Earlier in the year, I wrote a tutorial on how to create pagination similar to Digg’s. The article focused on the basic algorithm for displaying the pagination, and there was definitely some opportunity for improvement in its implementation.

Well, the improvements are in. We have a modularized PHP version and a Perl version. See the updated pagination demo page for details.

Kim and I were getting a lot of work done on a new import tool for WineLog. There is no question that this tool is awesome. It is one-of-a-kind and will help users who have invested a lot of time into another wine tracking system to convert to WineLog. This new feature is good for our users, and good for the growth of WineLog.

However, there are a lot of existing features that could use our attention. The RSS feeds for instance need some help. Some are more flexible than others, some are not yet taking advantage of the smarter search code, and some are not working at all. There is a lot we can do to make subscribing to our content through RSS more user-friendly and easier to understand for folks who may not be familiar with Real Simple Syndication.

There are a lot of web sites moving into the wine space recently. Some of these web sites are really solid. While I think we currently offer the best mix of features and community, others are catching up fast. And their quality is not suffering. We can’t afford to have a reviewer say something like, “Sure, WineLog has a huge database of wines, but such and such a feature was rough around the edges and confused me.” We can’t afford to lose a user who runs into a problem like that.

For these reasons, over the next few weeks Kim and I will be focusing on making our current feature set as solid as possible before moving on to new things. Adding new features will only complicate things if we’re not sure that the current offerings are the best they can be. Sometimes we try to run faster than our legs can take us and we stumble a bit. When this happens, we need to slow down a bit and focus on our technique.

I like this. Done in Photoshop. I traced a picture Kim took of me last month and did some simple coloring. I may add a little more detail to this yet. The face could use some work, and the shirt I’m wearing has this cool picnic-table-plaid that would look good in the picture. This is also a good candidate to turn into buddy icons, etc.

I’ve been doing some illustration work for a client who is self-publishing a book. I am doing the drawings completely in Photoshop with my handy Intuit Wacom Tablet (I have an older series 2 tablet) (thanks, Dad! - that was a great Christmas).

I’ve probably watched this video below at least 5 times since I started this work. Mike Krahulik, from Penny-Arcade, has mad skills with the pen. It’s a great inspiration, something to aspire to. I learn something every time I watch it. And the music isn’t too bad either (kuh-kuh-kuh Q-Unit!).

The video was first posted at Penny-Arcade on October 11th, 2006. In the blog post, Mike shares some pointers about his brush sizes (all defaults) and techniques. It’s good stuff.

Below are a few “jokes” born out of the idiosyncrasies of communicating online. Also note that I’ve done every one of these at some time. I know I’m missing a bunch. So please add more in the comments.

1. Exclamation points!!!!1!!!1!!1one1!!!
I saw this one on Slashdot first (someone needs to do a blog post on general Slashdot humor). The “!1one” actually has an entry in the Urban Dictionary, which explains it pretty well:

Used in long uses of exclamation marks, the !1one is an intentional mistake that jokes about the appearance of numeral value “1″ in exclamation overdoses. This is due to the shift key not consistantly being pressed while tapping “1″ for the overused “!”’s. The intentional error may signify even more exclamation marks, like some kind of lunatic scientific notation. !1one may= !E9 or !*10^9, thus representing an absurd amount of exclamation.

2. Strike-through Jokes Joke Attempts
I imagine the practical origin of these jokes are real edits, where the author wanted to leave the original wording intact to denote the edit. However, a lot of strike-through “edits” are made before the first publishing with the intention of making a joke. Jokes like these are very similar to those in the “I’m not saying any names (Jason), but someone…” family. Here’s some strike-through action I did in an earlier post on this blog:

Kim and I are big fans of VistaPrint; their cheap inexpensive printing services help us save a ton of money for our clients.

3. Super-long Acronyms. ITLSDLATKOAYPTYA
Acronyms are great time savers in IM conversations. First there was ROTF, which stands for “rolling on the floor”. Then there was LMAO, which stands for “laughing my ass off”. And then some genius put them together to get, ROTFLMAO or “rolling on the floor laughing my ass off”. Acronyms as long as these encourage people to make up their own super-long acronyms. Mine above stands for “I’m talking like super-duper long acronymns. The kind of acronyms your parents told you about.” Next time you’re in an IM conversation with someone, try to throw a few of these super-longs in. It’s actually pretty amazing how well you can understand these, even when they’re made up on the fly.

4. Lots of links next to each other.
Another one I saw at Slashdot first. Excessive linking isn’t always meant as a joke, but there is often some humor with how the words connect to the material they are linking to. Chris Messina is one link-happy blogger who uses this technique a lot on his blog. Here are a few examples.

If you thought the heart was eye-catching, check out these screenshots of the Netflix homepage. That black arrow pointing at the previews tab blinks when you load the page. The gift box in the upper right has a cool animated glow/glitter effect on it. Nice stuff. Is it too much?

Michael Coffey, of Inertia Beverage Group, posted in November about the benefits of tricking your website out for the holidays. People are already in the shopping/spending mood, a little encouragment wouldn’t hurt.

It’s not too late. What changes can you make to your site? Will updating the Stranger Studios website help us get some new work?