When I returned from Boston, my little white dog was much sicker. It’s the lungs. There’s a constant honking gasp, except when he’s sleeping. The doctors said this would happen, they just didn’t say when. Despite the constant meds and steady love, there comes a time when the animal can’t breathe—and nothing medical can be done, other than the merciful horrible.

So today is the day. I feared it on the afternoon I came home and I knew it for sure last night. Where there is life there is hope, until there is no hope. It’s time for Emile to go gently to foreversleep.

If my daughter wasn’t with me, I’d have taken him in for the procedure yesterday. As it is, to minimize my daughter’s trauma, I’ll have to squeeze it in today, while she is at school. Death on a schedule: between my workout at 9:00 and my first business appointment. Tears at eleven.

At this second, little Emile sits comfortably on his dirty red cushion, cleaning himself after a hearty breakfast of flavorless hypoallergenic food stuffed with pills. His breathing is normal enough to fill me with guilt, hesitation, and denial. Is there still hope?

Filed under: family, glamorous, Grief, Zeldman

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Update! Final audio and video are now available for your listening and viewing pleasure at 5by5.tv.

Liz Danzico (@bobulate), author of Bobulate, and chairperson of the MFA in Interaction Design program at New York’s School of Visual Arts, is today’s guest on The Big Web Show.

Join co-host Dan Benjamin, Liz, and me live at 1:00 PM EDT today as we discuss web and interaction design education, user experience design, how to structure a program and teach a class, acquiring and editing content, and much more. Watch the live program at live.5by5.tv. Your call-in and chatroom questions and comments are welcome.

After the live “taping,” the show will be edited and posted in video and audio podcast form, available from 5by5.tv and the iTunes store. (Audio on iTunes | Video on iTunes)

Liz Danzico is an independent consultant, and user experience consultant for Happy Cog Studios. She is a columnist for Interactions Magazine, former editor of Boxes and Arrows, former director of experience strategy for AIGA, and former IA director at Barnes & Noble. She directed product development at Daylife and Rodale Digital, and before co-founding the MFA in Interaction Design program with Steven Heller, she taught at the New School University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Columbia University.

Join us for a very special interview today on The Big Web Show.

Filed under: Design, Education, IXD, The Big Web Show, The Essentials, Web Design

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The crowd at An Event Apart Boston 2010. Attendees, add yourself to this picture.

Filed under: An Event Apart, Community, conferences

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“Here it is, our next Web Trend Map. No Metro lines, no URLS. This time, it’s the 140 most influential people on twitter, sorted by #name #handle #category #influence #activity. Plus: When they started tweeting and what they first said. …”

Where does the data come from?

“We analyzed the data in our Web Trend Engine (30gigs), got a sneak peek into the top 100 list from the Max Planck Institute PDF Twitter research team (200KB), we talked to Twitter directly, and we asked our audience to make sure that we get international tweeters in there as well.”

iA » Cosmic 140—Final Beta

Filed under: Community, Design, industry, Micropublishing, twitter

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User research doesn’t have to be expensive and time-consuming. With online applications, you can test your designs, wireframes, and prototypes over the phone and your computer with ease and aplomb.

A List Apart: Articles: Quick and Dirty Remote User Testing by NATE BOLT

Filed under: A List Apart, Usability

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Hot dang! Use fluid grids, flexible images, and CSS media queries to create elegant user experiences that fit any browser or device’s viewport. By Ethan Marcotte, co-author of Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition.

A List Apart: Responsive Web Design

Filed under: A List Apart, Accessibility, Authoring, Code, Compatibility, Design

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As promised, a super-hot update to A Feed Apart, the official feed aggregator for An Event Apart, is up and running for your web design conference pleasure. You can now tweet from inside the application, and can even arrange meet-ups and make other social connections there.

Must-read: Designer Ali M. Ali talks about the interface design.

Steve Losh did back-end programming.

Nick Sergeant and Pete Karl created the original A Feed Apart and led the redesign effort.

If you can’t attend the sold-out show, which begins Monday, May 24, you can follow the live Tweetage from the comfort of your cubicle.

Enjoy An Event Apart Boston 2010 on A Feed Apart.

Filed under: A Feed Apart, A List Apart, An Event Apart, Boston, Community, conferences, content, content strategy, creativity, CSS, Design, Designers, Education, eric meyer, events, Happy Cog™, HTML5, interface, launches, Standards, Tools, twitter, User Experience, UX, Web Design, Zeldman

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Morning finds me bound by train for Boston, capital of Massachusetts, land of Puritans, patriots, and host of the original Tea Party. Center of high technology and higher education. Where the John Hancock Tower signs its name in the clouds, and the sky-scraping Prudential Tower adds a whole new meaning to the term, “high finance.” Beantown. Cradle of liberty, Athens of America, the walking city, and five-time host to An Event Apart, which may be America’s leading web design conference. (You see what I did there?)

Over 500 advanced web design professionals will join co-host Eric Meyer and me in Boston’s beautiful Back Bay for two jam-packed days of learning and inspiration with Dan Cederholm, Andy Clarke, Kristina Halvorson, Jeremy Keith, Ethan Marcotte, Jared Spool, Nicole Sullivan, Jeff Veen, Aarron Walter, and Luke Wroblewski.

If you can’t attend the sold-out show, which begins Monday, May 24, you can follow the live Tweetage via the souped-up, socially-enriched, aesthetically tricked out new version of A Feed Apart, whose lights go on this Sunday, May 23. Our thanks to developers Nick Sergeant, Pete Karl II, and their expanded creative team including Steve Losh and Ali M. Ali. We and they will have more to say about the project soon. For now, you can always read our 2009 interview with Nick and Pete or sneak a peek on Dribbble.

There’s also a Flickr photo group and an interstitial playlist, so you can ogle and hum along from your favorite cubicle or armchair.

See you around The Hub or right here on the world wide internets.

Filed under: A Feed Apart, An Event Apart, better-know-a-speaker, Boston, Community, conferences, content, content strategy, creativity, CSS, Design, engagement, eric meyer, events, glamorous, HTML5, Ideas, industry, Information architecture, interface, Standards, State of the Web, The Profession, W3C, Web Design, Web Standards, XHTML

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Now through May 27, when you use Gowalla on your iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, or iPad to discover and share places with your friends, you might win a copy of Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers.

How it works couldn’t be simpler. If you aren’t already a player, download Gowalla. Then, when using Gowalla to check into a location, if you find the HTML5 for Web Designers book item, just add it to your collection. On Thursday, May 27, ten random people who picked up copies of the item will be chosen to receive the actual book.

Happy hunting and good luck!

Filed under: A Book Apart, Collectibles, Free, HTML5, Publications, Publishing

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The final cut of The Big Web Show “Episode 4: Content Strategy,” recorded in front of a live internet audience earlier today, is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Hosted, as always, by Dan Benjamin and me, this episode features Kristina Halvorson, CEO, Brain Traffic and author, Content Strategy for the Web (New Riders, 2010); and Erin Kissane, content strategist, Happy Cog, and author, Incisive.nu. It’s 60 minutes of insights to die for! Brainpower like you’ve never! Don’t miss it.

Filed under: content strategy, Interviews, people, podcasts, State of the Web, The Big Web Show

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