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Jim Roepcke’s weblog: Finishing what I started

Jim has been a great friend to me over the years, from mailing-list-co-member to development mentor to friendly acquaintance, to real friend. I’ve watched him go through some really hard times and tried to stand with him as best I could.

I am so stoked that Jim is headed back to school, and has gotten himself out from under all the debt he found himself in as a result of the aforementioned hard times. Jodi and I are trying to do the same, tightening our budget so that we can retire some long-standing debt. It’s incredibly freeing.

Proverbs 22:7: The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

It’s the truth, folks.

Congratulations, Jim and Cheryl! Good luck with your studies Jim, and Cheryl - we want pics of Cyan and Wavie!

I published a 2 song playlist (iMix) on the new iTunes Music Store…

R.E.M. Country Feedback

May require iTunes 4.5 (free download).

HTTP error 448: Gone until you stop paying attention to people I dislike.

Man I love geek humor.

Design by fire: Gurus vs. Bloggers, in which the sites of the web usability gurus and the sites of popular bloggers are judged head-to-head.

The results hardly surprise me. The bloggers may not be “internationally recognized usability gurus” but they have a couple large advantages:

1. They use their own sites on a daily basis. I doubt Neilsen or Norman are up to their elbows in the NN/g site every day.
2. Bloggers (esp. the popular ones) have a constantly running focus group with a built-in feedback loop: readers, their blogs, and the blogger’s comment form. If something on the site sucks, the blogger hears about it.

I’m sure a more complete analysis of the contest could be made, but these are some initial thoughts.

John Gruber, a Mac-user and sometime developer, comments on Eric Raymond’s recent Linux-usability rant. He makes some really good points. Desktop Linux is not going to grow in market share with any real speed until it’s enjoyable to use. That means it looks good, gets out of your way when you want it to, and is right there with the right options when you need it. You know, kind of like a Mac.

Woohoo!! The first Beta of the new LaunchBar is out, and it’s a doozy! It has a ton of features the author of this articlee found lacking, in that clean, unobtrusive interface I’m come to love and depend on.

Way to go, OBDev!