“An excellent website takes a particularly savvy blend of both great design and great code. Because of this, you often find designers having to figure out code and developers trying their hand at design…”
This is a really good article on some of the simplest things that people overlook when designing. I’m a designer who knows a little about coding – not too much, just a little – and a lot of this stuff really rings true.
A US Spy Satellite is meant to hit earth around the end of February or early March… problem is, no one knows where it’s going to land. It’s internal computer is buggered, so they won’t be able to control where it lands.
The satelite is as big as a school bus, but some of it will burn up as it enters the atmosphere – but not all of it. Apparently this is all top secret information by the way….
I stumbled across some cool video on the net. It’s a speech given by Simon Waterfall, in a talk – I’m guessing by the huge Times banner in the background – organised by The Times (SA). He is co-founder of Poke and Site Guru. I listened to his speech for this morning – he’s very insightful and listening to him is quite entertaining. Many people still find the web to be something ‘mystical’ or even ‘hard to understand’. Many managers still don’t know what they’re missing from the web, money-wise. The problem is that they might not have enough resources or skilled people to get them ‘in there’ so they can exploit the tool as much as they need to. Once they feel it’s too hard or failing in one aspect or another – they’ll just say “there’s no money to be made on the web, really, so why the hell am I focusing on this at all?” There is money to be made, which is why you get young billionaires who’ve made their cash in less than five years, just through pure genius or knowing what they want from the web – they spot the trends and ride the wave. Here are some of the topics that he covered in his speech.
WHO IS SIMON WATERFALL?
THE EPIC BATTLE – WEB vs ADVERTISING
ONCE UPON A TIME – MEDIA AND BROADCASTING WAS EXCITING
FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES
THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE TODAY: SCALE
GET NOTICED
BE SMALL AND BE SMART
FRIENDSHIP
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
PLURAL OF ANECDOTE IS NOT DATA
BEHAVE OR BE BRAVE
MOBILE OR STAGNANT
MOBILE OR STAGNANT (2)
QUIET RUMBLES
ADLAND THE KING OF SMALL BITES
POWER IS NEVER GIVEN
ADD ANYTHING
BOTTOM FEEDING
YOU CAN’T WHITEWASH THE WORLD
HACK
WEB 2.0 SERVICE IS KING
STRAW DONKEY
Yesterday, Bush made his final State of the Union Address. His main focus was the fragile state of the economy. One of his remedies to lighten the situation is to get rid of “wasteful” programs on the table, which would save them about 18 billion. Iraq, however is not taken off the table and Bush feels that much has been done in fighting Al Queda.
CNN reported that many economists feel that the US is already in recession and it is quickly going to deepen. Other than that, nothing new was put on the table, he pretty much repackaged much of what had been initiated the previous year.
BOOST ‘UNCERTAIN’ ECONOMY
DEMOCRATS: TIME RUNNING OUT ‘TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS
INSTEAD of load shedding, Eskom could be buying power from its sole private sector competitor, Independent Power Southern Africa (IPSA). Since September, IPSA has been operating a power station able to generate up to 18 MegaWatts (MW) of electricity, enough to supply the suburbs Eskom currently switches off for two hours at a time. But the state-owned utility has refused to buy IPSA’s power so far. [This] would be good for the environment. The company’s plant in Newcastle, KwaZulu- Natal, converts waste heat from two large chemical plants into electricity. – DAILY DISPATCH ONLINE
The DA has called for an end to the ESKOM monopoly, and it’s said to be one of the reasons why we’ve been experiencing recent cuts.
Anyway, for some lighter news, check out this article from IOL titled – No jokes about Eskom, please, it’s hillarious. Just what one needs. They can’t expect to take away our right to laugh now can they?
This is a pic of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook at the Crunchies. The site won the best start-up founder and the best overall prizes. As you can see, the fashion here is can’t even be compared to the Oscars. These cats don’t care about ‘a la fashion’ – it’s all about the biggest brain baby!
HERE ARE THE REST OF THE WINNERS
BEST TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION / ACHIEVEMENT: Earthmine - “earthmine is indexing reality”
BEST CLEAN TECH START UP: Tesla Motors Best video startup: Hulu – “Enjoy world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. Hoping to provide the web’s most comprehensive selection of premium programming across all genres and formats – television shows, feature films, clips, and more.”
