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Originally uploaded by combustionchamber.

Glenn Gould : Bach – Keyboard Concerto No.1 D minor BWV 1052

Jobs would offer free music in a ‘heartbeat’ -Amen Steve, if anyone can sell it to the labels it’s you. Please make it happen. 🙂

A great interactive portfolio of Victor Brunetti. (via k10k)

Apple Ad – Microsoft Vista, Cancel or Allow? (via Daring Fireball)

This is a great example of choosing the right technology for the job. IndustryNext, like many companies, wanted to put a map on their contact page, but as cool as Google Maps is, it wasn’t the solution since IndustryNext’s site was built in Flash and Google Maps was built in AJAX.
So what they decided to do was use Yahoo Maps. It’s nearly identical to Google Maps, but in Flash. Like Google Maps, Yahoo Maps has a public API that you can tap into to build your own mashups. The result is a seemlessly integrated map experience.
Also note the use of direct linking within Flash on IndustryNext’s site, mimicking separate pages for each of the sections within the site. People have been doing this for a while, but it’s overlooked a lot:
http://www.industrynext.com/#showcase
http://www.industrynext.com/#capabilities

It’s amazing how often we will silently live with things we know are built or designed wrong. Today I’m speaking about something that might seem trivial to some, but bugs the shit of out me – webmail message navigation.
Can we come to a agreement on what wording we use when navigating through email archives? I try to keep to my one ‘main’ email account for the majority of my email communicating, but occasionally I have to dip into my other ‘alternate’ accounts. Each one of these accounts has a different way of navigating back to older emails and forward to newer emails.
Below are screenshots from the 3 main applications I use – GMail, YahooGroups & SquirrelMail:

GMail

Newer & Older – there’s no sitting, blinking and pondering where these 2 links are taking me. Simple clear English for simple navigating. Thank you Google.

Yahoo Groups

Newer & Older – Awesome, Google must have taken pointers from Yahoo. Too bad these 2 links are only on the Messages List page. 🙁

Next and Prev – What happened to Older and Newer? Now what the f#ck to I pick? Turns out Next takes me to newer messages and Prev takes me to older ones. Too bad they’re in the reverse order as GMail.

SquirrelMail

Previous & Next – Ahhh, only through using SquirrelMail for years to I know that Previous will actually take me to newer messages and Next will take me to older messages.

First off, I’d like to give credit to this discovery to my friend Bryan Larrick.
I use Dreamhost for all my hosting, as well as the hosting I use for all my clients. They have unbeatable pricing, good support, and in the event that something goes wrong, they’re the first ones to admit it on their support blog. They’re also pretty accommodating if you have particular custom settings you might need in PHP (I’m still on a shared server environment so I can’t tweak my server settings since it’s not a dedicated box). One thing I’ve never taken advantage of is their domain registration service.
For the last 7 years I’ve used Register.com for all my domain registrations and I’ve pointed all my clients to them as well. They’re more expensive than other places, like GoDaddy, but I didn’t care, because they were reliable. Within the last few years they also started offering privacy protection for an additional charge but I’ve never used this extra service.
Then my friend Bryan emails and says since moving his domain from Register.com to Dreamhost, the amount of SPAM he gets has almost stopped.
No way, I think.
Since I have an account with Dreamhost and domain transfer is free, I figure, what the hell, I’ll do a little experiment with thecombustionchamber.com and make Dreamhost my registrar. So I make the switch, making sure to have Privacy Protection CHECKED.
It’s been 2 days and already the amount of SPAM I get has significantly dropped.
Now chances are I could have done the same thing will Register.com, but I would have had to pay another $10 a year on top of the annual $35 renewal fee. At Dreamhost it’s free. Even if you don’t use Dreamhost for hosting, domain registration will only put you back about $10.
Thanks for the heads up Bry. I just hope this low SPAM environment lasts.

Where ever you may work, I hope you don’t have to deal with either of these 2 Words of the Day:
boondoogle – A Boondoggle is a North American term referring to the performance of useless or trivial tasks whilst appearing to be doing something important. (Google definition)
kludge – Pronounced “klooj.” With computers, a term used to describe a piece of hardware or software that basically operates properly but whose construction or design is severely lacking in elegance or logical efficiency. (Google definition)

60 Minutes is one of the few TV shows I make it a point to watch. Last night’s episode had a great profile on Daniel Tammet, the ‘Brain Man’.
From CBSNews.com:

“I see numbers in my head as colors and shapes and textures. So when I see a long sequence, the sequence forms landscapes in my mind,” Tammet explains. “Every number up to 10,000, I can visualize in this way, has it’s own color, has it’s own shape, has it’s own texture.”

For example, when Daniel says he sees Pi, he does those instant computations, he is not calculating, but says the answer simply appears to him as a landscape of colorful shapes.”

Gates Proclaims Internet to Revolutionize TV in 5 Years – thanks Captain Obvious.
Shaun Inman releases Mint 2. I’ve upgraded, but still waiting for my Activation Key.

I’m an ideas guy, I think ideas can do anything. Anything, that is – if they’re executed. This company was named after an idea. Ideas inspire people. Ideas kick people in the ass. Below is a small list of things that have inspired me. Some are things you watch, some you read, and some you can listen to. They’re not in any particular order.

Continue…

IAAH: version 5 (via theFWA)

The State of the Union in Words – great use of Flash.
*on this note, check out Many Eyes (thanks quigga)
The Job Board Bubble
Web Design Contracts: Why Bother
Stop Design – “… the creative outlet of Douglas Bowman, who strives for simple, beautiful, efficiently-constructed design, and the balance of form and function.”