Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Architects are the WORST clients in the world. We've tired it 3 times and each time ended with us saying 'Thank your for the opportunity, here are few numbers of free clinics in your area that can help you diagnose whatever mental illness(es) you have. Godspeed!'

Our last one gave us a creative brief that reads (yes, i still have it) 'We want a site that reflects our love of space, diffuse light and textures. We need a site that makes people look up and outside of the screen and say 'this site is huge'. When I suggested that we make the site spray LSD every time it loads they didn't think it was funny.

We use Entourage (the mac version of Outlook) here at the office and it's pretty good. You're able to share information, projects and contacts. The 2004 release has some features we cannot live without. I know it's an MS product, but it is very very good.

I know you said that on online calendar isn't a good option, but check out and bookmark 30 Boxes (http://www.30boxes.com/). Very simple concept but a powerful one.

I also recommend Zimbra (http://zimbra.com/). It's a very polished calendar and collaboation tool.

Hope that helps, Ken

Greetings from the very soggy east bay.

Depending on my increasing insane schedule, I'd be interested in attending.

The debate about hosting companies is always a fun one. One person had a great experience while another would like to see them dead.

We've been with iPowerWeb for many years and have had a great experience with them and recommend them with confidence. Last year we tried a few others just to see if we were missing something. I'll regret that test for a long time.

I've also heard good things about 1and1 who seem to be squaring off to go toe-to-toe with GoDaddy.

We recently purchased hosting for a small test domain on eBay. Go to eBay and enter 'web hosting'. I highly recommend reading the user feedback! We are 3 months into the year of hosting for which we paid $10. So far so good.

I agree with Karl's recommendations, those are 2 great sites.

The trouble with getting a real handle on web development is that it changes so frequently it's hard for anyone to keep a firm grip on what the latest trend is.

For the past couple of years web standards was the buzz words everyone was using. AListApart is a great resource for that since they almost single handedly started that trend.

A new webzine called UX Magazine has some very good articles about what is going on in web development & Web 2.0: http://www.uxmag.com/

Right now AJAX is getting allot of attention and may drive yet another web boom. I don't know how technical you want to get, but it would be good to know about. Here's a great article explaining the benefits: http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php