Alex Jones

Windows Security Message from Outlook [Flickr]

baldtechnologist — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:11:43 -0500

This window appears the first time my system starts, while Calgoo Connect loads. I'm curious as to why it needs access tp e-mail address information stored in Outlook.

Recent Links: July 27 to August 03

magnolia — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:57:17 +0000

Here are the most recent bookmarks that I have saved to Ma.gnolia.

Learn Illustrator CS3 in 30 Days

This FREE 30 days Illustrator crash course is created for beginners interested in learning Illustrator. Each lesson will take around 20 mins to complete and you will be able to learn the basic fundamental techniques before the 30 days trial ends.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: design, illustrator, tutorials

Design Resources Pack #1: The Grunge Pack, Brushes, Fonts, Textures etc…

Welcome to the very first edition of our Design Resources Pack, the basic idea behind this is; we collect a load of resources around a certain theme or style and put them together in one place. Grunge is a style which is often misunderstood. Grunge doesn’t always have to mean really over the top dirty and dark. Today grunge comes in many forms, subtle grunge effects seem to be more common than just completely “grunging” something up. Whether you choose to be subtle, or over-the-top with your Grunge style here are some amazing resources to help you out.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, design, photoshop, illustrator, brushes textures, fonts, stock

MouritsaDA-Stock’s deviantART Gallery

Art - community of artists and those devoted to art. Digital art, skin art, themes, wallpaper art, traditional art, photography, poetry / prose. Art prints.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, design, photoshop, illustrator, brushes, ornaments, stock

Google Calendar CalDAV support

The steps required to set up CalDAV support for Google Calendar in iCal, which allows syncing between the two calendars.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: ical, google calendar, caldav, os x

The Bureau Loves You » Home

A collection of Photoshop brushes, color swatches, fonts and desktops.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, design, photoshop, fonts, brushes, colors, color swatches, swatches

Orwell Diaries

“From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: orwell, authors, diaries, literature, culture

300+ Free Hi-Res grunge textures you’ve never seen before! | Design Shard | Web Design Blog

Here is a free Hi-Res texture pack that i have made over the weeks for you all to download, the pack contains over 300 grunge, worn, torn and weathered textures that i have taken in and around my house.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: design, web design, textures, backgrounds, show sarah

Creating an interactive PDF file from a multipage document in Fireworks CS4 beta

In this article we’ll take a look at how effortless it is to export a PDF from Fireworks, with a focus on creating interactive PDF files.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, prototypes, wireframes, fireworks, pdf

The invisible city: Design in the age of intelligent maps

Today’s intelligent maps don’t just represent spatial relationships, they reveal conditions in the city that were previously hidden in spreadsheets and databases. And it’s not just a new representation of the city that emerges out of this data; its a new hybrid city, part physical texture and part data-driven map. As maps have become more complex, they have become our native medium for analyzing environments and societies, essential parts of the decision-making process in policy making.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: design, data visualization, information visualization, visualization, mapping, maps, cartography, gps

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Orwell’s Diaries

Alex — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:13:25 +0000

George Orwell's Diary Entry from September 3rd, 1939. Image from George Orwell Archive, UCL

Starting August 9th, the Orwell Prize will serialize George Orwell’s diary, publishing each entry 70 years to the day after it was originally written. The topics are likely to be wide ranging from day-to-day domestic observations of his chickens to the political thoughts that would inform his best known work. As the diaries span four years, we should gain a deep insight into the man’s life and perspective. I’ve added the Orwell Diaries to my set of RSS feeds and cannot wait to read his entry from August 9th, 1938.

This is where the value, the absolute heart of the Internet shows through.

In Search of Useful Prototypes

Alex — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:00:37 +0000

Dangerbird Prototype Screenshot

Normally a post describing a site launch doesn’t grab my attention, as they cover the same ground (base level descriptions of the design process, technologies used, how great the client is etc.). But the write-up the launch of Dangerbird Records by Athletics, a design firm out of Brooklyn includes a discussion of their home-grown prototyping methods, which is not something you see every day.

