Factory Joe

StrangeKiss — a shop for weird stuff

StrangeKiss is almost a month old but has barely been noticed, which is too bad, considering the caliber of the artists offering their wares on the site.

For one, David Lanham, who was recently interviewed by Apple Matters and is one of the best digital illustrators and icon and interface designers around, is selling prints and other good stuff on the site, while also lending his design talents to the site itself.

Second is Martin Laksman, king of the eggpeople and pioneer of the Consumer Way.

Besides prints, StrangeKiss also offers toys, apparel and other oddities.

But really, I’d highly recommend going to take a snoop around yourself.

Unlocking the Tao of TextMate

I use TextMate almost as much as QuickSilver, and, like QuickSilver, probably make use of about 5% of its features. But now, a new book coming in February (get the Beta now!) promises to unlock the Holy Grail of this immensely powerful and award-winning app.

Oh, and if you haven’t checked out soft-spoken developer Allan Odgaard’s screencasts, you’re missing out on one of the best things about TextMate. Highlights:

New Dialog System for Commands (watch): an amazingly simple way to build interfaces that hook into external data and scripts (something I should consider for WebKit on Rails)
TextMate Widget Creator (watch — by Andy Herbert): how to build Dashboard Widgets in TextMate that are driven by shell scripts
All time favorite: Blogging From TextMate. (watch): shows how you can use TextMate as an uber-streamlined blogging tool. (I hope the guys at Flock are paying attention!)

Apple embraces microformats in new .Mac webmail

If you’ve been playing with the new .Mac webmail application, something under the surface very significant is present, but you’d probably never realize it. In fact, if it weren’t good works like Jon Hicks’ expose-mf.css browser stylesheet (view the above image without the stylesheet), you’d probably have no idea that beneath the surface, Apple was quietly giving a nod to an upstart open source community.

Given the source code that I’ve been provided, I can confirm that Apple has indeed added support for hCard in .Mac webmail, though not without a few errors (notably the ‘n’ optmization).

The significance of this can certainly be understated at this point, as few applications are built to take advantage of microformats browser-side (adding address cards that are already in your address book to your address book doesn’t make much sense) however, with Greasemonkey and other ideas like GreaseKits making the rounds (okay, so I came up with GreaseKits), we can count this as yet another feather in our cap as more and more large vendors make their web properties more semantically rich, opening up possibilities previously inaccessible given the sheer cost of maintaining one-off scrAPI techniques.

Now when you write a script to parse, augment, enhance or “user-interface-ize” microformatted content, it will work everywhere that microformats show up — not just one site at a time. With Firefox 3 looking to add support for microformats, it’s positive support by folks like Apple that will provide fertile ground for what the next generation of mashable web services looks like.

Inquisitor 3.0 goes free

David Watanabe’s Inquisitor for Safari has gone three… and free.

Would still like to see this for Camino (as Flock has this functionality inspired by David’s work), but David says he’s overcommitted and there’s simply not enough uptake of that browser compared with Safari. (Bah!)

Skip the Profilactic, get the real thing

You might have noticed that a new identity aggregator is in the throes of launching. Essentially a mashup of Suprglu and ClaimID, it’s starting to get at the Rhyzomatic idea I posted awhile ago. Well heck, just push for single sign-on and this kind of service would be rendered irrelevant.

Welcome to the Neighborhood 2.0

Surely you’ve heard by now that Six Apart’s new neighborhood platform VOX has launched.

I really like it. In fact, it’s the first online “place” that my mom’s signed up with, who was shortly followed by my brother (who found me initially on Facebook and I cajoled him into joining VOX).

Now that they’re both on it, I actually feel pretty comfortable about them giving it a go without me chaperoning them along.

Don’t get me wrong… I mean, there’s a bit of complexity in VOX, but I kind of feel like, if they play around a little — with the teasers that incite you to actually contribute and connect (suggest a neighbor feature on the invite page is genius) — they might just get into all this “Web 2.0” stuff I’ve been yammering on to them about for ages.

So now, imagine going home for Thanksgiving and rather than having to explain “feeds” or “Flickr”, we can just follow up on posts that they read but never commented on… or photos of my neighbor’s that they liked… Imagine using VOX, with its facile design and attention to detail, to finally connect with folks who normally could care less about this stuff.

Yes, finally.

It’s funny, but lots of people talk about “designing for Grandma” or “soccer moms” or other supposedly technically inept audiences (though, who in reality are often just as — if not moreso — savvy than the folks making such comments). But I think VOX has gone further than many who have come before and have successfully built a product and a community that I wouldn’t mind introducing my mom to (in fact, I did just that) and who I wouldn’t mind taking her through so that I knew it made sense and so that she could get the most out of her time spent on it.

In fact — and this is critical — once she’s set up and off on her own, I trust VOX to not get in her way or insult her intelligence. Perhaps I’m belaboring the point, but there are just so many nuances that make VOX feel friendly and worth working with that it’s important to point out that VOX is, above all, an excellent example of applied restraint and the execution of clear intention.

The one geeky thing I’ll add is that I’m eagerly awaiting OpenID integration so that we can start pushing forward with making the experience of grassroots identity consolidation as easy and good looking as VOX.

Flooding the network

Kareem Mayan sent me a link to a couple art projects about privacy in the era of ubiquitous knowledge (even if you don’t know you’re being watched, you are — so get over it).

Go phish: Tom gets annoyed

Phictional character Tom of MySpace (maybe the prodigal son of Tom “We’ll leave the light on for ya” Bodett of Motel 6? ) is annoyed at a recent slew of spammers … accessing … your account … using it to market their junk to your friends via YOUR bulletins and YOUR comments.

Whoa there, you *almost* sound human, Tom. WTFLOL!

Tell me Tom, how did they get my password?

now how did they get your password? it’s called phishing. somewhere on myspace you clicked on a link, profile, page – something, and you saw the myspace login page. but wait – it wasn’t really the myspace login page. it was a FAKE LOGIN PAGE. that fake page was created by a spammer who is waiting for you to enter your email and password. once you’ve done that, he’s stores your info. then he runs scripts to send bulletin spam and comment spam on myspace.

Thanks for clearing that up. I’m glad you’ve got things under control and are growing the service. It’s not like this is the first time those phishy people have attacked us.

But kudos to you, Tim — you da man, Tom-Tom. I know my future is secure with you on the watch.

Putz.

Symantec/Norton on OpenID/Cardspace train

For posterity (emphasis added):

Users, and not Symantec, will control their identity information, Salem said, addressing the main criticism that led to the demise of a similar effort from Microsoft called Passport. Also, Symantec will not create new technology standards, but plans to use Microsoft’s CardSpace and the open-source OpenID technology, Salem said.