The post was largely about how the web enables us to be there for one another in times of crisis. Molly shared how she found solace—while reeling from the emergency hospitalization of her mother—in the support of her community through email, Twitter, and Facebook.

Molly recognized the power of the web—and the Open Web in particular—to connect people and communities for the betterment of all humans. Sure, she saw the downsides too and would grumble about them quite often, but she was a firm believer that the web was a net positive for the world.

As I reflected on her life last year when we lost her, this passage really struck me:

Mortality reminds us in very cold, frightening terms how fragile our life and times truly are. The Web, which is a naturally social and interactive communications platform, can help bring us all closer. The fighting, the drama, the debates - they all become irrelevant in these very mortal moments. Let us all reach for the greatness within ourselves and put it into our Web work every day, because even on those days we feel it’s overwhelming or doesn’t matter, it really truly does. One world, one Web, one love, my brothers and sisters.

I cannot think of a better way to remember Molly on this day.

Much love to you and your communities!

This is a tough post to write, to be honest. It’s difficult to articulate just how influential Molly has been on my own work, my philosophical approach to web design, and my career.

# Molly was warm and welcoming

Molly was there when I gave my first talk. 2003. COMDEX. I’d been invited out by the World Organization of Webmasters to give a talk on XHTML. The talk was solid. My delivery was atrocious. Molly was quick to come up after and congratulate me. I was floored.

I told her how excited I was to see her and Eric Meyer give a talk on CSS later in the day. She told me Eric had had to cancel his trip last minute and asked me if I would be interested in giving the talk with her. Just like that. I don’t know that she had any idea who I was (I’d only just published my first piece in A List Apart a few months earlier). But that was how Molly rolled. She saw my passion for web standards and somehow knew I’d be able to step up.

That one welcoming gesture was huge for me. And it was the start of a long collaboration and friendship. After that talk, we met up in Vegas again in 2004 and then went on a speaking tour the U.S. together in 2005, running web standards workshops where we taught people the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and accessibility. I learned so much from her during that time and bore witness, over and over, to her immense capacity for welcoming people, bringing them together, breaking bread, building her tribe… she was the very embodiment of the word hospitable.

And gregarious. Her boisterous laugh was infectious and memorable. I can still hear it echoing in my ears.

# Molly was generous with her time

I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who gave as much of herself as Molly did. She always, always put others first, sometimes to her own detriment.

When I first met Molly, she was leading the Web Standards Project (WaSP). She poured her heart and soul into that organization and the cause of web standards. I lost count of how many events she spoke at, often on her own dime. She invited educators into her home to teach them how to properly teach the next generation of web designers and developers… for free.

She always put her advocacy for the cause first… a double edged sword we’ve since named advocacy fatigue. It took a toll on her—mentally, physically, and spiritually—and she took the occasional break from it, but she never gave up on the fight for a more egalitarian web.

# Molly created opportunities for others

Another aspect of Molly’s giving nature was her insistence on opening doors for people, career-wise. I witnessed her pass along amazing opportunities that found their way into her inbox with an incredible amount of joy. Like doling out incredible gifts for a holiday.

One such gift she handed me was the opportunity to do some work with Adaptive Path. Through her introduction, I got the chance to work with an amazing team on several projects… all from my living room thousands of miles from their San Francisco offices. That was the kind of sway she pulled.

That work led to a part-time role (and health insurance) at Bolt|Peters, where I worked on Ethnio. That role gave me the freedom to quit my day job at an ad agency and begin building my own consulting business, which I launched a few months later and ran for over a decade.

All because of the doors Molly opened.

In a separate path, she invited me to join WaSP, where I worked on a lot of JavaScript-focused efforts. That led to me working with Microsoft on improvements to IE7 and IE8 and—years later—to me eventually joining Microsoft as a web standards advocate.

All because of the doors Molly opened.

And I was not alone. Wherever and whenever Molly saw an opportunity to help someone on their career journey, she would help them. Book contracts. Speaking engagements. Networking. Freelance work. If Molly saw any way she could help you, she did. No ego. No expectations. Selfless.

Her example is what inspired me to build my mentoring program. I don’t know that I can ever do as much good as she did for people, but she made me want to try.

# Molly wanted the web to win

If you know Molly’s name, this is probably why. She was a staunch—and loud—advocate for web standards and accessibility. A veteran of the browser wars (and subsequent skirmishes), she knew the landscape and she knew how imperative it was for standards to emerge and for browsers to implement them consistently.

I wasn’t there for the meeting, but she told me Bill Gates tried to tell her the web was “done” ’round about the IE6 days and she yelled at him. While she wasn’t one to shy away from the occasional embellishment, she was just as unlikely to shy away from a confrontation over the viability and future of the web… so it would not surprise me at all to hear that she’d yelled at him.

Molly was a lioness—nurturing and maternal to the web and its denizens and a fierce protector when they were threatened. She saw the potential of the web as a great equalizer and bristled when folks would try to wall it off or exclude people—especially disempowered people—from accessing it.

That passionate support for the open web never wavered, even when Molly became ill. In fact we’d been talking about whether it might make sense to re-launch WaSP this year, a decade after we’d shuttered it because we thought the work was done—it wasn’t.

# Molly will live on in our memories and our craft

Knowing Molly affected me. Deeply. Her kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, and passion live on in everyone her life and work touched. Including me.

I don’t know what to make of a world without Molly, but I hate that we’re living in one. She truly was a force of nature and, as such, has left an indelible mark on this industry.

I’m so thankful to have known her. To have received her mentorship. To have called her a friend.

Goodnight Mols. I love you.

# Other folks’ memories of Molly

• John Allsopp
• Faruk Ateş
• Deborah Edwards-Oñoro
• Meryl Evans
• Jason Grigsby
• Stephen Hay
• Jay Hoffman
• Bruce Lawson
• Matt May
• Eric Meyer

More on front-end.social by following #MollyHolzschlag.