I’m constantly refining the process I follow to create wire frames and prototypes. I’m close to a good solution, but it is continually out of reach. Much like the team at Athletics, I’ve investigated Axure RP and similar products, finding them to be much too large for my needs. They’re great for complex, enterprise apps, but they aren’t built for Web apps and sites (they are trying to shift, but I think that will merely lead to larger, more complex apps). I have tinkered with straight up comps and even light weight Web sites, but neither quite meets the need. For the moment I have settled on building wire frames in Visio, followed up by conversations that arise to discuss small details and interactions. No matter how many notes and call outs I add to a wire frame, questions arise.

Wireframes are not ideal for describing the richness and possibilities that are inherent in a Web application.

Prototypes on the other hand are great for conveying placement and interactions without implying design, but they can be time consuming initially as components need to be built and actions and results must be wired together. The Athletics team appear to have found a good method - using Flash plus a little bit of ActionScript to produce fully interactive and informative prototypes. It still requires some of that up-front work, but it is balanced by the ability to quickly revise the prototypes, and more importantly reduces misunderstandings and questions.

If I can carve out some time I will explore this method to see if it’s feasible for my work, but at a minimum it has placed Flash into the toolbox as a possibility for future prototyping projects.

Recent Links: July 20 to July 27

magnolia — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:57:13 +0000

Here are the most recent bookmarks that I have saved to Ma.gnolia.

Etsy :: Elephannie

A great collection of vinyl stickers that can be added to any wall in the house.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: design, decor, furnishings, home, stickers, vinyl, decals

Totally Looks Like… Famous People and Celeb Look-A-Likes

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Dangerbird Records Launches « Athletics

A writeup of the launch of Dangerbird records by Athletics, which provides insight into their prototyping method (using Flash plus a bit of actionscript) as well as their implementation choices.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, web development, ui, prototypes, prototyping

Rainbow for Firebug :: Firefox Add-ons

JavaScript syntax highlighting for Firebug.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, javascript, firefox, firebug, plugins

Create an Awesome Grass Texture in Photoshop

This is the fourth and final installment of my series on creating textures in Photoshop. If you missed the first three, they were creating: Water Texture, Wood

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: design, web design, photoshop, tutorials

Tag Folders: Simple, flexible, powerful file management for Mac OS X

Smart Folders can find a file anywhere on your computer. Regular folders let you organize your files with ease. Tag Folders do both.

Drop any file onto a Tag Folder, and it will immediately be tagged to match the Tag Folder’s search criteria. Open the Tag Folder, and every file with that tag appears in a Finder window, available for use.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, utilities, filing, folders, smart folders, tagging, tags, organization

Beyond REST? Building data services with XMPP

Kellan Elliott-McCrea (co-presented with Rabble) presentationt, which was a ‘XMPP outsiders look at how to hijack XMPP to solve the problems of RSS and polling at “quantum” and “relativistic” scales. (small and rare, or huge fast and raging).’

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, rest, xmpp, jabber, flickr, data services

How Comet Brings Instant Messaging to meebo

An interesting look at the foundation of Meebo, which relies upon Comet. ‘The ability to create an “instant” communications experience through the Web is the strength of the Comet recipe. The use of long-polling via the XMLHttpRequest is a critical technology to meebo. It enabled meebo to implement low-latency bi-directional communication on any modern computer that can access the Web, without the need to download software.’

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, comet, polling, im, chat, web applications

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Acrobots + Whiteboard + Coworkers [Flickr]

baldtechnologist — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:06:36 -0500

baldtechnologist posted a photo:

This was on my whiteboard when I returned from vacation.

Whiteboard: the Range of User Experience [Flickr]

baldtechnologist — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:02:50 -0500

baldtechnologist posted a photo:

The results of a quick explanation of User Experience.

This Ain’t Right: Fight the Orphan Works Act

Alex — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:53:30 +0000

Jeffrey Zeldman pointed out the dangerous Orphan Works Acts making their way through Congress. This act has far-reaching implications for everyone, but the impact is even larger for those who work or publish on the ‘Net. Ultimately Congress is attempting to reduce your rights as a creator (whether you write, draw, design Web sites or sing), by allowing the infringer to make the distinction as to whether or not they tried hard enough to find the owner of the work and reducing the rights of the artist, designer or author.

As noted by Mr. Zeldman, so called “orphaned” content “will be made legally available for use by commercial interests, even when the copyright holder is alive, in business, and licensing the work.”

That strikes the very heart of our society. You work hard to create something, you have every right to maintain ownership and be compensated for that work. If someone steals from you, you have recourse.

