Archive for June 2005

Oh, I can relate to the conversation near the end of this article on relevancy. In a company, we had an employee ID that we used to access everything as well as identification. When you call tech support or any one for help, you entered your ID before you reached a live person. On several occasions, I had the relay operator enter in the ID because I knew the system would ask for it and it did. Then when the person came online, he would ask for my ID. “I entered it already!” This should save a step. It may look like no big deal, but every question takes time on a relay call.

The article is a reminder we need to check our processes, not only Web but offline activities, too. Customer service is often tied with Web activities. Prepare for laughter at the end of the article. It’s frustrating when I enter search keywords and then click on a result that looks good only to find out it’s garbage keywords the people behind the site put at the end of the Web page to draw people to the site. Hey, I don’t want to waste bandwidth on people looking for something I don’t have. They might think, “Oh, once she comes to our Web site, she’ll click on our ads and whatnot.” No, I am not a “free clicker.” I click with purpose. If I don’t see one relevant thing within seconds, I click the Back button.

I remember when I started reading Covey’s Seven Habits and couldn’t get into it. Admitting this doesn’t make me look good, does it? It’s been years since I originally opened the book. Maybe it would have a different impact on me now or maybe not. I’m a highly self-motivated person, perhaps that works well for me and Covey’s concepts clash.

CIO Update provides what it believes are the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Web SItes. The list, like Covey’s book, attempts to use broad themes rather than simple quick fixes. Habits #1 and 2 are obvious. Habit #3′s summary is on target, but the rule doesn’t mesh up with the summary. It needs more detail.

Habit #4 would be better as, “Share with the customer what the company values.” This habit talks about site registration. The information the company gains from the registration is valuable, but it’s a nuisance for the customer. So how can you make registration valuable to the customer? The answer to this is your answer for #4.

Habit #5 is not well written, but it’s essentially saying, “Knowing what your customers don’t know… provides value.” That’s a good one. Habits #6 and #7 are fine as they are. The 7 Habits for Web Sites makes a good starting point. It could use refining to become more valuable and applicable to most sites.

How many times have you written an email only to find an error as soon as you hit Send? When writing an email to a friend or family, most of us rarely do a second read to check our work because we take a relaxed approach with such emails. An article to a magazine, a book chapter, or a short story, however, requires formal editing.

“But isn’t that the editor’s job?”

The authors say, “Yes and no.” They explain the editor’s purpose is to polish the work and not rewrite your work. The writer looks good in the editor’s eyes when turning in an “almost finished product.” Not only do you make the editor’s work easier when rechecking your product, but also it earns you a better reputation.

Writers aren’t the only ones who benefit from Write It Right. The College Board’s National Commission on Writing conducted a study that concluded a third of employees in America’s blue-chip companies wrote poorly and businesses were spending up to $3.1 billion per year on remedial training (2004). Newspapers like the New York Times published the statistics from the report to show the gravity of the situation in the U.S.

The five chapters in the book make up the five steps for self-editing. Each chapter ends with “Questions for Self-Reflection” to help readers determine what areas need working on, so they focus on those while self-editing. The first chapter ends with a grammar quiz, which is the book’s paradox. It has two errors. One question misses a word that appears in the answer and another has a typo.

While following the five step process feels lengthy, the authors include advice on what to do when in a hurry. Writers can judge how much to review their work and adjust the process as needed.

The basic advice consists mostly of common sense, the things we learned in school or through experience. However, the book shows how to find your weak areas and work with them. The authors do an impressive job covering all the bases in this small book by tackling the editing process, giving a handful of grammar tips, and providing checklists. It takes less than an hour to read straight through without completing the suggested activities.

This little guide has a good chance of coming in handy rather than sitting on a bookshelf never to see the light of day. The easy-to-scan format, checklist templates, short list of rules, and examples increase the probability of the reader using it.

Biblio:
The National Commission on Writing (2004) Writing: A Ticket to Work… Or a Ticket Out [Internet] New York, College Board. Available from: <http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/writingcom/writing-ticket-to-work.pdf> Accessed 14 June 2005

Title: Write It Right
Author: Dawn Josephson and Laura Hidden
Publisher: Cameo Publications
ISBN: 0974496626
Date: September 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Cover Price: USD: $17.95 Amazon: $12.21

My kids’ school would like to use its PTA Web site to manage volunteer submission forms as well as volunteer hours. Database management isn’t one of my stronger areas though I’ve created a few simple ones. It would simply take me too long to try to do it alone.

What we need:

* Volunteers sign up online for volunteering (enter basic info and interests). The information would be collected in a single database file so we don’t have to re-enter stuff into Access or a spreadsheet.

* Volunteers regularly sign on to fill in their hours. We track how many hours our volunteers work. So we’d like to make this happen online.

We use Myschoolonline.com to host the Web site (easier management as I mostly manage it alone and didn’t have time to create a site from scratch). However, many times I’ll send visitors to my site where I have php and mysql capabilities.

What do I want? I am looking for someone who can do this easily as I don’t want to take up much of anyone’s time. What do you get in exchange if you do it? Glory. Actually, I would write an article for InformIT on how we make this happen and include you as the co-author (along with a byline, which would have a link to your site and whatnot). This means a few bucks in your pocket. Contact me: meryl at this web site’s URL or use the Contact form.

Wait! Before you think this is another grammar lesson, it’s not. I promise. Cross my heart… It’s good ol’ fashioned handwriting tips. Remember that? Writing with this little stick between your fingers and thumb?

