WANT! OK, need a big project, who's got some money and wants to do something cool on the web?

This would look good in my office. via @laughingsquid

How to Avoid Domain Name Front Running

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All of this naturally leads to the question, “How can I do a WHOIS lookup but hide my searches from prying eyes?”

The answer involves using your computer’s terminal access that connects directly to registry databases, rather than using a web interface through your computer’s browser (see figure below). By doing that, you bypass the “middleman” registrar.

Google’s Font Directory and API for web fonts could have a transformative effect on how we read the web. The only problem is, Google has made it very difficult to download all of the actual font files.

Web designers must be free to experiment with these new fonts, to sketch, comp and get to know these typefaces in browser and non-browser applications. This is why I’m providing this archive. 

Download Google’s Web Fonts
38.9 MB on disk (38,869,231 bytes)*
Updated 2011-03-15

The archive contains the most recent font files pulled from Google’s open source Web Fonts Directory project. All licenses, metadata and author credits are included.

* File size is shown in base-10 to match Snow Leopard’s Finder, please make sure the entire file has completely downloaded before expanding the archive. Archive is now served from Amazon S3. (No one told me there’s a free tier!)

If you agree Google has made it too difficult to download the fonts, please star this issue: Zip archive for non-technical users

Must have fonts for web designers.

Paul Baran. (© 2011 IEEE)

Paul Baran, who dreamed up what became the internet’s fundamental architecture, an idea so out-of-this-world 50 years ago that AT&T wouldn’t deal with him, has died. He was 84.

The New York Times reports that Baran died on Saturday from complications of lung cancer.

Baran was working at the famed RAND corporation on a “survivable”communications system in the early 1960s when he thought up one of its core concepts: breaking up a single message into smaller pieces, having them travel different, unpredictable paths to their destination, and only then putting them back together. It’s called packet switching and it’s how everything still gets gets to your e-mail inbox.

The need to create of a resilient network was considered critical in the early days of the Cold War, when fears of a nuclear attack on military command and control systems were especially ripe. Baran, and others, postulated that with near infinite redundancy on how a message could get from here to there such a network could not be effectively destroyed — and was thus a credible deterrent to even trying.

Baran approached AT&T to build such a network. But the company, which at the time had the U.S. telephone monopoly and, backing Baran, could conceivably have also owned the internet, just didn’t see the possibilities.

In an 2001 interview with Wired, Baran recounted his reception.

The response was most interesting. The story I tell is of the time I went over to AT&T headquarters – one of many, many times – and there’s a group of old graybeards. I start describing how this works. One stops me and says, “Wait a minute, son. Are you trying to tell us that you open the switch up in the middle of the conversation?” I say, “Yes.” His eyeballs roll as he looks at his associates and shakes his head. We just weren’t on the same wavelength.

If you think in analog terms, the signal arrives instantaneously. If you think in digital terms, time moves very, very slowly, and you can do things like change the path while you’re in the middle of a syllable. But it was a mental block. They didn’t understand digital. It was mostly generational, but there were young analog guys who had the same problem. If a guy considered the model of transmission to be analog, transmission time was instantaneous. It was a hang-up that caused people to think I was bullshitting them or didn’t know what I was talking about.

But the Air Force got it, and at the end of the 1960s Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency built the Arpanet, which was subsequently replaced by the internet as we now know it.

See Also:

• Wired 9.03: Founding Father
• Wired 9.06: Rants & Raves
• Wired 9.11: Meet the Bellbusters

via http://mobitv.com/

A few years ago I was interviewing a designer for a job. We ended up passing on him. Not because the work was bad, it wasn’t. And not because he interviewed badly, he didn’t. We passed on him, because while reviewing his portfolio, we came across work for a client I won’t name. Let’s just say their product kills people.

“Why did you work on that?” I asked.

There are two answers I would have accepted from him. “I don’t have a problem with their business model—in fact, I think there are too many people in the world.” Weird? Sure. But hey, he would have been making a stand. The second answer I’d have accepted would’ve been, “They’re terrible, but I really needed the money and had no other options.” I can’t begrudge anyone making a living, and we’ve all done things we’re not proud of.

Instead he looked surprised that I was asking the question and said something to the effect of it just being the next project on his plate.

I asked him if he agreed with how they made their money. He replied in the negative — he’d just done the design. I told him we didn’t take on any projects that we couldn’t ethically stand behind.

And here I’ll quote him: “Must be nice.”

And that’s when I decided not to hire him.

Now, I’m not trying to embarrass this individual, who I’m sure will have a solid design career, and I might have even done the same thing at his age. But as a designer, hell, as ANY type of craftsman, you are responsible for what you help to put in the world. You are defined by the clients you take on, and you can only stand as proud as the work you do and its benefit to society entitles you.

