However, it should be noted that while the publicity around this inauguration and President Obama's speech gave a much needed hype to the nonbeliever situation, it is not in any way a change from the true core movement of the United States of America. Barack simply joins a long and well-appreciated list of influential members of our country that shaped it to what it is today.

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."

~ George Washington

"I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."

~ Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."

~ Abraham Lincoln

"A just government has no need for the clergy or the church."

~ James Madison

"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."

~ John F. Kennedy

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."

~ Barack Obama

There are plenty more where that came from, of course. The understanding of such wise men to be reasonable and free thinkers seems pretty obvious a necessity. A Christian nation? No sir. Rather, the departure from acknowledging nonbelievers and more specifically the freedom to worship or not worship as you please, is the real change in this country. The evangelical movement to rewrite history into labeling these United States into states united by Christ is the real departure from the core principles of this country.

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Whitehouse.gov -- At noon today, The White House's official web site entered the age of Obama. Remember George W. Bush?

That Oath of Office Flub -- Chief Justice John Roberts totally flubbed Obama's Presidential Oath of Office when he misplaced the word "faithfully." In doing so, he consequentially gave conservative bloggers something to write about for the next three months. That's why you always bring notes, John. Straight up bush league.

Moving The Presidents -- While George Bush and Barack Obama ride to the Capital Building, movers will begin the six hour process of moving one family out and another family in. It's all gotta be ready by the time the Obamas are done with the parade around 5.

The Inaugural Luncheon Recipes -- Here's the recipes for President Obama's Inaugural luncheon. Click through to learn how to cook that Seafood Stew, Duck Breast with Cherry Chutney, Herb Roasted Pheasant with Wild Rice Stuffing, Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes, and Cinnamon Apple Sponge Cake. Or, just download the recipe PDF. Mmmm, it tastes good to be a President.

Tweet the Inauguration -- An up-to-the-second look at Tweets about, from, and during the Inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Watch Obama's Inauguration On Your iPhone -- Just in time, Apple has approved UStream's live-streaming iPhone app, allowing users to watch Obama's Inauguration on the go. You can download it from the iTunes store here.

We'll definitely be talking about these and other buzz on today's TimeSync LIVE, our new podcast project/hobby, at 8PM Eastern.

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Enjoy.

1. Little Miss Sunshine
2. Mary Poppins
3. Nacho Libre
4. Bambi
5. Wall-E
6. The Little Mermaid
7. Garden State
8. Uncle Buck
9. Office Space
10. Rat Race
11. There's Something About Mary
12. Liar Liar
13. Christmas Vacation
14. Bring It On
15. Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
16. A Christmas Story
17. Dirty Dancing
18. The Goonies
19. The Graduate
20. Groundhog Day
21. The Parent Trap
22. The Patriot
23. Road Trip
24. Monsters Inc.
25. American Pie
26. My Girl
27. 50 First Dates
28. The Sound Of Music
29. You've Got Mail
30. Pretty Woman
31. Zoolander
32. The Waterboy
33. Happy Gilmore
34. Dumb and Dumber
35. Anchorman
36. Knocked Up
37. 40-Year-Old Virgin
38. Forrest Gump
39. School Of Rock
40. Mean Girls
41. The Notebook
42. Mrs. Doubtfire
43. When Harry Met Sally
44. Sleepless in Seattle
45. Titanic
46. Toy Story
47. Willy Wonka
48. Pinocchio
49. Cinderella
50. The Lion King
51. Superbad

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Jerry Yang is out (alveterzane). Travis Vocino is in. Let me first say that it's great to be here and I hope you'll all support me in my new position. My blog posting frequency may suffer slightly but I'm sure you can understand that.

We've invested in interesting projects like Flickr and Del.icio.us but we haven't really utilized them. This definitely needs to be looked at. Where are these products in the market? In spite of the fact that new photo sharing sites are being developed and aggressively marketed by old school photo companies like Fuji and Kodak, Flickr remains a leader. That's a testament to the usability and friendly history of the app. Let's capitalize on that and start integrating it into other services and hardware.

Where is our Disney Themeparks photo integration? We should own that market, we're the leader.

The same can be said for Del.icio.us. There are a lot of bookmarking sites. I don't know about you but I still hold my allegiances with Del. We can do better. Our apps are simple and smart. Why isn't our ad word platform being utilized on these sites?

