Articles

My Own Archives

It’s a rainy day in Kansas City, and I spent part of my afternoon drinking some coffee and reading my own archives. I thought I’d share some of the articles that I enjoyed today.

  • Personally Reinventing the Weblog Publishing Stereotype – On August 9, 2007 I posted about what was important to me as the writer of my own weblog. “I think we all need to re-discover the nobility and power of hitting that publish button.”

  • NetNewsWire: Just What You Wanted – On December 9, 2007 I posted my first epic review (whereby “epic” I mean “more than 3,000 words”). There was a new type of feel I wanted to get in my writing. I wanted to give more than just information – I wanted to tell a story that the reader could relate to. My NNW post signified a big breakthrough for my writing on this weblog, and got me into a rhythm to write a few more epic reviews.

  • John Gruber: A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd – Two little-known facts: (1) it took us 7 months to complete the interview, and (2) the burning question I had all along but never did ask was just how many feeds he’s subscribed to.

My Own Archives

What Happens When You Let a Complete Stranger Hold Your iPhone

A couple days ago I was at a prayer meeting. I was sitting in a blue chair, and had strategically reserved an empty chair on my left and one on my right so I could have my space. There was live music and I wanted to read.

My iPhone buzzed, and I pulled it out to read, and then reply, to a text message. A few minutes later it buzzed again. Reply. Buzz. Reply.

By the third text, a 30-something Asian lady, sitting two chairs over (and who I’m nearly positive had never seen an iPhone before), asks me what sort of phone I have. In very broken English. In a room with live music. Two seats over from me.

At first, she asked me to show her how it worked. I held it out and used my thumb to slide back and forth between splash screens, and I pulled up the contacts app and showed her the keypad for the phone.

After my 10-second demo she asked if she could check her email really quick (which I knew was surely just an excuse to fiddle with the phone). I put it back in my pocket and told her that only my email works on it, because you have to set it up.

But her eyes had already been lit up, and I knew for sure she had never seen one before, because she pulled out her Fat ‘Lil Notebook and asked me to write down what it was and what it does.

I wasn’t quite sure how to fulfill her request, so I took a pen and wrote:

  • Apple iPhone

  • Make calls
  • Get text messages
  • Check email

She then asked me to write down where she could go get one. So I cleverly wrote:

  • Apple Store

If anyone was watching us it must have been a hilarious sight. I was clearly in an awkward situation, and this lady was oblivious to it. She was enthralled and apparently had no pre-conceived notions about social boundaries.

As I hand her notebook back she finally works up her confidence and flat-out asks me to hold the thing.

I very much wanted to say ‘no’, but I like to think of myself as a nice guy; sharing is caring, you know? I slowly pull it out of my pocket and as I’m hesitantly passing it over the empty chair my first thought was, “Is she going to steal it?”

But my second thought was, “If she does try to run I could totally take her.”

I pass it off, and she plays with it for (not kidding) 30 minutes. Every couple minutes she leans over and asks me how to “get back to that one screen,” or “make the things stop wiggling,” or “open up Google”.

Once I was settled that she was innocent and harmless I relaxed a bit. At the 25 minute mark I leaned over and ask if she was done with it.

“Umm… No, not yet.” She replied.

Finally I just had to ask for it back.

The awkwardness was totally worth the great story I got out of it. Plus, it was a hoot to watch someone discover the iPhone for the first time.

Usually, when someone who hasn’t had a hands-on experience with an iPhone asks me to look at it, they will unlock it, stare at the home screen, maybe click on Safari and then hand it back. But this woman was dedicated; she was determined to fiddle until she was done.

And finally, to top it off, today I opened up Mobile Safari to see what sort of web-browsing she did. The four new browser windows she loaded?

  1. A Google search for Tom Cruise Movies
  2. The Official Jet Li Website
  3. www.finalfantasy.com (which doesn’t exist)
  4. Totally Obfuscuated
What Happens When You Let a Complete Stranger Hold Your iPhone

Thank You Merlin Mann

When you publish your own weblog there can be a ton of pressure to produce and please and give in to peer-pressure. Sometimes it’s real pressure, and sometimes it’s just perceived. Then, every once in a while, readers get to witness someone break free from the rut.

You know what I mean? You finally publish the post announcing your new understanding and resolve, and it’s chalked full of conviction, and every word is dripping with fresh life? I’ve written a couple of those posts, too.

What’s bizarre about renewed passion is that there is always the fear that when you hit Publish all your readers will leave. But what reader, their right mind, would stop reading right when you find fresh passion?

I’m at the same point of desired breakthrough again for my own writing, and I need to remind myself that this is when things get interesting, worthwhile and juicy.

When I first started this site it was for that very purpose: to write about what was important to me, Shawn Blanc. All my favorite posts were, like yours, letters to myself. And as I wrote about the things I loved, they got more attention than I thought they would, and I started liking the attention more than the publishing.

In the past year life has changed. Now, the things I am deeply involved with everyday have shifted from topics like awesome software and freelance designing, to issues of creativity, communication and leadership.

Now I feel stuck…

I am passionate about leadership and creativity, but I feel like I ought to write about software instead because that’s what I did well once.

Thank you Merlin, for reminding me to put energy behind what’s important to me. I love what you said:

This is my site. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

43 Folders is now, once again, about what I have to say about things, and I want that to be the sole reason that the idea of a visit here either attracts or repels you.

