Ones I made or Like
My freelance company, Manifest Development, has a new face! Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a new website that accomplished a few specific goals: have a cleaner design that integrates the new logo, have a theme that is more general and easier to update, and be more blog friendly. I think I’ve managed to hit all of those goals.
Now that I’ve convinced you to join Twitter, I wanted to talk about the basics of how to use it- terminology, features, etc. Are you ready? Ok.
First of all, each time you add something to Twitter, it’s called an update or more commonly, a “tweet.” You tweet what you’re doing. Cute, I know. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at the more social aspects of tweeting.
So there you have it- the basics of using Twitter. If you have any questions, or feel I left something out, comments are open!
I’ve noticed lately a lot of my friends joining Twitter, the very popular micro blogging site. I feel like (and this is by all means non-scientific) interest peaked when Facebook rolled out it’s new design, people called it, “a lot like Twitter” and others got curious. The number one comment about Twitter I’m hearing/reading now is, “I don’t get it.” So to all my friends and those new to Twitter, here’s how you can make Twitter work for you.
The first thing you need to know is that Twitter is a communication tool. You can use it however you want. I describe it to people like this:
You know the status update feature in Facebook? It’s like that- but only that.
The people I describe it to have a hard time finding the use in just that, so here are a few suggestions:
And this is a short list- like I said, Twitter is a communication tool. People are coming up with more apps and ideas for Twitter everyday, and it’s being integrated into more and more well established websites and services.
If you’re interested, my Twitter username is @jcasabona. Feel free to follow.
At the beginning of the year I wanted to find all-inclusive, online accounting software. That is, something that kept track of invoicing, other income, and expenses. As much as I loved Zoho Invoices, I needed expense tracking. So after doing some research, I settled on Less Accounting. Here are my thoughts.
Pros:
Cons:
All-in-all I’m not to impressed by Less Accounting, despite all the rage about it, and the fact that they sponsor a site called, “We All Hate Quickbooks.” The design is nice as are some of the features, but they took some liberties on user experience (or poorly designed their databases), leading to some pretty big grievances.
Did I miss something? Am I doing something wrong? Comments are open.
I’m currently reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, a very influential computer scientist who passed away over the summer due to cancer. I’m about 100 pages in and wanted to comment on his football coach and his view on Self-Esteem.
There’s a lot of talk today about giving children self-esteem. It’s not something you can give; it’s something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone.
These are words that really ring true with me. I find too many times today that kids are getting coddled. Hell, adults get coddled too. Anytime we withhold something in fear of offending, we are coddling. People don’t know how take criticism- they see it as an attack, or as “you’re being too mean.” Really, they are trying to help you become a better person. The reason I am the way I am today is because my parents didn’t coddle me. Yes, they spoiled me. But I knew my place. And when my homework was crap, or my grades were crap, or I played like crap, they made sure I knew it. But you know what? That made the times when I made them proud so much better, because I knew I worked hard to do it, and it showed. That’s how I gained self-esteem.
If I had grown up thinking everything I did was good enough, I guarantee that I would not be where I am today. And that’s something I fear for younger generations. Randy laments in that chapter that Coach Graham- an old school guy who pushed his kids to the limit- would never survive today because parents coddle their kids too much. And that’s a shame.
He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop [self-esteem]: You give them something they can’t do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.
That sounds like the kind of leadership we need with our kids today. I feel the idea of hard work is quickly dying because kids are taught that what they do is good enough. My parents, Coach Graham, and Randy Pausch knew what kids needed- let’s hope more people follow their lead.
A couple of months ago, I wrote about how I would redesign Fox News. Yesterday, they rolled out a new design, and I really think it looks great.
The first thing I notice is the use of much better colors- they are more neutral and not harsh on the eyes. Also, the navigation bar conforms with itself and the site, and they placed all the shows in an “On Air” drop down button, which I did in my design. The most important part is everything now looks like it belongs- In my last post on this matter I mentioned that everything looked like it was just thrown on the page. That is no longer the case.
The stock information is something CNN and MSNBC have front and center for the users to easily find, and I’m glad Fox News followed suit. Finally, a lot of their boxes with several types of information have moved to a tabbed interface, which is a nice touch.
All-in-all, it’s still a lot of information, but it’s definitely up to par with the other major news networks now. I’m glad the design will no longer be a deterrent for me visiting their site.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been working a lot with WordPress. Between a new job I started, Freelancing the Net, and converting Manifest Development over to WordPress (more on that later), I’ve set up or worked on between 6-10 blogs in the last 2 weeks. Over that time I’ve compiled a list of WordPress plugins I’ve used for all of them:
I will also be working on two plugins of my own this week. Maybe if I deem them good enough, I’ll release them here.
So this may be a little late, but hey- I wanted to be sure about what I was writing; and this year there were a couple late-in-the-game entries. Here is my first [annual?] favorites post. Covered this time around: new tech toy, website, software, movie, music.
So there you have it. My five favorites of 2008. What do you think?
I am very excited to announce that yesterday I launched a new blog, called Freelancing the Net. It’s a blog I decided to start that chronicles my journey to becoming a freelancer.
I know that can come off as a little conceded; I will be the first to admit that while I am proud of what I have done thus far, I wouldn’t consider myself extremely successful. I do, however, have a fairly unique view. I started freelancing in high school and continued through college. I went through a lot of things in forming a business earlier than a lot of people. Plus, a lot of people to ask me questions, just as I had a lot when I was starting.
I want this site to be a unique resource for people. There are lots of sites out there (most notably FreelanceSwitch) that provide advice and resources for freelancers. But this site is my first hand account of what I went through and continue to go through. I hope you like it! As always, any feedback is appreciated.
I’ve written before on how the differences between the designs of CNN and Fox News tend to make me go to CNN more often for news. Over the holiday I decided to do a Photoshop mock-up of what I think the Fox News’s site should look like. It still looks overloaded with content and a little crude, but I wanted to try and maintain everything that they present on the homepage. You can view the design here.
The most important thing about my design is that everything is modularized (a word I kind of hate but use anyway). The current design is pretty hap-hazard, with no real definition of boundary. Plus, with this design, it’s easy to see that we can make the page more dynamic, adding features similar to what MSNBC has, where the user can define the order in which he wants to see each content module.
I also cleaned up the header a lot. Right now, everything looks detached and kind of thrown in there. I made the logo blend with the rest of the header, fixed the navigation a bit, and confined the shows they had to one tab. When the user clicks on it, it would look like this. Similarly, the “Breaking News” bar looks like it fits, as seen here.
Overall, I think I did a pretty good job of getting rid of extraneous elements, text that looks like it doesn’t belong, and creating defined borders for each content module. Of course, this is just a quick mock-up and if given the time (or opportunity?), there is some refactoring that can be done. And hey, if you’re from Fox News and you like what you see, maybe we can talk- I do need a job after I graduate in May!
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