Over at The Adaptive Path — a great website we highly recommend — we found a post by Leah Buley that we’d like to share  – it concerns the notion of “sketching” as a methodology of increasing creativity in the work environment. Leah writes:

Over the past few years, we’ve seen sketching grow from being the hot “new” method to just another skill we use to get the work done. Which means that sketching, and more importantly learning to sketch, is a rite that a lot of us now share.

The idea is similar to doodling to get the imaginative juices flowing, or even writing maniacally on a chalk board during a brain storming session.

READ MORE

In 2008, the Ninthlink team installed a bike rack in the offices to encourage our employees—and other businesses in town—to think green, keep the car at home, and bike to work, saving gas money and eliminating a little less fuel pollutants in the air.

Google seems to be catching on to the trend, and we dig it!

They just unveiled the beta version of their  Bicycle mapping option on Google Maps, which assists in identifying the best urban bike routes across 150 U.S. cites (they also have this for car and public transit.)

This app, timed for release during the National Bike Summit in Washington this week, folds in trail data from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy combined with other publicly available bike route data.

What you do: type in where you’re starting from and where you’re going to and Google Maps will identify the easiest – that is, least hilly/dangerous — route.

Yes, Google is working on a GPS-powered mobile version.

Rhythm NewMedia is a fairly new mobile video ad network that has introducing a “developers kit”  to allow media partners monetize their own iPhone apps by adding integrated ad units into their video.

The  site’s  “Application Launch” ad unit provides brand messaging via a full screen video ad presented to the user during those few seconds while a new app loads.

READ MORE

I realized today that we neglected to document (blog-ument?) the launch of another site a week or two ago : the redesign of the Ashworth Golf Company. Using WordPress at its Content Management System potential, the site showcases the Ashworth legacy, latest Apparel, Golfers, and then some. READ MORE

Tired of getting all those updates on Facebook about people’s Mafia Wars status or what kind of new digital farmland they’re acquired at Farmville?

Facebook hears ya, baby.

After growing privacy concerns and complaints, the social networking site has finally extended privacy controls to enable members to assign different levels of access to individual applications. Users now have the option to limit distribution of nearly everything they share, including cause posts, photos, greeting cards and videos.

READ MORE

Mobile World Congress was this past week, and as part of our contribution to that, and to the world at large, we at Ninthlink had the privilege of freshening up the look of the Code Aurora Forum, “the go-to-source for the mobile open source community.” The old site (picture after the jump) had all the info, including GIT repositories and WIKIs full of knowledge for the latest in the open source world, from Google’s Android and Chromium OS to Qualcomm’s Gobi and SnapDragon technologies. We helped to give it a face lift, and make it so everyone, and not just the most dedicated techies, can get excited about our open source future. READ MORE

I use firefox as my main web browser. It is full of great add-ons to speed up my life and even help me with design and development tips. I wanted to share this site simply because I love the artistic approach that firefox and Mozilla roll with. Have a look for yourself and learn something new about firefox.

I stumbled across this great website today (they make apps). A site for Iphone application developers to post their work and become discovered. Not only do you get to view tons of great apps with a easy to navigate website you can actually link to the companies sites, twitter, blogs, and email them directly. I love simple and well executed websites. Well done.

With the proliferation of smart phones o the market and the build up of a healthy mobile content community, we have noticed the ability for small premium programmers to reach an audience remotely.

Example: Modern Jazz internet radio service Moja Radio has been eking out an existence by charging a small batch of loyal listeners a comparatively hefty $10/month to place an ear to its single commercial free station. Most of the Moja’s customers  listened to the service when it was on satellite radio, before the merger of Sirius and XM left many of the smaller players off the dial.

However, the inability to reach listeners away from desks limits the appeal of such an exclusive service. With plucky effort, Moja Radio is spending its entire R&D budget on a free iPhone app that will bring the subscription stream to mobile users.

With users buying home audio systems and car audio kits for their iPhones, this seems a possible effective way to reach music fans. Moja Radio tried giving its station away for free on iTunes and Live 365 to tease listeners into becoming paying subscribers.

Fourteen thousand subscribed for free but not one signed up to pay for the service.

Still, the team here at Ninthlink applauds all who think creatively and innovate with marketing ploys.  The net – and mobile devices – is still the undiscovered country where there are no rules, and where those willing to take a risk can become “big” overnight.

On the smartphone bandwagon that everyone seems to be jumping on lately, Intel and Nokia have merged their mobile operating systems into MeeGo, a new open source Linux-based solution that combines Nokia’s Maemo OS with Intel’s Moblin OS.

Just like the iPhone OS  as foundation for the iPad, likewise the MeeGo system is also being positioned to run on netbooks, tablet devices and interactive television interfaces.