Alfred 0.9  →

Though I don’t get these guys’ version numbering, one thing is for sure: the Alfred team is not leaving any gas in the tank while developing this app. They are working hard to build the fastest, easiest-to-use, and most-feature-rich application launcher for Mac there is.

The latest beta (which is about to be submitted to the Mac App Store?) now includes global hotkeys, and global hotkeys are great. It’s a feature of Quicksilver that I used all the time but that LaunchBar does not have. So when I switched to LaunchBar in 2009 I wrote a few AppleScripts and now use FastScripts to run certain triggers and launch certain apps globally.

I personally am still using LaunchBar and FastScripts, but Alfred could go toe to toe with them now. It’s a very good app. and if you’re not already in a relationship with an application launcher then I’d easily recommend Alfred.

I’m getting ahead of myself here, but if I had to sum up what I see as the main difference between Alfred and LaunchBar it’s that Alfred appeals to a broader range of nerds, and LaunchBar appeals to a smaller range of persnickety power users.

Alfred 0.9

Twitter’s Updated Mobile Web App  →

It looks like Twitter for iPhone, the screenshots are of it running in Mobile Safari on the iPhone, but surely it’s meant for Android tablets:

This web app allows us to provide a high-quality and consistent Twitter experience on high-end touchscreen devices – whether or not an official Twitter application is available. It was built from the ground up for smartphones and tablets […]

Because: (a) the only native Twitter client for Honeycomb right now is TweetComb, and apparently it’s not very good; and (b) who on iOS is using the web app and not the native app?

[UPDATE: Because of the recent Blogger outage, the original link is broken. I’ve updated the link to simply point to the Twitter blog homepage.]

Twitter’s Updated Mobile Web App

Previous Entries

On the homepage of a weblog, when you’ve scrolled to the bottom of the recent posts displayed but before you get to the footer, what should you see?

Most commonly you’ll find a link for “previous entries” or “older entries”. A link that takes you to Page 2 of the site. And page 2 is always the same format as the homepage.

There are some unique dynamics to weblog design. You’re designing for three groups of people:

  • Regular readers who check in daily, or near daily
  • Familiar readers who check in occasionally
  • New visitors

Regular readers tend to hang out at the top of the site or in the RSS feed. Since they are tracking with the weblog they are up to date with what’s been written lately. In fact, many regular readers may not even visit the site and read only from their feed reader.

Familiar readers who check in occasionally are likely to only peruse and read what’s on the homepage. They come to the site, look to see what’s new that they haven’t seen since last time, and then move on.

New readers are actually most likely showing up for the first time onto a permalink page because they got to your site via a link or a search result to something specific. From there, if they like what they’ve read, they’re likely to read more articles or click to the home page and see what is happening.

And so, when someone (who is most likely a new visitor) has scrolled to the bottom of the recent posts on the homepage, before they get to the footer what should they see?

Is a link to Page 2 the best option? I don’t know; the advantages and disadvantages vary based on the site.

Advantages of having a link to Page 2:

  • It’s conventional: Lots and lots of sites use it.
  • It’s familiar: Because it’s conventional.
  • It’s simple: There is only one option: If you want more, click here. If not, see you later alligator.
  • You stay in the same context: The format of page 2 is the same as page 1 which means the reader is not changing contexts from reading to lists to reading again.

Disadvantages of having a link to Page 2:

  • On this site I post dozens of links to every one article. If someone is scrolling through page by page it means they are primarily scrolling through lists of links. And while that’s cool, links are not the premier feature of this site. Though they are the most common type of post, they’re not the most valuable.

  • Some of the work I am most proud of may not have been in the past few weeks or even months. Someone browsing page by page may never get to what I am most proud of.

What Others are Doing

I wanted to see how other weblogs handle pagination navigation. I took screenshots of the bottom of the homepage of 31 different weblogs to compare how they’ve implemented pagination navigation, if they’ve implemented it at all.

I chose sites that are run as a traditional blog, meaning the most recent posts are at the top of the page and usually where several posts are shown at once. I also chose sites that are published by people who (most likely) have thought through this sort of thing for their site.

Of the 31 sites, 19 had some sort of “older entries” style pagination navigation and 12 had something else.

Weblogs with pagination navigation: Kottke.org, Jason Santa Maria, TechCrunch, Jeffery Zeldman’s Daily Report, dooce, Seth Godin, Andy Ihnatko, 43 Folders, Cameron Moll, Panic Blog, Liz Danzico, The Hickensian, Simplebits, The Brooks Review, I Love Typography, swissmiss, This is my next…, Waxy.org, and 37signals.

