Espresso 
The Sexbyfood blog about innovation, simplicity, integrity and tenacity.
Yum-Yum And A Ho-Hum Harmonica
Barack Obama is the President Of The United States. China has its flag planted on the moon. Ladies and gents, these times, they are a-changin'... Today, Radio Sexbyfood is broadcasting with another 2 new restaurants. Oh yeah, it's going to be a hit-single summer in the South yet.
YUM
Deer Park Road in Cape Town's "Quiet Corner" has a sociable secret. It's an award-winning, come-as-you-are dining spot great for friendly, comforting suppers. Weekend breakfasts at
Yum are also a treat. (Pssst...keep an eye out for their specials too!)
A high five to magical Mary and a warm welcome to Chris.
221 WATERFRONT
The old Morton's on the Wharf has made like a colourful caterpillar and morphed into a natty butterfly re-named 221 Waterfront.Their menu boats fusion dishes from sushi to bobotie. Each table is afforded a harbour view better than any others at the V&A. And it's still all about the jazz.
A welcome bugle flourish to Vernon, Laura and Sally!
Goosey, Google, Gander, Whither Will You Wonder?
Well well well, Sexbyfood has teamed up with several new restaurants in the Cape Town area:
Bowl
Bowl's Adderley Street terrace makes a great cityscape lookout for urban pigeons by day! By night, their signature dish of duck confit, steamed spinach and vanilla jus makes a fine choice. This dining spot takes its tag from the fact that most of their menu offerings are served, yes, in bowls. A double trumpet flourish to Sexbyfood's old friend, Luigi Rosi, and a warm welcome to the team at the Adderley Hotel. City Bowl. Okay. Chopping Board. Wineglass.
96 Winery Road
There are a handful of local dining institutions about which we dream. 96 Winery Road has been one of them, for quite some time... So, chase the chickens around the yard, waterpistol the beehive and pick a posey of lavender, we are delighted to have Alan and his award-winning team on board! 96 Winery Road is a relaxed fine-dining restaurant outside Somerset West. With its wooden furniture, views of the Helderberg Mountains, Provençal and Eastern influences, and extensive wine list, it is the most appealing excuse to head for the hills!
Hillcrest Estate Restaurant
The Hillcrest restaurant is an extremely popular country restaurant for good reason. Follow the winding Durbanville roads and you'll reach an estate where you can enjoy both wine and olives produced from the same earth. The view all the way down the valley to the Atlantic is fantastic. The ever-changing menu caters across the board. Even a simple sandwich is droolingly dressed with a pile of roast veggies including Brussel Spouts and olives. A warm welcome to Dalene and the Hillcrest Estate restaurant's dedicated team!
Queen of Tarts
If Nigella Lawson had a South African sister, Tina Bester could well be her. "Real men may not eat quiche but everybody loves a tart", she once said. Queen of Tarts sits on a Victorian corner in Observatory's Lower Main Road. The space was inspired by a trip to gay Pareee and offers delightful breakfasts, butter-rich confectionaries for English teas, and lunches like hearty soups, bangers and mash or roast vegetable pasta. Queen of Tarts is fun and ever so yum!
New Restaurants, The Mammas and the Pappas
So, the stock markets are fractured. General Petraeus is leaving Iraq. CERN's Hadron Collider is jamming under Geneva. Damien Hirst is going to make art history. At the Sexbyfood HQ, we are nurturing a growing restaurant selection, collaborating to make reservations free and easy, and tinkering some smarts. Some developer clues from Captain Joran include #, /, Instaclick (TM), UpdateDestroy, DestroyUndo, Dispatcher, fluid, data, caching, new Resource.Get, train through the woods, .defer(), GIT = distributed version control, The Oracle, commits, HQ. 
The most recent restaurants to team up with Sexbyfood are Cognito and Pastis:
Cognito Restaurant
In the news this hour, another restaurant of fine reputation has aligned with Sexbyfood.
Cognito in Stellenbosch. African-fusion cuisine. Award-winning. Cool. Netjies.
Thanking Anien and Diani for their enthusiasm and extending a very warm welcome to the Dorp Street mod squad at Cognito.
Pastis Bistro Brasserie
Stationed at the High Constantia Centre, Pastis is an easygoing spot. There is a vine-covered terrace, cosy fireplaced interior and quirky traditional bar. The airwaves are peppered by traditional French musicians and free wi-fi. But above all else, it is the goood foood at Pastis which serves as their calling card.
What's in a name? Well, "Le Wikipedia" tells that when absinthe was banned in France in 1915, the major absinthe producers reformulated their drink without the banned wormwood. Pastis may be one of the clichés of the Provençal lifestyle, but even Hemingway combined it with champagne for "Death In The Afternoon".
A French toast to Derek, Lorraine, Brett, Cassandra and their fine team of waiters.
Launch Quickly
"One reason to launch quickly is that it forces you to actually finish some quantum of work. Nothing is truly finished till it's released; you can see that from the rush of work that's always involved in releasing anything, no matter how finished you thought it was. The other reason you need to launch is that it's only by bouncing your idea off users that you fully understand it." - Paul Graham in The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
It's necessary to launch quickly. But it's not easy. It's not easy to decide what work should delay a launch and what work should be done after launch.
So here's one way to make it happen:
Do what you must do to launch. Do whatever prevents launch. Do the rest after launch.
Once Upon A Time In The West
What can we say, Sexbyfood is marching forward and the most recent band of three are:
Blues
Camps Bay was named after an invalid sailor, Ernst Friedrich von Kamptz, who settled there in 1778. He arrived some 230 years later, he would probably have used Blues as a landmark when giving directions to others. They say Blues is where "beautiful people from all over the globe flock to experience the excellent cuisine and breathtaking views of Camps Bay".
Adding sparkle and excitement to the dining experience is Executive Chef, Terence Clark, who brings to Blues the art of modern Italian cuisine.
An honest to goodness welcome salute to the Blues team, to Troy, Kerry, Stefano and Chris!
Southpole
The Sexbyfood restaurant map has its Southpole - it's one new Monte Carlo-cool fine dining spot worth a drive to "Sunset Beach, not Milnerton, dahling."
The menus at Southpole read delectably and the competent magician, Ygnve Mundal, of the ol' Forty Ate, is the patron chef. Their pastry chef Kim Fenner, previously from Le Quartier Francais, will be flying the flag at Southpole's eagerly anticipated deli in coming weeks too. 
Synergy On 7
And the band plays on, on up to the 7th Floor of the Mandela Rhodes building.
Yes, Synergy On 7 has also joined Sexbyfood. Residents of the hotel-apartment know all about about, but most Capetonians are missing out on one of city's best roof top settings. It is ideal for buffet breakfasts, business lunches, birthdays or dining al fresco on a still summer's evening.
A warm welcome to Michellene, Alida and their team at Synergy On 7!
Singing About Our Two New Pizza Perfect Restaurants
The Sexbyfood restaurant listings have grown by another two centimetres this week:
Relish Observatory
Relish has opened a new restaurant opposite the Old Match Factory in Observatory. A Relish pizza is a Capetonian institution. Their menu anoints pizza oven fare with names like Plain Jane, Popeye, Bokkie, Funky Buddha and Buffalo Bill.
If you're reading this from the greater Cape Town area, and looking for a swig of great enjoyment in Observatory, Dominic and the Relish Obz team will welcome your online reservation into their Victorian home with open arms.
Limoncello Ristorante
Now, two days later and with summery Amalfi conditions returning to the Cape,
Limoncello Ristorante also joined Sexbyfood! Anyone who has spent time in Cape Town should know this avo-green Breda Street building. It's a place of Italian love. Real, wholesome, unfussy love.
Bells will ring ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling
And you'll sing "Vita bella"...
Action Before Talk
Here are at least two problems with talk of action preceding action itself:
Firstly, once you've talked, you have to follow through with action, or risk falling into the "talk, no action" camp. Secondly, once you've talked, there's less incentive to act because there's less to look forward to talking about upon completion. The show-and-tell reward is diminished.
