Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.– Bertrand Russell

I love the concept of del.icio.us, but because it’s separate from the browser it’s a pain to use. Enter the del.icio.us Firefox plugin, which replaces Firefox’s weak bookmark tool with taglicious zen. Most excellent.

Canada rules! Check out Amie Street, an independent Canadian online music store - sans DRM. They charge based on popularity, with a better revenue model for artists.  In ten minutes I found a dozen new and interesting artists, all worth paying $.20-.98 per song to.

A succinct bit on the Zen of Python. Less is always more.

I like to spend my winter holiday thinking about the year, and what I didn’t do enough of. Next year, I hope to:

1. Write more. Not just web fluff and links (which is fun), but more real fiction and non-fiction. I love to write, but life and complexity just keep on getting in the way.
2. Do more creative stuff. I have an artistic side, but the geek in me naturally suppresses it. I need to learn better balance.
3. Learn more healthy habits. I love good food, I grok nutrition, and I enjoy exercise. I need a bit more of each (and less of the crap).
4. Learn Ruby/Rails well. Last year I polished my C#, Javascript, and Php skills (as well as time spent with SQL, CSS/XHTML, etc.). This year I need to at least know why Rails isn’t for me. So far I’ve only spent a dozen hours with it, which isn’t nearly enough.
5. Focus. Life is noisy. Work is noisy. Learn to deal with both: I will overcome the chaos.

One thing I like to keep in mind with resolutions is that sometimes a year isn’t enough. Life is a garden, and sometimes crops fail. The key is to keep doing healthy things, and remember that growth takes time, practice, and effort.

A rare Lee Pirsig interview, author of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (via BoingBoing).

I was talking about web appilcations with a friend tonight, about how certain sites hit that sweet spot. What is it that makes their stuff better? What is it that we see that defines the difference?

So what makes them special?

• Google: authoritative answers
• Flickr: inspiration in photography
• Wikipedia: knowledge out the wazoo

The smaller sites are similar too, though with a narrower focus:

• 37Signals: simple life hacks
• JoelOnSofware: interesting software rants
• BoingBoing: compelling wild and weird stuff

It’s interesting that most of these guys are third generation web, and they all eclipsed their competitors by being damned good at their shtick. Being best is far more important than being first, and picking something we all want or need is absolute.

In product-land, the iPod is another clear winner. It does tunes. It does them well, end-to-end. No fuss. Like Google or Flickr, the iPod is clearly the best, with a limited set of features.

You’ll also notice that big success lacks the sickly-sweet corporate fermentation process. You won’t find meaningless mission statements or shallow product vision papers. What you find is clear, pragmatic thinking. Make it simpler. Make it better. Do one thing well. Damn the competition, because we’ll kick their ass.

Alan Cox’s (of Linux kernel fame) thinkpad explodes. Includes pictures of laptop bits.

Art and the Zen of web sites, a repository of truths on web development.

Today I was thinking about how to write a web app that draws comic bubbles. There are many parts and solutions to the problem. It’s one of those things that gets complex quickly, unless you’re willing to remove some of the harder features.

I need to spend some time thinking about compromise, as a perfect solution is unlikely given the tools available for web applications.

Some of the problems:

• Embedding special fonts
• Resizing irregular bubbles
• Adding/positioning bubble parts
• Positioning fonts based on irregular edges
• Clipping bubbles to strip edges
• How/where to render (client or server, svg, js, raster, etc.)

I can see a few different approaches. Each solves a few of the hard problems, and each has its own rough spots.

One approach would be to perform the rendering on the server side. Something like Inkscape could be pared down to run as a web service. Comics would be stored in SVG, but rendered to GIF/PNG to embed in the web pages. Comic authors would edit their strips using rich Javascript approximations (edit boxes over the rendered form), and readers would see the already-rendered strips. This allows for high quality rendering, for authors who wanted to go to press with their strips.

Another approach would live within the limitations of xhtml/css/javascript. Fonts would be limited, and all rendering would be done client-side. Features could be added to this as browsers matured, but would depend heavily on browser vendors and compatibility. This approach would initially limit things like clipping, available fonts, etc., but would likely be easier to build.

There are dozens of other approaches too. Flash or the canvas widget could be used, or something written in Java. Luckily I don’t have time to start today, so I’ll have to let my subconscious gnaw on it for a while.