The New York Times: Industry Fears Americans May Quit New Car Habit
Maybe this is a good habit to kick, no?

Microsoft’s new search product has launched – Bing.
I’ve been playing with it for about half an hour now, and I have to say – congratulations Microsoft, you’ve finally caught up to Google.
Which is to say, Microsoft has caught up to what Google has been doing for about 5 years now.
I like how Bing has a feathered background image along the header. It’s not adding any value or clarity to the page, it’s there for one reason – so that Bing doesn’t look exactly like Google (and Yahoo for that matter).
Despite your vast financial resources, you’re always a dollar short Microsoft.
Why is that? (It’s a rhetorical question, I know why)

We have a new post over at HEED.

Paul Lee Design (via)

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
found via David Kelley on TED.com:

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

–Alan Kay
Alan was right.
This quote came to mind recently on I project I’m doing the visual design for, but my company is not building. The development of the project is being done by another vendor.
I don’t think splitting the design and development between 2 companies is a guaranteed recipe for failure, but it doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy either.
Whenever possible, always execute the design AND develop of projects you’re working on. Handling it all under one roof gives you no excuse for projects turning out wrong.

You know what the difference is between you and me?
…I make this look good.

• Agent J, Men in Black

via ffffound

So it looks as though my little experiment was fairly successful.
I posted an entry in September of last year with a layered Photoshop file containing the iconography for the mouse hand and arrow. I figured since I always have needed those assets when showing various interaction states for projects, others probably needed them too.
Looking at my stats since then, I’ve observed a steady stream of hits from Google Images with search terms ‘hand cursor icon’, ‘link hand cursor’, ‘arrow cursor icon’… and so on.
While my agenda with Daily Exhaust isn’t to acquire the most hits by posting trendy buzz words and topics, I knew this post might attract some visitors.
I hope this means people have found what they’re looking for.

arc90 lab

Whether they admit it or not, I realized that Creative Labs is happy being in second place to Apple in digital media players. If they thought they had a chance to be #1, they wouldn’t be making accessories for the iPod and iPhone.
If you can’t be the greatest, be part of the greatest.