Matrix Group International

Category: Blog

  • Matrix Group’s Favorite Election Resources

    Matrix Group’s Favorite Election Resources

    Every election, I give everyone in my office the corny speech about how I grew up under martial law in a country where people couldn’t vote, how voting is a privilege, how every vote counts, yada, yada.  Well, this is the first year where everyone on my staff is interested in the election.  I think nearly everyone eligible to vote actually voted.  We had a staff meeting at noon today and only people who voted (or who are not eligible to vote) got free pizza.

    I polled my staff and asked them for their favorite election resources. (more…)

  • Why Perfect References Aren’t Always a Good Thing

    My favorite business guru, Tom Peters, blogged recently that “hiring is the most important aspect of business” and I couldn’t agree more. I know down to my core that if we hire the right people, they will take care of our customers, they will be passionate about our business, and they will always strive to do the right thing.

    Why is why, in addition to interviewing well and having great writing/coding samples, candidates for positions at Matrix Group must have great references. Paradoxically, we’re less inclined to hire a person with a perfect track record and perfect references, you know, the person who has never missed a deadline, never gone over budget, and never had a project go south. Why?

    Because top talent has experienced some serious screw ups and they have recovered, and they have seen the impact of poorly managed or poorly engineered projects.

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to hear about one screw up after another, but I do want candidates to tell me what they have learned from their mistakes and those of others, and how their experiences will help them avoid FUBARs in the future.

  • Where Do Broken Web Pages Go? The Internet Library, Of Course

    Where Do Broken Web Pages Go? The Internet Library, Of Course

    Whitney Houston sings “Where do broken hearts go?” Me, I have often wondered what becomes of broken or lost Web pages — you know, the URLs that used to work but now display a 404 or file not found error. Are these pages deleted from the servers? Or have they just been unlinked? And what do I do if I really need the information and it’s now gone?

    You’ll be glad to know that there is a whole movement devoted to changing the content of the Internet from ephemera to artifacts. Internet libraries are springing up everywhere to catalog and preserve Web pages, images, even audio and video files.

    The largest (I think) Internet Library is the Internet Archive, a “nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining a free and openly accessible online digital library, including an archive of Web.” The archive is a collection of snapshots of Web pages from the around the world, taken at various points in time. (more…)

  • We’re Now Designing to 1024 Resolution

    We’re Now Designing to 1024 Resolution

    Sometime last year, we started designing sites to a 1024 screen resolution.  Based on feedback from clients that they wanted more real estate for their content, and usage reports that showed users having a minimum 1024 x 768 screen resolution, we decided to change our default practice.  Today, we design to 1024 unless circumstances warrant otherwise.

    According to data from the w3schools, 86% of users use computers with screen sizes of 1024 x 768 pixels or higher as of January 2008. All new laptops and monitors ship with at least 1024 resolution, usually higher, so this statistics does not surprise.  My new Sony VAIO laptop shipped with 1280 x 800 resolution. (more…)

  • Start Wearing Purple

    Start Wearing Purple

    It seems purple is the color of the season and I’m not complaining. If you know me, have been to my office, or spent any time on the Matrix Group Web site (or this blog for that matter), you know that purple is an integral part of the Matrix Group experience.

    I was pleased to see that Yahoo! has launched a Start Wearing Purple campaign. Even though the logo on the Yahoo Web site is red, it seems that purple has long been the company’s official color. Why purple? Yahoo says purple is associated with innovation and imagination.

    Hmmm…. I always thought purple was associated with royalty and girl power, but hey, I’ll buy the innovation and imagination connection. Jerry Yang, Yahoo CEO, says he “bleeds purple.” Hmmm…. even I’m not crazy enough to say stuff like that. (more…)

  • What’s Your E-Mail Address Worth?

    What’s Your E-Mail Address Worth?

    Last weekend at the mall, while purchasing a pair of shoes, the saleswoman gave me a tantalizing offer: give us your e-mail address and we’ll give you 10% off the price of the shoes.

    I had a lot of time to think about the offer because everyone in front me willingly gave up their e-mail address and contact information. Me, it took about 30 seconds to realize that saving less than $5 on a pair of shoes worth $49.95 was NOT worth getting spam from a store I don’t visit often (even though the shoes were really cute).

    My shopping experience went from bad to worse. At a kids’ clothing store, I waited in line as each mom was asked, “would you like to give us your e-mail address and get $250 worth of coupons, would you like to subscribe to this magazine for the discounted price of $20, yada, yada.” And I was amazed at how many people provided their phone number AND e-mail simply when asked! When it was my turn, I paid cash and said no thanks when asked for my phone number, address and e-mail.

