Security reports from other sites are welcome. Why aren’t safety reports? One of the most fundamental triumphs of the last few decades of open source culture...

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the greatest games ever made, and one of the breakout hits of the Nintendo Switch platform, which is on its w...

Even though I watched the medium of podcasting being created since its inception, I'd always resisted a little bit participating myself. I think I just felt mo...

Tech is more important than ever, deeply affecting culture, politics and society. Given all the time we spend with our gadgets and apps, it’s essential to unde...

At a time when millions are losing trust in the the web’s biggest sites, it’s worth revisiting the idea that the web was supposed to be made out of countless l...

Printers: They don’t work. Here’s my wishlist for one that might. If you’ve followed my work for any time, you know I’m fond of pointing out that printers do...

There are going to be endless think-pieces and armchair analyses about why America elected Donald Trump as its next President. But you already know why. Don’...

For my birthday a while back, some of you may remember I asked you all to contribute to a project to build wells to bring clean water to a village in our famil...

Last week I went and visited the memorial reflecting pools for the first time. I had been to the top of the new One World Trade Center, but had deliberately av...

Every single day we’re hearing about the failings of big tech companies and what they’re doing to the web. The ethical failings, the transgressions against pri...

I’ve seen a lot of hand-wringing from techies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley saying “Why are we so hated?” now that there’s been a more vocal contingent o...

Last week, I had a chance to sit down with Bill Gates as part of a small group, in a discussion focused around the release of his annual letter and the progr...

We have the obligation to never speak of our concerns without suggesting our solutions. I’ve been truly gratified to watch the response to The Web We Lost ov...

When I used to fly a lot, people would ask me why I was such a big fan of Virgin America. Some of it is the usual stuff — they have wifi and power outlets, and...

There are lots of different ways to measure how friendly a company is toward developers, and whether a tech company complies with the values that its developer...

Yesterday, my son and I were coming back home to New York City, driving past the familiar skyline and its newest additions. Like a lot of toddlers, my boy’s ob...

The idea of “public space” used to be pretty simple; There were places that we all agreed would be maintained by, and for, the public good. But the past few de...

This morning, I was extraordinarily excited to get to witness Mayor Bloomberg and our city’s new Chief Digital Office Rachel Sterne unveil New York City’s “Roa...

A few months ago, I wrote about fat pages , the unbearable burden of clutter that often makes reading on the web so much less pleasant than it ought to be. It...

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the landmark passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and among many observances was an event at the White Hous...

Over the past two and a half decades, the Weather Channel built itself into a $3.5 billion company on the strength of information that’s largely available for...

The White House tweeted that they want feedback on the Grand Challenges in science and technology that face our country. That’s not so new. But today, if you...

Children’s stories should clearly communicate their messages. Unambiguous, no?...

I try not to ramble on too much about my work, except for a little “I love the people I work with!” post every few months, but I did want to point out one sati...

Here’s some examples of how graphic artists are trying to save people’s lives. Prince Pickles is the manga-style cartoon character who represents Japanese...

My iTunes library, of about 12,000 songs consisting of 60GB of data, got corrupted today. The MP3 files themselves are okay, but all of the metadata is blown a...

Summary: In 2002, Google launched one of their few pay services, Google Answers . The service attracted only 800 responders in the past 4 years, and was sh...

When we were unpacking the delightful Nintendo Wii a few weeks ago, I was marvelling at how well-thought-out the process was. Beautiful, pleasant, and of cou...

This is the first post in a series where I’m pointing out some nice little touches that take up less than a 100×100 pixel square on a screen. Today’s is the N...

Dan posts one of this infrequent updates, titled “ A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal “. It’s a great perspective on Dr. King’s work and legacy on the day w...

Thanks to Matt for pointing out some wildly irresponsible journalism . I’m always amazed that editors go with these stories (and write these kinds of headline...

I can’t see the date anywhere today without just stopping, freezing in my tracks. It surprises me it’s still that close to the surface, even after four years....

Curious about what technologies and techniques are going to be popular in the coming months and into the next year? Well, our crack team of editors here at das...

I’ve been on a big “there’s nothing new under the sun” kick lately, so let’s take a look at Infoseek’s sitelist.txt proposal from 1997, and deepleap.xml , f...

