Bookmarks are back, web type Jenga

Thanks to a few manual backups and the recovery methods Larry Halff suggested shortly after the data loss, we have recovered most bookmarks from the Nice Web Type Ma.gnolia group.

I was worried that timestamps and tags would be unrecoverable, but they’re mostly intact. Thank goodness, because the tags include “via” attribution and list responsible parties (the bookmark headline isn’t always the place for these). These bits are often as important as the resource itself.

Tags

There’s much cleanup to do. Tags were migrated in all lowercase. Also, Ma.gnolia allowed spaces in tags – Delicious put underscores in for all of those. Call me persnickety, but I think tag management is a big deal. They need to be tidy, and they have to look good. I like the way Jason Santa Maria tagged his bookmarks, so I’m going with a “capitalization and hyphens” strategy. (See how good that looks??)

Tag management could mean the difference between someone finding a resource or not. And anyway, attention to such detail pays off like wearing freshly pressed clothes to that big meeting.

Timestamps

The other issue I mentioned was timestamps. I plan to say more about this in future posts but, just like the who, why, and where that tags can provide, the when is critical.

Web typography is a flimsy science. Built on ancient grace and patient precision, sure, but supported by a cocktail of web technologies that is relatively young and always changing. You have to know when something happened so you know what else is (or was) involved.

I don’t need to tell you how cool web typography is, but let’s just say it’s as cool as that cool orb I got for my brother last Christmas. If that’s our metaphor, then web typography is like a cool orb balanced on a game of Jenga that’s being played every day, all day long.

Hmm.

Well, it’s like a game of Jenga where pieces are both removed and added. And the added pieces are much better than the removed pieces. And our Jenga players are awesome, so it’s like a Jenga championship or festival or something.

…

I sense I’ve taken our metaphor much too far. Like I said, I plan to say more about timestamps in future posts. Grab the RSS feed and follow along.

By the way, my brother’s cat knocked his orb off of the fridge. Takeaway? Outside forces can affect the Jenga game as well.

I’ll stop now.