Every week, I do a little something here on Beyond the Rhetoric called What’s Up Wednesdays. It’s a speedlink where I share blog posts that I found around the web and the topics tend to be quite varied. This is my little way of giving back to the Internet at large and the hope is that we can work together to build a stronger online community. And with that, let’s get this week’s speedlink under way.
We start out with fellow freelancer Thursday Bram. She outlines a number of titles of people who work without a boss. “Freelancer” is one of the more common ones these days, but do you know about permalancers, consultants, virtuals, solopreneurs and startup owners? Semantics can be such a tricky business.
Always one to make things a little less tricky is Ray Ebersole. He recently wrote on ease of use in technology, particularly when it comes to synchronizing bookmarks across multiple computers. Firefox Sync is one big headache, whereas Google Chrome is so much easier. As is the case with many other things in life, it really is best to keep it simple, stupid.
Bob Buskirk and his wily gang of ThinkComputer-ers recently returned from their Vegas trip for the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. (Win my swag!) With a few changes here and there, Bob says that this trip has been more relaxing and easier than previous years. Staying in a two bedroom condo instead of a standard hotel room probably helped.
While he wasn’t there for CES, Tyler Ingram happened to be in the Vegas area too recently. He took a side trip to the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam while out that way, snapping plenty of photos along the way. He spotted some wildlife, stopped by the birthplace of Route 66, and soaked in the majestic beauty of the grandest of canyons. Sounds $150 well spent!
And wrapping up this week’s collection is John Biehler. He went out to Boundary Bay in Delta to see the visiting snowy owls. Considering that it has snowed recently in the Vancouver area, the photos are even a little more appropriate. He certainly wasn’t the only photographer there, but the winged tourists didn’t seem to mind having their pictures taken.
Having written programs, had to help users with programs I know that the people writing the programs don’t always think of the end user and their needs. Keeping it simple, and easy to understand makes for more people using your product.
KISS, while meaning “Keep it Simple Stupid” to most people also means to me: “Keep it Simple and Straightforward” Most of the smartest people make it too hard. In fact one of the smartest men of all time, Albert Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
That’s a great line from Einstein. It’s true. If you can’t “dumb it down” to someone with little to no background knowledge, your understanding isn’t strong enough yet.