I don’t know what it is about cartoonists, but somehow they have an uncanny ability to break through all the craziness of our world, find the core, and then present it in a way that makes everyone go “Oh yeah!” The good folks at the Joy of Tech have done this a number of times before, and while I don’t point out every awesome comic that they produce (because it would be occupying too many posts on my blog), one of their latest, Signs You May Need to Get a Life, essentially verifies many of my thoughts about our internet age. Having a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be okay, but there are people who take it to the extreme, and I think that this comic really addresses the central issue behind it: they really need to get a life. Get out of Second Life and pay more attention to your first one!

Anyway, high five to the Joy of Tech folks on this one.

Tags: comic, internet, Joy of Tech, life, thoughts, Web 2.0

It’s interesting for me to recall my first significant appearance on the internet, but it was exactly five years ago this month, and it was in a very interesting situation. Webmacster87.info did not exist yet, my awareness of phpBB didn’t exist yet, I actually had not even touched IM services yet. However, the past way to share this would be to look at what was happening again.

The month was May 2003, and I was in sixth grade. The big story of the time was that some guy from the Bay Area named Stephen Joseph had sued Kraft/Nabisco because their Oreo cookies contained deadly trans fats, and that they were being marketed towards and sold to children, and furthermore, the public had no awareness of how bad trans fats were. Well, within a week, the suit was retracted, because it had garnered so much press that the claim of the public having no awareness of how bad trans fats are was no longer valid. Nevertheless, that suit did help to raise awareness of the dangers of partially hydrogenated oils, and helped Oreo, Crisco, McDonalds, and many others go trans-fat free, as well as convincing the FDA to add Trans Fat to the nutrition label in 2006.

But what did this have to do with me? Well, at the time that this made the news, in my English class (although at middle school, it was called “Language Arts & Reading”), we ended up being assigned a research paper based on it. We were instructed to do some research on the news and the issues and then write a short essay where we conveyed our opinion on the issue. Now, I personally went about this on the premise that what this Stephen Joseph guy was crazy by wanting to take Oreo cookies out of schools. But, as I went onto his website, Ban Trans Fats, and looked at other things about the case, my mind was changed for me and I found myself completely in favor of banning trans fats.

Not only did I complete my essay and turn it in, but for whatever reason that I do not recall, I had e-mailed Stephen Joseph and sent him a copy of what I wrote. He wrote back with high praise for it, to the point where he wanted to know if he (with my parents’ permission) could post it on his website. He gave it its own dedicated page, where it still is today. And so, when I had the opportunity to share what I wrote with the rest of my class that day five years ago, I had something to brag about.

Looking back, I obviously have somewhat higher standards of writing today than I did then, but that really represents my first free-style persuasive essay (as in the kind where I don’t have to follow “rules” and all that junk), and nowadays, I’m starting to receive awards for some of my written opinions. Plus, it represents my very first little slice of online fame–quite interesting to think about considering how much my life is dependent on the internet today.

Tags: 2003, English, essay, history, internet, memories, middle school, Oreos, Personal, Stephen Joseph, trans fats, Writing

Okay, I’m sure that if you’re looking at Webmacster87.info, you’re wondering, “Whoa, what happened? Where did the great big W go? Where did the beautiful-looking theme go?” (If you’re reading this post in some kind of RSS fead reader, go to Webmacster87.info and start reading this post over again.)

Well, today is the third annual CSS Naked Day, and also the first one that I heard of in time to make the necessary preparations to participate in. The purpose of today is to promote the purpose of web standards and its importance in our everyday use of the internet. In fact, I think that Lorelle VanFossen said it best:

This is the third year of the annual CSS Naked Day which honors web design and designers around the world who help make our websites and blogs look “pretty” to the eye while still being totally functional under the hood. Dustin Diaz wanted to give the web world an opportunity to remind everyone of the benefits of CSS web page design. By removing the stylesheet for the day, the world would see naked web pages, giving a little more appreciation for the skills of web page designers.

Webmacster87.info is one of hundreds of websites going naked today for this cause. My blog will be entirely CSS-free all day today (in my timezone, anyway, as defined by the clock on my website), and since the event is done in honor of designers, I want this to honor my good friend Hans Reikmann (macattacks10), who has graciously volunteered his time to do numerous designs for me over the years, including the artwork for both this version and the previous version of my website, some of my 2005-era forums, and all of my podcasts.

If you want to go naked on your blog or website today, there’s still time, and Lorelle has suggestions for how you can participate. In the meantime, enjoy this low-fi version of Webmacster87.info!

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, today is the 100th Day of 2008! Woo hoo!

