Just a note for myself, as I always forget how bloody easy it is to upgrade Kirby CMS: replace the folder “kirby” and delete the folder “media”, as it will be recreated.

My favourite CMS – Kirby – got a new website. I like how it turned out and think Basti and the Kirby team did a good job in summarising and visualising how flexible the CMS is.

Next to the teaser/header image, showing the Kirby panel, you can click on different use cases or “user groups” (eg. “Your company”, “Your products”, “Your magazine” etc.). If you click on a different scenario, the header with the panel image for the different scenario changes, but also the file structure below the image adapts and the text file screenshot. I like this.

I also like the visualisation of the continuous story/journey you are on, done though a thin grey line leading from the use case navigation down to the footer with the target groups.

All in all I think that this is well done and fitting for Kirby. The overall appearance feels light and still has its own handwriting (or Basti’s? 🤔 … 😁). The new site leaves enough neutrality to find your own role amongst the mentioned roles – or even create a new one – but takes you by the hand, so that you are able to find your way and be guided.

Congrats to the whole Kirby team for the relaunch and now on to fix all the little bugs 😆

For the next week – until April 23rd – you can safe 20% on Kirby licenses … buy a full basket of licenses to safe $$$ for future projects 😊 )

April 10th, 2021, Zach Leatherman asked:

Share a memorable in-person conference experience!

(I’ll go first)

At @jqcon (~2010) I remember @kswedberg checked me in, gave me my name badge, recognized my name (!), and told me that I was doing some cool things on the web and I still think about it 😊

My reply:

”Simply too many wonderful, funny, exciting, inspiring, interesting, motivating, positive, lovely, heart-warming, funny, memorable, open, intense, enjoyable, important, eye-opening, surprising, mind-changing … experiences that I will never forget and forever be thankful for. ❤️”

I miss all this too much …

A little sunshine and time with your beloved ones is what I wish for you. Take care!

I really do like Tuna, as stated in an earlier post, in which I tested Tuna for my beyond tellerrand Website. I also bought Pulpo and used it at my events – on printed materials as well as on screen at the main stage.

Now Felix Braden released a new contemporary sans serif family he called Arpona Sans, which is – like he says – inspired by the work of Edward Johnston and Eric Gill for London Underground.

Arpona Sans is a versatile font, usable for branding, in editorial design, as well as for web and app design. If you take a look on the microsite for Arpona Sans, you can see a few examples for Arpona Sans in use and can have a look how it even plays quite well in running text. Next to this you’ll find much more background about the creation process, which is lovely to read.

Right now you can grab your own copy of the family at MyFonts for 60% off (until April 18th). If you are using Adobe’s Creative Cloud, you can use it included in your Creative Cloud license.

Links:

• Arpona Sans microsite
• Arpona Sans on MyFonts with 60% off until April 18th, 2021

In a longer interview with the Spin Magazine, Ian MacKaye of the band Fugazi was asked why they only charge five bucks for their concerts. Part of what he said was …

For five bucks we could suck. Because we are human and we do suck sometimes.

I like that.

A few months ago James Victore was speaking about when you could feel old. Answer is here btw..

Today I watched a video that targets a similar topic. Vic Lee speaks about how people are too afraid of starting something new as they think with 45 or even 55 you are too old. But are you really? You’ll never find out until you try.

Have a look and share the motivating message.

This morning my youngest daughter came to me and asked ”Daddy, do you have anything that uses braille to be readable for blind people” and I though I have. Turned out, I did not find anything. I showed her the our money, where coins and bank notes have a few helpful things to help visually impaired to differentiate the money. But then?

I thought, well, if I think of instruction manuals or cook books … nope.

I though, food packaging maybe … nope.

Oh yes, medical packaging.

But that was it, really. Made me sad somehow, but I guess that proofs what her teacher wanted: to show how less help actually exists and that this has to change.

Yes, I know. Many people are already speaking badly about Clubhouse, but first: I am curious. Then, I also like to try things out myself before I judge.

So I signed up and use @marcthiele to be found there.

I have listened to quite a good amount of good ”rooms” aka conversations already, but also a lot of boring and poorly hosted chats, which really feel like some people criticised: me listening to a group call of someone.

But again: I give it some time and see, if I like it or not. I also know it is nothing completely new as there are a lot of podcasts who record live with audience. Just putting in an app and trying to grow a community around it is new – at least to me. My first thought have been it might be nice to combine something like this with live recording a podcast or discussions afterwards etc etc. But yes, it is sad, that they start “app-first”, iPhone only and invite only – and not build a nice open community.

In April 2020 a project was launched on Kickstarter to back a Super Fast SSD Drive. Back then the price was tempting as I needed a new one and it was quite a bit cheaper than what you usually pay. I backed the project with $349 and was waiting for updates. They updated us with messages about copyright issues first etc. and sent the last update in September, after taking our money and asking for shipping details.

Long story short: no updates or notifications since September then. They just sent enough updates to keep the backers feeling safe until most credit card institutes won’t be able (concerning their terms) to claim back the money easily.

Well … all this is one thing and there are arseholes like these who rip off people. Turned out, they did the same on Indigogo.

I now have a lawyer involved, trying to help me. But what disappointed me most is how lame Kickstarter reacted and how less they do to help people with this and after all, that there are no options available to protect their customers – this is what their users are, isn’t it? – when things like this happen. Especially as I heard their are many projects like this.

Last notice I got from Kickstarter was this:

---

Hi Marc,

Kickstarter takes the privacy of our users very seriously, so we don't provide a creator's information directly to backers.

Kickstarter's Terms of Use outline the responsibilities of backers and creators. This information can serve as a basis for legal recourse if a creator doesn't fulfill their promises.

We hope that backers will consider that option only in cases where they believe that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill. If you haven’t yet, you can message a project creator directly. To do this, go to the project page and click on the "Contact me" link under the creator's name in the bio section.

If you believe legal action is appropriate here, please talk to an attorney about how to proceed.

---

I, again, thought that this is really lousy, that there is no better protection. Like escrow accounts for example. But I also wrote back, that I have a lawyer involved and that they should please tell me how to proceed from now on. I have written them twice. No reaction since December 23rd.

Is this really how you treat your users? I don’t think so and I will never ever back anything on Kickstarter. If it is so easy to set up fake projects and make nearly $500,000 with that, I don’t feel that this is a safe place to back anything.

Really disappointed by how Kickstarter treats cases like this.