November 2007
34 posts
“Apple’s problem is it still believes the way to grow is serving caviar in...”
– Joseph Graziano, former Apple CFO, in a 2001 article that claimed Apple Retail would fail - Business Week
“Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage...”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, Understanding Web Design
“The trouble is, web design, although it employs elements of graphic design and...”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, Understanding Web Design
“The less sophisticated lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts....”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, Understanding Web Design
“I daresay these questions are more complicated than anything a graphic designer...”
– Joshua Porter, on the difference between talking at a consumer, and talking with them [via Daring Fireball]
“Is Google a technical achievement? Absolutely. Does that mean it isn’t a design...”
– Joshua Porter, probing the supposed boundaries between engineering and design [via Daring Fireball]
“When a web site works, on the other hand, you’re using it to do something....”
– Joshua Porter, on the difference in defining success between web and graphic design [via Daring Fireball]
“What that leaves is an enormous and unfulfilled gap in the middle which, while...”
– Khoi Vinh, Something’s Missing in Web Design - Subtraction [via Joshua Porter]
“It is in the detail work that design really happens — that the clever,...”
– Dan Saffer, Making Stuff vs. Making Stuff Up [via Khoi Vinh]
“Every time you use the word “Photoshop” as a verb, a fairy in...”
– Rob Beschizza, on trademarks falling into common usage - Gadget Lab
“I’ve actually asked myself, ‘Why do I love these physical...”
– Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, selling his new ‘Kindle’ e-book-reader - Newsweek.com
“The Internet Explorer is not a browser—it’s a reader. People spend about...”
– Bill Hill, e-reading researcher at Microsoft, reflecting on web ‘browsing’ habits - Newsweek.com
The death of e-mail. - Slate Magazine →
Mac claims more Japan OS sales than Windows -... →
Mac OS X sales up 15.5% year-over-year to 60.5%, while Windows has plummeted 75.3% to 28.7%. Note that this doesn’t seem to include total marketshare but instead boxed OS sales. [via Fake Steve Jobs]
Europe Blocks Google/DoubleClick Deal - Newser →
“But then you turn the thing on.”
– David Pogue, columnist, praises T-Mobile’s Shadow but takes on Windows Mobile 6 - NYTimes Pogue goes on to list nine seemingly obvious but well-thought-out usability points that all mobile OSs should follow, but that WM6 fails at. Perhaps Google’s Android project should take...
“Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.”
– Old adage
1 tag
'DVR-proof' sitcom to feature a fictional agency,... →
NBC & Omnicom plan a sitcom based on Matt Beaumont’s book E, with spots for two advertisers to pony up almost $500k to be on-screen clients.
If it’s well-written, funny, and doesn’t hold these two brands to too high a pedestal, this could be a winner. If not…
The Fear Bubble - NYT's Bits →
Easily the best-written and most insightful article surrounding the current ‘bubble.’
“Believe me, we’ve learned our lesson.”
– Bob Carrigan, president of IDG, confirming that former bubble bellwether ‘The Industry Standard’ would return next summer in blog format - NYT’s Bits
Trust Among Friends on Facebook - NYT's Bits →
An opinion against Facebook’s new ‘social ad’ push.
“Apple’s fully proprietary in almost everything they do — they get away with it...”
– Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics - Fortune’s Big Tech While only partially correct in a technical context, the important thing is that executing well may be the only thing that matters. (At least in the short term.)
Gas pumps to be enhanced with Google Maps -... →
Dutch Rube Goldberg-esque Promo →
Patience is rewarded. [via Boing Boing]
“DARPA is an interesting organization. We really never finish anything. All we...”
– DARPA director Tony Tether - Danger Room
“What it comes down to is that an attractive platform is directly related to the...”
– Jeremy Liew, partner at venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners - Fortune [via Newser]
TaskPaper in BBEdit →
A plug-in for the always-impressive BBEdit (and its free cousin, TextWrangler) that supports Taskpaper’s unique, simple, and powerful GTD-like system.
As an aside, the value of TaskPaper lies not in its implementation as an individual product, but the power and simplicity of its idea. I applaud its creators in not only inventing such a system, but being smart and confident enough to let...
“It has to look like you’re getting more than you paid for.”
– Jimmy Chu, designer of Asustek’s Eee PC, on the importance of design quality.
“But we were still a second-class company. We were fighting fires, not thinking...”
– Jonney Shih, CEO of Asustek, on his company’s state prior to launching self-branded products like the Eee - Forbes.com [via Gadget Lab]
IBM Has Greener Way to Reuse Silicon - Wired/AP →
Abrasive pads and water replace cleansing acids and sandblasting, and enable reuse of the wafers as test ‘monitors.’ Small improvements in process engineering that are both green and prudent (to the tune of $1.5M per year).