I still feel terrible. Coughing. Can’t breathe. It’s amazing how a little thing like breathing can sap your creative energy. This cough has been nagging me for over a week. I am afraid that I won’t be able to play tennis on Sunday. Katie is starting to cough more now too. I bought this thing called Sootherbs. Its got Vitamin C, Echinacea and Zinc. For me, this is combining three cough drops into one. I also got NyQuil and Robitussin. Plus Ricola, which is basically menthol drops. Nothing works, it’s all crap. I am coughing, coughing. Yuck.

I had some UX thoughts, and then they just slipped away. Coughed awa, most likely.

So since I can’t concentrate, I will write a little philosophy:

Some people put negative feelings towards others in their car trunk and it weighs them down on the road of life. I try to put those feelings in the gas tank and use them to drive me forward.

Articles like this make me sick. It’s saying, the only reason people by hybrids is to say to their neighbor, “See, I am saving the world!”. While this may be true, it still is ugly and it shows the worst in us. And worse still, it shows how corporate America thinks of us. We are selfish, shallow jackasses who only care about how we look. We don’t really care about the environment, we just want to be perceived as progressive.

Now, while this may be the case with some, it’s not the case with everyone. Some people want to stop sucking the world dry of its natural resources. Some people want to stop contributing to global warming. I don’t need to be PERCEIVED as saving the world. I want to be a good citizen of the world. I actually want to reduce my carbon footprint.

My biggest problem with hybrid cars is, “Where are the hybrid Minivans?” I would think this is the FIRST market to tackle. No one buys a minivan because it’s sexy. We buy them because they fit our gaggle of kids. We are parents and we have tuitions to think about. We want to save gas and do out part for the planet so our kids have sunshine and rivers and clouds in the future. Because the minivan is big, it can store LOTS of batteries! Specifically, I want a Minivan Plugin that gets over 100 miles to the gallon. And I really don’t care if it looks funky, like a tree-hugger car. It can look my Sienna for all I care.

If you know someone who makes cars, please pass along the request.

Brad Neuberg posted this awesome vision statement on his blog. Well, it’s not really a vision statement, but it felt like it so I will call it that.  It made me sit and think about the big questions that I have in my mind.  I wrote a list of the things that I am working on or want to work on, but that isn’t the same thing.

Here are some of the big questions I have, that I want to answer in the next few years.  Some are personal and some are about the world.

1. What is my special purpose?  This is from the movie The Jerk with Steve Martin.  Is UX my special purpose?  Am I going to design something insanely great?  I have always felt that I have a special purpose.  I don’t quite yet know what it is.  I feel I am a creative thinker.  I feel that I have special potential.  But I don’t feel that I have made use of it yet in the way I want.  I have come close with Hotkoko and some other things, but I don’t feel I have it yet.
2. When can I stop using the keyboard?  It’s not just a matter of voice-activation recognition. I don’t use a keyboard to drive my car or peddle my bike.  I don’t use the mouse to read a book.  Why is technology so “screen” driven?  I don’t know what will change this, but one day, we will not be looking at screens and typing on keyboards.  I’ll know it when I see it.
3. What do permissions mean when everything is shared?  Do I REALLY trust my wife’s trusted friends?  For that matter, do I really trust my wife?  I don’t like her reading my email, but she does it all the time, when I leave it open on her computer.  It’s not that I have anything to hide, but I want some privacy in communications.  Should she have permission to see SOME of my emails?  What about my schedule, calendar, pictures and linkedIn profile?  What about my kids?  What about people who want to hire me?  As my entire life becomes digital, I become increasingly aware of opportunities to share and concern for levels of permission and privacy.  Is anything truly private anymore?  Google hosts all my email.  Only what is in my head is private and I keep blogging about that.
4. Will my kids read this blog one day?  Will they care?  Will I want to read their blog?  My dad hasn’t read one word of this blog.  My mom does.  But is that because she thinks I am special or because she loves reading about the Jets and UX?  What is the point of blogging?  Am I helping anyone?  Helping myself?  Is it ego or the desire to communicate and interact with people?  I imagine a little of both.
5. How can I get better at programming?  Do I need to get better at programming?  I constantly want to make things, but constantly bump into my skill ceiling.  If I could program, I think I could make things that people could use.  Always the architect and never the general contractor.  Sometimes, it feels good to build things with your own hands.  Even if it’s programming.
6. Is there something after IM?  It’s like ESP already.  Trillian brings it all together in terms of protocols, but is there a new model.  I remember using LanTalk with the guys at SONY in 1994.  I knew IM was a winner.  But it has stagnated since then.  It’s been popular, but it hasn’t changed much.

