Archive for 2005

On Wednesday, I had to buy a new battery for my 1.5 year-old PowerBook. Apparently they don’t live that long, and I was getting a whopping 10 minutes out of a full charge. PowerBook batteries aren’t all that exciting, but I also brought home a Mighty Mouse, which is only slightly more interesting.

(more…)

It appears that Bulletproof Web Design is now available, and I’ve received a few reports that copies are starting to be spotted in stores and received via various online booksellers. To celebrate, I’m launching a little contest where you can win two books, a t-shirt, and some icons.

(more…)

A true story: Sally works as a marketing & promotions director at a reputable book publisher. She deals directly with authors on a daily basis, communicating primarlily via email. This is by far the easiest way to shuttle documented information back and forth. It is also the year 2005, where one might consider “electronic mail” as common as peanut butter, or even Neil Diamond.

(more…)

The dog-eared document icon has long been a symbol for web aficionados everywhere. Now you can show off your passion for wearable pixels with the brand-spankin’ new Document T-Shirt from SimpleBits.

This is a superior, 100% heavyweight Hanes Beefy-T in Graphite. The magnified icon (inspired from the Stockholm set) is printed in two colors and simply centered on the front.

An icon on a t-shirt? Yep. And that’s why you (probably) want one.

For whatever reason, I often struggle with visited link treatments, perhaps because (for me) it’s often an afterthought. A color palette is selected, the page is designed — now it’s time to figure out how best to show that a link has been visited. For most sites, it’s important to visually signify where the reader has been, and not everyone handles it in the same manner.

(more…)

Discover, create, and subscribe to original audio content for your iPod or MP3 player. Earlier this month, Odeo opended its doors to the public, with a site design from SimpleBits.

(more…)

Since the last gathering was so successful, Ethan and I thought it was high time to organize another meetup for New England Web Designers (NEWD?). And by organizing we mean: pick a date, pick a time, pick a place, and hope people show up to have a few beverages.
So, we hope you can join us on Thursday August 4th, 7:30PM @ the Cambridge Brewing Company in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA. We’re told there’s Wi-Fi here as well.
Leave a comment here, or over with Ethan if you’re interested in stopping by, and we’ll make sure we have some space reserved.

I recently began publishing full entries in the RSS feed for SimpleBits, figuring that if people would rather read the entire Notebook post in the comfort of their aggregator, they could go ahead and do so. Personally, I enjoy reading content in its intended environment, with all the site design around it, and find myself skimming NetNewsWire for interesting articles to pull up in a browser later on.

(more…)

I’m happy to finally announce my new book, Bulletproof Web Design, to be published by New Riders this summer. It’s now completely written and heading to the printers this weekend. If all goes well, it should hit bookshelves in early August.

(more…)

Observered while watching a televised Duran Duran concert on high definition television: During the retro ballad “Save a Prayer”, instead of holding up the customary lighter, much of the crowd at Wembley Arena raised glowing mobile phones to the air to create the intimate atmosphere that is the “power ballad lighter thing”.

Does this mean that Duran Duran fans are now non-smokers? Or maybe Wembley doesn’t allow smoking. Or maybe everyone was bored and already talking on the phone when the song came on, and it was more convenient to lift that in that in the air, rather than dig out their lighter. And then again, this could mean that the average person is now more likely to have a mobile phone, than a lighter on them (while watching Duran Duran–an extremely scientific metric).

Whatever it means, Duran Duran is still touring–and people with mobile phones like it.