Instead we've had to endure the yaps and yips and growls and whines of the lapdogs that are supposed to represent us.
Sat Dec 10, 2005
To Women: You Look Great! Really.
I recently learned that a woman acquaintance of mine thought she was "not attractive". I was a little taken aback by this news, especially since I think she is a very pretty woman. But as I thought about it a little I came to the conclusion that an awful lot of women feel that about themselves, and boy, are you ever wrong. 'Cause we guys think you look great.
I consider myself fortunate at the reptilian guy level to be surrounded by so many good looking members of the fairer sex. My wife, well, even after 18 (or is it 17?) years of marriage I still find myself looking across the dinner table at her as she laughs or listens to our daughter and think "Man! She is one pretty woman!" And of course there is the budding beauty in the house. She's still in her coltish stage, but I can see in her the beautiful woman that she will become and try to absorb that with a mixture of pride and horror.
I'm also blessed to work around some vibrant, funny, bright, accomplished, intelligent and yes, beautiful women. And I appreciate that just from a purely guy level. Can you blame me?
But you women.... Why are you so hard on yourselves? Maybe it's because you don't see yourselves as we guys do. I'm not talking about objects of desire here, but just the appreciation we feel for how much you brighten things up in our lives. You look great! And yet you ladies spend too much time focusing on the flaws and not enough on appreciating all of your terrific qualities, including the physical ones.
Now we guys, we start from the assumption that we look great. Hey, yeah, not as much hair on the old noggin and I could stand to lose a few pounds, but otherwise, I look *good*.
Women on the other hand, seem to start from the idea that they *don't* look good, or that they need some validation that they look good. How many men have heard, "Honey, do I look ________ in this ______?". And secretly thought, "What the heck is she talking about? Why is she even asking me that question? She looks awesome." And then no matter how much we try to verbalize it you can be certain that she's heading back to the dressing table or bedroom to check for herself until she's convinced that she looks presentable. Ladies, I got to tell you. We just don't get that at all.
So, my message to the women out there is that you need to lighten up on yourselves. We guys have a whole different take on how you look.
We think you look great.
Really.
Thu Dec 08, 2005
Wikipedia Woes
I'm an unabashed fan of Wikipedia. I love the whole idea of a community-based encyclopedia with contributors all over the world adding to the human knowledge base by creating and editing entries on, well, just about everything. I used Wikipedia immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans to gather background on the debate regarding the levee systems and past efforts (or lack thereof) to improve them. When I was reading Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle I used it frequently to research some of the events from the period where the books are set. I've recommended it to friends and fellow teachers as an awesome resource.
So on Monday when a teacher wrote to tell me that Wikipedia had been firewalled by the security system on our school district network I immediately zipped a message to my buddy in the security department making the case to unblock the site. Part of my job as instructional webmaster is to advocate for sites that get blocked erroneously, and I was pretty certain that this was one of those cases. I mean, Wikipedia is a scholarly resource, right? How can there be anything in Wikipedia that would be inappropriate for students?
The message I got back in effect said, "Dude, you need to dig a little deeper". And so I did, and if I wasn't shocked by what I found (I'm pretty far past the shocking stage in life) I certainly was surprised. OK, there is a scholarly look at nudes in art, with some famous paintings that depict women in stages of undress. I think I could make a case that those are OK. But as I looked deeper I found that there were entries on nudes in film as well. With photos of some actresses displaying their, uh, charms. And probably most surprising to me off all, a lengthy entry on Playboy's "Wet and Wild" video series with this photo caption:
Unknown Playboy model pouring champagne over her body in the Fantasy: Liquid Sensations sequence of the first video in the Wet and Wild series.
Ahem. Well. That does it for Wikipedia for us then. We won't be able to allow our students to use the resource when there are photos like that available. After all, by law we must block that kind of material or risk losing the millions of dollars that we receive in federal eRate funding to run our network.
But the bigger question for me is not whether Wikipedia should include this kind of content, but rather the motivation for someone to submit it? I believe this is the first time I've ever seen anything approaching a serious discussion of Playboy videos. Not that I've ever looked. Is this some kind of marketing effort by the folks at Playboy, or a fan with a strange need to share his love of Playboy videos with the world.
Of course, Wikipedia has been in the news this very week owing to the discovery by a USA Today editor that an entry about his contained pure lies. The blogosphere has reacted here and here and plenty of other places that I don't have time to follow, but in essence, the whole "culture" of Wikipedia has been called into question.
I'm hoping that there is a healthy debate in that community and that one of the topics is what information is appropriate for inclusion. While I might be able to understand the need for the world's largest treatise on all things Klingon, I sure have to wonder why Wikipedia needs a lengthy entry on Playboy videos.
Tue Dec 06, 2005
The Beast is Gone to Bed
As I sit here the PC is displaying the last of the files being transferred to the Wiley FTP server for my latest book, Dreamweaver 8 Visual Encyclopedia.
Oh.
My.
God.
What a long strange trip this has book project has been.
I started this project back in June, so it's been almost 5 1/2 months in the making, and let me tell you, this has been by far the most difficult of the four books I've written. Not because of the subject matter necessarily, but due to the unique formatting used in this series many of the topics have been more than a little challenging to write.
I'm thankful that the 80 hour work weeks are nearly over and that in the end this book should be really terrific. Credit for that goes in large part to my terrific coauthor, Sheri German, who I shanghaied into joining me in August. At that point in the project the book was little more than an extensive table of contents and a whole lot of sample files and attempts to get things into the format required for this series. Bringing Sheri on board helped get the book moving forward in a big way, and I know for certain that I wouldn't have gotten this done without her.
