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I came across a few relatively new, and useful articles discussing current web design trends:

Web 2.0 Design & Layout Trends (Part 1)  via StyleIgnite   How to Destroy the Web 2.0 Look  via Snap2Objects   Best of CSS Design 2007 via Web Designer Wall Most Promising for Web 2008: Open Source Movement via Read/WriteWeb  More Web Design Trends & Cliches  via Modern Life

That said, you only have three days to make submissions to Intuit’s ‘Just Start’ contest.  Per the Just Start web site:

Enter the contest, it’s easy. Tell us what you’ll Just Start. Fact, fiction or fantasy. What have you always dreamed of doing? What are you resigning from and moving towards? And, how will the Just Start grant ($50k) help you strike out on your own?

Hey, I’ll take $40,000 in cash and $10,000 in assistance to get a business off the ground. Oh, who am I kidding, I’ll take the $5,000 prize too. I’m not picky! While winning is likely a long shot, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and made four of my own submissions.

• Fantasy Camp and Adventure Planning

• Going to the Dogs

• Connecting with the Elderly

• Solutions for Seniors

For anyone that is interested, you can click on the above links to find out more about each submission. If you are feeling extra generous, you can go ahead and signup, rate my submissions and even comment on them. The evaluation of entries is being conducted by a panel of three judges and the five finalists will be announced on January 7th.

Whatever the outcome, it was a fun exercise. You have until December 15th (11:59:59 p.m. PT) to make your own submissions, so get going! Oh, and read the rules.

On Monday I managed to watch part of the funeral mass held in honor of Sean Taylor. I think saying it was moving is a huge understatement. Listening to the stories and memories shared by those closest to him, really gave insight into the person Sean really was. For me, it really reemphasized how much of a tragedy his loss really is. Any loss of life is a loss too many, but Sean really was one of the good guys and had a lot to look forward to, including his 18-month old daughter.

Former teammate Lavar Arrington, current teammate and close friend Clinton Portis, and Carolina Garcia, sister of Sean’s girlfriend, all made touching tributes to Sean. I think they did a great job of sharing who Sean Taylor the man, was.

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First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers go out to Sean Taylor’s family. Sean Taylor was declared deceased early this morning after suffering a gun shot wound that severed his femoral artery.

A senseless tragedy, a life cut short, a child robbed of her father, a girlfriend (fiancé?) robbed of their love, a team (and league) robbed of a great player, a community of fans robbed of a role model.
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There has been a fairly large reaction to the recent launch of PayPerPost, a service that allows advertisers to pay for people to blog about their products. Each offer includes details on a specific product that the company would like written about, and among other things, whether they will only pay for positive reviews. Payouts vary but not surprisingly, the more heavily trafficked sites reap the bigger rewards.

I wasn’t able to find anything that requires participants to disclose their participation in the program which certainly raises some ethical issues and concern among some in the blogging community. As if the issue of credibility and legitimacy hasn’t already been an uphill battle for bloggers, it’s only natural that some people see PayPerPost as a potential cancer to blogging.

I don’t know that it’s going to be as catastrophic to blogging as some people seem to think. It’s a given that there will be a few hacks that jump at the chance to make a few bucks, but I would imagine that most legitimate bloggers (and those that do so simply because they enjoy it) will likely steer clear. Why risk alienating your audience by misleading them for a measly $10.00? Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t fathom selling out so easily (and cheaply), but I guess money (no matter how little) talks for some. I’d like to think that my allegiance (or perceived allegiance) is worth more and that a company should earn my loyalty by doing what they do, well.

If there was one thing that I think PayPerPost could do to appease the concerns of some in the community (and at least appear more ethical), it would be to require bloggers to disclose their participation in the program via the inclusion of a one line statement that says “this post was sponsored by ..” (or something along the lines of how Google AdSense is done).

With that in mind, I occasionally like to throw in my two cents about a product or service that I have experienced first-hand. I think it’s important and valuable to let companies (and consumers) know when someone “gets it right” and just as importantly, when someone drops the ball. Hopefully my posts come across as sincere and are seen as valuable to at least one person out there. That’s all I can ask for.

For anyone looking to get a crash course on Google’s contextual advertising program, Adsense, take a look at “The Adsense Code” by Joel Comm. I recently picked this book and gave it a read and surprisingly learned a lot more than I initially expected to.

Inside, Comm covers everything from the very basics of the Adsense program, to building content and optimizing your web site(s) for search engines. In addition, Comm dedicates an entire chapter to case studies and even gives brief synopses of the other major contextual advertising programs (Adbrite, Kanoodle, Yahoo! Publisher Network, etc.).

This books is probably most ideal for beginners and could serve as a useful reference for intermediates and people like me who haven’t had a real need or opportunity to use Google Adsense extensively.

As I mentioned previously, I purchased a Dell XPS 400 in January. One of the biggest annoyances I encountered was the excessive amount of bloatware that came preinstalled on the system.

After I unpacked, set up, and made sure everything was functional, I decided to wipe the hard drive to get rid of all of the bloatware (which is quite extensive) …

According to the guys over at HardOCP, Dell is striving to appease concerns that they aren’t committed to the gaming community (and those who want a higher end computing experience) by addressing the issue:

They now offer their customers total choice on the software loads of their high end XPS systems that are targeted towards gamers. Dell recently announced that they would feature a no preinstalled software installation option on select XPS systems in their gaming lineup. No more free ISP offers, no more AOL icons, music jukebox software, or background services hogging precious system resources.
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To reiterate, Dell has told us specifically that the only program installed on systems that have the “no preinstalled software” option will be the anti-virus solution.

