RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. I post them on Twitter as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).

• [CAREER] Cool business card designs
  (creativebits.org, 2354 saves)
  • *Very* cool picture heavy list of business card designs.
  • (design, businesscards, inspiration, art)
• [FIREFOX] 15 Coolest Firefox Tricks Ever
  (lifehack.org, 1933 saves)
  • Rehash of stuff you’ve seen elsewhere, but has a good list of common keyboard shortcuts for Firefox.
  • (firefox, tips, shortcuts)
• [DESIGN] 16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools
  (mashable.com, 785 saves)
  • Fig’t looks very cool. Desktop app for visualizing info about your flickr/last.fm accounts.
  • (visualization, web2.0, Data)
• [COMMUNITY] Some Community Tips for 2007
  (fortuito.us, 623 saves)
  • Tips on building a community from the guy who built metafilter.
  • (community, tips)
• [GAME] 5 Minutes To Kill (Yourself)
  (adultswim.com, 445 saves)
  • You are a corporate drone. You have five minutes in which to end your boring office existence.
  • (flash, game, adultswim)
• [BITTORRENT] Help Key: The Essential Guide to Piracy
  (crunchgear.com, 382 saves)
  • TechCrunch affiliated site goes off the beaten track and gives a guide explaining how to pirate movies, music and software.
  • (piracy, copyright, howto, reference, techcrunch)
• [COMMUNITIES] The Troll Whisperer
  (informationweek.com, 339 saves)
  • Only communities are something we’re still trying to figure out. Moderation is required for constructive discussion, but how to moderate?
  • (community, trolls, social, internet)
• [INTEGRITY] The Real Story of JPG Magazine
  (powazek.com, 265 saves)
  • The true story of how JPG magazine came about, and why 8020 is no longer JPG magazine.
  • (business, jpgmag, magazine, community, startup, jpg)
• [LAST.FM] Last.fm scripts — How eclectic is your style?
  (anthony.liekens.net, 172 saves)
  • Automatically find artists who are similar to your top 20 artists on last.fm.
  • (music, last.fm, tools, lastfm)
• [CAREER] The Nine Biggest Myths of the Workplace by Penelope Trunk
  (blog.guykawasaki.com, 153 saves)
  • From the article: ” Everyone can put in a seventy-hour week. It doesn’t mean you’re doing good work.”
  • (career, work, business, tips)
• [HUMOR] Creative Job - Commute Helper
  (pfadvice.com, 116 saves)
  • From the article: ” OK, what exactly is a commute helper?– I asked. –I help people have a smooth and quick commute,– he replied. –How do you do that?– I asked. –I sit in their car, — he said with a smile.”
  • (jobs, humor)
• [TECH] Computers must learn to “forget”
  (arstechnica.com, 99 saves)
  • From the article: ” “Afraid how our words and actions may be perceived years later and taken out of context, the lack of forgetting may prompt us to speak less freely and openly.” In other words, it threatens to make us all politicians.”
  • (privacy, philosophy, computer)
• [INTERVIEWS] Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles!
  (worsethanfailure.com, 70 saves)
  • Job interviews riddles. The stupidest thing ever invented.
  • (dailywtf, interview, career)
• [TSHIRTS] top ten star wars t-shirts at Tcritic
  (tcritic.com, 69 saves)
  • (starwars, tshirts, clothing, tcritic)
• [PATENTS] Patenting Microformats - I didn’t Want To Do It
  (diveintomark.org, 63 saves)
  • Mark Pilgrim talks about a patent for microformats he did with IBM that may hurt the web for years to come (if IBM follows through with it)
  • (microformats, patents, software)
• [ENVIRONMENT] The Daylight Saving change: no savings, no point
  (arstechnica.com, 58 saves)
  • From the article: ” While the US government pats itself on the back for at least looking busy, the main goal–energy conservation–has not been met. The three week DST change appears to be a total flop.”
  • (energy, politics, dst)
• [FINANCE] 10 Frugalfying Ways to get to $1 Million
  (wisebread.com, 26 saves)
  • If you stop eating out you can save $320 a month.
  • (finance, money)
• [MUSIC] Jane Siberry’s “you decide what feels right” pricing
  (37signals.com, 23 saves)
  • What ever happened to Micropayments? Jane Siberry gets it and lets the market of her fans decide how much her songs are worth.
  • (business, money, music)
• [MOVIES] Bruce Willis Knows How to Use the Internet(s)
  (switched.com, 20 saves)
  • Bruce talks to fans on Ain’t It Cool News message boards.
  • (movies, brucewillis, cool, via:parislemon.com)
• [FACEBOOK] Facebookipedia
  (roughtype.com, 15 saves)
  • Facebook is copying Craig’s List, they should copy/fork/redistribute Wikipedia while they are at it.
  • (wikipedia, facebook, socialsoftware)
• [RSI] Sabatoge Due To Pain. Developers, Take Ergonomics Seriously!
  (haacked.com, 13 saves)
  • From the article: ” recovery is based on a delicate balance. Upsetting that balance can bring back a lot of pain. I will never fully be free from pain while working. But through therapy, I learned techniques to reduce the pain as well as deal with it better.”
  • (rsi, computers, technology)
• [BOOKS] The 4-Hour Workweek - Behind the Meme
  (micropersuasion.com, 8 saves)
  • How Tim Ferris used blogs to debut in a top spot on Amazon’s best sellers list.
  • (timferris, 4hourworkweek, books)
• [SEO] SEO Checklist
  (dailyblogtips.com, 8 saves)
  • Very simple checklist for search engine optimization of your content.
  • (seo, blogging, blog)
• [WINDOWS] How to Minimize ANY Program to Your System Tray - TrayIt
  (friedbeef.com, 5 saves)
