August 3, 2008
We decided months ago that we’d be moving back to St. Louis. It’s been since the end of April that our house was for sale, although only a week since we have been selling through a realtor. I have had some interesting good times since we’ve been preparing our house. I’ve discovered that we can live in any kind of arrangement. Whether a room is rearranged, or completely unavailable, we just adapt to it, and it’s even kind of fun to take things out of a room in order to better fit for a minimalist room stage. I’ve learned that I really don’t love much of my stuff. I don’t love or need it so when it’s gone, I don’t care, I just do something else. We’ve put away a lot of things in boxes and our house is better for it. Still the basics are there, but we’ve made some rooms an avatar or symbol of themselves. Instead of a lived in room with clutter, we show just the minimum so people identify it and it’s appealing. More appealing than a hotel room, more home-like, but just as minimal. This allows us to enjoy looking at the room too. We get look through the eyes of a buyer, which is like looking as a guest in your home. And you see that you’ve been living with too much junk for far too long. I appreciate the rooms and our house a little more. I like being prepared for guests to show up unannounced like I am for buyers who need a good first impression.
The kitchen is absolutely spotless, because we want to be able to pick up in a moment’s notice. This subtle motivation to keep it clean also has shown me how much cleaner you can have it by keeping it clean all the time and saving time. We always liked surrounding our counter top with the things we use, like spices, sugar a couple appliances. But having them put away and only having a fruit bowl visible is so pleasing. The kitchen sanitized, but it’s calming rather than cold or empty. Pulling an appliance out of the cabinet is less of a hassle than I thought it would be.
Being a seller is not a good position though. A seller pays both his agent, and the buyers agent from a percentage of the sale. It is quite an expense. And when you see how much it really is, and you look at how much work the agent is actually doing, then like me, you may get pretty upset and disappointed. Not that being a realtor is super easy. But let’s face it. Some realtors might be making about $500 per hour when you look at time spent vs the big payoff. Buyers agents ignore your house when it’s a FSBO, for sale by owner. Even though they want to find a house for their client, they are getting paid by the seller. If the seller is a FSBO, then they know there’s no contract for paying the buyers agent. So you will be the last to be visited. If you are a FSBO, make sure and advertise that the buyers agent will be compensated. Be generous, even though you’ll see that agent one or two times, offer to pay them at least 0.5%-1%. Then it’s worth their while. And people will actually knock on your door. We had one buyers agent show up in 3 months because they and the client were walking the neighborhood. Unfortunately our house wasn’t ready to show, so we lost that opportunity.
We have a nice realtor, she’s friendly and helpful. But we are damn good clients too. We have done nearly all the suggested work, we’ve cleaned up and polished just about everything, we’ve staged rooms, gotten rid of clutter. An agent is motivating, because they create the push behind you, reminding you about your chances to sell. But I don’t think they are as big of a use as a $1000 consultant could be. If you pay someone to help you, you are a lot more likely to carry out with your own necessary work.
I feel like if I was to do this over again, I would start my own “properties” company and get a real printed sign and a dedicated phone number and answering service. Then I would spend a $100 bucks or more on the best books and follow all the great advice from them, from repairs to painting to cleaning, storage and staging. Then I would try to take a real estate class and find out what is required to qualify buyers. Then I would put myself on the MLS including several of the free databases. I’d start a house website and advertise it on craigslist. That way I’d be a lot more prepared and probably still save a ton of money over the eventual sales costs. Or if that failed I’d still be better off if I went with a regular realtor in the end. As long as buyers and their agents are showing up, you are gonna find one that can buy your house. And you can dump some of the savings you’ll have (from avoiding mainstream realtors) and either do more repair work, or just lower the price of the house.
