Helpful video podcast.

Combination external battery and hard, nonslip case.

Brilliant illustrator and comic artist.

Sorry, sorry; I’m having a hard time getting back into the swing of things after my trip to Paris. Between that and the holiday rush, there doesn’t leave much time for my duties here on this blog.

Actually, I hadn’t anticipated falling off the blogging wagon so easily. I fully expected to be blogging regularly from Paris, but after that initial entry, all of my best intentions flitted away. I was doing a lot of walking around town, taking photographs, spending time with my dad, seeing friends and fighting jet lag; somehow the idea of being productive on my laptop at the end of each day lost out to just resting and relaxing.

I had a great time in Paris, as I always do. In fact, its vivid beauty is so universally acknowledged and accurate that there’s almost nothing original I can write in further praise of it. If you’ve never visited, suffice it to say that it lives up to its reputation in every way — and with each repeat visit, it reveals something new and characteristically stunning.

It’s certainly not perfect, though. For various reasons, I was ready to come home by the end of the week — one of the primary ones being that I got fed up with the Parisian predilection for smoking like it’s going out of style.

Very fun.

Good article on whether to buy now or wait for better/cheaper technology.

Clever, inexpensive attachment makes your built-in flash infinitely more useful.

Now I’m in Paris and yes, as always, it’s absolutely beautiful. This evening, a light rain brushed the city, leaving a gorgeous, cinematic glaze on every surface. They make everything look right here, even if it’s only as humble as a fleeting bout of precipitation.

Looking back at my post from Tuesday, I realized that I might not have done proper justice to how great the AIGA Holiday Party will be this Sunday. Even leaving aside the keenly hilarious John Hodgman (my board colleague Sam Potts calls him ‘an anthropomorphized operating system’), there’s no shortage of compelling reasons to attend…

“But if the money just sits there, it smacks of waste.”

The Czech Center, located at 83rd Street and Madison on Manhattan’s Upper East Side has a modestly terrific exhibition right now called “Ladislav Sutnar: Modern, National and International.” It’s an incomplete but nevertheless enlightening retrospective of this crucial graphic designer’s work from the first half of the Twentieth Century. Though you’ll be able to peruse the whole of the exhibition in less than thirty minutes, if any part of your job as a designer — online or offline — involves the organization of information according to the subjective rules of visual elegance, then it’s worth the trip.

“Limited-edition range of MacBook Pro sleeves and iPhone cosies” — not for sale, but free to a very select few.

Hurray!

“The Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.”

Buying new spectacles online for cheap.

Amusing but not essential. Thanks to Mike for the tip.

I’m a little burnt out on blogging, so forgive me folks for having been somewhat absent here over the past few weeks. Fear not; I fully intend to regain my mojo before too long. In the meantime, though, I’m trying to get through December’s litany of social distractions: the holiday season, for one, and just a little bit more travel before the calendar’s done, too.

If you’re also coping with the former, and if you’re in New York City, what better way to ease yourself through the December craziness than by spending it with a passel of your peers at AIGA New York’s Annual Holiday Party? Last year’s was a bit of a mob scene, but this year we’re upping the ante: dancing, a bigger, more spectacular venue, dancing, an auction of design goodies, dancing, and M.C. services provided live and in person by the inimitable John Hodgman — for real! The party is this coming Sunday night and tickets are a measly US$20.

The day after the party, I’m heading out to Paris again to visit my father for about a week. My goal is to visit him there twice a year, for at least as long as I can cobble together enough incredible shrinking dollars to pay for meals in Euros. Oof. I’m bringing a brand new, work-issued MacBook with me, so in theory I’ll be blogging a bit. It all depends on whether I find some cool stuff to do or not. If you know of anything, drop me a line. Otherwise, happy holidays!

Excellent article on the historical antecedents for social networking, written by my colleague Alex Wright.