Friday, May 4, 2007
Microformats: What They Are and How To Use Them
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/05/04/microformats-what-they-are-and-how-to-use-them
"Web 2.0 has its positive and its negative sides. Apart from tremendous technological improvements, provided by Ajax, semantically organized content and the growing popularity of RSS-Feeds, the term “Web 2.0″ still hadn’t managed to assert itself as the renewed Web rather than a new revolutionary technology as it is mistakenly being called."
"Web 2.0 has its positive and its negative sides. Apart from tremendous technological improvements, provided by Ajax, semantically organized content and the growing popularity of RSS-Feeds, the term “Web 2.0″ still hadn’t managed to assert itself as the renewed Web rather than a new revolutionary technology as it is mistakenly being called."
Last.fm: Visualizations
http://megamu.com/lastfm/
"I started with this question as it has been something that's very interesting to me. About a year and a half ago I joined the service Last.fm, which serves many functions but most specifically logs all music that you listen to in real time. This creates a great amount of interesting statistics. Including top artist rankings averaged over the past week.
"I started with this question as it has been something that's very interesting to me. About a year and a half ago I joined the service Last.fm, which serves many functions but most specifically logs all music that you listen to in real time. This creates a great amount of interesting statistics. Including top artist rankings averaged over the past week.
This is all very interesting briefly, however Last.fm only provides a few mediocre methods of visualizing this vast amount of rich information.
The significant missing dimension of the Last.fm visualizations is time. You can see an average over a time, but cannot see how listening habits change over time, perhaps the most interesting view into the information."
Daily Kos: Blackwater: The Extreme-Right Mega-Millionaire Mercenary
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/29/10301/1721
"Since the U.S.'s invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan, many American lives have changed. So many lives lost in a fight that is viewed by most of the country and world as unjust. So many families shattered, so many bright futures tragically cut short.
"Since the U.S.'s invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan, many American lives have changed. So many lives lost in a fight that is viewed by most of the country and world as unjust. So many families shattered, so many bright futures tragically cut short.
For one man, the War of Bush/Cheney/Haliburton Oil was his golden ticket to massive wealth and an extraordinary level of influence and menacing power. Meet Erik Prince, born and raised in Holland, Michigan, and one of the country's most dangerous men."
Gmail Super Clean (CSS styling through Greasemonkey on Firefox)
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7646
"Gmail is an amazing email service, its by far the best email service that I’ve come across. The only thing I’m not happy about Gmail is the way it looks. Google guys have done beautiful stuff like Picasa, but Gmail has remained pretty much the same. So, I made “Gmail Super Clean” a simple little skin for Gmail, using Greasemonkey."
blog: http://gmailsuperclean.wordpress.com/
"Gmail is an amazing email service, its by far the best email service that I’ve come across. The only thing I’m not happy about Gmail is the way it looks. Google guys have done beautiful stuff like Picasa, but Gmail has remained pretty much the same. So, I made “Gmail Super Clean” a simple little skin for Gmail, using Greasemonkey."
blog: http://gmailsuperclean.wordpress.com/
copyblogger: Become a Master of Metaphor and Multiply Your Blogging Effectiveness
http://www.copyblogger.com/become-a-master-of-metaphor-and-multiply-your-blogging-effectiveness/
"Aristotle and countless other masterful communicators have harnessed the power of metaphor to effectively persuade and inform. Metaphors allow you to make the complex simple and the controversial palatable. Conversely, metaphors allow you to create extraordinary meaning out of the seemingly mundane."
"Aristotle and countless other masterful communicators have harnessed the power of metaphor to effectively persuade and inform. Metaphors allow you to make the complex simple and the controversial palatable. Conversely, metaphors allow you to create extraordinary meaning out of the seemingly mundane."
Smarty: PHP Templating Engine
http://smarty.php.net/
" One of Smartys primary design goals is to facilitate the separation of application code from presentation. Typically, the application code contains the business logic of your application, written and maintained in PHP code. This code is maintained by programmers. The presentation is the way your content is presented to the end user, which is written and maintained in template files. The templates are maintained by template designers."
" One of Smartys primary design goals is to facilitate the separation of application code from presentation. Typically, the application code contains the business logic of your application, written and maintained in PHP code. This code is maintained by programmers. The presentation is the way your content is presented to the end user, which is written and maintained in template files. The templates are maintained by template designers."
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Ambigrams, Logos, Word Art
http://johnlangdon.net/index.html
"Ambigrams. Logos. Words as art. As both an artist and a graphic designer, I specialize in the visual presentation of words. Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions. This unique approach culminates in a wide variety of corporate logos, and in ambigrams– words that can be read equally well from more than one point of view. Most of my ambigrams read the same when turned "upside down," or rotated 180 degrees. If you were to climb up on your desk, walk around behind your monitor and lean way over so you could see the screen, you'd be able to read Wordplay” and my “JohnLangdon” logo just as easily as you could sitting in your chair."