And also, welcome to the comment-free crowd.

— Shawn

Thank You Merlin Mann

Leading an In-House Design Team

Cameron Moll is speaking at An Event Apart in Chicago, and his session is called “The In-House Designer”. Here’s the description:

The fundamental principles of design remain constant irrespective of organization size, technical discipline, and the like. Yet within larger organizations, the dynamics of applying these principles, the ability to produce quality output, and overall job satisfaction are a challenge at times. Learn how to hone your technical skills, and, more importantly, your soft skills, to effectively grapple with the politics and red tape that are common to larger organizations — or, for that matter, to client services work.

A few days ago on his weblog, Cameron asked those of his readers who work for larger corporations to give feedback about the issues they face as in-house designers. Cameron gave a few bullet-points and then opened up the thread for comments.

Since I lead the in-house design team for a large non-profit ministry, I know exactly what a lot of the commenters on Cameron’s post are talking about.

After reading through all the comments, I pulled some of the issues that especially stood out to me, and gave my own experience of what I have done to solve (or work towards solving) these problems with our team of in-house designers.

Patrick Foster (#3):

Meetings. Incessant, irrelevant meetings . . .

Meetings are necessary, but overrated and usually crowded. Most meetings would be more successful if half the people in the room weren’t there.

When a client wants to meet with us I’ll have the project manager or myself sit down with the them. I am violent about not making my designers sit in on any non-essential meetings that would be a waste of their time. I’d rather let them hear the 3 minute update than the 2-hour conversation.

Someone anonymous (#5):

  • You’re creativity and output can get stale
  • Taking on multiple job roles due to re-orgs and downsizing

With my ministry, our other departments are our clients. Therefore being an in-house designer means you work with the same clients over and over. There is certainly a level of monotony that arises when that’s the case. However, I think it’s a byproduct of poor design.

When poor design solutions are offered, the design team doesn’t carry any authority to speak into the creative process. Thus the client becomes the creative director and the design team becomes a work-force, not a resource.

Encouraging the design team to grow in their creativity and productivity, helping them think outside the box, and letting them know it’s o.k. to fail will help the overall creative process. Once the design team has scored a few touchdowns the other departments will realized they’re playing ball with a different team.

The second point of taking on multiple jobs is the nature of the beast. There will always be the time when a specific skill-set is needed for a project, but it’s a one-off project that doesn’t warrant hiring someone new.

Brendan Cullen (#6):

Unrealistic expectations/deadlines/requests…

Sadly, unrealistic deadlines are part of life when it comes to web and print design. In the years that I’ve been in the design industry, even a project with a realistic deadline that is moving along in a timely manner will still come down to crunch time.

My goal for our Marketing department is to lay out a long-term strategy for advertising and marketing efforts. Focusing on a handful of well-designed, well-funded projects that are high quality. Getting a plan ahead of time allows the design team to start work right away and have the freedom to create something excellent instead of something fast.

Stephen Cap (#8):

People need to know what you can do for them so when they encounter a problem on a project they know who can help them solve it.

This problem is completely in the boss’ court.

A good department director is one who knows his team like he knows his own children. Not only is he aware of what they’re capable of producing and designing, he also knows how they relate to their peers, how they respond to pressure and how they process new information.

Mike Busch (#14):

Design is rooted in solving problems for the end user, and too often I find myself many steps removed from the user I’m designing for. In this environment experimentation/innovation simply take too long, and instead I’m forced to go with proven solutions to avoid the time hangups. So, although I’m rolling out high quality work, it lacks that intangible qualities that come from experimentation.

Mike’s end-result can be reached from multiple paths: time constraints, too many cooks in the kitchen, etc. There are countless dynamics that can trip up the design process in a large corporation.

This, to me, is the number one issue facing our design team right now, and I have a lot of energy behind solving it. That will have to be saved for another post, but I will say this: great numbers doesn’t always equal great design.

Sheri Bigelow (#17):

Lack of clear communication. Or, lack of a desire to communicate. I have run into a lot of decision makers who just don’t seem to care about the issues until they become a problem.

This is something I have had to force myself to do. I didn’t realize how easy it was to not communicate with my design team, and to just give out orders and directions.

We meet twice a month to cast vision and share about upcoming events and changes that normally wouldn’t be shared. This meeting has helped tremendously in getting the whole team on-board and excited about what’s around the corner. It gives them a greater ownership of the team and more motivation to do their job.

Justin Viger (#50):

. . . a big issue is not having a clearly defined role or specific job title.

This was the first thing I chose to address when I stepped in as director. The designers and programmers already knew what their jobs were, but the administrators and managers were overlapping in their responsibilities, and there was some breakdown in communication within our department.

I went with a bottom-up approach, and re-wrote the job descriptions for myself, the office manager, the department administrator, the web director, the creative director and the project manager; all in such a way that made their primary responsibility to serve the designers and programers.

This means they keep designers out of meetings whenever possible, make sure a designer’s projects are running smoothly, and help get needed answers.

When leaders lead by serving, everyone wins.

Anindya (#57):

Another problem is, you have to learn accepting average quality work. Many might not agree, but in bigger organizations, you have to accept average quality work. Because the focus shifts to doing volume work, generating more revenue and profit growth rather than quality!

