Phil Gerbyshak (the Make It Great! guy) sent me an invite to Joost.
Thanks Phil!
Sadly, Joost only runs on Intel-based Macs right now, so I couldn’t check it out.
That’s not great at all!
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BarCampMadison Wrap-up #2
At BarCampMadison there were too many good sessions. Too many! It was often hard to choose what to take part in. I suppose that’s a good thing…?
Blake Hall‘s session Drupal – Intro, Development, Bootstrap your site seemed way to short. Drupal is quite a system, and he expressed concern about what and how much to cover in just an hour. More Drupal! As I’ve mentioned, I’m interested in getting together a group of Drupal folks sometime this year, maybe as a DrupalCamp, in the Milwaukee(ish?) area. Depending on how many people we’d have, I think I may already have a space for it. (Of course we could use a sponsor or two!)
Christian Wilcox‘s session Repurposing web data was another good one that could have gone longer. This could have expanded into a couple hours of working on code after the session. Of course, there was so much to do at BarCamp, it would have meant missing out on other things. :(
Again, perhaps holding some sort of mashpit fully separate from BarCamp may solve the problem of people wanting to flex their code muscles and expand on the ideas they have.
As usual, BarCamp’s help get the creative thoughts rolling, now it’s just a matter of applying them.
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Flash Forward
In recent times I’ve come to admit that Flash has it’s uses. I even use it on some sites (Yes, it’s true!) and may use it a bit more in the future…
But that doesn’t mean it’s still not a bad idea to use it as a critical element of your web site. Say, for the main navigation or something.
And while using swfobject.js is probably a good idea, you still need to remember that without Flash installed, or with Javascript disabled, your visitors (which are potential customers) may not see your main navigation. (They might, if you build it right, otherwise they may see “This text is replaced by the Flash movie” which isn’t very helpful.)
And don’t get me started on tables used for layout!
Usability remains important. To some people, it’s what they are selling to their customers.
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We Must Adapt
Just a note for any one toting around an Apple laptop, be it an old iBook or a new MacBook: Get a video adapter!
More than a few times in the last year I’ve seen someone show up with an Apple laptop, and then look at the VGA connector on a projector, and have an “oh shit” moment where they realize things won’t plug into other things.
Even before my (pre-owned) iBook arrived, I had tracked down the needed VGA and s-video/composite video adapters on ebay. (I got both for under $20.)
I tend to carry my adapters around with me, and even offered one up at BarCampMadison to someone. Of course Apple in it’s infinite wisdom likes to change things each year, so my adapter didn’t work. (I ended up just letting the presenter use my iBook, though I warned him if it wasn’t interesting, I’d take my iBook and leave.)
For the modern folks, it looks like the Mini-DVI to VGA Adapter is pretty cheap, around $20. That should work for the MacBook and 12-inch PowerBook G4. If you have some other model, track down what adapter is used and order it today so you’re ready for the next user group meeting or BarCamp presentation.
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Does TechCrunch Matter?
Does TechCrunch matter to your customers?
That was one of the questions raised by Sean Johnson at BarCampMadison, where he gave a presentation titled "How To Burn Your Business Into The Ground – Lessons in Entrepreneurship"
I was reminded of this when I saw that TechCrunch just got a CEO. (Many people are asking “Why does a blog needs a CEO?”)
Sean’s point was that, as cool as TechCrunch is, at the end of the day, do your customers in the real world really care, or even know about TechCrunch? For most of us, we build things that are used by average people, not the select few digerati that are hip to the Web 2.0 lingo. There are tons of successful companies that have never been, and will probably never be profiled on TechCrunch, yet they do great work and make their customers happy. And that’s where the focus should be. Happy customers. Slashdot, Digg, TechCrunch, they all serve as these spotlights to shine on the latest online-thing that will give you brighter whites and cure what ails you, but it’s just a small percentage of a small percentage of people who pay attention to these things.
At the end of the day, do your customers, the ones paying the bills, really care if your company was profiled by some nerd news site?