Know of others? Please share them.

Before you apply, I highly recommend reading up on my mentorship program to see if it will be a good fit for you.

The application will remain open through November 30th.

Being an avid dairy fan, I quickly reached for the helping hand of big pharma to enable my addiction. Lactaid seemed to work on occasion, but not consistently. Then I discovered Digestive Advantage “Lactose Defense Formula” which seemed to work a bit better, but I hated having to take the pills all the time. So I stopped and just tried to avoid dairy as much as possible. As Jeremy can attest, it made trips to places like Wisconsin rather difficult.

Every now and then, I’d “splurge” (a.k.a., do something I’d later regret) and have a special cheese or a gelato. The weird thing I noticed was that sometimes I would have an issue, other times I’d be totally fine. Coming from a scientific background, I decided to begin experimenting in an effort to suss out the source of my digestive discomfort.

Along the way, I discovered that I had no issues with goat and sheep milk cheeses¹. I also found that I only occasionally had issues with cow milk-based cheeses in Europe. But why?

At first I thought that maybe non-cow milks didn’t have lactose, but that’s not the case. At least according to Wikipedia, both sheep milks even contain more lactose. So lactose intolerance apparently wasn’t my problem. I was perplexed.

I continued digging and stumbled on a website about a doctor who’d been researching proteins in milk. The site I found it on looked like a straight-up conspiracy site,² so I took what it said with a grain of salt, but the gist was this: When we domesticated cows around 10,000 years ago, they produced only the protein A2 beta-casein. Around 8,000 years ago, a genetic mutation occurred that caused some cattle to produce A1 beta-casein.

A1 beta-casein producing cows are pretty much all we have now in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Europe (except parts of Southern Europe). The reason seems to be that A1 beta-casein producing cows were milder mannered and easier to work with. They became the preference in most industrial farms. There are a few books out there about it if you’re interested. The Devil in the Milk seems to be particularly well-reviewed and draws connections between A1 milk and heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, autism, and schizophrenia.

I hadn’t really thought about it for a while, but the other day happened to see A2 brand milk in my grocery store the other day and decided to give it a try. Two bowls of delicious cereal later and I’m convinced that I’m actually allergic to A1 beta-casein. Not that it helps me order in restaurants. I’m sure some server would think I was straight out of Portlandia if I asked them if their milk was A1 or A2.

Anyway, if you think you’re lactose intolerant, you might want to run a little experiment of your own to determine if you’re actually lactose intolerant or if you’re really allergic to A1 beta-casein.

#Note To Self

Hosted by Manoush Zomorodi, this is a podcast about the intersection of technology and humanity. I’m obsessed with Manoush’s friendly, inclusive tone and her often interesting and very personal takes on a wide variety of topics. Here are a few recent gems:

• The Man Who Invented Facebook Ad Tracking Is Not Sorry
• Introducing: The Privacy Paradox - Do yourself a favor and listen to the whole project series.
• New Year. Same Old You.

#Code Switch

This is an excellent show about race and identity. I’ve always been actively working to better understand other cultures, but with Oscar in my life, I feel an even greater desire to recognize and appreciate the differences and similarities we all have. I hope it’s making me a better father. Regardless, I’m learning a lot and loving it. Recommended listening:

• Safety-Pin Solidarity: With Allies, Who Benefits?
• Hold Up! Time For An Explanatory Comma
• The Code Switch Guide To Handling Casual Racism
• Say My Name, Say My Name (Correctly, Please)

#99% Invisible

This show has been a darling of the design set for years, but I’ve only recently tuned in. I love it because I learn something new and interesting in every episode… even on topics with which I’m already familiar. There are so many great episodes it’s hard to pick just a few to recommend, but I’ll give it a shot:

• Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle
• The Trend ForecastProject Cybersyn
• The Nutshell Studies
• Perfect Security

#Reply All

I’ve been listening to PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman since their days running TLDR, so naturally I followed them over to their new(er) venture on Gimlet Media. Reply All is ostensibly “a show about the Internet”, but it takes me into parts of the Web I—rather surprisingly, given I’ve spent over 20 years building it—am not all that familiar with. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every episode, especially those in the “Super Tech Support” series. I’m also a big “Yes-Yes-No” fan. Some favorites:

• Zardulu
• Voyage into Pizzagate
• The Grand Tapestry Of Pepe
• Exit & Return, Part I & Part II
• Anxiety Box

#NPR Politics

I’ve been a little obsessed with politics for the better part of the last two decades, so when I discovered the NPR Politics podcast, I was stoked. I appreciate their balanced take on current events, especially when they are placed in historical context (often by mainstay Ron Elving). All of the hosts and correspondents are stellar (as to be expected form NPR, I suppose), but I have to admit I’m missing Sam Sanders and Asma Khalid more than a little bit. Most episodes are news-driven so don’t have a long shelf-life. That said, I highly recommend “Covering 2016 As A Muslim”.

Other worthwhile podcasts that are also in heavy rotation on my phone include (in no particular order)

• Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything,
• Shop Talk Show,
• Big Web Show,
• Radio Lab, and
• Crimetown.

Do you have a favorite podcast to share? Leave a comment of webmention and I’ll be sure to check it out.

https://twitter.com/AaronGustafson/statuses/61946

Wow. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. User #12,028 (back when they were still sequential).

If memory serves, Jeremy Keith was the first to suggest I join Twitter. Jeremy and I had met for the first time at SXSW in 2005 and became fast friends. That was the same year I met Andy Budd, Richard Rutter, Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Shaun Inman, Leslie Jensen (pre-Inman), Jason Santa Maria, Rob Weychert, Stuart Langridge, Andrew (née Andy “Malarkey”) Clarke, Jon Hicks, Tantek Çelik, Glenda Sims, and so many more amazing (and influential) web designers. We became quite the posse and dutifully packed the mezzanine of the Hampton Inn each and every morning before the conference started and generally pal-ed around throughout the week. Then we all returned to our respective locales and prepared to do it all over again the next year.

