the816 - Chris Riebschlager

Cute ways to describe horrible weather.

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:53:34 GMT

I had a huge list of things I wanted to accomplish over this three day weekend. Take a wild guess at what percentage of this list was taken care of. I think we have officially entered the "lazy days of summer" because I don't feel like doing a damn thing.

Is that so bad, really? It was technically a holiday weekend and it's immoral to work, right? I wouldn't want to do anything immoral.

I've noticed that my to-do list has changed a bit now that I'm nearly thirty and own a house. For instance, instead of "shop for new Radiohead poster for bedroom," I now have to "saw dead branches out of trees." Which oddly was on my parent-imposed to-do list of my high school years.

So, on this, the hottest day of 2008 (thus far) let's talk about SUMMERTIME and WORK!

Ever since I turned 8, summertime was prime working time. Mowing, farm work and cutting wood for winter. Now that I'm in the world where work means sitting in front of a computer, summer is supposedly the slow time of year. It turns out that when they say "slow" they actually mean "impossible to get anything done because all the decision makers are on vacation."

When I was younger and spending my summers sunburnt, sweaty and covered in dirt, I swore that some day I'd get a super-cool office gig where I'd get to spend the day in air conditioning. So now I got my wish and I get to point, click and type things all day while wishing I could go outside and get sunburned. Crazy how fate works.

But now I have this big ol' house and with that comes more physical labor than I could ever want to do. The only hitch is that I have to do all this work after the aforementioned day of pointing and clicking. What's a guy to do.

I guess my point is, do you know how hot it's been lately? Man. It's like insta-sweaty-mega-hot.

Blogging? Seriously?

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:23:00 GMT

I read a great article by Nicholas Carr about how the internet is ruining our attention spans. I couldn't agree with him more, in fact, I'm already bored of writing this entry. I'd rather go check my mail or see if anyone's posted anything new to Flickr. Plus there's this HUGE fly in my house that's just buzzing around and it's driving me insane. Oh, and I'm watching South Park while I try and write this. It's the one where Kyle has surgery to become tall and black so he can be good at basketball. I've seen this one but I don't want to turn it to Iron Chef because then I'll get all involved in the show and never finish this post.

*sigh* This post is going to be weird.

One of my heroes is Marshall McLuhan. His ideas about communication and media were brilliant and prophetic. I'm not even going to attempt to capitulate Mr. McLuhan, I just wanted to bring up his writing style. His books have been called 'mosaics' since there is no linear pattern to be found. Check out "War and Peace in the Global Village." It's incredible.

"We are all robots when uncritically involved with our technologies."

The internet tries far too hard to fit into other media molds. News sites are newspapers, company's websites are brochures, store's websites are catalogs. In its better moments, the internet is at its best when it rejects these molds. Too few people think about the MEDIUM. The web is clouded with methods, monetization, standards and trends.

Did you see they're showing TV shows on the internet now? Yep. Brilliant. They got radio on that thing now, too.

*sigh*

I remember having this conversation when I was about 14… in 1992. The olden days. $1/gallon gas days.

Boy: "This Telnet chat is cool."

Me: "Totally."

Boy: "But what if we had a computer with a really good sound card and a microphone. Then what if we had a really fast internet connection that could handle sending audio. Then you could actually TALK to the person on the other end. They'd just have to have a speaker and a microphone too."

Me: "So… you'd have a telephone."

South Park is long over. Now the midnight rerun of the Daily Show is on.

Gotta go.

New Devotchka Website

Wed, 21 May 2008 04:18:02 GMT

Between the banner ads, email layouts, site updates and endless revisions, sometimes I get to be a part of a really cool project. That was the case on the new Devotchka website. I did the content management and administration back-end for this Flash site. This marks the first time I've created an administration tool for a Flash site using the AWESOME Symphony content management system.

I thought I'd go over some of the how and why of the back-end for this site. So read on and join the XML/XSLT THRILL RIDE!

