Author: Kevin Lawver

So, AOL Search relaunched today for members (will launch for everyone else soon) with a ton of new features, a totally redesigned and rebuilt UI, and lots of “me” in it. The powers that be have given me the OK to link to the “in-client” view, which means that some stuff won’t work for you like it would for an AOL Member, especially Recent Searches. When it launches on the outside view next week, everything should work.\
It’s probably the last major search product I’ll work on, since I’m moving to a new role (they say I’ll have a bigger soapbox, but I’m hoping for a bigger stick) after I get back from Dublin (or maybe while I’m in Dublin… who knows?). So far, the reviews for AOL Search have been really great, better than any review I’ve seen in the five years I’ve been working on the product (yes, five years).\
Here’s a selection:

• CNet
• SearchEngineWatch
• John Battelle
• Financial Times
• Charlene Li\
  What am I most proud of? It’s really, really accessible. I made a special effort with this version to make sure that I did everything I could to make it a good example of accessibility on the web. There is unique alt text for all elements that need it, semantic markup (each result is a list item, and there are h3’s for each result type heading, making it easy to navigate with a screen reader), and some really interesting “tricks” with the CSS to make things accessible in IE without hamstringing me in “good” browsers.\
  So, check it out. If you have suggestions for improving its accessibility, please post a comment. I can’t promise all will be implemented, but I’ll make sure they get to the right people (because after tomorrow, I won’t be the right people anymore).

I spent too much time yesterday at OMG Clothing perusing and rating t-shirt slogans. Then, I found the “Submit your slogan” button, and had to throw in some of my own.\
My favorites, which they didn’t accept (probably because of all the funny characters), were extremely nerdy. They were so nerdy that when I sent them to my nerd friends, they called me a nerd. They were so nerdy that only nerds who are nerdy about CSS would get them. So, for your nerding pleasure, I give you my first two CSS jokes:

<code>#me + #you { margin:0; }</code>

<code>#town { color:#f00; background:#f00; }</code>

Oh, but the nerdiness didn’t stop there! I also submitted some search nerd slogans:

• Google told me you suck.
• Your PageRank blows.\
  I know… I’m hopeless. I am now hopelessly nerdy. I don’t think there’s any going back. I used to be just geeky, and proud of it. I’m afraid I breached nerd a while ago and didn’t notice until it was too late. I apologize to my family and friends… I didn’t mean to be a nerd. It just kind of happened.

How cool is this? I found out this morning that AOL has an IM bot for Yellow Pages. So, next time I’m out of town and need to find a movie theater or restaurant, I can just send an IM from my Sidekick to AOLYellowPages and get what I need.\
I love IM bots for mobile stuff. Short messages, text interface, no waiting for images and pages to download that may or may not render on the Sidekick’s craptacular browser. I use ZolaOnAOL to get headlines, and play games while waiting in lines. I hear there’s a mythical bot for MapQuest too, but I haven’t found that one yet.\
AOLJournals will let you post to an AOL blog, but yeah… I know most people who read this don’t have one of those.\
Any other IM bots I should know about?

Big changes at work coming next week. I’ll be doing something different, playing a different role, and it will hopefully be big. Big is good.\
In other news, I got new pants. Not just any pants, smaller pants. I’ve dropped two pants sizes in the past year. My only new year’s resolution this year is to continue. My goal is to lose fifty pounds this year. That would bring my weight loss to a grand total of one hundred pounds. It won’t be easy, but I’ll get it done. It’s only a pound a week… small steps, small changes, gradual improvements.\
And it’s only January, and I already can’t wait for SXSW.