Far better to do first and talk later. You get to change your idea of what you want to do along the way without having to apologize to or disappoint anyone. You get to look forward to talking about it once you're done. You get to be the person who's always getting stuff done. Ironically you become that somebody who always does what they said they would.
Tenacity
Via 37Signals:
How's this for tenacity? John Dane is 58 years old and has been trying out for the Olympic sailing team for 40 years. He finally made it this year with his son-in-law, Austin Sperry.
Dane missed qualifying for the Olympics 4 separate times, each by a few minutes. He didn't give up after each loss, he just improved his sailing skills.
At first, this kind of story sounds like a long hard slog. But the thing is, the more you enjoy what you do, the more it gets easier and easier to be tenacious. I've sailed for a couple years of my life and my cousin is a successful sailor on the international circuit. From how I feel about the sport, I'm sure John Dane would have carried on sailing anyway, regardless of qualifying for the Olympics. Once a sailor, always a sailor.
Seek enjoyment in whatever it is that you do.
Where there is no doubt, the wind is your companion.
China Leads The Internet User Race
West Looks East
A great many eyes are focussed on China today. The modern Olympic Games are about more than sport and camaraderie. Indeed, the Olympic torch shines a curious light on any host country. A glaring commercial light. Even U.S. President George W. Bush cut the red ribbon at an impressive new U.S. Embassy in Beijing today. Big country number one smiles wryly to big country number two. But who is number one and who is number two?
China In First Place Despite A Handicap
Research firm Nielsen Online, announced that in June this year, U.S. had an estimated 223 million Internet users. China measures 253 million people online. Despite government controls. That's 20 million more screen-gazers and China's not even reaching for the performance enhancing drugs yet! Beijing's current policies encourage Internet use for business and education. Access restrictions on Web sites deemed pornographic or subversive are not going to change any time soon.
The China Internet Network Information Centre states that China's Internet penetration is still low at just 19 percent. Across the International Date Line, the Pew Internet and American Life Project puts U.S. online penetration at 71 percent.
Chinese mobile phone carriers do not yet support 3G technology. With more than 500 million mobile accounts, China's potential for wireless Internet users is astonishing. Potential is never the same as reality. But even so, with Beijing's permission for 3G connectivity "coming soon", the games have quite literally just begun.
What You Don't Measure You Can't Manage
Track successes so you can share and celebrate them. Be consistent, repetitive, tenacious, and be consistently so. Don't jump from one strategy to another. Execute. Focus. Blaze a single path. Do one thing and do it well. Be brilliant at what you do. Make incremental progress. Build upon success. Look for momentum.
Measure as much as you can. Assumptions lead to failure. But data trumps intuition. And metrics will show you what to do more of and what to do less of. What you don't measure you can't manage. You may as well write that in Proverbs.
Build Or Buy
A few years ago, Dutchman Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten sold his small company to a large company. We are a small company and we are not negotiating any acquisition deals. So, why does Boris' experience speak to me? Big groups lose agility. Execution of the most simple task becomes cotton-wooled. It's frustrating. Here is an extract from his Big Companies vs. Small companies story:
They replaced me as the CEO and I worked as an advisor for a few months. One day I was on the phone with the new CEO and he sounded depressed. I ask what the problem was and he told me he needed 4 photo’s for a mock-up brochure for a pitch on Wednesday. It was Thursday when he told me this. He told me he asked for the 4 photo’s and was told it would take 10 weeks to produce them [...]
So I called a photographer and asked him if he could take the pictures for me on Monday morning and what that would cost. He responded, "For you, I’ll do them for free" and I said "That is very kind but I’ll pay you 1 000 anyway." Then I called the best looking girl and guy I know and asked them if they would like to pose for me on Monday. I’d give them 100 for their trouble. So on Monday we did the photo-shoot, developed the photo’s, had them digitalized and I delivered them on Monday evening. Then I send them an invoice for 2 500 and kept the difference, about 1 000.
So, the next week I had a meeting with the CEO of my old company and he kept thanking me for the photo’s. He pitched their product to the client and the client was really impressed with the brochure and the pitch and had signed the contract right away. The CEO was so happy I started feeling guilty about the 1 000 I made on the deal.
But then I asked him, "So why would it take your company 10 weeks to get those photo’s?" He smiled and answered, "They would have had to assign a project manager to it, he would have had to go find a photographer, set-dresser, make up artist, modeling agency and location scout and they would have hired a stylist too." I was silent for a moment and then asked, "Well, how much would that all have cost?" and he answered, "between 35 000 and 45 000" [...[
There is also a lesson to be learned here. While we were negotiating the price for our company they told us, ‘This is a buy or build question for us. You do understand we have over 18 000 people working here so we could copy your concept within a day’. That sounded very real to us at that moment.
In reality however a big company can’t do anything in 24 hours. It will take a week just to get a meeting with the first person of the 100 people you need to reach and convince if you want to do anything. And then there are budgets, targets and other projects that take up all resources or seem to be more important.
Barrrthelona Baby!
According to a recent New York Times Travel article, "bistronomia" is the gourmand noun of now. It is a combination of bistro and gastronomia, a nouvelle vague dining technique. Oh boy!
Born in Barcelona, the trend for "a new type of restaurant that wasn’t quite fancy enough to qualify as gastronomic, but was far superior to the traditional bistro" lives at 15 gourmet addresses across the city. The race is one between these "bistronomics" where all the attention goes toward offering creative, well-prepared food at prices that "won't break the bank."
[via Eat Out]
Some Books Are More Open Than Others
Facebook may be getting its first wrinkles. Not laughter lines. As of last month, Facebook is estimated to have around 83 million users worldwide. That's a pretty big family and they need to keep the hordes interested with the help of developers.
Last year Facebook launched Platform which was more of a "flatform" really. What would any social-backboned network do? Add the "open source" string to the yarn a year later. Since June this year, the season of Facebook Open Platform is here.
Legalese
Now, Facebook Open Platform is licensed under the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL), except for the FBML parser, which includes Mozilla source code, which is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPL). As OStatic explains, CPAL requires display of an attribution notice on derivative works.
By choosing CPAL, Facebook has ensured that it can be open source without anyone actually using its source. If Facebook wanted to prevent modifications of their platform, why would they open source at all?
Let's say the objective is to protect the Facebook platform from competition (i.e., derivative works), Facebook made a good call. But if they really wanted to encourage development, then was it a scotch call to the wrong license?
“Developers and users are fickle. They are going to go where barriers to entry are the lowest,” said Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research. Facebook, he said, “needs to continue to build relationships with these developers or it is just going to be one of many platforms.”
On The Road To Ol' Calcutta
The case of the Agarwalla brothers is an interesting one. They are an Indian-based duo behind Facebook's popular Scrabble knockoff, Scrabulous. "After not finding a decent online environment to enjoy word games, the brothers decided to create their own website so that users from all over the world could enjoy." Nice Altruists from Kolkata.
Hasbro, who keep shekel-watch over board games like Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, were not happy. According to TIME.com, Hasbro alleged copyright infringement in its suit, pointing out that Scrabulous used the same colors as the classic Scrabble board and mimicked it in many other ways. The Agarwallas contended that many sites have knocked off Scrabble over the years and that the game is virtually in the public domain at this point. A day after Hasbro filed the lawsuit to force the duo to take down Scrabulous, the software developers quietly launched a new version on Facebook. Open Platform = open door.
Tumbleweed
Facebook isn't the one being served papers. The developers are getting singed. Facebook guards attribution of its "property" like a German Shepard, yet disregards the attribution of others. Caution. I do believe the principle of IBM and Microsoft's early collaboration may be interesting. 
Missed Memo
In the meanwhile, with the new Facebook's advertising moved to the screen right, and doubled-up, that click-dependent revenue may just dip a bit more. Even in the top 10 countries, the clickthroughrate is on average, about 45 out of every 100,000 times the ad is shown. Poor Facebook is not looking quite so accountable.
