August 2007
89 posts
An Open Letter to NBC re: Leaving Apple’s iTunes... →
Jeremy Horowitz:Hi, NBC. It’s me, Jeremy. You probably don’t know me, but I’m one of your customers. That’s right, “customers.” Two years ago, that word wouldn’t have made any sense to either of us. The idea of paying money for your TV shows was next to ridiculous to me back then. Even today, I think it’s on the fine edge of foolish, and all it would take is one really dumb move by your company...
“And there’s good news! I am the first documented medical case of a...”
– Hell of a consolation prize
NBC Will Not Renew iTunes Contract →
This is further proof that content providers are not only scared of Apple’s weight in this market space, but they’re also out of touch with what their customers want.
A Friday List of...
5 Perfect Combinations: A cold morning and hot coffee Low light and good jazz The daily commute and NPR Summertime and Gin & Tonics Steak and Mashed PotatoesFor my money, I don’t know if it gets much better than these…well, maybe not having a daily commute would be an improvement.
Modernist Prefab Homes →
Maybe it’s nothing more than an expression of my desire to live a more minimalist lifestyle, or perhaps it’s my tendency to fixate on things, but lately I can’t seem to get enough of these modern prefab homes. The list here has examples (with pictures) from around the world and almost all of them sport an interesting design, small footprint, eco-friendly material, and no room...
$2 Multi-touch →
It’s very DIY, but the control seems to be pretty accurate. I’d be trying this out…..if I had an iSight.
Home Office? It's in the Yard →
In keeping with my desire to do more work from home, having something like this shed or an Airstream that I could use as an office would be ideal. It would give you a clear separation of “being at work” and “being at home” with a tiny fraction of the distance, and would also provide a place of your own to get away from the hussle of the typical household.
Woot-Off! →
Another month, another Woot-Off. As always, may I recommend using a Woot Checker?
The Nod →
FTA:You know. The secret handshake. The eye contact that you make with someone else driving the car just like yours, because you know what it’s like, why they do it. Why it makes them different. It’s an interesting observation, and since I own Apple products and drive a VW, I know exactly what he’s talking about. (via cameron and Shawn Blanc)
September 1752, The Month That Wasn’t →
11 days are missing from September 1752? I had no idea…
“Add value sooner by solving the highest-priority/smallest-problem first. Then...”
– Jason Fried, 37Signals
Tilt-Shift Photography →
From the article:A tilt-shift lens allows the photographer very exacting control over the depth-of-field in an image […] This distorts the appearance and makes the eye think that distances are a lot smaller than they typically are. When applied to a large scene like a city or a museum, everything appears miniature. I love the effect in these shots… (via Blake)
Sunday Edition Tumblr Theme →
A link to the live preview of my Tumblr Theme, Sunday Edition. I’m still trying to find a way to make the theme code available, but am coming up short. If anyone has some space to host a 7kb txt file, please let me know. Update: I created myself an account on Tumblepedia, and the new home for my Sunday Edition Tumblr theme can be found here. Thanks, Cameron!
Searching your t'log sucks →
AATW responding to my new search boxes:Neither work well. Try searching for a post from a few months ago. Nothing turns up. Here’s what I think the problem is. Every Tumblr page is titled with the name of the t’log. You might have noticed that smart sites like TechCrunch, Ars Technica, etc. use the post title as the page title. Doing this lists a site higher on “the Google”, or in...
You don't always have to be in the office
In a technology-related field, particularly software development, being able to work from home is important. Although I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to make such a claim, I’ve known a few companies that have a work-from-home policy, but the mere mention that you’ll be exercising it draws ire from all the wrong people. Naturally, I’m forced to wonder why that...
That Yawn After Lunch Is Perfectly Normal →
And here I was thinking I just wasn’t getting enough sleep. Perhaps it’s both?
'Chicago Business' Interviews Jason Fried →
Jason Fried of 37Signals:I do think less structure is going to be a really good thing. Of course, it gets harder as the company gets bigger and bigger and bigger, but I’d like to see smaller and smaller and smaller companies. I don’t think you need to be a big company anymore to do big things. I couldn’t agree more.
New at cubicle 17...
