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Linked List: January 30, 2008

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Woody Allen’s Typography 

Cristian Kit Paul on the consistent typographic branding of Woody Allen’s films. Since Annie Hall in 1977, only 1978’s Interiors used anything other than EF Windsor Elongated for the titles and credits. (Via Kottke.)

Kottke’s Liveblog Coverage of Mythbusters’ ‘Airplane on Conveyer Belt’ Episode 

I guessed wrong.

Dell Abandons Mall Kiosks 

Another mainstream dud from Dell. Told-you-so credit to JC at Ungenius, who called it back in May 2006. (Thanks to Nick Matsakis.)

xScope 2.0 

A joint production of Artis Software and The Iconfactory, xScope is my favorite utility for zooming in on and measuring on-screen graphics. Terrific utility for any designer. $27 new, $10 upgrade for xScope 1.0 owners.

The Times (U.K.) Spamming Social Media Sites 

Nice detective work by Andy Baio at Waxy.org:

Yesterday, I discovered that The Times (UK), a well-respected newspaper owned by News Corp., is involved in an extensive campaign to spam social media websites with links to Timesonline.co.uk articles.

Since 2004, The Times retained the established SEO consulting firm Sitelynx to handle their search engine marketing. Working on behalf of The Times, an Sitelynx employee posted thousands of links to community and social news websites, including Mahalo, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Metafilter, Yahoo! Answers, Ma.gnolia, and Netscape’s Propeller. His actions were done without any disclosure of his affiliation to Sitelynx or The Times and were, in some cases, posted under the assumed identity of his wife.

Johnny Chung Lee’s Wii Projects 

Fantastic software projects based on the Nintendo Wiimote controller; check out the “Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays” video halfway down the page.

Apple TV Update Still ‘Week or Two’ Away 

Dan Moren on Apple’s small-print style of delivering bad news.

Instapaper 

Lovely little web app service by Tumblr developer Marco Arment. Here’s how he describes it:

  • You come across substantial news or blog articles that you want to read, but don’t have time at the moment.
  • You need something to read while sitting on a bus, waiting in a line, or bored in front of a computer.

It’s like Delicious but much simpler. It’s just your own personal list of links to read later. I’m really digging it as a way to shuttle URLs between my iPhone and Mac (in both directions).

Also note the clever sign-up experience: you just pick a name or email address to use, and that’s it. If you want a password, set one, and if you don’t, leave it blank.

Campfire for iPhone 

Jason Fried, 37signals:

Today we officially announce that Campfire has been optimized for the iPhone. Just visit your Campfire site with Safari on the iPhone and you’ll automatically see the iPhone optimized version.

I love Campfire, and this new iPhone version is outstanding. One of several nice touches is that when you scroll up to read previous parts of the transcript, you get a small down arrow at the bottom of the screen. Tap the arrow and you jump back to the end of the transcript.

MacBreak Weekly 75, Follows Up on MacHeist 

Phill Ryu from MacHeist and Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software (whose Snapz Pro X was included in this year’s MacHeist bundle) respond to criticism of MacHeist’s business model. Welch makes the best case for it I’ve heard, which is that it’s not about the money, at least primarily, but about the promotional value.

I will point out that I stand completely behind my reporting on what developers made last year. Phill Ryu mentioned in this show that my numbers last were “labeled as speculation”, but that’s not the case. My estimates regarding MacHeist’s advertising expenditures and hosting costs were speculative, but my numbers regarding developer payments were based on first-hand sources. Gus Mueller is on the record, publicly, that he was offered $5,000 as a flat fee, that it was non-negotiable, and that all developers were supposedly getting the same deal. (To reiterate, that’s last year, not this year.)

One-Dollar Image Stabilizer for Any Camera 

Clever idea: use a string and a washer as a makeshift super-portable camera stabilizer.

Update: I thought this rang a bell; Bill Bumgarner suggested the same thing back in October and dubbed it a “stringpod”.