June 2006 Entries

Links

 

06.29.2006

MSFT and Reverse Word of Mouth

The Register exposes Microsoft's rather unseamly tactic for muzzling partners who are faced with disgruntled customers. Exposed: techniques to silence Microsoft 'haters'. [+]

06.28.2006

FontShop's Freebie

Download FontShop's featured free font: URW Grotesk Extra Light Extra Wide -- clean, thin, geometric and elegant. [+]

06.28.2006

Name That (Threadless) Font

Next time you're caught staring at someone's chest, it better be because you're trying to identify their T-shirt font: Threadless Tee Shirt Fonts. [+]

06.28.2006

MSFT Demographics Predictor

Interesting technology demo from Microsoft's adCenter Labs. Type in a query and it predicts a customer's age, gender, etc. Demographics Prediction. According to this, simplifierlab.com tends to attract males between 18-24. Where have I heard this before? [+]

06.28.2006

Get Your Daily Dose of Widgets

I just found widget heaven: Widgetoko: Your daily dose of widget-y goodness. [+]

06.27.2006

Read the Font End User Agreement

A UK publishing firm was found to have used 11,000 unlicensed typefaces. How do I work as software snitch? Publisher in £80,000 font raid. [+]

06.26.2006

Banner Blindness

People ignore things that are irrelevant (and, in my case, fugly) -- so why do many businesses still insist on peppering websites with banners? Research: Internet Users Plagued by 'Banner Blindness'. [+]

06.26.2006

Digg Demographics

I dig Digg. So I was pretty interested in finding out more about Digg's audience. Once again, my preferences tend to skew male. Federated Media on Digg's audience. [+]

06.25.2006

AOL Rumored to Sack 75% of Its Workforce

Yet unconfirmed Valleywag tip: Guest scoop: AOL allegedly axes most of its dying Access department. One thing's for sure, however, investors and analysts are unhappy with AOL's continued lackluster performance and dubious leadership. [+]

06.25.2006

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

Warren Buffett will start giving away his fortune worth an estimated $44 billion -- most of which will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Respect. [+]

06.25.2006

Majority are at 1024 x 768 resolutions...now what?

Nearly 80% of all Web users worldwide are at 1024 x 768 resolutions or higher and more than half are at 1024 x 768 according to OneStat. While it's tempting to start designing pages that occupy the full 1024 width, don't. Keep in mind that most folks typically don't expand their browsers... [+]

06.24.2006

Get Home Safely

Another reason why I heart NY. RightRides offers free rides home for women, transpeople and gender queer individuals to see that they get home safely. RightRides is available every Saturday night from Midnight -3 AM late night Saturdays (aka early Sunday morning). Visit RightRides Programs for more information. [+]

06.23.2006

AmEx Butterfly Card

AmEx's new Butterfly card design has been receiving a lot of press lately though I fail to see how this is a better design? It's thicker, unnecessarily uses more materials and doesn't fit into a wallet or pants pockets. I'd file this under gratuitous design. Via Cool Hunting. [+]

06.23.2006

Investing and Simplification

Interesting study by Adam Alter and Daniel Oppenheimer shows there's a correlation between simple company names and their market performance: BPS Research: Why you should invest in shares with simple names. [+]

06.22.2006

Who Matters Most?

Business 2.0 today published its list of 10 people who don't matter and the 50 people who do. [+]

06.22.2006

Quicksilver Cheat Sheet

Be even quicker with Quicksilver! TUAW found a a great cheat sheet for Quicksilver -- the must-have productivity tool for OS X users! Quicksilver cheatsheet and user manual. [+]

06.22.2006

Panda Poop and Poopers

Scientists are using panda fecal analysis to get better calaculations of the panda population and are estimating that the population may be 50% higher than the current estimated 1600 worldwide. Too bad that a handful of the Ars Technica commenters poo-pooed the research and would rather see the panda population dwindle to extinction. Nobel Intent: Panda Profiling. [+]

06.20.2006

Google Has Other Products Besides Search?

Despite Google's aggressive, frequent product rollouts, it seems that they're having trouble competing in non-search markets: Google Verticals vs. Google.com: What is Google's end-game? [+]

06.19.2006

Game, Interrupted

The online game, Second Life, will feature an American Apparel store: Online Shopping via Forbes.com. I don't know about you but I find this invasiveness a little creepy. [+]

06.19.2006

50 Tips on The Art and Business of Design

Very helpful tips (if not reminders) on ideation, execution, best practices and minefields for designers: Computer Arts: 50 ways to become a better designer. [+]

06.17.2006

Father's Day Factoids

The Origin of Father's Day and other Father's Day factoids, via Live Science. Interesting statistic from the report: "All in all, 84 percent of child-support... [+]

06.16.2006

Spiekermann Uncensored

Erik Spiekermann, esteemed designer, typographer and founder of MetaDesign, openly criticizes the World Cup design as "Just Embarrassing". [+]

06.16.2006

Link Love

Jared Spool extols the merits of link-rich sites: Lifestyles of the Link-Rich Home Pages. [+]

06.14.2006

Re-Branding Mistakes

Great list of tips that brand stakeholders (not just marketers) often make when re-thinking their brand: ReBrand's Top 20 Mistakes Marketers Make. [+]

