Communiqué

In the documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry, architect, Frank Gehry has it figured out.

"I accept the projects based on wether I like them... the people, not the work."
— Frank Gehry

Art critic, Mildred Friedman expands on this thought.

"Frank has figured out that the most important influence on the design is the client. If there's a terrific client to work with, you get a terrific building; and if there isn't, you don't."
— Mildred Friedman, Author/Critic

I agree. Our most successful projects happen to be for really terrific clients.

One of my favorite presentations from last week's An Event Apart was by Daniel Mall. He talked about the allies of web developers. We, as web developers, have long embraced HTML and CSS. More recently, JavaScript crossed the line from an annoyance littering our markup to an unobtrusive hero. We started embracing JavaScript when it became easy to separate script behavior from markup. Jeremy Keith wrote about behavioral separation in 2006. Once that separation became as easy as separating CSS from HTML, JavaScript's popularity soared.

According to Daniel Mall, Flash is still the outcast. Web developers haven't embraced flash. We're still living in the year 2000, when Flash was 99% bad.

Dan Mall made the case that it's not Flash itself that's bad, but the way that we're using it. If we can easily implement Flash in a similarly unobtrusive way as modern JavaScript, it can work it's magic and encourage people to play.

...and we need to play more. Dan Mall asked everyone to remember back to a time when we were blown away by websites — a time before we cared about usability. Almost every web developer was inspired some horribly unusable — but fun — site.

The sites Dan mentioned as inspiring in his early years included Neostream.com, 2Advanced, and Once Upon A Forest. These sites encourage exploration and play.

If we take our same jQuery mindset and apply it to Flash, we might bring fun and playfulness back to web design. Flash allows for even more immersive and interactive progressive enhancement than JavaScript.

Personal Inspiration

The sites that blew me away in my early years were from 1996/7:

• Volume One — I was awe-struck by Matt Owen's groundbreaking animated gifs. I vividly remember seasons one, two, and three from '97. By season five he was working with Flash and playing with sound. Around this time, I was so inspired that I had become a full-time web designer.
• jodi.org — In 1996 I had no idea what this site was about. I still don't. However, you could spend an hour clicking around and looking at crazy hypertext. There's a Wikipedia page that explains the purpose, but it's more fun to just waste time on http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/.
• Super Bad — Similar to jodi.org, superbad.com is some artist's playground that I found more fun than a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

All these sites are from years ago. They seem useless and unusable. However, they inspired a generation of kids to become web designers and developers. How? Play.

Questions

1. What new sites forsake usability for play in order to inspire today's generation? Or are we so caught up in usability that there's no time to play anymore? (Yes, a usable site can be more inspiring than a fun site, it's just a different kind of inspiration).
2. What were the sites that blew you away and inspired you?

Daniel Mall sees a future — not too distant — where we can work with Flash as easily and unobtrusively as JavaScript, making progressive enhancements more fun and interactive. Fun is good. I hope he's right.

This morning, Rob sent around a short movie from Google Creative Labs.

Google asks 50 people in Times Sq. what a browser is and most people aren't sure.

My initial reaction was surprise. How could these people not know what a browser is? Don't they remember Code Rush from 1998 when browser wars were king? There are web ads, blogs, even TV ads for Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and now Chrome. How could anyone not know what a browser is?

Patrick brought sense to the situation. Why should the average person care what a browser is? Browsers are a commodity. They come with your computer. They're usually free. They all work. People don't think about things that work.

Google's video would be akin to Subaru asking 50 people about their car engine configuration — comparing the common V configuration to Subaru's flat, boxer engine. I personally have no idea how my engine's configured but it works when I need it to.

Is Google's plan to first educate people what a browser is, then sell them on Chrome? That's pretty much what Mozilla had to do in 1998. Or, back to car engines, that's what Chrysler does with the Hemispherical combustion chamber. Neither of those examples were very successful.

Worse, Google now has to deal with marketing a commodity that nobody cares about under their brand. In a recent article, Andy Rutledge talks about how commodity companies — like gas companies — might be valuable, but they don't have a valuable brand.

When Apple markets their browser, Safari, does it dilute their pristine brand? Dodge has a refined brand, but nobody really cares about the hemispherical engine. Is marketing the "Hemi" detrimental to Dodge's brand?

