January, 2008

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18
Jan 08

Strategy, Suspicion, 26% more pages, and AirMail

* Influencing Strategy by Design “Perhaps the biggest area of focus in the Influencing Strategy by Design course, taught by Tom Chi and I, is how a designer’s existing skills can be applied to business and product strategy.”

* Jenny Holzer “to have the look of a voice of authority” says “some days you wake up and immediately start to worry. nothing in particular is wrong it’s just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble.” [via kottke.org] See also the great Wikipedia’s entry.


* “In 2007, 30-year-old New York City-based graphic designer Nicholas Felton had 58 vacation days, performed 2 karaoke songs, spent 4.7 days on planes, read 26% more book pages than he did in 2006, ran 190.5 miles, and thought Josh & Ellen’s wedding was the best of the year. You may view his annual report here” [via kottke.org]

* And for those of you picking up a MacBook Air, you can now get a padded envelope to tote it around it. Considering it was only a day or two after the laptop was first announced, that’s some impressive turnaround for getting a site and product up and running.


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18
Jan 08

37signals Downtime Improves Customer Satisfication

37signals today had 2 hours of downtime across all of their products. I use two of these heavily: Basecamp and Highrise. It was a real inconvenience to not have my task list available, and I was kicking myself for not printing it off earlier.

But despite the inconvenience, and massive failure, I feel better about sending my hard earned cash their way. Why? Because they communicated fast and remarkably well.

First, within minutes of the sites going down, a notice was put up:

All systems are currently offline as we’re experiencing network outage from our provider. We’re working on it right now. No data has been lost, all our machines are still working, but they’re not accessible from the internet. Sorry for the inconvenience.
— 10:03am CST (16:03 GMT) on January 18, 2008

Notice how address my immediate concern: data loss, and then an apology. Updates were delivered every 30 minutes and included easy to understand details with more apologies. It was clear that even though it was out of their hands, they were doing everything in their power to get it fixed. One of their last messages, “This is not how Fridays are supposed to be.” was nice. It helps to remember that they are people too, and while I have high expectations from their service, I have some understanding too.

Of course there is a cost/benefit to every service and if they fail too often I’ll look elsewhere. But, 37signals has increased my confidence that they can and will get this sorted out. People just don’t react that fast if they haven’t done most of their homework already.


Some other items of note:

  • They now have a status web site (apparently it works even during system outages, but I only just learned about it)
  • Quickly after the system was restored, they put a nice Downtime Notice “What happened?” note at the top of each page (pict above) with a link to a post with all of the details

Thanks 37signals for an excellent response to a tough situation!


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15
Jan 08

Pretty New Computer Fits Inside an Envelope

Apple never ceases to amaze. I’m sure you’ve already heard about it, but they have a new laptop. It is very thin. Check out the ad, the guided tour, or pick your favorite news source from the numerous articles written on it.


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12
Jan 08

Netflix Rentals, Last 10 Months

Last year we got a lot of DVD’s from Netflix and they have released about one update to their web site every month and seem to be doing well. Our family has found it to be a nicer experience than cable and commercials. Thanks Netflix for a great service!

But in all honesty, I was just having fun putting the chart together. Using Gmail’s archive and search, I was able to find all the movies we rented (this is on your Netflix account page too). Then creating a chart with my freshly purchased iWork Numbers was very easy. I wanted to give Numbers a try and am looking forward to using it more in the future.


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11
Jan 08

Paradynamic 3D Anti-Pattern Dysfunctions Remodeling Workshop

* Merlin Mann says: “It really would require a basic paradynamic rethinking of how the nonapplication area of your world happens.” – MacBreak Weekly 32

* “TiltViewer that makes browsing Flickr photos a lot more fun. It displays the images in a 3D grid that allows you to zoom, pan and even flip each photo for more info.” [via joey interactive]

* “An example of a Lean anti-pattern is Regression Deficit Disorder (RDD). RDD occurs when features are added without adding automated acceptance tests.” from Lean Anti-Patterns and What to Do About Them

* The Five Dysfunctions of a Team in single-page format. I haven’t read the book, so for those of you that have, let me know if the summary is incorrect.

* Remodeling Cost vs Value Report from Remodeling Online. Will tell you among other things that you’ll recoup 78% of the cost for doing a major remodel of your kitchen but will only recoup 57% of the cost if you remodel your home office.

* Home Depot [video] Workshops “Learn how to do home improvement projects on your own with our instructive workshops. With both our professional and celebrity workshop series, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step procedures that can enhance your home and yard. Projects are delivered quickly, learned easily and range in topics from landscaping and lighting to painting techniques, eco options, flooring and more.”


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