Today is the final day in Colorado and a number of other states (AZ, AR, CO, DC, FL, GA, HI, IN, KT, LA, MI, MS, MO, MT, OH) to complete voter registration.

Here at Imulus we think if you believe strongly in something you should voice your thoughts. Voting is one of the best ways to put your ideas into action. We encourage everyone to register, educate themselves on the issues, and then participate come this November 4th.

If you’re not in one of the states listed above you can find a full list of voting deadlines at Rock the Vote’s website.

Updated 10/16/08
For all the Colorado visitors to our blog. Here is a link to the Colorado Blue Book which describes the various voting amendments and the views both pro and con for them.

Months ago I posted an article explaining my opinion on Apple as a company that I passionately love and resepct, but also one that at times hurts its base by making overbearing decisions that punish users and developers.

However, as I’ve said before, to Apple’s credit they do listen when there’s an uproar. And point in case is the decision by Apple to drop the iPhone developer NDA. Now, here at Imulus we haven’t done first hand iPhone application development. But as technology advocates, developers of online software, and supporters of Apple products, we like seeing Apple make the right decision. There is no question that removing the NDA will make applications instantly better. In a nutshell it will allow developers to: exchange code samples, publish tutorials and techniques, as well as publicly talk about bugs and problems. Now instead of forcing developers to reinvent the wheel with basic iPhone functionality they can work on implementing standards for complex functions.

Apple also made the decision to restrict iPhone app reviews to actual purchasers of the app. Up to this point tons of people have been critiquing applications without ever using them. Leading to reviews that sounded like: “the app looks okay but it’s too expensive so I’m giving it a low score.” This is ridiculous. And Apple has made the right decision in allowing only users of the app to actually critique it. Another win for developers and users.

So cheers Apple, thanks for your support in making the platform better, even if it did take longer than it should have. The outcome will be worth it. Now, if only you’d give away the iPod touch 2.0 software for free to previous owners.

We use a few of GoDaddy’s services, and every-time I login to GoDaddy to make an update I feel as though I’m entering a carnival…. playing circus music.

Today I logged in and immediately noticed something different… more black… more people… more flashing content…. huh? Yeah, they redesigned it.

Stunner! Did their internal IT team design this one?

I never thought I would say this, but the original site was better then the redesign. The homepage layout is atrocious and makes me work far too hard. I see boxes flashing and changing, type screaming at me and a 10+ different services to choose from.

Let’s play a game. How many typefaces / treatments can you find? I count 17.

How much pricing information can be fit into 430 x 360 pixels?

The site reads like a bad combination of used car dealer, pawn shop and thrift store.

Nothing like consolidating navigation options

OK… perhaps I’m being too harsh, but I don’t think so. Let’s just say GoDaddy’s target market are those people who have never purchased a domain in the past. These users are likely less technically savvy and somewhat unfamiliar with the more technical side of the Web. Therefore wouldn’t it make sense to simplify the layout…. to offer less options… to streamline the process?

On another note, what does NASCAR Racing and GoDaddy have in common? Other then the car they sponsor I’m really unsure as to why they have selected to market themselves using race car drivers.

Danica... when was the last time you registered a domain name?

I just don’t get it. I’d love to hear GoDaddy speak about the rationale behind this redesign and how their changes have made GoDaddy more useful to the average user.

Google just recently posted an article talking about their opinion on dynamic vs. static URLs. In short, Google is saying that dynamically created URLs from a content management system, i.e. URLs that contain information talking to a database such as:

/media_review.php?user_id=25&article_id=315

should be left as is instead of rewriting them to look cleaner (static):

/media-review/bruce/dnc-ratm-concert/

Here’s a direct quote from their blog post on the topic:

Does that mean I should avoid rewriting dynamic URLs at all?
That’s our recommendation, unless your rewrites are limited to removing unnecessary parameters, or you are very diligent in removing all parameters that could cause problems. If you transform your dynamic URL to make it look static you should be aware that we might not be able to interpret the information correctly in all cases… …if you’re using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good.

The problem is that Google seems to be making a recommendation on what is best for their search engine crawling and not what is best for the user or web usability in general. There is no debate, URL rewriting makes websites easier to use. It makes people understand what they will be looking at when they visit a link, and in general provides clearer information than dynamic URLs. For instance, here on our blog you can see all of my posts by going to http://blog.imulus.com/bruce the url is clear and easy to understand. If you want to see all my posts for a certain category you can do this http://blog.imulus.com/bruce/css. This functionality makes logical sense. Websites with extremely complicated URL calls can utilize rewriting to help their viewers better understand where they are on the site. And in regard to marketing materials — the time I see a company willing to use a url with ?id=237 at the end for a marketing or advertising campaign will be my first.

The fact is this, URL rewriting is an extremely useful tool (ironically Google’s blog post about dynamic rewrites uses rewriting for the URL). And while certain rewrite schemes may hide data that Google would like to parse, that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t use rewriting. The idea that a usable standard should be changed just to make Google’s web crawling better is ludicrous. Google throughout their history of search has continuously accommodated for changing website methods. By stating that URL rewrites are improper Google is taking a strike at one of the best standards to come out of Web 2.0. They’re suggesting a machine’s readability is more important than a human’s. And guess what: they’re dead wrong.