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VISUAL ELECTRIC

Visual Electric is an image generator built for the creative process. Designers can start with an inspirational image from the library and then try different moods, test different colors, and hone their prompts.

UX REPO

A library of resources for crafting user experiences, categorized by the double diamond process stages.

DESIGN CONTRIBUTION TRACKER

Design teams can automatically track their contributions in Figma with FigWig.

ICON DESIGN TRENDS FOR 2024

From minimalism to grainy aesthetics, this article covers what will be trendy in icon design in 2024. Examine the best practices that power the most successful icon sets, regardless of the current trends.

SETTING A UX BUDGET? ANSWER THESE 6 QUESTIONS FIRST

Budget for UX should consider a company's UX maturity, its product's current status, future needs, and user requirements. Having solid arguments for next year's UX investments begins with six key questions that can help you cover those topics.

WHAT IS PROCESS DOCUMENTATION – AND HOW CAN IT HELP YOUR TEAM?

Creating clear and aligned processes within teams requires process documentation. As a result, people understand roles and responsibilities and can make better team decisions. Specific process documentation components are common to all industries, including standard operating procedures (SOPs), guidelines, flowcharts, templates, and checklists.

DYNAMIC PICTOGRAMS FOR DESIGN SYSTEMS

Typically, pictograms are vector graphics illustrations with various colors, backgrounds, accents, and skin colors. Each option requires a different SVG file, potentially resulting in too many assets unless a more dynamic and scalable method is used.

A CRITIQUE OF CRITIQUES OF BLANDIFICATION

Many designers have pointed to the recent Johnson & Johnson rebrand as proof of the design's increasing simplification, blandification, and sanserifisation. These analyses of the logo need to be revised as economic, technological, and social contexts deeply influence branding.

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2023 PROVED THAT EVERYTHING REALLY IS AN AD NETWORK

In 2023, the advertising landscape was characterized by the omnichannel nature of marketing. It was driven by the growth of retail media networks, the integration of connected TV and live sports streaming, and the expansion of digital out-of-home advertising. Marketers had an unprecedented array of inventory and channels to reach customers.

A YEAR ON YOUTUBE: TAKEAWAYS FROM GREAT ADS IN 2023

This YouTube blog post revisits the best ads of 2023 and explores what is next for brands in 2024. The highlights include Apple, Louis Vuitton, and Pepsi, who mixed long and short videos to engage and entertain customers. For 2024, the recommendations are to leverage creators, use Shorts for campaigns along with long-form videos, and leverage AI to find the right audience.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH SLACK’S MESSAGING

Oftentimes, large companies seem to reduce their messaging to general promises of “growing revenue” or “future-proofing” rather than specific capabilities. This post compares Slack’s current messaging for sales teams to what it used in the past. The tool used to focus on capabilities, which helped users understand exactly how they would get value. Now, its messaging is arguably too outcome-driven.

HOW TO APPROACH LIFECYCLE AND DEMAND GEN IN 2024

Lifecycle initiatives will go beyond email in 2024. Teams need to find unique ways to engage with users via in-app, events, community, outreach, and other efforts typically reserved for demand gen and sales. It’s also important to audit current onboarding experiences and identify gaps, needs, wins, and areas of opportunity for next year. Moreover, it won’t be enough to focus only on the top 1-2% of your most engaged audiences.

AN SEO & CRO FRAMEWORK TO TURN ANY B2B RESOURCE PAGE INTO A REVENUE-MAKING MACHINE

Resource pages and templates are effective at driving leads for B2B companies – when done well. This post contains a framework for building these pages to rank in search and convert traffic to leads. It includes a list of 13 high-priority items, such as breadcrumbs, insights from the JTBD framework, and ICP testimonials.

TOP PRODUCT MARKETING PRESENTATIONS OF 2023

A collection of the 10 most watched presentations this year from Product Marketing Alliance. Videos include How To Become CMO Faster Than Thought Possible, How to tell a product story that resonates, and the 3 P’s of PMM. Each video ranges from 14-36 minutes long.

6 MARKETING BOOKS TO READ IN 2024

This list contains business books that offer insight into how marketing works. The list includes ‘Impossible to Ignore’ by Dr. Carmen Simon, ‘Running with Purpose’ by Jim Weber, and ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ by Will Guidara.

HOW TO WIN ON THE INTERNET

This post contains 22 pieces of wisdom for winning on the internet. Marry the niche, date the product. Be data-informed, not data-driven – in other words, act with a mix of art and science. Get on the internet to post content ideas, but get off the internet to get content ideas.

