Ed Batista

It's Nick Denton's World

We're just blogging in it. Denton's Gawker Media launched Lifehacker today.  What's that about, you say?

[Lifehacker's about] the endless possibilities of technology and how it can improve our lives. Lifehacker points out software, sites, tips and tricks that help you get things done, plain and simple... Let the adventures in productivity begin.

It's actually a more interesting site than that lame copy would suggest.  My favorite tip from among their first offerings is the simple advice that you can search Google by filetype:

Ever want to search the web for an Excel spreadsheet checkbook? Easy. Type filetype:xls checkbook into the search box at Google.

Behemoth search engine Google indexes more than just web pages. Narrow your search down to specific types of files with the “filetype” directive.

Hat tip to Jeff Jarvis, who's so wired that the Lifehacker launch itself isn't news to him:

What's news is that Nick (a friend and business colleague of mine) signed up Sony for Lifehacker just as he signed up Audi for Jalopnik [Ed.: Gawker's neo-gearhead blog].

And here's what's newsworthy about that:

Since the internet started, many big-time publishers have struggled to convince big-time advertisers that this new medium is not just about direct response (click-through) but also about branding (that is, the value of associating your brand and product with a media brand -- the reason to advertise in a glossy magazine with a classy audience, for example). That is why the Online Publishers Association was created.

But note what Denton has done twice: He got big-time advertisers to sign onto a product that didn't even exist yet. Take it from a guy who started a magazine; that doesn't happen. So why did they do it? Clearly, they wanted to be associated -- branded -- with the next, new, cool thing. Just being the first in equals branding. That is a value of this new medium: its newness.

News about a blog, and meta-news about why that news is newsworthy.  Are you chasing your own tail yet?

Our Band Could Be Your Life

Back in December, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders posted a fantastic rant on Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make.  Don't assume that his warnings apply only to  musicians; we've all seen way too many "creative" sites that violate his simple List of Website No-No's:

1. Too Much Flash
2. Crappy or Non-Existent MP3 Metadata*
3. Too Artsy, Too Fartsy
4. No Search
5. One-Way Communication (i.e. No contact info)

Please read the whole thing, all you site designers with itchy trigger fingers.  The world will thank you.

Mann's speaking for all of us Joe Users who frequent fashion-forward sites.  Your site doesn't need to look like Jakob Nielsen's (as the guys at Design by Fire made clear.)  But Mann is pointing the way toward sites that look good AND work well.  Usability doesn't have to be ugly.

*MP3s or no, the concept of metadata is still crucial to your site.  (Although obscure blogger Todd Stephens recently theorized that RSS will kill conventional metadata, and big-shot blogger Cory Doctorow opined at the height of the dot-com bubble that metadata is "a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities.")

Hat tip for the title: "History Lesson, Pt. 2" (Windows Media Stream)

ThinkPad Love

From the profane to the mundane... This guy really loves ThinkPads.  And I completely understand.  Having used a ThinkPad for about 6 hours a day, almost every day for the past 3.5 years, and even though I burned out a screen and a hard drive, I can't imagine using anything else.

When my wife needed a laptop, getting a ThinkPad was a no-brainer.  When I started getting ready to buy a personal laptop and hand over my trusty T23 to my successor at work, I flirted briefly with an iMac (I was inspired by the joy my iPod brought me, but my test sessions at the Apple store proved disappointing), and with a Dell (I was tempted by the low prices, but a little online research convinced me that there were too many problems with the chassis I wanted--like scorching hot palmrests), and I eventually came back to Big Blue, err, Tai Lan Yan Se.  (Actually, it sounds like the Feds are going to kill the deal, which is fine with me.)

IBM's high prices are tough to swallow, but a great alternative to buying new is their certified reconditioned program.  They don't promote it extensively, but you can find some very good deals right on their site:

IBM.com > Products > Clearance Corner > Certified Used Equipment > Notebooks

There you'll find a list of available ThinkPads, all competitively priced.  I picked up a T40, WinXP, 40 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, 1.5 GHz Pentium M, integrated wireless card, CD/RW-DVD, yada, yada, yada, and an 18-month warranty, for $1,150.  With an extra battery that swaps with the CD-drive (the batteries that ship with used ThinkPads are notoriously close to end-of-life), plus tax and 2-day shipping, the whole damn thing was about $1,400.

Comparable to anything similarly equipped from another manufacturer, with all the good stuff that just makes ThinkPads nicer to use, particularly the rock-solid keyboard and chassis.  And if I feel like shelling out a few hundred more, I can still get IBM's next-day, on-site service deal.

