Simplicity Rules

My friend Dawn asked to know more about me recently, so I thought I’d share with you. For many, I’m just the simple guy. But, oh, I’m more complex than that. See for yourself:

1. I grew up on 30 acres an hour north of San Francisco. We had no animals, but we had plenty of fruit trees, a barn, a tire swing, and lots of land to play around on.
2. A donkey man lived on our property for almost a year. John Stiles was wandering the country with his two wagons (he slept in one) and a plethora of animals* when we offered him a place for the winter. It ended up being a nine month gig, and he built a third wagon during that time.
3. I once looked up gullible in the dictionary to prove a friend it was there. That is not a proud moment.



4. In college I started a radio station. As ever, it’s barely hanging on, but it’s still around. Like many things I’ve had a hand in starting, I did it because I wanted to participate, but there was nothing like it.
5. I ran a BBS in high school. This is where I earn my geek cred. I built myself a second computer, got an inbound-only phone line, and invited people to connect their computer to mine. I even wrote games for users to play and had a short-lived, but profitable, software company. The name of the BBS? Fallen Chaos, after misheard lyrics (”crawling chaos”) from a Metallica song.
6. I’ve never seen The Wizard of Oz. No, I have nothing against it, and one of these days it’s going to happen. The time just hasn’t been right yet. Don’t rush me.
7. There is a street named after my family in Windsor, CA. I was the fifth generation to live in the formerly tiny farming town. This year is the 100th anniversary of the DuVander Ranch (now mostly a Raley’s shopping center). When they created the new downtown a few years ago, they honored our family with a few hundred feet of blacktop. Bonus trivia: DuVander Lane is situated in what used to be the field where I first met the Donkey Man.
8. I have been in three bands, and each played a version of Sloop John B. I sang in all of them, played guitar in the first two, and switched to bass for the third. I even have a few MP3s hanging about here and there. The names: A.J. (Adam and Josh), The Rash, and trailBOSS.

Your turn: what don’t I know about you?

* Yes, El Guapo, I know what a plethora is. His animals, as I recall: Two mules, 18 donkeys (plus two born while he was with us, minus the two who died from bee stings), three goats, about a dozen chickens, and three or four doves.

This is an update on my previous MetroFi review from a year ago. MetroFi is the company tapped by Portland Metro to blanket the city with free WiFi.

I recently used the service downtown and found it to be better than my previous experience. The banner ads are gone, improving Internet browsing tremendously.

The only downside is that they’ve thrown a registration page before access is granted. Not just an “I accept” page, which is somewhat commonplace, but a complete multi-step create an account process.

The good news is that they don’t get deep into personal information–telephone numbers, address. It’s still a barrier, but well worth the one time annoyance to get better service.

I suspect they are doing some serious attention data gathering. If they aren’t working with major sites (ie, search engines) to serve up relevant ads yet, they will be soon. Privacy issues aside, this should be better for the users.

MetroFi still won’t replace my own Internet provider, nor keep me from going to WiFi coffeeshops, but it’s now a viable recommendation for the average Portlander who lives very near one of MetroFi’s hotspots.

Portlanders continue to do some amazing things. Unfortunately, a lot of it is still under the covers. My friend Rick is helping change that, but we have a long way to go. One of ways to help is get out and meet people. Far too many of us spend our lives in front of laptop flicker.

Consider this my annual call to join the Portland Web/Tech community by sharing my Portland groups.
Just about any event these days gets listed on Upcoming. You can see my list of Web/Tech events.

This year there is a new non-profit, Legion of Tech (I am on the board) that will help put on some popular Portland tech events:

• Ignite Portland, Feb. 5. I spoke at the first Ignite. And you can speak at this one (Jan. 15 deadline for submissions).
• Startupalooza, Mar. 29, will focus more on the biz side of things with the promise of a “no-BS environment.”
• The ad-hoc un-conference BarCamp Portland returns in May. The schedule and topics are decided the first day by the attendees.

There are also many regular gatherings. If you have a specific technology you love, there’s probably a user group for you. If you’re a generalist, there’s still a group for you:

• Portland Web Innovators is a group I helped start that tries to cover fun, new topics at the convergence of web and business.
• BarCamp Meetups are informal get-togethers where you can grab a beer, eat some pretzels, and just chat. As BarCamp nears, they may also become more about planning the event.

We recently bought our first house. One of the best things about it is the freedom to change something we don’t like.

This week, a locksmith came out to the house and changed the locks. Though we have a small place, there were three separate keys, one for each door. That was annoying, but it turns out to be very easy (and inexpensive) to have that changed.

We were able to keep our same lock housings, while replacing the mechanism so that each lock shared the same key.

Now my keyring is very simple, just three keys. It’s lovely. Last week I had five keys (three for home, two for the office) where I now have one.

