Blogging Goes Legit, Sort Of

Despite the timeliness of the issues, many bloggers are wondering whether their craft can be taught in journalism school.

Shachtman, Noah. Wired (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

The Copyright Grab

The Clinton administration, through its white paper on intellectual property, is proposing a wholesale giveaway to its supporters in the copyright industry--at your expense.

Samuelson, Pamela. Wired (1996). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright

PowerPoint Is Evil

Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall. Yet slideware--computer programs for presentations--is everywhere.

Tufte, Edward. Wired (2003). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Microsoft PowerPoint

A Photo Essay of Classic Instruction Manuals

How do you run the A/C on a spy plane? Where's the Start button on a nuclear power plant? Don't try to wing it—read the directions! A portfolio of classic instruction manuals.

Honan, Mathew. Wired (2008). Articles>Documentation>Technical Illustration>History

Classic Computer Manuals from Apple and IBM

Apple's first user manual was largely the creation of Ronald Wayne, Apple's third founder, recruited from Atari by Steve Jobs for a 10 percent stake in the new company. Wayne not only wrote the entire 10-page booklet, he also drew the intricate cover logo depicting Isaac Newton beneath an apple tree.

Honan, Mathew. Wired (2008). Design>Documentation>Technical Illustration>History

How To Get More Out of Google Docs

Part of the appeal of Google's suite of web-based productivity applications is the integration between them -- Gmail can send events to Google Calendar, Calendar sends reminders and note to Gmail and so on. Lately Google has extended that integration to make working with Google Docs a little bit easier.

Wired (2009). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Collaboration

The Long Tail

For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution. The main problem, if that's the word, is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too.

Anderson, Chris. Wired (2004). Articles>Web Design>Marketing

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

The Flip's success stunned the industry, but it shouldn't have. It's just the latest triumph of what might be called Good Enough tech. Cheap, fast, simple tools are suddenly everywhere.

Capps, Robert. Wired (2009). Articles>Technology>Quality

Clive Thompson on the New Literacy

A description of Andrea Lunsford's argument, from research with the Stanford Study of Writing, that technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

Thompson, Clive. Wired (2009). Articles>Writing>Social Networking