So far, so good with the new T40.  I had an initial bout of hair-rending and teeth-gnashing when it appeared that downloading WinXP Service Pack 2 had created an irresolvable conflict with the integrated wireless card, but IBM's telephone service was actually helpful!  (Well, they batted .667.  Call Center Dude #1 was  an uber-geek who put me on the right path, told me to download and install some new software and call back.  Dude #2 was dumb as a goddamn rock and put me on hold in the hopes I would just hang up and go away--which I did.  But then Dude #3 called me the next day to see if everything was OK.  Long story short, it is.)

A few minor gripes: the display on my old T23 was much brighter than the one on my new T40--however, that's not really a fair comparison, because the T23's original display burned out and had to be replaced.  And the T40's hard drive is a little noisier--again, not a fair comparison, because the T23's first HD also died and was replaced.  And the T40's chassis, while thinner, is also slightly creakier.

Those are quibbles, but remembering the dead screen and HD I suffered through remind me that I really should get the extended on-site service deal.  Like health insurance, it's money well spent.

UPDATE: Although I fixed the WinXP SP2 conflict with my wireless card the first time around, I subsequently screwed things up again by changing too many configuration settings in order to network the XP T40 with my old Win2K T23.  I got the little LAN set up, but then couldn't get the T40 back up on the wireless network.  Tried everything, everything failed.  So I went for the complete factory restore.  Shouldn't have been that big a deal, really, since there wasn't much installed software on the machine--but I was just fried at that point, and it wasn't much fun, either.

So starting from scratch I updated the wireless card's drivers and IBM's Access Connections, and I'm not going to install XP SP2--instead, I'm just going to switch to Firefox.

Primo Levi

The 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, two days ago now, prompted thoughts of Primo Levi's If This Is A Man: Remembering Auschwitz, which I read four or five years ago but which remains vivid in my memory.

One of the aspects of Levi's writing that had such a strong effect on me was the way he portrayed the intimate, personal, horrifying details of the Holocaust.  The full reality of millions of people imprisoned, executed, or worked to death is so vast that it causes an emotional numbness; I simply shut down, because to feel in the face of so much suffering would be too overwhelming.

But reading Levi's description of life in Auschwitz, one man's experience makes the Holocaust more terrifying to me than the staggering death count:

TypePad Stickies

Want to post a sticky in TypePad?  You have to be using an Advanced Template and be willing to muck around in the index.html template, but Don at TypePad Users Forum has posted the code.

Offline Blogging

With client-side software like ecto.

Icelandic Chic

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal has an interesting article by Amy Chozick (subscription only, so no link-love) on 66° North, the fashion-forward, cold-weather clothing company based in Iceland (described as "Prada meets Patagonia"), and the efforts of one Sharon Price to introduce the brand to the U.S. over the last two years.

It's interesting to me for three reasons:

The Billionaire in Baghdad

Billionaire blogger and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sent his HDNet crew to cover the elections in Baghdad.  Sure, it's a PR stunt for his network and a blatant promo for HD--but it'll also be a fascinating, unmediated view into a society we won't get from anyone else.   Nice to see a billionaire doing some worthwhile with his loot.  Hat tip to Coz at NotAbbott.

Now if Larry Ellison would just get his act together and buy the Niners.  C'mon, Larry!  You could eat John York for breakfast!

Holy War?

In my book, sports and politics don't mix. I root for the home team, especially when US athletes are going up against Belorussian boxers or Russian wrestlers. But I'm still pissed at Jimmy Carter for boycotting the Moscow Olympics in '80. It was a well-meaning gesture, but it didn't do diddly to get Soviet tanks out of Afghanistan.

That's why I'm fully down with Carlos Delgado's refusal to stand for the national anthem before games. (Sam Borden of the NY Daily news has a well-written update.)

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it made sense to express our collective feelings at mass gatherings, including sporting events. But I'm not sure what purpose is being served today by turning games into quasi-patriotic rallies.

Don't assume that my endorsement of Delgado's actions means that I endorse his views on the war. I disagree with most of what he has to say, although I can't condense my full perspective down into a blog entry.

But ultimately there's no real connection between what's happening in Iraq and what's been happening on our football fields and baseball diamonds. Protest the war, or support our troops--exercise your right to free expression. Just keep it out of the games.

Clean Code

The W3C has lots of great online resources, including X/HTML validators for websites and for uploaded files.