A User's Best Friend

A browser's back button is a user's best friend, and a Webdeveloper's worst enemy. Every save, create, I live in fear of somehow someway a user will find a way to save this more than once. "Save. View. Back. Back. Back, Forward. Save" and somehow there will be two records. I live in fear for important records like payments, and use tokens and other tools to prevent replication; however , when I watch users interact with a system, there is a gravitational force that pulls their mouse into the upper left corner and clicks it repeatedly until there's a visual response.

"Oh there I am, that's where I want to be."

Sometimes there's no going back: hitting a back button will not retract a submitted form; however, users like the back button. It's nice; it's there; it's consistent. And let's be real, that nice "back to search results" link you made one boring Tuesday morning is never going to get clicked.

When viewing a list of results, a user should be able to use the back button - always. They are going to say and think "I didn't find it; let me go back." and click the back button to find their results again.

Lately I see many AJAX calls to view paginated results for a list, and, for example, the url looks like "http://www.website.com/results#pageNumber" The anchor and AJAX call do not work well with one another; the browser get confused and seems to look for it on the page. Who knows, but it makes my results disappear when I hit the back button. Annoying. This should never happen.

Painted Ladies

Hello (Painted) Ladies. I'm in SF taking a weekend off from the new cycle, trying out the mobile update. This is a picture I took from Alamo square using my mobile phone; they're called the "Painted Ladies."

I'm trying to surf here!

Does anyone appreciate going to cnn.com and selecting an interesting headline only to find that it's a 1:30 video with no accompanying description? I don't.

Video and multimedia are part of the Web's future; it's a multimedia platform including text, videos, sound bites, images etc. Don't make it one dimensional by not showing the associated AP article.

I'm not trying to watch TV. I'm trying to use the internet.

DC Ministry of Bicycling Congregates

DC now has a Ministry of Bicycling - a social group to promote cycling in the District.

With a dress code of "bike tie formal (ties, white button downs/ups, poufy dresses, bike grease)," their first ride this Saturday starts at 3 P.M. in Freedom Plaza, goes through Dupont, and ends at Red Derby in Columbia Heights.

Too bad I'll be out of town; Looks like a good time. I'll catch the next ride.

Check out their website, http://dcmob.org, if you're interested.

Upcoming Blog

I'm working a new blog - a lifestyle blog - a collaborative effort involving several people. I'm excited about it; I'm going to write my own blogging engine for it.

There are plenty of ready to install options out there which will be better than mine, but that's not the point. I want to get practice working from documentation, learning a new language, and design. I'm not planning on going over the top; I'll use markdown, reCAPTCHA, and other plug-ins, but I need a framework.

Framework ideas:

Django
The built in admin system for a multi-user system is almost too tempting to turn down. I also like the idea "Don't repeat yourself" and putting the data first. There are records and objects; how their retrieved or displayed, we'll figurre that out later. Python is a robust language with a lot of support. Django itself is at 1.0, not 1.1 or 1.26. Looking back at 1.0 products from 1.1, 1.26, or 2.1 shows some large imporvements.

Ruby On Rails
Used like before. Liked it. Makes sense to me. But is it still hip? Good support/documention. Seriously there's a tutorial on everything.

Catalyst
Perl, yeah well, it's worth giving Perl another change in my life.


Anything in Lisp? Google Web Toolkit? Any other suggestions? Thoughts?

Smart Bike around DC

--$3.33 a month for alternative transit.--

My SmartBikeDC credentials arrived in the mail last week. They came in an envelope slightly larger than a postcard that was filled the brim. Inside was my card, instructions about how to activate it, bicycle safety tips, bicycle laws, and the DC bicycle map.

Activating the card online was easy. Just about how any credit card works - sign up and enter the card number. (Note: I still have reservations about the security of the website.)

On my way back from another burrito lunch, I stumbled upon the stand at Metro Center, about half the spots were open, so I opted to take a bike for trip. I swiped my card, and screen showed #9. I raised it out of the rack, adjusted the seat, and scoped out my surroundings: sidewalks packed with pedestrians, cars, delivery trucks, and buses congesting the sidewalks. It was not an attractive sight.

With a lack of a destination, a waning lunch hour, and disposition for indecision I took it for the first thing that came to mind, a spin around the block. My joy ride was short, but I got a good feel for the bike.

The red an white bikes aren't made for speed or looks, but they are a three speed sturdy ride, easy to pedal, and are equiped with the all powerfull bell. Most people will have an easy time hopping on and ride a mile or two around the city.

Currently outside of the ocassional lunch time joy ride or the after work trip to logan circle, there aren't enough stations for me to adopt SmartBike into my daily routine, but I'm happy to pay the $40 a year to support the great program.

I've got a grainy cell phone video of the ride complements of Joris:




UPDATE: check out street films coverage of SmartBike DC. The bikes are 3 speed not one. Thanks dc2wheel.

Extra! Extra!

Saturday morning at 6:45 am, I was packed up. Most everything including utensils, food, and computer was in a box taped shut or secured in its carrying case.

In a daze, I drifted across the street in flip flops and a ragged t-shirt to McDonald's for a large coffee and eeg & cheese. Below the "On Sale Here" sign, I noticed the headline "Obama Selects Biden as Running Mate" I can't remember the last time I got breaking news from the print edition of a paper.

It was surprising, refreshing; the urge to dig through my pocket to find enough change and recall my order so I could purchase that paper too and desperately thumb to page A4 and consume the rest of the story before I puruse the rest of the section for reactions, comments, and realted news.

