the urge to zurza

In mid-April, I flew to Detroit to interview Detroit Pistons public relations director Matt Dobek for a book I'm writing about the 1992 Dream Team. In Barcelona, Matt served as one of four press people attached to the U.S. team, his primary responsibility being coach Chuck Daly, with whom he worked in Detroit. Matt did a superior job, which wasn't surprising; he was a major player in those halcyon days of the NBA, someone who skillfully walked the line as both an advocate for his team and an honest resource for the press.

Let's start today's Fantasy Clicks with six too-close-to-call debates for draft day. And for the sake of consistency, I'll stick to the realm of standard-scoring leagues:

NEWARK, N.J. -- The gulf in the heavyweight division between the Klitschko brothers and everyone else seems as wide as ever.

Karl Benson was in Los Angeles on Wednesday to drop off his daughter for her freshman year at USC. In a way, the WAC commissioner probably felt like a college freshman pondering the possibilities on the horizon.

This week on Friday Focus: designs that feature artistic renderings of skyscrapers and other features of a long landscape. See how they’re incorporated below.

Designs of the Week

Great grungy attitude all over, even the shiny buttons have a bit of smudge on them. Nice little detail: I like how the carousel’s right arrow changes into a square block to indicate there are no images left to view.

Love the easy feel from the pastels, gradients, rounded corners, and happy illustrations. The “add your company building” feature is also a great concept for the purpose of this website.

Bold and high contrast. Even the borders and background patterns are rugged and chunky.

The animated stack of books is really clever, and clicking loads a page where the books is opened.

Love the non-rectangular frame for the carousel—I’m seeing more of these lately. Body text is a little to small though.

The open, airy header area looks great. This is also a rare gem of a liquid layout.

Interesting fisheye (a.k.a. OS X dock) hover effect on the navigation, though I can see not-so-seamless texture tiling!

I like how all the clickables are so big yet still look minimal and refined. It’s all in the type and colors, right?

Great treatment on the contact form and the image frames. Textures all over!

I seem to have a lot of grungy designs this week, and I’m not complaining! Love the way the sections are divided, with blocky headers and thick borders of stars.

Spacing needs a little work in the featured images area, but the header navigation animations are adorable. This site is so warm and friendly.

Good idea to use the neightborhood skyline as a divider for the different sections in this one-page site. Although I think the black background is a big disconnect from the light blue one at the top.

Not a fan of the lens flare, and the featured image could have been a slideshow/carousel instead.

Lovely animations, and I like the way the skyline is in a corner instead occupying the whole width of the screen.

I wish the quirkiness of the header illustration and logo carried over to the rest of the design.

Beautiful, beautiful illustrations of the Moscow skyline. The scrollbar navigation for the image works well too. I wish they were a little more interactive though, with tooltips or links. And hooray for another liquid layout.

The header canopy is a nifty touch to the header design. Love the mix of patterns too.

Social Media Weekly

Design – Perception and the design of forms – Part 4: Figure/ground
“In this article we are going to explain the principle of figure/ground, which is surprisingly central to how forms work. More often than not this principle is—unintentionally—applied well. But we’ll also show you a few examples of when it isn’t.”

Programming – Semantics and sensibility
“For a while now, sensible naming conventions and semantics have been confused.”

Mobile – HOW TO: Make Your Mobile Websites Act More Like Native Apps
“Fortunately, a number of different frameworks are making it easier and easier for developers to create mobile web applications that look and feel more like native apps. Here are six examples.”

It's not as incomprehensible as the Rules of Golf or even what constitutes a sand trap at Whistling Straits, but it is a bit confusing that there are two hockey summits on the calendar this month in Toronto.

   “Me all alone now.” The mannequin formerly known as Heidi Montag came out of seclusion today, albeit briefly, to express her condolences over the loss of Dr. Frank Ryan, the only plastic surgeon brave enough to take all her MTV money in exchange for radical reconstructive surgery that suggests a deep psychological fracture. God rest his Read More ...

In the end, Bryce Harper and the Nationals needed each other too much for him not to sign.

If you want to grow your blog’s audience and you use WordPress.org as your blogging application, then you need to try the five WordPress plugins listed below. They’re easy to use, free, and can have a significant impact on the number of visitors to your blog.

1. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)

The more great content people are exposed to on your blog, the higher the chances are that they’ll find something they like causing them to return to your blog again, share your content with their own online connections, and ultimately, drive additional traffic to your blog. YAARP is a great plugin for automatically including a list of related posts at the end of each of your blog posts. The Link Within widget is another alternative.

2. Tweetmeme Retweet Button

The Retweet button is a must-have for all bloggers who want to increase traffic by making it easy for readers to share your blog posts with their own followers on Twitter. You can add the Retweet button to your blog as a widget or as a WordPress plugin. The TwitThis plugin offers similar functionality.

3. Share This

There are a number of WordPress plugins that make it easy for people to share links to your blog posts through their social web profiles like Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and more. Share This is a popular choice. Others include Sociable and Add to Any.

4. All-in-One SEO Pack

You can use the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin to give your blog posts an SEO boost and drive more traffic from keyword searches on popular search engines like Google.

5. Subscribe to Comments

When you allow people to subscribe to the comments published on a blog post, they receive an email when new comments are added. This drives them back to your blog again to keep up with the conversation and continue participating. The Subscribe to Comments plugin makes it easy for WordPress.org users to allow readers to stay involved in ongoing conversations on their blogs.

What are your favorite WordPress plugins for boosting traffic to your blog? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Image: stock.xchng

NEW YORK -- As Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez jogged in from the bullpen to pitch a ninth inning -- meaningless if not for the fact that it was his first appearance since his arrest for assault and the night he spent in the holding cell at Citi Field three nights ago -- fans greeted him with mild boos.