That seems like a good list for now.  The first one is the one that I am most interested in right now.

For about a decade now, I have used TrayColor as a must-have utility to pick colors off the screen and get their HEX for html and css.  It’s tiny, works perfectly, sits in the tray.  It’s few quirks seemed to be minor enough and it was free.  I don’t know who made it.  I used to get it off a site called Spinning Jenny, but that seems to be gone.

I just tried this alternate program from Veign called Pixeur.  It’s also free and also sits in the tray.  It’s a bigger program but not huge and it launches as quickly as TrayColor.  It adds a few features, like a larger preview window so I can really target a specific pixel color, like a 1px border.  It also gives you the ability to save colors and see a theme of matched colors for a palette.  These little extras make me want to give it a go.  Plus the little quirks from TrayColor aren’t there.  Like I can double-click the icon in the tray and it pops up.

So far it’s nice, I give it a good rating.  Give it a try.

This is a great effect for a menu, with lots of easy customization.  It’s called LavaLamp. (jQuery Plugin)

I wonder if it could be made into a vertical menu.  I would use it on the top left of this page.

Sometimes, I marvel at the creativeness of some people.  This effect isn’t something I could come up with on my own, but it works perfectly.  I feel like the guy in Amadeus who is cursed with the ability to recognize genius, but not create it himself.

Katie is the master of our domain.  She maintains the family finances and schedules.  She is the COO, CFO and CEO of the house.  (I am the CTO)  Recently, we have had the need to share our family calendar in a distributed way.  She had been using Outlook Calendars on her laptop, but that didn’t publish well.  It was a fairly intense calendar with color coding for each member of the family and lots of overlapping appointments.

I twisted her arm and forced her to switch to Google Calendars.  I have been extremely pleased and impressed with the functionality and elegance of design.  It is another great example of a Web 2.0 application.  It looks a little like a web page and a little like an application.  It uses Ajax heavily and includes lots of features the user might want.  She created a separate calendar for each member of the family and color coded the calendar.  This is a different approach Google uses, one in which I think has merit over individual appointment coloring.

Sharing is easy.  So far, we haven’t found one thing wrong with it.  It’s early still, so I want to see how it stands the test of time.

Interestingly, I also  switched Katie from POP3 direct from our host to forwarding her mail to GMail and using POP3 to pull it down from there.  She doesn’t notice any negative side-effects.  if anything, it’s much faster.  I have already dropped Outlook and have been happily using GMail for almost 2 years now.  I think Katie will eventually make the switch too.  This is a bad trend for Microsoft.  I have always been a strong Microsoft user, but I find myself using Google products more and more.  Picassa, Gmail, Documents, Calendar, Maps and Analytics.  I just could not possibly see myself using the Microsoft alternatives.  They are just much too hard and inconvenient.

Google’s vision of online software has been consistent and strong.  Every time they release a  product, I find myself using it and dropping the Microsoft alternative.  Change is in the air.

Warning:  This post may make you sick. 

First Daniel, Lindy and Molly had a horrible time getting a flight to the west coast.  Then when they finally got on a plane (last one of the night), molly threw up on Daniel’s lap during the landing.  He wasn’t even allowed to get up to clean off until the plane stopped.  Could you imagine sitting next to a man and his daughter in that situation.  Ugh, poor Daniel!

Then, the next day, Matthew had diarrhea.  He had to poop over and over.  Then Jared complained of stomach aches.  He went to lie down and Ethan and Bapu and I went to the park.  At the exact same moment, Ethan and Jared threw up.  Ethan in the park, Jared in Matthew’s bed.  They continued to throw up a few times.  That night, Matthew threw up in his bed.  Then I threw up at 4am.  Then Katie threw up at 4:30am.  Then Daniel threw up at 5am.