06.13.2006

Taming the Spaghetti Monster

I so love this Lifehacker tip on how to conceal your workspace's unruly cable mess: Hack Attack The Cordless Workspace (sort of). [+]

06.13.2006

Universal Packing List

The Universal Packing List is an online form that generates a list of stuff you need to pack for your trip based on climate, activity, accommodations, etc. Wish it had a category for techie travellers -- I always forget chargers for gadgets. [+]

06.12.2006

Jakob Tackles the Inbox

Jakob Nielsen just published a number of findings on email newsletter usability (updated from a February 2004 report). This time, the study also includes usability findings for RSS, err, news feeds: Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion. [+]

06.12.2006

The Peter Pan Principle

Middle-agers are the new kids as more grown-ups indulge themselve in cartoons and other kid fare: Adults Do The Darndest Things. [+]

06.12.2006

Spam: Taiwanese Style

A while back, I blogged about Mailinator's Spam mashup -- a map that plots the IP locations of spam they've filtered. A recent survey by email security firm CipherTrust, however, claims that most spam comes from Taiwan, a whopping 64%! Taiwan fingered as the hub of spam distribution via The Register. [+]

06.12.2006

Car Design: Luxury and Complexity

According to a study by JD Powers, the high price tag for premium features on many luxury cars apparently don't include usability. How Do You Turn On The #@!&% Air? [+]

06.11.2006

People Are People

Apparently, users have something in common with Soylent Green. While I agree philosophically that a more human/e appelation would be preferable, I disagree... [+]

06.10.2006

(Re-)Design Observer

Their old Trendy MT template allowed them to "focus on the content first." Now, form follows function. Redesign of Design Observer [+]

06.09.2006

SEO Myths

Three common search engine optimization myths debunked: (1) You can be guaranteed consistently high rankings... [+]

06.08.2006

ThinkQuest NYC 2006 Winners

Congratulations to the 2006 TQNYC internet challenge award winners. As I mentioned in a previous post, ThinkQuest is an afterschool collaborative... [+]

06.08.2006

AOL's Email Ads

AOL has done it again: piss off more subscribers. For $23.95 a month, AOL subscribers get Web 0.5 features and now...unsolicited ads in emails! [+]

06.08.2006

iTunes: Emerging Channel for PDF eBooks

The latest issue of The Fader is available for free on iTunes. Of course, MAKE magazine, had released PDFs through iTunes on occasion in the... [+]

06.07.2006

Utah Freakonomics

While George W. Bush's popularity continues to plunge, folks in Utah have steadfastly supported the president (NY Times). Interestingly enough, Utah has the greatest prevalence of poor mental health in the United States. Coincidence? Well, it's certainly one for the Freakonomists. [+]

06.07.2006

Accessibility for the Elderly, Visually-Impaired

Two interesting products that address accessibility for the visually impaired and the growing elderly population. SpeakOn, developed by blind entrepreneur Chris Mairs, is a new device that challenges the paradigm of current screen readers such as JAWS to make the web accessible to the blind. According to Mairs... [+]

06.06.2006

More Goofy Military Wear

Another one to add to the list of goofy military attire...this time, they get German-designed strap-ons: Special Forces Get 'Strap-On Wings' via The Raw Feed. [+]

06.06.2006

Paper Prototyping Resources

Download a handful of resources for conducting paper prototypes for usability testing: paperprototyping.com downloads. [+]

06.04.2006

Blogs and the Cost of Advertising

Hugh MacLeod's blog-based ad campaign for Stormhoek wines recently won Best Consumer campaign beating out bigger ad budget competitors (Chivas' Brothers campaign cost 40 million Euros!) for the cost of a $400 commercial blog software license. And the Winner Is... [+]

06.04.2006

Hospital Features All Rooms with Sunny Exposure

Smart solution to sunless windows! Patients in Revolving Hospital Have Sunny Rooms All Day via Modern Mechanix. [+]

06.04.2006

Ignore whitespace = "false"

Programming language made up entirely of whitespace characters such as spaces, tabs and new lines as part of the syntax! Whitespace. A bit too minimalist I think. [+]

06.03.2006

Get Well Sawyer!

Sawyer is a 12-year old boy who was recently striken with a yet unknown illness that has left him immobile from the waist down. His Uncle Howard, a fellow ITP alum, has created a viral invitation for people to send in their photos to give their well-wishes to Sawyer: Get well, Sawyer! [+]

06.02.2006

How to be a Great Illustrator in Two Years

Gez Fry has an outstanding portfolio of Japanese-style illustrations. Not bad for someone who started out with absolutely no illustration experience... [+]

06.01.2006

The Homepage Challenge: 20 Words, 27 Seconds

According to Jakob Nielsen, people read only about 20 words on the homepage. Most don't scroll to look at additional content below the fold (we already know this one, right?). And that users spend about 27 seconds on a homepage, mostly scanning for links (of course, they've already formed a first impression in the blink of an eye). [+]

 

Copyright © 2004-2008 SimplifierLab. Creative Commons License
Home • Works • About • Contact | RSS 2.0 | Powered by Movable Type 3.2