Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey

20070930_miscellany

The last day of September brings more interesting reading material than there is time. Pick and choose wisely and enjoy your Sunday!

» The Tsar’s Opponent: Garry Kasparov takes aim at the power of Vladimir Putin. One of the most fascinating pieces I've read in months. The New Yorker's David Remnick has written a terrific profile of the former world chess champion and Putin's Russia. Kasparov retired from competitive chess to lead a campaign for democracy in Russia and is one of the most interesting people in public life. If you haven't seen the chess documentary (surely one of the dullest 2-word combinations in history) Game Over, about Kasparov's match against IBM's Deep Blue, I highly recommend it. Kasparov also just published a new book, How Life Imitates Chess.

Update: Kasparov has officially entered the presidential race to replace Putin.

» NYT review of Wes Anderson's new film, The Darjeeling Limited. Anderson is one of my favorite directors. There is also a 13-minute prequel available on iTunes, Hotel Chevalier.

» In Love With Pop, Uneasy With the World. Interesting profile of Bruce Springsteen and his new album, Magic.

» Overview of Fred Thompson's career in the Senate. It appears that he is yet one more Republican presidential candidate who is campaigning as someone very different from who he was before he decided to run. Mitt Romney is a committed social conservative, Rudy Giuliani loves country music and guns (not opera and gun laws), and John McCain favors large tax cuts and is on good terms with the evangelical right.

» 37signals is sharing answers to some excellent questions. Check out How do you keep up with new technology? and Pressure to grow?

» SmugMug is one of the best photo hosting sites around. If you're part of a non-profit, your organization qualifies for a free pro account to share your story in photos. What a great (and generous) idea.

» Pixelmator, a brand-new Photoshop alternative for the Mac, is now officially available. Just $59, absolutely gorgeous, and built on top of some rock solid open source tools.

The Office premier

A new season of The Office started last night. It's easily my favorite show on television (I try not to count Meet the Press) and one of the only ones we never miss. This episode was a little uneven, but the whole hour was worth it for this:

Ryan: Did this happen on company property?

Michael: It was on company property, with company property. So, double jeopardy, we're fine.

Ryan: I don't think...I don't think you understand how jeopardy works.

Michael: Oh, I'm sorry. What is, 'we're fine'?

All the best quotes are available here or you can just watch the entire episode online.

The new season of Austin City Limits

One of my favorite music shows on television has announced the schedule for the new season which starts in October. Austin City Limits always produces great content, but this year's list is truly outstanding, including Wilco, Norah Jones, Van Morrison, Regina Spektor, Lucinda Williams, John Mayer and many more. Plus, it's now available in HD!

Check out the full schedule

Change versus more of the same

Since I launched Leave It Behind over three years ago, I have been guided by a simple phrase - change versus more of the same. It's never been more true than today.

After seven years serving one of the most amazing churches in the country, I will be starting a whole new adventure in October.

It's been an incredible time professionally, personally, and spiritually. I've worked with outstanding people on an endless list of challenging projects and learned everything I know about technology and the web. I'm so thankful for the chance to have been part of such a creative and dynamic place dedicated to the relentless pursuit of people far from God. My passion for Fellowship Church is the same today as it was when I attended my first service in 1999.

The idea of working for a web company has always intrigued me, though, and God has opened the door to a phenomenal opportunity. 

What's the next step? More on that soon!

Birthday season

September is always a crazy time at our house. The start of school is a big event and this year was the biggest of them all - Ben's first year in Middle School! The year is off to an incredible start so far. He loves the variety of classes and greater freedom and responsibility. The school is just a couple of years old, has great teachers, and is within walking distance of our house, so we know just how good we have it!

Just when we're starting to adjust to the new schedule, birthday season arrives - first Ben's, then mine. Ben's party this year was our favorite yet. He had a sleepover with his four best friends and they spent the night having a blast playing Wii games together. He's very selective about his friends, so it was a terrific group of kids. That was followed by a small family celebration on Sunday, where I finally gave him my favorite Threadless shirt.

