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Quote of the Week:

The Principles of Open Space

John McCrea, of Plaxo, is posting notes and images from the Internet Identity Workshop. This is my favorite image so far:



Very Zen.

Follow his musings on his blog.

Labels: social networking, strategery

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Papyrus

Ah, XKCD, you know us typographers all too well:

Labels: humor, typography

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5.27.2009

The Hit List: Still in Beta, but a good list-maker all the same

I downloaded The Hit List, a list-making tool in the Getting Things Done style, today. And even though I've only been using it for about five hours, it's about ten times better than the stock iCal To-Do offering, and at least as good as the Kinkless GTD system for OmniOutliner I was using a few years back (this was before OmniFocus). I expect to work up a more comprehensive review of it after I've had some time to really test drive the thing, but for now I'll leave you with these reviews.

Labels: productivity

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5.26.2009

Plaxo is becoming the key to my Internet-based Perpetual-Motion Machine.

I think it says something about both Facebook's confidence in being the social network leader (read: hubris) and Plaxo's desperation to get more people to use its platform that Plaxo has reached an agreement with Facebook to allow people who use FB and Plaxo to automatically send FB updates to the Plaxo service.

First I can allow Twitter to update my Facebook status, so I don't have to use Facebook. Then Facebook will update Plaxo. But wait: Twitter already updates to Plaxo. The mobius strip or gordian knot or infinite loop will be complete once Plaxo starts updating my Twitterfeed. Indeed, it will become the perpetual motion machine I've been waiting for.

Labels: social networking

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Geekchart: a confluence of infographics and geekdom

Want to chart where you spend your time on the social networking inter-tube/?Check out Geekchart. It has listings for almost all the social media portals, including Flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, and more (Facebook isn't on there, yet).

Mine's embedded below:


Bucknam's Geek Chart

Thanks to Cool Infographics for the link.

Labels: information graphics, social networking

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5.25.2009

Remember to Remember

Happy Memorial Day.

photo of the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial by Rob Hogeslag

Labels: holiday, photography

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5.24.2009

NY Times tries AIR-based subscription content

I get my Sunday New York Times hand-delivered, via deliveryperson, via local printing plant, via electronically-transmitted layout files from the Times' layout desk. Looks like now the Times is trying (again) to come to grips with the fact that, while some of us enjoy reading a physical paper once in a while, it's not paying the bills the way it did before Craigslist came along:

The ad copy states:

It reads like a newspaper. Updates like a Web site. And delivers like The New York Times. The new Times Reader 2.0 delivers the entire day's Times in seconds, so you can carry it wherever you go.

The good news for me is that, being a current physical paper subscriber, I get this for free. I'll let you all know how it feels to read the "paper" this way, and if I think it's worth the three bucks or so per week they're charging -- especially when the mobile version of the Times site is so good (which, interestingly enough, detected I was loading from a desktop browser and redirected me to the regular site), not to mention the regular version.

Labels: newspapers

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5.21.2009

How to make your children make your Art Direction Better

Of course someone in the advertising industry would leverage their children to benefit their performance. As for myself, I will henceforth be training my sub-six-year-olds to play the role of the Client as well.

Bonus: TIny Art Director has a book deal!

Labels: advertising, advice, children, creativity, graphic design, humor

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5.18.2009

Wet-plate photography from my alma mater, SCAD

Check out this series of wet-plate images made by Ellen Susan over at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Professor Craig Stevens (pictured) was my mentor there, and he has a long love of historical techniques. If things keep going the way they have been in the photographic industry, pretty soon any of us who like using film will end up making our own negatives...because at some point companies will stop mass-producing them.

Labels: photography, process, SCAD

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5.17.2009

No pressure to get this COMPLETELY PERFECT

A bookbinder recently cataloged their work in re-binding a 1518 edition of Ovid. Unlike me, I imagine they don't allow coffee on their work-surfaces.

link via BoingBoing.

Labels: book, book cover design, craftsmanship

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5.16.2009

Tell me why you use the RSS feeder that you use, and win a pony.

Well, Okay, you won't really win a pony. But my analytics show a quarter of you using Netvibes, another quarter using Google News Reader, some using NetNewsWire (my favorite), a few Bloglines peeps, Firefox Live Bookmarks, and a ton of "OTHER".

So: why do you use the newsfeed reader you use? What makes it easy to use? What are the limitations? Post in the comments so we can all hear ya!

Labels: advice, RSS

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5.15.2009

Bespoke cases for your MacBookPro

Vajahas a lovely, well-designed case for that special laptop of yours. Cutouts for access to ports, allows the Mac to open up without removing the case, and looks better than anything else out there I've seen in a long time.

Available in dozens of colors, inside and out, from about $280.

Labels: aesthetics, laptop

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5.11.2009

The new MacBooks are here! The New MacBooks are here!

I feel just like Navin R. Johnson in the Jerk, when the new phone books arrived with his name in them. Except for me my excitement comes in the form of a new 15-inch MacBook Pro. I just finished migrating all my files, etcetera, over from my 12-inch PowerBook G4, and am going through the applications and making sure everything works well.

If anyone has any tips on migrating from a Power-PC-based Mac to an Intel-based Mac, send me an e-mail or drop me a line over at Twitter with your thoughts. In the meantime, I'm going to play with my new Thermos, with vinyl and stripes and a cup built right in, until my eyeballs fall out.

Labels: advice, mac

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5.08.2009

Friday Fun, in honor of the new Star Trek Film

All I have to say is "Thanks! Now I have the A-Team theme song stuck in my head for the rest of the day."

Check it out on the You-Toob.


Thanks, I think, to Joel Finkelstein for the link.

Labels: humor, mashups

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5.05.2009

Guest posting now at BigBrainTheory.com

My first post over at the collaborative blog BigBrainTheory.com just went up. The blog is the, er, brain-child of the folks over at Collaboration Lab (whose brand identity I created earlier this year). It's an expanded take on one of my earlier posts on Twitter.

Go check it out, and let me know what you think of it!

Labels: blogs, social networking, twitter

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5.03.2009

Just a reminder as to how the internet can help people

...if you think the Internet is just there to satisfy your personal desires and needs, keep in mind that it also connects to what is the most human in all of us.

The example I'll give today is people who are fighting or are affected by cancer. Check this out:

On twitter, I (along with a bijillion others) follow Lance Armstrong. No stranger to cancer, he is sorta one of the big peeps out there committed to finding a cure for it. I saw this post this evening:

...which led me to Jonathan White's twitterstream:

As someone who has lost a father to cancer, and who has a brother riding in the Livestrong challenge to help people with and families affected by cancer, a wife who works for a great cancer research fundraising organization, and a father to three young daughters, I am incredibly impressed by this kid. I don't know a lot about him, but the fact that he is putting his life, cancer and all, out there for millions to read about and experience, is incredible. It deserves our attention, and our awareness. In the context of the current recession and financial crisis, it's amazing just how (relatively) insignificant the funding is to CURE CANCER is. $335 billion to cure it. The first steps have been taken, and organizations like Stand Up 2 Cancer and Livestrong have raised awareness through social media like Facebook and Twitter. Listening to Jonathan White isn't too much trouble. It's an obligation. And a call to action.

CHeck out the photo in Jonathan's profile one more time. That's him. He has over 13,000 people on Twitter pulling for him. Even if you don't give a dollar to fight cancer, follow him on Twitter and tell him he's fighting the good fight. Technology only has a purpose if it helps us to be more human.

Labels: advocacy, cancer, nonprofits

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