"Ambigrams. Logos. Words as art. As both an artist and a graphic designer, I specialize in the visual presentation of words. Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions. This unique approach culminates in a wide variety of corporate logos, and in ambigrams– words that can be read equally well from more than one point of view. Most of my ambigrams read the same when turned "upside down," or rotated 180 degrees. If you were to climb up on your desk, walk around behind your monitor and lean way over so you could see the screen, you'd be able to read Wordplay” and my “JohnLangdon” logo just as easily as you could sitting in your chair."
GammaSlamma 1.1 Update Now Availablehttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
http://www.shealanforshaw.com/gammaslamma-11-update-now-available/
"Thanks to a small code example emailed to me by Ben Marini, I have been able to update GammaSlamma to 1.1. Hurrah! The application now supports batch ’slamming’. Find out more about GammaSlamma by reading the original posting on my blog. Download update here. Hope that saves you a few clicks."
About: http://www.shealanforshaw.com/introducing-gammaslamma-10-for-osx/
"Over the past year or so I have been using PNG files more and more. For those that don’t know, PNG was created as a successor to GIF. The file format supports more colours, more compression options, and most importantly a full alpha channel for transparency. Sounds great huh? Well, technically yes, but I have found PNG files suffer from a problem of colour reproduction in different browsers which can cause real headaches. At this point I suggest you read Henri Sivonen’s wonderful article entitled The Sad Story of PNG Gamma. Previously the only option was to use a Win32/Unix package called PNGCRUSH to remove this pesky Gamma information, but doing so on the Mac involves installing systems like Fink or Darwinports and running scripts in the command line. (Personally that scares the crap out of me, and I am sure others like me who like to pretend all that complicated stuff running underneath my pretty OSX interface doesn’t exist…). So rejoice, there a new solution in town and it’s gui-a-gogo!"
"Thanks to a small code example emailed to me by Ben Marini, I have been able to update GammaSlamma to 1.1. Hurrah! The application now supports batch ’slamming’. Find out more about GammaSlamma by reading the original posting on my blog. Download update here. Hope that saves you a few clicks."
About: http://www.shealanforshaw.com/introducing-gammaslamma-10-for-osx/
"Over the past year or so I have been using PNG files more and more. For those that don’t know, PNG was created as a successor to GIF. The file format supports more colours, more compression options, and most importantly a full alpha channel for transparency. Sounds great huh? Well, technically yes, but I have found PNG files suffer from a problem of colour reproduction in different browsers which can cause real headaches. At this point I suggest you read Henri Sivonen’s wonderful article entitled The Sad Story of PNG Gamma. Previously the only option was to use a Win32/Unix package called PNGCRUSH to remove this pesky Gamma information, but doing so on the Mac involves installing systems like Fink or Darwinports and running scripts in the command line. (Personally that scares the crap out of me, and I am sure others like me who like to pretend all that complicated stuff running underneath my pretty OSX interface doesn’t exist…). So rejoice, there a new solution in town and it’s gui-a-gogo!"
WriteMaps
http://www.writemaps.com/
"WriteMaps is a free web-based tool that allows you to create, edit, and share sitemaps online. As a WriteMaps user, you and your team will be able to build and access your sitemaps from anywhere, without having to rely on proprietary desktop apps and static files. To get started, take the tour or sign-up for an account!"
"WriteMaps is a free web-based tool that allows you to create, edit, and share sitemaps online. As a WriteMaps user, you and your team will be able to build and access your sitemaps from anywhere, without having to rely on proprietary desktop apps and static files. To get started, take the tour or sign-up for an account!"
xPad. The Ultimate Notepad.
http://getxpad.com/
"xPad is the ultimate notepad, TextEdit and Stickies replacement for Apple's OS X. With a simple, easy-to-use interface and powerful multi-document features, xPad will quickly become your daily text editor of choice."
"xPad is the ultimate notepad, TextEdit and Stickies replacement for Apple's OS X. With a simple, easy-to-use interface and powerful multi-document features, xPad will quickly become your daily text editor of choice."
Smashing Magazine: 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/19/53-css-techniques-you-couldnt-live-without/
"CSS is important. And it is being used more and more often. Cascading Style Sheets offer many advantages you don’t have in table-layouts - and first of all a strict separation between layout, or design of the page, and the information, presented on the page. Thus the design of pages can be easily changed, just replacing a css-file with another one. Isn’t it great? Well, actualy, it is."
"CSS is important. And it is being used more and more often. Cascading Style Sheets offer many advantages you don’t have in table-layouts - and first of all a strict separation between layout, or design of the page, and the information, presented on the page. Thus the design of pages can be easily changed, just replacing a css-file with another one. Isn’t it great? Well, actualy, it is."
