So as of early 2024, here's what I'm posting where, who it's generally for, and why I am posting there. For the purposes of this post, I'm casting a fairly wide net in terms of I consider social media. Your mileage may vary.
Photos from the front and selfie camera at almost the same time with a caption once per day. For people I know IRL, and trust with seeing my kids, my home, and my location in the world at that exact moment.
One photo per day (sometimes more), old school Instagram style before filters. For people I trust, but not necessarily people I know IRL. Still sorting out where it fits exactly, but I like the focus on photos and how the past drops off your archive unless you give someone a key to see more.
Mastodon / Micro.blog / Bluesky / Tumblr/ LinkedIn: Text and occasional photo which get cross-posted from Micro.blog. For anyone who wants to follow along, but it feels slightly more niche than Twitter or Threads in terms of potential reach or influence. This group feels more like a weird 5 headed monster that used to just be what I'd post on Twitter pre-2020.
Text, photos, and the occasional video. Same general vibe as above, with the full knowledge that anything I post there could be shown to a family member on Facebook.
Photos and videos in posts or stories. I have a business profile that's public, and a personal account that's private. The personal account is for people I trust or think I know, but not necessarily people I know IRL. Business account is for #marketing in the laziest sense of the word.
Text with the occasional photo / video. Used to be a public soapbox of sorts. These days apparently you can only see someone's pinned tweet if you're not logged in. I connect with a few local people, a sport (Go Winnipeg Jets!), and a dash of networking in the tech world. But most tech people have moved to Mastodon, Threads, or LinkedIn. I keep naively hoping it will return to it's former glory, but it just keeps getting worse and worse.
Text with a photo. An email newsletter I send out once a week to ~35 of my best friends on the entire internet š. You can join anytime by signing up.
Video, duh. I have a lot of audio / video tutorials on here. I keep hoping I'm going to find my way back to posting more, but haven't yet. Generally I post for the "How do I do..." on a Mac or iOS device crowd, with a focus on podcasting and live streaming.
Video, duh. Though they've been promoting "photo posts as a way to juice engagement" to me so who knows? I go through addictive phases of watching too much TikTok. I post stuff on there for fun and to make myself laugh. But 55% of the time I'm very close to deleting my account out of stupid embarrassment.
Live video, duh. I've done the occasional live stream (and on YouTube), but I think in 2024 once my Covert Dock 2 arrives I'll use this channel to live stream my attempts at finally finishing Breath of the Wild.
Text, photos, videos. It's private forums for conversations and meme sharing among internet friends. I also use it with a few clients for back and forth instead of email. I'm mostly active in the ShopTalk Show d-d-d-d-d-discord, but also the Goodstuff one, along with a bunch of software servers I visit occasionally.
On the one hand it's completely ridiculous that I spend time on any of these, but I do owe a lot of my initial work opportunities to being a silly guy on Twitter in it's early days. It's also my social water cooler as someone who works from home so I justify it in that sense as well.
]]>Which is how I got around to posting a list of my defaults. No Meta / Twitter / TikTok needed. š
What are your defaults these days? Check out the defaults site where you can get the list of prompts with or without emoji, and check out all the other people who've submitted their defaults. Or you can subscribe to the RSS feed in your default RSS reader to be updated when the defaults page is updated.
]]>You were screaming at the Evangelicals
They were screaming right back from what I remember
When you said I will never be your vegetable
Because I think when you're gone it's forever
But you know I'd stand on the corner
Embarrassed with a picket sign
If it meant I would see you
When I die
True love is being willing to join an evangelical religion in the hopes that you'll get to spend eternity together.
]]>Creating a great audio ad is something that's quite costly and quite expensive for marketers to do...What generative AI has the promise to do is allow for that creative cost to come down...You can translate whatever creative you had into lots of different languages; you can use the same voice actor; but instead of producing one or two ads, you can have 1,000 or 10,000 or even 100,000 ads that are individually created to each user.
Translation: We heard what was happening in the actors strikes regarding AI licensing and wanted to get ahead of that in podcasting by eliminating humans as quickly as possible.
Spotify shareholders are thrilled with the company reporting an operating profit for the first time in a year, sending the stock up nearly 10 percent on the news. The revenue bump was in large part due to the streamerās $1 price increase earlier this year, but executives also pointed to the downsizing of the podcast operation ā which included hundreds of layoffs and the dissolution of Gimlet and Parcast ā as a contributing factor...CFO Paul Vogel said that after being a real ādragā on profit margins in the past, podcasting will soon break even and turn toward profitability.
Translation: We won't acknowledge how we pumped up the podcasting market with millions of dollars in speculation on shows and production companies, and then dumped them just as quickly, blaming the shows for not making us back the overpriced millions we spent on them.
I understand why podcasters put their shows on Spotify. It's where a huge audience is. But Spotify has shown over and over that they don't care at all about the artists or creatives involved in creating content for their audio streams. Spotify seems to be happy with a future that involves as few humans as possible in the arts.
Just a soulless computer sitting in the corner spitting out algorithmically generated 1's and 0's that they can charge a monthly fee for.
]]>In the U.S., āApple TV+ā is now $9.99 per month, up from $6.99 per month. āApple Arcadeā+ is up $2 at $6.99, and āApple Newsā+ is now priced at $12.99 per month, up from $9.99 per month. āApple Oneā Individual and Family are $3 more expensive, while Premier is $5 more. Prices are going up in most countries where Apple services are available.
Here in Canada, the Apple One bundle pricing went from:
Because we've got 5 people using iCloud+ storage with 1.2TB of 2TB being used, we're on the Premier tier. At $37.95/mo. it felt on the edge of being too high but justifiable for the time it saved me having to manage everyone's photo libraries, etc. But at the new $44.95/mo. price, I'm going to spend some time figuring out if it's actually worth it or not.
Due to our storage usage, we wouldn't fit in the Family plan with it's measly 200GB of storage. I've got over 500GB of Photos & videos alone. So if we went down to the Family Plan at $28.95/mo. and upgraded the storage to 2TB (which I think adds $9/mo. but I'm not sure), we'd be paying $37.95/mo. Which is what we were paying up until this week. So is Fitness+ and News+ worth an extra $7/mo for Premier?
I honestly don't know. We almost never use News+ on purpose. And Fitness+ is like most gym memberships where you use it for a few months and then spend the next 8 months feeling too guilty to cancel and too guilty that you're paying for it.
In all likelihood, another streaming service will likely get cut. Netflix is now $16.49 in Canada. We're almost finished Brooklyn 99. Sorry Netflix, time to say bye bye bye.
]]>I'm part of the video game playing group in our family, but I'm also part of the "have to earn money to buy things" part of the family, so in an effort to make myself not want yet another console in the home, I asked the helpful members of the ShopTalk Show Discord for all the reasons not to own a Playstation 5. And to make up the reasons if necessary.
So I present, without permission and without any names attached, the list of mostly made up reasons not to buy a Playstation 5 just to play Spider-Man 2:
I'm convinced.
]]>At the time, the decision was embarrassing enough, as it rested on the fiction that the coach, Joe Kennedy, was reprimanded for āprivate religious expressionā when he was actually establishing huge prayer circles in the middle of the field. Since then, the situation has only further exposed the shameful artifice of the ruling. At first, Kennedy appeared to have little interest in taking back his old job, which was supposedly what he was fighting for. Then he acknowledged that he had sold his house and moved across the country, with no plans to move back. Finally, on Friday, Kennedy returned to coach one football game. Then he quit, as the Seattle Times reported on Wednesday. He has no evident desire to exercise the rights that his lawyers fought for over years of litigation. Those lawyers, however, will walk away with $1.775 million in attorneysā fees, paid out by the school district.
Half truths or completely fake issues blown into big controversies that whip their evangelical nutter base into a frenzy. If just the existence of a rainbow š can set them off, prayer + education + football was an amazing combination to spin up.
Much like the equally fake cake maker who might have been asked to make a cake for same-sex couples:
In that case, a website designer named Lorie Smith said Coloradoās nondiscrimination law forced her to make wedding websites for same-sex couplesāif asked. But she was never asked! Smithās lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom claimed that one gay couple, Stewart and Mike, indicated some vague interest in engaging her services. They seized upon this allegation as proof that Smith might imminently discriminate, break the law, and face penalties. One day before the decision, though, the New Republicās Melissa Gira Grant reported that Stewart and Mike do not exist. They were made up. Smithās entire business, too, had tenuous roots in reality; it seemed to exist largely to serve as a test case for Alliance Defending Freedom. Mission accomplished. None of these deceptions stopped the courtās hard-right supermajority from siding with the web designer.
Woof.
]]>Having swapped out the Ignite WiFi Gateway (XB6) router for the new (to me) Ignite WiFi Gateway Gen 3 XB8, I figured I might as well do a speed comparison to see if it was worth it. Though as long as it's not slower, the price is cheaper per month than what I was paying before so it can't really not be worth it?
I tested it with both my iPhone 13 Pro's wifi as well as my Mac Studio's direct network connection.
iPhone 13 Pro:
Mac Studio:
iPhone 13 Pro:
Mac Studio:
So worth it in terms of getting minor speed bumps for both wired and WiFi connections. Not quite the 1.5G as advertised, but I may have to do some fiddling with the WiFi options to get my iPhone 13 to use the 6GHz band to enable that? And it's possible I only have a 1GB ethernet cable and if I swap it out for a 10GB cable I'll see faster speeds on my Mac Studio?
I used to know this stuff way back when I worked at a computer store for a living. I feel so out of it with networking tech. I'm even somewhat ashamed to admit I'm using the stock internet provider's router on my blog.
That will be the next test. This router is supposed to have a bigger range than the previous one, and there are some dead spots in our house that the previous router didn't reach that we're hoping this one will.
]]>TL;DR Get my Eleventy content (blog posts) into whatever format to be able to import them into WordPress, ideally with the title, date posted, and text content intact. Images are secondary at this point.
I've been using Eleventy as the CMS for my blog for a few years now. But I'm not really a developer, I just have a lot of friends who are developers. And so I'm in way over my head whenever it's anything beyond publishing a new post or updating a page. I think a move back to WordPress land in one form or another might help me be able to try random things with my blog like importing and displaying my micro.blog. Which might help me release my dependance on Twitter. But probably not. I just really hate "X".
I'm using Andy Bell's explainer on adding a wp.njk
file inside my Eleventy install that is supposed to generate a wp.xml
file out the other side. You can see my current implementation of it on GitHub or here if it's not able to build with it in my repo.
The only change I made was where Andy is using for item in collections.items
, I thought I should change that to for item in collections.posts
since that's where my blog's posts are in /posts/
. But I could be wrong there?
Side note: I started using Eleventy based off Andy's excellent starter kit for Eleventy - Hylia. No shade to Andy or his code. I know the error exists between the keyboard and chair on this one.
When I build it on Netlify, this is what the content of the wp.xml
file looks like.
And I get this error message in my Netlify console.
The error from Netlify seems to have a lot more issues than just me trying to add a wp.xml fileābut the errors don't show up if I commit without that wp.njk
file included.
Any suggestions on how to get my Eleventy content into a WordPress usable format? If you don't already know how to reach me, feel free to find me on Twitter or submit a suggestion on GitHub.
]]>Outside of music fans she's perhaps most well known for her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live in which she ripped up a picture of the Pope in an attempt to raise awareness and protest against sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church and its continued cover-up - which occurred nine years before John Paul II acknowledged the sexual abuse within the Church. I love that she took something that everyone assumed was a "cancel" moment, and made it something that put her back on track artistically. From Wikipedia:
In her 2021 book Rememberings, O'Connor said of the incident: "Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame." In the same memoir, she also wrote that she felt like the incident actually put her "back on the right track", following a personal crisis stemming from the success of "Nothing Compares 2 U". Moreover, she revealed that she had taken down the picture of Pope John Paul II from her mother's bedroom wall on the day of her death, and waited until the right moment to destroy it as an act of personal revenge to the physical abuse she suffered as a child, writing, "Child abuse is an identity crisis and fame is an identity crisis, so I went straight from one identity crisis into another"
There's an episode of the podcast "You're Wrong About" that covers SinƩad's story, albeit in a very surface level way that barely scratches the surface of SinƩad's story.
Today I was reminded of SinƩad's Gospel Oak EP Apple Music / Spotify Youtube, released in 1997. At some point I got a copy of the album on CD and listened to it a lot over the years. But when I made the switch to digital streaming, lost track of it and hadn't listened to it much in recent memory.
The opening track is titled "This is to Mother You". I have no idea who or what SinƩad's actual inspiration was for the song, but it's possible the song was inspired by the birth of her daughter, Brigidine, in early 1996. Or, based on the official music video which has SinƩad and Kris Kristofferson rolling around in bed together, it might be something entirely different.
Either way, it's such a beautiful hymn of peace and hope.
This is to mother you
To comfort you and get you through'
Through when your nights are lonely
Through when your dreams are only blue
This is to mother you
This is to be with you
To hold you and to kiss you, too
For when you need me I will do
What your own mother didn't do
Which is to mother you
All the pain that you have known
All the violence in your soul
All the wrong things you have done
I will take from you when I come
All mistakes made in distress
All your unhappiness
I will take away with my kiss, yes
I will give you tenderness
For child I am so glad I found you
Although my arms have always been around you
Sweet bird although you did not see me
I saw you
And
I'm here to mother you
To comfort you and get you through
Through when your nights are lonely
Through when your dreams are only blue
This is to mother you
Songwriters: SinƩad O Connor
This Is to Mother You lyrics Ā© Hipgnosis Sfh I Limited
For context:
What I finally went with was a Mac Studio with these specs:
...for a total of $3,199CAD + tax.
I couldn't decide if the $250 extra 8 cores in the GPU would be beneficial or not to my work, but since you can't upgrade it later I thought I might as well do it now? I hate the way everything is integrated on Macs these days so that every decision you make when buying is a 3-5 year choice you have to live with.
I have a nice Dell 4K monitor I use that the Mac Studio will sit nicely underneath, and my Logitech keyboard and Apple Magic Trackpad are both still good to keep going so no need to upgrade those.
And for now I'm keeping my 2019 16" Intel MacBook Pro to use for portable work, but I could see swapping that out for a 13" M2 MacBook Pro at some point. The iPads are also really enticing, but still early days for Logic Pro on iPadOS for my usage I think.
Since my new Mac Studio arrives sometime in the next couple of weeks, I fully expect Apple to announce M3 based Mac Studios in September. Wah wah
This is the funny thing for me. I'll stress for months about spending that kind of money on the thing I use 8hrs a day to generate my income, and worry that if I upgrade my computer I won't have money for that surprise vehicle repair bill or kid's dentist visit - but once I've spent the money, the anxiety goes out of my brain. Now if a vehicle breaks down, I don't second guess it and just scramble to find the money - or pull from savings.
]]>Threads hasn't been publicly available for 24 hours, and people are already proclaiming things with 100% certainty about it:
What I think is going to be fascinating about Threads is how Meta is attempting to thread (ha!) the needle on bringing very different worlds together on one platform. Twitter users have a very different style and vibe than Instagram than Facebook than Tumblr, etc. And yet Threads feels like it's trying to go after all of them in a way. And when Meta does turn on the Facebook tap and suddenly your mom, that weird uncle, and friend from high school you've been ignoring starts following your Threads - there's no longer that nice Twitter vs Facebook wall that used to keep those two worlds apart.
Iām asked frequently how I hold up being so often targeted by these types. On the one hand, it can be frustrating because it feels like such a waste of time. I can present all the evidence and documentation in the world. Authors and experts can weigh in on my behalf. And it doesnāt do squat. At least, it wonāt convince them or change their course. But what it does do is hold this behavior up for others to see. Itās no longer secret, no longer conducted behind closed doors or in email or group texts. Itās there for the whole world to see, and I think thereās something worthwhile about this exposure.
And how their attacks and petty trolling is just following the patterns she wrote about in her book:
I spent over a decade watching conservative evangelical culture, and I saw this pattern repeatedly. So much so that it became a theme of Jesus and John Wayne. So, when they come for me now, I often just smile. Why wouldnāt they? This is exactly how their world operates. I know I am dangerous to them primarily because what I did in Jesus and John Wayne was hold it up for all to see. Itās not personal.
This next paragraph is so accurate to our own experiences in trying to raise concerns and eventually challenge leadership, I wonder if Kristin Du Mez has been reading my journal entries:
There is a culture that flourishes in conservative evangelical spaces that punishes those who raise concerns. There is a longstanding practice of circling the wagons, and of quickly and ruthlessly demonizing anyone who challenges those in power. From what I observed, those who end up demonized are often not the crusader types, at least not initially. Many begin by gently and respectfully raising concerns. Many do so in good faith and assume they will be heard in good faith. Many are then shocked by how they are treated. Many end up leaving quietly. But those who donāt are ostracized, maligned, painted as troublemakers. As feminists. As liberals. As moral degenerates. As vile.
As she writes in ending the article, "...pay attention to the dynamics. Who is affirmed, protected, tolerated, praised? Who gets pushed out? Who is publicly maligned?"
It's so difficult to not scream, shout, and go down to that same level of demonization and malignment of the person. The safest thing for many is to leave. And even if you don't leave quietly, the church walls with the expensive sound materials will make sure nobody inside really hears or notices you on the way out.
]]>An app's smell is the vibe of the thing. Pretty self explanatory.
I don't have time to explain why these apps below are better than Substack because I'm such a prolific writer, but please use any of these apps before you consider sending out your email newsletter before you end up on Substack:
The only one of the above I have some sort of referral link built in is Buttondown because it's the one I currently use to rarely send out emails to 30 some subscribers. I have tried all of the above apps for sending newsletters, including Substack, and any of the 4 apps I listed care more about your writing than Substack actually does - and they don't smell bad.
That's one of the best tips I have actually: you don't have to sign up for Substack just to figure out you're not able to reliably send out an email newsletter. You can do that with any service, so why not use one that doesn't have an annual controversy or sleazy ownership.
]]>It wasn't until watching the U2: Elevation Tour - Live In Boston concert DVD in late 2001 - which is somehow available for free on YouTube, but good luck finding it to buy anywhere - that the song really came alive for me. Which is true of many of U2 songs. Slight tweaks, a little more room to breath, a guitar or loop part added, a different outro - something makes the song hit me in the gut or heart in a way that the album version didn't originally. But then I can't help but hear more energy in the album version going forward.
Anyway. Back to Kite.
Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it is
I'm not afraid to die
I'm not afraid to live
And when I'm flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did
For years I heard the lyrics as the child. Imagining my own parents looking at me getting a job, getting married, buying a house - moving on from the home that I grew up in all the physical and emotional ways that happens as kids grow up.
In summer I can taste the salt in the sea
There's a kite blowing out of control on a breeze
I wonder what's gonna happen to you
You wonder what has happened to me
I'm a man, I'm not a child
A man who sees
The shadow behind your eyes
Now, as happens with the circle of life, I'm the parent who's kids are getting older. They haven't left our home (yet), but the days are getting shorter where we can hold our family of 5 together in a tight unit. Where we all experience similar events, share meals, and do life together in a very intimate, fun, and frustrating way. It's measured "in a few years" now, no longer a "10 years or more" unit of time.
Who's to say where the wind will take you
Who's to know what it is will break you
I don't know where the wind will blow
Who's to know when the time has come around
I don't wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye
This is our last summer before our oldest gets their license. And suddenly the world our kids can get to without us grows exponentially. It's going to change, no matter how much I want to hold on tightly to the way it is now. I don't want to waste it.
Did I waste it?
Not so much I couldn't taste it
Life should be fragrant
Rooftop to the basement
See also the version of Kite from Slane Castle in 2001 recorded shortly after Bono buried his own father.
]]>So here we are again, 5 months after my last "Should I upgrade my Mac?" post, which itself was a month after this December, 2022 post wondering what I should, and Apple has announced an upgrade M2 based Mac Studio.
The only bonus wrinkle Apple could throw into the situation is releasing a M2 or M3 iMac / Mac Studio upgrade, but that likely wonāt happen until the fall of 2023.
So I was off by a few months in my Apple upgrade prediction.
The Mac mini I priced out in January - M2 12-core, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD - is still $2,324CAD + taxes, so that hasn't changed.
The upgraded Mac Studio is now an M2 Max 12-core, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, for $2,949CAD + tax. So still just over $600 price difference. Despite not looking all that different spec-wise, there's a few under the hood differences worth noting with the Mac Studio:
Not surprisingly, the initial reviews of the Mac Studio are glowing. "It's the best Mac Studio ever made!" says reviewer given early Mac Studio hardware by Apple to review with no pressure to only say nice things, but obviously if you don't you won't get future hardware early. /cynical mode off
If you're thinking about this same comparison, MacRumors has a good Mac mini vs Mac Studio buyer's guide that may help you.
The video work I do for clients ebbs and flows between it's too much and why did I buy another external hard drive?, and so I can't completely justify it when my current machine does technically do the work.
But now that Apple's completed the transition to Apple Silicon with the Mac Pro finally getting on board with the rest of the team, Intel based Macs are clearly not long for this world. The resale value on a fairly loaded 2019 16" MacBook Pro is dropping with each new upgrade cycle.
I'd love to try living in a Mac Studio on the desk, iPad Air or iPad Pro for portability - especially now that Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are out for iPadOS. But for now, I could just continue using my MacBook Pro for the few times I need to be away from my desk.
Although honestly, if I'm going anywhere for longer and I know someone there has a monitor, the Mac Studio in my backpack isn't a terrible option either.
I may have just convinced myself to pull the trigger. šøšøšøšø
JUST KIDDING! I'll see you back here in 6 months when I'm still using the exact same set up as I am now.
]]>So Iām blogging my list of things Iām looking forward to:
Having watched it all (twice), it's difficult to remember my thoughts before I watched it. But just the fact that I waited over a month to even watch the first episode tells you how little I expected this show to rock my world.
Just because they both wrapped up in the same week, it's interesting to compare the ugly, gross version of humanity on display in Succession to the version portrayed in Ted Lasso. I love watching the car crash of the Roy siblings in Succession on HBO and can't look away. But given the choice, I'll rewatch Ted Lasso in a heartbeat. The last 3 episodes of season 3 brought it all home for me.
]]>It was like we were all waiting for a bigger group meeting to start.
At some point the person I trusted left without me realizing, and there wasnāt anyone left that I felt safe with. Internally I panicked. I made a plan to leave the room, got up, and walked out into another space and sat down there to wait. For someone safe? For something to happen? Iām not sure. I just remember hoping that nobody unsafe would come by.
Then I woke up.
I was left with a mix of post-dream emotions. Sad. Angry. Hurt. Empty.
The words my youngest said to me during our bedtime routine started playing back in my head: āWhen Grandpa died, everything changed. Thanks to [name withheld] I donāt get to see my friends anymore.ā
Thanks for that night brain. 4am thoughts like this are so helpful.
The next stop my night brain took me to was the image of our kids letting themselves in to the main office area to go to what was Sueās office to hang out with friends after church on a Sunday. It was a safe place. A place they thought they could relax in, be comfortable in, and feel a part of things by proxy because their mom worked at this church.
What Iāve taken to calling āconversations with my night brainā arenāt as frequent as they were a few months ago. But it doesnāt take much to trigger them. A side comment about something fairly unrelated. An Instagram post with a face I used to see on a regular basis. Someone asking me to play guitar. One of our kids missing some part of our former life.
Whatever it is, something kicks a pebble in my brain, and a whole bunch of rocks come tumbling down.
Itās during these times that the lyrics to the U2 song āThe Little Things That Give You Awayā try to help me make some emotional sense of it all:
Sometimes
The air is so anxious
All my thoughts are so reckless
And all my innocence has died
Sometimes
I wake at four in the morning
Where all the darkness is swarming
And it covers me in fear
Sometimes
Iām full of anger and grieving
So far away from believing
That any song will reappear
Sometimes
The end is not coming
Itās not coming
The end is here
Sometimes
In a recent sermon, Ken Esau used this example for how persecution is on the rise (caption source: Approx. 66 minutes into this video on the Forest Grove Community Church YouTube channel)
ā¦now Reg mentioned last week that there's not a lot of persecution for believers in Canada today and I suggest that that's true but it's growing. It is growing. This past week about eight days ago you may have heard the story of James Reimer. He's a hockey goaltender for the San Jose Sharks, and he chose uh not to wear a gay pride themed uniform during warm-ups for his team, and there's several other people this week who have done the same and these are his words:
āFor all 13 years of my NHL career I have been a Christian not just in title but in how I choose to live my life daily. I have a personal faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins and in response asks me to love everyone and follow Him. I have no hate in my heart for anyone, and I have always strived to treat everyone that I encounter with respect and kindness. In this specific instance, I am choosing not to endorse something that is counter to my personal convictions which are based on the bible, the highest authority in my life. I strongly believe that every person has value and worth, and the LGBTQIA+ community, like all others, should be welcomed in all aspects of the game of hockey.ā
Now those are quotes from him you should know that Reimer is in the last year of his contract with the San Jose Sharks and many people are asking whether they're going to renew the contract after this. They're asking whether other teams would actually sign him to a contract in light of this. This could be the end of his career - but it seems to me that we should be thankful for someone like James Reimer because he is choosing to seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness in this difficult moment.
Letās be clear: the only place I could find this coming from is a reporter asking Reimer if he thought it would be held against him. Reimer himself thinks itās possible it could be, but nobody in management has said anything to indicate that to be true.
In fact, whole teams have opted out of wearing Pride themed jerseys:
This season, three NHL teams ā Chicago, New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild ā that previously wore rainbow warmups decided not to. The Rangers and Wild changed course after initially planning for players to wear rainbow-themed warmup jerseys but did not specifically say why.
And itās not explicitly because of the fear of Russian fines or backlash, because the majority of Russian players - who might have a legitimate reason to claim persecution, if not of themselves then their extended family back home - have also worn the jerseys:
In Florida, on the same night Eric Staal and Marc StaalĀ refused to wear Pride jerseys, netminderĀ Sergei Bobrovsky, who has won four medals for Russia while representing his country at the Olympics, world championships, world juniors and World Cup, wore Floridaās Pride jersey without backlash, charges, or reprimand from any source.
The NHL is a business. They exist to make money. Their teams make more money by winning games. If Reimer was seen as a possible key player to a team in order to win more games, the NHL has plenty of teams who would happily look past any Pride related stances in order to win more games.
But heās ranked 44th in save percentage, meaning there are 43 goalies in a 32 team league that are saving more pucks than he is. Heās got 12 wins and 18 losses this season on a team thatās currently ranked 29th in the league. And heās 35 years old. Those 3 factors alone are going to be working against him more than any Pride jersey stance. Not to mention the fact that none of the other players who refused to wear the Pride jersey have seen play time drop as some sort of punishment or persecution.
Wealthy people can experience persecution - but Reimer is currently in the 2nd year of aĀ 2 year / $4,500,000 contract. In 2022-23, Reimer will earn a base salary of $2,750,000USD. Even if he isnāt invited back to play another game in the NHL, he should be able to make it for a few years. (Heavy dollop of sarcasm fully intended.)
Esauās example of persecution growing for Canadian Christians is an NHL goalie having to deal with a rumour that he may not have his $4.5M contract renewed with an American hockey team. When Christians use the term persecution to describe these kinds of situations, itās important to recognize that this kind of language is not only problematic, but is dismissive of the actual cause of persecuted Christians throughout the world that are being imprisoned, losing their families, or their lives due to their choice to live as a Christian.
Once again: loss of privilege is not the same as persecution.
]]>The simple truth is that building something valuable ā whether thatās knowledge, experience or a network worth participating in ā is really, really hard. But tearing it all down is piss easy.
It's been frustrating to watch as Twitter gets gutted, each wave of people leaving as they hit whatever their breaking point is with the latest stupid, ugly, or harmful thing Musk has done in the 5 months since he bought Twitter. So much undone in so short a time.
Thus ends the usual link plus brief bit of commentary I normally use this blog for. What follows is a personal reflection on experiences using the lens of what's happened at Twitter to help process and make sense of things in a very different personal situation. Context is likely missing for many readers who go further.
On a personal level, it's hard hear about the abusive leadership at Twitter, and then watch the church community I, along with my family, have been a part of for 30+ years be ripped apart by harmful actions by a leadership intent on tearing everything apart that's been built. They've even mirrored Musk's actions at Twitter in oddly similar ways - like how staff were treated with disrespect and suspicion, and people were fired or laid off.
Paraphrasing the quote from Lomas' article to my own experiences:
The simple truth is that building a church community filled with trust, integrity, authenticity, and love ā is really, really hard. But tearing it all down is piss easy.
I noticed this moment while reading minutes from a meeting which said:
In closing, Gil felt the need to encourage everyone to watch their words when they are in conversations with others about the church, specifically that they donāt go towards gossip.
On the face of it, it seems like a good thing: don't gossip. Especially in a church community.
But "feeling the need" to remind people not to gossip hasn't been something that leadership at FGCC has felt the need to do until this past year. It's only been this past year where they've effectively told a community to "get on the bus or get out", without ever saying where they are actually going - that leadership has "felt the need" to remind the community not to gossip.
It seems like the FGCC leadership believes that:
...are all gossiping.
And when presented with the opportunity to confront actual gossip at a recent meeting, it took someone getting up and asking leaders to speak truth against the gossip for anyone in leadership to actually say something.
I'm not a community expert. I only have experience being in a few. But my hunch is that at some point you need to talk openly and honestly about the things you think are gossip with the entire community.
Leaders could allow the community to submit questions with clear parameters on what will and won't be discussed, that hurtful messages will be discarded, submit anonymously or with a name required if you prefer, and then answer. It doesn't matter if it's in a meeting, writing blog posts, a newsletter, an Instagram Live, a podcast, YouTube Live stream (with $180,000 worth of gear to do it) - just answer the questions. There are so many tools at your disposal to engage community with in 2023.
And after you've done that, if the community says that they're still confused, listen to the questions they have, and continue to talk and seek clarity of understanding. Engage curiousity. Don't hide behind confidentiality or "you wouldn't understand" / "it's complicated" statements. If you desire clarity with the community, go so far as to ask the people involved if they're comfortable speaking or writing about what happened to them and why.
