"To us, the Web is a sort of shared external memory. We do not have to remember unnecessary details: dates, sums, formulas, clauses, street names, detailed definitions. It is enough for us to have an abstract, the essence that is needed to process the information and relate it to others. Should we need the details, we can look them up within seconds. Similarly, we do not have to be experts in everything, because we know where to find people who specialise in what we ourselves do not know, and whom we can trust. People who will share their expertise with us not for profit, but because of our shared belief that information exists in motion, that it wants to be free, that we all benefit from the exchange of information. Every day: studying, working, solving everyday issues, pursuing interests. We know how to compete and we like to do it, but our competition, our desire to be different, is built on knowledge, on the ability to interpret and process information, and not on monopolising it."

"You need to communicate these 5 things within 10 seconds / 1 screen of text:
When the change is coming
How this affects you (or “This does not affect you unless X”)
What action you need to take (or “You do not need to do anything”)
Why this decision was made (can be high-level/’spun’)
You can complain here"

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Quick and simple how to git stash and popSource: http://pinboard.in/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh Click. Drag. Drop. Build beautiful HTML5 mobile apps and content using our cloud-based visual IDE

from The Experience is the Product http://www.cindyalvarez.com

Your product will change.

You’re going to have to communicate those changes to your customers.

How you do this can make the difference between “a few angry Tweets” and “death threats from your community”

That last point may bear repeating — 9 times out of 10, it’s not what you changed that makes customers angry.  It’s how you communicated it.

You need to communicate these 5 things within 10 seconds / 1 screen of text:

When the change is coming

How this affects you (or “This does not affect you unless X”)

What action you need to take (or “You do not need to do anything”)

Why this decision was made (can be high-level/’spun’)

You can complain here

Use bullet points or bold to facilitate scanning.  Resist the temptation to hide information.  If you’re taking something away, say so.  If you’re changing rules or charging, say so.

Here’s an example:

On Friday, February 10, WidgetCo will be switching to all-digital widget delivery.

What will change: Widgets will now only be delivered digitally, not by postal mail.

What you need to do:

If you are currently subscribed to the Digital-Only plan, this change will have no effect on you.

If you are currently subscribed to the Combination plan, you will receive your February widget shipment via postal mail.  Your February shipment was already charged.  Your credit card will not be charged again and you will not receive any additional widgets until you confirm that you wish to switch to digital delivery.  (You can confirm that here: [URL])

If you are not sure which plan you are on, you can check by clicking this link: [URL]

Why we’re making the switch: Due to rising costs of postal delivery, WidgetCo is no longer able to provide the level of service that our customers demand without dramatically raising prices. In a survey of our customers, we discovered that our digital-delivery customers reported higher satisfaction rates — so we are confident that this move is the right one, that will help us to better serve our customers.

If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear your feedback: [EMAIL ADDRESS]

from Apigee Blog http://blog.apigee.com/

Last time, we looked at why you might consider complementing your API with an SDK or code libraries. In the series so far, we've covered a lot of tips and tricks for designing pragmatic RESTful APIs. 

You may be asking -  

How do I follow all these best practice guidelines and still maintain and iterate my APIs? 

What should I be thinking from an architectural perspective in terms of implementing these best practices?

Add an API virtualization layer 

I recommend you give yourself a buffer or virtual layer between the interface on top and the API implementation on the bottom.

The app that consumes the API is on top. The API virtualization layer isolates the application and the API. Make a clean design for the app on top and turn the problem into an integration problem.

 In other words, work at integrating your design on top of the key APIs through the virtualization layer.

Don't start in code, and try to build up from your business logic to a clean API interface.

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

If you're a proud owner of Google's newest Nexus device, you can root it with just a few clicks thanks to a program called the Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit. Here's how it works.

For more information on what rooting is, what it can do for your phone, and what all those confusing terms mean, check out our always up-to-date guide to Android rooting.

The Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit is pretty simple to use. You will need a Windows PC (so if you don't have one, borrow one from a friend), but everything else is pretty self-explanatory. You can find more detailed instructions on the app's home page, but essentially, you'll just need to install the program, launch it, click the Drivers button, back up your apps and data if so desired (since rooting will wipe your device), then use the Unlock and Root buttons to unlock your bootloader and gain root access. From there, you can download ROM Manager from the Market, from which you can flash the ClockworkMod Recovery, make nandroid backups, and flash custom ROMs. The Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit can also unroot your phone if you decide rooting is not for you.

The Toolkit should get you pretty far, but for more info on troubleshooting, ROMs, themes, and more, check out Android Forums' All Things Root guide for the Galaxy Nexus.

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Printing in 3D is now no more complicated than printing photos in Picasa. First you design something in Autodesk 123D (in my case, my first project was a device housing prototype). Then pick "Make" from the menu. You can print your object on your desktop printer, like a Makerbot (moderate quality, now), or you press another button to have it printed (high quality, later) on a commercial printer. Enter your credit card (my prototype, shown here, cost $24) and a week later it's delivered to your house. Wow.

Best of all, 123D is free. This is the future of fabrication.

-- Chris Anderson

Autodesk 123d
Free
Windows-only (OSX support to come)
Available from and produced by Autodesk