I’m not saying it’s all that easy. I have a lot going for me in this area already. I work from home and control my hours, and I’m good at photography and multimedia so it’s nothing for me to take a well-lit shot or stitch a panorama together and size it properly for uploading. But I do believe that even without some of my skills, anyone motivated could do what these agents are doing and just pay the minimum paper work fees to experienced people. I feel as though, agents are good and helpful, but their interests in certain things are low and their pay grade is much too high. And they hold tight to their community so it’s hard for us diy people to work in the same market.
Speaking of DIY, I’ve become a little more experienced in working on houses. I’ve done wood trim (not so great, but not terrible) and I did a good job with tile grout. I’ve learned a little electric work, enough to be very dangerous. I know more of what to look for in a house, and more of what I like in our next home purchase. I know better what things will cost and easy ways to find good helpers. I’ve learned not to settle for cheap tools and that it’s very easy and better to borrow whatever you can from neighbors. You won’t know you really need a tool until you’ve borrowed it. Borrow it first every time you can. You might find you can get a better one than your neighbors and use theirs as a starting point. I’ve learned how much crap is for sale at hardware stores. Like I spent a few dollars on this rubber sanding block that is annoying to load with sand paper and that a piece of 2×4 wrapped in sandpaper was way better and faster. More than anything I’ve learned that you really need to learn how to mud and repair with all the varieties of it. Learn mud materials and you can fix so many problems.
I’ll offer this piece of advice that I actually didn’t take, but I might in the future. If you want to do something to your house that you think you should be able to do, and aren’t sure how. Call around and see if you can job-shadow somebody doing tile work, or installing windows and see if you can’t figure out how to do it from that. It might mean a lost Saturday, but you might learn a great life skill. You might still need to pay for it, but having the opportunity to ask questions and peek into what the pros are using, as tools and materials and technique might be just enough.
Posted in Uncategorized 
No Comments »
July 1, 2008
I have become disgusted with politics mostly because I can’t appreciate it as a spectator any longer. In trying to pay attention and get the whole story, it’s impossible to whittle down everything and get to the truth. The media’s sensationalism, the chosen stories reported, the quotes and all the meaningless banter has an enormous negative effect. I posted a few entries about politics this past year. And I’m disappointed by it. I’m disappointed that I got so involved in many ways. I’m disappointed in the way things have turned out. People aren’t listening. People are telling lies. People are seeing candidates through the lens of a background of mis-information. People follow words instead of facts. They get caught up in sentences and have no grounding in the constitution. Below are some points to be taken as my farewell to the day-to-day following. I consider much of this past year a complete waste of time.
- We all have to be good helpful individuals, and make the best moral decisions we can based on the information we have. There’s no reason to give any extra weight to claims that have no evidence. There’s no reason to think that what has always been done is right. There’s no reason to assume you have any moral high ground based on the past. There is only now, there is only what you do to help others.
- You may think that there is a vast conspiracy. And you might be right. But you probably are mostly wrong. Don’t trust or put faith in the political system. But also don’t think that you are alone in trying to create balance. Don’t feed more unverified claims into the mix. Strive for accuracy and truth above all else, no matter if you have a large following or not. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. All it takes is one mistake or false claim and many of your actual truths can be disregarded. Don’t take the risk.
- Turn off the television and ignore nearly everything related to politics. Focus on issues wherever possible and find your path to make a difference through initiatives. A phone call is better than nothing. Raise awareness in ways that you are capable. Don’t let conversations run into the ground. You probably won’t change people, and perpetuated divisiveness is the likely outcome both of reading drivel and pundits.
- Don’t let others create divisions or try to separate people. Don’t let them make others out to be bad people, different or somehow less than valuable. They aren’t doing it for your benefit. They don’t know the entire truth. They are weak and their thinking is corrupt. Their minds are dark.
- When you look at the world, your neighborhood, people on TV and you get angry, you are tired of people making messes, of trashing what used to be great, and you wish that things could be better. You are the only one that can actually affect that. By picking up a small amount of garbage, by having a conversation, by creating any kind of ripple, you are your answer and your solution. And you must do it often. And you will continue to be aggravated and you must relearn that you are the answer to the problem. If you ask yourself how somebody like you could make the change, you will get the answers that you can actually follow. A scary neighborhood is scary because you haven’t started the nightly walk organization, because you haven’t created a group that cares for good.
