PUBLIC   marks

PUBLIC MARKS with search thought

Sponsorised links

December 2009

Shifting focus - Edward Bilodeau

by karlcow

Shifting focus

Posted: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 ~ 4:54 PM

This is the last new post that I'll be making on this blog. I decided a while back to shift the focus of my web activities, and thought it was time to formally close things off here.

Why stop posting here? Mostly just a feeling that I needed to shake things up a bit, to put some serious effort behind a few other ideas that I've wanted to work on for a while. Making a clean break just felt right.

There may still be some activity on this site as I back-fill some old posts from other blogging platforms. My goal is to eventually have this as a (more or less) complete archive of my personal blogging from early 1998 to this year. That's a background project of mine that I plan on allocating a bit more time to in 2010.

A huge thanks to Karl Dubost for hosting this blog for so long. In addition to providing this infrastructure, Karl has supported and inspired me in more ways then he may realize. That you are reading this today is due in no small part to him, so you can thank (or blame!) him.

Thanks to Ed for his wonderful piece of work that is his weblog.

The Canadian Spy Coin?

by macbros
25¢ Spy coin? Read an amusing article on how the US Defence thought a Canadian 25¢ coin was a spy coin.

Sponsorised links

November 2009

Behind the Scenes of LENS :: digitalartwork – Multimedia Journalism

by sbrothier
A few people have been asking me how the LENS Blog on The New York Times site came to be and what software it was built on. I thought I’d shed a little light on the development process and answer some of these questions.

After Effects Workflow at The New York Times :: digitalartwork – Multimedia Journalism

by sbrothier
The use of motiongraphics/animation is still pretty new at The New York Times. We’re still figuring things out, but I thought it might be useful for some people to see what our work flow is like.

Mozilla Labs Design Challenge | Welcome

by ycc2106
The Mozilla Labs Design Challenge is a series of events to encourage innovation, and experimentation in user interface design for the Web. Our aim is to provoke thought, facilitate discussion, and inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Design-Challenge/Uni-Fall09

Phonetikana - the johnson banks thought for the week

by karlcow

Multiple trips to Japan and constant frustration at being unable to read the language has sparked off an unusual typographic project at johnson banks. Earlier in the year we started seeing if we could combine the English language and Japanese script in some way.

Le son est dans la lettre.

An Ethical Question: Does a Nazi Deserve a Place Among Philosophers ? - NYTimes.com

by paulantoinem
For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology ...

labs.moto.com » Blog Archive » DIY Android Home Energy Monitor

by Spone
Lately we’ve been tinkering with deploying Android beyond the phone (using Google’s open-source Android to connect devices to each other and the web), so we thought we’d see if we could leverage the efficiency of Android on a BeagleBoard, the accessibility of wireless webcams, and the ease of a Flickr feed to a custom Google Gadget to track the ups and downs of our metered utilities. Why webcams? While there may be a few compelling (low-cost, low-impact) products out there to monitor your electric meter, there are no comparable products for reading gas or water meters. So until the really smart grid arrives, here’s a way to chart your whole utility spend on your own Google homepage.

How to Hide Certain Custom Fields From the Edit Post Page | Apartment One Six

by mozkart
The WordPress developers, fortunately, thought of this.  In fact, they store all kinds of stuff that they don’t want the user to see in custom fields – things like the last time the post was edited, who is currently editing it, and a few others.  A quick look at the database, reveals this:Notice a trend?  The mysterious custom field key values are prepended with an underscore.  Give it a try – enter a new custom field from the edit-post page, and enter a name that starts with an underscore – like _thumbnail, or _meta_keywords.  Hit “Add Custom Field”, and it disappears – but if you check the database, its right where it should be. Now get out there and start hiding things from your users!

October 2009

The Fun Theory

by ycc2106
This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

Toward urban systems design « Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird

by karlcow

you said: “Especially given the by-now-clichéd recognition that we’ve decisively become an urban species”

It is indeed very interesting to think about urban systems design given there was a major move toward cities. That said I have the feeling that this move comes with, at least, three issues:

1. access to the “thought” urban environment,

2. the space left where 50% of the population is still living,

3. the space of this growth

There are many areas in the world where the growth of the cities is made by people without access or a limited access to the thought urban environment. Poor people living in slums or just in a space which is not part of the work of urban planner per say. In a recent exhibition about slums I went, it was very interesting to see that the organic structure of the slums was making possible for the individuals to create a rich and meaningful space, driving sometimes to less criminality than more traditional areas of the city. The slum is a forced collective creative space for survival.

The rest of the population, the 50% living in deserted areas are the forgotten of this story. It’s indeed more “fun”, interesting for researchers, sociologists to observe and think about the density in urban space (richness of interactions) more than the low level of activities in the “countryside”. Though there are equal challenges there in terms of design and space organization, access to services, etc.

Finally, is it really cities which are growing? What we call urban space often relates to the city center, but I have the feeling that the growth is happening in the in-between space (suburbs), which is again a complete disaster in terms of design, even more so in rich countries. The private space is becoming a space of non-creativity, dead areas of non activities. Someone, who wants to start a small business in between two buildings on the grass of a random suburb of a rich city, will not last for very long. Complete different dynamic than the slum where unregulated areas give the opportunity of creative solutions for surviving or living.

September 2009

jwz - My ongoing Kafka-esque nightmare of dealing with Palm and their App Catalog submission process.

by night.kame

As someone who has written serious, production-quality code for WM5 and WM6, I say this from many months of hard experience:

I WOULD RATHER STICK A FONDUE FORK THROUGH MY SCROTUM.

