For months workers had been trudging through the workday without the promise of Space Invaders in the next room.

“Not having the sounds of buzzing, dings, slaps, woo-woo-woos, and loud laughing was really affecting my concentration. Now that they’re back, I can finally get some work done,” said one writer at EatonGolden.

Workers have asked for assurances from the management that a similar malfunction of the games won’t happen in the future.

Add-ons are easy to install, generally free to use, and can literally change the way you work.  Only one problem — there are too many from which to choose (5,000+).   Here are some of my current favorites… what are yours?

• Firebug: Allows you to highlight areas in the browser and view markup, CSS, DOM, script, etc.  Also lets you change the code and see a realtime preview on screen.  For me, it has become as essential as Dreamweaver.
• Basecode: Here at EatonGolden, we use and love Basecamp for project management.  Sadly, it comes with no formatting options built in.  Instead, you have to try to remember textile codes, like putting asterisks around items to make them bold.  No thanks.  Basecode inserts a nice little formatting toolbar… much better!
• Abduction!: Attention, SnagIt lovers.  Abduction! does the same thing — one-click screen captures within the browser window.
• YSlow: Yahoo!s website performance tool generates a report on speed of pages and provides some indicators for improvement.
• Web Developer: Like Firebug, this is a must-have for any front-end coder.  It adds a toolbar with so many features, I can’t even begin to list them.
• KidZui: My preschooler loves Starfall.com.  If Starfall is a hammer, KidZui is a jack hammer.  It turns the entire screen into a kid-friendly browser.   The extension is certainly impressive, but be aware of the promotional motivation behind it.

An extremely improbable rise to success.

Watch the Video

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/social-insecurity-numbers-open-to-hacking.ars

Variety reported that a Twitter TV project was announced by Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment yesterday, May 25th. According to the Twitter Blog, they have merely a  “lightweight”  agreement with the producers, although there are a lot of related ideas in the works.

One of Brillstein’s exec producers involved in the potential project, Jon Liebman stated:

“We’ve found a compelling way to bring the immediacy of Twitter to life on TV.”

Of course they did.

It’s too soon to tell when we can expect an official Twitter television series, but we’ve been warned.

There are four main sections of The Webby Awards: Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile. Within each of the main sections, nominees are selected in a wide range of categories. The categories for websites include everything from activism to youth.

A personal favorite of mine is the humor category. The nominees this year, in the humor category, include the always hilarious FAIL Blog.

You can get in on the judging action as well by voting for your favorites in the People’s Voice Voting. But hurry, voting ends April 30.

Congratulations and best of luck to all of this year’s nominees and honorees.

From the restaurant’s perspective, the site is even better. Although I’ve never seen the restaurant side of the tool, I’ve been told by friends in the business that it is fantastic. The establishment pays a subscription fee and is provided with everything they need (computers, software, hardware, etc.) allowing them to keep track of their guests specific preferences, whether the guest is a regular, times for each reservation, cancelled reservations, no-shows, and more.

A relatively small number of restaurants (173 in the Minneapolis area) are currently available through OpenTable, which is the biggest drawback at the moment. I’m sure as more and more restaurants and diners discover the benefits the numbers will increase.

I never thought about long reaching ramifications of this – let’s face it most of us don’t think a lot about what goes on after we leave! But our digital reputation and assets can be a really important part of our lives. So, it turns out state laws differ greatly on the topic of digital asset distribution and access after death.

Also, those T’s and C’s you quickly blow through when signing up for a yahoo account or facebook – technically when they find out you are dead – they remove your accounts! so giving your family access to your stuff isn’t good enough.

What happens when your favorite picture of you grandma that only lives on flickr get’s blown away by the yahoo terms of service?

Lastly, people have of course found ways to monetize this gaping hole in our culture – places like https://www.legacylocker.com/
and   http://vitallock.com/blog/ are beginning to get traction

oh! and… www.Greatgoodbye.com will even allow you send personalized messages to your loved one after you’re gone!

Lifetouch National School Studios partnered with EatonGolden to provide the site strategy, information architecture, design, and development of the new site.

