But on to my point…

Looking Back Over My Shoulder

It’s been a fun semester. I only took 12 hours, so I had plenty of time for all the extracurricular stuff that ususally stretches me so thin. I had time to:

• Start taking banjo lessons again - I spend hours playing nearly every day. I think there has been 1 day this semester that I haven’t gotten in at least an hour. I’ve also gotten interested in music theory, and am trying to figure out how to apply the cool stuff it teaches you.
• Run - Though I’ve been slacking a bit in the past month or so, I spent the first 2.5 months of the semester running hard, and plan to run even harder this summer. I’m running a leg of a 50-miler in June, and hopefully a 50K+ sometime after that.
• Get in a car wreck - and be without my car for 6 weeks after being told it’d be ready in 2. So, so fun…
• Do web projects - I’ve gotten to complete multiple freelance/personal projects this semester. I’ve got some personal stuff in the hole that I’m going to try to work on over the summer.

If There’s Still Ramblin’ in the Rambler…

But the big news is not what happened in the semester. It’s what’s happening this summer. In short, I’m no longer The Man. I’m going to spend this summer working full-time on my own business, working mostly on web design/development contract work. Hopefully, though, I’m going to be able to get some of my personal product/service ideas off the ground this summer, too. I’ll be living in Park City, Utah until school starts back.

It was a step that I really needed to take. It’s a shame I had to resign from my co-op job (a nearly guaranteed job after school is great, especially in this economy) but it really wasn’t where I see myself down the line, and it was really time to give my business the full-time attention it deserves.

So, that being said, if you or anyone you know needs a website made this summer, I’d love to at least talk to you. Please, shoot me an email or give me a call.

This semester’s been fun, and the summer’s going to be great! Stay tuned!

It’s a humorous narrative as opposed to a dry (though still fascinating, of course) report, and features a possessed GPS unit, car crashes, a make believe conversation I had with myself, and - best of all - me!

I had a lot of fun writing it, and I think it’s a pretty fun read. You can check it out on the front page at time of writing, or at its permanent home.

Here’s the teaser:

Ah, Vail. The beauty, the splendor, the adventure. The snow is whiter, the sky is bluer, the mountains are bigger and the people are prettier. Numerous Firsthand Reports on DCSki have covered these aspects of Vail. But DCSki Columnist J.R. Patten veers off the beaten path to provide an unconventional look at Vail — or, more to the point, the misadventures of getting to Vail.

I hope you laugh, cry, and feel the irresistable urge to send me tons of money.

Feel free to leave comments on DCSki or here, whichever tickles your fancy. I think I’ll write a commentary about it soon, maybe. I’d like to, but it all depends on if the muse strikes (ie. smacks me in the forehead).

Thanks for reading!

Now I’ve got to write one on Vail.

That’s right, things I hate. You’re a genius. It’ll be a nice place to let loose my bitter side…

Anyway, the first thing:

Sites that have video that starts playing automatically

Say What?

Remember back in the good ol’ days of “Web0.5″ (there will soon be a similar article on web “versioning”)? People used to have songs and sounds that played in the background when their pages loaded. I’m sure there are still some horrifying sites out  there that still do it. (*cough* MySpace *cough*)

Playing video (and anything else that makes noise) on page load is the same thing.  I despise it, and chances are if you do it, I’ll instantly close your page and never come back (not on purpose, anyway).

Why I Hate It

Let’s examine why auto-playing stuff in the background is moronic:

• Your page is probably open in the background - do you really think you’re the only page I’m viewing right now? Does your page really deserve to command my attention over the other pages I actually wanted to be paying attention to? Umm… NO. I opened it in the background for a reason. I wanted to read it on my own time… until I realized it played something when the page loaded. Now I’ll just close it and never go back.
• I probably have music playing - There’s this crazy new-fangled thing people do: it’s called playing music on their computer while they’re doing other things. Absurd, I know. But do you really think I want my favorite song interrupted by your stupid video? Umm… NO. If I want to see your newest uploaded video, I’ll click play myself, on my time. Which brings me to my next point…
• You’re not letting me choose how to view your site - This point is a bit of a catch-all. I want to view your site the way I want to view it. Don’t force me to view it your way. Your design should be good enough to suggest to me how I should view it, and to lead me to the most important things. You shouldn’t need to be so pushy as to leave me no choice but to view your stinking video.

Chances are, you want me to like your site (point 1). You probably want me to stay around a while (point 2) too. Guess what auto-playing crap on your front page does? No, really, hypothesize away. I’ll wait. Actually I won’t. Yay for asynchronous communication.

I’ll bet if you’re one of the people who needs to be reading this article, you guessed wrong, because you didn’t immediately remove the auto-playing video from your front page.  So let me enlighten you…

It makes the first thought I have about your site a bad one (see point 1), and it makes me close the stinking tab (see point 2) because I don’t feel like finding the pause button, and I’ve realized that the rest of your site is probably just as bad or worse as the front page and is therefore not worth my time.

