COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
KIBBITZING A MAGAZINE - How do creative processes work? Jules Siegel believes that they are grand collaborations.
JULES: Did you look at http://bookarts.webjump.com/g21/ ?
ROD: Did you send me an e-mail earlier on this page? If so, I never received it.
JULES: Twice.
I have MSN Messenger. Maybe we should have something like this. The e-mail time lag and bounce problems are really slowing us down.
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ROD: In my "Working the Web" column which just expired at AndoverNews.com after two -plus years, I harangued against those damned pop-up advertising windows. If we used them now, I'd be laughed out of Internet-Pundit land.
JULES: I know this. I hate them and feel that anyone who uses them should be put in a small cell with trapdoor in the roof through which monkeys vomit on them at random intervals.
It's a free site. I have no control over it. You should see what they look like with Opera. [An increasingly popular Internet brower. ---Ed.]
ROD: When you put that table over a background, you lose anyone who's still on Netscape 2.0 or below, most Lynx people and all Linux users. They only load the background and not the super-imposed table. Result: they click away.
JULES: This is very annoying. How many people are there like this? Can't we just convince them to change to a more cooperative operating system? I was thinking about doing a piece called "Sympathy for Bill Gates." I mean he did give the PC a graphical interface. That was no small thing. It does look pretty, too. I do exchange MSWord fully formatted documents in all the places that I need to without losing anything.
Except for problems like creating a document in a English version and having the Spanish version reject all the fields in the headers and footers because the generic style tags languages don't match.
Hitler was a great graphic designer, you know. Also a superb watercolorist. Good design often requires a Nazi-like approach. Killing the Jews was merely a grotesquely inappropriate extension of "Less is more."
Now, how do I get the same effect without the background? The table is necessary because otherwise I can't place the elements where I want them. Would it be a bad thing to have something appear first in the center of the black that directs these users to an alternate design?
ROD: I do actually know more about usability on the Web than I
let on. 
JULES: I am sitting at your feet absorbing your wisdom. I had another question but I can't remember it. How about if we just copy this correspondence to the guys? I think it's really illuminating. Could make a great feature, too. The formatted and cleaned-up transcript of the editorial/design process at G21.net. Think of a name.
What about an internal bulletin board? Wait, how about having a public on-going discussion about the editorial process. They have access to a sort of beta version. Maybe some areas are blocked out because they have things we are going to surprise them with.
I say we should begin with this message. Can you send it as a forward without a zillion >>? Or just let me know and I'll re-send it.
RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: Thousands of Black Americans were lynched, almost as sport, at the beginning of this century. James Allen has done us all a service by documenting the lurid practice of members of lynching parties who made postcards of their deeds. What you'll see at this site is unbelievable and maddening and saddening. But it's part of the American heritage. It bears witness to the dark soul of this country. Without Sanctuary.
