http://firewatching.com/ambient my thoughts on design, technology and culture Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:07:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Is now at blog.gridjit.com. Please update your feeds / bookmarks. http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/06/18/the-new-gridjit-blog/ A frequent comment that entrepreneurs hear when they share product ideas is "Hasn't someone already done that?" It's probably one of the most annoying comments one can hear, not because it's not true (it is) but because it glosses over the entire history of innovation and assigns way too much credit ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/06/06/products-that-wouldnt-exist-if-their-creators-listened-to-hasnt-someone-done-that-already/ According to a recent thread on Twitter's API discussion forum, they have decided to disable an API method that Gridjit relies on in order to provide its service. This is due to the scaling / load problems that Twitter has experienced in the last few months. It is odd that they ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/05/31/twitters-latest-api-changes-disable-gridjit-for-now/ In the last two weeks, Gridjit traffic has skyrocketed (over 10x what it was before). It's been getting lots of great reviews in at least 5 different languages. It's great to see how much everyone enjoys this app. With that in mind, I'm happy to make the following announcement: Gridjit is currently ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/04/21/lots-of-buzz-and-upcoming-gridjit-features/ I was a little surprised (in a nice way) by this: Thanks to David Krug at the Blog Herald for the kind mention. http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/04/13/gridjit-made-techmeme/ Because I just launched my company, I spend a lot of time reading / thinking / discussing with others about what it takes to succeed. Without having been at it very long I am, nevertheless, beginning to build a philosophy that I think will end up guiding me through the coming ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/04/12/top-lessons-ive-learned-from-starting-my-company-so-far/ In case you haven't heard, the food in Japan is out of this world. But sometimes, I find myself longing for some favorites from back home. In particular, I really miss good Mexican and good Pizza. After Googling around a bit, I happened upon the recipe site from one of my ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/03/31/a-great-recipe-site/ I just pushed a new version of Gridjit live. Users now have the ability to post to Twitter from within Gridjit. It's a simple enhancement, but as a user myself, I've noticed that it greatly enhances my experience and usage of Twitter. In order to post, just click on "What are ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/03/23/new-features-on-gridjit-today/ I signed up for social aggregation service FriendFeed the other day. Definitely not blown away by the UI or the performance, but I think today was the day that it clicked for me. Facebook has become a useful way for me to stay in touch with people since we moved to ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/03/20/breaking-down-barriers-with-friendfeed-good-or-bad/ I know YouTube is the most popular video-sharing site on the web, but I've always liked the aesthetics, quality of content and privacy options found on Vimeo much better (beautiful site re-design, btw). Anyways, I found this video today of music set to a magnetic ink print processing. The effect ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/03/15/stunning-video-using-magnetic-ink/