March 8

YouTube remix by Kutiman. All the mixes. (Hat tip to my buddy, Mike.)
March 5
Spring’s just around the corner, and here are some fine-looking bikes for your warm-weathered commutes to work. 2009 Commuter Bike Round-Up

Spring’s just around the corner, and here are some fine-looking bikes for your warm-weathered commutes to work.

2009 Commuter Bike Round-Up

March 3
We recently had a discussion around the virtual watercooler about punctuation. We were specifically discussing capitalization, and what words in a title should be capitalized and which should be left lowercase. The state of the world being what it is, the answer to the most obscure questions is just a few clicks away. This is not the case with punctuation. English is a funny language. There are many rules, from many different sources, and they all seem to change over time. Strunk and White disagree with Sir Kingsley Amis who disagrees with the MLA, while Lynne Truss just Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Over the years I’ve used MLA style as a lit major, AP style while working in public relations and Chicago style for some research on the side. Chicago style is the simplest in many ways, and we at Iridesco have decided to adopt this as our internal guide to good grammar. Henceforth, our capitals will follow these rules, as set forth in the Chicago Manual of Style. Always capitalize the first and the last word. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions (“as”, “because”, “although”). Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions (“and”, “or”, “nor”), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word. Lowercase the “to” in an infinitive.” Now, go forth and punctuate correctly according to your preferred style.

We recently had a discussion around the virtual watercooler about punctuation. We were specifically discussing capitalization, and what words in a title should be capitalized and which should be left lowercase. The state of the world being what it is, the answer to the most obscure questions is just a few clicks away. This is not the case with punctuation.

English is a funny language. There are many rules, from many different sources, and they all seem to change over time. Strunk and White disagree with Sir Kingsley Amis who disagrees with the MLA, while Lynne Truss just Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Over the years I’ve used MLA style as a lit major, AP style while working in public relations and Chicago style for some research on the side. Chicago style is the simplest in many ways, and we at Iridesco have decided to adopt this as our internal guide to good grammar. Henceforth, our capitals will follow these rules, as set forth in the Chicago Manual of Style.

  • Always capitalize the first and the last word.
  • Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions (“as”, “because”, “although”).
  • Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions (“and”, “or”, “nor”), and prepositions regardless of length, when they are other than the first or last word.
  • Lowercase the “to” in an infinitive.”

Now, go forth and punctuate correctly according to your preferred style.
February 27
Tags: business

Can’t Win Them All and That’s Just Fine

Wired.com recently published an article entitled Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone.  The article explores the reasons behind the low adoption rate of iPhones in Japan, whereas the iPhone has found success in many other countries. One primary issue is that  the iPhone simply doesn’t have the feature-set the Japanese market expects:

Besides cultural opposition, Japanese citizens possess high, complex standards when it comes to cellphones. The country is famous for being ahead of its time when it comes to technology, and the iPhone just doesn’t cut it. For example, Japanese handset users are extremely into video and photos — and the iPhone has neither a video camera nor multimedia text messaging. And a highlight feature many in Japan enjoy on their handset is a TV tuner, according to Kuittinen.

The article makes a good case with its 20/20 hindsight analysis for what it’s worth.  What’s more interesting to me is that another way this article could have been written is “How Apple Ignored the Japanese Market and Created a Product Loved by Millions Worldwide.” 

If Apple tried to satisfy the advanced requirements of the Japanese market, the iPhone would not be available today, and when if/when it came out, it’d also likely have a harder time being adopted by most people around the globe.

Similarly, in our world of web application development, we focus on developing for the markets we know.  We don’t spend time worrying that our online time tracking software is not perfect for lawyers, for example.  If we get the experience right for the markets we are in, that’s already a big first step in where we want to be.
One in 8 Million, a beautiful NY Times weekly web series about the different characters in New York.  The story I just watched (and shown above): Freda Degannes: The Walking Miracle.  Photo by Todd Heisler.

One in 8 Million, a beautiful NY Times weekly web series about the different characters in New York.  The story I just watched (and shown above): Freda Degannes: The Walking Miracle.  Photo by Todd Heisler.
February 26

What we talk about when we talk about Interface Design.

We’re looking for a top-notch interface designer to join us at Iridesco.  The job title is vague, so I’ll to try and explain exactly what the job is about here.

By “interface” we mean web interface, and in particular, interface for web applications, such as Harvest and Co-op.  So: lots of forms, lots of buttons, lots of charts and bars, lots of work flow decisions, etc etc. 

And by design, we mean more than just “making things pretty”.  We mean design as in making a web interface (that’s usually a page)  easy and simple to use for whoever is using it.  It’s not glamourous work, folks.  In fact, the kind of great interface design we’re looking for is quiet and completely out of the user’s way.

Lots of web applications are developed by programmers first, and then UI design is brought in later.  It’s not like that at Iridesco.  We designed Harvest and Co-op from the ground up by ourselves,  and we sweat over every single detail you see in our apps.  And so far, we have been lucky and our products are used by many great companies all around the world.  So, for our interface designer, not only will the person be able to put design theories and innovation into practice, but the person will be working on useful products that thousands of companies trust and use daily.

So we’re looking for an interface designer to help us with Harvest, Co-op, and many other ideas we have.  We’re looking for someone who loves and obsesses over interface design, and someone who is damn good at it.  If this sounds like something you’re interested in, and you think you fit the bill - please take some time and fill out this application.  We look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for taking the time to read this!
February 20

The Legend of Zelda theme performed with Tesla coils. Two great geek tastes that go great together.
February 16

The amazing Siftables Music Sequencer.

The Siftables is created by David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi.  Watch David’s presentation on TED here (only 7 minutes).
February 14

Air - La Femme D’Argent
February 12

Movie Marketing

In a recent issue of the New Yorker, an essay uncovers the how’s and why’s of modern day, big budget Hollywood film marketers.  Here’s a snippet on how they think about demographics:

The collective wisdom is that young males like explosions, blood, cars flying through the air, pratfalls, poop jokes, “you’re so gay” banter, and sex—but not romance. Young women like friendship, pop music, fashion, sarcasm, sensitive boys who think with their hearts, and romance—but not sex (though they like to hear the naughty girl telling her friends about it). They go to horror films as much as young men, but they hate gore; you lure them by having the ingénue take her time walking down the dark hall.
Older women like feel-good films and Nicholas Sparks-style weepies: they are the core audience for stories of doomed love and triumphs of the human spirit. They enjoy seeing an older woman having her pick of men; they hate seeing a child in danger. Particularly once they reach thirty, these women are the most “review-sensitive”: a chorus of critical praise for a movie aimed at older women can increase the opening weekend’s gross by five million dollars. In other words, older women are discriminating, which is why so few films are made for them. Older men like darker films, classic genres such as Westerns and war movies, men protecting their homes, and men behaving like idiots.
Older men are easy to please, particularly if a film stars Clint Eastwood and is about guys just like them, but they’re hard to motivate. “Guys only get off their couches twice a year, to go to ‘Wild Hogs’ or ‘3:10 to Yuma,’ ” the marketing consultant Terry Press says. “If all you have is older males, it’s time to take a pill.”

Note that the desires of the young movie-watching male was summed up in a single sentence.  Read the full article at the New Yorker.