“…taking a ‘I don’t need to file copyright applications’ attitude can often come back to haunt you. The reason for this, under the US Copyright Act, is that registration of the copyright within ninety (90) days of publication (or before infringement takes place) is necessary to enable the copyright owner to receive what are referred to as ’statutory damages.’”

“You either love Javascript or you hate it. Either way it can provide great functionality that users love. And it doesn’t have to affect usability. Here are my top 15 Javascript snippits for making great sites that bit extra special.”

“The fact is that our reputation is a key part of our personal brand. Our ticket to fame or blame, our reputation is how we’re perceived. And just as a reputation can make or break a company, it can make or break a career. The HBR article refers to a ‘reputation-reality gap,’ or what we might call a perception problem. It’s where our reputation doesn’t match reality. On the corporate side, think Enron and WorldCom, both of whom once had excellent reputations but then got into trouble when they fraudulently tried to maintain those reputations.”

“Your contracts should have passages that state your client’s responsibilities to work at your level – not the other way around. You’re the professional they hired to do what they cannot do or conceive of themselves. They are required to work at your high level rather than their own (most likely) make–do, apathetic level. Make sure that they understand that the results of the project will directly reflect their own participation and level of commitment.”

“You can now set content types for your Flickr uploads. It looks like Flickr is finally recognizing illustrations as acceptable content.”

“A little while ago, someone sent me an email and asked me whether I could tell him what made a photo great. I wrote back that I had been thinking about it (so far, so good) and that I was in the process of writing an entry about it (well…). In principle, it’s probably the easiest question to ask. We know a great photo when we see one. But then describing what it is that makes it great is an entirely different matter. And, of course, different people pick different photos. So I thought it would be quite silly if I wrote an entry about this all on my own and pretended I was some kind of authority. Instead, I emailed as many friends, fellow bloggers, and photographers as possible — looking through my ‘contacts’ — and asked them instead, the idea being that, in the end, it is probably the sum of what every single person has to say that will answer the question ‘What makes a photo great?’ — or maybe not (which would make it all the more interesting).”

A new design weblog: “Covers all design both normal and strange. Plus environmental issues.” (Thanks Design Observer!)

Awesome! “News, information, reviews and history on the subjects of beautiful magazines, self-published ‘zines, handmade books, small press, comix, art books and miscellaneous printed ephemera.”

“Today’s careers are made and broken by one’s ability to network. Please don’t post comments about how unfair this is — I know that people who are bad at networking think it’s not fair that the world rewards networking so much. But that’s the way the world is. You’re not going to change it by whining. Instead, be giddy: Networking is actually a lot easier than you think. Here are five reasons why…”

“We understand what 404 means: Page Not Found. But the average internet user has no idea what 404 means or what to do about it. To them, it’s yet another unintelligible error message from the computer. Most 404 pages are unvarnished geek-speak. Consider the default 404 page under IIS…”

“Have you ever tried an application that looked great at first, but once you started using it, it just didn’t feel right? The UI was slick and the feature list looked perfect, but the workflow just wasn’t there? I see this all the time, and quite often it’s due to developers not using their own applications. They built something they thought would sell instead of something they needed, so they don’t see their software the way an end user would. They don’t notice the hundreds of little things that would make their applications easier to use, nor do they notice all the minor bugs that customers consider too small to report.”

“It’s one thing to try to stop the rampant font piracy. It’s another thing entirely to not let me embed your typeface in the most popular digital format in existence.”

“I have been to every IA Summit (the first was in 2000), and I’m going to this one with more trepidation than any I have been to before. While I don’t accord with the sensationalist notion that “information architecture is dead,” I do fear that it is in a deep sleep. And I’m concerned that the leadership within the field of information architecture are doing little to nothing to really advance the field. For me, an acute sign of this, and the particular cause of my trepidation for this summit, was the cancellation of “Learning Interaction Design from Las Vegas” pre-conference session. This was to be given by three leaders in the field of user experience — Steve Portigal, Bill deRouchey, and my colleague at Adaptive Path, Dan Saffer. It was a brilliant concept — using the location of Las Vegas as material for a day-long workshop on user research and interaction design. Sadly, it fell victim to market forces.”

“When information needs to be communicated, Edward Tufte demands both truth and beauty… But what inspires Tufte is more than aesthetics. Galileo’s observations, recorded in nearly 12,000 pages, marked an intellectual revolution. No longer was knowledge the dictate of church authorities, kings or the acolytes of Aristotle. Theories could be tested—doctrine could be upended—by what the eye can see. As Tufte sees it, what makes evidence beautiful isn’t artistry. ‘It’s all about discovering and telling the truth,’ he says.”

“I’ve compiled a small list (or rant) of some very basic and fundamental rules that all webmasters must learn and respect when developing a website that needs to make actual money. This list can also be used by companies looking to hire a web development firm or to evaluate an already deployed website project.”