I received two PHPetal patches today. One for firing off static rendering for those using Blosxom. The other wraps the story file text. How cool is that? Thanks guys! I’ll try to get both patches integrated into a new release in the next few days.

Via Slashdot, an article that pointed out many reasons why Mozilla works well during the development of web sites. The nugget in the article was an add-on which displays the raw http headers as they’re passed. That will come in very handy.

Can we put Potter back on the shelves now? The pope says it’s okay! Salon link

With any luck and a little help from Vector Tobacco , I should be able to start smoking again soon. From the site: “We develop and market smoking products with science-based reductions in certain harmful elements.” Sounds good so far, but one of the news items makes me less comfortable than I’m sure they’d like: “Study Shows That Omni Causes Significantly Fewer Tumors in Mice Than Leading Cigarette Brand” Nothing like “fewer tumors” as a selling point, eh?

[ Boxes and Arrows]1: “But what about the other side? Are developers and human factors professionals immersed in literature on gestalt and color theory? They certainly have the tools for it—programming environments make it very easy to throw around images, colors, and fonts (of all shapes and sizes). But with power comes responsibility. And in this case, the need

I suspect that we’re about to see a change in the top-level navigation of many corporate web sites. Here’s what I believe could be the new standard navigation. Home | Products | Weblog | About Us | Contact Us Hell, the Weblog item could likely replace both the Contact and About links, if done properly.

I’ve posted this before, but recent discussions reminded me to post it again. “This is not a new idea. But it may be the most powerfully pressing one ever to be disrespected by the corporate world. There are far too many smart, educated, talented people operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the world, contributing far too little to the productive

Boxes and Arrows: What Is A Controlled Vocabulary? “A controlled vocabulary is a way to insert an interpretive layer of semantics between the term entered by the user and the underlying database to better represent the original intention of the terms of the user”

I just noticed that my 14-year old, Jessica, is sitting quietly with a friend of hers, playing chess and listening to George Clinton. Yesterday, I caught her reading, of all things. No boys, Eminem, or attitude in sight. Small treasures!

I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking of how to implement comments in a blosxom weblog. There are people working on it, and I’m sure they’ll do a fine job. I stopped worrying about it when I realized that I don’t want comments on this site. Why? Because I don’t necessarily want to have a conversation with any number of people on any number of topics. I write about and link to things I find interesting.

Lots of opinions out there on the new Apple music service. Personally, I think .99 per song won’t be cheap enough to pull people away from the free P2P networks, especially since the files are riddled with DRM. I’ll stick with eMusic, primarily for the reasons listed here. Of course, not having an OS X Mac handy makes that decision easier.

Wikis are a fantastic and drop-dead simple way to create a collaborative, multi-author web environment. My efforts to integrate them into the workflow at Fusionary have met with everything from reluctant acceptance to blank stares. A wiki is not supposed to be pretty, but I tend to agree with this piece explaining why the visual representation of most wikis can put off many potential users. I think I’ll try a visual update to our internal wikis and see what the reaction is.