We built a high-performance XHTML site and used the jQuery library (+ plugins including HighSlide and Accordian) for added functionality.  We brought Lifetouch’s design vision to life using advanced Adobe Flash 3D animations.

View the site: lifetouchseniorportraits.com

Dear Chess With Friends,

You are one of my favorite iPhone apps. You let me play chess with my friends and we don’t even have to be in the same room. I think you’re the best thing since maple syrup and I’m hopelessly addicted to you.

Hate you

Really, Chess With Friends?

You’re going to prohibit me from playing any of my games in order to tell me that there’s a newer version available and I have to install it right now? And when I tap “OK” (because you tell me to), you don’t take me to the Apps Store for your update (like you said you would), but instead take me to another page with a “tap here” button? And when I tap there, you take me to a page that describes you and notifies me that I’ve already installed the old you? Thanks for that.

You’re right, Chess. Had I read the long paragraph of text after the “tap here” link I would have learned that the update might not be ready for a few hours, and that the newer version will show up in the Apps Store just as soon as it’s available. Fine. Thanks again. Now, about continuing that game (because I am crushing my opponent for the first time in 3 games)… What do you mean I can’t?! You mean that pop-up that leads nowhere is going to keep getting in my way and not allowing me to do anything with my games until your update is available?

Bad, Chess With Friends! I still love you. I’m just really mad at you right now. And the smiley face after your explanation didn’t help.

The problems with many large-scale CMS tools become apparent when managing a small content driven site that doesn’t require all that horsepower. When audience and business needs evolve, and the web site can’t easily evolve with them, it becomes costly and time intensive to make changes to templates, navigation, and page structure.

In our current economy, these hurdles usually cause businesses to relegate user and “less important” business needs to the sidelines, in favor of conforming to the CMS.

Some examples that come to mind:

• We need to apply new brand standards, but can’t because it would mean changing the templates.
• We need to add links and new features to our home page tomorrow, but based on current IT resources, it will take 4 weeks.
• We need to add a section to the web site to address a new audience, but that would mean a template change, so we’ll build a mini site instead.
• We need to add functionality, but don’t have the IT resources to do it. So instead, we’ll build an externally hosted application and push it in the site using an iFrame.

Lately we’ve been getting a lot of requests from our clients for ways to “bypass the big CMS.” Our solution has been to design small content management systems and administration tools for our clients that are easy-to-use and can change with their business. We design them around the user-experience, instead of the other way around. As a result, our clients receive a flexible, affordable,  and  customizable tool that can be modified to accommodate their business strategy and unique content needs.

It’s pretty funny: http://twitter.com/aoifecat

So when I encountered this particular question on a recent survey for a major retailer I was happy to grab a screen shot so I could share another “what not to do” scenario.

LESSON: Do not expect people to do what technology should.

One of the main themes throughout was to define the “state of the web.” That’s a heavy question, especially given the uncertainty surrounding everything else in the world right now — but let’s take a look at just a few of the exciting things that are happening. Who knows, perhaps today’s innovations will play a role in dragging the world’s economy out of the doldrums.

• Mobile: In the past 18 months the iPhone has revolutionized the way the world views mobile computing and mobile web use. Why does that matter?
• Well, roughly 80% of the world’s population is not yet online — and a great many of them live in developing countries with no broadband access. One mobile expert here predicted that by Q3 2009, mobile devices will reach the threshold of 10% market share. That’s a big deal.

• Internet Explorer 6 Strategy: There’s a consensus that the time has come to change the way we approach Internet Explorer 6. By combining new technologies such as font embedding and CSS3 with old techniques, we can begin to move beyond the great anchor.
• In these times we must consider and communicate the costs of designing for IE6. So, what is the new approach for forward-thinking and cost-conscious organizations? Show IE6 users a site that works, but do not demand an exact replica of the site that is shown in modern browsers. That’s not so bad, really…

• Open Web Platform: This got me excited because more than ever, we need to be efficient — and like all web designers, I spend too much time searching for answers on the web.
• Mozilla announced that they’re working on a centralized “open web platform” for developers. Designers and developers could go there to get help documentation for any technology, look up the current browser usage stats, interact and save lots of time.
• They also previewed a new text editor called Bespin that works like Google Docs. Why does that matter? Well, it’s free — putting development in the hands of more people, it makes it more efficient to collaborate with with others in the code, and it demonstrates the amazing things that can be done using the vector-graphics based Canvas. They expect Bespin to be released in Labs this coming week.