I think the media inaccuracy witch hunt is reaching its zenith. (Or perhaps its nadir.) Brian Williams is being slammed for saying that there are no black me...

Many of my friends are technological know-it-alls, and we all tend to ignore default settings and not do the things that software recommends. Part of this is j...

There’s lots of business books that say we should learn from the wisdom of children, and I completely agree. During meetings, you may find the following two ph...

I hate to contradict Ken Mehlman’s desires, but I think, instead of flooding the web with assertions that a candidate won after the vice presidential debate,...

I spent much of Saturday bumming around with Justin . We ate and walked and took lots of pictures but mostly we talked. And we talked about personal stuff,...

I made a bunch of improvements to my Daily Links , with more on the way. The blog is AtomEnabled , the layout and font size are improved, the explanatory tex...

For those of you who live in the United States or are familiar with its culture, imagine a place that starts with a political and social system that’s identica...

I have an older, kind of broken-down laptop that I wanted to do some research and testing on, so I installed a fresh install of a new operating system on it. H...

Oh, and all you alpha testers, you can just get in with the user/password beta1/simple which should be easier to type....

One of the great thing about having dorky friends is that they come up with ideas that even I recognize as being too geeky for human consumption. Such as a d...

Given that Oprah is reviving her book club and featuring a host of classics that are mostly, one presumes, in the public domain, it seems like a tremendous o...

I was thinking about the fact that browsers have to fix up a page internally in order to render it correctly if elements are incorrectly nested or are left u...

Regular readers may remember an unpleasant contretemps a while back with regards to the Little Green Footballs weblog . Well, being of the mindset that one...

It’s an odd little peeve of mine, but I am constantly mystified by the captions on Associated Press photos that feature young black celebrity males. First, let...

I redid the way my Daily Links work, so I’ll be able to do a lot more with them. For the 99% of you who don’t know what those are, the sidebar here is what’s...

Dear nested P tag with a class that has a negative margin style that screws up the way DIVs appear in Internet Explorer 6 on Windows: I would like that half...

There’s a unique character to kids who live in Manhattan, something that distinguishes them, beyond the obvious images of necks craned upwards at impossibly ta...

Dave says that RSS is a syndication format, nothing more. And that it has nothing to do with RDF. I am just curious, why does Dave get to make these decisio...

It’s not that we must have bendy straws, it’s that we can have them. There are simpler ways. There is the "good enough" of a utiltitarian assis...

Apple is committing a grave folly in not taking advantage of their tight OS/hardware integration. People forget just how much one can do with well-integrated h...

This is the thing: bendy straws are like little plastic tubes of unfulfilled promise. The articulation, the flexibility, that’s the appeal, right? But is it su...

I thought everyone had read this, but then I mentioned it to a few people, and they hadn’t seen it. Do yourself a favor and read Clay Shirky’s thoughts on the...

Phew! Michael really went for it. Amazon rocking XHTML is valid XHTML 1.0 Strict, valid CSS, and meets both Section 508 and WAI 1.0 specs. Very impre...

Geek Poetry ? Inspired by absence and distance? Hmm… I’m but a server, awaiting request, Proffering pages at your behest. Since your state persists, I...

The interesting thing about the fact that everybody objected to Smart Tags back when Microsoft wanted to include them as an option in Internet Explorer 6 is th...

I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to Ariana more in Texas, she’s just too goddamned charming. Especially when she comes out about playing a game that I am...

I am always surprised at what things get huge responses… People have been emailing me like crazy about the “links in new windows” thing. Let me clarify: I’m no...

Why do people, even super standards-compliant people, make links that open up in new windows? If I want my browser to do something non-standard, I’ll damn well...

Okay, I feel all better. Now go heal Shannon ....

Sometimes we just rely on ad-hoc cultural literacy training. I wouldn’t think that this sort of thing was necessary at a contemporary big-city newspaper, but I...

Here are about 8 kabillion (that’s an estimate) keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft programs . I know all of these already, but you might not. No really, I do...

null...

I saw the same scene at Union Square that Jeffrey did . I was there to meet a friend for dinner last night. I went early, to see what was happening there. The...