Just like Twitterific has advertising from The Deck, we should be leveraging API support from all these Del.icio.us desktop bookmarking apps and creating new tools that work better. A well-funded, sleek and easy to use app will generate loyal users that are willing to either pay for it or be happy to check out some well-placed advertisements.

Application developers that use the YUI should be contributing to a growing community of loyal Yahooligains. Let's reward these people. Let's expand on it and reward developers that use any Yahoo tools -- integrate our ad structure, integrate our services, etc. We have an opportunity to be the leader in having the bleeding edge development community working for us -- for free. Let's grab it.

We have all these tools, unique applications, and solid infrastructure yet they're siloed off and thus the development communities surrounding them are in their own silos. This needs to change.

Who is creating the Yahoo blogging application which integrates your Yahoo mail account, your Flickr account, your Del.icio.us account, Yahoo Maps, cool YUI hacks and more.

It could be you. Let's reinvent Yahoo together.

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I have a recurring event in iCal called "Get a haircut you stupid fuck!" Every month it reminds me to stop working, get in the car, head down to the salon and sit there for an hour so that I might look half-way presentable again.

The problem is, I rarely make it on time. I'm a chronic procrastinator as it is and haircuts are no different. I usually miss the schedule by at least a week. This isn't really because I can't stand the essence of haircuttery or because I don't have respect for the fine art of trimming people's mops. Nope. In fact, more power to them, damnit.

No, my problem is with time allocation. I feel like I can't possibly afford to sit in one place with no access to anything for such a huge block of time. For the amount of tasks being accomplished, I might as well be asleep. This seriously bothers me. It's a waste of time according to my brain and you would think my it would have more respect for my hair, being in such close proximity.

It wouldn't be such a brutal standoff if not for the fact that my stylist loves to chat. While I can understand the need to not have a creeping awkward silence stretching the entire session, it does contribute to the lack of productivity. Primarily because she seems to stop actually cutting my hair when she reaches a climactic point in the story she's telling -- which is about every 10 minutes.

To me, this is unacceptable. Either because of my mild OCD or because it makes sense. In either case, it contributes to the usual state of my hair -- out of control.

After hours of research and thinking on the subject -- mostly thinking to myself while she was talking -- I have come to the conclusion that there are only two possible options.

One. Let's install some flat screens and wireless keyboards instead of some shitty pointless mirrors in front of the chairs. What's wrong with that? We're busy people and we have things to look up, YouTube videos to watch, Tweets to Twitter. This seems like a homerun of a business plan if you ask me. Someone should get on this immediately.

Two. Create a race of self-aware autonomous haircut robots with a comb for one hand and a Flowbee]]> Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:41:31 -0800 http://virb.com/vocino/posts/text/935779 http://virb.com/vocino/posts/text/851831 There's a new marketing campaign from Microsoft, apparently after the failed Gates-Seinfeld "buddy film" commercials, called The Mojave Experiment.

Here's the theory: Get together a focus group of some computer-illiterate everyday people who usually use XP (because all they do is look at their local newspaper's website and check their AOL mail). Show them a demo of Windows Vista before it has any Spyware, bloated anti-virus and firewall upon firewall applications. The result, apparently, is they think it's some new next-gen operating system that they just have to get their hands on!

Oh, and the best part: When you tell them they can buy this elegant and refined OS known as Vista right freaking now, they just can't contain themselves.

What the hell is this?

I wonder if Microsoft is getting a refund on all the marketing they've done thus far since it looks like the most informative data we see from the Mojave Experiment is that no one knows or cares what Vista is.

The problem with this campaign is with the objective. You're trying to tell people they have been fooled into believing their friends' opinions on Vista. Usually these opinions come from people like you (the reader) and me, who might be more technology-savvy than your average user. Our demands are higher and our standards are set to meet those demands. So when someone asks me what they should get when they buy that new laptop, I'm recommending a MacBook. Not because I'm part of the underground anti-Microsoft illuminati, but because Vista inevitably causes problems for the average user.

It just does.

I'm sure if I showed my group of laymen a clean Vista install that they would like it too. In fact, they'd like almost anything. What they don't like, is the annoyances that are a part of every Windows user's daily life when they're trying to be productive with it over the long term.

