That said, I find myself having to look up words and subjects quite often when having a conversation with someone who is consistently smarter than I am. Occasionally I will just ask about the meaning behind a word or phrase, but more often than not I use Google or Wikipedia to remedy my ignorance. Sometimes I will throw into the banter that I just looked up whatever it may be, but more commonly I will just continue with the conversation and enjoy my newly-gained knowledge.

However, I seem to be in the minority. More and more, I notice people choose to elaborate on whatever it is they just looked up, as if they’ve known about it their entire lives. They smugly proclaim, “Zeitgeist? Why, you mean the German expression which means ‘the spirit of the age’? It obviously describes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era!” Now, this guy is either a German expressionist/aficionado, or he is full of shit.

Depending on your personality, you may react to this in different ways. If you are someone who is not quick to judge others, you may think, “Wow, this is an educated guy.” If you are a German linguist, you may think, “Hmm, this guy has a fairly capable grasp of my language.”

If you are a teenager living in the middle of Nebraska writing a blog post about people who look things up on Wikipedia and pretend that this information has been implanted in their brain for a long period of time, however, you may think, “Alright you smug bastard. Looking something up before replying to my IM and pretending you’re an expert on the subject does not make you an intellectual, nor does it impress me. It makes me think you’re an arrogant ass who is too egotistical to admit that there is a piece of information under the sun that you don’t know.” But again, your reaction may differ.

I like to refer to this kind of knowledge as Wikismarts. Wikismarts are tidbits of information you learn because you had to look it up before you could reply to someone’s message. While there is nothing wrong with Wikismarts in theory, they can easily be abused. As outlined above, don’t pretend to be the most knowledgeable person in the world about the subject, just because you have the Wikipedia page opened. It is painfully obvious to the person you are talking to and makes you look like a pompous ass.

However, the lack of privacy is not the only filth that comes from registering at one of these monstrosities. We now have to deal with a new kind of evil. Referred to by many different names, these sins against humanity are found on every major social network. Whether you call them widgets, applications, or add-ons, something titled, “Are YOU interested?” can never be good.

Beginning with Friendster and then adopted by MySpace, we suffered through these digital faux pas for an entire year with no real hope. In 2004, a new social networking site was launched. It promised to be different; it was designed for a different clientele. A popular spot for the college crowd, Facebook was born. For nearly three years, it was an an enlightening experience when compared to its competitors. The usual level of annoyance was non-existant.

In 2007, Facebook announced the Facebook Platform, which allowed developers to create applications for Facebook. Things started going down hill shortly after.

The concept started out with a good idea: give users more customization over what is displayed in their profiles. Applications have always existed in some form. It began with things similar to “The Wall”, which enables users to leave messages on their friends’ profile pages. At some point, however, a digression was made. The path to customization was left for a new road — one where developers would create anything, no matter how annoying, as long as it was popular.

This, I believe, is the root to our problems. These services are so focused on pleasing some people that they forget that such changes can alienate and outright annoy others. MySpace has always been a breeding ground for preteen users and their annoying habits. In the past, it was a profile design with blinking lights and neon colors. It regressed into polls which featured the most elaborate of questions: “Do you think I’m sexy?”, “Would you ever date me?”, and “Do you like Degrassi?” graced profiles far and wide, with seemingly no intervention.

Facebook is no longer enjoyable for me. At some point the developers need to put their foot down. They need to ask themselves, “Who was our original audience? What would they think of this?” They need to stop trying to compete with MySpace and start trying to retain what used to be a fresh look at social networking. While adapting for a changing userbase is a good idea in theory, forgetting the original userbase entirely is a serious mistake.

This is exactly where Facebook went wrong. They lost their originality; they gave up what made them different from MySpace. They decided that they did not want to be different — they wanted to compete. Worst of all, however, is what is outlined above. Facebook forgot their original cliente, and that is the biggest mistake a company can make.

As such, I set out on a quest. My grail? A customizable website statistics system with an appealing design. I began research about five months ago. I consulted with friends, professionals, and the owners of some popular websites. I learned that many were in the same boat as I — they had not yet found a suitable replacement. I read articles on the subject, user-posted messages on forums, and compared reviews. With all my research and new-found knowledge, I still had not been fruitful.

Then, by a stroke of coincidental luck, a friend of mine started using a new statistics manager. Not only was he using it, but he was obsessed with it — to a near comical degree. I knew that Kyle, a user interface designer, would not be so involved with something that had a sloppy design, so I was quite excited. He provided me with screenshots and links to information, both of which I was thoroughly impressed with. However, it looked too good to be true, and even when disproving that by playing with the demo, I put off paying for a license. I recently purchased one, though, and after a week of use, I feel I understand the ins and outs of it.