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "When I looked at the digital universe, I saw the tracks of organisms coming to life. … Digital organisms, while not necessarily any more alive than a phone book, are strings of code that replicate and evolve over time. Digital codes are strings of binary digits—bits. A Pixar movie is just a very large number, sitting idle on a disc, while Microsoft Windows is an even larger number, replicated across hundreds of millions of computers and constantly in use. Google is a fantastically large number, so large it is almost beyond comprehension, distributed and replicated across all kinds of hosts. When you click on a link, you are replicating the string of code that it links to. Replication of code sequences isn’t life, any more than replication of nucleotide sequences is, but we know that it sometimes leads to life. … Recently we’ve seen enormous conglomerations of code creeping up on us, these giant, multicellular, metazoan-level code-organisms like Facebook or Amazon. All these species form a digital universe." "Wired: So the creation of digital life was rooted in death? Dyson: In some creation myths, life arises out of the earth; in others, life falls out of the sky. The creation myth of the digital universe entails both metaphors. The hardware came out of the mud of World War II, and the code fell out of abstract mathematical concepts. Computation needs both physical stuff and a logical soul to bring it to life. These were young kids who had just come through World War II, who could repair the electronics on airplanes and get them flying the same day, and von Neumann put them together with mathematical logicians who could imagine a universe created entirely out of 0s and 1s." "Turing, as a 23-year-old graduate student, derived the principles of modern computation more or less by accident—as a byproduct of his interest in something called the Entscheidungsproblem, or Decision Problem. It can be stated as: Is there a formula or mechanical process that can decide whether a string of symbols is logically provable or not? Turing’s answer was no. He restated the answer in computational terms by showing that there’s no systematic way to tell in advance what a given code is going to do. You can’t predict how software will behave by inspecting it. The only way you can tell is to actually run it. And this fundamental unpredictability means you can never have a complete digital dictatorship with one government or company controlling our digital lives—not because of politics but because of mathematics. There will always be codes that do unpredictable things. This is why the digital universe will never be a national park; it will always be an undomesticated, unpredictable wilderness. And that should be reassuring to us."Source: http://twitter.com/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh Hosted service for your private and custom gems to simplify your deployment story. Once you upload your RubyGem and enable Gemfury as a source, you can securely deploy any gem to any host. It's simple, reliable, and hassle-free. Learn more

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh Func is a secure, scriptable remote control framework and API. It is intended to replace SSH scripted infrastructure for a variety of datacenter automation tasks (such as taking hardware inventory, running queries, or executing remote commands) that are run against a large amount of systems at the same time. Func provides both a command line tool and a simple and powerful Python API. It is also intended to be very easy to integrate with your provisioning environment and tools like Cobbler.

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh Amon is a self-hosted, lightweight web application and server monitoring toolkit. It provides you with straightforward visualisation of essential server data. It helps you manage the errors that occur in your web applications and makes logging complex data structures and searching in your log data easy.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 So here's my question. What are your three lessons for living a good life? What lessons would you give someone, say, in their twenties, today? Here are mineSource: http://pinboard.in/

from LukeW | Digital Product Design and Strategy http://www.lukew.com/

When I initially proposed the idea of Mobile First over three years ago, there were a lot of skeptics. The situation today has a lot more people convinced that taking mobile seriously matters. But just in case some people remain unconvinced, here's a really vivid way of explaining the situation.

Number of Mobile Devices

Every day 371,124 children are born across the World.

Every day 377,900 iPhones are sold across the World.

Every day 700,000 Android devices are activated across the World.

Looking at the total of iOS devices (iPhones plus iPads and iPod Touches) sold per day brings the total of Apple mobile devices sold per day to 562,000. Together with Android devices that's 1.27M mobile devices sold or activated per day compared to 371,124 children born.

But there's more. Nokia sold 200,000+ smartphones a day (and 958k feature phones). RIM sold 143,000 Blackberries a day at the end of 2011. This brings the total of smartphones entering the World per day to about 1.45M devices again compared to 317,124 births per day.

Share of Personal Computing

Clearly there's a lot of mobile devices coming into the World. That's having a huge impact on the personal computing market. Looking at data compiled by Asymco, the first 15 years of personal computing consisted of a few manufacturers trying to figure things out (Amiga, Atari, Apple).

The next 15 years were completely dominated by Microsoft's WinTel platform with Apple barely hanging on.

Fast forward to the past 3 years and you can see a huge shift underway. Apple and Android are eating into personal computing in a massive way. That's because today's mobile devices aren't just phones they're the most personal form of computer we have: always with us, always connected, and highly capable.

Real Opportunity

As mobile devices take over personal computing, a lot of opportunity is created for software companies and services. Consider mobile payments on PayPal. In 2009, mobile payments totaled $141 million. At the end of 2011, that number had grown to $4 billion. You red that right from $141 million to $4 billion over the course of three years.

Hopefully this sample of data points helps some mobile skeptics see the opportunity we're facing. If you need even more convincing check out my ongoing series of data posts for a deeper look at the mobile market and beyond.

Interesting that you can apply link elements via header

A visual design tool for your JSON

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

I hope you are doing well. I have a Micro III question that I thought might interest you. I often have such Tyler questions, but keep them to myself, yet this morning I decided to share with you.

What does Jeremy Lin tell us about talent evaluation mechanisms? This article ( ªªhttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/what-jeremy-lin-teaches-us-about-talent/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter ) arguesºº that the standard benchmarks for evaluating basketball and football players at the draft level are flawed. The argument is that Jeremy Lin couldn’t get the opportunity to succeed because his skill wasn’t being picked up by the standard sorting procedure. This got me thinking.  Baseball sorts players in a different way than basketball.  In professional basketball (and football), college sports serve as minor leagues, where teams face a high variance in competition (the difference between the best and worst teams in a top conference is normally quite large), with very little room for promotion. There is some transferring as players succeed and fail at lower and higher levels, but for the most part you sink or swim at your initial college. This is compounded by the fact that the initial allocation of players to college teams is governed by a non-pecuniary rewards structure with a stringent wage ceiling, which likely hinders the allocation of talent.  At the end of your college career, NBA teams make virtually all-or-nothing calls on a few players to fill vacancies at the major-league level.  In baseball it’s different. Players play their way up the ladder, and even players who are undrafted can play their way onto teams at low levels of the minor league. At such low levels, the high variance in talent is high like it is in college sports; however, promotions from short-season leagues through Triple-A, allow incremental testing of talent along the way without much risk.  I have looked at metrics for predicting major-league success from minor-league performance and found that it is not until you reach the High-A level (that is three steps below the majors) can performance tell you anything.  Players in High-A who are on-track for the majors are about-the age of college seniors.  Performance statistics from Low-A and below have no predictive power. Baseball is also much less of a team game than basketball, so this should make evaluation easier in baseball but it is still quite difficult by the time most players would be finishing college careers.  Also, a baseball scout acquaintance, who is very well versed in statistics, tells me that standard baseball performance metrics in college games are virtually useless predictors of performance (this is contrary to an argument made in Moneyball).  Even successful college baseball players almost always have to play their way onto the team.

