Katelyn M. Thompson’s Blog

Well, as you know, Halloween is around the corner. In honor of that occasion, I bring to you The Visual History of Halloween.

Forget “All Hallows Eve”, this takes the history way back!

via Cool Infographics

When asked about the difference between Twitter and Facebook, I usually reply “Facebook is for the people you knew in high school, and Twitter is for the people you wish you knew in high school.” Well, @shaylamaddox had a slightly different way of putting that, which was then turned into an illustration by Kiersten (although I can’t find the link to the original, she has some cool stuff on her blog).

via tweetmeme

A while ago I came across a book which outlines the story of my favorite movie Love Actually. The book, also titled “Love Actually” has a chart that shows the relationship between the characters. I was scrolling around FlipFlopFlyin.com and came across his version of the chart.

Well, today marks the first official day of winter in Boston, at least in my mind. Baseball is done for the year in Beantown. I saw a great game yesterday with the Sox beating the Yankees and also taking away their AL East crown. The only bad thing about that is that we didn’t get the crown ourselves. Another good thing happened, I won my Fantasy League for the 2nd year in a row. My brother also informed me that he wouldn’t be running The League next year, so I’m planning to take it over. Anywho, here are the results.

There’s a song that I’ve always enjoyed by Edie Brickell called Circle. There’s a line in that song that goes “and being alone is the best way to be”. I recently came across a poem by Andrea Dorfman that was beautifully performed and illustrated which expands upon this line. When was the last time you were alone with yourself?

via SwissMiss

I just returned from a quick bike ride. Being that it’s turning to fall, I bundled up a bit and added a sweatshirt to my usual biking attire. Well about halfway into my ride my ears were burning from being so cold. I wondered if there was a solution. Could I cover my ears without hindering my safety?

After a quick Google search, I came across the Bike Helmet Earmuffs which actually affix to the chin strap.

Now, I either need to learn to knit or find someone to make them for me. In case you knit, I’m allergic to wool 😉

via Creations and Ruminations

Well, as we know, the Red Sox had a very tough year this year. This morning on the radio I heard this poem entitled “Ouch… A Poem For The Red Sox“. It almost made me cry.

Well, there’s another reason to cry in Beantown. The fact that we were not part of any bobblehead giveaways this year. Flip Flop Fly Ball has created an infographic showing we are the only MLB team to not participate in a contest with a Bobblehead Giveaway. Perhaps next year we can turn things around…

Great! You don’t have to advertise your mobile site to me on your website, just take me to it when I’m on my mobile phone!

While checking out the Staples Center website I came across this indicator on the top right of their site. Really?! Isn’t it kind of a given that you have a mobile site? And why do you need to indicate this to people on your main website? Shouldn’t your technology be good enough that you can notice that I’m on a mobile device and just bring me to your mobile site? It’s not like I’m going to visit your site from my computer.

Well, now my post could end here. A simple gripe about how people just don’t get mobile sites. But, I’m going to take it one step further, and expand upon the implementation of mobile site. I actually visited the mobile site from my computer, just to see what it was like. (Now, as a note, I kind of feel bad picking on the Staples Center but #1, the Lakers play there and #2, it just happens to be the one site that I’ve visited recently like this. I’m sure there are many, many others out there.)

Here is the header from www.StaplesCenter.com.

And now the landing page for mobile.StaplesCenter.com

Why is this a problem?

Since getting my Droid back in February, I’ve been using my PC less and less. (Note: I’ll be getting a Mac very soon and hopefully I’ll be using it more since it’ll be AWESOME!) Perhaps I’m expecting too much from mobile sites, but I expect to be able to do pretty much everything I can do on the “normal” site, just faster and easier and with less clutter. Actually, designing web sites optimized for mobile could actually be a good direction for designers to head. But I digress. Why should I have to suffer with reduced functionality and features just because I’m using a “phone”? It just doesn’t seem fair.

Now I could understand this approach 4 years ago when people were accessing the Internet from their Moto RAZRs with small screens and slow networks. But today’s phones are much more powerful than computers were just a few years ago.

One other thing about mobile sites that annoying me just as much as reduced functionality is the inability to zoom! Why must you fix the width to my phone? Sometimes I need to see the words a little bit bigger. WordPress Blogs (including my own) and Mashable are two sites that come to mind.

Do you have any sites that you use that are like this? Any other gripes you have about navigating the Web on your phones?

Remember back in the day when you used to watch Saved By the Bell? Or, maybe just this morning? I do. Who hasn’t reminisced about the brick of a “car phone” Zack used to have? The only people I know who don’t reminisce about it are the people who actually had one themselves! Now you can be one of those people, assuming you now have an iPhone!

It’s more than just a case! It charges and provides speakers for an iPhone or iPod. No details from RetroCells about pricing, but it comes in white or black.

Also, don’t be fooled by the Windows screen image, it’s apparently thrown in for humor. Obviously these guys are not hard core Appleboys.

via @theresa_mccabe