• Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab - “The Fatboy Nano will play video and come in matt black [sic], silver, cranberry, light blue and light green.”
• Buddy List Zero: action-based instant messaging - “Want to really Get Things Done? Then turn off IM. These are tips on the skills, tools and attitude needed to empty your buddy list — and then keep it that way.” Roll, Sippey, roll.
• stolen iphone | Ask MetaFilter - “So, yes, the phone is as dead as a brick and considering that when you buy a new iPhone you can’t even get past the picture of the globe all the stuff inside the phone is pretty much locked up also.”
• PocketTweets - My pick of the week on yesterday’s MacBreak Weekly is this beautiful app for doing Twitter on your iPhone. Breaks out of the WAP-ish, Gopher-ish menu approach by crafting a lickable AJAX app that’s all about the iPhone experience.
• Coffee and Tea Mugs Ensure Proper Ratio - “…have a coloring guide on the inside rim to ensure the proper ratio of coffee/tea to milk.” Sometimes it not just a cup. Super cool.
• KQED | Perspectives: Get Off Your iPod - Area Man protests lack of face-to-face human communication by making, wearing t-shirt.

The Great Uncluttering

Matt Haughey recently posted a Flickr set documenting a dramatic, decluttering re-do of a spare bedroom that transformed it from the typical suburban catch-all/playroom into a tidy space for hanging out and watching Monsters with the familia.

before	after

As I am wont to do, I was thinking out loud on Twitter this morning.

I'm convinced that, for better or worse, a lot of computer-related habits come straight out of using the default settings. For example a stock Mail.app install checks your email every 5 minutes (I reset mine to 'Manual') and, without interdiction, Apple's mail program will also create all your new messages as "Rich Text" (Nuh uh. Mine? 'Plain Text').

You may share my Address Book pollution problem — having too many orphaned names that got scribbled on a PDA or were manually added but never fleshed out (like: 10 years ago!).

Here’s a really stupidly useful Smart Group for Address Book that helps identify entries without any real information attached to them.

• The software awards scam « Successful Software - Five stars! Reminds me of the ubiquitous mid-'90s "Cool Site of the Day!" awards -- the web equivalent of "World's Greatest Grandpa."
• scottberkun: How to write a book - the short honest truth - "Writing, as opposed to publishing, requires almost no financial or physical resources. A pen, a paper and effort are all that has been required for hundreds of years."
• CatCubed: Gmail, IMAP, and iPhones - Part 2 - The Tutorial - "As I posted previously, I’ve been experimenting with finding a my perfect iPhone email set up." Neato-sounding (if kind of complicated) setup for iPhone-friendlier email.
• Photo-Auto Maps (1907) - "Rand McNally published what were called Photo-Auto Maps, showing photos of streets and landmarks, with arrows pointing you to the correct path leading toward your destination." Awesome. Like a photo version of a AAA TripTik.
• Gruber’s Trick - I do this all the time too. Truth is, I’m way more likely to find a site via referrers than any other way. I don’t link to ‘em all, and it’s not out of pure ego — more like way limited time, above average signal-to-noise ratio, and the occasional unavoidably awesome serendipity. BTW, this not necessarily a suggestion for people who want a link from here: if it's crap, it sinks. More just an “annoying trick” that I’m totally fine sharing openly with you. [via: DF]
• SunRocket Saga: Still No Happy Ending for Many - I ordered my ViaTalk service and VoIP dingus on July 20th. Half a dozen unanswered emails and 3 weeks later: nada. Not classy, ViaTalk. Not classy at all. Makes me want to open up a big-ass Can of Cory.