Here’s the fundamental issue (that’s why I’m making it bigger):
Asking the user to click play is not asking too much. If they want to see your video, they’ll click play. If they don’t, then you probably have much bigger problems, but certainly shouldn’t be forcing them to watch it!

So congratulations. By auto-playing crap on your front page, you have done the opposite of what you meant to and what you need to do to have a successful site. And in the process, you’ve achieved a near-perfect level of FAIL. You should celebrate.

Now go fix your page.

Anyone else hate this as much as I do, or brave enough to admit you think it’s a good idea? Leave a comment. That’s what they’re there for!

“How’s it different?”, your ever-inquiring, but not so perceptive mind ponders.  Well, let me tell you a story…

Nah.  I’ll just post 2 screenshots.  That should do just fine.

Before:

This is what it used to look like

After:

This is what it looks like now

It’s all chipper and bright and happy-go-lucky. And my dog is awesome.

Anyway, the home page, portfolio, and other sections are still in the works.  Keep your eyes here, folks!

Edit: It’s even changed a little lot since I posted this.  Can you spot the difference?

Well, I’m a statistics junkie, so that doesn’t make me happy.  I want to see how I’m doing today, as close to real-time as I can.  As far as I can tell there is no setting you can set to make it default to view today by default.  The only way to do that without manually changing the dates is to set the pdr variable in the URL.

So, here’s how to create a bookmark that will take you to today’s statistics (these instructions are for Firefox, but I imagine Safari and IE can’t be too different).

1. Drag this link to your bookmarks toolbar: Today’s Analytics
2. Find out your Analytics ID: You can do this by visiting your dashboard and looking for the id parameter in the URL.
3. Replace XXX in the bookmark with your ID: Right click on the bookmark you created, and go to Properties.  Scroll toward the end of the URL, and find “XXX”.  Replace this with the ID you found.
4. Click the bookmark

You should now be able to use that bookmark to view your Google Analytics with a default end date of today.

If you don’t like any of the other settings, you can change around the URL at the end to suit how you like to do things.

Now you don’t have to always change the date as soon as you log in.  Enjoy!

Well, Wordpress seems to have messed up the link. I’ll fix it as soon as I can…

Questions, comments?  I’d love to hear from you.  Just leave a comment down below!

Yep. That’s right. Gas prices now, even adjusted for inflation, are worse than the oil crisis of the 1970’s. Gasoline prices are getting absurd, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Why’s that? Because we rely on a veritable Gasoline Mafia. OPEC is a mob, a cartel. They use thug tactics to manipulate us like little marionette puppets.

And we keep giving them more and more power!

Think I’m exaggerating? Check out this report that came out today.

OPEC has our arm behind our back and is twisting until we say “uncle”, and we are allowing them to manipulate us because of our foolish dependence on oil.

Fighting them is not the answer. We need to make them irrelevant. It’s our own fault for being so all-out dependent on oil. Even if they liked us, it’s just plain near-sighted and irresponsible to depend so heavily on a non-renewable resource.

And they don’t like us.

I fear that oil prices are going to be a very major issue in the upcoming election, but not in a good way. Both sides will be trying to buy votes by promising to lower gas prices, because that’s what people want to hear.

But the issue shouldn’t be lowering gas prices. Find me a candidate who is dedicated to the vision that, come the next election, gas prices won’t matter at all because gasoline usage is on its way out the door, and I’ll show you the guy I’m voting for, regardless of party.

It’s not about making oil cost less! It’s about realizing that we shouldn’t be using it. We have grand visions for the future (well, I do anyway) but we will never realize any of them while we are still relying on gasoline as our major source of power.

There are many reasons using gasoline is such a terrible idea, but today’s article about OPEC just brought this particular one to the front of my mind. So, in sum: It’s an amazingly stupid idea to put so much power in the hands of people who don’t like us. We are letting OPEC push us around, or at the very least have given them a good reason to think they can, and that will only end badly for us.

Rythmbox does what I want it to, the way I expect it to, without getting in my way

and that’s why I love it so much.

For instance, when I’m browsing music, the next song played comes from the list I’m viewing just like you’d think it would. Rating songs is one-click simple, but out of the way. The play queue lets me queue up songs (imagine that) that I want to hear, but don’t want to interrupt the currently playing song for. Oh, and it minimizes to the tray (if you want) for the ultimate out-of-the-wayness.

None of these things are unique or particularly innovative, but what makes this software so wonderful is that it does just what it should, how it should. You might say that it follows the Principle of Least Suprise. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not, but it is a fully-capable, powerful music player. It’s built on a plugin architecture and has an integrated Python console, so if you want more raw power, you can get it.

It does what I want, the way I expect, doesn’t clutter my interface, and lets me harness its full power easily if I want. I think that’s a goal all software should aspire to.

So here’s to you, Mr. Heretofore Unglorified Music Player. You don’t get a lot of attention. You’ll never get downloaded 8 million times in one day, but I wish the rest of my software would be more like you.

Don’t touch that dial. The mouse and keyboard you may caress to your heart’s content.

If you’re looking for something wonderful to read in the meantime, try a book. Short of that, internet writing doesn’t get much better than Killing Batteries.