Category: Uncategorized

Useit.Com: Undoing the Industrial Revolution. We typically overestimate what can be done in the short term. Improvements seem so close we can smell them, but human behavior and social institutions are slow to change. At the same time, we underestimate what will happen in the long term, because changes accumulate and accelerate. [Tomalak's Realm]

Long Copy vs. Short Copy. MarketingExperiments.com recently set out to see what impact the length of sales copy has on a website's conversion rate. The results: long copy clearly outperformed short copy in all three of their tests. This is something we've wrestled with at BasecampHQ.com. We like to be as descriptive and informative as… Continue reading Long Copy vs. Short Copy

Not proven verdict under threat. The “not proven” alternative to Scottish trial verdicts of “guilty” and “not guilty” could be scrapped under plans being drawn up by a Labour MSP. [The Scotsman]

DVDs triumphant In an eye-opening article journalist Jon Gerner in the New York Times Magazine (“Box Office in A Box”, 11/14/2004) confirms a trend we have noted before; namely, that the DVD, not the theatrical release, has become the major profit center for the big Hollywood studios. He points out that this year “63 percent… Continue reading noted before

Presentation Assistant. New in the Tinderbox Public File Exchange, a fresh Tinderbox assistant that builds web-enabled a presentation framework. It's a tool for making Powerpoint-like presentations that are lightweight — you can download them quickly over the Web — and it's based on ubiquitous Web standards so you can present anywhere. It's all based on… Continue reading Presentation Assistant

Snippy begins to creak into motion. I've started some serious thinking about Snippy design. Current ideas are visible on the Snippy features page. All comments welcome.I've written more complicated web applications before. I've solved harder information design problems before. It still looks like a lot of work.I've decided to rethink my choice of Python as… Continue reading Snippy begins to creak into motion

FCC Pooh-Poohs a la Carte Cable. The Federal Communications Commission says in a Congressional report that cable bills would increase under a system that lets customers pick and choose. Consumer groups disagree. [Wired News]

Clear Pictures of How We Think. Functional MRI is helping researchers reveal how the human brain operates and the ways in which it affects emotion and reason. By Rowan Hooper. [Wired News]

VoIP FUD From Kim Komando, of All People. It's almost 2005 and even “digital godesses” like Kim Komando are missing the point about residential VoIP. Let me take a moment to help Ms. Komando out. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Write a Webserver in 100 Lines of Code or Less. REAL Software programmer and tester, Jonathan Johnson, shows you the power and simplicity of developing with REALbasic by walking you through the building of a working webserver. After this tutorial, you'll not only have a pratical knowledge or REALbasic, but you'll have a cool little… Continue reading Write a Webserver in 100 Lines of Code or Less