“If you use a DSLR, you’ll need a macro lens. If you use a point and shoot digital, it’ll need to have a macro setting. Some folks at flickr’s TtV group use a 50mm lens with close-up filters. The object is to make as big an image of the top of the viewfinder with your digital camera as possible.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

“This site was created to unite programmers and designers because rarely is a person good at both programming and designing. PMD helps programmers and designers partner up to make websites and web applications that look and work great. It also lets entrepreneurs and writers find people to work with.”

“Jason Kottke started kottke.org on March 1998. Before kottke.org, he did a variety of personal projects online, including the well-regarded episodic web site 0sil8. He has a BA in Physics from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In February 2005, Jason famously left his job as a Web designer to start blogging full-time, supported by donations from his readers. One year later, he retired the ‘micropatron’ experiment and joined an ad network to support his site. He now blogs and designs websites. He is 32, and lives in New York City with his wife, Meg Hourihan.” Also, Kottke on How I Blog.

“The Poynter Institute is about to launch the research phase of its run-up to launching version 4.0 of its perennially popular game, The Poynter Institute’s Complete Waste of Time. Many of you may know it by its more common name, the EyeTrack study. It’s a game where knowledge is fun! — knowledge of utterly useless, anecdotal and irresponsibly non-applicable trivia about the viewing habits of website visitors. Let’s play along.”

“This tutorial will show you a way to easily create a pixelated mosaic-type effect for use on edges or borders or whatever you want. I first noticed this effect with the (animated) launch of the new Iconfactory website. I was later browsing through my normal list of bookmarked sites and noticed that SimpleBits has been doing the same thing for a while now. It’s a pretty neat effect that can be recreated with a few filters and adjustment layers.”

“clickdensity records the position of every click on a page, building up a virtual heat map of visitor activity. But that’s just the start. It also provides user behaviour analysis, segmentation and tracking. Together with a host of other functionality, clickdensity will transform your approach to usability and information architecture.”

Paint like Jackson Pollock without making a mess: “Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas, 2003, original flash animation by Michal Migurski.”

“Repeatedly, I meet designers, who maintain full-time jobs, while running their own freelance studios outside of their day-to-day duties. Not only do these entrepreneurs have a steady 9-5 job, but they also insist on doing more work in addition to the work they do at the office. Which office is which?”

“Some colleagues at Adaptive Path have launched a survey on the business value of user experience, and how organizations treat user experience. It’s brief (about 5 minutes), and if you fill it out, you can get a free copy of our report ‘Leveraging Business Value.’”

When my oldest son was born in 2001 LEGO offered a cool online ‘Brick-o-lizer’ that would take an uploaded photo and turn it into a five-tone grayscale grid of 1×1 bricks from which you could create a wall-hanging mosaic. LEGO would send you the exact right amount of bricks in bulk. Putting it together was as easy as paint-by-numbers. I did this for him and for his little brother in 2003. My daughter was born a few weeks ago and so naturally I went back to the Brick-o-lizer to create her mosaic. Imagine my horror to find out that it isn’t available anymore. How could I deprive my baby girl of her LEGO mosaic? Well. Obviously. I couldn’t. So, here follows instructions for doing it manually…”