seen

Music that you’ll probably like

Jess — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 21:39:34 +0000

I don’t think that Last.fm is a new site, in fact I’m pretty sure I heard about it from a couple different people prior to today. But this was the first time I was at my desk and could actually take a look at it. Very nifty. You can input your favorite band (I know, I know, noone has just one) and then an audio player will play songs that you are likely to enjoy based on that favorite band. Pretty cool. And a nice break from NPR.

Why Flash is bad

Jess — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:37:57 +0000

Now I don’t universally think that Flash is bad, and neither does the author of this article. But the point to take away is that an all-Flash site is generally not a good idea. In fact, even a mostly-Flash site is probably a bad idea if you want anybody to find you.

So while the animation and snazziness that Flash brings to your presence is a big lure, the fact is you’re probably going to be sacrificing more than it’s worth if you opt for an all-Flash site.

Nesting Loons

Jess — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:31:31 +0000

The common loon, state bird of Minnesota and national bird of Canada, had a nice feature on KARE 11 last night. The way they handle their eggs reminds me of the emperor penguins in March of the Penguins. Beautiful creatures. Make sure to watch the video to see the whole feature. It’s a nice one.

According to the report, Minnesota has the second largest population of common loons after Alaska. Their legs are so far back on their bodies that they can land on wet parking lots or highways and become stranded because they need a good stretch of water to take off. Because of the position of their legs, they can’t run to get airborn like some other water birds can.

Snow Days in July

Jess — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:22:04 +0000

With this lovely globaly-warmed weather that we’ve been having in Minnesota this year (and for that matter increasingly so for the past 5 summers), who wouldn’t want a good old snow day. When it’s consistently 90 degrees and soupy humid outside, what feels better than making your own snowflake?

Popular Front put this together several years ago for a holiday fun thing and it never gets old. And apparently I’m not the only one who thinks it never gets old. If you just sit and watch the screen, you’ll see “new” flakes floating by all the time. So pull out your mouse-driven scissors and start cutting your beautiful and unique snowflake!

Nike +

Jess — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:15:35 +0000

So this isn’t exactly brand new news, but it’s the first I’ve seen of it. Nike came out with a line of clothing that have integrated iPod storage and shoes that have a transmitter that sends a signal to your iPod. The combination means that you can integrate training goals (distance, time, calories burned), time elapsed, time to go, and average speed into your workout without having to do anything special.

The transmitter is $29; pretty low entry price for something that seems pretty cool to me. Then they added training albums (speed, endurance, strength, etc.) to the iTunes store. Seems like Nike and Apple are having some fun together!

And just to show how far behind I really am, Digg had a shoe hack posted on July 15. Oh well… I’m catching up!

Accessible Google

Jess — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:16:39 +0000

Google Labs has come out with a special accessible search engine that searches the web and gives priority ranking to site that are more accessible to those who are blind or visually impaired. Many of these users have screen readers that actually read the content (hidden and visible) of a page out loud. Sites that are built with XHTML/CSS and with a strict separation of presentation (style) and content are more likely to be easily read by this set of internet users because they place a priority on the content and allow for logical reading structure in the document versus the screen reader having to slog through a ton of code that’s there for presentation purposes only.

Tick timetracking

Jess — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:46:33 +0000

Not sure yet if this tool is a good thing, or just something to put even more unrealistic deadlines on software developers. But Tick web-based timetracking seems pretty cool to me, and hey, it integrates with Basecamp, so that’s a plus.

I could see as much use for this on internal projects (universities, corporations, etc.) as with agencies. After all, tracking the amount of time spent on internal constituents is as important as tracking time for external customers.