log entries of timotheus

I’m having some moral issues with app based browsing. I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I really think focusing on app experiences is hurting the internet. Then this story came out, and explained it much better than I can.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/closing-the-digital-frontier/8131/

I think the blame, if we want to find someone to blame, (sure!) would rest with designers, and flash ads making pages difficult to navigate. Why did I say designers? Because they want to make pages slicker, cooler, a near artistic experience. We should be focused on what users want, which is content. Right?

People like app-based web experiences because it is laid out in an easy to navigate manner, and low barriers to the information they find relevant. Web sites can and still are, sometimes, designed in a similar manner.

I am going to start designing everything with the expectation that people are reading this with a display less than 320-400 pixels wide. I’m talking single-column design with menu sitting on top and bottom, or menu on the side that goes to the bottom if display isn’t very wide.. I want things to look good primarily on mobile devices, because that is where I feel things are moving. But still doing it from a browser, not an app that only works on specific hardware.

While we’re on the subject, I have this weird idea I want to share. I feel like part of the problem, one reason for moving things to more app-based experiences is because we’re trying to all make web pages that work like applications. But not everything on the web needs to be like applications. Maybe we should separate this into two things. Maybe we should have a Web Browser, and a Web Applicator. Let the browser focus on doing browser things, and the applicator focus on handling all the application-style web experiences.

Maybe I just like the name “Web Applicator”, or maybe I’m just getting weirder.

I’ve been working on a new theme for several weeks now. It is awesome and I cannot wait to share it with the world. What I’m working on now are the small things I didn’t think of, such as, how to best style an unordered list, etc.

It is called “Future Terminal”.

What is left to accomplish is widgetization, allowing for images and lists, and then I’ll be showing it to several people I trust to give me some feedback.

Tara and I are getting ready to head up to Sacramento for the day. It should be pretty fun.

What the blogging? I know.

In other news, had a big breakthrough on Nickelpinch. Instead of focusing on this mythical interface that I want, and as a result is keeping me from working on it, instead why not make the mobile version first? I’m calling it the lite version, a simple version with the same functionality that I want in the finished product, just not so ‘shiny’. It will work on mobile devices as well as comps identically.

Really though, that’s sort of my calling card. Very simple interfaces for helpful web apps.

A site designed to easily allow two people to play one of a number of classic board games as simply as possible on the web.

How to get started:

• Go to the site, choose the game you wish to play, average length between turns and the emails of the two players.

• Confirmation emails are now sent, one to each player.

• When both are confirmed, the site sends back links to that players ‘seat’.

• A ‘seat’ is a long generated php name that instantly puts the user into that players control of the game, no login required.

• If you go to your seat, and it is your turn, you can take your turn, then it will say, ‘waiting for other player’

• If you go to your seat and it is not your turn, there is just a ‘waiting for other player’ message.

• If the other player hasn’t taken their turn, you can ‘nudge’ the other player once per the avg length between turns that was set out at the beginning.

• At the end of the game, users can go in for up to two weeks and export all the moves into a CSV file, that can be put into a ‘move player’ at the main site for review.

Why this is a good idea:

• There are no accounts to setup, no information stored.

• The ease in which you can setup a game should bring in a lot of fringe players, even older people.

Ok, this is what I have been thinking more of lately. Using icons and stuff as opposed to generic box images.

Check it out here.

===== Introduction =====

The system of representative government in the United States has run into a plateau. The politicians that are elected to represent their state or even district have too large a group of citizens to represent. Our population has simply grown too large for this to be an effective method of representation. If a citizen cannot meet his personal representative at least once a year, and talk to them in person to learn about their thoughts on topics, then how can they truly be represented? The result is that the majority of citizens feel like they are out of touch with their government, that our politicians are entirely different creatures than us, and they pretty much do as they please.

There are various ways to fix this. One is to massively increase the number of representatives, though it’s highly possible it will just add to the confusion and slow the process down even more. Another alternative is to fundamentally change the way in which citizens are represented. Utilizing the internets, it is possible to use technology to implement this change.

Simply defined, Self-Representation through Technology (SRT) is a system which allows citizens to either personally vote on every proposed law, bill or act (LBA) Continue reading »

I don’t know if anyone notices these things, but I changed up my LibraryThing list on the right. I now tag items I read with a Month + Year that I read them in. So this month would be: ‘February2008′. I set up my LibraryWidget to pull that tag, but then I used PHP to insert the month and year. Like so:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.librarything.com/jswidget.php?reporton=timotheus&show=random&header=1&num=20&covers=small&text=all&tag=<?php echo date("FY");?>&css=0&style=1&version=1">
</script>

What this means is, as I read books during the month and tag them, the list will increase. You will be able to see what I’ve read, if you’re curious. And you know you are.

I found this theme, which I like. I changed the banner to a pretty image I found off Flickr, by the user Damian 78. Update: I didn’t notice until after I had cropped the image that it was ‘No Derivative Work’. I emailed Damian asking permission, and he said it was fine! Communication is cool.

I’m in the process of utilizing LibraryThing. I’m making a database of the books I own, read, or checked out from the library to read. There’s a plugin like thing on the right there, showing you the books I’m currently reading. At the bottom is a link to the books I’ve read. It will get much longer than it is, I’m sure. I thought it was nifty though to show other peoples what I’m currently reading. Clicking the image link will take you to the book on amazon, and clicking the text will take you to the LibraryThing entry on it.

I’m realizing I don’t like this theme, because it gets rid of my extra lines, and bunches my paragraphs together. I don’t like that.

So I took the theme RoundFlow 1.0 by The undersigned and tweaked it to meet my color needs. This is a low-power color scheme I made, but I like it. I think the pale orange and blue complement each other nicely.

I’m still not sure on what I want the name of this to be. It’s hard to pick a name for this, for some reason.