Archive for December 2001

I was thinking about Auld Lang Syne. It’s one of those songs that brings a smile and occasionally a tear. As I thought about it, I wondered if there were any other New Year songs to post and didn’t find any notable ones on the Web.

The Auld Lang Syne means "old long ago." Robert Burns wrote part of it. If you’re interested, here is a story and translation of the song,

Although, Auld Lang Syne is just right for New Years, there should be some other songs out there that we can sing with our families. Can you imagine having only one song at Christmas? The diversity of Christmas songs can fit every crowd, fiesta, and occasion.

Auld Lang Syne may not always fit the crowd. I would’ve liked to sing a few rockin’ songs with my kids (if they’ll let me) when they wake up in the new year.

When Kennedy Center honored Sean Connery, they brought a woman from Scottland to sing the song in its original form. It was the best rendition I had the pleasure of hearing / watching. Put in the ear plugs as I have the urge to sing now. Happy New Year. May it be one of peace for us all.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
And here’s a hand, my trusty friend
And gie’s a hand o’ thine
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Want a fast, little Web browser that doesn’t support applets, plug-ins, SSL (can’t go to https:// sites) or even JavaScript? It’s free and only 1.1 MB. Off By One allows you to surf the Web without in pop-whatever windows and it can run directly from a CD or ZIP drive without installation. [Link from NeatNetTricks]

Count on Jeffrey Zeldman to share his opinion, loud and clear with a sprinkling of dry wit. He continues with his modus operandi (M.O.) in his newest book, Taking Your Talent to the Web. As seen in Zeldman’s work and writings, you can expect this book to be different from any other Web-whatever book you’ve read to gain clear, real world understanding of web-related concepts.

The book uses the Populi Curriculum in Web Communications Design to help transitioning designers become web designers, small-time web pages designers turn pro, and creative professionals expanding their careers to the web medium. You won’t find specific instructions on mark-up tags, style sheets, or interactive web pages. Instead, you gain a high-level understanding of the web and how to approach it. To design effective web pages, he urges the reader to think bandwidth, tell visitors where they are, and consider short attention spans especially in a time when there are many web pages on the same topic that we can go to if we don’t like this one.

It’s easy to get absorbed in the book because you feel like he is talking to you and he puts a smile on your face every few paragraphs with his witty comments. Heck, even reading the table of contents is fun with sections like “I Think Icon, I Think Icon,” “Gui, Gui, Chewy, Chewy,” “Browser Incompatibilities: Can’t We All Just Get Along?” and “Eye and Brain Candy: Educational and Inspiring Sites.” The book is well organized in three parts: Why, Who, and How.

I admit that such titles aren’t clear what the chapter is about and that goes against Zeldman’s own advice to make things easy to find. However, there are standard chapter names to overcome the drawback plus there’s a thorough index and the Obligatory Glossary that includes web lingo and descriptions of roles and responsibilities.

Zeldman says that the designer has a greater role beyond design and to avoid putting limitations on it. Smartly, he covers the much omitted project life cycle, which is a logical path for taking any development project from start to finish. Too often, designers and clients skip the requirements step or think the web project is finished once it goes live. All players including designers and programmers should be involved in creating the requirements. To preserve your hard work and perseverance, create a style sheet to help the client maintain the web site.

Even the smallest web design project encounters problems. When creating a web site for a company with two employees, I unexpectedly ran into requirement challenges. The client wanted a feature that was passe’ and I struggled to tactfully explain why it wouldn’t be a good idea. I wish I had this book back then because it has suggestions in how to handle such issues.

The history of the web details how the web got to where it is today. The latter part of the history is loaded, and deservedly so, with Zeldman’s co-founded Web Standards Project (WaSP) and its fight to break browser barriers to make web creators’ jobs easier.

Zeldman and the web world is aware he knows his stuff and that we’ll listen. Despite this, he avoids “telling you” and instead, “shows you and tells you why.” No beating around the bush, he tells it straight. It speaks to you like a friend or mentor trying to guide you and gently remind you that we’re creating web pages for humans and not machines.

You can read Chapter 3 from Zeldman’s web site.

VITAL STATISTICS:
Title: Taking Your Talent to the Web: A Guide for the Transitioning Designer
Author: Jeffrey Zeldman
Publisher: New Riders Publishing
Publication Date: May 2001
ISBN: 0735710732
Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Price: US$40

Dianna Booher, communications expert and author of over 40 books shares her expertise in her latest book on E-Writing. She focuses on how to improve the quality of business and personal communications.

Booher offers advice to fix where it hurts in electronic communication whether it is writing emails, responding to customer service inquiries, or writing technical documents. This is not just a book about writing for an electronic medium. Rather, it helps us improve our writing skills because the electronic medium has increased in such a way that it’s almost impossible for anyone in any job to avoid writing.

Furthermore, the book references a survey USA Today newspaper conducted with 3000 hiring managers. It indicates that the number two item that employers look for is communication skills. Number one is attitude.

