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November 29, 2005

CSS Zen Gardening for MySpace

For the longest time, I didn’t understand the fascination with web sites like MySpace, Friendster and LiveJournal. It seemed like a such a waste of time and energy, especially when I can accomplish similar things with email and my own web site (see sethgunderson.com). But after signing up for Friendster, and subsequently for MySpace, too, I slowly began to see just how much community can be built into those sites.

I rarely go to LiveJournal anymore, but it has a pretty good blogging tool that many utilize. I also barely visit Friendster, and even though they’ve just re-tooled their look and feel, MySpace is usually the champ when it comes to ease of use. Ironically, ease of use also means “ugly as sin.”

Yes, it’s no secret that MySpace is an ugly piece of crap. That’s why so many people spend time making it look better different. There’s even web sites dedicated to making your profile look great less-shitty.

It’s simple to do, actually, all you need to know is a basic grasp of CSS and you simply write your own code and override the default styles. But here’s where it gets interesting... enter the CSS Zen Garden. The Zen Garden is an exercise of web site design using many different style sheets. The idea is simple: you have ONE web page (same text, same links, etc.) and you apply a different style sheet (images, layout instructions, etc.) and WHAM-O, you have a thousand different look/feels, but one actual page with content (to see how this works, in the right hand column, select a different design... really cool).

So what happens when you apply the CSS Zen Garden theory to your MySpace profile?

Ask Tim Benzinger, and he’d probably say, “you get the best looking profile, ever.”

This probably won’t last long, though, since he has hidden all of the advertising on the page. But how about the engineers at MySpace take a back seat to some designers for once? If it were only that easy.

Bonus Idea: Think about hosing MySpace for all they’re worth... host your designed images on their site and call them with your CSS! Free site anyone?

Posted by Seth at 03:56 PM | Comments (2)

What’s Worth More?

Okay, so a brand new, kickin’ ass, cell phone is finally being offered to customers from Cingular – the Sony Ericsson W600i. Here’s my dilema... I could really use a new phone and I’m fine with switching services to get it (I’m currently on Verizon, which is now trailing Sprint in crappy cell phones, amazingly). I can go get the phone from Cingular for $200 (with rebates)... OR, OR, OR, I can get it for FREE from Amazon – only catch, I have to get a new phone number.

Money or hassle? What’s the better choice here people?

Posted by Seth at 03:14 PM | Comments (3)

November 28, 2005

Get Out the Dillard’s Catalog!

Well, Thanksgiving is over and that means the mad dash for Christmas, Chanukah, Festivus, etc. is on. I already reported that I was going to buy nothing on Black Friday... though my father did buy me new tires for my car, I ate out and saw a movie... but none of those count.

So Black Friday is gone, thank God, but apparently now – TODAY – we have Cyber Monday. Yes, this is the day that most employees return to work and instead of working, they shop online for presents. Good grief.

Aside from all the silly shopping nonsense, now is the time that my family begins pestering me for my Christmas Wish List. I usually have this list ready by Thanksgiving, but this year I’m a bit behind. For those of you who ware wondering, I make a list for several reasons:

I find it pretty easy to make a list of things that I want, but this year, I’m struggling with my list. I’ve spent several hours in the past few days looking through catalogs and web sites, trying to find things that I’d like. As of right now, I have seven items listed. Booo. Amidst my struggles, I thought of how I used to make my Christmas Wish List.

Enter the precious, the almighty, the all-knowing Dillard’s Catalog.

I’m talking about the ultimate source for Christmas Wish Lists across the country. I’m talking about the catalog where you would get paper cuts speeding through the clothes section, just to get to the toys section. I’m talking about the catalog that had tons and tons of pictures of creepy kids on crappy outdoor playgrounds. I’m talking about the catalog that couldn’t sell you a cool drum set or skateboard to save your life. I’m talking about the catalog that you would memorize front to back BECAUSE IT WAS THE ONLY F’ING THING YOU COULD LOOK AT FOR CHRISTMAS LIST-MAKING!!!

What the hell? Talk about cornering the market... way to go Dillard’s! But seriously, where did we shop back in the day? Sears, JCPenny and Dillard’s. That’s it. There was no Toys ’R Us or K.B. Toys. For clothes, there was no Old Navy, Gap or J. Crew. For camping supplies, no Campmor or Cabella’s. Just Sears, JC Penny and Dillard’s.

For years that’s all I had to choose from, and now I rarely go to any of those stores. Not the strongest branding efforts, I guess.

