Noteworthy Entries
06.22.2008
Design for Ugly
I ran across this tearful and inspirational story about Ugly that reminded me of what I detest about most design. Rather than focusing on our very basic need for meaningful interaction, most designers spend time unnecessarily on superficial elements. Look deeper inside. Focus on the emotional interaction. Design for Ugly. [+]
06.06.2008
The Girl Effect
A viral video about humanity. It's immensely moving, powerful and is what compelling content needs to be. Storytelling in its simplest form: type and maybe a couple of colors. The Girl Effect [+]
05.31.2008
Keeping Up With Social Tagging
An Adobe Connect-based screencast of a presentation on Social Tagging, Social Bookmarking by Thomas Vander Wal, commonly credited for coining the term folksonomy. [+]
05.17.2008
Shawn van Every
Shawn is genius and I'm glad his students and NYU recognized him with an award. Here's his acceptance speech. [+]
02.23.2008
Taggers, Moshers, Skaters— Unite!
Having made it as an official selection for the 2008 SXSW Film Festival, Beautiful Losers is the new Helvetica. Trust me on this one. [+]
02.09.2008
Obama Posters by Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairey designs Barack Obama's posters. [+]
01.23.2008
People before Profitability
There is simply no question that Mr. Bezos’s obsession with his customers — and the long term — has paid off, even if he had to take some hits [+]
11.25.2007
OLPC and Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman Emeritus of MIT Media Lab and more recently known for the non-profit One Laptop Per Child will be on air on Paltalk Monday 11/26 5pm ET ... [+]
10.17.2007
Help Nick West
Nick is an incredibly accomplished fellow ITP alum who was recently diagnosed with an advanced state of prostate cancer. Friends/fellow alums have built a website where others can send him well-wishes, donate money or airline miles or just extend moral support. Please help. Help Nick West [+]
06.19.2007
Online participation habits among teens, Gen X, Gen Y, Boomers and Geezers
BusinessWeek has a graphical take on online participation levels by age group based on a recent report by Forrester Research (see earlier blog post). [+]
05.08.2007
ITP Spring Show 2007
A number of the thesis projects are on display at ITP's Spring Show along with other students' projects. MAKE got early pictures of the show: MAKE: ITP Spring Show 2007 photos [+]
05.02.2007
Levels of Participation in Social Media
A new report from Forrester estimates that 13% of adult consumers are content creators; 19% are critics who comment on blogs and/or post ratings and reviews; 15% are collectors; 19% are joiners; 33% are spectators (often called lurkers); and 52% don't perform any of the previously mentioned activities. Another interesting aspect of their survey shows that Apple users are more likely to be content creators (heavier participation overall) than Dell users. From ZDNet: Climbing the social Web ladder. [+]
04.30.2007
Coffee + News = Nerdery
News Brews is Benjamin Brown's ITP master's thesis. It's a device that uses news feeds as a data source and produces a proportionate blend of coffees from the news origin. You can view the ITP thesis page or his thesis documentation, Beverage Informatics, for more information.Oh, and he's working on a java applet. So geeky. (How about one in Cocoa?) [+]
04.29.2007
Stapler that doesn't use metal staples
If you're stapling just a few sheets of paper, consider using the Staple Free Stapler. Really nice design staples sheets by tucking the paper into itself. No more prying off staples with your fingernails or choking the shredder by accidentally feeding it metal staples. [+]
04.29.2007
Tracking Viralness -- Literally
Are you sick? If so, you may just want to visit Who is Sick as you recuperate. Just enter your illness info and you can get a summary of sickness trends in your area as well as other things that any hypochondriac would love. [+]
04.29.2007
Org Charts in the Age of Web 2.0
I love Forbes' new *experiment* -- tapping into the knowledge of Web users to help construct org charts for various companies wiki-style: Forbes: Org Chart WIki. Reminds me of They Rule. [+]
04.09.2007
The Civil Web
Sparked in part by recent death threats to Kathy Sierra, Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales are "proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse" based on community guidelines drafted by BlogHer for its community. A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs. Yes, count me in. And yes, too bad we even need something like this. [+]
03.09.2007
Free Fonts from exljbris
Beautifully crafted, complete families—all free ! My favorites: fontin and the aptly named delicious. exljbris [+]
02.02.2007
Judging a Book by Its Cover
"On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. " Hmm, seems like we truly are a Blink society. Some book statistics. [+]
12.10.2006
Where Digg Stories Come From
Nice analysis of top Diggers' online sources. YouTube, News.com, Yahoo News, NY Times and BBC News make up the top 5. The rest are somewhat surprising, including Northwest Florida News at #11. Which sites do the Top Diggers Read? [+]