Email. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. It has become a powerful application, so powerful that employees have gotten fired for email abuse. Email has replaced quick phone calls and reduced the need for some face-to-face meetings because it’s easier to reach others in email and share complex topics. Business and employees have gotten thrown into the communication tool without learning how best use it.

The first part of the book covers email basics and etiquette. Learn how to manage your emailbox, how to write appropriate email, and what to do and not do when replying or forwarding email messages. Many should read this section so the email world can be a better place.

In the Counterproductive Communication Habits chapter, Booher identifies academic training as one of sources of pain. It’s a short, but important section that everyone who has been touched by an academic institution should read. The writing habits for producing academic papers do not carry over well into the business world. This user-unfriendly writing style is noticeable in the business world whether or not the writer has been to college.

Next comes the meat, how to effectively write on paper or online. Here, she offers clearly written steps and supporting examples on effective written communications. Remember or still use the traditional outline before writing? It may not be the best way to organize thoughts before writing. The book explains why and offers two other methods: the Random List and the Idea Wheel. Booher explains the outline process during the detailing of her trademarked MADE format. MADE takes you through the process of outlining your message. It’s easy to adapt whether or not you’re a skilled writer.

Once you write your masterpiece, next comes rewriting and editing. This is the potatoes accompanying the meat. Here learn how to edit for content and layout, grammar, clarity, conciseness, and style. Yes, we’re all in a hurry, but editing is a required step in the writing process. Editing is not to be confused with proofreading. The purpose of editing is to look for flaws beyond the typographical and grammatical errors found in proofreading.

Strong writers will still find this a valuable resource for the reference library. Rest assured, Booher practices what she preaches in organizing the book. Each important idea has its own title heading which makes the book quickly readable for busy professionals.

Managers, investing in the book for employees will help reduce frustration and provide a quick return on investment. Educators, add this to the required reading list so we can stop the sloppy email and writing epidemic.

VITAL STATISTICS
Title: E-Writing: 21st Century Tools for Effective Communication
Author: Dianna Booher
Publisher: Pocket Books
Publication Date: February 2001
ISBN: 0743412583
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Price: US$14.95

This was a most unusual book telling the story of a family of four on a quest for God, order, or something that makes sense. Eliza, the nine-year-old daughter is looking to achieve something extraordinary to catch her parents’ attention. Aaron, the nerdy, teen son is looking to get closer to God. Miriam, the mother is distant and attempts to follow her heart’s desire in the collection of stolen objects. As the father who dotes on his son, Saul is the glue that holds the family together despite his own quirks.

The reader is taken on a journey with the Naumann family learning about each member’s psychological and spiritual urges. Expect a few surprises while uncovering the thought process behind the characters. The first half of the story moves slowly, and then picks up speed in the latter half.

Eliza finally stands out by winning the spelling bee and working her way to the National Bee in Washington, DC. Despite not supporting her at first, Saul becomes involved in her quest for the National Bee championship and discovery of Jewish mysticism. In the process of helping her, he abandons his son. In turn, Aaron begins studying Eastern religions to find a way to recapture the closeness he felt with God when he was a bar mitzvah.

As interesting it is to read about Abraham Abulafia’s writings that outline a formula for achieving high order thinking, it’s unbelievable that a now ten-year-old would work toward this thinking as she learns spelling words under her father’s tutelage. This aspect of the book gets too heavy and difficult to believe.

A lawyer and kleptomaniac, Miriam is looking to find the perfect world or as she calls it, “perfectimundo.” Having tragically lost her parents while in college, something about her indicates she has never been closed to anyone. Perhaps, when she first meets Saul, she experiences closeness. Instead, she displays a greater love for her stolen objects than her family. It’s not clear what is driving Miriam’s actions, psychological or otherwise.

In the end, the book has taken us on an unrealistic and highly spiritual journey with no real closure. It was an unusual and different kind of story that had even greater potential than was realized. It’s not to say that the book should have had a predictable plot or a “feel good” ending. Goldberg has written an unpredictable story with plenty of surprises. Expect plenty of questions and no absolute answers.

VITAL STATISTICS
Title: Bee Season
Author: Myla Goldberg
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: 2001
ISBN: 0385498802
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Price: US$13

Try as you might to take a class in JavaScript or implement scripts by using online resources, it remains on your to do list. You search the Internet for the scripts and can never find the exact one you want or even close enough to do tweaking. Perhaps, it’s time to try an alternative and just buy a book on the subject and dive in.

This is the book for beginners and intermediates who are comfortable with HTML and lack the time to learn how to implement JavaScript from scratch or without resources. Negrino and Smith set up the book by the "things" you want your Web site to do rather than walk you through all the definitions, objects, operators, syntax, and all that stuff that would make the non-programmer’s eyes glaze over. There are other books that serve that purpose.

Open the book and go to the table of contents, find what you need, and start adding it to your Web pages. Screenshots and lines of code are on every page of the book with step-by-step guidelines of how to use and implement the script. You don’t even have to type the code from scratch. Instead, go to the book’s companion Web site to get the code and fix it up to meet your needs – a great time saver.

