Help fund the Creative Dubuque Letterpress Post Card Series! I love this project for two reasons:

1. it’s Letterpress!
2. it’s cheap

If you’ve never contributed to a Kickstarter campaign before, this is a great one to join. You get a nice letterpress postcard for just $5. How cool is that? [iframe src=“http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pfraterdeus/creative-dubuque-letterpress-post-card-series/widget/video.html" frameborder=“0” width=“640” height=“480”] Letterpress is one of those things that I’m actually afraid to learn to do because I’m afraid I’ll become addicted to it. So instead I spend time looking at the prints that other artists have created. [iframe frameborder=“0” height=“380” src=“http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pfraterdeus/creative-dubuque-letterpress-post-card-series/widget/card.html" width=“220”]

I’ve been building web pages for over 15 years now, and one thing I know is that the web is not stable. Things happen that cause problems and the more you can do to protect yourself and your work the better. 

So an exchange I had on a forum I read was very interesting. I asked the question “what offline blog editor do you use?” And this prompted several replies. At first I was pleased, as I was hoping to get suggestions for offline editors. Right now I use MarsEdit, but there are some things about it that I don’t really like, so I was wondering if there were other options out there. 

I grew up knowing I had my heart on my sleeve. Every emotion I feel seems to start on my face, move to my mouth and then register in my brain. So when I find myself thinking “they should just calm down” about someone (other than myself, of course) the irony isn’t lost on me. For the fourth year in a row, I am participating in the About.com Readers’ Choice Awards. I set up some categories related to web design, in February solcited nominations, and now the finalists are getting votes. As in previous years, some people feel that there is a problem. Their site isn’t a finalist or they think another finalst is cheating or they can’t vote or they can, but too often or something like that. And they might start with a letter to me, but then they will move on to nastygrams and sarcastic comments and more. This happens every year. I explain the rules, remind people that you can’t be a finalist without being nominated, that cheating is not tolerated, and that About.com is doing all they can to make things fair. And then I (try very hard to) let it go. Ultimately, I think that it’s great that people value these awards enough to get so upset about them. But I’m not interested in freaking out because of them. I want to stay calm and recognize that the awards will do what they do whether I am upset or calm. So I choose calm.

So, Thursday or Friday I got a note from my mail carrier saying that I had a box waiting for me from Amazon.com. Since I have received all of my Amazon orders I was not really sure what it could be. Since it was addressed (on the note) to J. Kyrnin, I was thinking it might actually be a present for Jaryth because his birthday is coming up. So I head to the post office this morning, and after waiting in the long line (of course!) I get my package and open it up and inside is a girl’s size small hockey shorts with “pelvic protector”. Um buh? I checked the box again and yes, it was addressed to me. But on the inside the shipping label was addressed to someone in New York State, both billing and shipping addresses. What I then learned is that Amazon makes it challenging to deal with problems that occur outside of their standard problems. If I wanted to return it, I was told that “returns are easy.” But then I wasn’t sure if the hockey player in New York would get the refund or not. I don’t want the money, it isn’t mine. I then thought I’d return it as a gift, and that wouldn’t work as a) Amazon does gift returns as a gift card to the recipient (ie. me) not the sender and b) this item was apparently not eligible for returns or exchanges. So then I moved on to their customer care form. First I have to indicate that the problem I’m having is not part of their online help. Then I have to choose from a drop-down that, unsurprisingly, has no option for “I received something I didn’t order and is not a gift.” I chose “other non-order related.” But it is kinda order related, but anyhow… So then I get another drop down, and by this time I’m getting ready to give up, except that I don’t want to throw away a perfectly good, brand new item, as that seems like a waste. So I slog on. I fill in the next drop down in the “other” category again, because again they don’t have one that is related to my issue. I then give details and then “more details” and hit the “contact me by email” option. I am now supposed to wait no more than 12 hours for a response. I hope that the hockey player doesn’t start her hockey games for a while. This seems like something that many online form creators should be aware of - namely the goals of the customers using the form. My perception of this customer service form was that they were trying to avoid having to talk to me. There was a lot of focus on getting me to use online help, and I’m sure that’s useful for the majority of requests. But for those that don’t fit into that mold, the form can get annoying very fast. One of the features that this form had that ended up being annoying was that it changed dynamically when I chose various options. Designers and developers love these types of forms because they are interactive, fun to build, and help the customer self-select exactly what they need. But I found it really annoying as there was never any indication that the end was in sight. I would select one option, and another would appear - poof. I would choose from that list, and the form would change again. As I said above I was getting really tired of filling out the form (and you should be aware that this form was the last in a series of things I tried before using it. I tried returning, gift returning, and then just looking for a number I could call before finding that link to customer service. If I had been even slightly busier or on any type of time restraint I would have just given up and dumped the thing in the trash never to worry about it again. I suppose the other reason it was tedious is because all of the choices I had for returns, gift returns, and even customer service were assuming that I had made some type of mistake. For example, when asked why I wanted to return it, I was given options like:

I got this mail series yesterday and today. It’s still not very informative… ——– Original Message ——– Subject: Re: Re: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:49:30 -0500 From: Noah Hansen xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx To: Jennifer Kyrnin <webdesign.guide@about.com> lol ————————————————– From: “Jennifer Kyrnin” <webdesign.guide@about.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 6:21 PM To: “Noah Hansen” <xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: Re: > You’re right. This mail isn’t very informative. ☺ > > Was there something specific you were feeling was not very informative? Or was this a commentary on me in general? > > Jennifer Kyrnin > Guide to Web Design / HTML > http://webdesign.about.com/ > About.com | Need. Know. Accomplish > ———————————————— > About.com is part of the New York Times Company > > http://www.facebook.com/AboutWebDesign > http://www.twitter.com/htmljenn > > On 9/15/10 2:49 PM, Noah Hansen wrote: » not very informative » Noah Hansen

Today I received a comment on my web design blog complaining that a previous comment was “clearly spam”. The post in question talked about web design books I was looking forward to seeing. And the (possibly spammy) commenter linked to an ebook he was looking forward to.

My question is: what makes this spam? The fact that he bolded the title of the book? The fact that he included a link to the ebook’s web page? The fact that he didn’t say “I am not the author, I just like this book” or something equally obsequious?

I’ve got my new template up and running. I’m sure I’ll continue to find things I need to tweak and fix on it, but for now I’m pleased with it.

This is my first foray into my own images for a design. Or I should say, it’s the first time I’ve ever used a painting or drawing I did. I really like how it turned out. If you’re curious to know more about why I built this template, check out the About this Site link in the navigation above.

I have a form on my site asking for people to define what they feel a webmaster is. It asks:

“Share your thoughts. What is a webmaster?”

And I received this reply:

“Title: Webmaster description…OMG                 I just read several responses to what others opinion are regarding what a webmaster is and quite frankly, the grammar, spelling, and English are deplorable. If one cannot master the fundamentals of communication, then the game is over. Webmasters will become specialized because of their skills and not because of a simple desire and a minimal education. How would like to go to a dentist who was self taught and just got by in school? Ouch………..”

I was reading TUAW this morning, and they were talking about the Apple.com site and how some people were reporting that the Downloads section was gone. In a nutshell their article was just saying that no, it’s not, it’s just not on the navigation now because they needed room for an iPad tab. My favorite quote from the article* was:

“Fortunately you can easily locate the downloads section simply by typing the word “downloads” into the search box.“