- Meetings where people talk are fun. Politics works that way. Meetings are productive only in small ways. Ideas come from there, but meetings are not work. People don’t often collaborate at a meeting on actual work. They “plan” to carry out the work after the meeting. But the great ideas that come out of the meetings rarely can’t maintain their energy as they filter down through the budgeting, sub-committees and then to the real workers. Lawmakers and CEOs don’t know how to do the work. They are too used to having meetings and then having people do it for them. We need more working meetings.
- The government’s money spent is your money. Repeat this and understand it. It’s constantly wasted everytime a frivolous initiative or lawsuit is carried out. Too many politician’s have a game where they take the issue of the day, act as though they have a huge vested interest in it and use it for notoriety, all the while taking your money to pay for promotion, lawyers, research etc. They no longer understand that it doesn’t belong to them. They are too used to spending any time they want. Real statistics and economics will reveal that the issue of the day is more likely an anomaly and should be gracefully ignored. Do your best to identify these sensationalized stories. Real important issues are buried because they are constant, continuous and boring. These are the ones that need attention and money.
- Do more things for others. Because it’s good. When people are scary, get to know them. People don’t like to go to war with friends. People don’t like hurting people they know. War goes on because we haven’t done enough to create relationships.
Posted in general No Comments »
July 1, 2008
There are a million things I’m wanting to do with this page. And most of them aren’t going to get done. But I will be redesigning soon. I’m tired of the disconnect between my site and my blog. It’s time to create an easier system. Over the next few weeks, look for some updates to the design, and some new features added. I’m not trying to keep up with the Jone’s. I’m trying to make this creative outlet more accurately reflect what I do. And make it more fun and rewarding to build and to read. I don’t think this RSS feed will last, so look out for it to end, if you do subscribe to my site. Another RSS feed will be created though.
Posted in general, nothing No Comments »
March 28, 2008
It was that time again for me. Renew my plates. I used to go downtown and do it. Then I remembered that even though the lady at the desk and the ladies at the window are usually nice (when I’m prepared), everything else in between, the metered parking downtown on shitty one-way streets, the long lines (not always though) I decided it’s better for everyone if I just do it online. After doing so I realize that somehow the MO plates website has been made to mimic the annoyance of the real life DMV.
Here’s my walkthru because you have a few minutes.
Our story starts off ok at plates.mo.gov. Right at the top, a single big link to “Click Here to Renew Plates Online” cool! Or maybe not so cool. I’ll explain in a couple points.
- Quickly it all goes to hell. Next we have a long list of reasons why I won’t be able to complete this process. A bunch of exceptions. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Just like the mean ladies downtown. Why not shove these on a sidebar m’kay?
- After the exceptions list we have the prominent “Click Here” button. That must be it. It has to be, I’m so tired of reading exceptions. Well actually it’s not it. ‘Click Here’ and a page tells me my renewal is not complete. No kidding. That’s why I’m here. Site error? After trying that button 5 times, I realize I’m not experiencing a site error, it’s just a horribly placed and vaguely labeled button. That button is to check if my renewal went through. It’s for people who did this 5 days ago and want to verify the system accepted it. Why is this “click here” button here? The first site page told me to this page to renew my plates. If I wanted to check my already renewed status, that option should have been on the very first page. I’ll repeat this just so it sinks in. On the “Renew my plates” page I start off with reasons why I might not be able to renew and then just under that we have the unlabeled link to check my renewal. Oh but it gets better.
- After figuring out the first half is not applicable, we scroll down to “Getting Started” Wait, what? I thought I already started 10 minutes ago? Oh that’s right, the first 10 minutes you are just playing with yourself. Duhh. If you haven’t realized it yet, this chunk that says “Getting Started” info needs to be placed at the top.
