is a web publication about technology, design and the pursuit of all things artistic, compiled and edited by Josh Butner since it’s inception in 2009. There’s more backstory on me and Das Ist Nicht in the aptly-named about section.

The League of Moveable Type

Written by josh on May 20, 2009 — Comments

I recently became aware of an organization whose very existence deals with two of my very favorite subjects for discussion and debate: typography, and it’s use on the internet and in interactive design. This not-so-mysterious organization is The League of Moveable Type.

A product of a great company, appropriately named A Good Company™, The League of Moveable Type has clear cut goals, as documented in their manifesto, which are very necessary and progressive, although it’s a shame we haven’t previously fought and ended this battle.

I move away from my point and purpose. My reason for writing this is: as is required for consideration, one has to send a message to the persons behind The League of Moveable Type in order to be considered for membership. This gave me pause as I wanted to give more to the founders than a simple Hi! I’d like to join! kthxbye! I wanted to honestly represent myself and how the purpose of the group is applicable to me. After this brief meditation, I came up with the following:

I’m a relatively new designer. Three years is comparatively short in terms of understanding and delivering good, functional designs; however, I have fallen in love in that short window of time. My new relationship has (and remains) one with typography and it’s functional use as a core portion of not just web design, but also web content. I hope to be member of your organization so I can continue to learn (and thus further my aforementioned relationship) and also help others who now tread where maybe I have been previously. Thanks for creating this.

So, what are your thoughts on the site itself, it’s purpose and membership in the league? If you feel so bold, please post your thoughts, ideas or even your message requesting membership to the founders of the League of Moveable Type. I have a feeling such discussion, even if comprised of disjointed monologues, would be good for us as a web community.

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Troubled Times

Written by josh on May 15, 2009 — Comments

It would seems as though there should be some rebound effect happening, but our economy seems to keep steeping in its own lackluster broth. Last week’s jobless claims apparently outperformed expectations (there’s some irony in there somewhere, I suppose). According to Bloomberg and the Associated Press the number of the first-time unemployed rose to 637,000 from the previous weeks count of 605,000. Those who still have a job forecasting such things published the expectation to be 610,000, however, with Chrysler filing for bankruptcy and revoking approximately 25% of it’s dealer agreements [source: Forbes.com], it’s understandable that the actual number of unemployed is higher than expected.

Speaking as someone who suffers the same plight, currently, I do hope there will be some upswing to American economic activities, sooner rather than later.

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Tweetie for Mac

Written by josh on May 13, 2009 — Comments

So, on a whim, as a result of a tweet from someone, I downloaded Tweetie for Mac to see how it compared to other Mac OS X Twitter clients (such as Twitterific, TweetDeck, et cetera).

At first glance the interface is extremely sleek. This is a great example of Mac UI design that works. The interface is broken up into a left bar which holds your accounts and a subnav that allows you to view your timeline, your mentions, your messages and also to search twitter, and the right portion which displays the relevant content. All transitions are seamless and very pretty as you click around the navigation.

Where this app really breaks out over other applications is the support for multiple twitter accounts. I myself have a twitter account for personal use and also one for my business. My business twitter account has been somewhat neglected as a result of lack of support for multiple twitter accounts in twitter clients and my laziness. I find myself doing a lot of things during the day and one of the things I’d rather not be doing is bouncing around the twitter website logging into one account and then another- running the risk of posting information to the wrong account. It does happen.

The only downside I can see in using tweetie over any other twitter client for Mac OS X, is the lack of support for Growl notifications and the inability to create custom client-side groups, a la TweetDeck. Although, there is some discussion dealing with both issues: Talk of Growl integration on the atebits getsatisfaction page and more on the client-side groups on the atebits blog.) Those things aside I’d have to give Tweetie a solid recommendation to anyone looking to streamline their twitter experience.

More info on Tweetie for Mac, and the other applications atebits has created, just jump over to http://www.atebits.com/. They’re running an introductory special until May 4th, 2009, on atebits.com where you can purchase Tweetie for Mac for $14.95 as opposed to the usual $19.95. Go grab it and support small developers!

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Converge

Written by josh on May 13, 2009 — Comments

A lot of time can be spent trying to make yourself more palpable online; however, it’s easy with the myriad social web apps, feeds and bells and whatsits to find that your identity has become an electronic analogue of spaghetti code.

Today has been primarily a day spent unifying this information- these profiles and accounts and shit and muck- into one, uniform identity.

All this reorginization starting with a claimID. Here’s hoping that convergence is worthwhile.

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