e.g. Loading ajax content that uses sifR or lightbox javascripts will result in the sifR or lightbox functions failing.

As for layouts, I am used to a good vertical layout, which I suppose is only good if the form isn’t really long. I have definitely been a fan of Yahoo’s sign up pages, because they accomplish something that most of my stuff doesn’t. The forms feel user-friendly. The colors and the small graphics and the friendly text that almost feels like a conversation just work together.

My favorite sign up screen though was the one I build earlier this year for Sun Buggy. My boss wanted it to cause the user to feel compelled to fill it out, and ultimately wasn’t satisfied until the screen had bold black text used small-caps instead of lowercase lettering, and presented the input fields with almost nothing else on screen. Felt like you ere being ordered to log in. I wonder how many people saw it and got scared.

This quarter, I have Frank Pinto at 8 AM on Mondays. I’m going to try very hard to sleep through until Tuesday most weeks.

We don’t mean to be intrusive. We only share what is public and/or what you tell us to share. We try to enhance the data to make it even more valuable without you doing any work.

Please let us know if you have any more feedback or suggestions. Feel free to email me, ryan at swurl.

2. Do double duty - you do still work at iStream no?

3. No, the only extra book you get to pick up is “iStreamPlanet Digital Asset Management Official Guide”. Oh wait, you’re writing that novel. Sorry, my bad.

4. Tru dat. But take every day for what it is…the only regret is that you may not get another so live it up today.

1. pick just one??? I have many to choose from! OK, yes I’m well on my way with this one.

2. just a little??? There is not enough hours in the day! OK, I’m actually 2 for 2.

3. pick another one of my many books??? This one will be the chosen ONE! OK, so far I’m a perfect 3 for 3.

4. enjoy just a day??? Enjoy life cause you’ve got just one! My motto: The regrets in life are the chances you never take.

–
Mark
AKA: Visual Deviant

By the same token, though, are we stuck in a very infantile stage of this whole movement where we can’t get past the whole silly face-to-face socializing aspect? Can we get past the watching and get to believing?

The whole social networking thing-I’m GREATLY over it. I think it’s gotten to the point where everyone figured “Okay, had my fun and put my name out there, enough with the online frenzy” I HOPE. I real reason I’ve been hearing lately is that if these networking sites weren’t so darn handy for keeping in contact with one another accounts would be canceling left and right.

I’ve browsed through some interesting profiles and seen the types of lifestyles people live and think “Wow, that is so exciting! That’s how I wanna live my life!!” then you realize that they could be BS’ing the whole thing. The only reason I browse around now is for web tricks and designs.

I think that’s why people continue to watch others profiles-they haven’t come to realization that it could be fake/exaggerated and if not it’s hard to look at ourselves from another perspective. I’d hate to look at myself and say “What a loser, she wastes her day browsing myspace profiles”. I also remind myself that I don’t want to be a creepy stalker hiding in the shadows afraid to let anyone know I’m watching. Thank goodness for the ability to make profiles PRIVATE.

My two cents, end.

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

The true solution to video game piracy is probably systems like Steam, or Stardock Central. These systems don’t prevent the piracy directly, but they do reward the players who purchace the games legally. I saw a crack once to run Counter Strike Source, but it required completely removing Steam from your system, and running some separate removal tool, followed by a crack, and you could then play over the network. This is great. By making the public servers require authentication, you are rewarding the players who have the Steam connection, which, when you connect to the server, verifies your game (which you already likely won’t have access to through steam without having purchased it. The people who would go through the trouble of pirating it would have done so anyways, and you are keeping them out of the public servers while giving them a taste of the game, which could lead to them purchasing it, just to play online when there isn’t a LAN game going on.

The music industry has the right idea. Kind of like shareware programs (man, thats an old term), giving the users a free taste of it, and allowing them to understand that the content they can pay for is so much better seems like it is the way to go. Understandably, video games can’t really ‘go on tour’, but this shouldn’t stop them from making the paid content harder to steal (the equivalent of sneaking past security into a concert), and more rewarding.

Congrats on your impending graduation!

“At the end of the day, the people who “do stuff” will always have the advantage over the people who “don’t do stuff”. Pirates are slowly motivating ever increasing levels of DRM and in time, I hate to say it, DRM is going to win. That’s because the people motivated to make the DRM work (the people who do stuff) greatly outnumber the motivation of the people who don’t do stuff.

One can easily picture a future in 5 years in which the telecoms, the PC makers, the OS makers, and the software makers have teamed up (and you only need any two of them to do so) to eliminate unauthorized usage of a given piece of IP. If you don’t think it can be done, then you probably don’t have much experience in writing software. The DRM and copy protection of today is piddly 1-party solutions.

The DRM of tomorrow will involve DRM parternships where one piece of protect IP can key itself off another. Thus, if even one item on your system is pirated (whether it be cracked or not) it will get foiled as long as there is one item in the system that you use that isn’t cracked (whether it be the OS or something in your hardware or whatever). It will, as a practical matter, make piracy virtually impossible.

Computer games and video will likely be the first two targets because piracy of them is so rampant. A pirated copy of something doesn’t mean it’s a lost sale. But piracy does cause lost sales. Moreover, it’s just incredibly frustrating to see people using the fruits of your labor as if they were somehow entitled to it.

