First some housekeeping, as I added some emphasis to the blog this week. First I highlighted the opportunity for you to buy me a cup of coffee if you like what you are reading. I also added the heading “Value for Value” to it, in hopes that will resonate with some people. I also added “disclaimer” text that some links I have to products or services I could earn money from is you click and buy. The US Federal Trade Commission has been all over bloggers on this for years. Oh, and I also removed links to my social media channels that I barely use anymore.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

I Didn’t Call You Old, Honest – I often talk about good and bad Web and digital design. Many of the concepts that go (or should go) into design come from the offline world. Here’s a great video from Don Norman, a design guru who is elderly himself, on designing for the elderly. Spoiler – design for the elderly benefits those much younger too!

Did I mention my kiddo is selling Girl Scouts Cookies?

Does Resume Size Matter? – I saw this post on LinkedIn from someone I don’t know about their 1-page resume and it made me think about my own 1-page resume. Many people have told me it’s too short, and how could someone amazing as me fit on one page. Easily!

Killer Phones – Apparently the magnets in the new Apple iPhone 12 can impact pacemakers. I mentioned this to a few people, and they didn’t know a mobile device has magnets in it. So be careful putting it in your front shirt pocket, or anywhere near your body in general.

Now I Git It – Git is a distributed computer code repository, and one I haven’t used. So I was interested in reading this Git overview by Skyline Technologies on it. My biggest takeaway is in how it differs from traditional code version control.

More to PDFs than You Thought – This week I took an online course offered by Siteimprove Academy on Accessibility for PDFs. It was eye-opening for me as I have worked with accessibility on Web pages and apps, but was unaware what goes into PDFs. I could write a lot on this, but here’s a quick tip for you – start with a tagged Word document, then save or export to PDF rather than printing it to a PDF.

Revue Who? – I got an email this week that Revue was acquired by Twitter as apparently I had an account with them. Who? Well I was able to recover my password and delete my account, and still didn’t get the gist of who they were in the process of doing so.

All Good Things... – For about the last year I have been working at a co-working space in town called World HeadQuarters. I joined back in February just in time to close in March when everything else was shut down. After things started re-opening it relocated from its unique space – a former outdoors goods store – to another unique space – a former mobile showroom. Before Christmas I got word they were closing their location in town (they have another about a half hour away) and this weekend is the final time I will be able to key in. I wish the owner Brenda, her family and team the best of luck and good fortune.

It was an interesting ride; I got to know some good people and even got some work there. One unique aspect they added to the location was this custom-built front desk, pictured above. It’s made from reclaimed wood pallets. The ops manager built it, and I helped him secure some of the pallets that went into it. As cool as it looks, it was also fun watching it being built.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Gee, I watched a lot of video this week. And no, I wasn’t watching these as I drove my kiddos to school for the first time in forever, something I was thrilled to do again.

What else did I do? Maybe it’s in a journal? – This weekly blog post is somewhat of a journal for me, as I takes notes typed into my phone as the proverbial “ding” goes off in my head. However I used to journal at past jobs, carrying a notebook just about everywhere, taking down ideas, minutes and the occasional doodles. Agile coach Anthony Mersino wrote about journaling and this has inspired me to start back to do this. I have a journal a friend gave me that this would work perfect for, and I’ll see how it goes over the next few weeks.

2020 Scrum Guide Event – Back in November was the 25th anniversary of the Scrum Guide what some call the bible of the project management framework. To celebrate this there was a virtual event, and by the time I tried to connect to it the Zoom meeting was full. The recording of the anniversary Scrum Guide event was made available and I finally watched it... all 2 hours and 18 minutes of it. It was long but well worth it for anyone who is a Scrum practitioner and curious to hear about what went into the making of the latest update.

VUCA? – Under the new to me category is the acronym VUCA which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. I learned about this in a video podcast I watched of an interview with a friend from high school Lynn Turner referred to it. In summary, from what I understand, it came from the fall of the USSR and moving away from one common enemy to a time of uncertainty, and using these terms to approach how to handle not only world affairs but what is going on in your business. Or at least that’s how I understand it now, and need to spend more time wrapping my head around it.

