Merry... er, Happy.. uh, See you Next Year

See you next year!

The Road to Hell...

...is paved with the best intentions of employees who think it's easier to do things for our users than to let them sink or swim on their own.

This employee is my minion. Please chime in in the comments on what a stupid and short-sighted idea this is. Seriously. I can't convince him. Maybe you can.

Developers vs. Designers - Take 247

I wanted to title this cartoon "Developers vs. Designers: The Kindergarten Years", but that seemed redundant.

Disclaimer: This is a fictional representation, and bears no resemblance to reality. In reality, our CIO drives a Toyota, not a Dodge Caravan.

Well, we are in the middle of this discussion, but it isn't as childish as this - yet. I hope our designer doesn't take this personally, because it isn't meant to make any more fun of her than it does of me. She's probably going to win the argument anyway.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 5: Revenge of 2004

 

OK, this is a total inside joke that only people who attended the Great Keynote Revolt of 2009 will understand.

I was at the HighEdWeb 2009 conference in Milwaukee this week, and one of our keynote speakers (@notjared) gave a speech that dated from about 2004 and was poorly adapted to a highly technology savvy audience. Lacking a Twitter account (true), he was unaware of the vicious back channel that cut him no slack and granted no mercy. You can review a transcript of it here (starts at 11:59 AM), or read posts by people who weren't there here and here. And here's a balanced post from someone who was there.

At the very least, he gave me a way to save our heroes from the zombies... but he replaced them with something far, far worse.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 4: Rule of the Zombie Home Page

I'm sure there are people who would certainly like to see Prophead and Taghead meet a particularly gory fate. So maybe I should finish them off. I mean, what better way to go than have your brains eaten by a zombie? It's faster and probably a lot less painful than having your brains eaten by committee meetings.

I haven't really decided. However, I do know that this is the last TFRL before HighEdWeb! T-Shirts have been ordered. Laptop is charged. Bags are packed. Presentation is, uh, ready... -ish. Sort of. Yeah. Maybe I'll just rent Dawn of the Dead and show that instead.

The Zombie Home Page Chronicles - Part 3: Backtalk of the Unbelievers

Houston, we have a problem.

Actually, our problem is that we don't have a response plan for a zombie attack like the University of Florida does (highly recommended reading!). They are so much more prepared for this than we are... we suck at everything.

TFRL HighEdWeb T-Shirts!

Continuing last year's tradition of bringing TFRL T-Shirts to HighEdWeb, I will once again be... uh bringing, uh, TFRL T-Shirts to HighEdWeb.

These are custom shirts, designed specifically for the conference and available only at the conference. If you want one, the only way to get one is to get it at HighEdWeb.

Sadily, the rising cost of CafePress has forced me to charge $25 per T-shirt... and trust me, I'm not making any money on the deal. I wish I could give them away, but that's just not realistic is these times of budget cuts and furloughs.

There are two designs:

And:

To this point, I've ordered 2 medium, 4 large, and 4 extra large of each T-shirt. If you want one, let me know ASAP. Tweet me, email me, leave a comment. If I have to order more, I need to know soon.

You can have a shirt for the price of a lunch or dinner at the conference (at the restaurant of my choice), but one dinner is already taken.