Aggregate Hive

2008-12-13T14:21:00.000-05:00

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

The system should do the thinking

2008-08-19T06:36:00.001-05:00

There is irreducible complexity with every task, but the system should be designed to carry the maximum burden of the task. Communication is one where there is much reduction to be done. Phone numbers and address are obsolete. There should be one item, say your email address, or a new 'unified address' which connects to you. Phone, mail, email...whatever. So for example a person's contact would ALWAYS be john.doe@anywhere.contact. On my phone, that is what I would dial. If I need to send a letter to John Doe, all I would have to write is that on the envelope..etc. The system is where the burden of figuring it all out exists. It is much much more efficient for me, as the address owner, to update the end address rather than for everyone of the the people I know to have to update their address books or phone book everytime I change something.

New search engin

2008-07-28T00:22:00.001-05:00

Just found a search engine that was launched very recently. www.cuil.com
Built by ex-google engineers, back with more than $33 million in funding. For now I'm putting it as my default search in Firefox, playing with the new toy.

Solar power on windows

2008-07-12T01:34:00.001-05:00

Great research about concentrating light to the edges of a piece of glass.
http://www.physorg.com/news134917794.html

New and interesting startups

2008-06-29T02:05:00.001-05:00

ReQall.com - remind yourself of stuff
Peer39.com - semantic advertising
mashery.com - supporting custom mashups for companies

Design at every level

2008-05-02T23:15:00.001-05:00

While waiting at SFO airport, the simple act of eating a sandwich made me, once again, realize the importance of thoughtful design for a product.

The sandwich I bought looked appealing enough. It was one of many sitting inside an open chiller. In a clear-top box about a foot long and three or four inches wide. The sandwich, on a short baguette roll, was cut in half on a diagonal, so as to expose the layers of cheese, ham and lettuce. All together the presentation was attractive and colorful.

However, as I took my first bite, I wondered if the person who made this sandwich has ever tried to eat it. It is simply impossible to take a satisfying bite out of the thing. The whole thing is about three inches thick and three inches wide, and unless you have an unusually wide mouth, very challenging to bite into. (Ok, make your dirty jokes now.)

It seems as if the 'designer' tried to maximize the perceived value in the item by maximizing the amount of material used. However, what was forgotten was that the interaction experience has to be scaled appropriately, human scaled.

The best products and services know how to engage the human scale through every aspect of the product life cycle. Even a sandwich.

Productivity takes to the web

2008-03-21T03:50:00.002-05:00

I'm happy to see the plethora of online productivity tools emerge. 37signals was leading the a few years ago, now there are dozens of tools suited to every need and niche.

Check some out at the Webware.

Blurring the lines; persistent computing.

2008-02-27T04:37:00.001-05:00

Persistent computing bliss. Adobe AIR. Article at NYT.
As computers become more powerful and network connection becomes ubiquitous, we are going full circle and returning to the client-server model of centralized computing.

Can't wait.

Designed Objects

2008-02-27T04:24:00.001-05:00

A blog. Some interesting content. http://designedobjects.blogspot.com/

How to flip a ship.

2008-02-27T04:23:00.001-05:00

Article in wired about how Titan, a salvage company, flipped the Cougar Ace back upright.

Links this week.

2008-02-18T03:49:00.001-05:00

Seth Godin's presentation at google here.

Umair Haque of HBS on the shrinking advantage of brands.

HBS discussion leaders. Good thoughts!

Super Future, an interesting concept site.

Leading Questions. Thoughts in general.

Presentation Paradox (via blogoscoped.com)

2008-02-17T04:19:00.001-05:00

Here is a fun article about designing / presenting a simple tool vs. complex tool.

Learning to divide

2008-02-17T04:12:00.002-05:00

So I was listening to the radio today and hear an ad about an auto trading and selling website. It was trying to differentiate itself by offering quotes with a monthly payment rate, and also enable you to search by monthly payments. Granted, pulling an amortization schedule together is not for everyone, but the first question which came to mind was: have people lost the ability to divide?