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Then I thought, it's likely a dream. It was 3:00 in the morning (watched it on TiVo, of course) and I had a flight the next day. Stress levels were higher than normal. This was all likely just some kind of weird dream I was having because I forgot to pee before I went to bed -- right?

At this point, as I attempt with all my dreams, I try to force some lucidity and control the outcome. "Come on, make out" I thought. My brain struggles, one yearning synapse after another. No such luck, though.

Unfortunately, they didn't make out. It was real and it was worse than her train wreck with Charlie Gibson. Not only is this woman unable to answer questions outside of the specifics she has been prepped for, she is utterly impotent in her pseudo-confident delivery.

A long diatribe about this interview isn't necessary. It speaks for itself and, indeed, Sarah herself does a fine job of shining a spotlight on her detachment from real world issues.

If only it had been a joke, like this Onion article.

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During this campaign I've probably heard "liberal media" more times than I could conceivably count. Especially in regards to Sarah Palin.

We've seen the nonsense about keeping her away from the evil media and there's no one that can tell me with any honesty that they've really learned enough about her to be confident she would be a good president.

Give me a break. The media asks questions, they screw points toward their agenda -- so what? The point is you're there. If the media is constantly saying things that you feel don't represent your positions correctly, then what is the solution? Do nothing? Boycott the media?

No, the only way to be sure your position is being represented correctly is to represent it yourself. If Sarah Palin was the sophisticated foreign and economic strategist her campaign keeps telling us she is, then she should be outraged. One would assume that outrage would motivate her to do more and more press conferences, to speak to the press whenever possible, to actually answer questions.

I've never been a huge fan of CNN's Campbell Brown, but she did do a great job of holding the McCain campaign's feet to the fire. I'm always a fan of rants (I've been known to go on a few myself), so any ranting is always fun to watch.

"Tonight I call on the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment. [...] Sarah Palin has just as much a right to be a real candidate in this race as the men do. So let her act like one."

My Grandmother (a huge advocate for male-female equality) accurately expressed the same concerns when the VP pick was new and fresh. She would say, "Sarah Palin wants to do a traditionally male job; she should have to deal with the same pressure during the campaign." adding "You can't have it both ways."

I completely agree, as I usually do, with my Nana. Come on people, stop using the evil media ploy as an excuse to protect your candidates from the standard discourse that everyone who seeks positions of power must go through. If you actually think there is a bias, you should be putting yourself out there more, not less.

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"Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."
- Barack Obama

"I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and glocal warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody's religious beliefs-including my own-on nonbelievers."
- Barack Obama

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Are you a diehard PvP fan? Want to get paid for posting about your hobby and have an audience to express yourself to? We want you!

PvP Lab is always looking for quality content producers to contribute their knowledge of PvP in MMORPGs. This is a paid gig which will require you to write a minimum of 4 articles per month. If you're interested, we'd love to hear from you.

Send an email to info@pvplab.com outlining what sort of thing you'll be contributing (include sample posts on other blogs or forums if you have them). We'll get back to you right away with our pay rates if we're interested.

You might also be interested in the Age of Conan Leveling Guide.

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As usual, this video is distributed on basically all the major (and a lot of minor) video sites. The key being to bring your content to the users -- not the other way around. It's not their job to find your content. If want it to be seen, put it in front of them in spaces where they're already sitting. The internet distribution systems, along with ancillary viewing environments (like AppleTV and TiVo's podcast support) make this process beautifully elegant.

This week Pras was getting honored by the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter which is committed to ending homelessness by providing men and women with housing and support that can transform their lives -- a perfect fit for his film Skid Row.

Since its founding in 1982, NCS has helped more than 25,000 homeless and formerly homeless individuals find food, shelter, counseling, employment, and in many cases, a home to call their own. NCS provides a full continuum of services aimed at helping people move from the streets to housing and independence.

We also check up on Miami with 944 Magazine and what went down in Paris.

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What's great about this write-up for The Apple Blog is the fact that probably 95% or more of the development, hosting and infrastructure is done on Apple hardware. I know that I love reading about workflows like that. I enjoy learning what goes into a specific site or company that I have respect for. The Apple Pro articles come to mind and are great reads if you're into that sort of thing.

Read the Interview with Stephen Caudill on The Apple Blog.