This was something I personally had to quickly learn how to deal with.

Where do you draw the line between time it takes to complete a job, and the quality of a job? As a designer I am super attentive to detail and I cringe when a job doesn’t nail the potential it could have had. But as a director, I have to keep things moving along with some rate of progress.

The truth is: if we settle for average quality work for the sake of “generating more revenue and profit”, the revenue will suffer in the long-run due to everything being surrounded by average design.

But if we take a short-term hit in revenue, and focus our efforts on excellence in design, in a few years the rewards will be much greater and the momentum will be much stronger.

Steve Rose (#51) gives some great advice to the designers:

…you have to learn how to fight, carve out territory, and collaborate with other groups in such a way that you fulfill the project requirements (most important) and maintain your artistic sanity. Its a battle — sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That’s just the way it is.

‘Nuff said.

Leading an In-House Design Team

iPhone 2.0 OS Addendum

A few additional notes from my post last week on the iPhone 2.0 OS. Thanks to those who passed these on via email.

  • The .com button, when held, now offers three other TLDs: .net, .org and .edu.
  • If you’re composing a message in Mail and press the home button to look something up, the save draft dialog doesn’t interrupt you any more. Instead, when you return to Mail, your message is still open for editing.
  • You can now turn Wi-Fi on while in Airplane Mode.
  • Password fields on iPhone only show the last letter typed for a short while, and then convert it to a dot. So my previous example of ••••w would only appear that way for a second or two, until being changed to •••••.
iPhone 2.0 OS Addendum

Marketing Shoes

For the past 90 days I have been learning to tie the laces in my new shoes.

Just shy of two years ago I began doing freelance design work for our Church in my spare time. Until last fall, when I was hired on as a full-time designer (read: less pay per job, but more jobs). Then, last April, I was asked to take over and be the new Head Cheese of the Marketing Department.

For starters, I don’t like the name “Marketing Department”. It feels like an outdated name, still given to describe broken and uninventive design teams all across the country.

I think “Invitation Department” would be more fitting, but truth be told, I don’t very much like the word “department”. It sounds too corporate and hemmed in for the work and mission we have before us.

Perhaps we are the Marketing Department according to the Org Chart, but if you were to hang out in our office for a few days you would see we don’t operate like a department; rather, a team.

So Invitation Team? Um, no.

Creative Ingenuity and Design Division? Closer. But still no.

My mind is blank. Suggestions are welcome. Moving on now…

There are a lot of other issues I’ve had to stare at, beyond just who we are. As a designer I’m used to problem solving; that’s much of what design is: problem solving. But as head of design and marketing, I have a much different problem to solve.

Instead of figuring out how to take my client’s needs and turn them into graphical solutions built on scratch paper and Photoshop art-boards, I am figuring out how to take a national ministry’s needs and turn them into solutions built on workflow, teamwork, creativity, productivity and budgets.

Hold on, though…

…because even before that happens; before I can solve any solutions — before we can soar as a design and advertising team — I have to first fix the department.

Right now we are broken. We are an 8-ounce, garage-sale-find, coffee mug being asked to hold 5 gallons of Aquafina. We need to grow. We need to scale; and we cannot lose one ounce of our strength or surrender one drop of quality in the process.

Therefore I have been having near-daily conversations with my white board. I have been attempting to put my thoughts into colored scribbles, and from there trying to find (and give) clarity through motivational speeches (and more white board scribbling) at our staff meetings.

Currently our problem with growth isn’t so much man-power, as it is infrastructure, work-flow and focus in the office.

If the problem was man-power it would be a simple solution: hire more designers. But I already have the designers. The solution I need won’t be found through addition.

I believe the human sprit wants – and even needs – to be challenged and given hard-to-reach goals. I also believe that put in the wrong environment day after day, that same human spirit will forget about its ability to imagine and grow.

How then does an office draw the line between focusing on the task at hand, and friendship amongst co-workers? How do you weigh the balance of creativity and productivity while on the clock?

How do you uphold strong expectations and enhance the creative process without micro-managing?

Apple’s corporate environment has one key to the answer. During my interview with Daniel Jalkut a few months ago he said something that I have thought about near daily ever since:

…when I look at software, I look at it through this ambitious, striving for perfection type of lens that I picked up from Apple. And I hasten to add that I don’t think my products are by any means perfect. It’s the thing about perfection. It’s really hard, probably impossible. But what Apple does is strive for it anyway, even if it’s impossible. I came to respect that attitude very much, to the point that I can no longer relate to people who don’t share that view.

Apple has established a culture in their office of hard work and pursuit of excellence. How did they get there?

A culture like that doesn’t emerge from rules and motivational phrases printed out and posted in the bathroom. It comes about by example. It has to.

Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, outlines that the first building block for breakthrough and momentum in a company is what he calls “Level 5 Leadership”.

That doesn’t just mean the boss is really smart and organized. It means that sprinkled all throughout the company are “the right people”. Folks that are motivated, lead by example, and want to grow.

Having the right person doing the right job is contagious. The wrong people will either rise to excellence and become the right people or else they will quit.

The good news for me is that my office was already mostly full of the right people; they just didn’t know it. Which is why I have spent the last 90 days trying to empower and embolden my “right people”, so they and I can lead the rest of the team by example.

What is the best way to empower someone? With boundaries.