If you own an earlier edition of the book, this one has 100 more pages of new material including new chapters on 7 – Forms and Regular Expressions, 11 – CSS, 13 – User Interface Design with JavaScript, 14 – Applied JavaScript, and 15 – Bookmarklets. Furthermore, the scripts in the older editions have been revised to ensure compliance with current Web standards.

Chapter 7 – Forms and Regular Expressions show how to validate email addresses, file names, and URLs. It gives you a gentle introduction to regexes (regular expressions). Don’t panic at the thought of them especially with the handy table of expressions and associated characters. Once you try them out, you’ll wonder what you ever did without them.

Chapter 13 – User Interface Design with JavaScript gives you the opportunity to create pull-down and sliding menus. Chapter 14 – Applied JavaScript has directions for creating a slideshow with captions and generating bar graphs.

Colorful additions to the book are the Object Flowchart and Object Table printed in color to show you which objects are compatible with which browsers. The flowchart may be a challenge for beginners, but the table makes up for it by listing the object along with its properties, methods and event handlers.

If you’re looking to get cooking with JavaScript, look no further than this cookbook with easily modifiable recipes. It belongs on the Web designer’s reference shelf.

VITAL STATISTICS
Title: JavaScript for the World Wide Web, 4th Edition: Visual QuickStart Guide
Author: Tom Negrino & Dori Smith
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Publication Date: April 2001
ISBN: 0201735172
Format: Paperback
Pages: 440
Price: US$19.99

If you made it this far, the headline for this story has caught your attention. Hot headlines are a hit with readers because they stick out, grab attention and urge them to read the rest of the story.

We’re all experiencing information overload and have made it a habit to skim pages. According to David Ogilvy, a successful advertising writer, “Five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.” Sounds like we need to treat those headlines like trying to get our foot in the door.

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a sales letter, Web page content, email, or an article. Pulling together a handful of powerful words and putting them ahead of the content is more likely to grab eyeballs than just going right into the story, letter, or content.

Despite our success with newsletters, we continue to learn how to add more punch when writing headlines. Here are the tips we have learned and try to apply:

1. “What does the reader get from this?” The answer to your question can be the baseline for the headline. From there, modify it to ensure it has easily understood and expressive words. This addresses the “What’s in it for me?” question. You can almost never go wrong with headlines that convey reader benefit.
2. Keep It Short and Simple (KISS). It continues to hold true even with headlines. If it is too long, the reader isn’t going to be able to swallow it with one gulp and will move on before figuring it out.
   
   Try summarizing the content in 10 words or less and make it your benchmark. Play with it until you come up with something snappy without being unbelievable. Another way to go about it is to treat headlines like a billboard. Speeding cars make it easy to overlook the billboard’s message, so it better be short and simple.
3. Be diverse. Often, I find that many headlines from a source sound repetitive since they repeatedly use the same type words and phrases. If you’re out of ideas, use a thesaurus to help you find new words. Another option is to search for keywords in the content and use them.
4. Believable. When I see a headline that sounds “too good to be true,” it immediately looks and feels like “spam” and it’s trashed or skipped over.
5. Emotional. Headlines that make a reader excited, scared, or curious produce better results because they prompt action. Write in the first or second person with present tense verbs to make such headlines urge people to take instant action.

If you have the luxury of conducting a headline test and getting a report of results, then send out your content to half of your test audience with one headline and the other half with the other headline. Review the report to see how many actually read the story for each headline and compare.

Another option is to have your colleagues review several headlines and pick which works better.

Work smarter not harder when writing headlines and make a whizbang first impression. Expend as much energy in the headline as you do writing the rest of the content. If that doesn’t happen, then few will read beyond the headline. Here are some typical words to help you get rolling:

Advice… Facts… Last Minute… Save… Amazing… Finally… Secrets… Announcing… Free… Luxury… Security… At Last… Growth… New… Show Me… Bargains… Hate… Obsession… Breakthrough… Here… Only… Share… How Much… Protect… The Truth Of… Discover… How To… Rewards… Yes… Do You… How Would… Sale… You… # Tips… # Ways… Don’t Buy… Don’t Spend…

There is no rule that says headlines have to be dull, flat, or full of technical jargon to ensure professionalism. Go have a ball writing headlines.

Call me backwards. I’ve been doing some serious spring cleaning on the server. If you see broken links… you know why. This place has been up on this server since late ‘95. I thought I oughta clean it up before I add the new design that I talk about, but never show. It’s bound to happen, right?

I’ve been working on a contact form all day. It’s not even very long. It works if I store the CGI and PERL files on the Hypermart account, but it won’t work on Verio’s account (the home base for this place). Yes, I made sure I transfered in ASCII, made sure to CHMOD, made sure the #!/USR line is correct, made sure the SENDMAIL is correct, made sure it points to the CGI bin, made sure to run the file through the PERL checker, etc. etc. It’s days like this that I wish I were not on Verio, but I’m trying not to blame them until I know for sure what is the cause of the problem.

The head thanks you for letting me rant because it couldn’t take more pulled hair strands.

Managed to get the folks on my team to take a Phoon break. Man, it’s tough to get people to have fun with it! It’s hard enough to tell them to do it.