The Final Fontier
FRONTIER noun 1.the land or territory that forms the furthest extent of a country's settled or inhabited region 2.an outer limit in a field of endeavour, esp. one in which the opportunities for research and development have not been exploited: the frontiers of space exploration [Origin: 1350–1400; ME frounter ; OF frontier, equiv. to front, in the sense of opposite side]
The font frontiers have never been in a greater state of flux. With the web as territory, serifs are being decapitated and Times New Roman is being banished to the Siberia that is MS Word.
Here is the CollegeHumor coverage:
Changing around the font fashions are a other web features. Hip and happening as the are now, some are really racing towards their sell by date:
Pixel Fonts
These fossils remain with us since the 1990s. Back then, there was no other way. Pixel fonts provided a certain futuristic and technological je ne sais quois that normal, readable fonts simply couldn’t provide. They also "filled space efficiently". Why do the thick crusts remain?
Undercover Links
Another form-over-function operative. There was a time when folk would make links as inconspicuous as possible. No underlining. Half a shade contrast colour. They still do. Aesthetics. Thank you Flickr for flying the blue flag, underlined and clear.
Gradient
Gradient fills are slightly more difficult to judge than other web design trends as in some cases they provide a huge amount of personality to the site. 37signals use their blue-green gradient fill across their empire. The Apple pages certainly look just like one of their brushed aluminium laptops catching the sunlight. And then there is Mint who have made a deeply crushing Mojito.
Shine
The glossy, enduring feature also borne Apples' OS icons and applications have spread like a wild fire over dry vegetation. Shiny tabbed navigation, shiny buttons, shiny site logos. Too much baby oil.
We're with team Helvetica. The CSS layout camp is one of fixed-width. The background remains unpolluted. Navigation guides make themselves known. What a lovely place!
Superbowl Tuesday
It is with great excitement that we introduce THREE new restaurants to Sexbyfood in a day!
In the East of South Africa, Port Elizabeth is on the map! A toast to Alan Fryer of NOSH in Richmond Hill, to Mauro of MAURO'S at the beachfront, and to Joran for pedalling the footfall.
In the Western Cape, a warm cup of Ethiopian coffee to Senait and her team! It is lovely to welcome ADDIS IN CAPE as our first African speciality restaurant.
Let the band play on!
Good Cop Bad Cop
I've done a couple projects in the past. We used to build up great relationships with suppliers. Work with them all the time. Refer them. Give alot of trust and positive energy. Run a tight shop. Definitely good cop kind of relationships.
Then again we've worked with groups (often the big corporates) who would delay payment, not deliver, wreck careful arrangements and installations, cheat on inventory, you name it. In these cases, we'd definitely put alot of negative energy into the mix. Threaten legal action. Etc. Definitely bad cop kind of relationships.
The problem with bad cop is you can't sustain it. It's stressful. No matter how used to it or professional at it you are. And it's certainly not popular. You quickly learn who's really behind you and who's not and it's usually fewer people than you would have thought. It's often painful. It's not easy to be candid and abrasive for the sake of good. Bad cop makes everything black and white. For or against. Love or hate. No middle ground. No no-man's land. That makes people uncomfortable. People show their true colors.
I'm sure there's a time and a place for good cop. Business wouldn't be fun without it. It's where I certainly want to be. The question is, is there a time and a place for bad cop? Is it a good skill to have? Or do you just put on more "patient", "diplomatic" good cop with smiles all round?
What about authenticity, integrity, candor?
When A Non-Customer Buys Your Idea With Just Attention As Currency
The World According To The Discovery Channel
It kind of makes you want to break into song? Yup. The Discovery Channel has found a way to remind us that watching their channel can be fantastic. If Mother Earth had a flag, this preppy tune could be her call to remote arms. One might have expected it from The Gap or Coca Cola or The All Black rugby team for that matter.
The use of characteristic sound in specific marketing campaigns is a well-worn boot. Even when customers process a television ad, seeing first and hearing second, sound is more important than image. Once you have it in your mind, you can distribute it by imitation - viral marketing 101.
There is the Brrrrr which lives outside the TV as noun and verb (for ordering that bottle of Coke of course). On the other end of the spectrum could be the great South African micro site for Audi TT. It is exhilarating and almost Schindler's List-like.
This Discovery Channel offering is more like microwave melted cheese. It is a cliché and nearly irritating and I know it. But guess who was humming what in today's traffic? Does it stick because the "basic values" expressed in the 1-minute advert match some pre-determined ideas of my own? Can a customer be a customer without paying anything? Is brand value measurable beyond revenue and profit margins? Maybe next year Millward Brown will shed light and start to investigate virtually. It's not the same as a brand awareness survey.
Perhaps Stephen Hawking featured in the ad because he too is just a customer of Discovery Channel ideas? Then again, the Discovery Channel benefits by endorsement from Mr Hawking. And Mr Hawking's book sales benefit by endorsement from the Discovery Channel.
The New Underdog
In the latest Congressional hearing re: the recent Google/Yahoo search ads partnership and the antitrust implications thereof argued by Microsoft:
"I never felt so sorry for poor little old Microsoft," said Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to laughter.
Google is the new Microsoft. Microsoft is the new underdog.
And Apple gets to keep on selling iPhones.
Resource Model
Today we wrapped up a brand new component for our Sexbyfood client-side engine: a Javascript REST resource model. We'll be slipping it into the workings of Sexbyfood shortly. We're excited about it for a number of reasons.
Everything Sexbyfood is already built on top of the Sexbyfood API. The API is REST and emits XML and JSON. We're interested in the JSON which is super lightweight and perfectly suited to the Javascript since of course a JSON object is nothing more than a Javascript object. Ready to use. If there was such a thing as fast-data, this would be it.
So since we're sending and receiving alot of data in our Javascript, and moving more and more of our functionality across to your browser to enable a faster Sexbyfood experience, we thought it would be great if there could be some kind of process to automate the whole REST process and incorporate caching along the way.
Enter the new Resource model. It's a buffer for our AJAX requests, a cache that includes basic garbage collection mechanisms and a way of keeping data in synch whether it be client-side or server-side.
We're busy working on some new tricks to take full advantage of this and we look forward to being able to show you some of this stuff as it comes out. One clue, it's definitely going to be about #.
Both Side Of The Greenwich Meridian: iPhone And I Queue
Shake And Bake:
iPhone 2.0 applications have landed...the first 552 of them. Although the software "hasn’t officially launched", enthusiastic iPhone-ers have been downloading v.2.0 for the past six hours anyway, and accessing the App Store.
TechCrunch have the scoop and some early stats. So far, in the battle of the social networks, Facebook is beating My Space threefold, most likely because of its more iPhone friendly user interface (and the odd but obvious appeal of Facebook Chat).
Among the first 522 applications is Urban Spoon. Once you've downloaded the free app and you'd like to find a spot for dinner, just give your iPhone a shake - yes, the accelerometer inside the phone measures the movement. Restaurants in the area are then detected by GPS and a slot machine-like display will display the results. Pity their search is by conventional location and you can't even reserve your dinner table in real time.
Made in Japan:
Then, right now, on the other side of the world in uptown Tokyo, Japanese are standing in queue. Oliver Reichenstein reported a few hours ago that there were about 120 people waiting outside the SoftBank flagship store in anticipation of the iPhone release - two days in advance!
Some of the work-bunking happy campers claimed the iPhone is missing three important features: the lack of "emoji" - special, cute little icons like hearts and tear drops - the fact that an iPhone can't be used as an electronic credit card, and the omission of TV viewing function.
The Commons
This is old news. If it's just about the news. But if you haven't seen it yet. And if you love photo's. And if you go "ahh" when you see good photo's. And if you're thinking just like Sam Cooke that A Change Is Gonna Come. Then please go to The Commons on Flickr:
The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.
Then be sure to watch: Once Upon A Time In America, Rio Bravo, Dead Man, No Country For Old Men, Paris Texas, There Will Be Blood, Don't Come Knocking.