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For those of you that don't know, these days Pras is the Executive Producer of the World Music Awards and a principle member of our recording artist branding and marketing technology company called Platinum Brand. With a double major in philosophy and psychology from Rutgers and Yale University, Prakazrel Michel could have traveled in countless directions. But he was destined for music stardom. In the mid 1990's Pras, lead the Fugees to their huge 1996 crossover success The Score, after which experiencing multi-platinum, international success and recognition worldwide. To date the Fugees retains title of best-ever selling hip-hop group with sales reaching over 30 Million albums.

We're moving this forward in a big way. Like the Obama campaign, which has been expertly run on the internet, we're going for market saturation. This initial rollout included Blip.tv, Viddler, Revver, YouTube and Vimeo -- with more to come. This video saturation is becoming key to building a subscriber-base. The key being, you no longer expect people to come to you to see your content; instead you have to bring your content to them.

Also check out what Mashable had to say about us:

Musicians starring in Web videos is nothing new. John Mayer's comedic attempt on Funny or Die comes immediately to mind. And as far as general Internet startups go, M.C. Hammer is only one of many players. 50 Cent, Nick Lachey, and Kylie Minogue are in the fold as well.

It's big, for sure.

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Ok, fine. I did test this on a couple sites just for fun. What?

Firefox iMacros Addon

The first thing you need is the infinitely handy Firefox addon iMacros.

iMacros allows you to automate Firefox tasks. Record and replay repetitious work. "If you love the Firefox web browser, but are tired of repetitive tasks like visiting the same sites every days, filling out forms, and remembering passwords, then iMacros for Firefox is the solution you've been dreaming of!" Yeah well, we're using it for the power of evil, in this case.

Finding Users

For this example, we're going to use a site called BlogCatalog, but really any site will do.

The first thing you need is a userlist or some way to easily jump from user to user without much fuss. Luckily BlogCatalog gives us a page in their directory that outputs a random assortment of users.

We can reload this page over and over, each time giving us a choice of randomly selected users to choose from. We're only interested in the first box on the top left though. This will be the link we click to visit a random BlogCataloger's page each time.

Randomization

As anyone who has done an Armorsmith grind in Star Wars Galaxies back in the day will tell you, a good macro needs some random delays. That's why I use iMacro's ability to run Javascript rather than just recording a standard macro.

With Javascript, I can assign my loops as well as generate a random number variable to insert into various PAUSE lines of the resulting macro.

The Codez

Note: You do need to do some editing for this to work correctly for you. Particularly the x and y coordinates for the thumbnail. If you can't figure that part out for yourself, I question whether you should be participating in this little experiment anyway.

var macro;
var jsLF = "\n";
var i, retcode, errtext;
var MyDelay;
var MyPosts;

/* Define the Looping */
iimDisplay("Loops");

for ( i = 1; i < = 50; i++) {
    iimDisplay("loop "+i);

/* Assign a Random Delay for Hax0ring */
MyDelay = Math.round(10*Math.random());
iimDisplay("Random wait t="+MyDelay);

/* Create the Macro */
macro = "CODE:";
macro += "SET !ERRORIGNORE YES" + jsLF;
macro += "URL GOTO=http://www.blogcatalog.com/user" + jsLF;
macro += "WAIT SECONDS=" + MyDelay  + jsLF;
macro += "CLICK X=19 Y=188" + jsLF;
macro += "WAIT SECONDS=" + MyDelay  + jsLF;
macro += "TAG POS=1 TYPE=A ATTR=TXT:Add To My Friends" + jsLF;
macro += "WAIT SECONDS=" + MyDelay  + jsLF;

retcode = iimPlay(macro);
if (retcode < 0) {              // an error has occured
    errtext = iimGetLastError();
    alert(errtext);
}

    if (retcode < 0) {          // an error has occured
        errtext = iimGetLastError();
        alert(errtext);
        break;
    }

}

Can Has Friends

Basically, what iMacro does is run through my Javascript as if it were running through a standard macro. The javascript sets the variables, such as the loop and delay between actions (MyDelay) from the random number generated.

The result is an output of a new macro upon each run of the Javascript. This new macro has single-use delay values between each line. So, for example, if I'm running the Javascript 3 times, the first run will pause for 4 seconds between actions, the next will be 2 and then next might be 10. How exciting.

