Javascript can enable developers to have users interact with interfaces in all sorts of useful (and absurd) ways.  Zoomii Books has taken Javascript to the extreme in a combination of useful and absurd ways.

At first, I thought the idea of recreating a brick-and-mortar bookstore look and feel online was creative.  But as I began to browse the site, I realized while the idea was creative, it isn’t necessarily practical.   Yeah, they have a search box on there, but the whole point of the site it seems is to feel like you are in a traditional bookstore with shelves.  When you use the search box, the results are displayed in way that strays from the basic idea.

Not sure if I’d really use the site over Amazon or Barnes, but jeez…those are some mad Javascript skills!

What a day it has been!  Today was launch day for the Facebook game Patient Zero that we created for our friends at VisualDx Health.  After some last minute tweaking and bug fixing, the game is now live and ready for you to join in the fun!  You can create all sorts of crazy viruses and infect your friends with them.

VisualDx is an excellent source of health and skin disease related information.  They have this cool Skin Disease Finder that helps you determine what that weird looking rash on your hand may be.

Did you remember to get your dad a fathers day gift?  That is Sunday ya know…

So I have an idea.  Everybody needs to band together and stop developing for IE6.  Just stop.  Or go one step further - sabotage.  Make sure your site or app is noticeably broken in IE6 and will cause problems for any IE6 users.  Hang on…before you start screaming and yelling at me for such a stupid idea, hear me out.

As our neighbors a few miles south on Milwaukee have reported, Apple is not supporting IE6 with their upcoming mobileMe.  Upon first glance, this may seem like a straight ‘Apple-against-Microsoft-on-all-fronts’ sort of move, but I don’t think it is.  I think Apple has the well being and cross compatibility of the entire Internet on their minds here.  IE6 is extremely outdated and behind on all sorts of standards, yet it is one of the most popular browsers in use today.  This has to be stopped.

So let’s stop it.  Now.  If Apple (and other big name companies who have a lot of impact) start the revolution, the rest of us can keep the momentum going by chipping away one site at a time.  If these millions of users who use IE6 suddenly see the sites and applications they use on a daily basis no longer work in IE6, they will have to upgrade to IE7 or switch to an alternative browser.

So next time you start a project, don’t support IE6.  At all.  Start the revolution.

How do you organize your tasks? Are you a victim of murder by post-it-note, or do you have a white board with 10 different color dry-erase markers ready in a holster at your desk? OR - do you have a series of post-its that list, in great detail, the items that need to be added to your white board? Whatever the case, keeping your ducks in a row can be a painstaking process, one that may require several different attempts in an effort to find that which works for you.

I recently read a great article in HOW Design Magazine entitled “Let Your Creativity Blossom”. One item of particular interest to me (and now featured on a wall nearby) was to create an “Energy Line” on which I can list my current projects from those that are requiring a lot of energy to those that may be temporarily on hold (thus little energy). So far so good, but I’ll let you know what I think in another month.

For some more light reading, check out an online version of the article here.