Blog

So, you want to make a fortune on the internets, eh? Well my friend, then you need to start a news site devoted to internet-related news. That’s right, follow these simple steps and you’ll soon be pulling in enough Google juice you too will make a million dollars a year on Google Ads.

• Republish every press release. Every. One. MSN upgrades their Shopforcrap Beta site? Let the world know!
• Google is perfect. Seriously, the last being that walked the Earth that was as pure and beautiful as Google was instantly killed so its beauty could not be tarnished.
• Everyone loves cell phones. Make sure to publish every photo, rumor, and technical spec, no matter how speculative, on every single phone that could possibly be made in the next two decades. Bonus coverage for being able to insert a new convergence-style phrase your headline. (“Marginal company releases cell phone/matter transporter, with MP3 and direct line to God!)
• Apple has released an operating system that cannot be improved. It is basically Superman in software form. It is immune to hackers, crashes, hyperbole, and radiation. Should nuclear war occur, the only things left will be Twinkies, cockroaches, and OS X.
• The music industry’s efforts to combat piracy should never be editorialized. Take their word for it; they paid for the research you’re going to publish. Never mind if you’re also running an academic study that runs counter to the music industry’s report. All is well. This is not the information you’re looking for.
• Never, ever legitimize gaming. For the love of God, they only make a few billion dollars. It’s still creepy 40-year-olds playing World of Warcraft or blood-red-eyed 13-year-olds training for the next massacre at their high-school playing Socom.
• VoIP is awesome! Seriously, didn’t you hear about it at the last sponsor retreat? Some guy told me all about it. It’s so freakin’ awesome to be tethered to your computer to save a marginal amount of money and talk to your brother over a connection Nextel would laugh at.
• Research your articles. Make sure you know how badly Windows sucks, not why it sucks. Make sure you troll Slashdot for good lines about how BSD could reverse global warming and make pandas have multiple litters annually.
• Firefox all day, every day. Publish their download stats at least weekly. In fact, you could break ground by being the first news site to have a download counter on the homepage. Wow.. Firefox. Bonus coverage for pointing out features Firefox has that Opera introduced. Double bonus for linking to Opera.
• RSS baby! Hell yeah! I mean, it’s like really simple (wink)! You should have no fewer than six dozen RSS feeds on your site, but make sure that the content you deliver via those feeds bears no resemblance whatsoever to the implied content. For instance, if you have a shopping feed for hard drives, be sure to publish your lucrative Japanese hentai soda ads there too.
• And finally, remember who pays the bills. That’s right, the advertisers. Ads everywhere. Homepage, RSS feeds, embedded in the podcast, dripping from tags on the clothing at Cafepress, Photoshopped into photos from SXSW. Get hats, use pop-up ads, pay booth babes to tattoo their… well.. you get the picture. If readers complain that the content is hard to find, screw ’em. Oh, make sure to get those cool Flash ads too; people love those.

Follow these few steps and I guarentee you’ll be as popular as any of the Technorati Top 100. Cross my heart.

The preceding was sarcasm. If you are angry after reading the above, you don’t get sarcasm. Go outside.

(Cross posted to Chelsea Blog)

Today I began batch zero of brewing beer at home. My first attempt was, well, I don’t know yet. I have bubbles from the fermenter, which indicates that at least something is happening. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, although I had no frame of reference.

Many thanks to the Cork ‘n Cap in Jackson for setting me up with the gear and a good starter recipe. I made an English Ale, so once the beer goes into the bottle (hopefully around Friday), it will be ready to drink by 26 Aug.

I used the burner on my grill so I could keep all the moisture outside and in the hopes that the larger burner would speed the boiling. By going outside, however, I managed to get a nice, red sunburn (and a not a little dehydrated). If this turns out, I’m going to invest in a turkey fryer for some serious heat. Oh, and the chance to deep fry a turkey. (Seriously, it’s actually very, very good.)

I’ll put something up here when I know more about the beer. Anybody else home brewing in Chelsea?

Wow, I am so glad I can buy a football soccer package on cable; they screwed with the basics of hockey.