Trying to engage people's questions one on one only breeds more miscommunication and distrust. One person is told one thing by leadership, someone else gets slightly different wording - and of course people talk about what they've heard, and the level of trust in leadership takes another hit.
Tremendous healing can come - and I'd suggest only can come - by bringing things out of the darkness and into the light. Particularly in a faith community.
Instead, it's felt like leadership has dug in, put up defensive walls, and locked themselves in an echo chamber - don't talk to anyone outside this council! - and left the community to feel the need to gossip in the absence of clarity.
The simple truth is that building a church community filled with trust, integrity, authenticity, and love ā is really, really hard. But tearing it all down is piss easy.
Posted 2023-03-30. Want to reach out to continue the conversation? You can reach me at chris.enns@gmail.com.
]]>By now hopefully you've heard the previous singles, One, Pride (In the Name of Love), and With Or Without You, previewing the tone of the album already, and aren't surprised that Beautiful Day's reworking is equally sparse and follow what The Edge has said is a "less is more" approach to the songs.
Besides removing a lot of the elements designed to make these songs live concert anthems for decades, they've also taken the opportunity to rework some lyrics in the process. The bridge for Beautiful Day (Songs of Surrender) in particular feels like a very appropriate change from the big world focus of the original, to a much more intimate conversation:
Saw the world as your blue room
I saw the seven seas swallowing the moon
East of Finglas, North of Eden
Laughter is the evidence of freedom
I saw Adam asking Eve for a pardon
It wasnāt a woman who threw God out of the garden
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out
I look forward to hearing the tears of the U2 fan babies who can't stand that (a) there's no epic guitar riffs on this version, and (b) that U2 once again throw a dig at the biblical patriarchy.
I don't expect that I'll love how they've reworked all the songs, but I am really looking forward to hearing the results of the process The Edge talks about in previewing the album:
The process of selecting which songs to revisit started with a series of demos. I looked at how a song would hang together if all but the bare essential elements were taken away. The other main aim was to find ways to bring intimacy into the songs, as most of them were originally written with live concert performance in mind.
I have a feeling it will pair really nicely with a re-reading of Bono's memoirs.
]]>What I would use the shit out of, though, is a chatbot that has been trained on all the information in the CodePen knowledge base. Have it suck in all the meeting notes, project board cards, and weekly reports, and then be able to answer questions about the content (and provide links to the original docs).
...and what's wrong with the use case for AI that gets talked about and seems to get the funding:
Thereās been a lot of hype around AI-written content. If you ask me, if thereās one thing we donāt need more of on the internet, it is more soulless content written for āSEOā purposes, with enough wordcount to inject ads between.
The helpful version of AI Rach describes sounds like HoustonAI that Astro is experimenting with. Something to keep an eye on.
For further reading, see Who's Actually Getting Rich Off AI?.
]]>As a way of standing up for Cate Erickson, who's been leading the call for accountability and legal action in a very public way, Aaron Webster wrote a post apologizing for his lack of action in the past, as well as a call to support Cate and others as they seek justice:
I had knowledge of much of this abuse growing up and find it terrifying to think back and recall things observed or told of ā yet somehow, compartmentalized ā so that I did nothing about it. Yes, I left the schoolās associated church. In doing so taking care of me. At times I also stood up for close friends and family members who were treated poorly ā but only in one-on-one settings. I was tough - often derogatory to descriptions of abuse, conveying that the abused should ātoughen upā or just get over it. Never - have I engaged in efforts aimed to take care of other students, to stop & prevent abuse, or secure justice for the abused. My failure to do so - is a deep regret of mine.
Church communities often have a strong desire to see justice done out in the world, particularly in non-Christian culture - but can be very apathetic and resistant to tackling justice inside the church:
I was very wrong in my inaction and passive approach. Skills, relationships, ability ā none have I chose to employ to stand up against serious abuses - that I was aware of. āRolling my eyes and walking awayā - was far from good enough. I am sorry. I am sorry, especially to those younger than me. For whom my inaction may have negatively impacted, by leaving unimpeded - opportunities for continuing perpetration by abusive people & practices.
And then towards the end of his statement, he does a great job of clarifying that these aren't "sides" that people need to agree on before they can protect the innocent and hold people accountable for being abusive:
I donāt personally agree with Cate on many issues in a political arena. Neither she & I, nor āweā: as CCA alum, members of a community of Christian faith, or private education supporters, need to agree on much. We all though can can agree on the need to protect the innocent and hold accountable - those who knowingly perpetrate abuse and who permit known damaging practices against children.
If someone, particularly a leader, downplays issues as being "just two sides disagreeing", they're likely too scared to call out the bad behaviour, because they don't want to appear partial to a side. If you call out bad behaviour wherever you see it, then you're not on a side. You're actively trying to keep bad behaviour out of your community.
Aaron's post should serve as a warning to those who are hardening their heart towards seeing justice done, seeking the truth wherever it may be, and striving for accountability in leadership.
Via @CateSask on Twitter.
The examples are USA focused, but the message remains true. Be sure to check out the Inspiration section at the bottom for more listening and reading on the topic, including Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions.
Thank you to The Browser Company of New York for not burying it in a menu or deep inside a Settings screen.
As a bonus, the release notes they publish for Arc are also really fun to read - and make use of one of Arc's features, the easel. I haven't figured out a workflow that makes sense for my usage, but I feel like there's untapped potential there for me - possibly for recording show notes for client's podcasts I'm editing?
If you want to try out Arc, there's a few invites left at my invite link. Feel free to message me on Mastodon to see if I have more invites if that link doesn't work.
]]>Which is a terrible ratio of followers to views.
I really don't care how many views my tweets get. I write them for fun as a form of a work water cooler, or cathartic shouting into the void.
But for anyone putting effort into Twitter for marketing or business reasons, it's got to raise alarm bells for how effective it actually is to use Twitter anymore.
I couldn't finish this draft of a post off in a meaningful way, so Dave Karpf wrote a much more thoughtful deeper dive into how El0n is telling on himself and Twitter by adding the view counter, Twitter Tumbleweed Watch:
Thanks to Elon adding the view count to the native Twitter app, weāre now constantly reminded how many people are actually seeing our tweets. For me, at least, what Elon revealed is that Twitter is a megaphone equipped with dying batteries.
He compares his 42,000 Twitter follower views to the 2,300 subscribers to his newsletter "views", and not surprisingly, Twitter comes up short:
If Iām getting 2,000-3,000 views through Twitter, and ~2,300 views through Substackās email distribution, then my Substack has already reached the same effective size as my Twitter following.
I take no delight in dancing on Twitter's deathbed. It's been an amazing source of community and connection for me, personally and professionally. I do, however, delight in pointing out when an arrogant, ignorant prick makes a $42 billion dollar mistake, and won't admit how badly he's screwing everything up for the rest of us.
]]>Now that reviews and comparisons to the Mac Studio are being published, itās looking like the 2023 Mac mini is a great substitute for the more expensive Mac Studio for most of us who donāt spend all day inside a video production app.
What I wrote in December 2022 (shockingly!) still holds true:
Most of the time - letās say 70% - Iām using my Mac, I haveĀ Logic ProĀ openĀ editing podcastsĀ with 2 - 6 tracks of audio. I use minimal plugins live while editing, so itās fairly easy even for my MacBook Pro to keep up.
Another 20% of the time Iāve gotĀ Final Cut ProĀ open editing a video, likeĀ Learn with Jason. This is where my MacBook Pro starts to show itās age - and itās mainly in the importing or exporting of video.
The final 10% of time is spent invoicing, emailing, Notionāing, and social media time wasting. I could use a 2013 Mac mini for most of that work and not miss a beat.
If I go Mac mini, I want to get it fairly loaded up since thereās no ability to upgrade it later, so the spec Iām looking at is:
Which is just over $650CAD + taxes cheaper than the cheapest Mac Studio model Iād priced out a month ago. But that was also a Mac Studio - with M1 Max with a 10-core CPU / 32-core GPU.
In benchmarks, the M2 Pro Mac mini performs better than the M1 Max Mac Studio - not by a large margin, but enough the price being less for the mini makes it a great deal for my use cases.
The only bonus wrinkle Apple could throw into the situation is releasing a M2 or M3 iMac / Mac Studio upgrade, but that likely wonāt happen until the fall of 2023.
Time for a few more months of indecision, just in time for Apple to update one piece of the puzzle again.
]]>It's interesting to see how it clearly references articles on the web talking generally about the band, but then fills in gaps with enough words or phrases that don't totally give it away as being auto-generated text.
Once upon a time, in Dublin, Ireland, a young man named Paul David Hewson was just a regular guy living a normal life. He went to school, hung out with friends and dreamed of one day becoming a famous singer. Little did he know, that dream would soon become a reality.
One day, while walking through the streets of Dublin, Paul came across a flyer advertising a local talent show. Without hesitation, he decided to audition. His friends laughed at the idea, but Paul was determined to prove them wrong. He practiced day and night, perfecting his singing and stage presence.
The day of the audition arrived and Paul stepped onto the stage, microphone in hand. As soon as he began singing, the judges were blown away. They had never heard such an incredible voice before. They immediately offered him the chance to be the lead singer of a local band called U2.
At first, Paul was hesitant. He had never been in a band before, and he didn't know if he was ready for the responsibility. But the band members, Larry Mullen Jr, Adam Clayton, The Edge, convinced him to give it a try.
So Paul accepted the offer and began rehearsing with the band. They quickly realized that they had a chemistry that was undeniable. Together, they wrote and performed music that captivated audiences and earned them a reputation as one of the best bands in Ireland.
As U2's fame grew, Paul took on the stage name "Bono," and the band began to tour the world, playing to sold-out crowds everywhere they went. They became one of the most successful and influential bands of all time, known for their powerful lyrics, incredible stage presence and Bono's distinctive voice.
Years went by and Bono and U2 were still making music and touring, they had albums that have sold over 150 million copies worldwide, won 22 Grammy Awards and more. Bono became an advocate for humanitarian causes, he used his platform and influence to bring attention to poverty, disease, and social injustice around the world, and he continues to inspire people through his music and his actions.
And so, from that young man who dreamed of becoming a singer, to the lead singer of one of the most successful bands in the world, Bono's story is one of determination, hard work, and never giving up on your dreams.
Once upon a time, in Dublin, Ireland, a band called U2 was in a bit of a creative rut. They had been together for years, and while they had achieved great success and acclaim, they were starting to feel like they had done everything they could musically. The band members, Bono, Larry Mullen Jr, Adam Clayton and The Edge, were all feeling a bit lost and unsure of what to do next.
The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, had always been the band's primary guitarist and songwriter, but he had always been interested in exploring new sounds and experimenting with different styles of music. As the band was discussing their next move, The Edge took the opportunity to propose something new. He suggested that he take on the role of producer for the band's next album, and that they push themselves to try new things and take more risks.
The other band members were hesitant at first, they were comfortable with the way things were and were not sure if change was what they needed. But The Edge was persistent, and eventually, they all agreed to give it a try.
So The Edge set to work, and he began experimenting with new sounds and techniques in the studio. He brought in new instruments and experimented with different recording techniques, and he pushed the band to try things they had never done before.
It was a difficult process, but eventually, the band began to see the potential in what The Edge was doing. They started to feel excited about the music they were creating and they could sense that they were on to something special.
Finally, the album was completed and the band was ready to unveil their new sound to the world. They released it with a huge success. The album was a hit with critics and fans alike, and it earned them several Grammy Awards. The band was back on the top again, and they had The Edge to thank for it.
The Edge's willingness to take risks and try new things had breathed new life into the band and had helped them create some of the most innovative and exciting music of their career. From that day forward, U2 continued to release albums that were always pushing the boundaries of music and were always experimenting with new sounds.
And so, The Edge's decision to take on the role of producer and experiment with new sounds had not only saved U2's career, but it had also helped them become one of the most influential and respected bands in the world.
Hearing "Where the Streets Have No Name" at a U2 concert is an unforgettable and uplifting experience. The song, which is a fan favorite, is known for its powerful and anthemic chorus, which is often accompanied by a sea of voices singing along.
When the song begins, the crowd erupts in cheers and excitement. The stage is usually bathed in a bright, white light, and the band members are all dressed in white, making for an almost ethereal, otherworldly feel. The Edge's guitar riff that opens the song is instantly recognizable, and it sends shivers down the spine of the audience.
As Bono sings the first verse, the crowd begins to sway and clap along. His voice is powerful and emotive, and the audience can feel the passion and energy he puts into every word. As the song builds to the chorus, the crowd joins in, singing at the top of their lungs, "Where the streets have no name..."
The energy in the crowd is electric, everyone is on their feet, dancing and singing along. The band's performance is often accompanied by a massive light show and special effects, such as a giant video wall, that adds to the overall experience.
As the song comes to a close, the crowd erupts in cheers and applause, and the band members take a bow. It's a moment that will stay with the concertgoers for a long time, and it's one of the many reasons why U2's live shows are considered to be some of the best in the world.
]]>So I'm always curious what other people are using for weather apps, and when I saw Craig Mod post about the weather app he's using:
Iāve been using Weather Strip for the last few months and it is phenomenal.
I had to try it out.
Weather Strip is an iPhone or iPad app from Robin Stewart who's bio lists himself as being a "interactive math artist" and that's almost enough to know that Weather Strip is going to be a great app.
Besides looking great, it's got the "feels like" temperature line running all the way through the day. It combines cloud coverage, UV, rain or snow, and wind all in one scrollable main graph. And right below that is the next week's weather in a equally easy to tap display that updates the main view.
Weather Strip is has a free 14 day trial, and then works on a subscription model of either $4.99 / month or $21.49 / year for Premium, or has an option to share it with everyone on your iCloud Family Sharing plan for $7.49 / month or $31.99 / year (under $3 / month).
Premium adds global forecast data from Foreca, which I suspect would give me better weather information than wherever Apple's default weather app is sourcing weather from - likely a US based weather provider, along with more frequent updates and the Home Screen widgets.
I find myself reluctant to pay for a weather app, not because I don't think apps aren't worth paying for - but because I so rarely leave my house working from home that it's not really that important to know all the things about weather.
But Weather Strip is so useful AND well designed that I'm really tempted. We'll see where I land after the 14 day trial runs out.
There are lots of great widget options for Weather Strip:
Just thought I'd show what warm temperatures look like. Sadly I won't get to test this out for another 4-6 months here. š„¶
]]>In the case of MacStories Best Apps of 2022, it was fun to see apps I already use make their list including Audio Hijack for best app update, Raycast for best Mac app, and Pixelmator Photo for best design - but also interesting how many of the apps that made their best of revolve around organizing and playing music. I'd never even heard of Marvis Pro which won their app of the year award.
Apple's Music app for iOS (*let's not even bother talking about the Mac version * š¤®) is usable at best. But generally it's a really frustrating process to find the music you want to play in a given moment. It feels like it's never in the right mode for whatever music I'm looking for. If I'm trying to find a song I know I've added to my library and listened to a lot, it can never find it. And if I'm trying to find a new song someone is recommending to me, it seems to find random music by artists completely unrelated.
I think the only thing keeping Apple Music alive and subscribed to in our family is the Apple One bundle we pay for that includes iCloud storage, Arcade, Apple TV+, and Fitness. At least half of my family is ready to fight for a switch to Spotify at any moment.
So I'm tempted to try out a new music player app like Mavis Pro since it's not so much the library of Apple Music that is the issue - it's, ironically for Apple, the user interface of their app that seems to be the issue.
But $11.99CAD is a lot to toss out on a hope and prayer that it'll be better at navigating our Apple Music library for me, and more importantly, for my family.
]]>I want to acknowledge, and remind myself, that by gently reinforcing the idea that we need to shovel the driveway before we drive the van out over the last couple of winters, I now get to see that our driveway is shovelled and I didnāt even have to say or do anything. Even when itās -33C on a cold December morning.
Itās not a humble parenting brag - maybe a bit of pride in my kids efforts - but more just a reminder that change often doesnāt happen right away. Sometimes it takes time.
(Says the guy who gets so frustrated when I can't do something amazing right on my first try.)
]]>So while shovelling more snow today, I thought I might as well blog about my indecision with regards to my work computer and see if that helps me decide what to do.
Most of the time - letās say 70% - Iām using my Mac, I have Logic Pro open editing podcasts with 2 - 6 tracks of audio. I use minimal plugins live while editing, so itās fairly easy even for my MacBook Pro to keep up.
Another 20% of the time Iāve got Final Cut Pro open editing a video, like Learn with Jason. This is where my MacBook Pro starts to show itās age - and itās mainly in the importing or exporting of video.
The final 10% of time is spent invoicing, emailing, Notionāing, and social media time wasting. I could use a 2013 Mac mini for most of that work and not miss a beat.
You can see the full details on my /uses/ page, but the TLDR version is:
Itās working ok, but thereās definite slow downs when spinning up Final Cut Pro for video projects, and if I could speed up running audio through RX10, it would help my efficiency.
Iāve settled on the idea that a Mac Studio paired with my existing monitor, keyboard, and trackpad is the way forward, and Iāll hang on to my MacBook Pro as a portable work computer for trips to the coffee shop or beach.
But which version of the Mac Studio is the one to go with?
Whenever I buy a Mac, I try to maximize my dollars on the best machine I can get without going overboard. Thereās some pretty clear price jumps on certain upgrades - $250 to upgrade the GPU, ok. $1,750? Way too much! - so I try to figure out the right balance.
Starting with the base model Mac Studio at $2,499CAD, you get a 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD drive.
Iāve pledged not to get a Mac with less than a 1TB hard drive because I just end up spending time keeping my hard drive from filling up with anything less than that. (More on that in a moment.)
Option 1:
Option 2:
Once Iād decided that $3k was the minimum upgrade path, Iād basically decided to just put it off becauseā¦. indecision at that amount of money being spent.
Whatās thrown a wrinkle into all of this decision making is two things:
Picking up a base model, while only having 512GB SSD, frees me up to spend some money on some sort of external storage options - Synology NAS perhaps as my new anonymous friend on Mastodon is trying to convince me in a not-so-subtle way - or something more portable, which I always end up needing because video + audio files arenāt getting any smaller in my line of work.
According to Geekbench scores my MacBook Pro vs Mac Studio scores (higher number is better):
So performance wise, itās not too difficult to make the case that most things should go almost twice as fast, give or take.
Itās always difficult with performance scores like this to determine real world usage. I want a comparison of āhow long it takes to export a Learn with Jason episode, while Iām editing a Syntax.fm episodeā time. For some reason I couldnāt find that on Geekbench.
Itās not super helpful to solicit advice from the internet, given that everyoneās situations are so different. But if youāve got an upgrade path that looked similar to mine, Iād love to hear from you - Mastodon or email me contact at lemonproductions.ca.
]]>Starting with usage:
Next is effectiveness:
Finally it's a random summary of more data:
I'm a sucker for these kinds of things. We'll see if Raycast is truly sticky enough as an app launcher, and how my 2023 usage compares.
]]>Some of the common examples at the time were apps like Alfred, Path Finder, or TextExpander - apps that added features or functionality that I would feel lost without when I went to troubleshoot a friend or family member's Mac.
Gradually I've been more and more ok with using apps even though they change the fundamental macOS experience - TextExpander being the main one I've grown so accustomed to having over the years.
Recently I decided to change the default shortcut - ā-Spacebar - for Spotlight that made me realize I had replaced core functionality in macOS with a 3rd party app: Raycast. And I also took a deeper nerd dive and have started using Warp in place of the default Terminal app for the few times I dip into command line world.
I'll skip talking much about Warp because it's way out of my depth in terms of benefits or reasons why a proper developer should use it - but for a newbie like me, the main reason I like it is because it makes the Terminal and command line world much more user friendly to dig into. The secondary reason is that a lot of my clients won't stop talking about it. :)
With Raycast however, it's because of how similar it feels to using Spotlight that I've decided to make the switch. It's fast (or faster) than Spotlight is at finding an app I need to run, or a document I've been working on. And I can slowly build up muscle memory with all the extensions available for Raycast.
Here's a few extensions I've been using:
Raycast could also replace TextExpander with their Snippets feature. I've just started using them for new shortcuts I need, but I can see myself gradually replacing TextExpander with this if it works as well for all my other snippets as it has so far.
There is also Window Management built into Raycast that could potentially replace Rectangle Pro as my current app of choice for moving windows around automagically with shortcuts.
In addition to all the features of the app, Raycast also has some great wallpapers for your Mac or iOS device of choice.
I know I'm barely scratching the surface of what Raycast - and especially Warp - can do to make my podcast editing business life easier on my Mac, but it's fun to feel a little more like a power user again after not messing around with it too much in recent years.
]]>A personal user manual is a short document outlining how you like to work, collaborate, communicate, and receive feedback. It may sound serious, but itās actually a fun way to get to know yourself and your teammates. While you can do it on your own, itās also a great team building workshop to organise with your colleagues.
Looking at the examples (1, 2, 3), some of them read like a resume or CV but with more personality and emotion attached.
I really like the idea of a personal user manual and could see the benefit of creating one as part of an on-boarding process for clients and/or potential hires with my business. Much like how declaring my rates early on in a conversation save time and back and forth if the budget isn't there, so would having potential clients realize we wouldn't be a good fit in work and communication styles.
There would also be a benefit for current clients to know how best to collaborate and work well together, especially when 99% of what I do with clients is through email, Discord messages, Google Drive files, or a Notion document.
]]>...weāve streamlined the product, removing its social features and organizing it around the three major paradigms of reading the internet ā read-it-later, subscriptions, and discovery.
Count me as someone who, somewhat surprisingly to me, enjoyed Matter's social "lite" feature - it didn't feel like there was a competition to get more followers, or compare how many likes an article you shared got. But it was interesting to see who liked what kind of article, or when a particular quote from an article I shared would send an article bouncing around the Matter network.
I won't miss it in my day to day use of Matter, but it was a decent attempt at adding social features to a read-it-later app.
On the backend, weāve built a highly accurate parsing engine that handles web articles, emails, and Twitter threads.
I didn't even realize Matter could do this, until I complained about it on Twitter. This feature has increased my usage of Matter and Twitter in one go.
In Matter, you can subscribe to individual writers wherever they publish. Itās taken a lot of effort to enable this ā extensive systems, tooling, and manual processes. Over the past three months, weāve added over 10,000 leading journalists, bloggers, and authors to our system.
I love the way this helps with discoverability. I can find out about an author's writings elsewhere and have it surfaced automatically inside of Matter. Matter picked up that I follow Ben Thompson and let me choose to have his writings dropped right into my Subscriptions queue.
In a few weeks, weāll be adding support for RSS. Across your writers, newsletters, and RSS, youāll have a unified location for all your favorite subscriptions.
They're adding RSS support as well - look out Feedbin? - which is a very different workflow for what my brain wants to process when I open up Matter, but I'm glad one of the core technologies of the web is being supported.
Matterās third tab is dedicated to Staff Picks. Everyday, we handpick 5-10 recommendations from across Twitter, after sifting through thousands of candidates. We curate the curators, as it were, looking for recommendations that are non-obvious, insightful, and important across a wide range of topics and viewpoints.
I've found interesting articles to read in the Staff Picks section, particularly when it's 2am, I can't sleep (thanks Night Brain), and all of my queued articles feel work related or work on myself related - like this article on how researchers pinpointed the reason infants die from SIDS.
The removal of our social features also clears space for something weāve long been excited about: deeper integration with Twitter. Twitter is the conversation layer of the internet. We think it should be possible to view the public conversation about any piece of content in the tool you use to read it. Soon it will be.
I'm nervously optomistic that this feature will turn out ok, in light of all the Musk owning Twitter talk that might turn the social network into more of a cesspool. Matter's built-in social feature felt fairly immune from that, so we'll see how it's implemented.
I've used almost all the "read it later" style apps over the years: Instapaper, Pocket, Pinboard, and others that have come and gone. I really enjoy using Matter because it feels like the app cares about the articles I'm actively reading and the articles I read in the past with easily browsed Favorites, Highlights, or the full Archive.
Other thoughts:
I love how she nerds out over getting to work on these movies, and at the same time has a feeling like she's being too nerdy in how she gets excited.
Watch on YouTube: Behind the Mac: Skywalker Sound
]]>If I, or some hypothetical manager, put too much stock into these metrics I could see it causing a firestorm of reprioritization based on bot traffic. Weād be chasing the tail of a health check bot somewhere in Germany.
Your eyes may glaze over at the thought of reading about website traffic data, but it's worth a read as Dave compares a couple of services (Netlify vs Fathom) and finds massive discrepancies in their reporting. It's not that anyone is doing anything shady or illegal either. That's just how unreliable web analytics are.
And yet I know there are people, businesses, and even yours truly who have made pretty big decisions on projects based around these kinds of numbers. I kept doing a podcast because my analytics told me there were potentially hundreds of listeners when in fact it was somewhere under 50. I've written blog posts chasing Google traffic that I thought was legitimate, when actually a lot of it was probably bots.
My ego wanted to believe the lies. My brain kind of always knew there wasn't anyone actually listening.
Probably old advice, but you need a mixture of quantitative AND qualitative data to make good decisions.
I don't think you should throw out web analytics completely. If you have a lot more traffic one month than the previous, that still might mean something. But view it all with a healthy level of skepticism, and try to keep your the core DNA of whatever you're doing with the website intact.
]]>The cynic in me wants to say this guy is exploiting people in rough situations in exchange for YouTube views. And while that may be somewhat true,
...Alās personal slogan is āImpact Over Viewsā and whew, thatās a lot to think about.
What a great mantra for internet "things" that have the potential to crossover into real life. I wouldn't have been able to articulate it nearly as well, but that sums up my process for my own YouTube channel as well. I try to make informative videos that help someone get unstuck with some software related to audio or video on their computer. Whenever I try and chase views or profits, the view counts almost always suck compared to videos I make that scratch an itch for a "how do I..." question.
So I'm writing this blog post to remind myself that wherever possible, create for impact, not for views.
]]>Do you want to know why youāre fatigued at the end of a long day of video conferences? Itās because your brain has been straining to collect essential information that is no longer there.
I agree with most of his thoughts - especially that it's definitely not Princess Leia in Rogue One - but I want to push back a bit based only on my experiences with meetings, virtual or otherwise.
Many of the people I hear lamenting virtual meetings in my world are people who typical get to run the in person meetings and during the pandemic have had to learn new communication skills - or have refused to learn new skills. People who didn't read the room or pay attention to how others felt in meetings now can't just dominate a virtual meeting like they used to be able to in an in person meeting.
Anecdotally, people who aren't great online communicators (email, Slack / Teams / Discord, Messages) haven't adapted well to virtual meetings. And so, I would imagine it's more exhausting to have a virtual meeting.
I think the sooner we agree that virtual meetings are not a repalcement for an in person meeting, the better we'll all be. It's just another option and method for communication. And virtual meetings will be better for some, and worse for others. Just like in person meetings are better for some, and worse for others.
Aside: This post could've been a tweet. :)
]]>A quick aside on naming things:
I think naming your political party after your region (i.e. Saskatchewan Party) is lazy, pandering, and shouldn't be allowed.
Regardless of policy or left / right / etc. leaning, it shows a laziness and lack of creativity, which to me are signs that youāre also going to be a political party that is lazy, lacks creativity, and panders to the lowest common denominator just to maintain control.
Ok, back to the main thread!
What I find disheartening in this is how our Premier and The Saskatchewan Party have adopted the language of the protesters, who in turn adopted it from similar minded groups in the USA - the key word being "freedom".
The truck protesters are on a "freedom convey" to eliminate COVID19 related mandates. And the Saskatchewan Party is using that same focus to get rid of what little restrictions we have left in Saskatchewan.
In his address, posted in two parts on Twitter, Premier Moe rambles through his reasoning for ending restrictions sounding a lot like that patronizing, mansplaining uncle who can't understand why you don't just get it?
He ends the video with this final paragraph:
Travel, go to work, have dinner with your friends, go to the movies, go to your kid's games - most important. You should do all of these things without constantly assessing if your every activity is absolutely necessary. What's necessary is your freedom. What's necessary is getting your life back to normal. And it's time. I want to thank all of you for the sacrifices
I have a few thoughts about how The Saskatchewan Party chose to end this address to Saskatchewan:
He is very concerned about kids sports - especially minor hockey. I know it's a clichƩ in Canada, but there is life outside of a hockey rink. Especially when our province is covered with outdoor skating rinks.
All around me where I live in Saskatoon I see the majority of people living their lives like normal. The way the Saskatchewan Party talks it's as if cities and towns are ghost towns with everyone afraid to leave their house. I really doubt the "good people of Saskatchewan" that Premier Moe claims to be hearing from are actually living that much differently than before COVID19, besides having to show a proof of vaccination at a restaurant or liqour store.
Why is my freedom the most necessary thing in life? In Canada we already have a list of our rights and freedoms, none of which are being stopped by COVID restrictions.
This sentence is the most selfish thing the Saskatchewan Party has uttered this entire pandemic. The idea that my freedom is the most important thing above all else. It flies in the face of one of the ideas I've constantly heard about Saskatchewan my entire life here: that we're a people of volunteers who step up to help when help is needed. We're in this together.
The Saskatchewan Party has on one hand, constantly reminded us of "the good people of Saskatchewan" who chip in to help, while then on the other hand telling us to "do our own research" and "be most concerned about your freedoms."
I live and work in a very privileged situation. My family is relatively healthy. I'm able to work from home. We had COVID19 run through our house at the start of 2022, and it was like a bad cold for the worst of it, aside from one of us losing their sense of taste and smell for a few weeks afterwards. But I can still see past my own situation, and hear that for those less fortunate than me, those with health situations that are very different than mine, and perhaps most important in a pandemic, the doctors and scientests that are overwhelmingly asking for help and to not end restrictions at this time.
To deliberately shape the conversation to be one about our "freedom", instead of around the health and wellness of our communities in Saskatchewan, is disingenuous, and politically evil.
We haven't lost our freedoms. We've been inconvenienced for the sake of others around us. Freedom is what people went to war and died for. We're just being asked to fumble around in our wallet or phone for a vaccination pass and wear a piece of cloth on our face.
Got thoughts or questions? Send me a kind comment on Twitter.