CLAIM, A SOCIAL NETWORK THAT LETS USERS EARN AND TRADE REWARDS WITH FRIENDS

Claim is both a rewards app and social network. The company has been focused on helping marketers and brands reach new customers in a way that doesn’t involve bombarding them with ads on Google, IG, or TikTok. It turned consumer rewards into a multiplayer game by allowing users to try new brands together while saving money.

3 WAYS PRODUCT MARKETING EVOLVED THIS YEAR

Positioning is tougher than it’s ever been. PMMs need to cut through the noise by focusing on showing impact via real-life examples instead of theory.

ARE RETAILERS READY FOR PEAK RETURNS SEASON?

Frequent returners are actually your best customers – so brands should avoid instituting preventative or punitive return policies.

HOW LITMUS CREATED A LEGENDARY NEW YEAR’S EVE EMAIL

Litmus created a personalized email swag-drop-themed sweepstakes campaign that updated over multiple days to encourage subscribers to come back and sign up.

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productivity

FETCH WATERFALL IN REACT

A “fetch waterfall” is a common data fetching issue in React. It happens when you create a hierarchy of components that fetch their own data and show “loading” states before child components are rendered. There are a couple of ways to resolve this: by fetching data from the server (it’s not always as simple as using a server component), hoisting the data fetching to a higher level component, or through Suspense, which triggers the whole component tree’s fetches in parallel.

BUILDING A FASTER HASH TABLE FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE SQL JOINS

This article introduces a specialized hash table called FastMap used for hash joins and aggregate handling. FastMap takes an unconventional approach to speeding up SQL execution by using various hash functions (shown through code examples). Benchmarks show how FastMap is faster than standard Java Hashmaps.

MAKING SOFTWARE RELIABLE: THE IMPORTANCE OF TESTABILITY

Testability refers to how easily software can be tested. It plays a crucial role in identifying and fixing errors, ensuring software reliability. This article discusses automated testing basics, including unit tests, integration tests, and system tests, with examples in Go. It also highlights design principles for enhancing testability, such as modular design, the use of interfaces, and dependency injection.

ALL CODE IS TECHNICAL DEBT

Technical debt is the idea that rushing software development for short-term gains can lead to future slowdowns. Features add to this debt, so their value must outweigh the debt they introduce. Once added, features are challenging to remove, making it crucial to work within existing assumptions to minimize debt.

ADVICE FOR NEW SOFTWARE DEVS WHO'VE READ ALL THOSE OTHER ADVICE ESSAYS

It’s important to critically evaluate advice, considering that software development is not an extensively researched field. It’s better to try out different approaches and learn from experience. A good way to get better at software engineering is to understand the context and origins of best practices and conventions, take walks to refresh the mind, and explore the hidden depths of the tools used in programming.

THE 7 RULES FOR SUCCESSFUL JOB HOPPING IN DATA ENGINEERING

The author of this article went from being a junior data engineer to a staff engineer at big tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Airbnb. He outlines seven rules for successful job hopping in data engineering, including rapid onboarding, focusing on high-priority work, measurable impact, and not forcing promotions when your manager doesn't support it. He also shares experiences from job interviews, promotions, and the skills he acquired along the way.

QNM

Qnm is a CLI utility for querying the node_modules directory. You can use fuzzy search to find specific things and also see which modules are using the most space.

GEMINI PRO CHAT

Gemini Pro Chat is a minimal web UI to use Gemini Pro, Google’s new LLM.

INPAINT WEB

An open-source inpainting and image-upscaling tool powered by WebGPU and Wasm on the browser.

BUILD A SEARCH ENGINE, NOT A VECTOR DB

Vector database startups have proliferated in the last 12 months. However, vector databases should not be solely seen as a way to expand a language model's memory, but rather should be thought of as a specialized search engine. While embeddings and vector search can enhance search results, building a robust search engine with a combination of high-quality embeddings and traditional search methods is a better approach to utilizing AI well.

USING STRONGLY TYPED VS. STATICALLY TYPED CODE

Strongly typed languages enforce strict type rules, ensuring that variables adhere to their defined types, while statically typed languages require explicit type declarations for variables during compilation. Statically typed languages catch type errors early in development, enhancing code reliability. TypeScript is a language that combines strong and static typing, providing a balance between type safety and flexibility.

