running with paper

I’ve been using my iPhone to browse a lot more – looking for retail locations, checking business hours, and amusing myself during down time. Recent searches sent me after articles about local technology companies at a local news site, looking for a blog post about “Cash for Clunkers”, and trying to manage some administrivia on Facebook.

Facebook redirected me straight to their mobile site; I’d followed a “take action” link from their email but the mobile site gave no indication if I took the action, or if I could take the action. All I had was a simple screen with shortcuts. I should have checked my Facebook application instead (which has its own issues) – maybe the administrivia can be done that way. But I was faced with a generic screen of little value.

The “Cash for Clunkers” blog post was something a quick Google search had found for me. I followed the link to Edmunds, and again, dropped straight to a mobile site. Eventually, I was able to find the blog trail I was looking for (the main site of the blog) but I never found the exact article.

The local paper was worse than the rest; a simple page not found message. I clicked the link while on a standard computer later, and was taken straight to the article.

It’s 2009. Why are large sites still using generic web error pages (if any?)?  Is it that expensive, complicated, or cost-prohibitive to come up with a script that generates an error message that tells you something:

• What the site thinks you wanted to do
• What URL you were attempting to access
• Offer alternatives, such as mailing yourself and support the error data

And why do we have generic mobile sites? Yes, not all pages can be designed for all sizes of browser screens. However, sticking the mobile users with limited to no data, and no way to navigate where they intended (such as the URL you were trying to access) without giving them any opportunity to get off of a dumbed-down mobile site is pretty useless.

Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, for example, have done a good job of stripping down their sites while retaining useful information. Searching for a book? The site will take you to an information page about the book, but in usable mobile-friendly format. Certainly, they have a large incentive to do this, considering we’re revenue, but they also make it easy for you to use the full site – just click their respective “PC Site” links.

At the least, it’s making me aware of should and should nots next time I’ve got a large site to create or provide input for. Constructive and useful error pages, decent redirects, and options for more powerful mobile browsers to access a full “PC” site.

Years and years and years ago, I was the proud owner of a shiny new ATM card. It came in its own indestructible pouch, and was a perfect spot to tuck daily receipts in for later check book balancing.

Even after I got a proper billfold, I kept it for small change, folding money, and cache for business cards. You could not wreck that thing – and when it got grungy, I’d wash it and keep using it. It did eventually wear out, but it gave me many years of excellent use.

Eventually, my mail began including priority mail packages in the USPS-branded Tyvek envelopes – great for protecting papers in my canvas bag, and flipping inside out to send packages back out again. It wasn’t as easily recyclable then as it is now, (though I’d argue that mailing it away because local centers don’t take #2 plastic isn’t “easy” enough for Lazy Lizzie), so I had quite a pile until I moved to a community that did recycle them.

Although I never got an anonymous nastygram from an uninformed postal worker, I did inquire, after a few uses, on the “okayness” of using a used envelope for remailing (the guidelines are linked here, but they do not differentiate between “new” and “reused” materials). I spoke several postal employees, but each time the answer was generally “Uh, I don’t see why not, if it’s already been used.”

But the answer is a stubborn “no”, it seems. No remailing, although I don’t know of a federal law that prevents us from cutting them into drink coasters. A shame, since changing rule to exclude used envelopes from the remailing ban and policing it as media mail is policed would go a long way to being quite a bit greener.

As a writer, font fondling annoys the heck out of me. Give me a Helvetica, or Lucinda, or Times New Roman, or even Courier. That’s what I started out with (okay, not Helvetica) on my typewriters back in the day.

If I needed emphasis, I used character symbols or swapped out the daisy wheel on my Brother typewriter, or, as is now taboo in interwebby land, USED CAPITAL LETTERS or Cap Typing To Make My Point.

But only when necessary. I let my writing speak for itself (including one story I wrote as a tween that started nearly every word with the letter “T”).

As a designer, I was all about the Cool Fonting^TM. I drew my own letters (badly) and stripped them down to the barest pixels possible at web time, but back in the bad old days of dial-up download, that was a pretty slow solution, too. And I’m not a fantastic graphic artist, so things were even worse.

Putting a specialized font on a website was a bad idea, too – there was no way to fall back if a browser couldn’t handle it. But now? When web pages can or should be more artsy and you don’t want to force someone into frames or Flash? Enter TypeKit. It looks as though I’ll be able to pretty up my non-bland blog (this one is plain on purpose and won’t change) with fancy fonts that help convey the feeling and look I want to express. And people with a slower connection or older browser can skip it.

Although, being the grump I am, I do worry that this will turn the rest of the web into MySpace – so I hope, unlike some of the latest iPhone features, I can at least have the option to turn it off. Maybe I’ll build a greasemonkey app called “Turn off the Stupid”.

Several of my friends get quite nostalgic about the song Shaving Cream … it was a great way to sing and almost cuss while skating safely on the edge of the profanities we weren’t supposed to know as kids. I’m indoctrinating the next generation, but there’s enough real cussing out there (especially now that it’s being proven good for you!) that Shaving Cream hasn’t got the bite it did in my time. And when I have to explain to them what shaving cream is, well, it violates the third rule of good joke telling.

“Bleeping” is more common now on television than it was in my youth; even more common are alternate angle shots and redubbed dialogue which have improved somewhat; with the editing taking place on a hit-or-miss level in captioning.

Some shows have even taken it to parody level, such as South Park and Arrested Development, but it turns out they have nothing on Netflix. One of my favorite new toys is the Roku (still needs work but is a basic entertainment tool) and the newly-expanded selection available from Netflix through our DSL connection.
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I went to my first digital “meetup” in gosh – 1992? Meeting folks from a local Bulletin Board and hanging out at a burger joint. Fourteen years later, my employer issued their first “blogging guidelines” and I stopped working so hard to keep my online and offline worlds apart. But I still had a small wall there; careful about the information I shared online and the connections made (mostly).

Then late last year, I finally joined Facebook. I’d tried Friendster, and Orkut, and Plaxo and even LinkedIn. But not MySpace – it hurts.

I held off on Facebook because people weren’t there at first, and because it was still “too open”. And even with privacy updates, just being there got you plugged into applications that your friends chose to use – not you chose – that your friend chose. And I didn’t like that. It was hard to “opt out”, unless you simply stayed away. Continue Reading »

Googler? Googlite? Googy?

This is a “help me” post disguised as a user interaction review .

Was very happy to hear about the Chrome OS. The browser name and image icon make so much more sense now.

But this is more about Google Voice. I got an invite! To my M account, which forwards to my A account. And I clicked on the link and it told me to log in. Fine. I logged in.

And got a page that says “Invalid Link.” And nothing else. No way to recover, no way to go back, no way to ask for help. I figured the error was logging in through my A account in haste, so I logged in again, using my M account.

“Invalid Link.”

Someone please help! I want to use Google Voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!