Year: 2012
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Organizational complexity
Dalton Caldwell, co-founder of App.net, does some thinking about organizational complexity. He contrasts how a simple demonstration of Artificial Intelligence does not necessarily mean that model is scalable to do more complex tasks. The model needs to change with the growth. The same too with a company. The organization needs to change as it grows…
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Random 60: Season 2 Episode 1: Deer!
You might want to consider subscribing to this YouTube channel.
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The original 13-rules of basketball
Dr. James Naismith published these original 13-rules of basketball in 1892. I especially like #5: 5. No shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping, or striking in any way the person of an opponent shall be allowed; the first infringement of this rule by any player shall count as a foul, the second shall disqualify him until the…
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Flickr Premium?
Danny Nicolas has been keeping up with my Flickr commentary of late about how Flickr should create a more affordable, less feature-rich account type and he has a few things to add: I feel as if most people currently paying for Flickr Pro don’t take advantage of all the features offered. I might even go…
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Rerun: Random 60: What to do about Flickr?
Seems appropriate to link back to an episode of Random 60 discussing Flickr. Remember, this was three years ago. "The woman CEO" that I mention in the episode is not the current CEO Marisa Mayer but Carol Bartz. There have been five CEOs at Yahoo! since I recorded this episode!
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An interview with Quentin Tarantino in the NY Times
I enjoyed this interview of Quentin Tarantino in the NY Times. Especially this bit on Page 5: I remember reading a review that Pauline Kael wrote about some director’s big epic, and she said: Now, look, it might seem unfair to judge a talented man more harshly when he tries to do something big than…
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Flickr for iOS 2.01.772
One niggle I had with the new Flickr app for iOS was the upload progress indicator was far too subtle (though an interesting take on what could be done to make it unobtrusive). They fixed that with this update. Now they need to take a queue from Instagram (and many other modern mobile apps) and…
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Flickr’s Holiday Gift and what it could mean for the future
In my recent How Flickr can eat Instagram’s table scraps. I’m Instagram’s table scraps. And so are you. piece I postulated that Flickr needed to make some adjustments and, possibly, make a new account type that was a little less expensive to compete with the free Instagram. Well, Flickr has done something that I think…
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IFTTT raises $7M
I’ve been using IFTTT a ton lately. I would pay for the service without blinking an eye (especially if it supported things like multiple accounts per channel). This big round of funding is well deserved.
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How Safari got its name
Well, not really. This post is really about how Don Melton doesn’t remember how Safari got its name and how there are a lot of stories to tell you about later. So, to whoever suggested the name “Safari,” thank you. Though I’m a Chrome guy now (Safari is just far too slow) I too thank…
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Welcome to Silicon Docks: Dublin’s tech scene is booming
Issie Lapowsky for Inc. on Dublin’s booming tech scene: Now, despite the country’s ongoing economic struggles, a slew of emerging growth start-ups are flocking to the city of pints and pubs. This year alone, tech darlings including Indeed.com, Hubspot, Zendesk, and, most recently, Dropbox, have opened or announced plans to open offices in Dublin. I…
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Nilay Patel on Instagram’s policy changes
Nilay Patel, of The Verge and a guy with a law degree on his wall, chimes in about Instagram’s policy changes.
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Quit Instagram, They Said.
MG Siegler, who inexplicably still writes for AOL TechCrunch, writes about people "quitting" Instagram. The real world:Quit, verb, to leave (a place), usually permanently. The internet:Quit, verb, to threaten to leave as loudly as possible, usually over something stupid, then do nothing. I’ll admit it. When I first saw the Instagram news I too wanted…
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The advantages and disadvantages of feature roll outs
If you’re a member of a fairly popular web service you’re probably becoming more and more familiar with feature roll outs. A feature roll out is when a new feature is added to a service for a certain number of users at a time and, after some duration of time, every user on that service…
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Top 10 Flickr for iPhone tips
Great list of tips and features for Flickr’s new iOS application. Iparticularlylike number 3: 3. Apply a single filter to multiple photos at once. Did you fall in love with a particular filter? We’ve made it easy for you to apply it to multiple photos at once. You simply select the photos from your camera…
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How Flickr can eat Instagram’s table scraps. I’m Instagram’s table scraps. And so are you.
Before I even get started; Flickr can not stop Instagram at this point. Flickr can not beat Instagram in terms of hockey-stick-growth. Even with Instagram’s recent policy changes Instagram is on a trajectory to hit the nearest star and Flickr nor Bruce Willis can stop them now. But, to succeed they do not need to…
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Instagram backlash is Flickr’s gain
Tom Warren, of The Verge, agrees with me about Flickr gaining from this recent Instagram policy change: With a nicely redesigned client and support for filters, Flickr is finally catching up to battle Instagram on the photo sharing front. And its dormant community of lapsed Pro users (who are required to pay a nominal fee…
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Instagram responds to backlash
The web has been ablaze yesterday and today about the new Instagram policies. Instagram has written a blog post to ensure everyone that there has been some confusion and they are going to do whatever they can to make everything more clear. Good. I hope everyone didn’t go and delete their Instagram accounts without waiting…
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Instagram’s new privacy policy
In short; Instagram is now going to share your information with its parent-company Facebook in order to serve more relevant ads. Instagram will share things like the places you visit, your interests (remember all those photos you’ve liked?), and even your photos in order to tailor advertising to you. You can look at this any…
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Temporary Insanity
Fantastically written piece from my teenaged friend Abby Wagner: People want to secure material in something more reliable than a single website. I think she has a future in writing.
