• Windows 7 from an install disc
• Windows XP from Microsoft’s free VM site
• Windows XP from my own XP install disc

And I get these errors (screenshots) when trying to Start the above VM’s:

Any help appreciated. I did get a helpful tweet from Microsoft but we’re still working this out, so leave any helpful tips in the comments below. Cheers!

Look at the web, tablet and mobile device views:

About the three views:

• Web view spreads out 100% and doesn’t hold back; all icons and nav elements are visible.
• Tablet view is a bit more constrained but you can start seeing content areas shrink and navigation getting more compact. Post titles and post content snippets are still visible.
• Mobile device view has nav, social sharing and login options as the top three options. Post titles remain but post content snippets disappear to maximise real estate.

I’ve been covering LinkedIn’s mobile app redesign here and here. Their website redesign has taken a revolutionary, slow and quiet approach as well and it’s working for them.

A few things to note:

• No more tabs – Tabs are so 1997 in web design
• Black, black, black header and footer – Classy and unobtrusive at the same time
• Main content broken into 2/3 and 1/3 sidebar – pretty classic design

Focus is on the content, not the navigation.

It’s been said LinkedIn is trying to be just like Facebook but I think they are doing their own thing quite well, thank you – focusing on the business community, not catering to baby and cat photos.

Good on them for building value quietly and slowly.

Internet Explorer is dying but it shouldn’t be killed outright as it still has purpose in the world. I’ll explain.

Way back when, 4000 years before Christ, humans started to build civilisations around agriculture. The increase in commerce required a system of language to track all the new activity. Writing was born.

Human population and technological advancement now proceeds at logarithmic pace, but our need for a system of language to manage our commerce hasn’t changed at all.

Enter the browser wars, the new battlefield. The new Silk Road. It started at Universities as a communication network but quickly grew to become the single most unifying force the world has yet seen. Netscape and Microsoft sought to rule this new world. Microsoft won. For a short time.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the standard browser, it seemed there were no other browsers, no one dared rise up. Who could defeat a regime that had kids at home and corporations all using IE6? Then came all sorts of challengers to the throne, the city-states of Rome all smelled weakness. They stopped paying their tributes and while not declaring out and out war began to voice their displeasure with action.

Microsoft’s influence is waning in favour of a faster, more efficient and universal web but we’re in the in between stage where we need to support the old Cuneiform while we transition to a more alphabetical writing. Progress!

Some are saying that we should be angry that we have to support older languages as we transition to new ones. I disagree. Instead, we should move forward as fast as we can, but to try to bury the old ways to make way for the new makes us no better than tyrants for doing so.

Why would we kill Latin so that Spanish, French and Italian could fully develop? We wouldn’t, but I do agree that Latin has its place as the root of Romance Languages, their foundation, and how we now name any species of plant or animal on Earth, but that’s the extent of its usefulness, not in daily life.

Inspiration. I’m constantly inspired by people doing amazing things in front end web development like Chris Coyier of css-tricks.com and Brad Frost of This is Responsive.

Those two websites inspire me because they remind me to stop worrying about all the stuff I don’t have time to start and that don’t matter, and to focus instead on the things right in front of me that when completed, increase my knowledge, speed, and yes, flow.

Get a flow going

Do you ever feel like you can’t get a flow going at work? A friend posted this blog from 37 signals about how their office is run like a library and I think it’s genius.

Like the morning commute, frustrating mainly because it’s a lot of stopping and starting and there’s no rhythm to it, working in today’s open plan offices takes lots and lots of patience because there is precisely no flow.

Isolation

Isolation can also help, ie. headphones, but just make sure you listen to music that isn’t too verbally intense; this can actually harm productivity because it steals attention. At work, do headphones really help? on the Wall Street Journal website.

CSS flows from bottom to top, right to left, exactly backwards to how we humans read documents but it still flows. Responsive design is all about how content flows to fit the size of its container/viewport; just like water.

Albert Einstein once said: “If I had an hour to save the world I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding solutions”. And I find in most organizations people are running around spending sixty minutes finding solutions to problems that don’t matter.”
~ Stephen Shapiro

The questions, “what do our users want and what should we do about it,” and, “how do we make money with this website” are one in the same. If you build it and they relate to it, they will come back. Then it becomes profitable!

Websites that do this well don’t tell more than one story:

• DropBox – I want to share files between computers
• Google – I want to find something
• YouTube – I want to watch a video

Simple problems, simple answers. Big money.

How to start a perpetual motion machine

But how to start a similar perpetual motion machine? Just find a real problem, spend 59 minutes reviewing and testing it and asking real people if it really bothers them or not, and then spend that 1 precious minute creating a solution that tells a great story.

I think people get caught up so much in being first that they forget what’s really needed is to tell the best story. My kids would let me read stories to them all day long, and as adults we still crave this.

People also think they know so much about what their users want that they forget they need to tell their users a story instead of trying to guess what story they want to hear. It’s much more fun this way, adds to the surprise!

And that’s the key, great storytelling. A great website is a great story. Save the trials and tribulations for Greek tragedies and fairy tales.

For more read Seth Godin’s post on “The no-problem problem“.

If you’ve never tried it StumbleUpon can show you websites in different verticals/topics at what seems to be complete random. I’ve learned about China, web design, and ancient technology without even knowing I wanted to. And that’s the beauty of it.

Check out the new beta here and pay special attention to the DNA feature.

From a usability standpoint, the orange StumbleUpon button is still the same, even though the logo has recently be redesigned, and it’s just click this button and see what happens. It doesn’t get more intriguing than that.

That’s it. Fill your boots.

I know I always search for the same things and StumbleUpon gets me out of that rut. An app that helps you break out of your own box is priceless. Give it a try, do you like the new redesign?

Since September 2011 I’ve been marketing Dirt and Rust and that work is now starting to bear fruit. Unfortunately, till the end of the year I’m not taking on any client work, but isn’t that always the way.

Till the end of the year I’m not taking on any client work

However, instead of just saying no and not giving a reason, I’ve decided to list all the skills I’m working on till 31 December:

• Start baby steps into mobile development, namely iPhone dev
• Learn and implement SASS
• Learn advanced CSS techniques by reading CSS Tricks and taking online courses at Codecademy
• Learn Javascript also on Codecademy
• Use Responsive Design in any website I build in the future. No small task!

I’m not going to stop using WordPress, I’m just going to focus on becoming a full-fledged front end developer. These days, to stand out is to specialise, there’s just not enough time to do it all which is what I have been trying to do the past 2 years or so.

I’ve turned down some good solid work opportunities but saying no has left my time free to do the above, and to come out of the gate in 2013 with an improved skill set and a more focused career goal.

This is the power of saying no. To those I’ve said no to, thank you for understanding my position. To those I hope to say yes to next year, I’m even more focused than ever.

Read it Later is now getpocket.com and it’s new and improved.

Ever find a web page and wanted to read it later (on the bus for example) outside of wifi access? Getpocket.com is your friend. Match it with pulse.me for the ultimate feed reading kung fu.