Beautiful (and scary at the same time) visualization of the growth of Walmart from 1962 through 2007. It’s like a virus that spreads across our country. Compare the Walmart viz with another Nathan just posted for Target today. From Nathan’s post describing the Target work:
You might guess that Target and Walmart expanded similarly (I did, at least), but you’d be wrong. Both started in Central United States, and both were officially founded in 1962 by two men who both owned stores under a different name before the Target and Walmart boom. However, besides more rapid growth, Walmart first expanded outwards from its home state before going country-wide while Target seems to have gone wherever opportunity knocked…
# tagged with maps, visualization
Fraser Speirs, developer behind FlickrExport (iPhoto plugin software that I use) dives into the details and simplified — or crippled, depending on your view — functionality of Flickr integration in Apple’s iPhoto ’09. I may have discovered this on my own after using it, but it’s nice to see some of the differences I should note before I try iPhoto’s Flickr syncing. Sure, Fraser has a biased view. But FlickrExport seems to be a way better option for exporting photos to Flickr from iPhoto or Aperature. That is, at least, if you want more control over how, and to whom, photos appear on Flickr. (via Daring Fireball)
# tagged with apple, photos, software
Truth as I know it: this design would not be what it is — nor would I be the designer I am nor care as much about what I do — without the inspiration, critiques, guidance, mentorship, contributions, camaraderie, encouragement, and support of certain people with whom I have crossed paths in my lifetime. read more
Added in design, people, personal
After subscribing to the feed last week on Inauguration Day, I’ve been reading updates on President Obama’s actions on an almost daily basis. I’m not sure if they can keep up the frequency of posts that have filled the blog already. But isn’t it amazing that we’ve never had this level of insight into the President’s activities — and on such a regular basis — before now?
# tagged with blog, politics, president
Free service from a datacenter in Germany that allows you to check the rendering of any website in IE 5.5, 6, 7, or 8. It’s fast — it returned each screenshot for me in about 5 seconds. Screenshot size seems to be fixed at 1024×768, so you won’t see anything “below the fold” and there doesn’t seem to be a way to modify that size. But hey, it’s free. They also list and describe other screenshot services. (via Dan Benjamin)
# tagged with browser, tools
With a bit of humility and even a little nervousness, it’s time to take the wraps off a new design I’ve been working on for nearly a month. My hesitation comes not from revealing the new design, but from my decision early on to make the site more personal, and feel less like an “agency”. I also hesitate because of the elephant in the room: the fact that, up until now, my writing here trickled down to a few entries a year. read more
Added in design, personal, site
How could I not link to these photos of Obama’s Inauguration posted yesterday on The Big Picture? For some reason, despite numerous other photos that were better composed or more striking in their angle, I was really moved by photo #23, and stared at it for a good 5 minutes, considering everything that was going through Vertie’s mind at the time.
# tagged with photos
Andy Rutledge walks through the redesign of Unit. My favorite part of the redesign: their contact form.
# tagged with brand, design
For anyone that uses Firefox (and even if you don’t, this is a good excuse to switch temporarily just for the experience of switching tabs), check out FoxTab, a wicked extension that lets you switch tabs by browsing in multiple 2d or 3d layouts of thumbnails of your open tabs. (via SimpleBits)
# tagged with extension, firefox
Interesting shift in what Apple allows into the App Store. Previously, some assumed 3rd-party apps that provided duplicate functionality to the core iPhone apps weren’t allowed. Though somewhere, one of the sources I saw about this story noted that each of the approved browsers are based on WebKit. So that premise may exclude Opera or Firefox from ever appearing in the App Store.
# tagged with iphone
An extension for Dreamweaver that validates HTML/CSS, verifies microformats usage, and checks other nuances of standardista fare. It’s actually branded with the name of The King™ (of WebStandards).
# tagged with tools, validation, webstandards
In one of the previously linked articles now available from Scroll Magazine, John writes about the unintended consequences of the web, and it’s impact on commerce and events, as well as its facilitation of making the printed word more social.
Rather than being the long expected deathknell for print, the web, by facilitating print on demand, may well drive a renaissance for print, by making the cost of production dramatically lower, by reducing the financial risk of experimenting with print publication significantly.
# tagged with print, risk, scrollmag
The full text of articles in John Allsopp and Maxine Sherrin’s first issue of Scroll Magazine is now online. Includes pieces by Indi Young, Aaron Gustafson, Joe Clark, Ethan Marcotte, Veerle Pieters, and Jeff Veen.
# tagged with scrollmag
Once again, beautiful work by Jon Hicks on icons for FontExplorer Pro. Plus a look at the sketches and process he went through to arrive at the final results.
# tagged with icon
We all thought Palm was dead by now. But check out this new unexpected head-turner they announced today: the Pre. Beautiful industrial design, and the OS and software seem well thought out as well. A soft touch on the design. We'll see how good it is when it ships later this year. iPhone competition is finally heating up.
# tagged with palm, phone
John lays down the criticism on they way the W3C is approaching HTML5. He (rightly, IMO) argues that adding new elements is not the way to make HTML5 backwards nor forwards compatible. Toward the end of the article, he suggests that adding new attributes might achieve both goals. Seems logical to me.
# tagged with html, html5, webdev
Apple introduces revolutionary new laptop with no keyboard. My favorite quotes:
Just press both sides of the wheel concurrently, and center-click, and there, you have an alphabetical listing of every file on your hard drive. Everything is just a few hundred clicks away…
and
I like how the email automatically says 'Sent from MacBook Wheel.' That way people know you have one.
# tagged with humor
No optician required. (via Jason Fried)
# tagged with inspiration
Dan Benjamin pontificates on the state of blogging and longer-form posts vs. shorter Twitter-like posts. Interesting commentary toward the end that to really participate means having more than one channel or form of contributions.
# tagged with blog, social, twitter
Bookmarking this late. But an interesting perspective into Jason Santa Maria's simple system for creating the dynamic layouts of his recent entries.
# tagged with css