Tell them what their job is, hold them accountable to it, and don’t let emotion get in the way. After a few awkward bumps they will become a better employee and a happier person.

Happy people do amazing work. Empowered people own their job. Emboldened people take initiatives and find new answers. And with a team like that, problems stop being problems and they start being challenges waiting to be annihilated.

Marketing Shoes

iPhone App Store and 2.0 OS Initial Miscellany

An un-ordered list of observations regarding iPhone OS 2.0 and the freshly-launched iTunes App Store.

### MobileMe, Exchange and Push Data

– When composing an email there is now a CC/BCC/From field in Mail. Tapping it, expands the fields, from which you can not only select recipients to be CC-ed or BCC-ed, but (assuming you have more than one email account set up) you can also select which account you’re sending the email from. Regardles of which account you were in when opening a new email message.

– Pushing contacts, calendars and email currently only work when initiated on my phone. In Mobile Mail I can delete an email and within seconds it is deleted on my laptop. The reverse is not true.

The speed only works for my Exchange email account. My MobileMe calendars, contacts and mail do get over-the-air syncing but not instantaneously yet. Emphasis on the “yet”, considering the .Mac to MobileMe switch has been over a 24-hour process. (Lord knows how much coffee has been consumed at the MobileMe HQ in the past day.)

**Update:** MobileMe is up (for now), but my MobileMe related info is still not pushing. My guess is the servers are slammed.

– Selecting to push calendars over MobileMe only sent me my MacBook Pro’s native iCal calendars. Unfortunately, those which I’m subscribed to (National Holidays and Basecamp Milestones) are no longer in my iPhone.

– Setting up my work’s exchange account was incredibly simple. Much, much more simple that before. The exchange support seems to be flawless. I now have push email for work, which I honestly don’t know is a good thing or a bad thing.

The App Store

  • Initial impression of the the iPhone’s app store is that it is first-rate. It’s easy to navigate, and too easy to buy stuff in.
  • You can download apps from WiFi or EDGE. The apps I downloaded over EDGE downloaded pretty quickly.
  • There are 52 productivity apps (8 of which are for “getting things done” and use a check-mark icon. The Abacus app boggles my mind.
  • Clicking a link to the desktop version of the iTunes App Store from Mobile Safari doesn’t open the iPhone’s app store. Instead you get an internal server error from Apple.
  • Some apps, like AIM and PayPal, have additional settings which can be accessed in the System Settings menu, at the bottom.
  • Re-Downloading an App Store App. John Gruber notes:

    If you accidentally delete an app you’ve bought, you can re-download it for free. The App Store UI doesn’t make this clear, but Apple describes it in this KBase article. What you do is act like you’re buying it again — tap the app’s price, and the App Store will recognize that you’ve already purchased it and ask if you wish to download it again. You can also do this from iTunes, to re-download an app to your computer that you originally purchased on your iPhone.

Other Miscellany

  • My iPhone now has the iPod Touch’s Contacts App. It is the exact same as opening the Telephone App and clicking Contacts.

    If I am scrolled half-way down in my Phone’s contact list and then quit out and open up the Contacts App, it will refresh itself to match, and thus it too will be scrolled half-way down. Curiously though, the reverse does not work. Meaning if I scroll back up to the top in the iPod-version Contacts App, the change is not reflected when I go back to the Contacts list in the iPhone’s telephone app.

    Oddities aside, I’m assuming the app is there because I downloaded the unofficial 2.0 OS update yesterday. Why it would be part of the official iPhone 2.0 OS is beyond me. I have a feeling when the official 2.0 OS update is released later today (presumably) that my iPhone will want to update itself.

    UPDATE: I re-installed the “official” 2.0 upgrade, and the Contacts App is still there. So now it lives in the back corner of the 3rd screen, next to its new friend Stocks.

    UPDATE 2: Nate Bird points out that with the dedicated Contacts app you can now add or edit a contact while talking on the phone. It’s true.

  • iPhone can now take a screenshot by pressing (not holding) the home and lock buttons simultaneously. The screen fades to white, fades back in, and the screenshot is now in your camera roll.
  • Apple’s Remote App is brilliant, and I can only imagine how much more I would enjoy it if I had an Apple TV setup. I noticed is that when selecting an artist or album to play in iTunes via Remote, a new playlist appears in iTunes titled “Remote” and it has the album you’re listening to in it. When switching to listen to a Podcast or watching a movie the playlist is deleted.
  • Fortunately Mobile iCal (or whatever it’s called) now supports multiple calendars. Using the same colors as your Desktop iCal and MobileMe Calendar. Unfortuntely, no matter what the color is for an event, the text is white – making light-colored calendar events nearly impossible to read.
  • When typing in a password you now see the last character you entered. Just before saving it, an 8-character password which ended with the letter “w”, would look like this: •••••••w.
iPhone App Store and 2.0 OS Initial Miscellany

Why Wait?

  • iPhone 2.0 software update is available for bootleg download. More info on MacRumors.
  • MobileMe system update is aviailable for bootleg download. More info on GearLive.
  • The iTunes App store is up, though not announced. You can find it by searching on iTunes for an application, or through an iTunes App Store link – like the previous one, or this one for Super Monkey Ball.

I’m installing the 2.0 software now, and so far so good. Also, the MobileMe update ran fine, but the Apple servers are still off-line.

