I ran across an article from The Atlantic that suggested that “celebrities have never been less entertaining.” The article shows musicians playing online shows to fans, and movie stars attempting to engage, and mostly looking uncomfortable and unengaged. As a counterpoint to that, I wanted to identify a subset of these videos that provide more… Continue reading On lockdown and celebrity

I’ve written previously about how websites for small businesses are commodities, and how that’s changing the industry. I’ve also written about value-based pricing instead of cost-based pricing. As an extension of that, here’s a discussion of what could happen after a website launches: You’ve built a new website for a client and gotten it online.… Continue reading After the website launches

As part of the web design class I teach at LCC, we spend a little time talking about the different services that a web design company can provide, and that inevitably leads to a pricing discussion. That disussion is complicated, as you all know – there isn’t one price for a new website, or for… Continue reading On cost-based vs value-based pricing

We’ve been traveling for about a month, and while my Chromebook is good for many things, there are occasions where I wished I had access to my desktop PC. I did a little Googling, and discovered there are many options for this today. I looked at a bunch of them, and ended up using TeamViewer… Continue reading On remote PC access

I’ve taught a semester-long intro to web design course at LCC about 15 times now. That’s a lot of web design. This semester I ended up teaching an intensive version instead – 5 weeks instead of 15, with the same amound of classroom hours and the same content. Here are a few observations: First, the… Continue reading On an intensive web design course

Living in northern Europe means that light levels in winter are very low. The sun comes up after 9, sets before 5, and stays that way for a couple months. That affects different people differently, but it’s something that many people struggle with – seasonal depression, etc. Along with that, Lithuania has one of the… Continue reading On long winters

Is it inevitable that support staff within a B2C tech company end up as second class citizens, compared to developers or designers within the same company? It’s an interesting question, and one that the Support Driven community has attempted to address at some level. I think my opinion on this is ‘yes, it is inevitable,… Continue reading On Support as second-class citizen

This is definitely a niche topic, but I thought it was an interesting design decision. I wrote a few months ago about how much I enjoy watching professional disc golf on Youtube. The channel I usually do that with is JomezPro. One of the things that puzzle me a bit about their coverage is how… Continue reading On JomezPro Back 9 scoring graphics

I’ve done quite a bit of travel over the past 7 years; 30+ countries at this point. One of the things that’s dramatically changed my experience traveling to a new country is the availability of transit apps, both ride sharing (Uber/Lyft/Bolt/Careem), and local bus/train apps (Trafi). Before I had a phone with a local SIM… Continue reading On transit apps and international travel

I’ve written about this before, but I was recently listening to an episode of the ZigZag podcast and it re-connected, so I thought I’d mention it again. The episode was an interview with the CEO of Mailchimp, who talked about bootstrapping his business and other related topics. I found it interesting when he was talking… Continue reading On Websites as a Commodity