sandwichesandapples

Lindsay Lohan’s legs look so crazy in this picture it nauseates me. I had to post it.

I just dug these photos up. They were from Christmas and the CDs were on sale. But $18.99 regular price? Do you know what CDs cost in 1986 when I got my first player? $18.99. So why did the price never go down? In that same time, cassettes dropped about half yet they were more expensive to manufacture.

I’m only casually interested in the issue of blog advertising. I’ve written on it before here. I’m not sticking ads on S&A and I just don’t care about ads in general. They’re a lousy user experience 95% of the time. Maybe more.

Anyway, a few days ago a pal was telling me he was looking for software to build a social website and I remembered an article I’d just seen in my Reader from Smashing Apps: How to Create Your Own Community Website for Free. I sent it along.

A day later he emailed to draw my attention to the comments section of the article (which I’d have missed since the comments weren’t in the RSS feed version of the article that appeared in my Reader).

Comment by Rubric B on May 25, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
Nice that Boonex happens to be an advertiser for this site. Article seems a little biased: what are the specific “pluses and minuses” of how to use this software?!

Comment by Andrew on May 25, 2009 @ 11:36 pm
@Rubric B… also, check out the URL… looks like an affiliate link to me…

If this is an ‘affiliate article’ then be upfront about it.

Comment by giedrius on May 26, 2009 @ 12:26 am
Whatever you do, do not use boonex. It is poorly written software : your developers will hate you if you will want to customize it to suit specific network needs (aka need extra functionality). We used it for couple projects, and it became usable once we ripped out almost all boonex code.
Also, it has security risks. If you create boonex website, put all mentions of word “boonex” in images, so worms wont find and attack your site automatically. I wrote about boonex in my wordpress blog and see bots searching for boonex on my site with cross-site code exploats.
There are good alternatives for it : elgg, insoshi, or host it on Ning…

Given that information, it does appear that Smashing Apps wrote up a piece of software simply as a quid pro quo to a sponsor. And that just makes me think the article (and others on the site) are bullshit. And that’s a really bad spot to put yourself in as a publication. They could have responded to the comments in the comments or in a separate post but they didn’t.

A week later Smashing Apps thanked their sponsors for the month including Boonex.

I am still in a contract position as a front-end web developer. So I’m constantly sending out my resume and interviewing for full-time positions. Recently I filled out an online application for a position in my field. I received this:

Hello ___, Our records indicate that you have applied for the position of ___ position at ___ within the past six months, but we have yet to have the opportunity to meet with you. We would like to meet you this Monday, June 1st! We will be hosting a booth at a career fair on MONDAY, June 1st, from 6:00pm-7:00pm and 8:00pm-10:00pm. Two of our top executives will be there to briefly interview you. This is a special opportunity to meet with them in person, so please try to attend. To set up an appointment to meet with us, please contact ___ or ___ at (___) ___-____ between 8:00am & 5:00pm. We will be accepting appointments until Monday afternoon the day of the career fair. You are being invited specifically to meet, and if this meeting goes well you would be invited for a longer, formal interview at a later date. So don’t miss your opportunity on the 4th because we’re running out of time slots!
The career fair is located at ___. This career fair will host a number of companies so be sure to look for the ___ booth and bring a fresh copy of your resume to come meet us! If you are unable to attend please still contact ___ or ___ and let either of them know as we will not keep you in consideration if we do not hear from you. We hope to see you! ___ ~Please Do Not Reply To This Email~

Other than the parts I’ve redacted, that’s the email I received verbatim, including the formatting. Yes, it was one long run-on paragraph. This is actually the second invite I’ve received from this company so obviously this career fair is a regular appointment for them.

These impersonal form letters relating to a job I applied for really rubbed me the wrong way. So after a few days of thought, I decided to let the company know. Even though the email said “Please do not reply,” it had a reply-to address that appeared to be an actual person (as in firstname.lastname@companyname.com) not a listbot. So I sent this:

Hi ___,

I hesitated to write this letter but decided to go through with it in the spirit of open communication. I hope you will share it with anyone at ___ who cares about your firm’s image.

I am greatly turned off not only by a form letter response to my application but also to the invitation to meet with unnamed executives from ___ at a career fair who will “briefly” interview me.

While I have no doubt that in this economic climate ___ will have no shortage of applicants to take you up on your offer, I will not. The invitation is impersonal and cold and makes me feel like I am just another anonymous body queuing for ___’s attention at a cattle
call. I’ve received more personal attention from HR departments at faceless major corporations.

I have ten years of excellent work on the web to showcase for any firm who can be bothered to set a personal, private interview with me. Interviews are not only a chance for you to meet me, but for me to size up the company for whom I might like to work. Since you’ve already made your impression on me, I will be showing my portfolio elsewhere. Please withdraw my application from your system and do not send me any more notices like this.

Just thought I’d share. User experience counts everywhere. Even for potential employees.

[via]

A friend emailed me through my contact form and asked:

So what's the 2+2= thing below? Is that a security measure? Is it a way to keep out stupid people? Is it totally for fun?

It’s an anti-spam question. Spambots attack contact forms pretty regularly. Questions like that usually stop them. It’s the same principle behind a CAPCHA image (those annoying squiggly words you have to enter on some forms.) CAPCHAs are a pretty poor user experience and my 2+2 question isn’t much better.

One of the best anti-spam techniques I’ve heard of involves adding an input and making it invisible in the browser (display:hidden in the stylesheet) so humans don’t see it. Spambots don’t actually look at the web; they just dumbly fill in fields in a form. So when something fills in your hidden fields, you know it’s a spambot. You just add a little logic to your form — if that field is not NULL, don’t submit — and presto, spambot caught.

But I’m being lazy and using a WordPress plugin called contact form iii and not even changing the default question. I believe spambots have cracked contact form iii because I’ve gotten what looks like automated spam on another site using the plugin. Luckily the plugin allows you to change the antispam question and answer which stops the bots. I hope.