John Zeratsky: Articles

Voting open for SXSW 2009

2008-08-12T16:57:41Z

Last week, I submitted two presentations to SXSW 2009, and now it is up to you (and the rest of the web) to decide whether or not I make the cut.

Presenting at SXSW in 2007 was a great experience, and attending earlier this year was a blast, so I made it a goal to prepare and pitch at least one topic for 2009. Fortunately I had one close at hand, having presented at Tech Cocktail Conference this spring. I rummaged through my brain for another idea that was interesting to me, and hopefully to at least some of you. Here is what I came up with:

User Experience Without Design

Web user experience is virtually synonymous with design. But there are plenty of other factors that will make or break the user experience of your web-based product, service, or publication. This presentation introduces holistic user experience design and proposes a number of ways to improve the user experience… without design.
Getting Thing Done the Simple Way

There are dozens of applications promising to help you get things done. But most are complex and proprietary, better adapted for fiddling than actually working. Learn how to apply David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” using plain text, paper, and the email and calendar you are already using.

Please take a minute to visit the SXSW Panel Picker and place your votes (voting closes on August 29). If you have questions or feedback, feel free to email me (john@zeratsky.com) or leave a comment on the SXSW site. Thanks!

Speaking at Tech Cocktail Conference

2008-05-19T00:44:20Z

Next Thursday (May 29, 2008) I’m speaking at the Tech Cocktail Conference here in Chicago. Matt Shobe and I will present some tips and strategies for entrepreneurs who want to create good user experiences, but may not have the staff or resources to do so via traditional means. We’ll probably try to make some jokes, too.

Tech Cocktail Conference is a new one-day conference organized by Eric Olson and Frank Gruber, who run the popular mixer events by the same name. They say:

The focus of the conference is taking a ‘no nonsense’ approach to building a business that can flourish by leveraging technology and the Web.

As for my inclusion in the conference — I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of mistake. The speaker lineup, which includes Brad Feld, Dick Costolo and Jason Fried (of 37signals), is top-notch and I’m honored to be involved.

Registration is still open, so sign up now if you’re interested. Let me know if you’ll be there; hopefully we can find a chance to say “hi!”

Eat better, feel better

2008-03-01T23:22:43Z

Bob Walsh of Web Worker Daily interviewed David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, about the impact of stress on web workers’ physical health. My favorite part is David talking about how a better, more nutritious diet has made him healthier.

From the interview:

Bob: Do you exercise? I know you were into karate many years ago.

David: Not as regularly as I can… I have a pretty active lifestyle: I walk dogs, get on planes, all that work. You know, one of my biggest “A ha’s!” that was a big surprise to me, was nutrition. I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I lived a disposal life, just “open mouth insert food.” In the travel I was doing in my life, I thought if I exercised enough that would handle it.

[At the end] end of 2000, like seven or eight years ago I discovered a nutritional program that made a lot of difference. Since then, I’ve reduced to almost zero cold and flu. It allows me a lot more stable energy, I think, than the highs, ups and lows and downs that I’ve been expecting before.

This has been very much like my experience over the past eight or nine months. I do not dedicate much time to exercise (though I do walk a lot), but improving my diet has made me healthier — I feel better, I get sick less often, and I have a higher overall level of energy.

My diet is better largely because of Google. Since starting there in June 2007, I have taken advantage of the famous free lunch to eat salad every day, diversify my caloric intake, and stop drinking soda (almost) altogether. For breakfast, I have a Clif bar (all-natural, balanced energy) and a fruit smoothie. It’s not hard to eat right when the right foods are convenient, and it helps when they’re free too!

The other contributor to my new and improved diet is local, organic produce from the Home Grown Wisconsin Cooperative. Michelle and I are members of their Community-Supported Agriculture program, which delivers farm-fresh produce (vegetables, fruit, cheese and eggs) to Chicago from June through February each year. (Sadly, as I write this, it is truly the off-season.) The steady stream of ingredients has motivated us to explore new recipes, eat seasonally, make healthier meals and become generally more engaged with the experience of buying, preparing and eating food.

This David Allen interview inspired me to share my experiences, because I think it’s important to highlight the real, noticeable health improvements that good nutrition provides. If we become more aware of the importance of nutrition in our daily lives, that can only be a good thing.

Save No Sweat

2008-02-08T03:05:12Z

I am always searching for the perfect tee shirt.

What was printed on the shirt used to matter more to me than the shirt itself, but I learned to value cut and quality, then responsible labor and production practices.