  • From the article: ” allowing you to minimize anything on your taskbar onto your system tray - All you need to do is hold down the CTRL key and hit the minimize button, or set it up to always minimize to the system tray.”
  • (software, windows)
• [STARTUPS] You Are Not Your Stock Options
  (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 5 saves)
  • From the article: ” the agent represents 20 different actors, and 19 of them never make any money at all in pilot season, and never book any roles, but one actor wins big, the agent makes more money than if every actor got enough small parts.”
  • (vc, startup, acting, hollywood)
• [BLOG] When Is It Time To Leave A Free Blog?
  (blogherald.com, 4 saves)
  • How do you know when it is time to try to make it on your own?
  • (blog, blogging)
• [MASHUP] Popfly: Microsoft Gets an A++
  (chris.pirillo.com, 4 saves)
  • Microsoft Popfly - Yahoo Pipes for real people.
  • (microsoft, rss, popfly, api, mashup)
• [MEDIA] Are Traditional Media Companies Like The Detroit Auto Industry?
  (publishing2.com, 4 saves)
  • Internet media vs print media is just Japan automakers vs Detroit automakers all over again.
  • (online, publishing)
• [BLOG/BOOK] Book Announcement: Blogging Tips Book By Lorelle VanFossen
  (lorelle.wordpress.com, 3 saves)
  • Lorelle is releasing a book with all of her blogging tips! $13 USD.
  • (lorelle, wordpress, blogging)
• [DECLUTTER] Spring clean-out
  (lifehacker.com, 3 saves)
  • Get rid of your possessions because they own you.
  • (declutter, lifehack)
• [PPP/REVIEWME] Paid Reviews: 99% Crap
  (techsoapbox.com, 2 saves)
  • One advertisers’ thoughts on how paid blog reviews are a waste of time as an advertiser.
  • (blog, ppp, reviewme, sponsoredpost)
• [CODE] Ruby with Rails is where Java people and PHP people meet for the first time
  (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com, 2 saves)
  • From the article: ” It’s kind of like an interesting discussion over coffee being suddenly swamped under whole armies of pirates and beauraucrats.”
  • (humor, ruby, rails, java, php)
• [PETS] Pet Food Recall Petition (US Only)
  (itchmo.com)
  • From the article: ” Request that the U.S. Congress enact legislation to require pet food manufacturers and the companies that market those pet food brands to be held financially liable for any medical costs related to or contributing to the illness and/or death of a pe”
  • (pet, food, recall)
• [ENG] Social Bookmarking for Engineers
  (raminasser.com)
  • I’ve always been surprised by the lack of blogging / web2.0 stuff for non-software / non-programming computer disciplines. Might this be a change?
  • (ieee, electrical, engineering, socialsoftware)
• [OTTAWA] Saviour of the scrawl
  (canada.com)
  • Sabra gives Ottawa graph artists one more year. http://houseofpaint.wordpress.com/
  • (houseofpaint, hop, ottawa, grafitti)
• [STARTUPS] What do acquisitions mean for everyday users?
  (franticindustries.com)
  • What happens when big fishes eat the little fishes?
  • (startup)
• [PRIVACY] Why you should never, ever, convert Powerpoint to PDF
  (franticindustries.com)
  • How Joost revealed lots of private corporate information by providing a PDF of converted powerpoint slides.
  • (powerpoint, security, privacy, joost)
• [DIGG] Mr. Rose, Tear Down This Wall! (that hides the bury data)
  (parislemon.com)
  • It would be great if the Digg API showed bury data.
  • (digg, api, bury)
• [FIREFOX] You can disable the Firefox ‘delete goes back’
  (didntyouhear.com)
  • The delete button on Firefox also goes back a page. This can be frustrating if you aren’t inside a text box and you hit delete. How to disable.
  • (firefox, delete, disable)
• [STARTUPS] Tech Billionaire Boot Camp - Inside the Y Combinator Experience
  (slashdot.org)
  • One of the Y Combinator members talks about why he took Paul Graham’s money.
  • (entrepreneurship, funding, paulgraham, startups)
• [BLOG] How Not to become a Grumpy Old Blogger
  (problogger.net)
  • Lifehacks to avoid letting blogging get you down.
  • (grumy, balance, lifehacks, blogs, blogging)
• [BLOG] Add This! Trends - Social Bookmarking Widget
  (addthis.com)
  • Add This! is the simplest social bookmarking widget that doesn’t require any javascript to use. They now have a trends feature that tells you which websites your users like to bookmark your content to.
  • (addthis, trends, socialsoftware, blogging)
• [BLOG] Reflections on the Group Writing Project
  (problogger.net)
  • The pros and cons of running a group writing project on your blog.
  • (problogger, groupwritingproject, contest)
• [CODE] Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?
  (viemu.com)
  • Very good introduction to using vi/vim. I’m an emacs man myself.
  • (vi, vim, text, editors)
• [MUSIC] Jonathan Coulton
  (nytimes.com)
  • Jonathan Coultan of Code Monkey and Song-a-week fame interviewed by NY Times on how he lives on $3000-$5000 a month doing what he loves on the Internet.
  • (music, Blogs, nytimes, creativity, career)

Weekly Stats

MyBlogLog Community Members: 126 (+5)
Twitter friends/followers: 84/97 (+0/+1)
FeedBurner RSS Readers: 598 (-23)
Technorati Favorites: 301 (+13)
Technorati Authority: 1243 (+58)
Technorati Rank: 1428 (up 94)
Total page views (this week): 1,263,047 (+31,223)
Hot New Post By Traffic (this week): Slow week, nothing new with over 200 hits.

Tags: api, blog, blogging, business, career, community, firefox, humor, money, music, privacy, socialsoftware, software, startup, tips