]]>The greatest trick modern internet giants played on us was making us believe that political engagement ā to be an ally, as it were ā requires sacrificing our own health (physical and mental). When, in fact, the most capable (and, paradoxically, tuned into the world) and tangibly influential folk I know are those disengaged from that dopamine-cortisol loop.
Related: Craig's article from way back in 2017 in Wired, How I Got My Attention Back
]]>I like this final thought:
Every generation lets down the younger generation with bad advice; sometimes on purpose, other times for lack of vision. What Iāve learned from my experiences and those of others is that you canāt go wrong trying to inspire. No one will ever get mad when you support them chasing their dreams ā but they will suffer if you keep them from the clouds.
Every situation and person is different, of course. But from my experience, there's always enough people around who will give the realistic, often pessimistic perspective. I hope, more often than not, that I can inspire and motivate someone to chase a dream a little further down the road.
]]>First and foremost, whether youāre a creator or a brand, you need to answer this question: whatās the job youāre hiring audio to do?
Once you know the answer, you can determine what to make, where it should live (podcasting, Clubhouse, radio, etc), and how to use it. There are lots of great uses ā and some not so great uses ā for Clubhouse. Here are a few ways to think about when and where it makes sense.
Iām still very skeptical that it will stay at itās current level of interest once (if?) the pandemic is over, and being valued at $1B is insanely stupid regardless of whoās on the app.
Requiring SMS messages (and phone numbers) to send out invites feels like they have evil plans in mind for that kind of data given that thereās no reason AFAIK they couldnāt just use an email address - other than someone more easily setting up multiple accounts I guess?
Thereās a false narrative of scarcity that creates demand, exclusivity, and desire that all crumbles as soon as they open the doors to anyone that wants to join. And that kind of marketing bs turns me off big time.
They do seem to have done a better job of enabling moderation for channels, and are attempting to deal with the scum of humanity that finds their way to everything on the internet. So Iām optimistic in that regard.
Twitter also has their own audio social app coming, called @TwitterSpaces, that looks interesting. If they can launch it and scale it in time I think it will easily surpass Clubhouse in use just because of already having connections on Twitter to draw from.
If youāre curious how ānormalā folks are using Clubhouse, my buddy Matt McGee has a thread on his experiences connecting with the real estate community that seems to line up with my theory: it's a great pandemic pastime. Something weāll all reevaluate once we can meet in person.
For now, you can find me on Clubhouse at @iChris.
If you've read this far and want to try out Clubhouse - and know me well enough to share your cell number with me - send me a DM on Twitter and if I still have an invite, I'll be happy to share one with you.
]]>This month is the 20th anniversary of what for many U2 fans was their introduction to the band, or perhaps their re-introduction if they'd fallen away from the band. Beautiful Day as the lead off single signaled an album that was going to have a lot of familiar tones and notes for U2 fans turned off by the previous couple of albums, 1997's Pop and 1993's Zooropa, that lacked any soaring rock or pop anthems - in their eyes. Personally I love Zooropa from start to finish, and have a soft spot for Pop as the first U2 album I remember going to buy in the store the day it came out.
But the album has a lot of depth and heart once you dig beneath the gloss of Beautiful Day and Elevation. Adam Clayton:
...said the album was written "about the journey we'd been through as a band, as men in relationships, as sons of mothers and fathers. It was about the baggage that you have to live with, the sense of loss, like the fact that Bono's father was terminally ill through that whole period."
One of my favorite songs from the album is Kite. It's a song that can soar in front of 80,000 people, but also be played on an acoustic guitar in my bedroom, as I sit thinking about my own kids and parents in the midst of a pandemic.
Rolling Stone's Andy Greene had this to say about it:
One of the first songs they wrote for the album was āKite.āĀ BonoĀ was inspired to write the lyrics after taking his daughters Jordan and Eve to fly a kite on a beach in Killiney, Ireland. āDaddy,ā one of them said when the kite crashed into the sand, ācan we go home and play with the Playstation?ā At the same time, the singerās father, Bob, was dealing with significant health issues. Bono was facing the loss of his father as he realized that his own kids didnāt need him as much as they did when they were younger. He poured all of these complex emotions into āKite.ā
Bob Hewson died of cancer on August 21st, 2001. U2 were touring Europe that summer and Bono flew back to Ireland to sleep by his hospital bed at the end of every show. Just days after his death, the band played to more than 80,000 people at Slane Castle in Ireland. The singer dedicated āKiteā to his father. Hereās video of the emotional performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnTcjlcDkmE
Happy 20th anniversary to All That You Can't Leave Behind. It's still a Beautiful Day 20 years later.
]]>Why not a skateboard?
We discovered Braille Skateboarding today because my son took a wad of his birthday money and bought his first skateboard and naturally started searching YouTube for tutorials. Braille has a great YouTube channel for anyone looking to learn how to skateboard.
The Mac nerd in me noticed this video they made about using the Mac Pro wheel kit on a skateboard:
]]>We ordered the wheels asap, got a brand new deck, and made the magic that you see in this video. Are these the best skateboard wheels ever?!
I've used a variety of note taking apps over the years - I loved Bear, enjoyed SimpleNote, and have settled on using Day One as a journal / note taking hybrid.
But I still use Apple's Notes app for a lot of things, including:
I've always felt like I should be using something different - that there's better options out there. But Notes just keeps getting better.
Dr. Drang has a great write up on why Notes is still the app of choice for most things in 2020, even if he uses a few other apps alongside it.
]]>Before I get into the strategy, I want to congratulate the Notes team for making what may be the only Apple app that has been unambiguously improving over the past few years. While it still shows evidence of the limited and ugly app it started out as, Notes is now one of the best note-taking apps on iOS, with features that nicely balance simplicity and power.
The next thing I knew, I was making $28 what felt like every 28 seconds. My phone turned into the ultimate dopamine dispenser (if it wasn't already).
All from a single tweet that caught fire and went viral. It's a very nice icon set.
The most interesting part of it all to me is how Traf acknowledges the key to "overnight success":
In the same way that creating icon sets 7 years ago prepared me for last week, this whole experiment has likely prepared me for what's to come years from now.
Overnight success is rarely that. It's often years spent trying to figure out a path and direction, perfecting a craft.
]]>If the PC gaming hivemind is to be believed, you must spend thousands of dollars and get hundreds of frames per second to have a real gaming PC. In reality, thereās a much wider world out there open to people wanting to play games on PC, and if you are interested, you can get to work building your own quality gaming PC easily, and at nearly any budget.
Lot of great links to other articles, YouTube tutorials, and ways to get good gaming hardware on the cheap.
I recently installed Windows 10 via Bootcamp on my MacBook Pro after a few years of struggling to be a Mac gamer and it's almost comical how much better Windows 10 is at supporting games and related apps.
I knew this to be true... but I didn't know it, know what I mean? I wasn't trying to fight some fight that macOS is a great gaming platform by any means. But it did have Fortnite on it - until recently. And Fortnite is the main game my kids want to play with me these days, despite my best attempts to keep Animal Crossing, NHL 20, and Minecraft top of mind.
Just the act of switching back and forth from Fortnite into Discord was buttery smooth.
I was ready to give up on building a proper gaming / streaming Windows box, but I'm back saving my $0.01 each month to get there.
]]>Gross.
And in lots of complaints about being "blocked" and shadow banned by Facebook, and how Facebook is against their right to free speech and constantly trying to shut down them down.
The web is open and free. Certain businesses might not allow you to post on their property, just like in the real world. It costs you $10/month + $25 for a domain name to host a website with WordPress at thousands of website hosting companies around the world. It's not an issue of "getting the word out before you get shut down". š
Collective delusion websites like this have been around since the dawn of the internet. And before that they existed in magazines and pamphlets handed out on the street. It's whack-a-mole. If they get "shut down" by Facebook, they'll find a new home somewhere else on the internet to spew hate. There isn't a scarcity of places to spread fear and hatred on the internet.
It takes real guts and heart to spread hope. To have love. To not spread fear. To seek truth. To have patience. To care for your fellow humans.
Iām fine with debating mask wearing. But to be clear on my opinion: I think wearing a mask is literally the least you could do to try and help limit the spread of this disease. And if nothing else you can help limit the spread of the flu, the cold, and other annoying diseases that we spread around this time of year.
]]>]]>It feels juvenile, but this advice ā advice I heard in a childrenās movieā has been carrying me as I explored my way through some coding problems recently. When staring at a mountain of tasks and projects, sometimes itās tough to figure out the next step. āDo the next right thingā has echoed in my head and pushed me along.
To Apple's credit, it's almost disappointing whenever you update your iPhone's software because things look and feel mostly the same at first glance. It's only when you start to use it a bit more and some of the new features and polishing of existing features start to come to life.
Which is where Joanna Stern's video, 14 Tips for Apple's New Operating System, is really helpful and a good way to be reminded of what you should be looking for once you've updated your iPhone to iOS 14.
Since developers had little warning about the release, a lot of apps aren't ready with support for one of the main features of iOS 14: widgets on the home screen. In my experience, there's a few 3rd party apps that have widget support but most don't have support yet. For example, Pocket Casts, my podcast player app of choice, doesn't have support for it so if I wanted to have a widget for recent podcasts right now I'm limited to Apple's built in podcasts app.
š¤® No thanks. (No offence to any Apple devs who somehow read this. Just not my cup of tea.)
If you swipe from left to right on your home screen, you can see what widgets will look like since widgets have been available on that screen for awhile now. Once developers have a chance to update their apps with iOS 14 support, widgets will be a lot more fun to play with.
]]>Wait. Why didn't I title this "To the Matt! Wrestling for the Future of the Web"? Opportunity missed.
In the interest of full disclosure:
Not surprisingly, Mullenweg isn't a fan of Jamstack based websites and even went so far as to compare it to running Moveable Type (pouring one out for the first CMS I ever used):
JAMstack is a regression for the vast majority of the people adopting it,ā Mullenweg told me over email. āThe usability and functionality is actually lower. Even rebuilding sites in JAMstack harkens back to the Movable Type days, where the bigger your site gets the slower it is to rebuild or update templates
I have no experience with using Jamstack on a large site. But this blog right here has over 1,800 posts in the blog archives and the site build with Eleventy takes a few minutes when I hit publish. Definitely slower than when I hit publish on a new post on my WordPress site. But not so egregious that I get annoyed and want to move back to WordPress.
Which is where I agree with Matt Biilman's response completely:
Thereās simply no reason to believe that the disadvantages of the Jamstack that Mullenweg points out are inherent to the approach or unsolvable problems ā and meanwhile it feels undeniable that the developer excitement and ecosystem groundswell has already reached a tipping point where so much of what is left is a maturing of the whole ecosystem.
Both styles of hosting a website have issues. Plugins fail to update on WordPress (Automattic's own Jetpack plugin is the main culprit for failing to update properly in my WordPress experience), packages sometimes have to be updated with weird incantations copied and pasted into the Terminal in order to properly run open source software like Eleventy.
For personal blogs and small business sites, you have to enjoy a certain level of tinkering to use either WordPress or Jamstack. Or you pay money to outsource it so you don't have to fix the plumbing every so often.
For me, WordPress has a huge advantage in the design of a website. I think it's only a matter of time before the Jamstack catches up on this, but developers as a rule aren't as concerned with how it looks vs how it works. And that's fine initially. But as the developers flock to Jamstack, hopefully the designers follow. Right now it's difficult to find many well designed themes or templates for Jamstack sites - whereas you can't scroll through a WordPress search without hitting thousands of themes.
But for my money, Jamstack based sites are the way forward for me. I love that my entire website can be packed up in a Zip file and backed up and moved with a quick copy / paste. Design can come later. The words on the page are what really matters to me. The ease with which anyone - even a basic developer like me - can spin up a website on Netlify is crazy awesome. It feels powerful. Nerdy. Fun.
The way I'd feel if I knew how to fix the hole in the drywall in my office or build a shed in the backyard. I. Have. Created.
Speaking of the money, the fact that for a lot of folks a free account on Netlify + a domain registration of $15 - $25/year is all they'd need to run a blog is a huge consideration. WordPress sites require a fast enough server to maintain the CMS and generally you're paying $5 - $15/month on up - especially if you've got a large site with lots of posts or pages.
So I don't think Mullenweg's jab at Jamstack being comparable to the Movable Type days is fair. It sounds like the old man worried and jealous of the new shiny that's stealing attention away from his toy that used to be the new shiny. The beautiful part of the web is that there's plenty of room for both WordPress and Jamstack - and the whole world of sites built on services like Wix, Squarespace, etc. Just like me with one foot in Jamstack land and the other still in WordPress, we have the luxury of being able to pick and choose the platforms and tech stack we want to use, depending on the project.
Now if only Jamstack could fix my wall.
]]>But midway through September, the popular Twitch streamer debuted a pastel-colored 3D anime model of herself, which was rigged to follow her real-life movements.
Vtubing is just that - using a virtual software generated bot in place of your face on a webcam. It moves like you move thanks to tracking software on your phone.
A quick Google search lead me to VTube Studio which looks to be free, open source software designed to allow anyone with a Face ID equipped iPhone and a Mac to use it as a camera to track their faces movements. Eyes, mouth, and head movements all seem to be trackable with some pretty advanced options for customizing tracking.
I right away thought of my experience using Reincubate's Camo as demonstrated in this video on my YouTube channel and how software like that could easily* integrate with VTube Studio to provide the best of both worlds.
If your first reaction to this is something along the lines of "that's creepy and weird - why would someone want to look like a anime character?" then you've never had the experience of being a woman online trying to just do the creative, fun things guys can do without harassment or comments on their looks. From the Polygon article:
...in the past, Pokimane has been criticized for daring to do livestreams without any makeup, an expectation that lays bare just how much pressure livestreamers face when it comes to looks. For some, itās not enough that a Twitch streamer is entertaining; you have to show your face, and you have to look good while doing it. The demand is especially excruciating for women, who are frequently judged on sex appeal.
I was helping a friend with some questions she had about live streaming - want to hire me to answer questions about podcasting or live streaming? Go here! - and she frequently asked questions about how to moderate comments, and how often she gets comments on her looks when what she's doing is teaching on a topic she's extremely knowledgable about. Something that her appearance has zero bearing on. A virtual character representing the streamer's actual appearance seems like a great way** to get rid of that issue.
I struggle with Facebook's collection of data and their garbage fire model of business in general, but for me the biggest struggle was just the time I'd waste watching through Stories. Between my personal account (private but you can find me here) and my business account (@LemonProductionsCA) and the various people and businesses I follow, I could easily eat up an hour a day just keeping up with Stories.
A lot of my Instagram use before I uninstalled it was down to muscle memory. Got a few moments to kill while waiting for the hot water to boil? Check Instagram. Waiting for a podcast to export? Check Instagram. Sitting and waiting for your daughter to drift off to sleep? Check Instagram - with the sound off of course!
And similarly on the creative side of the app, I would often feel the need or desire to post something to my Story or as a collection of photos. Nothing really wrong with that, except when it becomes compulsive and knee-jerk whenever something interesting or humorous was going on around me and I'd reach for my iPhone to share it with the world.
Obviously it was just fine. No big revelations or shockers.
For the first week, I found myself reaching for my iPhone. And when we were on a camping trip or summer get away of some sort, I'd think "I should share this on Instagram." - but instead of following through with that, I'd just take a few photos or a video and then put my phone away.
Eventually I found myself posting a few more pictures to my Twitter page than I would normally, maybe for a bit of that "social media buzz" of likes or replies that I was missing. And thanks to the kids getting drawn into Messenger for Kids by friends and needing to sell things on Facebook Marketplace, I got pulled back into Facebook as well.
I'm sure I missed out on things friends had posted. Important life events as well as "having a coffee" posts. And I'm sad to have missed those, especially on my personal account.
I didn't miss any of the feeling of inadequacy that viewing other photos or Stories brought on for me. I can really struggle with jealousy of what other's get to experience or have, and the polished, shiny view of life that a lot of people present on Instagram doesn't help. I think following less - and ultimately not using the app at all - would be a net positive for my mental health in the long run.
But I love getting to play with the tech! So what's a nerd with self esteem and validation issues to do?!
What I've decided I'm going to do for September is reinstall the Instagram app on my iPhone and use it again. But instead of dooming myself to dive right back into old habits, I'm going to unfollow pretty much every account my business account follows in a very much "it's not you, it's me" fashion.
My business account follows a lot of local businesses as well as apps and services in the podcast industry, and I'd like to be able to keep up with what they're doing. But the reality is that I already get that news on Twitter, blogs I read, and email newsletters I subscribe to. It's the business accounts that go crazy with posting both a story about a new IG post and then a new IG post about the Story update, and the circle goes around and around.
I've decided to stay subscribed to anyone that seems to actually make stuff with their hands. Real world stuff: wood workers, coffee grinders, painters, home builders. I see and dig into enough digital things all day, and I really value being reminded of creating outside of the computer + internet box - as much as I love doing it.
I might also prune my personal account following list - but the folks I follow there don't have nearly the same volume of Story updates and posts as the businesses do.
As I post this before I start, I currently follow 355 accounts and have 381 followers on my business page and I follow 151 accounts and have 292 followers on my personal page. The marketing / tech brain in me says "If you unfollow everyone, you can't show engagement and therefore Instagram won't reward you with more followers" but maybe that's ok? I got three new clients in August that had nothing to do with what I was (or in this case, wasn't) posting on Instagram.
Will you join me in unfollow September? We can make it a thing and just all shout into the void. š
]]>I wrote Bunch because I tend to launch a specific group of apps depending on the context Iām working in. These are apps I wouldnāt launch on login, and donāt need running all the time. I just wanted to make starting a new context into one click.
I'm going to try it out but I can already see the usage for quickly setting up different environments on my Mac:
This kind of app falls way outside my general rule of trying to use as few non-stock macOS apps for productivity as possible because I hate having to keep my iMac and MacBook Pro in sync with all the shortcuts to remember. But Bunch is nice in being a menu bar or Dock application that you run and can just click to use.
]]>Reels invites you to create fun videos to share with your friends or anyone on Instagram. Record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects, and new creative tools. You can share reels with your followers on Feed, and, if you have a public account, make them available to the wider Instagram community through a new space in Explore. Reels in Explore offers anyone the chance to become a creator on Instagram and reach new audiences on a global stage.
You can say that Instagram, just like Snapchat + Stories previously, is just copying TikTok. And it's mostly true. But as we've seen with "stealing" the stories idea from Snapchat - it's one thing to have the idea, it's a whole different thing to have the users and platform to launch something like this to the world.
TikTok is huge. But it's not Instagram (and it's owner, Facebook) huge. So many adults are terrified to even touch TikTok - and they're definitely not wanting to let their kids go near it either.
Much like how Apple waits to launch a new feature or hardware until they've seen what the landscape is like - the iPhone was not the first smartphone with apps on it - Instagram is able to learn from what's worked on TikTok, and more importantly, what hasn't. And from that experience, they get to leap off from where TikTok is now and forge a new direction with Reels.
TikTok will survive just like Snapchat has. But the bigger audience will be on Reels and Instagram. And with the bigger audience, creators on Instagram will be able to charge more dollars for sponsorships. And that's hard to ignore if you become really popular on TikTok.
It'll be interesting to see if TikTok continues to let creators have a link to their Instagram account on their TikTok profile or if they cut that off as Instagram tries to siphon off the audience from TikTok.
]]>I follow Aidan Fitzpatrick because he runs the company that created Camo, an app for your Mac and a complimentary app for iOS that allows you to use your iPhone or iPad as a webcam for chat apps like Zoom, etc. (I even made a video about how well it works). He recently shared a tweet from someone I don't follow and hadn't ever come across - Tyler Hall - who appears to be a Mac and iOS app developer.
The tweet Aidan shared was this one about the Mac utility app Tyler wrote that syncs the positions of your Desktop icons - not just the contents of your desktop like iCloud Desktop Sync does, but the actual positions of the icons. Pretty sweet bit of Mac nerdy fun.
Now I'm subscribed to Tyler's blog, Tyler.io, which is full of other awesome Mac nerdy fun like:
So that's why I can't quit Twitter just yet. Until all of you start blogging properly again, I can't reliably find out about interesting new nerds any other way.
]]>According to Polygon, Nintendo has now enabled a way to backup to the cloud:
Once you do, the game will backup to the cloud, even when youāre not playing. The last time your save has been backed up will now appear on the title screen in the bottom left corner.
In order to download the island backup, you have to contact Nintendo directly.
What? The game is one of the most popular games in 2020 across any platform, and you have to contact Nintendo in order to access your backup of your Animal Crossing island?
That's messed up.
]]>Sometimes I start a file or folder with * so it appears at the top.
Sometimes I start a file or folder with Ī© so it appears at the bottom.
Brilliant. I always use a "Z" but, to be honest, the "Ī©" looks a lot cooler and more interesting.
]]>It is also important to me that my familyās privacy is protected. I am not a fan of apps that sell or share my familyās location data to third parties. Microsoft Family Safety provides you full control around how and why data is collected and used. Unlike other location-tracking apps, your familyās location data will not be sold or shared with insurance companies or data brokers.
Why specifically list those two industries? Why not just say "...your family's location data will not be sold or shared." and stop at that? Seems a little fishy.
It looks like they'll be adding a Family Subscription paid plan option as well soon:
In the coming months, we plan to introduce two premium features that will be part of Microsoft 365 Family subscription: drive safety to help to build better habits behind the wheel with insights on driving behavior and location alerts to notify you when a family member arrives or departs a specific location.
The latter is already built in to iOS's Screen Time and "Find My..." family sharing on iOS. The former is interesting but likely will require some sort of data tie in to a vehicle perhaps?
Of all the family / screen time platforms, Microsoft's has definitely been the best overall in my experience. Apple assumes each child will have their own device running iOS 11 or newer, which isn't realistic with 3 or more kids in your family. Microsoft lets you set up an account on each device - Windows computer(s) or Xbox One - for each child so it's pretty simple to track time and usage across multiple devices.
]]>Chris Plante, writing for Polygon, thinks Game Pass is what will enable Microsoft to have an edge over it's Sony Playstation 5 rival:
Microsoftās Xbox Game Pass is a service akin to Netflix that allows customers to download as many games as they want from an enormous collection for $9.99 per month. In April, the service surpassed 10 million subscribers.
For context, Sony sold more than 4 million copies of The Last of Us Part 2 in its debut weekend last month, and that was the companyās second biggest video game launch ever.
Later this fall, Microsoft plans to launch xCloud which will be their way of streaming games being run on their servers in the cloud to your tablet or phone.
Rather than lining up a mega hit game, they'll just bundle a bunch of great games and give you access to them wherever you can access your Microsoft Xbox account:
It needs people locked into the ecosystem, not any individual game. So the company needs to provide lots of new things, not just one mega-game. For that reason, weāre likely to see a bunch of shorter games with lots of variety of play, diversifying the subscriber base and diversifying subscribersā interests, making it hard for them to leave. The hits will be different, and theyāll be judged differently, but there will be more of them, and youāll pay less to access them all.
Google is having some success with their Stadia cloud gaming platform, Sony has Playstation Now, and Apple has Apple Arcade - I have a video game podcast about all that you can subscribe to called 25Ā¢) - but much like buying into the Apple ecosystem for your music and movies, it'll be difficult to convince folks invested in the Microsoft gaming ecosystem to break away once Microsoft has them hooked.
]]>The update will also coincide with the gameās debut on the Epic Games Store and its removal from Steam. Psyonix said that Steam players will still get updates and will be able to play with those on other platforms ā Rocket League is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One ā after the change.
The free-to-play model works great for me because I'm very rarely tempted to spend any money on the games. I've managed to play Fortnite (poorly) for a few years without spending a dollar.
Unfortunately my $0 is being counter-balanced by my kids who buy a Battle Pass once every few months.
]]>]]>With time to burn during ye olde pandemic, practitioners of a musical genre called bardcore have been taking pop songs and medieval-izing their lyrics and tunes. The three examples embedded above are Radioheadās Creep, Jolene by Dolly Parton, and Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones.
]]>Last year I moved to a house on some property, and it had a separate garage a hundred feet or so away from the main house. At first, I tried using standard Orbi mesh networking points to connect them to each other but I couldnāt reliably get a wireless point in my houseās window to connect to another point inside the garage. So I started doing some research, and going down some rabbit holes.
Letās not call it a community. Discord feels more like a space than a community - thereās no user accounts (you make a discord account not a tomcritchlow-discord account). And increasingly the open social spaces like twitter are fragmenting into smaller semi-public or private discord spaces. In my own groups Discord is rapidly out-pacing Slack as the default āspaceā for conversation.
Once they add threading Discord will really arrive š
I dig it.
As I write this he's sharing a Figma document that he's working on in real time along with being in the open voice chat inside Discord to answer people's questions about what he's doing with the blog redesign he's working on. I love the ability to work in the open like that.
We've had a Discord for Goodstuff Patreon supporters and it works great to have a safe, private space to chat about the podcasts we produce, and whatever else is going on in the lives of the supporters and creators on the network.
I've been using a seperate "Lemon Productions" Discord for a few clients that don't already have some sort of Slack or Teams already set up and it's been good there as well - a new channel for each new episode we're working on helps keep everything organized and easy to track.
Right now I'm toying with opening up part of the Lemon Discord to folks who subscribe or watch my YouTube channel. I really enjoiy responding to the comments and questions from viewers, and I think the interactions help my videos rank higher. But it also feels like I might be missing out on bringing together a community of macOS / iOS audio nerds who could help each other out, in addition to whatever expertise I bring to the room.
I'm torn on having some sort of gateway to get in to the group, especially if it's based on a YouTube channel. Even just a $1/month membership run via Memberful would be enough to help minimize the spam possibilities.
But seeing how Tom's Discord has remained people genuinely interested in a community about blogging - so far anyway - gives me hope that maybe it's worth a try to open mine up for free for now and see what happens. A properly configured Discord bot can help a ton with keeping garbage out of the Discord space.
If you're interested in helping me test this out or just checking out what Discord looks like, here's an invite link to join my Lemon Productions space. (If you get an error trying to join, it may mean that the link has expired. Send me a tweet and I'll get it sorted for you.)
]]>The 1Password Individual account regularly runs for $2.99/month, billed annually at $35.88. With our exclusive discount, you can get this plan for $17.94 for the first year of 1Password. Additionally, you'll receive a 30 day free trial when first signing up for the Individual Plan.
Hopefully available to Canadian users as well but make sure to doublecheck all the details before you commit.
]]>In Texas, Pastor Ron Arbaugh said his church, the Calvary Chapel of San Antonio, had followed āthe letter of the lawā and tried to practice social distancing since it was allowed to reopen in May. The ushers, greeters and leaders of the childrenās ministry wore face masks. Families sat spaced out in the pews. About half the congregation wore masks.
But now, about 50 congregants and staff members ā including the pastor and his wife ā have tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr. Arbaugh said all the cases had been mild so far.
I really don't get the rush to gather again. I understand that it's good, fun, and very beneficial to mental health in particular to get together with your friends, family, and church members. Except for the huge risk right now with a deadly virus going around that spreads in ways that a typical church gathering seems to be best suited to help:
āItās an ideal setting for transmission,ā said Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University, referring to church gatherings. āYou have a lot of people in a closed space. And theyāre speaking loudly, theyāre singing. All those things are exactly what you donāt want.ā
I miss gathering with my local church and seeing friends in person, learning, praying, singing, and worshiping together. But I have zero desire to meet while there's a chance that us meeting is endangering the lives of all of us - not just the elderly.
And we're still learning new ways that this disease may be attacking us.
Here in Saskatchewan, Canada, we're one group of travelling idiots arriving on a flight away from a huge outbreak, despite our best efforts at containing this thing so far. Germany reported 298 new cases yesterday. The US, the country we're neighbours with, reported over 55,000 new cases. We're a long ways from being out of the woods.
We're at war with this thing. And it doesn't care about religious affiliations or how long you've been in isolation.
]]>Basically, the secret to shooting a remote interview that doesnāt look like a recorded internet call is not to simply record the internet call. Instead, shoot each participant like you would if there were no internet call involved, recording video and audio locally for everyone, using decent cameras and microphones.
I dig this part about the video camera choices:
For video, we shot 4K 30 FPS using iPhone 11 Pros. Thatās right, iPhones. Apple seems to have plenty of them so Federighi and Joz each had twoāāāone positioned head-on, and one to the side for a wider-angle view. I just used one.
Apple certainly has the budget and ability to bring in any camera in the world. And obviously there's a marketing angle to using their own product. But interestingly enough, they chose to use Cisco's Webex for the actual call instead of FaceTime, even though everyone on the call was on iPads and a Mac laptop.
The iPhone 11 - and especially the iPhone 11 Pro - is an amazing video camera. It's not a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema, but it's likely you already have access to one if you're trying to record a video or live stream.
]]>Apple TVā+ is having a similarly negative impact on Hanksā appearance in this interview. Even though he is in his office, āthe cruel whipmasters at Appleā decided the background needed to be a blank wall, presumably so nosy journalists like me wouldnāt spend the whole encounter snooping at Hanksā bookcases. Against the eerily empty backdrop, he looks, Hanks rightly says, as if heās in āa witness protection programme. But here I am, bowing to the needs of āApple TVā.ā
I've got a draft post on having an authentic online experience - especially as small businesses and non-profits try moving to live streaming and video. I love getting a glimpse into the home studios, offices, and kitchens of humans via a $50 webcam who otherwise are polished up and thrown in front of $500,000 worth of production equipment and filters.
]]>Reading this tech review of the 2021 Ford F150 truck makes me wish I had an extra $40k - $60k laying around in fun money to get a CarPlay, 4G LTE equipped vehicle to drive from my house to Starbucks with most of the year and pull a tent trailer once or twice.
...the F-150 has a new SYNC 4 system and embedded 4G LTE modem, which can provide Wi-Fi access for up to 10 devices.
Mobile wifi router!
Oh hold on, it's also a mobile office aka podcast recording studio:
The new F-150 will come with an optional work surface in the center console area. The surface is designed to be used as a convenient place to sign documents, set up a laptop up to 15-inches in size or park that sandwich.
and
Out on the tailgate is another work surface that includes integrated rulers, a mobile device holder, a cup holder and a pencil holder.
Since this is the 2021 model, I'll aim to pick one up in 2031 or later when hover trucks are all the rage.
