Mike on TAP

Here’s a cool site that tracks the improvement of digital disk storage, and the concomitant decline in prices, from $300,000.00 per gigabyte in 1981 until 2010, when a gigabyte of storage could be had for about 10 cents. I bought my first hard drive in 1984 or 1985. I don’t remember the exact year but I do remember that it’s interface was RLL, it was 5.25″ wide, had a 10 megabyte capacity and that it cost me $300, used. Adjusted for inflation that’s $611. That was around the same time as the ad below so you can see what a smoking hot deal I got.

YEAR — Price of a Gigabyte

1981 — $300,000
1987 — $50,000
1990 — $10,000
1994 — $1000
1997 — $100
2000 — $10
2004 — $1
2010 — $0.10

Source: Cost of Hard Drive Storage Space

Dave Sawyer McFarland over at Creative Pro has 10 tips for using Dreamweaver to its fullest. They cover organizing the program’s panels, working efficiently with HTML, properly working with a site’s files, and so forth. His post is titled “Power Tips” but most of my students know (or at least they better know) most of these already.

#1: Put the Insert Bar in Its Place
#2: Save Your Workspace
#3: Always Define a Site
#4: Use the Files Panel to Manage Files
#5: Make Room in the Files Panel
#6: Show Line Breaks
#7: Remove the Browser Navigation Bar
#8: Use the Tag selector
#9: Increase the Font-size in Code View
#10: Turn off CSS Background Shorthand

Source: Creative Pro

I got an email from Cody Schwem asking for help with his ecommerce site. I’ve never met Cody so I can’t vouch for him. I did a quick check and his site is currently running a PHP ecommerce package but I’m not sure what it is exactly. It feels like OSCommerce or a fork of it to me.

My business is called NewLine Audio and the url is newlineaudio.com for the website. It sells home and car audio equipment. I need a website that will act as an online store so it will need to have a shopping cart that can interact with my merchant account. I also need it to have a unique intro or something that makes it stick out from all of the other generic e-Commerce websites. The idea I currently have is a short intro while the page is loading. It needs to have a simple interface but at the same time, needs to look high-tech for the theme of the site. This will tie in nicely for the feel of advanced consumer electronics. Lastly, I need some way that I can update the site myself. The company is just starting up so inventory will change quite frequently as new wholesalers and distributors are found.

If this interests you, contact Cody Schwem at schwemc@gmail.com

ARTS173 Studnet James shared this comic from The Oatmeal with me and I thought I’d pass it along to you guys. This is just a frame from the comic so click it and read the whole deal.

Source: The Oatmeal

Every now and then some companies get together and offer of software for a limited time at a deep discount. We first saw one of these bundles last semester and here’s a new one. This one’s called BundleHunt3. I guess I missed BundleHunt2. Sorry ’bout that.

BundleHunt 3 Now on sale for designers andcreatives, featuring 20 popular design resources and applications normally valued at over $1287 for just $49.

The bundle includes such interesting products as Pictos Icon Set, GoMedia Arsenal Ultimate Vector & Font Collections, Wordpess themes from Press75, the newest Smashing eBook and 3 month MultiSitePlan from WPEngine.

BundleHunt 3 is offering the pack for 14 days only. The sale ends at midnight, EST on Feb 21th. Information on each product and screenshots can be found there.

Source: WebAppers

Dennis wanted me to share this with you guys. I’m not familiar with Vieth Consulting so I can’t comment on what they’re like to work for. I’ll attach a PDF but here’s an executive summary:

Description: Candidate will be required to develop and maintain an existing web-based application. Candidate will be expected to work in a professional work environment and at times communicate with clients regarding technical matters.
Primary Responsibilities: Build PHP and mySQL web based applications Technical communication with clients. Provide limited email & phone support to clients concerning non-technical aspects of the product

Here’s a link to the PDF.

Special thank you to Dennis for sharing this with us.

What’s this? MicroSoft caught stealing? Agian. Steven Colbert has a skit about it and CBS has a good article here.

Cameron Chapman over at one of my favorite blogs, Six Revisions, has a good post about website usability. Here’s a quick rundown but you should visit the site to read them, okay? Oh, and while you’re there read some of the responses.

1. Forget the “Three-Click Rule”
2. Enable Content Skimming By Using an F-Shaped Pattern
3. Don’t Make Users Wait: Speed Up Your Website
4. Make Your Content Easily Readable
5. Don’t Worry About “The Fold” and Vertical Scrolling
6. Place Important Content on the Left of a Web Page
7. Whitespace of Text Affects Readability
8. Small Details Make a Huge Difference
9. Don’t Rely on Search as a Crutch to Bad Navigation
10. Your Home Page Isn’t As Important as You Think

Source: Six Revisions

Update @ Feb 2 –

Lansing Community College will be open Thursday, February 3, and all classes and events will run as scheduled.

Update @ 5:40 –

Looks like they figured it out. The message on the main site now says school is closed for Wednesday the 2nd.

See you nice folk on Thursday!

As I type this it’s 5pm. I’ll try to update as time permits.

I just got this in an email from LCC Admin:

Lansing Community College – including main campus, west campus, and all extension centers – is closed, and classes and events are cancelled, for Wednesday, February 2. This evening’s classes and events will run as scheduled.

Which kinda leads me to believe that school is closed for Wednesday, February 2. But then I go to the main LCC Site and I see this message:

LCC is open this evening for classes and events

If you work overnight, please park on Levels 1 or 2 in the Gannon ramp so surface parking can be cleared.

We will continue to monitor weather conditions as the storm progresses, and will make a final determination regarding LCC’s Wednesday classes by 4 a.m. Wednesday. Please check www.lcc.edu and local TV and radio stations for an update.

Which leads me to think they’re not sure how things will play out so school on Wednesday may or may not be canceled – they don’t know.

Queness.com has a listing of fun javascripts for you to play with. Here’s the list. Make sure you visit their site to test each one.

Canopy, Ball Pool, Starfield, Floating cube, 3D Model Viewer, Many Lines, Depth of Field, Fish, Liquid Particles, Orange Tunnel, Colors Cube, Kaleidoscope.

Go play, but not during my lecture, please.

Source: Queness