- Ira Glass on Storytelling
- This American Life host explains how to weave a good yarn.
- Twittered director’s commentary
- “Drive” director Greg Yaitanes twitters live director’s commentary during show. Sample entry: “bad directing moment: shuttle is taking off and no one is watching it as alex runs away.”
- The small-is-beautiful movement
- “Our society’s been based on excess for so long, it’s still a somewhat novel idea to live simply…I can’t say what the definition of a small house is. Maybe it’s 4,000 square feet, if that’s what it takes to suit their needs. The idea is that the house is being well-used. Some people need more space than others.”
- Work-for-hire model broken?
- Jim Coudal: “We don’t think that is a particularly equitable way to do our business. The whole work-for-hire thing in design and advertising, where the client owns everything outright, is a broken model.”
- Wikipedia popularity soaring
- “Eight percent of American Web users visited Wikipedia during a typical day this winter—a higher proportion than those who made an online purchase, visited a dating site or chat room during a typical day…Wikipedia isn’t replacing the professionals; it’s just quickly and efficiently harnessing their work.”
- Tips on raising money for a startup
- “The business of getting funded is only about the business you’re trying to build and nothing more…Don’t confuse perseverance and a poor plan…Go as far as you can as fast as you can before you raise your first dollar…Raising money is about people not money.”
- PeepCode "Javascript with Prototype.js" screencast
- “The Prototype.js library makes Javascript nearly painless. It extends native objects with extra functionality and makes it easy to organize your code or even extend built-in objects. This 90 minute screencast shows you the basics of Javascript and walks through a few simple
- Matt Haughey's Fortuitous
- “I’m a hobbyist turned designer turned developer that eventually got to quit my day job and support myself with my projects. Along the way, my business life has gotten increasingly complicated and I’ve had to spend hours researching accounting, the law, and usage patterns on my sites. I intend to post a new essay about some aspect of my experiences every Monday.”
- Coda not so hot?
- “It’s like buying your dream car, only to find out that the seats are kind of uncomfortable and there’s no heater. Coda comes so close to being great that its shortcomings are especially annoying. Having tried this way of working, I’m loath to return to having four apps open all the time – and yet I keep running into issues that irritate me almost enough to give it up.”
- Pro retouching goes mainstream
- “Now, Web sites are selling professional retouching services. For $20 to $200 or more, anyone can get a tighter stomach, smoother skin and brighter teeth — at least in an image.”
- Digital hardware usually comes with shitty software
- “Why is the software that ships with digital hardware so frequently bad? When you buy a scanner or a printer, for instance, the software included in the box that allows you to interface with that hardware is, virtually without exception, some of the most poorly designed and difficult to be found anywhere.”
- Interview with Seth Godin
- “Microsoft ‘quit’ the MP3 player market when they identified the wrong Dip. They picked the obvious, ‘safe’ one—the one committees of people could live with, but one that is so big and so steep that even Microsoft doesn’t have the money to get through it. Microsoft has a long history of sticking through Dips, and a long history of quitting dead ends. I have no idea what they’re thinking when it comes to the Zune, but it’s a dead end, through and through.”
gwg
on 04 May 07It’s good to see less-than-flattering links about Deck members.
Darrel
on 04 May 07I’ve always wondered about the crappy bundles software as well.
ESPECIALLY with scanners. It appears that every scanner manufacturer re-invents the wheel every single time and you end up with a goofy UI and half-assed functionality.
Darrel
on 04 May 07So who’s watched the peepcode video (I loathe the term ‘screencast’ for some reason). Worth the $9?
Will
on 04 May 07To say that the business model of “work for hire” is broken is ridiculous. That’s great that Coudal (and 37signals) have moved in a different direction, but that doesn’t mean that then the idea doesn’t work for anyone else.
Say it’s not as fulfilling. Say it’s not as rewarding. Say it’s not as interesting. Fine. But don’t say it’s “broken” – that just reveals an arrogance and an assumption that what works best for you must work best for everybody else.
sandofsky
on 04 May 07I used to be big on prototype. Now I think PHP is to Ruby as Prototype is to JQuery.
Nivi
on 04 May 07The Onion: This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence
Bob Aman
on 04 May 07Actually, I hadn’t heard of Coda before now… Even with the less than stellar review linked above, my interest is still very much piqued. Haven’t tried it yet, but immediately two things worry me: The integrated text editor (I love TextMate, and don’t see myself abandoning it… ever), and uhm, something else that I forgot already. My memory sucks.
Craig Webster
on 05 May 07@Darrel, the Peepcode screencasts are all very interesting and provide a succinct, easy to digest introduction to whichever topic they are about. That’s not to say that they’re the be-all and end-all, but they are a very good place to start and frequently provide pointers to solutions for complex problems.
Shane Vitarana
on 06 May 07Why does Jay Shafer have two copies of the same Dictionary? Check out the pics in the article.
Shawn Oster
on 06 May 07I’m wondering how well Seth Godin’s book is going to do if the Zune turns out to generate profit? I’ve noticed a lot of people writing off the Zune in very extreme ways which seems to bely an underlying bias that says those people might not be the best judges. When a new Creative MP3 player comes out there aren’t rafts of people saying how it’s an utter failure, yet Microsoft already has a larger share of the HDD-based market than Creative.
I think it’s brave, if a little fool hardy, for Seth to prop up his theories with events that haven’t happened yet. If the Zune does fail he’ll be a visionary, but if the XBox is any example then the Zune will succeed and he’ll end up looking like just another marketer with a crackpot theory.
Shawn Oster
on 06 May 07The problem with posting a title like “Work-for-hire model broken?” is that people are going to codify it. There are very few occasions where you can make simple, blanket statements that apply to all sectors or situations yet people seem to crave the over-simplification of ideas into neat, tidy little rules.
If you read the article even Coudal doesn’t try to make a huge, sweeping proclamation. He has some good points yet they don’t apply to everyone. As a software developer the work-for-hire model can work rather well if you approach it right by designing the client’s system in a generic enough way that can be reused with other clients or actually sold as a package. Ad agencies and designers don’t have this luxury, they can’t create a logo and then sell that to other people. Even in the design world there are times where you’ll generate more profit by just spending a day to design a comp or logo than investing the time, energy and paperwork to find a way to integrate yourself into the product.
Each situation is unique, and what works for one doesn’t always work for another. Great Coudal interview but don’t try to turn it into some rule or philosophy or religions or dogma, just absorb the information and see how it works with your business.
Gal Josefsberg
on 07 May 07I liked the Wikipedia article, but Wiki isn’t harnessing the work of professionals, quite the opposite. It’s the work of amateurs and that’s Wiki’s weakness. It’s a good information source but only is you recognize its limitations. For example, I like to use it for a quick look up of unimportant items or as a first source, but if it’s a serious research project, I always look for other, more professional sources.
And I loved the small house article. We forget that a lot here in the US, that there’s no need for everything to be supersized, including our homes.
GJ http://www.60in3.com
Joshua Kaufman
on 07 May 07Coda is 1.0. Panic knows that it will need to do more in order to appeal to web development geeks. In the meantime, for those who don’t need all the power of BBEdit or TextMate (like me and a million others), Coda is da bomb.
This discussion is closed.