Jenn Lukas — Front-End Developer

Night Blogging

“They’re the best thing to happen to partying since the mirror ball.”

Agreed. Partying is synonymous with blogging. At night.

Party Rats Thank you, Cowboy Tom.

Posted on January 25, 2010 at 02:49 PM in Common Radness • The Nerd • (4) Comments

Should Crisis Change Your Website?

Last week tragedy hit Haiti. Calls to help were rampant over the internet – from donations that could be made through texting, to profits of products being donated directly to organizations responding to the earthquake. Unfortunately, reminders of the opposite of this good intent were also seen on the front pages of news sites, warning me to be careful of fraudulent organizations as well as allegations of tax issues surrounding a certain musician-led charity.

With so much doubt getting in the way of trying to help, it makes your choices a bit more difficult. I knew my preference was to donate to a smaller organization – in hopes that the money I donated would reach the cause sooner – and I knew I didn’t want to get scammed. I decided to rely on some recommendations from my sister (who has the smarts in the Public Health world), a charity review guide, and the one thing I felt comfortable in judging: my reaction to the organizations website and how that organization’s website reacted to the situation. (Screenshots and observations are from Jan 13, 2010)

I started by visiting Charity Navigator, a charity evaluator to read reviews on the organizations I was looking into. I was leaning toward Partners In Health, as they already had a strong presence in Haiti, but wanted to see what else was out there. Charity Navigator had a list of featured charities, so I decided to visit some of them.

“Hmm. I don’t know about this” #1

Every 2 pages or so, Charity Navigator prompted me with a lightbox framed message asking me to donate to their site.

1. Is it strange that a charity evaluation website is asking for donations in this manner and this frequency?
2. If you were running this website, would you “turn off” these requests when a major disaster strikes? When any disaster strikes?
3. Would you prompt users to donate to a charity related to the cause?

I found the lightbox approach to be invasive, especially since it happened so often while I was trying to reach my goal of seeking out an external charity. Speaking of weird lightbox timing:

Read More…

Posted on January 18, 2010 at 10:27 PM in The Nerd • (1) Comments

A Singular Cat Thrill

“We don’t really have audio for this, do we? That’s too bad. Cause You’d be hearing this cat making sounds of unbridled pleasure.”

I must’ve missed this when it was in its YouTube prime. In case any of you did as well, live life deprvied of the Katsak no more!!
Thanks for the heads up, Pete.

Posted on January 18, 2010 at 09:47 PM in Common Radness • (1) Comments

I ain’t wasting no more time

It seems all the blogs I’ve read lately fall into one of two sides: “make everyone laugh” or “make everyone angry”. Both of which seem like fun, so I’m jumping in.

I promise to try to make it more than vague top 5 lists that mean little more to you then it does to the cats.

Posted on January 11, 2010 at 09:25 PM in Maintenance • (4) Comments

Twenty Ten/Twenty Oh Nine

Twenty Ten

1. Tea Drinking
2. Eagles Parties with Tater Tot Pizzas and Football Shaped Ice Cream Cake
3. Tags
4. Move blog from August up from sub directory to main directory
5. Update blog more often than markhuot.com

Twenty Oh Nine

1. The World Series
2. The Jaguars
3. The Winter
4. Miami
5. 140 Characters

Posted on January 2, 2010 at 08:52 PM in [+/-] • (1) Comments