010730: Mon

Saw two movies back to back last week: Tomb Raider and Bridget Jones's Diary. It's good to just totally chill out sometimes. I liked both movies. These days, if I go and see a movie, it's to be entertained in a light-hearted, feel-good way.

Inc.com have put together a series of articles on 'Running a One-person business' for anyone who has ever considered it. Includes a diary by Harriet Rubin - a series of articles on her experiences of being a soloist.

The editors of ZDnet Australia pick their Top 15 best e-commerce sites in Australia and tell you why they work. The top 3 were Adultshop.com.au, Ebay.com.au and Wishlist.com.au.

If you're interested in making it easy for your customers to buy things online then the Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) Report on E-commerce User Experience: Design Guidelines for Search may be a good investment. The report contains "29 design guidelines, based on usability testing of 20 big e-commerce sites with 64 users. Costs U.S.$49. " NNG is Jakob Nielsen's company - the web usability guru. I haven't bought the report yet but going by the other articles on his site - useit.com, it may be worthwhile.

010728: Sat

Consult the Oracle at Mystic Medusa to answer your questions or read your horoscope. Another horoscope site is Jonathan Cainer's.

Make your own movie at the Absolut site. Choose the sequence of the video clips from an old Japanese monster movie, add music, titles and type in the script for the characters. Then voila you can play back your creation and even send it onto your friends. A marketing idea to try and draw the young and funky crowd.

010727: Fri

Watched Dark Angel - the series last night. A new series produced by James Cameron. It's sci-fi action. Pretty good free TV. Will be watching it next week. Jessica Alba is pretty impressive as Max - a leather clad futuristic action heroine who has some cool acrobatic moves supported by some neat special effects. I went to the site and found myself reading the episode guides.

Also caught bits of World Championship swimming, and Aftershock in between.

010726: Thu

There's an online Web Development Essentials course during July 30 - September 14, 2001. It's a collaborative partnership between ARL/OLMS and Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Library Affairs.

Came across Onlinelogo.com . They design 3 logos for US$300. You can just fill out a form and then 3 days later, you get your designs. It's a business idea you can start if you have Photoshop or Illustrator skills or similar.

If you're an Australian company, you can register on the Australia on Display section of the Austrade.gov.au website which is a database of products and services targetted at overseas buyers. Interesting for local use also.

Chaos Generation
In the process of revamping the design of the site, getting the site database driven and developing a zine. Keeping me busy developing all these projects. Feeling very inspired to work on all this - though sometimes I feel too tired to work on it after a day of full-on work in my day job.

Image gallery on the CG site
The images you see on the right were taken on a trip to NY back in April. Have been meaning to scan the photos and put these up for a while now, so here they finally are. Will start an image gallery section soon and have these thumbnails link to the full image. The first two are of the Guggenheim Museum, the third is of the colourful digital video billboards in Time Square, the fourth is a photo of the Starbucks coffee shop in Columbus Circle - Starbucks are literally on every street corner - much more often see than even Mackers. The taxis show the chaotic traffic in NY - everyone's beeping their horns - even if someone is just trying to park their car - eveyone's impatiently wanting to turn into their desired street and just to keep moving. The fifth image is of a pottery stall market at the Bleeker St markets. I was told they used to have a retail shop but then closed that down and now they only sell their wares at the stall and online at jpottery.com. Saw some cool wares. The last image is of bears. I love bears. There were literally rows of these in F.A.O. Schwartz - the biggest toy shop in the world. They're just so cute.

Swimming
It was great to watch the Thorpedo glide through the water breaking all these swimming world records. He makes it look literally effortless too, so graceful - like watching water ballet or something.

It was very painful watching the Australian women's 4x200m freestyle relay team - first jubilant over winning the race and then only moments later find themselves disqualified for jumping into the pool before the race had finished. Sometimes S*** Happens. Life goes on and you learn from past experiences.

010724: 20:31 Tue

Ally McBeal - last episode
Ally McBeal is a great TV show. It signifies a new genre - the combination of the singing and dancing shows and movies of the early 80s such as Fame, Flashdance, Footloose and Solid Gold with comedy. The actors can break into song and dance at any moment. What a talented cast. I love the show. There's no bullets or blood shed nor are there any 'real-life' stories that show the darker aspects of modern society whether it's a violation of basic human rights or environmental destruction.

We all just feel for Ally and want her to believe in her dream of the ideal man for her and we all hope that she will meet him one day.

It's a pity that Robert Downey Jnr is no longer with the show. His exit storyline was kind of weak. His character - Larry Paul was such a legend. He was Ally's match and more. Downey played the role to perfection. His character mannerisms were almost self-mocking in a fun, light-hearted way. We want him to stay. We need him to stay.

Oh well - no more Ally McBeal till next season. Withdrawal is setting in. We want Larry Paul back!!

June 2001
About CG | Editor: Kirsten Lowe | PO Box 559, Broadway 2007, Sydney, Australia
Ph: 0410 310 238 | Fax: +61 2 9555 1752 | Email: kirsten@chaosgeneration.com