Posted by Seth at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2005

Thanksgiving Treat

Can you feel it? It’s coming. Thanksgiving is nearly here. We’re talking turkey, pecan pie, parades, football and the dreaded Black Friday. Will you be shopping on Friday? I used to. I used to really love the idea of getting up at the butt crack of dawn to go stand in line to get $20 off of the new cool toy. I loved the idea of combing through the lack of flyers, trying to figure out where I was going to get the best deal. Worst of all that, however, was the fact that I was usually holed up in Hot Springs, AR, where shopping is virtually non-existant and the mall is worse than a hospital cafeteria.

I’m proud to say that now, when Black Friday rolls around, I’m not a participant. In fact, I’m going to do quite the opposite of buying Christmas presents. I’m going to support a new holiday – Buy Nothing Day.

Last night I looked through catalog after catalog, trying to figure out gift ideas for my friends and family. I didn’t see one thing, not one, that I’d just HAVE to buy on Black Friday. It’s all just a mash up of items that Wal-Mart, and other companies, are trying to push... maybe even conducting an expiriment to see if people will actually buy an item like a piece of shit $400+ laptop (that’s already out of stock... uh, it’s not even Friday yet).

So screw Black Friday, that’s what I say. Besides, how often do you saavy internet users go to stores to buy gifts anyway? I do a majority of my shopping online. Think about it, no hassles, no lines, no parking issues, price-comparisons... you can’t beat that.

If you’d like to try your hand at shopping online, make sure you don’t just go to one web site. Best thing you can do... Google, Froogle and eBay it.

For example, why go to the local Target to buy a Vidster for $99.99, when you can easily find it on Froogle for $59.99 and on eBay for $45? That’s a no-brainer. And it’s like that for almost every purchase you can make.

The kicker is that sometimes you’ll pay a little bit more for shipping, but usually stores will have free shipping deals because they really want your business. A cool site, that can help you with that, is dealcatcher.com. Just enter the store name you’re shopping at in the search box and there could be a coupon fer ya. Not bad.

And if you want to see some truly horrible gift ideas that I ran across last night, then check these out. Annnnnd this one.

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

Posted by Seth at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)

November 20, 2005

Somebody’s Three, Somebody’s Three + 28

Happy Third Anniversary to this blog and a special happy 31st anniversary to the birth of Wendy! Go wish her a happy birthday, she’ll love it.

That’s pretty much all I got for now... I’ll post something before Thanksgiving break. Booyah.

Posted by Seth at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2005

The Results Are In. All 33 of them.

33 votes? How lame. 33. And just how many of you erased cookies so that you could vote again? Ah well. A vote’s a vote, right? And now, we have a winner...

But I’m not going to tell you the winner just yet. Why don’t we go through each submitted caption and I’ll let you in on the back story for each one? Sounds great!

Okay, that sounds stupid, too... here, I’ll just give you my favorite submitted captions:

Caption Bar: The boys curse each other for letting this photo be taken.
Aaron Says: May you lose a minor bodily organ.
Seth Says: May someone saw that thing off your neck.

Caption Bar: no caption
Seth Says: I want to do great design...VML?
Aaron Says: I want to write great copy...VML?

Caption Bar: Psychic Predictions, 1985.
Seth Says: Billy will lose a hunk of his thumb.
Aaron Says: Oh, Seth. That’ll never happen.

Caption Bar: Psychic Predictions, 1985, Part Three
Aaron Says: What’s the worst thing I could say, ever?
Seth Says: Marco?

While they were hilarious, none of those captions were the winner.

With a 30% total of the 33 votes casted, your winning caption is:

Caption Bar: A hint of things to come... (pt.1)
Seth Says: Hey, why were you so late getting to my house today?
Aaron Says: I totally got sidetracked while fixing my hair.

If that’s you, lemme know and Aaron and I will get you a nice ol’ prize pack. Thanks for playing! And thanks to everyone who submitted a caption and/or attended the party. It was a blast!

Posted by Seth at 08:43 AM | Comments (1)

November 13, 2005

Last Call – Vote For Your Favorite Caption Now!

Scoot’s right, we need to declare a winner. Only 25 people have voted, but that’s how it goes. You have until Monday, end of day, to vote for your favorite caption. If your quote is one of the choices, tell your friends to go vote, too. Winning caption will be declared on Tuesday morning, prizes to follow.

VOTE NOW!!!

Posted by Seth at 11:51 AM | Comments (1)

November 11, 2005

Arrested’s Development Halted

Surprise, surprise. It was only a matter of time. We all knew it was going to happen – another great sitcom on Fox being cut back and probably cancelled – and it finally has. Fox announced that it has cut back it’s order of 22 Arrested Development episodes to just 13.

What the hell, Fox? This is so aggravating. Here you have one of the funniest shows on television and you somehow can’t sell it. It’s sad, really. But this isn’t the first time, is it?

