Archive for April, 2011

Friendster Purge

Remember Friendster? Of course you do. If, by chance, you have any old photos on Friendster, you might want to download them soon. Friendster is going to delete old posts and photos, permanently. For me, this serves as a reminder to be careful who we entrust with storing our data (yes, I’m looking at you Facebook). Today, it seems unfathomable that Facebook would fade into obscurity. But, Friendster was once a smoking hot property too, although, it never had the as many users as Facebook has now. No matter how promising a site’s long term prospects look, we should think about how we may want to preserve the data we share on these sites. Especially when we have little control over how or when the data will be deleted.

Friendster’s move to purge data also makes me wish Diaspora were out of private beta. It would be wonderful to have the ease of sharing that sites like Facebook and Flickr give us, while, at the same time having control over the storage of the data.

The Frying Dutchmen Lands in NYC

A new food truck is coming to the streets of New York. The Frying Dutchmen will be a mobile friets truck, plying the avenues between SoHo and Murray Hill. Fried potatoes with a selection of dipping sauces will surely be a hit on with the revelers in both neighborhoods.

No word on whether the name is a shout out to the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet of a similar name from the Simpsons, or just a a reference to the owner’s love of a certain burg on the Amstel.

via Fork in the Road

IA/UX Stencils, Templates and Patterns

There are a lot of IA/UX libraries out there for various platforms. At this point, I prefer OmniGraffle for most things, but sometimes, clients want things done in something else. Here’s a short list of libraries/patterns for use in different software, including OmniGraffle and Visio. This is a very short list, but they are all things I’ve used and been happy with.

Updated 2011-06-27

iPhone Tracker

iPhone TrackerFor a few months now, your iPhone has been storing your location data and transferring it to your computer when you sync. You can view this data with the handy and open source iPhone Tracker. Getting this sort of information from cellular companies usually requires some form of legal action. But, now you can get it without ever contacting an attorney.

It reminds me of this Tell-all telephone data visualization that offers a more polished interface of one person’s travels. It also overlays some other relevant information like Call and Twitter activity.

UPDATE 2011-04-23 (via Slashdot): Apparently the data stored on the iPhone isn’t super high-fidelity.