During the staff meeting today we watched an intense video on the exponential growth of technology in the world. In one word it was “astounding”. Although I was familiar with some of the claims, a few seemed higher than I expected. I recalled hearing recently that the average American had about 7 jobs in their life time but this presentation put that number at a higher 10 to 14 range. Perhaps this is true for those a part of my generation and younger. Also notable in my mind was the video’s mention of both mySpace and Facebook which is a true testament to the power of social networking.

About a minute thirty seven into the video you may be confused by the vocabulary “internet penetration” which a quick search reveals it refers to world internet usage statics by population. Speaking of vocabulary, as a casual writer myself, I was familiar with the English language statics mentioning Shakespeare. He is credited with bringing us thousands of new words in his time however the Oxford dictionary continues to add new words every year. Recent millennial additions include crunk, celebutante, and hoodie.

Of course the thought provoking clip is in our favorite colors, so be sure and check it out for yourself on youTube when you have a chance. There is so much more that can be said about the video, globalization, and technology so, I recommend you watch it for yourself and share it with a friend.

Last month, I did a sit-down interview with an aspiring web designer, fielding all sorts of questions and offering my own insights as I enter my fourth year in the industry. At one point, we hit the subject of the importance of web standards, structuring and coding layouts to work in every browser and future-proofed to an acceptable degree, and why tables should not be used to do layouts anymore.

This is where I heard a statement that kind of jarred me.

“Oh I know, I make MySpace layouts….” - it brought my brain to a halt.

It wasn’t anything personal with her, but it was the realization I had that there are likely 1000s of young people just like her also doing the same. Some people are even making a career / making money off making MySpace layouts.

So why is this harmful to impressionable minds?

For starters, MySpace was never designed with the intent that a user would be able to toss the site theme in favor of something of their own design. To make one, you basically have to unlearn everything you knew about HTML and CSS in regards to site layouts or themes. For those who haven’t done anything with websites before, learning all the ins and outs of how to get a myspace layout to work are filling their heads with useless crap. Other social networking sites such as Virb are designed to allow the user to apply their own stylings in a non-insane way. I was actually quite impressed with Virb because it also allows you to disable all custom layouts at your discretion- something MySpace can’t do.

My best advice to her was to ditch MySpace layouts all together, and purchase a cheap web hosting account with Wordpress. She would then at least have full access to change anything in the site layout while learning invaluable knowledge and design at the same time. That’s how I got started 12 years ago on Geocities (remember them?).

Could you imagine if there were sites that let you code your own add-ons, and it required you writing some screwed up PHP or Coldfusion that wasn’t accepted anywhere else in the world? How about a home builder who didn’t follow industry standards when building your home?

Can you believe some colleges still teach web design using tables and code generating software? Crazy isn’t it? It was like that when I was there and from what I’ve heard, not much has changed.

The thought of people having to do absurd CSS and table structuring just to make the myspace layout look a certain way just disturbs me. We have standards for a reason, and one of those reasons is to not repeat the sordid browser wars of the 90s which is where a lot of that mess stems from.

So for all you folks out there looking to get into web design, young or old, if you’re going to do something do it right. Refer to the giants: Zeldman, Meyer, Snook, Cederholm, etc… strive for greatness.

I’ve been using Google Mail since around 2004 when it was invite-only. After the first few emails, I was hooked. I killed my existing Hotmail, Yahoo! and other random accounts laying around. They simply provided few features, and demanded money for features that are basically standard in any mail client like Outlook. I email pretty frequently, so it is important that I have a feature rich service available to me anytime, anywhere.

So why Gmail? For starters, its really simple to import existing contacts into your system from your other accounts. Gmail also supports POP3 and IMAP- for free. This means that you can use any email client like Mozilla Thunderbird (also free) from any desktop and connect to your email. Last time I checked, Hotmail and Yahoo! both charged an annual fee to do this which is ridiculous. It isolates customers who don’t want to be tied to a web interface all the time. My storage cap at that time was like 250 MB, a ridiculously small amount. So it was no contest to switch to Gmail, who offer 6 GB to 8 GB per account, almost enough to last a lifetime (I have 7000 email conversations in my inbox).

Included with Gmail is Google Docs, Google’s online alternative to Microsoft Office. It is a lightweight application for basic word processing or spreadsheet creation. You can also share access with other Gmail clients (coworkers, friends, employees) by putting in their email address into the access list. They can then access the files and make revisions without ever having to connect to a server or downloading / uploading files, its all done from the web interface. And if that isn’t enough, Google Talk is embedded into the mailbox sections loaded with your contact list. If they also use Gmail, you can IM directly through Gmail instantly through the power of AJAX.

For those that are tech savvy like me and own an iPhone or iPod Touch, Gmail is supported fully either through Safari or the device’s Mail application- which to me is even more addictive than the Blackberry (Crackberry).

All of these reasons alone are enough to cut ties with other email services and sign up with Google. If that wasn’t enough, check out this article detailing 10 Reasons To Switch To Gmail.

There’s no doubt that the iPhone / iPod touch are the worlds smallest efficient mobile multimedia devices, but its one drawback echoed around the world is the varying difficulty users have in typing on it. If you have large fingers, you may register a few letters or multiple keypresses in one touch. This can make texting, emailing, and typing URLs frustrating. What’s a discouraged user to do?

Thankfully, there is a solution. The good folks at Ten One Design came up with a stylus unique for the iPhone / iPod Touch glass surface- a felt tipped stylus. Not only can this be used to make you a more efficient typer, but it can double as a drawing tool as well for drawing or sketching applications. Games that require sliding (such as Tetris, or Aurora Feint) can be better fit with the stylus as well, saving the screen from oil and smudges from dirty fingers.

http://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php

I love my iPod Touch. I was a bit weary back in March about the decision to buy the 32GB model but now it’s paid off. With the recent firmware update (available for 10 bucks through iTunes) comes a new little program called AppStore. AppStore is basically iTunes for iPhone/iPod specific software, with plenty of freebies. There has always been the ability to run Web Apps, which is to say connecting to a website and running an application- but this is so much better. This lets you download software to keep, more responsive, more slick, and better designed.

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User security is a pretty big deal these days, and as I prep my follow up to Avoid Identity Theft I had another thought to write about.

One of my favorite things to do is guess someones password. Why? Because I can usually guess it. After analyzing someones intelligence and technical prowess, you can gauge how difficult their password probably is. Pete likes to throw random accounts at me and I’ll guess the password for fun. Usually get it on the third or fourth try. Ask Kevin Howett, I could regularly guess his AIM/MSN Zone passwords quite regularly back in the day.

Here’s the scary part. Most users in the real world day to day business use passwords that are far too weak to even have any use. You would be surprised how many people use ‘password’ or ‘name123′ or just ‘name’ as a password. Tons. Or their birthdate, car, dogs name, or sports team name. This won’t protect you against anything, and choosing a password you can remember does not give you the benefits of a password at all. By just being a regular word like ‘toyota’ or ‘bill123′ any skilled cracker/hacker is going to get into your account no sweat.

Why? Well, they will tell you that choosing a password is hard. I don’t disagree with them. Having to think of something no one else is expected to discover is hard. There are services that can assist you with this.

A good password is one no one can guess, and one that would hinder even the best hacker or brute force app out there. That is why I am recommending to you to use Good Password. It will assist you in generating a password randomly or from a phrase of your liking.

While these may be hard for you to remember, don’t be discouraged. This is for your (and the company you work for) protection. I would suggest, if you must, to write them down and keep it in your wallet, or a place no one but you has access to.