As I mentioned, I think Jeremy was the first to suggest I try out the burgeoning service our friends Biz and Ev had come up with. We all knew Ev from Blogger and he & Biz had worked together on Odeo (a podcasting service that was way before its time) too. Together, under the moniker “Obvious Corp.”, they had just rolled out a new messaging service called “Twttr” (because who needs vowels). It later spun out of Obvious Corp. as “Twitter”.

Twitter filled a very interesting niche for me back in those days, but I didn’t really notice how much until we all returned to SXSW in 2007. When we had regrouped in 2006, we had spent a lot of time catching up on the developments in our lives that had taken place in the intervening year (at least those we hadn’t blogged about). 2007, however, was different.

By the time SXSW rolled around in March of that year, we’d all been actively using Twitter for nearly six months. And because so few people were on Twitter at the time and we all followed each other, it was quite easy to keep up-to-date with what was going on in everyones’ lives. Twitter created this sort of ambient awareness of everything important that was going on with the folks in the group. So when we returned to Austin in March of 2007, we didn’t spend any time catching up on the events of the intervening year because we didn’t need to. We already knew and were able to pick right up as though we hadn’t missed a beat. It was a pretty amazing feeling and played a big part in my falling in love with Twitter.

That love affair continued for years. My relationships with my friends deepened and our collective relationship with Twitter deepened. I don’t think anything illustrates that more than my good friends Stephanie and Greg getting engaged via the service (yes, they were the first):

https://twitter.com/garazi/statuses/765929392 conversation=’none’

https://twitter.com/stefsull/statuses/765930175 conversation=’none’

In the past decade, Twitter has changed dramatically. Most of us, with the exception of Brian, moved away from tweeting in the third person. Here’s my transition (circa 2012… I tweeted for nearly 6 years in the third person!):

has decided, after much internal debate & consideration of your thoughts, to abandon 3rd person tweeting style. #3pT will be the transition.

—Aaron Gustafson (@AaronGustafson)

You are confused and confounded by this move and wonder why @aarongustafson did it. Perplexed, you scratch your head.

—Aaron Gustafson (@AaronGustafson)

When it came down to it, I decided it was about you, my readers, more so than my enjoyment of the mental exercise of writing 3rd person.

—Aaron Gustafson (@AaronGustafson)

The truth is that while I love writing and 3rd person was fun, this change will let me play with other authoring styles.

—Aaron Gustafson (@AaronGustafson)

Ideas we played with, like Chris’ suggestion that we add tagging to our tweets, “d” messages, at-mentions, and Retweets (later, RTs) changed from things we did as a matter of necessity while using the service to integral pieces of “Twitter the Platform”.

In the past decade, the culture of Twitter has also changed. When we were starting out, there was this great feeling of solidarity, togetherness. Twitter was a huge public commons where we were all friendly and respectful, even when we disagreed. In the intervening years (the last few perhaps even moreso), however, Twitter has become this wedge that seems to be driving our society apart. The decisive, bile-and-hatred fueled posts, rampant bigotry, threats of violence, and gross intolerance has become such a downer that each year I pull back a little more. I don’t browse the public stream anymore; I can’t deal with it. I have reduced the number of people I follow and have become more dependent on lists and tools like Tweetbot and TweetDeck to help me identify the shallows of Twitter I’m interested in wading into. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter still manages to prove its value every now and again. It can absolutely be a force for good, but like so many things that work well in their ideal state, us messy humans have come along and fucked it all up.

In the past decade, Twitter itself has also fundamentally changed. I remember being gobsmacked when I visited the service’s ginormous San Francisco headquarters last year and saw the massive number of people working there. It made me pine for the days when I used to duck out of Adaptive Path’s SoMa office two grab lunch with the 12 (!) people who were running Twitter at the time. Twitter looks all grown up, but to me it still seems like it’s going through a painful adolescence, unsure of what it wants to be. I hope it can find its way, but I’m uncertain if our relationship will survive that.

Ten years in, I am still in love with Twitter, but I’m unsure if that love is for the service it has become or if it’s simply a manifestation of my nostalgia. I guess time will tell.

Jeremy Keith also recently celebrated his first decade on Twitter. You should definitely read his thoughts & recollections too.

This is my son Oscar. In case you can’t see the picture, he looks nothing like me because he’s adopted. He’s also friggin’ adorable, but that’s not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because my son is Black and despite the fact that he will grow up in a family that has the means to provide him with a good education and far more opportunity than a lot of children in America—including me—the sheer fact that his skin is dark means he will grow up in a far different America than I did.

He will be suspected when he enters a store. He will be treated differently in school. He will be policed differently. If he commits a crime, he will be six times more likely to be incarcerated than his white friends in daycare; and if it’s a drug offense, he’ll be ten times more likely to serve time.

He will be feared by default. He will be suspected by default. He will be guilty by default. All because he’s Black.

I don’t want him to grow up in an America where he could have his life ended during a traffic stop for a broken tail light. I listened to Diamond Reynolds’ recording of Philando Castile dying and I had to stop the car and cry; I couldn’t bear to watch the video. He was someone else’s son. Someone else’s little boy.

This is not the America I want Oscar to grow up in and we have an opportunity to change it. I fully recognize that the societal issues that underly the way we (as a nation) treat the Black community and other people of color in the U.S. are not new, nor are they going to go away overnight. It’s going to take time and commitment to making it happen.

What I also know, however, is that electing a president who proposes racist policies, uses racist rhetoric, and gins up racial tensions among his supporters is not going to make America a safer place for Oscar to grow up. A man who routinely derides and demonizes immigrant populations of varying shades (despite marrying numerous immigrants himself) is not going to lead us to be a more inclusive nation. And a man who has a history of treating the Black community unfairly is not going to be the champion we need to help unify our different racial and ethnic communities into that melting pot of ideas and cultures we’ve been taught is America’s greatest strength.

