Prominent Use of Synth

Work on a Mac? Save time (and your eyes) with these free apps

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:28:00 -0500

I get asked a lot about all the stuff in my menu bar. Here are some of the small utilities that make life easier throughout the day.

Caffeine: keep your monitor from going into sleep or screensaver mode. Essential when projecting.
CloudApp: drag anything (link, file, etc.) and it will upload, create a short URL, and add it to your clipboard. Has a toggle for doing that flow for any screenshot you take—makes sharing what you see a snap.
f.lux: shift your screen toward a warmer hue when the sun goes down. Automatically syncs with your time zone.
ScreenShade: dim your laptop and external monitors together, on the fly.
Optimal Layout: snap any window to full screen, half screen, quarter screen, or any custom config you want. Arrange groups of windows as you please.

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY'

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:26:27 -0500

MURK AVENUE: I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY':

murkavenue:

CLUE 1:
“went to short dogs house,
they was watching Yo MTV
RAPS”
Yo MTV RAPS first aired:
Aug 6th 1988
CLUE 2:
Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on:
Feb 23 1993
CLUE 3:
”The Lakers beat the Super
Sonics”
Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release…

The Obvious, the Easy, and the Possible - (37signals)

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:47:01 -0500

The Obvious, the Easy, and the Possible - (37signals):

Nice approach to product and UI development. (And probably good for plain-old websites, too.)

Michael Lewis on the King of Human Error | Business | Vanity Fair

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:38:30 -0500

Michael Lewis on the King of Human Error | Business | Vanity Fair:

Money read

My man Mac is releasing music! He’s the first half of this...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:44:31 -0500

My man Mac is releasing music! He’s the first half of this track. Prepare to swoon.

“Play” is the first song off Parable vs. Mac Soto’s upcoming collaborative project. … Their first untitled EP is set for early 2012 release.

Learn more about Mac Soto here-
http://macsotomusic.tumblr.com/

Stan Richards's Unique Management Style

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 10:40:49 -0500

Stan Richards's Unique Management Style:

8:30am, shirt and tie required.

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.com

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:46:29 -0400

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.com:

In addition to the curriculum changes mentioned, why don’t universities encourage students to audit courses?

Hacked! - Magazine - The Atlantic

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:49:49 -0400

Hacked! - Magazine - The Atlantic:

The half step is extremely important, but I count it only as a half because it applies specifically to users of Gmail rather than other online systems. Here it is: if you use Gmail, please use Google’s new “two-step verification” system. In practice this means that to log into your account from any place other than your own computer, you have to enter an additional code, from Google, shown on your mobile phone. On your own computer, you enter a code only once every 30 days. This is not an airtight solution, but it can thwart nearly all of the remote attacks that affect Gmail thousands of times a day. Even though the hacker in Lagos has your password, if he doesn’t have your cell phone, he can’t get in.

In case you’ve missed the point: if you use Gmail, use this system. Also, make sure the recovery information for your account—a backup e-mail address or cell phone where you can receive password-reset information—is current. Google uses these to verify that you are the real owner.

My dad taught me cashflow with a soda machine – The Startup Toolkit Blog

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:56:33 -0400

My dad taught me cashflow with a soda machine – The Startup Toolkit Blog:

Great story

The True Cost of Commuting | Mr. Money Mustache

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:26:13 -0400

The True Cost of Commuting | Mr. Money Mustache:

Interesting stuff. I miss having a car, but I sure don’t miss paying for one.

merlin: neilio: Buddy Rich stick trick solo (FULL VERSION) (by...

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:58:35 -0400

merlin:

neilio:

Buddy Rich stick trick solo (FULL VERSION) (by cadaverr)

At the time, the man was 60. Six. Ty.

What planes are overhead?

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:33:42 -0400

wolframalpha:

What’s that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Yup, it’s a plane, and it is currently 31,100 feet high and traveling to St. Louis from Chicago. Simply enter “planes overhead”, and Wolfram|Alpha will provide a list of flights overhead based on your current geoIP location.

You can also click on specific flights to learn more information, such as departure airport, estimated flight duration, and more:

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry shares a few...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:00:22 -0400

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry shares a few poignant thoughts via some very Bad Lip Reading.

How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:20:01 -0400

How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing:

Porsche’s move took three years of careful maneuvering. It was darkly brilliant, a wealth transfer ingeniously conceived like few we’ve ever seen. Betting the right way, Porsche roiled the financial markets and took the hedge funds for a fortune.

First sentence of a video about a marketing automation tool I'm actually interested in

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:37:18 -0400

“… cloud-based revenue performance management solutions transform how marketing and sales teams of all sizes work together to close the right deals faster and increase revenue growth.”

Why.

Rhythm, Rhyme, Results: Featured Teacher : Amanda Kruppenbacher, Uganda

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:09:21 -0400

Rhythm, Rhyme, Results: Featured Teacher : Amanda Kruppenbacher, Uganda:

educationalrap:

Name: Amanda Kruppenbacher
School: GSF International School/Good Shephards Fold Orphanage in Jinja, Uganda
Subjects: 2011-2012 teaching 4th and 6th grades

How are you using educationalrap.com and/or rrr.fm in the classroom?

Last school year I worked hard to include different…

Profile of a teacher in Uganda using RRR with students. Yes!

Marketing Insanity

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:39:33 -0400

Earlier today I dropped this toot about context switching and marketing. I want to elaborate on this a tad, given the reputation we marketers have earned for acting out of our minds.

Marketing requires constant reporting on all activity; after all: we’re signing contracts and actively spending money, and we’d better have something to show for it. To accompany this, we have clear business goals against which we’re measured: generate traffic, convert traffic to lead, convert lead to purchase, etc. Every channel, campaign, and web page has its own goals that contribute to these larger goals. We report on these results weekly and monthly.

Now, imagine that for every feature a developer built, that person were then expected to monitor it, report on results, and constantly weigh its efficacy against all former and future features.

How is it being used? Could it be improved? Should it be cut? Is it accomplishing its goal?

In other words, imagine that every feature in the app cost actual money to keep. (The reality is, features do cost money in the form of time required to maintain and extend code.) Every day would become a balance between creation, release, and some part of the test-release-assess-analyze-iterate chain among every single feature that’s out in the wild. And these results would be reported on a weekly basis with charts and test plans and all sorts of analysis.

I don’t think engineers or product teams do this.

What would happen if they did?

Google Correlate

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:48:13 -0400

Google Correlate:

Fun!

American tattoo artist Scott Campbell glued a cannon fuse in the...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:23:44 -0400

American tattoo artist Scott Campbell glued a cannon fuse in the shape of “That’s All Folks” to plywood, with a small pipe-bomb strapped to the back. Then he filmed it with his cell phone duck-taped to a sign post and then pressing record. [via]

The Shapes of CSS

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:01:16 -0400

The Shapes of CSS:

Um… [via]