Who needs a pumpkin spiced latte when our roundup of favorite things will keep you warm?

• In anticipation of next week’s launch, Mike Monteiro has been on fire writing must-read articles: “13 Ways Designers Screw Up Client Presentations” and “8 Tricks to Selecting a Design Partner.”
• Erika Hall ups the ante on real talk in her excellent and unsurprisingly invaluable post “Focus Groups Are Worthless.”
• Dream team Ethan Marcotte and Karen McGrane bring you two new episodes of their responsive web design podcast: part two of an interview with Capital One and a discussion with Virgin America.
• Karen McGrane shares her personal experience as she talks about why “unsexy design” matters, too.
• Ignited by his “what’s next?”-themed Pastry Box Project post, Jason Santa Maria shares endearing and potent correspondence with a reader.
• Mandy Brown shares her insightful talk from dConstruct in both video and readable formats.
• From great experience, Jeffrey Zeldman explains how “a great conference is like a great playlist or LP.”

Check out the previous roundup and stay tuned here for more, or find us on Twitter and Facebook.