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“Charming Large Restored Carriage House” as found on craigslist

It’s good to see I’m not the only one feeling that most CSS frameworks are missing the point. SenCSS really is a nice starting point for getting a site’s CSS going - especially for those starting out with CSS, SenCSS would be a dream.

SenCSS was developed mostly for myself. I noticed that the stuff common to most of my designs and projects wasn’t the layout, and thus all layout CSS frameworks had very little use for me (I’d be writing exceptions all day, no thanks!). However, There was a lot to gain from a smarter CSS Reset, vertical rhythm and a set of often used styles. Basically I wanted something that i could drop it, start working on my layout and fine tune when the layout was finished.

Introducing SenCSS | KilianValkhof.com

2008 Design Trends from WebDesignerWall [via Matt]

• What does your garbage can of failed motivations look like?
• I hope Ze Frank writes a book some day.
• John Dyer growing every type of beard.

• [via Secret Experiment]

• 
• Design Is In The Details

• 
  Advanced Beauty from mate on Vimeo.

  I found this somewhere and can not remember where. I’m sorry.

• Timoni is a super talented designer. Watch out.
• I can not wait till Spore comes out, until then, checkout the Creature Creator!
• The Ampersand Masters Thesis
• The live Firefox 3 download counter.

I wrote this a month or so ago, and never published it.

We live in amazing times. Just amazing.

The internet has blessed us all with the power to communicate with each other. It took a while, but we finally realized that the internet doesn’t have to be all about cats and animated gifs. Even though, those are still two very popular topics.

Not just geeks are on the net anymore, either. I just learned, Kanye West has a blog… and it’s probably actually HIM blogging on it! Not to mention he has a Vimeo account (”suck on that Flickr,” says Vimeo founder j/k)! BTW, Kottke, who I rubbed the wrong way many years back, alerted me to all this, on his unimaginably popular blog.

After watching this video, how can you not love the internet?

We’ve finally learned that there is more to life than “me” and that the “we” is what makes the world go round.

The internet does have a heart. It enables us to do some really amazing things.

Recently, along with Coudal Partners, 37Signals, Metafilter, Happy Cog, Iconfactory, Core77, Daring Fireball, Emma, Business Brickyard, and skinnyCorp, I got to help kids benefit from your filthy gambling habit. My design studio eight6 donated $1000 to buy some books for kids, by matching your donations.

I’ve always been unnaturally excited to help others. Being able to do that through my work, is gratifying. eight6 is heavily focused on helping the world and it will always be a core part of who I am and what my company represents. It sounds “deep,” and kind of corny. But it’s pretty simple. We build and design things (usually websites), using design to clarify communication and in return, help make good things happen.

In the next few months I’m going to be launching a program to help loving geeks help the world become a better place, just by doing what they do. Sounds interesting? I think it is. It will be an experiment, but an interesting and, hopefully, a fruitful one.

NASA has some nifty navigation taking place on their homepage. Something similar to what my friend Basil crow coded for Brown University

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 was just released. I’m still hoping Firebug for Safari will someday be built (though I think that’s just a pipe-dream). The Web Inspector in Safari just isn’t cutting it these days.

Dean Allen, as he has always been, is my hero:

…and third, that by any means necessary, web-strategy, social-media, online-marketing webcocks – unaware as they are of how toxic their presence is in the arenas they cannot shut up about – must and shall be filtered out of view.

- Dean Allen

I almost fell off my chair, again, after reading that.

It holds, it embraces. It’s “deep.”

Stephen Henault is a cool dude and a great blogger that I randomly stumbled upon. Here’s what he recently wrote:

“The cup” is deep. Seriously. Could the argument not be made that “the cup” is the defining invention that has lead us to all the great stuff we have now?

It’s the concept of the cup I speak of. Put stuff inside - and save it for later - to be pulled out on demand. Sounds kind of like my iPhone, my Macbook, my DVR, Batteries, etc. etc.

I’m probably oversimplifying, but in drinking this cup of coffee I have a new found respect for the dude/or gal who came up with the concept of “the cup”.

Deep! Eh?

Trent Reznor/NIN does not give up.

They just released another free album, entitled “The Slip.”

You can download it over here: http://theslip.nin.com/, for free.

One of the most interesting things, is the mainstream use of BitTorrent as a distribution method (for all but the MP3 version). We really are entering into uncharted waters, both with distribution and revenue models. Despite other artists doing similar things, we’re seeing lots of permutations on the “free music” model lately.

Why all this legitimate free music all of a sudden, though? Do the concerts really make the artists that much money? Or, is it all just a fad (like Radiohead reported earlier this month? I really hope not. The retail store is on its way out of the music selling business - unless we start seeing digital kiosks real soon.

I hope that artists learn to make this digital world work for them, by charging for high quality versions and letting the fans decide what it’s worth. NIN isn’t accepting any money for “The Slip.” If I wanted to give them money, I couldn’t. That’s unfortunate.

I’m counting on mankind and music lovers around the world to be honest with themselves and the artists they like to hear. Call me an optimist. So, instead of buying another beer next weekend, and murdering your liver, go download GHOSTS I-IV, and pay for it, it’s worth it. Even if it is a wild foray into a very unique genre.

Update: I really am enjoying this album, almost as much as the previous instrumental album, GHOSTS I-IV.