Before I go any further, I want to give credit to the amazingly talented people that built this site. Brandon Wilson and Anthony Magliano are responsible for the incredible design. Brandon also did the bulk of the motion design. Heston Miles did the heavy lifting as far as the ActionScript was concerned. He's one smart dude. Liquid 9 is responsible for the great motion design on the intro and transition movies.

So, now into the nuts and bolts of how this site got done.

XML is probably the best way to get external data into a Flash movie. So when you have content inside a Flash site that needs to change on a regular basis, XML is your best friend. The challenge then becomes finding a good way to maintain all these XML documents. At it's very core, Symphony is made to manage content and display it as super-clean and well organized XML. This makes it the perfect tool to administrate a Flash site.

By the time I got involved in the project, the guys had developed the site using static XML files that were formed how they needed them to be. It was then my job to make Symphony store and display all this information in an identical format. XML makes this amazingly simple. When you're looking at a completed XML document, you're seeing the data structure. For instance, each song in the discography has a name and an MP3 association, each of those songs is part of an album that has its own attributes and all of those albums are part of the whole discography.

One challenge was getting over Flash's finicky treatment of external XML. When Flash asks for the XML and PHP/MySQL doesn't happen to render it fast enough, Flash will just give up and wreck your site. To overcome this, I wrote a really simple "Publish Updates" script and plugged it into the Symphony admin. This loads each data source and writes the resulting XML to static files. So when the band has finished doing their site updates in Symphony, they just hit this link and it writes out all the static XML files using the new data. This greatly reduces the server overhead since PHP/MySQL is only asked to render pages when the site is updated, not every time a user views the site. This method will also save the site in the event that PHP or the database decides to crap out.

The great thing about having all the site's content in Symphony is that it's all portable. For example the same content in the news section is used in the RSS feed. We can also use the content in Symphony to sit underneath the Flash movie so Google will still index all the content. So we're not just managing content for a Flash movie, we're managing content that can be rearranged and re-purposed for anything you could ever want to do.

So stop reading and check out the site already! www.devotchka.net

Twitter: Bigger than Jesus.

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:25:29 GMT

Everyone on the interweb is talking about Twitter. Now look at me, I've been sucked into the Twitter-related-post vortex. I'm drinking the kool-aid, feeding the beast, jumping on the bandwagon, et cetera.

One thing you'll hear people say about Twitter is, "It doesn't make a lot of sense until you just sign up and try it." I'll buy that, I guess. I signed up last December and I've found it to be another interesting internet diversion. But I really don't get all the hype about it being THE NEXT BIG THING.

I mean, let's be realistic, it's no Zombo.com. So, without further ado, here's another post about Twitter that the internet can add to it's collection. In the great Twitter tradition of keeping everything under 140 characters, here are my thoughts on Twitter in 140 characters or less.

1. I'm no programming genius, but isn't Twitter little more than the 'hello world' of social network apps?

2. I don't use it to tell people what I'm doing. No one needs to know that I'm sitting at my desk and am enjoying a tasty bagel.

3. I do use it to communicate random and ridiculous things that have no real basis in fact.

4. It's called Twitter for pete's sake. Try saying it out loud with a straight face. Go ahead, try it, I'll wait.

5. The whole @ thing. Yeah.

6. If everyone Twittered like Merlin Mann then the world would be a strange and wonderful place.

So that's Twitter for ya. If you want to take part in my INTERNET LIFE FEED, feel free to follow me here: http://twitter.com/riebschlager

Facebook Report

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:37:25 GMT

In the last few weeks, I've delved headfirst into the world of Facebook-as-marketing-tool. Last fall, Facebook introduced "Facebook Pages" which has essentially become a venue for everything that's not a person to have a presence on Facebook. Products, TV shows, political candidates, etc.

I'm really glad that Myspace is on the downswing and Facebook is on its way up. As far as functionality and usability goes, Facebook spanks Myspace's animated-gif-riddled butt. I'm thrilled that "social networking" has grown up in the last few years, but I still think we have a way to go.

So here's my Facebook Book Report. I hope it's better than the book report I did for "A Separate Peace" in eighth grade.