Back to Lin. He played in the Ivy League and his stats weren’t all that bad or impressive in an environment that is far below the NBA. If Lin is a legitimate NBA player, he didn’t have many opportunities to play his way up like a baseball player does.  In the NBA, he experienced drastic team switches, and even when making a team he received limited opportunities to play. MLB teams often keep superior talent in the minors so that they can get practice and be evaluated through in-game competition.  An important sorting mechanism for labor market sorting is real-time work.  Regardless of your school pedigree, most prestige professions (lawyers, financial managers, professors, etc.) have up-or-out rules after a period of probationary employment where skill is evaluated in real world action. Yes, there is a D-League and European basketball, but the D-league is not as developed as baseball’s minor-league system, and European basketball has high entry cost and may suffer from the same evaluation problems faced by the NBA.  Thus, I wonder if the de facto college minor-league systems of basketball and football hinder the sorting of talent so that the Jeremy Lins and Kurt Warners of the world often don’t survive.  Thus, another downside of these college sports monopsonies is an inferior allocation of talent at the next level.

J.C.’s points of course apply (with modifications) to economics, to economies, and to our understanding of meritocracy, not to mention to how books, movies, and music fare in the marketplace.  Overall I would prefer to see economics devote much more attention to the topic of the allocation of talent.

Here is J.C. on Twitter, here are his books.

from LukeW | Digital Product Design and Strategy http://www.lukew.com/

It should come as no surprise that a cross channel customer (mobile, desktop, physical, etc.) is more valuable for companies than people only engaged in one channel. After all one plus one equals two, right? Actually, it's often more as this recent data shows.

Pharmacy chain Walgreen’s has found that customers who engage in more than 1 channel are 3x more valuable than single channel customers. Walgreen’s channels support each other: SMS grows apps, Web grows mobile, stores grow SMS. Their customers don’t differentiate channels. (source)

Walgreen's "pickup in an hour" lead to redesigned Web site that increased Web traffic 50%. Half of their Web site visitors say their next action is to go store. People utilize desktops for initial contact and sign ups, but use mobile for follow ups. More than 40% of Walgreen's on-line prescriptions come from mobile scanning apps. SMS notification are sent when orders are ready. Special parking space for store pickup is provided thereby completing a cross-channel loop.(source)

Retailer Sears set up a "returns in 5 minutes" program that starts online then allows people to droop of returns at a physical location. Mobile works much better than desktop for this program. Sears also provides special parking spots to customers who buy online and pickup in the store. (source)

Studies show that people interact on social media during TV shows. So MTV built a mobile app for fans to use during award shows. They got 1M interactions from TV ad support to a mobile URL that supported multitasking behavior of people watching TV and utilizing their mobile device simultaneously. (source)

Not only does the Mac App Store get the productivity app, EverNote new users, it makes existing users more valuable. iTunes downloads for iOS devices were up by 54% during the same week that the EverNote Mac App Store app came out. People who use Evernote from multiple devices are much more likely to stick around and to eventually pay for the premium version. (source)

Facebook's mobile users now account for more than half of its base, and they're more than twice as engaged as desktop users. (source)

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle.

At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate. To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler.

From the NYTimes obit of John Fairfax and oh did I mention he rowed across the Atlantic…and the Pacific.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source:

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Alexis Madrigal: "This is the story of one of the old, weird ties between Earth and space." Well worth taking the time to read.Source: http://instapaper.com/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 In what can only be described as the most shocking revelation since I learned that tumors can grow teeth, it turns out your pancreas has taste receptors. New research published in the PNAS indicates that there are sweet taste receptors in that organ — and their reaction to fructose may be a cause of diabetes. Top image: Stuffed Pancreas by Kirin Queen It turns out that we've known about sweet taste receptors in the pancreas for at least a few years, but what this new research shows is that they interact with fructose in previously undiscovered ways. What's meant to happen is that the glucose in our food triggers the pancreas to release insulin, which allows us to use this sugar for energy. However, what this research has shown is that fructose, usually brought in by sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup, can trigger insulan secretion too. When both types of sugar are present in our foods, it amps up the release of insulin, pushing too much into the body. Too much insulin is associated with the ever popular type 2 diabetes, and this may explain why high fructose diets have been so closely linked with the disease. I'm just still weirded out that my internal organs have taste receptors — what other senses are they hiding from me?Source:

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Simon Baker: "One of the most spectacular photographs in the book is of San Francisco after the great fire following the 1906 earthquake. I had seen it before and assumed that the camera was carried aloft by a balloon over San Francisco Bay." "Newhall related that the camera was lifted into the air by kites, but he had little to say about how it was kept steady to make such a sharp image or how much it actually weighed. For answers to these and other questions, I began a long research."Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Apigee Blog http://blog.apigee.com/

In my last post, OAuth: Why it's good for API providers, I talked about why I recommend OAuth for API providers when they are exposing APIs for web or mobile apps.

This time, a short follow up to look at a couple of scenarios in which OAuth might not be the best solution.

APIs designed to be used only by servers.

When the only clients of your API are servers, OAuth is not the best solution. Having a separate set of authentication credentials for each app is a nice feature of OAuth, but for server-to-server use, the need to log in securely using a browser gets in the way.

Simply assigning a unique password to each app is probably sufficient. Two-way SSL is another good, albeit cumbersome approach.

I believe that OAuth is unnecessary for APIs that are used by a small number of internal or partner systems, and which are used by servers and not by end users who have passwords.

However, think ahead! If you discover that those APIs that are only accessed by servers today are useful by other types of clients (like web or mobile) tomorrow, then you'll need to support OAuth.