Feel-Good Stereotypes – I had added the movie The Feast of the Seven Fishes to my watchlist in hopes of watching it before Christmas. Oops. It’s a story of a multi-generational Italian-American family celebrating Christmas with the Seven Fishes, which are literally seven types of seafood (and can vary). It was a very good movie and I highly recommend it. But as I was watching it, what stood out to me this was not my Italian-American experience growing up. The story has what I’d call “typical Italian-American movie family” of hard-working, loud, wine-drinking, loving people who have some form of organized crime ties. This was not my family at all. First off, my Mom didn’t like eel, so we never did this, but had plenty of shrimp cocktail at Christmas. I could go on, and someday I may elaborate more. Note even though it’s technically a Christmas movie, it’s a good watch even after the Epiphany.

To Boldly Laugh – With all of the videos I saw, the algos at YouTube clearly know I like Star Trek and served up blooper reels like this one I watched interestingly subtitled in Italian. I don’t know why I didn’t look for these sooner.

Watched about listening to The Watch – A new Indiegogo crowdsourcing opened this week for The Watch an audio drama series about Milwaukee, Wisconsin police officers and their lives on and off the beat. Check out the campaign, and from what my friend Randy, who is a writer and voice actor, it will be very entertaining. And I am not just saying that because one of the characters may have a name similar to mine.

Not talking in the Clubhouse yet – I have been hearing about Clubhouse a new social media platform that is audio only. Thanks to my friend John I have an account on there but haven’t had the time to go thru it. I found this Clubhouse overview article I have to still read. Hopefully I have more to report next week.

Did you hear the first? – This article about the origins of podcasting talks about the very first podcast feed, which may not be what you or anyone else heard.

Big Tech Tracking – Somehow I missed that last week Google completed its acquisition of FitBit. The first thing I thought of was if FitBit will give people refunds for their purchase like Nest did when it was acquired by the tech giant.

Small Tech Lookups – A lot of my working days revolves around domain names and their settings, called DNS for, you guessed it, domain name settings. A couple of additional sites I have been relying on are DNSChecker and DNSWatch. I share these here as, well, I haven’t started journaling yet.

General inspiration – Last week I mentioned about the new General Motors logo, which inspired Matt to write this extremely intriguing piece on how decades of design styles went into the new symbol for GM.

Heavy reading on small business data security – As many readers of The Hot Iron have their own business, I share this article from The Hacker News on the importance of application and data security. My hope is you have already considered everything in the article. Right?

Lighter reading – The Small Change Institute is looking for uplifting stories from the pandemic for a study on “joyscrolling” which is scrolling through an online stream of good news as compared to what we all read now. Feel free to fill out the form and help this upstart cause.

Reach out and touch – My friend Stefanos wrote this thoughtful story about the Touch Bar, a feature of MacBooks that have received a lot of negative publicity and in his eloquent way talks about human behavior in general and Aristotle.

Guess who’s coming to your house? – By now pretty much the entire world has seen memes of US Senator Bernie Sanders and his sitting stance at the inauguration of US President Joe Biden this past week. Someone came up with the idea of this simple Web app where you can plug in any address, and the Independent senior senator from Vermont will be sitting in front of it. It’s likely the only true laugh in American politics we’ll have for a while.

It better be – I have been seeing billboards like the one pictured here for a few weeks. I have no idea who is behind it, but it better not be a disappointment.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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A lot of what I am recalling here from my week is technology related. This isn’t a surprise, as that’s what I do most of my days. I guess it’s better than if I worked in politics?

Back To The Future – A friend and loyal reader here forwarded me this article from a few years ago on the founder of the Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee talking about the Web going back to its roots. I remember the article from then, and it was a good reminder of the “good ol’ days” as myself and many others were getting on the Internet for the first time.

Can We qTox? – I have been seeing a lot in recent weeks about online privacy and controlling your own destiny online. One such endeavor is qTox, an online chat and video tool that is built around privacy. People connect with each other using a long, cryptic key. I don’t know a whole lot of people using it, but it’s another alternative tool to keep around. If anyone reading this uses qTox, let me know!

Lower (Case) Expectations – This past week General Motors came out with a new logo. It’s a take on its iconic logo, but the letters are lower case, and only the “M” is underlined. Apparently the change is to reinforce their move to building more electric vehicles. Clearly they didn’t learn from AT&T doing the same thing with lowercase letters years ago. At least the sign makers will benefit from this.