And take a listen to: John Wesley Harding, Odetta, Woody Guthrie, Kingston Trio, Slim Harpo, Santo & Johnny, Daniel Lanois, John Jacob Niles, Mahalia Jackson, Joan Baez.
Enjoy.
Warpspeed
You've got to love the new Firefox 3 interface blunders.
Today I needed to debug some Javascript code. I asked the browser to show a popup with some info in it. Safari did as expected and showed the dialog box. Firefox 3, however, decided to shift into warp speed and literally go the extra mile:
Yes. It's official. Firefox 3 dialog boxes don't know how to do text wrap.
But they sure do know how to warp.
Happy Birthday Ringo!
Wow, Sexbyfood as you know it celebrates birthday numero uno today!
Indeed, it was just 365 days ago when "after 7 months and 70,000 lines of code, Sexbyfood launched to the public at 7:01pm on the 7th July 2007."
Here's to what's to come...
*clink*
And Firefox 3 Makes 15 000 Improvements (apparently)
"It's official: The latest version of Mozilla’s popular alternative Web browser, Firefox 3, set the previously nonexistent Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a day. The final tally settled at 8, 002, 530 after judges weeded out duplicates and automated downloads from the 8.3 million total downloads logged on June 18, the day of the browser’s launch."
[via: The Wall Street Journal]
Hi, My Name's Cara And I've Downloaded Firefox 3
Unless on someone else's poor machine, I don't Internet Explorer. I Safari and I Firefox. Despite its fantastic JavaScript execution, Opera has not yet drawn me to make the download move. So, as one of the 8 million who helped Firefox 3 to that Guinness entry, what do I think about the upgrade? No trumpet flourish. Firefox as a family has a place in my heart because of their original free spirit, their good browser functions and nifty add-ons. For now, I'm hanging onto Firefox 2 as a distinct alternative to Safari. Firefox 3 doesn't feel right.
Safari meets Window Media Player?
"Bad artists copy. Great artists steal". Firefox 2 clearly looked at Safari. They copied what they liked. I think they are bad artists. Firefox seams defensive on the matter too, perhaps even arrogant. Why else would camp Firefox pitch themselves against camp Safari? Surely Safari is more a smart ally to Firefox in the browser battle against Internet Explorer? 
Quality And Not Quantity?
Today Seth Godin posted a great post, on a great post. So, here's passing the parcel:
Scoble has a great post about a 14 year old kid with 45 million viewers on YouTube.
45 million! He wins. You lose. You won't have more traffic than he will. Ever.
And what about your ads? Are you busy sponsoring sites that have less traffic than he does? Sure you are. Why? I thought it was all about reaching the masses...
Well, since you're over that now, since you realize that "how many" is not nearly as valuable as "who", why not put that into practice?
Just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean it's important."
The Image Fulgurator
Discovered via Jason Kottke:
The Image Fulgurator is a device for physically manipulating photographs. It intervenes when a photo is being taken, without the photographer being able to detect anything. The manipulation is only visible on the photo afterwards.
In principle, the Fulgurator can be used anywhere where there is another camera nearby that is being used with a flash. It operates via a kind of reactive flash projection that enables an image to be projected on an object exactly at the moment when someone else is photographing it. The intervention is unobtrusive because it takes only a few milliseconds. Every photo another photographer takes of an object at which the Fulgurator is also aimed is affected by the manipulation. Hence visual information can be smuggled unnoticed into the images of others.
Reality Distortion Fields
Ok computer, the folk at Folklore.org "capture and present sets of related stories that describe interesting events from multiple perspectives, allowing groups of people to recount their shared history in the form of interlinked anecdotes."
The one and only story they cover? The evolution of Macintosh computers. Gospel or not, the stories make for great reading! Today's take-away to share is the Reality Distortion Field:
Set back in February 1981, Andy Hertzfeld and Bud Tribble shared a yakety-yak to this tune:
We started talking about all the work that had to be done, which was pretty overwhelming. He showed me the official schedule for developing the software that had us shipping in about ten months, in early January 1982 [...]
"If you know the schedule is off-base, why don't you correct it?"
"Well, it's Steve. Steve insists that we're shipping in early 1982, and won't accept answers to the contrary. The best way to describe the situation is a term from Star Trek. Steve has a reality distortion field."
"A what?"
"A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules. And there's a couple of other things you should know about working with Steve."
"What else?"
"Well, just because he tells you that something is awful or great, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll feel that way tomorrow. You have to low-pass filter his input. And then, he's really funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he'll usually tell you that he thinks it's stupid. But then, if he actually likes it, exactly one week later, he'll come back to you and propose your idea to you, as if he thought of it."
Generation Encyclopedia And The Victorian Internet
Wikipedia says we're Generation Y. We're not. We're Generation Encyclopedia. Or Generation Wikipedia to be precise. We're the real encyclopedia consumers. We're the real learners. Perhaps paradoxically and hopefully because we practice the undefinition and the ungenius.
Then Joe Gregorio is talking of the Victorian Internet:
The first successful transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1866, a 2,300 mile long cable just a few inches wide, a stunning achievement for the time. The telegraph had the equivalent of domain names; telegraphic addresses (short names) were sold to companies that senders could use to address their telegrams to, thus making the telegram shorter and cost less to send, and yes, you had to pay an annual fee to keep your telegraphic address.
Ernest Hemingway wrote as if the telegraph would never die. But it did. We're working and talking as if the Internet will never die. But it will. Here's to another 7 to 10 more years of Internet. Here's to something new after that.
Windowlene
Wow, today is Bill Gates' last day as a full-time worker at Microsoft. Gold star, high five and pat on the back, Bill! One way or another you changed the world.
But where to now for Mr Gates? A humble Buddhist monastery in Bhutan seems unlikely given his disposition to great responsibility. But, at the helm of his other empire, the Foundation, might Bill just become the next Bono? Davos? Oprah's couch?
Bill will probably be around as a respectable humanitarian. He'll keep his finger on the ever-fainter Microsoft pulse, occasionally consult (though probably not to Jobs and team) and share insights and opinions across the board of course.
It seems Paul Allen is enjoying his life like a mirrored jacuzzi full of casino chips. He throws celebrity-studded parties on his yachts, no and again, playing Johnny Cash songs with R&B star Usher, owning three sports teams and so on. Good on him too, too.
So, Microsoft, whereyagonnago in this next phase?
Downtime!
Yesterday we began to experience downtime that affected Sexbyfood in various ways.
Our DNS records got updated by our hosting company and our domain re-routed to a black hole ala YouTube and the great Pakistani-tells-India-tells-the-World debacle earlier this year. As a result, nobody could sign in, urls were 404'd and we were lost in space.
It took some time for our correct IP address to propagate again but all outstanding issues have at last been resolved and we look forward to joining the rest of the EC2 clan shortly. We're really sorry for the outage. Thanks for being patient and sticking by!
Expectations And The Alligator Pear
Next you do a dinner party tell everyone that the highlight of the evening is going to be... Avocado juice. See how they respond. At this point, expectations won't be high. Perfect. You're positioned for a brilliant strategic strike.
Now blend this: equal parts Avocado, vanilla yoghurt, organic full cream milk and honey. Drizzle more honey on the inside of each crystal glass. Sprinkle with pistachio. Serve with a few more on top.
Wait for it. Cream soda? Banana? Who would have thought?
If You Haven't Read The Book
So, you read a Wikipedia entry, follow a link, follow another, aloha-wham-bam you're far from the daisy field where you started! Faster than Alice down the rabbit hole, up becomes down, and the direction of east switches from left to right. Information relativity gets dizzy.
Well Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges knew all about it back in 1941 when he wrote his short story, The Library of Babel, in El Jardin De Senderos Que Se Bifurcan (which translates to The Garden of Forking Paths if you don't have a Spanish/ English translation widget.)
Borges describes an infinite library where books contain every possible combination of letters, spaces and punctuation marks. Although many of the books are gibberish, many of them contain every written work and every work to be written. Sound familiar?
