College Humor is looking for a Developer/Senior Developer in NYC.

Zappos.com is looking for a Web Developer in Henderson, NV.

Weill Medical College of Cornell University is looking for a Enterprise Content Management System Developer in NYC.

Tortus Technologies is looking for a Web Applications Developer in Western MA (Springfield).

Classified Ventures (Cars.com) is looking for a Web Developer in Chicago, IL.

DirectTV is looking for a Graphic Designer in El Segundo, CA.

National Public Radio is looking for a Design Director in Washington, DC.

JSTOR is looking for a Interface Specialist, Code & Design in Ann Arbor, MI.

Planet Propaganda is looking for an Interactive Designer in Madison, WI.

Federated Media Publishing is looking for an Author Technical Services Engineer in Sausalito, CA.

Tourism British Columbia is looking for an Market Development Manager, On-Line in Vancouver, Canada.

PixelMEDIA, Inc. is looking for an Senior Web Developer in Portsmouth, NH.

Wrigley’s new Big-E-Pak is a really smart product.

The package is a stand up tub with 60 pieces inside. You can pop the top and grab as many pieces as you’d like. Or, you can pop the little “share” flap, shake the tub, and drop a few pieces into your friend’s hand.

It’s perfect for anyone who wants to have some gum around but doesn’t want to have to keep buying boxes, dealing with wrappers, foil packs, etc. 60 pieces in a self-contained, upright Big-E-Pak fits nicely on your desk, counter, or in your car.

Since the beginning, gum packages have been optimized for the pocket or drawer. Wrigley finally asked “why does gum need to be that portable all the time?”

This is really a great example of innovating through utilitarian package design. The product is the same inside, but outside it’s different.

Smart thinking. Well done.

Could the Aston Martin Rapide Concept be the most beautiful four door ever? Sleeeeeeek and smoooooooth.

This is the second in a new series we’re doing here on SvN called Design Decisions. In this series we take one design decision, break it down, and explain why we made it.

In this installment we’re going to be talking about the new Backpack page blank slate. The blank slate is something we first started talking about in 2003. We’ve been trying to refine it ever since.

The blank slate is the first screen someone sees when they do something new. Where do you drop them right after they create a new account? What do you tell them on a screen that starts blank but will eventually be filled with content? That’s the blank slate.

The current blank slate when creating a new Backpack page looks like this:

We’ve never been thrilled with it, but it basically says “there’s nothing here so to add something click one of the buttons above.” Problems: The text is too small, too light, and too verbose. But we do have an arrow pointing up.

On my way into work last week I heard a Consumer Reports radio spot. It was one of those interstitial infomercials during the commercial break of another radio show.

They were talking about digital cameras. They recommended a few models. Then they recommended a few comparison pricing sites to find the best prices. It all sounded like good advice until I heard them say something like:

“Here’s a great tip: Make sure that you check out the cameras in person at a local store before you buy it online. This is a great way to get the best price and be sure you’re happy with what you’re buying.”

I’m paraphrasing, but that was the spirit of it. I find that advice unfortunate and disappointing. I’m surprised to hear it from Consumer Reports.

They are basically suggesting that you should take advantage of your local stores. Not take advantage as in taking advantage of buying locally and supporting your local economy, but as in taking advantage of them in a malicious way.

So far we’ve sold over 23,000 copies of Getting Real in PDF format. We introduced it on March 1 of this year, so we’re pretty thrilled with the results.

But 23,000 readers isn’t enough. We want millions of people to read the book. So today we introduce two new flavors that make the content even more accessible. And, in one case, completely free.

1. The free web version. Same content, just in HTML. And it’s free for anyone to read.

2. The paperback version. Same content, just in a 190 page paperback with a glossy black cover. We’re self publishing this version through Lulu. Since Lulu takes quite a cut, we’re pricing the book at $29. If we see the volume numbers we hope we’ll see we’ll look into a cheaper publishing/printing method and bring the price down. But Lulu’s print-on-demand technology is a good first step.

3. Both of these join the PDF version which is also available in a 10-pack group license. The single copy PDF is $19 and the 10-packer is $49.

You can get to all three versions from the Getting Real site.

For those who’ve read the book already, we hope you’ve found it valuable. For those who haven’t, well, now you have no excuse ;)

If you’ve got a Mac, and you use Campfire and iTunes, you can now use Kumbaya to broadcast the name and artist of the song currently playing into a Campfire chat room. Some configuration is required, but if you’re into this sort of thing you should definitely check it out. It’s also open source so you can download the source.

Inspiration is like picking up one of those blinky things in a video game that makes you invincible for awhile. You can do anything, go anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about it.

Those blinky things exist in real life too. It may be a picture, or some words, or a sound, or a idea, or a mistake, or a moment. Whatever it is, pick it up and run with it. Run with it like you stole it.

You can’t bottle up inspiration. You can’t put it in a ziplock, toss it in the freezer, and fish it out later. It’s instantly perishable if you don’t eat it while it’s fresh.

On Friday I was inspired by a few things. I swore off the weekend and dove into it. And I got about 2 weeks of work done in 24 hours. Inspiration is a time machine.

Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.

We’ve been very hard at work overhauling and improving the tools on your Backpack pages. In the next few weeks we’ll release these new features, but first we wanted to give you a little preview of one of the major changes.

Once we release this update you’ll be able to move any list, note, image, file, etc. around on the page. You can put a note at the top, then a list, then a file, then another note, then a list, then another list, then a photo gallery, etc. You’ll be able to organize a page any way you’d like.

Check out this quick demo.

Stay tuned. We think you’ll like the improvements we have in store. They’re coming soon.

Long live creative advertising.

(via ifun.ru)