Now don't run off to follow everyone on Twitter, Plurk or the other hundreds of networks out there. Like I said, this is obviously against most sites' Terms of Service and will likely get you banned if you abuse it.

Use your macroz skillz 4 guud.

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Just using them is fine but, as usual, I like to take it one step further into better integration with my desktop workflow. That's where OpenID and Fluid.app come in.

OpenBar

If you didn't already know, the 37signals apps support OpenID (they call it OpenBar, to be cool). Step one is to go into all your accounts and switch over to OpenID login.

If you're wondering, I use my custom url for OpenID.

This gives me a convenient bar at the top of all my applications whereby I can switch between them. If you don't already use this, you're insane.

Having all of these applications in place really creates a great intranet-type workflow. It's helpful even when working solo but if you have a small team like me it really shines. I also noticed my people used the various apps a lot more once I introduced them to using OpenID to bring them together -- as well as putting it all together in Fluid.app (below).

Fluid.app

So we have our cool kid intranet setup with OpenID. Now we need to go download Fluid.app and turn this puppy into a desktop-like application. Fluid is an SSB (site-specific browser), which is basically just a web browser without all the extras and with a customizable dock icon (I would recommend grabbing these nice icons for use with Fluid).

It's great for tabbing to your intranet window, adding a calendar entry, and tabbing back to Photoshop, to give a quick example. This is a process that just isn't as exciting when you're stuck in Safari.

(If you're completely insane and not using a Mac, Prism does something similar on the PC)

When creating a new Fluid app for this project, I would recommend setting the url you use the most as the homepage. For me, this is /calendar in BackpackIt. You may be more inclined to roll with one of the Dashboard views in either Backpack or Basecamp though. I'm considering a move to one of those 2 options as well.

By default, when you click one of the links in your OpenBar (to go from Basecamp to Backpack, for example) Fluid will open that link in Safari. It does this because it assumes this is an external link and treats it accordingly -- each service has a different URL.

There are 2 options to get around this. For me, it was easy because I use the same URL prefix for every one of my 37signals services: vocino. So what I did was change the URL wildcards in the Fluid preferences to include any URL that contains *vocino*.

If you've used different account URLs for your 37signals apps, you could either add each one of simply allow any linked to be opened inside Fluid. The latter option is not ideal because a lot of times you'll have real links to external sites that people in your intranet have posted and you'll generally want to view those in Safari so that you can keep your original app pure.

Now you have a stylish intranet app that lives in your dock, complete with all of your 37signals services. Ah, sweet sweet synergy, the web 6.0 word of the future.

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This is my late night setup. This is how I roll at 3AM when I'm usually plugging away at something. In the photo above, you can see I'm rocking Twitterific to keep up with my tweets and iTunes to provide some passive entertainment -- in this case, Firefly.

In addition to those, I usually have NetNewsWire over there, Adium or iChat, and sometimes reference material specific to what I happen to be working with over on the main display.

To prop the MacBook Pro up and create a fluid eye-level transition between monitors, I use the handy iCurve 2 ($39.99 from Amazon).

Of course, on the Power Mac desktop I do the actual work. So I'm running Photoshop, Textmate, CSS Edit, Final Cut Pro and all the rest of the nonsense to get things done.

Using this 2-Mac setup is really helpful for several reasons. Not only does it feel like I have a lot more desktop space but that space is also running on 2 different machines using isolated CPU, RAM and disk access resources. When working with huge files -- especially video in Final Cut Pro -- this really comes in handy.

SynergyKM

This is all good but the whole setup might not be worth it if I had to actually reach up and manipulate the laptop. That's where SynergyKM comes in.

SynergyKM is a GUI wrapper around the synergy command line tool that lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers. You can even use it with Windows and Linux, although I currently don't.

SynergyKM was a life saver for my setup. I have my Power Mac desktop running as the host and my MacBook Pro connecting to it in order to grab keyboard and mouse info. This allows me to just shoot across to the laptop and perform tasks as if I was working with a simple dual-monitor setup.

Both my desktop and laptop are running on wifi from an Airport Extreme. The 802.11n network never misses a beat -- even with torrents cranking (no shit, important benchmark info!) -- so I don't experience any lag issues with the mouse or really fast typing. I'm not sure if there would be issues on other networks but I can't imagine there's much data to keep up with. The packets transfered are relatively low.