We spent the next day lying down and sleeping.  In 48 hours, I ate a half a sandwich and a glass of water.  I lost 5 lbs.  Then Daniel started to complain loudly.  Turns out he dislodged a kidney stone during his vomiting.  PAIN! Ugh, poor Daniel again!  He is having the worst time of all.  Lindy, last night was also feeling queasy.  I have a feeling she is due for the hurling sickness.

Can this family visit have been any more ruined?  I have to go to work now, but I still feel drained.

I got this error in Vista yesterday. I closed the error, closed my other programs and rebooted. Was it really Catastrophic? Come on. Whoever writes these errors is not thinking. A user doesn’t want to see that. They want to see something friendly. I would have rewritten this error to say, “Something bad happened and we can’t tell what. The best thing would be to reboot.”

Windows errors are so damn obscure. I wish they would spend some time giving better information on error. I spend an hour yesterday trying to fix another machine when Word 2007 kept crashing. The Office diagnostics said, “Nothing is wrong!” Meanwhile, it was jacked. Eventually, I discovered that erasing a small bit of registry fixed the problem. I found this out in a Microsoft forum. Why can’t Office erase that registry entry itself? It knows about the fix?

I am just saying, The features of Vista and Office 2007 are great. Now work on the quality.

The last few days I have been using Microsoft Media Player to listen to music while I work. Specifically, I have been trying their iTunes competitor called Urge. I signed up, but went for the “free” plan. I don’t want to buy music, I just want to listen to the radio for free. Two channels Crunch and Indie are really good alternative stations. They are independent and commercial free. Crunch has station messages which basically are calling on people to help keep net radio free. Interestingly, they are both DJ’d by the same guy, Jesse Averna. The music selection on both stations are really good.

The UI of Urge is solid as well. It keeps track of all the music I have listened to. I can then click on the song and see the album and purchase the album. I like this alot. Radio is the best way to experience new music, and buying right there is the best way to convert my interest into commercial dollars. Plus it’s alot less expensive for artists. I would like to see a day where the music industry was more wide-spread and artists were comfortable NOT making as much money. It’s not all about money. Sometimes it’s just about fame.

UPDATE: Seems I was wrong, Indie DJ is Maxmillian Diez, drummer of Audio Out Send.  Not sure why VH1 had it wrong.  The Indie channel is really neet.  I literally have never heard of any of the songs.  Crunch has songs I have heard of.  I guess I will switch off.  It would be cool if Media Player would let me alternate between the two.

I really have come to enjoy and appreciate the service SiteUptime. They will ping a site and keep track of whether it displays in a browser. The first site is free with 15 minute checks. For 5 bucks a month you get 3 sites at 5 minute intervals plus other checks. That is an AWESOME value for any business. I would suggest to any business out there to do the $5 a month. I have monitored this site with it for the past couple of months, as well as another site on MediaTemple.net. So far, MediaTemple has not been down. 100% uptime for me. On the other hand, LunarPages has been down for 5 minutes once every 2 weeks. Look at my statistics here. This is proof-pudding that LunarPages can not maintain even 3 nines. (99.9%). The best they can claim is 99% uptime.

I have to say, I am terribly disappointed in LunarPages. Sure, they are way better than PowWeb, but still, this sucks. Maybe next time I will try BlueHost? The problem with MediaTemple is that it’s twice as expensive, plus it uses Plesk as the admin system, which I really have grown to dislike. It’s unbelievably confusing. The UX guy on it screwed the pooch. It’s pretty, but the IA is completely unusable. They should switch to a left hand tree-structure to allow quick exploring to find what you are looking for, and an Ajax search bar to find the things based on keywords.

SiteUptime is monitoring 71,355 sites according to their own report. I give it an A+ for value.

If you have a site using another host, get SiteUptime for free (15 min check interval). Comment the Public stats page here with the name of the host. I think consumers have a right to see these real world stats.