There are a lot of mixed feelings I get when I see people like Jeffrey, Greg, and Tomas talk about the lament of blogs and design.

For one, it’s nice to see that people are in the same boat as me, where sometimes there’s no time or inspiration to blog. Sometimes you need a break, sometimes a break needs you. Sure, when people can’t or don’t post, I don’t get to read them… but I understand.

Also, it’s nice to see that people still care about taking the time to craft something, particularly around the web and blogs. The bad part about that is that since people keep bringing it up every year or two, it’s not done. The good part about that is if you’re interested in helping craft a solution, it’s not done.

Recently someone at work printed an article from our site (like this one, for example) and wondered where the images were.

If you print it (or save some trees and just look at a print preview to see what you would get), you will notice that the presentation is largely different from what you get on the web. It is using print styles in the CSS to hide various things, such as the navigation, sidebars, and photos. It also displays a different, more minimal footer. What this printer-ized version tells you is where it came from, how to contact them, and the text of the story.

One argument for not displaying the photos is based on why people print out web pages: simple reading, reference, filing, or forwarding. Another argument is printer ink: The majority of people who tested this site mentioned that the reason they choose “printer-friendly” or text-only versions of a page was so that the images would not print. Why? The cost of printer ink. Printer ink costs more per drop than vintage Dom Perignon, so that’s quite understandable.

One stated argument for printing the photos is that, since this is a news story, they are also “telling the story” and thus should be preserved.

I really don’t know that there is one true answer to this, but I’m interested in your opinion on the matter, or perhaps some more arguments for and against printing photos from a web page. What do you think?

Well, I talked to my boss and got the green light to post about work-related things. I doubt I will need to worry about it, but seeing that this is my personal space, I will still disclaim that my comments are entirely personal and do not represent the views of my employer. There.

So, in case you didn’t know already, my job is the web designer for Minnesota Public Radio. (Wikipedia has a pretty nice entry if you’re unfamiliar.) MPR is foremost a network of radio stations based on three services: news, classical music, and alternative/eclectic music… but it’s really much more than that. MPR has quite a robust offering of news and features apart from the radio content — much more so than most radio stations (public or not) — and it is very akin to working at a newspaper company (or so I’m told).

We actually recently did a redesign of the site just a few weeks ago, and are pushing out things in manageable chunks. Today, for example, we pushed out the new design to our weblogs. (My “other job” is as a contributor to one of said weblogs, The Bleacher Bums, which is all about baseball, which is a big deal right now if you live in Minnesota.) Most of what I do has to do with the presentation of the news content, creating interactive elements (sometimes complementary, sometimes entirely web-specific) and crafting the numerous sections, projects, and general interactions of the site.

The news aspect is only one part, which is part of why it’s such an interesting place to work. I also do work with American Public Media, which is the brand under which MPR produces and distributes public radio programming for other stations around the world. I’ve designed a handful of sites such as Saint Paul Sunday, Pipedreams, and American Mavericks (which won a Peabody, by the way) and been a part of a lot of interesting projects.

So there’s news, there’s music, and there’s ideas, design and presentation. I’m a huge fan of all of those things. If you are too, check out my bookmarks and future posts on this weblog.

Anything in specific you’d like me to talk about?

Part of my massive shift with blogs and domains is a bit of house cleaning. I finally set up permanent redirects for the RIAA Radar and BPI Radar on their own domains, so my large projects are separated from my personal web space (including Mixmatcher). It gives each project some room to breathe, and sure cleans up my virtual desk space quite well.

Next on the docket is figuring out what to do with my movies and music databases. I like what Jason does, where he combines multiple blogs with specific purposes into one uber-blog system for the front. Do I incorporate Netflix somehow? Any ideas/suggestions?

The answer is TuneSleeve if you use Windows. You can tell from the background that Pascal writes on the TuneSleeve page that he had great goals and alot of experienced thinking around it. He probably tried all of the other terrible artwork downloading “programs” just like I did. It hit every mark on the list: full albums, artwork choices, optional external search per album, optional playlist selection (which is handy for the first time you run it and happen to have 16k songs like myself), and the option to append, overwrite, or exclude albums with existing artwork. If you’re anal about your album artwork like I am, be sure to give it a try.

Hello everybody. My name is Ben, and I’m starting a blog.

I know right now you’re thinking, “But wait, you’re already a terribly infamous, amazing person who’s had an infamous, amazing blog since before the term existed, and before there was blogging software.” Well, it’s one thing to have a blog. It’s another to actually blog.

So this, my surprisingly long-term and loyal audience, is where I attempt to turn the corner and actually post.

I may not have anything new to say, but you may have not necessarily heard everything I had to say before. This time, I plan to post things relating to my work, which I have never done before. (Since the time that I stopped blogging regularly, I’ve notice that I probably need to check my work’s policy on this matter, but this I will do.) I also plan to post more often about anything interesting to me, and plan to steal plenty of other people’s ideas (you can bet that an implementation of Dack‘s “in the bag” is in the works) in order to expand and vary the amount of content.

I have installed actual blogging software, and plan on implementing it to it’s utmost potential. For now you get a pre-packaged theme, but to keep the honor of my profession, I do plan on creating my own design. But until then, it’s writing, posting, and linking. Like you’re not reading the RSS anyways…

Fairly ye be warned, says I.

Ran across two interesting bits of information recently, and thought I’d do an old school “mashup” (as the kids are calling it these days) of Google Trends and the highest paying keywords for Google AdWords. Some of the results are quite interesting, particularly the timeframes, spikes, and locations of the searches (plus, I’ll probably get some amazing ad revenue from posting this kind of stuff):

• college loan
• school loan
• student loan
• trial lawyers
• injury attorney (what’s going on in Apex, NC?)
• car insurance (bad drivers in the isles?)
• refinance mortgage (Apex again… McLean, VA is all over every equity loan and housing related chart)
• credit report (does the entire south have a credit problem?)
• lasik (Germany is apparently tired of their glasses)
• mesothelioma (wow, looks like SC is having some issues with that)
• accutane
• zicam (what a weird ebb and flow)
• botox (ah, that crazy fucked up Southern California)

I think I just found a great shirt idea, my next Halloween costume, or perhaps both. A crew t-shirt from the M.Y. Disco-Volante, the high-tech boat used by Emilio Largo for Operation Thunderball. They’re very classic, straight-forward, and sleek. Some examples:

The helpful crew lifting James Bond out of the water.

Another kind gesture… bringing champagne!

And perhaps what they’re best for: getting punched!

Follow the link to access a Google map of the Twin Cities area, with Target store locations denoted. Using the average household income (from 2003 income tax data) and home sale price (from February 2006) of the given zip codes for each location, the hope is to pinpoint which Target store is the definitive Targhetto.

The Targhetto Project

Note to anyone thinking about buying an Apple: Don’t buy a fucking new one a few weeks before MacWorld. Something new is coming out every single time, and it’s going to be better than what you just got. I thought Apple owners were supposed to be smart?