Google certainly puts effort into their user-friendly brand. Could marketing a commodity browser hurt their brand? The people in Google's video all use Google for search because it's accurate and easy. Now Google's talking to them about really complicated computer-y stuff like Browsers.

Last night, most of iMarc went to play paintball. There are some valuable lessons to be learned in that game — the first of which is, wear padding, because those paintballs travel 300 feet per second. Ouch. But the second of which is: have a plan and trust your team.

The first couple of games were fast and short. Most of us headed out into the arena independently, heading for cover and running forward ... and getting shot almost immediately.

Then we started developing plans. "I'll go for that cone--" "--and i'll go up the right side." The rate of getting shot started to drop, but it still didn't take long for the teams to whittle each other down to nothing.

Next we started coordinating actions: "I'll go for that cone--" "--and i'll cover you while you advance. Then you can cover me while I join you."

At this point we started surviving for minutes rather than seconds, and the games became a lot more dynamic.

A few more of these, and we started really learning what worked, how to take cover, how to advance in relative safety... and have a lot of fun doing it.

The business corollaries should be clear:

1. Make a plan.
2. Work together.
3. Profit— Err, I mean, have fun!

Seriously, this is why our projects are generally so successful. We carefully plan it, then we work together, and we trust each other to cover us and help each other.

Getting shot with a paintball pellet is a painful but extremely rapid way to learn these lessons. iMarc's new employee training process is a bit gentler. But I'm thinking maybe it could be enhanced with a paintball gun or two...

If you're up for the challenge, we're hiring a developer. And you'd get a chance to shoot at me.

iMarc is looking for a Junior Web Developer to help us build PHP-driven internet applications.

Learn more about us, view our work, and meet the team. We're located in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

The ideal candidate has a couple years of work experience building web sites and web applications. A portfolio of personal, freelance, or work-related projects is required. While almost all of our work is PHP/SQL based, knowledge of another web programming or scripting language would be a bonus.

Most important, we're looking for someone who loves creating websites, solving problems, and learning.

Key Responsibilities

• Write clean, efficient PHP and SQL
• Write beautifully semantic markup
• Work collaboratively with the creative team and other developers
• Brainstorm and work closely with clients and staff
• Maintain and edit existing web sites
• Contribute to the development and improvement of our code base
• Able to commute daily to our Newburyport office. Telecommuting is not an option.

Candidates should understand object-oriented programming concepts. A solid understanding of relational databases and SQL is also crucial to the position. In addition to back-end PHP and SQL programming, this position entails a significant amount of front-end coding. You don't have to be John Resig, but some knowledge of JavaScript will certainly help. Clean HTML and smart CSS is a requirement.

Candidates should have a favorite editor — if you're not up for a good editor war, this job probably isn't for you. More importantly, if you enjoy debating best practices and challenging yourself and your co-workers, you'll fit in perfectly. Basic understanding of how to properly leverage HTTP and concepts such as MVC and REST are not required, but would be a big bonus.

We're looking for someone who works well both independently and in a team setting. If you're organized, self-driven, and curious, you'll fit in well.

What iMarc Offers

• Excellent opportunity to learn and grow as a web developer
• Attractive benefits package including health and dental coverage
• Company-sponsored retirement plan
• A fun, creative work environment in excellent surroundings
• Challenging, varied projects
• Full-time salaried position with a stable, 11-year old company

How To Apply

Send us a link to your online (HTML) resume or email a PDF or plain text resume to careers@imarc.net

Inquiries without links to web-based work will probably be ignored. Resumes sent as Word documents will also likely be ignored.

About iMarc

iMarc is a full-service web development firm located in Newburyport, MA. We provide high quality custom Web sites, online applications, e-commerce, and intranets to discerning businesses. Check us out at http://www.imarc.net.

Everybody has passwords they need to keep secret, but that also need to be remembered. Managing these passwords can be a pain and time consuming. For these reasons, a lot of people just decide to have one password for everything, which can be disastrous if your info falls into the wrong hands. I was one of those people who had mainly one password for everything. I knew that what I was doing was insecure, so I decided to look for a password manager.

Email exchange today:

1. Robert, 16:00: some files in my drop box folder are owned by root and i can't delete them. can you assist when you have a few minutes?
2. Dave, 16:24: All set - I deleted your drop box.