Author: Daniel

Daniel https://turnings.phrasewise.com/ In the 4th grade Daniel was asked to step in into the hall because he was coaching fellow students on a similarity assignment he provided the class. Since then, Daniel’s passion for helping people has propelled him to be a creative developer of software and systems, and a team coach who excels at successfully delivering business value. Daniel founded QuietlyHelping in 2009 in order to have a direct hand in helping families with the struggles of debilitating disease. QuietlyHelping is an organization of compassion and empathy that brings ease, comfort, smiles, laughter, healing, and love to people battling cancer and other diseases. Spare time activities include cycling, occasional work as a musician, woodworking, photography, and reading books he never got around to in school. Unsurprisingly, Daniel is able to cook minute rice in just under thirty seconds.
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Monopolies, seven years later

Monopolies, seven years later: The past, the glorious, profit-making, fun past of the media business was based on:

  • scarce creators, under long term contracts
  • scarce retail outlets, able to be controlled with marketing muscle
  • scarce spectrum (few radio stations, few TV stations)
  • copyright laws (and a lack of technology) that limited theft of services
  • limited power of the creators to compete without a large media company as partner

It’s hard to outline a point of view that shows the power of any form of media getting stronger over the next decade. There are going to be more TV channels, not less. More ways for authors to distribute their works, not less. More ways for musicians to connect with listeners, not less. More ways for consumers to sample or take content, not less.

You were a monopolist. You’re not anymore. [On the money, and on my mind.]
Source: Seth’s Blog

Where there’s muck, there’s brass

Where there’s muck, there’s brass: The one thing that so many of today’s cute startups have in common is that all they have is a simple little Ruby-on-Rails Ajax site that has no barriers to entry and doesn’t solve any gnarly problems. So many of these companies feel insubstantial and fluffy, because, out of necessity (the whole company is three kids and an iguana), they haven’t solved anything difficult yet. Until they do, they won’t be solving problems for people. People pay for solutions to their problems. [Nice article.]
Source: Joel on Software

New York Times Employees Say Renzo Forgot the Bike Parking

New York Times Employees Say Renzo Forgot the Bike Parking: There was just one problem. While the Times and developer Forest City Ratner were promoting their new Renzo Piano-designed skyscraper as a “technologically advanced and environmentally sensitive” exemplar of green construction, a lack of bike parking and policies hostile towards cyclists were discouraging employees from commuting to work by the city’s most environmentally-friendly mode of urban transport.
[I have a similar problem in my current location… there’s no way to bring a bike into the building, leaving a bike outside all the time is a poor idea. Sad. So little thought to the simple things that improve everyone’s life.]
Source: StreetsBlog

iPhone on Rails – Creating an iPhone optimised version of your Rails site using iUI and Rails 2

iPhone on Rails – Creating an iPhone optimised version of your Rails site using iUI and Rails 2: After upgrading trawlr.com to Rails 2 I thought I’d make use of some of the new features and attempt to create an iPhone version of the site. With Rails 2 you can create a mime type specifically for the iPhone and then use that format in a respond_to block (along with views such as index.iphone.erb). [IPhone therefore I am. Actually not yet… but I’ll get there.]
Source:

adaptive path » blog » Todd Wilkens » Why usability is a path to failure

adaptive path » blog » Todd Wilkens » Why usability is a path to failure: Recently, I’m even coming to believe that focusing on usability is actually a path to failure. Usability is too low level, too focused on minutia. It can’t compel people to be interested in interacting with your product or service. It can’t make you compelling or really differentiate you from other organizations. Or put another way, there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website. [Interesting but overly simplistic. Lots of interesting comments.]