It’s Easy to Fight this Law

Luckily there is an easy way to contact our representatives in Congress to educate them on the dangers of this law and to inform them that we expect each and every one to oppose the bad legislation: Go to the Legislative Action Center tell them where you live (so they can match you with your representatives) and choose a letter that you want to send - click and go.

Here’s a snippet of the letter I sent to Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison and Representative Lloyd Doggett:

I am told that the Copyright Office conducted a study of Orphan Works and that these bills are based on that study. I understand that an orphan work is a work whose owner can’t be located. I am alive, working and managing my copyrights. I can be located. My clients locate me all the time. But that does not mean that anyone anywhere can find me. And frankly, why should the failure of any one person to find me be the measure of whether or not I can be found?

What if 10 people can find me but one can’t? Why should that one person get a free pass to use my work? Won’t that give infringers an incentive not to find me? And why should I be obligated to go into court to prove anything about the diligence of the searcher or the value of my work? What if the same work is found an orphan in one legal proceeding and not in another?

Join the list of groups opposing this bill, spend three minutes to protect the basic rights of those who create what you enjoy.

Recent Links: July 13 to July 20

magnolia — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:59:25 +0000

Here are the most recent bookmarks that I have saved to Ma.gnolia.

Make Your Own Mac Mix

Choose the apps you like, add them to your Mac Mix and Check out!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, software, applications, utilities

DataCase - iPhone File Server and Viewer

DataCase keeps your files close by turning your iPhone or iPod Touch into a hand held wireless drive. Keep your data with you wherever you go and access it when and where you need, on any available computer (Mac, PC, Linux), no upload program or server configuration necessary.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: iphone, iphone apps, utilities

WordPress 2.6

A tour of WordPress 2.6 and the new features.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, wordpress

50 Websites For Free Vector Images Download

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, design, vector, resources, free, stock, stock images, stock vector

Prototip 2

Prototip allows you to easily create both simple and complex tooltips using the Prototype javascript framework.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, web development, javascript, prototype, tooltips

Our Electric Future

Energy independence is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: us, united states, energy, energy independence, oil, electricity, the economy

SummerMash Austin - EventVue

EventVue provides an interactive online directory for your attendees before and after your event.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: austin, conference, networking, technology

WordPress › WordPress Themes

Looking for the awesome WordPress themes? Here’s the place to find them!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: wordpress, wordpress themes, themes

one hundred push ups

The hundred push ups training program - designed to improve strength and physical fitness by enabling you to do a hundred consecutive push ups after six weeks.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: fitness, strength, exercise, health

Adobe Illustrator Shortcuts

“Here are 26 Illustrator shortcuts that can help you to speed up productivity. I use most of them (in fact, I can’t work without them). Most of shortcuts listed in this article aren’t documented in the software, so keep reading and you’re sure to find at least one new trick to put up your sleeve.”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, design, illustrator, tutorials, tips

A 10% improvement on conversion with one change

A post about one site’s removal of CAPTCHA and the improvement to conversions.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, forms, registrations, conversions, captcha

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

A Sunday Guinness [Flickr]

baldtechnologist — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:23:02 -0500

baldtechnologist posted a photo:

Not a spectacular shot, but the beer is damn fine.

Recent Links: July 06 to July 13

magnolia — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:59:21 +0000

Here are the most recent bookmarks that I have saved to Ma.gnolia.

Anxiety - Lightweight To-do Management

Anxiety is a super-lightweight To-do list application for Mac OS X Leopard that synchronizes with iCal and Mail. Its aim is to provide a streamlined, easily accessible interface to add and check off your tasks, while remaining poised to melt into the background at a moments notice.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, applications, utilities, gtd, task lists

“Gorilla” Usability Testing

“In my never-ending search for interesting interface design, I had a chance to chat with Andy Budd, of Clearleft, about their new desktop application, Silverback. I believe it can bring usability testing the masses and will be the go-to application for basic usability testing. It’s simple, focused, thoughtful, polished, and a joy to use.”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, usability, usability testing, os x, wireframes

The Pencil Project

With the power of the underlying Mozilla Gecko engine, Pencil turns your excellent Firefox 3 browser into a sketching tool with just a 400-kilobyte installation package.