Don’t get me wrong, the players deserved a lot worse than they got, but when I read crap like this:

They extended the blue lines and decreased the neutral zones, making it easier to maintain control of the puck onsides, and allowing more room to operate on power plays

I weep. Jeez, let’s just cork all the bats and give the players ‘roids so we can have a season-long home-run derby. Oh, wait…

Go Ajax!

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Quick and easy dessert, perfect for the summer.

Take one ripe nectarine. Cut in half, remove pit. On the expose halves, sprinkle with a generous amount of sugar or Splenda. Sprinkle to taste with cinnamon. Grilled cut-side down over medium flame for 5 minutes. Rotate half a turn and grill 5 more minutes. Flip to the skin side and grill for 5 more minutes. The nectarine should be warm through and slightly soft.

Remove, let cool momentarily and dig in. Especially good with a little honey.

And I don’t usually like fruit. Thanks to J– for the great idea.

Yahoo! has! purchased! Konfabulator! Awesome! (sorry)

This is actually very cool news because Yahoo! has said they will be giving the app away for free and releasing the APIs so you can tie into Yahoo! content.

I hope they optimize that thing too… it’s cool but it sucks up way too many resources.

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UPDATE: You can download it now.

We went on Friday after work. It was hot, it was crowded, we ended up at Arbor Brewing bored out of our minds. But I did get a few photos for Art Fair Bingo. Click the thumb for a larger view. (I swear I had a couple packin’ four kids between them, but apparently my camera didn’t go off; I need to replace that POS).

This is all over the place, but Microsoft announced that Longhorn will be branded “Windows Vista”. *yawn* Can we be done with this idiotic name/version march and go back to meaningful release numbers?

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Brandon at Arbor Update posted the Art Fair Bingo cards for this year. Let people watching begin.

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Inspired by this post at the Shifted Librarian:

1. Spreadsheet Skills
2. Database Skills
3. Scripting Skills
4. Electronic Presentation Skills
5. Web Site Design Skills
6. Email Management Skills (including outgoing mail)
7. File Management Skills (non-Windows)
8. Computer Network Skills (including Wireless)
9. Installing Software Skills
10. Distance Learning Skills (vendor agnostic)
11. Computer-related storage devices (DVDs, SANs, USB Drives)
12. Knowledge of PDAs and cell phones
13. Advanced Electronic Research Skills
14. Electronic Copyright Knowledge
15. Computer Security Knowledge
16. Web Content Delivery Skills (RSS, Newsreaders, Forums, Blogs, etc)
17. Fontography Skills
18. Basic to Intermediate Electronic Page Design Skills (using Word templates doesn’t count)
19. Advanced Markup Skills
20. Basic to Intermediate Skill in at least one area of expertise that doesn’t relate to writing.

You might get away with not having one or two of these, but you better be supplementing them with other items. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who can “write” but have zero clue who they are writing for. I saw a comment the other day in reformSTC that every minute spent using the product of a tech writer is a minute not spent completing the task the user needs to accomplish. What a profound statement. It was, in true writer fashion, pounced on and flamed out of conversation.

That’s too bad. Maybe it’s not a true portrayal of the concept, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than the attitude that users are idiots because they didn’t read the entire chapter of Help on composing a widget.

Ah summer in Ann Arbor, when tourists come into the “city”, streets shut down, and artists from around the one-day’s-drive area congeal in the gutters to disgorge their “art” on overly-anticipatory populous. Yes, it’s Art Fair. But not just one Art Fair! Oh no, this is Ann Arbor, where even the artists can’t get along. So there are four fairs going at once (although, attempt to explain that to someone from out of town and you’ll get blank stares).

Of course, the day I need to find it, ArborBlogs is down and I can’t get this year’s Art Fair Bingo. (To tide me over, I may have to recycle last years Bingo cards.) If anyone has this year’s card, post a link in the comments.

Will we go? Yeah, I guess. It’s kind of like Tulip Time in Holland: If you don’t go on vacation during the festival, you’re guaranteed to be sucked in. Plus, I need my annual injection of art-on-a-stick and chances to insult people on Political Alley.