So it’s not something I guess I should say right now, but I never liked those towers. Their only purpose, I said, was to help orient oneself when getting out a...

A couple of things that I should let you all know: I am fine overall, and doing better emotionally. I really, truly appreciate all the kind words and e...

So I guess today will be the day when everything changed… I have had so many of the same conversations over and over. I want so badly to think of something e...

Just in case you’re curious, or in case you like ugliness, you can [disable style sheets](javascript:for(i=0;i<document.styleSheets.length;i++)document.styl...

In one of those quietly reassuring discoveries, Sam , I can now confirm, is good people. And his friends are nice, too....

Um, you’re all incredible sweethearts for emailing me, but when I was talking about the volume control , I meant that I wanted to just point at the yellow spe...

Although I’m naturally in favor of stronger parent-child relationships, I am a bit skeptical about the newest organization that has formed to promote them. Lad...

After a conversation with Jason about his photos from his birthday , we ended up talking about a local artist named De La Vega . De La Vega’s work consis...

I’m tired of reading articles that say things like “Microsoft will start inserting links into pages where there were never intended to be links in the first...

Note to IE5/Windows users: I know about the scrolling weirdness on this page. I’ve finally got access to a machine with IE5, so I should have it fixed posthast...

The Wall Street Journal Lies when it says, “ New Windows XP Feature Can Re-Edit Others’ Sites “. I know Mossberg’s usual slant is a of a layman approaching...

For future reference, the AT&T att.com Style Guide . I wish I could find the style guide for CNet, but my link to that seems to have disappeared....

Oh, and I figured out a quick solution to the entire debate over standards-compliant browsers: Web developers need only make judicious use of the tag and user...

need more love...

Usability is dead , users are too smart to need it. No, that’s not true . Well, at least on this one Jakob’s right....

Brig says: my attention span is getting seriously shortened. i’m sure it’s not a good thing. this statement is, of course, prompted by another long artic...

milov.nl has gotten closer to the mythical up button that I was trying to develop…...

Cool tool : See how your website would look to someone who is color blind ....

The web sure looks butt ugly at 640x480x16, where my machine has been trapped all day. In a neat way, though. Makes me wish I’d done my page in web-safes…....

Heal this page ....

Okay, now I know I had talked about standardizing website navigation a few days ago, since Apple and Amazon and everyone else have tabs on their sites now. B...

It’s incredibly cold, and I wanted to experience some of the futuristic convenience that the web promises to deliver (literally), so I went to Kozmo.com and...

I got a message today from my friend Glenn, who is part of the team responsible for the Library of Congress website, and it made me think of what a formidab...

Shouldn’t the progress bars be resizable in modern operating systems? I was at a client and wanted to see how far along a certain task was, but I was acros...

On a much lighter note, anyone who’s lived in, or spent appreciable time in, New York City, is familiar with the vagaries of alternate side of the street par...

So naturally I am back at the parents’ homestead in Pennsylvania, and I found it interesting that the local mall had something that I’ve not seen anywhere els...

So the updates to this page have been erratic due to all the extra effort I have to put in for my upcoming move… but, having had the chance to spar with severa...

A nice update on the idea of improving tactile feedback is this related concept from Microsoft Research , a touch-sensitive mouse . The prototype appears t...

Microsoft Passport Part One and a Half: Continuing the User Experience At the end of yesterday’s exciting episode, User X was waiting , mouse-finger poise...

So for every "rule" of web design, there are of course necessary exceptions . I hate animated GIFs for the most part. I hate pointless uses of brigh...

More insight courtesy of a fellow commuter: Large, warehouse retail environments are damned unfriendly. While I haven’t fully thought through the implications...

Part II of the link between physical and logical architecture , at least as they relate to accessibility . Each of the principles listed yesterday can be...

Interesting parallels between my area of expertise and the area in which most of my clients work, or Information Architecture vs. Spatial Architecture . I was...

So the big innovation for today is the DHTML pull-down menus at the top of the page. They only work in Explorer, and while I hate browser-specific enhancem...

An almost surreal New York Moment : we were at a pizzeria at the corner of York and 79th, and there was a fellow watering his garden outside the shop. Not a...