Category: The Web
-
Announcing Lineage: A Family Tree Data Expression Engine
Last week at the Philly JS Dev meetup, I demoed a new project I’ve been working on called Lineage. It all started as a way to try and visualize all the research my Aunt Peggy has done over the last 50 years. Using D3, I was able to build a way to search, filter and…
-
My low cost e-commerce stack
Since I launched Dungeon Adventure, an RPG for kids, a few weeks ago a lot of people have asked me how exactly I’m selling it. It’s for sale as a digital download and print out board game, or “floor top RPG” as Phil Nelson called it. Here’s how it works: I have a hosting account…
-
New Adventures in HTML5
In the last year I started hearing a lot of hype about html5. So far I’ve been impressed. They’ve clearly expanded it to become more of a platform for rich graphics. Here are some cool projects I’ve worked (or am working) on. Sparklines in HTML5 HTML5 Ball Bouncing HTML5 Gravity Ball Rock the Animals (Beta)
-
Increasing Data Density in Web Design
I changed the layout on this site in response to what I took away from my session with Ed Tufte. Here’s an applicable quote from Tufte: Whatever reasonably serves the content, avoids non-content pixels (including navigation and designer pixels) as much as possible, favors user scanning over substantial amounts of material rather than premature linking,…
-
Chart Junk
I started yet another Tumblr that eventually I will link into this site. I post example of crappy charts and graphs. Check it out: Chart Junk
-
Net Neutrality and the Railroad Business
Here’s a perfect explanation of why Net Neutrality matters, why it should be enforced by the FCC, and how it’s been done in the past. I wish I could link directly to the comment, but Wired offered no way to do that. A comment on Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net Neutrality Surrender Monkey: posted…
-
Yard Sale Tips
I was quote in this article about yard sales. Thanks Jen!: Garvey advises that you clean and dust everything before you put it out. Interacting with your shoppers helps, too. “Be friendly! Say hello, chat them up, and they’re far more likely to buy something from you.”
-
People Wearing My Sunglasses
My new awesome Tumblr blog: http://peoplewearingmysunglasses.tumblr.com/
-
Why You Should Try Twitter
Twitter isn’t for everyone. A lot has been written about it’s slowing growth, but part of that is because the stats don’t include 3rd party apps. Still, I think Twitter has limited appeal depending on what you want to get out of your time online. For most people, facebook does everything they’d want a social…
-
Twitter Tip: Use Favorites as Bookmarks
The most neglected feature of Twitter has to be favorites. It’s not used for much and none of the clients do anything interesting with them. Unlike Facebook’s “like,” categorizing a tweet as a “favorite” seems like a big commitment and the new Retweet features seem to support the concept better anyway. So what do you…
-
They Sold You Out: Screw You Orbitz, Shutterfly, Fandango, and more…
I only called out Orbitz, Shutterlfy, and Fandango because I’m a big customer of theirs. Fandango not so much since I hardly ever go to the movies anymore, but I use it almost every time I go. Each company built great technology and delivered a great product until they got greedy and decided to break…
-
New Conveyor Blog Launched
As part of our new marketing effort, I’ve launched a conveyor blog at work. Today I posted a video of one of the best ways we landed a project ever. Who else would run lit candles on a conveyor?
-
Could Twitter Have Worked in 1999?
For many years the Internet has brought us ideas and services that we wish we had thought of first. ?Most technologists wish they could go back in time and hit big with online auctions, classifieds, blogging software, and social networking. ?Microblogging (ie. Twitter) is the latest and greatest of these facepalming ideas because it’s so…
-
Starting a new South Jersey Blog
I’ve decided to start a new blog about South Jersey. Any name suggestions?
-
Hobots
I never log into Friendster anymore, but I got a message from my friend Carol who has been living abroad for a while. I logged in only to find it was a message from one of those random dating site spammers. These are the messages that say things like, “hey, I saw your profile and…
-
Newspapers feeling the heat from craigslist
Most people know I’m a huge craigslist fan and I’ve bought and sold a few thousand dollars worth of stuff through it. I’ve always wondered about how much it has impacted newspapers and whether they’d start to print negative stories about it to make it seem unsafe or seedy. As long as you do everything…
-
Wayback Machine
I’ve posted this before, but man you have to love the Wayback Machine at archive.org. You can go back and view almost anything on the web from the past. bengarvey.com August, 2002 One of my first web pages in 1999 Some more… Retro Google BoingBoing circa 1998 A site I designed in 2000
-
Facebook v. MySpace
A few months ago Facebook opened their site up to anyone and I signed up, but didn’t do much with it. Since then a few of my friends have added me and I’ve been messing around with it a lot more. It’s so much better designed than myspace it’s scary. Myspace has to be the…