I write a journal and started in 1989. It’s all me, my handwriting. Oh my gosh, I have a rough time with it because my hand cramps if I do an entry longer than a page. My writing is OK. It’s not horrendous like Paul’s. My daughter takes after him. My son might be on the track to average, more me.

My family: Mom, Dad, brother and sister have nice handwriting. Mine goes all over the place. No pattern except for my sloppy signature on checks. I guess I don’t want to remember I actually signed the check or credit card receipt. When I do print, the writing looks fine. Average. You can see/download my print font here. To load it, click Start > Control Panel > Fonts > File > Install New Font and locate the file where you saved it. Open Word or some other app that uses fonts and select Meryl Evans. There you have it. [ Link: RandomThink ]

Tools for Thought is a book about the history and future of technology. You can read the entire thing online or purchase a print copy to read when you’ve been pulled away from the computer or your eyes need a break from the screen. The original was published in 1985 and the current edition came out in 2000. Old by technology standards, but current technology makes up a small part of the book. The following summary gives a good idea of what the book covers:

Starting with engaging portraits of such important thinkers as Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, and Jon von Neumann, Rheingold swiftly and seamlessly moves into more current affairs, checking out the men and women behind Xerox PARC, ARPANET, Apple, Microsoft, and other cornerstones of today’s environment.

Can read it online and see if you like it before you buy it… the purple text makes it hard to read it though. I haven’t had a chance to read it to provide an opinion. Let me know what you think.

Been hearing a lot about Ajax lately? This one doesn’t clean household products. It stands for asynchronous Javascript and XML. Actually, XML is not required in the Ajax approach. Been to Google Maps? You’ve been exposed to Ajax. It’s nothing that requires an antidote.

I’ve posted a new article in the InformIT Web Design Reference Guide that explains what it is and provides links to examples. It’s everywhere … thanks to the folks at Adaptive Path. The company didn’t create the process, but rather brought it to the forefront.

Whoa, dude! Two of what I think are the best feed readers have joined forces. Actually, NewsGator has acquired Nick Bradbury’s FeedDemon. According to this article, Bradbury would’ve turned them down had he not read NewsGator founder Greg Reinacker’s entry discussing the roadmap for his company.

Ambitious, it is. I don’t think it affects the home user too much except for a major release of its Outlook and online editions. The rest of the plans focus on the enterprise. I can’t figure how FeedDemon is going to fit in this. But then again, that’s why you don’t see me creating products…

BBS: The Documentary has finally shipped! The creator, Jason Scott, travelled roughly 20,000 miles by plane and car through 25 states and one province, and interviewed 200 people. He recorded roughly 247 hours of interviews, with the shortest at 5 minutes and the longest at 5 hours. At no point did he despair, except when the police towed his rental car away in Oregon.

While over 500 people signed up for interviews, he could only see less than half of them. However, I think I have a very solid sample of the types of folks who were involved with BBSes and between all the hours, a real complete story starts to emerge.

The Web site has the entire photo album from all 200 interviews up. It also has trailers and other downloadable stuff.

Spanning three DVDs and totalling five and a half hours, this documentary is actually eight documentaries about different aspects of this important story in the annals of computer history.

* Baud introduces the story of the beginning of the BBS, including interviews with Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who used a snowstorm as an inspiration to change the world.

* Sysops and Users introduces the stories of the people who used BBSes, and lets them tell their own stories of living in this new world.

* Make it Pay covers the BBS industry that rose in the 1980′s and grew to fantastic heights before disappearing almost overnight.

* Fidonet covers the largest volunteer-run computer network in history, and the people who made it a joy and a political nightmare.

* Artscene tells the rarely-heard history of the ANSI Art Scene that thrived in the BBS world, where art was currency and battles waged over nothing more than pure talent.

* HPAC (Hacking Phreaking Anarchy Cracking) hears from some of the users of “underground” BBSes and their unique view of the world of information and computers.

* Compression tells the story of the PKWARE/SEA legal battle of the late 1980s and how a fight that broke out over something as simple as data compression resulted in waylaid lives and lost opportunity.

* No Carrier wishes a fond farewell to the dial-up BBS and its integration into the Internet.

The documentary includes Ward Christensen (creator of CBBS and creator of XMODEM for transferring files), Vinton Cerf and Wynn Wagner (wrote Opus, the BBS software).

I was also interviewed. No, no… I didn’t create software or start some huge BBS. I was just a gal who used BBS and ran a small one in Fort Worth for a couple of years. I wrote to Jason Scott when he first announced his project. He came to DFW since there were a couple of BBS big shots around here, so I was a stopover. I wish I didn’t wear that outfit. It happened to be Mother’s Day. Shoulda been more casual.

BBSes gave me the opportunity to chat with people “over the phone” when I was a teen, something I couldn’t do on my own. A teen that can’t use the phone… that’s a tough place to be. I met some great and nasty people through BBSes. Despite the bad side, I would not change a thing as I met my husband of 16 years (tomorrow!) through a BBS.

I’ve been using the Sidekick II since late 2004 and I’m pleased with it. It has one huge annoyance, however. T-Mobile wants to get as much money as it can from your calls… so it made it easy to “accidentally” dial someone’s number. I am serious.

TWICE I was working to send an SMS to a friend and it dialed instead. Before I realized it, she answered and I’ve been charged with one minute. Granted, the charge for a one minute call is small, but if enough users have accidents, it adds up. After all, it’s happened twice. And it feels silly to contact them about a charge less than 50 cents.

But since this happened twice, I went ahead and contacted customer service (gee, T-Mobile makes it tough to find the contact information when you’re logged in).