Are there other scenarios for which OAuth is unnecessary or even a bad idea?

Just like the server-to-server scenario, I think that OAuth doesn’t make sense in the following scenarios:

-       Anything that requires commercial levels of trust. For example, when your security model requires the capabilities of a PKI infrastructure.

-       One-time tokens. OAuth is a lot of complexity and machinery to make one API call.

Bad ideas include creating your own ‘version’ of OAuth or creating something that’s like OAuth but different. Sticking with standards, and focusing your development efforts on creating great apps seems like a better idea than rolling your own security scheme.

Next time: We'll talk about some OAuth complexities, and why it's worth the effort.

from API Evangelist http://blog.apievangelist.com/

Much of the work I get as an API Evangelist starts with a review of an API area. I have evolved a way to look at API areas, and identify which building blocks are present or missing, all contributing to the success or failure of an API.

I started evolved this methodology in summer of 2012 when I was first building API Evangelist, by reviewing over 250+ of the top APIs out there. I generated a list of the common building blocks used by APIs, as well as identified a bunch of innovative and less commonly used building blocks.

When I first started working with CityGrid I reviewed their API area, which contained the following building blocks:

API Dashboard

Documentation for Content and Advertising APIs

SDKs for iOS and Android

Version History

Blog

Forum(s)

Terms and Conditions

Usage Requirements

Self-Service Registration

I have a list of what I consider essential API area building blocks, and most of them are represented here, but there were a couple missing. So today I added 3 more areas:

Getting Started

Publisher Overview

FAQ

An API has to have a getting started page as well as a place for frequently asked questions. Developers have to find the information they need to go from evaluation to integration without asking for help.

The publisher overview page is unique. It covers the different business tiers of developers, or as we call them at CityGrid, publishers. Even though these tiers are unique to how we approach things at CityGrid, they are four potential levels of an API ecosystem, that other API owners can employ.

The CityGrid API area is not up to par 100% by the standards I preach here on API Evangelist. I’m working on a new code samples page which has PHP, Python, Ruby code samples and starter kits--which I will publish this week at some point. But overall the CityGrid API community contains the essential building blocks I feel are necessary to build an ecosystem, and I’m working on finding out what else my developers will need to be successful and put them in my roadmap.

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
While bottled water is available in most large towns throughout the world, in many remote locations the water quality is questionable. Even where bottled water is available it seems extremely wasteful to throw away a dozen plastic bottles every day. We used the Katadyn Pocket Microfilter to fill up our own canteens. On a bike trip through SouthEast Asia we were able to avoid purchasing about 20 of those liter bottles of water every day by having the pump. And of course in places without bottled water, this was a life-saver.

The Katadyn Pocket is different from everything else on the market. The first difference is the price. It costs is two-to-three times the price of it's competition! Also, it is not lightweight. And really it's not all that easy to use.

So what's so great about it? Katadyn has been making this filter for decades. It has been used by the Navy Seals and other special forces for years. The aluminum construction makes it very durable.The filter is fully field-cleanable. That means there is no expensive filter cartridge to replace after a month of use. The ceramic cartridge in the Katadyn Pocket has a life of 13,000 gallons or 50,000 liters. So this filter will last for a lifetime of any adventure.

There are a few things that need to be done regularly to keep the filter in good working condition. The pores of the ceramic filter element absorb the contamination and must be scrubbed clean periodically. Generally I give it a light scrubbing after pumping about ten liters of sink water. If the water source is slightly salty or dirty then the element must be scrubbed more frequently. I can tell it needs a cleaning when the filter becomes difficult to pump. When I first began using the filter I would scrub it too often and too hard, removing more of the ceramic coating than necessary. The first filter wore our faster than the 50,000 liter limit and I learned my lesson. Now I am careful to scrub it lightly and evenly so the wear occurs at the outer edges of the filter at the same rate as the center.  Katadyn provides an organic lubricant that is applied to the pump handle at the bottom and the point where the rod enters the pump. While the lubricant is a tiny little tube it seems to last a long time.

-- Richard Ligato

Katadyn Pocket Water Microfilter
$277

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Katadyn

Sample Excerpts:

Filling the water bag in a hotel bathroom in Thailand

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

There are apps that turn your photos into tilt-shift photos, but they pale in comparison to actually having a tilt-shift lens. If you don't have the budget to buy one, but you do have an old shower head, a rubber glove, and you're willing to disassemble a 50mm/1.8 prime lens, you can build your own for a fraction of the price.

We're not suggesting you go out and buy a 50mm lens just to disassemble it (unless you know what you're doing and you're really into DIY photography projects), but if you have one you're not using and some spare parts from around the house, you can have this DIY tilt-shift lens that Flickr user Maciej Pietuszynski dreamt up in the shower one morning. He's illustrated the process at his Flickr account, and the process looks straightforward. He's also included some shots with his new lens, and the results speak for themselves. It may not be for everyone, especially novice photographers frightened of getting their hands dirty or taking an otherwise expensive lens apart, but if you have the stomach for it, the end result gets the job done nicely.

Would you give this a shot, or is this a waste of a perfectly good lens? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shower head, rubber glove, 50mm...tilted!!! | maciekpp via DIYPhotography.net and MAKE