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Goodbye Viddler
Working at the same company for six years is a privilege that many do not get to enjoy. I’ve been extremely privileged to be able to do just that at Viddler from early 2007 until now. My relationship with the Viddler team actually began before my first day as a team member. My friend and…
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Open Google Maps with Siri
Just about everyone is saying that the new Google Maps app for iOS is a big win for users. But, one thing that is holding it back from being truly great is the level at which it can be integrated into iOS. Well, here is one tip to open Google Maps with Siri that should…
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You can now download all of your tweets
Or, at least soon you will be. The Next Web has all the details. With over 26,000 tweets under my two-sizes-too-big belt I can say that I’m very happy about this. Twitter has now given me a way to relive the last 6 years of my life whenever I choose.
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Your most productive time
Todd Troxell, ex-coworker and co-founder of Vid.io, asked an interesting question on Hacker News that got some great responses: Your most productive time. How do you do it? For me, I’m most productive early in the morning and mid-afternoon when I get back from lunch. I’m worthless just before lunch and anytime at night. That…
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The web we lost
Anil Dash waxes poetic about the web of turn of the century before Facebook and Twitter. But then talks about what is happening now: But we’re going to face a big challenge with re-educating a billion people about what the webmeans, akin to the years we spent as everyone moved off ofAOLa decade ago, teaching…
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Why founders shouldn’t be the developers
Swizec explains why founders shouldn’t be the developers: There’s no getting around that, no matter how good a programmer you are, no matter how experienced, it’s just hard. Programming doesn’t require a lot of attention, it requires _all_of attention. I agreed. As much as the founder wants to be the developer they shouldn’t be. I don’t think…
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You are not your code
Sam Stephenson, creator of Prototype JavaScript framework and team member at 37Signals, explains why our self-worth should not stem from the longevity of our code. He also puts forth this worthy nugget: In order to advance the state of the art, we have to be willing not only to try new ideas, but to retreat…
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Why I’m shutting Nilai down
Nilai began as a labor of love for me. For a few months I’d spend an evening or so per week tapping out some code while watching a basketball game in my home pub. It was a lot of fun to work on and experiment with. While the day job got in the way of…
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Bold Poker app
This is ambitious and a bit ridiculous… but it must have been a lot of fun to work on. Bold Poker. Something I’d like to see is for an app that is as well-designed as this to handle what is arguably the much more difficult part of poker – the betting. I can’t tell you…
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It all starts as a hobby
Tom Tunguz on how so many big products and entire companies started out as just a hobby. He should know: Google AdSense’s internal CRM is a Rails app called Toothpaste that I cobbled together one (late) night that now serves the global team. What is your hobby project?
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Pageview journalism
Jim Dalrymple at The Loop: We aren’t focused on pageviews, but rather posting things that interest us. Of course, the hope is that they’ll interest you as well. This is an interesting topic. And "pageview journalism" is an interesting phrase. The post that Jim links to on ZDNet describes pageview journalism as the act of…
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Viddler, now with multi-user sign on
The Viddler Blog: Decide who can access your dashboard, setup their own Viddler username and password, and choose what they will have access to in your account. Select who can view and/or manage certain videos or playlists, who can edit account or billing settings, and for those customers with sub-accounts, you can set permissions for…
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Why Twitter introduced photo filters
Matthew Panzarino: As photos and other media become a bigger part of Twitter’s strategy in the future, it can’t have this kind of thing completely at the mercy of a service owned by a competitor. Instagram’s being able to simply yank Twitter’s ability to embed images inline on their site and apps is far too…
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Push notifications are the new blog comments
Craig Hockenberry opened the kimono on development of Twitteriffic 5: Personally, I find myself actively disabling notifications in most of the apps I install these days. Notifications are great when used in moderation, but it’s very easy to use them to the point of distraction. Since I read Twitter as free time permits, I don’t…
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KitCam
As I mentioned on Twitter, if you have an iPhone you should check out KitCam. Fantastic, well-designed, and complete camera replacement application. /via Mike Rundle on Twitter.
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Well, I got her a mini
Me, not even a month ago: I’ve already made a deal with myself not to buy any more products, from Apple or any other company, that do not include a retina-quality display. And. Unlike John, Eliza and I will be waiting for an iPad mini that has a Retina Display. Well, I got her a…
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Foursquare’s \”Recently Opened\” feature
Foursquare: Break out of your weekly routine, try a new place, and don’t forget to leave a tip for your friends! The new feature is a bit buried. But when you find it, it can be pretty useful.
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Startups should have a financial plan
Tom Tunguz, of Redpoint, on financial planning for startups: The financial plan is a concise summary of the way a companyis likely to be managed. It’s helpful for the board to help validate the plan compared to other startups’ plans. The plan is also a great way to level set the management team on the plan…
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Being a Design-Driven Culture
Cap Watkins from Etsy says it isn’t all about look-and-feel: Being design-driven means treating design as a partner (and a leader) in the product creation process. Look at your feature roadmap right now. Are there major initiatives and ideas that were generated directly from your designer or design team? If yes, was design in the…
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You Just Have To Do Something
Jonathan Moore recounts the day he saved his son’s life, then makes this point: When we are presented with moments of crisis, large decisions or new opportunities often we find ourselves crippled by the lack of knowledge. We justify inaction with our insecurities in not knowing the right way to move forward. Or we trap…
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Mario using only CSS
My friend Chris Coleman took the time, as CSS geeks tend to do, to create Mario using only CSS.
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Disconnected Saturdays
Buster Benson disconnects on Saturdays. I do something similar every Tuesday night. Doing it for an entire day would be interesting though.
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Flickr’s new EXIF widget
Sorry, I don’t like the word widget either. But, credit where due, Flickr has a new way to display EXIF information. Check out the sidebar of this photo. I like it. Hey, at least someone is doing something over there, right?