Scott Magdalein

The opening section of the book mostly comprises patronising cliches that sound like they are from Hannah Montana - it's 'reach for your dreams'-type bubblegum.

Classic case of an old guy that doesn't like the flippant opinion of a younger generation of leaders and expresses his unfounded opinion with sarcasm and hyperbole. Worth a read if only for the entertainment value.

I don’t really believe in triumph. Because the most triumphant moments are the days when I have no idea how I'm going to fix anything, but I get out of bed anyway. On the other hand, the moments of huge achievement are not actually that hard to get to. By the time you're close, you are so motivated to get there that it doesn't feel like work at all.

Penelope Trunk of the Brazen Careerist usually writes provocatively, not because she's a blogging shock-jock (at least I don't think she tries to be), but because she's brutally honest. It makes her blog fun and fresh and always intriguing.

Today Google Reader was a gem for me in the form of a little motivation from Penelope. More brutal honesty with a flare of hope. Thanks Penelope.

The article quoted above discusses the difference between the big successes and the little wins. Why are the big ones easy and the little ones hard? Why is it easy to launch a new product and hard to stick to a diet? Why is it easy to be a "good husband" and hard to be moderately generous at the coffee shop?

Good reminder that it's the little wins that make the big successes possible.

A friend of mine, Kent Shaffer, sent me some information about a little project called A Beautiful Idea. His wife Evie is asking artist and creatives to produce a product and donate the funds to a project to help others.

A Beautiful Idea is a great concept and a great cause. I love this kind of stuff! Keep it up, Evie. And keep sharing good stuff, Boyd.

revMobile will let you create your own iPhone apps without knowledge of Objective-C or farming it out to a dev company for tens of thousands of dollars. From the video, it looks like a snap.

I'm skeptical that you could use this to build a complicated productivity app that pulls external APIs in a reasonable amount of time and get a quality result, but for non-profits or small businesses looking to build a simple, branded, content-oriented iPhone app, it's worth a look.

Cambridge UK startup Rapportive has released a Firefox and Chrome extension that will replace the ads in your Gmail with photos, biographic data and social media links, including a live display of recent Tweets, for whoever you're corresponding with by email. It's fantastic and takes about 2 minutes to set up.

This is one of those, "Why didn't I think of that?" situations. Simple and genius use of contact data mixed with scouring the web for relevant information.

I installed this plugin (Chrome or Firefox) ten minutes ago and have already found seen the advantage of having access to more details about the person I'm emailing. Can't wait to see how it performs during a full work day.

The iPad may be a larger version of the iPhone in terms of the hardware and operating system, but treating it as the same device would be foolish. It turns out that increasing the display size of touch-screen hardware can transform it into an entirely new class of device. The iPad is a productivity platform in a way that the iPhone rightly never tried to be.

Matt's right, the iPad is a completely different animal than the iPhone in almost every way. The article linked above is a thorough walk-through of what to consider when designing iPad applications. His advice regarding the new methods for UX on productivity apps is perfect; spot on.

But I think his advice in the section Use the Psychology of Touch is heading in the wrong direction: novelty. I'm not convinced that performing actions on a computer should feel like you're doing it in real life. Scrolling is faster than flipping pages. Typing is faster than writing. Searching is faster than browsing.

Computers were invented to make analogue activities easier and more efficient. Why backtrack by designing software that mimics real-world activities that are less effective?

A recent hands-on by Engadget’s Chris Zeigler found that all of the default Google search was taken out of the device and replaced with Yahoo search (which will use Bing soon enough). Let me repeat that; all Google search is taken out of AT&T’s Android device in favor of Yahoo search.

First, this reeks of decision-making from the accountants at AT&T. They see that revenues need to climb, so they take logical actions:

• Kill Google's search and bring in Yahoo!'s search because Yahoo! is willing to split the mobile search profits with you.
• Bring in the Motoblur skin of the FREE Android OS to keep costs down and easily implement immediate social interaction within the device.
• Build an intriguing enough design that kids will think it's an upgrade from their Sidekick and buy it, not knowing that it's the cheapest "smartphone" AT&T has ever sold for enormous profits.

Second, this deal stinks for the AT&T customers because:

• Yahoo! search isn't as good as Google's search.
• With search built into every app and web-search is accessible from every location on the phone, a Yahoo! replacement is going to make for a slow and disconnected experience.
• It smells too strongly of corporate decision-making on a granular level.

It's a sad state for AT&T if the first Android phone they land doesn't even bring in the most intriguing aspect; amazing search capabilities baked in.