When I go to the polls this Fall to help my country choose its next leader, I will be thinking of my son and all of the other children in this great nation of ours. I will think about the future America they stand to inherit and I will vote against Donald Trump. I hope you will join me in taking a stand against fear, against further segregation of our society, and against racism. America is already great, and it will be much better without Trump.

Can you please tell what are keys to success and what should I do to become a successful programmer and software engineer? Anything is appreciated.

That’s a tough one. “Success” can be defined in so many ways. Is success making truckloads of money? Is it having 100,000 Twitter followers? Is it getting invited to speak at conferences in exotic locations? Those are very external notions of success, perhaps it’s more personal: Feeling like you’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Feeling like your life has meaning. Finding joy in both your work and your play. With so many ways to define success, there’s no magic formula for achieving it.

Unsure how to answer this perplexing question, I decided to answer by sharing what makes me feel successful—the Golden Rule. I used the Islamic version in my response:

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

That I chose the Islamic version had more to do with where my protege resides than anything else. This concept is universal, cropping up in nearly every faith and philosophy as well as in numerous cultural proverbs:

Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself. (Baha’i)

One should seek for others the happiness one desires for one’s self. (Buddhism)

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Chrisitianity)

Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence. (Confucianism)

He sought for others the good he desired for himself. Let him pass on! (Egyptian)

Don’t go around hurting people, and Try to understand things. (Hopi)

Humanists acknowledge human interdependence, the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity. (Humanism)

In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self. (Jainism)

One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts. (Nigerian)

Do as you would be done by. (Persian)

Then there’s my personal favorite, from Judaism:

What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary.

The Golden Rule is a wonderful tool for helping maintain balance in your life, business, and relationships. And so, I followed this recommendation proverb with a bit more detail on how I feel we can embody this philosophy:

• Treat others with respect (means respecting their time, dignity, etc.).
• Look for opportunities to help others accomplish their goals.
• Give of yourself freely without expecting return.

My twelve years of Catholic schooling drummed the proverb “to whomever much is given, much will be required“ into my head, which accounts for my emphasis on sharing. I know that my “success”—as I define it at least—has been made possible by the generosity of others. And so I think it’s my duty to “pay it forward” and I look for every opportunity to create opportunities for others.

In my experience, living life this way—or at least improving on it a bit each day—makes me feel successful. Perhaps it will work for you as well.

Note: Passing along this tiny bit of wisdom made me feel successful today :-)

I was crestfallen.

Thankfully, apart from the very finger-unfriendly hellscape the screen had become, the rest of the phone completely functional. If I was careful where and how I swiped, I could do pretty much anything I needed to. And I did exactly that for a few days while I looked into my options for fixing it.

It was an iPhone 6 I purchased right when they came out, so a warranty repair was not an option. And I don’t see the point of paying for phone insurance or Apple Care¹, so I was on my own to cover the cost of the repair. No biggie; it was my fault for putting it in the loose pocket of my pajama pants anyway.

I began researching my options:

1. I could cover the broken phone with a rugged case and just deal with it.
2. I could use one of our old iPhones until the next version came out.
3. I could upgrade my phone with AT&T.
4. I could self-repair as the process is pretty straightforward, but in talking with a friend who repairs smartphones for a living, I discovered the replacement screens weren’t that great.
5. I could have Apple repair it.

Apple offers screen repair for $109, which isn’t too bad, but that takes a few days to ship the phone back and forth. They offer an expedited option where they just send you a new phone, but at $299, it seemed silly.

I contacted the local authorized Apple repair center to see if they could do the repair, but it turns out that they would just be sending it on to Apple anyway, so it seemed like my best bet would be to go back to the source. After all, who could know better how to replace a broken iPhone screen (and digitizer, since they’re fused) than Apple Support?

I chatted with an Apple Support rep about doing the repair and confirmed that the repair would cost $109. The rep told me, however, that they would need to authorize my card for $299—the out-of warranty replacement cost—in case they discovered other damage to the phone. I agreed (it was my only option) with the understanding that Apple would run some diagnostic utilities to determine what (if any) additional issues the phone might have.

A day or two later I got the mailer to send the phone to Apple, I shipped it to them and waited. They confirmed receipt of the phone the next day and, two days later, I got an email saying the phone was en route back to me. I was thrilled with the quick turnaround!

Then Kelly asked me why Apple had charged us $329. I said I wasn’t sure. The authorization was for $299, but the repair service was only supposed to be $109 (plus tax and shipping, naturally). Perhaps they billed the whole amount and then returned the unused portion in a separate transaction. We decided to wait and see what would happen.

The next day, a phone arrived. I say a phone because it was not my phone. Apple Support had sent me a refurbished replacement phone and charged me the full replacement cost. Why? “After thorough diagnostic testing, it has been determined that a replacement iPhone (enclosed) is necessary.” Vague.

I was curious what their tests had revealed. What gremlins were lurking in my heretofore fully-functional device? I decided to investigate with another support rep and was not thrilled with what I found.

Note: I spent the next few hours in a chat session with two different reps at Apple Support. Both were incredibly friendly and did everything in their power to help me get to the bottom of why my screen repair had turned into a complete replacement. Credit where credit is due.

In the conversation with the first rep, Josh, I made it clear that the phone was working perfectly before I sent it to them. It merely needed a new screen/digitizer. I offered that I was disappointed to see that they’d replaced it without explaining what would require that level of remediation and without giving me the option to have the phone returned to me as-is. From the beginning, he clearly saw where I was coming from:

Oh good grief, I’m really sorry you’ve had to deal with this. That’s not at all what we want from this process.

