Use good RSS feeds as content editors

Last night while listening to Keith Robinson (of dkeithrobinson.com) in the Edgework podcast, I heard a really good idea on how to deal with the problem of knowing that what you’re reading online is good stuff. From all that’s written about web design and development, how to reach the really good articles without wasting tons of time?

Keith says that what he does is find a small group of trusted sources on the subject matter of his interest. People that he knows are not wasting their time with stupid stuff or that won’t bookmark a bad article. Then simply subscribe to their bookmarks (most people now post an individual feed for their links in their blogs).

Unconsciously I have been using that technique for the past 3 months. But I hadn’t heard the concept pointed out as a formal idea. Keith says it’s like having your trusted sources doing editorial work for you.

You’re probably already doing it, but if you’re a Google Reader user (as I am), you can specify special “folders” for each topic you decide to filter using this cool content hack.

Apple Quicktime’s secret to increasing volume

If you’ve ever been annoyed at the maximum level of output volume that Quicktime gives you while watching movies online or listening to mp3s you’ll be happy to learn this fantastic secret. If you press the Shift key while setting the volume, a secret volume adjuster shows up.

Now turn it up!

Press Shift while adjusting the volume to reveal the secret knob

Via (LifeClever ; ))

Skitch invites

Today I got the great news that I can invite 5 people to use Skitch. Please just leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite.

Edit: I’ve got none left.

Great “Lorem Ipsum” tools for designers

Tired of always using Lorem Ipsum for your design layouts? Typography and graphic designer legend Erik Spiekermann has written a great post about creating better dummy text for your design layouts.

He recommends a variety of tools that generate better fake copy for your work:

Adhesiontext allows you to set the different character sets for your generated text (Spanish, English, Portuguese), as well as lowercase or uppercase settings.

Just Another Test Text Generator seems to be the best out there. You can specify the language you want, the characters you want, lowercase or uppercase, plus the amount of letters in words. It’s a fantastic tool that will make your text look more natural.

If you’re on a mac I recommend the Corporate Lorem-Ipsum generator. It creates great corporate talk for those dummy Memos you’re designing. It also lets you control paragraph length. It’s a good one.

And just in case you want to bookmark it, here’s a link to the ultimate Lorem Ipsum generator.

GTD Fortune Cookie

Nothing like having a fortune cookie remind you of what you already know:

The GTD Fortune Cookie

It put it up in Flickr.

Aging

I came across this photo essay today that relates to time, aging, and family life (via Daniel Mall).

It’s a powerful visual journey, and it struck me as odd the way old age hits us in a second. Seems like it takes only one year to stop being a child and becoming a young man. And the same with becoming a grown up and then getting old. It’s in a second. One day you look young, and the next you don’t.

A shift is needed

Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created.

Albert Einstein