Never the fuck again will I develop for that platform. My god, I thought X11 was bad...

C'est ça la véritable expérience Windows Mobaïle.

Laurent Haug’s blog » Blog Archive » Lift at you

by karlcow

When the idea came up, we thought “wow, this is really innovative and smart”. But quickly we found out that we had not invented anything: Tupperware has been doing for years. And since 1907 a famous movement has functionned in a similar way, groups of people getting together following guidelines expressed in a book. It is of course Scouting. Scouting spread all around the world based on Baden Powell’s book. So if you thought Barcamp and Pecha Kucha’s concept of decentralized events was new, unfortunately it is not really. Welcome to the frustration of living in the 21st century, almost everything has already been done :)

Gov 2.0: It’s All About The Platform

by ycc2106
But as with Web 2.0, the real secret of success in Government 2.0 is thinking about government as a platform. If there’s one thing we learn from the technology industry, it’s that every big winner has been a platform company: someone whose success has enabled others, who’ve built on their work and multiplied its impact. Microsoft put “a PC on every desk and in every home,” the internet connected those PCs, Google enabled a generation of ad-supported startups, Apple turned the phone market upside down by letting developers loose to invent applications no phone company would ever have thought of. In each case, the platform provider raised the bar, and created opportunities for others to exploit. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techcrunch.com%2F2009%2F09%2F04%2Fgov-20-its-all-about-the-platform

August 2009

keybr.com - take typing speed test and practice typing online

by oseres & 3 others
Have you ever wished that you had a way to practice typing so that you could become a more efficient and capable keyboard jockey? Typing at the “speed of thought,” perhaps? Enter Keybr.com — the flash–based typing instructor you’ve been waiting for! Keybr.com is very straightforward. You can choose from three basic lessons that start with a certain number of keys on the keyboard, and then, as you progress through the lessons, more keys are introduced to the mix to make things a little tougher. As an added bonus, our software keeps track of all your mistakes and your words–per–minute (wpm) — and even creates graphs of your day–by–day performance. But, things get even better! Once you have determined that the lessons you have completed have reached their maximum result, get ready to play with custom mode, where you can edit and personalize the text that you wish to practice! Very bare–bones, but oh, so functional. Finally, to up the entertainment level of your typing lessons, you can import content from a web site or blog into Keybr.com to type it out. But why even bother to learn touch typing? The answer is simple — it is healthier for you, faster and more accurate. Blogging, writing long documents and e–mails, instant messaging with your friends, and even coding sophisticated computer programs will become much easier and more enjoyable once you eliminate distraction of hunt–and–peck typing. If you are curious about how touch typing appears to onlookers, please watch a couple of short YouTube videos demonstrating really high typing speed:

How Men And Women Argue | Maxim.com

by ycc2106
Men and women have very different ways of arguing. So, in a better effort to help couples understand each other (which, really, is what we're all about here at Maxim), we decided to break down the thought process of both a man and woman, during an argument.

On taking over the world, and other things… It’s... | Tumblr Staff

by karlcow

On taking over the world, and other things…

It’s been a month of milestones for Tumblr, and we thought it would be a good time to stop and say: Thank you to everyone for making this possible.

We can still remember watching your new posts come in one-by-one the day we launched. Now we’re waiting for five new servers to arrive to help us handle the 330 million (that’s 0.3 billion!!) hits and 20 million new posts we’re projecting for August.

More than anything, you continue to blow us away with the amazing things you do with Tumblr.

As our team gets bigger (we’re up to 9 people!), we promise we’re as committed as ever to making Tumblr the greatest place for everyone in the world to share the stuff they love and create.

We love you

Fancy Thumbnail Hover Effect w/ jQuery

by redyrod & 6 others
I had a sudden urge to duplicate that similar effect but using my bread and butter (CSS and jQuery). I thought I’d share this and maybe some of you can find it useful.

July 2009

Carsonified » Web Design is a Journey

by sbrothier
On the July 9th 2009 we launched a complete redesign of Carsonified and the Think Vitamin blog. I thought it’d be fun to tell you the story of how the new site design evolved and came to life. It was an interesting journey.

Delicious wordle & shifting perspectives | Facilitating Change

by karlcow

When I saw the results I thought “yeah, that’s right.” Uh… but I don’t feel enlightened. Just a nagging feeling that I need to tidy up my tags ;)

seeing to fix it.

Action Figure || Action Figure

by sbrothier & 1 other
Mark thought it would be fun to punch the Figures in the face at 1000fps. This clip has gone on to be a true viral smash hit seen by millions online and listed as one of MySpace's Top 10 viral videos. // slowmotion boxing boxe

the small book of ideas and thought

by blackgoldfish
And the best part is these little books get placed into my bigger book (into a handmade pocket), so that the ideas are not separated from the bigger picture. The one book lives! It's ingenious. It's light. It's spontaneous.

PUBLIC TAGS

ajax   apple   art   audio   blog   blogging   blogs   book   bookmarks   books   business   car   community   computer   css   culture   design   download   dvd   education   email   finance   firefox   flash   flickr   food   forum   free   fun   funny   game   games   google   guide   health   history   home   hosting   html   humor   image   images   information   internet   ipod   java   javascript   life   links   linux   mac   magazine   marketing   media   microsoft   mobile   money   movie   movies   mp3   music   news   online   phone   photo   photography   photos   photoshop   php   podcast   programming   radio   reference   rss   science   search   security   seo   service   shopping   site   social   software   sports   technology   tips   tool   tools   travel   tutorial   tv   video   videos   web   web2.0   webdesign   wiki   windows   wordpress   yahoo  

Sponsorised links