Colored water photos: Water figures 2007

http://www.pbase.com/fotoopa/water_figures_2007
"The most beautiful photo you will see today."

Pixelmator: Image editing for Mac OS X

http://www.pixelmator.com/
"Pixelmator, the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images."

All Things Digital: VIDEO: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 1 of 7

http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070530/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-together-part-1-of-7/
"In their rare joint appearance at All Things Digital 5, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates discuss their contributions to the technology industry, the qualities they most respect in one another, and former Apple CEO Gil Amelio’s seamanship."

Coding Horror: Let's Build a Grid

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000877.html
"Khoi Vinh, the design director for the New York Times, explains how essential grids are to web design in his SXSW presentation with Mark Boulton, Grids Are Good (Right?).

So much web design work relies on establishing a grid and the constraints on that grid: ad sizes, display size, browser display area minus chrome, and so forth. Grids are, quite literally, everywhere. But learning how to effectively utilize grids-- without becoming a slave to them-- can make the difference between a competent layout and a great layout.

The case study in the presentation (pdf) is Yahoo!, which offers "rudimentary but unimaginative use of grid". The redesign, Yeeaahh!, offers a more flexible and interesting grid alignment that feels less like a

tag writ large."

UX Magazine: Abundance and UX

http://www.uxmag.com/strategy/273/abundance-and-ux
"I spent some time this weekend listening and thinking about Chris Anderson’s talk from PopTech! . Chris is looking to move beyond the Long Tail and is focusing on the notion of what happens when you look at the world through a lens of abundance rather than the classic Adam Smith economic model of scarcity."
Related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay
http://www.poptech.com/popcasts/PopCasts.aspx?viewcastid=22

Flickr: The Vader Project

http://www.flickr.com/photos/starwarsblog/sets/72157600262862719/

zen habits: Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity

http://zenhabits.net/2007/05/handbook-for-life-52-tips-for-happiness-and-productivity/
"This is something I’ve been wanting to write for some time — a Handbook for Life. Now, is there any handbook that can be a guide to every single person? Of course not. This is just a list of tips that I think will help many people in life — some of them common-sense tips that we often forget about. Consider this guide a reminder."

The tale of Firefly and the reverse culture shock

http://firefly.yourjapan.jp/post/2/358
"I had spent one full year living in Japan. I had battled with cultural shocks, I had battled my own pre-conceived ideas about life and culture. I had sat on a crowded train carriage, to look around and notice I was the only foreigner around. I had 1 year of ups and downs and sideways curves. 1 year of struggling with the language, and just plain struggling to fit in. 1 year of stress and problems at work caused by Bill and Shane. I wasn’t yet ready to leave Japan, but god was I ready to go back home for a holiday."

OS X Addition: WiFind 1.1

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/wifind.html
"Shows you if wireless networks are locked or unlocked and their signal strength - right in the airport menu. It’s a tiny lightweight plugin for OS X that makes connecting to reliable wireless networks quicker and easier. Whether you’re at home, the office or at your favorite cafe - WiFind will help you locate a signal and start browsing!"

New York Times: Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/business/yourmoney/27digi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
"RETAIL is supposed to be hard. Apple has made it seem ridiculously easy. And yet it must be harder than it appears, or why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?"

Abuzeedo: Creating a new Business Card

http://www.abduzeedo.com/creating-new-business-card
"This week I had to create a new Business card for my company, ZEE. I have to say, this sort of work, like creating a business cards, is not as easy as some people think. Actually it’s pretty hard to condense our business to a size of a business card."

