I am now officially going to Seattle in July. Plane reservations made and paid for, conference reservations made and paid for, hotel reservations taken care of. Now to find out a little bit about Seattle. I see Nirvana, the Space Needle, rain, that Elvis movie, rain…hold it, is the Evil Empire actually located in Seattle??? Geographically challenged, I am surprised about how far north Seattle is. I've never been that far north before. I know. My Southerness shows sometimes.

This weekend I experimented with the camera by taking pictures in a circle around Honey and then imported into iMovie. Here's the results. He's such a good sport, even sitting still while I shot many pictures of his face for this photocollage.

Late Night Joke Archives, for those who don't stay up late.

More for newspapers, but I think some webpages could benefit: Stand Alone Photos Always Rate High with Readers. See also Eyes on the News archive.

CSS Bugs in IE5/5.1 for the Mac; also, MacEdition Guide to CSS2 Support in Mac-only Browsers (Omniweb and iCab).

B2B Copywriting for the Web: A quick quide for home pages.

Mappi Bill, Mapping the mind of Bill Gates. [Thanks, Dave]

Big thanks to xBlog: Personas is a hot word right now, and xBlog points to a whole slew of articles on the subject. Here are a few of them:

1. Personas: Matching a Design to the Users' Goals
2. Perfecting Your Personas
3. Taking the 'you' out of user: My experience using personas
4. Another persona article from Boxes and Arrows
5. Persona discussion from ACM
6. Good example of persona chart

One last thing: I don't mind paying for information. My bookshelf shows that. But what really chaps my hide are cleverly disguised promos masquerading as articles while linking words like ‘design guidelines’ to a webpage that will sell you those guidelines for $125.

Use this, Mr. Usability.

Thanks to my tax return, Rhonda has a new clutch, new u-joints, and a new starter. The rental (a Mitsubishi Lancer) goes back today. Although an okay ride (goes over 100), it was an automatic which is no fun at all. Mama's glad her big girl's back home. Yea! Can't wait to go for a riiide.

Speaking of rides, Honey and I did make a stop at the Golden Gate Bridge to have my picture taken for Jeffrey's contest. Here's my entry.

Inspiration comes in many forms, Another Girl at Play: The Women. [Thanks, Miss Jiji.]

Find info on a city, so handy.

You go boy. Beating the movie industry to the courtroom punch. [Thanks, Tomalak.]

Battle for the Web Continues.

Link rot and education.

“After 20 months, 18.8 percent of the total links had disappeared. Over 11 percent of dot-org links, 18.4 percent of dot-edu pages and 42.5 percent of dot-com addresses were lost since the study began.”

[Thanks, Gary.]

Miz Liz and I are making plans to go to Seattle in July for Web Design World 2002. It will be my first web design conference, and I'm already excited.

More excitement and another first courtesy of my friend, Theresa: my very first dinasour rock concert. I hope Pete still has it. Counting Crows should be nice. I think.

Musical aside: It feels weird to have my current favorite band to also be my grandson's current favorite band. You should hear us sing (or not) In the End. Makes Honey smile funny.

Have you seen Jeffrey's contest? Have camera will travel.

The WebGuild had an interesting meeting last Wednesday. They announced the finalists in the site redesign contest; Number 3 was the winner (here's his creative brief).

The main topic at the meeting was Trends in Web Design. Below are a few lite notes.

Karen Tennebaum, Art Director, Adobe

1. Sign of the Times
1. Economic shakeout: concept sites gone (ex., Chopping Block, TVT Records). Now HTML sites instead of Flash. More conservative trends (Limn.com = clean, clear design)
2. Novelty sites gone (Niko Stumpo–won't see commercial sites like this). Novelty of Flash is gone. More gateway-oriented sites, simple entrance (ex., gap.com, adobe.com)
2. Back to Basics
1. Grids minimize design time, create familiarity, maximize content usage
2. Form working function
1. Reducing size of graphics (apple.com); use graphics in key areas
2. Minimize gif text while using appropriately (amazon.com)
3. Flat color to provide areas of transition
4. Usability and Accessibility is key. HTML text, faster downloads, info not collapsed (oracle.com), rollover links underline
3. Flash or Fluff
1. Nice calling card, but needs to be used appropriately
2. Know your audience
1. Flash as navigation (ex., macromedia.com, bigtobaccosucks.org
2. Flash as entertainment (ex., Sony Pictures, miniusa.com = great marketing tool)

Charlie Brewer, Information Architect, Agency.com
Information Architecture = organization of content, navigation, and user advocate.

1. Macro Trends
1. Internet continues to expand
2. Changes only just starting business, economy, and society
3. Internet now core component of corporate strategy (they need advice in strategy, design, and execution)
4. Web Design consultancies are recasting themselves as traditional businesses (ex., sapient.com, agency.com)
5. Work must be connected to core business issues (customer relationshiop management, ROI, closed loop marketing)
6. Large contracts generally no longer offered
7. Business is built on a series of smaller, tactically-oriented contracts
8. Challenge: How can designer, strategist, or IA provide strategic value
2. Web Design Today
1. Usability is hot topic
2. Info Arch is hot topic
3. Plan should integrate: business needs, technical aspects, and user needs
4. Branding is hot topic. The challenge: helping clients understand that the experience of using their website is their brand/company online
5. Web Design today usually involves:
   • Business strategy
   • Designing system (content management system, templates, metadat strategies)
6. Bottom line: Web Design not enough. Have to know business of client as well as unterstand the Internet, etc.

And so begins my favorite time of the year. From now until June, primo time. Love lovers, love friends, love life. Stop and smell the roses, or, in my case, the irises.

Momentary time waster: see The Curse of Enron. [Thanks, Terror Pilot]

77 things Bush has done since he's been in office (the incomplete list) [Thanks, Alternative Press]

Designer's Block.

Good way to do a portfolio, Trevor VanMeter. Another interesting display of info. [Thanks, linkdup]

Did I mention I finally received more inspiration? Lots of purty pictures, no words. A twee bit of a letdown. But, fortunately, I'm still being inspired by New Masters of Photoshop and Fresh Styles for Web Designers from last year, the gift that keeps on givin.

Time to see if those long-stemmed strawberries dipped in Sharfen Berger semi-sweet chocolate are set yet. It's good to be alive today.