Google Blog: Authors@Googlehttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/authors-at-google.html
"For over the past year, we've invited some of the most prominent and promising thinkers, artists, leaders, and personalities of our time to give talks and have discussions at Google about their recently published books. We call the series Authors@Google, and we've posted videos of many of our events online. And now, the program has grown out of our Mountain View headquarters to include seven U.S. offices as well as our London and Dublin offices.
In addition, we've just added our most important location yet: an online home at google.com/talks/authors with a video archive of our events on YouTube. Just this year, we've hosted a great variety of authors, including Martin Amis, Strobe Talbott, Bob & Lee Woodruff, Jonathan Lethem, Don Tapscott, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Carly Fiorina. The subjects of their talks range from literary fiction to science fiction, sociology to technology, politics to business."
"For over the past year, we've invited some of the most prominent and promising thinkers, artists, leaders, and personalities of our time to give talks and have discussions at Google about their recently published books. We call the series Authors@Google, and we've posted videos of many of our events online. And now, the program has grown out of our Mountain View headquarters to include seven U.S. offices as well as our London and Dublin offices.
In addition, we've just added our most important location yet: an online home at google.com/talks/authors with a video archive of our events on YouTube. Just this year, we've hosted a great variety of authors, including Martin Amis, Strobe Talbott, Bob & Lee Woodruff, Jonathan Lethem, Don Tapscott, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Carly Fiorina. The subjects of their talks range from literary fiction to science fiction, sociology to technology, politics to business."
Ice Cream for Everyone: Does Good Design Really Matter?
http://www.icecreamforeveryone.com/uncategorized/does-good-design-really-matter.html
"Because it’s so hard to measure the business value of good design, it naturally gets less attention from managers. It’s easier to watch things like visitors to a website, sales per day, rent and other costs.
"Because it’s so hard to measure the business value of good design, it naturally gets less attention from managers. It’s easier to watch things like visitors to a website, sales per day, rent and other costs.
Recently we got a chance to see how much it matters when we rolled out a redesign for our Freedback service. Here are some of the changes we made:"
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Eric Meyer: Reset reloaded
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/05/01/reset-reloaded/
"After a bit of time to bake and a few more suggestions from readers, I have what I’m willing to call the final version of my take on the topic of reset styles. To wit:"
"After a bit of time to bake and a few more suggestions from readers, I have what I’m willing to call the final version of my take on the topic of reset styles. To wit:"
33 rules to boost productivity
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/05/33-rules-to-boost-your-productivity/
"Heuristics are rules intended to help you solve problems. When a problem is large or complex, and the optimal solution is unclear, applying a heuristic allows you to begin making progress towards a solution even though you can’t visualize the entire path from your starting point.
"Heuristics are rules intended to help you solve problems. When a problem is large or complex, and the optimal solution is unclear, applying a heuristic allows you to begin making progress towards a solution even though you can’t visualize the entire path from your starting point.
Suppose your goal is to climb to the peak of a mountain, but there’s no trail to follow. An example of a heuristic would be: Head directly towards the peak until you reach an obstacle you can’t cross. Whenever you reach such an obstacle, follow it around to the right until you’re able to head towards the peak once again. This isn’t the most intelligent or comprehensive heuristic, but in many cases it will work just fine, and you’ll eventually reach the peak."
Web Form Factory
http://www.webformfactory.com/
"You've spent hours designing and implementing your form in PhotoShop, Illustrator, ImageReady, FreeHand, FireWorks, DreamWeaver (etc.) and it's shiny and looks gorgeous.
But unless you send it to a developer or learn PHP, it will remain useless forever.
Don't worry. WFF is here.
Web Form Factory is an open source web form generator which automatically generates the necessary backend code to tie your form to a database. By generating the backend code for you, WFF saves you time... time you could spend doing more interesting stuff."
"You've spent hours designing and implementing your form in PhotoShop, Illustrator, ImageReady, FreeHand, FireWorks, DreamWeaver (etc.) and it's shiny and looks gorgeous.
But unless you send it to a developer or learn PHP, it will remain useless forever.
Don't worry. WFF is here.
Web Form Factory is an open source web form generator which automatically generates the necessary backend code to tie your form to a database. By generating the backend code for you, WFF saves you time... time you could spend doing more interesting stuff."
Turbocharged: Weathering heavy traffic with WordPress and Turbocharged
http://turbochargedcms.com/2007/04/weathering-heavy-traffic-with-wordpress-and-turbocharged/
"Everyone’s been there at least once. One of your blog pages gets dugg or slashdotted. What to do?
"Everyone’s been there at least once. One of your blog pages gets dugg or slashdotted. What to do?
WordPress is often maligned as a resource-hungry blog platform — one that requires a lot of resources to run in high-traffic settings. But believe it or not, it’s possible to survive traffic spikes, while still serving pages to your audience swiftly. And you won’t need big iron to do it."
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