The general rule on creating a 'corporate presence' for a client on Myspace is this: hack hack hack hack. CSS hacks, JavaScript hacks, Flash hacks, anything you can throw at Myspace to make it bend to your will. To be honest, it feels a little bit dirty. It reminds me of those message boards I used to post to back in 2000-2002 that didn't protect against CSS/JS hacking. Back then if you wanted to hijack a thread and make it a tiled goatse.jpg, well then go right ahead. Yet somehow in 2008, I can insert one single line of CSS into a Myspace page and break the entire profile.

Facebook is the polar opposite of Myspace in this respect. Every chunk of code that you send through Facebook is filtered and modified to ensure that you do not do anything outside of what Facebook wants you to do. I can respect this, especially after seeing incredibly horrid examples of "custom layouts" on Myspace. Facebook's approach seems to be this: Here are some apps, here are some boxes, just go and do your best with that.

There are a few bits that irritate me even though I can completely understand their motivation. First and foremost, you can add Flash content, but absolutely NO Flash content is displayed until the user chooses to display it. This was obviously put in place because auto-playing sounds and animation can be HORRIBLY abused (see my earlier comments about Myspace).

Second, if you start a page as a company, the 'Reviews' application will automatically be added to your page and THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. This move seems a bit more Draconian. No company wants to have a presence on the web where people can openly bash their product or service. I think this can be a real deal-breaker when a company is looking at what social networks to attack. There are ways around this, like signing up as a brand or product rather than a business, but it's still a stumbling block.

As with everything on the internet, there's a certain hint of "fad" to things like this. Exhibit A: Second Life. If I had a nickel for every article I read on the incredible value of creating a brand-presence on Second Life then I might have enough cash to make up for all the money companies wasted on creating "virtual brand-worlds."

Since I fancy myself a critical thinker, I have to ask what the real value of Facebook Pages is. People are still warming up to Pages and the novelty factor is still really high. When people start to get tons of notes and updates from companies that they're a 'fan' of, will the novelty quickly wear off? As it stands right now, when you become a fan of a company on Facebook, you're essentially saying, "Hi Company. Feel free to advertise to me directly now that I have expressed interest in your brand. By the way, here's all my demographic and psychographic information." If companies don't utilize this channel intelligently, I can see Pages eating itself alive within a year. (May I remind you of the Beacon debacle.)

Welp, the Colbert Report is starting and I've already babbled on too long. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, so please, comment to your heart's content.

A blog post with a cohesive and rational point.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:02:58 GMT

I'll start off this post by saying that the title is a complete lie. If this post has any cohesive and/or rational point, it would be purely by coincidence. But seeing as how April is here and Spring has 'sprung,' I thought I'd do a little mental spring cleaning and get some ideas down in print. This will also be a good exercise in whether or not I'm able to write and watch the Daily Show at the same time.

Vacation: I need one. I haven't taken a vacation day since I started at BR a year and a half ago. Sure, I've taken a day off here and there, but it was always to do other work. In fact, I don't think there have been any weekends when I haven't turned on a computer to get some stuff done. All this and I still FEEL like I haven't accomplished much of anything. Yep, I think that's cause for unplugging all electronics for a good solid week and running away from home for a while.

Information Fire Hose: Too much information is often worse than too little information. Between the emails, IMs, Twitter updates, Flickr photos, podcasts and RSS feeds, I have a volume of crap flying at me that is completely unwieldy. I've scaled back all of these channels lately and now I just want to cut out MORE! Sometimes you just have to take a hard look at yourself and come to terms with the fact that there is a finite amount of content that you can consume.

Lifting, running. I've inherited a weight bench and a treadmill so I've started lifting and running again. For most of 2006-7, the house project was my workout. I had huge piles of dirt to shovel and rocks and lumber to move around. But now that the house is all in one piece, I need something else. So now my garage is my low-cost, local gym. Come on by if you want to blast your quads and juice your pecs. YEAH!

Cheetos: What the hell is this Orange Underground junk? Am I to believe that eating Cheetos is edgy and anti-establishment? Hip young people are really sticking it to the man with the help of Frito-Lay! Sorry Chester. Not today… Not today.

