Chris Leeds' Space

I received a great new book today: The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird.  It's from SitePoint, so it came as no surprise that it was top-notch.  It's definitely on my "Must Read" list for anyone who does design work but didn't go to design school.

While I haven't read it for retention yet, I haven't had time since I'm working on a book myself for MS Press (Expression Web Step by Step) and big surprise: it's HARD to write a book, I did scan it and came across a term I'd never seen or heard before: Morgue File.

Apparently Morgue File is a fairly common term in the graphic arts community and print industry.  There's even a site by that name  It refers to a file of samples or pieces of old work, often used for inspiration or graphics research for new projects.

Jason was making the point of the importance of keeping one to assist web designers in coming up with new ideas by looking at old stuff they'd done and references to sites they'd seen and liked, etc.

I think we all probably do this in an informal way, maybe with bookmarks, maybe a folder full of shortcuts like my friend Thomas Rowe does.  Whatever the method, Jason's suggestion got me thinking: How could a designer/developer (Designoper) keep the best kind of morgue file?  I didn't have to think about it long and the answer was glaringly obvious: OneNote.

You may have read my previous article here about OneNote 2003, which was a darn good program, but OneNote 2007 leaves it in the dust with enhancements of what was great about it's predecessor and new features that almost seem too futuristic to be real, things like the ability to search text in scanned in business cards and search for words in audio notes.  That's right; when you search for a word in OneNote 2007 it'll actually look for the word(s) in PICTURES and AUDIO, not to mention hand writing!

For a morgue file these items might be of limited use, but what's great is the ability to create a whole notebook dedicated to your "morgue" then divide it up into tabs, then add pages under those tabs.  You've got a perfect environment to logically organize your morgue file.

Here's how I see the work flow: when you're on a web page that interests or impresses you all you do is hit the windows key and the letter S on your keyboard to draw a screen clipping box over whatever you want to save, this will automatically save a picture of the item of interest on a fresh page in OneNote and insert a date/ time/ original location reference for you.  Just type some text about the details that interested you and drag the page under the appropriate tab in your morgue file notebook and you're set.  When the time comes that you need something it'll most assuredly be found quickly by a OneNote search.  This is great for web pages you happen across, templates you see when searching for inspiration, or pages clients like or want to emulate to some degree.

You can do the same thing with local image files too, but you'd probably be better off using a DAM (Digital Asset Management) program Like Microsoft's Expression Media (formerly iView) or any of the other DAMs out there. 

Personally the whole morgue file situation with web pages and designs is more important to me than cataloging every image file I've got.  As long as I can find the page that gave me some pang of inspiration some time in the past, coming up with a new set of graphics is something I'd have to do anyway.

So there you have it: the coolest thing I thought of today.  Shhhh.... don't tell my editor. 

I have a Pocket PC phone (WM5) and I use it a lot.  I wanted a way to be
able to view and control the phone from the desktop.
I.e. I wanted my PPC phone to show up on the desktop and have
everything on it's screen "clickable" from the desktop. 

I had two reasons for this;  first, I generally access my desktop from my laptop via remote desktop.  I do this because I don't like my office that much and I'm too lazy to go downstairs to the main machine.  Remote Desktop works pretty well but I still have to go downstairs to see if anyone called me so It'd be nice to be able to access the phone while I access the desktop through remote desktop.
Secondly I want to make some training videos with Camtasia
(www.techsmith.com). I've got some cool techniques for taking notes during
phone calls, adding contacts based on a phone call log, making calendar
entries that, when synced with outlook, become billable in Office
accounting, etc.

I searched and searched for something and only found using the mobile device
to control the desktop through terminal server (remote desktop).  after a
few hours some mobile device MVPs turned me on to this:
http://www.soti.net/
which is cool, but expensive and more than I needed.  finally, I stumbled across this:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/7/5376bdb4-0aec-40df-bb5c-7a4eb4819b25/remotedsp.exe

While not mentioned specifically, it works fine with WM5.  Just download and run the software with your PPC cradled, make sure there's not steps you need
to do on the PPC screen.  Run the app on your PPC (take the default settings), then fire it up on your desktop. 

Voila!  You've got a kind of remote desktop for your PPC.

Every once in a while I find something totally cool, every very seldom I find it early on.

This is one of those very seldom cases.  This thing I've found has the potential to bump Live Writer from the top of my "coolest things I've seen lately" list.

It's called Popfly and it's Microsoft's way to try and bring the truly "bleeding edge" stuff; like you'd find in Expression Blend, Silverlight, etc., to the masses.  It's truly impressive.  It's in a private Alpha build but you can sign into the site and get on the invitation list early so you can be among the first to use it when it goes to beta release.

I'm sure the team at Pop Fly can do a better job of explaining it than I can so here are some links for you:

• Screencast (WMV)
• Popfly Site
• Popfly Team Blog
• Popfly Discussions

It's all so cool.  Just another reason you can never get bored in the "web business", there's always something just around the corner.

If you work like I do, and probably a big majority of "web people" do, you don't just design and maintain sites for your local customers, you probably visit them in person and act as a "go to" person for their general computer support.

I might do a little more in person work for my clients than most because I often come to their business places and take photographs and since I've got about a 60/40 split between local and out of town clients I just tend to be in my client's offices fairly often.