    So I got to thinking. What is my e-mail address worth and when am I willing to share it with a site or vendor? (more…)

  • I’m in Technology Hell

    I’m in Technology Hell

    My laptop is being rebuilt, my cell phone has stopped ringing — but all my equipment is new! I’m in technology hell, and if it weren’t for Maki and my senior network administrator, I would lose my mind.

    When I ordered a new laptop three months ago, I asked for Vista as my operating system.  I figured it was time to get Vista; it’s been out for ages and resistance is futile, it was time to upgrade.  Alas, my brand new Sony VAIO laptop with 2 GIG of RAM was slooooow to boot up and slow to shut down, it took 5-10 minutes to recognize an ethernet or wireless connection, it crashed a lot, and hibernating almost never worked.

    Maki finally got sick of my whining and asked me to hand over my laptop one day so that the network admins could downgrade my OS to XP. Wow,my laptop is now super speedy and I’m online within seconds after plugging in.  I’m still in hell because you know how it goes with a new system: you have to re-install all your favorite plug-ins, you need to set-up your Word templates, you have to re-synch your phone with your Palm desktop, yada, yada. (more…)

  • Are You Sick of the 2008 Election Yet? Here are a Few More Sites to Visit!

    Are You Sick of the 2008 Election Yet? Here are a Few More Sites to Visit!

    In 28 days, we Americans get to vote for a new President. On the one hand, I have been glued to the TV during both conventions and the debates, and I’m reading everything I can about the candidates and their platforms. On the other hand, I’m completely sick of the politics, the inflated promises, and the false statements. Since I’m a bit of a political junkie, I have been scouring the Web for some of the most informative and innovative resources on the election. Here are some of my favorite sites:

    My Election Decision is aimed that the coveted undecided voters. You take a quiz and the system tells who your candidate should be.

    I think the New York Times has the best election coverage of any of the major news outlets.

    The Washington Post and CNN also have a good election centers.

    Google has created a series of Google maps that chart the timeline of both candidates’ lives, map Twitter posts about the election, and show where the candidates are on the campaign trail. Be sure to reload this page a couple of times to see all of the possible maps. (more…)

  • The National Parks – America’s Best Idea

    The National Parks – America’s Best Idea

    Last week, I had the honor of attending a private screening of a new film by Ken Burns: The National Parks – America’s Best Idea. The film will air on PBS next September 2009 and was supported in part by the National Park Foundation, an esteemed Matrix Group client.

    Even if you’re not a PBS kind of person, you probably know Ken Burns. His documentaries have helped us understand the Civil War, Thomas Jefferson, baseball, jazz and Lewis & Clark (among other things). And for all you Mac users out there, you know that iPhoto has a check box for “Ken Burns Effect” which adds slow zooming and panning effects to your slideshows.

    The screening was a treat and an experience of a lifetime. Ken Burns and his longtime collaborator, Dayton Duncan, introduced the screening of National Parks.

    We screened 45 minutes of what will be 12 hours. We learned the gripping story of Stephen T. Mather, the park’s first administrator, who got the job because he complained to the Secretary of the Interior about the poor state of the trails at Yosemite. We watched in awe as Ken Burns gave us the story of how Acadia National Park in Maine came to be. We listened to an inspiring interview with a park ranger who described seeing the buffalo one snow-covered day. (more…)

  • My Love-Hate Relationship with CAPTCHA

    My Love-Hate Relationship with CAPTCHA

    By now, most of us are familiar with CAPTCHA graphics, or the graphics with squiggly text that we have to retype correctly in order to submit a form.  I understand that CAPTCHA was developed to stop spam, prevent bots from hijacking forms and surveys, and prevent dictionary attacks against sites. But I’ve noticed recently that these tests are getting harder and harder, to the point where they are preventing me from submitting forms on the first, second, even third try.

    CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used mainly on Web pages to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. For example, humans can read distorted text on a graphic, but computer programs (most of them at least) cannot.

    Here are some examples of CAPTCHA:

    • On the Matrix Group Contact Us form, you have to pass a CAPTCHA test in order to fill out the form.
    • If you click on Email Us on the same form, you have to pass another CAPTCHA test to view and click on the e-mail address.
    • To send a message to John Grau on his blog, you have to follow the instructions and type “transmissions” in a box.

    Here’s the problem.  Computer programs are getting smarter and smarter. “Spammers and malware authors are able to break Captcha process,” says Carl Leonard in an article in The Guardian.  As a result, CAPTCHAS are getting harder and harder. (more…)