The clients you choose to take on define you.

In ten years of business (Christ!) at Mule, we’ve taken on projects we’ve been personally excited about, projects we thought had a fantastic benefit to the world, projects we thought were great fun, projects with subject matter we were curious about, and yes, even projects that were taken primarily to keep the lights on (if any clients are reading this please rest assured that yours did NOT fit into that category), but we’ve never taken on a project that we were either ashamed of or knew from the start would be problematic.

The former I can only leave you with your own moral compass to wrestle, but on the latter I think I may be able to pass along a few tricks to help you pick out the right clients and ensure the mutual success of your business and theirs.

Can you do good work for this client?

The business development process should go both ways. They’re trying to decide if they want to work with you, and you’re trying to decide whether you want to work with them. Are they tackling a problem that’s interesting to you? Do you have the core competencies to solve it? Is there room for you in the problem-solving process? Can they pay you?

Over the years the one constant that we’ve been able to rely on is that how a potential client behaves in the business development process is EXACTLY how they will behave during the project. Trust your gut. If they’re slow to return your calls now, while they’re trying to engage you, they’ll be just as slow later. If gathering requirements or success metrics is hard, then gathering feedback will be just as hard, if not harder. If biz dev turns into a May Day parade of red flags then disengage. You will not be able to do good work, and neither you nor the client will be well-served.

Do they understand what you bring to the table?

“Don’t worry. We know exactly what we need.”

Oh, thank God. Because I was shitting my pants wondering if I’d know where to place the buttons and rounded corners and other doodads.

Beware of clients that wait to call you until they have a perfect diagram of what they need. If they’re not coming to you for strategy and problem-solving, they’re not coming to you for design, they’re coming to you for production. And if you take on production work, you don’t get to call yourself a designer. (Yes, there’s a union. And we’re vicious.)

Look for clients that have clear goals, not detailed punchlists.

From a client’s point of view, hire a designer to help you get to a solution. Not to execute on one. You wouldn’t show up at a database analyst’s door with a fully realized database schematic. Don’t show up at a designer’s door with a drawing of a tuna can.

Beware of Negging.

You know that douchebag at the bar who walks up to your friends and says, “You know, I usually date models…” Yeah, that guy. The client services version of that is, “You know, we’ve got some really big name agencies who’d love to get this job.” Great, go call them. Don’t work for someone who tries to make you feel they’re lowering themselves to work with you. Good work comes from mutual respect.

My VC wants me to hire you.

No, just no. Never work with someone who shows up begrudgingly. It’s not going to work out.

I’m wary of working with startups in general. At least on their initial work. Even when they’re good, smart people, they’re people with dreams. People who probably walked away from their comfortable full-time jobs to follow a dream they’ve been designing in their heads for months or years. What they need is someone to flesh that out for them. They’re not usually in a mindset to have their dream messed with, nor should they be. Remember how mom dreamed of being a filmmaker and dad talked her into waiting until after having you and now she drinks? They’ll be better clients in a year, when you can do dream analysis, by which I mean analytics.

Is their project core to their business?

Someone who is in the business of selling pants will still be selling pants in three to four months, provided they’re still selling anything. But when someone selling pants comes to you with an idea to sell toasters, beware. Why are they getting into a new business? Is it a natural growth of their existing business? Does their expertise in their current business translate to their new business? Or is it an opportunistic attempt to “fill a hole in the market?” That hole may close before the project is over, and they’ll want to move to the next opportunity. Want to redo all that work? No, because they’ll want you to do it for free.

Which brings us to…

Work for money.

You are in business. You need to be as confident about money as you are about design.

Beware of clients who want you to work for equity. There’s too much there beyond your control. And especially beware of clients who tell you the work you do together will look great in your portfolio. For one, it probably won’t. A client who asks you to work for free already disrespects you. How do you think that’ll play out during the project? Think you’re getting portfolio-level work out of that? Secondly, you’re in business to make money. I’m lucky enough that I get to do what I love for a living, but only because I make a living off it. Working for portfolio fodder is the same as dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse.

Never work for free. Any work you take on for free will get pushed aside for paying work. That does neither you nor the client any favors. Neither of you will respect each other’s time. If the situation merits it, work on a discounted rate. But submit a budget showing the actual rate, with the discount applied.

Money is a standard part of any business transaction. I’ll go over strategies for talking about money in a later post, but as far as selecting clients goes, watch out for clients who don’t understand the financial value of what they’re hiring you for. In 95% of the jobs we’ve taken on, our clients have met or exceeded their success metrics after our work was done. Can we take full credit for that? Sure! Well, no, probably not, but it’s safe to say we were definitely a part of that.

