Chris’ posterous

In preparation for tomorrow's release of Firefox 3.6, here is a video they have produced highlighting some of the new features. If the speed issue is indeed resolved (every recent version of the browser in the last 12 months has gotten slower and slower) this could be the most important update yet for the Mozilla team.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day as Seesmic also has their new Seesmic Look release party at 9AM to noon EST.

New version 1.5.0 of Firebug out today - sweet! The only reason I still keep Firefox around (instead of using Chrome for everything). What would make my year is the release of a true working version for Chrome instead of the bogus Firebug lite (which does not work with a lot of sites).

I absolutely love this commercial. Its funny and original, although the puritans have once again seen fit to edit and/or ban this from a lot of stations. Come on, people, its not a big deal and its funny. Reminds me a little of the scene in "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie says the mother of all curse words when changing the tire with his dad. Very creative. Bravo Joes, don't give in to censorship.

The latest jQuery revision arrived on its 4th birthday today. Website w3avenue has a good roundup of resources for developers. Also, if you visit the jQuery site and make a donation of $20 or more, you can receive a free jQuery eBook next week.

You can always do less David Jan 14

41 comments Latest by John

The hardest part about making good software that ships on time is knowing what and when to sacrifice. As programmers and designers, we often fall in love with our requirements and are unable to kill our darlings. We mistake what we said we’ll do with what must be done. It’s rarely so; you can always do less.

What stops most people from doing less is the fear of failure. The misconception that if you don’t get it all done, the rest is worth nothing at all. That without this feature or that tweak, nobody will want to use it at all. Bollocks. Most software has a tiny essence that justifies its existence, everything after that is wants and desires mistaken for needs and necessities.

The easiest way to force the insight of what can be lived without is by playing a game of constraints: You have to ship on Friday, you can’t add more people, you can’t work nights. Fixed resources, fixed time. All that’s left to give is scope. It’s amazing how creative the cuts and sharp the sacrifices become when you’re backed into a corner. It’s when you have to choose that you make the best choices.

For every 1 day estimates of a task, there’s a simpler version of that you can do in 3 hours, and an even simpler still you can do in 30 minutes. Back yourself into a corner and these versions will vividly appear before your eye. You can always do less.

An interesting looking toolkit for gmail use. Have not had a chance to try it out yet, will be a weekend project.

Wow, its really hard to believe that these sites are Wordpress sites. I am enjoying using Wordpress and obviously have only scratched the surface of what I can do with the platform. I love looking at examples of great design like this - it always gets me thinking.

I read this story and watched the video last night with much interest. I wish Loic and his team well and congratulate them on this acquisition. I have been following Seesmic for a while now, using all their products and generally drinking their cool-aid on a regular basis. (Loic - where is my iPhone app man!) But I started thinking about what this might mean for one of my other favorite apps - Posterous. Ping.fm does a lot of the same stuff in a (sorry) less useful way. Sure its great to send an email to auto-post to multiple social networks. But I can do that and so much more with Posterous. Plus I can share with my Posterous community and have it became the "center" of my digital life. But when you combine Ping with Seesmic's applications, something interesting can now happen. Garry, if you see this post, would love to get your take on this merger and where you see Posterous heading in comparison. Lots of interesting possibilities.

Wow, this is pretty cool. And Mashable has a promo, so you can get this app for $49 till 1/6 (if I read that correctly). This is pretty cool and something that has been needed for a while now. I may have to get a copy and that discounted price.

By carefully curating the people you follow, Twitter becomes an always-on data stream from really bright people in their respective fields, whose tweets are often full of links to incredibly vital, timely information.

Nice article on Twitter from NY Times. The quote above sums up my exact feeling on why Twitter matters.