Daily Links

Favored links for June 16th

Merlin Mann — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:45:03 -0400

Make It Stop! Crushed by Too Many E-Mails : NPR - I think somebody on Massachusetts Ave. must have called “Oy Vey, Email!” Week at NPR. Here’s another one on email overwhelm, including tips and technology on “email organization.” How ‘bout that. At the risk of repeating myself, organizing your email is like alphabetizing your recycling! Call me, Yuki. Let’s talk.
Spark | CBC Radio | Episode 41 - June 11 & 14 - In my latest Spark segment, I shared some ideas on how to deal with annoying forwarded email from friends and family, or what I call “turkey bacn.”
lonelysandwich - Why Me? - Adam thinks “MobileMe” signals Apple’s big move behind what used to be considered enemy lines. “Apple is removing the Mac from the Apple computer experience and laying the foundation for a browser-based OS…”
Jonathan Coulton » The JoCo Primer - Jonathan has a really smart series of pages for introducing new fans to himself and his music, as well as suggesting where to go next. Memo to self, internet: steal this idea.
Ars at WWDC: Exclusive preview of mobile NetNewsWire - Not only is my beloved NetNewsWire coming to iPhone, but let me also take this opportunity to congratulate Brent on his outstanding taste in demo web content.
The $100 Distraction Device - “Why giving poor kids laptops doesn’t improve their scholastic performance.” I dunno. I respect that there’s lots of sides to the OLPC debate, but this particular one’s got a bit of damp straw and double standards to it.
OmniFocus for the iPhone snags an Apple Design Award! - Congratulations to my OmniGroup peeps on their award. After getting lots of little sneak peeks from friends at WWDC [cough], I am so excited for the apps that are coming to the iPhone. This is going to be huge, people.
Start! - I’m honored to be speaking at Jeff and Bryan’s amazing-looking one-day conference for indie web folks, here in San Francisco. And, talk about a bargain. Register today.
Word Spy - tweetup - “A real world meeting between two or more people who know each other through the online Twitter service.” Kinda scared to try this; I’m pretty sure a lot of my Twitter friends are bots created by the influential Butt Joke industry.

”Favored links for June 16th” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 16, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

43f Links for 2008-06-01

Merlin Mann — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:03:56 -0400

Best. Paper. Ever. - Miss Conduct’s Blog - Advice column with manners and etiquette information - Boston.com - “Thus, when we conclude someone is ‘simply a bastard,’ we feel both relief (because we have finally hit on a way of interpreting their behavior that makes sense) and guilt (because we feel we ought to have done better).”
Research Brief: Minorities Dominate Use of New Media - “According to the analysis, minorities have a higher regular usage of new media than Whites across all media types. They are more likely to use iPods, text on cell phones, play video games, use video/picture phones, instant messaging online and watch video on cell phones.”
The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet - Very handy printable guide with white-hat advice and best practices for pleasing Google without spreading unnecessary cheese. - [via Global Nerdy]
Research Brief: Online Video Viewing Surges - In March, “84.8 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).” Damn. Could you ever have imagined this, even 5 years ago?
Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam - New York Times - Related: “Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000.”
XBMC For Mac: XBMC Turns Your Mac into the Ultimate Media Center - Wowzers! Nice work, Gina. This looks like a go-to solution for using OSXBMC to turn a Mac Mini into a pain-free media center.
Hacking the Kindle part 3: root shell and runtime system - Oh, sweet fancy Moses: here are some inexplicably undocumented key commands that will so improve yr Kindle world. Kiss me, ragged-right justification! (BTW: ♥ my new Kindle, and am collecting my favorite time- and money-saving tips for a future post)
8 fonts you probably don’t use in css, but should - Personally, I’m not so big on Copperplate or Impact, but I’m a fool for Gill Sans. Nobody asked me, but I’d also add Mac-friendly faves Hoefler Text, Futura, and American Typewriter. [via anarchaia]
We’re sorry this is late; we really meant to post it sooner - “Most people’s New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure…Most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination…Procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation” In keeping with my return to posting here, yes: that’s meta-research on procrastination. Swish.

And, in passing, a personal note: many thanks to you for your patience while I took some time to see to other projects; my more normal (which is to say, irregular, by most “pro blog” standards) habit of posting to 43f when I have something to share or say restarts now. I’m grateful for your hanging with me.

