It is with great sorrow that I report to you all the closing of a legendary service here in Minneapolis. Simon Delivers has informed us all that “Today’s economic conditions” have forced them to bring an end to their services.
There was a time when their services were infinitely helpful to my family - let alone convenient. Every time I would come home to those inviting green bins on the doorstep I felt like royalty! Someone had DELIVERED my groceries!
I know their superior service, and engaging web site will be sorely missed…
| Posted by Larisa @
July 18th, 2008
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As the little baby intern of the bunch, I’d like to share with you all a few tricks we college students employ to restrain our flighty budgets. In order to survive these four (or five. or six.) trying years, one must take care to ingest enough of the following: music, food, and knowledge. And we must do it cheaply.
There are a few great free, LEGAL ways to listen to your favorite music. Hype Machine is a site that searches for blog posts containing uploaded music files. It re-routes these files to an easy-to-use music player. Users can search for their favorite artists or songs and read related blog posts. Users can also listen to Hype Machine’s live radio while chatting with others about what’s playing and new music.
Another great way to discover new music is to use Pandora Radio - radio from the “Music Genome Project”. Users can create stations based on an artist or song they like, and the application creates a playlist of songs with similar qualities. Some attributes of one of my playlists are: modern r&b stylings, heavy use of vocal harmonies, and acoustic rhythm piano. Users can rate Pandora’s recommendations with a thumbs up or thumbs down. These ratings are collected and used to make future assumptions. The idea is that the application becomes more accurate as it gains more use. Due to copyright contracts, Pandora cannot play specific songs. It also limits the amount of times you are allowed to skip songs. But, from personal experience, the program often does a good job of predicting my interests and has a very nice interface design.
After consuming nothing but Roman Noodles for the first two or three years of your college existence, one enters a golden era - the age of legal alcohol consumption. And no site has been more helpful to me and my friends around 5pm than the happy hour search engine, Thrifty Hipster. Here, you can find a drink special in nearly every part of the Twin Cities at nearly any time. (Every hour is happy hour!) You can also view events, ratings, and food specials. Fabulous.
Finally, when your music, food, and beverage needs are satisfied, it’s time to study. Buying all reading materials from Half.com has saved thrifty college students from around the world trillions of dollars! (Statistics estimated.) Half.com was created by eBay and is a search engine specifically for used books, music, movies and games.
Additional words of advice for the monetarily challenged? Watch television online, buy used furniture on Craigslist, and always accept cookies from your mother when you go home to visit. Save a life. Tell a college student.
| Posted by Miranda @
July 8th, 2008
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The 2008 Webby Awards winners were announced not too long ago. There is a lot of great work featured in categories ranging from Activism to Youth. Winners include: Flickr.com, Wired.com, Apple.com, Ted.com, PostSecret, and many more.
Sadly, I Can Has Cheezburger? did not win the humor category.
Check out all the winners for yourself.
| Posted by Annette @
July 3rd, 2008
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I guess the days of calling layers and symbols within Flash “asdf” and “Symbol1, Symbol2″ etc. are over. Unfortunately, there will probably be a lot a attempts to use ActionScript to game the system by unscrupulous developers. It’s likely the actual spidering method and guidelines will be tweaked a lot in the coming months. In the meantime, it’s probably a good idea to look at your existing Flash sites and see what can be tweaked to be more search-friendly.
TechCrunch
Related: Google
| Posted by Mike @
July 1st, 2008
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But, these cookies rock all over yours.
Part of my job as user research manager is to make sure that our clients who observe usability have a unique, high-quality experience that also may include a sugar high stemming from some of the best cookies on the planet.
When I first started hosting usability, Emily suggested that we bring in Tank Goodness Cookies as an extra special treat for our clients – which we now do for almost every usability lab. Tank Goodness bakes chocolate chip oatmeal cookies on order and pulls them from the oven immediately before sticking them in an insulated bag, zooming across the city and delivering them – still warm – to the office. Add a half gallon of milk and it’s close to heaven.
These cookies have been huge hit for clients (and staff who get to eat the left-overs) and Dennis and Ann Tank are a true pleasure to work with providing an excellent user experience all the way around.
| Posted by Telari @
June 27th, 2008
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