While on the Duct Tape Marketing site, I found a plug for Basecamp, a project management/collaboration tool. As this came right after his prior post on “give something away for free and do not wreck it with small print”, I was drawn in to give it a try and see what kind of hooks this had. The free version of Basecamp is very “basic” compared to some other versions, but still very powerful. It is to be distinguished however from the thirty day trial of the more significant versions.

I immediately put a fast moving project I am working on into my free copy of BaseCamp. I am sufficiently impressed, that I may buy a bigger version to manage each project that I have going. It really makes a project managable …

It allowed me to create todo lists (I don’t like the fact that once I create a list I cannot simply delete it). It took me a minute to catch on. You create a list and then add items to each list. You can add and delete the items while they are pending, but not after they are completed. My client can also add todo items (I gave her permission to do so). She was sending me emails and each email might have had one or more todo items in it. I was having to take those from her email to my list. This is much better. In addition, I have been waiting on her for a couple of todo’s on her end. I was able to assign those to her so that she could see I was expecting something from her.

It has a message system built in and a milestone feature in the free version. Best of all, it is monthly should I decide to buy it, so I can upgrade as I put more projects on and need more, and downgrade as I finish projects and need less. My only concern is that as a Web 2.0 type of site (where the site hosts my content on their servers in more or less a utility), what happens if I discontinue the program. They have archiving of projects, but can I then download that in some useable format for a later time. I am off to find out, but I would like those with experience to drop us some comments if they would be so kind.

At year end, everybody and their brother (and sister) issue the best of lists. There are hundreds of them. Somehow by following a link in one of them from some guy named Red, I wound up over at a site called Duct Tape Marketing. Now as may be obvious, I am not all that much into marketing (you can donate to keep htmlfixit up and running by the way — how is that for actually marketing us?), but I followed the link because I like duct tape — in fact, it has often been described as man’s best friend, and I happen to agree.

Two interesting things struck me, first, the lead story suggested that you give something away to get people into your location. The best part of the advice, to my way of thinking, was what he said — do not ruin a free offer with small print. That is something we do well here at htmlfixit.com. We give away our statistical hit counter and a download script free of charge. There is no hook, period. You can use them freely, modify them, give them away to friends at the holidays if you are strapped for a gift (and you didn’t find a good idea in da Yoopers song, everybody can use some back bacon, eh?). Our only hope is that you either donate volunantarily to us, or that you buy one of our advanced scripts (that are only $10 by the way). I am not sure if we do a good job of selling you something once you get here — although that also isn’t our primary purpose, but we do need to pay the bills to stay up and running.

This just in, a team of scientists recently performed a post mortum autopsy on an alien being discovered near Roswell, NM. The team was flabbergasted that the being seemed to have no internal structure.

Of course for full details or to figure out what is really going on, read this post. Who says that isn’t a silly and fun place to work?

I guess the little guy tuckered out pretty quick. He is gone and the regular logo is back. Google Doodle #10 looked promising, but I thought it ran out of steam on the last day to be honest. Maybe it is more my disappointment with the pastel finish instead of with the concept itself. I await the next doodle …

I am sitting here watching the Alamo Bowl. What lousy officiating. This is the second time that Michigan has had to take a time out to get a replay review. This is silly. Even if the call is right, they should not have to waste a time out.

[added note: if you see the game with 3:45 to go in the 4th, read Lloyd Carr’s lips when he says: “no time outs, this is b**l s**t”. Check me see if I am not right. I wish that football coaches didn’t have to swear all the time. Wouldn’t “gosh darn it” do the job.]

[36 seconds to go, ESPN Announcer “this is one of the worst officiated games I have ever seen”. It isn’t just me. Time for big officials for big games … there aren’t that many games, why use small college officials? Of course Michigan did have opportunities that they missed, but they had a 12th man on the other team. They still need to take some of the responsibility for the apparent loss.]

[Michigan had Cal/Stanford going with the hook and ladder. Nebraska had too many men on the field. Lousy, lousy ref’ing. Amazing, the entire Nebraska team is on the field and no penalty. That would have given them one more play to get it in the end zone. Screwed, screwed, screwed. Dear San Antonio, TX, I don’t think I will be visiting anytime soon if you cannot organize a better officiating crew than that*. And, I am using my Discover Card. Forget Mastercard. This loss, pricelessly sad. Congratulation to Nebraska. It isn’t their fault and the officials could have just as easily favored them. It wasn’t that they were biased, they were just out of their league.]

*see comment below, I originally said Austin … which is flat out wrong and as the commentor points out, San Antonio is a great city and really had nothing to do with the bowl game officiating and everything to do with the hospitality – added next day.

[Oh and I forgot the 4th down on the next to last possession. The defender clearly hooked and pulled Manninghams catching arm. No call. Sad, sad officiating … it isn’t the loss that gets me … it is the way it happened.]

[update: and the comments … not even leaving your email address or homepage address … are you real people 🙂
I said congratulations to Nebraska, I said it could just as easily have gone against Nebraska — so I don’t agree that I am whining as indicated in one of the first two comments — but when the play is live, and Michael Hart looks up and sees the entire Nebraska team in front of him. My point isn’t that I am upset about the loss, I am upset that such a rookie group of officials are visited on a “major” bowl — and granted this wasn’t a major bowl, who are we kidding, except that every bowl (except maybe the motor city bowl *grin*) is major to the teams involved in it.]

Lets go with those xxx domains. And maybe an xax domain for artistic nudity, and ggg for the really good stuff … Unless you prohibit xxx content on .com sites, the presence of xxx won’t really help in our opinion.

This is a funny photo gallery with vintage Santa photographs. In this one, Santa looks like he might have had a few too many egg nogs before taking the stage. These are funny shots of kids who would rather not tell Santa what they want for Christmas. As a parent, I cannot tell you what possesses us to put the kids on Santa’s lap when they don’t want to be there, but trust me we are possessed to do so.