”43f Links for 2008-06-01” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 01, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

43f Links for May 7th

Merlin Mann — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:48:14 -0400

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? - New York Times - “The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.”
How to answer the people who think you’re nuts? - “I’ve been doing a lot of radio interviews and I turn into a self-righteous bore when the host inevitably asks, ‘How could you let your son take the subway alone?’”
Dear Shaun, at bluishorange - “My writing is not some fragile vase that is going to shatter the second I split an infinitive…” [via mathowie]
Clutterers Anonymous dot Net - “Clutter is anything we don’t need, want, or use that takes our time, energy or space, and destroys our serenity.”
Spark 35: Your Digital Legacy - I’ll be a regular contributor to the CBC’s wonderful Spark (podcast). My first segment with Nora Young is on the basics of backup. (Hint: Next Christmas, send Uncle Joe a DVD with those hard-copy photos)
TwitterSnooze! v0.13 - “TwitterSnooze is inspired by a Merlin Mann post and was written by Andrew Parker.” Yay, nice!
I think silent “snoozing” should be part of every social app. Warning, though; if your snoozed friend is the brittle type, note that re-following them will generate an email that gives you away. Caveat Twittor. [via del/andrewdparker]

”43f Links for May 7th” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 07, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Links of favor for April 18

Merlin Mann — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:06:48 -0400

NEAT Receipts Scanner - Sharp-looking receipt scanner for the Mac, coming soon. I tend to avoid one-off gadgets that have any kind of permanent footprint on my desk, but this looks pretty handy if it works.
Footers In Modern Web Design: Creative Examples and Ideas | Design Showcase | Smashing Magazine - Inspiring collection of ways to use the space at the top and bottom of a web page. The first advocate for this approach that I can recall is Derek, who always uses his footers to such lovely and functional effect.
A Pattern Language for Productivity - Gah! I feared I’d waited too long. I’ve totally been meaning to start something like this on the 43f wiki for a couple years. (curses self). Nice start, here. Should be useful for folks.
The Fishbowl: Twitterpated - I get a surprising amount of flack for not following more people on Twitter. Which dumbfounds me. It’s like being angry at someone because they aren’t watching enough TV. Anyhow, some of these hyper-following people strike me as either nutjobs or cynics, e.g. “in one case, 34,000. If you were truly following all these people, and they updated only once per day on average, you would be reading a Twitter message every two seconds.” Yeah. That sounds really fun and enriching. [via anarchaia]
Word Spy - speed mentoring - “Getting advice in a series of short conversations with experts and other mentors.” I need me more of this.
BENTWOOD by contexture design workshop - My gosh, what a lovely idea; a wooden bangle that turns into a coffee cup sleeve. Smart. [via Erika]
Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes | Life, Tutorials - Guilty as charged on a number of these. I think the one I’m laziest about is straight quotation marks (“"”) where I really mean inches (“″”). I do love that people care this much about this stuff (most of the time).
Mac Mini Media Centre / journal / hicksdesign - Jon has been sharing how he’s setting up his Mac Mini as a home entertainment juggernaut. This post outlines his basic setup, the apps he uses, etc. He also has a companion Flickr set. I’d love to hear more from folks on workflow. How — hypothetically — an AVI from out in the wild gets downloaded, encoded when necessary, and then dropped into the “~/Movies” folder. Maybe Automator? As a new Mini owner with the same goals, I’d love to hear your tips here in comments.
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (Event Video/Audio) | Berkman Center - Clay’s book is justifiably hyped right now, because it’s just so damned good. If you enjoyed seeing the Claymeister General on Colbert, you might want to catch this swell talk, where he gets a bit more room to say his piece on a world where things get organized without organizers.
Spark | CBC Radio | Disaster Preparedness Kit for your digital life - “…Nora and Merlin Mann (of 43Folders fame) are putting together a ‘Disaster Preparedness Kit’ for your digital life. Do you have a tip, trick, or tool that puts your mind at ease and keeps you from worrying about data loss?”

