I’m so tired of seeing grammar books suggest the usage “E-mail”. Many of these books argue that “e-mail” stands for electronic mail and necessitates a hyphen. They are wrong.

To say that email stands for electronic mail is akin to saying that automobile stands for automatic mobile. Certainly, automobile probably originated by combining automatic and mobile, but it is now a word of its own. Email has also become a word of its own, and I would argue that “e” has become a common prefix much like “auto.”

Google Trends is an excellent tool for showing how real people use words.

If we look at e-mail vs. email, we clearly see people use email when searching. Now, some might be quick to argue that search users are lazy and type the shortest possible input, but that hypothesis can easily be disproved by looking at t-shirt vs. tshirt. “T-shirt” wins, showing that search users aren’t inherently against using the hyphen in a search term.

Other Grammar Book Errors
Take a look at Web site vs. website. The argument grammar books make here is that Web site stands for World Wide Web site. However, they are incorrect. You can easily have a website that exists outside of the World Wide Web. An intranet is an excellent example. I can even have webpages if not complete websites on my local computer. Does a Web page become an HTML document when it no longer resides on the World Wide Web?

Those “Damn” Quotes … and Parenthesis
Any grammar book will tell you that punctuation goes inside the quote. And they are correct when referring to the limited ways that they use quotes. However, the rise of the internet and computers has added additional usage for the quotes. For instance, I may want to communicate a specific search term like “punctuation inside the quote”. If I put the punctuation inside of the quote like so “punctuations inside the quote.”, it changes the meaning of what I was trying to convey.

Confused? Take a look at a programming example. For instance, I may want to communicate the PHP code like “echo ‘hello world’;”. Clearly if I were to put the period inside of the quote “echo ‘hello world’;.” and someone was to try using that code, it would no longer work.

Grammar books don’t make grammar rules; populations do. In the past, language changed much more slowly, or at least, our ability to track changes in language was slow. However, that is no longer the case. So, next time you go to use “E-mail” just because it’s in a grammar book, be wary because you probably mean “email”.

It’s been over five years since Microsoft has released a new version of Internet Explorer, but today they released Internet Explorer 7. I was actually pretty impressed with it, but once you download it, you realize how badly Microsoft had ignored the web browser.

In the five years since Internet Explorer 6 was released, browsers have progressed by leaps and bounds. IE 7 jumps on the bandwagon with just about everything. It does tabs really well (Hey, is there a major browser that doesn’t have tabs?) It has incredible RSS support (better even than FireFox.) It does some major house cleaning of the toolbars (actually, it’s quite spartan now … and nice.) It even improved on CSS rendering. Unfortunately, I feel like IE is still playing catch-up (like a boxer after a five year hiatus.) If it goes another five years without a major release, it will be dead. Instead, they should plan some decent improves for a year from now (maybe a 7.5.) So, where does it need to improve? Web Standards (especially CSS). Come on, isn’t it about time that we got 100% compliance?

More importantly, what trends does IE7 cement on the web?
Tab browsing is here to stay. That means people can browse more pages, more quickly. Hey, I guess we need to work harder on keeping peeps around.

RSS Is Big. M$ puts some major muscle behind RSS. Expect to see sites that don’t have an implimitation scrable to get some sort of RSS. It’s going to get a lot bigger.

Zoom! I feel like the Zoom functionality will be big for accessibility. Or at least old folks. I expect it will become more common.

All in all, a long needed release to help push the web along.

I’ve been keeping a secret. I didn’t get MySpace. Everytime I looked at it, I found myself thinking, “This HAS to be the worse website I’ve ever seen.” There’s NO content there. It looks painful as well. What gives?

I had an “Ah Ha” MySpace moment today. Since we’ve launched Tees My Body T-shirts, we’ve been trying a few different marketing approaches. One of my partners was in charge of the MySpace approach. I had heard that it could be a real powerful tool, but I didn’t get it. After looking at our traffic reports today, I REALLY get it.

43% of intial traffic has come from MySpace, and there lies the secret to it all. MySpace doesn’t have any content. It’s not useful in that manner. It’s usefulness is in networking. Helping you find people, and helping people find you. It’s a hook-up site. You can go there (and in our case) find visitors for your website. In other cases, I’m sure you could find someone to fill whatever seedy role you have open.

Now that I get it, I’m going to start thinking of a lot more ways to use MySpace to my advantage… And NO that’s not what I had in mind. I was simply hoping to garner traffic to various projects that I have going on.

