December 2007
30 posts
“If you are actually reading this note you should be super happy. First, you have...”
– Moosejaw order receipt
I love it when companies break the ‘Fortune 500’ way of communicating with customers
“Interesting to note: Google web search is not the least bit viral. Nor is...”
– Great checklist of things to ask when sorting through a new idea.
I always find the time I spend right after I come up with a ‘killer’ idea to be thrilling; planning out the different stages of the product, who your first users will be, what kind of growth you’ll feel - you can...
Livestrong bracelets might save society?
I came across an article that provided a great idea on how to improve society. It basically boils down into a three step process:
1) Wear a livestrong bracelet on one of your arms
2) Every time you criticize/rob/steal/murder/etc. take the bracelet off you arm, then put it back on your other arm
3) Repeat
The idea is not to punish bad actions, just to make them inconvenient. No one likes an...
Change Detection →
This site keeps track of a web page and notifies you if it changes, with a list of what’s been updated. Think of it as revision tracking/alerting, for anything on the web.
Ever since I discovered it I’ve been using it like crazy; it’s amazing what this thing can be useful for - keeping track of deals, automatically sending new webcomics to your email, and many more
Combine it...
Can you find a search term that brings up only one... →
After a couple of minutes I came up with “an office in time one day before the end of the world adventures”, which only pulls up the video “A Titillating Horror Sit-Com”
I’m not sure why either, because it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with offices or the end of the world
Create Digital Motion →
A blog all about… well, it’s hard to describe
Video art?
Amazing user interfaces?
Good design?
Whatever the actual niche is called, this blog has rocketed up in my most-read RSS feed list
Good marketing
“We help companies transport people or goods to make it more efficient,” Sweco representative Rebecka Gunner told the Star. “If Santa wants to deliver the packages in time, [Kyrgyzstan] would be the best place for him to start.”
Sweco consulting services, via The Star
Transportation consultant Sweco has determined that, mathematically, the best place for Santa to...
WatchLOSE THE STICKERS BRUH!
— travie
Thank god for common sense - this is one of those memes I hope to see spread like wildfire
Adium has chat logs. I just deleted all of mine. I hate diaries and i hate chat logs. for some reason tumblr is just right. — helenrice
A lot of my friends have started deleting their facebook accounts recently. I guess there’s this realization that having a lot of private information freely available (and then seeing how it can be monetized) is just starting to hit them. I predict this is...
Trying for second place
If the market potential for a medium to small sized online condom site is $1 -$2 million dollars per year, then the trick is not to try and become the #1 site, which is extremely difficult, but rather to find 25 categories and repeat what you already know how to do. Because for people like me, beating the average guys is easy, it’s beating the one guy who’s better than me that’s...
Screencasts online →
Unique website offering weekly screencasts on a variety of Mac topics and features. The site offers a wide variety of free, members-only, and sponsored screencasts.
In addition to being a great resource, I love how the author approached revenue generation; He offers a wide variety of screencasts for free, and a members-only section where they can presumably request custom screencasts. Finally,...
An interview with the designer of the Aston Martin... →
There are too many good quotes to count, but a few that really struck me:
When you are replacing a car, you look at the previous design, and think about - if it was really successful - what do I need to carry over to the new car and reinterpret it and make it more modern, but still so you have the feel that this is the replacement.
I never thought the design process for cars and websites could...
Blogging with passion
A friend of mine recently asked why I blog, given that I am (at the moment) the only person who consistently follows my site. The question hadn’t really occured to me up till then, so I sat down and thought about it for a while
The first thing I found was that I love the fact that I finally have an outlet to express myself in; something that I can use to spill ideas, observation, and...
The Dr. Seuss Jumble: Naming Web Sites →
A great look (the the New York times, of all people) at the obvious - web 2.0 names suck. They hint at how sites should be named - Amazon is designed to convey a site as massive as the river itself, Google hints at the number of indexes the site will search through. A lot of new entrepreneurs could take note from this (myself included :)
Via AATW.
Seeed - a community of entrepreneurs →
Seeed is a way for entrepreneurs to get together and discuss every aspect of running a startup. Right now the site is pretty limited, but the community is very strong for such an early site
The birth of software
Here’s a really well written article on the birth of software and how the new breed of web applications are going through the same steps as the first desktop apps; it’s amazing how much humanity repeats itself.
Joel suggests that a new programming layer should be added to client-side development. In his view, the way we program in Javascript now can be equated to old developers...
"How was I supposed to know"
Try entering part of a sentence into google and just clicking on a random result. What you get can sometimes be pretty hillarious
How was I supposed to know herpes was contagious
How was I supposed to know that he kept naked pictures of his wife in there?
How was I supposed to know that is not allowed? After all I’m only four years old
And that’s when we heard the voices…
...
Anatomy of a perfect gift
Combine a notebook, ballpoint pen, fifth of gin, and a greyhound ticket to nowhere, and what do you get?
A: All you need to get started writing the great American novel, and an awesome gift for under $80. The best gifts, IMO, aren’t expensive or plain; they fun to open, talk about, and unique to the recipient.
There’s a whole list of awesome gifts like this over at core77
Playing with tumblr
My first thoughts with the site is that it is very, very slick. Nearly everything I could possibly hope for is included, and everything else is conspicuously absent.
Take the editor; the only two things you see by default are a title bar (optional) and a text field. You can use markdown to format your posts (or a number of other markup languages), and the toolbar isn’t cluttered with...
