I’ve been using Silvio Rizzi’s excellent Reeder for iPad for the past several days. It’s far and away the nicest Google Reader application for iPad, and maybe anywhere. One thing that I noticed about it was that for some of the sites in my feed there were big fancy icons, while others were stuck with favicon.ico

ArsTechnica has one of these fancy icons and in the source of their page, I found:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="http://static.arstechnica.com/apple-touch-icon.png" />

Once I had that, the rest was easy. I found an image that I wanted to use, and scaled it to 150 x 150, then saved it as a .png. I uploaded it the root directory on my website and added that line of html to the top of my WordPress theme. According to the Apple documentation, the ideal size for iPhone is 57×57, but it says that the OS will scale it for you if your icon is a different size.

Done and done.

As an added bonus, if someone wants to save your site as an icon on their iPhone or iPad, they will get your fancy icon, instead of a crappy screenshot of your webpage.
via Safari Web Content Guide: Configuring Web Applications.

I lasted 7 hours, from the time the iPad was available for purchase, until the time I bought one. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me, but I’m happy I did it. I’ve spent most of the last week kicking the tires on the thing and trying to figure out where it fits in my life.

I took it to the Sprout Social Media & Advertising Summit in New York and used it during the conference instead of a laptop. I checked and replied to emails, I looked at some of the Facebook apps that were being discussed and I got made fun of by Nick O’Neill from All Facebook.

I took it to my couch and watched The Big Lebowski, streaming from Netflix. I took it to work and drew a mockup of a webpage during a meeting. I played a Labyrinth 2 and checked in on Foursquare. I put the thing through it’s paces and I learned a few things.

I figured out that most emails that I write are about 3 sentences long and that’s very doable on the iPad. I find that the battery life is amazing. One huge discovery was the battery life. I used it heavily but only recharged it three times during the week. Thats huge because it changes the iPad from being a technology-thing that requires me to think about charging it all the time to something that I just pick up and use, like a cookbook or magazine. That said, it still cost $500 and I should have bought a case for it while I was in the store. I’m nervous about scratching the screen.

I think what Apple is saying with the iPad is that we’ve been hanging on to some old ideas in computing, and it’s time to let them go. The typewriter is 140 years old, and the mouse has been around since 1981. Thats forever in computer years, they’re still at the center of almost every computing experience. To me, there are real similarities between the introduction of the iMac, which didn’t have a floppy drive, to the iPad which is will bring gesture based computing to the forefront.

I for one, am enjoying my iPad and I don’t miss my floppy-drive at all.

Plain language is more than just short words and short sentences – although those are often two very important guidelines for plain language. When you create material in plain language, you also organize it logically for the audience. You consider how well the layout of your pages or screens works for the audience.

The idea that we we’ve gotten so used to double-speak and business-speak in our professional lives, and from our politicians really irks me. As a child I always loved Horton Hears a Who because he said what he meant, and he meant what he said. We could all use more of that.

via About Plain Language | Center for Plain Language.

No brand in the spirits industry, particularly the Beam Global brands I’ve worked with, wants to do anything that is even remotely close to marketing to people under the legal purchase age of alcohol. That sounds simple, but when sites like Twitter don’t build in legal purchase age (LPA) gateways to keep certain content closed off from certain age groups, it can pose interesting parameters in which you have to work. Almost all spirits brands are member of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States , a trade association whose code review board is made up of member companies which has some very specific marketing guidelines to ensure strong self-regulatory practices.

I ran into this piece from last summer about the spirits makers trying to figure out how to deal with social media. It’s interesting because the spirits industry basically self-regulates and they’ve been successful in keeping the man off their backs by slapping up legal drinking age (LDA) or legal purchase age (LPA) splash pages in front of their sites.

That said, I found a big  list of spirit producers and a separate list of just tequila makers on twitter in about 30 seconds of looking. As a nod to the LDA, I was amused to find that several of them have little disclaimers in their profiles.

(sorry for the crappy screenshot, it’s all twitters fault.)

via Cheers to Social Media! | SOCIAL IMPRESSIONS.

So, I was watching some TV the other night and I saw this commercial for Verizon FIOS. Towards the end of the spot, they show this very fancy looking graphic about how the customer satisfaction rate of Verizon customers is much higher than Cox.

Sounds pretty good…

But then I noticed the actual numbers associated with the graph. See ‘em up there above the pretty chart? The Verizon number is 46%. Thats right… forty six percent! Verizon is showing off that less than half of their customers are happy with the FIOS service. Thats their selling point? Maybe I’m missing something? Or maybe I’m the only one that watches television and can also read?

And this should all be taken in the context of me actually sitting down and turning on my TV. I never do that anymore. I’m with the other 54% of the people that think that FIOS, and all cable TV packages stink. I’m just as happy watching TV on my computer, and Hulu willing, someday on my iPad.

I just thought this was such a trip they made a TV commercial that highlights that the majority of their customers think they suck.

Amazing.

This is one of my most favorite sound bites of all time and it’s a very regular part of my internal monologue. Uttered by Curly Howard of The Three Stooges in their film 1939 [Youtube] Calling All Curs You can skip to about 1:15 to see it in context.

In 1987, I bought the mittens on the right at the LL Bean Store Freeport, Maine and I’ve worn them every winter for the past 23 years. They are, unequivically, the best mittens that money can buy. They are, by far, the warmest hand-covering device I’ve ever owned. Honestly, you can say whatever you want about your hi-tech $80 a pair mittens, but I’ll put these sweet babies up against anything you’ve got.

I got the hole on the right mitten pretty early on, it caught on fire while I was winter camping in Maine in 1989. Thats right! You can They’re warm enough to go kicking around a frozen tundra for a few days.

This year, after developing a hole in the thumb, I decided to spring for a new pair. Bean no longer caries them but after a bit of of web searching I found ‘em. The pair on the left arrived today, and I must say, not much has changed in 20 years.

The key to their warmth is that they’re two layers. The outer layer is wool and and inner layer is a synthetic terry-cloth kinda stuff. I really cant emphasize how warm these keep you hands.

If, after reading this, you want to hook yourself with a pair, they’re called Fox River Double Ragg Mitt. And strangly, they’re made in Haiti. So I suppose you’d be supporting Haiti by buying a pair although, don’t hold me to that, I really have no idea.

My old ones have been through hell and back and I’ll be sad to give them up.

Jack, Sarah and I went to Battery Kemble Park, which, I think is the best sledding in DC. What you miss in the video is that Jack started crying hysterically at the bottom of the hill.

Then, a minute or so later, he asked to do it again.

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All the information that appears as part of Google Social Search is published publicly on the web — you can find it without Social Search if you really want to. What we’ve done is surface that content together in one single place to make your results more relevant. The way we do it is by building a social circle of your friends and contacts using the connections linked from your public Google profile, such as the people you’re following on Twitter or FriendFeed.

In principal, I like it. But I’m increasingly creeped out about how much Skynet Google knows about me. And maybe its because my social network isn’t big enough, but I think that if I wanted to find how my friend Tim felt about sandwiches, I’m not sure that I would Google it. I think I’d just ask him.

For the record, Tim really likes sandwiches. A lot.

via Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Social Search: I finally found my friend’s New York blog!.

My mother inlaw rocks. She runs the Smith Family Playhouse in Fairmount Park in Philledelphia. He’re a clip of her and some info about the playhouse. If you in Philly, it’s totally worth checking out.