 so many late nights this week watching basketball and working on a freelance project lots of good things to read this week 5 most common web standards misconceptions i love the first item web standards = validation just because your site is valid that doesnt mean its not crap core principles for rapidly attaining creative flow some simple techniques for achieving a state of focused concentration i find it hard to stay focused some times i need to try some of these a list apart issue 255 as usual a list apart delivers two solid articles findability orphan of the web design industry and sign up forms must die while i dont really agree with the thought that all sign up forms must die i think luke wroblewski brings up a lot of interesting points the secret to googles success free beer and sushi so youre telling me that i just have to tell my job that i will work better with beer and sushi yeah im sure that would fly decision or bug can you imagine actually being able to use pixels for font size i guess we can dream grid based design six creative column techniques six creative techniques for making your grid design extra special 10 tips for your first email campaign ugh just thinking about html emails makes me want to cry at least this article discusses the non design factors when preparing a campaign farnsworth wow they call all of their clients every week thats pretty awesome the thrill of launch this is a great article for two reasons it was really interesting to read about the hectic day that clickpass had leading up to their launch i know the feeling i think that openid is going to be really important this year with services like clickpass making it easier for developers to add openid to their sites i am hoping that openid will really take off this year 