Tim Flach Photography – by group94.

iTunes-like video services have no future: study (via) – I just needed to post this so I have it documented. Will this come to be? I don’t know. My gut feeling? We haven’t even seen Apple TV kick into high gear, so this video story is far from over.

Savoy Casa – Great work by the team at Lift Here.

James Dyson on a Life of Failure – Ever since I read The Google Story, I’ve been obsessed with success and start-up stories. I recently picked up Founders at Work which interviews the founders of companies like Paypal, Hotmail, del.icio.us and many others – it’s really a great read.
Daring Fireball: Microsoft and Yahoo, Sitting in a Tree – as usual, John Gruber gives a thorough breakdown of the Yahoo-Microsoft acquisition dilly.

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Since I realunched the new, old-style Daily Exhaust, I’ve already had questions on the “NEW!” graphic on the homepage. How is that archieved? It seems do defy the grid system and walk through DIV tags like magic.
Well, it’s not magic, just some CSS and a PNG.

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Based on my Mint statistics from yesterday, my site was down for about 6 hours. Other people I know on Dreamhost accounts were not effected, but I was, and so were all my clients. Not too cool. This has been a rough year with Dreamhost, since last summer’s black out in LA which brought Dreamhost down for at least a week.

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For any die-hard Flaunt magazine collectors out there, I’m selling off my entire collection on eBay, starting will issue 1.

The smartest thing I’ve read today comes from Andy Rutledge:

If not for context, design would be an incredibly simple (and boring and worthless) endeavor. Anyone could be a designer, as they’d only need to learn a few dozen concrete rules. But context gums up the works. Context is a highly disruptive element in communication and the primary reason why creativity and concept have such value in design. Context would seem to change the rules on us from project to project, but as I mentioned before the rules do not change. Rather, context defines which rules are relevant and which are not.

and I love this definition:

Artistry in the context of constraint is design

While the dumbest thing I’ve read today comes from John Dvorak in reference to Apple’s iPhone:

What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a “reference design” and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.
It should do that immediately before it’s too late. Samsung Electronics Ltd. might be a candidate. Otherwise I’d advise you to cover your eyes. You’re not going to like what you’ll see.

The Onion recently published an article titled, Apple Hard At Work Making iPhone Obsolete (via Daring Fireball). It’s dead-on and reflects something I hear a lot regarding Apple products. When people talk about their new iPod or computer, “I know Apple is going to release a new version next week…” seems to be the first thing they mention and then they’ll say “I knew it! I knew I should have waited…” again in 3 months when Apple dropped the new version of their device.
All I have to say to these people is WAHHHHH. We live in a disposable society and capitalism (consumerism) relies on selling more stuff, new stuff. People need to check themselves more often and ask themselves, “I like this new product, but do I need it? Is the product I’m using doing the job fine already?”
Apple is not the source of the problem with technology, their priorities as a company are different than those of a consumer, at least a smart consumer. Just because they release a new product does not mean you need to buy it.
Case in point:
I have the same dual processor G4 with 768MB of RAM since 2002. I’ve used it consistently for the last 4 years and it’s loaded with the standard creative programs which all run perfectly – Adobe CS2, Flash 8, etc. Whenever a new version of OS X comes out, I back up my computer, wipe the hard drive and install a new system. I find this fresh install gives the sytem a performance boost, almost like getting a new machine again.
Now I’ve definitely wanted to get a new machine over the years, but I’ve never needed to. The same reasoning held true for my Palm Treo 600 – new models have come out since I bought it, but it’s always had and done exactly what I needed – QWERTY keyboard for texting, Palm OS to sync with contacts (since my Palm V days), speakerphone, and mobile internet & email (I actually grew tired of email & internet).
I will be there to get one of the first iPhones in June with the other iPhone fans, but when October rolls around and these iPhone users around me get angry because the 20 gig iPhone launches, remember, these people are making themselves obsolete, not Steve Jobs.
Take some responsibility for yourselves people and stop pointing the Finger of Obsolescence at others.
note – I checked and “obsoleteness” is the correct usage. 🙂
update – someone with solid lexicon pointed me in the direction of the word obsolescence instead of obsoleteness, even though both are correct obsolescence rolls off the tongue better I think.

Well, it looks like things are going get interesting in 2007. Sure Google Docs has been up for a while, but they’re putting the operation into second gear and I’m interested to see how Microsoft responds. Check out Google Apps comparison chart.
Despite being excited about Google Apps, I’ve also heard great things about Microsoft 2007. Having options is always good.
*side note: I appreciate the clarity and simplicity in much of what Google does, all the way down to their URLs – http://www.google.com/a/, just an ‘a’, heh… i love it. It’s the little things that amuse me.

I’ve just implemented sIFR on this site, which should be replacing the HTML text headers for each entry with custom Flash fonts (Futura Bold). If you view my source code, you’ll see that all the h3 tags are still in place – sIFR is working some Javascript trickery to dynamically replace them all on-the-fly.
The fact that the source code has not been altered means that this site will degrade nicely for people who either don’t have Flash (I don’t who these people are) or don’t have the Flash Player version 6 (I don’t know who these people are either). Seriously, it means that my site is more accessable, readable by search engines while still getting the benefits of slick text.
You can find out more about sIFR at the site of it’s co-creators, Mike Davidson (creator of my favorite news site, Newsvine).

Most customer support websites tell you to search through their knowledge base before submitting a trouble ticket and I admit that sometimes I get lazy and just want an email response from a support representative with bothering myself by searching around. Well MIVA Small Business Customer Support didn’t let me do that.
After I clicked on Submit a Ticket, I was brought to a form to type in my issue. As I began to type, a textbox below the form began to dynamically populate a list of links relevant to the text I was typing in, titled Knowledgebase Suggestions, like this:

Sure enough, the first link took me to a page that had the answer I was looking for.

Apple working on no-contact charging, syncing?
from the headline (my bolding):

Apple Inc. is attempting to develop a revolutionary dock connector for handheld consumer electronics gadgets that will allow the devices to be docked in any orientation and, in some cases, charged wirelessly.

It’s very important to use the right words when talking. Wireless charging and syncing are not revolutionary. There have been wireless chargers for batteries, electric tooth brushes, etc that charge wirelessly through induction.
Wireless syncing has also been done in the past. Remember your old Palm V? Remember the infrared sensor for syncing? Ok.
With that said, I have no doubt that if Apple is working on wireless syncing and charging, they are working hard as hell to remove any kinks and problems in the processes. They weren’t the first company to make digital music players, but they revolutionized the field. They’re not the first company to work with wireless syncing and charging – but they could potentially revolutionize that too.

3GSM: LG Says Apple Nicked iPhone Idea From Them
Becareful with your language you big, fat cry babies. There’s a big different between copying, being influenced by and inspired by something. Of those 3 I don’t Apple did any. The LG phone doesn’t have a on-screen QWERTY keyboard, visual voicemail, web browser or motion-sensitive touch screen (it does have a touch screen).
LG – if by copying you, you mean that you made a Ford Escort and Apple made a BMW 745, then yes, I guess they did copy you and then flush your chocolate turd down the toilet.
Since we’re at it, I think Palm should sue Motorola for the Q, and RIM for the BlackBerry.
Can June pleeeeease come quickly? I’m very much over iPhone hype, speculation and trash-talking (myself included).