Weblogs with something other than pagination navigation:

Trying Something New

Since the inception of this site I’ve had the common link to Page 2. I am now testing something new here: I replaced the link to Page 2 with links to recent articles, interviews, and reviews instead. I’ve also increased the number of articles and links that appear on the home page to 25 total.

The goal is to offer the best choice for the reader, based on what I, as the publisher of my site, consider to be the most valuable. Is a link to Page 2 the best way for a reader to continue exploring my site, or would they be better served by discovering the articles I’ve written and am most proud of? 1

Honestly, I’m not sure yet. Though I do think that if I only ever wrote articles it may be a different answer.

  1. Some readers have written in to suggest that I offer a link to Page 2 as well as a link to recent articles, reviews, and interviews. I somewhat like this idea, but my biggest hesitancy is that it may present too many options. When a user is presented with too many choices they will likely chose none. In fact, I already am feeling like having 3 links at the bottom of the page is too many. But at least they are 3 links of the same type. ↵
Previous Entries

Using TextExpander to Conquer Email  →

Elliot Jay Stocks joins the ranks of TextExpander aficionados:

My completely non-scientific research has found that the number of times one writes the same thing is explicitly tied to the number of emails one receives. In other words, it’s the law of averages. Like many people, I find myself writing the same thing over and over and over again, with very subtle alterations.

I’ve been using TextExpander for the past six months or so. The Big Ah-Ha Moment for me was when I realized that though I could use it to help automate my responses to certain common emails I get, that automation didn’t mean my replies were any less personal. If anything, TextExpander has helped me to become more personal because it allows me time to actually reply to more emails.

Using TextExpander to Conquer Email

On Pagination Navigation  →

Some food for thought from Jason Kottke which has led me to test something new here. Instead of providing the standard “previous entries” link at the bottom of the homepage (which takes you to /page/2 and onward), I’ve replaced it with links to recent articles, interviews, and reviews.

The idea is that someone at the bottom of the homepage is more likely than not a new reader (regular readers hang out at the top of the site or in the RSS feed). So why direct a new reader to what I linked to last week? It seems to make a bit more sense to tell them about the recent and premier articles that have been written here.

On Pagination Navigation

Voice

Words on a weblog live a very different life than those born to the printed page.

My weblog and I have a voice that is different than if I wrote a daily tech column for the local paper. Sure, my writing style would be the same, but my voice would be interpreted differently by my readers. When my words show up on this website my voice as a writer is influenced by more factors than just the words used.

Words printed onto a physical page are tactile. They can be held, dog-eared, and stuffed into your jacket pocket or backpack. But they are always on that piece of paper.

Whereas the words published onto a weblog are dynamic and living in a way all their own. There is always stuff moving and shifting around those words. Today there will be a different advertisement sitting next to them than there was yesterday. Tomorrow there will be a new post hanging out above them. Sometimes they’ll be read on a large display and sometimes on a cell phone.

Print is physical and tactile; digital is dynamic and moving. It’s one of the juxtapositions of publishing.

It’s fascinating how websites are, in their own way, living and breathing things. They’re dynamic, with a life and personality all their own. And this is why, on a website, it is more than just the text that contributes to the voice of the writer. There is also the structure of the articles and link posts; the topics written about; the items linked to; and even the author’s sense of entitlement to their work. All of these things add up to form the whole of what is a distinct and unique voice.

And so when you consider your design, consider also your voice. When you consider the structure of your links and articles, consider also your voice. When you consider your topics, consider also your voice. Let the design and the structure and the dynamics of your website underpin the words and style of your writing. Because all of it adds up to form the voice of you and your weblog.

If anything on your website is important then everything is.

Voice

Scott Adams on Entrepreneurialism  →

Scott Adams has an article in the Wall Street Journal today. Scott’s a fantastic writer, and his piece for the Journal is a savvy combination of stories, advice, and wit.

That’s the year I learned that if there’s a loophole, someone’s going to drive a truck through it, and the people in the truck will get paid better than the people under it.

Also:

Simplicity makes ideas powerful. Want examples? Read anything by Steve Jobs or Warren Buffett.

Scott Adams on Entrepreneurialism

Mike Rohde’s Sketchnotes from the Chick-fil-A Leadercast  →

Some great sketches by Mike Rohde from the Chick-fil-A leadership conference held in Atlanta, GA this past Friday, May 6. Mike has sketches and notes from sessions with Seth Godin, John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, and others.

I would have liked to be at this conference, but I couldn’t make it. Fortunately, as is the case with all of Mike’s sketchnotes, these are delightful to look at and they contain many great quotes. Like this page, for example.

Mike Rohde’s Sketchnotes from the Chick-fil-A Leadercast