7 great links definitely worth a minute of your time on a busy Monday ...

An Inside Look at Zappos

There was a must-see story about Zappos on ABC News this past week. I have been enamored by this company since hearing CEO Tony Hsieh talk at SXSW in March. What a great company culture, I hope we can make it out to Las Vegas this year to get the tour in person.

Yahoo Design Stencils

Yahoo just released a really great stencil kit that helps anyone create high-quality wireframes. We use OmniGraffle for all wireframing, which I highly recommend. Other file formats available for the stencil kit are Visio (XML), PDF, PNG and SVG.

10 Questions to Ask Before Using Flash

We get requests weekly to use flash, and very seldom does it really fit the bill. Usually there is a better, much more user-friendly way of presenting content or graphics. Future Now came up with 10 questions that make the decision rather easy.

SEO Guide for Designers

Awesomebeginner's SEO guide for anyone doing web development. Definitely worth a read.

Twhirl - AIR Twitter Client

I am relatively new to twitter, but fell in love with twhirl immediately. It is built with Adobe AIR, is more reliable than twitterific (in my opinion) and also syncs with FriendFeed.

Vertical Centering with CSS

I recently found this article very helpful in trying to vertically center a site within a page.

What was Google thinking?

I'm as big a Google fan as any, but I can't imagine why they would choose to change their favicon. I was spellbound ... a lowecase "g"? I just don't get it. This article has the scoop ...

Interview with the Founder of Mint.com

Mint is one of the coolest, more well-done applications I've seen in a long time. And boy, what an ambitious market to go after. As an entrepreneur, I found this interview with founder Aaron Patzer quite inspirational.

Corporate Client Afflictions

Some hilarious illustrations of client interactions that are all too familiar for web developers. For help in avoiding these types of clients, see "Identifying Your Ideal Client".

Gone Indie - What it's Like to Work at Apple

I was very fascinated by this rare glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes at Apple, some of which is not that appealing. A great read with great insights about working in the corporate world.

Hidden Secrets of the Amazon Shopping Cart

This is a superb historical look at the Amazon shopping cart, and it's evolution through the years. Really great stuff.

How to live happily with a great designer

No one says things quite like Seth Godin. Digging into his archives, I thought this post on some things clients should know when working with a designer were right on.

I want to make it clear that I nor anyone on our team is bitter about any current client relationships. We have GREAT clients and love working with them. Regardless, I think Seth's thoughts are on the money, as usual.

Building a Web Application? Read this first.

Jakob Nielsen provides a top-10 list of mistakes made when building a web application. Some of them are more obvious than others, but always worth a refresher.

uTest- Pay-per-bug Testing Services

Put this in the "ideas I wish I thought of" category. uTest is a community of professional application testers. They will test your software for you, and you just pay for each bug found. Awesome.

Creating Glossy Test with CSS

Here's what I consider a really great idea for creating "glossy" text with CSS and the clever use of PNGs.

Finally, a rap song about SEO and design

Describing this video would not do it justice, just watch . . .

Put Buyers First? What a Concept

WOW. This is a must-read article about Amazon.com, and the principles of customer service upon which Mr. Jeff Bezos built the company. I wish executives at Apple would read this article and step it up.

Educating Users through Design

This article from Smashing Magazine was a great one, talking about designing your user interface to help people learn to use your product. The examples are fantastic, something we can all learn from.

Fancy Form

This is a superb little script that allows developers to have some fun with styling checkboxes and radio buttons. We used it recently, and it was super easy. Best of all, it degrades nicely for those that don't have javascript enabled in their browser.

The Ultimate Office for Software Developers

While I have mixed feelings about having an office (our team all chooses to work from home), I found this article from Freshview to be really cool. I love seeing what others are doing in our business, and that is quite an office!

Checking Out Ecommerce Checkout

For those interested in eCommerce, this study of checkout pages by Varien is quite fascinating. Great examples and insight!

Wufoo Form Gallery

I have great admiration for the team at Wufoo. The design of their application is awesome, and the product is right on. I happened to really like the new form gallery they unveiled recently. Great design!!

New Window Links in a Standards-Compliant World

Ever wondered why target="_blank" attribute does not validate under a strict doctype? I have, and this article not only explains why, but also provides a standards-compliant solution.

Mandolux - Desktop Wallpapers

A friend of mine discovered this website not long ago. It has very well done wallpapers, many of them meant for 2 or 3-screen setups. Very cool!

Google Custom Search - Business Edition

We integrated the newly-released business search from google today for a client and it's absolutely great! It allows you to have your own private-label search and index up to 5,000 pages for only $100/year ($500/year for up to 50k pages). Google simply gives you an XML output of the results, and they can be customized/styled to fit your site perfectly. Kudos to the team there for finally making this happen.

Feeling Tired?

