Nathan Bowers
on technology, design, economics, and culture
Last checked about 13 hours ago.
1 person has subscribed to this feed.
post frequency (last month)
latest 15 posts
- How NOT to craft a product announcement email
- FeedBurner ads suck
- Obama, Bush, and alpha male body language
- How Apple nails Fit and Finish
- Modal Dialog Hell
- The one blogging disaster you can’t recover from…
- In the event of Zombie apocalypse, please keep blogging
- In-store pictures and review of new aluminum MacBooks
- HP’s TouchSmart website marketing: How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
- Twitter vs. Facebook: the “doe eyed” edition
- Shazam!
- Developers, don’t whine. Take charge!
- 3 Blobs, 1 Monster, and crowdsourced market research
- Important message about gift giving from a famously sensitive actor/director
- Movie theaters: If they’re not premium, they’re crap.
Friday November 14th, 2008
How NOT to craft a product announcement email
From Nathan Bowers, 1 month ago,
0 comments 
I’m a fan of Evernote, but I hate their emails.
Zoom in on Evernote email
It looks like an intimidating wall of unreadable noise: Yes, even plaintext emails need to look nice.
There are no high value nodes or targets. It all runs together. Related items should be “chunked”, and links need to be less passive. Why should [...]
Tuesday November 11th, 2008
FeedBurner ads suck
From Nathan Bowers, 1 month ago,
0 comments
This is Google Reader displaying a FeedBurner ad in the ProBlogger.net feed:
Just seeing this once ensured I will never run FeedBurner ads.
Of course, no post here is complete until I complain about an obnoxious modal dialog, and The Rich Jerk™ does not disappoint:
I have got to stop clicking things out of morbid curiosity.
Obama, Bush, and alpha male body language
From Nathan Bowers, 2 months ago,
0 comments
Before the 2008 election, the History Channel aired The Secrets of Body Language. It featured clips of world leaders with commentary from body language experts.
One clip blew my mind. In it George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and their wives were having a photo op in front of 10 Downing St. Bush was totally in charge [...]
Friday October 31st, 2008
How Apple nails Fit and Finish
From Nathan Bowers, 2 months ago,
0 comments
This is the Trackpad preference pane on the new MacBooks:
Zoom
The bottom right is a video loop demonstrating the various gestures. When you click options on the left, the video changes to show just the selected gesture. Even though the new trackpad gestures are fairly intuitive, Apple went the extra mile to train users in a [...]
Tuesday October 28th, 2008
Modal Dialog Hell
From Nathan Bowers, 2 months ago,
0 comments
I’ve written about why modal dialogs are almost always a bad idea before. Unfortunately I am not Emperor of the Internet (yet…) so annoying modals persist.
Offender: Network World
The Crime: Popping a modal for a “how can we make our site better?” survey.
Here’s a suggestion: don’t cover what I’m trying to read with a modal dialog. [...]
Thursday October 23rd, 2008
The one blogging disaster you can’t recover from…
From Nathan Bowers, 2 months ago,
0 comments
…is data loss. I bet you thought I was going to say “zombie apocalypse“.
Probably drew the brain a bit big for an SEO consultant. Feel free to steal this image.
Usually I encourage people not to be afraid of blogging, because you can recover from any blog-related mistake — except unrecoverable data loss. The worst thing [...]
Tuesday October 21st, 2008
In the event of Zombie apocalypse, please keep blogging
From Nathan Bowers, 2 months ago,
0 comments
Paul Boutin tells us to “kill our blogs” in Wired because the market (i.e. the first page of Google results) has been overrun by professional blogs like Engadget, HuffPo, and Boutin’s employer, Valleywag. Supposedly we don’t have a chance against their budgets, staff, and connections.
He’s right. It would be stupid to start a “gadget” blog [...]
Sunday October 19th, 2008
In-store pictures and review of new aluminum MacBooks
From Nathan Bowers, 2 months ago,
0 comments
What’s great about the new MacBooks (and MacBookPros):
Totally awesome new “slits” for the breathing “sleep” light and IR ports. Though you’d think Apple would have the technology to add a Cylon/K.I.T.T. sensor sweep motion by now.
New multi-touch trackpad. The trackpad has no button, but it does click down when you press it. The feeling was [...]
Saturday October 11th, 2008
HP’s TouchSmart website marketing: How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
From Nathan Bowers, 3 months ago,
0 comments
I saw a commercial for HP’s new multi-touch computer. It looked cool, so I tried to look it up on HP.com. Instead I was treated to a marketing disaster of biblical proportions.
The HUGE thing HP’s web designers/marketers did wrong:
HP.com’s homepage makes no mention of the kick ass product they’re spending tons of ad dollars on [...]
Tuesday September 9th, 2008
Twitter vs. Facebook: the “doe eyed” edition
From Nathan Bowers, 4 months ago,
0 comments
In Clive Thompson’s otherwise excellent NY Times Magazine piece on The Brave New World of Digital Intimacy he refers to Mark “Shower Sandals” Zuckerberg as “doe eyed”.
I should update my “media contact” page to say:
No descriptions of my person reminiscent of Bambi frolicking in a meadow will be tolerated. However the following descriptions are acceptable:
Steely [...]
Monday September 8th, 2008
Shazam!
From Nathan Bowers, 4 months ago,
0 comments
Driving to the Red Lion for some Franziskaner we were listening to the radio and a great song came on Indie 103. Yuko said “I love this song, who is this?” Micah and I didn’t know.
A moment later I remembered that Shazam solves the “wish I knew what song this is” problem. Great iPhone applications [...]
Thursday September 4th, 2008
Developers, don’t whine. Take charge!
From Nathan Bowers, 4 months ago,
0 comments
My friend Yuko sent me this video of developers holding panhandler signs lamenting the usual developer stuff:
For me the dead giveaway of a bad office is when developers aren’t given the best equipment. Developers make money for companies with their butts, hands, eyes, and minds. That’s why two points of the Joel Test are “quiet [...]
Sunday August 31st, 2008
3 Blobs, 1 Monster, and crowdsourced market research
From Nathan Bowers, 4 months ago,
0 comments
Click to enlarge these 14×17″ marker drawings:
I’m this close to launching a new art-centric blog, but these wouldn’t wait.
Speaking of which, I need help naming the new “not just my stuff, but also the work of friends and emerging artists” site.
Preliminary brain scans of my ever-loving TwitterPals narrowed the name down to:
Doodleist.com
Sketchify.com
Which name do you [...]
Important message about gift giving from a famously sensitive actor/director
From Nathan Bowers, 4 months ago,
0 comments
You were expecting maybe Alan Alda?
More mixed media greeting cards by Tony Federico.
Wednesday August 27th, 2008
Movie theaters: If they’re not premium, they’re crap.
From Nathan Bowers, 4 months ago,
0 comments
I love seeing movies at the Arclight. For a few dollars more you get reserved seating, online ordering, nice auditoriums, no pre-movie ads, no fake radio (”And now the latest from Kenny Chesney!”), and a better audio visual experience.
That extra couple of bucks attracts people who care about movies while it repels teenagers and assorted [...]