5ThirtyOne: Rich HTML email signatures straight from Gmail

http://5thirtyone.com/archives/821
"One of the benefits of using a dedicated email application like Apple Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird is the ability to send emails which included rich HTML signatures. These email signatures are easily recognizeable and often include hyperlinks, images, or a combination of the two. Although Gmail users could easily access their accounts via POP allowing for HTML emails, web-based users are were forced to use plain text signatures. For quite some time, I yearned for the ability to add a little more personality to my emails. Unfortunately, because I managed all my email accounts via Gmail’s web interface, the option was non-existent. That was until I discovered the Better Gmail Firefox extension."

share.clarklab.net: 20 WordPress Themes That Don't Disappoint

http://share.clarklab.net/articles/wordpress/20-wordpress-themes-that-dont-disappoint/
" We’ve compiled a list of 20 WordPress themes you might have missed, or that deserve a second look. All the themes are free to download from themes.wordpress.net. You can get a look at all 20 after the jump…"
More:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/02/09/83-beautiful-wordpress-themes-you-probably-havent-seen/
http://www.clazh.com/top-ten-best-free-wordpress-themes-and-templates/

456 Berea St: Creating bulletproof graphic link buttons with CSS

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200705/creating_bulletproof_graphic_link_buttons_with_css/
"

A CSS problem I have been wrestling with lately is how to create a bulletproof shrinkwrapping graphic button. By that I mean an image-based button that will expand and contract to fit the amount of text it contains. It is a very useful technique for CMS-driven sites that allow the client to change the text that is displayed on buttons, as well as for multilingual sites.

A successfull bulletproof image-based button should:

• Automatically grow horizontally to fit any amount of text
• Grow horizontally and vertically if text size is increased or if the text wraps to multiple lines
• Retain its appearance within reasonable limits
• Be able to have rounded (or other non-square) corners
• Have no unclickable areas
• Be readable when images are disabled"

download squad: Dear Adobe, what the hell happened to you?

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/05/23/dear-adobe-what-the-hell-happened-to-you/
"Adobe has slowly been adding to that chip on many people's shoulders for some time now, and lately they seem to be upping their game. Certainly, comments from their CEO like "our customer is not typically price sensitive" don't help matters, but it seems that even the very software their company is so well known for is beginning to suffer from poor, nay - dreadful - design and management."

Freelance Switch: 34 Places to Get Design Inspiration - Online and Off

http://freelanceswitch.com/working/34-places-to-get-design-inspiration-online-and-off/
"Everyone who hasn’t encountered designer’s block, raise your hand. Just as I thought. Well then, chances are you could use some places to get inspiration for those days when the pixels aren’t aligned and your mouse finger isn’t clicking like it should. We’ve compiled a list, online and off to serve up everything from logos to icons to art to fashion to just inventive ideas to get your mind ticking. So kick back and let your senses run wild as we bring you 15 websites packed full of inspiration, 10 must-have books and 9 things to do to get inspired."

tutorial outpost: Pricing For Creative Projects

http://blog.tutorialoutpost.com/article/4/pricing-for-creative-projects/
"Out of every design-related article and blog entry written over the past few years, very few have tackled the “taboo” topic of money — namely how much to charge for creative work. There are thousands of articles about CSS best practices but when it comes down to paying bills or putting food on the table, work-for-hire designers are on their own."

5THIRTYONE: Controlling multiple Macs, locally and remotely

http://5thirtyone.com/archives/825
"For anyone who owns more than one Apple computer, the thought of controlling two or more machines at the same time is surely something many people think of. Despite any previous assumptions you may have had, the steps necessary to control two or more Apple computers [at the same time] is quite simple and easily completed by anyone willing and able to follow a few simple directions. The challenge now is not a question of "How could I possibly setup and control multiple machines - for free?" Rather, the challenge is deciding whether or not you need 1) simple "local" control (main desktop + a secondary computer on the same desk), 2) remote access (control your desktop from the cafe or office), or 3) both. We’ll look at setting-up both local and remote access using two methods - both utilizing free - and secure (if applicable) - software."

Disk Inventory X (OS X, FREE!)

http://www.derlien.com/
"Disk Inventory X is a disk usage utility for Mac OS X 10.3 (and later). It shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way called "treemaps".

If you've ever wondered where all your disk space has gone, Disk Inventory X will help you to answer this question. "

Emigre Malaga (typeface)

Malaga, a lovely new typeface designed by Xavier Dupré for Emigre.
(via Jason Santa Maria)