Journal

First is a direct quotation from my favorite Shakespeare movie, Henry V. I believe the new movie even included more to "The game's afoot" quote than the original book, which is from the once more unto the breach speech.

Then there are those delightful bits of violence where our narrator illustrates what nastiness he is going to do, and then does it. This is a device that Shakespeare used with his villans. Here is one of my favorite passages out of Richard II that's just one example:

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill'd her husband and his father:
To take her in her heart's extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I nothing to back my suit at all,
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
HA!

posted by Nils T. Devine  # 8:23 PM 0 Comments

Five

• Ra (5)
• Pandemic (5)
• Guillotine (6)
• Fairy Tale (6)
• Dominion: Seaside (7)
• Galaxy Trucker (8)
• Ticket to Ride (9)

Dimes

• Incan Gold (10)
• For Sale (10)
• Citadels (10)
• Ziegen Kriegen (14)
• Cribbage (14)
• Small World (15)
• Dominion: Intrigue (15)
• Dominion (22)

Source: Five and Dimes report for divinentd

For comparison, check out my 2008 Five & Dimes, where I only had one dime out of 59 different games played.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # 5:33 PM 0 Comments

Citysearch is not a social network, so that conversation is not held captive on our site. The dialogue appears simultaneously on Citysearch and Twitter.

Room For Improvement

There are a few aspects of the integration which could be improved, beyond some minor layout refinements.

If you are signed into Citysearch, you have the option of linking your accounts. Currently this OAuth happens on the back-end after visitors enter their Twitter credentials into the site. This preserves the nicely integrated Ajax experience, but is a bad security design pattern. Hopefully we can switch to using RPX and use their OAuth workflow.

Another part that should be improved shortly is the way we load the tweets. We are relying on the Twitter search API to pull any tweet from, to, or mentioning the business. But in addition to stability issues, the search API has trouble pulling older tweets. It is also very aggressive about blocking "spam", which is what the posts of many businesses appears to be.

Update

I had under-estimated the lazyness of our Java developers (a foolish move, to be sure). The search API is only supposed to return the last 7-10 days posts, so it is not the correct API to be using for our integration.

New Twitter Account Signup

I don't know how many sites have been white-listed for this new feature*, but one cool thing you can do is sign up for a new Twitter account directly on Citysearch. Once a business owner has claimed their business (a new free feature) they may enter their Facebook fan page and Twitter account information. But if they don't have a Twitter account, or haven't even heard of Twitter, we offer the ability to sign up for a Twitter account using Citysearch.

We also suggest a Twitter handle for the business owner, if the most logical handle has not already been taken.

Our hope is that this new integration will benefit all parties. Business owners will be able to communicate directly with clients. Twitter will get exposure to a new audience of small business owners (and maybe one day find a business model?!). And Citysearch will facilitate the connection.

*Update

We were the first site to launch the new twitter sign up feature.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # 10:31 PM 0 Comments

At work we've recently switched to the Scrum system, which strikes a good balance between organizational overhead and actual work. But for an individual on the weekend it's too much. And the priorities are different. On the weekend, if you've got a regular job, slacking off is an important part of the schedule.

My system is built around a list of tasks and operates in two different modes, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.

The first step is always the same: make a list of prioritized household projects. They can be regular chores like cleaning the cat boxes or doing the dishes, or one-off tasks like fixing something around the house. Generally they'll each take 10-30 minutes. If they're longer break them down into smaller pieces.

For a relaxation day here's what I do. I look at how many hours I've got, figure out how many tasks I need to do per hour to get them done. Then I drop the list and go watch TV, or play a video game, read a book etc. But here's the key. At the top of each hour I pause what I'm doing and bang out the necessary tasks so that I can get back to slacking off.

But if the project requires a sustained period of time, hours of focus without distraction, then you may only have one choice: do all the necessary tasks immediately. Then you'll have the rest of the day to focus.

Two important things to keep in mind. One is to make sure nothing on the list takes more than an hour, max. If you think it might then break it down into smaller parts. This helps with momentum and with the next important thing. Make sure the fun stuff is mixed in with the obligatory stuff.

In the end these systems are all about using the stuff that you actually want to do as motivation to get what you need to do done. They're also about prioritization and momentum.

Update:

I forgot two important things, probably more important than the rest of my ramblings.

1. You need a portable copy of your list. I use an iPhone app, but a 3x5 card works.
2. You need to ask your significant other if she/he has anything that needs to go on that list at the beginning of the weekend.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # 10:59 AM 0 Comments

The following is a series of lecture topics I covered with my UI team at Citysearch. I'll write a post with an overview of each and links to further reading.

1. precedence
2. class-itis
3. floating against
4. opposing floats
5. .clearfix
6. equal height columns
7. centering
8. making the absolute relative
9. CSS reset
10. B.R.A.T.
11. sane CSS type size
12. CSS sprites
13. shorthand
14. single line format property order
15. hasLayout
16. sliding doors
17. microformats
18. overflow
19. min/max-width
20. negative margins
21. margin collapsing

Labels: CSS

posted by Nils T. Devine  # 10:16 PM 0 Comments