In a moment of spontaneity, I broke down and bought an Xbox 360. My initial impression? Very impressed. It’s sleek design is marred only by a few slight flaws. Take for instance the great look of the console and controller, and match it up with the hideous logo (that green X looks out of place no matter where it is) or the atrocious game box design. Who does neon green boxes appeal to again? The controller is almost perfect; my only complaint (besides the giant X logo) is that the digital pad sucks. Good thing you rarely use it, but as long as the digital pad has been around, how can you screw that up?

The real worth of the system is how much fun it is, and I’ve had a lot of fun on it (can’t stop playing it). From downloading demos (I have to move my router into the den becuase the wireless adapter = $$$) to playing Dead Rising (I only have one game because they too cost $$$), I’ve had a LOT of fun on it. While many of the demos are top notch (Ghost Recon, Dead or Alive 4, and Call of Duty 2; Fight Night looks like a movie), the system takes a hit on poor quality control when you play a demo like blazing Angels that is so below par it seems sad. Far Cry Insticts Predator’s online demo looked like Picasso’s rendition of an FPS.

Still, I’ve started Dead Rising over 3 times from the beginning and loved every second of it. There’s something about taking a lawnmower to a hoard of zombies that is just appealing. The game has some minor flaws though. For instance, the dialog text is insanely tiny. I have to sit 3 feet from the screen to read it and I have a decent sized TV. How this made it past product testing is beyond me, but someone needs to be fired over it. Also, a patch REALLY needs to be made. It’s actually painful to read the story at times and for a change it’s not because of bad dialog.

So, what’s my final verdict? The Xbox 360 is a GEM (I can’t say how incredible the graphics can be); it just needs a little more polishing from Microsoft. I’m left wondering what Sony could possibly do to stay even remotely in the game. Some big shake-ups are definitely in the store for the video game industry.

New Project: Yes! I just got my newest project up, Tees My Body T-Shirts. I teamed up with some longtime friends to give t-shirts a try. I’m really happy with what we’ve put together so far. We just got our t-shirts in from a local screenprinter, who did an incredible job.

Anyway, check it out! Here’s the designs we have so far:

• John Basebow Lives T-shirt
• Ninjas Love Pirates T-Shirt
• Pimpbot 5000 Hoes T-Shirt
• Pork-Chop Express
• Jheri Curl Yoda
• Brokeback Mountain - I’ve never been there
• Please be 18

Oh, and tell everyone you know to go check it out.

Nope, I’m alive, kicking, and working… Yep, for once, I’m actually busy… But doing what? Here’s a quick list:

• WordPress - I’ve gotten my hands dirty in a custom install, and I like it alot.
• Vanilla - I’m about to try a Vanilla/WordPress integration
• Networking - I’m setting up a small intranet for my employer. The Windows Server 03 box is sitting right here. Anyone know anything about setting up a VPN?
• Super secret BUDS project… Hopefully will launch it today or tommorrow
• Scuba Diving - I went spearfishing over the weekend. It’s not all fun and games, but a little bit always helps.
• Zip Code Radius Search - I wrote a neat little PHP piece that lets you search by zip code. I’ll post the code soon.
• New PC - I ordered a new PC. 2.66 Ghz, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB HD…and a really gnarly pair of sunglasses

Of course, most of my time I’ve been spending enjoyably with Jack and Cindy.

Now, that I’m going to be working from home, I’m real curious about a couple things:

• How long I can go without bathing, shaving, or brushing my teeth before my wife physically attacks me.
• How long I can make it without seeing the light of day from outside the shelter of my roof.

I’m guessing not very long in either case, mainly because I will be going into the office some.

I’m pretty pumped for NBC’s new show Heroes. The only thing I don’t get is why they started advertising it forteen years before it comes on air? Regardless, you can bet I’ll be checking it out when it premiers.

Funny, I feel like I’ve posted that exact same thing before.

I’m somewhat of an email whore. I like to get email from strange people (or long lost friends), mainly for two reasons:

• It makes me feel wanted/important/connected/better than everyone else.
• Unlike other emails (particularly the ones you get at work), there’s no work involved in responding.

So, here’s a quick look at some times I’ve solicited emails from people who absolutely did not want to email me:

• Send hate mail, if you don’t like this site.
• I’m not getting any emails; please email me.
• Email me for Gmail Invites. Naturally, this got me the most emails, from the farthest away and with the best responses.

Sure, I get some emails. Some with wierd questions. Some spam. Some work related. But I’m still able to read through them all. When’s the Internet going to flood me under?

So, if you want, email me; I’m not even afraid of spam. I eat it for breakfast.

Ironically, I think my son gets more email than me, and my wife very rarely emails me. What does that say?

