“How we beat Eastman Kodak and its little yellow boxes at point of purchase despite a clunky product and an irrelevant corporate name.” (Thanks Coudal Partners!)

Visio-like diagrams showing a variety of information, such as how the countries of the world are connected to each other, Wall Street scandals and the Book of Genesis. (Thanks kottke.org!)

“Welcome, fellow photographers from around the world. We have collected quotations that we hope will help promote the art of photography. If the reader is aware of others that deserve to be recognized here, we would appreciate your sending them to us.”

“The biggest thing I pulled out of the workshop is that you don’t have to follow all ‘the rules’ to make something great. When you think about companies delivering services over the Web, you think about…org charts, support staff, call centers, requirements documents, functional specifications, etc. 37 Signals will blow this perception apart pretty quickly. There are just three guys: Jason, Matt, and Ryan. That’s it. They don’t even have a full-time programmer. David works for them part-time. From Denmark.”

“Senator Orrin Hatch and his colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee have introduced the Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act (’The Induce Act’) this week. They want us to think the Act is no big deal, and that it targets only the bad guys while leaving the good guys alone. They say that it doesn’t change the law; it just clarifies it. But they’re wrong. And this legal complaint is the proof.”

“Kevin Carroll, whose job is to nurture creativity at Nike, told HOW magazine that he likes to watch recess all over the world and always finds that it inspires him. He elaborates in the same interview: ‘Wouldn’t in be marvelous if we could actually capture that and take it with us into our adult lives ó into high school and college and beyond? We’d be better for it. I don’t think we’d have as difficult a time recognizing what brings us joy, what tickles our brain. If we have no outlet, our play muscles atrophy. So we wind up being adults who just exist, who aren’t living.’”

“Yesterday, as C|Net News reported, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) officially introduced the INDUCE Act to the public (Senate bill bans P2P networks)… In introducing the bill, Hatch provided extensive justifications and arguments on behalf of the bill. Eight pages worth: Before the United States Senate on Introduction of the ‘Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004′ S. 2560. Since it looks like this bill will move quickly in Congress, opponents will have to get up to speed quickly. Thankfully, Hatch provided an excellent guide to the talking points proponents will use. Consequently, I’ve decided to go through Hatch’s introduction and extensively annotate it. However, this is just a response piece and many arguments against the bill won’t be here. The annotation is long, but I think there are definitely some valuable nuggets of information, such as, towards the end, Hatch makes clear he wants criminal enforcement of the Act. My comments are in brackets, bold and italics.”

“This list is drawn from the second edition of ‘The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made’ (St. Martin’s Griffin, $24.95), edited by Peter M. Nichols and published in 2004. For additional information about the list, read Peter M. Nichols’s preface, or A. O. Scott’s introduction.”

“User Experience (UX) is an emerging field concerned with improving the design of anything people experience: a web site, a toy, or a museum. UX is inherently interdisciplinary, synthesizing methods, techniques, and wisdom from many fields, ranging from brand design to ethnography to library science to architecture and more. UXnet is dedicated to exploring opportunities for cooperation and collaboration among UX-related organizations and individuals.”

“Designers are now working on the same site for months or even years. Over time, new needs will be identified and new features will need to be added; a site needs to be flexible to change so these post-launch updates can be made quickly and easily. On the one hand, there is the need to create a design that will function effectively for the present, without regard for how and when the site may change in the future. On the other hand, there is the need to allow for change and expansion by creating an architecture that will support transformation without requiring a complete overhaul. So where can we find this balance?”

“If you are photographing on federal lands, you will want to be familiar with Section 302(b) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. It sets out in no uncertain terms the “rare and unusual circumstance’ that a permit would be required to photograph on federal lands.”

“Here’s a great printable one-pager that describes what you’re legally allowed to take pictures of, and what to do if someone tries to bust you for it.”

“‘Ballpoint’ is an exhibition at London’s Pentagram Gallery organized by my partner Angus Hyland and featuring the work of ‘artists, illustrators and designers invited to make an artwork using only ballpont pen.’ The participants include Ron Arad, Nicholas Blechman and Christoph Niemann, Paul Davis, Marion Deuchars, Jeff Fisher, Alan Fletcher, Benoit Jacques, Uwe Loesch, and Ian Wright. The exhibition, which runs through June 25, prompted an interesting note from Dan Hedley. Hedley, who describes himself as having recently completed a Ph.D on ‘the strategic use of branding in Renaissance literature,’ pointed out a passage from a 1973 interview with theorist Roland Barthes. ‘It would appear from the interview,’ says Hadley, ‘that not only is M. Barthes no friend of the ballpoint, but he is rather critical of those who are.’”

“If standards conscious designers already follow conventions, then the stage is set. So I decided to look at forty designers’ sites to see what conventions were being used in common page elements like headers and banners, navigation, content and footers. Here’s what I found.” And here’s What’s in a name (pt2).

“An elastic layout is the perfect compromise between allowing a designer to effectively do their job while still giving the user some control over how the content is presented to them on the web. We can all have our cake and eat it too. That is, until you realize that Microsoft is ruining the party.”