Errors make up part of expertise

2007-12-20T03:00:00.001-05:00

Scientific America reports that even expert song birds make deliberate mistakes. Scientists report this in the Dec. 20th issue of Nature.

Sling it

2007-11-24T15:18:00.001-05:00

Sling box has a distinctive design which signals high-technology but also ease of use and consumer friendliness, and is a compelling product offering for the market it targets.

The website has a pretty unique opening flash, not the annoying ones you usually get, but instead a person speaking to you, on the down to earth level. He's lack of refinement subtlety puts you at ease with the technology ('if this bumbling idiot can understand, then I must be able to').

Changing the movie rental paradigm

2007-11-20T01:39:00.000-05:00

Porto media is on the way to change the movie rental paradigm. They worked with IBM to develop technology that can download movies to USB memory sticks is less than half a min. Currently they have kiosks developed, and are working with Universal.

(Via. www.ibm.com/do)

Business model built around mass customization

2007-11-18T21:04:00.001-05:00

Mass customization is an emerging trend. Ponoko is a company which operates on both ends of the business model. 1) For the creatively inclined designs can be laser cut and made for your, or you can sell your designs. 2) For the machine shop, incremental, low volume business can be driven.

The webpage has a fantastic interface, and there is already a small market place. Time to get creative.

As a side note there is a similar business which was promoted in an HP ad campaign. I can't recall the name, but it was also another machine shop.

Graffiti your password.

2007-11-18T21:03:00.001-05:00

Bank of America already uses images as part of its online sign-in system. This week the latest incarnation of 'Draw a Secret' method was described. You draw or graffiti on top of a background image. More at arstechnica.

Crunchbase

2007-11-10T04:44:00.000-05:00

www.crunchbase.com

www.aboutus.org

Weekly Dose - Nov 4 - 10

2007-11-08T00:22:00.000-05:00

So its been a while.
killerstartups.com good idea, terrible execution. But some on the list this week comes from there.

Corbis boutique is an interesting concept.
Myngle.com is a beta for language teachers and learners around the world. Hey. Sounds familiar.
ask500people.com is a fun concept. Sign up, ask questions. Watch the answers and results come in on a live map.
actionthis.com is an online project management system. Looks pretty slick. Built on Amazon S3. Looks like another basecamp esque clone. On another note, just saw a graphic designer company which does some work for the company I'm working for uses basecamp to interface with the client (us). Very nice. Funny thing is, the person from my company using it didn't even know that it was basecamp.

Radiohead appealing to the long tail?

2007-10-11T03:04:00.001-05:00

Today, Oct 10 is the day that Radiohead releases their new album In Rainbows at the low low price of whatever you want to pay. The have decided to by pass the greedy music executives and strike out on their own.

This model spreads their music further and appeals to the long tail, and they are able to achieve benefits from the masses because of zero marginal distribution costs. Love it.

No excuse

2007-10-03T02:30:00.001-05:00

There is no excuse to be not learning, especially about all the aspects involved in entrepreneurship. There is a plethora of resources available. I was just hunting around Inc.com and fastcompany.com. There is an amazing amount of articles written by subject-matter experts, all for free. So, learn.

DBpedia

2007-10-02T02:30:00.001-05:00

An interesting resource, extracting structured information from Wikipedia. http://dbpedia.org/

Black Ballon

2007-09-14T01:01:00.001-05:00

This is a great awareness ad by climateprotect.org

Cost of life

2007-09-14T00:28:00.001-05:00

HU021364
Originally uploaded by knickersthongs

Currently, there is a massive search and rescue mission in progress to locate adventurer Steve Fossett, when went missing earlier this week. An article by wired.com says:

"The 55,000-member patrol is an all-volunteer auxiliary of the U.S. Air
Force with units in every state, a fleet of 530 single-engine planes
and a $27.5 million budget. Last year, according to a report to
Congress, the patrol was credited with saving 58 lives and finding more
than a hundred missing planes."

So $27.5 million dollars saved 58 lives, which amounts to $474,137.93 per life. I do not want to put a dollar value to life, or make a value judgment in anyway, but just want to put some perspective to this figure.

