So as a lot of you know, yesterday was “Reboot” day (and if you didn’t, here and here is where you can learn about it for next year

A brief summary is that a reboot is when a WHOLE lotta people redesign their websites and launch it to the world on the same day.

What I don’t get is why people would want to do this…community? be “part of the crowd”? bored?

If you are running a blog or something where you value your traffic, I would think a “reboot” or relaunch of your site would be a great talking point and a way to get people to come by for a visit. However, if you relaunch along with umpteen thousand other websites, aren’t you just lost in the crowd you want to be a part of?

Now I am not saying I have anything against it per se, or that I would never take part at some point, I am just saying I don’t get it.

Can anyone explain it to me?

Regardless of the why, there are a lot of nice sites out and about. Along with the other two links I have above, here is a best of list from Fadtastic.

When you think of the user interface, what comes to mind? Graphics, design, flow, ease of use? More concretely, when you think about developing a UI things like CSS, Forms, Javascript, Xaml, etc. are the terms you hear.

But step back for a moment…what is UI? User Interface…how a user “hooks in” and uses some form of device. This device can be a car, a computer, heck even furniture. For the computer, the actual interface is a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

In the future…there might be something like this.
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Ok, so as many of you have probably noticed, there is a relatively new trend among tech and design blogs to get their members to redesign their site, logo, etc.

Personally I am a bit conflicted about this tactic. I see both pros and cons and I am not sure which side of the fence I fall on.

On one side, the community gets engaged and gets to submit designs. The winner gets some great resume fodder…everyone else gets a say in the look of their favorite site.

On the other it seems a bit cheap. I mean, the site makes money off their readers already…now they get free work too?

The trend seems to be catching some steam. Devlounge, Smashing Magazine, even Slashdot did it a while back I believe. So what do you think?

You visit these sites to learn about design and development…do you think it is odd that they aren’t designing their own sites? Is there a better/worse way to do it? Where is the line between good for the community and just plain cheap?

Am I just old? What is up with Twitter?

“What are you doing right now?”

That is the whole premise of this service. You log on, and type what you are doing right this second. For instance…right now I am writing a blog article (who wants to know that)?

Another way of looking at it is “mini-blogging” (or blogs for the ADD crowd).

The idea, as I understand it, is that over time you can get to know someone by reading through what they were doing over a period of time. So if I updated it say, once an hour or four, you could get a feel for who I am.

Is it just me, or is that creepy? Its like you are being virtually stalked or something.

There are now “fan sites” of twitter getting released. TwitterFiction is a site where you write a story in 140 words or less. Its like a Haiku, but not as poetic. This is the first I have found, but I am sure there will be more.

What am I missing here? I know it is the “flavor of the month” right now, but I just don’t get it. Can someone explain it to me?

So this post is the first of what I call “discussions”. Basically it is where I throw out a topic and y’all pick it up and run with it. Simple and sweet.

So here we go. For the first topic the question is simply:

When designing an app, what makes you decide to go simple and clean over flashy/fancy, and vice versa?

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