I just logged onto one of my favorite tech news sites, Gizmodo. The name might sound familiar to you as they were the ones responsible for leaking images and video of the iPhone 4. 

So they’ve redesigned their site, which was in need of a good redesign, but as the aesthetics may have improved ten fold, the usability really took a dip below functional. Here’s just a few things I noticed after browsing for 3 minutes and getting lost.

1. Off the bat, why would you cover up the first stories of your page with an advertisement? Honestly now. There are at least three better places to put your banner advertisement on the site that wont interfere with my experience. Say, above the logo, on the left or right margins of the page, somewhere I won’t be clicking or want to be reading, but will still notice.

2. Where do I look to first? The section with the tiny thumbnails and lots of text or the sidebar that has the same headlines, sans the thumbnails? Alright couple things here… I hate reading on the web. But I love browsing for things that I want to read about. Having a paragraph of text next to a 190x107 thumbnail isn’t going to make me want to look deeper into the story. Sell me on the visual, win me over with your words.

Then there’s the twitter-like sidebar that doesn’t scroll …. or does it? I guess it does but there’s no scroll bar to let me know how far up or down i need to go to find headlines that are different from the ones that already appear in the other section! Ugh! How frustrating and unnecessary this is! It’s like Android phone users that keep their clock widget at the same time as the one displayed in the toolbar! Come on! Thats valuable screen real estate, give me something worth looking at!  

3. Your site is all about aesthetics. Its not about getting the tech news out there to your readers. I think Jason Chen got a hard on when he saw how much better this redesign looked than the last piece of crap designed site you had, but the usability sucks. Remember Digg? Well if you don’t, you’ll be joining their ranks unless you make some much needed changes. And frankly, Digg is doing a nice job of listening to their remaining members to try and fix the usability of their recent redesign. 

it’s been just about a year since helloBos began as a simple blog that provided some sort of microscopic view of my travels, experiences, photos, friends, et ecetera. today i looked at my google analytics to see where in the world has helloBos been viewed and it’s exciting for me to say that it’s been viewed on every conteninent except for antartica. which isn’t really that much of a continent if you ask me. it’s cool, no pun intended, but continent, come on, lets get serious, i’m barely giving australia a pass here…

but the fact is, helloBos has stretched the globe, whether it was the one his from Laos or Chile, to the hundreds of hits from tinsle town, lala land, hollywood…it’s pretty cool that my life has been broadcast to you through this medium. (sidenote: whoever it is in hollywood that’s reading helloBos, i’m easy to reach, let’s talk. make me famous.)

life has definitely changed in this past year or so. it’s hard to look back and pick out specific examples of what has been change for the better and what has been difficult, but i know i have this feeling right now that things are completely different than what they were a year ago. i do feel older, more mature. i would say my maturity level is probably still at the third grade level but furthur into the school year, like after parent teacher confrences.

it’s funny though. life that is, i’m still on that subject. i guess i could’ve predicted what today would be like a year ago when i started this blog… minus the whole black president thing. i don’t think any of us saw that coming, but thank goodness it did… i hope.

but even so, i can tell you this much… i have no idea what to expect a year from now. and i don’t know if that’s exciting or scary for me yet. right now, a bit more scary…but this is only the beginning; again.

i know what you’re thinking…”another blog redesign bos?” kind of, I mean I just moved some things around. the general color scheme is relatively the same, the type is pretty much the same and so are the links, although i have added a link to my facebook. i won’t call this a redesign, i’ll call it a touch up. how bout that…

anyway, quick catch up. really just a crazy weekend. not in the party out of my mind sense, but rather a huge mix of emotional M&M’s. each color you pick represented a different emotion to be had this weekend. not all good or fun at times, but such is life. you grow and you move forward.

this week, look for some blogging, maybe some more photos and i hope to be working on some site designs that i’ve begun for a couple clients. 

so that’s me in a nutshell right now. i can’t seem to sleep. i’m really still getting adjusted here and it seems like i do all my best design work at 4 in the morning anyway, so…what.

cheers,
Bos 

“I guess I’ll have to get used to seeing you at the same social functions as me. And hanging out with people I know. ”

(dazed and confused, 1993)

welcome to helloBos.com . I had been wanting to purchase the domain for a while now, but just didn’t have anything in mind to put up. Tonight I decided that helloBos will be my permanent ‘blog’. And so I’ve moved the latest information from bos-network.com to helloBos.com. Not all of it, just the posts from 2008, which are a few.

So what happens to Bos-Network.com? Well look, I’m not hanging it up. I feel somewhat attached to it. It was my first piece of online real-estate after all and I just can’t say goodbye to it. For the time being it just points to helloBos.com, which is nice because you can continue to go through to Bos-Network.com out of habit and then click on into helloBos. But there are plans for Bos-Network. Believe me when I say that. 

Why did you move? Ah yes, another great question. It’s simple. I was calling the blog Hello Bos, yet the url was bos-network.com. It seemed messy to me and I wasn’t happy with the way I was running it. So I figure new beginnings from here on out as far as my blogging is concerned. Also, there are other technical advantages to having the blog on helloBos.com. For instance, I am able to post directly from my iPhone using email. That includes text and photo inputs. Very cool and should mean for much more posting. Also, I bought the domain for $9.99. And that’s all it’ll be costing me for the entire year. The hosting is done entirely from tumblr. Oh by the way, tumblr is the new blogging service that i’m using. I’ve said goodbye to wordpress. I was getting annoyed and bored with them and their support for safari 3.0 was terrible. Anyway, that’s a little too technical for you so let’s move on.

Can I come to expect the same great posts from Bos-Network.com? Yes, and more! and some less. Allow me to explain. Like I said above, with the ability to update via the iPhone I can post from anywhere with an internet connection. Meaning photos or text can be added to helloBos without me having to log into my tumblr account. So that’s a plus. Otherwise, I have the ability to do everything I was able to do with my bos-network blog with the exception of a few things. I cannot have different pages, no big deal. I don’t have permanent links to my favorite web sites, no big deal. And then of course there’s the whole tumblr not having a commenting system which means you cannot comment on what I write. WHAT!?! No I’m not kidding you. Are you kidding me? Yes, there are about 600 plus comments a day but they’re all spam and they slowed down the server tremendously so does it really matter? Yes it does. I want to hear your thoughts…sometimes. It’s just nice to have the option, so tumblr, get on it please.

Other than that ladies and gentleman, we’re here for a year…at least. I think this will have a positive effect on the blogging and ultimately your enjoyment. So thank you for your continued readership in advance and all the best!

cheers,

Bos 

“It’s not every man that can live off the land, you know. You do your own thing in your own time. You should be proud. ”
(easy rider, 1969)

Things have been a bit slow as of late around here. You know after the birth of Anastasia and the very lame Super Bowl we had this year. We’re all beginning to adjust to having an infant around the house and what that entails.

So I’ve decided that in the best interest of the blog for now, I would post random things until the excitement starts to pick up again around here.

and trust me, it will. some may say that it already has. just an hour ago I was getting my full body and it was marvelous. then i had my chocolate frio drink at the vida cafe, and that too was magnificent. so you see, the day to day lifestyle here is almost perfect. There’s just a little bit too much wind right now.