January 2012
2 posts
Life as a VCR repairman in 2012
Steven Soderberg, quoted in Moviegoer:
A lot of people who think, “It’s just a double click—what difference does it make?” are going to find that out when they try to go into a field in which they are creating stuff and their survival depends on people buying their stuff. They’re going to have a moment of, “Oh, s—t. The reason I don’t have a career is because people are doing what I was doing...
One digital rights locker please
The Akamai for UltraViolet product is designed to connect with the digital rights locker and offer up storage, security and delivery of UltraViolet-enabled digital assets. The idea is to create a common reference point that studios and retailers can point to whenever a consumer tries to access an UltraViolet title.
Just in case you were wondering why the movie and TV industry is fucked - this...
December 2011
2 posts
Seems clear enough
“The sea of bloody tears from our military and people will follow the puppet regime until the end. The tears will turn into a sea of revengeful fire that burns everything.”
Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, said the statement did not necessarily mean that Pyongyang was averse to reform.
I think these two consecutive paragraphs capture the insanity...
Satisfaction
From John Gruber:
Can you prove that Apple is thriving because it takes much better care of its existing customers than do any of its competitors? I guess not. But it’s the difference between a company that simply wants to sell you a device, and a company that wants to sell you a device and make you happy that you bought it.
Reminds me of the explanations of Mercedes-Benz’s advertising...
November 2011
3 posts
Cannibalism beats starving
Just read these two articles on rethinking print, responsive advertising and the web. I think they’ve missed the point for two simple reasons:
They seem to be convinced that people won’t pay for things on the internet.
They’re similarly convinced that advertising is the way people will have to get paid on the web.
I disagree. People are starting from a previous medium and...
“Levy: But without software patents, you wouldn’t have exclusive rights to...”
– Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think
October 2011
1 post
September 2011
5 posts
What do I have in common with my friends?
I have both Rdio and Spotify accounts. At the moment I use Spotify more because I find both it’s iPhone and Desktop apps better, but decisions regarding Facebook login got me thinking about what I like (and dislike) about both services.
They both feel halfway there. Actually a third of the way there - neither of them are available in enough places for the social part of their services to...
Amazon goes shopping
There are reports Amazon is interested in buying Palm (and WebOS). The first suggestion is that picking up WebOS and it’s associated IP at a discount would allow Amazon create platforms for delivery of its content and services without being dependent on Google.
I think an interesting question is whether Kindle OS, with a great library of content could be more attractive for hardware...
Varsity Bookmarking: Who Svpply is competing with,... →
pieratt:
The line I’ve started pitching to my team is that Svpply wants to do for materialism what Twitter has done for narcissism.
A succinct and honest way to pitch your product.
Interesting to consider how Twitter and other services require us to rewire ourselves in order to benefit from them.
“Even with some vocal users complaining early on, Apple said they have not seen...”
– If this is true it doesn’t surprise me. One of the hardest things to do in product design is to distinguish between a loudly complaining minority and an actual problem.
Apple releases major update to Final Cut Pro X, release demo version
#6633FF
fuckyeahwebsafecolors:
#6633ff
August 2011
1 post
June 2011
1 post
May 2011
5 posts
Portfolios are silver, LIVE design is gold. →
Leisa Reichelt is bang on here, it’s what you ship that matters.
“There are no simple solutions. Trying to recreate a world that has come and gone...”
– With regards to dealing with copyright infringement, I couldn’t have described the situation any better.
A VC: Protect IP (fka COICA)
1 tag
Good or different?
At my day job I’m working to solve similar problems to those already being solved in some way by Google, Facebook, Quora and Twitter.
In addition to developing respect for the work these guys have done, I find myself struggling with the similarities between my solutions and theirs. The question I ask myself is: how different should my solutions be?
I’ve arrived at a similar...
3 tags
WatchI really like this sequencer UI Stretta has built with a Monome and Arc. Particularly amazed at how responsive it is when scrolling.
(via The Stretta Procedure: plane - m | vi | cv)
April 2011
6 posts
Dads are the Original Hipsters →
Just in case anyone missed it.
1 tag
A designer by any other name...
Dmitry from ZURB is not happy with the term “User Experience Designer”:
How many of these positions are really web design, IA (information architecture), interaction design or another established craft, but filed under a buzzword name? Frankly, how can you design a user experience? Doesn’t it just happen?
First, I’ll note that I’m complicit for responding to this...
1 tag
Translation of General Misogyny to Uncomfortable... →
I spent a while writing a rebuttal of rather bullshit arguments from John O’Nolan and Matthew Donelly in response to Mike Monteiro’s criticism of the BuildConf line up, then I found this post by Faruk Ateş that says it much better. So I’m just going to link to it.
1 tag
Standards vs Best Practices
I can do some very inaccessible things in HTML5 that won’t trigger validity warnings, because the standards writers just didn’t think those issues mattered very much.
Marc Drummond is concerned about the progress of HTML5 away from enforcing good accessibility practices.