And how much work goes into writing one of these puppies? Consider this. The final chapter I submitted contained 184 individual screenshots of the Dreamweaver interface and covered the techniques contained in the letter F. Everything from assigning Favorites in the Assets panel to FTP-ing files to the server. 11,693 words in all and 22 MB of TIFF files for all the screen shots. And that's just one chapter.
So it's down the home stretch now. There are still edits to be done and questions to answer from the crew at the publishing house, but the days of chaining myself to the computer for extended periods of serious concentration are behind me. But I'm looking forward to a return to normalcy in my working life, and the chance to actually have a life once again.
Keep Your Mitts Off My Fireworks
One of the common threads I'm seeing in the discussions regarding the subsuming of Macromedia into Adobe is one that is entirely welcome. As the Adobe team looks at how it will align its new product line lots of folks have concerns that Fireworks will be abandoned. Geoff at NeuroFuzzy discusses how he uses Fireworks for page compositions and makes the case the Fireworks is to web design as AutoCad is to architects. I totally agree.
I don't think anyone would argue that PhotoShop is a superior product when it comes to photo-editing and the pure power to push pixels around. But Fireworks is, and hopefully will continue to be, an awesome production tool for web graphics. I'm understandably prejudiced as a former Team Macromedia dude for Fireworks and having written an awful lot about its uses, but as far as I know there simply is no equal to Fireworks when it comes to the kind of production work that web designers need to do. Not to mention the fact that despite lots of temptations to tack on new features and doo-dads to the application the Fireworks team has remained focused on what the tool does best. As a result Fireworks has maintained a simple UI that makes it easy to learn and easy to focus on getting the job done.
So, add my voice to the list. No matter what happens in the coming months let's hope the tools stay focused on the kind of work that people need to do. And for production web graphics work there's simply nothing better than good old Fireworks.
Sun Dec 04, 2005
If I Only Had a 30 Hour Day
I've come to the conclusion that I need about 6 more hours per day to keep up all the things I need to do. Today, for instance, I was up at 4 am and put in a good 4 hours of writing on The Book Project. Then it was off to fishing buddy Fred's house to help finish the repairs he needed to his roof after Hurricane Wilma trashed it and sent cascades of water down the interior walls. Then up to the in-laws for dinner and the return of the generator they loaned us, followed by an hour drive home. Whew! That's more than one person ought to be doing in one day.
But if I had 6 more hours per day I could:
Keep up with my writing assignments.
Blog more often.
Read what others are writing at their blogs and maybe even join in on some discussions.
Read the newspaper. The whole newspaper, and not just the comics and the op/ed pieces.
Take the dog for more than one quick jaunt around the neighborhood in the morning.
Spend time hanging out with my daughter.
Spend time appreciating my wife.
Hang those darn Christmas lights.
Go fishing.
Head to the bookstore and browse. Come home with an armload of books by people I've never read before and expand my reading selection.
Go fishing.
Ride my bike.
Watch a football game.
Take a nap.
Go fishing.
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Gosh, those don't seem like unattainable things do they? I mean I'm not trying to date a super model on the side or get a really fast car and do stupid things in it. I just want some time to slow down and enjoy life a little more.
Now, all I need are those 6 extra hours and maybe I could do some of those things. Or maybe I could take on less work.....Nah!
For now, a hot shower and flopping on the bed seems about the best I'll be able to manage.
Marathon of the Palm Beaches
Our street is on the marathon route for the second running of the Marathon of the Palm Beaches. We've had literally thousands or runners streaming past the house since about 6:30 this morning in an impressive display of conditioning, determination, and in the case of some runners, sheer stupidity. Not to take anything away from people who want to improve their health and take on a challenge, but many of the people who are passing by are woefully out of shape and have no business running 20+ miles, much less the 5 miles that it takes to get to our place from the starting line.
We also have a water station set up a few yards away from us, with lots of nice people offering water and encouragement to the runners. But I was thinking that some of these people might want an alternative. Maybe I ought to go out front and offer them cigarettes and miniatures of Jim Beam or something.
Ah, probably not. The Health Nazis might take me away. But still, it would be fun for a little while.
Sat Dec 03, 2005
When Reality Smacks You in the Face
Have you ever had something happen in your personal or professional life that was a major wake-up call? Not exactly a moment when a light-bulb goes on above your head, but more like having a whole case of bulbs come crashing down on you. The glass shatters, and you hear the tinkling of little shards as each lands on the floor. You shake your head and realize that something fundamental has changed. A defining moment that will shape the course ahead of you.
I had one of those moments yesterday, and today I'm still coming to grips with this new reality. There's a feeling that comes from these changes that is comforting and uncomfortable all at the same time. While the realization itself can be a bit painful, once you've had a chance to step back and face what's happened it's good to know that you have a plan to develop, and that the change is profound enough that you must take action.
While I'd like to go into more detail, I think it's best that I don't at this time. Suffice it to say that when you have these moments, when you feel overwhelmed by the certainty that a change is needed, it's best to take action. In this case it may be some time--perhaps even a long time--before there will be any outward indication of what I plan to do. But I will be planning and considering and putting things into motion so the change can take place. Because yesterday I finally knew for certain that a change was needed. And as painful as that may be initially, it's an important step to take when you need to make big decisions.
Fri Dec 02, 2005
Adobe Bloggers React to the Merger
I thought I'd take a look at the Adobe blogs and see what sort of reaction they were having to the announcement that the merger with Macromedia has been approved. I don't know if I should read anything into this or not:
Huh. Well, here's hoping that in addition to the great products and talented people that are moving from the Macromedia banner over to Adobe, the new parent company also picks up the openness and sense of community that Macromedia has worked so hard to build and maintain.
Thu Dec 01, 2005
Adobe Closes the Deal
It's official.
Ptui!