Just a catch-up on some things I've been up to. Nothing huge nor
timely, but enough small stuff to warrant one post.

1) At work, (Boston.com), I helped add Google Maps to our Movie Listing page, to help you find where and when a movie is playing in the Boston area. Example: The Shaggy Dog. Click on an icon in the map for movie times.

2) Judging 2006 SXSW Web Awards. I was one of many judges for this year's entries in the 2006 South by Southwest Interactive Web Awards. After reviewing close to 75 entries, I have to admit there is some really nice work going on out there. A word of advice to entrants in the future - be really sure your entry is appropriate for the category you choose. There were several that were great sites, but really inappropriately categorized.

3) Books! Books that I've written or contributed to. First is my old labor of love, which has been much neglected since its original publishing in May of 2000 - The Strangest Town in Alaska : The History of Whittier, Alaska and the Portage Valley. A self-researched, self-published history book about an odd little town in Alaska, now available online for the first time in years (at alaskabooksandcalendars.com). Also, Hacks! I've contributed hacks to three books in the O'Reilly Hacks series now. First, there was Amazon Hacks, and Yahoo Hacks, both by Paul Bausch, and now (as of Jan. 2006) there's Google Maps Hacks by Rich Gibson and Schuyler Erle.

3a) Fun side-note, when I was looking up these O'Reilly books on O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf site, I saw something that looked really familiar, and then noticed "Hey, they're using my widget. Cool!". If you go to a page like this one, and see the little "expand" tabs in the center, that open up the overview and review sections, that's my UI idea from Amazon Light 4.0. (See same book on AL4 here. The (non-earth-shattering) idea was that there's no reason to make the page scroll forever just to include a very long review - unless the reader wants to see it - then reveal it with a click. Seeing it in use on Safari feels like validation at least, which is always a nice thing (Yes I checked the source code, it's from my site, and I'm just fine with that).

I would have loved to go to either MashupCamp or ETech or SXSWi this year, but it just wasn't in the cards - it looks like a good time was had by most though. Will try to get to more get-togethers in the future.
 

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