Blog Posts

The new news cycle

If you saw an interesting story on network or cable news yesterday… …It was on Facebook yesterday; …It was on Twitter a few days ago; …But it was on Reddit at least a week ago.
Trying out a public revision process

With the launch of this latest version of my site (roughly my fifth iteration since 2006), I’m experimenting with two new features I’d love to see on other blogs: a changelog and a roadmap. Yes, it might seem strange to have these two software and/or enterprise-oriented features on a tiny personal site, but why not?…
Newspaper ignores users, YouTube terms for ad revenue gains

Continuing its history of ethically-questionable advertising policies, my local paper, the Bangor Daily News, is now trying a new tactic: Taking videos from YouTube, embedding them on the News site, and then running their own full :30 second pre-roll ads in front of the videos. This grab for advertising revenue is not only an annoyance…
New article on ideas for WordPress themes

Thank you to WP Daily for publishing my article on the scope of WordPress themes: Should we think about new and better ways to make themes fit into the larger site development process? Here’s a snippet: Traditionally, themes don’t have opinions about the admin area; don’t acknowledge the presence of frequently-used tools (such as default…
Angus King for US Senate

Maine is lucky to have six five people running for our open US Senate seat. While Olympia Snowe will be extremely difficult to replace in terms of her stature and impact, two people running have the best chance to follow in her principled footsteps. Former Governor Angus King has been the front-runner in the race since…
Groundwork: A WordPress starter theme

Inspired by my love for WordPress theme development and a great presentation by developer Sean Butze I attended at this year’s WordCamp Boston, I’m happy to present Groundwork, a WordPress starter theme. Beyond the usual starter theme basics, Groundwork features many nice customizations to a stock WordPress install, including: Custom log in screen logo & styles; Customized…
From browse to search – and back

A conversation over lunch at work today got me thinking more about “browse” vs. “search”. These are our two most used paradigms for navigating around the web, but they’re obviously quite different. Ultimately, I wanted to try and distill the differences down to something essential if possible. I think it’s curiosity. On the desktop web, when…
Why I don’t like the political conventions

Against my better judgement, I’ve found myself tweeting about the Republican and Democratic conventions over the past week. My tweets on the subject are usually sarcastic and/or attempts to be humorous, so I want to explain in a bit more detail why I think these are inane and even poisonous events. Conventions are a shining…
A WP plugin I’d love: Finding Creative Commons photos on Flickr

We know how adding great images can make a positive impact on every type of blog post. Images – especially the perfect one – add context, break up blocks of text, and supplement the main point or occasionally add humor. Seeing the impact of images is the easy part – but what do you do…
Warm as you write

From this fascinating Paris Review interview, Ernest Hemingway on creativity and the wring process: When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm…