(Word)Pressed into service

Posted on February 25, 2005 by Chris Heisel

[heisel.org](http://www.heisel.org) is now powered by [WordPress 1.5](http://wordpress.org/download/).

I had the site up and running under various nightly builds for a while now, and it was mostly pre-occupied-idness that delayed me from making the switch.

I love the new [WordPress theme capability](http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes). I can honestly say I wouldn’t have made the switch if they stuck with the everything-in-one-index-php-file approach from 1.2.

I also love the [pages system](http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages) they built. It addresses a need that just about everybody has, and it makes managing these pages much easier than the bunch-of-index-templates or seperate blog workaround in [Movable Type](http://www.movabletype.org/).

I’m also a big fan of the [Staticize Reloaded plugin](http://photomatt.net/2004/07/26/staticize-25/) that gives you alot of the stability of MT’s static pages, but most of the dynamic funness that WP offers.

I wish the interface was a little more vertically-oriented, though. Maybe it’s something intrinsic about the Web or Web applications. Maybe I’m just used to [Movable Type](http://www.movabletype.org/), but I find the predominantly horizontal sections of the [WordPress](http://www.wordpress.org) interface jarring.

I also wish that it didn’t have so many bloomin’ wp-*.php files litered all over the root directory. Maybe I’m anal, but I like clean directory structures. I set up my installation in a seperate folder, but that means I have to manually edit my .htaccess anytime I add a new page. But since I haven’t done that in a looooong time, I figure I’m OK there.

My blogmarks now appear throughout the site, as opposed to just on the index. That’s accomplished by my [del.icio.us](http://del.icio.us/) importer — that yanks bookmarks from [del.icio.us](http://del.icio.us/) into WordPress. I’ll write more about it and release the code soon, it could probably use some clean up.

Anyway, if things are broken, please [contact me](/contact) or post a comment.

Posted in Technology, Web design | Comments Off on (Word)Pressed into service

Recipe for Web design success.

Posted on February 24, 2005 by Chris Heisel

Recipe for Web design success.

How to sell your clients/bosses on yummy, and valid, deserts.

Posted in Blogmarks | Comments Off on Recipe for Web design success.

Nobody wants free ‘groupware.’

Posted on February 16, 2005 by Chris Heisel

Nobody wants free ‘groupware.’

Or why you make software for users, not managers.

Posted in Blogmarks | Comments Off on Nobody wants free ‘groupware.’

The ‘new business’ paradigm

Posted on February 10, 2005 by Chris Heisel

I don’t think that the vast complex web that is the Internet can really be boiled down into a PowerPoint-able bullet point. But for those media executives who need such a thing:

* On the Internet, it’s about users first, not money

That’s a paraphrase from [this E-media Tidbits item about Craigslist](http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=78254).

In short, Craigslist only starts charging for its listings when the volume of crap listings gets so high, that a charging a *small* fee makes the listings **more usable.**

Remember, users can leave your site in an instant. How long does it take to hit Apple-W?

On the Web, content is king. The corollary being that content plus a great interface is emperor.

Give the users the content they want, and the interface they need, and you’ll stand a much better chance of “monetizing”, “enterprising” or otherwise making money off your site.

Posted in Business, Web design | Comments Off on The ‘new business’ paradigm

Teens: No respect for First Amendement, what about blogs?

Posted on February 4, 2005 by Chris Heisel

The Knight Foundation recently released a [study showing a disturbing lack of respect by teens](http://www.knightfdn.org/default.asp?story=news_at_knight/releases/2005/2005_01_31_firstamend.html) for the [First Amendment](http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html).

One question that went unanswered, or at least unmentioned in the Knight Foundation’s release, was what do the students think about First Amendment protection for forms of speech closer to a teenager’s heart?

What about blogs?

I’m just guessing here, but say you’re an average American teenager. You get this survey from the Knight Foundation, which is probably pretty heavily infused with the idea of “Big Media” ™ — newspapers, TV, radio, etc.

What reason do you, the average American teenager, have to trust “Big Media” ™? Not much:

* **Newspapers:** Increasingly becoming less relevant to teens — they don’t cover (or cover well), the issues facing them. And even if they do, lugging a newspaper around isn’t as hip as a cell phone, iPod, or laptop.
* **Radio/Music:** Chances are, you or your friends could be/have been sued by “Big Music” because they refuse to sell you singles on-demand electronically. Sure, Apple is making the situation better, but Apple isn’t “Big Media” ™ — they’re hip.
* **TV/Cable:** Tivo and [Bittorrent](http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/) has made your TV experience enjoyable again, but you keep hearing about how the MPAA is getting ready to fight those two outlets.

My point is that teenagers, among others, have very few reasons to support or trust “Big Media” ™.

So, the question is, what if you asked: “Do you believe the government should be able to censor your LiveJournal?”

Or what about: “Should the government be able to monitor your IM/text message sessions with your friends?”

A big part of the future of mass communication is personal publishing and [end-to-end communication via the Internet](http://worldofends.com/).

The question is, how do teenagers feel about the government regulation of **their media** not “Big Media” ™.

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment