KPAO: Dave Cortright's blog on Silicon Valley life: design, fonts, typography, technology, observations, problem-solving and more

Musings on my Silicon Valley life: observations and ideas that will improve the world, enlighten or perhaps just entertain.

I avoided blogging for a while, but couldn't pass up an opportunity to have a friend of mine, David Creemer, handle the IT side of things for the blog, and also contribute occasionally to the content.

We didn't have any idea of what the theme of the blog might be when we started — things of interest to us, I suppose. It runs the gamut from technology and design to philosophy, politics, and the occasional bit of humor.

Dave Cortright professional info

Steal This Idea: The musings of D. Philip Haine, founder of Obvious Design

Philip is an interaction design, product vision consultant and a friend. He posts his thoughts on product vision and design here.

Sean C. O’Malley

Sean is the lead product manager for the start-up accelerator team I work on.

Rated Best: Recommending the single best product or service in a category

Recommending the single best product or service in a particular category, based on my own experiences plus research across the most reputable ratings and reviews sites on the web.

As an uniformed or under-informed consumer, filtering through all the options out there is hard. A while ago when there were fewer choices, it was easy. If you needed an item, you bought the only one that was available. Now you go to the store and there are 10 or 30 or even 200 choices, whether it's a digital camera, cable TV, energy bar, or sleeping bag. So what's a consumer to do?

Seek help, of course. So you read a buyer’s guide or product reviews or even read the marketing copy on the packages in the store. But while these help you narrow the field down, they still force you to make the final decision: A vs. B (vs. C vs. D...). My idea is to take the filter to the extreme.

For every product and service category I review, I will give you one recommendation. That's right, there's no decision to make (other than whether or not you actually need this new product or service); I will have already done the work for you. Granted, you're going to have to trust me. And I have to earn that trust. Fair enough. But once I do, this site will save you a ton of time, effort, and stress.

So a single recommendation isn’t going to work for everyone. That’s fine. This site isn’t for everyone. It’s for the 80% of the population out there who has been overwhelmed by the paradox of choice and just wants the best overall product out there without having to do a ton of (or really any) work. High value, low cost decision making. And if you think I’m wrong, let me know. Suggest a better alternative. You might just change my mind.

Nombray: Own your name on the web

Domain name registration for consumers. Other registars out there like GoDaddy cater to name speculators and squatters, targeting their UI and services to people who manage massive lists of domain names. It's not a good experience for the individual. Nombray makes it simple to buy your name on the web, and also gives you simple tools for creating your own web site.

Here's my Nombray page: DaveCortright.com