In about one week, I start a new job. I’ll be working in the office 3 days a week and working from home 2 days a week. As soon as I get settled, I’ll start working less days in the office and more at home. And eventually, I’ll be working entirely from home. This has been my goal for a long time.

So, what will I be doing: managing a home improvement website, Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford. I’ve got lots of lofty goals that all somehow involve my name being displayed in the sky with fireworks. I haven’t quite figured out how to get there, but you can plan on hearing more about it as I work it all out.

I start August 14. Wish me luck.

How come vegetarians and vegans eat fruit? Where are the fruitarians and fruitons? And what do you call a person who doesn’t eat vegetables?

A couple of months ago, Google launched a new trends tool that allows you to compare search trends for keywords. I neglected to post about this launch because, well, Google launches a lot of products. This one seemed somewhat minor. Sure, there’s been some interesting comparisons of words like “the” and “and”, but it didn’t seem like something to use everyday.

My opinion changed about a week ago when I was writing a title for a page involving t-shirts. I wanted to know whether I should focus on “tshirts” or “t-shirts”. As you can see from the graph, “t-shirts” is the more popular keyword. I found it interesting that people had that hyphen so ingrained in them that they typed it in despite human nature to be lazy.

I should have kept digging though, because as the above graph shows, people also prefer the singular “t-shirt” to “t-shirts”.

I’ve never had a real good method for deciding which keywords were the best to optimize towards, but now I have at least one tool to settle some of those debates.

New versions of Monopoly won’t have paper money anymore. Instead, they’ll have a plastic Visa credit card, with a calculator style reader.

I’m game; I always hated dolling out the money and then having to make sure it gets put back into the right bin. But what am I going to throw in the air when I win? Oh, who am I kidding, I never win!

I can only think of one word to describe this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle trailer… Badass! They’re sleeker, darker, and just plain cooler.

I’ve alwasy been a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan, and I always will be. Cowabunga!

Here’s a great interview with website usability king Jakob Nielsen. I used to think Nielsen was a crazy crack, but I’ve since learned that this guy really, really knows what he’s talking about. A lot of web designers don’t like to listen to him because his ideas aren’t very exciting. Good web design shouldn’t be very exciting. When’s the last time you opened a novel and thought, “Hey, there’s nothing but text on white pages!”

This interview was filled with nuggets of valuable knowledge. Concerning AJAX, Nielsen says, “[It is] irrelevant for the vast majority of business web sites…A business site will profit much more from writing better headlines than from sticking a programming trick on its pages….when we tested a large number of investor relations sites, we found that advanced tools for plotting stock trends and financial numbers only confused most individual investors. A better alternative is to show the most important information in a static plot that’s been optimized by a good designer.”

Comparing AJAX with Flash, Neilsen added, “The very nerdiness of the name “AJAX” gives me hope that it will be used for causes more worthwhile than those now characteristic of Flash. Doomed by its own name, Flash had similar potential but was so grossly abused for “flashy” design that it never succeeded in adding much useful functionality to the Web.”

Later the interviewer poses the following question:

When visitors do finally arrive on a web page, you’ve noted a huge disjoint in the number of users who will scroll on a content page (42%) or a SERP (47%) vs. the homepage (23%). Why do you think this is?

Neilsen answers, “…users don’t want to engage with a homepage. They’re on a web site for a reason, and that reason doesn’t include finding out about all the site’s offerings.” I’ve been trying to sell everyone on making their page header as small as possible (think 50-70 pixels tall). I feel like these stats somewhat vindicate this idea. For the most part, small page headers have not been well received by anyone I’ve mentioned it to. The usual response is, “Everyone’s got higher resolution monitors, and this giant pic looks so good.” True, higher resolutions are more common, but we should be filling it up with more content instead. Here’s a novel idea. Perhaps, the home page should be the shortest page on the website, not the longest.

Finally, the interviewer addresses something that I wrote about recently, intrasite search:

In your scale of usability misery on the Web today, site searching is now the worst offender. What’s the easiest solution for an overworked and overburdened Web Developer who wants to improve his or her site’s search usability?

The easiest solution is to subscribe to an outsourced search, and delegate the problem to somebody else. I don’t necessarily think that this is the best solution, but it’s definitely easier than installing high-end search software, and then tweaking it to suit your circumstances. If you don’t customize the search software, you’ll end up with a miserable search, in which case it’s better to use an optimized solution from a company that specializes in site search.

Site search is almost completely ignored when designing websites, yet it is the most useful functionality that you could provide. Site search should be more prominent than navigation; however, it is necessary that the search works.