American Apparel made my first favorite tee shirt, and I stocked up during the two years when I lived across the street from their store. But while AA originally excelled at creating shirts that lasted and fit well, recently they have changed the cut of their Fine Jersey tee and may not be the good corporate citizen I once thought.

Patagonia made my second favorite tee shirt — it fit great, looked cool, and was made of organic cotton by an exemplary company. If Patagonia made tee shirts that were a little cheaper (they cost $30) and came in solid colors (patterns only), I wouldn’t be writing this article.

A few months ago a co-worker suggested No Sweat, a Boston company that sells a variety of shirts, tanks, shorts, pants and more. I ordered one of their Organic Bethlehem Unisex No Logo Tees (which cost only $15) and took it for a test drive. Three washes later, it’s still my (new) favorite tee shirt.

Anyway, the point of writing this article is to say that No Sweat is currently suffering a cash crunch, and now would be a great time to order a shirt! I am almost certain you will be a satisfied customer.

Verizon V740 on Mac OS X: It just works

2008-02-04T03:50:01Z

I just got a Verizon V740 wireless broadband card for use with my MacBook Pro. The packaging included a bright yellow “Activate Your Phone” guide, a VZAccess Manager CD-ROM, and a manual that instructed me to install Verizon’s software before plugging the card into my computer.

But then I noticed page six, which says:

Mac customers are not required to use VZAccess Manager to use the ExpressCard. Drivers for the Verizon ExpressCard are built into the Macintosh operating system.

The conflicting instructions spurred me to search Google for clearer information. I found a couple of Macworld articles about the WWAN Support Update 1.0 that Apple released last year, and decided to live on the edge and plug in the Verizon card before installing any software. Daring, I know.

As soon as I inserted the card, I saw a Mac OS X dialog that said:

You have inserted a WWAN card that has not been activated. Would you like to activate this card?

So, I clicked “Activate” and waited a minute while OS X (apparently) activated my card with Verizon (really?!) and displayed this dialog:

When that was finished, I opened the Network preferences pane and saw a new service in the left-hand menu: “Novatel Wireless CDMA.”

I clicked on the new service and saw that the “Account Name” and “Password” fields were already filled in with my info. So I clicked “Connect” and before I knew it, I was connected to the internet via my new Verizon card.

New technology can be painful and complicated, but sometimes, it just works.

The best things in life are free

2008-01-17T04:00:00Z

Of the ~~four~~ five announcements Steve Jobs made in his Macworld keynote Tuesday morning, my two favorites are free software updates. This is out of character for Apple, a company that makes money primarily by selling hardware.

Past keynotes have been notable for the credit-card-grabbing, frantic-pre-ordering lust they inspire; the iPhone, Apple TV, Powerbook G4, Airport and several iMacs were all announced at Macworld keynotes. So the emphasis on software, and free software that enhances old hardware, is either a subtle shift in strategy, or nothing at all. Either way, I like it.

Apple’s Macworld announcements, in order of favorite-ness, are:

Apple TV Software Update

I bought an Apple TV early last year, and I really like it. No, it won’t record live TV, and it doesn’t do HD, and I can’t shop iTunes on it. Nor does it do any of the other things you wish it would do. But it does allow me to watch movies on my TV, and listen to music on my stereo. And I think that’s worth $299.

The new software enables a lot of great functionality, including iTunes Store access, movie rental support, HD movie playback, and Flickr integration. For Apple to give this away as a free software update; well, that’s just really nice.
iPhone Software Update

A year after its first demo, the iPhone is still the most remarkable device in the world. Consistent with previous updates, there’s a bunch of good stuff in the software announced Tuesday: auto-locator, better maps, Web Clips, customizable home screen, and more.
Movie Rentals
MacBook Air
Time Capsule

2007: The year in cities

2007-12-30T22:27:36Z

I published a similar list in early 2006, and it was fun. What happened last year? Not sure.