Combine this with some disk sharing and you've got a nice almost seamless system.

Growl

So we've got our 2 Macs and we can effortlessly travel between them. However, there's one more piece of the puzzle which I think brings things together in command-center-like integration. Growl.

Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X. It allows applications that support Growl (which is most of the everyday ones) to send you notifications. Most of the more poweruser level Mac addicts already use it.

The notifications are basically little popups that can be styled the way you like. These could be new songs playing in iTunes, a buddy in Adium sending you an IM, a file transfer completing in Transmit, etc. There's really a ton of apps that support it these days.

Now, the great thing about Growl for this setup is that it allows you to push the notifications to a host from a remote Mac. Perfect.

I have my MacBook Pro sending my vital Growl information over to my Power Mac. There's no lag and it's just like the events were happening on the local machine -- again, contributing to that dual-monitor feel. This allows me to focus on my primary Apple Display on the desktop and know if something semi-important happens (like my friend's Tweet -- damn right that's important!) I'll get a shiny new Growl notification.

You can of course choose what notifications you'd like to receive and from which applications. Your 500-friend twitter list might not be so appealing.

So that's pretty much it. SynergyKM+Growl= ...Synergy. I guess. I'm really into this setup now. I feel like things are working in harmony. That's what owning Mac hardware is all about, right?

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Now I'll rant a little about usability. If you're offering a solution to my problem (as all products, services or applications should be, obviously), you have to be open to the possibility that I'll be tailoring my experience to what best suits me. After all, I'm the only with the problem to be solved.

Now, for what seems like a decade, I've been staring at a large green box when logged in to my LinkedIn profile telling me that my profile is incomplete. Why? Because I haven't filled out my education fields.

In all other aspects of LinkedIn, I am an avid participant. I answer questions in the Answers forums and I'm considered a LinkedIn Expert in the fields of Blogging, Web Development and Non-profit Management. I usually invite my new contacts to connect with me when possible. I try to connect with most internet acquaintances whom I find interesting. The list goes on and on. The bottom line is, I definitely put in my work on using LinkedIn.

However in spite of all that, their system still annoys me with a constant reminder that I'm only utilizing 85% of the awesome-power that LinkedIn could potentially provide to me.

Listen, don't tell me what I need to do. Instead, offer me solutions that could potentially help me. These should be passive and, more importantly, dismissible. I'm not a new internet user. I haven't just forgotten to finish my profile. Strangely, I don't consider myself a complete idiot. Yet, I don't see any possible way to dismiss these "Complete your profile" messages.

It's not LinkedIn's job to review my profile/resume in order to see if I'm qualified for something. That's the job for another user who is equal to me and therefore a 100% complete profile is what I deem it to be. It's what works for me and my situation. It's however much information is needed for your web application to solve my particular problem.

Remember, your users dictate what works for them. The best tools are the ones that adapt to the job at hand, not the ones that are stuck in one track.

As an example of an application that currently demonstrates that, I look to Yojimbo. While it's amazing at what it does (organizing data), it gives the user the freedom to tailor the application to their specific needs. Personally, I use it to catalog receipts for tax purposes. Imagine what a hassle it would be if Yojimbo constantly told me my database was only 85% complete because I didn't have any passwords stored in it (Yojimbo has a password organizing function, too).

It would be annoying. Just like it is on LinkedIn.

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Nana and Geni as a Case Study

Seniors have some decent spending power and they're willing to give up some change in order to make their lives easier. Surely there are some sites out there that might fill this niche. I think Geni and other genealogy sites are a good example of that. Old people love that stuff.

My grandmother and her sister were already working on genealogy projects using tried and true pencil/paper systems. When I explain to her how putting all this information they had gathered into a database where it could edited and changed easily, she was in love. This would have been impossible, though, if Geni wasn't very easy to use and employed simple concepts when setting out to solve problems.

Girl boxes are pink and boy boxes are blue. It sounds simple, duh, and it is. It's not rocket surgery or brain science, it's just simplest of concepts that might be overlooked from a developer perspective. Further digging shows how hassle-free adding a new person to the tree is, or checking up on family, or adding photos.