5 REASONS WHY ZOOM WAS ABLE TO SUPPORT 300 MILLION VIDEO CALLS A DAY

This post walks through how Zoom’s architecture solves challenges in video streaming, processing, and routing to achieve scale and low latency. Zoom breaks down its video stream into hierarchical layers, where each layer holds a different resolution. This technique reduces bandwidth usage and server CPU load.

TRYING CHDB, AN EMBEDDABLE CLICKHOUSE ENGINE

chDB is an embeddable, in-process SQL OLAP engine powered by ClickHouse. This article goes through various examples of how to use chDB with Python.

WIREFLOW

Wireflow is an open source tool for creating beautiful user flow prototypes. It has similar features to a photo editor and supports real-time collaboration.

QUACK COMPANION

Quack Companion is a VSCode IDE extension that guides users through their code contributions within open source GitHub projects.

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BLUE ORIGIN SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED AND RECOVERED ITS NEW SHEPARD BOOSTER

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket successfully took off from West Texas on Tuesday morning. Its booster and crew capsule safely separated mid-flight, with both landing back on Earth. The mission carried 33 payloads to space, more than half from NASA. It was originally scheduled for December 18 but was delayed due to cold temperatures and ground issues. A replay of the livestream is available in the article.

ALL THE CHANGES COMING TO GOOGLE PLAY AND SIDELOADING FOLLOWING $700M SETTLEMENT

Google will pay $700 million as part of a settlement with the US attorney general for a lawsuit over the Google Play Store. It has also agreed to implement third-party app stores, side-loading, and alternative billing on Android. Google will not be able to enter deals with phone makers to have Google Play as an exclusive app store on devices for at least five years. More details about the settlement agreement are available in the article.

NASA VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS FIRST COMMERCIAL DELIVERY SERVICE TO THE MOON

NASA recently shared a video detailing its plan to launch a commercial delivery service to the moon. It is currently working with 14 companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface. NASA has a long-term plan to build a permanent moon base. A commercial delivery service to the moon would radically increase the amount of science that can be achieved. It could pave the way for a similar service to other destinations like Mars.

WATCH 'WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL' HUMANOID ROBOT WITHSTAND BRUTAL KICKS

Unitree's H1 features a powertrain that provides it with the highest level of speed, power, maneuverability, and flexibility of any humanoid robot in the world. The robot can run across demanding terrains and intricate environments while dealing with disruptions. Unitree plans to initiate deliveries of the robot in the first quarter of 2024 with a price of approximately $150,000 per unit. A video of the robot dealing with disruptions, such as being kicked or pushed/pulled, is available in the article.

QUINT

Quint is a specification language particularly useful for distributed systems. It combines the robust theoretical basis of the Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA) with state-of-the-art type checking and development tooling. Quint features a simple and familiar syntax, an expressive type system, a novel effect system, a simulator, a symbolic model checker, and more.

TECHNICAL DEBT IS NOT REAL

Technical debt is a metaphor about the accumulated consequences of past decisions and shortcuts. This article examines this metaphor to see how technical debt has less to do with code and more to do with the choices and compromises that emerge from the challenges within software development. It looks at emergent technical debt, which arises from evolving system requirements, and deliberate technical debt, a strategic choice to prioritize rapid development over code quality. The article aims to refine understanding of technical debt and identify effective strategies for managing it.

THE ROAD AHEAD REACHES A TURNING POINT IN 2024

2023 signaled the start of a new era and 2023 is an opportunity to shape the world's next chapter for the better. The year gave us a glimpse of how AI will shape the future. The technology will be used to help improve many aspects of our lives and reduce inequities around the world. While these are still challenging times, the future remains bright as the speed of innovation has never been faster.

SSH PROTECTS THE WORLD’S MOST SENSITIVE NETWORKS. IT JUST GOT A LOT WEAKER

Researchers have devised an attack with the potential to undermine cryptographic SSH protections. Terrapin is a man-in-the-middle attack that affects SSH connections secured by ChaCha20-Poly1305 or CBC with Encrypt-then-MAC. Around 57% of servers list these encryption modes as their preferred choice. Anyone using SSH should check whether they are vulnerable to the attack and make the appropriate updates. The attack invalidates proofs published in 2016 concluding that such attacks weren't possible. Details about the attack and how it works are available in the article.

TESLA TO OFFER PACKAGE THAT TURNS CYBERTRUCK INTO AN ACTUAL BOAT

Tesla plans to offer a mod package to turn the Cybertrack into a boat that can traverse 100 meters of water.