What are the apps I grabbed already?

Why Wait?

The Task Notebook

Though my whole professional and personal life seems to exist on my laptop, I will never be a completely paper-free individual. My to-do list has always existed on paper. And it always will.

Not only do I have a fond affection for writing on real paper with a real pen, there is also a subtle sense of gratification whenever I draw a black line through an accomplished task. A gratification that I don’t get when clicking on a check box or tapping the delete key.

Using a paper based to-do system is not the “greenest” thing I could do (don’t tell Al), and is starting to feel old fashioned in this PDA GTD world. So why am I still carting around my notepad?

Being organized is a learned behavior.

I sometimes teach a class to new staff members around here about how to manage their time. After the first couple hours of groundwork information (you’d be surprised how many people don’t have an idea of how to schedule their time), I emphasize what – in my opinion – is the greatest advice of all time for time management and organization: do what works for you.

This advice goes for all sorts of organizational efforts. Such as keeping your email inbox manageable, and making sure you don’t miss that important date.

We all think a little differently, and we all have unique quirks that make us who we are. Therefore, how we structure and organize our life should fit . . . our life.

Needless to say, I have been through a lot of notebooks in search of the perfect to-do list tool.

Not only do I need something I can write my task list on, I need it to take notes too. I need to draw in it. I need to cram excessive amounts of loose leaf paper in it. I need it to have character.

Necessity Necessitates the Necessities

For the first 25 years of my life my to-do list existed on my left hand. If something came to mind that I wanted to get done, I’d write it on my palm. (I wasn’t too busy in those days.)

Last February I built myself a bonafide Moleskine PDA notebook. It’s sole purpose was task management. And I swear, just the fact that I owned a task notebook made me busier. (It is amazing how many things you realize you need to do when you have a spot to write them down in.)

That small Moleskine was fantastic. It worked perfectly for over a year. It was handy, cheap and had grid-paper: the three most important elements in any good task notebook.

Handy

If my task notebook isn’t handy, it’s no good. Convenience is everything when you’re using something every day, everywhere. It’s a common misconception that size dictates handiness, but that’s not true. Handy means useful.

Gridded

I’ll never be able to use a notebook without lines. My handwriting inevitably starts to lean down to the bottom right corner of the page if I don’t have some pre-printed help.

But standard college ruled won’t do.

In seventh grade science I got hooked on grid paper. It has no top or bottom or left or right. You can turn it sideways or longways and it’s still right-side up. It’s fantastic.

Cheap

Cheap may be the least important, but it is never to be overlooked. You’d be surprised at how many folks get a nice, quality journal only to never use it in fear of wasting its pages. Now that is a waste of money if I ever saw one.

When looking for a task notebook you have to recognize the very nature of the notebook will necessitate throwing paper in the recycling bin.

Every hour or two I’m scratching something out. I’m constantly doodling notes, and tearing out sheets of paper to give away. If I hear a cash-register cha-chinging every time I do that it’s no good. If I feel like I’m robbing my notebook of all its character when I rip a page out, then it’s no good.

The right notebook must be guilt-free to destroy.

Evolving

About 3 months ago the Moleskine stopped being handy. Yes, it was small and portable, but no longer handy.

I’m a visual thinker and a verbal processor. Translated: the best tools for figuring out a solution to a problem is a person to listen while I draw on a white board. But if a white board isn’t around I need a sketch pad. Therfore I upgraded to letter-sized.

I started with a generic yellow pad like everyone else I see in management around here used, but it had one major flaw: it wasn’t grid.

I found a better solution at Walmart. A 150-page gridded goodness pad which has worked for the past month. However, the useful :: frustrating ration is quickly becoming exponential.

This pad stopped being useful once my to-do list was no longer able to be on page 1.

After I sat in a meeting and took some important notes on page 2, the next time I re-wrote my to-do list it had to be on page 3. Now it’s on page 11.

Time to find a new notebook.

Today I ordered a Levenger Circa Notebook. These guys may very well make the best day-to-day usable stationary in the world.

The Circa is a brilliant knock-off of the age old 3-ring binder idea. It comes with 100 sheets of letter-sized grid paper, on nice 60# text stock. It feels good to hold, and is a dream to write on.

What else is so gorgeous about the Circa is that my to-do list will always be on page one, and I won’t have to fold pages over the top binding to get to the page I want. It even folds over itself, and is infinitely accessorisable.

Will this be my final task notebook? I doubt it.

The Task Notebook

Refreshing the iPhone Tips & Tutorials Page

Since last July I have loosely been maintaining a tips and tutorials page for the iPhone. The page is basically a categorized list with some helpful links to popular web apps, how-tos, articles and hardware accessory stores — all for the iPhone.

In light of tomorrow’s rumored “iPhone! iPhone! iPhone!” keynote announcement, and the upcoming release of OSX iPhone 2.0, I figured it was time to update the page. But with your help please.

If you know of a link or two (or three) that you think would fit in, please send it on by emailing me at [email protected].

Thanks in advance.

— Shawn

Refreshing the iPhone Tips & Tutorials Page

WWDC Predictions

To be honest, I have read only a little of all the rumors and hype around the Net regarding all this Monday’s WWDC keynote. Not because I’m not interested or excited, but I’ve just had other things to do.