]]>This reaction video by TheJayyShow to seeing U2 perform All I Want is You / Where the Streets Have No Name is a joy to watch. Not only is it a great performance by the band, but she's literally never heard of them. Never heard of Bono.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKno_OBmq9I
Even hardended U2 fans will get a kick out of watching this and seeing someone "get" the band - or at least their performance of these two songs which just so happens to be a couple of days after Bono's dad passed away and was immortalized in their DVD release U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle, Ireland.
]]>]]>A new privacy feature in iOS 14 enables users to give an app access to a limited number of photos, instead of having to hand over the keys to their entire photo library.
What is striking about macOS 11.0 is the degree to which is feels more like a son of iOS than the sibling that Mac OS X was:
- macOS 11.0 runs on ARM, just like iOS; in fact the Developer Transition Kit that Apple is making available to developers has the same A12Z chip as the iPad Pro.
- macOS 11.0 has a user interface overhaul that not only appears to be heavily inspired by iOS, but also seems geared for touch.
- macOS 11.0 attempts to acquire developers not primarily by being open and good, but by being easy and good enough.
It's a good look back at where macOS has come from - including the cringey funeral for Classic Mac OS - and where it's headed.
]]>Ashutosh KS writing for Hongkiat has a bunch of great tips for using Edge including clearing your browser history on exit, setting aside tabs for later, and Edge's ability to mark up a web page or PDF inside of the browser.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSCKfXpAGHc
Direct link to the trailer on YouTube
Having only ever heard the soundtrack, I'm excited to see and experience Hamilton in what is now the only way possible for anyone to watch it.
And clearly Disney believes it will be a huge draw as they've ended the free trials of Disney+ in advance of Hamilton's release so people can't sign up for free, watch Hamilton, and then cancel.
]]>Apple plans to hold a virtual keynote, which is set to take place on Monday, June 22. Though there's no physical event this year, Apple still has big plans for WWDC. Along with the usual software updates, rumors suggest Apple could unveil a redesigned iMac and give us our first glimpse at the custom-designed Arm-based chips it will use for future Macs
Memo to Apple hardware designers: I will never want a slimmer iMac. If you made it twice as thick as it is now but shipped it with a kick ass camera - I don't know, borrowed from your iPhone chasis maybe? - that would be a tempting reason to upgrade my 2015 iMac. Once less USB cable and extra Logitech camera mounted on top is reason to upgrade, besides the usual performance improvements.
Boasting about a 1.5mm thick computer? To borrow from Shania Twain - that don't impress me much.
And please ship a new Apple TV.
]]>Chris Coyier over at CSS-Tricks has a guide called Where Do You Learn HTML & CSS in 2020? that gives a great overview of ways to learn the basic coding skills that the web is built on.
It can be intimidating at first, but learning the basics can open up so much for you, even if you are using a platform like Squarespace or Wix.
]]>Everytime I pull out my MacBook Pro's power adaptor I shed a tear for the Magsafe connector and the way they used to wrap around the pop-out cord winders on the power supplies.
]]>The only thing that could move me to spend money on Apple hardware or software is updated Apple TV hardware, and I don't really expect to see that at a developer conference.
I'm curious to see if Apple announces a transition to Arm based processors - away from Intel - but that likely won't be in any hardware you can buy, other than iOS devices, until 2021 at the earliest.
The usual macOS / iOS update announcements of what's to come in Apple's flagship operating systems will be interesting, but it feels hard to be truly surprised or genuinely excited about what's coming with each OS update. Which I think is a good thing. The fact that iOS and macOS are so polished is a good thing.
Just give me a new Apple TV so I can catch up on all the Apple TV+ content I've been waiting to watch and I'll be happy.
]]>Fortniteās newest season is here, and that means a whole slew of new skins to unlock through the battle pass. This seasonās pass has a distinctly nautical theme, which makes sense now that the entire map is flooded, but thereās more than just ocean accessories to unlock this time around.
The desire to buy the Battle Pass - which unlocks skins and other visual elements in the game, but does nothing to improve your actual abilities in the game - is high among our kids.
It drives me nuts.
I'm ok with them buying one per year because at $15, if that's all they ever pay to the gods of Fortnite, it's pretty cheap for the amount of time they play the game. But I do worry about the normalization of buying in-game digital bits. In my brain, I file that kind of purchase next to paying for something that you can't afford with your credit card - you just don't do it unless it's an emergency. That's what was instilled in me by my parents.
But as a video game nerd, I'm really tempted to skip out on work and join them in exploring the updated map.
Just one game?
]]>Dropbox has always been about file storage, sharing and collaboration, but it wants to stretch beyond those roots and provide customers, especially those using the Dropbox Plus paid tier with a set of additional capabilities that typically would have involved using third-party products. This includes password management, an online vault and full computer backup.
I appreciate that Dropbox wants to go beyond being really great file storage and syncing in order to compete.
But I really just want to pay them for super reliable and easy to use file syncing. Full stop. Dropbox Paper is really well done, but I already have apps to write in. Just give me a $5/month super-syncer plan and stop forcing bloated user interfaces down my throat.
Their "Suggested from Your Activity" AI is awful. It has never ever suggested something that I wanted to see. And the "For You", "Recent" and "Notifications" tabs in their menubar app rarely have the most recent file I've synced at the top. Google Drive at least gets that much right - just show me the most recent document at the top, always.
And please stop trying to pitch me on Dropbox Business. They hired a sales team and now have to justify that sales team by cold calling, cold emailing, and interupting users at every opportunity to pitch Dropbox Business upgrades.
Dropbox: shut up and sync.
]]>I believe that part of reading and subscribing is also contributing back into the blogging ecosystem by sharing what I found interesting. So this is my attempt to do that with a semi-regular link post. Ideally I'll just write a single post about a thing I really feel is worth linking to, but a link dump like this helps clear the backlog. I'm not sure I've got the most efficient method to do this yet, but it can be refinded as I go. I'll write up my method in a future post.
Here's what I've found interesting or link-worthy so far this week:
The company, which began its life with a focus on motherhood, has evolved over the years to reach women looking to discuss a range of topics ā including pregnancy, marriage, parenthood, and even menopause.
Plenty of teams are now contemplating winding down those pandemic shows ā both as a reflection of how the world has changed, and as a way of taking care of employee health. To understand the decisions around how and when this is happening, I spoke with two teams of different sizes that substantially stepped up their workload in the face of the coronavirus crisis, and are now transitioning to a more sustainable arrangement.
What remains to be seen is just how quickly Apple will push ARM into its higher-end computers. Again, the A13 is already competitive with some of Intelās best desktop chips, and the A13 is tuned for mobile; what sort of performance gains can Apple uncover by building for more generous thermal envelopes? It is not out of the question that Apple, within a year or two, has by far the best performing laptops and desktop computers on the market, just as they do in mobile.
The Best Project Management Software for Your Tasks & Teams - my friend Tee and I have regular conversations about project management apps. I think we've both tried at least half of the software mentioned in this article.
Consumers Aren't Ready to Pay for Podcasts But Platforms Keep Trying (via Podnews) - It seems like every week there's a new app designed to help podcasters solicit money from their listeners in some way.
Custom Masks printed with your own face - you have to see the GIF to understand how... odd this would be.
What Will macOS 10.16 Be Called? - I'm still holding out hope for macOS Saskatchewan.
Star Wars Squadron announced - including a fun looking cinematic trailer
Kids now spend nearly as much time watching TikTok as YouTube in US, UK and Spain
The data in the annual report by digital safety app maker Qustodio was provided by 60,000 families with children ages four to 14 in the U.S., U.K. and Spain, so its data isnāt representative of global trends. The research encompasses childrenās online habits from February 2019 to April 2020, takes into account the COVID-19 crisis and is specifically focused on four main categories of mobile applications: online video, social media, video games and education.
One of my sonās favorite author-illustrators, Mo Willems, is doing a daily video stream for everyone under quarantine called Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems.
Unconsciously, I grabbed the bottle and started drinking. I didnāt think about it. It was around lunchtime, my eyes were so swollen I felt like I couldnāt open them, and I thought, āyes. Alcohol will make this feeling go away.ā And then I thought, āWait- Iāve read about this. And I donāt want to do it.ā
]]>First off ā everything you do on Instagram is tracked. Almost every online service you use collects information about your actions. Every thumb scroll made through your feed provides it with information about your behaviour. Instagram knows that you spent 20 minutes scrolling to the depths of your high-school crushās profile at 2am.
(Technically they'll work on any mobile phone.)
]]>Polygon has a post with some of their suggestions of games to play, but just looking at the list I'd recommend trying Overland, Night in the Woods, Celeste, and A Short Hike as starting points.
]]>Dave Grohl and The Foo Fighters had one of the best moments of bringing a fan on stage back in 2018.
A heads up that there's some very rock 'n roll and NSFW language in the videos:
And then that video links to a follow-up concert where Dave Grohl addresses what happened with Kiss Guy and how he'll never be repeated again:
Grohl has the perfect mix of rock 'n roll, class, and humility in handling the situation. Such a professional.
]]>John Gruber on why Giphy is going to try and retain it's brand - which every company that's aquired always states that it's going to do:
Of course Giphy is going to retain its own brand. If they renamed it to āFacebook Tracking Pixelsā, usage might drop off.
I'm not sure who's behind Tenor but it's the GIF search tool used inside of Discord. I'd imagine there's a few companies who are concerned about privacy, like Apple with Messages which currently uses Giphy, reaching out for better integration support these days.
]]>So I'm cheap.
U2 has been my favorite band ever since I witnessed their Rattle & Hum to Achtung Baby phase in my friend Darren's basement, and then watched the ZooTV live concert VHS tape that happened to be in an apartment I was in for 2 weeks while working in Edmonton that summer. I honestly don't know if I'd be the U2 fan I am today if it wasn't for that stranger's VHS machine.
Dave Grohl (lead singer of Foo Fighters, drummer in Nirvana, neighbour of Jeff Probst) can't wait to get back on the road, singing songs and celebrating music with everyone. He wrote this article in The Atlantic titled "The Day the Live Concert Returns". A great read, but for this U2 fan I loved his description of seeing U2 back in 2001:
I will never forget the night I witnessed U2 perform at what used to be called the MCI Center in D.C. This was their 2001 Elevation Tour, a massive production. I waited for the lights to go out so that I could lose myself in a magnificent, state-of-the-art rock show. To my surprise, the band walked onstage without any introduction, house lights fully illuminated, and kicked into the first song beneath their harsh, fluorescent glow, without the usual barrage of lasers and LED screens weāve all become accustomed to. The brilliant move stunned the audience and began an unforgettable concert on a very raw, personal note. This was no accident, mind you. It was a lesson in intimacy. Without all the strobes and lasers, the room shrank to the size of a dirty nightclub at last call, every blemish in plain view. And with that simple gesture, we were reminded that we are all indeed just people. People that need to connect with one another.
I don't know which band will be the first to tour our area post-Covid, but you can almost guarantee it will be a great experience. U2 isn't in any sort of album/tour cycle right now, and my other favorite band, Gang of Youths, likely won't hit Canada when their new album is released.
But I know my soul needs to hear live music again. I can't wait.
]]>What I loved about Rogue One is how you really felt the oppression of the Empire over the people in a way that A New Hope wasn't really able to show. The city scapes are so detailed and intricate and really immerse the viewer in what it felt like to be ruled by an evil galatic empire.
Via Todd Vaziri on Twitter who's worked on Star Wars, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, and many other movies and so is very worth following on Twitter.
]]>This review on Polygon gives me hope that theyāve put a lot of thought into how the game will play for adults and kids alike:
]]>Playing a Diablo-style hack-n-slash game with up to three small children sounds like a nightmare scenario, with players squabbling over equipment, support, and leveling. The genius of Minecraft Dungeons is that each of these potential fights have been neatly edited out of the game, or at least mitigated to such an extent than itās a joy to play, even with children of various ages.
He said, āWell, you have to understand, it was never depressing. Because despite all those circumstances, I never ever wavered in my absolute faith that not only would I prevailāget out of thisābut I would also prevail by turning it into the defining event of my life that would make me a stronger and better person. Not only that, Jim, you realize Iām the lucky one.ā
I said, āNo, I donāt.ā
He said, āYes, because I know the answer to how I would do, and you never will.ā
A little later in the conversation, after Iād absorbed that and said nothing for about five minutes because I was just stunned, I asked him who didnāt make it out of those systemic circumstances as well as he had.
He said, āOh, itās easy. I can tell you who didnāt make it out. It was the optimists.ā
This link / quote post is basically a copy of what John Gruber posted on Daring Fireball. I wanted to try it as a test of how easily I could post to my new CMS I set up for my blog.
]]>Hitting publish now.
]]>These weren't professional TV or radio presenters, polished by years of experience and/or editing (all of which are fine for the medium they were in) - but folks sitting around and talking about a thing they loved.
As podcasting grows, there's nothing stopping those kinds of folks from continuing to podcast. But what I despise getting are emails from people saying we should be cutting pauses, uhms, ahhhs - and other human moments from conversations.
Don't get me wrong: there's a time and a place for concise editing and cleaning up dialogue.
But if you're concerned about a 2 second gap while someone is thinking of how to best answer a tough question, or get annoyed because someone doesn't talk the way you want them to, I don't know how to help you because I don't believe in algorithms or machines cutting out our humanity - and so I'm not going to either.
Not everyone got into podcasting to become a professional TV/radio presenter. Some folks enjoy having a conversation and sharing it with the world. The beautiful thing is: you don't even have to listen if you don't want to. If 5 "uhms" in a podcast is your limit, then just skip, unsubscribe, and move on.
Obviously a conversation like this is more nuanced than simply two sides shouting at each other: "Don't edit anything out!" vs "edit everything down to the bare minimum with no human noises outside of the words they speak!"
I get antsy when I see individuals trying to push their personal preferences as what "Podcasting" should be. The beauty of podcasting is how diverse it is and that anyone and everyone should be allowed in.
Now go record episode 1 or 100!
(This rant brought to you by the dude who felt he needed to email me a screencast showing me how to edit out uhms and ahh's from a podcast I edited as if I've never thought of that in my 10+ years of editing podcasts. Like... seriously.)
This post is also available on Twitter if you'd prefer to respond or share more there.
]]>Loneliness in running a business - or at least the kind I feel - is not overcome with more coffee chats, networking events, or a new office.
Being responsible for literally everything in my business is my lonely feeling. And can be utterly exhausting.
Sleep helps a ton because the mental game is a hard one to fight when you're tired. If you've been shorting yourself on sleep for awhile, whether it's because of video games & Netflix or kids (and video games & Netflix), you could have something like sleep debt - where one good night of sleep doesn't actually catch you up.
But what it sometimes feels like the reality for me is that I need to either shut my business down and go work for someone else on their team. Or getting successful / big enough to hire and work with a team on my business.
Obviously there's a lot of middle ground between those two extremes. That's just how my brain sometimes works when trying to solve a problem - go to the extremes! Nothing else will do!
For now, I will keep plugging away and working in a positive direction by:
I know that the extremes aren't realistic. And even if they are, they won't happen over night. It's only in small, baby steps that real meaningful change can happen. Someone needs to remind my brain of that every so often.
I wonder who should do that? :)
This post is also a Twitter thread available here if you'd prefer to reply on Twitter instead of commenting below.
]]>What person gets to the end of a podcast episode and then freezes. Terrified. What do they do now? What should I listen to?
They do what we have been doing since podcasting started. Ask a friend what they've been listening to. Maybe post on social media asking for recommendations. Why do we need to accelerate that listening experience so badly?
I don't think it's a bad thing for people to have to do a bit of work to get into podcast listening. In my mind, that desire to figure it out will make podcasting stick as a viable medium for them.
It was so much harder to find and then consistently listen to a podcast back when it started. But we jumped through the hoops to do it because the conversations were so worth it.
It's almost always a business like Luminary who wants to push the idea that podcast discovery is broken and *they* are going to fix it with their app. Completely crapping on all the development done by folks like Pocket Casts or Overcast.
āYou know, think about it, when you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. Weāre competing with sleep, on the margin. And so, itās a very large pool of time.ā
Netflix CEO Reed Hasting, The Guardian
Behind the banging gong of "more money is needed in podcasting so we can tell better stories" are money hungry investors who think they need bigger boats to hold all their money.
We thought discoverability would help blogging. It didn't. It just turned every blogger into a machine feeding headline generator. We're just finally starting to recover from that discoverability fix.
If you really think podcast discoverability is a problem, then here's how you can help it without selling your soul:
What am I missing? I'd love to know your thoughts on podcasting. Reply below, on Twitter, or join Castaways.Club - a community for podcasters.
]]>Yep, as of right now, The AM Archives will be behind a paywall for the foreseeable. That may not always be the case, but it will be a few years at least even if it does become widely available.
She goes on to explain that her current show, The Bright Sessions, will remain free forever:
The Bright Sessions willĀ alwaysĀ be free and available to everyone, everywhere (barring, like, the heat death of the universe or podcast apps all suddenly crashing or something).
As I've said before, I'd do the same thing if a company came with enough money to allow me to do one/all of my podcasts for a year or a season. Podcasting is still relatively new, why not? Who knows if you'll be able to grow big enough on your own.
Lauren has a Patreon campaign which doesn't show the dollar amount they're raising each month, but as of this writing they have 1,127 patrons. And their only tier is $5/month. You don't have to support at the required tier but just for the sake of this post, let's assume there are 1,000 patrons x $5 = $5,000USD/month support on Patreon.
Weāve had a Patreon for several years that enabled us to survive and do bonus episodes that would have otherwise been impossible. But to pull back the curtain on that a bit: one month of our Patreon earnings equals the cost ofĀ oneĀ bonus episode. Thankfully, weāve been able to pay everyone - guest writers, guest actors, Julia & Mischa - pretty fairly, but weāve made no additional profit off of the Patreon, ever.
It's not worth getting into nitpicking whether $5,000/month is enough of a budget for the quality of show + bonus episodes Lauren wants to create. I would suggest for anyone starting with Patreon to seriously explore whether adding bonus content is really what people want from you - or if they just want to pay to enable you to continue the show.
What I struggle with is this line of reasoning that many of the Luminary podcasters / PR folks are giving for why a paywall is the way forward for podcasting:
But in order for podcasting to grow - and for audio dramas in particular to level up as an industry - weāve all got to try a lot of different things to see how we can create a sustainable and thriving creative industry.
I haven't been tracking The Bright Sessions / Lauren Shippen so I can't speak to what she's tried or done differently. So don't take this as prescriptive for her specific situation. But I wonder about other shows in similar situations that could try:
Easy for me to type. Much harder to do. There's no guarantee extra tiers would ultimately get you more money on Patreon. Diversifying the stories you are telling requires a lot more time and sweat. And getting sponsors and dealing with contracts aren't why podcasters got into this thing in the first place. We just want to create more episodes of the show we're doing!
As Lauren states at the end of her post:
I hope many of you willĀ subscribe to LuminaryĀ (and buy my book!) so that I can continue to pay people to make art, but Iām also working hard on telling stories that everyone can partake in, no matter the circumstance. I am but one small part in an expanding, vibrant community, and Iām going to do what I can to financially support artists and pull more people into the audio medium as both creators and listeners.
Hers is one show. Luminary is just 40 or so podcasts. We've got a long way to go in the podcasting industry before anything is set in stone. We'll all know how well Luminary's attempt goes later this summer after it launches and their investors are either gleefully swimming in their increased riches, or demanding more subscribers from Luminary to get a return on their investments and they have to pivot to some other way of convincing you to part with $8/month.
]]>Luminary, who recently made a big splash in the podcasting space by announcing their paywalled podcast network, doesn't want to be the Netflix of podcasting. They want to be HBO. Netflix got its start with other peopleās content, not their own. Luminary is boasting about all the original content they're producing. But what they're really after is trying to silo content and trap users into paying monthly for it.
Brief tangent for some snark: With $100 - $140 million in investor money, don't you think they could have hired a copyeditor to make sure the words made sense on their website?
If their business / investor's motivation truly was "we really want to create better shows", then I'm all for this approach. But what they are really after is more money from podcasting. Investors and business are annoyed they can't control podcasting as it is, so it's "broken".
They look at apps like @pocketcasts, @overcastfm, etc. and think, like most tech startups, "I can do better... we just need more money and more engineers" and ignore the years of development that have already gone into those apps to make them as good as they are today.
Why would Trevor Noah, Lena Dunham, or Russel Brand need a paywall to have a successful* podcast if it isn't for the big signing bonus they got to go exclusive? (* successful meaning they enjoy doing it and it also helps promote their brand/latest show/etc.)
I'm ranting now but what gets me frustrated is the arrogance of Silicon Valley / NYC tech folks thinking they can fix a problem that nobody outside of Silicon Valley / NYC thinks is broken.
For the record: I don't blame the podcasters for wanting to get paid. If someone came along and gave me $80k/year to record one of my podcasts, I'd happily take it. Use that year to grow my skills, hone my craft, build an audience with their marketing budget and come out the other side when it all crashes or gets bought up with, at the very least, a ton of experience someone else paid for, and possibly a bigger audience than when it started.
I'm sure there's some dollar value that you could give any indie podcaster where they'd put their show behind a paywall for a time period. Just like Apple effectively buying up all the initial copies of U2's Songs of Innocence album - everyone has a price.
All the podcast pundits in the world can't predict what will happen exactly. The fact that more big money is pouring into podcasting is a sign of a boom to some, or a sign that a bust is coming... eventually.
Like blogging. It's still alive and well, but the big money investment for it has moved on to other things. They sucked all the stupid deals out of that vertical and moved on. The indie folks are still trucking along, doing their thing, writing, and making a living.
In tech, as in life, we're doomed to repeat ourselves if we don't learn from our past.
]]>You could argue that maybe I need to learn more about design and HTML/CSS - which would be true. But I also know I want to put stuff (podcast episodes, blog posts spouting dumb theories about themes) out into the world and spend my time getting better at that, not learning how to design the container for it.
Which is why every time I reach for anything besides WordPress, I always fall back to WordPress because of the themes.
I'm not scared of the command line, GitHub commits, or NPM installs. I am scared of having a site that doesn't work responsively and having no idea or time how to fix it.
Not the sexiest design. But it works for now.
I built the Castaways Club site with @gatsbyjs only because I found a half decent theme via @Netlify to work with. But now I feel stuck because I have ideas for content but no idea how to work with it going forward.
I realize I probably come off a bit lazy in complaining about amazing technology that allows me to write stuff and post on the internet with ease but waah just make it look pretty for me so I don't have to pay for it or figure it out. I'm speaking from my experience as a half-developer/half-designer nerd who wants to play with the cool kids and how I think even when a CMS / static site generator is built in response to the complicated theming of WordPress, you can still foster and support smart designer/developers to help bring the rest of us along with you.
This post started as a thread on Twitter.
]]>I love watching films about music and the music industry: documentaries, biopics, fiction, or anything in between. I've got a Letterboxd list to keep track of the ones I've watched, and the ones I need to watch. A Star is Born is almost right in the sweet spot for me - it just needed one scene discussing guitar tone and it would've been perfect.
But I want to talk about one aspect of A Star is Born that really hit me: creativity and the exhilarating feeling of validation. Not that you should need validation for your creative work. But how it feels if and when it does come.
Without spoiling the movie too much, there's a scene early on where Ally, played beautifully by Lady Gaga, is surprised by Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) wanting her to sing a song she wrote on stage with him at one of his concerts.
It's one of those moments that's obviously a movie moment, crafted with music, lights, camera angles, and a pair of great actors, to elicit emotion from the viewer. But the way all of it came together in this scene brought me to tears - because there's also the reality of how that moment feels for anyone who's ever tried creating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlJUOBN5VGA
Getting validation for that thing you created is an awesome feeling. Not for the fame. Not for the money. But for the acknowledgement that the thing you wrote, sang, drew, or created exists.
In those 5 minutes on stage, Ally doesn't know what's going to result from this. She's not thinking about album deals, radio plays, or her own concerts. She's living in the moment where the words and melodies she wrote in her bedroom are being heard and loved by an audience for the first time.
I don't expect the movie to hit the same emotional nerve for you if you've never dreamed of being on stage performing like I have. But I know a lot of the same desires and emotions transfer to other creative outlets I have like recording podcasts, making a video, etc.
After the song is done, there's a great moment where Ally remembers there's a crowd out there cheering. She got so lost in the performance that she left the stage and was just singing her words.
Once again Lady Gaga plays it brilliantly because she goes from confident performer lost in the moment to the awkward, happy, excited, embarrassed, Ally who just yesterday was singing in a dive bar at home.
If you haven't seen it yet, I'd encourage you to watch A Star is Born. There's plenty there for folks who aren't music industry nerds like myself. And once you've watched it, the Wikipedia entry is a great read for the history of the various folks who could have been cast in the movie and wondering about how that would've changed the movie.
If you're a creative type, I hope you lean more towards being inspired by moments like this than being depressed that it hasn't ever happened to you. I know I struggle with living more in the latter than the former. Validation can come in many forms and often my brain tricks me into thinking very real validation for my work isn't enough. Or isn't real validation.
But it is. And don't let that stupid part of your brain tell you it isn't big enough. Or the right person. Or the right situation.
]]>Abrams's own bathroom requires one to pull on a book entitled ĀLouis Tannen's Catalog of MagicĀ to reveal the toilet behind a secret opening in the wall.
It's all just a bit out of my home office budget. But I do like the look of the wood on the wall in some of the spaces - that could make for a great backdrop.
]]>We exist only in those memories, Stacey and I. This time, here, our livesāthis is the past for future Ollie and Nolan. Theyāre out there somewhere, 70 years from now, remembering some of these moments and thatās how weāll live on, as a piece of their collective past. Sometimes that paralyzes me with sadness and sometimes it elevates the smallest moments. I look into Ollieās eyes after he blows out the candles on his sixth birthday cake and for a moment Iām reaching into the far future and looking into the eyes of my grown son.
I keep a Day One journal of quotes from our kids (and for tracking when they're sick because I'm weird like that) and it's amazing how what they say can go from frustrating to emotionally gutting on a dime.
]]>Someone was building an application of some kind and they were referencing something I had written for CSS-Tricks a few weeks prior. It was the most impossible, wonderful feeling Iāve ever had. And no, itās not because of the fame and prestige although yes that is nice and I will take what I can get thank you very much. Itās the fact that this almost-college-dropout kid from a backwater town in the UK can write a little thing that helps someone on the other end of the world.
(š via Dave Rupert)
]]>Introducing the new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR...
The naming won't affect the sales at all. It'll make it slightly confusing for the sales people at cell phone providers - but iPhone buyers will happily FaceID their Apple Pay money to a new model every 1-3 years.
Ben Thompson has a great take on what he's appropriately calling The iPhone Franchise and how what we're seeing now with the iPhone XR is the near perfection of Apple's previous attempts with the iPhone 5C and the iPhone 8 to release a new, non-flagship iPhone.
Last year, meanwhile, was in many respects the opposite of the iPhone 5S and 5C launch, at least from a framing perspective. The iPhone 8 was the next in-line after the iPhone 7 and all of the iPhones before it; it was the iPhone X that was presented as being out-of-band ā āone more thingā, to use the companyās famous phrase. The iPhone X was the āfuture of the smartphoneā, with a $999 price tag to match.
And, just like the cell phone providers who each year bump their rate plans slightly higher in advance of new iPhones, Apple is pushing the average selling price higher each year:
Apple should be fine though: overall unit sales may fall slightly, but the $1,099 XS Max will push the average selling price even higher. Note, too, that the XR is only available starting at $749; the longstanding $650 iPhone price point was bumped up to $699 last year, and is now a distant memory. To put it another way, to the extent the XR cannibalizes the XS, it cannibalizes them with an average selling price equal to Appleās top-of-the-line iPhone from two years ago; the iPhone 8 is $50 higher than the former $550 price point as well.
If their strategy holds up this year with the iPhone XS Max, and I see no reason why it won't, then I wonder if we'll see the same thing next year with an even more premium - XS Max Superduper? - iPhone model at the top and a similar $50-$100 price bump along the line? It used to be that I had iPhone envy because I was a year or two into a contract and couldn't justify upgrading because of the contract buyout cost. Now I really can't justify the cost of a new flagship iPhone even when it's my "turn" to upgrade. I think I'm going to be a non-flagship, every 2 year with my cellular contract, iPhone buyer for a long time.
]]>kottke.org was also never supposed to be a store. But as the years piled on, so did the links to all sorts of interesting books, movies, music, and other products that people could buy. Iāve collected many of those products into The Accidental Shop. The shop contains over 2000 items from 19+ years of posts.
I asked Jason on Twitter how he was building the shop: https://twitter.com/jkottke/status/1034136649704382464 ...and he pointed me to this post which has some nerdy tidbits about how he went about building the store after the fact with 19 years of blog posts in a database:
To build the shopās catalog, I went through and scraped all ~25,000 posts Iāve done over the past 19 years, looking for product links to Amazon. The script found almost 2300 distinct items and put them into a database, noting the dates of the initial & most recent mentions and the # of mentions for each item.
Pure nerd grunt work plus using modern techniques like Isotope to lay it all out makes for a fun, accidental project. Back in the glory days of blogging, a store like this would've been a gold mine of affiliate profits. In 2018, I'm sure it's still fairly lucrative for a site as big as Kottke.org, but that's beside the point. The point, to me, is that you can do this kind of stuff when you own your content on your own site. Get yourself a blog and start now.
]]>Before you click and check any of these channels out, here's the weird/cool thing about Twitch: if someone isn't live right now when you go to their channel, it might just look empty and boring. Sometimes you'll see archived videos but if it's been more than 30 or 60 days, the previously recorded videos get removed from Twitch because... I don't know why? Amazon owns Twitch now so it's not like they don't have access to storage space. If you look down below the main video you'll see a Latest Broadcasts section where you can watch recent streams to get an idea of what they're channel is like.
Ok... on to the Twitch channels I'm digging lately.
šŗ Watch on Twitch This channel is a live recording of a Nintendo podcast, Nintendo Switchcraft, as well as streaming of various Nintendo Switch games.
