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Again, from Macintouch, more ideas/tips about Mail.app problems. New idea: “… I traced the problem down to a malformed HTML-based message that had no subject line.” I’ve seen some of those, but had not connected the crashes to an individual type of email. Hmmm… I’ll keep an eye out.

Mail hasn’t crashed for a day or so while I try re-training the Junk mail filter. Here’s more reports. Again, two kinds of problems, freezes and crashes. I’ve only had problems with the crashes. Lucky me?

Ready? Set. Go!

• ShiftedLibrarian on My Yahoo’s RSS beta [via Scripting.com]
• CSS style competition [via Simple Bits]
• RSSAds.com – we’ll see.
• The Register on Declan and Dean. Not complimentary. [Via Lessig]
• Online version of the card game Spit – link to Flash file didn’t work for me in Safari, but I’m still curious.
• Doug Bowman decries the IE factor. I read it, but don’t have time for the comments right now. [via Simple Bits]
• WikiTravel. Pay attention, HotelChatter. [via Lessig]
• ArsTechnica on the iPod mini [via Slashdot]
• Mark Hurst’s May 2000 essay on bit literacy, which this post is probably not a great example of (letting bits go, so you can focus on the important bits).
• Information in Society class at Berkeley, with reading list. I won’t have time for any of this in years, but it’s interesting, in an, ahem, academic way. [via PeterMe]

Via Eliot, a Wall Street Journal article titled “Buddy, can you spare some time? [requires subscription, of course]. A few choice quotes…

… The battle for Americans’ disposable time — among a vast proliferation of entertainment products and media channels — is becoming even more pitched than the battle for their disposable income.

Indeed, in many key demographic groups, time is scarcer than money. [emphasis added]

Not exactly a terrible problem to have, but interesting that it’s reached the point of media commentary. More…

Starcom recently surveyed a significant portion of all households with a TiVo. “Fifty-five percent of the commercials were skipped,” Mr. Tobaccowala [executive vice president in Starcom Mediavest Group’s media planning and buying group] says.

Only 55%?? Why the heck is anyone watching 45% of the ads broadcast on TV today if they have a TiVo or other PVR? Hey, I work for an ad-supported media website, so I want advertising to work (and it does… but I digress), but consumers are snatching whatever control they can, and very few ads are useful or entertaining enough to warrant my attention. Or, more directly, my time. When I am flipping through a show, 30 seconds at a time, it’s quite impressive when an ad catches my eye enough for me to rewind to view it. The distinctive solid colors of the Apple iTunes/iPod ads are one example. No others come to mind, but I do, occasionally, stop and take stock of an advertisement even though I don’t have to. When watching via TiVo, I’m more likely to pay close attention, with my thumb on the ‘skip’ button to avoid wasting precious seconds. I’m not one of those people — like some mentioned in this article — that can watch TV ‘in the background.’ I don’t multitask well, and the TV is oh-so-distracting.

One last clip from the article:

A media firm owned by Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners recently placed round, black stickers advertising “Traffic,” a new USA Network miniseries, on 50,000 one-dollar bills and sent them into circulation in New York and Los Angeles.

Yes, advertisers are willing to pay people to see their advertising. Of course, this is enough of a stunt that the $50K is really just buying PR… the Journal picked it up, and a full-page print ad with online complement probably costs more than that, so money well spent, getting the ‘free’ mention. I would have mentioned it for much less… oops, I did it for free! 😉

I need to start tracking the daily exchange rate of time against the dollar. If time is a currency, this should be doable, right? Ideas are welcome.

Macintouch has three more reports of Mail.app problems. Two of the reports sound similar to mine (crashing related to marking mail as Junk, mostly). I’ve tried one (removing the LSMMap2 file), so now I’ll try the other (reset the Junk mail filters and re-train… thought I’d tried that already, but…). Still hoping. Maybe the new security update has a fix for this? (right…)

Words come before looks in web design is a very short article from Gerry McGovern.

When people come to your website, you have already got their attention.

Bingo! Maybe it takes more, graphically, to get them there (still debatable), but once they are there, visually shouting is both an annoyance and a design hindrance. I think most websites could stand to use fewer images, so that those that are used will be more distinguishable, be they navigational, informational, or for advertising. I like advertising that doesn’t insult me, even if the product or service isn’t something I need. Too much advertising on the web (everywhere?) is still a race for attention… a race to the bottom, really. Write well, shout less.

One of the reasons I post words here as often as I can is to hone my own writing. My words often need boiling down, a precipitating out of the catalyst material into refined nuggets. I don’t rewrite my words very often… it’s hard enough to write them the first time. So I attempt to make up for the lack of editing with practice. It won’t make perfect, and it’s not truly important that it be perfect, but I do feel like creating, rather than just consuming (reading), stretches my brain in the right ways.

Ever had problems figuring out what level of ‘zoom’ you need at one of the online mapping sites? Victor Lombari did, and proposed a solution. I find it useful. I only wish someone at Yahoo Maps or Mapquest would emulate it, or improve upon it. Original link via Widgetopia.

Happy 25th birthday, Sam! See you soon.

Simon Willison article on SitePoint: Simple Tricks for More Usable Forms. Nice demo form linked to at bottom of essay.

Another badge for the bottom of the page, at least temporarily (Blogstreet.com).