- Next we have a big orange panel of what we need. Now were talking. I like strong color backgrounds used for emphasis. This colored list is good Except for #6, you actually do not need your insurance card to do this.
- Next we must agree that we won’t submit false information and a reminder that’s against the law. I’m kind of mixed on agreements these. As someone who would never do that, it seems cheesy. I’m also not sure this will matter to one who intends to insert false info. Oh well it’s not too annoying. “I agree, please continue.”
- Enter your pin and license plate#. Aw dang it. What is my plate #. Why didn’t that nice orange box tell me I needed that? Oh good it’s on the paperwork. You see if I took the time to find my license plate, the session would have timed out in a matter of a hundred seconds idle time. Then I have to start over. Thanks.
- After entering my pin and license itt verifies my information. Cool,I’m in the system! That’s convenient right?
- Then it verifies your information again (pay special attention to the way your name is listed there).
- Then you have a form that says “enter ID and product code. But then it says if you aren’t from X counties you don’t need to do option one, move on to option 2. Interestingly option one, which is the product code area, isn’t actually labeled as such? But that has to be what they mean right? Hurray! I can skip to option 2, Jackson County has it’s privileges! Option two isn’t labeled either, so go ahead and muddle your way through that, which is the best way to fill out critical government forms anyway in my opinion. Hope I’m right.
- Option 2 is Fill out your name, address, city state etc. (as printed on your tax receipt, and they say damnit make sure if your address has two lines, then use both address lines of the form. ) Ok, Ok I will. I need to follow the format of the tax receipt. I’m fine with that. But wait, why am I even filling this out again? You already showed me that you had my information. You verified it to me 2 or three times where you made me agree it was correct. This is just another chance for me to make a mistake and get kicked out again. And…
- Error, (I’m paraphrasing) “You need to fill out the appropriate information.” That’s vague. So I DID need the product code and ID from Option 1? But I don’t have a product code or ID on my tax bill.
- So maybe just a temporary error. I’ll try again…Error, And again, keep getting it. WTF? I read the error page thoroughly. It mentions I might need cookies enabled. And it links to instructions for IE and..Netscape Navigator? Jesus, that browser isn’t supported any longer and is unmistakenly dead. I’m using Firefox. Then I wonder is this a Firefox issue? I’m going to be really mad if Firefox isn’t supported and netscape is. And what about people on Mac using Safari? Screw this, I’ll go to the horrible unsecure Internet Explorer in order to submit my legal information over the internet.
- Now I’m in IE, ladadadada, doing it all over again. Then I notice something.. When it makes me verify my personal information twice, it shows my name as Last, First M. I didn’t notice it the first time because it’s just a quick verification. Wait, you don’t think that I need to print it that way on the next page do you? But I followed the tax receipt, like they told me and on the tax receipt it was printed normally. Ok, I’ll try it.
- Blammo, it works. Thank GOD.
- Then 38 seconds of screaming, one broken coffee mug. Who in the hell is going to realize this naming convention? I’m lucky. I spotted it by pure luck. Everyone else is going to get pissed off and bring their anger to the DMV office. Why do they want this?
- Ready to pay? Great! Simply fill out your personal information AGAIN. AHHHHH!!!!! You already have my info!!! WHY WHY!!!!
- Next, do you want to pay by Credit card or E-Check? (It’s a trap. I remember it from months ago. Pay by credit card and it will cost you a few dollars, and an e-check is 60 cents charge) Obviously I’m gonna go with e-check but how many people don’t realize this? Yeah everybody else. Later and on other pages, they call these “convenience fees.” Hey DMV dickwads, It’s more convenient for YOU if I pay by credit card or check, because it eases your lines, your parking and your employees. And yet you make ME pay for YOUR convenience. And even though it’s just 60 cents, FU.