After a few minutes of doing some research, he came back to me:

So basically from what we’ve been discussing, the service center does run a plethora of tests on the phone once it’s sent in. That’s to be sure that it’s working properly in all ways, rather than just the screen repair itself, though trust me, I do fully understand that the only thing you wanted was the screen to be repaired, so I’m just compiling all of the data to see what happened.

A few minutes later…

[I]t’s looking like basically what ended up happening was there were tests that were run which will test the phone for a bit of additional damage than the tests that were run. From there, they look into what will give you the longest lasting phone, basically so that you don’t run into an issue with what their diagnostics tests detected down the road, and then need to pay again for it to be repaired.

I replied

[That] assumes I plan to keep the phone long enough for it to become an issue… I appreciate them looking into potential issues, but making unilateral decisions about how to proceed is not good customer service in my opinion. Letting someone know what the issue is and how much the repair would cost is just common courtesy. Even my car dealership does me that courtesy.

Josh was right there with me:

Exactly, which I know is not always a proper assumption, and I can entirely agree. I’m even still looking into additional data for you. I really don’t like how this was handled, so I’m seeing if I can come across anything additional on the matter.

He asked if I knew of any other damage to the phone and I told him that it was always in a case and I was not aware of a single other issue with the phone, cosmetic or otherwise.

He was completely empathetic:

I’m really sorry about this whole thing, Aaron. It’s looking like some sort of damage was found with the phone, which is what caused that price to be charged, rather than just the screen repair, so ultimately they decided that it would give you a longer lasting phone to replace it, so that way you wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of having additional issues down the road. Honestly, I cannot express enough how much I understand the situation, and especially at least being informed or asked if that can be done. That’s just why the full out of warranty/replacement charge has to be held initially, is so that they have authorization to run those tests, and if needed, replace it, rather than just repair it. I’m so sorry that the process wasn’t elaborated to you, and that they didn’t at least let you know of what was going on.

I reiterated that someone really should have asked if I wanted the additional work done. I understand Apple’s “heart” might be in the right place, but they failed to do what I had hired them to do. They didn’t consider my wishes or expectations in their process at all. Nor did they give me an opportunity to decline the replacement and get my broken phone back.

Josh pleasantly informed me that by agreeing to the repair, I was out of luck:

[Replacement] was actually authorized to be used when you initially setup the payment. When the full $299 (plus taxes and shipping) was held from your card, that was authorized that if needed, it could be used for the repair if additional damage was found. Since it was found, they used the remainder of that money to replace the phone instead.

I countered:

I understand that you required the $299 + tax in order to start the repair, but that was my only option if I wanted you guys to do the $109 screen repair. Like I said, had I suspected anything else was going to be done to the phone, I would have taken my chances buying a replacement screen and doing the repair myself. … I typically replace my phone every other version, so I would have limped along with the broken screen even rather than pay the full replacement fee.

Josh, to his credit, was still on my side:

Right, trust me, I fully understand, or alternatively we could have taken it into the local Apple Authorized Service Provider, which would have been able to diagnose the phone as well in order to determine what had to be done, and then give you a price right then and there. … I’ve actually covered cracked screens in cling wrap so that I didn’t need to risk furthering the damage, or hurting myself. I can also fully understand the process of not expecting that there was any further damage, since you were able to sue the phone just fine, and that’s why you ended up getting it setup that way.

Ultimately, however, it didn’t really matter:

Basically, again, as much as I wish there was something that could be done on the matter in order to basically reverse what happened, it’s just not possible. Since it was authorized when it was initiated, and I do see where the previous advisors let you know that the full charge would be taken if additional damage was found, but if the only damage found to the phone was the screen cracks, then all but the screen repair fee of $109 plus taxes and shipping would be reimbursed. It’s just that additional damage was found, which is what caused that full charge to be taken.

After a bit more back-and-forth, Josh recommended I file a complaint with Apple (I have), said he would make sure the process was reviewed internally, and connected me with a Senior Advisor, Alexander, to help me get a few more details regarding the “damage” that prompted the replacement. I thanked him for his time and for his empathy toward my situation.

The next few minutes involved getting Alexander up to speed with what had happened. He was equally helpful:

Okay, I know how a sudden cost like this $299 can be concerning, especially when you don’t feel adequately informed on the situation. I can certainly clarify anything and get this figured out with you though.

Then he dropped the bombshell:

So the main bit of information that I want to address is not that the phone was replaced to address issues that may arise down the road. In this case, a screen replacement was attempted and did not yield a functioning device. When that occurs, our only option is to replace the device. I do see from your chats with Michelle and Teresa that they advised this was the procedure that we have

Wait. What?! They didn’t find any problems. In replacing the screen, the tech bricked the phone.

No, not at all. Just that they were unable to have a fully functioning unit after a screen replacement. That does not mean that the tech bricked the phone or messed up when replacing the screen, it means the phone was not able to work after the screen was replaced.

Um, sounds to me like they bricked my phone. Alexander tried to clarify, but was ultimately saying the same thing:

While the issue was only a cracked screen, that does not mean that the screen can be replaced and yield a functioning device. Unfortunately we can never know if a screen replacement will work until we try.

So… iPhones are only occasionally repairable. In other words, it’s a crapshoot. Comforting. No one had mentioned that they could brick the phone when attempting to repair it:

I was never advised that the repair could yield a non-functioning device. This is even more strange than I expected.

Alexander towed the company line:

I’m looking at the chats you had with us when setting up the repair, and both advisors did say how it could be $299. I also don’t see anything from either one that says the depot would reach out to you if the repair price was not going to be $109. I’m really sorry that this happened to you Aaron, but this is how our process works and everything looks to have been done correctly here. … I see them saying that they will attempt to replace the screen and if that works it would be a $109 repair. If there were additional issues, it would cost more up to the $299 max for a full replacement unit.

