Kevin Zak

I would like to think of myself as a fairly intellectual person. While I admittedly lack common sense at times (specifically when rewiring something is involved), I am often teased by friends about being book smart. That is, I remember a lot of random and seemingly useless pieces of information, and occasionally bring them up in conversation.

That said, I find myself having to look up words and subjects quite often when having a conversation with someone who is consistently smarter than I am. Occasionally I will just ask about the meaning behind a word or phrase, but more often than not I use Google or Wikipedia to remedy my ignorance. Sometimes I will throw into the banter that I just looked up whatever it may be, but more commonly I will just continue with the conversation and enjoy my newly-gained knowledge.

However, I seem to be in the minority. More and more, I notice people choose to elaborate on whatever it is they just looked up, as if they’ve known about it their entire lives. They smugly proclaim, “Zeitgeist? Why, you mean the German expression which means ‘the spirit of the age’? It obviously describes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era!” Now, this guy is either a German expressionist/aficionado, or he is full of shit.

Depending on your personality, you may react to this in different ways. If you are someone who is not quick to judge others, you may think, “Wow, this is an educated guy.” If you are a German linguist, you may think, “Hmm, this guy has a fairly capable grasp of my language.”

If you are a teenager living in the middle of Nebraska writing a blog post about people who look things up on Wikipedia and pretend that this information has been implanted in their brain for a long period of time, however, you may think, “Alright you smug bastard. Looking something up before replying to my IM and pretending you’re an expert on the subject does not make you an intellectual, nor does it impress me. It makes me think you’re an arrogant ass who is too egotistical to admit that there is a piece of information under the sun that you don’t know.” But again, your reaction may differ.

I like to refer to this kind of knowledge as Wikismarts. Wikismarts are tidbits of information you learn because you had to look it up before you could reply to someone’s message. While there is nothing wrong with Wikismarts in theory, they can easily be abused. As outlined above, don’t pretend to be the most knowledgeable person in the world about the subject, just because you have the Wikipedia page opened. It is painfully obvious to the person you are talking to and makes you look like a pompous ass.

I admit to my sins. I have signed up for social networking websites in the past. Most of these are looked upon as a blight upon the web — a vile place where no one should wonder. This is true for a vast majority of them. MySpace, which can only be depicted as a children’s park with hunting blinds set up especially for pedophiles. Bebo, where everybody knows your name… and your age… and your school… and who you’re dating… and every other piece of information you don’t want random strangers to know. Hi5, which sends out so many promotional emails, you would think their mail server was on a continuous loop.

However, the lack of privacy is not the only filth that comes from registering at one of these monstrosities. We now have to deal with a new kind of evil. Referred to by many different names, these sins against humanity are found on every major social network. Whether you call them widgets, applications, or add-ons, something titled, “Are YOU interested?” can never be good.

Beginning with Friendster and then adopted by MySpace, we suffered through these digital faux pas for an entire year with no real hope. In 2004, a new social networking site was launched. It promised to be different; it was designed for a different clientele. A popular spot for the college crowd, Facebook was born. For nearly three years, it was an an enlightening experience when compared to its competitors. The usual level of annoyance was non-existant.

In 2007, Facebook announced the Facebook Platform, which allowed developers to create applications for Facebook. Things started going down hill shortly after.

The concept started out with a good idea: give users more customization over what is displayed in their profiles. Applications have always existed in some form. It began with things similar to “The Wall”, which enables users to leave messages on their friends’ profile pages. At some point, however, a digression was made. The path to customization was left for a new road — one where developers would create anything, no matter how annoying, as long as it was popular.

This, I believe, is the root to our problems. These services are so focused on pleasing some people that they forget that such changes can alienate and outright annoy others. MySpace has always been a breeding ground for preteen users and their annoying habits. In the past, it was a profile design with blinking lights and neon colors. It regressed into polls which featured the most elaborate of questions: “Do you think I’m sexy?”, “Would you ever date me?”, and “Do you like Degrassi?” graced profiles far and wide, with seemingly no intervention.

Facebook is no longer enjoyable for me. At some point the developers need to put their foot down. They need to ask themselves, “Who was our original audience? What would they think of this?” They need to stop trying to compete with MySpace and start trying to retain what used to be a fresh look at social networking. While adapting for a changing userbase is a good idea in theory, forgetting the original userbase entirely is a serious mistake.

This is exactly where Facebook went wrong. They lost their originality; they gave up what made them different from MySpace. They decided that they did not want to be different — they wanted to compete. Worst of all, however, is what is outlined above. Facebook forgot their original cliente, and that is the biggest mistake a company can make.

