So
An interesting article at the Guardian on The Death of Handwriting. I have definitely seen a trend in this direction at work, especially now that wireless access is available throughout the entire campus. People bring their laptops to meetings presumably to take notes, but more often to check email, IM and do other things rather than focus on the meeting. I am a bit of an oddball in that I show up with my (paper) notebook and pen to take notes and jot down diagrams. I find good old paper and ink to be much more expressive and versatile in this situation.
I have noticed that with all of the time I have spent on the computer over the years that my penmanship has deteriorated and I am making a concerted effort to do more writing (versus typing). When I was in college I was proud of how well I wrote and even had several profs comment on the legibility and layout of written work.
I guess it is in the same vein as my using an analog watch; I find myself drawn to good ole paper and ink to capture my thoughts during the day. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
I find the OED a great resource to have around. We have the Compact OED version of it that has 9 pages reduced onto a single page (versus the pricy 20 volume edition). To read the entries you need to use this sort of half crystal ball magnifier that is provided along with the Compact OED. It's a little funky, but thats part of the fun.
If you are curious as to what went into producing the OED, I highly recommend The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.
So Current style in web design describes what is 'hot' in web page design. According to the post, great sites share a common set of attributes:
* Simple layout * 3D effects, used sparingly * Soft, neutral background colours * Strong colour, used sparingly * Cute icons, used sparingly * Plenty of whitespace * Nice big text
I tend to agree with most of these attributes, but find some of the sites that use somewhat jarring color combinations and not enough contrast between background and font color annoying. For me, simple and clean is always better — which is a far cry from web design 10 years ago when it was all about 'spinning logo, flaming logo' eye candy.