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Posts Tagged ‘Writing’
Opinion: The Beginning of The Archivist
A couple years ago, my friend irhetoric and I were chatting about Twitter, as we were at the end of building Flotzam, a social networking aggregator tool that collects and visualizes the ephemeral information floating around in the social sphere. In some ways, this ephemerality is beautiful: all this information swirls around us like leaves that appear and decay over time. On the other hand, if this information is valuable, capturing and keeping it could be useful.
The Archivist Web (alpha)
A few years ago, a co-worker and friend of mine, Karsten Januszewski, built The Archivist Desktop (alpha). Last week we released The Archvist Web (alpha), along with a few assoticated articles. Please check The Archivist out and let us know what you think. Introducing The Archvist The Beginning of The Archivist The Archivist in Academia [...]
Opinion: "Cheers to saying no"
I published a new Opinion today, which stemmed from a conversation Tami and I had about working with one potential client. I’ve been in this situation may times and it totally stinks. You’d like to get the work, you want to be nice, but you *know* that client is a total pain in the ass [...]
Opinion: “Design For Tables”
Okay, the title of this Opinion (Design for Tables) is purposfully a little misleading. When I’m talking of tables in this Opinion piece, written for visitmix.com, I’m talking of desiging for actual tables, or, more specifically, Microsoft Surface and other tablet/touch devices. Honestly, I to think I’d talk about desinging with actual HTML <tables> is [...]
Opinion: “Transparency Yields Better Results”
I had a really hard time writing this Opinion piece for visitmix.com, and was truly thankful to have a great copy-editor hack it down a bit for me. Originally I was speaking about the fact that the recently released application, The Archivist, has been getting use in areas of academia and law, fields we hadn’t considered [...]
PDC09
I am fortunate to be on the Microsoft team that hosts and develops the Microsoft PDC, Professional Developers Conference. The PDC conferences are the “premiere developer conference,” in the eyes of the community and brings thousands of attendees from all over the world. I was in the role of Creative Director for the PDC, and [...]
SPLAB Launched
David Sherwin of Frog Design and I worked together to put together this website for SPLAB, a Seattle-based non-profit focused on spoken-word poetry. The site is built on WordPress and was designed and developed in a week. Visit SPLAB Now
Opinion: Who gives a “gosh-darn”?
I published a new Opinion on MIX Online today, dealing with community-generated content, and some of the unforeseen pitfalls of dealing with it. Broadcasting an audience’s live, unfiltered feedback is compelling and useful, but it also presents some challenges, most of which revolve around profanity, search results, and spam. But what about less obvious instances [...]
Opinion: Away from the screen
Getting away from our screens and actually meeting people is critical to learning and growing. We all have different personalities and quirks, and it can be hard to “put yourself out there.” Still, it seems so worth it to extend your hand and take the risk of making a connection, learning something new … growing. [...]
Opinion: A Beginning Glossary for the Web Designer or Developer
I thought it would be beneficial to provide a glossary of the terms and acronyms I gloss over my previous post. Additionally, I’m hoping you, fair reader, will leave comments with additional terms and acronyms you commonly use, and would benefit the community. Read The Article
Opinion: Styleguides for web vs. events
If you’ve ever created a styleguide that has to work for both web and print, you probably know how challenging it can be—print and web are very different mediums, with very different restrictions. When you create a styleguide that works for both, you do double duty. Read The Article
Opinion: From Web, to Real World
I published a new Opinion today, talking quickly about how the Web content and ideas are migrating from the screen to the real world. These days, though, I find “online” creeping back into the print and physical world. Fray.com, for example, has started a print version of its long-standing website, making the content available in [...]
A Two-Image CSS3 Framework for Thunderkick
As a web designer/developer for years, I’ve been working in xHTML and CSS2 to build sites for clients and myself. Currently, though, there’s a movement – as many of you know – to develop and approve the working standard of HTML5 and CSS3. I’ve been working a bit with both of these emerging standards and [...]
New Opinion: How We Work
I recently posted a new Opinion on MIX Online entitled “How We Work (and sometimes skip some steps)”. It’s basically a short essay outlining in the broadest terms the process we go through here at Microsoft when creating a new website. Oftentimes creative assets, whether they be visual comps or individual assets, are “handed over [...]
hospice
I watch the rise and fall of her chest the pulse in her neck to see when I should cry and push the button. When we’ll turn off the hum of the oxygen When we’ll leave this room too cold and too hot get up from couches put our newspapers away and retire other distractions [...]
Return To Florida
You have a smile like sunshine bright and warm and everyday even through hell of machines and radiation and chemicals which made your skin ache and muscles turn to pumice. And I’ll miss it your smile like I’d miss the sun or air and breathing or the moment of waking where we move from sleepland [...]
Return
It’s cold back here in Seattle. Back from the Florida heat and parking garages. It’s a different cold than the hospital we inhabited. You can smell smoke from the chimnys and fireplaces, grass wet with rain and too long from a week’s neglect. We returned to mail and a messy sink; cats needing attention; [...]
Falling
She’d sing Teddy Bear’s Picnic to me during the 2 am wakings pretending to fall out of my bed so I wouldn’t have to be alone in the second story yellow room with the window I would fall out of every night in my dreams. I’d fall to hit the floor more stable than cold [...]
Future Lost In Their Labyrinths
One cannot hold onto old winters the snow has already fallen the grass already turned to a faded brown the leaves a season before had begun to fall over our shod feet and dark green sweaters which covered our hidden heart the rain had already come down in puddles outside our windows and doors as [...]
Nightflares
Night flares again The veins in my hands warrant nails driven though. Even Christ was human and did he suffer with chaotic thoughts like mine? Would he have smoke his father’s cigarettes and stuffed his stomach full of bile, Would he have listened to jazz and have half-full glass of water and ash spill [...]
In Her Picture
In her picture these years gone from swimming pools and houses dark I see the new millennium and the pass of time as beauty ripens as intellect and eyes darken with the sights of the world and French lovers left to tend the countryside. Together our footsteps collided and mingled with the brokenglass floors we [...]
L’Age D’Etoiles
L’age d’etoiles est maintnaint she will say sitting crosslegged back against the wall and pressed to flannel summer sun on her cheeks through Florida December days coffesteam misty dreams spin foreheads height swimming in bluemorn wakings foresttrees and a geko You’ll remember that geko during the summer days of Seattle rain, and teary apartment smoke [...]
Greenleaf
Greenleaf Arkansas night upstairs porches facing windy road highway scenic drive and lightningbug starksy Thursday morning Arkansas coffee steams weak though cigarette smoke and misty shower mirrorfog There’s a certain bliss at morning countryside quiet where all you can hear are the bugs and tractors and yellow flowers growing There’s a wooden sign below me [...]
Writing my history
I’m up late, writing my history but through it all, I’ve lived it all before, in another time, in memory of faces and places spoken of in long drunken tirades on Florida porches with a bottle of rum in hand two months after your demise. But then there it comes in a song heard over [...]