”Links of favor for April 18” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 18, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Href affection for March 31st

Merlin Mann — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:40:38 -0400

Timbuk2 - Steve Sleeve - Timbuk2’s MacBook Air sleeve stylishly adopts the look of the interoffice mail envelope Steve demoed at Macworld. Very clever. I’m gettin’ one.
persistent.info: Mail Trends - “Thus was born Mail Trends, an IMAP-based email analysis project. It can generate a bunch of tables, graphs and distributions based on time of day, senders, recipients, mailing lists, etc.” Mihai is a stone cold stud.
Hivelogic: Offices and The Creativity Zone - “In the very same way you’d want to find the right time and place to read a book, creative types need to setup the specific conditions they need to enter The Zone.” [via DF]
Clipboard History triggers unwantedly - If your QS Clipboard window has taken on a life of its own, try deleting and re-installing the Clipboard plug-in. Saved my sanity. Also: I’m kind of liking the adverb “unwantedly.”
Leather Hipster PDA Case from Staples on Flickr - Handsome-looking $10 case available at Staples. (By the bye, Levenger, thumbs-down for appropriating the Hipster PDA name without attribution; not classy) [Flickr photo link via djohnson]
Apple - Downloads - Dashboard Widgets - HostsWidget - “Allows you to manipulate your “/etc/hosts” file quickly and easily.” [via siliconmeadow]
Nothing Up My Sleeve: Twitter as a Moral Compass - Gordon shares how to use htaccess to alter a hotlinked image on just the one thieving domain. Man, I’d love to see Yahoo! do this to the Drudge Report (check the man’s code for imgs src’d from straight off yimg.com).

”Href affection for March 31st” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 31, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Linky love for March 19th

Merlin Mann — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:15:41 -0400

Do Not Reply - Now “/dev/null” has a posse. Owner of “donotreply.com” domain receives the flotsam emails generated by the work of half-assing IT guys (and their poor, hapless users). Maybe a good time to go and change those “fake” reply addresses, because right now some fairly sensitive stuff is getting “bounced.” [via codinghorror]
Magical thinking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - “Adherents of magical belief systems often do not see their beliefs as being magical.” Cf.: Cargo cults.
Psychology Today: Magical Thinking - “Even hard-core skeptics can’t help but find sympathy in the fabric of the universe—and occasionally try to pull its strings.” Love the idea of any continuum that has “skeptics at one end and schizophrenics at the other.”
Juggling Sheep: Fully Present - Fatherhood - “I’m not babysitting. I’m fathering. I’m being a dad. I’m doing the single-most important thing I could be doing right now - spending meaningful time with my son.”
Health workers offer help to S.F.’s packrats - “Oblena has seen people unable to sleep on their beds because of the clutter. He inspected the room of one man who slept every night on a black metal folding chair, surrounded by mounds of clutter.” [via obscure store]
SXSW day 2 - Worst Website Ever - Many thanks to Roo for videotaping my pitch for FlockdUp.com during Andy’s “Worst Website Ever” panel at SxSW. Here’s the slides if you want to follow along on the drilldown; Full video after the jump.

”Linky love for March 19th” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 19, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Links we like, February 6, 2008

Merlin Mann — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:53:28 -0500

Kevin Kelly — The Technium - "When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied." That pretty much sums it up. I suspect this might be the most succinct, profound, and prescient sentence I’ll read this year. A must-read post.
Dogcow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - “The original dogcow was named Clarus by Apple employees. The sound she makes is ‘Moof!’”
Rands In Repose: Out Loud - “Developing a compelling presentation involves a series of decisions and exercises to align your head with the fact that you’re delivering your content directly to people. No internet. No weblog. Just you.” [via Daring Fireball]
Quiet your Home with Ambient Noise - O’Reilly Digital Media Blog - Living in intimate proximity to a tribe of suburban Wookiees has made our family very familiar with white noise generators. They’re a godsend. (Most especially if you have an infant) [thanks, Gordon!]
How to record a kickass podcast between two macs — and cheap! - I like the idea of using the Skype connection only as a “monitor.” I’d add that it doesn’t hurt to do a “clap” at the beginning so you have something common to sync around.
Your Prep Card: Don’t Leave Home Without It - “Take a 3″ x 5″ index card and write down 3 key points you want to mention in simple clear language, nouns and verbs. At the bottom, give yourself 2 reminders to avoid your bad habits.” Good idea. Once you’re out of a comfortable environment and feeling stressed, your head starts to swim. (And by “you” I mean “me”)
The Smart Set: Night Terrors - “Chronic sleep loss of even two to three hours per night held the potential to hamper body and mind functioning, not to mention quality of life.”
Being Funny - Steve Martin: “About to pass me by, Elvis stopped, looked at me and said in his beautiful Mississippi drawl: ‘Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor.’” [via MeFi]

”Links we like, February 6, 2008” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 06, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Mostly not-Wookiee-related links for January 23rd