Any Borges reader familiar with the @ sign and "double you" addresses is sure to identify a link. James Grimmelmann, a professor at New York Law School, has published an nifty essay on Borges' Library and the Web called Information Policy for the Library of Babel.
The Web, with its billions of pages, presents the same problem of a large gathering of information. The more pages, the more useless the information? Not necessarily. The theory is that you just need to know where to look. Wikipedia trumps Encyclopaedia Britannica spectacularly for reference-entries. But when it comes to looking for really specialised information, gibberish and disinformation are more common than gems (especially in web forums!)
Borges presents the problem of information by having the librarians in a state of despair. We trust Google and choose from the first page of search results. Grimmelmann also imagines the existence of a "Crimson Hexagon" which has a master book, a log of all the other books.
Grimmelmann closes his essay by naming Google as the omniscient log book... yawn.
P.S. So, after reading a whole Wikipedia entry, say, for The Library of Babel, would you buy the book to actually read it? Amazon delivery permitted.
On Breadth And Depth
Another gem from Steve Yegge:
"I think the best way to start learning math is to spend 15 to 30 minutes a day surfing in Wikipedia. It's filled with articles about thousands of little branches of mathematics. You start with pretty much any article that seems interesting (e.g. String theory, say, or the Fourier transform, or Tensors, anything that strikes your fancy.) Start reading. If there's something you don't understand, click the link and read about it. Do this recursively until you get bored or tired."
From Maths For Programmers.
Cabbage Head Was Not A Genius
Finally, fellow happy campers, we can shed our Soviet disciplinerianism, our reverence towards Getting Things Done (PDF), our holy grail round bubble buttons that proclaim "Beta!" from the solar-panelled rooftops, and our Silicon Valley "gotta-live-here-with-other-smart-people" ballet dance. Yes, my good glubber-chickens, we are not as smart as we think we are, Cabbage Head was not a genius, and nothing is as it seems. Let us mount the sermon of the undefinition, let us embrace that which seeks to brace us, let us exsimplify.
Comrades, our time has come:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things-smart.html
#the-way-of-the-future
Spot the similarity?
http://google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/sexbyfood
http://mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/#feature-productivity
http://acrobat.com/#/share/ShareBegin/
http://sexbyfood.com/learn-more/#introduction
Google's doing it. Mozilla's doing it. Adobe's doing it. Sexbyfood's doing it.
? is the past.
# is the future.
The Oracle
Almost exactly 2 months ago we tried out Twitter to see if that could help us keep in synch with work, communicate better, i.e. answer the question: what are you doing right now?
Even Twitter was a bit much, a bit confusing for us :) and so after an hour we had our own little application up and running: The Oracle.
The Oracle is where we post our internal status updates. It's our personal scoreboard, or rather an encouragement that makes us want to finish the quick wins over the long hauls, just so we can put it up on the Oracle.
It's our incremental masterpiece. Every day we add our efforts and it's amazing looking back to see the progress we've made. It's a wonder what a difference a simple textbox can make.
Fifteen Years From Now?
Which won't it be? Internet Explorer? Firefox? Safari?
An Anwering Machine For Those Early Mornings
I'm Only Sleeping
Nanda makes machine-washable cotton laptop Cozies. But this New York-based firm also makes something your granny or mother-in-law cannot: Clocky is her registered name.
According to Nanda's website, Clocky is a "patented alarm clock that runs away and hides to get you out of bed. Clocky gives you one chance to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide, beeping all the while. You'll have to get out of bed to silence his alarm."
From $50, these Humvee-driving, bratty clocks now rove bedrooms from Manhattan to Tokyo: 
Where did Clocky come from? While Gauri Nanda was a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, Clocky evolved out of her need for an alarm clock that wouldn't tolerate repeat snoozing. She created a prototype for a class project and a flurry of unexpected attention by the press ensued. She asked a question, then created an answer.
Getting that hour extra sleep each night seems a friendlier option. Hunting a rogue alarm clock in the dark winter could not be less appealing and downright painful. Then again, a certain physicist once said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
The Biggest RSS Icon I Ever Saw
Not to mention, we've just joined GitHub.
Beam Me Up Scotty!
Here at the secret underground Sexbyfood HQ (which we'll post more about soon) with it's maze of underground corridors, mass of hyperspace supertime plasma pylons, invisible whiteboards and artificially intelligent ghosts, we've started to really enjoy getting to know Scotty.
Scotty's very hush-hush. Need to know basis. But we thought you'd like to know and see more and yes, even get to meet Scotty. Perhaps not in person but a screenshot or two will do?
Scotty's our new stress-less file uploader. We give Scotty a file. He gives us a (wait for it)... a U.R.I. A U.R.I. (if you must know what it is) stands for Unquestionably Responsible Individual. To people like M and Q however one might say it's a Unique Resource Identifier. Apples for androids. Peaches for people. You dig ja? Skinny on the low-down?
Right. Getting back on track. Anytime we want to include an image, movie or pdf or any static file on Sexbyfood (even the logo or bullets etc) we just give it to Scotty. Scotty gives us back a URI that never gets used again. He adds "Forever Headers" to say that the file once downloaded to a browser should stay there "Forever" and "Never" be requested or downloaded again to save bandwidth and improve page load times.
On top of that, he spreads our resources like good peanut butter or ginger spread on a piece of low GI, definitely brown, bread. Evenly. Across our 0,1,2,3 static servers lovingly hosted by the fantastic Mr Bezos and his starship crew of a pizza or two but no more. And no less. Amazon S3 is brilliant.
And Scotty helps us get there.
And Firebug Beats Facebook On Break
The Firebug extension from Firefox is my new favourite dalliance. I've been using it mainly to inspect and edit HTML. But there I was, munching an apple and blankly watching Myoga's restaurant images fade in and out. One click on the Firebug icon at screen bottom left and it became exciting! The opacity of the Flash images counted from 0.99 to -0.01, then progressed down the image list, making each image visible as a separate, timed layer.
And two seconds later:
So, gracias Joe Hewitt and friends for giving us the tools needed to poke, prod, and monitor JavaScript, CSS, HTML and Ajax in one nifty window.
Safari, we're waiting for a real answer from your camp.
Riding Ruby On Rails
Before
Back when we were mechanics:
After
Now that we're riding Ruby on Rails:
Attention To Emails - A Lighter Thought Cloud
Business emails are complex little things.
There are more questions than guidelines when it comes to copy and form. Academics, marketers, copyrighters, in fact, everyone using email can argue yadda yadda opinions until their page views expire. The only conclusion seems to be that "success" is subjective.
Could this email be shorter?
Am I really sure that the recipient is going to be delighted to get it?
If I had to pay 42 cents to send this email, would I?
Mr Seth Godin offers this email check list as a golden compass. Whether you choose to re-route your communication depends entirely on your context. How are you sending mails now and how can you change?
If you believe your current method doesn't need work, be cautious. Don't be stupid. Ask questions. How can this evolve? Don't risk "complacency becoming your nemesis".
Search for the better way. Take it line by line. Try it.
Why HTML Beats Paper Beats Photoshop
Jason over at 37Signals wrote a great post yesterday: Why We Don't Use Photoshop. Instead they do their mockups on paper and then get straight to doing mockups live in HTML. I agree with him on Photoshop. But here's why we go straight to HTML and why HTML beats paper beats Photoshop. And since Jason covered Photoshop I'll get right to it:
One CSS To Rule Our Layouts
We've come up with a single CSS to rule our layouts. We've kept it as simple as possible. It gives us nothing more than an H1, H2, P, H5, ordered list, unordered list, A, IMG and four classes (similar to A List Apart's approach) for doing form layouts: "table", "row", "label", "element". That means we're under huge constraints. Sometimes even if we're on a page that has content nested more than a couple layers and we want an H3 we can't have it. We have to clean up our layout instead.
