I love this, because it captures my feelings about diamonds exactly. Not even getting into the political or economic issues with the diamond industry, this video brutally and perfectly mocks the idiotic-yet-frighteningly-successful marketing strategy of the diamond industry.

I like silver, sapphires and emeralds. Because I think they are pretty. I don’t think my value as a person, a woman, or a potential life mate can or should be equated to a gemstone. I think that’s demeaning – to me.

I was thinking about websites and what makes them tick. There are ten major aspects of a website, and they’re all pretty interconnected. Like a machine or an organism, the entire thing won’t function well or properly without most or all of these elements. I will discuss each aspect in no particular order – remember, these are all vital to the process. keep reading »

Okay, so last week I was all about web dev software and server tricks. Once you have great tools, that makes it a lot easier to do what you want to do. This week, I’m going to be talking about general cool stuff, with a focus on analytics and analytics tools.

First of all, what ARE analytics, and why should you care?
Analytics are nothing new – it’s becoming a buzz word because it’s become increasingly possible to track data online – something that’s very relevant to anyone online with a website who wants to attract visitors/customers/whatever.

You’re already using analytics.
Say what? You heard me. With the new tracking feature, you can see and analyze data about your visitors. It’s likely that you see data and you go, “man, it would be great if I could affect that data,” keep reading »

Smultron
I talked about this elsewhere, but it really is the simplest, most intuitive and easy to dive-into html editor out there. And it’s FREE. I never buy stuff unless it’s overwhelmingly great/useful. I would absolutely pay for this, however, if it cost anything. As is, I will be donating at an appropriate price-point for what I believe this software is worth.

Take everything you love about HTML-Kit. Now imagine what that would be like on a mac platform – simple, elegant, efficient and maybe stripped down of a few features you don’t use/need. That’s Smultron. Forget crush, I’m in love with this app. keep reading »

Using .htaccess to hide file extensions on your server
For security purposes, as well as upgrades, W3C recommends that you hide your file extensions. Should you ever change your programming language, (e.g. from PHP to Cold Fusion, or whatever), your urls will stay the same, regardless – meaning bookmarks won’t break, search engine page rank won’t be affected, etc.

Intrigued? It’s super easy: new media arts has the exact text you need to add to your .htaccess file to achieve this. To implement it on your site: keep reading »