Girls

The beauty of aging gracefully

This Esquire Photoshoot demonstrates why I love men’s magazines (more specifically, why I love Esquire).

The 60-picture photoset illustrates four key ages of a woman’s life, with an array of beautifully average models between the ages of 18 and 53. The pictures are associated with a quote (sometimes witty, sometimes wise), a name and a job: the very core of being a woman in the early 21st century.

The slide show is well worth clicking through all 60 pictures and giving a few seconds and a thought to each one of them.

Web design

Reminiscing over the web in 1996

This article is not exactly new, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s about how the online world worked back in 1996 (written in 2009). The Jurassic period of the web, as the piece’s author calls it was, obviously, very different from what we live in today. There were no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Wikipedia – the sites that defines our current daily paths on the internet -, let alone Google, or even Hotmail that were to be launched in the upcoming months and years.

The point of the article, of course, is that if we find it so amusingly remote how the web looked like thirteen (now fourteen) years ago, will we find it amusing how the web worked in 2010, when we look back on it in ten – fifteen years?

The pace of development, is, obviuosly huge, technologies change, big players come and go, but if you ask me, the answer to that very question is no.

apple

Apple is China, Apple is Disney (or what?)

Apple is both like China and like Disneyland, according to internet entrepreneur and journalist Tristan Louis, who has an essay on the subject up on Business Insider.

According to the thought provoking and provocative piece Apple is like China, based on its arguments in the Adobe vs. Apple war, and Apple is like Disney(land) because it tends to provide an ever so steril, ever so clean and shiny, but ever so closed environment for both its users and its developers.

Which is, of course, fine with some 95% of its users, but, unfortunately for Apple, the 5% turns out to be the the loudest part.

We will not judge Apple or Louis, but the article certainly makes an interesting read.

google

Site speed is a Google ranking factor

It is worth noting that after a long period of rumors, expectations, and guessing, Google now officially announced that it takes site speed into account when assigning rankings to potential search results while crawling web pages.

According to Google, making faster websites is beneficial both on the cost end (by reducing operating costs) and from the user experience’s point of view.

According to an internal study driven (and quoted) by Google, if a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there.

While the importance of site speed, among many other factors is relatively small at this point (around 1%), leaving most sites unaffected, the aim proclaimed by Google, a half-second download time for a certain website seem to be beyond reach for many players on the internet.

games

The secret of highly addictive games

If it was that simple, everybody would create instant gaming hits, like Bejeweled, Farmville, Tetris and their likes, but really: the secret of highly addictive computer games is simple: simplicity.

Simplicity in rules, and a wide range of complexity in levels, from a no-brainer rookie level to an astonishing world-cup stage for professionals (with gazillions of invested work hours in most cases).

All other things, like design, effects or even, background story only follow the simplicity based user experience, and, in reality, add very little to the game’s value.

Wired Magazine is now (in cooperation with the creators of Bejeweled creator Jason Kapalka) revealing the secret of addictive games. In not more than a few paragraphs (simple, isn’t it?)

Web design

The brief history of wireframes (including their future)

Made by Many has just featured an interesting piece on the history of wireframes (1999-2010), and their possible uses by actual designers now (read: their future).

Wireframes have changed a lot from the early days, when application functionality was lightyears away from design elements. As the two got closer, both the function and the making of wireframes have changed completely. The process now includes the client (who now can read wireframes), and in an ideal world it would end up in a better product.

The article is quite long but it is worth the read.

Uncategorized

Pixar president Ed Catmull on creativity, leadership and the power of teams

In this thrilling interview (made by Economist’s Martin Gilles) Pixar founder and chairman Ed Catmull talks about how a creative company should work to produce the success story Pixar is today.

My Favorite Quote: “I don’t like hard rules at all. I think they’re all bullshit”

Via: Scott Berkun

carreer

How to stay motivated after losing your job?

Follow our tips to stay motivated during the most difficult period of your carreer!

Layoffs, nowadays, can happen anytime, to anyone. In the times of crisis and recession, you don’t have to be a second-class employee to wake up one day and find yourself losing your job. Even worse, it can happen totally unexpectedly.

How to stay motivated after a layoff

How to stay motivated after a layoff

The airline industry has an apt term describing the first ninety seconds after a disaster. They call it “the golden time”, because if you are able to act quickly in this short period of time, your chances to survive the plane crash dramatically increase. Similarly, rapid and appropriate action is inevitable if you want to stay on the surface after unexpectedly losing your job. Follow our tips to do just that.
Continue reading How to stay motivated after losing your job?

bloggers talk

Ben Barden: “I play to my strengths”

Ben Barden is a versatile guy, busy with blogging, coding and occasionally composing. The 28-year-old blogger, who is the mastermind behind the increasingly popular Top Ten Blog Tips, and the Zen Working productivity blog tells us about moving to a different continent, his new venture of launching an advertising network for bloggers and why IT people shouldn’t make excuses.

Ben Barden

How much of your grown-up life have you spent with blogging?

I had a LiveJournal account as far back as 2002, and wrote an occasional personal blog on my site from 2005 onwards. I didn’t get into blogging “seriously” until November 2007, when I started writing about blogging and website tips without the jargon. I launched Top Ten Blog Tips, my current blog, in late 2008.

Was it a linear growth and development, or was there a trigger point when you decided to “take it seriously”. Did you have a particular reason or motivation to do so?

Well, the personal blog only had a handful of readers, and I got sick of talking to myself. I wanted to write about something that people would actually want to read. It wasn’t much fun posting and getting 0 comments time after time. Once I started writing about blogging and website tips, the blog had a fairly slow but steady growth.

Continue reading Ben Barden: “I play to my strengths”

twitter

The Twitter dilemma: how to tweet value in 140 chars?

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Everybody seems to be nuts about Twitter these days, and although I’m a real greenhorn compared to some of the Twitter-Top-Guns, even I find myself checking my Twitter homepage before opening my mailbox first thing in the morning. Those who use twitter for professional purposes agree that, the key of a successful Twitter profile is constantly sharing (rather: tweeting) value with your followers.

how to share value on twitter

how to share value on twitter

When I first read these words of wisdom, a pretty natural question popped into my mind: how the heck can you share value in 140 characters?

I was unable to answer this question aptly enough, so I’ve plowed through a couple of thousand tweets to find some real value on Twitter. Here’s what I’ve found.

Continue reading The Twitter dilemma: how to tweet value in 140 chars?