I don't remember where I originally found this, but I find it very amusing. Your mileage may vary!

The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. The questions are NOT that difficult.

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator? Wrong Answer.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend.... except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

I realize this is only slightly better than fifth grade humor, but we can all use the opportunity to get in touch with our inner child.

Every month as I pay bills online I am plagued by a number of very small but crucial details that cause me to stumble. This article isn't about calling out the designers and developers who built the online billpay tools I use. I understand the process these developers go through and the circumstances under which they labor. I have nothing but admiration for them. I am interested, rather, in educating you, the business stakeholder.

Usability testing is not a dirty word. Providing adequate time and resources to do build elegant and usable web applications is not the place to trim costs if customer satisfaction, error reduction and customer retention are your goals. And most of all, you are not a designer or usability expert. Please hire the right people, give them the resources to do their job and stay out of their way.

Of course, if one of these issues is the result of a design decision -- please pick up a copy of Luke Wroblewski's book, "Web Form Design:Filling in the Blanks" and "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability" by Steve Krug.

Before I jump into the nits, a quick overview of paying bills the 2008 way. Or at least my way. My process begins with a spreadsheet in Google Docs. I used to use Excel, but Google Docs does everything I need and let's me use whichever computer I happen to be in front of at the moment. It also means crucial data is automatically saved "in the cloud" instead of on a machine that may fail or get stolen. And yes, I do backup the Google Docs file to my machine. I'm not that trusting. My Google Docs spreadsheet contains a list of all of my recurring bills with the amount I've paid each months. Pretty basic. The value of this system is that I don't miss any bills — they're all in the list; plus I can see what I've been paying over the last year which helps me catch any bills that change dramatically.

My next step is to open a folder of tabs in Firefox. I have one folder of tabs on my bookmark bar devoted to bills and I can open these all at once by choosing "Open all in tabs" at the bottom of the menu. With all of my tabs open and my spreadsheet ready and start by visiting my online bank site to mark off those bills that are auto paid — crucial bills like the car payment and mortgage. Generally I avoid auto pay; I like to have a little more control than that.

On to nit #1. Logging in. Websites the world over allow you to save your username and password via cookie, or at the very least don't actively block the password manager built into most browsers. Regions Bank does. I believe this is a misguided attempt at "increasing security." Personally, I'd like to have a little more control. At least the option of using my browsers built-in password manager — like every other site I know. Also, while we're talking about logging in. Try testing your site's functionality in a mobile environment like an iPhone. Region's login fields have default text in them which in a desktop browser is automatically removed via Javascript when you click in the field. Not so on the iPhone. There I have to click in the field. Navigate my cursor to the end of the field and then backspace to delete the phrase "Enter Login ID". Not cool.

Nit #2. Not having online billpay. I'm looking at you CitiFinancial. How can you be part of the world's largest financial institution and not offer a way to pay bills online. Now you know why I no longer have an account with you.

Nit #3. Antiquated bill pay system. This problem seems particularly endemic to public utilities. AmerenUE and Laclede Gas use MyCheckFree, which is an adequate system most of the time. Metro Sewer has an out-dated system that is difficult to navigate and makes it virtually impossible to tell if you've paid your bill or not. Heaven forbid if you pay your bill in person or by mail one month. The system has no idea. Missouri American Water is the worst offender in this category, however. Their system is only a step better then paying by mail. There is no history and the system has no knowledge of your past or current bills. You must have your bill in front of you to enter your acount number and to enter the amount you owe. You must also have your checkbook in front of you to enter a check number, bank id and account number. At least they have a system!

Nit #4. This is really two nits in one. Links should do what they say. If the link at the bottom of your page says "Make a payment," it should not take me to a page that offers me the opportunity to sign-up for a card. The very card I'm tyring to pay. Furthermore, once I click on the link, please don't open a popup window. I don't care that you use a third-party company to process the payments. Your branding is all over the new page. I am not mystified and I am certainly not going to close this window and then decide my experience was so wonderful paying my bill that I will buy a few more things. If I do, I'm perfectly capable of getting back to your website. And while we're on the topic, opening yet another window after declining to make a "Rush Payment" is just egregious. Figure out a way to handle rush payments with the same system.

Nit #5. Unnecssary, non-standard information inputs. SallieMae hits the trifecta if you need to pay on a student loan. First, notice the checkbox at the beginning of the line. SallieMae helpfully allows you to choose which of your loans you're going to pay. Unfortunately, if you only have one, you still have to check this vestigal, un-identified box. Second, notice the payment amount conveniently divided into dollars and cents. Guaranteed to cause an error since every other site allows you to input the entire amount in one field. Couldn't we also have a button to automatically choose the "Pay this amount" amount? Third. Notice the date selector. Fortunately for me, I always check the "Pay Today" button. Of course, if you don't check either which is not that difficult to do, you'll be experiencing a lovely assortment of error messages. Thanks for paying.

Had I written this article a few months ago as I had intended, I might have had a lot more to say. Over the last few months I have noticed an improvement in the payment systems for a number of companies. AT&T most notably. I have also noticed a significant increase in annoying "security" measures like the constant barrage of little Site ID pictures and personal questions like my first girlfriend or the name of my favorite band. Some of these questions are useless (anyone can find out where I was born or what my mother's maiden name is). Other's are impossible. I'm a designer, my favorite color changes with the seasons!

All in all, for me, this system is a whole lot better then the old fashioned way. I an almost hear the voice of the computer in Wargames, "Want to pay a bill?"

