February 2010
If the NHL fails to garner more...
Half way through BioShock 2...
Thoughts thus far:
Starts off significantly slower then the first one.
Weird being a Big Daddy but your health isn’t significantly higher than the splicers. I know it’s for balance reasons, but the game doesn’t explain why you aren’t as strong as you’re supposed to be.
Graphics are superb; you can see the love they took in evolving the look of Rapture. Playing it...
REVIEW: COP OUT →
This is the most scathing review I’ve ever read.
“It’s easy to forget that Clerks and Chasing Amy were important moments in indie film, and that Smith was honestly poised to take a big leap and do something interesting. He’s never made good on that promise, and in fact he’s gotten to the point where he appears to have no interest in doing well. Cop Out is the worst...
Why You Should Start a Company in... Los Angeles →
fillup: (via @msuster )
Absolutely spot on article. Really good article.
Facebook Secures Patent for News Feed →
And so it begins.
“A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a...
Apple Stacks The Deck Against Amazon's Kindle App →
Apple is absolutely brilliant. If the iPhone isn’t the majority of the smartphone market (which seems likely given the growth and spread of Android) then no one can ever claim Apple of monopolistic behavior like this:
“ We have learned that when Amazon first submitted its Kindle application for the iPhone to Apple, Amazon included its own payment system within the app, so customers...
Silicon Valley Is Not Wall Street →
“The facts speak for themselves. Approximately 11%, or 12.1 million, of private-sector jobs reside at companies that were founded with venture capital. These companies include Intel, Genentech, Google, FedEx and Starbucks. Another 500,000 jobs are currently housed in newer start-up companies that are still privately held, and are poised to grow exponentially over the next decade.”
...
January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report « AdMob Metrics →
“Android and iPhone users download a similar number of apps every month and spend a similar amount of time using the apps.”
LukeW | Case Study: "Mad Libs" Form Increases... →
“Jeremy built the form to work as you’d expect. You can tab between the “blanks” just the way you tab between standard Web form input fields. You can click on any “blank” to start entering text. The password “blank” masks any characters you enter just like a standard password input, and the whole form manages errors if you answer any questions...
No home for iPad on Apple.com « designing agile →
You know what is sad? This was one of the first things I noticed as well.
“Have you noticed that there’s no spot in the Apple.com navigation for the iPad? I tried navigating to iPhone, iPod+iTunes and Mac and could not find iPad in any of those locations. I wonder when they plan to address this?”
Bill Simmons on how to fix the NBA - ESPN →
Great article on why the NBA sucks and what it needs to do to win back fans and remain relevant.
Think Your iPhone Internet Is Flaky Now? It's Only... →
The telcos need a swift kick in the ass.
“‘Bars’ Don’t Matter
What mobile users may not understand is that the number of ‘bars’ on their phone only indicates the signal strength from the nearest cell tower. Even with “full bars,” the nearest towers may be overloaded, and so a full signal won’t mean you can pass data through the logjam at the tower. Download speeds will slow to a crawl in...
Hollywood Stock Exchange Is Becoming A Real Money... →
Holy crap. This is awesome.
Regarding Foursquare and Please Rob Me - Waxy.org →
From 1977:
“A good robber reads the newspaper and takes note of funeral dates, wedding announcements, parties and (get this) wakes.
While mourners are at wakes and funerals, the robber knows not a soul will be at home during the announced hours of the sad event.”
Set Up a Fully Automated Media Center - Media... →
Top 10 Windows Media Center Plug-Ins & Boosters -... →
Nice collection of all the cool add ons for Windows Media Center.
Microsoft’s Creative Destruction - NYTimes.com →
So, so true.
“Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them...
Is Your Life Just One Big RPG? - Mind-Blowing... →
This is an interesting presentation. The presenter’s delivery style is strident & grinding, but if you stick with it, there is some good stuff in there.
“Schell’s discussion kicks off with some of the most unexpected gaming developments over the last few years, including:
The sudden success of Guitar Hero.
The Wii winning the console wars
Webkins
The incredibly...
20 Years of Adobe Photoshop | Webdesigner Depot →
I started with Photoshop 4.0.
Happy Birthday Photoshop →
Holy crap, Photoshop is 20 years old.
Lost Garden: Steambirds: Why indie games are good... →
Some of the best video games I’ve played have been indie games.