Since I am relatively uninformed and have no inside sources, I thought it only logical to give my two cents on what we may or may not see at WWDC. And besides, everyone else is doing it.

  • iPhone: I am hesitant to believe we will see a 3G capable iPhone released and available to buy next week. Announced or talked about? Absolutely. But I’m not convinced it will be in stores before this Fall.On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a price drop and/or a refresh to the current iPhone model. Maybe an increase in storage capacity, a fix to that annoying headphone jack and one more thing.
  • iPhone Software Update: I’m still holding to the ‘sleeper agent‘ mentality I adopted after watching the iPhone SDK announcement in March. There is a lot of potential within the current iPhone which Apple is still unveiling. Right now, as far as Apple is concerned, it’s all in the software. I think the software update will be the most exciting news.I think Steve will brag on – and then release – the 2.0 software update. It’ll probably be available right after the Keynote (which means a whole lot of people will be pounding on the server and we won’t actually be able to get it until 24 hours after the keynote).

    Also, I’m sure we will see some 3rd party apps available on the iTunes store as well. Come on App Store.

  • Laptops: I will be surprised if we don’t at least see a refresh to the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, though I doubt we’ll see a whole new lineup just yet. They seem very much overdue for an update, but it also feels like the main push at WWDC next week is going to be software, not hardware.Of course that’s not to say Apple won’t release a whole new line-up
  • .Mac: Speaking of software, .Mac has long been Apple’s would-be golden ticket to a fantastic Mobile/Home synchronization platform thingy. The potential of .Mac is so un-tapped, and I think everyone is ready to see it updated.The main update feature I’m hoping for is a better synching option between my MBP and my iPhone. Primarily over-the-air synching.

    Will the name get changed to Mobile Me (or something like it)? Probably. If they’re going to make a massive overhaul to the service, it would be just like them to give it a new name. Similar to when they made the move to Intel: PowerMac became Mac Pro; PowerBook became MacBook Pro; etc…

  • Snow Leopard: Sure. Why not?

To wrap up, my gut tells me the main push next week will be software related, with some hardware refreshes (and maybe some price changes) to accommodate.

WWDC Predictions

(mt)

There are a few things which I consider to be most important with a hosting provider: (a) Affordability; (b) Technical Support (read: “Reps that don’t make you feel retarded”); and (c) staying strong when it counts the most.

Not all hosting providers will get you everything you want. It’s usually like hiring a designer. You get to pick two: Good, fast or cheap. Where in this case good means reliable; fast means snappy; and cheap means affordable.

I have been hosting this site on Media Temple ever since last summer, and yes, I have certainly had a few odd moments with their hosting over the past 9 months. But I am more than pleased with their service and am glad to recommend them as a hosting provider. And yes, I pay for my hosting.

Something common that I’ve noticed about most hosting reviews is that people only write them when they’re upset about something. Therefore you often hear horror stories and rarely hear “I’m happy” stories.

Furthermore, since getting recommendations from others is such a huge factor when picking a host, it often seems the decision is made on who seems to be the least crappy. I think this is very unfair to most hosting providers because they work long hours to make our websites stay in public view and most people only speak up when their site goes down.

Therefore I wanted to give a testimony regarding Media Temple.

No doubt there are plenty of worthy hosting providers, and if you were to base your needs on reliability, features and cost alone then Media Temple certainly stands tall among its competitors. But there is something more which Media Temple has that other hosting providoers don’t.

Someone To Believe In

ShawnBlanc.net is more than just my own spot on the web. Like Cameron Hunt said, his site is an extension of himself, and mine is an extension of myself.

If you publish your own weblog or have developed your own online business you know exactly what I’m talking about. A little bit of you goes into each line of code, every word you publish and every pixel put on display.

So first things first. Media Temple does have fantastic day-to-day reliability. You can trust that if anything crazy ever happens (the good-kind-of-crazy or the bad-kind-of-crazy), they’ve got your back. But for me, working with a hosting company who majors on the “set it and forget it” mentality is not what’s most important to me.

I want to be with a hosting provider who has a hand and investment in the community that I too am a part of. I want a host that I am proud to recommend.

In this regard Media Temple is very much worth checking out. Not only are they deeply involved with the web development and design community — hosting many of the sites you and I visit and read every day. But they are also leading the pack with their hosting technology.

Zeldman says it like this: “Out-of-work IT guys looking to make a buck started most of the hosting companies I’ve encountered. Designers and visionaries founded Media Temple. That’s important to me.”

Of course that is just the external dimension to Media Temple’s business. At the end of the day we all know that if your website gets bombarded with a metric ton of traffic you need a hosting provider who puts their money where their mouth is. And that is precisely what Media Temple does every day.

It’s not too hard to find a hosting company which offers gobs of bandwidth and storage for dirt cheap. But seriously people, you get what you pay for. If your “unlimited bandwidth for .99¢” server starts seeing more than a handful of page views in a month you can literally watch your site slow down. If you get one big link, your site will crash and you spend too much time, energy and money to get it back up. Not to mention you may find some of your hair pulled out in the process.

But it would be silly to buy a dedicated server for a site which sees less than 100,000 page views a month. Why pay for heavy-duty hosting when you may only truly need that kind of beef once or twice a month? It’s the age old question.