I have long been and continue to be a big proponent of alternative ways to increase sales. I don’t like piracy being blamed for the failure of a game because it tends to obscure more relevant issues which prevent us, as an industry, from improving what we do. But at the same time, I don’t like pirates trying to rationalize away their behavior because they do cost sales. I’ve seen people in our forums over the years boldly admit they’re pirating our game but that they are willing to buy it if we add X or Y to it — as if it’s a negotiation.

I don’t like DRM. But the pirates are ensuring that our future is going to be full of it because at the end of the day, the people who make stuff are going to protect themselves. It’s only a question of when and how intensive the DRM will get. And that’s something only the pirates can change — if you’re using a pirated piece of software, either stop using it or buy it.”

As far as the lack of enthusiasm for eco-friendly practices, I honestly think people are trying, particularly people with high exposure. Unfortunately, unless it is covered by mass media, the general population isn’t as likely to pick up on it. I’ve seen mentions in the news of celebrities driving hybrids, and car companies giving high profile electric and alternative fuel vehicles for free in hopes of expanding their markets (just recently Eli Manning, quarterback for the Giants who just won the Super Bowl just picked out a Hybrid Escalade), but this doesn’t even scratch the surface of what else can be done. I think it sends the message that driving a hybrid is all you can do to be more environmentally conscious. While hybrids produce less pollution, they are still oil dependent. And while celebrities may be trying to set an example, none of them are exactly “icons” on the level of someone like Michael Jordan, and may not appeal to everyone.

At the root of it all, I believe there is a genuine lack of education and understanding of conservation and eco-friendly lifestyles. A misconception is that being “green” is only for hippies and yuppies, and it is expensive. While some greener choices can cost more, over all, the basic principle of conservation will save money. It goes back to the simple rules learned in elementary school: reduce, reuse, recycle. Buy only what you need versus what you think you need or want, reuse what you can, and recycle everything. Most people live on a linear path which is destructive, while sustainability and repair requires a cycle. For example, only 1 in 10 people in the United States recycled their cell phone last year whether it was in the form of actual recycling or donation. The rest were either “lost” or thrown away. People just aren’t conscious of what goes in the dumpster. It’s “out of sight, out of mind.” If people were to SEE for themselves what is happening (as if freak killer tornadoes in the middle of winter aren’t enough), and really understand how EASY it is to change their ways, they might make at least one conscious step in the right direction. The the plastic swamps in the Pacific are a great example of what havoc we are wrecking on our little planet: http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we.shtml. It’s terribly depressing.

But really, the lack of education and understanding can, like everything else, be traced back to politics. We still have parties split over whether Global Warming is just hype and a hoax, or if it is legitimate. While I think the majority of scientists fully agree that it is real and a huge threat to our lives (just as we are at threat to ourselves), we still have many people in government touting that these scientists are crazy, and it being broadcasted on the airwaves. Dependent on which news station you watch (and I won’t name names here), you are going to get either the pro-global warming or pro-hoax “news.” Political parties still have to protect their pockets, and protect the companies that pump out all these consumer goods that are damaging to the environment and promote consumerism. Everything is designed to fill our consumer hearts, and major companies cannot lose their grip on that. Government gives huge subsidies to massive corporations to aide their expansion and to allow them to continue using damaging practices to manufacture their products. WalMart is a major offender and prime example of this. Unless there is some mass awakening, or tighter legislation on pollutants, chemicals, manufacturing, etc, the problem is going to continue.

To be “green” is to let go of the hording consumer inside, and realize the difference between necessity and desire. It is the core understanding that we are all missing, and it is exactly what mass media and political figures are hiding.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/03/can-google-still-claim-to-be-david-to-microsofts-goliath-no/
http://mashable.com/2008/02/03/microsoft-yahoo-social-network/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/03/microsoft-responds-to-google-missive-that-was-quick/
http://searchengineland.com/080201-094751.php

I guess I don’t read too much about the news or whatever, but Bill Gates is stepping down? Did he finally decide to retire with this billions?

I don’t know how I feel about a Microsoft and Yahoo merger. I can see how the two companies would become somewhat of a powerhouse…although I’m not sure if they can compete with Google.

-Massive Attack
-Lil Wayne (to much!!)
-Portishead
-Abba
-Chopin
-Gorillaz
-EVERYTHING BOB MARLEY EVER DID!!!
-90% of what the Beatles produced
-A ton of Johnny Cash
-Dream Theather
-Eddie Murphy
-GUNTHER (www.gunthernet.com/) check this guy out!!
-And many many more

And I must honestly admit i have not paid for any of my songs, BUT…… I did get them from people who did pay for them if that helps!

In my player:
- [Soundtrack to] “Once” by Glen Hansard
- Korn (selections from each album)
- Ministry (pretty much everything)
- Chris Cornell “Unplugged Sweden”
- Portishead
- MrNorth “Lifesize+3″

And yes, I paid for all of them except the last one either because I bought the CD or paid for the download. The last was a gift.

I’m going to make a copy of this article and put it within touching distance on my desk. It’s my new check list for self-mastery.

Thanks.

http://www.makemylogobiggercream.com/

With that in mind, any suggestions from the class on whether or not providing my own class materials on mobile be viable? How many of you are actually able to acquire mobile data and if so by what means (mobile web, SMS/MMS push)? If we collectively feel that it is warranted, we may look into a solution as part of the IMD322 & IMD402 classes.