And today is my birthday! Thanks to everyone who has sent birthday wishes via email and Facebook. It's been a great day, but that's just the beginning. We tend to spread our birthdays out as long as possible, so there are a lot of things just around the corner, starting with The Office premier on Thursday.

All of this leads us into what may be my favorite month - October. The weather finally cools off, things slow down a bit, the baseball playoffs start, and we start looking forward to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I love fall!

This September has been an especially eventual one, though. Look for more on that soon!

The Times They Are (no longer) A-Charging

In case you missed the news last week, the New York Times has ended its Times Select paid service, meaning that the entire paper is now available online for free! Previously, the editorial page and op-ed columnists were only available through a monthly fee. The company decided that they could generate more traffic (i.e. ad revenue) by unlocking their content and allowing bloggers to drive people to the site.

The best news is that some of the most provocative writers around are now just a click away, including Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, and the endlessly interesting and clever Maureen Dowd. There is speculation that the Wall Street Journal, soon to be part of Rupert Murdock's empire, may eventually take a similar step. If people can't link to your content, and Google can't find it, you definitely risk being left out of the online conversation.

Interview with Read/WriteWeb

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of sitting down for a podcast interview with Sean Ammirati from Read/WriteWeb. If you're not familiar with Read/WriteWeb, they are an incredibly talented group of writers covering web technology through both breaking news and in-depth articles. It is one of my favorite sites and a definitive source for what is happening on the web with over 108K readers.

The site recently spent a week focusing on how non-profits can most effectively use the web and technology. My conversation with Sean for Read/WriteTalk fit into that theme, as we covered the use of blogs by churches, pastors and other non-profits. Sean is a very interesting guy - I hope to talk with him more in the future.

Listen to the Podcast | Read the Transcript | Read the Post

20070909_miscellany

» Webmaster Jam Session web design conference arrives in Dallas in two weeks. If you work on the web and are in the Dallas area, don't miss it. You can't beat the price ($200 for two days) and it features a great lineup of presentations. Just 32 seats remain.

» The ineed2change.com series kicked off last night at Fellowship Church. It was an amazing experience. Over 3,000 people have shared what they need to change in their life online. Here's a Dallas Morning News article on the series and the random acts of kindness that have helped spread the word. If you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex or Miami, stop by and see what it's all about.

» An in-depth New York Times Magazine profile on Rudy Giuliani's campaign. The press continues to try to understand how a socially liberal candidate who has been divorced twice could still be leading the Republican presidential race.

» Smashing Magazine is celebrating its 1-year anniversary. It's a very good source for design ideas, tutorials and tools, though some of the articles are almost ridiculously long. Where else can you find posts with 1929 comments?

» This is going to be a fun afternoon - the men's final at the U.S. Open and a terrific football game at Soldier Field in Chicago. No, not the Bears...the U.S. vs Brazil!

» My son Ben had been developing his mad design skills. Check out his redesign of the character selection screen in the new version of Super Smash Bros.

Original Version »

Ben's Version »

I think by next summer he'll be ready to be an intern!

Developing Facebook Apps

Today's Wall Street Journal has a terrific article on the growing rush to build applications for Facebook: Why So Many Want to Create Facebook Applications. It's available online for free. The piece covers a few of the companies and venture capitalists that are behind what it describes as "another online gold rush".

Some interesting thingss mentioned in the article:

70,000 people have signed up for the developer tools

2,000 applications regularly attract at least 100 users

Facebook's monthly visitor total doubled in six months, reaching 30 million in July

One core reason behind its success and attraction to developers and companies? Facebook users aren't anonymous, unlike most social networking sites, particularly MySpace.

If you're curious to learn more, visit Facebook's developer site.

Make it fun

Another fine example from FeedBurner on how to make someone smile while they're using your site. The message is still clear, it doesn't distract from the point or slow you down, but it helps make an rather uninteresting experience (creating blog and podcast feeds) a pleasant and even enjoyable one.