Dopp Juice Archive

The Fix-Me-Up You see them on MySpace, Livejournal, and other blog spaces with a young-ish crowd: long, text-heavy “About Me” surveys without any formatting. The writers spend hours answering detailed questions about themselves, from their shoe sizes to their most recent sexual encounters, and then they post them for their friends to read. The trouble is, their friends squint at these surveys, try to scan for the interesting parts, and eventually click away because it’s just a big blob of text. This is a sample of one I just grabbed off the web (the full version is 135 questions):

1. Is your bellybutton an innie or outie?: Innie2. What is your heritage?: English3. What does your hair look like right now?: like hair4. Could you ever be a vegetarian?: probably not5. When was your last heartbreak?: never?6. Describe your looks: long hair…7. If you had to completely dye your hair, what color would it be? a reddish, copper, bronze color8. Would you ever date someone younger than you? no

Wouldn’t you rather read this?

1. Is your bellybutton an innie or outie?: Innie
2. What is your heritage? English
3. What does your hair look like right now? like hair
4. Could you ever be a vegetarian? probably not
5. When was your last heartbreak? never?
6. Describe your looks: long hair…
7. If you had to completely dye your hair, what color would it be? a reddish, copper, bronze color
8. Would you ever date someone younger than you? no

Or this?

1. Is your bellybutton an innie or outie?:
       Innie
2. What is your heritage?
       English
3. What does your hair look like right now?
       like hair
4. Could you ever be a vegetarian?
       probably not
5. When was your last heartbreak?
       never?
6. Describe your looks:
       long hair…
7. If you had to completely dye your hair, what color would it be?
       a reddish, copper, bronze color
8. Would you ever date someone younger than you?
       no

…or any other variation on formatting that separates question from answer and guides your eye down the page? The trouble is, the writers aren’t quite so invested in these surveys that they want to spend another few hours figuring out how to make them look good with html tags. So they write. And only their most devoted friend bothers to read. And the web is cluttered with ugliness. Let’s fix this, shall we? Surveys aren’t going to go away, so let’s make them prettier and readable. The FixI have a solution to propose, and I’m throwing it out there for anyone who’d like to take it on (my plate is full and this need can’t wait). Here it is: Read the rest of this entry »

Well, wasn’t that lovely. In the middle of the most stressful week of finals, some computer geek who likes to use his powers for evil decided to hack into my website via a security weakness in this b2evolution blog software, and use my server to send spam. My hosting providers–who are some of the best at their job that I know if–immediately recognized the situation and suspended my account to stop the hacking. The result? My site’s been down all week, and I haven’t had a moment to upgrade the blog software until today. Sorry for the inconvenience, and no, you’re not supposed to be “403 Forbidden” from viewing these pages. To all the hackers out there, I send you bad vibes, angry mojo, and tri-fold retribution via karma.

Don’t tell Sprint, but when I bought my Treo, the sales clerk was very cool. He made a point to inform me that it costs extra to download ringtones and games from the Sprint site, and then wrote the URL to mbuzzy.com on my receipt. I had never heard of it. Have you?Personally, I’m satisfied with the rings that came with the phone, and I deliberately steer clear of the games (I’d never get any work done. Really.), so the site’s not very useful to me. But I did finally check it out, and it does live up to his word. It’s a freeware/shareware site for cellphone users in a land where cellphone companies try to charge for every bell and whistle. They require that you sign up for an account before downloading, but most everything there is free. Of course, you need to have a way to get these items onto your cellphone, and if you don’t have a USB cable or internet access included in your system, freedom only goes so far. But really, it’s the thought that counts.Enjoy!p.s. (I recommend the “Sexy You Have Mail” ringer. Just to impress your friends.)