subtraction.com: The Story So Far

http://www.subtraction.com/archives/2008/0114_the_story_so.php
"Last year, I spent a good deal of time talking about how print designers often fail to realize that the shift from analog to digital media also represents a shift from narrative to behavior — a fundamental change in the language and purpose of graphic design. That’s still an important concept, I think.

But after looking at portfolio after portfolio over the past two years while recruiting talent for an employer that still places a high value on narrative, I should shade this argument further: the future of this profession is not predicated simply on a one-way shift from the sensibilities of analog to the sensibilities of digital."

.net Magazine

http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/magazine
".net delivers cutting edge practical advice on the full range of topics essential for today’s web builders: design, development, sales, marketing, usability and accessibility, information architecture, security, copywriting, advertising and more. It is read by people who are serious about the commercial application of the internet."

crestock.com: The 50 Most Popular Web Design Blog Posts, Resources & Cheat Sheets of 2007

http://www.crestock.com/blog/design/the-50-most-popular-web-design-blog-posts-resources-cheat-sheets-of-2007-114.aspx
"The past year has been an amazing period for those wishing to learn the ropes of design, whether you're a noob just getting into the game or a seasoned designer or programmer. As we enter 2008, let's take a look back at some of the most popular articles, resources, and tutorials that helped those who toiled away on the web everyday."

Ars Technica: First Look: Microsoft Office for Mac 2008

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/mac-office-2008-review.ars
"The subject of Microsoft Office for Mac has the potential to be a touchy one with Apple fans. There is a contingent of Mac users for whom Microsoft is the enemy, and any alternative to their products is the right choice. For many others though, especially those of us who live and work in cross-platform environments, the reality is that Microsoft's Office suite is the de facto

standard, and life is a lot easier if everyone's files play nice.

Regardless of where you stand on the Office versus iWork question, there's no denying that Redmond has has churned out some pretty impressive and very Mac-like software. Office 98 was a fine package, and Internet Explorer 5 gave the Mac a better browser at the time than was available for Windows. Office 2001 introduced some new features, and then Office v.X brought the productivity suite to the shiny happy land of OS X. Bugs were ironed out for Office 2004, and that's where we've been ever since.

Office 2004 wasn't bad per se, but the switch to Intel has been painful for Office users. The applications were not universal binaries, which meant they had to run in under emulation in Rosetta. All that has changed, however, with the release of Microsoft Office for Mac 2008."

Smashing Magazine: Monday Inspiration: Innovative Designs and Devices

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/07/monday-inspiration-innovative-designs-and-devices/
"Steve Jobs stated once that the “design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” While this statement has proven to be crucial over thousands of years, one shouldn’t misinterpret it by emphasizing the functionality despite the design. When it comes to product design, the significance of aesthetics of a given device, the way its design looks and feels, determines the choice of the customer once the functionalities of multiple devices are more or less similar. If supported by sound user interface and a well-tested, clean implementation, innovative design solutions can drastically enhance the user experience.

This article presents innovative, futuristic gadgets, devices, designs and concepts. Unless explicitly specified, none of these cut-edge concepts is currently being manufactured. None of them is available for end-users which is why neither the price nor links to the stores are mentioned."

12 Lessons from Business Masters

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/290389/12-Lessons-from-Business-Masters
"The lessons in this document are ones that should be taken to heart. I tend to agree with Mr. Dell, it is and always will be the customer who keeps a company up and running."

Design Police: Bring Bad Design to Justice

http://www.design-police.org/
Genius.

Lifehacker Feature: Customize Your Mac with Leopard Power Tweaks

http://lifehacker.com/344376/customize-your-mac-with-leopard-power-tweaks
"Now that Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard's been out almost three months, several apps, tweaks, and plug-ins have emerged that can customize (and sometimes re-Tigerize) your Mac. Now that you're comfortable with Leopard's new features, like Stacks, Quick Look, Time Machine, and Spaces, it's time to roll up your sleeves and make your Mac look, feel, and behave just how you like. Personalize Leopard's great new features, revert the annoying ones, or just get a taste of the things you didn't know your Mac could do with our favorite Leopard tweaks."

Sawse: Some of the Best CSS Resources on the Web

http://www.sawse.com/2008/01/06/some-of-the-best-css-resources-on-the-web/
"Design professionals once ignored CSS, chalking it up to nothing more than a fad that would eventually fade into the background. Over time, its ease of use and wealth of design applications have made it the new favorite of media designers everywhere. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, what are you waiting for? Here we take a look at six of the best beginner CSS resources available on the web.

CSS2 Specification

The reading is dry, but if you’re serious about learning CSS this is your first and best place to start. This is the official CSS manual. The easiest way to use this resource is to practice while you are reading so that you can transform that technical language into practical application."

Gizmodo: 1960s Braun Design Holds the Secret to Apple's Future

http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future
"The year 2008 marks the 10th Anniversary of the iMac, the computer that changed everything at Apple, hailing a new design era spearheaded by design genius Jonathan Ive. What most people don't know is that there's another man whose products are at the heart of Ive's design philosophy, an influence that permeates every single product at Apple, from hardware to user-interface design. That man is Dieter Rams, and his old designs for Braun during the '50s and '60s hold all the clues not only for past and present Apple products, but their future as well:

When you look at the Braun products by Dieter Rams—many of them at New York's MoMA—and compare them to Ive's work at Apple, you can clearly see the similarities in their philosophies way beyond the sparse use of color, the selection of materials and how the products are shaped around the function with no artificial design, keeping the design "honest."