$474,137.93 would...
...provide one year of nutritional support for 1968 HIV patients @ $0.66/day (wfp.org).
...feed 1,436,781 impoverished children for one day @ $0.33/day (somerandomdude.com).
...buy you 2.57 Ferrari F430 Scuderias @
$184,309/Italian stallion (automotive.com).
...put you up in a house in orange county some where.
...gets you a 37 sqcm or 5.74 sqin (0.45%) piece of Picasso's Garcon a la Pipe (8130sq cm), which sold for $104 Million in 2004.

You get the picture.

In a world of inequality, the words of a wise president rings true:
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance
of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who
have too little." -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Marketing Amenities

2007-09-13T02:09:00.001-05:00

Trying to launch a cosmetics brand? Think high, really high. As in 30,000ft high. Little known cosmetics company Elemis is going to be taking off, literally, in a big way. Starting in October this exclusive spa-only brand is going to be distributed with amenity packages on British Airways business class, and operating their airport spas. Read more at portfolio.

The value of design

2007-08-12T01:25:00.001-05:00

What is the value of design for an organization? The Design Council tries to answer this question with their /Value of Design Factfinder. They demonstrate that a focus on design is definitely part of the equation which drives higher performance in the modern corporation.

Design

2007-08-10T00:35:00.000-05:00

Design is about imparting existence and identity on to even the most mundane items and objects, then integrating them seamlessly into your life. (image via designspotter)

There is too much out there!

2007-08-10T00:33:00.001-05:00

Ok, first a free 3d spinning globe for your website here, at Poly9 FreeEarth. Various applications for this include IBM Rocks.

Then there is vvvv (yea, what a name), for 'real time video sythesis'. It was used here, in conjunction with processing.

trulia Hindsight

2007-08-10T00:23:00.001-05:00

Sweet visualization of real estate development over time at trulia Hindsight.

Visualization Goodness.

2007-08-10T00:14:00.001-05:00

Enough said. Just go.

Liquid Lenses

2007-08-10T00:09:00.000-05:00

I heard about this a while back, but just came across it again recently. This technology from Varioptic uses electrostatic forces to change the shape of water, and thus enabling a liquid lens. More about the technology here. Look out for thinner, faster zoom lens. This will be perfect for camera phones and brings us closer to seamless convergence.

Rising

2007-08-09T23:32:00.000-05:00

WWF presents the rising water levels, using the sun.

Beautiful Sole

2007-08-09T15:58:00.000-05:00

Did you ever think marketing for the humble flip flops can look like this? The site for Havaianas is beautifully built, with a good balance of interactive elements and information, though the pink can get a bit hard on the eyes after a while.

Weekly Dose - August 5 - 11

2007-08-07T01:03:00.000-05:00

Agency Fusion seems like a great concept and service. You design the website, they do all the hard work and back end. A simple diagram on their front page illustrates their role and relationship in job flow. Their site is easy to use, and portfolio shows a range of flexibility possible with the cms system they deploy.

Curl 5.0 is a platform for creating rich internet applications, with even ray tracing. The demo video is a good start to showing what the possibilities are.

Weekly Dose - July 29 - August 4

2007-08-03T11:29:00.000-05:00

So first there was 34 places for inspiration, now there is 60 more places for inspiration - Great link and sources for graphic design and ideas!

Do you flickr? Then you'll love 100+ tools for flickr, great tools to put your photos to work.

Content is cheap, relevance is not. Ever wondered when reading an article if you could instantly find out more about the person it was talking about or a related topic? Daylife affords a great way to put your news in context. Check it out.

Bourne Ultimatum

2007-08-03T02:19:00.000-05:00

While I sat and watched the mid-night showing of the Bourne Ultimatum, it struck me why the movie appeals to us, to the masses. The shear genius of the plot was established in the first movie title: identity.