Here is a list of cities in which I spent at least one night during 2007. In roughly chronological order:

Chicago, IL — We live here.
Madison, WI — For Taylor’s birthday and a few other social visits.
Austin, TX — For SXSW with Justin.
Steamboat Springs, CO — For some spring skiing with a bunch of friends.
Green Lake, WI — To visit my parents, enjoy the lake, etc.
Denver, CO — For my sister’s graduation.
San Francisco, CA — For JavaOne and inconvenient-but-fun lodging while working in Mountain View.
New York, NY — For Google orientation and training, then back for Real Work.
Mountain View, CA — To connect with co-workers, make big plans, and enjoy the food.
Waukegan, IL — During the Chicago-Waukegan regatta in June.
Indianapolis, IN — For Weezie and Jim’s wedding.
Paris and Coudray-Rabut, France; Brussels, Belgium; Amsterdam, Netherlands — During our two-week vacation in September.
Milwaukee, WI — For CJ and Danielle’s wedding.
Las Vegas, NV — For fun! (With Taylor, Justin, Eric, Frank and Rick)
Greenville, SC — To visit Michelle’s Dad.

Wow! What a year.

Version 4

2007-12-19T03:30:00Z

It’s been five months (!) since my last post, and it’s taken me that long to design, implement and launch version four of johnzeratsky.com. I hope you like it!

My primary goal for the redesign was to highlight the links and photos I publish on an almost-daily basis. (FriendFeed helps me do this; see below.) I recast the blog posts as Articles, since they’ve become longer, richer, and less frequent over time. I also added a prominent summary of my current projects, with links to photos, examples or actual project output.

Generally speaking, I want to represent my whole “web self” with this site. Hopefully johnzeratsky.com now gives you a good sense of what I’m thinking, reading, and doing on a day-to-day basis.

How it works

After spending close to a year building a custom, Django-based CMS for this blog, I reverted to Movable Type 4 at the last minute. The software is feature-rich, reliable and easy to use. The community is active (again) and the documentation is excellent. After five years deploying, configuring, hacking and using Movable Type, I’m still happy to be here. (Thanks, Six Apart!)

FriendFeed also plays a huge role in this new version of johnzeratsky.com. I’m using this fantastic service to merge my del.icio.us bookmarks, Flickr photos, Netflix movies, and johnzeratsky.com articles into one feed, which is included on my home page and available for you to subscribe to (if you want).

My new design is fully buzzword compliant — grid-based, elastic, and composed to a vertical rhythm. Hopefully this means it will be more friendly to you, the reader, and more appropriate to the types of content I publish.

Problems? Thoughts? Let me know

I really want to hear what you think of the new design. Please feel free to send me an email (at john@zeratsky.com or via the “Email the author” link in the left column). And thanks for reading!

Remote control magic with iPhone and Telekinesis

2007-07-05T18:31:33Z

Telekinesis is the coolest thing I’ve seen since the iPhone debuted last Friday. Nicholas Jitkoff, the developer of Quicksilver, has really hit one out of the park — and he’s only at version 0.9.7 alpha.

What does Telekinesis do? It turns your iPhone into a remote control for your Mac. A few apps are included, but it’s possible to develop your own as well. The built-in apps allow you to:

Control your Mac’s screen remotely (it’s VNC light)
Play, pause, forward and rewind iTunes
Browse your home directory and view iPhone-compatible files (including PDF, Word, and Excel docs)
Take a picture with your iSight — great for spying on cats

This is great. Very exciting.

One weekend with the iPhone

2007-07-02T01:27:23Z

On Friday night I got an iPhone, then Michelle and I put the device through its paces during a weekend trip to Indianapolis. Here’s my take, two days in.

Getting One

Buying an iPhone was not easy. I concocted a genius plan (or so I thought) to leave work early and wait in line at an AT&T store near Cabrini Green. The thought was: this store should have decent inventory (being in Chicago) but not be mobbed (being um, not downtown).

I did okay on the latter assumption — we arrived at 5 p.m. and found only 60 people in line — but they ran out of 8GB iPhones quickly and we gave up.

Later on Friday night, I called the Michigan Avenue Apple Store (the very store I was trying to avoid!) and they had “plenty” of 8GB iPhones in stock. So at 11:30 p.m. I drove down there and walked in. At 11:40 p.m. I walked out with an iPhone.

Keyboard and EDGE

The most contentious issues around the iPhone seem to be its on-screen keyboard and exclusive use of EDGE for mobile data access. Neither has been a problem.

The keyboard is a joy to use. I’ve never used a Blackberry, so I cannot provide any comparisons, but the iPhone’s keyboard feels natural and it’s speedy enough for me. (The auto-correct features are essential!)
I don’t know if AT&T upgraded its EDGE network or not, but everything’s nice and snappy. Michelle spent a bunch of time in Safari and Google Maps, with nary a complaint about speed.

Pleasant Surprises

I had very high expectations for the iPhone, but a few features pleasantly surprised me.

