Ben Cohen — Briefly

Shouting hippo pillow shams from http://katherinejlee.com

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:55:53 -0700

Shouting hippo pillow shams from http://katherinejlee.com

"I don’t like to work. I only like working when I’m working."

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:14:20 -0700

“I don’t like to work. I only like working when I’m working.”

- Bill Murray on Ghostbusters 3, Get Low, Ron Howard, Kung Fu Hustle: Celebrities: GQ

One day, those letters will be on the marquee.

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:51:56 -0700

One day, those letters will be on the marquee.

Walkway framed by tombstones.

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:09:00 -0700

Walkway framed by tombstones.

It took a long time, and I’m still working on it, but...

Sun, 09 May 2010 23:52:45 -0700

It took a long time, and I’m still working on it, but I’ve got a draft of my thesis up. Also, this is the draft that I will be graded on. Katherine made the police graphic for my poster, and I think it looks quite handsome here, as well.

The truly distressing part is how upsetting the wrong pattern...

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:49:00 -0700

The truly distressing part is how upsetting the wrong pattern can be. —xkcd: Computer Problems

Court Says Bush Illegally Wiretapped Two Americans | Threat Level | Wired.com

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:41:57 -0700

Court Says Bush Illegally Wiretapped Two Americans | Threat Level | Wired.com:

Boom. Judge Walker calls it like it is. Illegal wiretapping of at least two Americans in 2004.

Dropbox for ease of mind

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:18:56 -0700

I use a lot of sync service (SugarSync, Backblaze, Dropbox, MobileMe, Spanning Sync, and a few others). Of these, Dropbox requires the least mental maintenance. It’s closest neighbors in my pantheon of sync services are SugarSync and Mobile Me’s I Drive are the closest equivalents. All three allow you to keep files synchronized across multiple computers, as well as access them on the web.

While they all have strengths, Dropbox’s approach, keeping a single directory in sync, with some simple sharing and photo album options on top, is dead simple. The client runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, which is a boon for any cross-platform users, and if you run multiple clients (say, a desktop and a laptop) on the same local network, files sync directly from machine to machine, which is much faster than one syncing up to the cloud and the other pulling down from there.

Anyway. Just a few thoughts on file syncing. And Dropbox increased their referral bonuses recently, so if you sign up using this link, Get Dropbox, we’ll both get an extra 250 MB of storage.

Just finished Katherine’s new site:...

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:35:51 -0700

Just finished Katherine’s new site: http://www.katherinejlee.com

Tools:

Bonsai - for the site generation
Nivo Slider - for the slideshows
Textmate - for…text
Acorn + Lightroom + Nikon D80 - for images (all photos mine, found on flickr)
Wufoo - for dynamic content (order form, contact form)
Google Analytics - for site analytics
jQuery - for all js effects and making life easier
And of course, Katherine and her etsy store

52 Weeks of UX: Why UX is really Marketing

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 10:25:11 -0700

52 Weeks of UX: Why UX is really Marketing:

If you ask any User Experience Professional what the principles of their profession are, one of the first principles you’ll hear is “Know Your Users”. This makes sense: if we are to create great experiences for users then we must know something about them. You’ll also find this phrase if you…

The phrase “know your users” certainly does apply equally to marketers and UX professionals. However, what you do with that knowledge distinguishes the two professions. Note to marketers: “know your users” isn’t the same as “know your enemy”. Good UX means designing a product to meet user needs. Good marketing means describing a product as meeting user needs.

Note: Good marketing is really hard. I couldn’t do it.

Optimization

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:17:00 -0700

I just spent several hours on a Friday night decluttering my computer. And not fun decluttering like moving pictures around and deleting old downloads. No, this was fixing permissions, removing MacPorts, installing Homebrew, tidying my dotfiles. Hard core nerding. And I feel great. After the hundredth permissions issue in the middle of mundane tasks, it’s tempting to flatten a machine just to end the pain. But now it is fun to install things! When things break, it’s because I wrote crummy code, not because the binary I’m trying to run is in a directory that is too high up my search path.

Point is, simple is good. Working is good.

MacPorts, I’m looking at you. RVM couldn’t do its thing because of /opt/bin getting up in my business. We’re through.

March Desktop (via heliostatic)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:27:00 -0800

March Desktop (via heliostatic)

Imagine this: a developer who not only makes it hard to do...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:52:43 -0800

Imagine this: a developer who not only makes it hard to do the wrong thing, but easy to do the right one.

Shaun Inman loves his users (and does his own tech support).

In his excellent rss reader, Fever°, he offers users the ability to bulk unsubscribe from all of their feeds. I needed to do this tonight because I decided that the 800+ feeds I’ve subscribed to over the years are not all as important as they used to be (and that was too many feeds). However, in addition to requiring users to check the “Yes, I’m sure I want to do this” box, he offers a quick export link, and suggests that the user might want to take advantage of it.

"I’m doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And..."

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:47:00 -0800

“I’m doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I’ll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary.”

- Expect sparklines.

Edward Tufte, who has been appointed by President Obama to “help track and explain $787 billion in recovery stimulus funds” as part of the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel.

Tufe is being nonchalant, but this is great news. Not only for design-nerds but the general public too.

(via iA)

(via caseyagollan)

(via roomthily)

Purple Rug on the Grass (via heliostatic)

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:46:03 -0800

Purple Rug on the Grass (via heliostatic)

Jekyll

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:39:30 -0800

Jekyll, the static site generator written in ruby, is awesome. I just converted a site from plain html to generated html in about 30 minutes (ok, small site), and look forward to a lot less hassle when making updates.

Looking for a basketball

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:24:20 -0800

Katherine’s making a basketball bag for a friend, and it turns out we have no ball. Does anybody out there have one they’d be willing to share?

In fact, does anyone want to shoot some hoops this weekend, period?

Katherine made delicious marshmallows (via heliostatic)

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:04:35 -0800

Katherine made delicious marshmallows (via heliostatic)

Katherine finished her sheets and I took some pictures. I liked...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:30:00 -0800

Katherine finished her sheets and I took some pictures. I liked this one — the bridal pattern looks really nice, I think.

We bought a fifty pound bag of flour. These are the...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:09:48 -0800

We bought a fifty pound bag of flour. These are the consequences.