šŗ Watch on Twitch Luria & David are the folks behind LiveStreamingPros.com, who I reference from time to time when I'm stuck on gear or software for streaming. But they also do IRL (In Real Life) streams while they're working in the studio on stuff, going camping, or playing some Fortnite.
šŗ Watch on Twitch Scott Johnson and friends record podcasts, create nerdy art, and play the occasional video game all on their Twitch stream. This is a channel I keep subscribed to because I'd love to grow Goodstuff into something like this someday: a viewer/listener supported home for nerds, geeks, and friends who love to talk about the nerdy, geeky, and friendly stuff in life.
šŗ Watch on Twitch Ryan runs a business called Mijingo that offers courses and training for web software developers. He's recently started streaming a bit of a behind-the-scenes look as he creates courses, updates his website, or records new course material.
šŗ Watch on Twitch Justin Jackson is a marketing guy and founder of Transistor.fm, where we host our Goodstuff podcasts, and has recently started streaming his adventures in trying to learn how to code. I'm maybe a week or two ahead of Justin on some of the code nerdery he's getting up to, so it's fun to chip in and help and also see much smarter nerds than I poking him a bit and teaching him next steps.
A few other channels that are strictly gaming that I check out if I happen to have time when they go live are: Danh Hoang and Dave Rupert mostly play Overwatch much better than I do - but they also mix it up a bit with Nintendo Switch gaming. Kate is a Canadian streamer who's full-time gig is streaming on Twitch. I'm fascinated by the idea that people can do that
And of course, you should subscribe to the Goodstuff.fm Twitch channel for streams of our podcasts we record as well as random games we check out.
In the age of Netflix and on-demand watching, Twitch and livestreaming is a bit of a throwback to TV when I grew up where you had to be there in order to see it. Luckily most streamers archive their library over on YouTube so even if it disappears from Twitch, you can still check out past broadcasts. If none of the channels I listed above interest you, you can check out the Twitch directory which shows you games you might want to watch, like Fortnite, Minecraft, or just talk shows.
Do you have a favourite Twitch streamer I should check out? Drop a link in the comments below and I'd love to check them out. If you'd like help getting going with streaming, I'm available for consulting. I've tried almost every piece of software out there and keep experimenting with new ones. If you've got the personality and drive to do it but just lack the technological know-how, I'd love to help you out.
]]>Many of the digital anxieties we have today could, at least in theory, be addressed by returning to a single, shared family device. The shared family desktop was vital to our lives, yet at the same time, it remained quiet and unobtrusive, serving the family unit proudly whenever called upon. You could still get lost for hours playing Space Cadet Pinball or waiting for your crush to log on to AIM, but itās hard to imagine developing an unhealthy addiction or needing digital wellness tools to help manage your screen time with one shared computer. While the personal nature of devices today makes it easier to isolate and keep our online habits private, the shared family desktop offered a transparent and communal, albeit old-fashioned, approach to keeping parents more actively engaged in their childās screen time by being around while their child used the internet.
There's no one size fits all solution for how technology and your family can live together peacefully. Kids from the same parents can have vastly different reactions and addictions related to tech. But I fear for families that don't have some sort of plan around how and why they allow various technologies into their homes. More and more, the devices we throw in front of our kids are being designed to suck them in and never let them go.
]]>Podcast discovery is still a mostly-broken problem...There isnāt really a good app to share podcasts quite yet (Breaker seems to be getting there), so posts like this will suffice.
I personally think this is something that shouldn't be fixed by algorithms. I think podcast player apps need to make it super easy to auto-share episodes of a show you like to social media - as easy as it is on my favourite app Pocket Casts, I should be able to just hit a heart and have that be shared automagically (whether from the app or via a bit of If This Then That API wizardry):
I'd much rather hear about a great episode of a podcast from a friend and then be able to listen to that episode and decide whether I want to subscribe or not. I'm wary of any one podcast app/service that's going to try and take over the whole experience - despite that idea being what millions of investment money is likely flowing into these days. Keep your algorithms as far away from my podcasts as possible. Please.
]]>]]>That week, I booked Glow, a show about female wrestling, and definitely the biggest part I'd ever had on-screen. I immediately began wrestling training between filming Masters. I'd get up at 3:30 a.m., workout, scream-drive through traffic to Masters, try not to be a terrible actor until rush hour, scream-drive through traffic to wrestling training, snort coffee before four hours of body slams, scream-drive home, and wake up to do it again. And again and again. I tried to Frankenstein a Sheryl out of my brainwomen, but they were in hysterics, sobbing into their bathrobes, trying to teach themselves Excel and linear thinking. It's fine, I thought. Once I get through this insane month, I will be fine. This is what all my successful actor friends have done for years while Crags and Ingrid had me YouTubing game-show winners. I could fake a Sheryl. I had to.
That lasted for a couple of years. But the self-centered, work-obsessed barrier I built around myself began to crack sometime last year. It didn't happen suddenly, and I lied to myself by ignoring it for months, but something was changing. I completely poured myself into my job to the point where I was enjoying neither the work nor the reward anymore. I began to feel burned out and often not good enough for the website I had so passionately built over the course of eight years. A constant feeling of unease and dissatisfaction percolated through other aspects of my life as well. I pretended to be relaxed and have fun in social situations and important life events; in reality, there was a persistent sense of anxiety always there, sitting in the back of my mind where the fear of cancer also was, telling me that I wasn't good enough or hadn't done enough. That it was only a matter of days until someone figured out that I sucked and everything I had built was easily replaceable ā a trivial, forgettable commodity.
On gratitude:
...at some point, I can't say exactly when, true empathy towards other people began eluding me. Instead of compassionately trying to understand why other people in my life acted the way they did, my default setting became assuming that everyone was fundamentally driven by a desire to screw me over.
The role of Apple Watch Series 3 and your own motivations:
At the same time though, I'm aware that the Apple Watch is just a conduit. This is where I failed to understand it as a fitness device for years. If you're lazy and lack the determination to exercise and get back in shape, the Apple Watch isn't going to fix that for you. It can encourage you initially, but you have to put in the real work after that. I miserably failed at this in the past, but I'm starting to understand this year: you have to get to the point where you viscerally want to exercise ā with no excuses ā if you really want to improve.
There's plenty more to read and it's a nice change from the "tech first" articles that routinely come out of Apple fans.
But it's important for me to share this ā to go on the record by admitting my failures and outlining my renewed commitment ā because I feel a responsibility to be a better person, partner, friend, and writer by cherishing my second chance and making the most of it.
In the same way that an app review might inspire you to buy a new app for your iPhone, this article might inspire you to make a healthy change in your life.
]]>The main reason is that I've realized I'm not able to produce courses_videos and market them at the pace necessary to justify paying for a service like Podia on a monthly basis. It has nothing to do with the quality of Podia as a course_membership service - I think it's one of the best out there if you're looking to publish a video course, run a membership program, or both! Spencer and the crew at Podia are doing an amazing job of taking all the pain away from creators and teachers who just want to get their thing out there in the world. Podia makes it so much easier than it used to be. Memberships, Courses, Email Newsletters, or Digital Downloads are all possible without having to worry about complicated servers and plugins and payment gateways.
The last purchase of one of my courses was in February 2018 so hopefully by now if you bought the course you've had a chance to work through it. As I said, the site will be active until the end of April, 2018. If you have any questions about how to access the course, please reply to this email before April 30th or send me an email at contact@lemonproductions.ca / tweet at https://twitter.com/ichris and I can direct you to where the videos will live on on my YouTube channel. I'm also in the process of publishing all the course videos on my YouTube channel where they'll live on freely available to watch for as long as Google keeps YouTube around.
I'd still love to put together those courses someday but I know that it's not happening anytime soon. I'll definitely be publishing podcasting tutorials and quick tips on my YouTube channel. If youād like to keep up with new videos I publish, you can sign up for my newsletter here š and I'll drop you a note whenever I put out a new video.
If you'd like to keep up with what I'm up to, you can listen to my podcast Daily(ish) where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I talk about life, work, and most everything in between in 10 minutes or less each episode. Subscribe to my podcast:
Thank you for your time today as well as for your support in the courses I wanted to create. I'd also like to thank Podia for their help in answering any questions I had in using their site. Chris Enns Lemon Productions
]]>But it was an experience on a Summit cruise ship that Chawla says made the biggest impression. He was on the deck, casually talking to the founder of a not-for-profit company whose career had been devoted āto building schools in Africa or something like thatā. āI felt so embarrassed to say, āOh, I run a technology company, I build apps.ā It was just so purposeless. It felt so selfish, what I was doing.ā Chawla says the first thing he did when he got off the boat was set up his own (now defunct) not-for-profit company: Charity Swear Box. It was a website connected to Twitter that would monitor how often a user swears in their tweets, and recommend they make a donation to charity. āI would have never spent the time and effort to do that had I not come to Summit,ā he says.
It also shows an astounding lack of self awareness around what technology is enabling for some, while completely crushing the worlds of others:
]]>I tell Rosenthal that Iāve met many people in America who work as hard as him and his friends ā harder, in fact ā but struggle to make ends meet. He acknowledges that heās benefited from considerable advantage, but insists we now live in an era in which "the internet is the great equaliser". "What are you doing to create the utility for yourself? Are you introducing people so they can collaborate?ā he says. Struggling Americans, he adds, might want to āhost a dinner. Invite 10 strangers. See what happens." The conversation reminds me of so many I have had in and around San Francisco, in which millennials made rich through technology relay snippets of revelatory conversations theyāve had with Uber drivers, some of whom live and sleep in their cars. It is as though the taxi-sharing app is one of the last remaining cords keeping the new elites connected to everyone elseās world. When Uber rolls out its self-driving cars, even that fragile connection will be broken.
I got the feeling that if itās not on Facebook and itās not on Instagram, and it doesnāt involve their friends, they donāt really care that much.
āUsing other membership options:
Whereas if you use Patreon, you go to Patreon.com, youāre in their experience. Thatās the other thing I really didnāt like about it; I wanted to keep control over my membership experience. I didnāt want to outsource it to Patreon if in three years they do some sort of Facebook-esque thing and start hosting more and more content on their site so that it becomes more about them and less about the creators. I could just see that happening, and I didnāt want to go anywhere near it.
The blog as his job and as his life:
I never really got sick of the site. I would every once in a while, but since the membership thing happened, I really like sitting down and going to work for my members. Itās not just that itās my job. Itās like, I want to do this for them because they have been kind enough to support me. You donāt get that feeling about having advertising on your site. Itās not the same.
āI went to grab the link for his site to write this post and the first article linked was this one on a video blogger dealing with cancer that I immediately had to watch. Congratulations Jason on getting your āone-man-bandā to Twenty.
]]>]]>In the table below, Iām comparing the features of the three alert types on iOS: Timers, Alarms, and Reminders. Included in the comparison is how certain features work (or donāt work) on the iPhone, iPad, ļ£æWatch, Mac, and HomePod.
During this year iOS users will be spending about $100 million per day for Apps.
Maybe this is part of the answer?
Iāve made comparisons before with the app business being bigger than the film industry (and much bigger than the music industry.) This was considering Android revenues and iOS combined as "app revenues". As of this year the App Store alone will overtake Global Box Office revenues.
Scrolling through the top selling apps on the iOS App Store today, it seems like a healthy mix of lifestyle, productivity, and utility apps. The games section is a similar mix of big publishers and indie games all in the $1 - $10 range - Minecraft continues to be the top selling iOS game, which is interesting now that Microsoft owns Minecraft. 15 years ago if I'd told you that Microsoft would have the top selling game on any sort of Apple software store, you'd think I was nuts on many levels. The top grossing charts are full of free apps that offer in-app purchase or subscription options that Apple gets a cut of: Netflix, Tinder, and Pandora are the top 3. Candy Crush Saga is #4, and YouTube rounds out the top 5. To give an idea of scale, Minecraft, the top paid app at $9.99CDN, is down at #33 on the top grossing list. It makes me sad that a great Mac developer like Panic couldn't make Transmit for iOS work at the scale of the App Store in 2017. There's obviously a ton of money pouring into the App Store economy - I just hope developers don't have to race to the bottom of the quality scale in order to make it in 2018.
]]>Internet advertising firms are losing hundreds of millions of dollars following the introduction of a new privacy feature from Apple that prevents users from being tracked around the web. Advertising technology firm Criteo, one of the largest in the industry, says that the Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) feature for Safari, which holds 15% of the global browser market, is likely to cut its 2018 revenue by more than a fifth compared to projections made before ITP was announced.
I don't have any sympathy for an industry that's gotten tremendously rich off trying to track people on the web, whether they want it or not. It's not like they learned their lesson when Apple first released ITP - they just tried to figure out a way around it:
Initially, many advertisers believed they had found a technological way around some of the restrictions put in place by ITP. Criteo, which took advantage of that loophole, had initially expected revenue to drop by only 9-13%, the company said. But in December, Apple closed that work-around on its mobile devices as part of the iOS 11.2 update, causing the ad-tech firm to update its projected impact to its current estimate of 22% "relative to our pre-ITP base case projections".
If you follow this link to my business site, I should be allowed to:
What I should not be allowed to do is then track that person when they leave my site. And then show that person ads on other sites based on the pages they visited on my site. It'd be like going into Canadian Tire, talking to a sales person about a car battery, and then as you're leaving the sales person slips a chip in your pocket so they can track you as you head over to Best Buy and while you're looking at a new TV there, Canadian Tire is able to show an ad for a car battery on the TV you're in front of. Which is going to start happening soon enough anyway. Can't we just go back to trying to write/create great stuff that attracts readers / watchers / listeners because it's great and not because they were coerced, manipulated, and badgered to visit?
]]>The obvious answer is to simply delete your account. Here's how on the big three social media sites:
But that's not always possible for a lot of people for a variety of reasons - work, connections with support groups, etc. Or maybe you really don't want to just give up on the whole thing all at once. In that case...
If someone (or something if it's a business account) is causing you stress because of what they post, you don't need to keep following them. Even if not everything they post makes you want to put your fist through the wall or cry a bucket of tears, if the majority of the time they're posting things that make your brain go in a direction you don't like - good or bad - you can unfollow them. There's no rule that you have to follow someone. If you're worried that they're going to be sad/hurt/angry/mad about you not following them anymore, that's on them and not you. If it's a really close friend or family member and they ask you why, hopefully they respect you enough to understand when you explain that reading the 500 anti-Trump articles they post every day doesn't help your mental health. Or whatever your reason - it's your feed, not theirs. I'll confess that I sometimes fear offending someone by unfollowing. And then I realize how silly that is. I'm not in high school anymore. My following (or not) of someone else isn't a value statement on them. Their worth shouldn't be defined by a follower checkbox.
Muting accounts, where possible, is a great way to keep the technical connection without having to deal with any sort of notification that you no longer follow what they're posting. Facebook and Twitter make this easy to do. Tweetbot, a Twitter client for iOS or Mac, makes it even easier to do a trial of muting an account for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or forever.
Muting on Twitter
Muting means you still follow them but never see their tweets. Blocking means you've unfollowed them and they can't see anything you do - unless your account is public. Then technically they can just load up your profile in a browser. In this example, I'd be muting Justin Jackson and would never see his tweets again until I went back and unmuted him. He wouldn't be notified that I'd muted him. I suppose if he was really worried that I wasn't following him he could tweet something like "Hey Chris Enns is a filthy stinky booger eater" and when I didn't respond, he'd know? But who's got the time for that kind of shenanigans?
Muting on Facebook
Ironically, Facebook just added the ability to snooze an account for 30 days as I was writing this. So snoozing an account for 30 days means it'll pop back up in 30 days and start appearing in your feed again. Unfollowing Justin means I'd still be Facebook friends with him, but I wouldn't ever see anything he's posted. He wouldn't be notified that I've unfollowed him. But the "filthy stinky booger eater" test still applies here. Shenanigans I tell you.
Muting on Instagram
Currently there's no way to mute an account's feed on Instagram. You can mute their Stories though. Once again, the muted account owner is never notified that they've been muted, "filthy stinky booger eater" not withstanding.
On Twitter you can make lists, here's the support doc on how, and you can use lists in a couple of different ways:
I've tried a variation on this and it worked for awhile to help me scale back my follower list. But inevitably new people/accounts come along that seem interesting and you find yourself with a torrent of tweets hitting you every day. Update 2018-01-05: Thanks to @Smokey for this suggestion that Facebook Lists are a thing as well:
I've used Facebook's Lists similarly for the better part of a decade, at first just to keep up with infrequently-posting friends between my infrequent visits, then later to avoid the timeline entirely. Sadly, over the past few years Facebook has been slowly degrading the feature (and trying to hide it), so it only works well if you visit Facebook at least once a week.
Old timers on the web, like me, will occasionally pine for the old days when people wrote on blogs, like this one, and we used RSS Readers to subscribe to blogs. And before that we just visited the websites we liked directly and refreshed like mad in the hopes that something new would come along to entertain us.
Try getting rid of the social media apps on your phone and computer devices for a week and just reading blogs and websites directly. Find 10-15 that you think you'll like from a variety of sources and then just load those up as your browser favs and see how it feels. Use an app like Freedom to block your access to sites that cause you stress or suck your will to live away. Whether you use the new year to try something new or just want to take a break for a couple of weeks - I'd recommend changing up your routine. There is always going to be more information fed into the social media machine. Whatever you miss out on this week will be quickly replaced by something else next week. The really important stuff will bubble up to the top of your conversations wherever you're having them - whether it's on Twitter or coffee row. And for crying out loud - make sure you drink more water and get some sleep!
]]>If you don't have it, go get it. I'd recommend the deluxe version because the St Peter's String Version of "Lights of Home" is worth the upgrade price alone.
Normally I'd frown on getting a Best Of collection from any artist - but I know that's often the gateway into their deeper cuts. And if you just want to stop here, you can't go wrong picking up their "Best of 1990-200" collection. The "Best of 1980-1990" is great as well but if you've had a radio on at all in your life you've probably heard their 80's hits played and overplayed enough to know if you'd like them or not. The early 90s was U2 hitting their peak in popularity, but radio (at least in Canada where I live) doesn't seem to know what to do with 90s era U2 music.
Ok. Skip the greatest hits and get music the way God (yes, Bono) intended it.
This is where I show my own entry into U2 - 1991's Achtung Baby was that album that changed them from being a sentimental lovey-dovey rock band (which they still are), into something that felt cool and had an edge[footnote]Pun fully intended[/footnote] to it. From "Zoo Station" all the way to "Love is Blindness", there isn't a track on this album that I don't love and know every word and guitar hook to. If you can find ZooTV Live From Sydney, the concert documentary of the tour that followed this album, you'll have the full U2 immersion experience I did back in the early 90's.
If you had (have?) an iTunes account in 2014 you should already have "Songs of Innocence" since it was given away for free to everyone by Apple. If not, pick it up as a companion to "Songs of Experience". There's plenty of callbacks to this album from SoI that make it worth owning to catch - but by no means is it required listening to enjoy SoE. "Song for Someone", "Iris (Hold Me Close)", "Cedarwood Road", "The Troubles", and "Sleep Like a Baby Tonight"[footnote]Just kidding. Sleep Like a Baby Tonight is terrible. Just seeing if Matt McGee is reading this.[/footnote] are all highlights for me.
It's not every U2 fan's favourite, but mysterious and explorative U2 is my favourite U2. Listening to the opening build up of the opening track throws me right back to early 90's and wondering what kind of musical journey I was about to embark on. "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" is definitely my favourite U2 ballad and in my top 5 U2 tracks.
If, like me, you're sick of that "Vertigo" song then you can safely skip it and enjoy the beautiful "Miracle Drug" / "Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own" combo that, in my opinion, should have started this album. "One Step Closer" and "Yahweh" close out a great album.
This step is a choose your own adventure: chime-y U2 or 80's rock U2? 1984's The Unforgettable Fire is a beautiful album that's often overshadowed by the popularity of "Pride (In the Name of Love)" in much the same way as How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is by "Vertigo". But "Bad" is U2 at their most U2-ish and "A Sort of Homecoming" is possibly one of their best album openers to date. Whereas 1983's War has the intensity of songs you have likely heard, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day", one of my favourite deep cuts in "Seconds", and closes with "40" - a beautiful lament that closed out many of U2's concerts in the 80s. Both are great albums and if you've come this far, you might as well get both of them because you're not stopping now.
I don't know how you could possibly have escaped hearing the first 3 tracks. But if you're of hearing Bono wail about being with or without you, skip to "Bullet the Blue Sky" - a song that U2 has morphed and twisted over the years to serve whatever political climate they find themselves in while on tour. "Running to Stand Still" is also my favourite U2 ballad (I have a few) and "One Tree Hill", "Exit", and "Mothers of the Disappeared" is an amazing trio of songs to close out an album. You should have this album in your collection. I didn't put it higher on the list because I assumed you'd already have it. There's also deluxe and super deluxe versions of the album if you want to really hear what late 80's U2 sounded like. You know you want to hear "Red Hill Mining Town (Steve Lillywhite 2017 Mix)".
You may have heard of the musical journey U2 went on in making the documentary of the same name, Rattle and Hum is the companion live/studio to The Joshua Tree. It features my other favourite U2 balled, "All I Want is You", concert favourites like "Desire" and "Angel of Harlem", and collaborations with B.B. King ("When Love Comes to Town") and Bob Dylan ("Love Rescue Me"). "Heartland" is not to be missed and should have been included on The Joshua Tree.
It's been theorized that U2 albums come in sets of three, and if that's true then 1997's Pop is the conclusion of what the band started in Achtung Baby and Zooropa. This was the point where I remember a lot of my friend's getting off the U2 ride. Whether it was the choice of "Discotheque" for a single, along with Village People inspired music video, or the accompanying Popmart tour - a lot of my fellow U2 fans/friends at the time decided it was all too much. But there's plenty of amazing songs on this album - especially if The Joshua Tree sounding U2 is your least favourite U2. "Please" is one of the most beautiful political songs they've written. "If God Will Send His Angels" is certainly one of my favourite U2 ballads and takes me back to Christmas in Dublin when I found a copy of the single I'd been looking for. "Gone" is a screamer of a tune, especially live. I think if they'd committed all the way to the themes they started out with on the first half of the record, this could've been an amazing experiment. But it feels like they got cold feet and needed to reign in the beats a bit and have more standard U2 sounding songs.
I chose to journey back through U2 by album as opposed to picking songs you might like. And so with that criteria in mind, the rest of U2's records all have great songs on them but aren't as interesting or necessary[footnote]Feel free to argue and disagree in the comments below - just remember that I wrote this on very little sleep and kept getting pulled away to help my son puke into a bucket. We are rock and roll![/footnote] if you're trying to get your audio hooks into U2. The rest of their albums are listed in no particular order. Choose your own adventure on your U2 musical journey.
A return to form after Pop - but it left a bit of a "trying to make a popular record" taste in my mouth. That said, it's a heck of a record. "Beautiful Day" is a great song, start to finish. "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" is the brightest sounding description of depression and suicide. "Kite" is a love letter to Bono's young kids. "In a Little While" is my favourite U2 song to play on guitar. "Peace on Earth" is a beautiful companion to Pop's "Please". You won't be disappointed in the album. I was only disappointed, at the time, that they didn't continue experimenting after Pop.
This is the completion of the 2000's trilogy that started with All That You Canāt Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. In some alternate universe, I envision U2's albums released in the 2000s coming out in the reverse order and it all makes more sense to me. "Breathe", "Stand Up Comedy", and "Get On Your Boots" are fun rock songs. "Magnificent" became much better for my ears after hearing it live on tour. But you'd be forgiven if you skipped No Line on the Horizon in my books. As a hardcore U2 fan, I find it an interesting experiment - not as good as the Zooropa experiment - but still, an interesting exploration of writing and recording.
To this day, I have a hard time getting into this album. "October" is a beautiful piano ballad. "Gloria" is U2 filled with their most religious 80s rock righteousness. I know some U2 fans will flame me for it, but I just have a hard time getting into early 80's U2. #AchtungBaby4ever
Despite having slammed October one paragraph ago, I have no trouble loving Boy. If you're going to follow U2 in the 90s, 2000's, and beyond - you have to at least be willing to see where they came from. "I Will Follow", "Into the Heart", "Out of Control", and "The Electric Co." are incredible songs for a band's first album.
I don't know how universally true this is, but for bands like U2, their songs come alive in concert. Whatever the staging and production they might choose, every time I hear a new U2 song for the first time I start imagining how they might perform it live on tour. Songs that I couldn't find a place for on the album suddenly change into something I need to hear once I've heard or seen it live. On their recent 30th Anniversary Joshua Tree tour, U2 took "Exit", already a fan favourite for sure, to a whole different level with the live performance of it. So while live isn't necessarily the best place to hear a song for the first time, it's almost a required experience for me if you're saying you just can't get into U2.
...maybe, maybe too much talk. If you've read this far and have a comment on something you disagree with or maybe I've dissed your favourite song - by all means, leave a comment below. But if you're a fellow hardcore U2 fan - know that: a) I love you. You're part of my tribe. b) I think U2 is great. I love their music, their lyrics, their tours. c) As great as U2 is, I think it's fun to critique, debate, and discuss art. Which is why I have a lot of fun hosting the @U2 Podcast where we get to do exactly that - subscribe in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. d) Be polite or I'll delete your comment. If I wait a week and rewrite this, the albums would probably tumble out in a different order. The songs I like and am drawn to are influenced by what's going on in my life. U2 has influenced my faith, my guitar, my relationships, and my mind in a way that no other musical artist has. I can't wait to hear their next album.
]]>To calculate heart rate and rhythm, Apple Watchās sensor uses green LED lights flashing hundreds of times per second and light-sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through the wrist. The sensorās unique optical design gathers signals from four distinct points on the wrist, and when combined with powerful software algorithms, Apple Watch isolates heart rhythms from other noise. The Apple Heart Study app uses this technology to identify an irregular heart rhythm.
This kind of stuff, more than checking my calendar or Twitter, is what will convince me to buy and start wearing a watch.
]]>As someone who is way outside the knowledge of what's going on inside Apple, a lot of the points have a ring of truthiness to me.
Ā The Apple engineers jokingly accused one another of leaking details of their project to Amazon, then bought EchosĀ so they could take them apart and see how they were put together. They quicklyĀ deemed the Echoās sound quality inferior and got back to work building a better speaker.
I can totally see Apple mocking the sound quality of the Echo or Google Home and think that's the main selling point of a device like this. It's like they learned nothing from the iPod Hi-Fi experience. It sounded great but nobody wanted to buy an overpriced speaker Ā - no matter how great it sounded.
ButĀ the SiriĀ team was told that the HomePod was about music and quality sound, one of the people said. Yes, the speaker would be voice-activated but it wouldnāt be positioned as aĀ personal assistant.
I hope they recognize by the time it ships that the assistant is as important as sound quality.
The Echo is a truly standalone product at the center of an ecosystem. The cloud-based operating system has made it easy for developers to create thousands ofĀ skills or voice-activated apps. By contrast, the HomePod is essentially an extension of the iPhone, like an accessory. When someone asks theĀ HomePod to open a third-party app, the request wonāt go directlyĀ to the cloud, as with the Echo, but to an iPhone.
The iPhone is to Apple as Windows was to Microsoft. Maybe it's a stop-gap until these devices are powerful enough to not have an iPhone connected in some way but Apple's method of requiring everyone to have their own iPhone (or iOS device) gets in the way of a lot of opportunities.
Whatās more, Apple has limited the kinds of apps to messaging, to-do lists and notes. If Alexa is the beating heart of the Echo, Siri is almost an afterthought.
Yep.
But we'll see what the device is capable of when it actually ships in 2018.
Right now, for Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals Amazon has the Echo on for $99CDN, regularly $129. Apple's HomePod will likely be $399 - $450CDN.
This is the part I believe the least:
Ā Testers dropped the speaker from various heights and even threw it in a room with young kids.
There are no kids allowed at Apple. Nobody there in management has any idea how to build software for families.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YVQ5s6ePeI
]]>https://youtu.be/hyJbIwWma3Y
It's an interesting time for videographers where a $1,529CDN phone can compete with a $3,290CDN camera. The portability of an iPhone X alone makes it a very compelling choice vs all the gear of a traditional video camera rig.
I've been researching camera options for an upcoming project and the budget definitely doesn't allow for GH5 level gear - but $1,500 certainly would be in the ball park. This comparison video makes it compelling to just pick up an unlocked iPhone X.
Plus when they compare making phone calls, checking Twitter, or sending an email - I bet the iPhone X wipes the floor with the GH5. ;)
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvVKnC6gGtg
Overall they love the iPhone X but it's still running iOS with it's quirks. It makes me wonder if we'll ever see a dramatic change to iOS the way macOS changed from OS 9 to OS X. Phone hardware development happens even faster and at a larger scale than computer development did which must make it difficult to try and push major software changes when the hardware is what makes you money.
For me, I'm happy with the iPhone 8 I upgraded to this year. Baring any hardware issues (defects or accidents), I'm sure it'll last me 2-3 years just like my iPhone 6 did before it. I'm also fine with letting early adopters work out the kinks of facial recognition before using it on my iPhone.
]]>"Two words," Gord was saying quietly to himself. "I only have to remember two words ā First Nations." Gordās rule about a fresh performance, in this, his final performance, was based on a fresh start, a new narrative for Canada. This was not about sympathy, it was about rights. Gordās art. He was using his final show to tell us how to free ourselves from our attitudes. To change policies conceptually and financially. None of us should forget those two words. Just as we will never forget the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBnfhxvh1PE
Night takes the chances, day the applause.
]]>From ESPN's article Starcraft - The beginning of the end for legend Jaedong:
But as transcendent as his play was, he could not elude the passage of time. Now, at 27, his body is no longer capable of sustaining the prolonged physical strain of top level StarCraft. It takes only a few games for his eyes to start drying out, his wrists and fingers to start throbbing in agony.
It reads like something you'd hear about a quarterback nearing the end of their career.
For Jaedong, training has become an act of conscious self-destruction. The best doctors in the country have urged him to quit. They told him that no procedure could undo the damage done to his wrists.