Taxation Without Dealerships – There are no car dealerships in Washington, D.C. This is nothing new, but it came up in a conversation with a friend who is a car dealer. Rumor has it cars are for sale in neighboring states.

Domaining In The Dark – My favorite domain name registrar Name.com came out with a “dark mode” for their well-designed and easy-to-use Web site. They wrote about the change and how they went about developing it, which was an interesting read. I turned on dark mode then turned it off – it’s just not my thing.

TikTighten – The video social media service TikTok announced it was tightening privacy features for younger users. That’s nice, but I still won’t let my kiddos use it.

Learning Tech – If you’re like me, you are going to be learning and working with cloud technology this year. That’s why this article on managing DevOps was a great read for me. But if you’re not like me, you may want to pass on it.

Using Tech – For as long as the Americans With Disabilities Act has been around, it fascinates me how there is still not complete adoption of it, and the ambiguity with regards to how it applies to technology just causes for all kinds of problems. The law firm Seyfarth laid out its predictions on all Accessibility for the coming year. There are also good tips for anyone who has a business or works in tech to consider for the coming year.

Back to School Shopping in January? – As my kiddos will finally be going back into a school building for their education for the first time in 10 months, of course they were asking to go school shopping. This reminded me of a classic commercial from Staples on one parent’s joy for their kids going back to class. Where I am ecstatic they are going back, it has more to do with at-home remote education simply not working.

Speaking of That At-Home Thing – John Stossol’s latest video report is on actions by school districts and teachers union to keep kids at home. Where I completely respect people who want to keep their kids home, I have met teachers who have kids and who want themselves and their kids back in the classroom, and I am with them. And so is the science on the low spread of COVID-19 in schools that are open.

End of a Safe For Kids Era – The other day I saw a missing spot on the saved channels in my car radio, and after checking I found that Radio Disney was no longer listed with other SiriusXM channels. That’s due to the fact that the kid-friendly pop music channel has left satellite radio, and Radio Disney in the process of shutting down altogether. I was sad to hear this as the contemporary pop songs carefully edited for kid consumption was a very good thing, even though I am sure my kiddos know the full versions. It also made for great swim meet warm-up music. I’m hoping someone will fill the gap that Disney covered for years.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Imagine besides the major civics lesson we are having in the United States this week there’s other things going on. Well, perhaps not as important.

Great Reading at a Great Price – On January 1st, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gadsby came out of copyright, which means it can be freely distributed. So another great, Chris Abraham shared the text of the novel on his blog, and I am sharing it with you.

Great Images at a Great Price – I came across Unsplash this week, as I saw an attribution license link to a photo from them. You too can read the license and check out the site for a variety of free and low-cost images.

Some Would Say There’s No Difference – It’s time to play the game that everybody loves, School or Prison! I found this link and didn’t do so well the first time around, much to my dismay.

The Thinking Within Those Walls – Without any additional commentary, I present this survey of students at the University of Wisconsin – Madison on free speech.

Look Away – Have you ever taken the time to read the terms of service for online services, or any software for that matter? One artist decided to print them out for several of the larger one and made an exhibit piece out of them. Reading is of course only one part of this, understanding is another.

Ask Away – This past week I participated in Open Office Hours offered by Headway, an app design and development firm in the area that I have gotten to know and respect. It’s a unique hour session where you can present technical, business and strategy questions and Headway’s CEO Andrew provides his thoughtful insight on them. This giving back to the global community is in addition to their overall contributions to the local tech community.

Business Paradise By The Dashboard – Congrats to my friend Jason Jacobsohn and his Propellant Ventures on their investment in SquareStack a service that integrates the various services a firm uses into a common dashboard. With the growth of the uses of varying third-party services, such a dashboard will be a vital service for firms.

Mi Calendario Su Calendario – I’ve seen a lot of calendar scheduling systems, from doctor’s appointments to professionals making time for clients, and from a user-experience point of view I have found Microsoft Bookings to offer the best from the customer or end-user point of view. It’s part of Microsoft 365 and come with an added cost, but it may be well worth it.

