Archive for March 9th, 2009

In case you missed it, a whole lotta links that I haven’t had time to post on Fridays

The Nerdery has been busy, busy, crazy busy lately. So busy, in fact that we’ve had actual content on Fridays instead of the weekly link dump. Now comes a busy meeting Monday, and a perfect time to get rid of these great stories that have been burning a whole in my virtual pocket.

• MinnPost – Here's a niche business: designing fonts:"There's this greater design community with all the ad agencies and design firms downtown, and the natural byproduct are the specialists," Diesel said. "We do look over each others' shoulders, and that's a very unique thing to do."
• News from the Herd: What's all this "branding" stuff about?: “This presentation by Marty Neumeier of San Francisco brand firm Neutron pretty much says it all in 20 minutes. It gives a definition and then provides a blueprint so that you too, by slide 120 or so (don’t worry, it’s one of these one word per slide numbers), will be the market leader in your category!”


• Man Vs Machine: Robot Programmed to Love Traps Woman in Lab, Hugs Her Repeatedly: “The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.”


• Registration Open for MN.swf Camp 2009 | blackcj.com
• Finance and Commerce: Ad Agencies, clients catch stimulus fever: “Or so it would seem, given that two Twin Cities marketing firms are already attempting to win new clients by offering their own “stimulus packages.”
• Scanwiches: Don't look at this if you are even remotely hungry. It will only make things worse.
• 10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS | How-To | Smashing Magazine: “Choosing a content management system can be tricky. Without a clearly defined set of requirements, you will be seduced by fancy functionality that you will never use. What then should you look for in a CMS?”
• What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered? – Stack Overflow:
  
  // Dear maintainer:
  //
  // Once you are done trying to 'optimize' this routine,
  // and have realized what a terrible mistake that was,
  // please increment the following counter as a warning
  // to the next guy:
  //
  // total_hours_wasted_here = 16
• StepUp Communications | Stuff Graphic Designer’s Like: “6. Black clothes (maybe a cool dark grey at most)”
• 8 Tips to Design a Charity Website | Webdesigner Depot
• 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know | Mac|Life: “Like a champion cyclist knows bike parts,a car buff knows model years, and a sports fan knows win-loss records, all Mac geeks worth the title must know these things.”


• From Outcast to Awesome: 17 Famous Nerds Who Paved the Way: “>In a different age, the label Nerd induced visions of tapered, high-water jeans, thick-framed glasses, and preppy, ill-patterned shirts. Oh, the horror! Now, check out the East Village on a typical weekend and what are the most stylish gents donning? Why, tapered jeans, thick-framed glasses, and button-down shirts! My, my, my, how things have changed!”


• USATODAY.com – Psychologists now know what makes people happy: The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, lose themselves in daily activities and, most important, forgive easily.
• Robots – The Big Picture – Boston.com: “Robotic systems continue to evolve, slowly penetrating many areas of our lives, from manufacturing, medicine and remote exploration to entertainment, security and personal assistance. Developers in Japan are currently building robots to assist the elderly, while NASA develops the next generation of space explorers, and artists are exploring new avenues of entertainment. Collected here are a handful of images of our recent robotic past, and perhaps a glimpse into the near future. (32 photos total)”
• 10 Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning | Geekdad from Wired.com
• The Cult of Done Manifesto: “Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.”
• 10 Must-Have iPhone Apps for the Adman
• Gaywads, Dorkwads Sign Historic Wad Accord | The Onion – America's Finest News Source: "Now is the time for us to set aside our differences and join together in opposition of our common enemy–the mean, popular kids who have mercilessly inflicted locker-room wedgies upon us since time immemorial."
• Roger Ebert's Journal: Hunt not the snark but the snarker: “What concerns me is that snark functions as a device to punish human spontaneity, eccentricity, non-conformity and simple error. Everyone is being snarked into line.”
• Five Myths about Content Strategy: “Yes, page flows and imagery play a huge part in shaping the online user experience. Without clear navigation and a pleasing page layout, a user's experience could hardly be considered positive. But many site owners fail to see that content plays an equally important role to structure and design in this regard. As Julie Hayden tells us in her piece on A List Apart, language is the ultimate user interface. The tone of a site and the consistency of voice can make or break a user's impression. Language is a very flexible and adaptable tool that should be used to your advantage on your website.”
• Featured Workspace: Land of the Colorful Cubes:”The size of their cube farm is modest, but the personality of it is enormous. Employees at The Balcom Agency would appear to have nearly free reign in customizing their work space. In the work spaces below you'll see everything from vivid color selections to personalized bookcases to curtains and couches and everything in between.”
• 7 Fresh and Simple Ways to Test Cross-Browser Compatibility
• 8 Visual Case Studies of Fun Marketing Materials!
• Death Star, Star Wars, Death Star, Storm Trooper: “It sucks to be a storm trooper with a heart. The Dark Side hasn't been the same since that day.”
• If social media experts aren’t experts only the charlatans will be “experts.”This is a great, great discussion about Social Media Experts, the scourge of Twitter, and how actual experts can take back the word from the charlatans.
• Agency vs freelancer