11.30.2006
Forms up the Wazoo
I really heart Smashing Magazine's well-curated collections of practical resources for designers. This time around, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of web forms resources: CSS-Based Forms: Modern Solutions. [+]
11.26.2006
Mothers are the Mother of Invention
It's always easiest to build from what's personally meaningful to you. Innovations inspired by kidsParents' creativity unleashed when faced with practical needs [+]
11.06.2006
Weekend Web 2.0
A noteworthy Web 2.0 special report from The Guardian this weekend, if, for nothing else, because it doesn't include the over-exposed MySpace bunch. Weekend Magazine Web 2.0 Special | Guardian Unlimited [+]
10.25.2006
Jenkins on Participatory Culture
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century is a crisp, cogent white paper by Henry Jenkins for the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Learning Initiative on the emergence and challenges of participatory media and users as content creators. [+]
10.18.2006
Guide to Brainstorming
BusinessWeek offers Eight Rules to Brilliant Brainstorming. (Yes, there are rules.) [+]
10.05.2006
Ellen Lupton's Call for Free Fonts
In her Free Font Manifesto, Ellen Lupton urges foundries to offer good free fonts because they "have an explicit social purpose...[offering] the basics for maintaining literacy and communication within a society." [+]
10.01.2006
Project Runway Meets Hack Day
All Women Team Takes Yahoo Hack Day Top Prize for their entry, Blogging in Motion, a photoblogging system in the guise of a handbag. For fans of Project Runway, you'll notice that one of the team members is Diana Eng, the season 2 wearables mistress who is clearly no stranger to 24-hour deadlines with crazy creative constraints. [+]
09.16.2006
Over Half of MySpace Users are Over 35
52 percent of MySpace users are over 35. Now, it makes sense...or at least why I'm completely repulsed by it. [+]
09.07.2006
Celebrity Look-a-Like
Has anyone ever told you you look like someone famous? My Heritage Face Recognition has an interesting technology that compares your photo and tries to find the closest celebrity matches in its database. More fun that functional. [+]
08.29.2006
You can take it(unes) with you
It's the next best thing to an iPod: Musicast: Broadcast Your Music. [+]
08.22.2006
IE7 CSS Changes
IE has made "over 200 behavior changes" which includes fixing a number of bugs from Position Is Everything. Oh joy! Well, that is, if only folks would stop using earlier versions of IE altogether. IE Blog: Details on our CSS changes for IE7. [+]
08.22.2006
Today's Funny Site: 5ives
5ives is from Merlin Mann, the guy who brought you 43 Folders. He has my sense of humor and my taste in music. (And, from the looks of his site, shares a similar minimalist aesthetic!) [+]
08.17.2006
Infographics for Everyday People
Indexed features a wealth of charts and visual aids for life's common conundrums. Via Core77.com. [+]
08.17.2006
CSS Optimizers Tested
Blogging Pro does a great job of testing a handful of free CSS optimizers so you don't have to: CSS Optimization: Make Your Sites Load Faster for Free [+]
08.16.2006
DIY Heatmaps
Create your own heatmap based on user clicks. The Definitive Heatmap [+]
08.05.2006
The "At Sign"
In Holland it's called "apestaart" (monkey tail) and in Germany it's known as "Klammeraffe" (hanging monkey). In France, it's either "arobas" or "petit escargot" (small snail). But in English, it's simply called the rather colorless "at sign". Interesting backstory on the web's darling symbol: A Sign of the TImes and Symbols.com: the @ symbol. [+]
07.29.2006
Compute! Magazine Archive
OMG! I just found this Classic Computer Magazine Archive: Compute! Magazine and I nearly cried. This is how I created my first (infinite) loop, my first game. This is how nerdy kids like me... [+]
07.22.2006
Sustainable Cardboard House
Add The Cardboard House to the list of affordable kit homes with style. [+]
07.18.2006
Innovating for the Masses, Not the Money
Putting people at the heart of innovation: Power Laws Of Innovation via Core77. [+]
07.17.2006
Client-Designer Relationships: The Abridged Version
In this day and age, I'm surprised to find the occasional client who still thinks a designer is no more than a (insert graphical application here) monkey. Seth knows otherwise and this is one of the many reasons I respect this man: How to live happily with a great designer. I'm inclined to include this in my proposals as a guideline for client-designer relationships...some clients can really use it. [+]
07.16.2006
SEO for Ethicisits
Simple, straightforward advice on how to optimize your site for search engines without going to the Dark Side. The Power of Natural SEO [+]
07.09.2006
Roll Your Own Eye Tracking Tests
DIY eye tracking using Open Eyes, open source code: Real-Time Eye Tracking, found via Digg. [+]
07.08.2006
Code Snippet Motherload
Snipplr Code 2.0 is searchable community-driven database for source code snippets, similar to koders (mentioned last 11/04). [+]
07.06.2006
SXSW Podcast
