http://firewatching.com/ambient my thoughts on design, technology and culture Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:57:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the last week or so Mozilla, Microsoft and Google all announced similar, separate strategies for dominating the next evolution of the web (and search) through significant change in the way people use browser technology. Much of it centers on that little search box at the upper right hand corner ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/09/02/developer-notes-on-the-next-evolution-of-browsers-and-search/ Some thoughts I put down over at the Gridjit Blog. http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/07/14/why-release-alpha-or-beta-software/ This is just a meditation, not a peer-reviewed academic piece (which will become quite obvious), but I thought I would share it for anyone who might find it relevant to their work lives. Think of it as a devil's advocacy piece to anyone (including myself) who finds themselves dreaming up ... http://firewatching.com/ambient/2008/07/07/google-has-trained-us-all-to-think-like-marketers/ 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/