Brian Alvey

Yahoo knows how to use video

497 days ago

First, they seem to be abandoning the horrible popup player that doesn't work in Firefox.

Second, their inline videos are pretty large and they put a playlist below them that I usually end up watching at least two more videos from.

Third, they play many videos right on their home page. I click on the entertainment tab to see the latest headlines -- without leaving the page -- and I can watch one of the video stories -- without leaving the page. And they don't seem to be reloading ads to goose page views.

I'd love to meet the genius who came up with this radical concept of making a web video experience that doesn't suck.

Who would have thought you could watch videos on a web portal without being abused?
- Permalink
- 1 Comments
Broadband in Boston

497 days ago

Download Squad is taking advantage of Blogsmith's relatively new polls feature with posts like Google celebrates its first year of WiFi. They talked about Google's wi-fi coverage in Mountain View and listed more than a dozen cities, asking reader which one Google should put free wi-fi in next. I voted for New York and many readers wrote in their own votes because the poll didn't include their hometown.

One commenter thinks Google should install hundreds of mesh routers in Boston. Boston? Can't you just see Google engineers getting arrested and being fined a half a million dollars after installing these devices on rooftops all over Boston?
My second vote was for Possum Creek, Tennessee.
- Permalink
- 0 Comments
Sculpting

497 days ago

I have taken some time off from ComicMix to work on a sculpture for our backyard. It has a cute little cat and a pug puppy wrestling each other. I'm putting the finishing touches on it this morning. All it needs now is a really good name...

Update: I have chosen a fitting name for my masterpiece:

"Otis de Milo"

Now that I have that out of my system, I can get back to working on my comic book company.
- Permalink
- 0 Comments
A List Apart Chicago

497 days ago

I couldn't make it there myself, but my old Weblogs designer buddy Matt Heerema is there and he's taking notes.

It's the next best thing to being there.

Maybe I can make it to their San Francisco event in October.
- Permalink
- 0 Comments
Tony Soprano on cooking

497 days ago

You can't make an omelette without breaking legs.
- Permalink
- 0 Comments
Sun's stock symbol changing to JAVA

498 days ago

In a blog post, Jonathan Schwartz announced that Sun will be changing it's symbol from SUNW to JAVA. He talks about the power of the Java brand and the nostalgic geek value of Sun's stock ticker symbol (SUNW = Stanford University Network Workstation), but ultimately JAVA won out.

In some ways, it's a meaningless move. To me it feels like taking your famous old ballpark name and selling it to a corporate sponsor. But Sun is selling the symbol to itself, or at least one of its divisions. What if you named your company after only one of your children? How would the others feel?

As Schwartz points out, Sun isn't changing the company name. They are still called Sun, but even the first commenter on his blog points out that Java is equated with slow software. I equate them with slow-to-load, frequently crashing web apps and would never use a Java editor in one of my content management systems again.

Continue reading Sun's stock symbol changing to JAVA ›
- Permalink
- 3 Comments
Fight cancer with salad?

499 days ago

That's Fit has a post about three salads that can help you fight cancer. Each one has ingredients that are high in antioxidants.

I'm hoping they follow it up with a post about how you can fight cancer with three different kinds of barbecue.
- Permalink
- 1 Comments
Why am I bothering to interview designers?

499 days ago

When I can get Eric Meyer to do my layouts for $149.99.

Wait. That doesn't include the cost of buying Dreamweaver -- maybe I should just hire him directly.

"Rock."
- Permalink
- 0 Comments
Michael on Michael

499 days ago

Michael Larizza was our friend who owned the kennel near our house. He died last November and his sister Gina left a comment on my blog post about Michael saying that he would have had his 48th birthday this week.

He loved dogs more than anyone I know and I'm sure he would have had plenty to say about Michael Vick and dog fighting.

If you stumbled across my blog and you were considering buying a Michael Vick jersey to ship to the Atlanta humane society or buying chewed-up, overpriced Michael Vick trading cards on eBay, maybe you'd consider making a donation to Michael's Take The Lead charity instead. That way you're taking care of someone who truly loves dogs instead of spending money to try and send a message to a guy who has either finally figured out how serious this all is or, if he hasn't yet, is never going to.
- Permalink
- 0 Comments
Michael Vick's sponsors

500 days ago

Most of Michael Vick's endorsement deals seem to be drying up, but as I mentioned a bunch of companies are trying to cash in on the public resentment surrounding his dog fighting charges.

One thing that always fascinates me when there are tragic news stories is the sponsored link ads which get associated with them by ad networks like Google's Ad Sense and Yahoo's Overture.

When a fire escape collapses and a bunch of people die, you see sponsored links under the story like "Do you need a stronger fire escape?" Publishers have gotten better at turning off their machine-controlled ad links when they have a sensitive story and the ad networks have been tuning their algorithms so that their ads don't offend readers.

Continue reading Michael Vick's sponsors ›
- Permalink
- 0 Comments

Previous13141516171819Next

Brian Alvey

Yahoo knows how to use video

Broadband in Boston

Sculpting

A List Apart Chicago

Tony Soprano on cooking

Sun's stock symbol changing to JAVA

Fight cancer with salad?

Why am I bothering to interview designers?

Michael on Michael

Michael Vick's sponsors

Who is Brian Alvey?

Featured Articles

Relativity Media buys Rogue Pictures

The Point - January 5th, 2009

Review: 'French Milk' by Lucy Knisley

2008 Weblog Awards nominations, comics category

Popular Articles

The Audacity of Code

Heath Ledger on ComicMix

Building a great online comic book reader

Finally: ComicMix phase two launches

Active Conversations

Cyber Monday

Will Forte's theme song

Social networking maybes

Twitter's business model

Recent Comments

My Projects

Other Projects

My Twitter Messages

Online Comic Books