- Next we have the longest processing time ever. I am on the supposed double-fast DSL and it just creeps along. Normally I don’t complain about this kind of thing, but if this was dial-up, it’s totally gonna time out on me. After all that work if it times out on me, I’m grabbing my torch and saber. If it happens to time out, it won’t tell me if the payment went through. Then everything’s in limbo. Then I’m going to call the DMV, take up their time and give them the 3rd degree. So, find a fast way to process payments. Period. And if it costs more, you fire one guy from your web team who created this monstrosity and pay for it that way.
- Lastly we end on a good note. A decent 1 page formatted receipt that we can print out. But the happiness of that is quite thin because going back to point #2, because I received this notice that it went through, why would I come back and check that ridiculous ‘Click Here’ button on the front page to verify my renewal. I suppose I could somehow forget that I didn’t renew and I come back to check? Given the rarity that would happen, it makes that “Click Here” button at the beginning seem very dumb for it’s placement.
Ok DMV, see ya next year. At that time I’ll need an inspection so it’s gonna be even more fun. Oh if anyone from that website group reads this. Maybe consider spending about 2 hours, with some pizza and a couple testers to just walk through the paying process like I did. This should never have created this poorly. Clearly there was no testing done. Or there was, but everyone was completed drunk when they did it. And you know what. I know that if their web guy or girl does read this, she’ll be upset. I’m sure you are a nice person web guy/girl. I don’t mean for you to get down in the dumps. But you first need to admit this is bad logic, programming and design, and never do it that way again. Because though you think it’s no big deal and my posting is much too offensive, It’s you who have caused pain to hundreds of thousands of people by doing this, including your co-workers who answer calls and have to pick up the pieces from a broken process daily.
Posted in computers, general, rants, webdev No Comments »
March 26, 2008
Overly thrilled with the sound of my own voice, I wanted to share my call in to the KC local NPR station KCUR.org. The Walt Bodine show featured a few experts the other day called the “Book Doctors” who talked about favorite fiction. I decided I wanted to rant on the book I was reading at the time. My main thought while on hold, “Ok, Mike when you get on the radio, don’t bore them, take too long or sound like a wacko.”
Things turned out just fine. I really like NPR, which I never would have imagined 10 years ago. I like how you can listen to it and it differs so much from most radio stations. Say what you want about XM, Sirius satellite radio, I still think it’s important to be surprised by subjects too. Anyway, if you want to have a listen, I just clipped my two-minute part in .mp3 audio below.
The books they recommended to me were:
Galatea 2.2: A Novel (Paperback)
Ratner’s Star
If you like books, you can listen to the whole show here online at the Walt Bodine Archives
Posted in books No Comments »
March 12, 2008
It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally created my ultimate free software tools list. Before it was a pathetic page, always a ghost of what it could be. Now, since I’ve recently upgraded my computer setup, I’ve had a lot of time to refine a perfect setup.
Check out my Free Software Tools page.
Posted in computers, design, graphics No Comments »
March 12, 2008
For several months, I was hoping that some of the political postings I made might be read and affect people, at least to look candidates in a way that the mainstream media wasn’t. But all that’s nearly over, and I was happy to delete all that crap from my site. Because the election is mostly on its own freight train and though I have some affect at any point of the ride, I’d rather get back to things I care about. Years ago, I decided that if I was going to write something here, it should be as timeless as possible. Otherwise I could go nuts talking about all the latest happenings.
Been thinking a lot lately on how open the world is to us when we get to a certain level of intelligence and skill, or at least belief of that. Not that I always display a lot of intelligence or skill, but still I begin to really see the power of what you can accomplish with no fear and a few hours work. Success, both in feeling and financial seems to really hang in the balance with people having a constant choice, rather than some sort of destiny. You may have read that kind of statement before, but it’s much different than really experiencing it first hand. I think working for myself, I am able to see it a lot easier. Were the last few hours used to make something new, significant or interesting, or were they wasted on something that’s not in my actual goals. So many fun things intrude on your focus and your long term goals. It’s really hard for me to manage it, without getting help from my two maniacal friends, fear and urgency.
