BASEMENT.ORG
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 30, 2007, 03:10PMNetvibes Goes Mobile
Not sure how I missed this one. Netvibes, the badass personal portal, has gone mobile at http://m.netvibes.com.
Guilherme Marconi's Illustrations
File this guy under 'inspiration.' The wild and unhinged illustrations of Brazilian artist Guilherme Marconi. Groovy.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 29, 2007, 08:54AM60 Advanced Photoshop Tutorials
You know you're advanced...in Photoshop that is. Clear out your afternoon and dig into 60 advanced Photoshop tutorials (via the consistently good etc.).
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 28, 2007, 10:03AMLookin' For The Coolest Job On Earth?
Are you a smart/curious/passionate/intelligent individual looking for a cool environment? Are you content, yet not really challenged with your current job? Then Arc90 is the place for you!
Yeh I know, I'm ridiculously biased since I"m a partner at Arc90, but still, Arc90 is a damn cool place to work. It's a loose, dynamic and energetic environment that encourages creative thinking and the occasional venture out into untrodden territory. Here's what we're looking for:
- Web Developer Guy (or Girl). Enjoy playing with and gettin' good at technologies like Flash, Flex, Adobe AIR, Actionscript, Ajax, Java, Coldfusion, PHP and other Internet-related technologies.
- Experience Designer Engage clients. Solve problems. Draft storyboards. Create illustrations. Establish look & feel. See your creations light as the ultra-talented architects at Arc90 get hold of them and do their thing.
- Front-End Web Production If you're a freak about CSS, standards-based design, browser compliance and the like, then definitely send along your resume. We're looking for strong front-end production people as well.
At Arc90, we try to encourage an environment that nurtures and rewards out-of-the-box thinking and problem solving. To get a feel for us, take a look at our lab (where ideas run a muck) and our blog (where Arc90'ers run a muck). If you're hankerin' to get out of the cubicle and get your brain moving in all sorts of directions, contact me.
If any of the above seem enticing, send along your resume, and if you have a portfolio and/or blog to rich@arc90.com. We're based in New York City but don't let that discourage you, if its the right fit, we'll help make it happen.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 22, 2007, 11:06AMFlash on the iPhone - Is It Coming?
Arc90'er Avi Flax has a well laid-out post on why he thinks Flash is coming to the iPhone. It definitely needs to get there, but the conspiracy theorist in me thinks otherwise (see the first comment by me).
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 20, 2007, 02:44AMCreate A Mac-Type Background In Photoshop
You know you love those soothing swooshing graphics. PSDTuts.com gives a neat step-by-step tutorial of how to create some tasty looking Mac-like backgrounds yourself.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 15, 2007, 09:24AMThe World Premiere Of : Spanish Sketchasting!
This is seriously cool. Enrico Lamperti, an Argentinian blogger, is hosting a Spanish-language sketchcasting blog at http://sketchcasting.com.ar. His first sketchcast explains how hard drives work (or something, I don't speak Spanish).
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 14, 2007, 10:03AMBasement.org Is 2nd "Basement" Result On Google - Cool(?)
I was digging through the often enjoyable /Message and found a post where Stowe Boyd (proprietor of /Message) searched the word "message" on Google and found that his blog came in 9th. Not too shabby. Wikipedia came out on top (as is often the case).
So I decided to give "basement" a whirl and oddly enough, as of this post, it comes in second:
This is kind of exciting...or it isn't, depending on how you look at it. I see two possible explanations:
- Basement.org is truly a first-class destination for the more cerebral among us interested in design, technology culture and emerging Internet trends.
- I'm competing with web sites that are about basements and cellars - not exactly a hot topic on the Internet these days (or any days for that matter).
I'm going to go with reason #1.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 13, 2007, 09:54AMJumpin' The Fence
I really enjoy catching up on the 100 or so feeds that I track. I also really, really enjoy a handful of feeds that are just personal favorites of mine. To use a semi-contrived analogy: every day I take a walk through my RSS neighborhood. I visit the same places. Some I pass by without stopping in because I care less about them (or I'll get to them later). Others I run to if I find out anything new is going on.Then there's the destinations that have a 24 hour-a-day house party. 50-100 updates occurring every day (e.g. Engadget and Gizmodo). All things considered though, its an enjoyable excursion. I genuinely like catching up.
But here's the problem...
I never leave this neighborhood. I find myself constantly strolling around the same streets and avenues, listening in on the same voices over and over again. Yes, on occasion some one moves in (i.e. I subscribe to a new blog or news source) but generally speaking, I don't venture out much. My reading list is walling me in and I'm starting to become more and more conscious of that.
On the flip side of all this, basement.org is a destination itself. I'm fully convinced that there are many out there that would enjoy reading some of the posts on here but really have no way of finding out about them. Of course, there many tips on how to better promote your blog, but the reality is what it is: the democratic nature of the Internet is still limited to logistical realities. A user can only stumble on so much that is new. Instead, we visit the same places - over and over and over again.
So how can we better venture out to other neighborhoods on the Web? There are many ways. Social bookmarking and voting sites like del.icio.us and Digg and Stumble Upon help to an extent, and the occasional discovery after a few searches can help, but generally speaking, it's hard to leave. It takes energy and you have to wade through a lot of junk to find something worthwhile elsewhere.
Then there's the elite neighborhoods. The gated community that has your "A-List bloggers" that you'll often find loitering in Technorati's top 100. It's a weird, oddly segregated place where some very influential people (whether deservedly so or not) somehow set the tone for the blogging world on a regular basis. Weird.