The Pencil Project’s unique mission is to build a free and opensource tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping that everyone can use.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: wireframes, wireframing, ia, open source, firefox

Fever° Red hot. Well read.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

TweetDeck

“TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: twitter, air apps, air, utilities

rooSwitch

“rooSwitch exists to make it easy for you to create different profiles of almost any application’s data. You then switch amongst the profiles to activate the data you wish to use. It’s like a multi-user environment for just one application.”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, applications, utilities

Lost and Taken

“Free stock textures for your graphic design and photography projects”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, design, textures

WordPress for iPhone

Official home of the WordPress iPhone Application

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: wordpress, iphone, blogging

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Recent Links: June 29 to July 06

magnolia — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:59:22 +0000

Here are the most recent bookmarks that I have saved to Ma.gnolia.

Warp

“Warp is a [free] preference pane that allows you to use the mouse to switch between Spaces rather than using the keyboard.
“Warp offers the ability to display a live preview of a space when you move the mouse to the edge of the screen, allowing you to see what you have on another space before actually switching to it. Clicking the preview will then warp you to that space. (Enable this feature by checking the option “Click screen edge to Warp” in Warp’s preference pane) “

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, utilities, spaces, preference pane

CSS Cheat Sheet (V2)

The CSS cheat sheet is a one-page reference sheet, listing all selectors (as of CSS 2.1) and properties. It includes a visual example of the box model, unit reference for CSS units and the various media types CSS makes allowance for.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, web development, css, tutorial, cheat sheet

Cheat Sheets - Added Bytes

A tremendously useful collection of cheat sheets.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, web development, cheat sheets, css, javascript, html, sql, mysql, regex, microformats, mod_rewrite, ruby on rails, ror

Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet (V2)

The Regular Expressions cheat sheet is a one-page reference sheet. It is a guide to patterns in regular expressions, and is not specific to any single language.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, regex, cheat sheets

mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet (V2) - Apache

The mod_rewrite cheat sheet is a one-page reference sheet, listing flags for the RewriteRule and RewriteCond directives, list of server variables, a regular expression guide and several examples of common rules.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, apache, mod_rewrite

PHP Cheat Sheet (V2)

The PHP cheat sheet is a one-page reference sheet, listing date format arguments, regular expression syntax and common functions.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, php, cheat sheets

SQL Server Cheat Sheet

The SQL Server cheat sheet is a one-page A4 printable document, designed to provide a quick reference for SQL Server. A description of what is on the cheat sheet follows, or if you are impatient, you can go straight to the full size SQL Server cheat sheet.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, sql, cheat sheets

HTML Cheat Sheet

The HTML cheat sheet is a one-page A4 printable document, designed to provide a quick reference for HTML. A description of what is on the cheat sheet follows, or if you are impatient, you can go straight to the full size HTML cheat sheet.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, html, cheat sheets

Microformats Cheat Sheet

The Microformats cheat sheet is designed to be printed on an A4 sheet of paper and live by a designer or developer’s desk, to make life a bit easier. A description of what is on the cheat sheet follows, or if you are impatient, you can go straight to the full size Microformats cheat sheet.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, microformats, cheat sheets

Ruby on Rails Cheat Sheet

The Ruby On Rails cheat sheet is designed to be printed on an A4 sheet of paper and live by a developers desk, to make life a bit easier.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, ruby on rails, ror, cheat sheets

HTML Character Entities Cheat Sheet

The HTML Character Entities cheat sheet is designed to act as a reference sheet, listing the various character codes in HTML.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, web design, characters, entities, extended characters, cheat sheets

JavaScript Cheat Sheet

The JavaScript cheat sheet is designed to act as a reminder and reference sheet, listing methods and functions of JavaScript. It includes reference material for regular expressions in JavaScript, as well as a short guide to the XMLHttpRequest object.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, javascript, cheat sheets

MySQL Cheat Sheet

The MySQL cheat sheet is designed to act as a reminder and reference sheet, listing useful information about MySQL. It includes a list of the available functions in MySQL, as well as data types. It also includes a list of MySQL functions available in PHP, and a list of useful sample queries to select data from a database.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, mysql, databases, cheat sheets

Added Bytes

Once known as “I Love Jack Daniels”, the rebranded “Added Bytes” has all of the old content and aims to become “as useful to the wider design, development and marketing communities as I always hoped ILoveJackDaniels.com was”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, web design, cheat sheets

Apture

Apture provides the first rich communication platform allowing publishers and bloggers to easily turn flat pages of text into multimedia experiences.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web development, javascript, blogging, publishing, tool

PlugINCool

PlugINCool is a Plugin manager for Mac OS X.

