Wisdump

Dumping wisdom on design and the web

Non-Scientific Poll: Retirement Options

It’s great going out on your own to become a freelancer. Many of us still do it during the early half of our life without envisioning far into the future what we are going to do when we stop. So my question is does anyone have retirement plans that involve some type of savings account or are most people just winging it and will figure things out once the time comes?

Personally, part of the reason that I moved beyond just doing web design was so that I don’t hit the revenue ceiling and have the chance of retiring with a lot more money earlier in life (or quite possibly failing miserably). When I speak of a ‘revenue ceiling’ what I mean is that one person can only design so many sites during a year and therefore their revenue has a limit because people will only pay so much for a website. I am guessing that this is part of the reason why you see more and more web designers branching out into other areas such as book authoring and application development (ie. 37signals and Basecamp).

I also understand that many of you do it just for the love of design, but in this world you do need money so therefore I pose the question above. And for this reason I am meeting with a financial advisor next week to see what my options are. You can never start too early.

Originally posted on March 31, 2005 @ 10:26 am

iPod Shuffle Contest

Having an iPod Shuffle contest is the new “in” thing so I figured I might as well have one too. What you have to do is write a how-to article that relates to web design, web programming, or webmastering. Articles will be posted on Whitespace and we will vote on the best one at the end of May. Yes this is to get more content on my site and generate fun discussions so if you don’t wish to participate then I am not forcing you. Simple as that.

Here are the rules:

  • Proofread. If I find too many errors in your article (more than I find in my own entry) then it might not get posted up at all and therefore you have no chance of winning.
  • Original. The article could not have been published anywhere else on the web or in print before.
  • Unlimited Submissions. You have an unlimited amount of submissions.
  • Minimum 500 Words. Word count doesn’t always equate to quality, but anything less than 500 words usually is not worth it.
  • Can non-US Residents Participate? As long as my ass doesn’t get arrested for shipping the iPod to your country.
  • Deadline. May 31, 2005.
  • So just a chance to win? At the end of your article you are more than welcome to write a mini-bio with a link back to your site, so at the very least you will get one or two more visitors that day.

Why wouldn’t I do something cool (or maybe you do think this is cool)? Well, since the old entries are stuck in purgatory I could use new content and I think this is a good way to get it (yes, I know many people will disagree). Also, you don’t see too many how-to’s on blogs now so I figured this might start a trend. I am doing a similar contest for FG/i25 and it has generated some great articles with great discussions. As time goes on I will probably add some more prizes so more people can win (or the same person who submits 25 articles).

Send your article(s) to contest{AT}9rules.com. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or email me.

Originally posted on April 19, 2005 @ 11:00 am

Yahoo! Gets Design…Finally

It’s really no secret that Yahoo and Google are starting to resemble each other more and more everyday with their selection of services. Both have search engines. Both have webmail. Both have news. Once you start offering the same services as your competition how can you find ways to differentiate yourself from them? Well an obvious method is to create more features. Gmail came out the blocks with over 1gig in email storage blowing away Yahoo. However, even though Google trumped Yahoo in webmail features, what really makes Gmail standout (for me) is its interface in comparison to Yahoo! Mail’s, which is the case with many people I am sure.

I am giving Yahoo the benefit of the doubt with regards to its webmail interface since it has been around for so long (I believe that last redesign was 3-4 years ago) and its only competition was the equally horrendous Hotmail. But looking past that you will see that when people are comparing Yahoo! Mail with Gmail the interface design is a key feature in why they are deciding to switch along with spam protection and storage capacity.

On the web adding more features to a webpage isn’t as easy as it is to add more features to a desktop application. Eventually, you will probably see all of Google’s properties and Yahoo’s properties having the same features list. For example, Yahoo can add the same amount of storage and use the same exact spam filter as Gmail, but until their interface design changes, they will always be behind.

However, now I am starting to see a trend across the Yahoo properties that shows they have put more of a focus on design and this is a good thing. Earlier when I said that Gmail’s interface was superior to Yahoo Mail’s, I wasn’t speaking in terms of aesthetics, but how well the interface works. To me none of Google’s web applications show a great sense of visual design. You sort of get the feeling that all the engineers that are creating these projects also have to create the interfaces as well.

Yahoo recently launched their beta Yahoo! News section and it follows along the same paths of other recently launched Yahoo properties (homepage) in that it uses CSS and has a much cleaner design. If you take a look at Google News you will see a webpage screaming to be redesigned. Granted you can use the same argument with this page that I used about Yahoo! Mail with regards to age, but it’s hard to see any other place where Google is putting focus on design (although Google Maps is very slick with its use of Ajax).

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Originally posted on April 15, 2005 @ 11:50 am

Trick Readers and Drink With Scrivs

Keith and Garrett decide to play a little joke on the world. What this means is that they built up false thoughts and emotions for their readers and came back to say they were just kidding. What I am interested in is how the comments on Garrett’s site have bloggers lecturing him, while in Keith’s entry they seem to offer pats on the back.

Amazing what a little reputation and standing in the community will get you.

On a sidenote, I saw Keith’s new look before SXSW and dubbed it CouTraction or SubDal (yes I said that to his face about a million times) and constantly laughed at him about it while we (including Rundle and Garrett) hopped around from bar to bar scooping up the ladies…errrr, I mean I was scooping up the ladies while Keith was missing his fiancee…oh and Garret was talking about his girlfriend…damn, and Rundle was missing his…errr, ummm, yeah.

So what’s the lesson that we can all learn from this? Is it that we shouldn’t fool our readers because they are what make our blogs so special? No, that isn’t it. The lesson to be learned here is that you should never go out drinking with Scrivs unless you are single.

Originally posted on April 22, 2005 @ 11:36 am

CSS Border Styles

Whenever I get into the CSS of my sites I tend to stick with what I am used to because it makes development easier and I already know what the outcome is going to be (yeah that seems like common sense). This always seems to be the case with CSS border styles. Basically I stick with either solid or dotted simply because those are the two that stick out in my mind. Dotted comes out as dashed in IE so I am sure many of the IE users on my sites are not that impressed with that style, but I love it and we all know what a solid border looks like.

However, when playing with the design of this site yesterday morning I thought I would give another style a try to see what happens and I like the effect that it has on the site. I went with double simply because I wanted to. There is no “getting into the mind of the non-designer” insight here. Nope. I liked it, so I used it.

In any case, after the redesign (if you call it that) I was reading Cameron Moll’s site and his most recent entry Zaadz and the Evanescent Design Crew and found that Cameron used the double borders for his templates and it came out even sweeter than mine did (example).

If you need a refresher as to what the border style properties are in CSS here is a rundown:

  • none (sweet)
  • hidden (mostly for table stuff)
  • dotted
  • dashed
  • solid
  • double
  • groove
  • ridge
  • inset
  • outset

I’m not saying that you are better off using these instead of graphical borders, but it’s always good to have some alternatives in mind. Granted using some of those will give your site that swanky 1998 look, but maybe that is what you are aiming for.

Originally posted on April 13, 2005 @ 1:43 pm