Links from 2007

Cursor Miner – Skunk Works.

My favourite track from Danceflaw but the video wasn’t working for me until now. Put your headphones on, turn up the volume, hit the fullscreen button and stare at the middle.

Probably best to avoid this one if you have photosensitive epilepsy.

2024-01-17: this video has gone away. Here's an audio-only version of Skunk Works.

A lot of traditional IA practice doesn’t make sense anymore. Instead of directly designing an information space, you’re better off designing the rules that underly the generative construction of such spaces.

Useful introduction. Answers the "Why?" question nicely.

There is, by my estimation something of the order of twenty, possibly up to fifty times as much money to be made in the retrieval and reissue of lost gems as there is in releasing new recordings by new artists.

A simple web application which allows you to take any RSS feed from content you publish (like a blog), and convert it into an automated email newsletter your readers can subscribe to.

Ask them what they're doing. Then ask them why they're doing it, and keep asking until you get to a reason your customers would understand.

Quick, easy tip to stop TortoiseSVN being such a hog.

"Are you interested in tracking the IP addresses of search engine spiders? You can see my latest lists of search engine IP addresses and User-Agents here." Handy.

Some background on last.fm, including information on Power Plays.

New Boots site. UK only.

...blends self-paced lessons, a vibrant community, and interactive tools to help you talk to the world.

"It can help you spread a link on 32 of the best social bookmarking sites in under 15 minutes!" Pure evil.

The first time Martin Stiksel and Felix Miller, Last.fm's founders, have spoken publicly on the acquisition of their site since it was purchased by CBS in May

TuneCore has arrangements with leading digital music retailers that let us place your music in their online stores and subscription services. You get 100% of the money that your music earns.

Last.fm [...] is launching a PR campaign in the guise of an initiative to get unsigned and independent bands using online tools to build their careers.

Life has cords, and cords get tangled. CORDhogs take up the extra slack to adjust your cord to just the right length.

This syndrome occurs when, rather than working toward its overall mission, the organization operates primarily according to the personality of a prominent person in the organization, for example, the founder, board chair/president, chief executive, etc

Some pretty useful thoughts on mobile web in the comments.

A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.

"Today's battle was support for the empty-cells property". How did I not know this?

We all [...] hope for the quick success of a Twitter instead of the starting and stopping of a flickr (started as a game). ImThere is a startup that started and stopped, and David Gorman documents their eventual success.

It’s the difference between troubleshooters and troublepreventors.

Instead of cluttering client sites with this kind of widget I’ve started adding a set of pages with information that helps the user resize text in their browser.

An online tool that lets members work on projects with a team or on their own

A look at the idea behind CSS Frameworks, their advantages and disadvantages.

This Flickr support thread is a must-read if you’re interested in online communities, and in particular, how they change as they grow.

These tips are for kickstarting a low cost and high impact website, however some tips are general principals rather than recommendations for all cases.

I've been spending much time with ad agencies and focus groups lately and can only conclude that--with some exceptions--they are mostly clueless.

A simplified scripting language for creating Ajax style prototypes for the Web.

Buy advertising ideas for your company by +9000 creatives worldwide. Faster, Better, Cheaper.

It all unfolded over a website called OpenAd.net, a Slovenian-based online marketplace where ad and design ideas from about 9,000 creatives worldwide are bought and sold.

Great article following up on a robots.txt survey. The linked HTTP headers survey is amusing, too.

An intermediate-level book about interface and interaction design, structured as a pattern language.

curl.js 1.0 allows you to add an page curl effect (inc. backside mask) to images on your webpages. It uses unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean.

"This is an effort to make an easy and simple way to blend the accessibility of html with the animation of flash. JavaScript is then used as the bridge to communicate between the two." Just a proof of concept at the moment.

Conversion from SVN to Hg isn't as straightforward as one would like. Thus, I'm documenting the steps I had to do to try and help out anyone else who's attempting to go down this path.

Rather unfortunate frame youtube’s algorithms have picked there.

Unlock the secrets to your advertising/creative agency’s happiness, fame and fortune.

An open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

Online virtual worlds could soon be accessible to blind people thanks to research by students at IBM in Ireland.

The tricky situation of quoting for web design and development projects, and the various types of contracts you can agree upon.

Variations in the alignment of input fields, their respective labels, calls to action, and their surrounding visual elements can support or impair different aspects of user behavior.

Mantis to Trac import script. Oh how I hate Mantis.

The first Free enterprise language learning course available on the Internet. Eleven of our courses are now available in our beta release. Each course has 100 lessons available.