From: Gleanings:
To: peeps
Subject: Gleanings: Nothing more than Gleanings
OPENING THANG
I’ve really been enjoying the results of the survey.
http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?ID=5XSNRNLRYKR4&PIN=CXEV
5AJRV28G
At the bottom of this gleanings, I’m going to try to respond to some of the
gleanings-related suggestions.
Today’s big news is xplane launched their redesign today:
http://www.xplane.com/
Dig that sitemap at the bottom of every page. perhaps the redesigned EH
should sport that?
It was originally done on Peter van Dijck’s Move.to/Columbia site, and he
wrote about its successes here:
http://www.poorbuthappy.com/usability/colombianavigation/
Less exciting — except to me– is I went to greymatter. yum! greymatter is
a blogger-like tool for maintaining weblogs. For me, it provides a lot of
freedom: it runs on my server, so I don’t have to worry about mysterious bug
fixes that happen right when I’ve got something to say. For you all, it
gives you a chance to comment on my entries, adding your very fine two
cents.
http://eleganthack.wpengine.com/blog/index.html
DESIGN MATTERS
Flash: 99% good
http://www.webmasterbase.com/article.php/374
In that vein, here is a lovely site (though did he *really* have to open all
those windows?)
aaron haley deemer – photography. (via littlegreenfootballs.com)
http://www.aarondeemer.com
evan writes:
“check this for cool navigation (what else is there, really?)
http://members.ams.chello.nl/mulder.g/
and o’course, http://www.potatoland.org – mark napier’s site.”
USABILITY MATTERS
Heeeeere’s Jakob!
“Summary: Corporations spend millions on PR, and yet the press sections of
their websites often fail to meet journalists’ most basic information needs.
In our recent usability study, journalists found answers to only 60% of
their questions across a range of corporate sites.”
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010401.html
MARKETING MATTERS
Brand Aid
Despite an economic slump, experts say corporate philanthropy remains
essential to branding. Companies such as HP make it work through advance
planning.
http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2001/03/30/29215
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Napster for Ideas
“If you’d like to see one of the most amazing, powerful and revolutionary
applications of the Internet yet, run, don’t walk, to Groove Networks and
download Groove (www.groove.net). This is the future of the Web.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/15441.html
The Benefits of Staying Small
A profitable grocery delivery service? Bollocks, you say. But PDQuick has
found the right mix of products, technology, and size.
http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2001/03/26/28933
Dan Bricklin: The “Computer as Assistant” Fallacy. (via tomalak.org)
“This type of thinking strikes me as strange. We don’t ask for our
automobiles
to be more natural and intelligent, nor do we call for the next generation
of
cars to be like chauffeurs. With cars, we talk about responsiveness,
comfort,
power, cargo size, and safety.”
http://www.bricklin.com/assistantfallacy.htm
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Mark writes:
“beautiful – ‘But if you don’t take these chances, you end up a bureaucrat
all your life.'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1247000/1247163.stm
peeps! (via kottke.org)
http://members.home.net/lamonteyoung/peeps_8bit/peeps_8bit.htm
ENDPIECE
>From the survey
http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey-intro.zgi?ID=5XSNRNLRYKR4&PIN=CXEV
5AJRV28G
Your gleanings-issues and my answers:
“on this page, http://eleganthack.com/gleanings/2001_03_11_oldglean.html
the powered by blogger image is broken ” — I point to the blogger server,
so I’m afraid I don’t always know what’s working and what’s not. I probably
won’t redesign the old archives of gleanings, but if I do, I’ll replace the
banners with text links. they don’t break.
“An improved search engine would help locate items related to a specific
topic or company. Organizing your gleaning archives based on a set list of
topics, in addition to date, would be helpful. ” — I’ve wanted to go to a
better search engine for some time now. I’ve gotten about three good
suggestions for one, so I’ll be trying them out and picking one. hopefully I
can document that search as well.
” Can you make the archive more consistent with the rest of the site (so you
can go to other parts of the site)? Make the earlier archived pieces links
active (or indicate that they’re no longer active, or changed). ” 1. done.
2. here’s the deal. gleanings is text. writing all those links as links
takes time. sometimes I have that time in the morning, and sometimes I
don’t. The formatting of the links in the archive are basically determined
on the basis of “am I running late for work?”
“More Apropos of Nothing, less News. The rest I’m happy with. ” I assume
there are a wide variety of folks on this list, some who like meaty news,
some that like fluffy nothing. Eat your veggies, then get dessert. I
recommend those who enjoy the news take the survey and defend their goodies.
“mention me more” Okay, Mike.
“I love it. But maybe more specific info about business cases.” I have no
idea what you’re are talking about. please write me a long rambling email
explaining it, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.
“Use yir spillchikr more consistuntly.” yeah, right. I need an editor.
“Maybe you could do special features on sites similar to Elegant Hack which
are springing up all over the space” there is no one like eleganthack. (who
is this person talking about, I wonder? I’m curious…)
“do you occasionally add new sources? I’ve only subscribed about a week or
so, so I haven’t noticed yet.” I do. I often do blog-wanders, which lead me
to new places. If I dig them, I add them to my list of places to visit. But
yes, I have favorites which I visit again and again.
“do some QA on using <> on links – does it help more than it hurts? I get
404ed all the time because of a trailing “>” at the end of the url. ” Okay
folks.. please tell me, do the angel brackets help keep the long links from
breaking, or do they break the links themselves. on my mail program they
work like a charm (when I remember to include them)
I didn’t include all the wonderful kudos I got, but that doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t still keep sending them.
that’s all, kids!
It’s not paper.
http://eleganthack.wpengine.com