La Blogotheque

A friend shared La Blogotheque with me a while ago. La Blogotheque is a video blogger who invites artists to perform off stage in atypical situations - elevators, on top of roofs, in a ferry, or walking down the street - and sometimes without proper instruments. The videos are shot in one take on a handheld camera. The performances shine, and the camera seems to dance and float along with the artists.

This one of Sufjan Stevens is my favorite.



The website is in French, but it's a pleasure to browse La Blogotheque's YouTube page. La Blogotheque has posted videos of Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, and Vampire Weekend. Enjoy!

2 Amy's d.o.c Spells Delicious

I finally made it to the District's foremost pizza joint: 2 Amy's.

For months since moving here 2 Amy's has been the place to go. "Oh it's good. Yeah, you've got to go sometime. Well be careful the wait can be exorbitantly long, but ya gotta go." They were right.

After the Jazz in the Garden on Friday, we headed over to the Cleveland Park spot for a nice snack and glass of wine. A simple glass door opened into a lively dining room packed with families and friends chatting about the week and enjoying the authentic Neapolitan pizza over natural wooden tables sitting atop of the black and white tile floor. Even at 10 pm there was a wait, an excited atmosphere, and a wooden-burning oven cooking as pizza at full capacity. A few minutes and we luckily snagged a table at the wine bar.

I order the Margherita pizze d.o.c. with mushrooms. D.o.c. stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata; it essentially means certified by the Italian government as authentic - pizze d.o.c. uses only soft grain flour, fresh yeast, water, and sea salt for the dough (2 Amy's does a good write-up of what d.o.c. is.). But the bottom line is that 2 Amy's makes an excellent pizza - certified or not.

My pizza came out quickly. After it was situated infront of me, my eyes immediately sized up the pie - the center was genourously portioned with fresh mozzarella di bufala and basil and the crust was warm and raised along the edges. I started out eating the pizza with a knife and fork; however, after my first bite of the cripsy crust gave way to the warm dough hidden inside, I put down my silverware and just went for it. It was too good to wait around for all this cutting and preparing, it was there on the table, ready to be enjoyed!

I've been told that there's a lot more to be enjoyed there like the mussels, charcuterie, homemade ice cream, and a good wine list. Looks like I'll have to go back; the hard part will be ordering a different pizza.

Funfetti Cupcakes

Funfetti cupcakes: story of childhood or summer?

Germs are Everywhere

Everyday, every news broadcast, every paper churns the stories out like butter - "Surprise! More Germs on Shopping Carts than Toilet Seats" or "Study finds Keyboards Dirtier than Bathroom floors" There's no avoiding these stories - they spread like wildfire through the office.

The day after one comes through the wire from the AP to the local news, my every move could trigger the gossip to butt-in and cut me off. While I reach out for the after lunch mint, with a shorten breath and a slight finger jest, they draw my attention in an eleventh-hour attempt to save my life.

"Oh, I just heard..." and then story tumbles out in a condensed form before I infect myself.

They wait in bewilderment for a reaction, recognition of the heroic act, something.

Then I eat the mint. I savor it - the stale spearmint flavor and chalk like texture - and I make sure they know it. They gaze back at me like a superhero who just found out they saved a villain, possibly their archenemy.

I don't eat it out of spite. I eat the mint, because I've eaten them my whole life - well at least since I could see over the counter at Alfie's and reach into the bowl with my tiny little mitts.

Germs are everywhere. It's fact. Wash your hands before you eat, don't stick your hands in your mouth, get the flu shot, and move on. Or you could running your keyboard through the dishwasher.

Many times germs are good for you too.

Restaurant Week!

Summer Restaurant Week has been announced for Washington, DC.

Restaurant Week is August 11 - 17th.

You can make your reservations online at OpenTable.

Kindle for Kinder

When the Kindle was introduced in November 2007 by Amazon, it was a natural progression for books to the digital world, but it's overall scope reached beyond that, beyond any digital media player seen. Download new books over EVDO from anywhere, daily paper subscriptions, highlighting text, playing audiobooks to name a few features that caught my eye - a larger list of surprising features. I've seen it a few make apperiances on the Metro in the morning, and it's well received by reading enthusiasts.

Based on Amazon's track record of innovation - EC2, S3, and product reccommendation engine - they'll continue to refine and develop the electronic reader, but I've taken the liberty to do my own imagining.

There is buzz all over the net about universities and schools distributing iPods for podcasts of lectures or important announcements; however, using Kindle, in the same device used to store textbooks, novels, and periodicals, teaches could push content like lecture notes, podcasts, assignments, handouts, and anysort of paper material.

The Kindle could have a Scholastic OS where a textbook is not a book but a group of content that encompasses notes, chapters, lectures, assignments, highlights, and online supplements. Essentially, instructors would publish content and students would subscribe. While this could be done to an extent now through a related system of RSS feeds, podcasts, notebooks, and textbooks the all-in-one simplicity, ease of use, and portability of the Kindle could pull it off.

Rumor has it that Kindle v2 is coming out in October, since I'm not an early adopter I'm excited to see it.

Remember how heavy those textbooks were?

Second Edition Sunday

Friday evening, I attend the Jazz concert in the National Gallery Sculpture Garden. The scene was out in full force with every patch of grass covered with lively 20 somethings pouring wine into plastic cups, snacking on ham and cheese, and dipping their feet in the shallow fountain while palavering - just loud enough to be understood over the Jazz - about "how great it was to be Friday." I'm going again this Friday, bringing wine, and I'm sure I'll be happy that it's Friday.

Thoughts on Rock Band

If you were in a band would you rather play Rock Band or have band practice?

I'm in a Rock Band band, our band practice is Rock Band.