During my senior year at York Community High School, a couple of former students made a documentary about a man who is a living legend at our school and around the world. Joe Newton is the Cross Country coach that has led the York Team to state victories in 25 out of his more than 50 years coaching.

Along with Coach Newton, the documentary follows the 2005 Cross Country team and Assistant Coach Charlie Kern. Mr. Kern has made a very important influence in my life and the lives of so many others and I am very grateful to have got to learn so much from him. Below is one of his many little stories that really get you thinking. It is featured in the film The Long Green Line.

Big announcement today:

I have accepted the job of Project Director at CyberOptik.net. The owner of this firm, Ron Johnson, is a friend and also the person who got me started in web design.

As many of you know, for the past two years I have owned and operated my own design company, Clarity Multimedia, with my business partner Jestine Chakkumcal. It was a tremendous experience and I learned so much in this time but it was the right time to move on.

With Ron in need of a director and myself wanting to focus my career more on design, it all seemed to be serendipity so I went for it and am now a leading member of the CyberOptik team.

If you or anyone you know needs a website, be sure to contact us at CyberOptik.net and mention my name when you do.

MySpace,

You’re not gonna win me back with your “new look.” It’s still over. I don’t care how good you look now (though you could still use some work). It was never about looks for me. I know what your code looks like behind the new rollover effects. There is just too much baggage. I don’t want to hear about your MySpaceTV and I certainly don’t want to get to know your friend Susie-Ann who can’t show me her pictures in front of you and wants me to “click here.”

I am happy where I am. Things are working out for me and I don’t need you ruining it with your gaining US market share. Get over it.

-Warren

Dear MySpace,

It’s been a fun three years together but I just cannot bare to be with you any longer. Please don’t misunderstand. It was great while it lasted but it is time to move on… For both of us.

We have been through some good times floating in the Cloud but the troubles in our relationship have just been too much to handle. Sometimes real life just gets in the way. We’ve grown apart lately and I think we both know it’s time.

I hate to tell you this way but there is someone else. I have found a platform I can be happy with, someone who doesn’t try to do everything at once. She’s stable and has a promising future with me. We understand each other better.

But your great too. I am sure you’ll find someone to spend your life with. I hear Yahoo is looking for someone who will appreciate him.

Anyways, you opened me up to a whole new world while we were together and I will never forget you. Fare well.

Love,
Warren

Though I am a big fan of Apple products, I don’t normally breach the line of obsession. I think this past week (as my girlfriend has kindly pointed out) I have gone a little over the edge in anticipation for the Steve Jobs keynote speech that took place this morning.

I am still waiting to see the actual video but I did follow the live blogging from MacRumors.com. Though there was no “One more thing,” I was happy to see that my expectations were met with only one exception—the rumor going around that there would be video chatting was false. Damn.

But that aside, the new iPhone with 3G capability, 3rd party apps, MobileMe, Enterprise, and GPS can once again claim the spot as the most advanced mobile device available.

Best of all: it comes in Black and White!

P.S. One of the sponsors for the MacRumors live blogging session was one of my affiliates StevenPriceProductions. If your into video editing, his tutorial products are exceptional… and I just happen to be in a couple of them.

Mr. Gates, your contributions to the computer industry are too far and wide to even speak a fraction of but when I saw this video it reminded me of the main reason I switched to Mac. (No, it really wasn’t Justin Long’s personified Mac character.) Good luck at the Foundation. I know your second act will leave and even bigger impact in this world than your first.

I have had my share of blogs over the past couple of years and have also created several content and resource sites. In that time I have experiemented with literally dozens of advertising techniques but found that nearly all (unless I manually set up the ad myself) have a major flaw in their system.

This flaw is the same one that search engine’s face. Unfortunately, widely available technology has not reached the point where it can identify context. Only content. This draws some major problems in the advertising world, especially on blogs which are generally very opinionated.

In a recent post I said who I was endorsing for President in 2008. Though my article was an endorsement of Barack Obama, there were two ads that would show up prevalently in my sidebar. The first, a text ad, held the caption “The Real Barack Obama” with a link to a conservative news blog (and not even an article about Barack Obama). The second was a John McCain Campaign image ad. Obviously both of these ads were not just out of context but more over, they were contradictory to my piece.

Taking my criticism a step further, I want to point out another problem. Again this is something I see in all the major search engine’s too. I think this one speaks for itself…

Need I say more?

Until online advertising platforms learn to identify context and sentence structure above keywords, there will be publishers with less revenue, users who get sent the wrong message, and advertisers who are paying out money to advertise to the wrong demographic.

It’s something to really think about, especially you web developers. The saying goes, “Content is King” but I think whomever can extract Context will reign supreme.