You cancelled Futurama because you stuck it on Sunday nights at 6:00 (central). 6:00!?! That didn’t matter so much, it was the fact that it was nearly ALWAYS pre-empted by NFL football games. The show won Emmys, but you never gave it a shot in another time slot. So you cancelled it. Have you seen Adult Swim? People LOVE watching Futurama on Cartoon Network... and, if you haven’t heard, once Cartoon Network’s contract runs out, IN 2008, Comedy Central is going to run the show. Sounds like you made a great decision there.

Hmmm, what else. Oh, The Family Guy, you cancelled that, too. What’s strange is that AFTER you cancelled it and it was running in syndication (and getting quite the large fan base), you brought it BACK. On top of that, you gave the creators another show.

Do you think you have a problem with cancelling good things a bit too early? I do.

So now you’re “cutting back” on the number of episodes you ordered. That doesn’t mean that you’re cancelling the show, does it? Maybe these other facts could clue us in a bit...

To me it sounds like you set this show up to fail, just like Futurama.

This show is great and it DOES have a good fan base...

I sincerely hope that you can keep this show on the air... but I’m not holding my breath.

Posted by Seth at 09:49 AM | Comments (1)

November 10, 2005

Explorer Destroyer

It’s been a long while since I preached to everyone about switching over to Firefox from Internet Explorer. It was such a hot topic with me at the time, that I even preached about it a second time.

Well, it’s time for me to talk about it again, because I just installed a nifty little script called Explorer Destroyer. It’s a way to funnel IE-users to Firefox, and it works. According to the guys at ExplorerDestroyer.com, this is the nuts and bolts of it:

  • Script autodetects IE
  • Displays switch splash screen to IE users
  • Switches people to Firefox
  • Three levels of seriousness
  • Google gives you referral money for switches
  • Infuriates Microsoft

    • If you’re still using IE, then you’re going to get a pretty little message. If you don’t use IE, good for you, here’s a screenshot of what the message looks like... or better yet, go see the site on someone’s computer that still uses IE.

    So have you switched yet?

    Posted by Seth at 03:23 PM | Comments (4)

    November 08, 2005

    CBS and NBC Strike Back

    NBC and CBS LogosI think most of us were surprised when ABC and Disney announced that they were going to offer television shows on iTunes... those of us normal consumers, that is. Imagine how shocked major television stations were when they discovered how behind the curve they were. Well, if you were fretting, then don’t fret anymore, because CBS and NBC have both announced that they’re going to offer television shows on-demand for 99 cents an episode. The shows will be available the day after they aired and will be commercial free. That’ll show ABC and Apple, right?

    Hmmm, something tells me not so much.

    Reason One: Who uses on-demand?
    Raise your hand if you use on-demand. Now, raise your hand if you subscribe to Netflix or some other online movie rental site. Okay, don’t use online rentals, who here rents from a local video store? Honestly, when it comes down to it, how many people really use on-demand? It must be somewhat successful, if it’s still around, but I’ve never used it... I’ve tried to buy movies and pay-per-view sporting events before, but that didn’t work for whatever reason. The whole ordeal bothered me so much that I just gave up and cursed on-demand.

    Reason Two: Is on-demand neccessary?
    I’m going to assume that most of the viewers that DO use on-demand will also already have DVR-capable cable boxes. I understand that every once in a while we’ll miss an episode here and there, so now they can buy it and catch up. Which gives us all more incentive to actually upgrade your cable box (if you haven’t already done so) and learn how to use the DVR.

    Reason Three: You can probably catch a re-run.
    If you hadn’t noticed already, networks have recently began using Saturdays (and now some Fridays) as dumping grounds for re-runs since those nights aren’t pulling in ratings well enough. If you didn’t knot that, then you probably have a social life (or another equally good reason). If networks are already re-playing episodes of popular shows, why not just let people know? Then you’re providing it for free and viewers will love you. It doesn’t matter if it’s commercial-free, people fast-forward through the commercials anyway.

    Reason Four: The cost of television.
    So you subscribe to basic cable, that’s what, $15 a month? Why would you pay $1 for a show that you missed? More importantly, would you rather buy one single episode of a series you love for $1 (just to get caught up, since online recaps just aren’t good enough, snob), or buy a dvd of the entire season for $40?

    Here’s another interesting thing to think about, television stations make most of their profit by charging advertisers boat-loads of money to run ads during popular shows (think Super Bowl). If networks are already making bank for having commercials (meaning, the television show is already shot and produced), then think about how much money they’re skimming off the top when you buy and watch commercial-free episodes. Is this the future of television?