Vertically Stacked Layout
We're in love with the vertically stacked layout. It lets us bring out new features quickly since new features can just be plugged in wherever we need them to go. It's super-boring. Perhaps useful. Perhaps more readable. It's definitely in line with the way the Internet loves vertical scrolling. It's open-ended. Not suffocated by complicated table layouts. In fact we couldn't do a two column layout to save our mother superior. Again our external CSS forbids us. And we encourage it that way.
Everything Is A Form
We use forms. We love them. Everything is a form. We've got a fantastic form pattern we use. It's drop-dead gorgeous. It's inspired by Apple Mail. Labels right-aligned. Slightly smaller label text (the same as an H5) than paragraph text. And "element" divs which float left of labels and always have 10px padding to their left. We don't use custom image buttons. We love Safari buttons far more and believe Safari users should never have to be treated to anything else. Indeed this is a big enough reason to absolutely drop Firefox and adopt Safari. So forms are sort of "patterned-down".
Javascript Helpers
Then to go with our forms, we're starting to develop JS classes that help with Add/Remove, Edit/Delete, Delete/Undo and even go as far as to force the design elements of that. In other words, if we want a user to be able to add as many fields as they like, we just slap a "new AddRemove()" on to the field and it takes care of the functionality and looks of the action.
Sketching Implies Layout Decisions
So the short of all of this is that we don't sketch mockups. We don't need to. And we couldn't even if we wanted to. Sketching implies layout decisions. We can't make these. They've been made for us (we made them awhile back). We've got some simple patterns and these happen to be powerful. Long live hypertext markup language.
We Work Out The Bits
Instead, we use alot of TextEdit. We work out the bits. The bare ideas. And this often comes down to the bare concept of a REST resource. What fields do we need to represent a review? Title? Body? Etc. From here it's pretty easy to map these to a form or textual layout.
How It Looks
Then we're starting to do our copywriting in html. We can see how our words wrap and our headers look and write with that mind. We're into the idea that how a word looks conveys information. Thin I's and L's say one thing. Round vowels say another. There are supermodel words. There are nerd words. I personally find that Spanish or French lookers beat British lookers. :) Somebody stop me.
Bold = Banned
Another interesting thing or two about our typography constraints. We don't use bold. It's banned for this reason and for this reason. We don't use italics. It's banned for the same reasons. We have a pastel yellow highlight we can apply to text. We have a roaring red highlight we can use for error messages. We have #333333 for our text. We stole #0066CC for our links. There is nothing else.
So we worry less.
Many Microscopic Reasons
To us the word "design" means make it usable, make it simple, evolution, iteration, quick decisions. Sometimes what counts is having a reason for doing something, and having a good reason at that, not necessarily the perfect reason, but certainly having reasons for absolutely everything no matter how small but especially how small.
Design = How It Works = Engineering
Thanks Steve and Oliver. Design is how it works. Not how it looks. In essence, there are so many usability patterns out there, when we think "design" we think of solving problems, fitting in to standards and expectations, weighing the advantages vs disadvantages of different approaches. Engineering. Reductio ad absurdum. Not "painting". More "reggae". More "sculpture". And so not "creative" in the sense of "creating". It's brutal destruction. To be blunt, we really laugh at the idea of the effete artiste "I'm a designer".
But What It Really Comes Down To
We spend ALOT of time thinking about Fitt's Law.
The rest is ching-chong-cha.
Oh and yes, thanks Jason, context beats consistency.
Javascript: Investigating The Date() Object
During the course of my Javascript wandering yesterday, I came across a most unusual property of the Date() object.
Before We Get Started: A Little History
Now, we all know that the Date() object can be instantiated in four different ways:
1. new Date()
2. new Date(milliseconds)
3. new Date(dateString)
4. new Date(year, month, date [, hour, minute, second, millisecond ])
new Date() creates a date object that yields date or time based on the client's local time. new Date(milliseconds) creates a date object that yields date or time based on the given number of milliseconds since 1 January 1970 00:00:00 UTC. I won't go into 3. or 4.
The Objective: User Friendly Dates
I wanted to create a date class that would help make system dates user-friendly. i.e. "2008-06-03 20:00:00" could become "20:00 Tuesday 3 June 2008" etc. In addition, I wanted to be able to get the current UTC time, or the local time yesterday, today or tomorrow (and be able to format these nicely). And sometimes I just wanted to get timestamps for these values.
Some Of The Methods
I created four methods: Today(), Yesterday(), Tomorrow(), UTC(). Each of these yields the respective millisecond timestamp.
Today()
var date = new Date();
return date.getTime();
UTC()
var date = new Date();
return date.getTime() + (dateObject.getTimezoneOffset() * 60000);
Let The Oddness Begin
Things get odd as we start looking at the UTC() method. I'm 2 hours ahead of UTC. In other words my UTC offset is +2. To get from my local time to UTC, one would expect to be able to subtract 2 hours (as milliseconds) from my time (as milliseconds)? Not so. getTimezoneOffset() returns -2, in other words it returns what we'd need to ADD to local time to get to UTC instead of what we'd need to SUBTRACT. Everyone else calls UTC +2 UTC +2. getTimezoneOffset() calls it UTC -2.
Further Down The Merry Path
Once I got my mind round that I seemed to have everything working well. Millisecond timestamps from the various methods plugged into a method wrapping a new Date object (ala instantiating method 2. above) from which the year, month, date, hour, minute, seconds etc could be returned. And if it was a timestamp that was required, this would just be returned.
All swell and well down the merry path.
With A Little Help From My PHP
Checking different datetime combo's all worked perfectly as expected and matched the same output from a little PHP script. Until I got to timestamps. For some reason, the UTC timestamp generated by my JS seemed to overcompensate for my UTC offset by twice as much. And what should have been "now" local time was instead UTC time.
Everything else with the script proved correct on further testing. But then I spotted that the timestamp returned by my simple Today() function (supposed to return localtime) was in fact returning UTC time!? And my UTC() method was returning UTC minus 2 hours.
getTime() Not Like The Other Good Brothers
Instead of working off local time like all the other good getFullYear() and getTimezoneOffset() brothers, getTime() was working off UTC time.
And Date() Is An Accomplice
And then to make matters worse, the Date object when instantiated with these timestamps would not treat them as they were but would instead treat them all as UTC and then adjust them by the local UTC offset.
This made my initial timestamp bug really hard to track down because Date() kept compensating and everything kept working (like the millions of scripts that use this method), until I started asking for the timestamps used to generate these dates and times.
Map Of The Problematique
Basically, don't trust Date(). It's your evil brother. It's the single blemish on the golden cheeks of our beautiful sister Javascript. If you're in love with her, here's some medicine to help the sugar go down:
1. If you pass milliseconds to Date() when instantiating a new Date() object, Date() will ASSUME you're passing milliseconds since the Epoch (which you are of course) and then ASSUME this is different to local time (which it can't) and then ASSUME it can just add on the client's UTC offset in milliseconds (which it really can't).
2. getTime() really is an easy way to get a UTC() timestamp.
As we all know (and know for the kicker) assumptions are the mother of all coverups.
UPDATE: Date() makes fewer assumptions when you use the UTC equivalent methods. getTime() and getTimezoneOffset still have their quirks.
Guides To The Galaxy
"I See The Moon And The Moon Sees Me"
Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. When you live in a city and generally go about doing city things, the night sky is too often forgotten. Tonight, some friends and I (none of us pursuing our PhD's in Astrophysics) were shivering on the dark wintry lawn. I suddenly remembered the night sky in all of its naked-eye infinity.
Venus, Mars, Orion, the Southern Cross, the Milky Way and the plethora of zippy telescope traffic are easy to capture. So where does one go to find out about the other million dots up there? Back indoors for a cup of Horlicks in front of the computer of course.
There are some decent, non-intimidating interfaces to choose from, depending on what you're looking for. There is the original 3D display portal Stellarium, the Apple Starry Night widget, Google Sky and the new, terabyte-blending WorldWide Telescope from Microsoft.
Google dominates search and the amateur astronomy skies. Their Google Earth mothership suite now includes Google Mars, Google Moon and Google Sky.
