In Senate Elections, It’s Better To Be Unknown

Public Policy Polling has an interesting “2010 Senate Candidates” analysis up. My favorite line is this one: Obscurity may be a plus. 4 of the 9 candidates with positive numbers are still unknown to 40% or more of the voters in their states. For the most part this year the better known a candidate has become the less well liked they’ve been. Basically, I think it works like this: Bush screwed our country so badly that everyone is tired of politics. After the super hopeful...

Google Voice, Now For Everyone

One of the most exciting Google Apps we’ve helped campaigns adopt in the last year has been Google Voice. Google Voice is both Voicemail, and something entirely different.  gVoice is A dedicated customizable phone number (one campaign we worked with was “2-4-6-VOTE”) A number that can be called from within the internet browser, straight from your homepage. The number can ring multiple phones — the office phone, then a cell…. Callers can get different messages...

WordPress Three – Better for regular users.

We wrote about our favorite technical upgrade of WordPress 3.0 last week.  But what about our favorite update for the end user? For Design Different’s clients, the favorite new feature will almost certainly be the streamlined user interface back-end.  Basically, the entire way the menu’s work has been dramatically improved. For nearly 4 years now D2 has been providing a 3rd party plugin (actually two different plugins) to fix the problem of the complicated & clumsy WordPress...

WordPress 3.0 – Whoa. The Best CMS Possible?

WordPress 3.0 is finally here, according to the official WP Blog. We’ve already updated this site, and others we manage, and the official D2 opinion is awesome. Our favorite technical spec change has got to be the merger of WordPress Mu (“multi-user”) and regular WordPress.  This means BuddyPress will run on a regular WordPress install. D2 is officially predicting the world of specialized social networks to finally take off sometime in late 2011, and be ubiquitous by...

North Carolina Primary Results – Marshall Wins, and my Analysis

Marshall wins, as predicted, but not by too much.  The big story is that Ken Lewis almost made it into the run off.  I admit that if he had, he might have earned my vote.  For a lot of reasons, I predict that Elaine will handily win the run-off, but I’m still not certain about the general election.   There’s absolutely no reason she shouldn’t win the general election, Richard Burr is a sitting duck.  But she should have walked away with this primary, and instead she...

Don’t Count Joomla! Out, or Microsoft.

Just when Joomla! was running out of steam, in steps Microsoft. Granted, Microsoft isn’t exactly a powerhouse (perception wise) these days.  But they’re sitting on an aweful lot of cash and development money, and Windows 7 if changing things. We’ll...

Facebook: The Feds Jump in on Privacy

Facebook Privacy issues have always been a problem.  But then Facebook’s solutions to limit privacy have also often been more of a problem than solution. The real real problem is that giant corporations are scary, and this new digital age is even scarier, and no one knows how to do it right. Well, the Feds are going to weigh in.  I can’t say I think that’s a good thing– the average age of a Senator right now is like 97 or something.  It was a Senator (one who is...

Obama [hearts] Drupal, and we (sometimes) [heart] him

This is fantastic. Last fall, the Obama administration said it was rebuilding WhiteHouse.gov on the Drupal platform. Shortly thereafter, White House technology directors met with Drupal developers to show off new features for the site and to discuss how they can work with developers to enhance Drupal as well. Basically, the Whitehouse improved the Drupal source-code, and then re-released that improved code back into the public domain to improve Drupal itself. There is a really great...

Google vs Facebook

I’ve long though that Facebook would be the winner in the social graph, and that the social graph would be the ultimate winner in how we use the internet.  I was briefly worried when Facebook introduced Apps– it was ahead of it’s time but it cluttered the Facebook experience in a way that turned a lot of people off.  Now facebook Apps are almost entirely relegated to obscure back boxes– as it should be. But the question is, will Facebook or Google ever be able to outdo...

WordPress Dot Com Goes Down — Design Different WP Blogs are OK

Did your website or blog go offline yesterday? If it did, you’re not alone.  About 10 million blogs hosted by WordPress.com were down yesterday.  That’s ten million AKA 10,000,000 ! But not a single WordPress blog hosted by Design Different was down. That’s because there’s a difference between hosting your own version of WordPress, which comes from the WordPress project, AKA WordPress.ORG, and allowing your WordPress to be hosted online for free by WordPress.COM....