If the fact that ESPN has an Esports division is surprising to you, there's a whole world of professional video game players that's slipped past your radar. From Forbes.com:
Esports is a fast-growing industry. Most think the events garner a few thousand attendees. Most would not expect them to be more popular than the Superbowl but the finale of the 2017 World Championship (IntelĀ® Extreme Masters) in Katowice, Poland just set a new record for live attendance - more than 173,000 attendees - that's about 100,000 more than the Superbowl last year.
and
The Intel Extreme Masters World Championship 2017 reached more than 46 million unique online viewers. To put that figure in context, per Nielsen, the Trump inauguration TV audience was 30.6 million.
I don't think esports is going to replace baseball on tv right away, but advertisers will follow the viewers and the money follows the advertisers.
]]>For anyone curious about how I'm collecting these: I'm just using a couple of If This Then That Applets[footnote]formerly called recipes I believe[/footnote] to collect any articles I like in Instapaper and videos I like on YouTube.
]]>"Well that was great fun. It was great fun, because it just dragged on and on and on. And it was this fun bunch of people. First we went to our friend's farm, and we all stayed at her place for a handful of days while we recorded during the day and then at night we would have these magnificent meals and we would all tell stories. We had a LOT of great food, a lot of great wine and great stories. It went on until people started literally falling from their chairs and being taken away. And then we had to go to another place and do it again, we went to George's place, but then something happen and the whole party broke up, and George said "you don't have to go, do ya" and I didn't, so we just kicked around Northern Italy for a while. It was a real fiesta. And then Wes was working in England, so I had to fly to England for like 3 days to re-record, but the re-recording only took about 70 minutes, so that was fun. And then I had to go to Paris, once again, another disaster having to go to Paris to re-record for 20 minutes. It was a terrible, terrible experience. That was a really good job and he did a great job on the film. And Wes' brother Eric did a great job as the character, he was just amazing. To me he was the high point of the whole thing. And the artisans working in England that built all those sets and did all that work, the mechanicals, to see them work - that was like a treasure. That was like getting to go backstage to see the finest artists at work."
Sounds like a fun life.
]]>]]>The door was closing on David and his family, and he had the power, the will, the soul, to stick his foot in that doorway and say, "Hell no. Iām kicking open this door. Iām going to be great."
Apple Park is transforming miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley. The campusā ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the worldās largest panels of curved glass.
It certainly looks amazing - the video showing how they attach the 5 or 6 story pane of glass to the building is worth watching.
What's most impressive, if true, is how it will be run on renewable energy and require no heating or air conditioning for most of the year:
Apple Park replaces 5 million-square-feet of asphalt and concrete with grassy fields and over 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees, and is powered by 100 percent renewable energy. With 17 megawatts of rooftop solar, Apple Park will run one of the largest on-site solar energy installations in the world. It is also the site of the worldās largest naturally ventilated building, projected to require no heating or air conditioning for nine months of the year.
I guess Apple employees don't get to fight over the room thermostat temperature.
]]>Now he's the co-founder and leader of Caffeine, a streaming service that aims to compete with Twitch and YouTube Gaming for the hearts and eyeballs of gaming nerds everywhere.
Caffeine is currently in beta - you can set up an account, like mine, for free via Twitter but you can't actually stream anything until you're approved by Caffeine. Which I'm not.
No word on how exactly they're implementing the streaming but due to the fact that using the site currently requires Chrome or Firefox, I'm guessing they're using a browser based method of capturing gameplay as opposed to using downloaded software like OBS or Gameshow.
It'll be a tough uphill fight against the big players - Twitch is owned by Amazon and YouTube is an Alphabet/Google property - but internet nerds love an underdog story and an opportunity to be an early adopter on a new platform is hard to resist.
Why be one of millions on YouTube when you can be in the top 10 on Twitch or Caffeine?
]]>These days pretty much anything I'm working on is either in Dropbox or iCloud somewhere so I'm really not too worried about recent documents/photos. It's more the stuff from 4+ years ago that I've likely forgotten about but for some reason think I might need. (I won't.)
But then I found this support article from Apple Support that details exactly what to do when you're selling or giving away your Mac.
What helped me let it go [footnote]let it go 🎵[/footnote] was Step 1: Create a backup. Of course! I have a USB hard drive that I've been backing up the iMac with for years and that has everything on it that I'll likely never need again.
The rest of the steps are important to do because they'll save you the hassle of de-authorizing your Mac from iTunes or iCloud when it's no longer yours.
Doing Step 5, Erase and reinstall OS X, properly is very important because you want to make sure your iTunes Store / App Store account is removed from the Mac completely and that whomever buys your Mac can license it under their account. Speaking from experience, it saves a lot of time by doing it before rather than trying to do it after OS X/macOS is reinstalled.
When you're choosing how to erase your hard drive, it's worth considering the Security Options in Disk Utility. If you're at all security conscious you might want to up the amount of times your data is overwritten. This option will make it more difficult for someone to try and recover your data when they've got your computer.
Update: If you've followed the steps but can't get Option-Command-R to load OS X Recovery over the Internet like it's supposed to - mine kept going to what you'd see if you held down Command (ā)-R on boot, OS X Recovery - it worked for me to try Option-Command-P-R which resets the NVRAM. It's the oldest voodoo support trick on Mac that almost never worked for me over the years but has finally paid off.
Now to sort out how much a 2007 24" iMac will sell for.
]]>Now while reading Facebook's announcement for Live Audio streaming, I couldn't help but wonder if that incident from 2015 is coming back to bite Facebook (emphasis added):
We know that people often like to listen to audio while doing other things; people using Android devices will be able to continue listening to a Live Audio broadcast even if they leave the Facebook app or lock their phones, while iOS listeners will be able to continue listening as they browse other parts of Facebook.
There's plenty of apps for iOS that can play audio in the background when you switch away from them: music apps like Spotify or podcast apps like Pocket Casts, so Facebook for iOS technically should be able to do it - but might Apple not be allowing them to do it because of past issues? Or do apps who's primary purpose isn't playing audio not get to stay in the background no matter what kind of other features they have?
Live audio/video is the next battleground for mobile apps, at least from Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Amazon/Twitch, and YouTube's perspective. As a podcaster, it's interesting to see how this will all shake out as Kyle and I and the rest of the Goodstuff.fm crew figure out where/how/why to use one platform over the other for streaming our own content.
]]>Wes Bos puts out awesome training courses for really nerdy web stuff that even I don't understand most of. And of course for someone who knows as much as he does about web dev/code magic, he doesn't just use an existing app to run the store to sell/giveaway his courses.
Watch the behind the scenes video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CS436KZ35A
]]>For all the tough guy macho talk of the NHL, it sounds like a bunch of guys who, aside from a few like John Scott, can't have an honest conversation unless it involves "brewskis" and "bar down":
The hockey world has an interesting relationship with violence. I just wish everyone would be more honest about the whole thing. My entire career, Iād always have a little meeting with the coach before the season. Those are always hilarious when youāre an enforcer. Itās so awkward because the coach never wants to say, āHey man, we need you to fight. Go out there and beat the shit out of people, alright?ā
He has ever right to be bitter at the way the Internet and the NHL ended his NHL career. But he goes out on a high note:
]]>You know, I still get chirped by people on the Internet. Theyāll say, "Youāre just a joke. You only scored five goals in your NHL career." What can I say? Youāre damn right I did.
He ends with this which is a great reminder of how so many issues in life come down to how you handle it as opposed to trying to change someone else:
]]>I feel like we all have two battles or two enemies going on. One with the man across from you. The second is with the man inside of you. I think once you control the one inside of you, the one across from you really doesn't matter.
In Facebook's Messenger app for iOS, you can choose to allow the app to use iOS' notification system to let you know when you have a new message. Simple enough.
Personally I prefer to not have most apps send banners/alerts [footnote]iMessage/Messages and certain emails being the notable exception to my rule.[/footnote] and just badge the app icon with a number when there's something to see. So this is how I have Facebook Messenger set up in iOS' notifications settings:
So my settings are as follows:
But if I look at Facebook Messenger's settings screen for app specific notifications, it shows me this:
There's a red exclamation mark indicating something is wrong with my Notification Settings. The copy below it implies that Facebook Messenger isn't allowed to use iOS' notification system.
Turn on notifications to get messages faster - even when you're not in the app
But the iOS notifications setting screen, shown above, show that Facebook Messenger does have access to the iOS notifications system - I just don't have it set up the way Facebook wants me to. I initially thought I had done something wrong with how I had it configured.
It's worth mentioning: in the list of devious things Facebook does to try and get you to use their apps more, this is pretty low on the list in terms of evil rating.
But it demonstrates to me how "confusing the user to get them to do what we want" is very much on the table at Facebook when it comes to how they design their apps.
]]>There is no way to justify spending $150 to enter Appleās TV ecosystem in the fall of 2016 on hardware alone. When Google is making a streaming UHD HDR player that costs LESS than a replacement Siri Remote, there is a problem with the hardware Apple is selling.
Our current 2nd-gen Apple TV is working fine other than the Netflix app rebooting the machine randomly. So if there was a compelling reason to upgrade to a new Apple TV, I certainly would do it.
But with most of the new features locked to the USA [footnote]Thanks Obama[/footnote] I think I might try out a Chromecast the next time Netflix boots me out of a show.
]]>]]>I don't know how to code, but I do have some design skills, and I wanted to see what it was like to create something for iOS and launch it on the App Store. So a few months ago I decided that I would make some sticker packs for iOS 10 ā and that's what I did. I brainstormed possible ideas, started designing some stickers and ultimately ended up publishing Birthday Celebration Stickers and an app bundle which included World Flag Stickers and a few other country-specific flag stickers.
The process of making and publishing these sticker packs was fairly straightforward, but I also encountered some unexpected hurdles. To help others who are excited about making their own sticker packs, I've written this guide, which I hope can make the process a little smoother.
There. Got that out of the way.
Well that's not very nice to say. The beauty of the internet and digital courses like mine is that you don't have to smell me while you watch the course so in your face!
But you bring up a valid point. Instagram did copy a bunch of Snapchat's features and doesn't want to be left out of the disappearing pictures and videos game. So...
I'm going to be putting together an Instagram 101 course as well.
Sign up here to be notified when it's ready and you'll get a super sweet 25% discount to boot. Final price to be determined but just think of it - the higher the price is, the more you'll save!
Initially I figured I should wait until the two apps just merge and become InstaSnapGramChat but that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. So onward with the course prep it is!
Questions? Leave them in the comments below, tweet it at me on Twitter, or follow me on Instagram and send me a video question there.
]]>I've relaunched my weekly newsletter and you can sign up below or at chris-enns.ongoodbits.com to get a weekly email each Friday afternoon of the interesting blog posts, articles, tutorials, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes I came across in the previous week.
I'm using a service called Goodbits that makes it super easy to build email newsletters. Eventually I'll likely roll it into a Patreon supporters only type email but for now I want to make sure it's something that's easy enough to do and maintain. So if you sign up now, you can likely-maybe-possibly [footnote]as long as it's technically possible and not a ton of extra work[/footnote] stay subscribed if I flip it over to Patreon patrons only.
But you're going to support me on Patreon right away anyways, right?
You can't record a podcast unless you have a $300 mic!
Stop paying attention to the advice from people who've convinced others to give them money for something you want to have fun trying.
You didn't take the time to polish that blog post up until it shined? Why do you even bother getting out of bed?
Don't quit! Don't ever quit! Why are you quitting after only 5 years of trying the same thing without success? Quitter!
There's plenty to learn from folks who are further up the road than you. Like where a good place to get clean water is. Where to get shelter from an upcoming storm.
But the insufferable tweets of people who have made a career out of something you love but that you don't have a career in... and maybe never will? Just tune those out. They don't help you.
They certainly don't help me.
I think they help. I catch myself believing that if I follow their nuggets of wisdom, I'll have the same success as they do. But it's just not true.
Yes - you'll have to put in hard work. Yes - you'll have to pick yourself up when you fall and try again. Yes to having to get yourself ready for if success comes along the same path as you. Yes to all the clichƩs.
But what 140 character motivational tweets leave out is all the right place, right time circumstances of life things that happened to that person. The choices they made, the companies they happened to work for, the coffee shop they chose to go to where they happened to meet their partner.
I remember hearing Marco Arment, a developer and podcaster who's internet famous in some tech circles, talk about his career path. [footnote]I can't find the exact podcast episode where he talked about it. Might have been Build and Analyze?[/footnote] After college he ended up getting a job with a small startup called Tumblr in New York. If I remember correctly, initially he was the only employee other than the owner. While there, Arment developed Instapaper and eventually quit Tumblr to go full time on it. He's since gone on to have many other successful apps and a top rated podcast. And along the way, Tumblr was sold to Yahoo for a couple bucks so anyone, like Arment, with shares in the company, benefited a bit.
Lots of people read his blog and listen to his podcasts ā and rightfully so. He's a pretty smart guy. But what would have happened if he got rejected by Tumblr? [footnote]I have no doubt that Arment would have found some success somewhere along the way. He has a lot of raw talent, drive, and skill that would have served him well no matter what.[/footnote] Maybe he ends up being employee #32 at some IT Tech Support Co?
The point isn't where Marco Arment would be in some alternate timeline. Nor is it that you shouldn't listen to him if you like, respect, or love his work.
It's to encourage you (and me) to stop trying to follow someone else's path when the path has changed in the time since they walked it. Times have changed. Way more people have a podcast. Nobody reads blogs anymore. Snapchat is the new Instagram is the new Tumblr is the new Geocities. [footnote]I may have skipped a few things along the way there.[/footnote]
The voices you think are encouraging you and giving you advice? They might just be the voices that are holding you down.
You get the idea.
If you genuinely miss their voice in your life, you'll find them again.
But maybe by cutting that noise out of your life for awhile, you'll find you have a few extra moments in your day to think about that hobby you're starting. You might not feel so depressed that you don't have the same mic they do. Or the same camera. Or the same theme on your blog.
And, more importantly, you might find your own voice that's been stifled by the noise.
]]>Blizzard gamers will be able to login with Facebook so they can easily find friends to play with and share in-game content back to the News Feed. Thanks to the Facebook Live API, that includes live-streamed footage of them playing. Facebook users will be able to watch their gamer buddies battle monsters and compete for glory while leaving real-time comments.
We'll see how well the somewhat anonymized streaming that Twitch players do compares to sharing your live game stream with your uncle on Facebook but it's pretty brilliant on all sides: more content for Facebook which keeps people logged in longer and easier connection to your friend/social graph for streamers.
Facebook will have to play catchup to Twitch, which has spent years honing its player-picture-in-game-footage-picture video streaming and its live chat. The dedicated interface, ad and subscription monetization options for video creators, and thriving community of gamers will be tough to match.
Except they won't. Because none of the player-picture-in-game-footage-picture video streaming is done by Twitch. That's all done on the player's end ā Twitch / YouTube are just the rebroadcaster of whatever the player is sending back to them with apps like OBS, Wirecast, or Gameshow.
Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of neat stuff that Twitch enables it's creators access to via APIs so you can have video overlay of new followers, etc. But that's a software problem Facebook Live can solve pretty quickly and happens to have a lot of experience in.
What's cool about all of this is the power is in the hands of the creators. A popular show on Twitch can move to Facebook Live or YouTube Gaming and, for the most part, the viewers will follow.
I've long been excited about video on the web. Next to "this is the year of Linux on the desktop", "this is the year of video" has been the second most over-hyped event. But really. This could be the year of video.
]]>It's difficult to overstate how much of an impact Achtung Baby has had on my life. My friends introduced me to U2 through playing Unforgettable Fire, Rattle and Hum, and Wide Awake in America during high school but it wasn't until Achtung Baby was released and I discovered the corresponding tour VHS in an borrowed apartment I was in that summer that I got hooked on U2 for myself.
It was actually seeing what the band looked like that did it for me. To that point I'd only seen photos on CD covers. The opening mix of horns, tribal drumming, noise, and static that lead into "Zoo Station" was so intriguing to someone raised on Christian pop and rebelling with straight ahead Guns 'n Roses rock 'n roll. I loved the theatrics of it all. Macphisto and "The Fly". Embracing what it meant to be a rock star when every other band was headed into their grunge period.
After seeing the concert, I had to have the album. And then I had to have all the albums.
I'll save a track by track review for the podcast where we'll be doing album-by-album episodes. But if I had to pick a favourite track, I'd pick 2 because it's my blog and you can't make me pick just one: "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)" [footnote]It's hard to say if the recent live versions of Ultra Violet haven't influenced my love for the song but so what?[/footnote] and "Tryin' to Throw My Arms Around the World". I can honestly put on any track from Achtung Baby and want to start singing along and/or grab my guitar and play along but those two are my favourites to crank extra loud.
This was supposed to be just a quick link post pointing you to Achtung Baby but I guess I had a little tribute of my own to get out.
I'll leave you with a beautiful solo version of "Love is Blindness" from the documentary From the Sky Down released in 2011 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Achtung Baby's release. Go buy Achtung Baby if you don't already own it. You won't regret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12d-5Azr6PI
]]>-> Skip all the babble and go buy the course right now if you want. <-
https://twitter.com/iChris/status/388703009460322304
(Technically that was from 2013. But I was just being sarcastic.)
I was intrigued.
The more I played with Snapchat - you can follow me if you already know how to use it - the more I found it to be a fun little playground for photos and videos. The less serious I took myself, the more fun I had with it.
When I would tell friends about it they would typically react with either:
It was the folks who were genuinely afraid of accidentally sending a picture - naked or otherwise - out into the world that got me thinking. I've been wanting to put something together that I could sell to try using Gumroad for and love teaching and educating people on tech. So I thought, why not put together a course on how to use Snapchat?
Thus Snapchat 101: The Why, How, and WTF of Snapchat was born.
Snapchat 101 is going to be 8+ videos walking you through how to get started using Snapchat as well as show you things you might not realize you can use the app for. Snapchat has a fairly confusing UI - deliberately so - and so my course will help explain what buttons do what and how to have fun using Snapchat.
If you pre-order right now before it's launched on Friday April 15th, 2016 you can get it for $5USD. It'll go up to $7USD once it's released. [footnote]As this is my first time releasing a product like this, I'll be playing around with the pricing going forward. On the one hand $7 for an hour of video training is pretty inexpensive considering how long it took me to put together. On the other hand - people on the internet don't like expensive. I'll be blogging/podcasting my adventure along the way. [/footnote]
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below or on Twitter. If you want to forward the course on to someone you think might like it use this link: https://gum.co/snapchat101. And thanks so much for sharing it!
]]>Well if anything was going to bring me out of blogging retirement, it would have to be more Star Wars.
I hadn't read or heard much about Rogue One and just assumed, because of Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels that Rogue One would also be a cartoon series.
So I was really pumped to find out that (a) it's live action, and (b) it's a full blown movie set in the Star Wars universe.
...the film will revolve around a rogue band of resistance fighters who unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans and bring new hope to the galaxy.
Can't wait for December 16th, 2016.
]]>]]>Testing out a Shure MV51 in place of my usual Heil PR40.
What I'm trying to accomplish is this:
All at the same time.
If you check out my Twitch channel, you should be able to see a few videos there showing what I mean. I seem to have gotten the first 3 items working ok - it's just when I add in an audio call with someone that it breaks down. The audio call works fine and I can hear them, they can hear me. I just can't get their audio to be piped through to OBS and out to Twitch/YouTube.
Hopefully someone can chime in in the comments below with some suggestions. Or let me know if you have questions about using OBS, Audio Hijack, or any other streaming on a Mac issues. I might not get my issue solved but at least we can help each other figure this stuff out.
]]>One unspoken objection to raising the minimum wage is that people, other people, those people, will get paid a little more. Which might make getting ahead a little harder. When we raise the bottom, this thinking goes, it gets harder to move to the top.
After a company in Seattle famously raised its lowest wage tier to $70,000, two people (who got paid more than most of the other workers) quit, because they felt it wasnāt fair that people who werenāt as productive as they were were going to get a raise.
They quit a good job, a job they liked, because other people got a raise.
This is our culture of āgetting aheadā talking.
Rather than being happy with what you have, you waste energy and time getting upset that someone else might have gotten something.
Why are humans so awful?
]]>]]>Every so often, a friend asks me for iOS game recommendations. I scramble around to see what I currently have installed on my phone, and invariably end up neglecting to mention one of my favorite games.Ā I thus give you the definitive list of iOS games that I think are worth playing.
Notably, since the event happened in Berlin, those finals took place at an absurdly early hour of the day for those watching in North America. That didn't stop 36 million total unique viewers from tuning in around the world, a number that Riot calls "a record-breaking high for any esports event." It also represents an increase of nearly 10 million unique viewers from League of Legends' 2014 World Championship.
Check out the photo of people watching a video game:
For reference, Super Bowl 2014 had 111 million viewers.
]]>...today itās launching Boomerang on iOS and Android. Itās a dead-simple app where you shoot a one-second burst of five photos that are turned into a silent video that plays forwards and then reverses over and over in a loop.
Source: Instagramās New Standalone App Boomerang Captures 1-Second Video Loops | TechCrunch
You can download Boomerang for free in the App Store.
]]>I've played a few of these, heard of most of them, and would likely love all of them. How about you?
This is a new version of Minecraft that's a stand-alone adventure game, unlike the regular Pocket Minecraft for iOS. It's an attempt to capitalize on the popular Minecraft game by selling something new to all the current users of Minecraft without making them buy a new game like Minecraft 2.
Broken Age is a family friendly, hand-animated, puzzle-filled adventure game with an all-star cast, including Elijah Wood, Jack Black and Masasa Moyo.
Phileas Fogg has wagered he can circumnavigate the globe. Hundreds of journeys, thousands of routes. Travel by steamer, express train, airship, hover-car, hydrofoil, gyrocopter, camel, horse-back, hot-air balloon.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is an indie adventure video game created by Superbrothers and Capybara Games, with music by Jim Guthrie.
I love the style and design of this game.
The primary character in Limbo is a nameless boy, who awakens in the middle of a forest on the "edge of hell". While seeking his missing elder sister, he encounters only a few human characters who either attack him, run away, or are dead.
I've played the demo for this game on Xbox 360 and loved it but just haven't plunked down the money to pick up a copy yet. For extra bonus points, listen to The Short Gameās episode on LIMBO.
Implosion puts you in the role of Jake, a hotshot young mecha pilot who is one of a group of humans that fled Earth in the wake of a global disaster. An incident has brought Jake and his team back to their home planet, where they'll square off against a strange life form known as the XADA. The fate of the entire species is at stake, naturally.
I've never seen this one but it looks like a great run-around and destroy aliens action game.
Don't Starve challenges the player to survive in a wilderness environment for as long as possible. In Sandbox Mode, the only way the game ends is with the player's death or by restarting the game in a new random world through the use of the Wooden Thing. When the player dies they are awarded Experience for the number of days they survived.
Sounds fun.
App Store Editor's Choice! Space Age is a game of cosmic adventure. Set in the retro-futuristic sci-fi world of 1976, it follows a small but determined band of intergalactic explorers who land on a seemingly uninhabited planet, Kepler-16.
I was actually part of the beta test for this game. It's a fun retro style return to the adventure games I used to play like Police Quest / King's Quest.
Players communicate with the main character, Hope, through their phone or computer, in order to help her escape. The player controls surveillance cameras in the fictional totalitarian state of RĆ©publique in order to monitor Hope's actions, as well as hack into various electronic devices.
I've just realized I have this one on my App Store account - maybe a Starbucks free game? - so now that I have an iOS device capable of playing it I'll have to give it a try.
You control E and CASI, a human and robot respectively, unwitting partners who get tangled up in a big conspiracy involving an alien race, some shady characters, and a giant robot overlord AI. You'll be using each character's abilities to navigate the world, acquiring new abilities and trying to accomplish your current goal, which keeps changing depending on the story. There are plenty of weird, squishy aliens to encounter along the way, though.
The game is inspired by letters written during the Great War and has four characters on the battlefield help a young German soldier find his love in this story about survival, sacrifice and friendship.
Just based on icon artwork and screenshots, this one looks like a lot of fun.
Oceanhorn focuses on a boy protagonist's quest to find his lost father and defeat the sea monster Oceanhorn. The gameplay and graphic design of Oceanhorn closely follows that of The Legend of Zelda video games, notably The Wind Waker and A Link to the Past. Players explore dungeons, fight monsters with various weapons, and throw pots and cut bushes to find hidden coins or hearts.
Grim Fandangoā'ās world combines elements of the Aztec belief of afterlife with style aspects of film noir, including The Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront and Casablanca, to create the Land of the Dead, through which recently departed souls, represented in the game as calaca-like figures, must travel before they reach their final destination, the Ninth Underworld. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to save Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a newly arrived but virtuous soul, during her long journey.
I played this way back when it first came out and couldn't get through it. The artwork and styling is so good that it makes me want to go back and try again. Extra bonus points can be had by listening to episode 40 of The Short Game.
The player takes control of a spider whose primary goal is to survive by spinning webs and eating insects. At the same time, the player can explore the manor, searching for secrets and clues. The aim in each level is to eat a certain amount of insects. At this point, a portal to the next level will open, although the player can remain in the level and eat the rest of the insects if they wish. Insects include, but are not limited to, moths, crickets, ladybugs and wasps. Hornets are unique in the game insofar as they cannot be caught in a web. Instead, they must be attacked directly by jumping into them.
I've never heard of this one.
Story mode with one free episode and additional episodes for in-app purchase. I love the tv series, I'm enjoying the books. Maybe I'll like the iOS app as well?
So that's the list Apple put together - what do you think of their choices? Is there better ones missing?
]]>Chris answers viewer questions about his latest video and how he designs patterns for his videos.
Check out my new Patreon video! And I test out a new audio dingus called a Fethead to boost the signal, baby!
I'm here to talk about one specific point of contention I keep seeing pop up. Currently the Wacom Cintiq is regarded as the pinnacle of professional drawing stylus/surface design. A lot of hesitation (or dismissal) of the Apple Pencil seems to stem from people's belief that Cintiq is superior in performance and design at a similar price.
She tweeted a Tl,DR; version of her article:
https://twitter.com/lindadong/status/642027709497868289
]]>https://twitter.com/iChris/status/641311009823674369
On Wednesday, September 9th 2015 Apple is reportedly presenting their new vision for what the Apple TV hardware and software will be. As usual, rumours are swirling about what apps will be available - Twitter is rumoured to be working on a version of Periscope for the new Apple TV - but what I was drawn to immediately was the games that would work with the new remote they're allegedly building for it.
Games are fairly universal. Features like "NFL Football" and "HBO Go" for Apple TV in the past are tied to licensing contracts primary based in the USA. But games [footnote]...as well as apps in general but for the purpose of this article, I'm just talking games.[/footnote] don't have that problem. A popular game on the App Store can be available around the world within days - not years like music and TV based apps.
The most profitable iOS game based on my random viewings of the top paid apps [footnote]top free apps are a different category. Free often have in-app purchase so it's a different kind of market.[/footnote] over the last year or so has got to be Pocket Minecraft. It's $7.99 and rarely goes on sale but is consistently in the top 5-10 apps on the paid chart.
So if Apple is hoping to bring developers over to their new Apple TV platform, you'd think Mojang (developers of Minecraft) would be on the top of their list.
Except that Microsoft bought Minecraft last year.
So I'm guessing we won't see Minecraft for Apple TV on stage tomorrow, nor launch day of the new Apple TV. But I'm sure that Microsoft won't want to turn down potential revenue to pay back their Minecraft purchase, nor will it likely be all that much work for developers to deploy to the Apple TV since it'll likely be structured a lot like the existing iPhone and iPad platforms for developers.
So Minecraft for Apple TV will come but it'll come later. For now, keep crafting on your iPhone, iPad, PC or Mac, or Android tablet.
[gallery link="none" size="large" ids="22461,22462,22463,22464,22465"]
]]>So when Apple announced a 3 month trial and subsequent pricing for their new Music streaming service, I started thinking about whether it would be worth it for me and my family to use it beyond the free trial.
Here's where I'm at currently with my iTunes music collection.
One important detail, as we'll see later with Apple Music, is what happens if you stop paying for your iTunes Match membership:
Any songs youāve upgraded or downloaded again are completely safe. The only thing you lose is the central storage ā iCloud will no longer stream or download matched or uploaded songs to yourĀ devices.
So as long as you download all your songs to iTunes on your Mac, your songs are yours for as long as you have a computer capable of playing MP3s.
Apple Music is $9.99/month but in order for both my wife and I to be able to use Apple Music on multiple devices at the same time[footnote]On the non-family plan, if you start playing Apple Music from another device, it automatically shuts off whatever device is currently streaming music.[/footnote] we'd have to pay for the family plan which is $15/month.
Let's break out the calculator.
Whew. Math is hard.
That $180/year gives you access to almost any music ever made in the history of the world. You get curated playlists made by smart people at Apple Music, access to social connections to artists and friends, and the freedom from ever having to worry that you don't have a copy of Bob Marley's Greatest Hits album for the beach[footnote]Provided that there's a decent internet connection at the beach.[/footnote].
The key difference between Apple Music and iTunes Match is that if you stop paying for Apple Music, all that music is gone. You no longer have access to any of the music.
What if instead of streaming music, you bought it? (Gasp!)
The cost of an average album on the iTunes Music Store is $9.99. So instead of paying for Apple Music what if you just gave yourself the freedom to buy an album - or individual songs adding up to as much as $15 - a month?
After a year you'd have 12 new albums of music that you owned.
Any month that you didn't buy an album, you'd have an extra $15 in your pocket to spend or save.
I love the idea of a streaming music service where you can play anything and everything, depending on your mood. Discovering new music without worrying about buying an album that sucks is great. I've had lots of fun listening to albums on Apple Music that I wouldn't have otherwise bought.
What I don't love is the idea of putting money into something and then having nothing to show for it when I stop paying. [footnote]You could compare it to renting a house vs buying. However, mortgages and interest rates are not part of the Apple Music experience. Yet.[/footnote] I'm fine with paying $8/month for Netflix and with the knowledge that if I stop paying for Netflix, I can't watch anymore. But somehow music feels more important than that to me. Digital vs "real" CDs doesn't bother me. I don't care if it's on my computer or on a physical disc spinning in a record player. I want the freedom to be able to stop paying and still enjoy the music I love.
