My boss just passed along the link to the commercial below for Intuit Websites, a company that aims to help small businesses build websites right! Watch the short commercial and see if you can spot what’s wrong with Intuit’s approach:

Can’t see it yet? Then I’ll tell you: services that give the impression that it’s a good idea to build a business website using templates¹ are lying to you. That’s right, lying. Universal template-based websites are rarely a good idea for anyone, and certainly not businesses.

You run the risk of your website looking just like a ton of other people’s but with slightly different colors or a different picture in the corner. Plus, I’ve rarely come across a template service like that which results in good-looking websites. They claim they’ll make the site building process easier, but easy too often means so simple that you might as well use MS Frontpage for all the good it will do you.

Not all small businesses have the money to hire fancy web design firms and it’s true that the president’s nephew probably isn’t the best way to go. But do not make the mistake of thinking that those are your only two options. There are tons of independent and freelance designers who will not charge you as much as a firm yet will still do a good job. If you’re really, really in a budget crunch, a college student studying design will do you better than a template site.

So please, whenever you see a commercial such as the one above: run away. Run away screaming. Because sites like that may seam easy and a good deal but it is all a horrible lie.

Notes

1. This is different from websites that use WordPress templates. Though you do want to make sure your WP doesn’t look like everyone else’s, you can still use a template made by someone else and tweak. The kind of templates I’m talking about are generally for non-dynamic sites. And sites shouldn’t be non-dynamic, anyway. [↩]

Entry level techie job! A quote from someone who knows... "nice people, genuinely casual work environment, no internet monitoring or corporate bs, snacks, beer Fridays, the company is doing really well and has not laid off a single person"

Salary is $30k-$40k depending on experience and qualifications, plus benefits, plus stock - at a well funded software start-up (www.3vr.com). This is a great opportunity for a smart, energetic, self-starting person who wants to break into a higher paying, technology oriented job but perhaps doesn't have the right degree or maybe has stopped-out in the middle of a degree program. Major requirements are intelligence, flexibility, initiative, commitment, responsibility, teamwork, and to be clear - intelligence. We are very interested in talking to you if you are bright and fit the profile we've drawn below - we will be asking what your SAT scores were, where you went to school, etc. Positions available to start immediately, initial hourly rate between $15-$20 an hour depending on experience and qualifications; benefits and stock options offered after 4-6 months of successful employment.

We are a software startup of about 50 people located in the SOMA/South Beach area of San Francisco, around the corner from AT&T Park and the CalTrain station. 3VR makes digital video surveillance products for the physical security industry - our product won the "Best New Product of the Year" award at the Security Industry's big trade show in Las Vegas three years in a row! We are a very fun group of bright, energetic technology people – we’re funded by Tier 1 VCs (including Kleiner Perkins and Menlo Ventures), our sales are healthy and increasing every year, and we will be growing substantially throughout 2010 and beyond, so this is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a terrific company.

Responsibilities: A mixture of several of the following tasks (no one person needs experience in or would be asked to do all of these) - software testing and QA, technical support, technical writing, HTML and web development, scripts, software tools, etc. One person who held this position recently had a science degree and good math skills, but no substantial computer science background - he taught himself some programming and a bunch of other useful skills and has moved up quickly in the 3VR world to Software Engineer. Another person who started with this entry level position had a background in academic grant administration and office management - she started out doing technical writing and software testing, worked her way up in the technology organization, and was promoted to Technical Support Manager!

Profile: You are a software and/or hardware enthusiast - you like computers and computer applications - you care about your computer and what's on it. You are organized and thorough and detail oriented. You are a good communicator, you write clearly and quickly. You enjoy learning to use new software applications and tools. You like being around smart, high energy people. You've often wondered what it would be like to have a job where you are surrounded by people you respected and people you could learn a lot from and who were motivated to teach you things and help you move up in the world. You've dreamed of breaking into technology, especially at an awesome start-up, but have been rebuffed (or been afraid you would be) because you don't already have all of the necessary credentials. You are smart, ambitious, high energy, a voracious learner (especially via Googling anything and everything). You know this is the job for you if reading this has made you very excited to meet the people who wrote this wacky job description and to come and see the company and culture they've built together.

Send us a resume and a cover letter explaining why this is exactly the job for you and why you know you'll do great things for us.

job-yqwjz-1460343269@craigslist.org

I haven’t posted to this blog in a long while, sorry. My job is pretty intense (but awesome) and I have a million other projects and jobs going on, which means my fun time is limited. Or I’m just tired. But some fairly significant things are going on and I’ve been extremely remiss in mentioning them.