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Creating iOS apps is fun and rewarding, and if you're a new developer you might be wondering where to begin. This road map provides the perfect starting point for iOS app development. On your Mac computer, you can create iOS apps that run on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Follow this road map to learn where to get the tools you need, understand the major concepts and best practices, and see where to find more information. As you proceed through the road map, you will use Xcode and the iOS SDK, Apple’s tools for app development. You will learn the basics of programming with Objective-C, the language that powers all iOS apps and frameworks, and will explore the Cocoa Touch frameworks. You will create a simple iOS app and learn how to test it on a device. Finally, you will learn how to submit an app to the App Store.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 drop a jpeg over your page for design reviewSource: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 A great getting-out-of-Flickr life-raft. self-hosted, PHP app, storing photos in Dropbox, S3, or local disk; UI screenshots look great (via Nelson)Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 'I digested a number of MapReduce patterns and algorithms to give a systematic view of the different techniques that can be found in the web or scientific articles. Several practical case studies are also provided. All descriptions and code snippets use the standard Hadoop’s MapReduce model with Mappers, Reduces, Combiners, Partitioners, and sorting.'Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "The iOS platform overtook the OS X platform in under four years and more iOS devices were sold in 2011 (156 million) than all the Macs ever sold (122 million)."Source: http://apple.com/iphone/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Etsy's interesting approach to managing a large test suite, annotations marking potentially troublesome integration tests: "flaky", "database", "network", "sleep" and "slow".Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 'Nimrod is a metrics server, inspired by the excellent Coda Hale's Metrics library, but purely based on log processing: hence, it doesn't affect the way you write your applications, nor it has any side effect on them.'Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, or don’t understand something, ask. if you’re not able to complete your task by the deadline, for whatever reason, tell the team now, not later, and adjust as necessary. if you need help, get some. the task isn’t done until you say it’s done.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Details 26 platforms that are either dead or 'zombie' (hello Windows Mobile; nice to see you, WebOS) and looks at the reasons why they died. Generally: cost of ownership; conflicting revenue model; lack of network effects; high adoption barriers. (Note that none of those is the reason why Windows Mobile died.)Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source:

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 @alex_forey I particularly like the Parsnip/Zombie CarrotSource: http://twitter.com/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh “There is nothing new to learn from the job I am doing in Pune. I could have done it with some training even after passing high school,” says a 25-year-old who joined Infosys after finishing his engineering course in Nagpur. A Microsoft analyst says, “Like our manufacturing industry, the Indian software industry is largely a process driven one. That should speak for the fact that we still don’t have a domestic software product like Yahoo or Google to use in our daily lives.” IIT graduates have consciously shunned India’s best known companies like Infosys and TCS, though they offered very attractive salaries. Last year, from IIT Powai, the top three Indian IT companies got just 10 students out of the 574 who passed out. The best computer science students prefer to join companies like Google and Trilogy. Krishna Prasad from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai, who did not bite Infosys’ offer, says, “The entrance test to join TCS is a joke compared to the one in Trilogy. That s

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 The technique I’m going to describe consists in setting up a proxy to the Twitter API that lives in our computer, powered by Node.JS, that filters back responses based on arbitrary rules we setup. Not only does this give us the flexibility of using JavaScript, but it also means it will work with any Twitter client that leverages the API transparently. Yes, this includes the Twitter website!Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh NoSQL and Cloud Computing to the rescue?

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh Mobile devices allow us to read what we want when we can. With the iPhone, it's easier than ever to blast through a couple of articles on the bus, or while waiting for coffee. The iPad, on the other hand, offers a compelling experience of sitting back on the couch and catching up. As Read It Later put it, "Readers want to consume content in a comfortable place, on their own time, and mobile devices are making it possible for readers to take control."

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh 1. Current Mobile Strategy: Apps Best 2. Future Mobile Strategy: Sites Best 3. When Will the Strategy Shift Happen? To conclude: I do believe mobile sites will win over mobile apps in the long term. But when that will happen is less certain. Today, if you are serious about creating the best possible mobile user experience, my advice is to develop apps.

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

Readers offer their best tips for viewing sites with untrusted connections, using FM transmitters in your car, and getting all your apps back after wiping your phone.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favoritehttp://lifehacker.com/5784857/how-to-set-up-a-fully-automated-app-and-settings-backup-on-androids for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, email it to tips at lifehacker.com, or share it on our tips and expert pages.

Use PDFmyURL to View Untrusted Web Pages

KBS shares a quick security tip for conscientious browsers:

Sometimes when you are researching, you may come across a new website that has been blocked by your browser with "This connection is untrusted" warning and to continue at your own risk. If you just want the information in that particular page, you could turn that page into a PDF using PDFmyURL.com, without ever visiting the web site. Obviously, PDFmyURL has more security than normal users to continue at their own risk.

Place Your FM Transmitter Near Your Car's Interior Antennas for Better Sound

Photo by Markus Rödder.

Prince shares a way to make FM transmitters suck a little bit less:

New tip for those who listen to music via FM transmitters in their car. They always suck, right? Well I found out how to make it suck less. Shove as much of the headphone wire as you can into the CD deck. this brings your transmitter as close as possible to your FM receiver and should give you a very strong signal.

KBS expands with even better advice:

Finding out where your antenna is in your car and keeping the FM transmitter as close as possible to it will give you better result. To find where the antenna is, simply move the FM transmitter around the car for better signal if its not fixed into the cigarette charger that is. I have two antennas hidden inside the sides of the front windshield window. But, the fixed FM transmitter transmits good enough signal to the antenna whereas the FM transmitter on my phone is weak unless I place it really close to the left/right window.

This may seem obvious, but I had never really tried it when I was using an FM transmitter. I don't have one anymore, so I haven't tested it myself, but sounds like it could make them a little less frustrating.

See Every App You've Ever Installed with the Market Web Interface

Simon Dietsch finds a less automated, but helpful way to see all your apps after wiping your phone:

While in the Android Market in your desktop web browser, click the gear to access "My Market Account" which lists all of "My Apps" ever downloaded and not just the paid ones you haven't installed as you see when you access your account via your Android device. I find this easier than using Titanium Backup or AppBrain to view my available free and paid apps when I install a new ROM and can see other apps I once installed that may again be relevant.

Heck, this might be useful to browse even when you haven't wiped your phone. You might find an old app you liked but forgot about.

See Zip Code Boundaries in Google Maps

Wkm001 discovers a handy Google Maps feature:

Has anyone noticed what happens when you type a zip code into Google Maps? On the desktop of course. It now shows the physical boundaries for that zip code. Kind of neat.

