clock — watching time, the only true currency

A journal from John B. Roberts

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Entries Tagged as 'Design'

Thursday night notes and links

April 3rd, 2008 · 1 Comment

Khoi Vinh watches another generation fall under Tintin’s spell. Been there, and also waiting for the movie. Some of the language in these comic albums isn’t PC anymore (e.g., “dirty gypsies”), but Tintin is never one to stand for injustice.
Google News finally answers some of publishers’ questions, and promises more information in the future. Wow…I [...]

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Tags: Bicycling · Design · Links · Media · Video

Sunday night links

December 23rd, 2007 · No Comments

Since I’m disappointed with our Sony digital camera, I pay attention to roundups like this one: “Looking beyond megapixels” But I get annoyed when the links leading to the NYTimes branded version of CNET don’t lead straight to the right camera, though. The Fujifilm FinePix f50fd looks like a possibility. (I wasn’t impressed that the [...]

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Tags: Books · CNET · Design · Domains · Everything · Links · Visualization · camera

Book: Making Comics

April 8th, 2007 · 1 Comment

I have no artistic talent, and no plans to start drawing or writing comics — even if I were to call them graphic novels. So, why did I just read Making Comics? This broad how-to about how to, yes, make comics caught my eye because the more I do in business, the more I realize [...]

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Tags: Books · Design · Everything · Formats · Media

Using OpenDNS? Easy test = visit my blog

January 26th, 2007 · 3 Comments

I’m using my blog as a testbed for something new cooked up by Aaron and Noah. If you visit my blog at http://www.pencoyd.com/clock/ (instead of just reading via the RSS feed), you’ll see a yellow button on the right-hand side of the page, under the heading “Are you using OpenDNS?”
The button has two states: one [...]

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Tags: Blog management · DNS · Design · Everything · OpenDNS

Catch-22 in packaging

January 19th, 2007 · No Comments

Joseph Heller wrote an entire (astounding) book on Catch-22, but the always-fun This Is Broken website does it in one small photograph. Go look at “Scissors packaging at Staples.”

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Tags: Design · Everything

Downsizing the Wall Street Journal…and it works

January 3rd, 2007 · No Comments

Yesterday was the first day of the new Wall Street Journal. Mostly, the changes focused on the print edition, which got smaller, physically. While the change was initiated to save $18M a year in newsprint costs, I think the end result is attractive and useful, mostly because it’s better in the hand and on the [...]

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Tags: Design · Everything · Formats · Media

Choosing the right PHP forum software: table of contents

October 16th, 2006 · 6 Comments

At work, I need to pick the right forum software to run on OpenDNS.com. We’ve discussed the possibilities informally a few times, but the burst of activity — and resulting customer support — triggered by two print articles made this project more important.
I’m going to share my research and the final decision in a few [...]

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Tags: Design · Everything · Forum software · Forums · OpenDNS · PhishTank · Tech

Book: Beautiful Evidence

September 13th, 2006 · 1 Comment

I pre-ordered Edward Tufte’s Beautiful Evidence from Amazon. After reading two of his earlier books (I own Visual Display), I was looking forward to his first in years. Bottom line… the book is beautifully made, and two chapters shine, but this tome feels more like a collection of uneven essays than the tour-de-force of his [...]

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Tags: Books · Design · Everything · Formats · Non-fiction · Visualization

Fulfilling promises takes time

August 6th, 2006 · No Comments

In Design Observer, Michael Bierut shares The Mysterious Power of Context, which muses on logo design and fonts, with a larger eye on brand identity. He cites Paul Rand (new to me) in a few sentences which reminds me that some decisions are just not that important in the long run.
In the world of identity [...]

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Tags: Design · Everything