So far HTML5 has been aggresively pragmatic to ensure it was a standard that would actually be adopted. See the...
Livable = Boring?
This caught my eye a while back but I never got around to posting it, but after a long weekend of enjoying Berlin I’m back to thinking about it:
mid-sized cities in developed countries with relatively low population densities tend to score well by having all the cultural and infrastructural benefits on offer with fewer problems related to crime or congestion
I always see cities that...
1 tag
A Fresh Start
Redesigning blogs and personal sites seems to be a difficult pursuit for designers and it seems I’m no different. It doesn’t help that visuals are not my strong point. So, in the interests of practicing what I’ve preached I’m putting the what I have out there so that I can start work on the next version.
As a start I wanted this thing to be responsive, HTML5 and to use...
March 2011
4 posts
A new definition of open
From Bloomberg Businessweek:
From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google’s most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And they will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google’s Android group.
Not that I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but it will make it harder criticize Apple from the position of being “open”.
1 tag
Hoping listeners win
Good for Amazon. I really hope they win this. I you buy a song (or movie, or TV show), it shouldn’t matter where it’s stored.
I’m with John Gruber on this one. I’m tired of the people who distribute music thinking their sole goal is to prevent people listening to it unless they are willing to have every last cent extracted from them.
Beyond the app store
It’s rather late for me to jump in on the app store discussions but I think there might be a simple way to get to the core of people’s objections to the new rules: Apple is now telling developers what to do outside of the app store.
It’s hard to argue that Apple can decide what that goes on in the app store - it’s their store, their platform and their devices. What’s...
February 2011
5 posts
“The Nokia Series 30 and 40 phones may be thoroughly outmoded in the...”
– They were still shipping a lot of VCRs when DVDs came out too.
Nokia CEO: Why We’re More Relevant Than Ever
1 tag
Who actually asked for a "magazine-like"...
From Engadget’s coverage of today’s announcement of The Daily:
The team behind the new-age zine showed off plenty of that technology, including a magazine-like reading interface, letting you flip through pages or access a “carousel,” that gives you a higher-level view of the pages for easy, virtual flipping.
I know it’s not always wise to slag off on products you...
Zootool →
Although it’s not perfect, Zootool is the best service I’ve found on the web so far for visual bookmarking.
I’m considering investing some time in improving my visual design skills - I’m paranoid one day I won’t have any graphic designers at my disposal and I’ll be forced to venture beyond sharpies and post-its on my own - so I’m finding curating a...
January 2011
9 posts
Tablet OS
It’s not just that Apple is different among computer makers. It’s that Apple is the only one that even can be different, because it’s the only one that has its own OS. Part of the industry-wide herd mentality is an assumption that no one else can make a computer OS — that anyone can make a computer but only Microsoft can make an OS.
John Gruber made the point in 2009 that it’s hard to...
The Daily Joke
Contrary to numerous previous claims of The Daily being priced at 99 cents per week, Ad Age claims that the publication will cost 99 cents per day after a two-week trial period, with fresh news content being pushed to subscribers throughout the day.
Sounds a lot like the internet, but you know, smaller, more expensive and less useful. If this is true, I look forward to criticising this from...
Things Real People Don't Say About Advertising
tpdsaa:
I see a lot of jaded designers and developers tempted to reply to emails with these images.
Bill F@#king Murray
ameliac:
““About 15 minutes later we get a knock on the door… IT’S BILL F@#KING MURRAY! We were all shocked of course but at that point we were already pretty trashed so the party just kept going…At some point he bought us all a round of some weird green drink and wouldn’t tell us what it was.”
—
What if Bill Murray just showed up in your Karaoke room?
I’m a sucker for a good Bill...
1 tag
The Million Dollar Quartet
Apologies if I’m way behind everyone, but this stuff is pretty amazing - I advise getting your hands on this recording. It’s a great unedited slice of musical history - Elvis is telling stories, doing impersonations of other people singing his songs, you can hear Johnny Cash in the background. That said, the playing is bang on, even if the recording often isn’t.
Worth it just...
December 2010
12 posts
The Yahoo!locaust
Two graduate students, intrigued by a growing wealth of material on the Internet, built a huge fucking lobster trap, absorbed as much of human history and creativity as they could, and destroyed all of it.
Harsh words from Jason Scott on what Yahoo’s legacy may be.
It’s getting harder and harder to discuss Yahoo without getting apocalyptic about it.
1 tag
1 tag
37signals.com Redesign →
Nice run down of the redesign of 37signals front page. Impressive to see how many full iterations they go through with real content.
Where is Chrome for iOS?
It wouldn’t take much to set it apart. Just a few key features that Mobile Safari lacks:
Wireless syncing of passwords and bookmarks with Chrome desktop through your Google account.
Push notifications that integrated with Google’s services (like Gmail and Calendar). These would open the right URL in the browser.
A single field for search and URLs, just like on the desktop
This...
1 tag
Giving Better Design Feedback →
Good advice from Mike Monteiro on how to give feedback on design.