They are making good on their December 2006 signing of the Space Agreement Act with NASA. The two giants simply intended to put "the most useful of NASA's information on the internet".
With Apple's widget, you can see the night sky from any location on Earth. It happens to be the second "top widget", coming in between the Language translator and the MTV widget. There must be plenty of wishful Virgin Galatic passengers doing their homework.
Maybe astro amateurs can zoom around the world's skies like Buzz Lightyear. But the information becomes too scattered. If you want to find out about a specific hazy cluster that you can actually see in the sky, you do not want to zoom along to view Mr Armstrong's patriotic lunar footprint pollution. A visit to the grey bearded, wiry Professor at the local planetarium probably remains the best bet.
Our New Office Chairs
Apple Says
Sometimes, there is a time and a place for everything.
Go get it!
Google AJAX Libraries API
The coolest thing I've seen this morning:
Look familiar? It's not just Prototype, our favorite Javascript framework, it's Prototype in Google grey, green and blue. It's Prototype hosted on Google servers. Sam Stephenson:
Good news! Google now offers a cached, compressed copy of Prototype on its high-speed content distribution network via the AJAX Libraries API. You can link to the source code directly: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.0.2/prototype.js or you can use Google’s API: google.load("prototype", "1.6.0.2");
When a specific version of Prototype is delivered to your browser, it will be cached for one year and served with the proper compression headers. That means that most users of sites which link to Google’s copy of Prototype will incur a ~30 KB download only once.
I took a look at it in Firebug (by the way you should also try the excellent Develop feature in the latest version of Safari). It’s lightweight and fast. 30kb on the first load in 300ms. 5ms thereafter from local cache. Not to mention the beautifully simple API documentation.
Three cheers to Google!
New Feature: Search
We pushed an improved search section today and want to share our ideas behind it, how it differs from the old search and some little things we spent a lot of time on.
Firstly, there's a new interface that enables fine-grained control over what you're searching for. In the past this used to be limited to the keyword search box on the top right of every Sexbyfood screen (this of course is still there).
Whereas search used to be more Googleish and require a user to use a textbox to specify all of restaurant name, address, cuisine, occasion etc. now it's more suggestive and specific. We can search only by restaurant name (partial words now supported), or by restaurant name, cuisine, location etc. Or even just by price.
A big bonus, and nifty feature here is that the locale dropdowns are interdependent. In other words, the initial dropdowns present all suburbs, areas, cities, states and countries for all restaurants on Sexbyfood. Choosing an area out of the whole list of areas will automatically select any parent locales i.e. city, state, country, and refine it's child locale i.e. suburb to contain a list of only suburbs within that area.
This interdependent locale selection ability took some time to get right. We initially tried using AJAX requests to autoselect parents and constrain children. While our Sexbyfood API made this pretty easy to do, the wait time was too long. So we rewrote it and now we're preloading the JSON locale data and then iterating over it to smart-select and constrain (and some other funky business). We hope you enjoy the snappy feel of it now.
Clicking the Search button kicks off an AJAX request to the Sexbyfood API and gets the wheel spinning, then instantly changes the interface on the client-side (without a page reload) to the improved search results page:
We're experimenting with a 5-item result set per page. Less is more. We hope it makes it easier to digest the results this way. We can do this because changing pages is instant. Click and it's changed. All client-side. And the results page now gives more context as to what page you're on and how many results were returned.
Perhaps the most notable feature here is our new sort bar. Click on a category (restaurant, rating, popularity, price) and the result set is instantly shuffled and reshown. Again, without a page reload. The sort feature defaults to sorting in ASC order for restaurant name, and DESC order for the others. It's a limitation but we think it gets the job done as is (without bringing in too much complexity).
Lastly, we've added a friendlier "please try again" interface for when no results are found:
You can see where we got the idea for this one from. :) Here, we want to really encourage one more search, either more general or for something else. Perhaps the restaurant isn't on Sexbyfood? Let's provide a way to let the user suggest it. Simple mailto: email address.
We hope you enjoy searching now as much as we do (it has been a source of pain up till now). Please let me know if you have any suggestions for it.
New Feature: Video Tutorials
"It's taking lightyeeeeears"
We are proud to bring Sexbyfood’s first video tutorials to your screens:
Make A Reservation, Add Your Restaurant, Reservations, Add A Reservation and
Update A Contact. 
Day 1's idea was to roll off the videos quickly with as few frills as possible. Quick excecution. The medium is the message. Carpe Diem. Reality looks somewhat different by Day 25.
Our starting line was drawn from 37 Signal's Signals vs. Noise blog post. Matt’s team first recorded their audio, then played it back during a video capture. So, following the leaders, we planned to do the same.
Scripts in hand, the what-shouldn’t-we-say became just as important as minimal mic interference. I eventually recorded takes sitting under my coat - more amateur "victorian photographer" than a Bob Dylan-like studio take!We then exported the Garage Band recordings to iTunes as podcast vocal tracks.
Rolling with the Screencaptures
Using SnapZ Pro X we then recorded a videocast to match the included audio track. Synchronizing all windows to open/close on cue meant at least 5 tries before the start was usable. Make it all the way to the end of the take without any typo errors. If a page loads 1 second faster than anticipated, all the other carriages are pulled along the rail. Half a second here and half a second there add up to 5 seconds of asynchronous action. You are at the mercy of your own creation.
"Cut! That's a wrap!"
The start is always exciting. As you repeat the same method over and over, without success, you risk sinking into a marshmallow-gooey trough. Inertia creeps.
The trick is to keep breathing. Persevere and you'll learn something new each time.
It's a matter of principle...
Super Mario In 14Kb Javascript
Jacob Seidelin is a Javascript genius:
He's reincarnated Super Mario using 14kb of Javascript.
No external image files or anything, everything is rendered with Javascript using either canvas elements or old fashioned div-making tactics (for IE). The sprites are stored in custom encoded strings in a format that only allows 4 colors for each sprite but in turn only takes up around 40-60 bytes per sprite. The MIDI music is embedded as base64-encoded data: URI's.
Tip: try it out in Firefox if you can't hear the music.
Update: John Resig has a related post Embedding and Encoding in Javascript.
Halloween In The Blogosphere
What would Freud make of blogging?
Everyone could be everywhere. Somebody can be nobody. Nobody can be somewhere too!
Technorati currently tracks over 112.8 million blogs, a number which obviously does not include the 72.82 million Chinese blogs as counted by The China Internet Network Information Center.
So, sticking to the English "Ocean" (as I cannot read Mandarin, yet) there are useful blogs like the 37 Signals Product Blog. Celebrity blogs are becoming as numerous as celebrity profile pictures on Facebook. Take poor David Beckham's blog for example.
But there is another breed of blogger, the anonymous-celebrity type. Uncle Google returned about 5,210,000 results when searching for "Steve Job's blog" - a whole universe-worth of sentences! To compare, George Bush only musters an arsenal of 2,850,000 results when searching for "George Bush Blog".
Understandably, more folk enjoy masquerading as Jobs, than Bush. The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, written by Fake Steve is but one mister/master/missus or miss who makes no pretence.
Perhaps the Beatles said it best:
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together..." 
Down And Out
Not being connected to the Internet is vexing.
It's more essential than having coffee in the tin. So, how can one stay productive until the net fix is revived?
Here are some ideas:
1. Find an Internet connection.
2. Create a local network and work on shared architecture if you can.
3. Draft blog posts and emails as text files which can be modified once you're online. I've been monitoring my Inbox via my cellphone. It's almost like an alarm clock for "okay, right, you need to drive and source Wifi NOW" since replying (decently) from a tool other than {shudder} a Blackberry is just Pollyanna-ish! Gmail Mobile is admittedly much better than it used to be.
4. Sweep. Clean out and categorize your bookmarks for example. If you haven’t visited a site in a month, delete it. It'll be fine... Uncle Google will surely find a footprint somewhere. Same goes for downloaded applications.