Have a Mint

Mint, as defined by Shaun Inman (Mint’s creator) is an extensible, self-hosted web site analytics program. With a single-domain license only setting you back $30.00, it’s fairly inexpensive. It offers an incredible design and a plethora of options, as well as a number of plugins. Its design is a tribute to simplicity, yet it maintains a strong visual appeal. Mint’s graphs are well-constructed and its statistics are displayed meticulously.

Mint 2.0 - Index

Courtesy of Have a Mint (click image for full size)

Mint also offers a darker theme, titled “Chocolate Mint”, for users with sensitive eyes or who dislike brighter designs.

Mm, Needs Pepper

Aside from its marvelous design, Mint also offers a wide selection of plugins which add further functionality. The plugin repository is referred to as the Peppermill, and individual plugins are known as Peppers. An example of a Pepper would be the User Agents section (below).

Mint 2.0 - ‘User Agents’ Pepper

Courtesy of Have a Mint

Criticism

Although Mint does a very nice job of representing data, it would be nice to have a little more control over it. Aside from switching between different periods of time, there isn’t much customization over how you see the data it gathers. For instance, it is not currently possible to see an hourly textual representation of a specific day (other than the current day). You can, however, view a graph of this data. This is a minor problem, though, because Mint makes the ease of understanding its statistics a top priority. Information is displayed coherently and this makes up for a lack of customization.

Nice Flavor

All in all, Mint is far superior to any other analytical program I’ve ever used. Its design is spectacular and the level of support offered (via the FAQs, the Forum, or the Contact form) is impressive. I love the ability to add plugins, and quite a few of them are pretty useful. $30.00 is a paltry sum to anyone who wishes to be able to adapt their site to the people visiting it. If you’re still unsure about whether or not Mint is for you, have a look at the screencasts and play around with the demo.

Now what are you waiting for? Have a mint!

Recently I have received an influx of work in my on-the-side computer repair business. I, being a lowly high school student, am struggling to find an acceptable balance between work and school. Although I’m saving for college, I do have expenses and thus value the little income I get from computer repair. However, I value school to a much larger degree for obvious reasons. The appeal of income versus the necessity of education leads me to indecision when trying to decide to work on a system or to study for a test. I have been working towards an acceptable schedule and hope to have it perfected for the future.

This leads me into my next distraction — education. While I have always valued my studies, I am also very susceptible to distraction. Computers, athletics, girls, and other more appealing areas of my life always seem to shift my priorities around. With a GPA and class rank to maintain, I need to work harder now than ever before. I recently took the ACT — as a freshman. I was the youngest person there by a wide margin. This is disconcerting. When taking an exam that a large percentage of colleges consider over the SAT (and no limit on the number of times you may take it), why are parents and guidance counselors not urging their youth to take the exam early? It was nothing like I expected it would be, and while I do not feel as though I need to do incredibly well this time around, I do feel way more prepared for the next two or three times I take it. Being more prepared for future exams is a small price to pay for the two or three times you have to explain to other examinees as to why you are taking the test so young, in my opinion. All in all, I feel I did fairly well on the test, all things considered. The beauty of this, though, is that even if I didn’t do well at all… so what? I have two, three, or even four more chances to take it if I so choose, and this way I’ll know which areas I need to improve in. While I would be ecstatic with a good score, my world will not end with a lower score, either. Obviously the test will change, but similarities will obviously exist, and the experience I received that day is enormous when compared to the discomfort of getting up early on a Saturday morning and sacrificing a few hours.

Now that I have sufficiently bored you with information pertaining to my education, I will attempt to wake you up a bit with what I consider some exciting news: I have not given up on the redesign! It has taken a considerable amount of time longer than I expected, but a new design is still in the works and I have not forgotten or otherwise abandoned it. I am attempting to embody in this design what I have learned concerning minimalism and basic typography over the last few months. You would be amazed at how significant a difference is made when choosing an apt type as opposed to using one that you simply find attractive. I am still deliberating between two forms of a similar design I am creating. One is a single column design with meta information on the side and other information at the bottom. The second is a double column design with information in a sidebar to the right. At this point I don’t have a favorite, but time will certainly tell as I grow annoyed with having to update both designs.