Deep down we are all on our own search for identity, trying to connect who we were to play out who we are and fabricating who we will become. We empathize with Bourne because he's lost identity. Haven't we all felt a little lost sometimes? It is the intensity with which he pursues the truth which really draws us in. We believe that we can be him, or at least have some of his relentless drive. He is searching for an answer to the ultimate question: 'who am I?', and we cheer him on, cheering the underdog who has all odds stacked against him, even God almighty (aka. the CIA) himself, is working against him.

We cheer him on because we hope as we watch him get closer to his answer, somehow we will also find some comfort. The violence, the brutality, are all sanctioned because that which we treasure most has been taken from him.
Then again, it is just a fun, fantastic shoot-em-up movie.

(photo credit: sakura love)

Time at the tip of your fingers

2007-08-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

What happens when you think outside the box about niche needs and pose it as a design problem? An elegant result.

How would the blind tell time?

Designer Arnaud Lapierre teamed with Swatch to develop this tactile solution. I love it, its one of those things you gotta get because its beauty is in its simplicity.(via yanko design)

Print your stuff

2007-08-02T21:01:00.001-05:00

Ever wonder what to do with all those wonderful flickr photos you have? MOO has been around for a while, but I just wanted to bring it up for those who haven't heard of it. I love the mini cards the have: 100 cards with up to 100 images for $19.99, you mix and match.

Zazzle.com is an old favorite. The quality of their t-shirt printing is exceptional. We printed a pretty intricate design (700kb) for a recent project, Imagyn, I was involved in. The finer details in the roots and shades of grey all turned out brilliantly. Turn around and quality of t-shirt (American Apparel) was great too.

Happy printing.

You have no free will.

2007-08-02T15:51:00.000-05:00

Well, its not quite so bad but noble laureate Dutch physicist Gerard 't Hooft has been hard at work. New Scientist writes:

People objected that his theory appeared to rob us of free will, and now 't Hooft has responded by moving the goalposts. No, we don't have free will as it is commonly understood, he says - but that's because the way it is commonly understood is wrong.

Click here to read full article. Worth it to give your mind a spin.

Urban Travel Guide: Grid Skipper

2007-08-02T03:02:00.001-05:00

A travel guide site that I just came across, gridskipper.com, seems a lot more hip and trendy, targeting the urbanites who want to do away with the tourist fuss and just be. Seems like its been around for a while and yet another production of Gawker Media.
The top cities currently covered include Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Sydney. Tags make the site a breeze to navigate, the layout is intuitive and makes the content easy to comprehend. I'm very impressed.
From its own description:
"Gridskipper is an urban travel, nightlife, and culture guide. With one eye on sophistication and the other on playful debauchery, it's a resource for those who are left bored or have little interest in Conde Nast Traveler or Fodor's. It's also for the city traveler and dweller whose backpacking days are behind them, for whom "roughing it" now takes on new meaning. It covers major urban destinations, focusing on the neighborhoods, hotels, restaurants and activities that the traditional travel guides either bury or miss entirely. Think Wallpaper's travel pullouts, but with a bit more edge, online, and searchable."

Thriller, remixed

2007-08-01T23:14:00.000-05:00

This has been watched...3.4 million times and counting. The original as disabled embedding.

Its prisoners dancing to mj's 'Thriller'. One friend said they should be doing 'Smooth Criminal'.

Fat Free Cart

2007-08-01T12:33:00.000-05:00

Just came across a very useful 'plugin'. A shopping cart which is simply copy and paste. Fat Free Cart makes checkout a breeze, and takes a lot of work out of the developer's job.

If you're looking for a quick solution to get the cash flowing, this is worth a try. It connects with both paypal and google checkout.

Thunderbird 2 released

2007-08-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

Thunderbird 2 was released a couple days back on July 19th. Been playing around with it for a week and over all it feels much better than the previous version.

Anyone out there still using other mail applications? Its time to switch. Seriously.

Cheeseburgers?

2007-07-30T10:34:00.000-05:00

As many of you may or may not know, Gordon Brown, the new prime minister, is visiting the US. It was just announced on national news that he will be served a cheeseburger, onion rings and French fries for lunch.

What is this administration...sigh.