Sometimes I think the most important moments of our lives are when we write letters. In most letters, we are either asking a question, or giving thanks. Both are very powerful and significant things we can do. They are actions of growth I think.
Focus has been a challenge lately, so it’s a matter of walking the long-term path as often as possible. No self-help stuff here. Just a few thoughts.
Posted in learning No Comments »
January 17, 2008
I had to go through a new exercise that I’m not used to. I’m working with a couple people on a website, and I needed to write contracts for everything, in order to protect and benefit everyone. I looked at the task as a necessary evil. It was time consuming and something that I needed to do before anyone even agrees I can get paid, so every minute working on it, is in hopes that it will result in a closed deal. There’s no guarantee that what I write, can in effect kill the intention of the contract in the first place. One or both interested parties could back out. Then I’m left with an unsigned useless piece of paper. Whew I’m tired…
Regardless, I had to do it, thinking positively about it. Turns out something happened that I didn’t expect. While writing a contract, you have to search for words with the right meaning, not just kind of the right meaning, you have to consider what you can and can’t agree to, and how to present it. You also have to go back over it multiple times, removing problems with the logic. I know no one would go for this just as an exercise by itself, but I actually doing it was quite valuable, in that after completing it, I think my brain has grown some new neurons or connections. I actually think I got smarter writing contracts. And that’s not to say my contracts are perfect, or bulletproof. I’m sure they are flawed. I was constrained by time and experience. But I did however start to see new things, and again just logical thinking, using factually descriptive and consistent language to create these documents was even satisfying at the end.
I can see how lawyers can get quite good at this. Much of a contract is repetitive sort of lingo. Words used and understood inside this special framework that, once you know, turn into words as we know them, like emotional or logical tags of sorts. Some of it feels very foreign as if from an older different culture. I think by thinking this way, by exposing yourself to the limits, or benefits or extensions a contract creates, you then take from that a slightly more logical brain perhaps. You look at how to use exceptions, and what you can and can’t include according to your status and how the contract affects someone’s ownership of an actual tangible thing, or in property of an intellectual nature.
Now, based on this experience in any discussion in the future I may be more aware of the consequences of a certain type of argument and whether it was presented responsibly.
So men, let’s go out there and write some contracts!
Posted in learning, writing 2 Comments »
December 22, 2007
Here’s how you write a good political headline:
This is from a CBS Denver Affiliate December 21st 2007. I can agree with it based on my own heavy news reading, although I believe he’s already well “emerged.” Considering he’s done well for months and months of smaller polls and of course all the money he’s earned from a hundred thousand or more individual donations.
Now here’s how you demonstrate your bias and bullshit agenda (from a day earlier than the above):
And you know what’s really great? This is CBS national news. So we have an affiliate that must have seen the national headline and editors said, “our program and site is better than that, better than our parent company.” Denver has had a reputation of a good news market in the past. I don’t know if it’s true always, but here it definitely is. CBS national news is also following leads from elsewhere. Yahoo guilty, along with the AP this time, which makes me ready to drop their email all together. Bye Bye Yahoo Mail!
I’m not going to spend time analyzing this. What’s the point? I’ll spend the time writing letters. Let’s just identify something. The Yahoo story is from an AP feed. Who wrote the headline? And why is the headline, not part of the URL? Instead the URL uses a quote from the biased story “news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071220/ap_po/anti_war_asterisk.” In the story, it states that Ron Paul was not long ago, an Anti-War asterisk in the race for republican nomination. What exactly does that mean? Can somebody tell me if this comes from common political jargon? An asterisk. And don’t get me wrong, if you write Hillary Clinton, blah blah “asterisk“, I’m still left wondering if that’s like “special candidate” or footnote? It’s anything but an informational label for someone, we know that. And we know that news is supposed to be facts, not labels and stereotypes. Why is this allowed, and then even worse, tolerated.
