The design of 404 error pages is often overlooked and underestimated. However, designed carefully, these pages can make a random visitor stay on your website, take a look around and eventually find the information he or she was looking for in the first place. Effective 404 error pages communicate why a particular page couldn’t be displayed and what users can do next. A search box and list of useful resources (possibly related to the missing page) could be helpful in this case.
Positioning and pitch decks for startups
A friend of mine is putting together his first deck for potential investors. In typical startup fashion, they launched a product, got a number of users, and then iterated several times to improve the service. With the product in the hands of tens of thousands of users, they started getting inbound requests from larger organizations who were willing to pay for customized and private group related services. While Version 2.0 will be released to the greater world in the next 6-8 weeks, you may be interested in what I had to say about the pitch deck.
Who Really Gets the D Grade?
The American Society of Civil Engineers comes out with an annual report card on America’s infrastructure and it’s almost always grim… otherwise how would it make news?
This year the ASCE gives our infrastructure a D grade, same as last year except that we are now at a D- instead of a straight D.
WordPress MU 2.7
After a lengthy delay, WordPress MU 2.7 is now available. WordPress MU is the software that runs on WordPress.com and many other sites.
This is a sync of the code from WordPress 2.7 released last December. It’s taken a while but I think it’s worth the wait as there are many bugs fixed. Besides the merge with WordPress 2.7 there are also a few new features, including Viper007bond’s admin bar which is the most user visible addition.
Check the timeline for further info.
ILoveSketch No-Cut Demo: Spacecraft from Seok-Hyung Bae on
ILoveSketch No-Cut Demo: Spacecraft from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.
Everytime I see Ilovesketch, extreme feelings of jealousy for the lucky designer running that demo spring up inside me
iPhoto 09 is fantastic
I’ve spent at least 2 minutes with iPhoto 09, and come to the following conclusion: it is fantastic.
After installing iLife 09 and booting up iPhoto (does anyone care about the other 3 apps? not I!), it began scanning all of my photos finding and sorting all of the people in my library.
Sway and Irrational VCs
I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, with great interest and delight. Gladwell is a fantastic author: always thought-provoking on human behavior and a quick, entertaining read. But I confess this book did not resonate with me or strike me as relevant for the VC-entrepreneur dance in the same way his previous book, Blink, did (see: VCs Blink). It was intellectually interesting, but not professionally illimunating.