Project OrielEmbracing Change

* If a company only listens to what customers think they need, it won’t be able to innovate. As Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” via SvN

* Only Dell and HP outsell Apple in terms of computer unit sales. via CNN

* Quote: “As long as you’re going to think anyway, think big.” – Donald trump

* “Google engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally. This means that if you have a great idea, you always have time to run with it. It sounds obvious, but people work better when they’re involved in something they’re passionate about, and many cool technologies have their origins in 20 percent time, including Gmail, Google News and even the Google shuttle buses that bring people to work at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.” via NYT

* Build a better mousetrap: First it gases the rodent, then it texts you on your cell phone. via Switched

* Mac OS X Leopard, is to be released tonight with 300+ new features. David Pogue of the New York Times says “powerful, polished and carefully conceived.” and Walt Mossberg of the Washington Post “Faster, Easier than Vista” … and don’t forget, every new Mac can run any Windows application.

* “Take email: Endless engineer-hours are poured into stopping spam, but virtually no attention is paid to our interaction with our non-spam messages. Our mailer may strive to learn from our ratings what is and is not spam, but it expends practically no effort on figuring out which of the non-spam emails are important and which ones can be safely ignored, dropped into archival folders, or deleted unread…” via 43 Folders and “The Future of Ignoring Things” via Internet Evolution. Read up on Inbox Zero if you haven’t yet!

* Virtual Slide Rule via Engcom

Recently I was walking down Hennepin in the Uptown area and heard the accordion guy and clarinet guy from Breaksea Caravel playing just outside the Kowalski’s entrance. Great sound.

I’m not quite sure how to describe it. The jewel case is an enjoyably-rustic hand-made folder. And when I popped it into iTunes I was surprised that the CDDB recognized it at all. They had it in the “Alternative & Punk” genre, but it feels like a cross between Italian Romance and Pirate Music (what is pirate music anyway?).

The instrument list is where you see the fun come out: clarinet, accordion, organ, violin, cello, upright bass, percussion, and acoustic guitar. And while the accordion certainly lends an air of uniqueness, they go on to list programmed beats, suitcase, freewheel, erhu (I had to look that one up in wikipedia), a door hinge, typewriter, and of all things, a folding chair. It is true – you can hear a squeaky door hinge in “The Pretty Pretty Ponies Of The Carousel” and I found it fit in perfectly.

If you are looking for something new for your library, I found this to be a great addition – I’ve never heard anything like it before.

* For the golfers out there, there is only one golf course in Afghanistan: Kabul Golf Club. It is dry, and the greens are custom created with sand and oil. NYT did a writeup: A Golf Course Where Water Is No Hazard.

* the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks chronicles all of the misuses of the humble quotation. See also history of the quotation mark.

* Local blogger Ben Edwards found the photo shown at the right Great advertising: Mr. Clean

* Meeting someone across town? Happy Median will help you find a restaurant, coffee shop or some other spot to meet at in-between.

* Endless Shoes and Handbags has a well thought out and very useful product page (check out the closeup when you move the cursor over the product image) and since the checkout is powered by amazon.com fewer places have your credit card numbers.

* Shoes seem to be in the air – Mike suggested a shoe site too: “Visit Zappos.com for all of your shoe needs.” I hear they have excellent service, ship the shoes within a day and they pay return shipping if the shoes don’t work out.

* Quote: “We should always look back on our own past with a sort of tender contempt.” –Dennis Potter [via Projectionist]

* Looking for something special and unique for someone this holiday season? Handmade gifts at Etsy. One of my favorite artists, Rachel Koniar, sells knit sculptures at Secret Snowbird and has an online gallery too!

* How to grow without “growing” [adding staff]: “By making things clearer and simpler we make help/support less necessary. We’re obviously here to help people when they need help, but we’ve seen significant growth in our customer base without significant growth in customer service requests. This is the biggest payoff of simplicity and clarity.” via Signal vs. Noise

* Tim O’Reilly thinks SAP may be becoming a Web 2.0 Company

* Total store acreage of Wal-Mart exceeds Manhatten via Good Magazine

* And lastly, if your having a slow day, I recommend playing a little Pac-Man

* Comic Cornucopiates: with superheros Souperman and Salt-teen. The artist, Dan Boyd will have a booth at the Midwest Comic Book Associations Conference this weekend – Fall Con at the State Fairgrounds.

* “Most people fear change because they overestimate the risks and underestimate the gains. If you want to convince them to change, you have to address both issues.” from 37 Signals writeup on how to escape the waterfall. The Waterfall Model is a philosophy regarding the software development process originating from back in the 1970′s. A more modern approach, which has been gaining significant recognition, is Agile Software Development. Agile started in the 1990′s because “the waterfall model [was] seen as bureaucratic, slow, demeaning, and inconsistent with the ways that software engineers actually perform effective work.”

* Coupons on your cell phone via Cellfire and the related write up at WSJ. “Coupon-cutting has gone mobile”

* “Lettering buffs and cinephiles alike may enjoy this lovely Flickr set containing final frames of classic films. Romantically, these hearken back to an age before typesetting replaced hand-lettering as a matter of convenience…” via A Treasury of Hollywood Lettering at www.typography.com