Now that this blog has been redesigned – more on that in a future post – there’s a new CSS book which looks like a keeper: Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design. So that’s going on my Amazon wishlist.

Matt Heusser writes about the problems of designing systems – modeling system effects is hard and everything gets harder according to the complexity and number of interactions that a system has. ISO 9000 and the CMM are necessarily prescriptive and work against the need for more flexible approaches to design. I recall the time when I read about some companies reaching CMM Level 5, but who seemed to be incapable of delivering working systems. However CMM does permit you to be flexible – agile, even – you just need to document, measure, correct and improve.

Some of these issues cropped up when I was designing air traffic control systems. Kathy Sierra suggests that demos shouldn’t look done. Trouble is, that without demos looking done, it’s rare that you’ll win large development contracts. This is part of the No!Spec issue.

People store personal information with Google Notebook, including passwords and social security numbers, then go and accidentally publish them.

Shelfari is another entry to the book tagging social network thing.