A big one is that a few weeks ago Jeff Vandermeer emailed to tell me that I was one of the first nominees for the Last Drink Bird Head Award. This is a new award he and Ann Vandermeer came up with that focuses on service in the genre community. “The purpose of the awards is to celebrate those in the genre community who enrich us with their time, energy, and words, often for causes greater than themselves.” The categories are:

• Gentle Advocacy
• Tireless Energy
• Promotion of Reading
• Expanding Our Vocabulary
• International Activism
• Special Achievement

I was nominated in the Gentle Advocacy category: In recognition of individuals willing to enter into blunt discourse about controversial issues…. The awards were given out at World Fantasy and, despite being up against John Scalzi and Nick Mamatas, I won! Yay!

I actually hadn’t expected to, so I didn’t prepare an acceptance speech, though I did give one. But if I had prepared one, I would have said a lot more stuff. First that my fellow nominees are completely worthy of this award as well. Nick in particular since he’s one of the people who taught me the benefits of being fearless and saying what needs to be said when shit is really wrong in the world.

Second, that the award and the awardees acknowledge that it’s not always easy being a Gentle Advocate, an activist, or someone who repeatedly engages in discussions and debates of heated topics. It does help when people have your back, even if they’re just the lurkers in email. I’m fortunate in that I have many people at my back who aren’t shy about being vocal about it, including the Vandermeers and Scalzi and Mamatas. Having people around you who you’re confident will tell you when you’re wrong and aren’t afraid to back you up when you’re right is the key to sanity. I have tons of people like that, and I appreciate the hell out of all of them.

Last, I’m really proud to be the first recipient of this award and glad that it exists, because there are so many others deserving of it, and I’ll be really happy to see them nominated in the future. And thanks again to Ann and Jeff for the honor and for creating the Last Drink Bird Head Awards.

You can see the list of all the nominees here and the winners here (along with pictures of the award). Everyone listed is well-deserving and awesome.

Comments | Permalink

Your choices and sacrifices are appreciated. Thank you all.

Is Darfur the first Thuraya war

I don't know about the first... But anyway -

"Hierarchical command and control over a dispersed force becomes difficult. "

Yes indeed.

and brilliant comment by Abd al-Wahab Abdalla:

The process you describe is a corollary of commodification and globalization, one of the ways in which a global capitalist system systemically reproduces violence on its periphery. This is frontier capitalism at its extreme, a combination of the latest industrial technologies in the hands of predator capitalists set on accelerated primary accumulation, without the restraints provided by the institutions of state. Once again, Africa gets only the dark side of the dominant global production system.

Ponder & discuss.

Writers, Artists, Bandits, and Revolutionaries--

Have you ever lived in a tourist town? Worked in the industry? Traveled in unfamiliar territory?

SuperGrrrl Adventure Comix is a multimedia second-gen riot grrrl-themed zine currently accepting submissions for its third (and first themed) issue! We are looking for previously unpublished original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, black-and-white art, comic strips, interviews, articles, and reviews; regarding and related to tourism; from writers and artists of all ages, genders, and backgrounds.

We cannot pay contributors at this time, but we will happily give you contributor copies, random comic books, and our undying gratitude.

Please see below for guidelines, and feel free to forward this around or post it anywhere you'd consider appropriate.

For consideration for this issue, submissions must be received no later than DECEMBER 5.

Sincerely,
Rachel Edidin and Jen Vaughn, Two-Fisted Editrices
SuperGrrrl Adventure Comix


( Guidelines Below the Cut )

I'm still so sick. My bronchitis doesn't seem to be getting better, even after 2 shots and antibiotics. Everytime I cough too hard, I start to voimit. Now I haven't been able to keep anything down, even liquids, for three days. I feel so awful!

If this keeps up, I'm going to end up losing my job. I can't function when I'm working like this.

Just so (*^%^&*%& worn out and hungry, even though nothing will stay down. I'm calling the OB again tomorrow...

Okay so first of all why take the wheelchair with you off the bridge? Hahaha! just sit on the edge and shove yourself off. I get the idea that visually he's going for the image of being a "guy in a wheelchair bungee jumping" which is I guess cool in a way but is certainly played for a cheap laugh. Anyway if it were me I'd get out of the chair and schloop myself off the edge. For once, "wheelchair bound" is true since they strap him tightly (imho not tightly enough since you can see him bouncing off it. )

I did laugh my ass off when he yelled "I can't feel my legs!"

In the last 24 hours:

• 10:47 My good mood from this weekend is RAPIDLY deteriorating. #
• 13:05 More infuriating backstabbing petty politics at work. >X( #
• 13:59 *chuckle* Apparently I need one of these: bit.ly/Ty3vx #
• 18:14 Off to Day 2 of the Thigh Scream Social! B) #

(Automatically shipped at midnight by LoudTwitter)