I am the type of person who is interested in the statistics of my website. I find tracking my referrals and outgoing links can be a fascinating look at human mentality on the web. I have been in search of a superior alternative to the free solutions provided by most web hosts, AWStats and Webalyzer, for quite some time now. While both services provide intricate data, they also present appalling designs with very little intuitive usability. Customization is a no-go for both of them; neither offer plugins and both have very limited settings.

As such, I set out on a quest. My grail? A customizable website statistics system with an appealing design. I began research about five months ago. I consulted with friends, professionals, and the owners of some popular websites. I learned that many were in the same boat as I — they had not yet found a suitable replacement. I read articles on the subject, user-posted messages on forums, and compared reviews. With all my research and new-found knowledge, I still had not been fruitful.

Then, by a stroke of coincidental luck, a friend of mine started using a new statistics manager. Not only was he using it, but he was obsessed with it — to a near comical degree. I knew that Kyle, a user interface designer, would not be so involved with something that had a sloppy design, so I was quite excited. He provided me with screenshots and links to information, both of which I was thoroughly impressed with. However, it looked too good to be true, and even when disproving that by playing with the demo, I put off paying for a license. I recently purchased one, though, and after a week of use, I feel I understand the ins and outs of it.

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It seems as though I have been neglecting this place a little too much. Two weeks without a blog entry is unacceptable, especially when you consider that I set a goal of two posts per week. That said, I have been busy with work and school, so I haven’t just been playing my FPS game of choice (America’s Army). I will attempt to make up for my absence by detailing the events that caused it.

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Whenever Ben and I have a conversation late at night, it’s usually pretty odd. Tonight was a little more off-the-wall than usual.

Read the conversation here: The Plan

No, I’m not switching keyboard formats. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of research concerning typography and its uses when applied to the web. It is an interesting look at how type should be displayed and formatted in terms of web design. Unlike most web-oriented learning adventures I partake in (I am notorious for learning the basics of a coding language and then getting bored with), I am actually intrigued by typography and find myself wishing to learn more of the concepts behind it.
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When I switched web hosts a few months ago, I had my heart set on buying kevinzak.com as my domain name. However, someone was sitting on it. It was registered, but not pointing anywhere. Recently the domain became available again, and tonight I pounced on it. Starting as soon as possible, kevinzak.com will be the primary domain of this site. TechnicallyFoul.com will still be under my control and will forward all traffic to kevinzak.com, so you don’t have to worry about losing me. In the next few days you may have to change your feed URLs to the new domain.

On a side note, the theme I mentioned previously is going well and I have already begun coding it. I’m nearly half done with it, and when I get a few more things done, I may show you a preview.

I usually use Google Reader to manage all my RSS feeds, and check it through my iGoogle page or Reader itself. Lately, though, I’ve been getting lazy and started adding feeds to my bookmarks toolbar. Just today I noticed that they have literally taken over this very toolbar. I thought it would be interesting to show you all which feeds I read each day.

(Click to see full image)

This excludes the ten or fifteen tech deal sites that I read, as I have a separate folder in my Bookmarks menu for those.

Which feeds, if any, do you read?

Recently I have been working on a very minimalistic design for a family friend that requested I make a website for her husband’s business. I started work on one last week and even half-finished I believe it is probably my best work. They recently backed out of the job, saying they’d need a little more time before they would have the information that I would require ready and usable. So I decided to use my design for this site, instead. It is very simple, but I’m fond of what I have done so far, something that has never happened to me before now; I always hate my own work. I think the key was that I designed it initially for someone else. Anything I’ve designed for this blog thus far has been with the blog in mind and I’ve always disliked the final result, and thus decided not to use it.

The theme concentrates on simplicity and typography more than being graphically “enhanced” and fancy. I think that it will be classy and dignified, yet still maintain the atmosphere of this site: a blog that no one reads by a guy who has no desire to be read. I am pretty excited about it so far, but I’m having a bit of designer’s block (if that exists, that is; I initially wrote that as “writer’s block” but thought that this made more sense). The header isn’t coming around as quickly as I would like, but I have a few good ideas for the lower region of the design including the footer.

I will try to keep you updated. As of right now, it is merely a Photoshop design. I want to make sure that I like it before I put effort into coding it. I’m not sure how long it will take to finish, but I will be disappointed if it is not done by the middle of next month at the latest.

The theme I’m currently using, Simpla, is great and I adore it. However, it is not my own creation and thus I feel like a personal blog should have a personal design.

Recently a good friend of mine, Kyle Meyer, created a new website with a unique premise. Kyle is a user interface designer at Clockwork Active Media Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also the author of Astheria, a blog focusing on design, but specifically the usability and typography of design, which (in my opinion) happens to be his forte. This new site would focus on reviewing sites across the web that exceed in just that forte, typography and usability. He spoke of his ideas to create such a site to me previously, but it just recently became a reality.
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