vanderwal.net

Make My Link the P-link

Simon hit on plinks as an echo to Tim Bray's comments and variation on Purple Numbers (Purple Numbers as a reference). As I have mentioned before, page numbers fail us and these steps are a good means to move forward.

Simom has also posted in more plinks and in there points to Chris Dent's Big Day for Purple Numbers.

I have been thinking for quite some time about using an id attribute in each paragraph tag that includes the site permalink as well as the paragraph with in that entry. This would look like: <p id="1224p7">. This signifies permanent entry 1224 and paragraph 7 with in that entry. What I had not sorted out was an unobtrusive means of displaying this. I am now thinking about Simon's javascript as a means of doing this. The identifier and plink would be generated by PHP for the paragraph tag, which would be scraped by the javascript to generate the plink.

The downside I see is only making edits at the end of the entry using the "Update" method of providing edits and editorial comments. The other downside is the JavaScript is not usable on all mobile devices, nor was the speed of scrolling down Simon's page that fluid in Safari on my TiBook with 16MB of video RAM.

Apple Design Guidelines

Apple has published its Apple design guidelines, which are a great resource for anybody building an application. For many of us there is not much new, but it is a great resource to show clients and managers who are not sure about your user-centered development process.

Dodgeball

I am intrigued with Dodgeball (location-based social software for mobile devices). Were I not home or at work most of my waking hours I would think this is a great tool. It is definitely one to watch as it could be helpful when I am out and about and can meet up with others and kill two birds (so to speak).

212 Restraunt a Hit for Brunch with Babies

Joy and Will just got back from a quick trip to "the Mother Country", NYC. While there they found the cab drivers very helpful getting her and Will (including stroller) situated in the cab. She also had brunch at 212 Restaurant, which offers baby food on its brunch menu. Yes, the choice is Earth's Best or Gerber with a selection of each. It was the hit of the trip.

Bethesda Design Within Reach

While getting coffee this morning I saw that Design within Reach is opening in Bethesda near the Woodmont Triangle (North of Old Georgetown Road). They have gone into the old Johnny Rocket diner. The site is a good match. The Woodmont Triangle is turning into a furniture and interior design section with small wonderful restaurants mixed in. This section of Bethesda is not as hectic as the area around the Bethesda Row Cinema (Landmark Theater) and the larger best of DC restaurants.

iTunes on External Drive

I finally moved my iTunes repository, all 18GB of it, off my TiBook (40GB hard drive) to my external firewire hard drive (120GB). By changing the iTune directory to the external drive in iTunes preferences then going into Advanced an set iTunes to "consolodate" iTunes files everything will be properly copied to the external drive. After ripping a disk and finding the disk only loaded on the external drive I knew I had success. I then deleted the iTunes on the TiBook.

I have now successfully synched my iPod connecting to the external drive through the same firewire hub. I now have 20GB of free hard drive available on my laptop, which is a nice relief.

Closing the Vulnerability

As mentioned elsewhere the URL vulnerabilities on Mac OS X can be closed very easily with RCDefaulApp, which allows you to turn off telnet called from the URL. The free application also allows turning off many other function calls from the URL as well as mapping file extensions to applications.

The Car is Gone, Long Live the Car

As mentioned previously I have been nearing the end of the lease on my car. I had wanted to keep the car as I really have enjoyed the car over the past three years plus. It brought me back from Pittsburgh with Joy after September 11, 2001. It was a great car for road trips with Joy. It was a blast to drive and was amazingly engineered and designed. The one downside was it was not great on family outings as there was little back seat leg room and it did not have a great trunk for more than two people on a trip.

I had hoped for the next size up in the same car line, but the U.S. exchange rate had foiled that attempt, or so I thought. Things had been so bad on the exact model I was looking at they had insane lease deals, as is the current practice for nearly every non-U.S. car right now (particularly European cars). Well I have ended up with exactly the car I had hoped for what seems to be a reasonable price.

Best of all it has XM Radio, which is flat out amazing. The quality of the broadcast is crystal clear and wonderfully matched to the sound system. It has local (to Washington, DC and many other major metropolitan area) traffic and driving on 24 hours a day and up to the minute. I have been like a kid in the candy store with all the listening options. I now have NPR, local news, and XM Radio as options on the radio dial. I wish KFOG was one of the options as I miss the music and DJs, but the options are great. The one thing it truly needs is heads-up display as looking down to the radio to read is just not safe.

Explaining Quiet

Things have been a little busier than normal so far this month. Having folks in town, speaking at STC's 51st Annual Conference in Baltimore, reviews at work, expanding the team at work, Will changing his bedtime for later (crawling everywhere), and having a car nearing the end of its lease have had more of an impact on my time that I thought they would. I do try, well have to post my Quick Links as that is how I get back to reading the content I have been finding in my hour at night or half hour of reading in the morning. I guess it is also a way for the readers to catch snippets of interest.

