Ma.gnolia: Jeff Croft's Bookmarks

Future of Web Design New York 2008

2008-07-24T10:58:02-07:00

Looks like the team at Carsonified has another great event planned. I had a blast at last year's FOWD NYC. I wish I could go this year, but it doesn't look like it'll happen. *You* should definitely go, though.

Blue Flavor: How We Decide What To Charge You

2008-07-23T19:56:41-07:00

As a follow up to her post earlier this week, Tiff has a new blog post that details how we estimate potential projects. It also goes hand-in-hand with a [pricing guide](http://blueflavor.com/about/pricing-guide/) page that Keith posted today.

Digital Web: Photoshop vs Fireworks

2008-07-23T10:41:02-07:00

Nathan Smith gets input from several buddies of mine, including Anton Peck, Jared Christensen, Patrick Haney, and Jenna Marino, on their preference for either Fireworks or Photoshop. The comments are definitely an interesting read, so I encourage you to check it out. I think it's important to keep some perspective, though: the only people who really care whether you use Fireworks or Photoshop are other designers. Clients couldn't care less. Debating the pros and cons can be fun for us design nerds, but ultimately it doesn't really matter what you use -- keep that in mind.

Digital Web: Smart CSS Ain’t Always Sexy CSS

2008-07-23T10:11:26-07:00

Suddenly it seems like respected [web designers everywhere](http://boagworld.com/podcast/127/) are starting to [catch on](http://twitter.com/Malarkey/statuses/834712756) to what I've been saying for a couple years now: established standards and best practices are great, but they are simply a means to an end, and we should always challenge them in cases where it seems like a different means to the same end might be more effective. "Perfect" can be, at times, the enemy of "good". I don't necessarily agree with everything in Martin's article, but I'm glad to see other big names beginning to jump on the pragmatic, but still standards-oriented, approach.

Report: Google talks $200,000,000 acquisition of Digg

2008-07-22T21:00:56-07:00

If this is accurate, I can only say a big congrats to all my awesome friends at Digg. You guys totally deserve it. Woohoo!

The Walker House in Sydney, Australia

2008-07-22T15:00:48-07:00

Quite possibly the most beautiful house I've ever seen. Want. (But why are there no photos of the kitchen?!)

Baby's First Internet

2008-07-22T13:10:27-07:00

Teach your newborn how to survive on the Internet. Hilarious.

ESPN: The most prestigious hoops programs since 1984-85

2008-07-21T16:56:51-07:00

ESPN is counting down the 50 best college hoops programs in the nation this week, and they've just posted the first installment (numbers 50-41). They're using a scoring system in which schools get points for various accomplishments, such as winning the NCAA tournament, making the final four, winning their conference, and so forth. Fun stuff. I'm anxious to see where Kansas winds up on the list. Based on the point system, I should think it'll be pretty high -- top five at least, and possibly top two. By my off-the-top-of-my-head memory, only Duke has more NCAA titles (three, to KU's two), but Kansas has more conference championships and All-Americans. Besides Kansas and Duke, I'd expect to see UNC, Kentucky, and Arizona rounding out the top five. Syracuse, UConn, Florida, UCLA and Michigan State should also be in the top ten. That is, if my memory is anywhere near accurate.

Take Me To Your Budget!

2008-07-21T16:12:52-07:00

Tiffani's short and sweet post about a potential client's budget (as it relates to early talks with an agency about your project) has kicked off a nice discussion on the matter.

iPhone native Apps - the great leap backwards?

2008-07-21T15:44:19-07:00

John Allsop wonders aloud whether or not most iPhone native apps should be web apps, instead. Although I don't really share John's lack of enthusiasm for native iPhone apps in general, I definitely think he has a point. Many of the best apps on the iPhone are simply interfaces to web content. Many of them don't offer any real advantages over a similar web app. Developers would be wise to still consider the web app direction as a possibility, unless they specifically need to access native functionality such as the camera or location data -- web apps are more compatible, more distributable, and arguably easier to develop.

Discussion with Nathan Borror

2008-07-20T22:01:29-07:00

Kevin from howiworkdaily.com had my good friend and design hero Nathan Borror on the line for a 30 minute podcast. They two discuss Django, Basic Apps, playgroundblues.com, the iPhone, and more. It's a really good listen. I've said it before, but I'll take the opportunity to say it again: Nathan Borror is absolutely the most underrated web professional on the Internet. He's quite possibly the most talented person I've ever worked with. His attention to detail and breadth of knowledge across all aspects of web work is surpassed only by his sympathy for the user. I know just about every amazing designer in this industry, and Nathan would still be the first person I'd call if I were hiring. And, he's a great fucking guy, too. (Nathan, you owe me dinner, or something.)

