Back from Chicago
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Once again I am back from my travels but looking forward to not doing much of anything for the next week or 2. I’ve been running around so much that I haven’t had time to keep everything up. My room looks like crap and my site has been falling apart.
For the past little bit I’ve been trying to get this gallery script to work so I can start showing you all the many pictures I’ve been taking. Soon enough you’ll see the beauty I see. If I can’t get this script to work soon then I’ll just whip up a small PHP app or something of the sort :-)
What did I do in Chicago?
Well, I’m glad you asked! We left around 9am Saturday morning and first stopped at Cracker Barrel for a good breakfast. Once we actually got into Chicago we decided to look for a cheap hotel to stay in. Sunday morning we were planning on going to church at Willow Creek, and after finding out it was alittle less than an hour from the heart of Chicago we found a hotel half way.
The Crown Plaza hotel is probably alittle more than I was planning on spending but was well worth the money. After getting a room and bringing our bags up we went back to Chicago for some shopping.
Shopping was pretty fun but the real excitment came when we showed up at Barnes & Nobles. I had $90.00 in gift certificates to B&N and I was looking to get some books. Newriders.com put together a serious of web development books and alot of my favorite web developers are writting some really good stuff.
Today I bought Steve Krug’s book - Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. A book that focuses on Navigation and helping people float around your site instead of having to hunt for what they really want.
After B&N we ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and went back to the Hotel for a swim and sleep’in.
The next morning we went to Willow Creek Church and then grabbed some Pizza at Ginos. I think that’s the place??? We were planning on going to some Museums but time wasn’t on our side and we ended up coming home.
So the trip was fun and I got to relax alot - something I really needed.
Derek buys so many books it should be illegal. Says:
I am a huge fan/consumer of New Riders books, but I read an interesting criticism of their products when I was checking product reviews on amazon; basically it said that the only thing their books were good for was building what is in their tutorials (I guess the reviewer was referring to their “magic” series for apps like dreamweaver and flash etc), and that they didn’t really offer more than industry catch-phrase fluff in their non-tutorial-type books.
At first I wanted to be all offended, because I really like every book I’ve ever bought on that imprint. As being more on the “design” end than the “programming” end, I am able to get what I need sometimes from only a layout. But, I guess the reviewer has a point - “Fresh Ideas in Web Design” is a very pretty book, and I like how it breaks down the new design theories, but it really doesn’t pay more than minor lip service to programming and application techniques that I’d actually like to learn. Is it asking too much for a book to do both, or is New Riders really doing a disservice to me, the book impulse-shopper?