“As I look at this list, I am delighted by the indie game movement because for the first time in many years, players can once again associate the efforts of a human being with their great game experience. I want to be celebrate the individuals who makes the games that change my life. I don’t want to be a...
App is Crap (why Apple is bad for your health) via... →
Boxee Integration App Plugs Boxee Into Windows 7... →
Awesome to be able to switch back and forth using only the remote.
My Channel Logos Adds Network Logos to Windows 7... →
Nice addition to media center.
After watching a new episode of LOST
When you start talking about the new pieces of information from the latest episode of LOST, you will undoubtedly sound like a lunatic sharing your latest breaks in your conspiracy theory.
“Who do you think built the four-toed statue and what do you think it means?”
“What other names are scrawled in the cave and what are their corresponding numbers?”
“The hatches...
Gesture Powered 3D Home Screen For Android
Nice. Customizable 3D homescreen for Android users.
androidappsonly:
TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) launches the first release of TAT Home, a gesture-powered 3D Home screen for Android that combines advanced UI technology with slick design. The UI lets you perform everyday tasks with simple gesture. You can access contacts, messaging, music and weather without leaving the Home screen.
In...
How to Raise Racist Kids | Wired.com →
“Step One: Don’t talk about race. Don’t point out skin color. Be “color blind.”
Step Two: Actually, that’s it. There is no Step Two.
Congratulations! Your children are well on their way to believing that <insert your ethnicity here> is better than everybody else.”
Interesting. By shying away from discussing race, are we inadvertently creating ignorance about racism?
Windows Phone 7 Series Hands-On Pics and Video -... →
I love the paradigm of pivoting pages and panning across various screens.
Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different... →
This phone UI/UX looks really amazing.
read write where
There is another aspect to this that intrigues me; people put the utmost faith in Google and that first link on the SERP. It looks like these users consistently use Google to get to where they need to go and for the most part it works. It’s just baffling how much blind trust people put in Google giving them the exact site that they want. Speaks volumes about how well Google’s search...
LukeW | Overlays in Web Forms →
“Not all people require all the input fields within a Web form at all times. Instead, forms can provide additional input fields to the people that need them without getting in the way of people that don’t.
A common way to display these additional options is to use an overlay: a set of additional input fields that sits on top of a form like a dialog window on your computer’s...
LukeW | Web Form Innovations on Mobile Devices →
“But constraints breed innovation and mobile Web forms are no different. The limitations of mobile devices have forced developers and designers to find new ways to make providing input faster and easier. Several of these innovations are now making their way back to the desktop and beyond.”
Product design + LotR = outting yourself as a...
One user flow to rule them all, One user flow to find them, One user flow to bring them all and in the spec bind them
LukeW | iPad Design Tools & Resources →
“Apple’s iPad has yet to be released to the public but that doesn’t mean you can’t start designing applications for it today. Here’s a number of resources that can help get you on your way.”
A perfectly logical road to highly inconsistent... →
“Apple’s gone a bit wonky on its naming of things. In the beginning there was iTunes, then came the iPod and the iTunes Music Store. Eventually the iTunes Music Store became the more general iTunes Store. When the iPhone came out it had an ‘iPod’ app, and an ‘iTunes’ app was added later, linking specifically to the store. Later on an ‘App Store’ was added for the part of the iTunes store...
MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta Steps Down →
Grill a Perfect Grilled-Cheese Sandwich -... →
This is for @rawrdinosaurz
Cultivate Teams, Not Ideas | Coding Horror →
“I wouldn’t call ideas worthless, per se, but it’s clear that ideas alone are a hollow sort of currency. Success is rarely determined by the quality of your ideas. But it is frequently determined by the quality of your execution. So instead of worrying about whether the Next Big Idea you’re all working on is sufficiently brilliant, worry about how well you’re...
Android Apps Only →
Nice resource for my Android friends out there.
Offerpal Uses Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to Provide... →
“
Offerpal Media, the virtual currency monetization company best known for its advertising offers in social games, is expanding to let people earn virtual currency through online labor. The service is beginning to launch now.
Any game or other app that uses Offerpal’s offer wall — presumably including Zynga’s monster, FarmVille — will be able to funnel users to Amazon’s Mechanical...
The New Yorker Discovers Twitter, Scoffs | The... →
More evidence that The New Yorker is out of touch.