Genoco: Phil Lu: Portfolio

http://genoco.com/
"I am a multimedia designer with three years of experiences working in various dynamic and collaborative environments. Detail oriented and open minded to tackle various kind of design challenge. Eager to learn new skills, adopt new ideas and work to be an excellent team member. Experienced in graphic design, multimedia design and photography"

wallpaper*: Design Awards 2008: the winners

http://www.wallpaper.com/news/design-awards-2008-the-winners/2029
"Unless you’ve been holed up in bed for the last ten days, you won’t fail to have noticed our countdown to the annual Wallpaper* Design Awards. And you’re probably aware that last night the event itself took place to great effect – winners were revealed, runners-up clapped graciously and a very good time was had by all.
In true Wallpaper* style we’ve gone one step further than simply opening an envelope to reveal the winners. Instead, we’ve teamed-up with digital animators, Mainframe, to produce animations for each winner of the Judges’ Awards. To heighten the suspension a little more, refresh your memories and take a look at the shortlists for each award by clicking on each category on the right."

Apple Gazette: Where to find LIVE coverage of the Macworld 2008 Keynote

http://www.applegazette.com/macworld/where-to-find-live-coverage-of-the-macworld-2008-keynote/
"The 2008 Macworld Keynote is only a few days away, and below is a complete list of everywhere that you’ll be able to find live blogging of the event. If you are planning on covering the event and don’t see yourself listed below, please contact us and I’ll get you added as soon as possible."

Staff Tool

http://www.stafftool.com/
"stafftool is the easiest way for churches and non-profits to manage their people, events, and communications"

Time: 50 Best Websites, 2007

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1633488,00.html
"Our 2007 picks are the best examples of what's new and exciting about the Web right now. Here we honor sites with exceptional style and smarts, sites that offer new and improved ways to access and share content, generate our own and otherwise enrich the online (and off-line) experience. What do you think of our choices? Take our poll and let us know."

Techcrunch: 2008: Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn’t Live Withttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifhout

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/01/2008-web-20-companies-i-couldnt-live-without/
"This will be the third annual post on “Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn’t Live Without.” The first post, for 2006, is here. The 2007 post, written a year ago, is here.

This is a list of the products I tend to use daily. Some are for work (Wordpress, Delicious, Google Docs, etc.), some are for fun (Amazon Music, Amie Street, etc), and some are useful for both (Digg, Skype, YouTube, etc.). But I use most of them every day, or nearly every day, and I would not be as productive or happy without all of them.

The list changes a bit from year to year, and is also getting longer (see chart). Five products have been favorites all three years (Flickr, Netvibes, TechMeme, Skype, Wordpress). Five more were favorites last year and this year, but not in 2006 (1-800-Free-411, Amie Street, Digg, Gmail, YouTube). Two were off the list last year but are back now (Delicious, Technorati). And there are seven new products on the list (Amazon MP3 Store, Facebook, Firefox, Google Reader, TripIt, Twitter, Zoho). Some of my picks might be surprising, like Firefox just being added to the list this year (I used Flock previously and was unhappy with Firefox on the Mac, but the 3.0 beta is performing very well). Some of these are close calls (I love Pageflakes, but just not enough to fully switch from Netvibes, for example). And there are a bunch of startups that didn’t make the list to keep it short. I’ve put a few “almosts” at the end to round out the list, as well as a couple of favorite gadgets."

Seattle Pi: Simple, tiny computers forcing Microsoft to make change

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/346547_flashpc09.html
"LAS VEGAS -- Amid the gigantic televisions and booming speakers at the Consumer Electronics Show, a tiny laptop computer stands out for its minimalist approach.

The Asus Eee PC is about the size of a small hardback book, and weighs two pounds. Rather than storing data on a spinning hard drive, it uses the type of solid-state flash memory more common in portable music players. It comes with the Linux operating system preinstalled, and it sells for as little as $300."

Colour Lovers: Happy Blue Year: 2008 Color Trends

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/01/09/happy-blue-year-2008-color-trends/
"According to color supplier Pantone®, the color of 2008 is Blue Iris. The blue is a radiant, calming hue, dark, but not dark enough to be in the realm of navy, and is a sharp contrast to the 2007 choice, Chili Pepper Red.

“From a color forecasting perspective, we have chosen PANTONE 18-3943 Blue Iris as the color of the year, as it best represents color direction in 2008 for fashion, cosmetics and home products,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “As a reflection of the times, Blue Iris brings together the dependable aspect of blue, underscored by a strong, soul-searching purple cast.”

pingdom: Web hosting names that make you go “Huh?”

http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=233
"There are a lot of web hosting companies out there with unusual, strange, or just plain weird names (and URLs). We have collected some of the strangest ones in this post."

Smashing Magazine: 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/
"High-quality WordPress themes always come in handy. Whether you are looking for some design inspiration or professional coding solutions — in both cases you can learn a lot, you can apply them and you can build customized designs upon them without reinventing the wheel all the time.

In this article we present 100 free high-quality WordPress themes. Together with hundreds of other designs, these themes have been manually selected, installed and tested over the last weeks. They all can be downloaded, customized and used for free in both personal and commercial projects. Links to demo-versions provide a direct preview of a theme.

Please notice that the listed WordPress themes are presented in 8 sections: vibrant themes, simple & minimalistic themes, magazine style, grid-based, clean and legible, advanced, experimental, photoblog & videoblog."