An interesting brief on Jaguar’s (yes the car company) web site. Just more proof that great photography makes a great site.

http://www.keycast.com/keycast/jaguar/jaguardesign/#

I’m a big fan of Patch Adam’s ‘laughter is the best medicine’. Medicine may be to clinical, but it’s certainly a great way to difuse some stress. So here is a great link to make your coders lol…

Code rhymes, bust’n it true
Cobol is old and so are you

Ok, I suck, but these guys are way better.. and by better I mean way funnier..

Here are some samples from that site:
“Step to my DJ, you better step prepared / He got (28+22/50) squared”

“I’m a player, which is not to say I get a lot of chicks / But I’ve played through Final Fantasy 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6.”

“Cuz I can kick it in Algol, roll it up in Snobol / Anything from Ruby all the way back to Cobol.”

“My rhymes flow just like my code / even though my source is owned by SCO.”

“Dear Internet, you’ve pwned my life / And if you had an orifice I’d make you my wife.”

If you haven’t seen these already:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/20070301.html

Pretty cool images for design inspiration.

http://www.lauriemcguinness.com/

A resource list of the most popular APIs available on the web for your very own Web 2.1 Mashup…

http://www.programmableweb.com/apis

Web service APIs are fairly easy to build. If you’re developing software consider including a few APIs to allows others to mash with your application. Think of the context your application is used and if and how information within your app can be used in another. It’s an easy feature to add and can create some upsell opportunities. The more embedded your application is with your customers, the happier your CFO will be; what better way to embed the application then for it to become a critical element in a larger business system?

On the flip side, consider how you can use other free or cheap applications within the scope of your own. Synergy is not just a feel good human resource term for creating productive teams, but can also be used in your development. Example: if you have location data, consider the Google Maps API to bring up instant directions. How about StrikeIron, it has a range of web services that cull data from the US Census and tax bureau tied to real estate listings showing the demographic information of the neighbourhoods.

Opportunities are many; be creative. Think of the value proposition of your application and tie what you’re doing to what else the user staring at your app screen wants to do or would like to do or would be convienient to do. Mash ups are leverage opportunities to provide interesting, unique and fun features at fraction of the development time.

A few months ago I was given a PDA as a birthday gift. It’s an HP iPAQ. It sat in the box for a couple of months until I found the time to try it out. Now I’m getting hooked. The wifi capability is great and the screen resolution is better then I anticipated. It has great features such as the ability to play audio and video files, and calendar syncing.

However, here is my favorite feature:

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