Obsessed With Stats II: The Reckoning

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:56:37 GMT

A few months ago I wrote an entry about how I have OCD when it comes to checking my site stats. I'm happy to report that I still open up Google Analytics and AWStats every single day and see how my little web children are doing. I can stop any time I want, seriously, I'm fine.

My favorite type of stats for the816.com are the search keywords. I thought they couldn't get weirder than the list I posted in the last entry, but I was wrong. So here are some of my new favorite search terms that landed people on my site. I've also added my theory as to the circumstances of each particular search.

Search Term: "roeland park ghetto"

Whoever was searching for "roeland park ghetto" was obviously doing research for an essay entitled "The Mean Streets of Kansas Suburbs." I don't know if many of you have been to Roeland Park, but it's definitely not a safe place to be after dark. The Price Chopper and Lowe's Home Improvement Store attract a dangerous element. Roving gangs of soccer moms and and Nascar dads have been known for unprovoked attacks of outsiders.

Search Term: "michael scott bar fight"

I'm a big fan of The Office. I have seen each episode one too many times and my sister even got me a Dunder Mifflin t-shirt for Christmas. I have not, however, seen an episode where Michael Scott got into a bar fight. There was an incident where he fought Dwight in a dojo. There was even a day when Prison Mike related stories of jail fights. But I've never seen Michael Scott in a bar fight. Now that I think of it, that would make a great episode. Michael drives out to a Pennsylvania road house where he picks fights with tattooed bikers and ends up getting his face cut with a broken bottle. Instant NBC classic.

Search Term: "in the year 1500 what product did jacques nicot introduce for the first time into france?"

I swear to you that I am not making this one up. My guess is that someone was watching Jeopardy and was surreptitiously googling answers in order to impress their friends and family. It's important that people think you are smart. There is no better way to prove your intelligence than to shout out correct answers at the TV when Jeopardy is on. Incidentally, the answer to the question is: nicotine.

Search Term: "kick testickes"

A fourth grade boy makes a threat to kick young Timmy in the testickes. Not understanding this threat, Timmy decides to google this phrase to understand what part of his body might be kicked. After clicking on several search results, including one that is inexplicably on the816.com, he notices that Google has made a suggestion. Did you mean "kick testicles?" This leads to a new line of Google searches for 'testicles' and young Timmy is shocked and horrified and spends the remainder of his school years in therapy.

Search Term: "cow falls off cliff & utah"

Not only did a cow fall off a cliff, it fell off of Utah. I'm guessing that whoever did this search has a shaky grasp of what a cow can and can not fall off of. Maybe they meant to type, "cow falls off cliff & lands in utah." But that would only make slightly more sense. My point is that our public education system is crap. Increase funding for physics and zoology!

There are tons more, but I heard that people don't actually read more than a single paragraph on any given page. So if you've made it this far you must be some type of overachiever or super-reader. Go read something else, super-reader. I've run out of things to type.

But seriously, folks…

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:27:10 GMT

That last post was fun but now it's time to put on my serious hat and my matching serious pants and do some serious writing. Disclaimer: This post is equal parts rant and prosthelization.

There have been some web-related dilemmas knocking around in my head and I thought posting about them might make the inside of my head a little quieter. I need to get some work done and I can't have these little quandaries making noise. So here they are in no specific order.

HTML Email: Holy crap, what a headache. For anyone who has had to navigate the minefield of countless client-side bugs and ridiculous neglect of web standards, you know what I'm talking about. For everyone else, here's an analogy. Imagine being asked to design a pair of gloves. Not a big deal, right? But there's a slight hitch. Not everyone who will wear these gloves have the same number of fingers. Some don't even have fingers and others aren't really sure how many fingers they have. How can you possibly design a glove for all these people? The solution: Design a big ugly mitten and hope for the best. I have serious doubts about the efficacy of HTML emails, I don't think I've ever received one that has rendered properly (or at all). There's this ongoing conflict between the client who wants to email a print ad and the ugly mittens we have to send out.