Good luck.

Will following these rules help you get better clients? Probably. Are they failsafe? Oh, hell no. But they’re based on many, many years of trial and error, messing up, dusting myself off and trying again. As always, I’m not advocating for a single way of getting real or getting things done; I’m telling you how it worked out for me. Your mileage will certainly vary. Above all, the best advice I can give you in selecting your clients is to be confident, treat everyone with the same respect you want them to treat you, trust your gut, and iron your shirt.

If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy: Tips On Buying Design, Presenting Design Like You Get Paid For It, and Giving Better Design Feedback.

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Written by Mike Monteiro on February 24, 2011All posts, even unclever recycled thoughts, are protected under a Creative Commons license. Your comments are yours alone. This site is powered by the children working the saltmines at Movable Type.

Mule is a Design Studio.

Seems logical to me.

Wireless connectivity: it's not just for cell phones anymore. Why then should apps be thought of as just for phones? A fast growing number of non-phone devices is coming online and publishing data about their surroundings and activities to the internet. From e-Readers to bathroom scales to traffic signals and connected home sensors, the network enablement of formerly disconnected devices is just beginning. The Internet of Things, Web of Things, or Machine to Machine (M2M) communication are the names many people have applied to this trend and it's widely expected to be one of the next major technology disruptions.

How will the data be interfaced with by users? In large part, through apps. AT&T announced four new partnerships today with Machine to Machine application development platforms, aiming to make it easier for device manufacturers to build apps that get their devices onboard with what used to be known as a giant phone company. AT&T was reported this month to have added more connected non-phone to its network last quarter than any other network provider.

Note to self. Make fridge with compartments to compile grocery lists and defrost food from recipe choices.

Over half your website traffic is looking for documentation.

Documentation has historically been a cost center. Something you had to do or your customers would complain. Times have changed. Now that companies are primarily selling online, product and services documentation is strategically important because it drives lead generation and customer acquisition. This means you’ve got to deliver quality content that converts site visitors into revenue. Take note of these corporate logos.

Those are a few MindTouch customers that have learned MindTouch powered strategic documentation drives revenue. In fact, I am hearing MindTouch powered documentation sites are the single biggest source of lead generation and site traffic. Mark Fidelman recently reported this in another blog post about our customer RightScale and their success in driving revenue with MindTouch. Furthermore, I can report that MindTouch receives 70% of our site traffic from organic sources and our documentation generates more than half of our overall site traffic. Over half our lead generation is driven by our documentation.

Your documentation is your storefront. Are you open for business?

What’s driving customer acquisition? SEO, quality content, customer participation and discovery. How is MindTouch uniquely suited for strategic documentation? Contact us and we’ll explain in detail and provide real world customer stats. If you’re like me, and prefer instant gratification, here are some high level points commonly cited by MindTouch customers.

Content Authoring and Capture

1. Easy to use WYSIWYG authoring
2. Automated content creation from product APIs
3. Dynamic publishing from common systems such as support ticketing, CRM, databases and desktop applications

Content Discovery

1. Open standards
2. Powerful integrated search
3. APIs make content from MindTouch portable and able to be published to many places
4. Integrated scripting makes it easy for non-programmers to create useful visualizations and navigations of content

Content Curation

This is a critically important component as your documentation begins to scale. The easiest way to explain this is to give you an example. Mozilla wants to do a site wide push on HTML5. How do they know what coverage they have on this topic? What’s the quality? The health? Who’s contributed, who should contribute…? You’ll see more and more of this coming from MindTouch in the product releases this year. In particular, this is a key capability coming to market in MindTouch Technical Communications Suite (TCS).

Sign up for pre-release information about MindTouch TCS:

Categories: Docs, MindTouch   | Tags: documentation, Knowledge Base, MindTouch 2010 Comments (2)

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via @monkchips

Stop selling your stuff to corporate jerks. It never works. They always wreck what you’ve spent years making.

Don’t go for the quick payoff. You can make money maintaining your content and serving your community. It won’t be a fat fistful of cash, but that’s okay. You can keep living, keep growing your community, and, over the years, you will earn enough to be safe and comfortable. Besides, most people who get a big payoff blow the money within two years (because it’s not real to them, and because there are always professionals ready to help the rich squander their money). By contrast, if you retain ownership of your community and keep plugging away, you’ll have financial stability and manageable success, and you’ll be able to turn the content over to your juniors when the time comes to retire.

Our library is burning. We didn’t start the fire but we sure don’t have to help fan the flames. You can’t sell out if you don’t sell. Owning your content starts with you.

Let's do this people.