smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Nine hours and fifty-five minutes of mad design clean up and deployment begins. Now.

Kath, my wonderful and insightful partner, has something to tell door-to-door bible bashers.

If someone wandered into the woods and came back proclaiming he’d discovered gold tablets with a whole new gospel on them I’d be doubtful. If he said he was the only one who was allowed to see them I’d be skeptical. If he said they told him he was allowed more than one wife but it didn’t go the other way — only one husband for the ladies — I’d be laughing.

It never ever seems to strike those who go from house to house, attempting to subvert smart people into believing that their God is the “right” God, that we just aren’t that stupid. It’s like George Bush meets Leisure Suit Larry — all the wrong idiots in all the wrong places.

Another blogger gets it.

I’m all for communication between author and reader, but comments are the lowest possible denominator. More often than not, they bring out the absolute worst in people. via.

There are far better ways to converse, rather than a comment field that is just plain designed to invite commentary from everyone except those who actually have something real and wise and vibrant to add.

On a side note, Steven’s new minimalist design helps get the message across, without cruft.

Jesper speaks with a clear and (in my humble opinion) wise voice in his post The Sliding Scale of Right.

The real takeaway is that when Apple does shit like this, it degrades Software Update and the extent to which people can unconditionally recommend it as a useful and convenient security precaution. Good security precautions don’t come with caveats.

Apple has dropped the ball here. And it is as simple as that. Automatic select-and-install of anything the user hasn’t specifically said “yes, please install application n, I approve that action by selection” by default is bad form. It’s wrong.

The Operating System in question is irrelevant, the principle is the same. Do not install shit I do not ask for, especially if you try and hide it as an “update”, purposefully or no. Apple’s software update hasn’t done this in the past (at least not on the Windows platform) and whilst it’s obvious Apple seeks to push their browser of choice, it should never be at the expense of user knowledge or by sneak attack.

The single best option is to revert the action back to what it had always been prior to the latest release of Safari. That is what the user expects. And thus that is what it should be — if I have not requested installation of the application, it remains un-installed.

Jeff Barlow has distilled the art of understanding and importance down to a simple catch phrase — pay attention and give a shit.

And it left me thinking, what have I learned? And more importantly what have I learned that I could share. Of late, I’ve simplified some lessons-learned into two ideas I keep repeating to myself: Pay Attention and Give a Shit.

A great article that breaks down the idea of keeping it real and building importance.

Bravo! Michael gets it — blogging is a journey.

For the longest time, I thought blogging was about you. That’s what everyone told me. “Blogging is a conversation”. Not my blog. My blog is a place where I share my thoughts. Where I write what I want to write. Not for you. For me.

When you understand that blogging is in many respects a gift given freely to others, you begin to understand that the finish line, fame and fortune really isn’t the goal.

Blogging isn’t conversation — with it’s propensity for short duration and expectation of feedback — it’s communication. There are simply no limits in what one can achieve when the journey becomes more important than the end.

Andy Rutledge has posted an in depth take on hyperlink style and construction.

Differentiating text links by color and/or decoration is just a fundamental approach. Your decisions for what color or what sort of decoration to use hinges on some important issues that reach beyond considerations of contrast and distinction. So these decisions cannot often be made arbitrarily.

Textual navigation’s entire function is to simplify access to content and to guide the reader to where they need to be. It should invite further participation and fit within the bounds of the design, getting from A to B and back again, without losing the reader in the process.

If your reader cannot cannot distinguish between content and interface, between link or highlight, or simply just how to proceed forward, they likely will not. A failure in anyone’s language, surely.

As previously mentioned I’ve got something cooking, so to speak. Andy has provided a timely reminder for this author of just how important placement and ease of navigation — something that is all-to-often sidelined — plays in overall site design.

Seth Godin is, as usual, right on the mark — no user servicable parts inside:

That’s what it says on countless electronic and mechanical devices. “Don’t touch this,” it says, “you’re way too dumb to open it… you’ll get hurt”

The problem, of course, is that pretty soon you start looking at the entire world that way. Whether it’s web design or Google analytics or backing up your hard drive or just talking to the guys in the plant about your new ideas, it’s really easy to see the world as a black box.

Here’s a simple secret of success: ignore the sticker.

I’m a geek. I work with servers, infrastructure and network hardware. I know how a good deal of my industry’s stuff works because I was never afraid to rip the cover off and get my hands dirty — a parentally challenging (and initially somewhat destructive) habit as a child has lead to a busy and often productive work ethic as a result.

When I tackle something new, be it technology or software, I still whip the cover off for at least a brief look at the clockwork action below.

Speaking of busy people, Michael Heilemann has been sneakily building what looks to be a fantastic user interface for Habari.

… a few weeks back, I went AWOL and started crunching away on a complete design for the administration interface for Habari, in an effort to create a set of blueprints, from which this thing can be built in proper.

He provides a good run-down of the where and whys via a screen-cast showcase of the design and there is also a snazzy flickr set — which is in stark contrast to the totally abortive drive-by-design wordpress 2.5 is still currently sporting.

Lovely work by a sharp-as-tacks pixel pusher — and it’s great to see community involvement habari being taken in the spirit it is given.

Bill Israel has been busy of late (and now I know why) whom announces:

In an effort to bring good music to the tumbling masses, Richard and I have started a music tumblelog called Tuneage.

Richard and Bill both have a great sense of what makes music worth getting out of (or rather, into) bed for. Tunage sports a snazzy yet simple design, great tunes and fantastic visuals — well done lads.

Perhaps proving that yet again, tumblr can be more than just a re-blogged nirvana — in this case a music-lover’s co-production.

Being a New Zealand National, I forfeited the right to vote in the recent Australian Federal Elections — in losing that right as a free citizen I can only echo Cameron’s call to vote.

“Vote with whatever criteria you deem important, but please, vote.”

Never take the right to instigate change for granted, it’s a rare chance to shape the future and all it takes is stepping out the front door and pressing pen to ballot paper.