    Reason Five: The crux of the situation.
    This is probably the most compelling reason (in my opinion) that this isn’t a good idea. Why buy an episode of a tv show when you can ONLY watch it on your tv? Now this is just me, but, I’d be willing to spend one dollar more to be able to view it on my computer, iPod, PSP, etc. If I wasn’t around my tv to watch it in the first place, who’s to assume that I’ll instantly gain an hour to sit at my television? That only happens on the fall version of daylight savings... and that’s a one-time, one-hour deal.

    Ultimately, these arguments are kinda silly to think about. We all know that ABC, CBS and NBC are wanting to capitalize and make money from their super fans. Forget the fact that we’re already paying a hefty sum to have cable in the first place. You have to decide whether a particular show really is worth your $1-2. Besides, does anyone in the fan-base of any show on CBS or NBC care about having their shows on iPods? Me not know, but me guess not.

    Posted by Seth at 12:05 PM | Comments (2)

    Who’s Leaving Comment Spam?

    Ever since I reported receiving comment spam last week, I’ve started to notice some odd things about the spammed comments that have been submitted. It’s not so much the names of the commenters, or the way the comment(s) are structured, but it’s something else that’s a little troubling. Let’s take a look at a random spammed comment that I’ve received:

    Interesting site, and very organized too. Good work. black girls on their mission: http://www.panasonic.com , my parents didnt told me about it , black girls on their mission

    Interesting, eh? It’s obviously some type of bot that’s programmed to spider blog sites and leave comments wherever it can. That’s fine, and it’s the reason I’ve turned on comment-verification. I’ve also banned about 25 IP addresses, so far, from commenting on my site ever again.

    But here’s where my concern comes in. Go mouse-over the links in the example comment above...

    Yeah, links to Panasonic.com, Apple.com and Sun.com. And that’s just ONE spammed comment.

    Looking back, here’s a list of other URLs from spammed comments:

    Does this mean that Panasonic, Apple, Adobe, Yahoo and other reputable companies are paying people to spam comments on blogs? If so, that’s lousy, lousy business.

    Posted by Seth at 08:39 AM | Comments (2)

    November 07, 2005

    Finally, A Real Debate

    Sweeps is here! Sweeps is here! Hooray for new, and worthwhile, episodes of our favorite TV shows! Seeing as I watch entirely too much television, I thought I could write yet another post about them.

    As far as I know, last night seemed to be the official kick-off of NBC’s sweeps month. If you haven’t heard, they pulled off a live-taping of The West Wing. But it was better than just a regular episode of TWW, this one featured Presidential Candidates, Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), in a fictional Presidential Debate.***

    The debate was held in front of a live audience (with some planted actors, of course), and to lend more credibility to the show, Forrest Sawyer was the moderator. Another great thing was that it was held without commercial interruption – except for the half-hour commercial break.

    The great part about the show was the “dumbing down” of political issues for people like me to grasp and understand. I’m not a news-junkie and I rarely stay on top of current events. And when it comes to politics, guh, I’m a full-blown idiot. This show, though fictional, painted a good portrait of what some issues are and the stances from both the Left and Right.

    I really enjoyed the show, I could’ve watched it for at least another hour... but the format of the show raises a question. Why can’t we have debates like this anymore? For the most part, we have political minds that can speak to many issues and give solid, well-thought, answers. Why do we have to have watered-down versions of debates?

    At work, when we have issues about campaign directions, or creative executions, we don’t have to follow timer-rules to get our point across. When arguing with friends, you don’t have to allow rebuttal if your argument is compelling enough. Let’s get real again and have real debates. No strange formats, just the two (or three, or four) candidates debating the issues. Let the public decide which side they’re on. Hopefully they decide that based on the plain and simple answers they hear... as if we’ll ever get plain and simple answers from politicians.

    *** If you don’t watch the show, this is an election year and these two are jockeying for position to become the President. The ultra cool thing is that both Smits and Alda claim to not know what’s going to happen to their characters. This means that only the writers know where the show is going – could it be another Democratic White House, or a changed Republican one?

    Posted by Seth at 09:10 AM | Comments (2)

    November 02, 2005

    NoYes Comment

    Acting like a non-President, as soon as I was getting tons and tons of comment spam I turned comments off for my site. I’m sorry that I did that, but it’s just easier to do that than it is deleting 40+ comments every two hours. When looking into viable options for how I was going to handle this problem, I was given two options:

    1. Leave comments allowed for un-registered commenters and turn on comment verification – more work for me.
    2. Require that users register for a TypeKey account and allow them to post comments whenever they want – more hassle for you.

    I’ve made my decision and have turned comments back on, for the time being. As of now, I’m allowing un-registered users to comment, but I’ll have to approve the comments. So if you post something and your comment doesn’t show up immediately, then just chill out... I’ll get around to it.

    Posted by Seth at 09:59 AM | Comments (2)