We'll see what happens in 2.5 months when the Apple Music trial runs out, but I think we'll stick to the old fashioned way of owning our music and running it through iTunes Match. I'm guessing that as part of the negotiations with the music labels Apple had to promise to retire iTunes Match at some point in the future. At which point we'll likely hop on the Apple Music bandwagon.
]]>Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.
It's a beautifully cut trailer. And I appreciate that they aren't trying to tell his whole life story - focusing instead on his fall from and eventual return to Apple.
]]>The Edge talks about how he uses Garageband as a sketchpad along with loops put together by U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. to mess around with ideas - and eventually putting them together with a different set of lyrics by Bono than what they had originally recorded.
From what I've read and seen over the years, it's a fairly common process for how a U2 song is put together - pieces are moved from one idea to another, lyrics are rewritten, solos redone. I don't think U2 gets enough credit for the care and attention to detail that they put into songs and the subsequent tour. As I discussed with Matt McGee on Daily(ish) #105, they don't just put together a greatest hits song list for their tour - each song is put in it's place with lots of thought.
]]>As an iTunes Match subscriber, I wasn't sure how Apple Music would work alongside/in place of iTunes Match:
]]>Why would you choose iTunes Match rather than just subscribe to Apple Music? Math, my friends: iTunes Match is just $24.99/year, while an Apple Music subscription runs you $119.98/year. If streaming all of Apple's music collection doesn't appeal to you, but having on-the-go access to your full music library does, iTunes Match appears to be a good alternate option.
We have a bit of a crisis in our home and we need your help.
Turns out [footnote]"Turns out" is always to be read in Merlin Mann's voice on this blog.[/footnote] that Apple thought musicians, writers and artists would go along with Apple and forgo revenue for three months - the "we're all in this together" mentality. Which I don't completely disagree with. Apple's coming up with a way to hopefully sell more music, why shouldn't artists share a bit of the risk for potentially more income down the road?
But I also believe that a multi-billion dollar company like Apple can afford to pay artists - especially when keynote after keynote the corporation stresses how much "music is in Apple's DNA".
Over the weekend, Taylor Swift [footnote]Here's a link to her music on iTunes in case you're not familiar with her work. [/footnote] wrote a letter to Apple, titled To Apple, Love Taylor:
I'm sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I'm not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.
and...
But I say to Apple with all due respect, it's not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don't ask you for free iPhones. Please don't ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.
The letter was published Sunday morning. By Sunday evening, Apple had responded:
https://twitter.com/cue/status/612824947342229504
https://twitter.com/cue/status/612824775220555776
I still maintain Apple should have just done this from the beginning. I have no idea what 3 months of streaming all the music in the world would cost but I'm sure it's less than a billion dollars. Of which Apple has more than 100 of those billions, reportedly.
Regardless - the smartest thing Apple did here is respond before Monday morning. The first thing people could have read Monday morning might have went something like:
Taylor Swift fights for artists right to get paid against the greedy corporate Apple overlords.
While that will still be part of the story, the net result is a positive story for Apple Music. Apple does good by artists and unlike other streaming services, will pay artists for the free tier.
Apple Music is talked about for another news cycle in a more positive light. Pretty cheap marketing for Apple.
]]>Update 2015-06-30: I upgraded to iOS 8.4 today and am still seeing the same issue. Now up to 363 Items to Upload.
I've gotten the "iCloud Photo Library Has Not Updated in x Days - Connect to WiFi to update." error for, as of this post, 21 days. And of those 21 days, I've been on WiFi pretty much non-stop.
That this official error message doesn't show up in Apple support anywhere [footnote]At least in my Googling it doesn't. I'd love to be proven wrong here.[/footnote] likely means very few users are experiencing it - or that they're not vocal enough to Apple about the error.
Things that could be going on:
Or any number of other things could be happening but there's no way to know because "It Just Worksā¢" so why bother exposing more detailed information to a user for troubleshooting, right?
So for now I'm stuck seeing that wonderful overlay once a day reminding me to get on WiFi and the constant status update at the bottom of my iPhoto library reminding me how many photos aren't actually backed up to iCloud. [footnote] 104 items to upload as of this post. [/footnote]
]]>https://vimeo.com/130116799
From the demo video it looks like Cameo has an interesting take on editing clips. Zooming in on a clip and editing it directly looks much easier, particularly on a iPhone-sized screen.
9 times out of 10, I just do quick edits on movies in the built-in Photos app and then occasionally fire up iMovie for something with multiple clips. I usually forgot to use other apps to be honest. But Cameo looks like a good option to keep handy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-SvVf5BFWw
Editing this video was pretty quick and easy with Cameo. My main frustration with the app is the inability to add/edit still photos to your projects like you can with other video editing apps like iMovie.
]]>Matt McGee from atu2.com joins me to talk about U2, the current Innocence and Experience tour and how being a fan of a band has changed over the twenty years since he started atu2.com.
Chris Pratt (Parks and Rec, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World) and Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed, Jurassic World) talk with Chris and Matt about what they think of Back to the Future 2, how life has changed for Chris since losing weight, and how social media changes the way actors are perceived.
If you follow my tumblr you'll know I'm a big Chris Pratt fan. There's a great story about how the movie studio basically required them to have Chris Pratt's character say something in the trailer that he doesn't say in the movie.
]]>30 minutes later I have a clearer picture of what this game actually does. Taken by its individual parts, it's nothing particularly outlandish. It's a space-exploration game with heavy resource-gathering elements. But taken as a sum of its parts, it's a game that demands attention and, still, expectation.
No Man's Sky, along with Star Wars: Battlefront, are enough reason to have me pining for a Playstation 4.
From where I sit on my couch playing video games once a week with my kids, Sony seems to have won E3 this year.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=174&v=Seyn4vaEq0U
]]>"El Capitan." Should make for some fun podcasting discussions this year.
Both will be free updates and both will apparently run on all the same computers/iOS devices that the current versions run on. This is good for developers selling apps that will continue to run on all the devices out there and good for users who won't get left behind and feel the push to upgrade.
The main marketing reason given for it is the increased performance and optimization of the operating systems but it does make me wonder whether this is really all that much of an upgrade without any huge features to promote - shaking your mouse to find the cursor is hardly a big new feature - but I'm personally fine with Apple slowing down on the feature bullet points in favour of getting the current features working better.
Aside from a few minor roles or third-party companies' reps, there hasn't been any women presenting on stage at an Apple keynote. It wasn't so clear[footnote] Obviously one guy doing all the presenting is still 100% male.[/footnote] when Steve Jobs was alive because he pretty much did all the presenting - but in the Tim Cook era where he has VP's present their area of responsibility, it's been a completely male. Monday saw a shift with two women presenting. Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, and Susan Prescott, vice president of product marketing, presented on Apple Pay and the new News app respectively. Read more at The Verge.
It was a great start to what will hopefully be a continuing trend of including more non-white, non-dude people in important positions at the world's leading tech company.
To be honest, I'm really curious to see how Spotlight has been improved. I like the direction Apple is heading with trying to make Spotlight something you turn to instead of Google.
iOS 9's best new features seem designed to strengthen the iPad - the News app and multitasking for example - and I could see myself moving to a iMac on my desk at home for podcast/media production with the current iPad model as my mobile device instead of a MacBook Air.[footnote]It's close. But not quite there yet. Web/development work on an iPad is still not where it needs to be for me but that's only going to get easier in the future.[/footnote] Federico Viticci has been iPad only (mainly?) for a while now and posted a great look at iOS 9's Multitasking on the iPad. If he can run a massively successful website/company from an iPad now, I think the future is bright for iPad in the office.[footnote]...or coffee shop... or beach... or whatever you call an office these days.[/footnote]
Proactive Assistant looks neat but I'm guessing doesn't get a lot of use outside of power users - at least in this year's version.
The new keyboard, with trackpad like support on iPad, looks great. Especially that the shift key UI has been fixed.[footnote]Our long niGHtmarE is ovEr.[/footnote]
The battery life improvements and space-saving enhancements should be a welcome improvement - especially for anyone on older iOS devices or 16GB storage based devices.
Exciting if you're excited about the Apple Watch.
Apple's bet on not needing personalized data on you - as opposed to Google who's taking everything it can from and about you - is going to be an interesting decision to look back on in a few years. Will Google's approach of better services because of knowing everything about you win over Apple's attempts to keep your private stuff private.
I don't think this part of the keynote was as bad as the internet thinks it was. When I watched it Monday night I had prepared myself for a gong show but the only part I found painful was Drake's part where he rambled about nothing. If he had gotten up and shown how he was able to publish with Connect through Apple Music, that would've been interesting and relevant at WWDC. But everyone could see he was just "insert_celebrity_first_name_here". The segment went long, certainly. In 2015 nobody is amazed that you can stream any song on the internet anymore. That was neat back when the iTunes Music Store was announced in 2003.
Beats Radio should have just been a press release announcement when Apple Music debuts. I think 24/7 live radio on your iOS device is neat - but I don't think it's worth taking up time at a developer conference.
The pricing is where Apple really nailed it I think. $9.99/month for one person or $14.99/month for up to six people in a "family" plan. Adding in a 3 month free trial makes it simple for people to try it and get hooked and then not really want to turn it off.
I'm a bit unsure of how iTunes Match - $25/year - fits in alongside Apple Music. I don't have a problem with Apple charging for services but with iTunes Match, iCloud and now Apple Music all potentially taking their cut it adds up each month.
My reaction to almost everything else is probably coloured by the fact that there was nothing announced about the Apple TV. I was excited about the various rumours I'd read about what Apple could be doing with their little black box of a hobby but when nothing was even mentioned about it I was disappointed. If Apple was going to announce an SDK so developers could write apps for a new Apple TV, the Worldwide Developers Conference seems like a great place to do that. Which could mean that since nothing was announced, we're not going to see anything for a year besides a possible incremental update to the Apple TV.
As we saw with Apple Music, Apple doesn't hold too rigidly to the idea that WWDC is only for developer focused announcements or that developer focused announcements can only happen at WWDC. Apple will change the script and schedule if it's in their best interests or serves the product they're announcing more.
My bet is that a new Apple TV will be released this year - but they'll likely wait until the fall/pre-Christmas buying season to get it out.
In a nice surprise, John Gruber had Apple's VP of Marketing on a special live edition of The Talk Show Tuesday night. It hasn't been released yet but it was a great follow-up to the keynote. While there's only so much Schiller is going to be able to talk about, Gruber job of pressing him on some developer and user issues with Apple.
https://twitter.com/iChris/status/608469884591349760
]]>]]>The game, which is listed as being an early access title on Steam, is single-player only right now and has you exploring the brick world and unlocking new discoveries "from cowboys and giraffes to vampires and polar bears, to steamrollers, race cars, and colossal digging machines!"
It's the first romantic ballad about incest in Coldplay's career.
https://youtu.be/zs7xO5P3Az4
Game of Thrones: The Musical. For Red Nose Day on NBC, Coldplay and the cast of Game of Thrones join forces for the band's most important project yet: a musical for HBOās Game of Thrones.
Some possible Game of Thrones spoilers in here.
]]>Bono also addressed criticism that the move contradicts his history of charity work. He insisted: "Because you're good at philanthropy and because I am an activist people think you should be stupid in business and I don't run with that." The Edge added, "So much of our business is outside of Ireland so it is ridiculous to make a big deal out of it."
Source: NME News Bono on tax
I get why people like to argue about what a rich person does with their money - but when we have almost no idea of where their money is spent and what percentage of it is given away, why bother wasting time on it?
]]>Interestingly, it turns out that many, many of the decisions Iām a part of day-to-day and week-to-week rate pretty low on the scale. Itās rare that I find myself beyond a five, which is probably right. Someone said to me once: if everything is an emergency, then nothing is. Similarly, if Iām a ten-out-of-ten on every single decision Iām ever a part of, how can anyone know or trust me when I say somethingās very important to me? Having an internal barometer for whatās important and whatās less critical is incredibly useful for helping others trust your responses to ideas and proposals.
Source: The Sliding Scale of Giving a F**k
So much time in meetings is wasted on things nobody really cares about.
]]>But in a brief period of questionable judgment yesterday, I impulse-bought the new MacBook, which I call the MacBook One.1 My theory was that I could use it for roles in which Iāve failed to use iPads because they donāt work for me: writing and email around the house or in bed, and bringing on most trips that wouldnāt involve Xcode. It would be my iPad Pro. Iāve been waffling for years about finding a cheap 11-inch MacBook Air to serve this role, but I didnāt want a non-Retina machine.
Source: Mistake One ā Marco.org
I've tried the new MacBook in a store and I didn't mind the keyboard and trackpad - but that's quite different from day to day use. I'm disappointed to hear how slow it is.
]]>Aaron’s only 6 episodes in to his new podcast Lore - a bi-weekly podcast about the history behind scary stories - but his attention to all the details of producing a story-driven podcast has resulted in unexpected but well deserved attention and popularity.
This episode of Show Me Your Mic is sponsored by:
I really enjoyed this conversation with Aaron - all the more so because we set up the interview 5 minutes before it happened so I had zero prep time and we just talked. Sometimes that works out great, as with this conversation.
]]>It's worth noting that the group's innovative new sound system, which utilizes a series of speakers hung from the ceiling spread evenly throughout the venue, sounded absolutely amazing. Just about every other live act in history simply stacked their sound equipment nearĀ the stage and blasted it out across the entire house, almostĀ deafening a chunk of the crowd in the process. This new approach results in far a cleaner, crisper, significantly less abrasive acoustics. It deserves to become the new standard.
Source: U2 Reinvent the Arena Show at Triumphant 'Innocence' Tour Opener | Rolling Stone
Just experimenting with the newish WordPres bookmarklet. It works about as well as the tumblr version which is a good start. I wish it could grab a featured image automagically like the Tumblr dashboard version does.
]]>]]>A new āStar Wars VII: The Force Awakensā trailer has appeared! And, as was fated, we are here to deconstruct it within an inch of its life. Dark Side IKEA end tables! John Boyega quotes us the odds! Bespoke evil ships! And is that a glimmer in your eye, or just some lens flare? Plus we give some love to BB8, everyoneās favorite robotic soccer ball.
Vader, Luke and great reveal at the end. Nerds around the web are tearing up. Best Christmas present ever.
]]>I love me some Apple stuff as much as the next Apple nerd. But I'm really not sure about the watch. Reviews are trickling out and it seems mixed. Is this the next iPhone or the next Newton?
Technically I am my boss. But how would I tell myself if I'm not doing a great job if I asked myself for an evaluation of my abilities? Chris Coyier gives a great response to a reader's question in "I Don't Like Our Company's Process. How do I Tell My Boss?"
If Facebook.com is too much Facebook for you, you might be interested in the news that Facebook Launched Messenger for Web Browsers.
I'm curious how much Zuckerberg paid for Messenger.com.
More and more of the internet is being viewed on mobile. There's a good chance you're reading this on your iPhone, Android tablet or Blackberry... thing?
Speeding Up WordPress with Image Optimization contains a bunch of tips for minimizing, optimizing and smush'izing your WordPress blog.
Apple released an update for Yosemite, 10.10.3, with a brand new Photos app that Apple hopes will crop iPhoto from your memory. I've been testing it on the beta version of OS X for a month and I think it's an improvement - particularly with iCloud Photo support.
There's also an iOS update for your iPhone or iPad - iOS 8.3 - that has emoji updates, wireless CarPlay and space bar UI fixes. My thumbs are too fat and frequently mash the space bar when I meant to hit a letter C. Your mileage may vary.
One final iPhone tip from David Sparks: If you have any contacts with extensions in their phone number, David's got a magical way to make your iPhone behave using a simple semicolon.
Star Wars is finally making it's way to iTunes. To digital. At $24.99CDN each, itās not cheap to pick up the entire set. Are you going to dress up as Luke to line up in front of your computer to buy it?
Mallory Ortberg ends this edition of the newsletter with Reasons Why She's Furious With Everyone Today.
And now I'm going to go eat my apple.
If you've started using the new Photos app for Yosemite and you have a slighter older Mac, you may notice your fans spinning up and your computer getting hot even though it seems like you're not actually doing anything.
As best as I can figure out, the culprit seems to be the syncing service running in the background to keep your Photos.app in sync with what you have in iCloud Photo Library.
I believe "cloudd" is responsible for all iCloud syncing, including the possible thousands of photos being flung from Mac to iPhone to iCloud. "com.apple.photos.VideoConversionService" is likely doing exactly what it describes - any videos that aren't in a compatible format for iCloud are being converted in the background while you're trying to get other work done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYLFDJCp3MA
The blessing with Apple's iCloud syncing system is that it's all behind the scenes and there's nothing to configure beyond checking a box and signing in with your iCloud account. The curse is that Apple's iCloud syncing system is all behind the scenes and there's no way to know if it's going to be done soon or way to pause it and restart later like you can with a service like Dropbox.
I'm sure syncing is especially rough right now as millions of people are all throwing their photo libraries at iCloud at the same time. The scale of it is impressive, scary and interesting.
With iCloud Photo Library there's one less thing to worry about backing up if you switch to a new Mac - now you can just sign in and your photos are all there ready to keep using. As long as Apple keeps building data farms to keep up.
]]>Agilebits recently added the ability to use their app 1Password, which many Mac users already use, to generate and store 2FA related passwords. TJ Luoma at MacStories wrote a detailed tutorial on switching to 1Password:
If you have been using Google Authenticator or Authy for two-step verification (ā2FAā for short), you may have wondered whether you should switch to 1Password, now that it offers the same functionality. You may have wondered how much of a hassle it would be to change from one app to another, and if it would be worth it. If that describes you, well, then youāre in luck, because I just completed the switch and Iām here to report my results.
I'll be switching to 1Password going forward with 2FA passwords.
]]>The 5th season of Game of Thrones is right around the corner. Here is an animated map that explains what happened in the last season and and where every character is right now.
Obviously this is heavy on the spoilers if you haven't watched/read Game of Thrones.
]]>So if you were holding out waiting until Star Wars came out on digital, you're welcome.
At $24.99CDN each, it's not cheap to pick up the entire set. You can buy the entire set on blu-ray for $105CDN so it's frustrating that with digital, we're paying more instead of less. Less packaging, less boxes to ship, less trucks to pay for delivery and yet we're paying almost twice as much on digital.
Apple's put a bundle of all 6 together: Buy the Star Wars Digital Movie Collection for $125CDN.
Order the other three at your own peril.
It's not a huge surprise that these came out now given that episode 7 is being released in December, 2015. It still boggles my mind that there's a new Star Wars coming out in my lifetime. And that it might actually be good.
]]>
I'd like to apologize for the way I've been acting. Work is very stressful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=37&v=BabsgCQhpu4
Major spoilers. Poor Jon Snow. So dark.
]]>It's almost time to go back on Twitter. What should my first tweet back be?
I hadn't heard about an iOS app coming - but maybe they've talked about it on Twitter during my absence - but they dropped this tease in their recent email newsletter:
All the SXSW love we got for Letterboxd from both filmmakers and fans was encouraging and has us working harder than ever on the forthcoming Letterboxd appā¦ because we know you want it, and we want to get it really right for you. We can tell you that weāll be launching on iOS first, and below weāve included a little peek at a couple of screens (no promises these wonāt change before we ship though).
The site works ok on mobile but an app will definitely improve the experience.
]]>Leslie Camacho, one of the hosts of The Marriage Startup podcast - a podcast that looks at the struggle to keep home life in balance when work seems like it is your life.
We talk about recording a podcast with your spouse, how to set aside time to make it happen, boundraries for talking about family while still being open and interesting, and besides the usual podcast suggestions we get into some board game suggestions as well.
]]>I heard someone once say there comes a day when they tell us all that we canāt play anymore. Weāre not good enough. Surplus to requirements. Too slow, maybe. When youāre a teenager with outsized dreams and a growing obsession, and someone tells you this aināt gonna last forever, itās scary. I never forgot it.
Periscope is an app that basically does the same thing and was just released, also for iOS only so far. Twitter bought the app before it was even released.
The battle for the live stream has begun.
Fire up the app, launch the camera, and the app tweets out a message (if you want it to) that you have gone live. Simultaneously, a notification fires off ā with that little look-at-me whistle ā to everyone following you on Periscope. As they join in, they can comment on what youāre doing. And because it has super-low lag time ā or latency, to use the term of art ā people watching can comment on your actions more or less as they happen. It means that people watching the video can change the course of whatās happening.
I just tried it out for this post and got 10 random people, none of whom follow me on Twitter to my knowledge, watching me do basically nothing.
The app allows you to save your video locally afterwards - because I know I'll want to re-watch that amazing footage over and over - as well as store it on the app in the cloud for people to be equally as excited by the amazing video you shot.
Ultimately I think the live video streaming idea will adopted by other companies - Facebook no doubt is already working on something - and it'll become as normal to live stream your lunch as it is right now to put a picture on Instagram.
[gallery type="rectangular" link="none" size="large" ids="22282,22283,22284,22285,22286"]
]]>The successor to Wing Commmander, a game I spent many hours in flying a virtual spaceship trying to save the galaxy, Star Citizen is a commercial calibre game crowdfunded to the tune of $70 million currently and potentially reaching $100 million in 2015.
I remember the world feeling so huge and alive back in 1990 in Wing Commander. Star Citizen looks incredible:
https://vimeo.com/73365240
Charlie Hall over at Polygon has a great write up of getting his first kill in Star Citizen:
I'm watching the Hornet's shields fail on my HUD and suddenly, brutally, the Gladius launches a single missile right up its tailpipe. It's highlighted by a spinning triangle on my screen and it bears down mercilessly on the Hornet and detonates just as the pilot is pulling back on the throttle to dodge an asteroid. The Hornet cartwheels twice before it slams face first against the asteroid and breaks up. The light around it on my HUD winks out.
Awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZLbb0_RBI
Better start saving my pennies.
]]>Periscope, Twitter's new live video streaming app is out. Should you use it? What could you use it for? The answers may surprise you. More after the jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPHMiQ0PZmY
Inspector Gadget is back and must face his old enemy, the evil Dr. Claw, who has reactivated M.A.D., his global crime syndicate.
Netflix is hitting that sweet spot of shows for parents (i.e. House of Cards) along with kids shows that those same parents will enjoy - or at least tolerate.
]]>Today weāre announcing Layout from Instagram, a new app that lets you easily combine
multiple photos into a single image.
The app I was occasionally using for this purpose was last updated for iOS 6 so it's good timing for me.
It makes sense to not put this inside the existing Instagram app - people are searching for a layout/photo arranging app anyway. Might as try and keep them inside the Instagram ecosystem rather than using a 3rd party app and hope they remember to post back to Instagram.
As with Hyperlapse, Layout by Instagram is available for iOS first in the App Store, apparently available on Android in the coming months.
]]>It's hard to overstate how bad and corny Batman Forever and Batman & Robin were. Only time will tell if Christopher Nolan's trilogy stands up better.
Via Polygon.com.
]]>Apparently not, based on "Roadhouse2"'s review:
No banjo. That is all I hear about the new album. I fear it is more then the banjo that is lost here. Now, I can appreciate Mumford wanting to expand and grow, but they may have strayed too far away from what made them stand out of crowd and have entered the tired, boring recycled sound that permeates the airwaves these days.
That's after hearing 1 song. Out of 16 on the album. Tread carefully ye banjo lovers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6SkvErFEE
Pre-order Wilder Mind on iTunes:
]]>As for the new Apple TV box itself, expect an updated design and new innards: the companyās latest A8 system-on-chip ā or a variant of it: a dramatic increase in on-board storage to accommodate app ā well beyond the 8GB in the current device; and an improved operating system that will support Siri voice control of Apple TV, and enable it remotely for a selection of Homekit-enabled home automation devices...
Via Daring Fireball.
]]>Although AdwareMedic functions somewhat like anti-virus software, itās important to understand that it is not anti-virus software!
and further down:
Using AdwareMedic will not prevent you from being "infected" with adware again in the future. For that matter, neither will using anti-virus software; only a change in your online habits can keep you safe.
If you think you've got some Adware [footnote] Adware is any software package which automatically renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author. [/footnote] on your Mac, Adware Medic is free to download - donations accepted.
]]>Take command of a fleet of powerful starships in this adventure-driven strategy game from legendary designer Sid Meier. Travel to new worlds, completing missions to help save and protect the planets and their people from dangerous Space Pirates, to powerful Marauders and other hostile factions. Build a planetary federation as you strengthen your fleet and secure your homeworld as you attempt to preserve intergalactic peace and your vision of humanity.
Sid Meier's Starships is $16.99CDN on the App Store and it's also available on Steam for Mac and Windows.
Reviews available at:
]]>Chris has a big announcement to make, email newsletter pricing, being a pack rat, and how easy it is to do advertising on Facebook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSTmkvn060E
]]>]]>I want to be healthier, I want to eat better, and I want to take the second chance I was given and make the most of it. What started as an experiment has become a new daily commitment to improve my lifestyle and focus. And it wouldn't be possible without my iPhone.
If you're curious about my thoughts, you can listen to Tim Smith and myself discuss it on yesterday's Goodstuff Specials episode. The tl;dl [footnote]Too long, didn't listen[/footnote] version is this:
Are you going to order an Apple Watch?
]]>In Firewatch, you play as a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, itās your job to look for smoke and keep the wilderness safe. Your supervisor, a woman named Delilah, is available to you at all times over a small, handheld radio ā and is your only contact with the world youāve left behind.
Check out the first 17 minutes of gameplay on IGN to get a taste for it - but it reminds me of playing Police Quest/King's Quest games from Sierra back in the day, only with modern graphics and mechanics.
On Panic's blog they show the incredible detail they went to in order to promote the game at the recent Game Developers Conference.
Firewatch is slated to be released in late 2015 for Mac/PC.
]]>Personally hoping for updated Retina MacBook Air models.
]]>They come to the conclusion that for a certain genre of app on the App Store - productivity/tool apps - it's not sustainable for developers. If developers can't make money, they won't be able to continue developing. Period.
There's some interesting factors that affect developers inability to make money on the App Store:
Gruber and Kafasis started their discussion with the fact that Gruber's app, Vesper, is raising it's price instead of dropping it. And Gruber, in an interview with Jason Snell for SixColors.com, calls on to other developers to join them:
Instead, we want to embrace the users who are looking for the best app, and who are willing to pay a fair price for it if they think Vesper might be it. Going low didnāt work; we lose nothing by trying to go high. I would like to see other developers follow.
I'm all in favour of developers raising pricing for quality apps. You don't have to be a professional software pundit to figure out that $0 for software isn't sustainable as a business model - even with crappy ads thrown overtop.
Until Apple figures out a better way to search the App Store though, cheap apps will always rise to the top. Hopefully some of Apple's recent hires, such as former Mac journalist Chris Breen, point to a more curated App Store.
In much the same way as I rely on blogs and the people I follow on Twitter to point me towards great apps, the average App Store user needs help sorting through the millions of apps to find the best ones in whatever category of app they're searching for.
If you're at all curious about the history of the iOS App Store, you should listen to Myke Hurley's excellent series starting with episode #27 of Inquisitive: Behind the App. Even as someone who was around during the unveiling, it's amazing how much has changed in what feels like a relatively short time.
]]>A brilliantly reported, compellingly written book that overturns the conventional view of Steve Jobsāthe Jobs that is frozen forever as half genius, half jerkāBecoming Steve Jobs answers the central question about the life and career of the Apple cofounder and CEO: How did a young man so reckless and arrogant that he was exiled from the company he founded become the most effective visionary business leader of our time?
John Gruber's review of Becoming Steve Jobs could not contrast more with his review of the Walter Isaacson biography: [footnote]Thanks to Kari and Megan for their help with this sentence.[/footnote]
The book is smart, accurate, informative, insightful, and at times, utterly heartbreaking.
And
The book is an accurate, engaging retelling of the known history of Jobsās life and career, but also contains a significant amount of new reporting. There are stories in this book that are going to be sensational.
It's too bad the promotional website looks like it was built in iWeb, but that's no reason to avoid the book.
Myke Hurley is back on the show to talk about Relay.fm and the new version of Inquisitive he's recently launched that's telling the story behind app development on iOS.
Want to be on a future episode of Show Me Your Mic? Book here!
If you don't tweet about a podcast, does anybody hear?
Follow up on European VAT and Gumroad saving the day, heart and stress issues, and the story of Sam's Make a Wish trip.
What's it like to unplug from Twitter for awhile? And where do all my thoughts go that would otherwise have gone out via tweets?
Clarification on what I meant by giving up Twitter for Lent in yesterday's episode. And arguments about podcast listening speed.
As I said in the episode, I'd like to think that I'll podcast more and spend the time I would've spent on Twitter in deep, contemplative thought about life and what it all means - but I know it'll be just as easy to fill that void with other distractions if I'm not careful.
Are you giving up anything for lent? Or maybe just stopping something for a period of time to evaluate what effect it has on you?
]]>(Swear words ahead)
Sites like Patreon are, in my opinion, the way forward.
Don't just leech! Give back to the artists, video makers, podcasters, writers, painters, etc. that you love, enjoy and appreciate. They are not getting rich off of the likes, views, reblogs and favs you bestow upon them and if you want them to be around to keep making the stuff you enjoy watching, listening, looking at or whatever they need your help.
]]>Justin's been a frequent guest on Goodstuff shows and is always entertaining. He's done a great job of giving advice on setting up a podcast - I particularly dig his use of his family to give perspective on what he's trying to do. Something I'll have to try and incorporate more on Daily(ish) if my family is willing.
]]>Tyler Stalman joins Chris Enns to talk about his podcast Cameras or Whatever as well as the internal video podcast he produces for his day job. Find out about Tyler's claim to podcasting fame and how Chris and Tyler justify their PR40 purchases.
Bill Wadman joins me for episode 19 and we spend a bit of time talking about his photography business and the gear he uses for that before getting into a discussion on his podcast ā On Taking Pictures. We talk 5by5, live streaming, and workflow of producing a two person photography podcast.
https://twitter.com/mikeyReiach/status/559524967990034433
In my previous post I didn't go into much detail about where and why you'd host your MP3 files for your podcast.
I firmly believe if you're going to make something a serious hobby, you shouldn't feel bad or afraid to put some money into it. But you definitely don't have to - particularly if you're short on cash.
