links for 2009-10-28

"Glyphish provides 130 great icons for iPhone applications. They are designed and carefully optimized for use on toolbars and tab bars in iPhone apps, they are also perfect for Android apps, websites, t-shirts, tattoos and more." Nice.

Tons of icons for Google Maps.

"Today I'd like to tell you about our newest service, the Amazon Relational Database Service, or Amazon RDS for short. Now in beta, RDS makes it easier for you to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. You get direct database access without worrying about infrastructure provisioning, software maintenance, or common database management tasks. Using the RDS APIs or the command-line tools, you can access the full capabilities of a complete, self-contained MySQL 5.1 database instance in a matter of minutes. You can scale the processing power and storage space as needed with a single API call and you can initiate fully consistent database snapshots at any time." Very cool.

"Via Feministe, via Sociological Images. As this commenter notes, where are Mulan, Pocahantas, Giselle and Lauren notes the absence of Tiana, first African American princess who were all also constructed as racist and sexist stereotypes. Disney doesn't discriminate who they create sexist caricatures out of, that is for sure."

"John Stossel, the newest star of the Fox Business Network, is also starring this week at a series of events orchestrated by opponents of a Democratic health care overhaul. Most news organizations discourage participation at partisan political events. In its publicity material for the forums, Americans for Prosperity identifies Mr. Stossel a “veteran journalist.” But Fox says Mr. Stossel is not a part of its hard news division; rather, he is an analyst and host. In its responses to the White House and other critics, Fox has said there are differences between its journalists and its opinion program hosts. But the Obama administration and others have asserted that those lines are regularly blurred."

"In other words, the most senior members of the Republican establishment – and some Democrats like Max Baucus (D-MT) – have gladly spent more taxpayer funds to ensure health care as a Constitutional right in Iraq than they are willing to spend to give you any level of guaranteed coverage."

"Wearable electronics aren't news, but being able to make them cheaply and easily is. Xerox has developed an ink with which you can print circuits onto plastic, film, fabric, and nearly anything you can think of."

"I’ve been blaming students, here, for lacking the discipline to do term-length projects throughout the term, instead of procrastinating, but of course, the problem is endemic among non-students as well. It’s taken me a while, but I finally learned that long-term deadlines (or no deadlines at all) just don’t work with professional programmers, either: you need a schedule of regular, frequent deliverables to be productive over the long term. The only reason the real world gets this right where all-student college teams fail is because in the real world there are managers, who can set deadlines, which a team of students who are all peers can’t pull off." Don't provide long term deadlines, use managers.

"The challenge, then is to look for cues that people give you that they are better, and then cater to them. Every industry has people who are worth more, buzz more, care more and buy more than other people. Don't treat people the same, find the ones that matter more to you, and hug them." Find the customers that are better for your business.