The start of a new year is a time to think about the past, but also an opportunity to look to the future.  Such endeavors are never certain, but here are five of my predictions for the coming year.

Smart Phone Bandwidth will become more expensive.

As more and more consumers switch to smart phones, their carriers will run out of signal carrying capacity.  In order to pay for additional infrastructure and research, these companies will monetize bandwidth access.  While some consumers will still be able to pay for full speed connectivity, most will have to accept inferior connectivity.

With less bandwidth available, …

Last night one of my friends organized a potluck on two hours notice.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened, but when I saw the various dishes we’d prepared, it reminded me of the various ways that people will approach their website design.

One person brought a pair of French baguettes and some nice cheeses.

Another looked about her apartment, saw what ingredients she had available, opened up a cookbook and made us an eggplant/Poblano pepper relish from fresh ingredients, making substitutions as necessary.

Me, I heard what the other participants were making, ran off to the supermarket, saw some …

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Sound can be a touchy subject online.

Remember many people will have multiple web browsers open at once, or while playing music of their own, and that catchy jingle that is perfect for your site can cause your visitors no end of consternation while then are engaged in other activities.

Earache My Eye

It is very rare that you can guarantee that your audience will give your site their undivided attention. Any sound that starts up on its own will most likely be considered audio SPAM.

It is better “netiquette” to let visitors chose to turn your chosen soundtrack on. …

Steven Wolfram’s new “knowledge engine” has launched to mixed results.  While the tool is just as powerful as advertised in some areas (like the comparing stocks, answering physics questions, or performing complex numerical calculations), there are other areas where it falls short of the mark.

While Wolfram|Alpha can compare the 2008 season of the Oakland A’s against that of the San Francisco Giants, it still can’t figure out when the baseball season begins.  Perhaps, in time, Wolfram Research will be able to work out the bugs.  But for the time being it is still a very specialized tool.

Thankfully, Wolfram|Alpha does excel …

Wolfram|Alpha is the newest brainchild of Steven Wolfram.  If you are unfamiliar with his work, he is the man responsible for Mathematica, the most common mathematical programming language to find its way into high schools and colleges.

Wolfram|Alpha, which is scheduled to launch in about a week, is a new kind of search engine designed to find and formulate answers to any sort of factual question.  In short, it’s supposed to act as a computerized subject area expert.

Always eager to build on his previous work, Steven Wolfram constructed Wolfram|Alpha inside Mathematica, utilizing some five to six million lines of code.  By …