Posts tagged ‘rant’
So I know lots of people are stoked about the enhancements to the Wordpress 2.5 admin interface, but after a few weeks of use I’m left wanting. There are a lot of great enhancements visually and some nice usability fixes but a couple of the biggest problems I’ve had from pre-2.5 were not addressed:
1. Quick nav for Write/Manage. They still force you to click twice just to write or manage a page. And while post writing/editing is far and away the most common pair of actions, there needs to be a way to easily flow into the page management functionality.
2. Quickly adding pages/posts from manage UI. Particularly with pages you cannot ‘add new’ without 2 additional clicks. I seriously doubt this is an overlooked issue, but quite thought out and deliberate, however, just feel cumbersome when setting up new projects and adding/editing lots of pages.
3. No customizable admin menu. Both of these issues could be conquered by a simple admin enhancement to support a user-configurable menu to promote most used actions to the top-most level. I don’t need quick access to design once the site’s deployed, neither do most users. So let me demote/remove that action from the list and add things I could really use.
Ultimately it’s an out-of-the-box vs. power user issue. With a few hours of work I could probably put together fixes for all of these…but they seem to be more core than a plugin.
We recently purchased a Bob Revolution Dualie stroller (yeah I know fun stuff right), from Pish Posh Baby in New Jersey. Along with this behemoth of a stroller (which we really love) we also ordered some other needed accessories. For instance we needed the attachments for an infant carrier since this new stroller is to tote around our 2yr old and the new baby.
Well we got the stroller but no accessories. We called (and called - and called since they aren’t open on Saturdays) and finally got through a week after the initial order receipt, and were told they had just forgotten. Oh. Well I forget stuff sometime, just usually not on orders that end in so many zeros. When I saw the UPS slip for 5lbs online I knew something was a miss since one of the products was easily 3x that weight alone. We called to confirm and were told everything was coming.
I assume you know how this story goes…we were missing the big piece in the package we received today. After another 45 minutes of phone time we found out they were out of stock in that item as of last week (a full two weeks after our initial order). Curious. I love the products - just not the retailer.
I’ve ‘officially’ checked out of the 2008 Democratic race. We’re about to take this barrel over the falls and I’ve found myself so thoroughly depressed and powerless in this process it’s best if I just leave it be. If you’ve followed me much lately you know how much I dislike Ms. Clinton, obviously that won’t change you will just be fortunate enough to not hear about it. Below is the reasoning and a final (for now) memoir of my political mind.
What’s Changed?
We’re at a point of no return - with no one walking away handily with the needed number for delgates we’re deadlocked until June, losing 3+ months on the Republican machine
It’s getting ugly - Ferraro, the monster and you’re not good enough to be my VP fights are occuring daily, killing morale and weakening the ticket that we ultimately choose
Obama is weakening - I see a constant trend that the cut of personality is starting to show itself. With every attack from the Clintons I start to question his abilities and wonder to myself, “Is charisma and vision enough to lead?”
Race is showing its true colors - we’re on the precipice of the racial and sexist conflict at play here coming into full relief. It’s there, we’ve been avoiding it but we will see it before June and it will not be pretty. And I don’t know that Obama can or should hold it at bay. She going to go nuclear and when she does I don’t know that the party can get past it.
Whiter shade of pale - In the final analysis this is NOT 1968. We don’t have candidates diametrically opposed on key ideological issues. We have Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper. And because of that Hillary is going to pull this off, she’s done it before and she’ll do it again. And Obama’s people will not be pleased but they will fall in lock step because the stuff she supports is simply a watered down version of Obama’s platform.
And all the while McCain is piling on the support and building his warchest. We’re pretty screwed gang and the only people who play a role in this now are super-delegates. Some, as it seems, who prefer high-dollar hookers and have already pledged to Ms. Clinton, we should all be very proud.
What happens when you have a school board member elected based on ‘change’? One who is ultimately unqualified, burdened with a chip on his shoulder, looking to advance his political career on the backs of children and fueled by crappy local talk radio? Well you get Jonathan Narcisse.
Check out the video if you’re interested in seeing this debacle.
He’s frustrated and tormented the district from literally the day he was elected and his first meeting. It’s a shame that he was elected to represent and help children who really need an advocate, but he’s using them for personal gain and vendetta. He needs to grow up or step down and let the people who care lead. Ironically he’s caused considerable racial tension in a district that has worked hard to keep it at bay, ultimately hurting the kids he was elected to defend.
UPDATE - Derek and his crew deserved the benefit of the doubt Scott mentioned in the comments below. They have deleted all design-oriented assignments and focusing completely on photos and illustrations. That’s a tremendous response, hats off to that group.
Adam Howell sums it up much better than I can in his Pixish is Spec Work pork. I get tired of going over and over this ground, but the truth is damn simple. Spec is evil, it’s not a good deal for any of the parties involved and ultimately hurts design/designers across the board.
Young designers are being preyed upon by unsuspecting ‘Johns’ looking for some cheap, quick design work. No one is fulfilled and we all lose a little something along the way - designers no longer value their work, hell they are giving it away after all, clients don’t value the work since they are paying nothing for it and the community exacerbates the problems of commodity content which extends to wholesale website design piracy, uncredited photo use, etc. Why not it’s not worth anything anyway right? Wrong.
It’s 2007 (nearly 2008) so stop with the damn .SIT files. Seriously just stop it. ZIP it if you have to compress, Stuff**it it a pain on Leopard/Tiger. So knock it off, thanks.
Even just a quick gaze through the most god-awful discussion thread I’ve ever seen is enough to make me lose faith in humanity (or at least the kind of humanity that trolls slashdot). If this is the ’social’ part of social media I don’t know that I want to be part of it, these people scare me.
Funny video seen on kottke. Too bad the 22nd amendment doesn’t say ‘person or married couple’ and save us all the misery of Hillary. Bush squared was bad enough, Clinton squared couldn’t be much better.
‘Notes on Design’ recently published a bucket-load of posts pimping design competitions, and the community isn’t pleased. Competitions for business customers are a scam, and garbage for designers, as I mentioned earlier this week. Well today they are running an article about the lack of respect for designers in the business community. Um…Notes on Design doesn’t get it. You can’t complain about a lack of respect on your porch while you pimp yourself out the backdoor. Not only do they fail to understand design, they apparently don’t get blogging and community either.
**UPDATE** I want to make it clear the issue is with ‘Notes on Design’ as an entity and it’s editors. They have lost control or failed to manage their editorial to the point that I reflects poorly on their professional authors and contributors.
