August 2007
89 posts
A List Apart: Reviving Anorexic Web Writing →
FTA:Content is the heart of a brilliant user experience. From the body content to the alt text to the footer, the words that shape the page lie at the very center of an engaging visit. If the words aren’t beautiful and meaningful, the sleekest design in the world won’t compensate for it.
Another fine offering from A List Apart.
July 2007
79 posts
Regarding the Daring Fireball RSS Feed →
Gruber: So, here’s what I’m trying: As of about an hour ago, the main feed now contains the full content of the site, available to everyone free of charge. My concern is that Gruber leaves no incentive to pay for DF membership. I paid for a membership because I loved the content, but also for the convenience of having everything in my feed reader. The only incentive for membership now is a...
Paris Not Being Locked Out of Hotel Fortune →
Hm, it must be nice to live a life without consequences.
Pimp My Cubicle
My brother recently pointed out that a site ostensibly dealing with cubicles should include at least one feature that actually talks about cubicles. Of the few options we discussed, the one with most “replay potential” focused on ways to spice up your cube life.
I thought a little about it and decided to start with the ultimate in cube spicing: Dilbert’s Ultimate Cubicle....
Paris Hilton loses inheritance →
This news literally makes me giddy.
Queue Shuffle v1.0
In the months that I’ve been a Netflix member, the one feature I’ve been dying for is a “Shuffle Queue” feature. Since I’m particularly bad about sitting in front of my queue and laboring over what I want to see next, being able to randomize my queue is appealing to me necessary. I don’t expect Netflix to add this feature, so I decided to whip up a quick...
Wasting time at work? You're not alone: survey →
Wow…what a “shocking” statistic…
cubicle17.com
I finally decided that it didn’t make sense to continue publishing a tumbleblog called cubicle 17 to a URL where the word “cubicle” was nowhere to be seen. I purchased cubicle17.com the other day, and officially have it pointing to this blog. The old URL will still work, but will simply redirect you. Enjoy the shorter, more sensible URL and be sure to share it with friends ;)
...
Is this the new iMac keyboard?
→
If this is fake, it’s the best fake I’ve ever seen (complete with consistent product numbering and attention to detail), but I think there are too many coincidences for this not to be very close to the keyboard that will ship with the new iMacs. The real question is, if that’s how much Apple has changed the keyboard, what does the new iMac look like?
10 Steps Toward Better Writing →
Most of these steps, although aimed at students, can be generalized to all writers. Plus, the article includes my favorite bit of writing advice: write crappy first drafts. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no better start to good writing.
A Friday List of...
5 Things That Make You Feel “Grown-Up”: The first time you refer to college students as “those damn kids” and you mean it. Eating the heel of the loaf of bread. Realizing your parents no longer pay for anything. The moment you realize you’re in bed at 10pm…on a Friday…for the 5th week in a row. You start at least one sentence a day with “So I heard...
The 10 Commandments of Mac Optimization →
My favorite: 4. Remember the Stevenote day and keep it holy.
“Anyway, the way I see it is that the differences between the Mac and the PC that...”
– John C. Dvorak
The Items We Carry →
Flickr pool that allows people to share the things they carry with them day-to-day. Strangely compelling. (via DaringFireball)
US Senators call for universal Internet filtering →
Add “think of the kids,” and put it right beside “think of the terrorists,” to my list of arguments that no longer hold any water whatsoever.
The Darjeeling Limited →
The latest film by Wes Anderson: looks to be as quirky, hilarious, and engaging as everything else he’s done.
The truth about Fake Steve Jobs →
Well, that’s one less person it could be…
Blasting the Myth of the Fold →
Stop worrying about the fold. Don’t throw your best practices out the window, but stop cramming stuff above a certain pixel point. You’re not helping anyone. Open up your designs and give your users some visual breathing room. If your content is compelling enough your users will read it to the end.
When smart people have bad grammar →
I know it makes me an asshole to judge people based on their grammar, but I just can’t help it. Plus, I’m kind of an asshole.
Boy Swats Girl, Faces Jail →
THIS is what’s wrong with our legal system. The kid admittedly did a dumb thing and should be punished, but to prosecute him is absurd. He did what teenagers do: he acted before thinking. Let the girl slap him back and be done with it. Yeesh….
Jerry Seinfeld's productivity secret →
Don’t break the chain. So simple and silly sounding that it must be effective.
GravityPods →
I feel another Desktop Tower Defense-level addiction coming on…
Things I wish I’d know when I was younger →
One of the greatest advantages anyone can have is the willingness to make a fool of themselves publicly and often. There’s no better way to learn and develop. Heck, it’s fun too.
Summer Mix Series 2007 →
If you’re looking for new music for the summer, you’re guaranteed to find something here.
Obligatory: Harry Potter Review
I think the best way to describe Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is to liken it to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which is to say that by itself, the movie is simply mediocre. It’s a 2.5hr movie, where the first 2 hours are focused largely on Harry’s internal struggle. By the last half-hour, though, the movie picks up with some of the best action in any of the Harry...
Buzz Marketing Exposed - A STEP BY STEP Guide →
or How I Learned To Reserve a Spot on the Digg Homepage.
I'm calling it a tumbleblog
Lately, I’ve been struggling with where this website falls on the blog continuum: it’s more of a blog than a tumblelog, but more of a tumblelog than a blog. My first instinct was to separate the tumbling bits from the blog bits, but there doesn’t seem to be enough blog to justify that yet. So in its current state of mostly tumble with a smattering of blog, I’m just going...
RIAA Admits 'Stream-ripping' Is Not a Problem →
Yet another story from the ‘Duh Department’: stream-ripping is no different from recording off the radio…and we all know how much trouble that causes.
A Friday List of...
5 Things I’ll Never Understand: What’s so great about Java EE Why people think Dane Cook is funny How Google is worth $500+ a share String Theory Girls Seriously…these things utterly confound me.
The Safest Seat on an Airplane →
Perhaps Seat #29E isn’t that bad after all…
Hi. I'm Bill, and I'm a redesign addict
If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been through no less than 5 custom designs since I opened my Tumblr account a few months ago. For this latest iteration, I’ve taken cues from sites like Daring Fireball and kottke.org, and tried to create something simple and minimal that puts the content front-and-center. I’ve also tried to decrease visual clutter by only using permalinks on...
“They [SoundExchange] seek to leverage this absurd fee to impose mandates that...”
– Sounds like extortion to me
Man surprised by face bug infestation →
This could be the most disturbing thing ever…
Leave Fake Steve Jobs fake →
I could not agree more; if you “out” FSJ, you ruin what’s so great about him: the off-in-left-field chance that it might actually be written by His Steveness.
Woot-Off! →
It’s that time again! May I recommend a Woot Checker?
Massive patent reform bill passes House committee →
This is pretty good news. Now if we can just get rid of software patents…
WatchI would have never thought to do that. (via Lifehacker)
“84. All performance issues are resolved by getting larger machines”
– 19 of these apply to where I work.
Net radio "compromise" hinged on DRM adoption →
When will SoundExchange/RIAA/the major labels understand that DRM is going the way of the dodo (and so are they, more than likely), and continuing to push this agenda is doing little but making them look like mammoth jackasses?
Ever wonder what happened after the Death Star... →
…you’ll want headphones if you’re in an office, but this is hilarious.