The Senior Market

The senior internet market is actually (surprisingly, perhaps) very healthy.

In 2006, there were 17.6 million Internet users in the US ages 62 and older, according to eMarketer. By 2011 that number will increase to 25.4 million. A 7.6% average annual growth rate is not too shabby -- especially when you consider that's more than twice the 3.1% growth rate eMarketer forecasts for the entire US Internet population.

This may have something to do with seniors today enjoying better health, longer and more active lives, greater free time and higher discretionary income than past generations.

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Most companies don't seem to realize that a large part of creative technology work is simply thinking. "How do you solve this problem?" or "What's the best way to deploy these features while dealing with the constraints of the client's budget?"

Questions like these are always the starting points for a new project and usually get carried on throughout. New problems inevitably arise while the project evolves and those need to be thought on and solved. Thinking isn't as easy as you might imagine, either.

Recently, in producing video mockups for various Olivia Munn media at Complex, the starting place at the beginning of the thought process and where we ultimately ended up were light-years apart. Even though the original work wasn't a direction we wanted to go, that development process facilitated the creation of the end result -- and that result is better because of it. By "original work" I might just mean playing in Photoshop, screwing around with your favorite camera for an hour to get ideas, or simply sitting back in your den and browsing inspirational books.

This might seem like a crazy concept to some people. After all, sometimes this might mean billing for seriously intangible timeframes. Spaces in time dedicated to soul searching, almost. You might even be tempted to call this practice a bit shady or dishonest. Well, I assure you this is not the case at all.

I'm exceptionally diligent about my time-tracking for clients I consult for. I have an arsenal of tools I use to log my dedication with Mars Lander-like percision. iPhone hacks, dashboard widgets, web applications and more. Rarely, if ever, is time logged that is more that 1 or 2 seconds longer (or shorter, for that matter) than need be.

When I talk about thought time, I'm talking serious thought time. When I start the clock on something like that for a client, I'm highly and efficiently dedicated to solving the problem at hand. If it's a technology development issue I'm actively looking for a specific bit of code, open-source solution, new way of thinking, contractor to crunch it or innovative work-around. Similarly, if it's on the design end, I'm immersed in the user's or audience's perspective. I'm pursuing inspiration, moving elements around in Photoshop in tactical art experiments in order to get something that sticks, and thinking outside the web design space in nature or external source material for new creative sparks.

Keep in mind, this is what good clients pay for. They want more than a chop shop style churn-out of so-called creative technology solutions (remember I said good clients). So, just like a plumber bills you as soon as he starts thinking about how to solve your toilet problems, you should be invoicing your clients for the time you're dedicated and immersed in thinking for their company.

So, how do you bill for the thought-power time required for the total project to be a success?

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Recently near the border of Brazil and Peru this, one of the very last uncontacted tribes, was photographed from the air. The red-painted warriors or hunters with their bows and arrows are very striking and even a bit surreal. The guy painted black in the back seems to be some kind of leader perhaps.

Seriously, this is like a real-life Indiana Jones here.

Of more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, more than half live in either Brazil or Peru, Survival International says. A problem with making contact with isolated peoples is that they usually don't have immunity to most of the diseases we take for granted. These can be carried by the people from modern society that go to make contact with them. This can have severe consequences as normally minor diseases, such as the common cold, can be deadly when no natural immunity exists.

On another note, the whole uncontacted tribes discussion brought up another controversy while I was arguing chatting with a friend.

Where do these people fall in regards to the standard Christian thinking that you must "know" Jesus to be saved from the burning pit of fire? Do they get a free pass since they haven't had the opportunity to read or hear about this other god dude?

As an atheist, I don't believe they are any less important than anyone else. They undoubtably worship some form of god or gods. Just imagine what they must have been thinking when the spy plane was circling them taking pictures. That's possibly a pretty mean god right there.

Their god and belief system is just as real to them as Jesus, floods or sea-parting is to the Christian in modern society.

So here's my question to you, random anonymous christian: Are these people doomed? Shouldn't Jesus be putting the thoughts in their minds or "hearts?"

Surely god would give them the opportunity to know the so-called truth. However, throughout history there has never been a case of any spontaneous finding of Jesus so I don't think their odds are very high with that.

Time to start drop shipping bibles? Or better yet, what if they are the ones who know the truth?

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