I have recentlry realized exactly how much I’ve been neglecting PHP. While attempting to do a basic bit of programming on a small project, I found myself utterly perplexed in areas I could recite in my sleep a few months ago. A bit of skimming over my favorite PHP book, though, and I feel like I’m back to my prime. This is a digression from my original point, though, which was that I have been collaberating with a friend on a pretty cool project. It’s relatively small-scale, but it’s a fun bit of practice for my coding and requires minimal attention, as it’s not a major priority for either of us. This is nice not because it allows me to procrastinate, but because both of us have such a heavy schedule as it is. I hope to have the first rendition of the backend done soon, but I can’t give many details as of right now. Those who follow me on Twitter will understand what type of project it is.

That about sums up what is my boring-ass life (which is a great book by Kevin Smith, writer/director of flicks such as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl) in a few paragraphs. Work and school are battling each other for my attention but both are going well, and although design and programming are getting less love than I would like, they are both slowly progressing as well. I’ll try to better keep you updated. Maybe I’ll start sticking to that twice-a-week blogging schedule.

Read the conversation here: The Plan

With this help came talk of something I had not yet heard of. Font faces and line heights were being discussed with me as though they were normal conversation topics. The amount of content versus white-space was being put on a scale in conversations, yet I had no idea what it meant. So, like any logical uninformed individual would do, I started doing research.

I discovered that typography was not an exclusive web design element. Not even close, in fact. It had been adopted from other mediums for the web, but it was by no means from the web. I also discovered websites dedicated to web typography and type in general. I began reading sites that focused on typography, such as I Love Typography and Typophile. I read these, among others,  on recommendation from Kyle Meyer’s new site that I previously blogged about, Typesites. I also began reading eBooks on the subject as well as informative websites such as Web Typography.

At first I was overwhelmed by the introduction of so many rules and suggestions. My shortcomings in design were preventing me from fully grasping the most basic of rules. However, when I stopped treating it as another design lesson and started treating it as coding language, I was quickly able to memorize rules and suggestions. I think of typography as code, just as I do with PHP. There are rules and suggestions and when adhered to, you have a working, well-flowing final product. This approach combined with my desire to become satisfactory in design has motivated me and thus far I’ve learned a lot. We’ll see where it takes me, but I have high expectations.

On a side note, the theme I mentioned previously is going well and I have already begun coding it. I’m nearly half done with it, and when I get a few more things done, I may show you a preview.

(Click to see full image)

This excludes the ten or fifteen tech deal sites that I read, as I have a separate folder in my Bookmarks menu for those.

Which feeds, if any, do you read?

The theme concentrates on simplicity and typography more than being graphically “enhanced” and fancy. I think that it will be classy and dignified, yet still maintain the atmosphere of this site: a blog that no one reads by a guy who has no desire to be read. I am pretty excited about it so far, but I’m having a bit of designer’s block (if that exists, that is; I initially wrote that as “writer’s block” but thought that this made more sense). The header isn’t coming around as quickly as I would like, but I have a few good ideas for the lower region of the design including the footer.

I will try to keep you updated. As of right now, it is merely a Photoshop design. I want to make sure that I like it before I put effort into coding it. I’m not sure how long it will take to finish, but I will be disappointed if it is not done by the middle of next month at the latest.

The theme I’m currently using, Simpla, is great and I adore it. However, it is not my own creation and thus I feel like a personal blog should have a personal design.

Typesites is a weekly showcase of websites with interesting typographic design. What once started as an idea for yet another generic website gallery evolved into something that gives much more depth than a normal showcase. Where as galleries simply post generic designs by the bucketload we strive to showcase only design that can inspire and teach — and then explain it.

Thus far, Typesites has reviewed four sites, the latest being Kevin Cornell’s Bearskinrug. The reviews tend to focus on three areas: the good, the bad, and how the design could be improved. They are thorough, well-researched, and unlike a lot of reviews I’ve read, captivating. I find that I enjoy reading the articles as well as comparing my own opinions and sentiments to those of the author.

Each article offers readers the opportunity to leave their own opinions through a comment system. While some simply convey their thoughts on the review itself, some choose to leave a short review of the site, as well. This is an interesting concept as you can compare the opinions of both professionals and amateurs in one unified area.

While the process that Typesites’ authors use to choose the site they review is unclear, what is obvious is the amount of effort and research that goes into each choice. All four of the sites reviewed were ones that I had not previously read or even heard of, but am now an avid subscriber. They are the blogs and journals of both professional designers and witty writers, and the content of their sites is quite interesting and diverse.

In the end, Typesites offers a unique look at designs that have otherwise been overlooked. While I am still an amateur in terms of typography, I can tell you now that it is a very interesting and multifaceted field. While color theory and functionality are interesting and important, I feel that aesthetics and typography provide a basis for both of those, and offer a much more dexterous and significant role in design. I look forward to learning more about this field, and I eagerly await another review from Typesites.