Yearly Archives: 2009

The 24 Hour Idea

This is a true story.

A couple of weeks ago I had just tucked myself into bed, had turned off the light, and was beginning to let my mind wander down the long path to sleep. The road to sleep for me is usually a long one. It is just about that time of the day that my manic brain starts to swirl with thoughts. It usually takes me at least a half hour after I close my eyes for my brain to shut down enough to actually turn off. Sometimes it takes much longer than this. What goes through it is usually thoughts of items to do the next day and new ideas which, if I have not captured them, I must get up and do so, thus starting the process again. It was in this swirl of commitments, responsibility and desire that the following two words came to me:

Minimal Mac

Now, I don’t know what most of you do when intriguing words and phrases pass in that fleeting space that lies between the ears. My first thought is always, “I wonder if that domain is available”. You would be surprised at the domain names I own because of this habit. I pick up domains like most people retrieve squandered heads-up pennies on the street and largely for the same reasons. So of course I had to get out of bed, wander over to my Macbook, and check to see if serendipity might allow me to own this one. As luck would have it, it was available. I registered it.

Of course, this was a big mistake. Why? Well, I just guaranteed that I would not get to sleep for several hours as my head swam with ideas of what I could possibly use such a thing for. I mean, my head was exploding with possibilities. Yet, in the midst of the chaos, one thing came floating by that made me pause. One memory that I have had bubble to the surface of my brain since I was a much younger man. One idea, that I recount in this post from my new project, quoted here in it’s entirety:

Many years ago, I saw a picture in a magazine. I can’t even remember which magazine but it was in a feature article about creative office setups. One of the examples was essentially a large square low table, probably a coffee table, with large floor cushion for seating and a single Powerbook on the desk and nothing else. That image burned a hole in my brain like no other for some reason. I remember it just as clear as if I was looking at it now. I think it was just the idea of being able to have something so simple as your “office” was inspiring to me. No chair, no desk in the traditional sense, no filling cabinets – just a laptop and a cushion and a surface. There was something so raw, simple, yet complete about it. I’ve been dreaming of achieving the same ever since.

It was really then that Minimal Mac was truly born and I was able to get some sleep for the night.

The next morning, after waking up, dealing with helping get Beatrix off to “charm school”, having coffee, etc. I continued to run through my head possibilities of what the site should really be. I knew the goal was to challenge myself, as much as my readers, to get to an equally ideal and complete state as that image in my head. But there is so much more about the back end stuff that needs to be decided before lauching a blog…

What blogging platform? WordPress? MT? No, Tumblr. Tumblr is easy to post stuff to. OK, gotta find a theme. Has to be a minimalist one (obviously). Let’s look at whats out there. OK, hate that. Hate that too. Oh, this one is OK. Need to customize it a bit though. Hate that font size. How’s the CSS? Not to poorly formatted. I can figure this out. OK, let’s do this… Wait! I haven’t even thought of the content. What about the content? Screw the content for now. Let’s build this thing. OK, it’s built. Font size still not right globally but I’ll do that later. Need to think about content. Let’s see, I got all of these links and quotes and photos and links and stuff about minimalism and simplicity saved up in my Evernote. I can front load this thing with a bunch of stuff and just throw it out there. See how people respond.

… and here we are today. To say the response has been tremendous is an under statement. Without going into details on the numbers let’s suffice to say that it has far exceeded any other project I have ever launched and naturally my wildest dreams. The feedback I continue to receive, the submissions from my readers, the people emailing to let me know it has helped them come to terms with what is “enough” for them – humbling does not even touch it. Every time I think it has reached a new highlight I discover there is another just around the bend.

Not bad for an idea that was conceived and executed in 24 hours.

Fusion

Those of you who are visiting the site will notice a slight design change and, more importantly, a new addition to the right of the content area. Thats right, it’s an advertisement. Not just any regular advertisement mind you, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Here’s the thing. I never have wanted ads on my site. I even mentioned such in my post on Value. Based on that premise, placing ads on patrickrhone.com is a huge about face for me and might even cause some to scratch their heads in wonder.

Anyone who knows me knows I hate most advertising on the web. Everything I said in my Value post still stands. I never considered advertising on this site because, to me, it detracted from the value of the content and did not enhance it. It seemed just some blogger’s low rent way of making a few extra bucks off of their site. I continue to hold this view, nothing has changed there.

What has changed is that I now make one exception – Fusion Ads. A big part of how they are different is right on the front page of their site:

“Fusion rethinks traditional advertising by offering well-designed, premium advertisements to an engaged audience. The distinguishing factor between Fusion and typical ad networks is that only a single Fusion ad is shown per page, and each ad is displayed prominently ‘above the fold’ on all sites in the network. There are currently fifteen advertisement spots available, and with the exception of “roadblocks”, all ads rotate equally between each of the thirty-two sites and services.”

“While this is contrary to the traditional wisdom of advertising — cramming as many ads as possible on a page — we believe that the value of Fusion’s ads are that they’re exclusive. With a single, unobtrusive ad shown on each page, sponsors don’t have to compete for attention among other advertisers, and readers don’t feel insulted by flashy banner ads”

I love Fusion Ads. I love the design. I click on them. I buy products from them. I unblock them from my ad blocking software. I keep them on in Tweetie and actually have scrolled back through my tweets to try catch ads I have missed. I don’t do this only because I like and respect the folks at Fusion and want to support their hard work (which I do). I do this because I often can’t wait to see what the next ad is and will reload a page I am on with a Fusion ad to see if I get one I have not seen before. It’s crazy. It’s just not like me. I feel like such a gushing fanboy even admitting to it. It is one hundred percent true. I feel Fusion ads actually add value to my content.

Then there is this, taken from the copy on their front page:

Membership to Fusion is by invitation only. By controlling the quality and relevance of the sites on our network, we preserve the integrity of the advertiser’s target market. Sites on Fusion are the best in their class — chosen based on their exceptional quality of content and established readership.

In other words, to be invited to join the Fusion Ad network is an honor. Especially considering some of the other sites that are members, I see it as a stamp of approval from a well respected peer. A sign that, somehow, I have managed to write enough quality content or sphere of influence that I would be among those respected enough to host Fusion Ads.

I could not be more happy about being so previously wrong.

TextEdit

TextEdit

Here’s the thing, most people think they need to install a “Word Processor” on their Mac. They go out and purchase Microsoft Word (part of the Office suite) or Apple’s Pages (part of the iWork suite) in order to remedy the assumption that the Mac does not ship with a word processor. I would argue that, for most intents and purposes, it does. It’s called TextEdit. It has shipped with every version of Mac OS X since version 10.0. The current iteration includes most of the features that people might use a traditional word processor for. In fact, it is so chock full of features not found in a normal “text editor” that I would argue that it qualifies as a full fledged word processor. Let’s run down just some of those:

  • The ability to create lists and outlines with advanced controls for numbers and bullets including support for the ious outlining styles (Hard, Legal, etc.).

  • The ability to create tables.

  • Advanced spell checking.

  • Advanced text formatting including spacing, text alignment, and kerning.

  • Embedded hyperlinks.

  • Include images,  photos, music, or movie files.

  • Open and save in Microsoft Word document format including the recent “docx” format.

There are even those who have extended it’s functionality by creating small utilities that extend it’s functionality. For instance, NanoCount provides word and character count for TextEdit. With all of this, do you really need what we typically think of as a full fledged word processor?