The classic argument for enduring 80 to 100 hour work weeks for years on end sacrificing relationships, hobbies, and anything else that doesn' t progress the mission is that at the end of the rainbow lies early retirement. The reward for risking it all on a crazy startup idea. This wonderful place is filled with anything you want it to be. Never a dull moment again, all the flexibility and freedom in the world. I' m Jack' s sense of ...

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The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive. We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it serves us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our financial independence from our clients. -Stefan Sagmeister ( link ) Watching nonprogrammers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf. Even if he has great advisers standing on ...

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The internet is full of vapid words and catch-less phrases, but one that I' ve long been particularly peeved about is the word play . As in this company is an infrastructure play or a CPM play . Blogger, please. Using play feels like it' s just pointing to how unsubstantial something is. Like that this is their third play. And oh hell, if that doesn' t work, we' ll just get more of other people' s money and try ...

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Here' s another reason to double, triple, quadruple-check yourself when you want to add a new feature. A while back Netflix added a Profiles feature to their service. A couple weeks ago, they decided to pull the feature because it was too confusing and it wasn' t adding value. But it was too late. People were pissed. The blog post received 1286 comments. In the face of this reaction, Netflix had to turn 180 and keep the feature . Whether ...

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Google Maps Links to Google Maps are shared all the time. So how come the URLs are so unwieldy? (For example: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q hl=en geocode= q=1st+ave+and+1st+st,+nyc sll=49.891235,-97.15369 sspn=52.967233,67.763672 ie=UTF8 z=17 iwloc=addr .) If TinyURL can figure out how to make a URL in just a few characters, can' t the rocket surgeons at Google do it? Aaron Martin caption wrapper Aaron Martin' s blog features this interesting caption wrapper. John Deere Really nice integration of full motion video at the John ...

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Link it up in the comments.

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Aza Raskin released a new project today called Algorithm Ink . For the full story check out his explanation and video . The app is basically a grown up version of Logo a front-end to a simple programming language for creating fractal images. While the fractal art is the main attraction, I was more interested in the unconventional UI. Algorithm Ink continues the style that Aza demonstrated six months ago with Songza . His UI comes from another planet where ...

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David Lewis, Bang Olufsen ' s chief designer, discusses the company' s unusual approach to design with The Wall Street Journal . Along the way he reveals the pioneering B O design team only spends 2-3 days a month at B O headquarters and works externally the rest of the time, they never meet, they have no fixed process, and they build initial versions of products out of cardboard and paper. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL : You spend just two ...

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I just tried to buy something using my company AmEx card and accidentally entered the wrong security code. (AmEx has their code on the front of the card, not on the back like my personal check card.) Instead of a generic error message that told me the card was declined or couldn' t be accepted, I got this very specific error message that includes a detailed graphic. A graphic! What a pleasant failure message.

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Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog : Backpack CSS tip for customizing the appearance of Backpack pages You may sometimes wish you could modify the text on a page to fit a little more information on it. I have a page where I collect code snippets and terminal commands and the default font seems a bit large with so much content. Turns out there' s an easy solution to this: simply add a small amount of CSS to ...

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There' s a popular book on entrepreneurship called The E-Myth which claims that bakers shouldn' t run bakeries, plumbers shouldn' t run plumbing companies, and everyone else should think about how they could turn their small business into a franchise. On the face of it, there' s a lot of good advice about how you can' t just be a good baker if you don' t have a business bone in your body and expect commercial success. Problem is that ...

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We recently added a support request form to Basecamp (there used to be just a direct email link). The goal of this form: To prioritize support inquiries, reduce uncertainty, and get people the answers they need faster. It also reduces the number of back and forth information-gathering emails, which ultimately makes everyone more satisfied with the support experience. It' s worked really well so far too. But the last question in the original form was missing the mark: We wanted ...

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Mike Rohde did another great job drawing sketchnotes at the SEED 3 Conference on June 6th, 2008 : The Chicago Reader was also at SEED 3 and published this profile: How to Make Money on the Internet: Do what you love, and other tips from the Web cowboys at the Seed Conference. Includes this great quote from Gary V : Don’t quit your job to become the queen of cheese. But if you’re doing something that blows and you hate ...

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I' m working on some improvements to Basecamp, specifically the screens where you manage which people have access to a project. There' s an area on our new template with checkboxes beside peoples' names so you can check which people should be added to your project. I want to apply a class name to the label tag around the checkbox for each person. So I pulled up the template and searched for label to find where I might add the ...

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“I’ve made much more money by choosing the right things to say no to than by choosing things to say yes to. I measure it by the money I haven’t lost and the quality I haven’t sacrificed.” -Danny Meyer of the Union Square Hospitality Group Great quote. From the book Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big . More about the book: It’s a widely accepted axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and ...

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Our friend, and former 37signals-founder, Carlos Segura has redesigned Cartype : A museum of automobile typography . Very nice redesign (here' s the old site for comparison). But it' s really so much more than that. Take his museum of gauge clusters : Or his obsessive collection of brand emblems : If you dig cars, you really outta check out the new Cartype .

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I love me some padded link targets and today' s provider is a Working Library . The site is about books and their connections. Each post references one or more books and the referenced books are aggregated in the right-hand sidebar. When you hover over a book title, the crisp tiny type is immediately enveloped in a big cozy hover block. I particularly like how the hover reinforces the column dimensions. It' s a sudden punch of structure to the ...

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Last week I was in Seattle for a couple days. A friend suggested I check out the new Olympic Sculpture Park . It was near my hotel so I walked over there to see what was up. Seattle Nice landscaping, nice setting, nice sculpture, but the lasting impression wasn' t made by the art, it was made by a sign (actually, about 10 signs): They even had an extra specific warning in one spot that Even the lightest touch harms ...

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Alan Taylor of The Big Picture proves how designers who can also develop are able to get things done without jumping through hoops of approval, explanation, and cycles of review. In an interview at Waxy.org , Alan talks about how The Big Picture came to life within the Boston Globe . I have an advantage in that my main role is as a developer here, so I could build all my own templates, format my own style, and so on. ...

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