It’s interesting to watch how media attention turns something small into a perceived “legit” entity. I got a good bit of correspondence referring to “you guys” or “your company” — big press denotes a big entity, I guess. With one reporter, no matter how many times I said, “It’s not a company; it’s just me. There’s not a business model; it’s an art project” she’d shoot back something like “What is your position at the company?” Other people assumed it was built by Grooveshark as a marketing tool. Funny how hard it is to convince people that there’s not a catch.

Yesterday I launched a site with CUESA, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, also known as the people who run the spectacular Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. I’ve been working with CUESA for about a year and a half, getting their existing and growing content on a backend system so that they can easily manage it. We chose Drupal as the CMS, and used a custom module to run the administration area. Now the people at CUESA are easily able to add new weekly articles, promote events, catalog the types of fruit and vegetables sold at the market, and track the farmers and purveyors who participate in the market.

I find it kind of a challenge to watch myself on video, but for the sake of posterity, I’m pleased to announce that video of my CSS3 talk the SF HTML5 Meetup group is now online here. The slides are there too.

Also new is the hot-off-the-presses Google Maps courseware for GMaps version 3. The course, of course, is in English.

I had some requests to post the code, but that’s going to take me a little longer to organize. In the meantime, on the slideshow, I added in links to some of the examples I showed.

If you’re interested in going more in depth with CSS3, check out the class at Marakana in August.

(As you can see, I don’t update my website that often, so it’s good to have some motivation.)

[edit: Looks like some of the slides rendered strangely. I will try to debug that tomorrow.]
[edit: Done! The slides look normal now, and you can download it too.]

Today, though, bad grammar has been getting to me. I’d like to offer a few tips on the difference between “I” and “me”.

“I” is a subject as in “I hit you” and “me” is an object, as in “You hit me“. The rules still apply when there are multiple subjects or multiple objects, as in “Jane and I hit you” or “You hit Jane and me“. If you’re not sure which to use, try the sentence out with just one subject or just one object. For example, since this sounds right: “If you have questions, come find me“, you know that this version is right too: “If you have questions, come find Jane or Jimbo or me“. You wouldn’t say “I” there would you? No.

Okay, we can stop hitting each other now.

The Maps course is a great jumpstart to using Google Maps in your web projects. It’s designed for people who know a little javascript already, but mapping knowledge is optional. We start with the basics and then get into Geocoding, Street View, event-handling, and a little KML. It’s a lab format, where in addition to hearing me talk, you’ll get to try out code and make stuff as we go.

I am excited about all the potential that Drupal has, through modules and themes, many of which are already built and out there to be used. Module development is pretty steep learning curve, though. I picked up some useful tips about Drupal at the NTEN conference this year, and lucky for me, DrupalCon is going to be in San Francisco this year. It’s highly likely I’ll be converted.

When I talk to clients about running their sites in WP, one thing I emphasize is that you can fit WordPress around any existing design. That doesn’t mean it’s right for every project, but a lot of the initial resistance revolves around “but I don’t want just a blog”.

Anyhow, check out the exhaustive coverage over there of the end of the Iraq war plus the low-down on the repeal of the Patriot Act. Also, bike lanes to criss-cross Manhattan! Alas.