Not to be confused with “Things I could spend endless amounts of (regular) money on”, here’s my list of things I could spend endless amounts of small money on:
FontExplorer X goes 1.0. Get this and say goodbye to your Mac OS font management woes.
The Colts lose their Edge while the Brees blows out of San Diego for a bit. Changes are afoot. Also, the Vikings are making it hard for us to hang on to Hutchinson! (I love Newsvine.) :)
Newsvine launches a quasi-fantasy sports pool for the 2006 NCAA Tournament. (Psst, they’re giving away iPods.)
I’m posting this entry from MarsEdit, a weblog client that runs locally on my laptop. I’m curious if this method of posting would enable (and/or force) me to blog more consistently. So far I’m really liking it. One A few of the benefits of using a desktop client — rather than the web-based control panel — is the Mac’s inline spell-check, on-the-go draft creation, and speed.
Anyway, (in true Joshua Blankenship form) note to self: Plan to go to SXSW next year.
Update: I’m loving MarsEdit and will probably end up purchasing it. The only problem I’ve had so far is uploading photos. The upload works just fine, but the placement of the photo in the entry doesn’t work. It just does nothing. Any advice?
Since when have the Beatles been on the iTunes Music Store?! (It’s a karaoke CD, but still.)
Evan Almighty, the sequal to Bruce Almighty, stars Steve Carell as Evan Baxter.
Perhaps the only thing better than Prince “shredding your face off” while Dhani Harrison (George’s son) covers While My Guitar Gently Weeps during his father’s induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame is While My Ukulele Gently Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro. Whoa.
Nick Usborne offers some great thoughts on how to maximize the potential for users to reach the goal of your website — interaction (to do something): Flywheels, Kinetic Energy, and Friction.
If you want someone to do something, you need to build what amounts to a funnel, or pathway. Help the reader identify the one thing they want, and then simplify and “narrow” the design and the text in order to focus on that one thing, and build energy and enthusiasm within the reader. Take away any distractions, visually or with words. Focus on the one thing.
He uses the analogy of a flywheel in a child’s car toy; you know, the kind you rev’ up and then let go? He suggests (and I agree) that users naturally lose energy from the friction of the process … the process of navigating, finding, searching, filling out, etc.
Applying this rule (friction vs. energy) is something I’m definitely going to pay attention to in my design process for my church. We frequently have events that require online registration, and it’s my goal to make the process as easy as possible for the least web-saavy in our congregation.
Straight from the horse’s mouth: Newsvine goes live today. Why am I feeling giddy all of the sudden? Newsvine is live!!