I'm going to make more of a conscious effort to venture elsewhere - somehow. I'll share any tricks or ideas that help me along (if I find any). If I get lost, there's always the express back to the same old place. For now, getting lost sounds pretty good.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 10, 2007, 11:13AMYahoo Search Loves Baseball
I always dug the top-of-the-search experience. Ask.com does a good job with it, but they ain't got what Yahoo's got, baseball player stats if you type a player's name in. Here's Jorge's. The Yahoo Search Blog has more.
How To Create Interactive Prototypes With Powerpoint
Boxes & Arrows teaches how to create Interactive Prototypes With Powerpoint.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 8, 2007, 10:36AMSearch Engine For Icons
I'm a freak when it comes to icons. They make me happy. Iconfinder is a sort of search engine for icons. Nice. Via the perpetually groovy Swissmiss.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 7, 2007, 09:34AMThe Tug-O-War Between Value & Complexity
There's what's right and good and there's what it costs do what's right and good. Product designers and managers always want to create great product, but as always there's a price to pay: cost, time, complexity and risk. Mastering that tension between the value we want to bring and the complexity and risks associated with it is what can distinguish a successful product from one mired in bloated time frames and missing key features.
My last sketchcast explores this tension and highlights what I like to call the "product management trap." That place where complexity rules and the product team loses sight of what really matters to their users/customers.
iPhone Button Templates
Lovin' those shiny, Chiclets-like iPhone buttons? Of course you do. Bittbox generously donates templates for creating your own tasty buttons (Photoshop & PNG format).
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 4, 2007, 02:09PMBlueprint : A CSS Framework
I haven't looked into this but it looks interesting/promising: Blueprint is a CSS framewrok.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 3, 2007, 11:20AMPerson = OPML. Own Your Social Links.
So now that the Facebook orgy has settled down a bit (no, it's not the next Microsoft or the next Internet), people are starting to take a good, hard look at Facebook's implications as the de facto place where your identity, and the links to your identity from others, lives. Dave Winer and the kids at Mashable are starting to raise the issue of lock-in. In a nutshell: while Facebook opened up its platform for others to build within their walls, the nucleus of all that building - your identity and the links that propagate out of it - is Facebook's.
In other words, if the paths that define social networking were the radio spectrum, Facebook is effectively the FCC. And so, the conversation around "open social networks" is starting to happen. Fred Wilson rightly points out that the masses that are using Facebook really don't care if its open or closed. In fact, most don't really know what that means.
So why do we need an "open social network"? But wait, what exactly is an open social network ("OSN"). Well, I'm guessing a key requirement is one where you can take and move your core data - i.e. everything that a service has collected about you including your profile, your friends, your links, everything - and allow you to take it and move it elsewhere or not move it at all. Similar to the laws that came down regarding the transferability of cell phone numbers, we ultimately must be able to take our stuff (and it really is our stuff no?) and leave any time we please.
You can't do that with Facebook today. You can "deactivate" your account, but that just sort of puts it in Sleep Mode. Your data is still there. Facebook reserves the right to keep "archived copies" of your content even after you explicitly remove it.
In the end, it's about being able to say "thanks for your service, please give me my things, I'm leaving now." What that requires is a standardized, agreed-upon way to represent your personal assets. This way, if you choose to move elsewhere, you can. And above all else, your links - the connections you have with others - go with you.
So this got me thinkin'...
A person's links (and here we're talking about people links, not web links) is really just an OPML file. An OPML file is just a list of links usually used to store RSS feeds. It's a subscription list. Except here what we really want to link to is other people's OPML's. A "contact subscription list" if you will. In other words, a person equals one OPML. Each OPML contains important information about the person (e.g. photo link, profile info, etc.) as well as the list of OPML's (i.e. other people) that that person has some sort of relationship with.
Your OPML should be able to live anywhere. If mine happens to be on basement.org and it's properly compliant, I should be able to join and blend into any social network. Note the power shift here. Services like Faecebook can offer OPML management services, but the decision as to who manages and maintains that OPML is up to the owner of it: me. It is an XML representation of you and your social network.
Google Reader is a great web-based RSS reader. I've invested a lot of time compiling about 150 feeds that I track through Google Reader. They're tagged and organized to my liking. And most importantly, I can take them with me any time. Just about every RSS reader allows you to export your reading list of feeds to OPML. That ownership and portability that exists for online news sources and blogs can exist for other people as well.
Ultimately, any social network that's worth its weight shouldn't view such an approach as threatening or antagonistic. If what Fred Wilson asserts holds true - that people don't realy care - then why not open things up anyway? The end result will be a more vibrant and transparent ecosystem for other actors to play in. Something that everyone can benefit from.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 2, 2007, 11:09AMWeb Design Wall
The Web Design Wall is a "wall of ideas" for designers. It's got tutorials as well as links to other sites. Not a ton of stuff just yet, but it looks promising - and beautifully designed.
Posted by Richard Ziade on August 1, 2007, 09:03AMWhy Interaction Design Matters
I've just posted a sketchcast called Why Interaction Design Matters. It's (intentionally) short and (hopefully) sweet. Here it is:
Sketchasting is an experimental/hybrid style of podcasting that introduces a whiteboard style of narrating to blogs and podcasting. You can find all future sketchcasts on sketch.basement.org. If you're all about RSS, you can subscribe the RSS feed of sketches. If you're all about watching sketchcasts on your iPod or iPhone, you can subscribe via iTunes by clicking here.