Tag: Random

  • The Power of Standard Interfaces

    Imagine that Toyota (or some big car manufacturer) came out with a standard interface to the stereo system.  It looked like a tray above the center dash that could hold your cell phone or ipod or small device.  At the bottom of the tray was a removable interface.  You could plugin a iPod adapter or a Zune…

  • Repetitive Phrase Disorder

    It’s not everyone, but there are alot of people who have particular phrases that they say all the time.  Some examples: Kevin, a guy who used to work for me, said “Essentially” about 20 times per sentence.  Another variant was “Basically” which several people I know say in every sentence. At least 1 in 40…

  • Google driving strange traffic

    Google ranks pages according to really strange algorithms.  I don’t do any active SEO on my blog.  However, Google ranks me very high for certain searches.  They often distract me from understanding my traffic.  See illustration below: You can see all the traffic in the middle was when my posts on Windows 7 and Office 2010…

  • The UX of Rock Band 3 – Prerelease

    Check out this sneak peak at what Rock Band 3 will be like: A real keyboard, more realistic drums and a guitar that is a real world guitar.  This takes learning music to a whole new level. I am very excited to get this for my kids.  Currently, only the drums are a close analog…

  • My Google AdSense Month

    After 30 days of having ads on the right of my blog, I now have data that shows how much money I could make with Google.  It was really difficult getting analogous information on the web, so I hope this is helpful to other people.  I am going to disclose the exact stats and money…

  • How much can you make with Google AdSense?

    I actually found it a bit difficult and confusing to answer this question.  There are many variables including traffic, audience make-up, page rank, ad size, placement and more.  The numbers are all over the map.  I am happy to share my stats with this experiment. My prediction originally was $2 a month.  I wasn’t very…

  • Re-buying Lost Books

    Sometimes, I lend a treasured book to a friend or even an acquaintance.  Through some happenstance, I end up not getting the book back.  I hate this.  I am one of those people who like to keep the books I have read around because they remind me of what’s inside and also because they make…

  • Marketo – The Sequel

    After an 8 month hiatus, I have rejoined Marketo.  Truthfully, I found myself using the sentence “At Marketo we _________ and it worked great!” way too many times.  I know I missed alot of things about Marketo and am really surprised 2010 worked out this way.  It feels weird, like a High School reunion with…

  • New Theme – April 2010

    I couldn’t help myself. I am using the 3.0 beta version of WordPress. It comes with a new theme that is pretty clean from an HTML standpoint. I haven’t made a theme in a long time, so I took the opportunity to build one up. Voila. It’s not done yet, but it’s a good start.…

  • A Better Goldman Sachs Metaphor

    There have been many analogies and metaphors used to describe the Goldman Sachs fraud case.  I think alot of them are bad.  John Stewart was very funny talking about them. Metaphors and Analogies are important tools for User Experience (UX) design.  Not only is it helpful to explain to your peers what you are trying…

  • Font replacement strategies

    I’ve tried many different methods for font replacement on my site.  I just can’t help wanting to use a fancy font.  I just switched techniques, but here is the complete rundown. Cufon. A JavaScript implementation that uses Canvas tags to change the fonts of specified tags.  It uses jQuery to find the fonts and a…

  • April Fools, 2010

    I love April Fools.  It is permission to have a sense of humor once a year.  It takes time to come up with a good joke.  It should be clever and not too mean.  One year I told my dad that we were pregnant with our fourth child.  He got really angry.  I don’t have…

  • Why the Jets slow down my internet access

    Follow this trail. I want to watch the New York Jets football games.  The problem is that I live in California. So I chose DirecTV with their NFL Superfan package to get the games. (Crazy expensive) DirecTV doesn’t have internet access so I got DSL from DSLExtreme. I also have to pay for a basic…