Back to School Giving – What a better combination of starting the new year by going back to school and getting a tax write-off? My daughter’s school teacher, whom she will finally meet in person in a couple of weeks, has a wish list where looking for some books and supplies to compliment her classroom and thank you on advance.

Too Soon? – While setting up an online account this week, I was prompted to enter security questions to verify the account. Where most options are usually the same on every site, one stood out, “where were you when you first heard about 9/11?” That stopped me in my tracks. First, 9/11 is a topic that almost 2 decades later is still sensitive for many people. For many people, you don’t have to guess too hard to find that answer, such as in my past post on remembering 9/11. In any case, take my advice and lie with your answers.

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." – E. M. Forster

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Meet the new year, same as the old year? I guess time will tell.

Finally! – Thanks to my friend Craig for reminding me that Adobe Flash is now no longer supported and the software giant urges you to uninstall it from your computer. Flash was/is a technology for displaying content on the Web. It was revolutionary when it first came out and was far from perfect, including the high ability for it to be hacked. But that doesn’t mean it still isn’t out there on Web sites – including corporate Intranets. If what I said is all a blur to you, don’t worry, but if you can’t load a restaurant menu online someday then now you may know why.

Resolution Breakdown – Where paper calendars to change have mostly gone away, making resolutions at the beginning of the new year is still common for many people. Not for me, but if for you, this post by Dan Rockwell on rethinking how you structure resolutions is very insightful. I have been a fan of Rockwell and his blog Leadership Freak for years, and while you’re there check his other to-the-point and insightful writings.

Destiny – I saw a reference online to someone being called an umareli. Who knew my people had a term for what I will eventually be, if I am not partially there already.

Celtics Lost – I was sad to hear that Boston Celtics legendary player, coach and executive KC Green died this week. In reading this I also learned that another similar legend, Tommy Heinsohn, died earlier last year. One thing I will always remember about Green was when, despite his greatness, he was fired by the team when Rick Pitino was hired as coach in the late 90’s. When asked to comment on his firing, he quoted none other than Kermit the Frog saying, “it's not easy being green.” This tweet from another Celtics legend Bill Russell, shows him and Green the last time they got together.

More Of Not If But When – Synthetic identity theft is a thing- . So be diligent out there my friends.

RumChata is made in Wisconsin – Who knew? Clearly I didn’t, did you?

RumContrast – If you check out the RumChata site linked above and scroll down to the bottom, you’ll notice there’s a switch to view the site in “high contrast mode.” I’ve never seen this on a site before – I have seen similar switches to see sites in “dark mode” but this is one I will think about the next time I am working on a redesign.

Symphony of Good Design – Speaking of design, my friend Stefanos wrote a post the other day on LinkedIn comparing good design with music and had my mind not been on vacation I would have engaged with him more on it. Shortly after reading I was subjected to a new and poor user experience, the checkout for the US Postal Service’s Click-N-Ship service.

Another Agile Anniversary – In February there’ll be a live webinar for the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Agile Manifesto. What is that? First you can read the Agile Manifesto here. The signing happened at a gathering of the leaders of agile software development frameworks where they agreed to base principles on what is agile, paving the way for both more people using agile to create software and for many more to resist it.

Alone Together – I just listened to Randy Streu’s podcast mini-series Alone Together which is 4 short monologues recorded back in the late summer. As he only told me about them a few weeks ago I don’t feel bad that I missed it. Of course nobody wants to rehash 2020, but if you like well-written and spoken entertainment, it’s a good use of less than a half hour.

Exclusive Showing – Last week my family and I went to the movies, and where we have gone once or twice since last spring, this was the first time we paid “full price” for tickets, as most other showings were only $1 or some ridiculously low price. Perhaps it was all going on, or it was because we saw Croods 2, but we were the only ones in the theatre. As soon as we got home I got an email from Marcus Theatres, where we saw the film, promoting that you can rent a theatre for a private showing... which was like we just did?

I feel bad for Marcus Corp. – they are a Wisconsin-based company that runs quality movie theatres and manages hotels, and are benefactors to the communities they served. Throughout the pandemic their business has been devastated. They are one of the good ones I hope thrives again soon.

Happy Birthday TJ!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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