Tech

UPDATE: This training has been rescheduled for October 13-15th.
At the end of this month, I'll be presenting a 3-day long intensive Drupal workshop intended for themers, graphic designers, front-end developers, UX people, or whatever combination of those words you use to describe yourself.

At the beginning of the year, I bought an ebook in PDF format, and wrote a post about my adventures trying to get the layout to STAY THE SAME on my Mac. Today I bought a book in ePUB, by the subject of my most recent post, Jeremy Keith. The book is published by one of my favorite websites, A List Apart, and it's their first venture into publishing.

Are you curious about HTML5, and how it REALLY affects the future of the Internet? Long-time web design leader Jeremy Kieth recently gave a keynote presentation on HTML5 during the 2010 Drupalcon in Copenhagen, but don't worry, this video will be useful even for non-Drupal web designers and developers.

Back at BarCampOrlando this year, I gave a (mostly finished) version of this presentation, about the fall of the local bookstore, and a strategy for saving such establishments. As BarCamp is filled with programmers, I then tried to give them a relevant example: how to make your app better. (read: website, product, video, etc.) My argument is to focus on storytelling, and think like a Boutique. Credit goes to Tara Hunt for the idea of boutique stores.

While I haven't ever read Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, I recognize the book as a brand around the idea of these "sticky" concepts.

Whenever I write something, from tweets to blog posts, I re-post it to Facebook. My 900-or-so friends are very inclined to comment and reply there. Many of these friends are from the "real" world, but several are not. Most of the people who comment, I notice, are those whom I have met.

I have tried reading books on my computer screen before, and I have been disappointed. Mostly, I have realized that scrolling sucks. Given that I have already paid to download a few technical books as PDF, I needed a reader that could make the PDF experience easier than Preview or Adobe.

There was a big discussion last week on my local geeky mailing list that started because of a mention that local TV stations may stop broadcasting over-the-air for free.

From Yahoo News:

The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.

The parent company of my old employers have hired a design firm to create a concept of an ideal electronic magazine reader.

I've been trying to keep up with web browser innovation for a while now, even though it might be painful or inconvenient. At the same time, it's one thing I get some satisfaction out of. I've talked in the past about Flock, Songbird, Miro, and lots of web browser related topics.