Web Design: Part Two

2007-07-28T22:33:00.000-05:00

Ok, I quick update on the web design progress. Its a freelance job which has slightly exceeded the scope I thought. Yes, feature creep. Somehow I agreed to a bit more than I bargained for. In this being beyond my comfort zone has been good.

We had originally planned to code our own system, which is a basic CMS system. Little did I realize how much work would be actually involved. Just a lot of little details and functions which I had forgot about because I haven't done development for so long. So, two lessons learned:
1) Be vigilant and detailed in what you agree to. Make sure you scope right, and can over-deliver on what you agreed to. Don't agree to more than you can do.

2) Having experience is important in estimating and execution. The value of experience is, well, valuable. (But don't forget inexperience)

Paradigms

2007-07-28T22:16:00.000-05:00

After just watching the CNN Youtube democratic debate, its really cemented in my mind the huge paradigm shift that technology is having. First of all a new media company is co-sponsoring and co-headlining the debate. This company which has barely taken off its training wheels has had a profound impact on the way we see the world, literally.

I also watched the last democratic debate, which was sans-tube. The style, the feel of the entire debate was very different. Questions where given a face, they moved, they had an emotional urgency which demanded an answer (whether that answer was given is another matter). Many times the questions themselves drove the audience to applause, something which I don't recall from the previous debate.

We are living in an age of empowerment where an isolated villager in India or China can have a voice. Progress on all fronts are blazing forward, but its the choices which we are capable of making which scares me.

An right now, as I write, CNN has 6 kids up on stage debating the war on drugs. Wow, the world certainly has changed.

Web Design: Part one

2007-07-09T12:44:00.001-05:00

I've just, on a whim, decided to keep a few posts on the web design process as I dive into this new project for a non-profit organization, the Triangle Down Syndrome Network. The point of this is to see document what lessons learned come up in this process. I make no apologies for ranting or unfiltered train of though blabs.

The organization came to me after one of its representatives, who happens to be our mentor for another non-profit project I'm in, ImaGyn, saw a the final presentation I design.

So far I have talked with the client and shown a selection of six quick sketches for layout ideas. Feed back was given and now I'm in the process of putting together the next iteration down the direction we talked about.

I've finally got around to setting up a wamp on my own computer and getting smarty installed too. This saves me the painfully slow process of working 'live' from server copies, with the server in Hong Kong. Setting both up was remarkably easy and smooth. I was setting up wamp to start learning to develop in ruby on rails. but thats another story.

So, on to photoshop-ing and tpl-ing. My friend is helping me with databases and queries, and I've already given him a basic database sketch also.

The key, I think, is to remain fuzzy and large for as long as possible. It reduces the work load and prevents 'detail myopia' where one is tweaking at the pixel or color shade level.

A good overview of graphical design for the web can be found here.

Weekly Dose - May 27 - June 2

2007-05-30T05:51:00.000-05:00

Today Google launched streetview. Somebody went around and took a lot of panoramic photos.

Today Microsoft launched the surface computer, a table with multi-touch interface. The sweet interface in question is done by NYU prof. and entrepreneur Jefferson Han who has started perceptive pixel to commercialize his technology. Multi-touch was also demonstrated last year at TED 2006 by Jeff. The devices are said to cost $5k to $10k, not a bad price for a sweet piece of early adopter.

Just found extratasty.com through skinnycorp through O'Reilly Emerging Tech 2007 speakers list through Jeff Han presenting at OET 2006. Oh, the web.

Color spaces

2007-05-28T23:00:00.001-05:00

So, have you ever been confused / intrigued by the color profiles? I finally decide to do some reading about it and find out what sRGB IEC61966-2.1 means. You can find the article here. Basically, Adobe RGB 1998 gives more color, and sRGB gives more resolution / bit depth but to a narrower gamut. If you work in 16bit images most of the time, use Adobe RGB 1998, if you are in 8bit go with sRGB. Well thats the quick and dirty.

Facebook industries

2007-05-27T13:02:00.001-05:00

Facebook, with the appearance of 'applications', is spawning an industry of its own. Some of the applications seem to be designed to serve the facebook community , e.g. lending club, 30boxes. Others seem to be creating applications to leverage the strong community on facebook, like jangl, Files by box.net and Trips by sidestep.