I don’t know how easy it was for the locksmith, but it’s incredibly simple for me.

This will sound like a rant, but I think it shows how far the web has to go.

Yesterday evening I wanted to get my haircut. I looked at the clock and it was just after eight. So, I went to the website of my nearby big chain haircut place and found my location. Delighted and surprised, I saw they were open until nine.

I’m sure you know where this is going. The place was closed. It was only open until eight. The sign had obviously been changed recently. The “8″ sticker was newer than the rest of the numbers.

Not being able to get my haircut was one thing. What really bugged me was that a big company, with nearly 3,000 locations, made it easier to change the physical sign out front than one little character on a website.

It’s like my friends at Needmore say, always-current websites for everyone. When that happens, maybe we can talk about Web 2.0.

My favorite downtown hangout, Blueplate lunch counter and soda fountain, is giving away free milkshakes when you go there for dinner during October.

They serve great American comfort food in a laid-back atmosphere. Their sodas and floats are something you can get nowhere else. And yes, the shakes are great.

At the very least, stop by for their cool shiny stickers. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see my reflection in the sticker from the computer screen.

It’s a common misconception that anyone who works on the web is a graphic artist. I haven’t been a web designer since back when that’s all you could be as an HTML monkey.

I make the web work. Getting to that point, I’ve tried several titles: Webmaster, Web Developer, and finally Web Programmer. And still many people, even those who should know better, think I’m a designer.

And the thing is, I play one. I’m really lucky to have worked with talented designers. Their work looks great, and is also intuitive and usable. But even if I have one of these superstars beside me in the trenches, there will always be design decisions I need to make on my own.

1. I added a tiny new piece of information to a page–where should it go?
2. We’re changing ad sizes–how will that affect layout?
3. Nobody seems to know where to sign up–should we call it “registration” instead, or change the location of the link?

While I continue to refuse the label of designer, I am also immersed in the high-level topics a designer cares about. We cannot completely separate the responsibilities of programmers and designers. They need to work together and even know each others’ turf.

How a user expects a product to work is as much about design as it is about code.

I’ve been saying this for a long time. Maybe even back before blogs. So, when Tom made his Case for the Crusty Old Website, I couldn’t help but cheer.

“I’m not really trying to be a curmudgeon and reject the new outright, but last week I ran across Chris Glass’ website it reminded me of how much fun I had exploring peoples personal sites just a few years ago. With all the hype surrounding new social networks, a case can and should be made for those, you know, personal websites, that we used to visit. Blogging and the internet is, among many other things, just one big social network.”

Even though I really like the web as it is today, I can’t help but be nostalgic. Personally, I miss putting together little proofs of concepts or silly play-things. And when those sorts of projects do happen nowadays, people tend to give them their own vanity URL, because even the smallest mashups might become something bigger.

Like Tom, I miss exploring the partially organized bits that people have placed online. A blog feels like a stream of content flowing away from me. No matter how many permalinks you have, it won’t be as permanent as the little bits we put together without a Content Management System.

But, well, now I’m feeling like a curmudgeon, too. Like I said, I can’t help but be nostalgic.

No matter what anyone does, says, or thinks, Barry Bonds is one swing away from the most prestigious record in baseball. I’m pretty jazzed about that, not as a Giants fan (though I am one), but as a baseball fan. I’ve enjoyed watching Yahoo!’s Major League Baseball page track the homers.

I’m also a web geek, so I peeked in at the code and realized I could see into the future.

I looked at the URL of the image with Bonds in his current state, tied with Hank Aaron. As a test, I changed out a couple of characters and was surprised to see Yahoo! already has the record-breaking images on their server.

So, whenever Bonds breaks the record, we’ll see one of two options on Yahoo!’s MLB site:

Personally, I hope it’s the fireworks graphic. Regardless of whether you feel Bonds’ record is rightfully tainted, the feat should be celebrated. It’s been 33 years since Aaron made his mark, and it will be at least seven years before we see it broken again.

I don’t want to be preachy, but here are two things you can do that take very little effort in comparison to how it will help others.

Donate blood

Your body regenerates blood. It’s one of the wonders of the body. You can give a pint every 56 days and most never feel any negative effects. Your blood is then available to people at moments when they really need it.

Find a blood donation center today.

Become an organ donor

Let me dispel the largest rumor about organ donation: they won’t take your body parts until you’re done with them. That means you’re dead.

It’s a morbid thing to think about, and I know many people feel uncomfortable with the idea of their lung or heart going inside another’s chest. I understand this, and if you can’t get over it, don’t sign up.

But I sure wish you would. Like you, I rather like all my organs where they are right now. And that’s the good news, you can keep your organs now, just make your donation wishes known.

Find out how to register in your state