The podcast for the SXSW panel I was on this past March, Does Your Blog Have a Business, is now finally available! [+]
07.06.2006
IT Support Humor
Dave, this one's for you. The Register is taking votes for your favorite IT support anecdotes. (Found via Slashdot). For you and others out there who provide IT support, I salute you. [+]
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
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. [+]
06.24.2006
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. [+]
06.22.2006
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. [+]
06.17.2006
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
Link Love
Jared Spool extols the merits of link-rich sites: Lifestyles of the Link-Rich Home Pages. [+]
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. [+]
06.08.2006
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
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... [+]
06.04.2006
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... [+]
06.03.2006
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... [+]
05.31.2006
State of the Union, Deconstructed
Think of the President's State of the Union Address as the nation's zeitgeist for the pulsepoints of the American people. (Okay, so in some cases, you may have to read between the lines a bit.) And so it makes for rich material for new media artists... [+]
05.30.2006
Worldwide, Internet Users Are Still the Minority
According to Miniwatts Marketing Group's Internet Usage and World Population Statistics, 68.6% of North Americans use the internet. But North America only represents 5.1% of the worldwide population. Worldwide internet penetration is just 15.7%. [+]
05.29.2006
An Inconvenient Truth Finds an Audience
The film on global warming with Al Gore (QuickTime movie trailer) managed to climb to #11 at the box office despite its limited release in only four theaters. An Inconvenient Truth - Off to a Good Start, via Treehugger. [+]
05.29.2006
UNIQLO SoHo
UNIQLO -- the Japanese clothing company that's a cross between Banana Republic's affordable, casual yet refined aesthetic and the Body Shop's socially responsible raison d'etre -- will be opening a retail store in NY City's SoHo. They have launched a... [+]
05.29.2006
Skeet Shoot: The General Theory of Design
I empathize/commiserate with Brian Sooy's poignant General Theory of Design: "Design consists of creating things for clients who may not know what they want... [+]
05.26.2006
Visualizing Websites by Tags: The Applet
Sala at aharef.info just posted the applet for visualizing websites by tags (see earlier post). It uses Processing, the java-based, open source... [+]
05.25.2006
Visualizing Websites by Tags
A graphical way of viewing site complexity and structure as color-coded nodes and branches: Aharef: Websites as graphs. [+]
05.25.2006
New Products Getting Nekked
Oh, the bliss of opening a shiny, new digital toy. Unboxing.com is a new blog that indulges those of us who get goose-pimply as we slowly peel off packaging layers from our prized gadgets. Of course, this comes just shortly after Wired released Tales From Packaging Hell: the unseamly side of unboxing. [+]
05.23.2006
Editorial Style Guide
The Telegraph released their blogging style guide, a brief primer to blogging best practices. My favorite tip: "Try to avoid writing things like "you can read the full report here", with 'here' being the link. A construction such as "the... [+]
05.22.2006
Sign of the Times
Does anyone actually use newspapers for stock data? Finally: The New York Times to Cease Printing Daily Stock Tables. Rebuilding Media: The fate of media. [+]
05.21.2006
Pearl Jam Does Good Web 2.0 Business
Pearl Jam released their most recent video under a Creative Commons license. The video can be donwloaded for free from May 19-24 at Google Video... [+]
05.19.2006
Feed Factoids
Did you know that heaviest volume of feeds are read on Tuesday? Find out more feed factoids from Pheedo's current findings (PDF) on feeds and user behaviors, via Online News Squared. [+]
05.17.2006
Imagery, Ten Ways
Interactive pieces commissioned by Getty Images that explore visual language. My favorites: Less Rain's Color , and Sumona's Information. 10 ways. [+]
05.17.2006
One of the Top Three Vices
Amiglia is a smart, best-of-breed Web 2.0 genealogy application created by fellow ITP alums, Paul and Milena Berry. And, it's free during their beta period. "[Genealogy] is the third most popular pursuit...behind the twin vices of gambling and porn," ... [+]
05.16.2006
Highlights from the 2006 ITP Spring Show
If you weren't able to catch the ITP Show last week, you can be there vicariously through these pre-show videos: Day 1; Day 2. Wired also recently featured the show within the context of the Infinite Games project. Cool Hunting also has a few highlights from last week's ITP Spring Show. [+]
05.14.2006
Recent Thank Yous
A few thanks are in order. First, thank you, mom, for your saintly selflessness in caring for me (I know I can be a handful!) Happy mother's day! Thanks also to Steven Colbert, for having the bravado to say... [+]
05.12.2006
PDF Versions of Current Magazines for Free!
