If you have a project that needs some loves and attention, now is a good time to get ahold of me. One thing continues to haunt me: the use of “Web” in the company name. I’m developing an ever increasing sense that the Web, as we know it today, is as good as dead. With the proliferation of smart phones with their array of specialized apps that run natively on mobile devices, I can easily imagine a world where the Web browser fades into the background.

But hey, we’re not there yet… We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. Meanwhile, it’s time to wake the craft from it’s long slumber…

With the responsibilities of an employed life, the gears for projects turn very very slowly. An injection of funds, allowing us to subcontract more components, would speed things up. This makes me eager to see the case with my previous client come to a close. The collection of that debt would go a long way in bringing the new project to life.

Meanwhile, I can not speak to the fate of “Webcraft” itself. While the project is related, I may decide to shut down Webcaft, perhaps folding the blog posts into my personal blog. Then again, perhaps the project will invigorate Webcraft and spark things back to life.

Meanwhile, life goes on.

When the buyout occured, I’d just submitted my second invoice. I was still awaiting payment on the first invoice. Ultimately, Southpeak has refused to pay on any of the invoices. I have since learned that they’ve been treating many of the smaller contractors the same way. With more than $9,000 in subcontractor fees piled up during the project, no payment from Southpeak, and all of my savings gone, I was left in financial despair.

In the middle of January, I took on a gig that put me into an office m-f working for a salary. It’s a good gig working for a stable company on a significant project. Unfortunately, it puts me back into active Web development (mostly back end) and far far away from social media (my current area of interest). It also destroys the mobile lifestyle I was working so hard to build for myself.

On the upside, I will soon be in a financial place to pay my legal council to pursue payment from Southpeak. I must admit, the amazing and blatantly unethical business practices of Southpeak really shook my world. For weeks I found myself feeling physically ill over the way I’d been treated. I felt that, if this is how business is done, I want no part of it. I have since heard other business individuals who have worked with Southpeak call them “criminals”.

What bothers me the most is knowing that, ultimately, the effort me and my team made sold product. I helped sell the product; and that success will put money in the pocket of the company that… well… ripped me off.

Still, I find myself working on small bits of Webcraft on the side. A little here, a bit there… So while the Webraft effort, on the whole, is on ice for a while – I suspect it’s not over. I have multiple projects with a bit of potential in the pipes. I also keep blogging. I still can’t seem to stop dreaming. Hopefully, I’ll also keep doing. I look forward to writing a post, some day, talking about how Webcraft is taking off again.

Sure, if we manage to save some money in the US by operating on open source software, that’s great. The thing is, if we spend more money by switching to open source software, it’s still the right thing to do for many other reasons. I hope that McNealy did not make his entire argument entirely based on economics. More to the point, I hope Obama is actually interested in understanding what the open source initiative is really about.

Our existing industry based on closed technology is hurting us. It keeps us from innovating as quickly as we could be. We should be sharing ideas with each other instead of creating laws that explicitly hold back the proliferation of an idea. I remember Lessig talking about the origin of copyright law in the US and how it was originally meant to be a very short term monopoly on an idea with the strict intent of spawning innovation.

With a short window, you have to move on an idea quickly if you’re going to benefit. But in our world today, there are family members separated from inventors by generations who are still collecting on patents and copyrights they had absolutely no involvement in. This is wrong. This does not encourage a prosperous America.

Our world is changing and our country is changing. The way we think is changing. Look as this map of tweets. Watch it all the way through and you see the rhythm of a single idea flowing through the minds spread over the entire world. A social and human component is becoming tied closely to the strength of technology and it’s bringing us all together. It’s happening so fast that it’s hard to know what’s next.

Call me crazy… because I am. But I think that where we’re going, we won’t need commercial software any more.

I’m very excited about your new Palm Pre. No, I did not buy your first generation Palm Pilot. I did, however, buy one of those first generation Handspring devices. Yes, the Handspring, made by those guys that left Palm to start a new company. A company you later bought, because they were doing it right. I cut my teeth on a Handspring. At the time, it was a life saver.

Fast forward to now. The Pre promises to do exactly what I want it to do. It will bring all of my contacts and calendars together into a central device. It has a solid Web browser. It has a great interface without excluding the value of a keyboard with tactile feedback. It even makes phone calls.

Other devices make similar promises, but the Pre and WebOS appeal to me for a few other reasons. First, WebOS is based on Linux and there’s strong developer support planned. My understanding, thus far, is that this will be a fairly open device. This is good. Second, WebOS itself looks to be a really slick implementation. The clever use of screen space and intuitive interface smells a lot like that innovative flavor I tasted with my old Handspring.

The other day, I finally realized that the Pre solves a lot of the problems I seek to solve with a netbook. And that’s when it struck me, why not put WebOS on a more netbookish piece of hardware? Increase the screen size, improve the keyboard, and poof – a really awesome netbook.

In one comparison of the iPhone and the Pre, I read a really profound point. Apple squished OSX to fit onto a phone. Meanwhile, Palm built WebOS custom for the phone. My thoughts, why not beef WebOS up a touch for a netbook?

Palm, please rock the netbook world with a custom piece of slick hardware running WebOS. Keep the multi-touch display. Let the lid flip over like a tablet PC. Give it a usable keyboard. Give us a nice splash of ports and card readers. Toss in some other surprises. Have fun. You know you want to!

Evan’s comparison of an open microblogging standard with current email standards were directly in tune with how I feel. My biggest concern is that the standard won’t see adoption by key players such as Twitter itself. The only true value that Twitter has over the competition – well, aside from being “the verb” for microblogging – is the existing user base. You see, if you want to communicate with me via microblogging, you currently have to use a service I use. Since I use Twitter, you would have to use twitter. Folks choose Twitter because their friends are already on Twitter (or Plurk or Brightkite or …). By allowing their users to talk openly with other services, they will risk losing the strongest advantage they have.

