There are new start ups showing up all over the place, and if you are an early adopter you can easily find yourself with an excess of accounts that you may or may not actually be using. While some of the Web 2.0 generation provide you an option for closing down an account, I am baffled by those that do not. Websites are ready and willing to collect your information for a user base, but they make you jump through hoops to let you go.

Today is the 3rd Annual CSS Naked Day! I love the idea of showing off how the page is structured under the hood without all the prettiness of CSS.

Source: CSS Naked Day

Sometimes life can just get pretty complicated. Today, Lifehack.org talks about writing a user manual for your every day life to help keep yourself organized and efficient. I agree with the sentiment that once written, you’ll probably never need to refer to it, but it sounds like a nice safety net to have.

Source: Lifehack.org: I Need a User Manual for My Life

Yet another movement has popped up to promote users upgrading to get the most out of their browser experience. Unlike some of the others that are around, this one I can actually get behind. They are not advocating one browser over another, just that users merely upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to one of the most recent generation of browsers.

SaveTheDevelopers.org strives to be different is that we want to offer an unobtrusive option for developers to inform their visitors that there are more secure, stable browsers available as opposed to slapping them on the wrist and hiding content if they happen to visit a site using Internet Explorer 6.

Source: SaveTheDevelopers.org

I’ve written previously about my distaste for group assignments. While that was written early in my career at RIT the experiences have not improved over the years. Now, as a graduating senior, I have so few positive group experiences that I can count them on one hand. But, there is still hope! I have come up with some tips to help build a better group. While these are all drawn from my educational experiences, I am quite confident that the same principles can be taken in to the workplace, or other venues and still be applicable.

1. Know Your Abilities
   Obviously, knowing what you are capable of will make a great deal of a difference when getting the most out of a group experience. This helps you ensure that you take on the right tasks to be able to positively contribute to the group.
2. Know Your Peers’ Abilities
   Next step once you know what you can handle is to figure out what those around you can handle. Preferably this would be done before the groups are formed that way you can take abilities in to account to construct your group. However, in large environments, like RIT, there are just too many peers to have a strong handle on what each can bring to the group.
3. Diversify
   While there is a convenience factor to working with friends, or even just acquaintances, the group dynamic is much better when you have diverse members and diverse backgrounds. Too often groups fall in to the habit of having members that are too similar to one another.
4. Accountability
   It may be hard, especially if you don’t know your group members, but delegating and then holding group members accountable for their responsibilities is the only way to be successful. Having everything be done as collective rarely, if ever, works out fair to all members.