Let’s get something straight here. There are no such things as spoilers. People still believe that there are, and stories are manipulated that way. When you have two shitty candidates, you simply have voters in a 3rd, 4th and 5th group that just don’t vote. And they still have something called a write-in vote. Mickey Mouse is still doing well there too. So to say that one candidate has a function of merely pulling votes away from another, is false.
Posted in media, politics, rants No Comments »
December 17, 2007
Here’s how online books usually go. A book is published online, or happens to be in the Public Domain and resides as a text file (.txt) or a collection of HTML files loosely coupled with a table of contents. If you are me, you find the book, but are immediately depressed because of the dreadful way the page is built, the annoyance of reading on a computer monitor, or somehow the book design is offensive to your tastes.
Most books published do NOT have an online counterpart. It is believed that doing so will hurt sales. Plus it’s doubling effort if you do it incorrectly. Both of these reasons may be true for certain books and bad methods. But you still will find some writers and publishers that have made the jump and offered both. Some even offer the online version for free and still make plenty of cash for the printed version. Books are tactile, they are fun to own.
Just today, I encountered a book that in my opinion is the best possible form of online release. This book is about a website development framework called Django. But you know what, that’s not important. What’s important is the way their online book has been made.
Here’s where they got it so so right:
- The web address was made just for the book. Djangobook.com
- It’s designed with a darkened background and a content reading area that looks like a page.
- Released under a free license that allows copying. I can share it, I will brag about it, everybody wins
- Simple ‘About’ page, explains the reasoning, who wrote it, why it matters etc. I like this better than a regular book because after reading hundreds of “Acknowledgement” pages I’m ready to skip them. (side note, if you ever write your own book, do us a favor and dump the “acknowledgements” to the back of the book, unless it’s just a one line ‘For Tracey’ or something.) I’ll mention their Eratta page too, which identifies corrections from the dead tree version.
- Each chapter points to a single HTML page. You don’t enter a chapter and then have to jump through 20 sub pages. It gets to be overwhelming having subpages in online books because you’re not able to grasp the whole, like you can a paper copy. You’re worried how long it will take to get through this thing and how you’ll remember where you left off.
- The best comments feature ever conceived by man or machine. There is a thin sidebar next to the content area. When you hover over it, there are bubble popups that will either let you leave a contextual comment yourself, OR read comments from others. A reader can express a clarification which will help a later book version, or maybe offer a related example to go with the text. These would be great to use while the book was in earlier writing stages to get opinions and make edits. Comments in blogs are one thing, but if they can line up with the text?! Bitchin dude.
- Simple “Buy” link at the top. Shows you how to buy the book on Amazon, because they know some of us will get fed up with the screen version. We want the printed book to mark up, to fold over, to give away to somebody. Some of us even do it to support people financially we appreciate. So take THAT economists!
- Very tasteful and appropriate content layout. They have many code examples in this book. In a lovely way, they share them in a special code box that has a proper font. I’m actually pretty happy they didn’t do syntax highlighting either. There’s really no need. If you wanted to go overboard you could offer a hover - highlight for the panel. I’d also like to express my love for their note boxes. Lovely icon identifier. These changes or breaks within the text help with reading enjoyment. They give you momentum in a way. Help remind you that you are cranking away making progress. Black on white text files do NOT offer this. Real books are already motivating because you can see how many pages you have traversed.
- Beautiful diagrams that match the side. Really love this
- Faded navigation. In small ways they keep things not hidden, but subtle until you roll over them. They used nice clean “next” links at the bottom right for navigating through chapters. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so excited over this if I haven’t seen so many hideous arrow navigation for LEFT, RIGHT and confusingly DOWN.
Oops, I guess I have created a top-ten list. I swear it was unintentional. Please forgive me there. And give those Django book guys some compliments if you agree with me. I’m hoping that I can borrow this method somehow if I have a book of my own to post online.
Posted in books, design No Comments »
