artfernandez.com has been silenced

artfernandez.com has been silenced

siteSatellite has been silenced

siteSatellite and the network of sites (including this one) hosted by this company has been temporarily silenced by the NorthPoint shutdown. siteSatellite has secured an alternate internet backbone which is scheduled to be installed within 15 days. However, until this happens my voice on the web has been silenced. During the outage I can be reached via e-mail @ artf@illuminare.com

Here is the news release from siteSatellite:

UPDATE: Effective 3/29/01 siteSatellite has put a freeze on accepting any new customers. At the close of business today we will lose our network connectivity due to the NorthPoint Communications shutdown. siteSatellite has arranged for an alternate internet backbone to replace Northpoint. However, network service interruptions are unavoidable.

We are working very hard to minimize downtime. However we understand that this network interruption will impact the services of our customers. siteSatellite has secured a transfer relationship with reprahduce and kia to accept siteSatellite customers that do not wish to ride out our network transition.

To discuss these options or for further updates on the NorthPoint shutdown please contact us @ artf(at)illuminare(dot)com

Network solution coming

Well, I am living on borrowed time these days. By the grace of who knows what my SDSL connection is still up despite the NorthPoint shutdown. However, the drumbeats of "imminent shutdown" have increased in recent days with the e-mail notifications coming from Verio and NorthPoint. I would be very surprised if the connect lasts another week.

On the T1 network front, I got a quote for siteSatellite and we are currently evaluating which option to exercise. Hopefully we will be able to avert a long term network shutdown. We will keep our customers posted.

Wireless Access

Here is yet another reason to get an Airport (802.11b) Card, you can get free access to WAP points in downtown San Francisco. It seems that in the mad rush to offer wireless LANs to employees the Airport networks are also available to anyone within radio transmission range and an Airport card. This will not last of course, but I will be milking it for all its worth when I am downtown on client visits.

X marks the spot

Today marked the make or brake day for the future of Apple. This morning thousands of Mac users decended upon retail stores or got up unusually early in the morning to wait for that white FedEx truck carrying their copy of MacOS X.

Yes, I was one of them. I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed a starbucks mocha and perched by my window looking for that FedEx truck. You have to be a Mac user to understand the fanaticism surrouding the release of this new operating system.

(And yes, I ripped open the box and installed it right away)

T1 Speed

What would you do if you had a T1 internet connection to your house? I have been asking myself that all day in light of NorthPoint biting the dust yesterday. More on that later.

Breaking News - Yet another DSL provider bites the dust.

This evening I was informed that Northpoint Communications was ceasing operations effective immediately. Northpoint will be winding down network operations in the next 10 - 30 days (or less). The company is trying to secure bridge funding to allow customers to migrate to alternate business carriers.

So, why do I mention this? Well, this is important as Northpoint is one of the primary providers of my internet backbone and by extension a significant chunk of the siteSatellite network. Therefore I am in the midst of securing additional backbone connection providers as quickly as possible to minimize service interuptions.

Clients with server accounts will be contacted in the next 24hrs to make alternate arrangements and financial considerations in the event of service interuptions. We are doing everything possible to avoid service interuptions, but are being proactive in planning for the worst.

Are you a concerned siteSatellite customer? Get in touch.

Apache Relief

Happiness is not having to fight Apache.

The Power to Publish

Awhile ago I lamented the downsizing of Blogger, which still powers this site, and expressed concern that the ability to run my weblog would be in jeopardy. Although the service is still around, albeit running very slowly, I set out to find an alternate.

Beginning next month we will be offering a blog service for siteSatellite customers based upon GreyMatter. The tool offers so many features over Blogger's service that we decided to give it a try internally.

Based upon my initial impressions, this little vortal on the web will be making the transition to GreyMatter very soon.

Why abandon Blogger? Blogger simply became too popular a service with too many users and too little funding. As a result their servers have gotten very slow and the service has not added features that I need. Users that do not run their own web servers will still find their service invaluable for posting logs. I just reached the point where I found that siteSatellite's servers were able to handle the added traffic and new demands of a program like GreyMatter.

It was a hoax...DUH.

Just to set the record straight for those of you that bought the story, the Dutch Water site is an April fools joke. Enough said.

Yet another use for water

I ran accross an article in the latest print version of the Red Herring which made me stop, think, and then fevorously twitch. (This is a very rare occurence when it comes to technology) A dutch company has "supposedly developed" technology which allows them to send tcp-ip packets in water via an existing municipal water system.

The company, Dutch Water seems to be legitimate, but the idea of sending packets via plain old water is simply absurd. I don't know, maybe it is theoretically possible...like commercial fusion power plants, but I don't see those springing up all over the state of California either.

The myth of 800x600

There was a time a long time ago (in web time) when everyone built sites for 15 inch monitors and 640x480. As time has passed everyone has gotten bigger monitors and site designs have moved into the 800x600 pixel space. I have long been believer of keeping site layouts fixed to a specific pixel dimension. There have been many heated battles with my design and functional teams on this very subject.