I clarified that they had said it could cost more. There’s a difference between “could” and “would”. I mentioned that I could have just kept the broken phone and upgraded with AT&T and spent less money. Alexander didn’t miss a beat:

That certainly was an option you could have taken Aaron, and I do sympathize with not taking that option to end up paying more than you expected. I really wish the repair process was clearer for you, and I can only advise that you leave some feedback about the repair process to us at Apple Feedback. I don’t see any mention in these chats of the depot contacting you if the cost would be more nor an advisor stating that would be the case.

I stuck to my guns:

I agree they didn’t state that would happen, but I think in the repair world it’s pretty common. … Explicitly stating that would not happen might be a good thing.

Alexander conceded that the process was less than ideal:

I don’t disagree, but that does vary from place to place and device to device. Our procedures are in line with most of the mobile phone world on this though. I will certainly leave some feedback for those advisors to be more clear about this process when a repair is set up though.

We talked for a few more minutes, but it was clear I was out of options. I could file a complaint with Apple (and have), but I am skeptical they even pay attention to that stuff. I know they don’t chime in on their own forums. My only other option was to share my story with you, in hopes you might avoid a similar situation.

So consider yourself warned: If you send your phone to Apple for something as simple as a screen repair, they just may brick your phone and charge you for the convenience. Oh and the replacement phone only has a 90-day warranty. Hooray!

Wha?!

The reasons for the move are manifold, but I will do my best to summarize by taking you on the journey I’ve been on and hopefully that will help you understand why I will be leaving agency life behind and joining a browser maker (and the makers of Internet Explorer at that).

I’ve been working on the Web since 1996. That’s nearly 20 years of building everything from simple marketing campaign sites to emails to complex transactional websites and custom content management systems. In that time, I’ve gained skills on both the front end and the back end and rolled the 10,000 hour odometer at least a couple of times.

It’s been great. I love building things and I love helping our amazing clients put awesome information and services on the Web. But at the same time, I’ve enjoyed working with teams to help them solve their own problems even more than I’ve enjoyed solving them directly. It’s why I love speaking at conferences and running workshops: I love to see the lightbulbs come on over people’s heads!

Over the last few years, Kelly and I have made a conscious effort to reduce the amount of production work we’ve been doing in favor of more consulting. And early last year we came to a sort of crossroads: We knew we could keep doing what we’d been doing and things would be good, but we weren’t feeling challenged anymore.

And so we began to brainstorm ideas of what we’d like to do in the next phase of our lives.

Kelly came to the Web from an education and community organizing background, so she wanted to find a way to incorporate those with her technical knowledge. And about two months ago, she got that opportunity and she took a position as the Program Manager for Tech Goes Home Chattanooga, an organization committed to bridging the digital divide in our fair city.

When I close my eyes and think about what makes me happiest, it’s writing, speaking, and spreading the word about web design best practices. The folks I know who get to do that full-time tend to be developer evangelists (or Jeremy). And so I began pondering that possibility.

As I went through the list of browser makers in my mind, Microsoft stuck out.

Some of you might think that’s odd. I mean come on, IE has been the red-headed stepchild of the web design world for the better part of a decade. Why on earth would I want to work there?

Well, I’ll tell you: Despite its market largesse, IE (and in many ways Microsoft) is operating like the scrappy upstart. And I root for underdogs.

I think back to the early days of the Web when I would need a Windows license for every virtual machine I wanted to run in order to test each browser version. It was a pain in the ass and made me curse Microsoft on a regular basis.

But things have changed. A lot.

A few years back, the IE team launched modern.IE, an awesome resource with VMs that were free for the taking. They also launched a free tool for identifying coding issues and checking cross-browser interoperability. Then they opened up the roadmap for standards implementations in IE. And just recently they gave us RemoteIE and did away with the need for VMs altogether (at least to test our stuff on the latest version of IE).

This is a very different Microsoft.

Now sure, there’s still more they could open up, but this is progress. Big ships are slow to turn, but this ship is turning.

I want to be a part of that.

I will be joining Microsoft as a “Senior Program Manager”, but titles don’t matter much to me. I see my job boiling down to a few key things:

1. Helping web designers and developers better understand the possibilities of the Web;
2. Advocating for interoperable, accessible web design best practices;
3. Being a voice for the web design and development community to communicate their needs to the IE team in order to improve the browser; and
4. Being an internal advocate for Web standards implementations in other Microsoft products (think Visual Studio, Outlook, Word).

Microsoft is not hiring me to be a salesman—thank god, they’d be pretty disappointed—they are hiring me to continue being me. I will continue writing, I will continue speaking, and I will continue educating. The only thing that has changed is that I can spend all of my time doing that, rather than having to balance it with client work.

So Monday starts a new chapter in my career. It’s a little scary (I haven’t worked for someone else for over a decade), but it is also exciting. I am comforted by the fact that I am joining an amazing team: As he announced yesterday, Christian Heilmann will also join Microsoft on the 2nd and the charismatic Rey Bango will be leading our merry little conga line.

I’m excited about the future and I’m thrilled to be given the opportunity to focus on making the Web better… for everyone.

If you’re relatively new to the Web, you may not recognize her name, but you are benefiting from her legacy. You see, Molly has been a force of nature on the Web for the better part of two decades. She was an early blogger. She was our fearless leader at the Web Standards Project for three years. Molly wrote 35 books on Web design, CSS, and other Web standards-related topics. She’s presented at conferences the world over and educated thousands of Web designers and developers during her tenure. And Molly was way ahead of us when it came to understanding the Web:

Everyone has something to contribute to the World Wide Web. Why? Because the Web is of us. Whatever we are as humans is now manifest in the Web: Our beauty, hatred, fragility and ferocity; our kindness, cruelty, confusion and clarity. Our wars. Our peace.

