Let’s keep today’s post simple because my life is crazy. Just a circle.

A Study We Can Relate To: Millions Shop Online During Conference Calls
Well duh.
BlackBerry sales unfazed by iPhone – This doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Blackberries are the de facto mobile device for a lot of business people. In much the same way that Zune sales are effecting iPod competitors and not iPods, iPhone sales are effecting Blackberry competitors, not RIM’s Blackberry. I wish people would stop trying to create rivalries where none exist. The Blackberry and the iPhone are 2 totally different products with different target demographics. Saying “BlackBerry sales unfazed by iPhone” is like saying. “Toyota sales unfazed by Mercedes”.
Brian Romero – Cartoons Illustration Design Mayhem (via AisleOne)

A Joyful Reunion, Full of Wide Smiles and High Kicks

During Van Halen’s years with Mr. Roth, it was a group of guys in their late 20s and early 30s who were, with a streak of trouper’s irony from Mr. Roth, amping up the teenage hormonal urges of songs like “Hot for Teacher.” Now they are guys in their 50s reviving the heyday of guys in their 20s who were thinking like teenagers.
Then and now, it’s done with virtuosity.

In the Dark with Kurt Cobain
from the article:

Azerrad caught his subject at a rather poignant moment. Frances Bean had just been born, grunge was a juggernaut, and Kurt was contemplative, candid, and lucid—able to reflect on the factors that would inevitably kill him. “Drugs are bad for you, and they will fuck you up. I just knew that I would eventually stop doing them. Being married and having a baby is a really good incentive,” Kurt says late in the film. “If I would’ve kept doing drugs, I would have lost everything.” This line is truly devastating. Likewise when Azerrad asks, “Is yours a sad story?” “No, not really,” Kurt responds. “It’s nothing that’s amazing or anything new, for sure.”

What we have below is a demo of Thermo, Adobe’s new initiative to allow designers to work on Flex applications – but in the language of designers, not developers.
From watching the demo it looks like Dreamweaver for Flex, since it has the Code/Design toggling.
Import Photoshop file … oh hell yes.
Hey Microsoft – are you taking notes?

Video found via aralbalkan.com

My favorite part of the movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ was when 50 Cent used to deal drugs, and he would iron his money.
He ironed his fucking money. Now THAT is a professional.
I loved this idea so much that I now iron all my money. Try ironing your money* and tell me it doesn’t feel pro.

* Remember, dollar bills are made of linen, not paper, so you’re not going to hurt your cash.

Most people are aware by this point that Microsoft has released their Flash competitor, Silverlight.
The problem I have with Silverlight is that I can’t find any good examples of websites or other interactive demos (other than the kick-ass ones Schematic has created).
Can anyone point me in the direction of Silverlight examples that aren’t video players? The examples that they show on Silverlight.net are horrendous and basically reinforce the fact that Microsoft is a company driving technology for technology’s sake – they don’t care about good Design (capital ‘D’), they’re technocrats.
Microsoft is trying to play catch up, but they don’t seem to care about the end user and designing experiences or applications that will benefit them. We’re also seeing this echoed their other ‘later runner’ products like Zune and Windows Vista (people are actually opting to downgrade back to Windows XP). Everything seems to be a day late and a dollar short.
Should we care about Silverlight? If so why?
Why should I as a interactive designer use Microsoft Blend over Adobe Flash? (ignore the fact that I’m on OS X)
In industry where Adobe Flash dominates online video and rich interactive applications (Youtube wouldn’t exist without Flash video) and designers and developers work well with the application – what is Microsoft bringing to the table that is innovative?
I think its important to open up discussion on topics like this instead of blindly accepting new technologies.
Have comments? Post em below.

The Barbarians Are At The Gate, But Microsoft Moves To Protect Office Revenues – By their very nature, corporations like Microsoft are not capable of taking risks in the name of innovation – unless they are creating a new paradigm or a new market.
Microsoft realizes that Google Docs – available online and free – is a threat to its Office suite of products (primarily Word & Excel). In response, they’re ramping up for their own online versions of their products, but they’re not getting it right:

Microsoft is falling into the classic trap of failing to realize the disruptive nature of a new competitive technology, instead focusing on the massive revenues it generates from their aging Office suite.

Someone makes a good point in the comments of this article, “You realize if Microsoft shipped a full online Office product, they would cannibalize themselves, right?”
This comment is true, but an online Office product would only cannibalize themselves if they remained entrenched in their current business model. Short term, this is the easier path to take, but long term, Microsoft shouldn’t expect its products to be viewed as relevant or useful.
Contrast this screw-up by Microsoft with the risk Apple is taking with the iPhone. One of the reasons Apple is able to dive into the mobile industry is because they’re being disruptive and establishing a new paradigm. Aside from the innovative Visual Voicemail, Apple is not locked into any crappy AT&T specific services for broadband, games or anything. You sync your iPhone with iTunes, which not only allows you to sync music and video content, but also patches bugs and adds new features. AT&T is simply a communication connection – as it should be.
Apple also don’t have any presence in this market, so like Dylan said, when you got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.
Of course this is only partly true. Apple could have lost years and years of preparation and research and tens of millions of dollars that went into making the iPhone …but that’s why it’s called taking a risk.
Risks have potentially huge payoffs.
I love the comment Paul Arden makes in his book, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite:

Most people are reasonable, that’s why they only do reasonably well.