Bells and Whistles for Bells' and Whistles' Sake: "Because it's possible" is not an acceptable reason to add something to a website. This paragraph's other name is: "1999 called and it wants its 'Send to a Friend' links back." I think I'll just leave it at that.

Paying for clicks without considering what happens after the click: AdWords, banners and all other PPC tricks are completely pointless if you don't give the user anything in return for their click. As the sage Seth Godin has said, it's as if you're telling a joke but delivering some unrelated punchline at the end. Here's a crazy idea, how about we take some cash out of the huge media buy and put it into a nice landing page that might *gasp* cause user interaction.

Ok. That's enough venting for one night. I promise the next post will have some amusing MP3s or funny photoshopped pictures of celebrities.

Let's Bring Back Website Jingles

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:53:00 GMT

For those of you as old as I am (Nearly 30 now, sheesh.) You may remember that a site called newstoday.com used to have a jingle that played each and every time that you went to the site. Unfortunately they no longer have this awesome jingle. I was thinking that in 2008, we should bring back this fantastic practice of imposing audio on unsuspecting viewers. I've created a few jingles for humble submission to a few of my favorite websites.

Facebook.com: This is how I personally feel about Facebook. I have a strong suspicion that this is what Facebook was actually created for. Am I wrong? I mean, what else is it possibly good for?

Google.com: What else can be said about Google? This is the first place you go to when you want to search for anything, including grandfather clocks and midget porn.

Twittter.com: This jingle doesn't apply to all the people that I follow on Twitter. It's all those other people. I promise.

PitchforkMedia.com: They gave Beck's "Odelay" an 8.5 and Wico's "Sky Blue Sky" a 5.2. What the hell is wrong with you?

Univision.com: I didn't know anything about Univision's web site. I just thought this was funny.

Kansas City (Where it's at)

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:01:31 GMT

Since I enjoy making websites, getting attention and making things that are funny, I made a little joke site. The joke was inspired by this thread on a KC message board. It's 34 pages long, so I won't blame you at all if you don't read it. Long story short, people from Kansas City proper can get irritated when they encounter people who assume they live in Kansas. Herein lies the comedy gold.

For those of you who don't hold an advanced degree in geography, here's the deal. There is a Kansas City, Kansas and there is a Kansas City, Missouri. Why 19th century town-namers thought this was a good idea, I will never know. For all intents and purposes, when someone says "Kansas City," they're more than likely referring to the entire Kansas City metro, of which Kansas City, Missouri is the largest part. Clear? No? Well, don't sweat it. I'm from Nebraska where things are less ambiguous. Nebraska City, although dangerously close to Iowa, is still solidly inside the state of Nebraska.

I've always thought that this issue was funny, but I had no idea that people had such strong feelings about it. I've been to at least one concert where the band announced, "It's great to be here in Kansas!" and the crowd angrily shouted back, "Missouri!" And the forum thread I linked above shows how amazingly serious some people take this issue.

My response to all this hullabaloo was www.kansascityisinmissouri.com. A fake online educational resources supposedly paid for by a non-profit organization called "Concerned Missourians for Truth." The site's position is that Kansas City, Missouri is the ONLY Kansas City and that the American public needs to be educated about this important issue. I designed it to look a little plain and business-y to help pull off the joke.

Evidently, people thought it was clever enough to link to and I got some really great traffic. Most of the traffic came from StumbleUpon.com. The comments there are almost as hilarious as the 'testimonials' that people posted to the site.

The comments I got via email ranged from, "Hey, funny site!" to "You're doing a grave disservice to people by propagating false information." It's amazing how seriously people can take a joke website based on a ridiculous geography debate. I took a few digs at the suburbs (see the FAQs section) which riled some people up. But for the most part, I think people just found it amusing, which is good. That's what I was going for.

But now, ten days after launch, the hits are starting to dry up. *sigh* Maybe if I add a hilarious "There Will Be Milkshakes" parody… Yes… Awesome. No one's done that yet!