I admit that when I buy holiday cards, I go for holiday neutral messages and pictures. However, if I know the recipient celebrates Christmas, I write (yes, by hand — amazing, eh?) “Merry Christmas” on the card. For those I don’t know of their preferences, I write “Happy Holidays” or “I hope you have a [...]
Working overtime to get readers to open newsletters Many newsletter publishers believe in “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” So they send their newsletters a second time and maybe even a third. Whether or not this is a good thing has yet to surface. Spam has driven many publishers to take this step, as [...]
I’ve written many articles about writing for the Web and feel like there’s nothing new to say. What worked a few years ago still works today… chunking text, short paragraphs, bold headers for scanning, and so on. Then I read Resurrect Your Writing, Redeem Your Soul and can tell you this is a different article [...]
Why do some sites use line-through for the a:visited style? A person who visits a page may want to go back to it. It’s not unusual. It is important to make it obvious when a visitor has visited a link because she may be looking for something and wants to check the links she has [...]
To all who celebrate, I wish you a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. It’s a special one for my family as 50 years ago today on Thanksgiving, my parents got wedding at a Fort Worth hotel. 1955 was a fabulous year as the Brooklyn Dodgers also won the World Series that year. I’m blessed to have them [...]
Over the weekend, I browsed a Web site that had a multi-parter article. I clicked on the Next button and nothing happened. First, I thought it was my sick mouse (it isn’t clicking well), but I looked closer and saw the cursor didn’t change from the arrow to the pointer. So I clicked on the [...]
When I use someone else’s computer or sit at a different desk, I can immediately feel the difference and the benefits I’m getting from my ergonomics set up. As I mentioned, my mouse isn’t working well and it’s driving me nuts. I loaded the one that came with my computer and immediately unloaded it as [...]
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve captured great pictures of my kids only to get ruined because the pictures are faded or the lighting isn’t right. My digital camera is temperamental. If I turn off the flash (which I do most of the time), it’s almost impossible to get a clear picture unless the [...]
When we design Web sites, we often overlook the simplest things because we’re too wrapped up in the design. After working on Web sites for a while, some of us have slowly moved away from what we know is usable to adding or removing elements that may enhance the ‘look’ — and also break [...]
This one took a while to pull together because I found too many things. It’s probably because I’m easily in awe when it comes to geeky things and gadgets. I think the biggest thing I’d like to have is the JVC Everio GZ-MG70 2.12 MP 30 GB Microdrive Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom. It comes with [...]