Thanks to this software, you can easily add and remove plugins for:

* Dashboard
* Screen savers
* Spotlight
* Preferences Panes
* QuickLook
* Web browser
* iTunes
* QuickTime
* Mail

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, utilities, plugins, itunes, dashboard, system prefs, mail

Organized fromiSlayer.com

“Take care of the little jobs with Organized, a new widget from iSlayer featuring a calendar with events, world clocks, notes and to do’s. The calendar and to do’s utilize OS X’s inbuilt databases, so they’re always in sync with iCal and Mail. The world clock uses our very own database with over 700 locations.”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, utilities, task lists, notes

Tiled backgrounds designer

A nice little online utility to create background patterns.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, pattern makers, backgrounds, patterns

Google Talk for the iPhone

Stay connected to your Google Talk contacts right from your iPhone.

Chat with your Google Talk contacts in real time. Send and receive instant messages in chat sessions with your contacts.* Move easily between multiple open chats.

View and search for your Google Talk contacts. See the availability and status message of your contacts and change your own status on the go.

Go off the record if you don’t want to store your chats. Off the record chats are not stored on Gmail.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: iphone, google talk, chate, im, mobile

pinvoke - Icons and pixel fonts

Quality 10×10 and 16×16 pixel icons and pixel fonts to designers.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: web design, icons

Matt - Multi Account Twitter Tweeter

Multiple account twitter tweeting.
Matt makes it easy to post to multiple Twitter accounts without having to log into each one every time.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: twitter, web application

AppleScript: Quick Viewer, Quick View Droplet

Quick Look can be used for more than a means to locate information, it can also be used as a means to present documents or media. The Quick Viewer applet and the Quick Look Droplet are easy-to-use presentation tools.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: os x, quick look, utilities

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Austin Blood Drive Tweetup: It's a Wrap [Flickr]

baldtechnologist — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:28:19 -0500

baldtechnologist posted a photo:

Austin Twitter Blood Drive

Alex — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:33:00 +0000

Photo courtesy of makelessnoise

An amazing group of people getting together to give a little of themselves. It’s a simple as that.

A lot may be made of the social media aspects of this event (organized and advertised via Twitter, by people who may know each other online far before they met in person), the important thing to remember is that the technology served to help good people do a good thing.

My vein will be tapped at 11:45 tomorrow alongside friends old and new. I hope you can spare some time and a pint of blood to help save a life. If so, please sign up and join us.

Here’s How to Sign up for the Austin Twitter Blood Drive

Register or log into the Blood Center of Central Texas’s web site.
Choose the location at 4300 North Lamar.
Be sure to pick a time slot from 10 am-4 pm on Thursday, July 3rd.
Show up at the appropriate time.
Give blood. Eat a piece of the sammichometer. Give thanks that you are healthy and can offer health to someone else who needs it.

UPDATE: Here are a few photos from the event that I uploaded to Flickr. I expect that Michelle will post many more soon:

My Vein is Tapped, the Blood’s a’flowin

Blood Bag

It’s a Wrap

Designing Milk

Alex — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:45:27 +0000

The New York Times is running a great article titled Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth (thanks to Sarah Kampman for posting it to the IxDA list). In the piece, Stephanie Rosenbloom covers a major shift in the packaging of new milk jugs recently introduced to the shelves of Walmart and Sam’s Club.

Image taken from The New York Times Article

There are a couple of very interesting aspects to the story. The first is the customer response to the new design (some love it, many hate it, most seem to be unsure) and the change required in their usage (some “feel like novices at the simple task of pouring a glass of milk”). The second is the benefits delivered by the new design: increased shipping and storage efficiency, reduced cost for the manufacturer and the customer and significantly reduced environmental impact.

It is very hard to introduce changes to an existing product or service, all the more so when it is as entrenched in day-to-day life as the common milk jug. I’m really curious to see how the new packaging is received over the next year or so and how it will be tweaked to meet customer needs.

On a side note, does anyone else think the word ‘milk’ sounds weird? Say it a few times: milk milk milk. Weird.