Audi my have Super Bowl PR nightmare on its hands. Of course, I had no idea the “Green Police” were affiliated with the Nazis but that might be because I slept through most of my History of WWII class in college.
Now that the The Denver Egoist is expanding its empire I hope we see a Minneapolis Egoist soon.
So the much anticipated Apple tablet has been revealed to the world, and as with most any Apple product about half the people have already dubbed it the iDud and about half the people are fingering their credit cards ready to complete their transaction.
What’d you think?
The word magical seems a bit much. I’m not sure what a gadget would have to do at this point to seem magical, but I’m pretty sure the presentation of that magical device would not include spreadsheets (really, Apple).
The usual suspects have already started rolling in with their hands-on experiences (Gizmodo, Engadget, and ArsTechnica), and menstruation jokes overtake Twitter, but none of it feels magical or all that revolutionary yet.
As with most devices of this ilk, I always wait for the nerds and the fans to provide the real context. On its own a gadget is not magical, it’s what people can do with that’s magic. So far no magic, but that might be only a matter of time.
As a booknerd, I was really excited to hear about the e-book (or iBooks I guess they’re called now) functionality. I thought perhaps Apple could make me eschew books the way the iPod made me stop buying CDs and switch to downloads. So far, no dice. If there’s no multi-tasking or, that I saw, no way to annotate the iBook, I see little sense in switching since I’d still need a paper and pen to make notes. At least it looks better than the Kindle, right?
What’d you think? Are you lining up to get one, or will you wait and hope all those early adopters will bring Apple enough cash that they can announce a better, faster, cheaper version next year?
I, of course, just clipped out my favorite film nerd (Lloyd Dobbler from “Say Anything”) from this Time Line of Film’s Favorite High School Nerds. You’ll have to look at the whole graphic to see if your favorite is there. Did he/she make the cut?
Promotors of last week’s WordPress vs. Expression Engine webinar hinted that there could be blood. Two Nerdery programmers trained hard for this CMS bout. They drank raw eggs and ran stairs, and then a nationwide audience of agencies tuned in for what turned out to be a rather amicable exchange. Or was it? Watch Thursday’s rematch above.
Here is a list of recommended plug-ins for both content management systems, with WordPress plug-ins submitted by (in this corner) Anthony Lukes, and Expression Engine plug-in faves from (challenger) Brian Litzinger.
WordPress plug-ins:
Dagon Form Mailer - This is my (Anthony’s) personal favorite because it’s easy to customize and it supports file attachments. Another favorite of mine is Contact Form 7.
Flutter CMS - This plugin allows for easy assigning of different data types and for easy custom page templating.
Inline PHP - This allows you to insert php code into the text editor.
All in One SEO Pack - Pump up your SEO. Customize page titles, meta keywords, and descriptions. This works out of the box and can be fine-tuned for super-users.
Google XML Sitemaps - Generates an XML sitemap of your site to better your search rankings with Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.
Akismet (comes with WordPress) - This helps keep spammers from posting comments on your blog.
NextGEN Gallery - Great photo gallery plug-in. Not an essential for every site, but this is a really well built plug-in that’s too good not to mention.
And in this corner, recommended Expression Engine plug-ins:
Structure - It forgoes the current template_group/template setup and creates “static” and “listing” pages that can be edited through a tree sitemap view. Traditional page style content and multiple entry pages can live within the same area.
Image Sizer - Resizes images as specified in EE tag and caches the resized image in the cache folder. If you update the original image, a new resized version is created. If the image is not on the server the tag will not return anything. The architecture is setup to only process images when needed.
FieldFrame - A framework for rapid development of fieldtype extension, FieldFrame will be included as part of EE 2 core when 2.1 is released.
nGen File Field - nGen File Field is a field type for the FieldFrame framework thatadds a custom field type allowing you to upload files from the Publish/Edit interface, and also functions as part of the FF Matrix. This extension is useful for creating galleries and downloading libraries.
Take a look at the controversial new logo for the New York City Opera. It looks like a circle inside a rectangle to me. I don’t get it. If you do, please explain.
The time has come for all you to read Clay Shirky’s A Rant Against Women his essay where he proclaims women could do with a healthy dose of assertive self-promotion and general braggery to get ahead in the world. In fact, I quote:
This worry isn’t about psychology; I’m not concerned that women don’t engage in enough building of self-confidence or self-esteem. I’m worried about something much simpler: not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks.
I offer this up to you without any editorializing or comment (which is really hard because I’m generally known as a strident, vocal feminist). Regardless of my point of view, it’s the discussion that is important especially in industries dominated by men (both tech and advertising).
More interesting than Shirky’s original rant is the discussion going on in the comments section. It really is worth your time to read and will shed light on the issues women in tech (and business in general) face and how men feel about those issues. I know, I know there’s 338 comments thus far, so you’d better get started with page 1 right here.
Yesterday the Vikings moved to within just one more glorious win of the Super Bowl. Separation Sunday was easier than expected for them, but it was tougher than ever imagined for the selection committee tasked with picking a dozen teams of volunteer web pros for the next Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge – the Super Bowl for web nerds.
At stake for the hopefuls is a blind date with a bunch of nonprofits (who’ll bring no money for this date). With 218 volunteers on 22 teams (an embarrassment of riches) vying for just 12 spots, the sequestered selection committee cleared its calendar, took no calls, spurned incoming bribes and contemplated indecent proposals as they stewed over their decision. Then, they punted.
A bigger boat – hey, that’s it! No, wait, what if we stuffed even more well-meaning nerds and needy nonprofits into our existing boat? Is that even safe? Who cares!
No, a nerdy dozen or even baker’s dozen will not do. Introducing The Sweet 16:
So, if your team is on this list, get some rest. If not, please accept a sincere Nerdery thanks for stepping up. It’s gratifying to see so many takers for our ongoing needy-meets-nerdy mad science project.
And, if you’re a nonprofit with an application in, your odds have just improved. On February 1 we’ll announce 15 selected nonprofits (remember, RREAL already has its Golden Ticket).
Right now, there are 177 individuals signed up as volunteers and 20 teams vying to work strange hours for complete strangers (but needy nonprofits) at the Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge. On January 18, a dozen well-stocked teams will be picked for the March 20-21 nerdathon. No team has their Golden Ticket stamped just yet. Some teams are full (10 people) and others are several helpers short of being viable candidates. All will be decided Monday. The 12 best-qualified teams will be in.
Between now and then, though, there are deals out there to be made. There will be arm-twisting, cajoling, smack-talk, horse-trading and probably a few indecent proposals. Perhaps short-handed teams will merge and swear new oaths (in addition to their usual swearing). Some liken the making of Overnight Website Challenge teams to the backroom deal-brokering that comes with lawmaking, and some say it’s no less gruesome than the sight of making sausage. These are things perhaps best done behind closed doors. You don’t want to watch.
Nerdery Interactive Labs’ agency primer series of free webinars continues next week with Content Management Shootout. This cordial smack-down between two popular content management systems features in this corner: WordPress, and in that corner, the challenger: ExpressionEngine.
We’ll cover designer-friendliness extensibility and add-ons, as well as budgetary and timeline considerations with both systems.
The webinars will be at 10:15 a.m. (Central) on Tuesday, January 19 and at 3:15 p.m. (Central) on Thursday, January 21.
RSVP to join us ringside as we talk about the strengths of each CMS as part of our ongoing agency primers geared at helping our partners pitch, win, and execute interactive projects.