The issue of potential, un-predictable traffic spikes is something every hosting provider is trying to answer. And Media Temple offers – from what I’ve seen – the only reasonable, smart, and functional solution to this conundrum. Enter the (gs). Their Grid-Service is a level up from the more common shared hosting plans seen by most other providers.

Not only is the Grid-Service peppy enough to consistently deliver tens of thousands of page views a month without any lag-time, but their Burst Containers are automatically, and instantly available to you — making sure your site responds even faster when under a heavy traffic spike from Digg, del.icio.us, Gruber, whoever.

The way the Burst Containers work is that when your database is suddenly hit with a heavy load of requests due to traffic, Media Temple detects it automatically (usually within a few seconds) and instantly makes more memory available to your MySQL database so it can process the server requests faster.

As a (gs) customer you get two free bursts every month. Media Temple says the Burst Containers last for three days, but in my experience they seem to stay active for five. The times I’ve needed a burst container, my site actually responded better under traffic levels that were 50 times what they normally are for me. It is great to know that I don’t have to watch my site and be ready to email or call my host in case of a traffic spike. Even worse if you didn’t realize it until after the fact.

Suppose you do want heavy-duty hosting. Media Temple’s Dedicated Virtual servers are just the ticket. On their (dv) you can install any application, server software or operating system components you want. And you get root level access to your server.

But enough with stats. Like I said earlier there is something about genuine recommendations. And for those you need personal stories.

To be honest, Media Temple’s hosting hasn’t been perfect. I never expected it to be. Instead of leaving out the negative experiences I’ve had and only sharing the positive, I see it as only fair to mention both sides. Let’s start with the bad, and then move on to the good.

The Bad

In the 9 months I have been hosting with Media Temple my site has gone offline about 5 times. Three of those were the routine, “it’s just the way things go”, maintenance that you get from any hosting provider. (Although one time the routine maintenance ended up taking 12 hours instead of 1.)

Down time number 4 was a few months ago. Well, technically my site never went “down”, but rather the server was responding v e r y , v e r y , s l o w . . .

It took Media Temple two whole days to sort out the trouble, upgrade their hardware, add more RAM and fix the problem. The good news is that afterwards things were better than ever, and in return for the inconvenience they credited me with a month of free hosting. (Many sites only credit you a pro-rated amount for the actual downtime.)

But the biggest trouble I’ve had was in February.

I first found something was wrong when I tried to check my Mint stats from my iPhone but the root /mint/ page came back as an Apache error. That’s not good. I then checked my homepage, and it was blank. (Not Blanc. Ha!)

Fortunately I was near some free wi-fi. When are you not near some free wi-fi these days? So I whipped out my laptop and found my whole site was 404ing. I tried to log in via FTP with no success, and when I went to my Media Temple Account Center login I was rejected there as well.

At that point I called customer service to find out what was happening. The man I spoke with told me a Sys Admin was working on the hardware which hosted my site and things would be back up within the hour. I thought that to be a strange scenario, but I gave it an hour.

60 minutes later my site was still down so I called back. The next guy puts me on hold to dig a little deeper. He comes back and asks me why I had closed my account earlier.

“Um. I didn’t close my account.”

“Oh? Hold on, please.”

Come to find out that my account was inadvertently closed, instead of someone else’s which was meant to be. Horror of horrors! Fortunately I suffered no data loss. Their technicians had everything repaired within 4.5 hours from the time of “inadvertent closing”.

Their process of fixing the mistake necessitated re-createing my account, which meant a new MySQL database. That would have broken my WordPress and Mint config files, but the tech guys caught that and went in manually and adjusted my files to recognize and work with the new database name.

In the end, the only thing I had to do was reset my FTP login password.

Granted, deleting my account was a colossal mistake, and it’s a miracle no data was lost (though I did have an up-to-date backup of my own). But Media Temple fixed the error quickly and efficiently.

With such a crazy event, I haven’t lost any confidence in Media Temple. In fact I now have more confidence in them than I did before.

The Good

It’s Gruber’s fault that I was ultimately pushed to get a new hosting provider. Shortly after getting link-listed for the first time my site crashed. It was then that I decided to migrate to Media Temple and write this:

Having your site go down right when people want to see it is like getting de-pantsed when you’re at the drinking fountain. It’s a bummer.

My preferred strategy would be to keep the server up and zippy while everyone surfed to their heart’s content and then, later that night while everyone was sleeping, it could go down.

But no. Like a 90 pound freshman on the football team, my server got schooled.

This pushed me over the edge to do what I have been wanting to do for the past year. It was time to get a new hoster.

But not wanting to blindly go with (mt) Media Temple just because their website is incredible I asked around.

Responses included a handful of recommendations. I had a conversation with each hosting provider, telling them my needs and expectations and what they would recommend. The options were like a joke. I couldn’t believe nobody had at least something to compare with Media Temple.

My move to Media Temple went great. What made it great was the folks in tech support.

I am not a server-savvy dude. When migrating files I barely knew how to export the MySQL database, but when I discovered that phpMyAdmin wouldn’t import a database larger than 2MB I didn’t know what to do since mine was 10-times that size.

The solution required a bit of SSH and Terminal kung-fu which I do not have any reliable experience in. All I really know in terminal is “uptime” (currently 4 days, 20:39, on the MacBook Pro by the way).