Everything depends on something else. I'm convinced that life would be perfect if I could knock over the right dominoe. Everything else would fall into place. In the meantime, I've decided to just start pushing over the dominoes one by one until it starts to click. My team at Paradowski is clicking. The calls keep coming and we're looking for some additional help. Ping me if you know someone (or are someone.) This blog is officially happening. Of course, I'm building this thing in the open so mind the dust.

If you're curious, it's powered by my favorite things. ExpressionEngine, Macbook Air and a few of these.

Stay tuned. More coming. Soon. Ish.

As a serious amateur photographer and resident technology geek, this is a question I get asked frequently. My brother-in-law recently posed this question so I thought I'd share my thoughts as I expressed them to him. Of course all of this information will be dated in a few months or so and I have not personally tested all of these camera's, so please don't take this as gospel. You should always exercise caution and do your own research when making any major purchase including a camera, and if possible you should try it you buy it. That said, here is I what I sent to my brother-in-law.

The camera market is constantly changing and what you get depends much on what your particular needs are. When I'm camera shopping I usually check out reviews at a couple of sites including cnet.com, dpreview.com and http://www.steves-digicams.com. I've done some looking at what's current and based on your budget of $200-300 I have four suggestions for you with some explanations on why it might or might not be appropriate. I've included links to the details page on dpreview.com for each camera. There are links to online stores selling these cameras there including there price. There is often quite a bit of variance in pricing between different stores. Check out the store before you buy and make sure they look reputable. Also, be sure to check Amazon.com and NewEgg.com before you buy as they are often very competitive in pricing. Buying at a local store is almost certain to raise the price by 25%, but you do have the advantage of someplace you can go if there is a problem. I've bought quite a bit of camera equipment online and never had a problem. (Knock on wood!) Also, don't forget that you'll need at least one memory card and that batteries are not cheap. If you don't have them already, plan on buying 4-8 AA rechargeables and a charger, otherwise the batteries will eat you out of house and home. Plan on getting at least a 512mb memory card. All of these cameras are at least 5 megapixel. If you can swing it get a 1 or 2 gb card (or if it's cheaper, a couple of 512mb cards.)

Ok, now the cameras. Flat out my recommendation is the Canon S2 IS. (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_s2is.asp) One of my pet peeves about point and shoot cameras are the wimpy zoom lenses. Most point and shoot camera's come with a 3x optical zoom which is better than nothing, but only barely. By the way, digital zoom is worthless. Ignore all digital zoom features and don't use them. They are the equivalent of taking your photo into MS Paint or Photoshop and cropping them then enlarging them. Completely useless. A 3x zoom is the equivalent of a 105 mm lens which is fine for a lot of things, but you'll get annoyed as soon as you take the camera to a little league game or the ice rink or anything where you can't be right up close to the action. The Canon S2 IS has a 12x optical zoom. More than enough to get the job done in virtually any situation. Plus the IS stands for Image Stabilization. The problem with long zoom lenses is that they magnify camera shake. The IS helps combat that problem. The downside to this camera is the size and the price. It's a little large for just sticking in your purse or pocket. It's not as big as my camera, probably half the size, but it's not a pocket camera. The other problem is the price, this one will be right at the upper limit of your budget without adding rechargeable batteries or memory cards.

If you find this camera interesting, you might also check out the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7. (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Panasonic/panasonic_dmcfz7.asp) I've been hearing good things about the Lumix cameras and this one has most of the same features as the Canon S2 IS, plus it's a 6 megapixel camera vs the Canon's 5 megapixel. The same downsides apply to this one as the S2, plus I don't have any personal experience with it.

If you want something smaller and or cheaper, take a look at the HP R817 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/HP/hp_r817.asp) Now I don't have any personal experience with this camera, but the price to feature ratio on this camera is very good. The size is more manageable than the S2 or Lumix and it still has a 5x optical zoom which is excellent for a camera this size. I can't say I'm a fan of the HP brand for cameras, but that's mostly a lack of experience with them. Definitely worth checking out.

If the HP is still to big or if you want to stick with a more name brand camera check out the Canon SD600 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd600.asp). Fair warning, I'm a big Canon fan. This looks like a solid contender, but the zoom is only 3x.

I would take a trip to a camera shop or Best Buy, etc and try to play with this cameras yourself before you make a decision.

Since I prepared the previous, my brother (ubergeek, Ben) has found another contender, the Ricoh Capilo R4 in the $200-300 category. Nice stats: 7x zoom, 6 megapixel. A few niggles on the image quality, but not enough to damage it's user rating on DPReview. I'll leave you with the link. (http://www.cameratown.com/reviews/review_listing.cfm/hurl/id%7C2368)

Jason Kottke has taken images from a new book, Bound for Glory, a collection of American images from 1939-1943 and has added new life by simply color correcting. There was nothing wrong with the color before, per se, but Kottke's work takes the photos from something clearly "old" and from the past and makes it look like something you or I might have shot yesterday.

Purists might argue that this ruins the integrity or lowers the historical value of the photographs, I believe, however, that Kottke's work enables an insight that few of us manage on our own when studying historic documents: the idea that these people we see were as real as you and I. Two dimensional images, especially those burdened with the unreality of black and white or faded color photography are like fairy tales. We don't relate. By simply correcting the color on these remarkable images to approximate that of a modern camera, the people and situations they depict come alive in a way I had never before experiences.

Bravo Jason for daring to tinker with the past! I'd love to see the whole book with this treatment.