Balsamiq Blog

Holiday Reading: Free eBooks and Good Blogs

Hello again!

‘Tis the season of giving, and hopefully most of you will have a little more time to do some reading, so I thought this would be a good time to share the following links with you.

Free eBooks

In the last few months we’ve seen a bunch of good free eBooks come out. I’m not sure how this trend started, but I suspect this TechZingLive interview with Jason Cohen might have something to do with it.

Here are four eBooks I think you might like, which are all free:

• “Don’t Just Roll The Dice – A usefully short guide on software pricing” by Neil Davidson
• “Building the Perfect Beast: The Igor Naming Guide to Creating Product and Company Names” by Igor
• “What Matters Now” a collection of one-page nuggets of wisdom collected by Seth Godin
• “The Fable of User-Centered Design” by UserFocus

Do you know any other good eBooks along these lines? Don’t be shy and post the links in the comments if you do!

My favorite non-tech blogs

I follow A LOT of blogs, mostly tech and business stuff. It’s all good and useful, but the echo-chamber makes me a bit queasy after a while.

That’s when I like to look at these:

• Letters of Note – these are always entertaining
• Today and Tomorrow – crazy digital art, designy furniture and artsy animated GIFs (remember those?)
• Strange Maps – for map nerds like me
• The Big Picture on boston.com. A view of our World through gorgeous, always though-provoking pictures
• Indexed – I just started following this one recently. Very smart stuff, plus I have a soft spot for hand-drawn things
• Minimal – not at the same level of the ones above, but quick to read

What are your favorite “escape from the technosphere” blogs?

Mariah’s Bycicle, 12/19/2009

Have a great holiday break everyone, happy reading!

Peldi

— 4 Comments

4 Responses to “Holiday Reading: Free eBooks and Good Blogs”

1. Jake Says:
   December 19th, 2009 at 9:36 am

   I enjoyed Steve Browne’s book “Traction”, an introduction to the whole “sales thing” for startup entrepreneurs http://www.innovatorstraction.com/

2. David Smit Says:
   December 19th, 2009 at 9:34 pm

   Great Saas Sales Advice: 3 eBooks all by Joel York

   SaaS Success-Top Ten Dos and Don’ts
   http://www.saas-business.com/

   SaaS Sales Management Tips
   http://chaotic-flow.com/media/saas-sales-management-tips.pdf

   SaaS Model Economics 101
   http://chaotic-flow.com/2009/05/04/saas-competitive-advantage-saas-economics-101-e-book/

3. Priyanka D Says:
   December 20th, 2009 at 10:04 pm

   I like Zen Habits: http://www.zenhabits.net

4. B. Clay Shannon Says:
   December 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am

   Although not tech books, all of my writings (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) are available as free .PDF downloads at http://www.lulu.com/blackbirdcraven

   You can also find my two “Warble McGorkle” novels in various formats at http://www.feedbooks.com — search either for “Warble McGorkle” or my nom de plume when writing fiction, “Blackbird Crow Raven”

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