After some failed attempts with how-to’s found on Google I called Media Temple at 3:00AM with a “help me” request. The guy on the other end happily did just that. A bit of team-work and we had my site up and running on their servers in no time. Exhale…

Sometimes when you call a company’s tech support the guys treat you like you’re an idiot; as if you should know everything already. Well, if that was the case then I wouldn’t be calling tech support would I? If every person that called knew everything then there’d be nobody to call tech support because they wouldn’t be calling because they knew everything. Am I right, or am I right?

Well Media Temple has always been friendly, sympathetic and extremely helpful. Even a few days after the inadvertent account closing session I got a personal email from a sys admin who sincerely apologized and clearly explained to me exactly what had happened.

Tech support aside, the thing that drew me to Media Temple was their (gs) Grid-Service hosting.

It is the next level of shared hosting. Media Temple describes it like this:

The new (gs) Grid instantly and automatically scales your site during sudden traffic surges so you do not have to worry about last minute server upgrades. […] Standard in each (gs) Grid-Service plan is a generous allocation of Grid Performance Units (GPUs) sufficient to power 95% of the sites we’ve ever seen. If you happen to be one of the lucky ones with massively growing traffic, you can rest assured that the Grid has you covered.

The brilliance of the Grid-Service is two fold: First off, there is no longer the “bad neighbor” effect. If someone else on your same server gets a traffic spike you don’t suffer for it.

Secondly, if you get a traffic spike Media Temple doesn’t suddenly treat you like the enemy. Many hosting providers are quick on the draw to shut down a site when it gets heavy traffic spikes, assuming it’s not what you want.

But Media Temple knows that you do want the traffic, and they watch your site so as to quickly scale your database resources to keep that popular page of yours at party.

Since being with Media Temple I have yet to receive enough traffic to even slow my website down – let alone crash it.

The Real Test of a Hosting Provider

Here’s the honest truth: No hosting provider is going to provide every single customer with perfect service, all of the time. It’s a fact that somebody, somewhere will have a bad experience.

What defines the worth and integrity of a hosting provider is not the bad experiences, but rather how the company treats their customer and responds to the situation during those times.

My experience with Media Temple has shown them to be a company of integrity, reliability and forward movement. I really do like these guys.

(mt)

Perpetual Devotion

I read in a quote book once that perpetual devotion to one thing can only be sustained by the perpetual neglect of another. As much as I love publishing this weblog there has been a lot of changes around the Blanc household lately that have necessitated I neglect sbnet for a bit in order to keep my mental sanity and my marriage in good standings.

For one, the Jeep has been taking a ton of my free time. The time I used to be devoting to researching and writing I’ve been devoting to wrenching and off-roading. And I’ll say right now, learning how to adjust a back axle’s stance on the leaf springs feels a lot more manly than learning about UI verbiage. Though I certainly enjoy both realities, it has been a nice change of pace to be outdoors working with my hands — especially with the weather starting to warm up.

Second time stealer has been my job. Not only has there been a massive influx of design jobs keeping me busy pushing pixels, but I recently got a massive promotion. I’ve been asked to take over the entire marketing department as the new Marketing Director. I am super excited about the new job. Although it means I’ll be spending less of my time actually designing, and more of my time with budgets, it also means I’ll be able to serve some fantastic designers and developers that are already working for the department and hopefully draw their creativity and passion out even more.

Per a close friend’s recommendation I picked up Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. It’s about 11 companies that were mediocre for 15 years in a row and then had a shift and went to fantastic for 15 years in a row. I’m still in the middle of it, but Jim Collins identifies some fantastic principles that will help anyone who has any involvement and/or leadership with a business, church, etc… — even a multi-authored weblog.

To sum up, things are moving around and the reality of life is kicking in. For this next season of my life I won’t be publishing on here as often as I used to be, but I will be publishing. And thanks to all of you who have sent in emails to say ‘hi’. I very much appreciate them!

—Shawn

Perpetual Devotion

Linkage

I haven’t opened NetNewsWire for three weeks, but this morning I gave it a go and saw that my 70-ish feeds had accumulated over 1,500 unread items. I realize much of this may be old news for lots of you, here are a few things that popped out to me in the past 30 minutes as I’ve been skimming and un-bolding:

  • CNN lists the 100 best places to live and launch: Denver made it to the top 10 and Kansas City lands as 97.Let me tell you, if you got to pick between Denver and KC, pick Denver. Though a little known fact about KC is that it’s called the “City of Fountains”. We have the 2nd most fountains of any city in the world, just after Rome.

    (Via Sperte)

  • Photoshop Express: Adobe’s new web-based Photoshop-type application. I tinkered around with the test drive for a whole of 3 minutes and I was actually pretty impressed by how snappy and responsive the app was, and how smart it was. Though not that impressed, I’ll probably never use it again, but I just might recommend it to my friends. (Or is that what I’m doing right now?)
  • The new Get a Mac ads.
  • iTunes is now the #1 Music Reseller. This is not too surprising considering how easy it is to buy an album on iTunes. I wonder how many of iTunes sales are “impulse” sales versus pre-meditated. And I don’t remember the last time I bought a CD from Wal-Mart; I think I was in high school.
  • Icon Resource: A series of 15 high-definition videos by Sebastiaan de With explaining 2D icon design. (Via Cameron.io)
  • WordPress 2.5: Update to the popular CMS and a new site design!
Linkage