Tags: blog, community, CSS, design, event, internet, naked, standards, web design, Webmacster87.info

I may be kinda “out there” in the tech world, but I still have enough senses to smell something creepy when I see it, as was definitely evidenced a year ago when a special PreviewCast episode started talking about some strange thing for Second Life.

Well, the world gets creepier as last week, Congress apparently held hearings on these virtual reality “world” things–and weirder, the real hearing was apparently simulcasted on Second Life. Luckily for me, Jon Stewart considers this stuff to be as freaky as I consider it, and he even pulled out one or two of the degrading jokes that I’ve used for the past year on this segment to make fun of Congress actually caring enough to hold hearings on these things! Boy, I’m glad I’m not the only one with some good, common sense!

Tags: Congress, craziness, hearings, internet, Jon Stewart, online world, Second Life, The Daily Show, Video, virtual reality

Cross-posted from PreviewCast.com:

Hello everyone,

With Macworld coming up this week, I thought I would take an opportunity to share what we have planned for our super awesome exclusive special stand-on-your-head-while-eating-deep-fried-pickle-hearts-and-singing-a-Mozart-sonata-at-the-same-time practically-drop-dead PreviewCast coverage of Macworld 2008: Absolutely nothing!

That’s right, PreviewCast is doing absolutely nothing in terms of live coverage. We will have absolutely no audio, no video, no photos, no tweets, no holograms, no SuperPokes, absolutely nothing to give you an experience of what it’s like to be at Macworld San Francisco 2008. Why? Because the entire internet is already doing the SAME THING!!!

Just hop on Google or Upcoming and take a look! Numerous websites and podcasts are doing lots of stuff at Macworld, whether it be tours and interviews on the show floor, interviews after the keynote from celebrities whom have had a significant overdose of exposure to the patented reality distortion field, and so many podcasted special events that you could get lost just in the few blocks surrounding Moscone Center and enough to force me to give my entire life’s savings over to BART if I was to try to take care of all of them and try to produce something for PreviewCast.

So guess what? We are not doing anything special for Macworld 2008 until after the show is already over and the initial hype over whatever Steve plans to spit out of his mouth on Tuesday has calmed down. PreviewCast #049, to be recorded next weekend, will be when we give our take on the announcements.

I will indeed be spending at least a day sometime at the Macworld Exhibit Hall, but guess what I’m going to do there? You’ll never believe it, but I’m actually going to enjoy myself! I’m not taking a camera (one disappeared there last year, and I’m still taking the heat for that), I’m not taking a microphone (unless I get the urge to record myself singing folk tunes in front of the Apple booth), although I am taking my laptop just to enjoy some free wifi, which is hard to find nowadays. But yeah, by eliminating myself of the burden of responsibility of recording and capturing the Macworld experience, I will actually be able to enjoy the Macworld experience! And isn’t that just what the point of it all is?

If you are interested in some Macworld coverage for you to get the illusion of being there, might I recommend practically every other site on the internet.

Enjoy the keynote and the festivities. And don’t worry, I will still be doing a bit of Macworld coverage, albeit from a distance, on Webmacster87.info. Stay tuned next week for PreviewCast #049.
–Douglas Bell
Co-Host and Editor, PreviewCast
http://www.previewcast.com

Tags: 2008, announcements, coverage, internet, Macworld, Personal, plans, PreviewCast, products, San Francisco, Steve Jobs

One of Leopard’s “big new features” is a feature for those .Mac members who got suckered into spending $100/year for Apple’s suite of services which probably are only worth about $50/year, if that much. It has to do with the Finder’s improved sharing features (file sharing, screen sharing, etc.), and it’s called Back to My Mac.
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Tags: Back to My Mac, file sharing, Finder, iDisk, internet, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac, Mac OS X Leopard, network, review, Screen Sharing

Apple Remote Desktop is an app that has been around for awhile that provided the ability for an administrator to share and manage the screens of other computers on the network. However, while ARD was great for someone who was an administrator on a vast network of many client computers in order to manage them all, what about someone who just wanted to look at something on their other computer, or someone who wanted to quickly help out a family member on another network? Apple Remote Desktop just isn’t suited, aimed, or priced for something as incidental as that. However, Leopard brings along a brand new Screen Sharing solution to the table, so how well does it work?
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Tags: Back to My Mac, collaboration, features, Finder, iChat, internet, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, network, Remote Desktop, review, Screen Sharing

Yesterday, I began talking about the general improvement of the user experience in Leopard when messing with network settings, something that we all have to do one time or another. That is, if we have any aspirations to get on the internet. Yesterday’s LFP on the AirPort Utility was for those of us who have our own AirPort base station to manage, but today, I look at the Leopard’s new treatment of connecting to networks.
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Tags: connection, internet, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, management, network, review, settings, System Preferences