At Startup School, Paul Graham told us of Y Combinator’s new policy for funding teams:
Photo by ybboey
If you don’t have a good idea, no problem, he’ll give you one - as long as you’re awesome. Oh to be Paul Graham. To have teams of shit hot coders fighting to be accepted by you [...]
I took it for granted. Like most people probably, Al Gore had me sold. Until this:
Before watching that the phrase “global warming propaganda” would have smacked of blinkered Republican rhetoric. As is pointed out in the film, there is a great global warming juggernaut brimming with funding for scientists that is [...]
I like it. Joel tackles a pet peeve of mine, the myriad of ways to end your Windows session, as an instance of the general principle of less options == better UI.
I just realized what’s missing from the Google Reader interface….Search! Why can’t I search inside all my subscriptions just like I can do with emails in Gmail? Come on, I’ve seen all the BigTable magic you Googlers have access to. I know you can do this.
Right-click menus are problematic for novice (and also experienced) computer users for several reasons:
Discoverability
Novice users are surprised when you tell them you can right click things to get extra options.
Added complexity
After discovering that their interface to the computer has another variable, they can become confused as to which button they should use in which situation.
Too [...]
To my one blog subscriber,
If you’re wondering why I’m posting twice in the same month (how shocking!), it’s because things are changing around here. You are reading this via the RSS feed so you won’t be aware that I have redesigned the blog’s homepage. My intent was to make this medium more conducive [...]
Have a look at cambrianhouse.com
An outlet for spare ideas and coding time? I’ll be very interested to see what projects come out of it, and what the project collaborators have to say about the service afterwards.
Coming next Monday: a web app the likes of which has never been seen before; an all singing, all dancing, all screen-scraping, spectacular that will change our lives forever. Oh, and we haven’t started development yet.
We’re just one of several money-making projects that will progress from idea to deployment in the course of this [...]
Ok, back to practicality (I hope). Here’s what I was going on about during the lunchtime session at Web 2.0 Ireland. Adam Green brought up the problem of API lock-in. And there’s another, related problem which I know Flock is feeling at the moment. They want to allow you to save your [...]
Microsoft’s Live Clipboard is great stuff. Plus it’s not dependant on Microsoft Live at all. Microsoft are just proposing the standard and providing a nice little desktop integration app for their Windows users.
Have a look at the screencasts. There will definately be UI issues to be worked out. This functionality should [...]
I’ve heard it again and again over the last year: People with “RSS overload” complaining that their aggregator is swamping them with information. The same generality of RSS that has made it so ubiquitous has also exposed problems in any application trying to serve as a consumer for all RSS feeds. RSS/Atom can [...]
Here’s this week’s inspiring read from the man himself, just in time for anybody who’ll be filling in their CAO this weekend. Read it yourself, but in short: Realise that work and fun are not exclusive. Aim to do what you love and you’ll be great at it, easily. If you [...]
Today I released the first version of OPod (Cue cease and desist letters from Apple). James has the scoop.
I think I’m going to make this the first of a series of posts releasing widgets I’ve developed as parts of other projects.
Things I didn’t know before starting this:
Firefox allows frames embedded to a maximum depth of [...]
Deep in the foothills of Wicklow a new web app is quickly taking shape. But when I lose concentration I’m pretty lucky to be able to step out the front door and go walk in the woods. On the hill opposite the house there is a huge, sprawling tree. And hanging from [...]
While we wait for del.icio.us to add link emailing, here’s a little hack to make life easier in the mean time.
In javascript, just as in a HTML link, you can target a mailto: url. So you can make a bookmarklet that extracts info from the page you are browsing and pops up a new [...]
During my info-mania driven tours across the web I often come across links that would be of interest to my friends and I need a quick and simple UI to fire them off to the right destinations. A while ago, I made a start on a web app (avec bookmarklet) to distribute my links to [...]