A sea of schwag-bags… (an early sight at SXSW 2007)

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Erik Smartt

User Experience Lead and Creative Technologist -- helping clients solve business problems using technology.

A few of my other projects:

tinyLinkFeed - RSS feeds for links posted to Twitter.

jsmacro - A JavaScript preprocessor written in Python.

cssreflow - A CSS formatter/beautifier written in Python.

tinyexpander - Service to expand compressed URLs.

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Recently read books:

"Coders at Work" by Peter Seibel -- A fantastic collection of interviews with 15 famous programmers. Contains some great history and insights on the field of "computer science."
"Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja" by John Resig -- It's still in "early access" (ie., not yet published), so it's a little rough, but there are some nice JavaScript examples in its' study of various solutions to common challenges and patterns in web development.
"Geek Mafia" (PM Fiction) -- Geeks, drugs, and deception. An entertaining look into the (fictional) lives of techno con artists, and how a recently-fired comic book artist get pulled into their inner circle.
"Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers" -- Particularly useful reference when trying to eek out a few extra milliseconds of load times in older browsers.
"The Caryatids" -- Interesting tech, and somewhat engaging, but disappointing ending (or lack thereof.)
"Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life", by Neil Strauss -- An engaging, first-person account on transforming from an urban writer into "Jason Bourne."
"Little Brother", by Cory Doctrow -- A high school hacker fights the 'Department of Homeland Security' to reclaim American civil liberties after anti-terror tactics are taken to a new level.
"Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design" -- Techniques-for, and the value-of sketching interactivity before developing products. Good ideas. OK book.
"Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant" -- About finding untapped opportunities in your market and repositioning yourself to capitalize on them. Easy to grasp; Longer then it needed to be.
"JavaScript: The Good Parts" -- A thin book with some good best-practices, but a little disappointing. Perhaps it's JavaScript's fault, not the author's ;-)
"Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks" -- Good overview of usability issues in designing HTML forms, backed by examples and eye-tracking research. I bought the digital edition, which was slightly cheaper. (You can use code: WFDDE to get an extra 10% off any purchase on the publisher's site.)
"What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful" by Marshall Goldsmith -- Discusses interpersonal skills (and how to identify and fix them) that most commonly hold executives back in their career advancement.
"The Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways To Do Less And Accomplish More" -- Lesson: Cut the corporate B.S. and stop wasting your time. Focus only on what matters most.
"Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High" -- Lessons on handling tough conversations: firing people, relationship problems, hostage negotiations (well, maybe not that last one.) Wasn't an exciting read, but I've been paying more attention to "turning points" in conversations since reading it.
"Practical Django Projects" -- Lessons in building reusable ("pluggable") Django applications. Assumes you know the basics of Django and Python.
"Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People 2nd Edition" -- I really enjoyed this one. Lots of suggestions and strategies for negotiating.