You see, I’ve been saving files to my DropBox for a few months now. It’s become such and integral part of my daily computing experience that I don’t think about it. The reason I don’t think about it is because it’s a trouble-free product and the experience is totally natural.

I think this is probably the high-point of any product or service; the ultimate benchmark for quality and usefulness. When something is so good you totally take it for granted an forget about it. That’s when something is truly valuable.

Another example of this phenomena is with my hosting company. I really put a lot of time into researching what host to use for my product, but no matter how great the deals were at competitors, no matter how good the reviews where, I still had to deal with a nagging truth in the back of my mind. I have never had to think about my current host. I don’t think about them because they are so good that I forget about them. Because of that, I stuck with them and I’m glad I did.

I’m not sure what this means, but it seams like there’s a pattern here. While not every product is best forgotten, there are some things in life you just don’t want to think about (like web hosts and file syncing) and when you don’t have to think about them, you probably found a good one. What do you think?

At first glance it appears to be a drop down menu but it’s actually Javascript. Very well done (although definitely some areas for improvement) and an interesting way to help people filter content.

Check it out at: http://www.google.com/insights/search

http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/magazine/15-11/ff_cannonballrun?currentPage=all

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2007/1511_ff_cannonball_xls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxRLyiBs3XA

What caught my eye was this tidbit, however:

Despite the inherent difficulties, Dr Agenbroad remains optimistic about the potential for cloning.

“When we got the Jarkov mammoth [found frozen in Taimyr, Siberia, in 1997], the geneticists told me: ‘if you can get us good DNA, we’ll have a baby mammoth for you in 22 months’,” he told BBC News.

Now that would be cool! Imagine a mammoth (cloned) walking in a zoo. Now that’s the ultimate attraction for a zoo keeper. Apparently though, it’s really difficult (no kidding).

Also on BrainFuel:

• Elephants in Arizona!

I received an email on Monday morning from some Ruby on Rails developers and this site for Balloon Brites was included as a portfolio piece. I don’t know where to begin. It’s an awesome product!

Basically, it’s an LED powered light that has a battery and you put it inside of the balloon to light things up.

I showed this site to Don, a friend, and here’s what he said:

Yeah, you could really set your party off with those. “Timmy’s birthday was a real smash hit because of those flashing balloons.”

“Bobby had plain old balloons. Blah.”

I’d like to invest in this company. It could really balloon.

Some good branding tips.

How to integrate WordPress with a Forum.

An official Google blog about SEO.

A spot in the sun.

Insider Pages looks interesting.

On the Rim of ‘Victoria Crater’

Coolest Flash Thingymajig of all time!

Customer Focus Calculator: Test your Copy
www.futurenowinc.com/wewetext.htm

This is the very best client case study page I have ever seen.
www.futurenowinc.com/clients.htm

I’m voting for this as the strangest story of 2006.

The story goes that he became addicted to smoking during years as a circus performer. He’s only smoking 4 cigarettes a day now, down from 10.

• Kirby Puckett died. I have one of his baseball cards.
• Industry Jargon and the Coffee Terminology Guide
• How to do a 301 Redirect.
• Fake tilt shift photos.
• How to Become an Early Riser.
• How to Become an Early Riser (part 2).
• How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off
• Google Site Map Generator Plugin for WordPress.
• Rough Underbelly task tracker.
• moo.fx prototype javascript effects library.
• Chessboxing. I like the title. By hook or by rook. That’s clever.
• Spoofcard.
• Saw Fish.
• The Top 10 Questions Investors Asked Us
• Top 20 Blog Designs
• Blogging Pro kick starts the WordPress theme designers with a challenge.
• Desktop prototype video for BumpTop. More information on their website. (via the uber geeks).
• Mark introduces a webPod Nano version for his popular iPod MP3 player (for web sites).
• NEW Record player for the 2000s.
• One of the coolest ads I have ever seen.
• A lesson learned at the mall.
• Deconstructed cappuccino.

• Dozens of great photos from North Korea. Don’t miss this page. It’s hilarious.
• The $11 fisheye lens from Home Depot. Awesome link, thanks Tom.
• Kayak vs Whale.
• WordPress Theme Viewer.
• Satellite guidance for the visually impaired.

• I’d love to buy this island.
• High Dynamic Range photosets.
• Painting grass. Check out the photo at the bottom. Via Tom.
• I agree with Andy about Slashdot. While they may not ‘hate’ designers they are definately not respecting this field. They should be paying a few designers to come up with design concepts first and then paying to have the winning design transformed into CSS. They probably make bank on the ads on their site so this is nothing to them.
• The customer is always right except when they are not your customer.
• Searches originating from Redmond, Washington primarily use Google.
• Ajax on Rails
• Let’s Settle This. Who Would Win?
• I ran across the Arby’s web site and could hardly believe it.

This is a great graphic to help communicate how a lot of people feel about Web 2.0.

At home Lasik. A wonderfully simple joke.

Beautiful coffee bag art.

Coffee Brewing Basics. An article by Rocket Coffee Roasters owner Larry Jones on my coffee blog.

Nine Systems streams podcasts and videos.

Neat video of an octopus changing colors. I didn’t even see it at first!

A funny Mr. Bean video. It has subtitles however it’s a great classic.

Can you believe it has been 17 years since the original Sim City came out? Things sure have come a long way.

10 Photoshop tips in Spanish.

10 Photoshop tips in Arabic. I think this might just be a link to the article, but hey, I wouldn’t know.

10 Photoshop tips in Japanese.

The Development Abstraction Layer.

CarSpace.com is Edmunds answer to MySpace.com… and it’s a sort of social networking site for auto enthusiasts.

IronSudoko. (This one is for Tom)

Cool 3D animation of the Tornado logo that Tom made using Sketchup.

Page flip version 2.2.

Amazing Ukelele player plays George Harrison’s ‘My Guitar Gently Weeps’ on the ukelele.

When is a Nuke just too big? When a single bomb can blow up a whole city? Yes. When the blast can be measured on its third pass around the earth? Yes.

SNL’s Taco Town.

Interesting idea: hold a contest to design your book cover.

Microsoft IE update to ActiveX.

Nice overview from Paul Stamatiou about Amazon S3.

A cool Ice Age clip.

This is why I don’t paraglide.

AdSense Blacklist is a cool site that helps you filter out low paying ads.

The comment from a NASA engineer reflects the viewpoint I had about this topic. Here is his answer:

This problem can be understood quite simply by considering the example of a plane with frictionless bearings in the wheels. Examine the case when no thrust is applied and the conveyer moves at any speed. The plane will remain motionless with respect to the ground while the wheels spin at the conveyer speed. Now apply some thrust and the plane will start to move forward relative to the ground because in this case the speed of the conveyer (with frictionless bearings) can have no effect on the plane motion. As you increase thrust the plane will take off just like a normal plane. In fact from an observer on the ground the take-off will look perfectly normal. Now add some friction to the bearings and the only thing you will have to do is add a little more thrust to overcome this friction. Again from an observer on the ground the take-off looks exactly the same with the exception that the wheels seem to be spinning too fast. This is different from a car because the car must have locked (not frictionless) bearings (at least in one axel) in order to move.

The ip address of the poster: 163.205.211.20