I am going to be burying in writing this weekend to get some promised assignments out of outline format and into a longer format. I have two that are really pressing, so it will be coffee and quiet with me and my laptop this weekend.

Digital Web is 8 and in New Clothes

Digital Web is now eight years old and has new clothes to boot. Deepest congratulations to Nick and all others who have made this a great Web resource with staying power.

Accessibilty Benefits Everybody Presentation Posted

I have posted the Using Section 508 to Improve Internet Access to Information for Everybody presentation (in PDF) presented at the STC 51st Annual Conference. The session was a progressive panel on Section 508 (the U.S. law on accessibility for the U.S. Governemnt). The session focusses on the advantages of building accessible Internet information, which is very little more than using best practices for the Web. The presentation points out who else benefits from accessible sites, which is nearly everybody. But, the group the benefits the most is mobile users as accessible sites have all the optimization that mobile users need: Images can be abandoned; Navigation can be skipped; Users can use their keyboard to move about the page and site; The information linearizes properly; etc.

I am standing in the line for the opening of the Bethesda, MD Apple Store. We got here about 20 to 10am, which is when it is to open. We are about 400 feet from the door. The store employees has done their walk through the line greeting everybody and thanking them.

[Updated May 9, 2004 12:30pm] This was the first store opening that I had been to. I was amazed at all those that were unaware of the opening and wanted to know "Who was there or what was being given away?" These people seemed a little confused that it was a computer store that was opening and just giving away t-shirts. One person said to me all those in line must be obsessed, but when I stated it is a computer that is easy to use and just seems to work as no other computer has ever seemed to before, the person seemed to instantly understand. They then began to ask people behind me about why they were in line, to which they stated the same things, great and easy to use products that enhance life not get in its way. This seems to make perfect sense to those unaware of Apple.

After going to the opening and seeing the light click on for those unfamiliar with Apple, it now seems to make a lot of sense as to why Apple has the stores. The stores create conversation about the product. The stores show passion about the product, which is hard to dispute when looking at a broad variety of people standing in a very very long line. The stores allow the new to Apple and the vets to mingle. The stores beautifully showcase the products. Even this Montgomery Mall store, which is one of the smaller stores I have been to, provides a calm environment to let the Apple products show themselves off.

GEL Conference Overview

Heath Row, of Fast Company, has captured the GEL Conference write-ups on one page. I was traveling this past week and was bummed to have missed this conference. I am already planning to fit in next year's conference as it seems to be a great conference that gathers great ideas that help share how to improve the Web for the user's experience.

Bethesda Apple Store Opening

Bethesda Apple Store opens this Saturday morning. I know one parental newly minted Apple geek I may be able to drag with me.

I still have mixed feelings about the local Apple Store, but I hope it will add to the mix and raise the number Apple users that will then frequent the great local Apple stores.

Accounting for Abscense

It is good to be back in our house, but a large part of me has not quite caught up as it is still out West, home. We had a great trip visiting family in Washington and California and some friends in the San Francisco Bay area. The only thing that would have improved it would have been more time to see more friends and better soak in the community. We were very happy to see our friends and family that we did and we wished we could see them more often.

The trip was a great trek with Will, who turned seven months just before we left. For a relatively little guy compared to us adults he sure has a lot of stuff. He was a real trooper on the plane flights out West, then to California (he seemed somewhat amazed at what he could see looking down outside the window as we flew over Mount Shasta as he was look left stare down and press his head to the window then spin 45 degrees right and do the same), and then back East. He seemed to make everybody smile in the airport and on the streets has he practiced his waving and smiling every chance he got.

When we got to California it was just plain hot. It was in the mid-90s in the Central Valley and we were sweating and dreaming of the cool San Francisco air. When we arrived in SF (after lunch in Oakland at Zachary's Pizza for a fantastic deep dish) it was still 91 degrees. I only had heavy jeans, dress khakis, and heavy cargo pants. I was so disappointed in what the locals called amazing weather. As soon as we checked in the hotel and got Will napping I headed out for some lighter pants or shorts. We had a great location in a wonderful hotel in the Financial District, the Park Hyatt was a great place to stay with Will as the staff went out of their way to be accommodating and we had nearly every amenity right out our door in the Embarcadero Center and surrounding streets.

We became more awake the longer we were out West as Will took quite a while to adjust to the time and kept us waking on East Coast time until Thursday. We took advantage of staying in the heart of the City by walking up through Union Square on Wednesday and then saw my old neighborhood and had lunch at Cha Cha Cha after cruising Noe Valley, which provided my old Spinelli blends from Tulley's.

Our way back to the Central Valley we stopped at St. Mary's College to take a very quick peek at the changes, cruised through Walnut Creek to see the catalog outdoor mall it has become, and to Lafayette for dinner.

Back Soon

Things should start picking up around here beginning tomorrow, once I return home and get settled back in.