The camera takes good-quality photos and is fun to use. (Check out my latest set on Flickr for a sample.)
I love the iChat-inspired SMS interface. Finally, conversation context! It’s particularly handy for Twitter messages, which are displayed inline, just like on my Twitter home page.
Google Maps on iPhone is remarkably useful. I knew it would be good, but not this good. Very impressive work by Apple and Google on this one.

The Cons

Of course, not everything is wonderful in iPhone land. A few features and design choices disappointed me.

Gmail support is built in to iPhone Mail, but Google Apps email support is not. That’s a pain.
Recessing the headphone jack was a seriously bad choice. Am I really going to have to get one of these dongles? Ugh.
iPhone doesn’t support manual management via iTunes. (I.e. you cannot drag specific music/videos from iTunes to iPhone.) This is a big problem for me — my iTunes library is on a Mac Mini at home, but my contacts, bookmarks and calendars are on my laptop. Now I have to designate one computer as the primary iPhone source and do some messy syncing between computers.

One of the recent iTunes updates adds the ability to manually manage music and videos on your iPhone.

In Closing

It’s not my style to end with the bad news, so I’ll say this — I haven’t been this excited about a new technology product in a long time. After two days, the novelty is beginning to wear off and I feel good about the iPhone’s prospects as a practical and usable device for (at least) many months to come.

Bluetooth advertising in New York

2007-06-27T19:10:19Z

A couple of weeks ago in New York, I ran across this bus-shelter ad and did a double-take when I saw —

Activate your Bluetooth for a taste of survival.

I pulled out my S710 and immediately a Bluetooth file transfer request appeared on the screen. I accepted the request and downloaded a 415KB video file to my phone’s memory stick.

The content wasn’t super compelling (here’s the video, in 3GP format, if you’re interested), but the presentation caught my attention and I was certainly engaged. And that’s worth something.

Who’s the agency or tech provider behind this advertising? Mike told me about someone doing this a while back, but now I can’t remember the name.

A question about iPhone apps

2007-06-12T04:56:46Z

Here’s what I cannot figure out about Steve Jobs’ iPhone announcement today: Is he talking about regular web apps, accessed over the network, or something more akin to Widgets, which are comprised of HTML/CSS/JavaScript but run locally?

Gruber and Quentin seem to think it’s the former, which would suck. It might be a nice first step, but it’s hardly announcement-worthy.

Jason (and most of the commenters at Signal vs. Noise) seem to think it’s the latter. That makes a lot of sense, and it would open up iPhone application development to a wide range of designers and developers (not just “real” programmers).

(My bet is that Jobs was talking about Widget-style applications made with HTML/CSS/JavaScript. If not, how do you explain the integration with phone features — calling, camera, etc — he promised? Access to proprietary local APIs must be available.)

Lucky find -- Maritime Hotel in New York City

2007-06-09T04:00:03Z

I was supposed to fly back to Chicago tonight (I’m in New York for Google orientation and training), but most flights to Chicago were canceled so a few of us decided to spend the weekend in Manhattan.

Joe discovered the Maritime Hotel across the street from the Google offices, so we put in a quick call and secured rooms for the weekend. What a lucky find! There’s a bar and two restaurants off the lobby — so we don’t have to leave to get a bite or a drink — and the rooms are beautifully crafted from varnished wood and tile.

And it’s less than the midtown Radisson we stayed in all week. I wish m’lady could be here, but otherwise it’s going to be a great weekend in New York.

Googled

2007-06-01T17:13:32Z

So, all those rumors? True.

We’ve got the official announcement over at Burning Questions — FeedBurner has been acquired by Google — and we’re very excited! Check out Google’s perspective on their blog.

I’m heading to Google orientation next week, and I’ll be joining the team as a UI designer here in Chicago.

And what a relief to finally tell people about this! To friends I’ve had to ignore or mislead over the past couple of months… sorry about that. I hope you’ll understand :-)

GWT's new trick

2007-05-30T15:36:22Z

It may rot your brain, but Google Web Toolkit (GWT) has some really incredible tricks up its sleeve.

GWT consolidates a bunch of web front-end optimizations in one place, and automates them, so you can focus on the interaction design of your application. My favorite (new) example, is ImageBundle, which I saw demoed at JavaOne.

ImageBundle takes all the images in your UI, combines them into One Big Image, and uses CSS to display the appropriate slices in the appropriate places, sprite-style.

I’m not using GWT, but it looks like a fascinating approach to web application development. If you’re interested, there’s a new version 1.4 release candidate out now.