Tom reminds us it’s about sales NOT marketing. It’s interesting that sales has taken on that dirty word status. The idea that marketing’s fine but whatever you do, don’t sell me something.

These guys were mentioned on a recent twit. The twit site is built on drupal and those guys helped build it. They seem to be taking an approach we’re always discussing when it comes to simple website development, that is using drupal to build sites but making sure they don’t actually look like ‘drupal’ sites.

No one should be building simple websites by hand anymore. Use drupal or one of the blog engines so that you’ve got a publishing platform underneath.

We’re contemplating building our new site using drupal in contrast to the new CreationStep site which we built on WordPress. Oh, by the way, our brand new CreationStep site is now live.

For a high end example of what you can do with drupal, check out the onion which is built on drupal. Can you say 5 columns?

I’m the first to admit I really didn’t think another online whiteboard would be the least bit interesting, especially one made by GE. I stand corrected.

As seen on Lifehacker.

I’m a huge fan of wikipedia. It really takes some time getting used to reading an encyclopedia like format that’s truly live. We’re conditioned to date shift information like this based on the published date, or at least I am. I was curious about some technical bits related to the World Cup and in looking at the page today noticed this:

“The current Cup holder, Italy, follows with four titles, while Germany holds three.”

I thought, wait a minute Italy didn’t win the last World Cup before remembering that this was live information and it was referring to the World Cup awarded yesterday. In looking at this page’s history, it’s been updated over 50 times since the final yesterday. That’s cool.

Of course, I am slightly concerned about all these elves spending their lives updating wikipedia. I hesitate to suggest they get a life because I’m hooked on this live info. Um, keep up the good work.

Ok, so this may not be the ideal place to post about sports topics so I’ll just say I’m with Andrew on this. I’m doing my best to watch some world cup games, I swear.

“There is more action in five minutes of hockey than in your average 90-minute game of soccer”

According to secretGeek, and my quick test, goto statements are supported in C#. Wow, scary indeed.

I’m not a user interface designer, maybe I should be as I always seem to have strong opinions about it. I always push the idea of allowing users to grow within an interface. New users have a way to learn the interface within interface itself. As they grow, and work towards becoming power users, the interface gets out of their way and let’s them be power users.

Seth had a recent post related to training wheels that applies nicely. More software interfaces need training wheels that you can remove when you’re ready to go.

For really really bored geeks, test your typing speed.

77.25 wpm for little old me.

Update: Beat my record, 79.45 wpm. This is better than solitaire.

Update #2: Beat my record, 82.13 wpm.

Slashdot recently posted this article about a study that’s determined the internet is to blame for people’s dwindling social networks.

“This change indicates something that’s not good for our society. Ties with a close network of people create a safety net. These ties also lead to civic engagement and local political action”

It reminds me of Mesh and how excited people were about the whole social networking movement often associated with web 2.0. I often look at movements such as technology based social networking as symptoms. Held in that light I think it starts to get sad. It points to masses of people using technology who are desperate for social interaction. The sad part is watching them try to achieve that over the internet.

One of the presenters at Mesh was the guy who created Favourville. It’s a great example of what technologists hold up as examples of a web 2.0 social application. It allows people to connect with each other and exchange favours. You need to borrow a tall ladder, have a pile of rocks to get rid of, etc.

Great, someone using internet technology to connect people and build social networks? No, my first instinct was that this is yet another way for people not to know their neighbours. The only reason applications like favourville exist is due to a failed experiment called the suburbs combined with a technology called the internet. It isn’t opening up new possibilities, it’s attempting to fix what we’ve broken.

5 Loop

10 Go next door

20 Introduce yourself

30 Ask your neighbour if they have a ladder you can borrow.

40 Repeat until ladder borrowed

If you’ve heard of the concept of refactoring then you may have heard of code smells or database smells.

While these smell concepts have developed to the point where they have names and formal definitions, I’m guessing that wasn’t the original intention. That clarity only came through the work of documenting and conveying them as a formal topic through books and articles.

My guess is that orginally the concept of ‘smells’ was all about tacit knowledge. It’s about embracing a hunch which isn’t always done in technology, quite the opposite. Heavyweight processes often force tacit knowledge out by way of reviews, design documents, etc. If you can’t explain it, convey it, or write it out then it doesn’t exist.

The problem is that our greatest knowledge is tacit. You know something long before you can explain. How could that ever be the opposite? When was the last time you said I can explain it clearly but I don’t understand it. How many times have you said to your partner “crap, I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself right”?

The greatest athletes can’t explain how they do it. Some brain doctor types argue that in order to do something at your complete potential requires you to put it into your sub-conscious, stop thinking about it. Athletes think about, and can explain, what they’re learning, ie the basics, the fundamentals. They can’t explain how to score 50 goals or throw 5 touchdown passes in a game.

Spoken and written word is flawed, it’s a hack, and we’ll never be able to completely convey what we experience through language. You break what’s beautiful about an idea the minute you attempt to convey it in words. In technology we sometimes allow ourselves to believe it’s all 1’s and 0’s and therefore has no place for tacit knowledge. In doing so we may lose out on the best part we have to offer.