Facebook has evolved into an platform, where the power is in the users. Similar to google maps and all of the mashups.

Weekly Dose - May 20 - 26

2007-05-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

Pandora has a new interface also, following closely behind Google's new interface release not long ago. Update: not just new interface, announcement of new partnerships with Sprint and Sonos! Whao. Was online and saw the 'Your pandora version is out of date..etc.' notice when they switched. More power to them.

Web innovators group Boston happened today. A good event, but the projects presented were a bit disappointing. Nothing that I would call 'innovative'. Mostly a remix of signals already on the radar. The group is a great idea though. Keep it up!

A great product to watch out for is dropbox. Seamlessly syncs files across computers, and has version control. Neat stuff, keep it up, Drew.

Two great innovations today from PopSci.

One is the Atlas device, a powerful and compact winch to rappel up a wall. Atlas Powered Rope Ascender. Invented by Nate Ball, Tim Fofonoff, Bryan Schmid, Dan Walker. $700 cost, and 3 months work at MIT.

The other is a finger mouse. (Hey, I think I have sketches for something like this in one of notebooks :-p) Its magic mouse, a 3D positioned mouse using ultrasound. $700 and 21 weeks at WPI by Chris Banker, Mike Cretella, Jeff DiMaria, Jamie Mitchell, Jeff Tucker.

Weekly Dose - May 13 - 19

2007-05-17T14:11:00.000-05:00

Google search result page has a new look.

Wikimap goodness. Its scary the level of detail this can get into, and richness of information about the world around us that is available.

Windows Vista - memory hog

2007-05-09T19:00:00.001-05:00

So I have a IBM T60p running Windows Vista, 1GB, 100GB 7200RPM, 2GHz. At first I had all the fancy Aero stuff turned on, but realized that it was a waste of resources because it does not help productivity at all.

Just doubled my memory to 2GB and the system just flies now. Applications open almost instantly. So it seems you need 2GB of ram to get Vista to run smoothly. *Sigh.

Weekly Dose - April 29 - 5

2007-04-30T15:45:00.000-05:00

Missed a week, but I was doing exams.

Opening this week with fun visualization and web programming goodies at bodytag.org. Its pretty amazing what you can do with with interface of a web browser. I wish more sites would take advantage of the dynamic level possible. Some of these were done years ago.

Ever imagined a world without oil? Well, over at worldwithoutoil.org there is a simulation going on, and people are invited to participate and play out a scenario where oil shortage has become crises level. Videos, blogs are all encouraged. (via treehugger.com)

Weekly Dose - April 15 - 21

2007-04-18T23:06:00.000-05:00

A bit late on the posts this week, but just won the CUREs competition last weekend.

Anyway, this is cool: Google spreadsheets now has charts! Read more here, but do take it for a test drive.

Thomas Friedman (author of 'the world is flat') writes an article of green and the economy. He argues we must develop clean energy at the 'Chindia' price. Great article with great short video interview here.

Aquisition Theory

2007-04-18T22:22:00.000-05:00

Google will eat up pandora.com within the next 9 months.

Reasoning: Pandora is a small company, with an intense focus on usability and content customized for each user. It fills in google's portfolio in music. Its a leader in what it does, and opens a new channel (no pun intended) in a very lucrative space for google's advertising engine to get to work.

Pandora can benefit from Google's oodles and oodles of bandwidth, exposure, and dare I say, search? Google already has a great music search. Could they target demographics and consumer preferences down to who listens to what?

Pop!tech

2007-04-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

www.poptech.org, a non-profit for making baby steps to solve problems.
Neil Gershenfeld (Swarthmore Alum!) says there is a larger instrumentation gap than there is a computational gap in the world. Think about all the farmers, etc who need to measure the world.
MIT fab-lab designed to make almost anything.
Setup an intellectual pyramid scheme where people are desperate to teach others the new cool technology they just learned.

pop-casts there. Watch them!