""

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Expand short url and get safetySource: http://pinboard.in/

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

The next time taco night rolls around, instead of serving the same old pre-made hard shelled tacos, pull out your muffin pan, preheat your oven, and reach for that bag of tortillas in the fridge. You're going to make taco bowls.

The blog Emily Bites explains that making taco bowls is actually really easy—all you need to do is nestle in a few small—around 6-inch—tortillas in the spaces between the cups of your upside-down muffin tin. Preheat the oven to about 375-degrees, sprinkle the tortillas with some salt and a little water, and form them into the bowl-like shape you're familiar with. Toss them in the oven for about 10 minutes, and you'll have taco bowls.

She goes on to share her full taco recipe, and notes that the bowls will definitely be smaller than the kind you might get at a restaurant, so she usually serves two to each person. Still, it's a super-easy way to make taco bowls at home without buying them pre-made, using equipment you likely already have. Planning to give this a shot the next time you want tacos, or do you have a better way? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Mini Taco Bowls | Emily Bites

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

Mac OS X: Although we have a favorite text expansion utility already, xType has the advantage of being free while still maintaining a comparable feature set to the paid competition. It's not yet ready to claim the top spot in the text expansion category, but is a seriously good alternative if you're looking to save some money.

xType works like pretty much any text expansion app. You enter in the shortcut you want to use, the text you want it to expand to, and then type that shortcut to test it out. On top of the basic functionality, xType can also save formatting information, add images, and handle simple variables like the date and time. When it supports clipboard functionality and, perhaps, input dialogues, it'll be serious competition to the big guys. For now, it's a really great free alternative.

xType (Free) | Mac App Store via One Thing Well

Pamela's slide templates. Nice!

"This page contains binary image files that are provided for use in restoring your Nexus device's original factory firmware. These files are for use only on your personal Nexus devices and may not be disassembled, decompiled, reverse engineered, modified or redistributed by you or used in any way except as specifically set forth in the license terms that came with your device."

"The URI for a resource element is obtained using the following rules:

Set identifier equal to the URI computed (using this process) for the parent element (resource or resources)
If identifier doesn't end with a '/' then append a '/' character to identifier
Substitute the values of any URI template parameters into the value of the path attribute
Append the value obtained in the previous step to identifier
For each child param element (see section 2.12), in document order, that has a value of 'matrix' for its style attribute, append a representation of the parameter value to identifier according to the following rules:
Non-boolean matrix parameters are represented as: ';' name '=' value
Boolean matrix parameters are represented as: ';' name when value is true and are omitted from identifier when value is false
where name is the value of the param element's name attribute and value is the runtime value of the parameter."

the uk site for the pentaband GSM version

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

From Matt:

Courtesy of Ajay Makan and Dan McCrum at the FT, Barclays Capital estimates that based on reporting thus far earnings growth for S&P 500 companies was 7 percent in Q4. But if you strip out Apple, that plummets to 2.9 percent.

One company, in other words, is responsible for most of the earnings growth among the large cap firms in the index.

(Pulls out Albert Hirschman for re-read…)

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

After many uses you'll find marks in your dinnerware, making it look old and worn down (you know, because it is). Rejuvenating an old plate, bowl, or whatever else turns out to be pretty simple. Apartment Therapy's discovered that you can easily get the scratches out with Bar Keeper's Friend.

It's apparently not just for cookware—it'll work on your dishes, too, whether in powdered or liquid form. Bar Keeper's Friend is also pretty cheap. You can pick it up on Amazon for under $4. It is worth noting, however, that Bar Keeper's Friend is an abrasive cleaner and you you're essentially eating away at your dinnerware's coating just a bit to make it look nicer. Apartment Therapy suggests testing out Bar Keeper's Friend on the back of a plate first just to make sure your dinnerware can handle its scratch-removing power.

Out Darn Scratch: Cleaning Marks Off Dinnerware | Apartment Therapy via Swissmiss

""

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

Dear Lifehacker,
I'm planning on buying a new television but I'm not sure what kind to get. I understand the difference in features, but I don't know the benefits and downsides of different screen types. When should I buy Plasma instead of LCD? And what's the advantage of OLED? I'm just not sure of the right type of panel for me, or if I should even care.

Please help!
Puzzled by Panels

Dear PBP,

The different kinds of flatscreen panels used in televisions are a detail that most people don't think too much about because, when shopping in an electronics store, it's pretty hard to notice any real difference. Nonetheless, there are a few things worth considering with each type of panel. Let's go over the most popular and the pros and cons of each.

Plasma Panels

Plasma panels are on their way out because they have a couple of serious downsides. Primarily, they generate a lot of heat because they burn phosphors to display images. More heat generation means more power consumption, so they're not as eco-friendly as other panel types. Also, static images on plasma panels can cause a screen-burn effect if left for too long. Earlier plasma TVs used to have shorter lifespans than LCDs, but this has since changed and only something you need to worry about when buying used. Either way, you can expect a minimum of 30,000 hours of use.

On the plus side, because plasma panels are used less and less their prices are down. If you buy plasma, you'll generally be able to get a larger television for less money—you just might make up that cost with your electric bill. Plasma panels are also known for their better contrast ratios, rendering of rich colors and deeper blacks, and little to no ghosting effects when displaying fast-moving images.

LCD Panels

LCD panels are the most commonly-used type of panel in flatscreen televisions today. They offer a lot of benefits, such as low heat generation, no static image burn (like you might encounter with a plasma-based display), and a greater brightness over plasma. LCD panels tend to be lighter in weight (than plasma), and you have a choice between active shutter and passive glasses when purchasing a 3D-capable model.

On the other hand, LCDs have never been great at rendering blacks or avoiding the ghosting problem with fast-moving images. Although the 120Hz and 240Hz refresh rate modes can help with this problem, this can make the motion in films look kind of like they were shot with a consumer video camera. If you're okay with switching between these modes when you're switching between sports and film, this isn't much of a disadvantage. LCDs are also prone to dead pixels, and it's fairly common to purchase a TV with at least one dead pixel. Generally many pixels have to die before a warranty claim can be filed, so if you have one or two dead pixels and it bothers you a lot you should exchange the TV before your exchange period runs out.

