Month / June 2004

by TheJames

This Site, Other Sites, and Standards Compliance

Since this site recently became a considerably more publicly viewed entity, I have begun changing the way that I do some things here, and I stand firm in the way that I do others. I have moved my pictures over from the site that I had been using for more public works (ConcreteGenius.com). And I have revamped some other things here that will be transparent to almost everyone that has been visiting here for any amount of time. One of the thing that I would like to point out is my Gallery section. And of particular interest is my artwork section, and my EMS pictures.

Recently I stumbled across a neat plugin for Mac’s Mail.app written by Stefan called Mail Appetizer. It pops up a translucent window that shows the sender (and their picture if you have it assigned), time the message was sent, and the first few (~200) words of your incoming message.

One thing that was refreshing to see on someone else’s site other that mine, was this disclaimer about IE support and CSS. I have included an image of it in this post for your enjoyment.

To delve into this a little more, I would like to point out my current disclaimer about this site.

This site does have some fairly cutting edge CSS techniques used in it’s design that are not supported in all browsers (read: IE). It is not my intent to support all browsers here, this is a personal site.
Anyone reading this that is still using one of these browsers I urge you to upgrade sothat you may fully experience the web as it should be.

This is a very nice luxury that developing this site only as a personal site affords me. I can choose to only support browsers that comply with standards. However, when doing any sort of commercial work this is almost never an option. I say almost because there are times when working on a corporate intranet that you only have to worry about one certain browser. Unfortunately more often than not that browser is That which must not be named. This is made a little more simple because you (designers) know what to expect from that browser and don’t have to worry about a hack that fixes a bug in one browser causing errors in another. A mixed blessing of sorts.

by TheJames

Sam Walton's business tips

These were sent to me in an email some time ago. They are what’s claimed to be Sam Walton’s ideas for what has made his business (Wal*Mart) such a success. A lot of really good, and once again common sense information.

  • Rule #1

    Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anything else. If you love your work, you will be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.

  • Rule #2

    Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. It turn they will treat you as a partner, and perform beyond your wildest expectations.

  • Rule #3

    Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs.

  • Rule #4

    Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more thye know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

  • Rule #5

    Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.

  • Rule #6

    Celebrate your success and find humor in your failure. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails put on a costume and sing a silly song.

  • Rule #7

    Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line – the ones who actually talk to customers – are the ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.

  • Rule #8

    Exceed you customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses – apologize. Stand behind everything you do. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ will make all the difference.

  • Rule #9

    Control your expenses better than you competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you to inefficient.

  • Rule #10

    Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing if one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by doing it exactly in the opposite direction.

by TheJames

Apple with another amazing music innovation!

AirPort Express

Well, the tech world is a-buzz about another apple innovation! And this time they have really impressed me. They have released the AirPort Express basestation. I am usually one of the first to adopt new technology, and this is no exception. I just cannot wait to get my hands on one of these.

What does it do?

It has an ethernet port, a USB port, and an audio out. It is a wireless print server, it is a wireless access point, it is an extension to your existing wireless network. But what is so unique about this is that with the audio out you can stream music using iTunes 4.6 from you computer to whichever AirPort Express base-station you want to send it to.

It is clean, simple, useful and most importantly as it is designed by apple it will work correctly right out of the box with little fuss. It will be released in late July and will cost $129. Arstechnica has already reviewed it.

It seems that even the stock analysts like it as apple stock yesterday rose $1.03, or 3.6%, to close at $29.81, and a year to date rise of 39% as compared to the Nasdaq average rise of 0.86% rise for the same period.