onfocus

Meg has some great advice for working with clients in her latest O'Reilly article. Having a review process can take the personal politics out of project decisions. And it's another reason why persona-based design decisions are better than the results of an internal battle-of-wills.

Went for another spectacular hike this weekend. Mt. Hood in Sugarloaf State Park near Santa Rosa is a tough hike, but the views all the way up are worth it. It was very hot, but we found a cool spot next to a waterfall for lunch.


a great lunch spot

We all agreed that if we could teleport to a location for lunch every day, that would be the spot. Very relaxing.


view from gunsight rock

We didn't know this at the time, but there's a geocache at the top. Those geocachers are everywhere.

Finally, finally, finally I'm free from the incompetent boobery of Network Solutions/Verisign. This domain has been transferred to another registrar. (I use register.com.) I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but I'd heard horror stories about the registrar transfer process. Luckily, transferring was a breeze.

Based on Verisign's stock, it looks like the title of Internet Capital is being taken away from Virginia. That story from 1999 shows they've always been clueless: "'Virginia is the home of the Internet, and we are the leaders of this historic business revolution,' said Mike Daniels, chairman of domain registrar Network Solutions..."

This link describes an instance of domain hijacking/re-selling thanks to the incompetence of Verisign. This sort of thing should be illegal if it isn't already, but I guess you can get away with it when you live in the Internet Capital. Security is all about trust, and instilling trust doesn't seem to be their core competency.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's series Trois Couleurs (Blue, White, and Red) are three of the best films of all time (especially Red—skp's favorite movie). For some inexplicable reason, the company that has distribution rights in the US has not released them on DVD. They're available in Europe, but they're PAL encoded so they won't play on US DVD players.

Two weeks ago, I spotted a brazilian version (Azul, Branca, e Vermelha) through a Google search and ordered them on the spot. They arrived today. The packaging and on-screen DVD controls are in Portuguese, but there are English subtitles for the film. The video quality and extras aren't spectacular, but it's still way better than VHS. If you haven't seem them, they're worth renting. If you've seen them, you've probably already clicked to order the Brazilian release. Pel

Spent a spectacular day yesterday at Pt. Reyes walking from the Estero trailhead to Limantour Beach. I've been on the Estero trail a few times before, and part of the trail is on ranch land. So you often end up walking through a heard of cows. And they just stare at you with this evil look in their eyes. Like this:


more >>

More inside. (And they're not all pictures of cows.)

I've been cracking up at some of the Google Smackdown results people are sending in. Here are a few that I can share on this family-accessable site. (The first is particularly heartening.)

1. good (81,000,000)
2. evil (7,410,000)

1. U2 (1,940,000)
2. Oasis (1,840,000)

1. the egg came first (817)
2. the chicken came first (588)

1. linux (50,400,000)
2. windows (46,800,000)

1. Cat (15,800,000)
2. Dog (12,400,000)

Thanks Flearun, John, Rik, Josiah, and Robert!

Google Smackdown

I stayed up past my bedtime playing with the new Google API. The result? Google Smackdown!

Two words or phrases go head-to-head to see which reigns supreme on the Web. Perhaps you're wondering who is more popular: Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin? Which German Philosopher has web cred: Nietzsche or Hegel? Do people really say touch wood instead of knock on wood? There's only one way to find the answers: a G-Smack.

I made a change to the Weblog Bookwatch. If there are two editions of a book being mentioned (usually hardcover and paperback), it combines the totals and counts them as one. The edition information for these combined totals will say "Hardcover and Paperback". And the mentions are broken out by editions when listing the weblogs that mentioned that book. I think this will be a bit more accurate.

I picked up this World Lounge sampler from my local record store this weekend. Imagine Esquivel meets Ravi Shankar to produce an electronica soundtrack for an Indian spy film set in France. I like it.

Hiked to the top of Sonoma Mountain today. Here are a couple of pictures from the top:





I'm going to be hurting tomorrow, but it was the perfect time to go.