In-Plane Switching

LCD panels with In-Plane Switching (IPS) offer an advantage over standard LCDs and plasma panels. You may have noticed that when you walk to the sides of a flatscreen television the picture becomes lighter and, in some cases, begins to invert. This is because of the viewing angle is rather narrow on most TVs. LCD panels that offer IPS, however, generally have a viewing angle of 170 degrees. As a result, you can watch your TV from a greater angle and the picture will look about the same. If you've ever seen a recent Apple monitor, iMac, or iPad, you've seen a LCD panel with IPS.

LED Backlighting

A standard LCD display is backlit by CCFLs, which aren't as efficient or effective as LEDs. Not all LED backlit displays are created equal, meaning the evenness of the backlighting can vary, but that's easy to see by displaying a pure black image on the television. This will allow you to see the evenness of the backlighting. That aside, LED-backlit displays offer quite a few advantages. They make thinner displays possible, consume less power, provide added brightness, and—what's probably most important to LCD buyers—offer better contrast levels. They're better at dissipating heat, too. You will, of course, pay more for LED backlighting, but it's generally worth it.

OLED Displays

OLEDs are organic LEDs are pretty great. They're thin, light, and don't require backlighting. As a result they're capable of very deep blacks and can offer a superior contrast ratio. OLED displays tend to offer images that look closer to reality because of their contrast capabilities. Where an LCD panel may look a little washed out with white when displaying dark images, you won't see that problem with an OLED panel. Overall, the only real disadvantage of OLED is its higher cost and scarcer availability.

But How Do I Choose?

When choosing a type of panel, you really have to choose which kind offers the biggest advantages. If many people are going to be watching in a wide room from various angles, you'll probably want to pick up an LCD with IPS. If you're primarily watching sports, a plasma display or LCD with a faster refresh rate (of 120Hz or 240Hz) will serve you well, but a plain old LCD might not be the best option. Of course, if you can afford an OLED panel and can find a suitable television with one, that's probably your best bet. But in the end, you're going to need to figure out which features matter most for you and choose based on that. Happy viewing!

Love,
Lifehacker

if you are wondering whose job it is, it’s probably yours."

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

One of the biggest problems with Microsoft Word is the ridiculous amount of toolbars, ribbons, and options that take up screen real estate when you're trying to work. It's enough to drive most people away from Word, but if you're stuck with it and want a simplified experience, Apple blog TUAW has a guide to creating a minimal workspace in Word.

Along with a few handy tips for getting rid of the obnoxious toolbars, ribbons, and status bar, TUAW highlights a simple trick to speeding up the launch by ditching the Document Gallery. When you start up Word and get the Document Gallery window, click the "Don't show this when opening word" checkbox and you'll increase your startup time significantly. The directions might seem a little Apple-centric, but can be applied for Windows users as well. Hit up the full post on TUAW for the full collection of tips.

Redice visual clutter in Microsoft Word | TUAW

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

With all of the different music streaming services it's often difficult to find what you're looking for quickly. Music Smash partially solves this problem by giving you a simple way to search Rdio, Spotify, Grooveshark, Soundcloud, Mog, and Bandcamp.

Music Smasher doesn't handle every music streaming service out there, but it does a great job of filtering through the ones it can. When you fire up the search you're linked directly to streaming tracks and the corresponding app will open them. The database is directly from the streaming services and it's quick to search and launch tracks. For anyone who is swapping back and forth between a few different services it's a handy tool to have.

Music Smasher | via Evolver.fm

""I decided to roll my own in this case because I was interested in learning about email handling after watching this great railscast from Ryan Bates. And because paying $9 per month per user for something I could probably write myself in a couple of hours seemed silly."
I find myself having to fight against this instinct almost every day. There are a couple of problems with hacking for a couple of hours to save a few bucks a month.
Firstly, you now have an additional piece of software to maintain - you're committing yourself to an unknown quantity of future work.
Secondly, your software won't get any better without you actively improving it. The nice thing about software you pay someone else for is that it gets better over time.
It's a tough instinct to fight though. Building things is Fun. It's just that there are probably other things you should be building that are more important to your company."

"As a rough guide, you might factor in another 8-10 hours, because, according to Fred Brooks, a proper programming "product" takes about x3 as long as a "program"."

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

If you'd rather not spend hours looking for the absolute best deal on your next flight, Flightfox may be worth your while. The service's "flight hackers" compete to find you the lowest possible fare in return for a $29 finder's fee (refundable if you're not satisfied).

Currently the average savings listed over base flight prices is $373, but if you browse past savings you'll see that international and multi-city flights are especially ripe with possible savings if you let someone else do the searching for you rather than going the traditional Kayak or Expedia route: In a Canberra, Australia to San Francisco, CA contest, the price saved was $2,252 per person (24%), and for a flight from Singapore to Hartford, CT $1,203 saved per person (54%).

You can, however, also save a bit on domestic travel too. One flight between West Palm Beach and Austin was priced at $198 on Flightfox, but when I plugged the flight details into Kayak the lowest price I found was $342. Not huge, but still, clearly these travel searchers have other sources.

Flightfox has a few things going for it. As mentioned, the fee is entirely refundable if you don't get the savings you want. Second, you can add in unusual requirements for your trip, such as you're traveling with three cats or one person traveling with you will be flying back at a different time or you demand a TV screen in front of you for the whole trip. It's an alternative to using a travel agent, and the fee covers each person/ticket on the trip (rather than having to pay a fee per ticket).

Worth a consideration, at least, if you have a big flight coming up and don't want to spend hours shopping for it (or learning how to become a travel hacker or the nitty gritty of cheap airfare and so on yourself).

Flightfox | via Gadling

some godo reads in here.

