I have no formal training in typography or page layout design, but as someone who needs to constantly communicate and pitch ideas, page layout design is really important to me. A couple of months ago, the Coding Horror blog recommended The Non-Designers Design Book ![[0321193857]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
, and I ordered it.
The Non-Designers Design Book is a must-read for anyone who… well… wait a sec. It is a must-read for everyone. If you communicate, which you likely do 
, this book will give you a simple overview of how to improve the appearance and approachability of your written communication. The book is short, easy to read, and instantly enlightening to those of us new to page design vocabulary. It has given me immediate help in designing an internal wiki at work.
If there was anything to critique about the book, I would say it is the overuse of the phrase "Don't be a wimp!", but it simply reflects the author's design philosophies.
I saw the book Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days as a recommendation on Guy Kawasaki's blog. This is a big book containing dozens of interviews with people who started successful tech companies. While there are several interviews with people who more or less "got lucky" with internet startups in the 90's, there are also lots of interviews with legends of the tech industry, such as Woz, Mitch Kapor, and Dan Bricklin. The commonalities between all of the successful startup founders in the book seem to be that they worked like crazy, reached success very quickly, and most of all, liked what they were creating and believed in it.
If you have ever considered starting a new company, Founders at Work is a must-read.
What would happen if you gave Page and Plant a Digitech Expression pedal instead of, say, John Paul Jones? You might get Icky Thump from The White Stripes , which has some of the best pop rock Zeppelin ripoff tunes since Kingdom Come . Fun. Alt rock radio will (hopefully) never be the same again.