You might think that with all this acclaim, Molly must be pretty well off. Well, that’s not the case. Molly was far more concerned about the good of the Web than fancy jobs, lofty titles, and hefty paychecks. She did much of her work for free. In fact, she even ran a free “train the trainer” camp wherein she hosted a group of college-level educators at her home to get them up to speed on what they needed to know and what they should be teaching the next generation of Web designers.

I met Molly in 2003 when I was invited to speak at COMDEX. It was my first conference talk (and professional speaking gig) ever. I gave a talk on XHTML and she same up and complimented me on it. I had been incredibly nervous, so hearing someone so experienced compliment me on my material, it relieved my stress and made me feel better about by performance. And when she asked me to join her on stage for her next talk—her co-presenter Eric Meyer had to cancel last-minute—I was overjoyed. I don’t know that I added much to her CSS discussion, but I was so appreciative when she took me under her wing.

In 2005 we shared the stage again as we went on a five-city tour, giving 3 days of in-depth HTML, CSS, and JavaScript workshops. I learned a ton from Molly about presenting and she became the big sister I never had. My champion. My mentor.

I know I am not the only one with a story like this. Molly has touched so many Web designers’ and developers’ lives—both directly and indirectly—with her knowledge, compassion, and mentorship.

In 2013, Molly fell ill at a Web conference. She’s spent the last two years in recovery from intense chemotherapy and the damage it did to her body. She is incredibly weak, unable to work, and needs our help to pay for her basic living and medical expenses. So I ask you: Please dig deep and contribute to the GoFundMe campaign Kimmie Blessing has set up on her behalf.

For all that Molly has done for us, let’s do something for her.

Happy birthday Molly! We love you, miss you, and hope you come back to us soon!

It’s a little creepy, I won’t lie.

Well, when Jon could not make it to the festival in 2006, Glenda Sims filled the void with a paper doll named Flathicks. The idea was that, through Flathicks, Jon would be able to be photographed at parties, talks, and the like, so it’d be like he was there.

Flathicks quickly took on a life of his own and his adventures went far beyond SXSW. We handed him off, from person to person, as we traveled around the world, back to our homes, to other conferences, etc. In fact, he joined Kelly & me in Sydney, Australia in late 2007 at Web Directions South and then flew back with us to San Francisco to attend An Event Apart. You can follow his adventures on Flickr or even check out his personal Flickr account.

Kelly has had a bit of bad luck when it comes to SXSW.

The first year she went, 2006, she got food poisoning just as we boarded the plane to go to the festival. She ended up spending the majority of her time in our hotel room, recovering, and missed most of the festivities. She did manage to muster enough strength to attend the conference for a bit to see Jeremy Keith & me deliver “How to Bluff Your Way in DOM Scripting”, attend the first Web Standards Project meeting, and then attend a party or two, so the trip was not a complete bust for her. But it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as it should have been.

Kelly planned to return with me in 2007, but caught the flu about a week before and had to cancel. SXSW is a well-renown incubator of illness (“Southby Scurvy” as we affectionately call it) and Kelly did not want to be patient zero that year, so she bowed out.

Coincidentally, Jeremy’s wife Jessica was unable to make it in 2007 either. So Glenda, being the incredibly sweet woman that she is, made us paper dolls of Kelly and Jessica. She dubbed them “Kellydoll” and “Jessidoll” as she didn’t feel “flat” was appropriate as part of a woman’s nickname.

As with Flathicks, Kellydoll & Jessidoll had amazing adventures at the festival and had their photo taken with everyone who missed them.

I carried Kellydoll with me everywhere, her head poking out of my backpack. This turned out to be a bad idea however as it facilitated her escape. I must have been boring her.

I realized Kellydoll was missing on the last night of SXSW, on the way back from dinner at Ironworks, where she had been the subject of a few photos. It was raining, so I had been rushing back to my hotel room when I saw another potential opportunity to photograph her. When I reached back to get her, I realized she was gone.

I spent the next hour and a half combing Ironworks, Red River Road, First Street and a few of the other lanes around the Convention Center, retracing my steps, looking for any sign of Kellydoll. I came up empty-handed & sulked back to the hotel, depressed that I’d lost my little paper wife.

I never did find Kellydoll, so she and the real Kelly never got to meet. Maybe she’s still out there having adventures. Or maybe she ran off with Flathicks when my back was turned.

I never trusted that guy.

It’s hard to believe that SXSW Interactive is 20 years old. Reading through the remarks and stories in this awesome piece from Fast Company, I felt inspired to share some of my SXSW stories. This is the third.

I’m sure a handful of the other nearby hotels offered similar amenities (though perhaps not the veranda), but for whatever reason we all seemed to gravitate to the Hampton.

Over the years, I had a the pleasure of meeting and enjoying both company and conversation with dozens of the web’s brightest minds, but my favorite memories from that particular hotel revolved around food.

Breakfast was always a big draw and quickly began to take on an almost tailgating-esque significance. We’d meet in the breakfast area, load up on breakfast meats, eggs, and pastries and then compare notes and plan out our day. And if nothing interesting was on deck for a bit, we’d pull out our DSes and engage in some pretty epic races in Mario Kart. Shaun Inman usually won, but Dan Cederholm, Jason Santa Maria, and Rob Weychert were pretty good too. I rarely placed.

We didn’t compete for anything but bragging rights. And occasionally bacon.

On particularly awesome Hampton institution was wine & cheese. But before I get into what it was and its significance, let me first talk about its lovely host.

When I attended SXSW 2005, I didn’t know anyone. Sure, I followed a bunch of people’s blogs and articles, but I didn’t really know any of them. I went to SXSW hoping to change that and was successful beyond my wildest dreams. One of the most amazing people I met at SXSW has never been a household name even though she was wildly ahead of her time: Jenifer Hanen (or Ms. Jen as she’s affectionately known).

