8 web sites you need to stop building

The Oatmeal just gets it.

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Sublime

An absolutely sublime post from the Tao of Mac on everything from crazy iPad hype to an in-depth stream of consciousness on the escalating war against Flash and what HTML5 means. Beautiful site redesign too, although I suspect Rui actually did it quite a while ago and I’m just getting around to noticing now.
Just my [...]

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Social networking explosion

Social networking is on a meteoric rise, according to the December issue of Time. Makes me wish I’d actually enough time to pay attention to it.

13.9 billion — minutes facebook users spent on the site in April, a 700% increase from April 2008.
95% — of business decision-makers worldwide use social networks to some extent.
35% — [...]

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Ad fan

Are you a fan of advertising? Maybe you’re curious if everyone else is as horrified by commercialism as you are? Or it’s just that you like watching Heidi Klum play Guitar Hero in her underwear over and over again?
Check out AdvertFan and you’ll likely find what you’re looking for. If you want to critique or [...]

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So long to jetlag?

Researchers have been studying sleep patterns for decades. In fact, much of what we know today has been studied since the 1920’s and even earlier, but until quite recently there hasn’t been a solid understanding of why we behave the way we do.
According to Dr. Clifford Saper, MD, MS, PhD, who is Chairman of the [...]

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Mac video

I’ve been too busy to breathe lately (let alone post), but I’m trying to get back into it. Anyhow, I saw this really creative screencast and just had to post it. Take a look, especially if you’re a Mac user.

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Opportunistic much…?

Maybe someone can explain why AscenderFonts is selling this Microsoft ClearType Font Collection for $299. Because, you see, anyone that buys a copy of Microsoft Office Home Edition 2008 is going to get them as part of the bundle… for $149. (Granted, Ascender’s package provides a five user license and Office Home only gives you [...]

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AppleTV… one year later

About a year ago, Brent Schlender wrote off the AppleTV in Fortune magazine. So where do we stand today? Bottom line, just about any analysis about AppleTV or any other “set top box” is premature. This is a market that is just beginning to open up—about the only thing I think we can count on [...]

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Coffee index

I’ve long believed that a cup of coffee provides a good cost of living index. It’s a ubiquitous product, almost a staple, highly available, and a commodity. (The McDonald’s theory is flawed, because they maintain their U.S.-derived pricing in many third world countries—for example, in La Paz Bolivia a burger is unreasonably expensive).
Anyhow, the interesting [...]

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Well run beta

This is the way it should be.
When OmniGroup released their new (and absolutely delicious) OmniFocus product, they went into an early closed beta program to involve end users. At first it was opened up to a few hundred, then a few thousand, and over time the beta program grew until it became a public beta. [...]

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More dock hackzors

It’s amazing how much time can be wasted twiddling with every little setting our computers offer us. Maybe that’s why the Mac strikes me as so much more productive than Windows—it’s pretty well locked down so there’s not much opportunity to fiddle around. Nevertheless, people always find a way (as evidenced by CandyBar, a great [...]

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Easy legal reference material

Looking for some example employment contracts relevant in California? Or perhaps you need a billing services agreement, or professional services contract? Check out RealDealDocs.com. They’ve got millions of legal documents available—and you can search and preview for free and subscribing is a pittance (it’ll cost you less than spending 15 minutes on the phone with [...]

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    This is me. Martial artist, zen student, programmer, writer and author, technologist, father of two, photographer and a resident of Los Angeles (well, the outskirts of it).

    I also publish Rational Scrum and am President & CEO of Hyrax International LLC, delivering comprehensive process improvements to its clientele. Specialities include audit and assessment of program areas such as project management, quality assurance, risk management and customer satisfaction as well as delivering focused initiatives to improve customer efficiency.

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