December 2009
21 posts
4 tags
LSSU Banished Words List →
Ah, my old university’s annual attempt to be seen as something other than “that university in the U.P. that only has good programs in the fields nobody cares about.” I am surprised that the first place I saw it was on Ars Technica instead of CNN, though.
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Right-Click Shortcut for Dropbox Public Links in... →
Right-click, copy, right-click, copy link, paste into email, IM, Twitter, Wave, or whatever. A handy shortcut for Dropbox users on Mac OS X.
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Pastebot →
You might not think that you’ll find a use for Pastebot, even when you combine it with Pastebot Sync. Trust me, though, you will. Well worth the $2.99.
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Simple, Instant Rollover Images
It drives me nuts when I see a really nice-looking website that features rollover buttons that, when hovered over, disappear while the browser grabs the hover state image. That’s not how you’re supposed to do it!
The problem is that the coders of these websites used two images: one for the normal state, and one for the hover state. Thus, the browser grabs the normal state on loading...
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How Success Killed Duke Nukem →
A story that proves that talent means nothing if you can’t get it done.
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“The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand...”
– Chuck Klosterman (via marco)
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Swedes Resort to Protests to get Steve Jobs to... →
You know the App Store’s not being run well if developers are resorting to extreme measures to get their applications approved - such as flying halfway around the world, dressing in comically stereotypical outfits (in a desert, outdoors!) and holding signs attempting to convince the CEO to act on their behalf.
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Is PayPal good for your microISV business? - A... →
Well, that’s all the fear I need to avoid PayPal for selling stuff.
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The downfall of tech news?
Lately I’ve been looking for things to talk about for my blog, but I hadn’t found any clever articles or big news events to say anything about. Fortunately, today I finally found an interesting topic: Marco Arment talking about the downfall of tech news.
Over the last few years, I have unsubscribed from nearly every tech-news feed. I have never regretted the decision afterward, and I...
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24 ways: Rock Solid HTML Emails →
I think I’m going to look into making some sweet email templates now - question is, will I still be able to use GMail along with these without resorting to third-party apps or spending way too much effort?
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The Value of an App
A conversation I had today with Kyle:
Me: This game Orbital is really cool!
Kyle: Yeah, that’s a fun game! How much did you pay for it?
Me: A dollar.
Kyle: A dollar? That’s not too bad.
Then I thought about it for a second: why do we put so little value into these games? A game like this two years ago on another gaming platform would have been just as fun but would be going for...
Panic's Company Blog →
I love how the articles are on different “papers” depending on the content - blueprints for engineering, parchment for the business department, and of course a press sheet for the art department. If I was their art department, though, I would have made sure to keep the top logo from being so dangerously close to the trim…
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“ EXPECT TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 8 TO 14 INCHES.
…ACCUMULATIONS...”
– The National Weather Service via The Weather Channel
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Lalapple
There was an interesting news article in The New York Times today: Apple’s interested in buying Lala.
What would be the purpose of this? Lala’s strength is in streaming your music collection online. If you don’t have the space for all your music on your computer, or use public computers a lot, then this offers a really nice solution.
What Apple has is, among other things, a...
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How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell →
Funny, but also depressing.
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Clear Your Flash Cookies! →
There aren’t just browser cookies - there’s Flash cookies. They store more data, they’re more hackable, and they don’t erase when you reset your browser. Seriously, click this link and you’ll be amazed at what’s still lying around.
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Crazy Idea of the Week
I think Quark should buy Pixelmator. Quark can use its experiences with QuarkXPress (which is, currently, digging its own grave) to make Pixelmator a viable (and known) alternative to Photoshop in the print market, while the Pixelmator team can help Quark’s team build a friendlier interface and add useful features not found in InDesign.
Or, this could be a hare-brained idea with the direct...
Clients from Hell →
I was following this Tumblr blog, but eventually the graphic/web design horror stories, however hilarious they may be, started depressing me so much that I can’t bear to keep reading. Despite this, I definitely recommend reading it, at least in short bursts!
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Which OS to use?
I’ve grown up using Windows all my life. What can I say, $600 minimum was too spendy for a kid. I finally hacked Mac OS X on my PC a while back, though, and it’s currently my OS of choice. But will it stay that way?
Windows 7 has a lot of the features that I got used to and love on OS X. Hitting the Windows key brings up a search window that works just like Spotlight, and...