January, 2008

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8
Jan 08

A bunch of quotes and Minnesotans for Global Warming

* “The only thing better than data is data about data. Data about data is information that, in quantity, becomes knowledge, which is just a short hop away from wisdom. And when wisdom shows up, you know you’re this close to figuring it all out.” Rands in Repose: Year in Twitter

* Quote: “What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.” – Devils Dictionary

* Quote regarding diplomacy: “A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.” – Caskie Stinnett

* Quote regarding Ruby on Rails: “By removing a lot of the busy-work associated with older frameworks, it lets fewer programmers get more done, which helps our communications problem.” [via Rail Spikes]

* Minnesotans For Global Warming at M4GW.com Check out the theme song video below to the tune of If I Had $1,000,000


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6
Jan 08

Fail at Life

“God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die” Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

If you find that this sentiment applies to your life, then you will appreciate Ryan Norbauer’s discussion “Death and Underachievement: A Guide to Happiness in Work”

He starts eloquently with:

The trite wisdom of contemporary folklore instructs us that the arrival of the New Year is a time to reflect on the achievements of the preceding 365 days and to bear down and “resolve” to achieve more in those to come. Over time, we learn what a hydra-headed beast this is: no matter how many projects or actions we may whack off our ineluctable lists, it seems that yet more (often increasingly ambitious) commitments spring up in their place. With each new year come self-recriminations for our failure to meet the unlikely goals we’ve set for ourselves—lose weight, read through those piles of books and RSS feeds, start picking up our socks—and a stultifying brainstorm of new projects we’d like to take on. 


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6
Jan 08

KPIs, Kryptonite, iTunes, Twilight, and Java is the new Cobol

* “Analytics truism: everyone wants a dashboard (a.k.a. key performance indicators (a.k.a KPIs), success metrics, scorecards). Managers want a barometer of performance, a hammer to use on their subordinates, and a straightforward quantification of their business.” Juice Analytics uses the following 5 rules for successful success metrics

* BBC recounts 100 things we didn’t know last year. A couple to note: #34 Kryptonite exists and #46 Peanuts can be made into diamonds.

* Learn how to use iTunes with the tutorial videos from Apple.

* Civil twilight “This begins in the morning when the center of the Sun is less than 6° below the horizon (the point of civil dawn), and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the center of the Sun is more than 6° below the horizon (the point of civil dusk).” Find exact times from the USNO.

* “Java is losing ground to Ruby on Rails” from InfoWorld’s Java is becoming the new COBOL


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4
Jan 08

Live Project Status

What a great way to track project status:

“I love my new production schedule monitor. Great job and the best part is that I can see the red dates from my office. Everyone here likes it so far or until their project goes red for everyone to see.”

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3
Jan 08

Design, UI, the Super-Novice and Google Street View

* “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Steve Jobs [via Daring Fireball]

* “From time to time it’s a good idea to walk through your product with fresh eyes. Sign up for a new account, turn off your admin access so you can see what other people see, scale back your permissions and experience that experience. You’ll likely find a bunch of UI and customer experience dust bunnies you didn’t know were there.” 37signals, When cruft creeps in

* “(…) the problem of the perpetual super-novice. What is this? Simply put, it’s the tendency of people to stop learning about a digital product—whether it’s an operating system, desktop application, Web site, or hardware device. After initially becoming somewhat familiar with a system, people often continue using the same inefficient, time-consuming styles of interaction they first learned. For example, they fail to discover shortcuts and accelerators in the applications they use. Other people learn only a small portion of a product’s capabilities and, as a result, don’t realize the full benefits the product offers. Why? What can operating systems, applications, Web sites, and devices do to better facilitate a person’s progression from novice to expert usage?” [via Information Design]

* Google Maps now has Street View for Minneapolis/St. Paul. Check out the Xcel Center (hint: try clicking and dragging on the image below)


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