There were great takeaways from each session including discussions around font embedding on the web, new possibilities with CSS3, the state of HTML5, the importance of listening to what your customers are saying on the web, and the advancements of mobile.

As I come to the end of the first day, I am inspired and excited about my new learning’s and the future of the web. And also looking forward to tomorrow’s session.

For great nuggets of information, follow the conference on Twitter with #WDN09.

Mike Olson, the owner and technician, joked that his friends refer to the recording control room as “The Microscope,” because it picks up every sound nuance and is akin to wearing a set of headphones.

Clients sit on a fancy couch, eat snacks, and interact with the engineer, each other, and the voice-over talent to make on-the-spot changes.

Mike’s efficiency and professionalism made it a very short session, much to my dismay—I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

One of the issues discussed has been central to my recent thoughts and conversations: When it comes to social media, where is the line between personal and professional?

Steve Bendt, Social Technology Activist for Best Buy, Inc. stated that before he uses a social media tool, he asks himself: “What type of relationship do I want to have?”

The more I think about what he shared, the more I realize that, for me, trying to answer that question at the beginning of any relationship doesn’t work, because the answer to that question changes as the relationship progresses.

Now, granted, social media tools are not people—but our relationships with them do evolve over time. As with any relationship, we don’t know each other very well at the outset. So, if you’re going to start a new social media relationship, you can choose to:

1. Not fully embrace the relationship. Hold back. See what happens before really “showing up.”
2. Jump in and be ready to make some mistakes and, occasionally, get burned.

Now, for those of us who are naturally inclined to pick the second approach, it can be scary. It’s one thing to have your feelings hurt. It’s another thing to lose your job (and your health insurance, etc.). Granted, that’s an extreme outcome. Personal and/or professional discomfort is usually the most common unwanted side effect. But it’s a very public forum to be making mistakes in—and there are plenty of folks out there who have appointed themselves the “social media police” and are full of posts, tweets, and opinions about the wrong thing to do, what makes you look stupid, or how irritated they are by everyone else out there.

In using various social media tools, there are decisions that I am happy with, and those that I regret. There are times I have experienced embarrassment, or inadvertently hurt people’s feelings. Like any other relationship, my interaction with social media tools has had its ups and downs, has included my friends, family, and professional contacts all at the same time, and has above all—been public.

So going back to the question I posed earlier, when it comes to social media, I don’t think there is a line between personal and professional. Or if there is, I think it’s shifting and evolving.

I think my children won’t give the same weight to the division between personal and professional. It’ll be hard to care much when all of their childhood accomplishments and gaffes have been captured on their mom’s blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed for Google to cache and others to search and view. And I think by the time they are old enough to think about it, their mom won’t care about that imaginary line very much either.

What did we want?  Something that would make the process more interesting, less confusing and…even fun!

In the midst of QA testing a large site over the past couple weeks, Mike discovered 16 Bugs.

Here’s what I like about it:

• The interface is simple and clean
• Adding bugs is quick, with several customizable dropdowns
• Bugs are easily tracked by severity, person responsible and status
• E-mails notify you for every new bug, and you can subscribe to it’s feed.
• It integrates with Basecamp (which we also use for project management).

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say that 16 Bugs has made QA testing a party…but it has made it easier – and so far it has worked very well for our small, fast-moving team.

http://16bugs.com/

From Mozilla Labs…

“How many tabs does an average user use at a time? How about novice users? How often is the stop button pressed? How many times do people open a new tab to perform a search? There are hundreds of questions like these whose answers would help quantitatively inform the design process of Firefox. At the moment, as evidence in discussions we generally only have access to studies, anecdotes, first principles, early-adopter feedback, and ad-hoc experiments.

While those are all useful, they are no substitute for specific data. ”

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