The next best thing?
What’s your process? Michael Bierut on how to tell a customer what they want to hear, and then do what needs to be done.
Video over IP. The talk of the day is deciding whether Amazon unBoxed is really Amazon unWorking, or just a feature that won’t survive once Apple makes their announcement next Tue. Meanwhile, the girl and I just spent 8 hours watching TV episodes downloaded from iTunes onto the Mac. At $1.99 an episode it’s cheaper than cable, but too expensive to replace our NetFlix diet. There’s DRM, but I don’t care to watch it more than once, let alone copy it to other devices. That’s a half endorsement for the iTMS experience, although I’m not buying their music until I can move it between devices, or videos if they don’t cut NetFlix in pricing.
Think different. Michael Jakl: “A Web-GUI is different from a Desktop-GUI and vice-versa. Don’t just copy designs from one world to the other – it’s a lot of work and only a few people appreciate it in the end.”
Patterns of failure. Software patterns. Some people hold them with the highest regard and praise their very existence. I happen to think software patterns are a way to get around the limitation of the language and framework. They’re admissions of failures and a way to bypass them: less is better. Mark Dominus draws on some patterns from the past. How many still look relevant today?
links for 2006-09-13 — Chip’s Quips