6. Talk. Make those phone calls and arrange meetings. Drop in and visit customers. Play idea-badminton with colleagues.
7. Think. Even the "wow" of ASIMO (Honda's humanoid robot) conducting orchestras has a principle from which one can learn, right?
New Feature: Developers API Sandbox
On Friday we had the idea for a much-needed feature in our Developers section.
Some REST APIs let you add a .xml or .json at the end of the URI to specify your desired MIME Media Type instead of using an HTTP Content-Type or Accept header. This lets you explore the GET side of the API from within a browser, given no other headers necessary.
We decided to keep our nouns (URIs), verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and content types (application/json, application/xml) completely separate in true REST fashion. This means you'd need to use cURL or write a simple script to test out the Sexbyfood API.
So this morning we pushed a new feature, a Developers API Sandbox. It makes it easier to get started using the Sexbyfood API. You can play around in it as much as you like and it gives good juicy feedback: HTTP status codes, error messages and representations:
If you take a look at the underlying Javascript code for the sandbox, you can work through and copy and paste the wrappers for GET, POST, PUT and DELETE requests.
We hope you like! Please let me know if you have any suggestions for the new sandbox.
7:30am
We've started an experiment. 7:30am - 4pm work days. If you add it up, that's half an hour less than the average eight to five. We're (somewhat perversely) thinking:
1. The early bird catches the worm,
2. That last half hour lets us skip traffic, and
3. Less time = more concentration = more work = more enjoyable.
It's great. There's more time in the day. We get to get started before the sun (in winter) and everyone else does. There's more parking than there usually is. We feel like Rocky Balboa on some kind of mission. Feeling good. Start early. End early. Everyday could be Friday.
We're also focusing on "the Start". Arriving early for pre-work coffee so we can kick off with a bang as the clock strikes. It sets the tone for the rest of the day.
P.S. It does mean we miss Arnold's incredible breakfast but we save that for the weekend now!
Geisha Wok And Noodle Bar
A Manhattan-Tokyo Story
If reservations are Asian tapas, Sexbyfood is delighted to share a platter with Geisha Wok And Noodle Bar on Cape Town's Atlantic Seaboard!
Arigato, a welcome bow and a round of saki to Conrad Gallagher's shiny "wok and roll" team!
Bitter Old Men?
Or why we love Serge Gainsbourg:
New Feature: Associates Account
Harry Belafonte says "shake, shake, shake, Senora!"
We pushed an update this morning for a new feature: Associates Account. Sexbyfood Associates can now see stats on link referrals, honored reservations, conversions and of course earnings:
If you're an Associate, you'll see an "Account" tab on the top right if you're signed in.
We do hope you like!
Kindle For The Winelands' Fireplace
Stellenbosch is a special spot. South Africa's oldest town (after Mamma Cape Town) this mountain-hugged "dorp" is the heart of the Winelands.
We are proud to announce our pair of Stellenbosch restaurants. They're live and lovely for weekday moments or languid wintry weekends.
Beads Restaurant
A drum majorette salute to Beads - new to Sexbyfood, Beads has been our first independently signed up restaurant! Great having Greeff Kotzé and his team on board the reservation train.
Located at the corner of Church and Ryneveld Streets, Beads offers "classical cuisine with a twist of fusion" in a lovely setting perfect all year round.
Umami
They join our first Stellies super troopers - Umami
Set in a quiet courtyard in the Black Horse Centre, Umami is a lovely fine dining choice with a great vibe. Toerie and Alex prepare and serve their food with one overriding objective in mind - "to unlock and accentuate each dish’s deliciousness"
Disciplined Thought
"Discipline is a holy word" so they say. I recently remembered how my cello teacher used to entreat me to arrive on time. To practice. Just one hour. But every day. Then to be disciplined when practicing. To practice the right thing. In the right way. To do just one thing. But to do it well. Anything else was blasphemy enough to get the KFC flying onto the piano keys. Anything else would turn a cello lesson into a life lesson.
Perhaps being punctual, being able to say a thing and then being there on time, to keep one's word, is more beneficial to oneself than being merely a courtesy to the other person. Resulting in the gradual, steady building upon building of one's own integrity, or foundation, for getting things done.
Perhaps being late, relaxing into the giving of excuses, saying one thing and doing another, is nothing to be proud of. A form of arrogance. A sure sign of a coming crisis. In one's professional or personal life.
And perhaps it's not even the punctuality that counts, nor the careful incremental piggy-bank saving, nor the continued effort towards a long-term goal. But the thought behind it.
Copernicus And A Modern Frenchman
With its intended focus only visible from one precise viewpoint, this work is inimitable.
Oscar Wilde said in 7 words what film directors try and capture in a sequence of scenes - "Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
Seeing a perspective which, up until that moment, you believed to be otherwise, is like discovering a new taste.
Georges Rousse is perhaps not so much a photographer, or even a painter, as a bender of space - an illusionist. As Escher toyed with flat litographs, Rousse plays with physical spaces. He paints cleverly, correcting for such things as the slope of floors or the interruption of beams. The result is simplicity.
A quick glance gives the illusion of a simple, flat design. A painted screen suspended by wires then later edited from the image? No. Each of Rousse's photographs is a carefully generated moment.
Here for example, a dignified arty statement in Lego-cheer for an abandoned white abattoir in Casablanca.
Civilians Liner Notes
God save Joe Henry. Musician. Jazzman. Shaman. In his own words:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen; friends; esteemed colleagues... Madam Speaker. Aware as I am that some of you are updating your files, allow me to share a few descriptive notes that I hope you may find relevant to the business at hand. Let the record show, please, that I arrived here promptly, under my own steam, and that I formally declare the handcuffs to be excessive.
As I appear before you, I have just turned 46 years old. I remain 5'9" tall and hold steady at 146 pounds. My hair is wavy, but only at my express direction. My eyes are brown or green depending on the light, and I sometimes appear to have a slight limp, if remembering a fall I took in London two years ago October. I am Sagittarian; a Southerner by birth, and Midwestern by transplant; a loyal spouse and the well-meaning but jittery father of two. I live on the fringe of Los Angeles, right where it begins its slide into the San Gabriel Valley, and in a house built in 1904 for a First Lady of these United States of I'm Sorry; and I do so with my loving family who tolerate all manner of racket and laughter issuing from the basement under the guise of serious work being done. I am experimenting with drinking smaller amounts of much stronger coffee; and during fits of insomnia (which I swear has nothing to do with drinking smaller amounts of much stronger coffee) I have contemplated opera, dog training, motorcycles, patriotism, corruption, metallurgy, Perez Prado, the coming revolution, insurance, God, baseball, Skip James and the prospect of making my own gin in a tub behind the garage. "How tough could it be?" I have asked the dark ceiling. "Would I need a permit if not intended for retail?"
That may be all any of you has a right to know. But I am, alas, a simple man, and my life is an open book, even if some passages have been obscured for security purposes. Freedom isn't free, after all, and neither is that tiny microphone inside the saltshaker. But tell the truth: don't you just feel safer knowing it's there? I know I do. Where was I?...
Read the rest of Joe Henry's Civilians liner notes.
A Warm Welcome To Riboville
In short, Riboville feels like grand New York looks on screen:
Housed in central Cape Town's original ABC bank, Riboville has high ceilings, marble columns, secret corners and an original personality.
At first, anything above a whisper may feel misplaced. Thankfully, in almost gallery-like fashion, Riboville has many things to look at. After dining, perhaps use the Bogart-era wooden lift to explore the different levels: there is an cognac and cigar lounge above, a "The Vault" and a cellar below.
Riboville's menu? It's tuned for all imaginable whims and fine fancies.
Intimidating? Nope...you can bet your bottom dollar on that!
A warm welcome to Riboville from Sexbyfood, great to have your restaurant with us, and super-congrats to Cara for making it happen!
There Is No Such Word As Should
If you want to buy an Apple from ZA Store and need to make an enquiry this is what you get:
If you would contact us via email, you'll need to type out the above address from your email application. We don't have clickable links to our email addresses to avoid unnecessary spam.