Free comic day is almost upon us (May 2). Until then it would be great to check out some webcomics that are always free. Here is a list of a few of my favorites.
Tech related:
Slice of Life:
One-Liners (Since this post, this has either been taken down or moved.)
Action:
Random:
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A lyrical take on design & coding:
In this brave new world of instant gratification, it is understandable that some want to take advantage of immediate updates. In an instant message/chat situation where it is just you and a few other people, instant is great. When there is a larger number of people involved it just turns into scrolling colors after a while.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally love a good river of information. But more often than not that same river freaks out the average Joe. The most current example of this was the recent Friendfeed redesign. While the new look is only on the beta site, I showed a few friends of mine the look and they all but ran away screaming.
One of the reasons many people have cited for not joining FF in the first place has been the flood of information. Unfortunately for the regular guy, the new interface helps the flood rise. Now while the obvious solution to most current users is just to pause the feed, quite a few folks who already use the service still have a problem with the initial tsunami of information.
Sure average person off the street will not immediately be following hundreds or thousands of people, but it is doubtful that they would jump on a service that they have to immediately turn down to use. Most users want the interface to be easy and something they can grasp quickly, hence the popularity of Twitter.
While I can completely understand the reasons why certain changes have been implemented, expanding the user base might become a bit more tricky with the new model.
But it is a beta so who knows?
As mentioned here before. on my personal blog I decided to install Habari. While I still enjoy working with WordPress here and elsewhere, I have found Habari suits my personal blog quite well since I do not need all the bells and whistles which I use elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the one thing the platform does lack is a very large stash of themes. This fact could hinder many from using it considering most of the themes that are available favor minimalist designs. While this is not an issue for the current adopters, I can see why others are reluctant. In an effort to add to the development of the project, I decided to take a shot at adapting some themes and came across these 7 sources of wisdom.
1. Habari Fun
Andrew Rickmann has thrown together a great guide to convert WordPress themes over to Habari, based on his port of the Dilectio theme.
2.WP Fun – Theming Habari vs WordPress
There is also a tutorial available for theming at Andrew’s other site. He has created a few themes for Habari and he gives a good headstart to the folks that need one.
3. Habari Project Theme Functions
This page on the Habari Wiki lists common theme functions and how to use them.
Not only just a list of themes created for the platform, but also a portal to a list of developers that have already gone through the process of creating a theme.
5 & 6 Mark Mail & Google Groups for Habari Themes
Message boards used by the Habari community. Still looks active and there are some code examples in the posts.
7. Habari Room in Friendfeed
Pulls in resources from blogs and microblogging sites Twitter and Identica. Most of the good stuff flows through this room and the admins are open to adding new sources they come across.
A little while back the folks at Mashable teamed up the Disqus guys and UberVU to amp up the Disqus commenting system. The goal of Disqus and UberVU was for the blogger to get the discussion back at the blogs and not just spread out over the social media sites. It was a lovely idea and Mashable was a great place to test out the new system.
Called Social Media Reactions, anyone using Disqus can now soak some of the conversation back up into their arena. I already have it running here, but Mashable gets wayyyyyy more traffic and you might want to check it out there since the service is on a limited rollout at the moment.