Weekly Dose - April 8 - 14

2007-04-09T21:27:00.000-05:00

Josh Bell is ignored as a street performer in this Washington Post article. (Via Theo)

10 tips for speeding up SQL queries here.

1000 word manifesto by the designer by Alan Cochinov on how designers need to be more responsible and focus on context (environmental) (Via S)

'Nail House', the lone couple who defiantly held out against developers, finally caves. Everyone has a price.

A good site (www.thefutureschannel.com) with short videos about different industries and jobs. Helps to expand your world view a bit, I guess. More relevant to kids looking at careers, but I think just as relevant for people in careers to understand other people.

Weekly Dose - April 1 - 7

2007-04-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

What the entrepreneur can learn from 300 here.

Car tipping apparently has taken off in Germany, as seen on Google maps.

For product development, get the value out the door now, leave the 'good to have' for later.

--- Weekly Watch List ---

www.twitter.com (from a while ago, but still)

Life

2007-03-01T01:00:00.001-05:00

A tongue in cheek take on life, and plotting of random relationships
http://www.clemenskogler.net/film/grandcontent.htm

via indexed.blogspot.com

Demo '07

2007-02-13T01:30:00.001-05:00

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/demo07-hq.html

New level of mashups

2007-02-13T01:24:00.000-05:00

Try pipes.yahoo.com
Lets you create your own mashup!

Story at O'Reilly Radar

Political Visualization

2007-01-28T23:04:00.000-05:00

Visualizing the use of words by the president. At NYTimes

Eggs

2007-01-28T23:02:00.000-05:00

The thermochromic egg.. what will they come up with next?

http://rosendorf.us/blogdorf/archive/2006/08/01/2866.aspx

Share files, make easy

2007-01-28T22:20:00.000-05:00

Very nice. Very very nice. I love the model. Love it.
Upload files, get private link, file expires after a certain amount of time.
Love it.
Senduit

There is a spoon, use it

2007-01-28T22:07:00.000-05:00

Getting stuff done with a small, effective team is the best way to go. SvN post

Top 100 websites in the world, on the map

2006-11-12T16:21:00.000-05:00

http://www.flagr.com/maps/73

Extreme Programming

2006-10-04T11:04:00.000-05:00

A note on effective development
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/index.html

Ideo

2006-10-04T11:03:00.000-05:00

some related links
http://www.inventionatplay.org/inventors_ide.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/75/outofthebox.html
http://projectsfinal.interaction-ivrea.it/2004-2005/SYMPOSIUM%202005/communication%20material/A%20CONVERSATION%20ABOUT%20INTERACTION%20DESIGN_Moggridge.pdf
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=D517871.PN.&OS=PN/D517871&RS=PN/D517871

http://www.freshpatents.com/

Dow Chemical

2006-10-04T11:02:00.000-05:00

http://www.dow.com/Hu/

Moo.com Mini Flickr cards

2006-09-21T23:56:00.000-05:00

Simply the best idea I've seen recently. Love it.

http://www.moo.com/

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/screens_around_town_moocom_flickr_minicards.php

Zink, zero ink

2006-09-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

Holy crap.

Talk about disruptive technology, zink

Fare prediction

2006-09-02T23:21:00.000-05:00

Predict airline fares at www.farecast.com
kinda fun to use, but Techcrunch mentions that discount airlines such at southwest do not play with it, so you can't really get the lowest fares. Still, its informative.

Image labelling slaves

2006-09-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

So Google launched a 'service' recently. I put 'service' in quotes because its a service for them. They get humans to play a game to try to label an image with text to help them improve their image search. Its framed as a game where two people have to try to get the same label, and earn points. It actually quite addictive.

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

is here

2006-07-25T10:53:00.001-05:00

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/24/official-volvo-c30-info/

Volvo C30

2006-07-25T10:53:00.000-05:00

Sweet looking little car

Cold and Hot

2006-07-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

Blazing heat wave in California, cold rain in Beijing.

Memory is a funny thing, especially when you don't get enough sleep.