Free PDF eMagazines of popular newsstand titles including Make vol. 5, the May 2006 edition, Step Inside Design, April 2006 issue -- even the current issue of Harvard Business Review -- and much more. (Yes, you read it right -- FREE!) [+]
05.11.2006
Tai Shan Moonwalk
Just had to post this video (Quicktime) of Tai Shan, or Butterstick. I caught the baby panda prodding mom while she was asleep. Then, when he was satisfied that she was asleep, he went on to his cute antics... [+]
05.05.2006
Pictures of Missing Children, 2.0
Brilliant use of Flickr to view photos and profiles of missing children. Flickr: Photos from Help Find These People (tabhastal's 2nd account) via MIT Advertising Lab. [+]
05.05.2006
Funny Pictures: GW Bush at the Correspondents Dinner
A few video stills of George W. Bush reacting to Stephen Colbert's speech at the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner: Make Tea Not War - Bush in distress: reaction shots at the WH Correspondents Dinner. [+]
04.30.2006
Death & Information Graphics
Somewhat macabre, but it seems that artists/designers have found interesting ways to convey death statistics. The New York Times, for instance, recently ran a graphical map showing homicides in New York City's five boroughs between 2003 and 2005: Homicides and Crime in New York City - New York Times Interactive Graphic. Instead of their typical... [+]
04.27.2006
Fewer Folks Fear Cookies
Seems that internet users are getting over their cookie paranoia. According to a poll conducted by The Ponemon Institute, only 8% of those surveyed deleted cookies routinely, a marked contrast from a study done Jupiter Research a year ago where almost 40% reported they deleted cookies on a regular basis. Survey: Net Users Easing Up on the Cookie Hate, via Clickz. [+]
04.25.2006
Looking to Work on a Mobile Social App?
Friends at Kamida -- the folks who brought you Socialight -- are hiring. They are offering internship opportunities for developers and designers and are also looking for a full-time Lead Engineer. See details... [+]
04.25.2006
Thumbs Up for ThinkFree Online Office
You get 1GB file storage. You can create, edit, collaborate and share Microsoft-compatible word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Did I mention that it's entirely free? ThinkFree. I've only just started to play with it so I'm sure there are more features that I haven't uncovered yet. It probably makes coffee too. [+]
04.21.2006
DonorsChoose Gets Blogging
DonorsChoose has tapped bloggers to help raise money for learning materials and experiences that schools cannot afford through their Blogger Challenge. You can help public school kids by funding my Kids and Technology Challenge at DonorsChoose. Or, you can help spread the work by blogging about the challenge or submitting the DonorsChoose Challenge to Digg and other similar sites. [+]
04.18.2006
Steer Clear of Angry People
While seemingly obvious, Kathy Sierra offers some research on why Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain. Of course, my own quick cure for those times when I get sucked into negativity: watching baby panda videos. [+]
04.14.2006
Searches Typically End on Page 3
Not so surprising results from a Jupiter/iProspect survey show that most Search users 'stop at page three' of the search results. [+]
04.05.2006
Low Usage for Podcasts
Although "podcast" topped the list of new words for the past year, apparently the masses (myself included) haven't truly taken an affinity for it with a paltry 1% admitting to using podcasts regularly, according to Forrester Research. Read the overview from Charlene Li's Blog: Forrester podcasting report - just 1% use podcasts. [+]
04.01.2006
Good Magazine
Beautifully designed magazine, GOOD MAGAZINE | What Matters, done by Area 17. It has the typical impeccable typography and gridwork of Arnaud Mercier. What a good magazine, indeed. [+]
03.29.2006
Internet Adoption Plateaus in North America; Dependency Continues to Grow
While internet adoption may be slowing, dependence on it continues to grow , according to the latest Ipsos Insight's latest study, The Face of the Web. [+]
03.22.2006
Latest Version of NetNewsWire Lite Released
Just announced: Ranchero Software: NetNewsWire Lite 2.1b18 released today... [+]
03.20.2006
Blog Boo-Boo
A quick note of thanks to Derek Sisson of Site Design: Designing in Quality for pointing out a typo (potfolio) in my Works section. Note to self: updating a site at 4am is not a good idea. [+]
01.06.2006
Unbearable Cuteness of Being
I've become smitten with Tai Shan, the National Zoo's adorable fluffball of a panda cub. And, like millions of people worldwide, I've been tuning in daily to the zoo's two webcams to get my fix. Lately, I found that I... [+]
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