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Sketching grids, looking for ideas, here comes the kuniform redesign? Heck no, here’s a post about grid resources online. Khoi Vinh has some ideas ‘bout grids here and here. The second one is better, the misnamed “Grid computing and design.” He has the brilliant idea of using your grid as a background image for your pages while designing. I’ll be trying that out, certainly.

Mark Boulton has a 5 part series that is really informative. I can’t wait for his book to come out. I used this series in conjunction with Thinking with Type in teaching Web Design 2 at the Art Institute this fall. Cameron Moll has a follow on article entitled Gridding the 960 that sums up a lot of these approaches, and even references the Yahoo! User Interface Grid CSS Builder at Dav Glass’s site. If you check out Cameron’s article, be sure to check out Christopher Fahey’s bit of perspective in the comments.
For a prototype site I’m working on for a non-profit, I went the YUI Grid builder route. It went ok, but it’s a site I’m grinding out, so getting it out was as important as making it pretty. For my own site, I’m trying to do something a bit more compelling, as I’m tired of seeing the same column widths and alignments across a bunch of blogs. We’ll see if what I want to do is possible, I sure hope I can pull it off.

International and local randomness at its best. First, a great post by a Japanese web-mag on Iranian typography and using letterforms as art. Next, I saw my buddy the Benbot a few days ago for drinks. He told me about Fresh Picks, a local organic grocer delivery service I can’t wait to try out in the new year. I’m going to see Massive Change, an exhibit about environmentalism and architecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in a few days, as well. Rocking!

Finally, in the totally unrelated department, a friend sent me this link about a novel deliverable format developed by Todd Warfel. He calls it a task analysis grid. I’m not totally sold on the name, since this seems to compress the output of a task analysis (as a research activity) with a requirement document’s feature list. However, anything that displays what product features map to users and their goals in one page is definitely worth a look-see, even if its name were mud.

Wouldn’t that be pagan? They’re worshipping Gaia! Ahhhh! Not at all. This article about the environmental interests of Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriach Bartholomew is a thought provoking read. Either these guys are becoming more liberal, I’m becoming more conservative, or people from stripes of life are putting aside their differences to realize our role as stewards of the ecosphere.

I found this link via Andrew Sullivan, who recently wrote Green Conservatism at the Times Online. And since we’re on the topic of Mr. Sullivan and religion, this quote he’s got from Oscar Romero rocks.

I was at this fantastic party my cousin and his gal pal threw on Saturday, fresh after teaching two 3 hour lectures back to back at the Art Institute. My brain was fairly fuzzy, got home, changed, paid the sitter, kissed the kid, grabbed the wife, got to the party.

We began talking with a gal who had lost her grandfather the previous week. I tried to recall the prayer from Romero in that post. I called him Cesar Romero instead of Oscar. The gal correct me, which made me say, “Wait, Cesar… didn’t he paint his moustache white along with his face to play the Joker? Sorry..” I think that inadvertent joke consoled her better than the prayer.

A few cool sites to waste some time over the holidaze: Magic Whistle (thanks Brendan for the link), Demain5 (I love “When I am King”), and The Sound Opinions Best of 2006 List from Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis.

DeRogatis is, frankly, annoying, but the show is good at covering a variety of genres, not just sticking with indy rock. That is the thing about these lists that are cool, as well. Gift ideas for everyone you know under 40.

As I noted earlier, I’ve been using Mint (so tasty and refreshing) along with Dreamhost’s built in stats counter software, I’ve had a bit of Google envy. Upon telling some web developer friends I’m using Mint, they would say things like, “You dummy! Why would you pay $30 for that? Google has it for free.” Thus far my answers have been to say things like, “But Shaun Inman is a person. It’s only $30. Google has $100 billion.” Then I go off on a diatribe about how, though I respect the heck outta Jeffrey Veen, Mint seems better, interfaces, marketing, building to flip sucks, blah blah blah.
Apparently, I need to get out more, and find more interesting friends. Today, though, my right brain was singing its intuitive praises as I read this objective and detailed comparison of Mint and Google Analytics by David Shea. Seems like he’s also redesigning his website. Heck, even his old design kicks the living crap out of mine. Will you be my friend, David? Awwwwwww.