The only path to success that I can imagine would require the open format (OMB) to gain significant traction outside of existing services. OMB would need so much traction that existing services would simply be forced to adopt the standard in hopes of retaining their users. This entire paradigm is not entirely unlike the OpenID struggle; and while OpenID is gaining adoption – it’s happening rather slowly.

Still, I believe that, in the long run, we’re going to eventually have to move most of our communication technology in the direction of open standards. Otherwise, I expect innovation to dry up until the technology is as useless as VHS… (For those that were around for the invention of VHS, lets go with 8-Track tapes!) How these new young companies with these hot microblogging platforms decide to interact with the open community will be far more telling of their ethical awareness rather than their business savvy. Here’s hoping for something wonderful.

I’ve been spending the “down” time doing all the things I failed to get to while I was busy working. I’ve dramatically updated this site including the addition of a Services page. For the first time since I started this gig, folks can actually visit my website and see what I do. Hooray!

I’ve also completed a rough draft and first round of edits on a case study for this summer’s Digital Theatrics campaign. I shared the draft with a few people; however I want to do a few more rounds of edits before I release it publicly here on this blog. I’ll post it soon enough.

I’m investing energy in a couple of Webcraft side projects. The oldest was founded before Webcraft: Dallas Snowboarders. I am in the process of re-branding the site and porting it to a different software platform. I also launched a new blog called Go Light Weight. I’ve slowly been posting and evolving the site. I’ve also used it as a platform to experiment with technology and explore promotional techniques. I’m kind of nutty over lightweight and multi-purpose stuff.

I still have a rather lengthy to-do list that should keep me engaged until the next project roles down the pipe. However, given my (re: Webcraft’s) current financial situation, I am also open to full-time employment. In the event that a good job opportunity should arise before a significant Webcraft project roles in, Webcraft may be put on auto-pilot for a while.

And, of course, I’ve been snowboarding as much as possible. The attached photo was one such day this season. I often times dream of having a company office near the slopes and having the entire team break for powder. Meanwhile, the word on the street says we’re getting another dump of snow tonight.

I took this as an opportunity to update the logo. Previously, the “logo” in the header didn’t come close to matching what I was using everywhere else. However, thanks to a very kind (and talented) graphic designer, I now have a handy svg of the logo I posted today. Hooray!

The motivation for all this change was to get to a state where I can flesh out the site and communicate what Webcraft is about. While hunting for new contract gigs, I realized the existing site did nothing to serve this purpose, unless potential clients were to read the entire blog – and of course no one would.

That brings up the question of, what IS Webcraft about? I haven’t updated the “about” page in a long while. Right now, I have 3 primary services in mind and 3 primary hallmarks.

In a recent post, I attempted to list some services I would like to focus on. In retrospect, that list is a bit too specific for the moment. The 3 major service areas I’m thinking about now are a bit more general: Social Media and Community, Web Development, and Open Source Solutions.

Social media is rather trendy and is my current topic of exploration. I’m really hoping to land projects in social media and community so I can continue to explore. Web development is old hat for me, it’s where my confidence is. If anything is going to pay the bills right now, I expect it to be development work. Finally, the open source notion is a timid subject for me. For the past few years, I’ve been working almost exclusively on open source tools. I would like to teach other businesses about open source tools. I am slightly concerned that many businesses will not be ready for open source or that they may have needs that open source can’t currently meet.

As I mentioned, I also have 3 primary hallmarks. The first is intellectual sustainability through the use of open source products, transparent and honest PR, and an avoidance of patents. The second is environmental sustainability. I previously posted about my quest to find a green host, and ended up choosing Host Gator over greener options because of their overall offerings. I’m happy to announce that my hosting provider is now green. The third hallmark is a dedication to supporting the Digital Nomad lifestyle. After all, I love having a mobile office.

So in the next few days, the site should see some significant content changes. For now, I need to get some sleep. There’s some snow up in the mountains that I have to carve up with my snowboard tomorrow. It’s a tough job, but it must be done.

I’ve noticed more and more social media companies advertising their services. There are books coming out on social media marketing. By the time anything hits print, it’s definitely mainstream.

So, Digital Theatrics is a form of social media marketing. It would be a sibling to an ARG but a very distant cousin to Astroturfing.

I think it’s safe to say that Webcraft will be a social media company. Well, it will be if I can sustain it. As I mentioned in a recent status report, Webcraft had no money. The client I contracted the Digital Theatrics project with has yet to pay their invoices. There is a story to this which I fully intend to share. I am hoping that if I wait a bit longer, there will be a happy ending.

I also still need to produce the case study from the project itself and publish it. I don’t expect to have this online until some time in January. Meanwhile, I hope you can appreciate the photo of my old dog, Coder, attached to this post. Random, but cute, no?

This position is WEB DESIGN ONLY (i.e. no development needed, just design). We will expect mockups, revisions and other layout work provided in Photoshop only. The final slicing, adding of functionality, and creation of the website will be handled by our in-house developers.

I do not like this design methodology. From my experience, the results are usually inefficient designs where best CSS practices are rarely used. The most efficient and effective work I’ve seen usually comes from Web designers who fully understand how HTML renders and only use graphic manipulation software to build the pieces they need while they are designing the actual page in HTML.

The process of building in a graphic application and then churning out HTML was very popular in the 90′s. Still, even then, it made more sense to first consider your content, then structure your document, and finally dress the page appropriately. With the introduction of modern CSS techniques, the “Photoshop first” methodologies are wearing even thinner. This is particularly evident when working with rapid development frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails). These tools are designed with a build first – dress later process in mind.

Alright, my rant is complete.