Side job track

2006-07-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

nice clean design. http://www.sidejobtrack.com/

Vision, once again

2006-07-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

Part of the same interview from two posts below.

But those are all companies with a strong figurehead, one person with a very clear vision. Nokia isn’t like that is it?

No, but it doesn’t mean a company can’t have a vision. If everyone
shares that single point of view, if everyone believes in the same
idea, it’s possible. It’s the vision that’s important.

artypapers

2006-07-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

http://artypapers.com/

Get people to buy emotionally

2006-07-11T13:20:00.000-05:00

"A person who buys a Nokia Fashion product is buying very much on an
emotional level, even though there will also be rational reasons." - Liisa Puolakka

Networking

2006-07-11T12:14:00.000-05:00

http://www.oriented.com/

Ping Mag

2006-07-11T11:57:00.000-05:00

Japanese design mag blog thing here www.pingmag.jp

Tools to use

2006-06-24T02:47:00.000-05:00

The tools I use on a regular basis

Google Spreadsheets - live, online collaboration like nothing before.
Performancing - Blogging made easy peasy, lemon squeesy.
Approcket - Launch programs with a snap. (Careful how you configure it, its HD search is pretty CPU intensive)
Firefox - Take back the web. It just works.
Trillian - instant messaging made simple.
Sketchup - 3D modeling made simple, love it.
Solid Works - for your a bit more complicated modling needs. Love the photo-rendering function.
Photoshop - play play!
Zohoshow.com - online, shareable powerpoint presentations in a snap.

Still need:
**PIM system. Is there no good integrated calender, to-do list, contact list managment system out there?
Candidates:
google.com/calender - no to-do list.
hipcal.com - a bit clunky in places, can't make extended comments on events
voo2do.com - no calendar.
outlook - are you kidding? who the hell wants to use microsoft?

**RSS / Blog reader. On the way to writing my own.

**Note / weblink taking / sharing.
Candidates:
del.icio.us - interface is.. uh... not that good.
google notebook - trying it out, may choose this.
blog - namely the one you are reading, works, basically.

How do we feel?

2006-06-23T04:19:00.000-05:00

wefeelfine.org

Listen

2006-06-23T03:53:00.000-05:00

Venturevoice.com

a podcast that explores how entrepreneurs build their businesses and live their lives.

37signals Manifesto

2006-06-23T03:52:00.000-05:00

Here

CSSREMIX

2006-06-23T03:36:00.000-05:00

catalogue of well designed sites at cssremix

Google going to add Cost per action model

2006-06-23T02:11:00.000-05:00

From wired

Silicon Beat

2006-06-19T20:15:00.000-05:00

www.siliconbeat.com

web2.0zen

2006-06-19T03:34:00.000-05:00

www.web20zen.com - web 2.0 design. A good example of affordance, actually. Its a list with a small screen shot of the site, which then brings it from just a straight, boring list realm, to the design realm. A small change in affordance makes a big change to purpose and effectively conveys intent.

Corante

2006-06-19T02:23:00.000-05:00

Info hub thing.

corante

Micro Pursuasion.

2006-06-19T02:02:00.000-05:00

Steve Rubel explores how social media is transforming marketing, media and public relations.

here at Micro Persuasion

Crying out love

2006-06-14T12:17:00.000-05:00

maybe watch this

Picasa

2006-06-14T11:22:00.000-05:00

Picasa web albums just came out. Its basic. A little too basic I think. Played around with the demo album they have, it seems a way too basic, almost nothing there, but then again, thats google. It doesn't seem like it would be very hard to build something simple and better than that.

picasaweb.google.com

Geek Alert! Rate network diagrams?

2006-06-13T11:26:00.000-05:00

What??? Like hot or not, but not, here

Software radio

2006-06-06T06:31:00.000-05:00

powerful and scary stuff here and at the product page

Mass Natural

2006-06-05T09:53:00.000-05:00

NYT article about organic foods going mainstream here

Flying, whoa.

2006-06-05T09:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.geek24.com/g/2006/06/03/amazing-r-c-airplane-flying-what-a-pilot

Is this flying for real???