Merlin Mann — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:26:30 -0500

Writing a Book in Google Docs - Lucky bastard. I might (might!) have made it to the end if it weren’t for O’Reilly’s godforsaken MS Word templates. But, you know. Ours was not a project without its share of human error. What do you say, Brian and Danny? Would we have made it with the Google docs?
Sullivan nod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Oh, man. That waiter’s nodding trick Michael Ferguson taught me has a name. [thanks, Ben Durbin]
Design View / Andy Rutledge - Falling Down - Beautiful essay. Go. Read. “What is uncertain is how you will respond to that stumble and fall and how gracefully you will descend and emerge from it.” [via del/fritz.bogott]
frankschmitt.org / Creating a “Sub Account” with GMail and Mail.app - Clever use of Gmail labels to make life on your iPhone easier. [via del/frankschmitt]
Wookie Roar | Ask MetaFilter - Very handy. I will totally use this until I get as good as Tracy Morgan. “It’s easier if you start like you’re about to let out a big, loud yawn, and then…go into a dry gargle.” (And, yes, I know the “correct” spelling; and, no, I did not write the headline. Thanks, Red 5, now back to Aunt Beru’s basement with you)
StuffSafe : Online Home Inventory Software - Okay-looking (weirdly-Windows-like) app for doing a home inventory. So, you guys: does anybody know an insurance-company-friendly app for cataloging your crap? Seems like everybody needs something like this, but not one of the apps I’ve seen (Mac or web) has floated my boat. How ‘bout you?

”Mostly not-Wookiee-related links for January 23rd” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 23, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Hand-picked, artisanal links for January 10th

Merlin Mann — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:52:38 -0500

The Omni Group - OmniFocus - OmniFocus 1.0 officially hit the streets this week. So proud of all my hard-working OmniPals, who’ve made the app I always wanted. Kudos.
Mother Tongue Annoyances › How to Attain Serenity Before Giving a Speech - “I find that when I am [speaking] from this ‘serene-state,’ for lack of a better word, my mind is as sharp as a tack, and my energy is channeled on the audience and the subject matter…”
10 ways to get the most out of Quick Look - (TUAW) - Most of these are new to me. Which probably explains why I hadn’t been using Quick Look too much. Good tips.
RulesofThumb.org - I loved Parker’s RoT books, and the site looks like a fun, user-driven collection of these bite-sized bits of wisdom. - [via BB]
Things - task management on the Mac - Haven’t spent much time with Things yet, but this looks like a beautiful and promising-looking app for doing GTD on your Mac. Very pretty.
ThinkGeek :: SnūzNLūz - Wifi Donation Alarm Clock - “…everytime you hit the snooze button, the SnūzNLūz will donate a specified amount of your real money to a non-profit you hate.” You have to respect a Rube Goldberg device that’s attached to your personal sense of outrage. [thanks, overhang]
Products [Merlin Mannerism Widget] - “The Merlin Mannerism Widget provides a different Merlin Mann quote each day from 1 Jan 2008 through 4 Jan 2009.” Oh, lucky you. [thanks, hongkongphooey] That said, if you enjoy this sort of thing, you can also get up-to-date (and very economically worded) Mannerisms from my Twitter posts. On the other hand, if you don’t enjoy this sort of thing, I’m sure you’re not alone.

”Hand-picked, artisanal links for January 10th” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 10, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Links for December 26th

Merlin Mann — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:39:23 -0500

Dynamism.com - Next Generation Japanese Notebooks and Electronics - New-to-me geek gadget site, highlighting stuff not easily available in the US. Very fun.
IGDA - Articles - Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work: 6 Lessons - “Productivity drops immediately upon starting overtime and continues to drop until, at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks.”
NPR : GPS Goes Mainsteam - Your author would be one of those alluded-to persons who uses GPS as a “crutch.” I could get lost in an empty bathtub with two St. Bernards and a sherpa guide.
THE PRAGMATICS OF HUMOR: Representing Communication - “Cleese…says, ‘I think any time I see a possibility of a misunderstanding, I jump on it.’” Cleese once brilliantly pointed out that Basil Fawlty wouldn’t be nearly as funny if there weren’t people standing around watching him make a fool of himself.
Bacon Cheese Baconburger - “You may think you’ve done a lot of strange things in your life, but until you’ve put slices of raw bacon into a food processor at 10:30pm, you really haven’t even scratched the surface of strange.” [via MeFi]
The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks - I’m a proud “admin” for a “related” but “unallied” Flickr “group” that I “like a lot” called “Quotation Mark” Abuse. (thanks, mathowie)

”Links for December 26th” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on December 26, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"