BEST USER-GENERATED CONTENT SITE: Digg-”A place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by [their] users.”
BEST MOBILE STARTUP: Twitter – “Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.”
BEST INTERNATIONAL STARTUP: Netvibes – (re)mix the web - “Personal news aggregator with RSS and Atom support. Comes with a set of predefined news feeds.”
BEST CONSUMER STARTUP: Meebo – “Instant messaging across all major IM networks built right into Firefox.”
BEST ENTERPRISE STARTUP: Zoho – “Offers a suite of online web applications geared towards increasing your productivity and offering easy collaboration.”
BEST DESIGN: SmugMug – “Ad-free online photo albums for easy photo sharing. Features bulk uploading, almost unlimited customization, professional prints, and unlimited storage.”
BEST NEW GADGET/DEVICE: Apple iPhone – “Revolutionary new mobile phone that allows you to make a call by simply pointing your finger at a name or number in your address book.”
BEST BUSINESS MODEL: Zazzle – “Custom made ‘just-about-anything’.”
BEST BOOTSTRAPPED STARTUP: Techmeme- “At this moment, the next big story in technology may reside on a blog you’ve never heard of or a news site you don’t have time to scan. So [they] built a software agent to surface these links in real time.”
BEST STARTUP CEO: Toni Schneider (Automattic)- “Strong believers in Open Source and the vast majority of our work is available under licenses like the GPL.”
BEST NEW STARTUP: iMedix – “Easily research, talk and share your medical conditions, symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and drugs. Find health information and immediately talk to real professionals…”
MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED: Automattic(WordPress)
BEST USE OF VIRAL MARKETING: StumbleUpon – “Discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.”
BEST TIME SINK SITE: Kongregate – “Play free games and upload your own.”
MOST LIKELY TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE: DonorsChose – “Program allowing teachers to propose any project that would excite and benefit students.”
These make a big deal and both candidates – Hillary and Obama have ‘em, but what’s the difference?
Mark Halperin explains
MORE
Kennedy’s split on presidential race – CNN
Caroline Kennedy’s take – MLIVE.com
“Cloverfield is the first adrenaline-pumping monster hit of the year, bringing in more than $40 million dollars on its opening weekend. The thriller is told from the point of view of five young New Yorkers using their handheld camera. But for some viewers, being ‘part’ of the movie is making them sick — literally.” – CNN
Synopsis – “Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives.” -MOVIE WEB
Classic! This baby can make you wanna hurl, and it’s super popular. It’s recommended you take anti-vertigo meds b4 seeing the movie. Now boys, this is a first! WELL DONE!
For those of you who don’t know, he’s our prophet seer and revelator, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, better known as the mormons. This is one of the world’s most loved people. Two years ago, he gave a speech in general conference that sounded like his last speech ever, only for him to attend 3 more general conferences, held semi-annually. Lots of people were grave then when they heard his words, and we are graver now. I guess the beauty of it though is that he is finally with our Heavenly Father and his wife which he so fondly missed.
He has done much to put the church in the public eye and de-mystify it to the general populace. He has not only helped those within the church, but those without it as well. This post won’t do him much justice so to read more about his life, follow the links below.
I chose the cover of this book b-coz it sums it all up quite nicely. I heard about this shocker from my room mate about a week ago (I know it’s late, still – I want to comment) - she’d been listening to the news on radio and had been stumped by the “revelation”. This is scary stuff – this has serious implications. This makes it easier for government official’s shady deals to be covered up as there won’t be an independant wing to investigate corruption.
“Who wants to hear the party’s intelligent argument for this?”
“ME!!!!!!”
“Ok, here goes!- Essentially Pikoli ‘took the NPA’s independence from the government too far’.” – LEGAL BRIEF
“WOW!”
Some people say that this is a lot like Zimabwe in the late 90’s, in conjuction with power cuts and a future president who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.
Even Holomisa is unhappy saying it’s sending out the wrong message - LEGAL BRIEF
I say there is no wrong message – the message is loud and clear…
“We’ll take away your freedoms one by one… democracy is a thing of the past so live it with it!”
MORE – ANC explains why the Scorpions must be disbanded - can I laugh?