Here's a productivity tip that can help anyone: if you spend most of your day in an office chair and always feel exhausted, then get up!! Exercise is not only essential for a healthy lifestyle, but it's also essential for a productive workflow. I recently started a diet/workout suggested by Tim Ferriss (mentioned here) and feel as fresh and psyched about work as ever. It's only 3.5 hours per week for me, so make time for it.

I Wish I Had this Idea

Ever see something so cool that you instantly wish you had thought of it first? That was my very reaction when discovering Jott. Amazing little app, works like a charm.

8 Tips for a Stronger Call to Action

These tips from email labs can be applied to email marketing or website copy. Either way, it's fantastic advice and a good read for those that are not born marketers.

Ever Want to Set Browser-Specific Styles?

In comes the CSS Browser Selector script! This was discussed a while back when 37signals wanted a way to set browser-specific styles. It became a life-saver for me recently when I needed to set a style for Safari. This little piece of javascript allows developers to easily set styles for a ton of browsers, and even set styles for when the user does not have javascript enabled. It's now part of my toolbox and it worth learning about.

Hooray for Google Analytics v2!

After a few days working with the NEW Google Analytics, it's everything I could have hoped for. In addition to the ease of use throughout, my favorite new feature is scheduled reports. I can schedule reports to be sent via email of the stats I choose, LOVE it.

I Wish I Thought of That!

Bringo has conquered those awful 800-number machines and found a way to save customers time and their sanity. This is a great idea, can't wait to try it out!

Starting a New Company?

For those interested in starting a new company, but don't care to deal with the paperwork, there are some great quality services that help you incorporate or form an LLC online. Through my own research, I found the pricing and service available from MyNewCompany.com to be swell.

A Great Guide on Web Design Contracts

I found this article by Nick Gould about web design contracts to be a great resource. They are a MUST in this business, and this article can help beginners get going in a hurry.

Em Calculator

Ems were some of the more confusing things for me to understand when getting started with CSS. If you are building an elastic layout, this Em calculator is a must!

Got Your Eye on an iPhone?

If so, you need to get a plan with Cingular! Resellular is a quality service I found that helps you ditch your mobile phone contract and move on.

Icon Shoppe

My personal web design superhero, Dan Cederholm, created a little site to sell his signature icons called Icon Shoppe. It's definitely worth a visit!

Suckerfish HoverLightbox Redux ?!?

Maybe the name needs a little work, but this is a really great dropdown demo. If only I knew of a way to use it . . .

Rediscovering the Button Element

Very useful article about styling buttons, which is something I find myself constantly struggling with.

Retail Email Reports

This blog has instantly become one of my favorites, and is very useful to anyone interested in email newsletter marketing. The site studies email campaigns from 100 or so of the largest online retailers, and comes up with ideas, trends and reports on what they are doing to win customers. This site is especially important during the all-important Christmas season, and is a great place to start if looking for campaign ideas. They also have done some fantastic studies on things like Send to a Friend Forms, Welcome Emails and Email Subscriptions. Great resource guys!

Ever wonder how they named eBay?

Naming a company or product has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done; especially these days, when it is of the utmost importance to secure the right domain name. I happened to stumble on a blog today called day2dayactivities that researched a bunch of companies, and how they were named. Some of them have some really neat stories, it is worth checking out. Here is one such story about how eBay was named . . . Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. "EchoBay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com. Read more of them here . . .

The Beauty of Photoshop

Brian Dilg is one of the best in the business at photoshop work, and his website proves it. Take a look at his imaging page and hover over each picture to see the original. I am not sure how I feel about making people look this artificially good, but it is amazing work regardless.

Steve Jobs' First Keynote

Being a big fan of Steve Jobs, this video taken in 1984 was a real treat to find online. From the beginning, he has been such an innovator, and this was inspiring to see considering where Apple is as a company today.

• 37 Signals takes venture capital? - The company at the forefront of Getting Real and telling the world not to seek venture capital accepts investment from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Never saw this one coming, but I am sure it will be great for both parties. It does seem a little contradictory though.
• Bye Bye Embed - this is a great article and resource on properly embedding video (flash, windows media, quicktime) within a website, and compensating for Internet Exlporer shortcomings. With flash video, I still think other methods are a little better, but it was still very educational.
• Apple profits $472 million - another great quarter from Apple, actually their second best ever. Their market share in the laptop market has doubled from 6% to 12%, and the new desktop is sure to produce the same result when released this fall. Rumors that Apple will be entering the movie rental marketplace with iTunes next month assures exciting things ahead in the 4th quarter.
• The Art of the Finish - What an awesome article from the guys at Blue Flavor. Fantastic, a must read.
• Dealplumber - this resource for online coupons and discounts definitely hit a homerun in my book this week.
• Tesla Motors - Visions of 100% electric cars become reality with new cars from Tesla Motors, costing about one cent per mile. Not only that, but it goes 0 to 60 in about 4 seconds. This is good reason to look forward to 2007.
• New Yahoo Home Page - the web development community has been talking quite a bit about the new Yahoo homepage design. Looks great, hopefully not too much AJAX for the mainstream. Awesome job, though.