Have a safe New Years Eve. I mean that. I'll be back tomorrow with a year end wrap up.
Via Zeldman, Mappa.Mundi Magazine is back online. A great site that has some incredible content.
My copy of The Art of the Matrix arrived this morning. This is a must have book if you are a Matrix fanatic. It includes the storyboards and comic type treatments that were used in making the movie. Really high quality stuff and very interesting to compare to the final products. I've now dug out the DVD and am going to spend this afternoon in a Matrix induced haze.
Meg and Ev make the New York Times with Invasion of the 'Blog': A Parallel Web of Personal Journals.
For the head of the company, Jeff Bezos has a remarkably long Wish List. Maybe he's trying to drum up some business.
The Standards Process: Money Talks, Bullshit Walks is a great commentary on the difference between standards theory and real life practice in code.(via Scripting News.)
All of the Pocket PCs Software List is the place to find Pocket PC software. If only finding someone with the accessories for the iPaq was this easy.
When Media One got bought by AT&T Broadband a few months ago, I had hoped that the service would improve, as Media One has been really really bad. Cable service is interrupted on a regular basis. Today, despite a confirming phone call about my appointment last night, they decided to not come out and service my cable. This terrible customer service is the most compelling reason for me to go with some sort of dish solution. They weren't apologetic at all, and wouldn't work with me about the reschedule at all. More evidence about the disturbing decline in customer service in today's corporate world.
I'm also currently entering the world of sushi chef experimentation with the National 5 Cup Deluxe Fuzzy Rice Cooker I received as a gift. If you have any sushi making tips or tricks, email me. I'll post the best ones here.
I've watched a bunch of movies over the last week that I've been meaning to get around to for a while. Virgin Suicides was the one that stands out most from the pack. Somber and intelligently delightful, with an amazing soundtrack, it will stick with me for a while. Also really entertaining was Bring it On. Kirsten Dunst was great in both movies.
I had a great holiday. I feel recharged. It's not about gifts, or eating tons of food, but about spending time with people I care about. I wish, very much, that I could have spent the holiday with my family, but I did get to curl up on the couch with my sweetie, and that was the next best thing.
Apple launches an Internet Developer section of it's developer site?
American Airlines | aa.com is generating a nice big fat error message. Gotta love that Broadvision.(It's fixed now, but it was down for over an hour.)
The New York Giants, my team of choice, managed to clinch the NFC East last night. They are, I'll admit, in a pretty weak division in comparison to say, the AFC East, but I'll take it.
Jake has a dotcom Screenshot graveyard going. Great idea.
Links2Go does a pretty solid job of relating other sites to mine. I'm reading along and thinking to myself, yep Weblogs, yep, more Weblogs, then suddenly, "Religous News"???? I don't think I have ever, or will ever discuss religous news on my site. Odd.
My last Monday in the office this year. A good time for me to mull over the last year of my career and look ahead a little. Tomorrow, I head off on my last business trip of the year, traveling out to our headquarters in California for a couple of days of year end meetings. There's something that is very anti-holiday about business travel this close to Christmas. It's been an interesting year, more from a business experience perspective than a technical one. We sold our company, integrated/are still integrating with the buyers, and are moving ahead with the new company's strategies. This is not a experience without some level of discomfort. Most of the technical experience that I've gotten has to do with project design and architecture, and I spent a lot of time learning XML oriented technology.
I'm very much looking forward to 2001 from a career perspective, despite the current climate for Internet companies. The industry is being punished for people with questionable business ideas who overhyped the value of those businesses, with the help of the venture capital and investment communities. The inevitable chain reaction through the companies that feed off the failed dot-coms has lead to the demise and devaluation of the service companies that make up the next rung of the food chain. The only thing I have to say/can say to everyone is to not throw the baby out with the bath water, to not follow the hype back in the other direction. There's a middle ground there inhabited by companies with good ideas and value propositions for their customers. There are whole realms where the networked world is going to impact things in our lives in far reaching ways that we haven't seen yet.
I've spent most of my waking hours today, with the exception of a side trip to Doc Chey's for much needed noodle fuel, creating fun(not really) network and software infrastructure diagrams with Visio for a client. I can't say that I really like Visio, especially after having used Inspiration, with it's built in outliner, which makes getting a diagram together far easier.
Good Grief! The Highs and Lows of Usability Testing is an interesting look, not about the merits of usability testing, but about learning to cope with and apply the lessons learned from it.
This page has video clips from the show. Apparently, there will be an American version of Junkyard Wars starting in January.
Junkyard Wars has to be the greatest television program that I have ever watched. Think of it as The Iron Chef in a junkyard. If you have TLC, I highly recommend checking it out.
If you use BBEdit(If you use a Mac and do Web stuff you should.), here are some great Tips and Tricks worth reading.
I'm going to the Atlanta Thrashers game tonight. It's my first hockey game of the season. I always seem to have trouble getting excited about hockey and basketball until after football season has ended.(Thanks for the tickets David.)
The Downfall of Internet Consultants takes a look at what went wrong with iXL, Marchfirst and their like. I am feeling more and more that Internet consulting, with the current state of things, is not something that can easily be replicated into a large consulting company. All the best shops, who do the best work, are smaller companies or boutique shops. This is, in part, because quality people who are bright and get the Internet are still quite difficult to find.
The Delicate Art of (Web) Design Critique is a great overview of this very touchy subject and how anyone can apply these techniques to grow as a Web designer.
Without Willliam Shakespeare, there would be no bump, and therefore no bump.net.
The Street has already been cancelled. Oddly, I liked the show quite a bit, and I'm sure it is better than many of the other new shows that premiered this season. My favorite new show, Boston Public, is still going strong.(I hope) Perhaps they should have tried The Street in a time slot where it wasn't going up against The West Wing.
This new Nokia is probably the best looking PCS phone I've seen so far. Seems like there are new phones every month from these companies now.
You know you've been slacking a little too much on your weblog when you get an email from your mother asking why you haven't been updating:-)
infoSync is another great mobile device site worth checking out. They have great screenshots and coverage of devices that haven't yet been discussed elsewhere.
After a great Thanksgiving trip to visit family in the NorthEast and a hectic and stressful interim week of work, I'm going down to Florida over the weekend to relax a little. Next week, I'll be attending XML 2000 in Washington DC giving presentations about our company's platform.