One thing I decided early on was I would never give a client a bill in person.  It made sense to me.  It's just basic Pavlovian psychology; when I come to see them I want them to be glad to see me.  I want the experience to be viewed positively from their perspective: something got fixed, they learned something, their inventory got photographed, progress was made, etc.
I don't want them to associate seeing me with something unpleasant, like getting a bill, or even worse getting a bill while I stand around waiting for them to write a check.

The way I do it is I'll go to the client's place, do whatever they need, make a calendar entry on my Pocket PC (Verizon VX 6700), chat them up, prospect for other clients, then leave.

When I get back to my office I cradle the Pocket PC and all the calendar entries get transferred to my desktop PC (Outlook specifically).  Here's the cool thing; Calendar entries can be marked as "Billable" in outlook if you're using Business Contact Manager and have a connection set up to Office Accounting 2007 (formerly known as Small Business Accounting 2006).

It's really a great set-up and you can try it out free if you have Outlook 2003, 2007 is better though because it uses a combined BCM/OA database:
www.ideawins.com (grab the free subset of OA)
www.Microsoft.com/Downloads (BCM Download)

By using this method you can keep track of who owes what, seamlessly move the billable information into Outlook, and have a nice atmosphere for YOU to work from.  The biggest benefit though is your bills just show up in the mail with all the other bills and your clients won't develop an unconscious Pavlovian distaste for seeing you in person.

On small sites I usually like to use my own CMS (ContentSeed), because it's so simple.  In fact it's so simple that I hesitate to call it a content management system.  I actually like to think of it as a content maintenance system or a content editing system.  There's no database at all and virtually anyone can deploy it in about 10 minutes.

But, not all sites are simple and there's never a case where one tool works for all situations.

When something in the "Heavy-Duty" CMS category is required there's only one choice I can think of: InsiteCreation 2007.

It doesn't hurt that the guy who made it is a 100% stand-up dude, it doesn't hurt that they've got great support either.

This CMS runs on ASP.NET 2.0 and uses master pages and all the various .net 2.0 features.  The templates are easy to edit.  It's a little tricky at first figuring out how to get the "Channels" to result in the navigation that you want but once you get it, you're good. 

There's virtually no chance that this CMS won't fit the needs of even the most complicated organizational or institutional client.

Do yourself a favor and take 10 minutes to look at Insite Creation and bookmark it.  Next time you need to do a complex CMS system you'll be one step ahead.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it requires SQL Server (not the free one, the MS one).  I wish there was a way to make anything run against an Access database just for testing or light use.  Face it if it weren't for stored procs most sites don't need the oomph of an MS SQL Server DB.  Regardless, I found a place with good deals on ASP.NET 2.0 hosting and get this;
They've got a special package for developers that has ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 for...$2.95/mo.  Granted the traffic isn't huge but it's really intended for testing stuff out and I suppose it'd suffice for a low traffic site that just happens to need a SQL Server DB.  I was stunned by the deal when I found it.  Visit CrystalTech and check it out.

Boy, Expo is so easy to do listings on you can't believe it.  I did this listing for my bike in about five minutes.  There are lots of options on it that I didn't even touch.  Time just didn't permit deeper exploration since I'm trying to finish Chapter 3 of "Expression Web Step by Step" for my editor at MS Press. 

Take a look:

Link to Buell Blast - Windows Live Expo - Free Online Classifieds

I've been working on my book for MS Press "Expression Web Step by Step" and as such, I've been using the software differently than I usually would.  For instance instead of directly editing the style sheet I'm forcing myself to use the Interface to manipulate styles for HTML elements, etc.

Don't get me wrong; Expression Web has GREAT tools for easily manipulating style sheets, classes, and other CSS elements but with any program you use to develop anything, you'll have these instances where you just want to open the source and edit it directly.  While for my current purposes it's annoying, it IS for the greater part, job security.

I don't think there will ever be a development tool that can outperform, or more concisely, not need a human being to run it and think about the bigger picture.  The other side of the coin is this; as the programs we use to develop webs, web pages, and web applications get better and have higher level capabilities available at the GUI level, they become much harder for new users to come to grips with.  It's just another instance that reinforces the fact that there's no tool, application, or GUI that can take the place of experience, knowledge, and understanding.  Even more than that it seems that bringing these tool capabilities up to the GUI level also makes those three human attributes more important for the user. 

The web is changing, tools are getting much better, but the need for a real understanding is only growing.  The days of an absolutely unskilled user cranking out a site with a tool like FrontPage are gone.  It's not just because the technology is changing and becoming deeper, it's that the tools themselves, in an attempt to capitalize on the new potential are getting "heavier" and the user actually is in a position where they need to know a little about what they're doing just to do it.

If you've groused in the past about people buying a tool like FrontPage and making their own site, even a weak one, instead of hiring you, you're going to be seeing a complete shift.  Sure the user can still buy a tool but now they're going to need to learn a significant bit about the underlying technology.  I'm more than sure that the people who didn't mind investing a dozen hours into learning FrontPage, then maybe a few more to make a site aren't going to be able to justify investing hundreds of hours into learning both the editor and the underlying technology that it build upon.

I think we'll all be seeing a greater demand for "small sites" that users too often made themselves.