Does this happen to you? Do you ever need to find an old post only to end up clicking the “Previous Entries” link until you find it? Well, it’s happened to me a lot, and needless to say, it was less than efficient. I resolved myself to add search to the site, and it was the Tumblepedia to the rescue! Using this entry it took me all of 15 minutes to add, style and test the new...
iPhone Accelerometer Hack →
I can already think of a few games that would hugely benefit from having this kind of access to the iPhone’s accelerometer. Very cool.
twittervision →
Straight out of the I-forgot-this-existed Department, this is a near real-time mashup of Twitter and Google Maps…and it’s completely hypnotic.
Turn CD cases into Dry Erase Boards →
It doesn’t make for the biggest writing surface, but it’d be a great thing to glue magnets on and attach to the fridge. (via instructables)
Best Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years →
There are a few that I may not entirely agree with, but I think the top 5 are spot-on.
iPhone Jailbreaking Post-Mortem
The wife was out with “the girls” last night, so I took the opportunity to try out some 3rd-party apps on my iPhone. I used the latest version of the AppTapp Installer (v2.31 at the time of writing), and everything went smoothly. They aren’t kidding when they say that jailbreaking the iPhone is almost too easy not to do: the only user interaction required is picking the firmware...
Wondering...
Is there a central location on the internet for custom Tumblr themes? I’m aware of Tumblepedia’s theme section, but that doesn’t allow me to upload theme code (at least, I don’t think it does). Naturally, since I don’t have hosting of my own, having the theme code hosted elsewhere is paramount. I’ve said before that I think Tumblr’s ease-of-use makes it...
Mini Meme: Quick Survey →
Marco:Has anyone ever seen a contextual AdSense ad on a website that actually interested them, then clicked on it and made a purchase? I’ve seen ads, and I’ve clicked on them (although, I usually only click on them to generate some ad revenue for the site I’m on, rarely if ever am I interested in what the ads are selling), but I’ve never purchased anything.
A Friday List of 5...
Apps/Services I Want a Reason To Use: Google Apps - I currently use MS Office, but I hate it. Wesabe - Not sure why, maybe because it’s pretty? Amazon S3 - Mmmm…store things online for cheap… Skype - I have it installed, but I rarely have a need for it. Basecamp - Project management at its finest. I’m sure if I tried hard enough, I could find a “reason” to use...
I just joined Twitter →
I know, I know; I’m so late to this party that it isn’t even fashionable anymore, but at least I showed up, right? I had an account on Pownce previously, but have come to realize a few things… I hardly know anyone on Pownce, and these services are only as good as the people you know that use it Most people already have Twitter accounts, and will likely never switch over to Pownce...
What's a typical workday for you?
I wake up around 6am, make myself a cup of coffee, play with my cat, and run through my RSS feeds. My commute to work is generally around 15-20 minutes depending on traffic. I arrive at work between 8 and 8:30 and generally stay there, working on code/testing, until between 4:30 or 5:30, when I start my commute home. All in all, I consider it a fairly “normal” workday (although...
6-minute Letterpress "Documentary" →
AisleOne is correct, the narrator is a bit annoying, but there’s an undeniable appeal to letterpress. Maybe it’s the old-style way it’s done, but it’s nothing if not gorgeous.
What Does Your E-Mail Signature Say About You? →
My e-mail signature at work:Bill Israel [email] 314.xxx.xxxx My name, my e-mail, and the phone number at my desk; so far so good. Here’s the signature for my personal e-mail account:Bill Israel [email] xxx-xxx-xxxx http://cubicle17.com/ Similar story: name, e-mail, cell phone, and website. What does this tell you about me? Well, I hope it says that I look at signatures much the same way...
Tumblelag →
AATW: Tumblr’s become way too slow for me. One of the main things I liked about Tumblr was that it was zippy and allowed me to post stuff in seconds. I’m on a 256k connection and Tumblr is becoming unbearable. I’ve noticed this too over the past few days: a major slow-down for Tumblr in general, including a bit yesterday where Tumblr wouldn’t load at all. I have no idea...
Groupware Bad →
From 2005 and still completely on point. I can sum up this article in one word: brilliant. (via Anil Dash)
iPhone 3rd Party App Installer →
I saw this on Gizmodo last week, and John Gruber just mentioned that it’s been updated for 1.0.2, so I think I’ll be putting this on my iPhone sometime this weekend. Wish me luck.
Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series →
This is a must see for everyone, regardless of how you feel about nature documentaries. My wife and I finished the first disc last night, and it’s nothing short of amazing. The narration is excellent, but it takes a back seat to the visuals, and the visuals are utterly breathtaking (if you’re lucky enough to own an HDTV and have the appropriate player, I can only imagine the HD-DVD and...
Give a Killer Rehearsal Dinner Speech
Although many try, good rehearsal dinner speeches are not something I hear very often. Case in point: I’ve been to four weddings this summer, and of the dozens of speeches I listened to, only a handful were any good. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of public speaking experience or the excess booze, but few people know how to deliver that memorable speech at a rehearsal dinner....
10 Odd Little Minimalist Things I Do →
I consider myself a minimalist, but a couple of these things are too odd even for me. Two in particular that stuck out were No cable TV and No mobile Internet, because while I admit to weekly thoughts of ditching cable TV, you’d have to pry my iPhone from my cold, dead fingers.
Tumblr Theme Contest?
I realized while looking at the default Tumblr themes that although they’re of noticeably high quality, all of the themes are vaguely similar (~500px wide, mostly sans-serif fonts, few if any images, etc), and that started me thinking: am I the only person who would love to see Tumblr have an open contest for a few new default themes? I know there are some very talented designers who keep...
Business card mistakes →
Seth Godin:In an era where no one dresses up anymore, they [business cards] give you a chance to position yourself, to represent who you are and what you do in a three cent piece of paper. If I wasn’t keenly aware that Seth Godin has no idea I exist, I might think he read my post on business cards. (via marco)
Foundation of RIAA lawsuits in danger of being... →
Eric Bangeman:In fact, it would all but certainly kill the RIAA’s current litigation model. The labels would have to show actual evidence that someone downloaded a file from a targeted P2P user instead of just offering a few screenshots and a report from MediaSentry along with a boilerplate complaint. I know you can’t see this, but I’m crossing my fingers for this one harder than...
Font rendering philosophies of Windows and Mac OS... →
When long-time Windows users make The Switch to Mac, a common complaint centers around the look of Mac fonts. This article doesn’t choose sides about whose font-rendering philosophy is better, but it does explain why people think Mac fonts look “blurry.” It’s an interesting read, and if nothing else, I’ll be defending Mac font-rendering more intelligently from now on....
The new YUI Rich Text Editor →
Dav Glass:I built it to work in Safari 2 before retrofitting it back to Opera, then Firefox and lastly Internet Explorer. I figured that if I could make Safari do what I wanted, the other three would fall into place nicely. And they did. Wait! Did he just say that a JavaScript-based Rich Text Editor works in Safari?! Yes. Yes he did.
Blog Thoughts
I know meta-blogging is lame, so I’ll keep this short. I was in San Antonio this weekend, and because typing HTML on an iPhone is nothing short of painful, I started doing some thinking about my blog. I realized that my blogging has been muddled lately, and I decided that starting now, it will follow a new set of “rules”: No forced posting: simply put, if I have nothing to say,...
Improving Bug and Issue Tracking →
Bug and issue tracking is no fun. It’s convoluted and frustrating, to say the least. Garrett Dimon hits it on the head when describing the most obvious problem with typical bug tracking software:That was the heart of the problem, in my opinion. If the workflow wasn’t simple, the software wouldn’t be either…For me, it was more important to define one clear and simple process instead of...
Expand Your Web Typography →
Ironically, while I think it looks great on OS X, Palatino doesn’t look that good on Windows (even with ClearType turned on), and for that reason alone I would have stuck with Georgia. I just don’t think you can talk about typography on the web without considering the font rendering for all OSes that have that particular font installed by default. (via cameron)
How I Became a Programmer →
I always enjoy reading things like this; I see at them as a kind of behind-the-scenes peek at how someone else got where they are, and that’s fascinating to me.
FSJ: My lunch with Fester →
Fake Steve Jobs: Siooma, motherfuckers.Perhaps rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated…
Cameron got a new theme
Cameron redesigned his Tumblr theme this afternoon, and I think it’s damn near perfect. The colors are particularly well-suited to the rest of the theme and nothing feels out of place. Very well done, sir.
Which Transformer are you? →
I was 66% Megatron….hmmmm….