Django newforms-admin Migration and Screencast

2008-07-20T20:55:25-07:00

Brian Rosner has a quick and informative screencast on how to migrate your Django model code for the newforms-admin branch, which has recently been merged to trunk. I migrated all the code for Savoy and several personal apps tonight. It's quite easy, if a bit tedious and time consuming. The much more fine-grained control over the admin interface is a real boon from the old way. Congrats to everyone involved in newforms-admin for finally getting it done!

DjangoCon, September 6-7, 2008, Mountain View

2008-07-20T13:49:18-07:00

The DjangoCon site is up, and features talks from Guido Van Rossum, Adrian Holovaty, Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Simon Willison, and more. Looks like it should be a great event. Also, "Welcome to DjangoCon" sounds a lot like "Welcome to ZomboCom," to me.

Leopard savaging a crocodile caught on camera

2008-07-20T08:48:57-07:00

Amazing still photos of a Leopard taking a crocodile -- a scenario not believed to have ever been observed before.

Walkscore City Rankings

2008-07-20T07:10:26-07:00

Walkscore has been one of my favorite sites since it come out. The site lets you enter an address and find out how "walkable" it is. Now, they've released a list of the most walkable cities in America, and even tell you which are the most walkable neighborhoods in each city.

HeatMap API

2008-07-20T07:08:12-07:00

A nice-looking API for adding heat maps as overlays on a Google map.

Five Signs You're Living Beyond Your Means

2008-07-17T16:13:31-07:00

Useful personal finance information.

Apple apologizes for its MobileMe mess, offers 30-days free

2008-07-16T09:09:48-07:00

Apple has publicly apologized for the disaster that was the MobileMe launch, as well as the misleading use of the word "push," and given subscribers a free 30-day extension to their service. A nice gesture for what was, indeed, an ugly string of screw-ups. I especially like the letter's copywriting: no-bullshit, sincere, to the point, and personal. We all know a lot of companies would have taken a "our Terms of Service clearly indicate that we can not guarantee our services," sort of approach. Well-done, Apple. Now that things are running smoothly, I'm really liking MobileMe a lot. Not having to put my iPhone in its dock all the damn time to ensure I've got my latest contacts and calendar events on all my device is really a sweet thing. There's no doubt this is a better service than .Mac for iPhone owners. I'm not sure it's an improvement for those who just want to keep multiple Macs in sync -- but, whatever.

Webmaster Jam Session 2008 Session List

2008-07-15T14:42:01-07:00

WJS 2008 looks like it's going to be awesome. Last year, it had probably a better combination of fun and education than any other conference I attended. This year ought to be even better, as the event has moved to Atlanta, which, at least in my opinion, is a far better place than Dallas. Be there!

Touch Arcade

2008-07-14T17:33:57-07:00

A nice looking blog about iPhone/iPod touch gaming.

NonSociety

2008-07-14T14:27:11-07:00

NonSociety is "your window into [the] crazy lives" of a handful of women -- notably, Julia Allison. Basically, it's a few tumblelogs of hot chicks. More importantly (to me, anyway), the "lifecasts" have a clever and good-looking [horizontal-scrolling design](http://julia.nonsociety.com/). I dig it. Via [Rex](http://fimcoulous.com). *Just curious: anyone know if they're using Tumblr to power the thing?*

Apple changes MobileMe "features" page

2008-07-14T14:15:26-07:00

Apple has changed the text on it's MobileMe "features" page, indicating that sync from computer to cloud aren't really "push" at all, but rather standard interval-based syncs. The textual change comes after a lot of folks complained about "false advertising" and "deception" on the part of Apple. The page previously stated: > MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date. As of today, it says: > MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and keeps them in sync across your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change in one place, MobileMe pushes the new information up to the cloud, then pushes the change down to your other devices. Choose a sync interval for your Mac or PC. On your iPhone and the web, sync happens continuously. It's good that Apple has made this more clear, but it doesn't change the fact that they absolutely *did* misrepresent how the service works -- not only on their site, but also during the WWDC keynote demo. Form talking to someone inside Apple, it sounds as though "true" push is likely to come to the Mac with updates to iCal, Address Book, Mail, and Safai, but who knows when that will be. It's good to hear it may be coming though, and is not entirely a lost cause. Thanks to [Bret](http://nyquistrate.com/) for letting me know about the text change.