When I first saw Me. Jen, I stopped dead in my tracks. The woman who stood before me looked remarkably familiar, but I could not for the life of me figure out why. She looked back at me with what I can only imagine was a perfect mirror of the perplexed expression I was wearing.

“I know you. But why?” we asked in near unison.

After rooting around in our past lives a bit, we realized that we had met at SXSW nearly a decade earlier when we were both journalists covering the music festival. Not only that, but we had met through a mutual friend… Rey Roldan (a pivotal figure in my first story).

Mystery solved, we filled each other in on what we’d been up to since we’d last met and how it was we both had come to work on the web. Ms. Jen was incredibly interested in the future of mobile photography. In 2005, she was running around snapping photos on her Nokia 7610. She was always ahead of the curve, realizing the latent potential of mobile while most of us were still grumbling about IE6.

Ms. Jen had been coming to SXSW for quite some time and got to know the staff at the Hampton, who routinely hooked her up with one of the suites meaning she had a couch, a coffee table, and a ’fridge… three important facilities if you plan on hosting a wine & cheese party. Which is exactly what she and some friends decided to do in 2006.

When I arrived at the party, I was greeted by Ms. Jen playing the attentive hostess. I was given a glass of wine and plopped myself down on the floor and introduced myself to the little group Jen had gathered. It was a small group, but the conversations were fantastic and I met a number of amazing individuals whose friendships I value tremendously: Kenneth Himschoot, Lauren Isaacson, Chris Mills, Veerle Pieters, Jessica Spengler, and Steph Troeth.

Ms. Jen’s wine & cheese parties quickly became a staple of our annual pilgrimage to SXSW Interactive. Each year, more people came until the crowd got so large you literally could not fit another human being in the room. Standing room only… including on top of the bed and some of the other pieces of furniture. The room would be filled with incredible people you wanted to see and interact with, but was also overcrowded and uncomfortable.

In a lot of ways, Ms. Jen’s wine & cheese parties were mirroring what was happening with the festival as a whole. But that’s another story for another day.

It’s hard to believe that SXSW Interactive is 20 years old. Reading through the remarks and stories in this awesome piece from Fast Company, I felt inspired to share some of my SXSW stories. This is the third.

At the time, the panels for Interactive occupied roughly 3-4 rooms upstairs, in the far corner of the Convention Center. We were the AV club to Music & Film’s jocks and cool kids in the high school cafeteria. But, to me, walking into that corner was like swimming up to a coral reef teeming with schools of incredible fish. I recognized so many of our industry’s luminaries as I floated through: Eric Meyer … Jeffrey Zeldman … Jason Fried … Tantek Çelik … These were people whose blog posts and articles had helped me solve issues I was having, people that helped me hone my craft, people that were indirectly responsible for me being there as a finalist in the awards. And unlike the reef fish, they didn’t spook when I saddled up to them and said hello.

Everyone was incredibly friendly and I was amazed when they invited me to join them as they sat on the floor and leaned against the walls between and during some of the sessions. The hallway became our meeting place and I began to meet more amazing people, many of whom were just starting to make a splash in our then-young industry: Jeremy Keith, Andy Budd, Richard Rutter, Matt Mullenweg, Jason Santa Maria, Jon Hicks, Rob Weychert, Ethan Marcotte, Ian Lloyd, Cindy Li, and Faruk Ateş to name but a few. Together we bonded on those dirty, industrially-carpetted conventions center floors and those relationships became friendships and grew into new businesses and ventures.

I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity I had to go to SXSW that year. I’m thankful for the carpet and the hallways. And I am ever so thankful for the friends I made there, friends that I still hold dear nearly 10 years later.

It’s hard to believe that SXSW Interactive is 20 years old. Reading through the remarks and stories in this awesome piece from Fast Company, I felt inspired to share some of my SXSW stories. This is the second.

Two years later, my little publication became a media sponsor of SXSW and I got a Platinum badge, granting me access to everything SXSW had to offer. I didn’t attend any of the Interactive panels—I was far more interested in seeing Tom Waits’ first live performance in 10 years, meeting Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, and interviewing Janeane Garofalo—but I did check out the trade show.

At the time, the trade show was mixed: music, film & interactive all lumped in together. (The conferences overlapped more at the time as well.) It was an interesting time because many labels were experimenting with interactive CDs and such, but MP3s and digital downloads were still pretty uncommon. Napster had just launched that year and only one major-label band at the time—They Might Be Giants—had the foresight to issue a digital-only album: Long Tall Weekend.

Amid all of the music and film-related hubub, I made my way over to the one corner devoted to Interactive’s vendors. While perusing the wares and looking for cool swag (of which there was none), I discovered a guy hocking something called a “Content Management System”. It sounded marvelous. I had been doing static (framed, of course) HTML versions of my magazine for about two years at that point and the idea of being able to enter and maintain the content in a more dynamic and flexible format was mind-blowing. I have no idea what the software was called, but the back-end was Filemaker. I bought it, of course. It wasn’t until I got back to my hotel rom that I realized Filemaker was Mac-only. I was on Windows. Cue the sad trombone.

I never once ended up installing or using that early CMS, but it sowed a seed in my mind of the possibilities for a website and I began to take my practice of web design more seriously. I taught myself PHP and MySQL and just kept going. And I owe it all to that guy and his Filemaker CMS.

It’s hard to believe that SXSW Interactive is 20 years old. Reading through the remarks and stories in this awesome piece from Fast Company, I felt inspired to share some of my SXSW stories. This is the first.

True to his Twitter handle, Jeff is a web craftsman of the highest order. He breezed through the rigorous hurdles of my technical interview, yet is humble about his skills and is always eager to learn more. Jeff has demonstrated a great tenacity in his professional life thus far and we are excited to see how he puts that to work for us.

Jeff and his family are currently living outside of Orlando, Florida, but we hope to have them relocated to the Scenic City by the summer.

Welcome Jeff!