Link Posts
Kicking off the new year seems like a good time to do a bit of self-promotion. And so, just a reminder that I publish another weblog in addition to this one. The site, Tools & Toys, is a daily collection of items for the pickiest of gadget geeks, software aficionados, snowboard junkies, music lovers, writers, coffee nuts, and all around collectors of fine paraphernalia.
You can follow @toolstoys via Twitter or RSS for new items.
A fantastic lecture-turned-essay by William Deresiewicz on leadership, bureaucracy, the myth of multitasking, working, thinking, and how all of that fits together so as to give yourself the space to form your own ideas.
(Via Nick Charlton via email.)
If you build client sites using WordPress and need a way for your client to be able to upload their own files, this new plugin from Jonathan Christopher may be just the ticket.
Very glad to see David Sparks join the The Syndicate.
The Syndicate now reaches over 100,000 daily readers and a 1.5 million monthly page views. If you’re looking to book a sponsorship in 2012, now would a great time. Looks like there is still one available spot in January.
Reddit member “iansmith6” did some power tests to see why chargers can’t keep up with the Galaxy Nexus when it’s using 4G data.
Josh Farmer:
This was a great year for type. Apple got a bit more serious about their font choices in iBooks. Adobe acquired Typekit. Hoefler & Frere-Jones set to slabbing Gotham for President Obama’s second presidential run. Individual foundries stepped into a new level of webfont prowess. Codex magazine was released. 8 Faces continued its solid run. Typekit partnered with WordPress to add a “customize” feature for type choice, and they made sure to steer the average blogger toward appropriate typefaces for their needs. Matthew Carter’s seminal web typefaces, Verdana and Georgia, received solid updates. Gerard Unger partnered with Type Together. Many familiar families received updates or had more styles and weights added. And some newcomers were given a chance to shine. Here are the typefaces I think are really worth a serious look — my favorite typefaces from 2011.
This is not your average bullet-point list of notable typefaces. Reading Josh’s descriptions of each typeface is better than seeing what he chose as his favorites.
If The Great Discontent isn’t a regular read for you, you’re missing out.
The 70 resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.
Who needs a mobile website when you have a clever writer instead? (Via Adam Banks.)
This is the “awesome” site, by the way.
Ben kicks off the show by asking me four questions about this past year and the upcoming year. We discuss MacBook Airs, iPads, and iPads with keyboards, including kicking off the rumor mill for what we may or may not see in 2012. I also shared some of the thought and research I’ve been putting into a potential redesign of this website.
Brought to you by Instacast.
Dan Frommer writes some of the best list posts in tech. In today’s post, numbers 2 — Apple is happy to go a whole year without a major hardware design revision — and 3 — Apple isn’t tied to its once-a-year, at-the-same-time-every-year product cycles at all costs — are what stand out the most to me.
Perhaps because what these two things really boil down to is that 2012 will be a good year for those in the market to buy a new gadget or 3 or 4 (see number 10 on Frommer’s list).
And but so that also means 2012 will be an exciting year for those unnamed individuals who like to nerd out and write about this stuff in far too much detail for what may be considered normal by any reasonable citizen, but so what because maybe we just can’t help ourselves and who defines what’s normal and reasonable anyway?
My thanks to Omni Group for again sponsoring the RSS feed this week.
Creating in OmniGraffle: a five-step introduction attempt in less than 140 words.
Desired outcome: a new mockup of WebsiteThing.
It’s all possible on the iPad, too. If you’d like, explore a bit more.
Rated as the number 1 favorite for barbecue but also as the 6th fattest city in America.
It’s episode 39 of The B&B Podcast and Ben and I talk about the ins and outs of writing a website and we answer a bunch of listener-submitted questions. Also, Merry Christmas.
Brought to you by this month’s sponsor: Instacast.