Read the full article over at HardOCP to get the full scoop on what Dell is doing to make the “premium” customer experience much more enjoyable.

It’s great that Dell is working to improve the experience for their higher end consumers and is showing that they can adapt and are willing to make good on their mistakes. That said, I don’t understand how they didn’t have enough foresight to anticipate a negative response from people in the gaming community whom they were targeting.

About a month ago a Verizon sales rep was going door to door in my neighborhood pitching their FiOS service. After listening to her pitch, I decided to sign up for the $29.99/month offer which includes the installation and first month free. I decided to start with the 5/2Mbps for now but may upgrade to the 15/2Mbps for $10/month more at some point. Not a week later they had a subcontractor out to hook up the fiber cable from the distribution box to my house. They left the fiber that protruded from the ground neatly coiled, with the rest buried very cleanly.

I setup an appointment for this past Friday for a service technician to come and install the ONT. I was given a window of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and was told the installation could take anywhere from four to six hours.

I received a call at about 8:15 from the service technician notifying me that she was about ten to fifteen minutes away from my house. When she arrived she asked to see where my computer was, and where the closest power outlet was in relation to where the ONT would be installed. After that she quickly outlined the steps she would take during the installation:

• Mount the ONT box outside the house
• Setup the ONT Power Supply Unit / Battery Backup Unit
• Run the line inside and install a RJ45 jack
• Setup the router and connect the line to the jack
• Setup the account

She handed me the welcome kit to look through and got to work. Three hours later, everything was done. The only snag came when the phone initially had no dial tone but was quickly rectified with a phone call, a walk to the ONT box.

The ONT ended up being mounted adjacent to the electric meter, the ONT Power Supply Unit was placed just inside the back door in a fairly inconspicuous location, the RJ45 jack installed beside an existing electrical outlet, and the cable lines the baseboards until it reaches the router located on my desk.

At one point during the install I asked the technician what her longest install was. She told me that the installs she has done in the multi-million dollar homes in McLean have taken her the longest, with one taking all of twelve hours.

All in all I was pleased with the entire process and was minimally inconvenienced. I’ve heard the most difficult and sometimes problematic aspect is the activation but mine was a breeze. So now that I’ve ditched Cox and moved on to FiOS, here’s to consistent high speed and lower latency!

After exploring alternative options and further contemplation (having already received one dud), I decided to give Dell a second chance. This time I ordered an XPS 400 instead of a Dimension E310. I placed my order on Tuesday morning, and by Thursday evening the computer had already arrived. I was once again impressed with the quick turnaround in their fulfillment and shipping of my order, especially since their anticipated ship date wasn’t until January 31st.

After I unpacked, set up, and made sure everything was functional, I decided to wipe the hard drive to get rid of all of the bloatware (which is quite extensive) and Windows XP Media Center, and put a fresh install of Windows XP Professional on instead. That ended up being more of an ordeal than anticipated, requiring me to create and tweak a Windows XP Service Pack 2 slipstream and then walking through the following steps that I found after scouring the Dell Support Forums:

1. Create an XP SP2 slipstream CD to boot
2. In BIOS, Change SATA Config to “Combination”
3. In BIOS, Change Video display from “PEG” to “PCI”
4. Boot XP Pro + SP2 slipstream CD, and install Windows XP Professional
5. After XP install finishes, change BIOS Video display settings back to “PEG”
6. Install chipset and other drivers from Dell support web site (for an XPS 400, in my case)

After finally getting Windows XP Professional installed, everything was smooth sailing. The system is fast, quiet, and so far, stable!

I built my previous system (AMD Thunderbird 1.2Ghz) back in the summer of 2000 and it held up great in the five and half years since. Having had some success building a computer before, I know I could have gone that route again and probably gotten a little more bang for my buck. Instead, I opted to go with Dell because of the convenience and more importantly, because of their financing plan. I also entertained the idea of ordering from iBuyPower and CyberPower, as I’ve heard good things about both, but Dell’s one-year no-interest financing ultimately won me over.

Time will be the deciding factor as to whether or not Dell has redeemed themselves (as far as their dealings with me are concerned), but so far, they are off to a good start.

I was looking through the February issue of Money Magazine and came across an article discussing the “MySpace Generation”, the creation of online profiles, and their potential affect on future job prospects.

The assertion of the writer (Scott Medintz) is that people (kids in particular) tend to be more forthright online, sharing everything from gossip, photos (sometimes risque) , their political views, to their most intimate thoughts. All of this is being done without any consideration being given to the long-term consequences of doing so. Medintz wrote that online profiles could potentially serve as “shadow resumes”, with more companies going to the web for information when performing background checks. With Google’s caching and the Internet Archive’s recording of web pages, content that has been long been removed is often times still retrievable.I guess my view is that if it’s out there, it’s technically fair game, so use some common sense when sharing anything online. That said, I also think it’s relatively easy (and not that uncommon) for someone with a vendetta or simply out of boredom, to impersonate someone else on the web. I don’t see how companies will be able to mine the web for information on job applicants and factor it into their decision as to whether or not they are going to hire that person. Without knowing the intent, context, and ultimately, the validity of whatever “dirt” is found, how can it be seen as anything other than hearsay?