Comparing apples with…

One of the more intesting things I get to do at work is provide ‘advice’ on building/designing/web2.0ifying websites for our clients.

Almost invariably they come to me with the same basic issue, they have an old, out of date website that they find impossible to maintain and update. It’s usually hosted somewhere else (and more often than you’d think  – they don’t know where) and if they have any access to it at all it’s through some weird homebrew CMS.

*Sidebar – there must have been a squillion ‘web design agencies’ 2-5 years ago building their own CMS for clients.

There are 3 main parts to the advice I offer

1) Information Architecture/Site Navigation: What do you want on your site? What sections does it need? How do those sections interrelate? How do you use your website? How do your users use your website? What pages do they look at most? What pages do you want them to look at? What do you want them to do (if anything) as a result of being on your website? etc

2) Content review: Is the content written with a web audience in mind? are you making full use of the ‘interactivity’ of your site? Is your site just an electronic brochure? Is the content up to date? Is the content written so that it will date quickly? etc

3) Technical Advice: How much traffic does your site get? What functionality do you need from a CMS? How technical are the people who will be maintaining the site? How scalable does the solution have to be? What do you want to be able to do with the site? etc

It’s this last piece that is the source of today’s title – when I’m giving technical advice I find myself comparing wordpress to blogger to joomla to drupal to ‘the existing solution – whatever that is’

I’m always careful to do the comparisons in terms of “If you need feature X and option A then you probably want to consider product G – if on the other hand you want feature Z and option B then product H is probably a better fit”

But despite that (or perhaps because of it) I still find myself getting asked “But which is best?”

Today I finally snapped. I took a deep breath and said to the client…

“It’s not a matter of ‘best’ they’re different. It’s not comparing apples to apples – you’re not even comparing apples to oranges – you’re comparing apples to – magpies – or forklifts. One’s great if you want a snack – the other is useful if you need to move things.”

Sadly, I still don’t think it got through.

Sometimes the original is the best

Back in December I wrote about the terrible dilemma of having to choose between a Sony Reader and an iPhone. I ultimately decided on the Reader – and it was a great decision, I use it every day on the train during my morning commute, and it’s just brilliant for taking on holiday. Particularly if, like me, you’re a voracious reader, but you don’t want to either be buying books all the time – or carrying 20 with you on your journey.

But – the brilliance of the Sony Reader, and my total love affair with it didn’t really diminish my desire for an iPhone. Sure my Blackberry did practically everything the iPhone did, and had better battery life, and GPS built in – but it wasn’t an iPhone.

Finally, Apple released the 3G iPhone here in Australia – Now I could get one easily, I wouldn’t have to mess around with cracking or firmware updates – and I’d be able to get it subsidised by the phone company. So I raced out and got one right?

Wrong.

It turned out that what I had really, really loved about the iPhone was the industrial design, the sleek form factor, the metal back – and the 3G ones were thicker (although not much) and had plastic backs.

So – what to do.

My first thought was to talk to the few people I knew who had the original 2G iPhone here and see if any of them were planning to upgrade – and if so, could I buy their old iPhone.

Didn’t work so well, the few people who were planning to upgrade had already promised their old handsets to other people.

So off to ebay…

I found a guy selling an original iPhone here in Sydney. I lost the auction by a lousy $10. But – the guy who won – dropped out. Breaking all the ebay rules the seller and I agreed to an “off market’ transaction. We met in a dodgy pub. Cash was exchanged and I left with a 2G iPhone.

Colour me delighted.

I spent the weekend upgrading and then cracking the firmware. (thanks to the dev team).

There are a couple of things I’ve noticed.

• The battery life isn’t terrific  – but that could be due to me using it almost constantly
• The screen is *gorgeous*
• The camera is surprisingly good
• The screen gets dirty faster than the speed of light. I seem to be almost constantly polishing it
• Everyone wants to play with it.

The main thing I’ve noticed though – is something I’ve observed about all the apple products I’ve used (laptops, keyboards) It’s just plain *fun* to use. The design is all about making it nice to use – not about design for design’s sake – very Bauhaus – its function defines its form.

And I totally love it.

Oh man how cool is this?

So, yesterday I picked up a second-hand first generation iPhone. This post has been written on it using the wordpress for iPhone application.

How cool is that?

You couldn’t make this stuff up

"It don't gitmo better" - photo from Reuters

truth really is stranger than fiction – but that’s a post for another day

Congratulations Fuzzy

I’ve always wanted to be a proper published author. Well Fuzzy’s beaten me to it.

But then again – I’d rather file my teeth than write the book he did.

I’m sure it’s an unputdownable rivetting read… really.

Calvin and Hobbes

Or Calvin and Jobs?