The Examiner gets a redesign. Interesting process. [Thanks, Jim]

Content Publishing Systems Squash News Design:

“Indeed, designers who specialize in the news industry report that they are doing much less online work than in recent years past. Andrew DeVigal, principal of San Francisco Bay Area-based DeVigal Design, who regularly works with the newspaper industry and is a specialist in news Web design, says that much more of his work is now print, because media companies aren't spending as much money on new media. He partly blames the corporate content management system trend. 'Even in Silicon Valley,' he says, '(Web) designers are mostly still hanging out at Starbucks.'”

[Thanks, Mr. Lemur]

The Six Costliest Mistakes You Can Make in Marketing to Women:

“No. 1 Mistake: Thinking that women are a 'niche.'
Reality: Women are the primary consumers in the US. Women represent an economic powerhouse, making over 85% of the consumer purchases (in the US) and influencing over 95% of total goods and services. Women's consumer spending is $3.7 trillion and business spending is $1.5 trillion.”

While you're there, see Jared's article, Web Site Usability: Strategies for Categorizing Categories.

The Creative Commons is now up.

“The 'tragedy of the commons' is the familiar notion that widespread public use of a commons leads to its inevitable depletion. But some resources, once created, cannot be depleted. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, 'He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me.' An idea is not diminished when more people use it. Creative Commons aspires to cultivate a commons in which people can feel free to reuse not only ideas, but also words, images, and music without asking permission—because permission has already been granted to everyone.”

[Thanks, Dan]

Those MacHeads are funny people, Cupertino libre. Also from MacEdition, Bill Smith's MacCommunity. More Mac links than you can shake your mouse at.

Speaking of…the Head Lemur pixelizes one of my favorite MacHeads, CodeBitch. A webonym after my own heart.

iPhoto 1.1.1 is out. Still have to download iPhoto Library Manager 1.0 as I'm now up to 1200 picts in my current iPhoto library. The review from May 11th give tips on how to use with iPhoto 1.1.1.

While looking for info on Milton Glaser, I found AIGA's image gallery of images inspired by events of 9/11. Sad also in light of the events in the Middle East.

I look for positivity (is that a real word?) in the strangest places. Ran across the lyrics to Kermit's The Rainbow Connection…

…
Who said that every wish would be heard and answered,
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it,
And look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.
…

I've had laryngitis for about two months now. Went to the throat doctor and looks like there is a polyp on one of my vocal chords. Surgery is for sometime in the next month or so. They'll see then if it's a benign polyp. Never thought I'd miss my voice. The southern accent was so annoying.

So my life stops for me for a moment. I pause. I cry. I say shit a lot. The addict in me does not want to give up smoking. I feel on hold until I hear results. And since this may not be for a couple of months, my life stretches out tightly like a wire. And as I'm not built for high tension, the snap is bound to be not very graceful.

I've been lucky to transition into a new part-time job, website administrator, that gives me a break from filing. No coding, no design, but it is a step closer. On the down side, it's an ‘as needed’ job which means no sick time, no vacation time (until I have 1500 hours in one year with the agency). Makes me easily warm up to this story, You Deserve A Month Off. And I wonder why I am giddy about going to Seattle.

Top Ten New Copyright Crimes, and you better not fast-forward through those commercials.

Read along with Dan's Paranoia, stupidity, and greed.

Lawrence Lessig's The Dinosaurs Are Taking Over.

Is Yahoo Losing the Plot?. I've become disappointed with Yahoo's more intrusive ads on the top page while I search, but my main gripe is that they took away the search ability for the local pages. The only thing you can search are the local yellow pages. Another useful feature down the Web toilet.

iChat for OS X users.

Inspiration and courage. Here's some of Brian's columns on ALS.

Had to check my regulars: Yea! The corn has been planted!. The girls are still doing their thang at the milking parlor.

SEATTLE-RELATED LINKS (in no particular order)

• Yahoo's Seattle Nightlife Recommendations; here's info on Space Needle including tips about the elevator; here's the Space Needle website and how to make reservations (online reservations here)
• Seattle web cams, mostly traffic
• Puget Sound Traffic Cameras
• SeaTac Airport, and here's a map of the lower level baggage claim area and a list of their other maps
• Seattle Chamber of Commerce: Points of Interest
• Seattle Hotel Discounts and City Guide (Holiday Inn seems to have priority)
• Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau; request your very own Visitor's info packet
• City of Seattle, (the official site) which has a list of city and regional maps like the map of Seattle neighborhood districts
• Metro bus tunnel map (for downtown)
• The Pike Place Market
• Two new and inexpensive books have been ordered to help me get acquainted with Seattle: Lonely Planet Seattle (Jan 2002) and Fodor's Seattle (April 2002)

Mother's Day (hug a mother) is coming up and I have decided not to trade my motherly chips in on a new Palm, too pricey at the moment. But I will take mo' memory cards so that I can take even more pictures of Seattle and WebHeads attending the conference.