However, the reality is that there is no real way to control a layout in a browser due to different monitor sizes and resolutions as well as all the pixel space the extra toolbars take up in any given browser. There is a great article at web review's site which discusses this issue in detail.

A little while back I caught a lecture by Jeff Veen on the concept of the "future web" and building liquid-based sites with CSS and percentages. It has taken awhile to sink in, but I have become a convert to the liquid-pages religion. Most of the sites we are building these days at siteSatellite comform to this standard with a healthy dose of CSS.

Why does radio suck?

Because most stations play only the songs the record companies pay them to. And things are going to get worse." Yet another reason to lament the death of naptser.

Yep, I Still Use Frames

O.K. I'll admit it. I am a closet frames fan. In the last few years frames have fallen out of favor because of the way search engines spider sites and because so many people did some very bad frame based web sites. There is a time for a straight-lace layout site like this one and there are times where frames allow a web designer the freedom to immerse users in an "experience."

When I caught a lecture from Derek Powazek in early 1996-7 I saw the pure power of what frames could do. Derek's innovative layouts just blew my mind. Nowhere else had I seen anyone successfully align a large image on a page with the center frame for content. When I saw those types of layouts I knew that frames served a purpose and could be built so they don't suck. So, yes I am a closet frames fan, and you should learn to love them too.

And then there was one...

Living in one of the most wired cities in the country we have long gravitated to online services. Things ranging from books, party planners, calendars, toys, and online grocery shopping have all been digitized. A long time ago I sampled the services of the two local online grocery stores, Peapod and Webvan, and we settled on what we though was the best service. In my case I chose Webvan for my grocery needs. However, we had a choice.

As of yesterday the SF bay area now only has one online grocery service.

Peapod has pulled out of the Bay Area and has ceded the market to Webvan. One of these firms was bound to pull out sooner or later with the current state of the digital economy, but consumers no longer have a choice.

Web Identity Crisis

What's this site all about anyway? Some of my professional friends and confidants have asked me this recently. Upon further reflection I have come to the conclusion that my portal on the web is suffering from an identity crisis.

When I redesigned the site I wanted to deliver industry news and interaction design perspectives on a daily basis. At the same time the site was supposed to serve as a focal point for my web works and portfolio for perspective clients. The end result of all this is an unfocused portal with a variety of content. This is great if you're Yahoo!, but not so good on a smaller scale.

What do you think?

Webcasting 101

We have been playing with our own form of limited webcasting at siteSatellite. Most of what we have broadcast has been restricted to stuff on this site and a select group of our clients.

Truth be told there is a lot to learn about serving streaming media, especially when it is live on demand. I ran into a great article for those of you interested in how to do live webcasting on the cheap.

Dealing with "Click Here"

As an old salt on the web I long ago learned that you don't use "click here" as a descriptor for a hyperlink. As a general rule people (even beginning AOL users) soon learn that an underlined piece of copy is a link.

Having worked with a wide range of clients , I have found myself counting to ten and grasping for examples of why "click here" sucks on a web site. Just recently I was working on a project where I found that the content group used "click here" for a hyperlink. I counted to 10 and remembered this great article by Drue about creating action words for hyperlinks.

These words of wisdom have often saved our client's sites from the dreaded "Click Here" to go here or "Click Here" to go there syndrom.

Hibernating

Rainy weekends and coffee are good for the soul. (So I am told)

Actually, all this rain makes me think that I am living in Arcata all over again.

eBay Oddities

As an avid eBay-er it never ceases to amaze me how much weird stuff you can find up for auction on eBay and other auction sites. Everything from the sick and somewhat perverse to all the crap that you once found in a bad garage sale in your neighborhood can be found online.

Given the fact that has been happening since online auctions started on the web you would think someone would have started a web site to highlight all the weird stuff. Well, no one did until very recently. Enter Who Would Buy That, a site that is soley devoted to finding the weirdest stuff up for auction and questioning why anyone would bid for this stuff. The site is so quirky and unique that I have added it to my must visit list right next to fray and slashdot.

Rumors of StudioCAM death exaggerated

I received some e-mail the other day asking about the StudioCAM and why it hasn't been on for the last couple of months. Well, the CAM is not dead. siteSatellite's studios are undergoing massive furniture and hardware moves and the CAM was one of the pieces of equipment to be moved around. The venerable Connectix QuickCam is sitting on top of the MacOS web server waiting to be plugged in. As soon as I can go buy the $10.99 extension cable it will be back online.

Sleep....what's that?

Sleep....what's that? Ahh, the life of a web producer working around the clock. Where did December, I mean January...no, I mean, February go?

Oh, on a related note, there are some big changes coming to illuminare. No firm announce date yet, but something is coming to a URL window near you.