StuffChicksWant.com

2008-07-14T10:21:03-07:00

Cool new aptly-named blog: it tells you what stuff chicks want. Good for chicks who want to know what they should want, and men that have to buy chicks stuff they do want.

BlackBerry Thunder

2008-07-13T14:54:09-07:00

RIM's soon-to-be-released "iPhone Killer" is pretty interesting. It features a multi touch screen with tactile feedback. Apparently, when you press an on-screen key, the screen actually depresses slightly and provides haptic feedback in the form of a buzz under your finger where you pressed on the screen. Just hearing about it, I'm not sure it's something I'd want, but I'd love to feel it for myself. If it work well, it could be very cool. It uses WebKit for its browser. I also like how the phone does full QWERTY in landscape and RIM's SureType in portrait -- clever choice.

Harper Reed on web hosting

2008-07-13T14:47:43-07:00

Harper Reed of skinnyCorp gives a rundown of web hosting companies he's had success with. He gives my personal favorite, WebFaction, an absolutely glowing review, and also has nice things to say about Mosso, MediaTemple, FDCservers, and Rackspace

Authentic Jobs: Lead Designer at SEOMoz

2008-07-13T14:42:26-07:00

I've met several of the SEOMoz crew in Seattle, and they seem like good people. If you want to work for one of the few SEO companies with scruples, here's your chance.

DjangoCon 2008

2008-07-13T13:41:29-07:00

The first annual DjangoCon will take place September 6th and 7th at the Googleplex in Mountain View. It will coordinate with the 1.0 release of the popular web application framework, and will include a release party on Saturday night. There is only space for about 200 attendees, but the conference is *free* (you are, however, encouraged to make an optional donation to the [Django Software Foundation](http://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/) to help cover costs).

MobileMe doesn't push from Mac to Me.com and handheld devices

2008-07-13T13:37:55-07:00

Turns out, MobileMe doesn't "push" changes to calendars and contacts made on your Mac to the Me.com web apps and your handheld devices. From an [Apple Knowledgebase article](http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1155): > Changes made on your computer will be synced to the MobileMe "cloud" once every 15 minutes (or every hour in Mac OS X 10.4.11). Changes to calendars and contacts made on Me.com or on your iPhone *will* be pushed to your Mac immediately, but the reverse is not true. Strange. From Apple's [MobileMe features](http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/) page: > MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, **Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it** or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date Emphasis mine. For many people, including me, a 15 minute sync time is probably just fine in real-world usage. But, it definitely seems contrary to how the service was promoted and demoed at the WWDC keynote, and I can definitely understand why so many people are complaining about it on the MacRumors forums and across the Internet. This sort of reeks of deception. A couple things worth pointing out about this, for those wondering why it's a big deal: 1. It's an especially big deal for laptop users, who are prone to opening their laptop, adding a calendar event or contact, and then closing it again. If MobileMe really "pushed" from Mac to the cloud, then this behavior would be fine -- the update has already made it to the cloud by the time the laptop is closed. If a user has to sit there, laptop open, for at least 15 minutes, to ensure the sync takes place, that sucks. 2. MobileMe isn't all about the iPhone. It's *supposed* to keep *all* your devices instantly in sync, including multiple Macs. Someone who doesn't have an iPhone but has two Macs might want to keep their laptop in sync with their desktop. The old .Mac did this at a 15 minute interval, and MobileMe was promoted as an improvement that made the sync near-instantaneous. In reality, for this user, MobileMac is not an improvement at all -- and that also sucks.

Review: Practical Django Projects

2008-07-11T20:52:16-07:00

Clint Ecker has a nice review on Ars of my buddy James Bennett's new book, Practical Django Projects.

Twitter users reporting problems with iPhone in-store activation

2008-07-11T08:10:28-07:00

According to a growing number of people on Twitter, Apple is having problems with its in-store activation process. Couple this with the botched MobileMe rollout, and this launch isn't looking good for Apple right now. Here's hoping they get it all resolved in short order. Update: [Engadget on the activation problems](http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/11/itunes-activation-servers-go-down-iphone-3g-customers-being-sen/).