Communiqué

You're only crazy if it smiles back.

I recommend Writing Tools to anyone who writes.

In Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark outlines 50 tools designed to improve the craft of any author. This book isn't targeted at novelists. In fact, Clark works hard to dispel the myth of the author. Everyone writes. Learning to write well isn't reserved for those who—as Clark mocks in Tool #47—"rent a loft overlooking the ocean, [their] only companions a portable typewriter, and a kitty named Hemingway."

Each chapter outlines a single tool. The chapters are short—less than 5 pages each—making the book an addictive read. You can always tackle one more chapter before turning off the light.

Some of my favorite tools include:

• Begin sentences with subject and verbs.
  Make meaning early, then let the weaker elements branch to the right.
• Activate your verbs.
  Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.
• Take it easy on the -ings.
  Prefer the simple present or past.
• Get the name of the dog.
  Dig for the concrete and specific details that appeal to the senses.
• Vary the length of paragraphs.
  Go short or long—or make a turn—to match your intent.
• Limit self-criticism in early drafts.
  Turn it loose during the revision.

Much of the content from this book is compiled from Mr. Clark's writings on the Poynter Institute's website. Many of the tools are particularly relevant to web and technical writing. To anyone aspiring to improve their written communication craft, I recommend Writing Tools.

A couple weeks ago, I was updating my rather outdated Ubuntu Linux virtual machine from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon. The process was pleasantly painless, but I did note something a little odd in the interface. The package manager posted an informative status dialogue while downloading updates. The title bar says "Downloading package files". And then again, inside the box it says "Downloading package files".

The structural information designer part me objects to the redundancy of information. It doesn't make sense to have the user read the same thing twice. It wastes both the developer's time presenting it twice and the user's time reading it twice, and it adds another item that must be checked as part of the QA process.

But the user coaching side of me points out that this pretty much ensures the user will notice what's going on. It doesn't matter whether they read the window title or its contents, because they'll get the same message. And thus it's worth the extra developer and QA time.

Help me out here: is informational redundancy good or bad?

I'm doing it.

As soon as I finish this blog, I'm switching to Gmail.

For a couple years, I've used Gmail for personal stuff. Now I'm moving my professional life into Gmail. Everyone seems to hate Gmail at first, then grows to love it—and I want to know what that love is.

Right now I'm using Thunderbird as a desktop mail client. All 12,000+ emails, dating back to 2001 are neatly compartmentalized in folders—organized by client, task, or even status. What's my team working on right now? I'll check the "In-Progress" folder. What's next? Look in the "To-Do" folder. What terms did we agree to on for the first version of that project? Just peek in "Old > A > astonmartinlotus.com" and it's there.

Since I often reference historic client emails, I can't just trash Thunderbird. Instead, I'll delete my accounts in Thunderbird, which will keep all the messages while removing the ability to Send and Receive.

I'll move my address book to Gmail, but not any messages. I'll figure out labels. I'll try Prism or Mailplane. A couple weeks ago I set up all my POP accounts to forward a copy to Gmail, so there's already plenty of messages waiting for me.

I'm sure millions of other people have been in the position I'm in now and lived to tell about it. Any advice for making the switch from folders and desktop-apps to labels and Gmail?

If you liked Garfield Minus Garfield, you'll love Hitchcock's The Birds minus the birds.

…sorry, not that Subway Art.

Metro-Bits has a great collection of subway system logo art from around the world.



Of course, I'm biased, but the original subway system—Boston's MBTA—still has the best logo. Boston's T logo is the black bold encircled "T" in the upper right corner of the screenshot above.

Apologies to any San Fransiscans, but the MUNI logo is my least favorite. I'm sure it was a big hit in the 1970's when Waltor Landor designed the worm typeface, but today it feels like… well, like it was designed in the 1970's.

Check them all out »

As I was on my nth drag-and-drop transfer of my music collection on my work computer on to my external to bring home and listen to nights, it occurred to me that there may be a better solution. I had been deleting the music from my external and then transferring my entire collection to my external from my work computer: hello inefficiency. It dawned upon me to ask the developers about potential solutions, and thanks to help from Will and Jeff, I am now using rsync to keep my two collections synchronized.

rsync allows you to synchronize files from one directory to another. There are endless options, whether you want old files to be deleted, new files to be added, etc. The solution I found most effective for keeping my iTunes collection was run the following command:

rsync -av --delete ~/Music/iTunes/ /Volumes/External Drive/iTunes/

The first directory is the source directory, or where the music is coming from. The latter directory is the destination, or host, directory. The '-av' stands for two commands, 'a' and 'v'. The letter 'a' represents 'archive', which makes sure that all of the permissions in the new host directory (the latter of the two) recursively. 'v' stands for verbose, which outputs any action that is occurring so that I can keep tabs on the progress and check for errors. Adding the --delete ensures that any files I have deleted in the source directory will also be deleted in the host directory. Now to check to make sure that everything will transfer cleanly you can add '--dry-run' after '--delete'. I ran this first to check that everything will work correctly without actually moving any files.

Also, by synchronizing my entire iTunes folder I am able to synchronize the playlists, artwork, and iTunes preferences. When I run this music collection on another computer, I hold down the alt button while I start iTunes, and choose that iTunes folder. This will open up that library, not the library that it typically defaults to.

The first time this command runs it will copy everything over. Anytime it runs after that it performs the synchronization. Cheers —

After a dozen years of using Macs, I've had enough.

The hardware looks trendy.
The software looks trendy.
The user interface is trendy and cool.

I mean, hello, drop shadows? animated window minimization? Tacky! Eff the trendy already. Just because we've got programmable graphics cards doesn't mean we have to use them. Sheesh.

And that mouse. What's with the mouse? It's a waste of time. Mousing all over when I could be using the keyboard.

Not to mention I don't ever have to restart the things. My Mac at home currently has an uptime of 35 days. How do I know it will still pass the Power On Self Test if I never have to turn it off due to crashes and blue screens?

Enough is enough.

I'm replacing my Mac with a modern computer.



Black and green, baby. Black and green.

You're sitting at your computer.

Photoshop is open. 1024 pixels of nothingness.

You need inspiration.

There are a million gallery sites that you could visit. There's Smashing Magazine. But my favorite tool is CommandShift3. CommandShift3 describes itself as "Hot or Not", except, instead of clicking on hot babes, you click on hot websites. Users are shown two websites and click on whichever one they think looks better.

I use CommandShift3's tagging system to see a list of well designed sites within a specific industry. If I were about to start working on a museum website, I'd go to:
http://commandshift3.com/tag/museum

Before starting work on a financial services site, I might check out:
http://commandshift3.com/tag/financial

Or maybe something in the health care industry:
http://commandshift3.com/tag/healthcare

You get the point, just type a tag into the url and see what comes up. Bonus feature—if you type in a word that isn't in their tagging database, you get a really cool 404 page.