"We mistake dumb luck for a machine that produces success. We rely on induction when we should rely on deduction, and then, having realized our mistake, we lean on “data-driven decisions” in lieu of common sense. We chase patterns that aren’t there and miss eager markets right in front of us. All this while projecting the confidence, real or manufactured, that’s necessary to play the game."

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
I carry a Valentine One radar detector in my day bag. I drive multiple cars, so I can I transfer it from one car to the other, and I use it for rental cars as well. A radar detector may seem a wholly unnecessary item for a law-abiding citizen, but as police departments see their budgets threatened, they have become more active in pulling people over for small infractions such as failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, or even driving just a few miles in excess of the limit. Modern police radar is designed to be kept in standby mode, activated only when the officer points-and-shoots, but in my experience, many police are lazy and leave their radar guns active all the time.

Since I like to know where they are, the Valentine One is the only detector that shows me the direction of a radar source (whether ahead, behind, or either side). It's very expensive at $499, but can easily pay for itself, depending on your driving habits. The after-sale service is remarkable; when my detector's frequency setting drifted after about 8 years, I sent it in and they fixed it and sent it back without charge. They will also upgrade older models for a small fee.

-- Charles Platt

Manufactured by Valentine One

Available from Amazon

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "A recent case in the Northern District of California, Fraley v. Facebook, recalls singer-songwriter Momus’s prescient parody of Andy Warhol: “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen people.” Although Momus was discussing the revolution in the recording and distribution of music made possible by digital technologies that allowed performers outside the mainstream to become “stars” within certain listening circles, his statement applies at least as forcefully to the recent revolution in digital communications technologies, particularly the emergence of social media. The Fraley decision suggests that Momus’s prediction was dead on—and that the future has arrived. … In the end, the court held that Facebook users are famous to their friends and that even their most banal actions—indicating that they “Like” a product—may be “newsworthy.” Momus’s parodic pronouncement appears to have become the law."Source:

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh 1. Room for Growth of Skills 2. High Caliber Team 3. Positive Org Structure 4. Opportunity to Use New Technologies

from Google Apps update alerts http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/ The following new features are now available in Google Spreadsheets:
- Sparklines: These let you display line or bar charts inside of cells and are useful for presenting and comparing data in a simple, in-cell format.
- More chart options: New charts and options including different Y-axes on either side of the chart, formatting options for the axis and title text, and other customization for how lines, bars, or pies are displayed.
- Keyboard accelerators, mnemonics and shortcuts: Keyboard accelerators let you open menus using special keyboard shortcuts. A mnemonic lets you choose a menu item with the stroke of a single key, and it’s indicated by an underlined letter in a particular menu. After you open a menu using a keyboard accelerator, use a mnemonic to select an item in the menu.
- Sharing forms on Google+: Share forms created in Spreadsheets easily by sharing directly to your circles in Google+.Release track:
Rapid & ScheduledEditions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and EducationLanguages included:
All languages supported by Google SpreadsheetsFor more information:http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2012/02/january-in-review-styles-sparklines.html
Sparkline: http://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2371371
New chart options: http://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=190676
Keyboard accelerators and shortcuts: http://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=181110whatsnew.googleapps.comGet these product update alerts by emailSubscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Eventually, all the theories wind up there, at the one thing that makes Silicon Valley unlike Boston, or Austin, or Seattle, the one thing they can never hope to copy: It's the weather. The weather in the valley is perfect. Not temperate, not tolerable, not good. Perfect. Month after month after month of sunny daysSource: http://instapaper.com/

""

from LukeW | Digital Product Design and Strategy http://www.lukew.com/

The average person looks at their phone 150 times a day. In Africa, it’s 82 times a day. So what are they looking at?

Not most of the apps they downloaded. 68% open only five or fewer apps at least once a week. (source).

In March 2011, 26% of all apps downloaded were opened only once and then never used again. 26% were used 11 times or more. Of the remaining 48% of apps: 13% are opened only twice, 9% are opened only three times, all the way to 2% that are opened 10 times and never again. (source)

Not ads. With 425 million mobile users, Facebook does not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products. (source).

Google's mobile search, which is accounting for an ever-bigger percentage of overall searches, is less profitable than standard PC-based search. (source)

Not phone calls. Voice usage declined the most among teens age 13-17 from an average of 685 minutes to 572 minutes. (source)

Text messages. The number of messages exchanged monthly hit 3,417 per teen in Q3 2011, averaging seven messages per waking hour. (source)

It takes 48 hours for the average person to respond to email, but they immediately respond on SMS. (source).

Games are the top application category used in the past 30 days. The average mobile gamer plays an average of 7.8 hours a month. Those with iPhones tend to play around 14.7 hours each month while those with Android smartphones play around 9.3 hours per month. (source)

Weather is the second most used application category. (source)

Looking up weather is the number one activity on the iPad. (source)

The Weather Channel had 1.1 billion online page views in October but even more people checked the weather on their phones and tablets: racking up 1.3 billion page views. (source)

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Broad-ranging and intriguing:

Gourville talks about the ’9X problem’ — "a mismatch of 9 to 1 between what innovators think consumers want and what consumers actually want."1 The 9X problem goes a long way to explaining the tech industry folk wisdom that to spread like wildfire a new product has to offer a tenfold improvement over what’s currently out there.

Source: http://pinboard.in/

from AddyOsmani.com | Articles for developers http://addyosmani.com/blog Developers creating JavaScript applications these days usually use a combination of patterns like MVC/MV*, modules, widgets and plugins for their architecture.Whilst this works great for apps that are built at a smaller-scale, what happens when your project starts to grow? … Continue reading →

""

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 If you are planning to build a stand-alone system where a small but full-featured keyboard is needed, this simple solution could be useful for you.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 The basic idea of GKOS is that you've got six buttons on the back of a device (either a dedicated input device, or on the back of a handheld computing device, phone, etc), one for the index through ring fingers of each hand (or two for each finger if you have a device made for one-handed use). You press the keys in various chords to type, switch between modes, and operate a pointer (when in pointer mode).Source: http://pinboard.in/