If you've got an existing web hosting plan for your podcast's website (I love A Small Orange - affiliate link) you can host your files from right inside your WordPress media uploader or via FTP. As I said in the earlier post, you want to make sure it's ok with your hosting company but if an episode of your podcast is going to be downloaded under a 100 times - my first podcast series was downloaded ~15 times per episode - most hosting companies won't get too worried.
It's not ideal in terms of download speeds for your listeners but again - we're not worrying about all that fancy stuff now, right?
The next step would be to use a dedicated podcast hosting company. Libsyn has a $5 plan that you could actually run your entire podcast and website off if you really wanted to. I'm personally not a huge fan of how their websites work and prefer to host the website elsewhere - see my tutorial video on how to get a website set up on your own domain - but again, if money is tight then $5 a month is a cheap way to start your podcast.
The way Libsyn's storage amounts work is this: you upload a 40MB podcast file to Libsyn. That file counts against your storage for the next 30 days. After 30 days if you've uploaded nothing else, you go back to having your full storage amount.
TL;DR: Every file only counts against your storage for 30 days.
You can add a $2/month upgrade to your account to get basic stats for your podcast. This helps give you a more accurate idea of how many downloads your podcast is getting. Not completely necessary unless your vanity requires you to check stats two to three times a day. Speaking for a friend who does that it's completely normal and healthy. Really.
I want to mention that my favorite WordPress podcasting plugin has a hosting option. I haven't used them so I can't speak to how good/bad/ugly they are - their pricing seems a bit higher than Libsyn but price shouldn't be the only reason: being able to upload right from your WordPress post entry screen would be very handy. And they apparently support automated ID3 tagging so you wouldn't have to use a separate app (iTunes, ID3 Editor) to add metadata to your MP3's before you upload.
Definitely worth checking out.
Squarespace can take care of both your website hosting and your podcast file hosting - depending on the plan you choose - all in one place. They prepare an RSS feed for you that you can submit to iTunes and have a great looking MP3/media player for your website. The $8/month plan gives you 2GB of storage which should be more than enough room for a starting podcast. (For example: A recent episode of Show Me Your Mic is 72 minutes long and just over 41MB. That would give you approx. 40 episodes of storage on the $8/month Squarespace plan.
On episode 69 of my podcast Show Me Your Mic, my guest Tyler Stalman talked about how he uses Squarespace to host his podcast but incorporates Podtrac to get stats on downloads.
Squarespace allows you to make great looking websites without a lot of hassle. Which, if your goal is to start podcasting, I'm all for things that make everything else you do easier and less of a hassle.
The quick answer: what's right for you. Don't stress it too much because listeners don't care where your show is hosted as long as they can listen to it.
The longer version: Personally my recommendation is to grow your hosting plan as your podcast grows. As long as you keep a copy of your podcast episodes somewhere locally - and even if you don't, it's easy enough to subscribe to your own podcast and download them all again - you can upload them and redirect feeds to wherever you move your hosting to. So start with hosting it whatever web host plan you have and then as your needs and listenership grow, move along. As long as you register a domain name (included with A Small Orange or Squarespace sign ups) people won't have to even know where your podcast files are actually hosted - and won't care.
As long as they can listen, they could care less about whether it came from Libsyn, Squarespace or webhostingcompany.xyz.
I've settled on Libsyn for my personal podcast stuff. At Goodstuff we use Amazon S3 primarily because we have a custom CMS that needed API hooks that S3 provides. Or some other fancy technical words that I don't understand.
If I was on my own and starting out again, I'd take a serious look at Blubrry. The fact that you don't have to edit metadata is a huge time saver - but your mileage may vary.
Feel free to leave a comĀment below or ask me on TwitĀter if you have speĀcific quesĀtions and Iāll do my best to answer all quesĀtions in a future post or a video.
]]>Podcasting post follow-up and bedtime routines.
Talking about family breakfast routines and how ours just changed. What breakfast routines do/did you have with your family?
]]>Today on Transmission: Come here Max - we're answering your questions today, I want my lightbulbs to act as one, Someone spent Dr-Evil-level money in NY, Nerf guns are cool again, The plumber who became self-aware, GARCO is becoming more like us, We play some sort of song challenge, and more.
It took all my effort to not just sit and giggle the whole time. I think I did ok.
]]>https://twitter.com/rsmith/status/558080081718157314
As with most things podcasting, there's a ton of plugins for WordPress to use. What I've settled on is using the Blubrry PowerPress plugin:
Blubrry PowerPress brings the essential features for podcasting to WordPress. Developed by podcasters for podcasters, PowerPress offers full iTunes support, Web audio/video media players, exclusive subscribe tools, podcasting SEO features and more.
Once you activate PowerPress on your WordPress install - subscribe to my YouTube tutorial series if you want to see how - PowerPress has a great walk through on getting all your details written in so that your podcast can be ready to be submitted to iTunes.
Hosting your podcast media files on your WordPress install is ok at first but I'd really recommend investing in some sort of media hosting platform - Blubrry's looks great but I haven't tried it yet. Libsyn is a service I do use and works great.
As with the earlier post, I'm glossing over a bit of the details here so I don't get lost in the weeds.
Update: Ryan had a follow-up question that I felt was worth adding in here:
https://twitter.com/rsmith/status/558648180229668866
Two reasons: One is certainly bandwidth concerns. Each web host will respond differently to having a 50MB - 100MB file being downloaded by a whole bunch of people. Hosts like Libsyn or Blubrry are set up as content distribution networks (CDN for techie nerds) specifically for podcast - fast downloads or streaming of your podcast to your listeners is important. Just like you don't want to wait for Netflix to catch up, you don't want your listeners to have to wait.
The second reason is stats. This assumes you're at least as vain as me (...pause for a moment while I go check the stats on my podcasts... Ok, I'm back.) and want to know if anyone is listening. It also helps if you should ever want to pursue sponsorship for your podcast - potential advertisers will want to know accurate download numbers.
This isn't a requirement when you're just starting out, but it'll help when you get further down the road. Do you want to spend a couple bucks on your podcasting hobby or just keep it all cheap/near free? It's up to you.
At Goodstuff.fm we use iTunes as our primary focus but we've had good success with podcasts being featured in podcast apps listing services - i.e. Pocket Cast - but we're also playing around with Stitcher and iHeartRadio. Still too early to tell if it's worth it.
I love podcasting and think it's a vastly under-utilized medium. I'm taking on clients to help them get started using podcasting - contact me if you're wanting one-on-one help with any aspect of podcasting.
As I said the first post, feel free to leave a comment below or ask me on Twitter if you have specific questions and I'll do my best to answer all questions in a future post or a video.
]]>https://twitter.com/rsmith/status/557979289967001600
I've got a tutorial series that will cover starting a podcast in the next few episodes and I'm perpetually working on a PDF of my advice to give to folks but in the meantime... Ryan needs an answer!
What follows is a fairly high-level look at getting started in podcasting. Feel free to leave a comment below or ask me on Twitter if you have specific questions and I'll do my best to answer all questions in a future post or a video.
I run a podcast network, have recorded 200+ episodes of various podcasts and once even wore matching socks. I also record a podcast called Show Me Your Mic where I've talked to 60+ podcasters about how and why they podcast.
My first bit of advice is to not buy anything. Try a recording with Garageband. Or fire up QuickTime and start a new audio recording:
Hit record. Talk through a pretend script of your amazing new podcast (here's my notes for a recent Daily(ish) episode to use as a guide if you want). Then press the play button. Do you like your voice? Is it painful or fun to hear your voice back? You're going to hear a lot of it when you edit, publish and promote (if you want) your podcast.
Assuming you don't hate hearing your own voice enough to move forward, here's what I'd recommend. The gear you buy now is not the gear you have to use forever. Just like guitarists and trumpet-ists (??), there's always going to be better gear on the horizon. Start small and grow. You can always sell your old gear to someone else who's just starting out when you upgrade.
Remember - you're just starting out. Don't worry about that $350 Heil PR40. Start with something that won't break the bank without giving you decent audio quality.
Audio-Technica ATR2100 Amazon link / B&H link
Technically you can use your Apple ear buds to listen back. But you're better off getting some sort of over the ear, noise cancelling headphones so you can know whether what you're hearing is coming from the mic/recording or just outside noise.
Sennheiser makes a set that Dan Benjamin of 5by5.tv recommends Amazon link / B&H link . I use a pair of Sony something or others I picked up for $80 5+ years ago.
At this point, unless you're an audio nerd, you likely won't be able to tell much difference between different headphones.
Editing software is helpful for adding intro/outro music, editing out flubs or boring sections of discussion or adding in a sponsor message after you've recorded your podcast. As with everything else, there's a progression in both cost and complexity. Choose your own adventure.
Macs come with Garageband which has grown increasingly hostile towards the simple act of recording a podcast. But it is powerful enough to edit and produce a podcast. I'd recommend starting with Audacity and work your way up.
If you plan to interview/chat with people over the internet, you'll need to grab a piece of software depending on whether you want to use Skype or FaceTime:
Call Recorder allows you to record the person you're talking to on Skype on one track, and your own voice on the other track. This means you can take each audio track into your audio editor of choice from above and adjust levels independently. If both you and your guest are on the same track, its much harder to edit out your guest's cough while you're in mid-rant about mismatched socks.
Skype is by far the most commonly used service for podcasts. It has it's flaws and issues - I don't know if you can call yourself a podcaster if you haven't sworn at Skype at some point - but it's what we're stuck with. It's available on Windows and Mac and most people have an account already.
FaceTime can work in a pinch and especially if you're dealing with someone who's not at their computer and has an iPhone/iPad that they can call you with on a decent internet connection.
I haven't talked about things like how to actually use any of the gear, software or how to actually get your podcast audio from your computer out to the thousands millions of people who want to hear your thoughts about mismatched socks. You'll need:
I love podcasting and think it's a vastly under-utilized medium. I'm taking on clients to help them get started using podcasting - contact me if you're wanting one-on-one help with any aspect of podcasting.
As I said at the beginning of this "quick" post, feel free to leave a comment below or ask me on Twitter if you have specific questions and I'll do my best to answer all questions in a future post or a video.
]]>Testing out Audition for this episode - can you hear me now? And I have a special assistant helping out on this episode.
(Edit: I should add that the rest of the episode is a great discussion of the struggles Apple is facing with keeping up software support on the Mac and iOS.)
Iām not at all worried about my business or profession. It just sounded odd coming from two very creative people. People I generally respect. To hear your profession and business mocked so soundly hit a bit of a nerve I guess.
Replace web design with iOS app design and would it be the same giggle? I realize neither John nor Marco make their money by developing iOS apps for clients. And I'm sure they're smart enough to recognize the value of having a professional involved in creating a website in some (most?) situations.
Maybe the web design profession has gotten smeared with a similar brush as the SEO world where a bunch of bad apples who make a quick buck off uploading a theme to WordPress, copying and pasting in a bit of content, and then are never heard from again.
For the record, I have no problem recommending Squarespace to potential clients when it doesn't make sense for them to hire me. It's an amazing platform that's really powerful, really well designed and works great right out of the box.
I just think you could do a better sponsor read that didn't involve mocking something. Talk about the benefits and positives of a product or service.
But then what do I know from sponsor reads? I'm certainly not charging $4k/episode for sponsorships.
]]>See Obi-Wan is playing the long con. Sure he's old and can't do it, but with the right manipulation he creates a guided lightsaber wielding missile aimed straight at the Vader.
Pretty good theory for what Obi-Wan was doing hanging out in the desert from someone on Reddit.
]]>Check out a quick video of how it works.
It's almost something they should just enable by default. I could see clients/users I interact with enjoying it but not likely to find it or even use it because it sounds "fancy" to enable a distraction free writing zone when you're just updating the company blog about a new widget that's on sale.
But it works for that level of writing just as well as it does for long form, thought-leader thought-pieces like what you'd commonly find on Medium.com.
I'd suggest you click the little expander "X" thing above your WordPress content block and try it out.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOVFvcNfvE
Direct link to video on YouTube or on Appleās trailers site.
I agree with Michael Lopp:
]]>The Millennium Falcon is all I needed to see. Iām hooked.
https://youtu.be/nj23dwWHukY
]]>Batman travels to the Death Star in the most epic episode of Super Power Beat Down of all time!
Space Age is a game of cosmic adventure. Set in the retro-futuristic sci-fi world of 1976, it follows a small but determined band of intergalactic explorers who land on a seemingly uninhabited planet, Kepler-16. They soon discover thereās something both strange and familiar about this alien placeā¦
This is one of the few times I get to actually say "I've been testing this for a few weeks now and it's great" because somehow I managed to get an invite on to the Space Age beta and play through it a bit - up until I upgraded my phone and was no longer a novelty user running an iPhone 4 AND partially colour blind. Plus it's set in the year I was born. So there's that.
I only played through the first two levels but can definitely say it's a blast to play. The storyline of the game is fun to get into and the nostalgic 90s style game play is lots of fun. Neven Mrgan and Matt Comi, the developers of the game under the company name Big Bucket Software, do such a great job of mining nostalgic elements while still keeping the game modern with gameplay elements, flow, style and user interface.
If you like this style of game, you should check out their previous game, The Incident (iOS App Store, Mac App Store).
Pick up Space Age for only $3.99 in the App Store. Pairing your iOS device with an AppleTV and putting it up on the big screen via AirPlay would be a great way to play it.
They're apparently working on a Mac version of Space Age as well.
You can also pick up the soundtrack for the game in iTunes - Space Age (Original Game Soundtrack) by Cabel Sasser - if you need more 8bit tunes in your life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UInnWBuryf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPw_om8yly0
[gallery link="none" ids="22145,22146,22147,22148"]
]]>https://vimeo.com/110309983
Via @rands.
]]>Then today Shifty Jelly updated Pocket Casts to version 5 and it became my slightly more favourite'er (it's a word ok) iOS podcast player.
Then we noticed that not only was Transmission, Kyle & Kenny Roderick's awesome podcast, featured heavily throughout the website and app, they also used a hint of Show Me Your Mic's artwork on their blog post announcement:
Maybe someday I'll become blasƩ about seeing my podcast show art pop up around the web, but that day is not today.
After you've set up Pocket Cast on your iOS device of choice, be sure to check out their web app at play.pocketcasts.com.
By the way, here's a few things that are new in Pocket Cast 5:
āWhen you are dying, you need to be told how loved you are.ā
Yesterday an honour guard solider was killed in my country's capital city, Ottawa.
The soldier's name was Nathan Cirillo. The name of the coward who shot him in the back while guarding The National War Memorial is not worth repeating. The coward was later killed by the sergeant-at-arms.
It's so senseless and random. I don't understand how someone can make the choice to end another human being's life.
]]>The problem is under iOS (iOS8 too), the share sheet upload option apparently compresses the footage more than using the native YouTube Capture or Vimeo apps for iOS. But if you just go grab the video clip in your Camera Roll and try uploading to YouTube it doesn't have the slow motion "effect" applied.
I started by putting the slow-mo clip into iMovie for iOS, turning on the fade-in/fade-out options, choosing a theme which adds background music and then saved it back to the camera roll. Slow-mo settings still intact.
Then I used the aforementioned YouTube Capture and Vimeo apps to upload to each service.
Which service does a better job of compressing/presenting the video? (YouTube ads notwithstanding. I pay for a Vimeo Plus account for client videos.
https://vimeo.com/106834891
https://youtu.be/U_Ff6HHQBFU
Make sure the "HD" option is set.
Can you tell the difference?
]]>The band is ā rightly ā proud of its latest work, yet the backlash didnāt go unnoticed. āItās like everyoneās vomiting whatever their first impression is,ā said Clayton at one point, bemused rather than self-pitying.
]]>"If you give something away to 500 million people, I suppose at least three people are always going to complain," he told the Diary.
There's an interesting tidbit at the end of the article:
He (Jim Sheridan) is also in talks with American station HBO about making a small-screen version of his Oscar-nominated movie In America, telling the story of struggling Irish emigrants in New York.
In America (Rent/buy on iTunes) is one of my favorite movies. My love for all things Irish notwithstanding, it's a beautiful film with a great cast including two real life sisters playing the little girls in the story.
An HBO series based on the story would be great.
]]>Link-bait title notwithstanding, Chris talks a bit about how success is perceived in our culture and his own struggles with running a business and the successes and failures along the way.
I ended up revealing more of my own struggles/issues with deciding to run a business than I had intended to on this podcast. This is me - warts and all.
]]>iOS 8 will be released sometime today - a few thoughts and a word of warning regarding iCloud Drive.
]]>Chris is joined by Christopher Schmitt to discuss the recent U2 album release in depth - the way it was released by Apple, the backlash online to getting a free album and our thoughts on which song to listen to if you want to go beyond the single.
Curious about my thoughts on the new U2 album? Go listen and you'll get to hear it well before I manage to finish writing it for a blog post.
]]>Yes, the deal is real. Mojang is being bought by Microsoft.
And why Microsoft?
There are only a handful of potential buyers with the resources to grow Minecraft on a scale that it deserves. Weāve worked closely with Microsoft since 2012, and have been impressed by their continued dedication to our game and its development. Weāre confident that Minecraft will continue to grow in an awesome way.
Notably Notch and the other 2 founders of Mojang are not going to be staying with Microsoft for the transition.
As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, Iāll probably abandon it immediately.
Reading his post he seems to be someone who's struggled with the success of the thing he worked so hard to create.
It's a situation many of us who count ourselves as creator nerd types can only wish we could be in but I have no doubt that the stresses, worries and pains are just as real as someone struggling to get their creation off the ground.
Hopefully Notch can find some peace and privacy now that he's not associated with Minecraft on a day to day basis.
You can be sure that Tim and I will be talking about this on Never Dig Down tomorrow.
]]>We talk about Adam's vacation, explaining things to kids but of course spend the majority of the episode talking Apple's recent announcements. Stay tuned to the end for our own special TIRP announcement as well!
]]>Follow #AppleLive on your hashtag tracking application of choice. I'll be setting up a Geocities page to monitor any mentions of @Cue, @pschiller, @tim_cook and other Apple executives.
Yours truly,
Professional Live Blorging Admin Chris Enns, esquire.
What was really exciting and surprising for me was the fact that U2 performed at the end of the keynote. They performed a new song, The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone), and announced that they were giving away their new album to all iTunes account holders. Go here to get it for free via iTunes.
Shipping their new album through iTunes to 500 million potential listeners is a big deal. To put that into perspective, 'No Line on the Horizon', U2's previous album, sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S.
The album will be available to everyone who doesn't have an iTunes account in mid-October:
On Oct. 14, the 11-song āSongs of Innocenceā will be released (including a deluxe version with four additional tracks) through other physical and online retailers. The album was recorded in Dublin, London, New York and Los Angeles, and produced by Danger Mouse and other producers.
Exciting times ahead if you believe Bono the salesman:
Weāre collaborating with Apple on some cool stuff over the next couple of years, innovations that will transform the way music is listened to and viewed. Weāll keep you posted. If you like Songs of Innocence, stay with us for Songs of Experience. It should be ready soon enoughā¦ although I know Iāve said that beforeā¦
I love the brutal honesty/vanity/everything in the last paragraph:
I hope after listening to our new long player a few times, youāll understand why it took so long. We really went thereā¦ itās a very, very personal album. Apologies if that gets excruciatingā¦ actually, I take that back. No apologies if it gets excruciating. Whatās the point in being in U2 if you canāt go there?
Gotta go back and listen for the second time and see what grows one me.
]]>I wish I could say more... so I will. My thoughts on Apple's special event tomorrow including new iPhones and wearables of all sorts.
Listen to episode 34 of Daily(ish) on Goodstuff.fm
Interested in supporting my podcasting efforts? Visit my Patreon page for details.
]]>With the release of the most recent episode (embedded below or watch on YouTube here) series creator Anita Sarkeesian has been receiving all sorts of nasty threats and comments from scared little men/boys:
Since the project launched on Kickstarter way back in 2012, the gaming community has been treated to an incessant, deeply paranoid campaign against Tropes vs. Women generally and Sarkeesian personally. This includes a flood of violent comments and emails, videos documenting ways in which she's not a "real gamer," a game in which you can punch her in the face, and a proposed documentary devoted to exposing the "lies" and "campaign of misinformation" from what is, again, a collection of opinions about video games. Also, now, she's apparently spent the night with friends after contacting law enforcement about "some very scary threats" against her and her family.
I cannot fathom how one human being can think it's a rational response to someone's video on YouTube to threaten said person's life and their family. It's one thing to disagree vehemently and get angry and shout "you stupid head" at person in a comment box.
But to be so threatened by a woman's opinion about video games. That's some serious crazy.
You can combat the crazy by donating to Feminist Frequency or watch the series and like/share it to provoke some discussion among your gamer friends.
https://youtu.be/5i_RPr9DwMA
]]>Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro:
Whether youāre a professor sending out your lesson plans, a musician creating and sharing your new composition, or a consultant writing and refining a proposal, Dropbox Pro provides a home for your passion and creativity. Today, weāre making that home even more powerful and roomier!
The big news for most folks is the $10/month plan now includes 1TB of space. Other new features include:
Check out Dropbox if you haven't already started using it for backing up, sharing and storing your important documents.
]]>Adam and Chris fly without Tim again this week and talk Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Soundcloud and the best way to thank someone for something online. And of course we mention The Intellectual Drinking Game built by Kyle Roderick.
]]>My Goodstuff co-founder Adam Clark was nice enough to have me as a guest on his podcast, The Gently Mad:
Adam is joined by fellow podcaster and Goodstuff co-founder, Chris Enns. They discuss, of course, podcasting, how Chris came to be a blogger and podcaster, and his web business, Lemon Productions.
Adam does a great job of making his interviews less interview-y and more conversational. I had lots of fun being on the other side of the mic, so to speak.
]]>Great looking game that's coming soon from the makers of The Incident (Mac App Store, iOS App Store). I love the retro look and sound of Big Bucket Software's games - simple and pleasing yet still having a lot of depth and care to the gameplay. And on Space Age an interesting looking story to boot.
Sign up to be notified when it's released at SpaceAgeapp.com.
]]>My wife opened up the activity log and began cross-referencing the log in times of the various children with the what we believed was the time of the attack.
Then read this.
Interrogating your child is a novel experience, and we have many models in popular culture to inform us. I was surprised at how exquisite the parallels were. I could practically see the pattern of light from a lone and swinging phantom bulb.
I love reading about how nerds have to navigate the parenting waters together on digital platforms and playgrounds that are no different than the real ones at the park.
I have an angry rant in my head pointed at people who give me that "someone spent how much time playing a dumb video game to build a stupid house?" whenever I mention Minecraft but I'll save that for a future Daily(ish) episode I think. Swearing in audio is much more fun than swearing on a blog, right?
For now I'll leave it with Tycho's well written thoughts:
]]>Minecraft is a game, and this game has rules. You can give those rules more or less weight. But it is also a one to one model of people and actions. Which means that, among other things, they can learn about being human.
]]>This week, we have the guys over at The Dirt: Tim Wright, Mark Grambau, and Steve Hickey. The Dirt is a UX podcast that covers design, user experience, and their take on the latest tech news. We talk about the personality of a podcast and company, creating timeless content, and some really awesome virtual mixing.
Chris talks about his new video for mini-top hats in Steampunk style, Chris talks about his new Patreon patrons and they compare notes on mutual in-laws.
Be sure to listen to Chris' reaction to hearing the new intro muzak.
]]>A half hearted Patreon campaign and a new podcast network launches on the internet.
]]>Let's call self-driving cars what they really are - autos.
What to do in a future where most jobs are humans need not apply?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Via Twitter tweets.
]]>Tim's away so Chris lets Adam get some Mad Men off his chest. Anchorman 2 review in a bottle. We talk listening to podcasts, reading PDFs (READMILL 4ever!) and how we get over creative funks.
]]>Talking about shuttering SSKTN.com the domain and the mixed emotions associated with it.
]]>Iād really like to thank all listeners, guests and fans of SSKTN whoāve supported me and the podcasting I do over the years. Without having you tuning in, downloading and listening each week it goes without saying that I would have given up on this little hobby a long time ago.
With all my podcasting efforts being poured into Goodstuff, it's fairly obvious that something had to give with SSKTN. I still like the domain name and want to use it for something at some point in the future.
But for now, it'll be a simple landing page and redirecting service.
]]>Adam Lisagor of Sandwich Video was a skeptic, like many are when introduced to the idea of using Slack at their business. When he came around he wanted to make a video to help share the Slack love.
Slack:
We tried to get Adam and the Sandwich video team to make us a video. They didn't want to because "products like that never work". Six months later, they were using it. Seven months later they were in love. A month after that they were shooting this video ā¦
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zVzWU95Sw
So many great little touches in the video.
]]>]]>There will be much celebration, in the coming weeks and months, of Robin Williamsā life and career. But perhaps the best tribute to him would be if we all reached out to the troubled people in our lives and let them know that we are here for them.
Nicholas Young runs The Machine, a podcast network based in Chicago. We talked about the shows The Machine produces, how he got into podcasting and the gear he uses to produce podcasts. Be sure to listen to the Auxiliary episode for a discussion on storage/hosting.
]]>We've spent lots of money, lots of time and lots of energy in creating Relay FM. It's ours. We've molded it with our own hands; what it is and what it becomes is up to us and our amazing hosts. Relay is a labor of love, and I think it shows.
We just want to become the place you think of when you want to listen to some cool, interesting and fun shows. I want you to be able to see a show on Relay FM and know that it's going to be good. That's what we strive for every day.
In as much as someone might think a new podcast network would be bad and add competition to what Iām working on, it's really not the case. Podcasting needs to become more familiar to more people so that we all rise together. And the only way that's going to happen is by having quality podcasts that draw people in to the medium.
Looking forward to hearing big things from Stephen, Myke and co. next week.
]]>The only way this could get funnier would be if it doesnāt even ship until after Apple announces their wrist wearable thing next month.
It's Friday afternoon and I'm late for a family supper but why not throw some prognostication about the Apple wearable device onto the fire before I leave?
I still have a hard time seeing Apple releasing something wearable. As a friend and I talked about it we realized Apple has finally convinced most of us to not wear a watch anymore because why bother? The iPhone in your pocket is a better watch, among other things, than any watch we'd be able to afford. And now you're telling me Apple is going to try and convince me to start wearing a watch again?
But.
Apple's never been afraid to go double back on previous plans if new ideas emerge. I don't see a lot of people with Fitbit's on in regular society, but the number is certainly growing. The health/fitness angle on some sort of wearable has to be an attractive market to play in for Apple on many levels. Not the least of which is the new Health app coming in iOS8. They're going to need some sort of thing to collect more data on you than just your iPhone would provide - never mind all those people who just have an iPad.
This calm before the potential storm of whatever hardware Apple may come out with is typically a very exciting time - see pre iPhone, iPad, etc. days - but the wearable discussion has a general feeling of so what?
It's hard to get excited for an inanimate thing that will just sit on my wrist and collect data about me. It'd be a little easier if I thought they'd actually put a screen/interface on their wearable but I just figure out how or why they'd want to do that. The iPhone makes a perfect screen and interface for that already.
We will of course have to wait and see what happens on September 9th, 2014 at the rumoured Apple event. New iPhones to be sure. iOS 8 availability announcement likely.
Will there be one more thing?
]]>Adam loves Marc Maron. A brief discussion of tools we use on Goodstuff leads to a discussion of relationships in our parents?
]]>Anze Tomic joins Chris Enns to discuss podcasting all the way from Slovenia. He has an english show called Storming Mortal as well as a Slovenian podcast network called Apparatus. He also has a Yeti. Sparks may fly.
]]>We talk through Chris process for editing, recording and shooting his videos. We talk specifically about getting feedback and opinions from your loved ones on your creative work.
]]>We talk about Adam Clark's new gig and what it means to go back working with or for someone else and how that affects one's plan to become independently wealthy. We also talk Mad Men season 1.
]]>Kyle Roderick and Tim Smith join Chris Enns to discuss their respective shows on Goodstuff - Transmission and For the Record. We get gear geeky and production geeky. Hang on for a bit longer episode than usual. Enjoy!
]]>Chris and Chris talk about nothing including Patreon, getting sick and things not to Google.
]]>Follow up from a listener and an example of why I shouldn't record before I've had my coffee.
]]>Turning a blind eye to his dishonest words and deeds, the CAI board of directors has continued to pitch Mortenson as the organizationās moral exemplar and guiding light, and still pays him $176,000 per year, according to the latest financial records released by CAI.
Incredibly, Mortenson has attempted to build actual bridges to try and help connect his lies:
And hereās the kicker: It was Mortenson who personally arranged for this bridge to be built and paid for with CAI funds, according to Zaman Ali, a resident of Askole who helped build it.
Unreal.
]]>When our heroes turn out to be sleazebags, self-deception is easier than facing the facts.
This Presentation Field Guide explains how to plan a presentation that will connect with your audience, the technical wizardry to create a stunning presentation, and walks you through presentation day to make sure it goes off without a hitch.
The book includes 5 chapters (The Trouble With Presentations, Tell a Story, Apple Keynote, Other Presentation Software, and Presentation Day) and 44 screencasts, audio interviews, and other rich media assets to help you make your next presentation riveting.
It's available in the iBooks store for $10.99 or in a PDF version direct from Davidās site.
https://vimeo.com/99552527
Direct link to video trailer for Presentations Field Guide
Presentations, along with the other MacSparky F also a great demo of what's possible with iBooks Author, Apple's free publishing app for the iBooks store.
Be sure to check out previous books in the MacSparky Field Guide series including Markdown, Paperless, and Email.
]]>Lex joins Chris Enns to update listeners on the podcasts he's been doing since his last appearance, Soundcloud's push into podcasting, and of course podcasting sponsorship. Numbers, dollars and other important words are discussed in great length. And short length.
I've enjoyed all (currently two so technically I should say "both" but all sounds more impressive, right?) the chats I've gotten to have with Lex Friedman and this one was no exception.
]]>Motivated by my internal competition with Lex Friedman to be more daily, I record an episode to update you on my Patreon campaign and my afternoon plans.
]]>https://youtu.be/gL8eBrhVTJ4
Found this band via Marco Arment. You may enjoy them as well if you like folksy songs with a touch of acoustic guitar magic.
Their first two albums are supposed to be available for free on their website but perhaps because of the Marco Arment tweet, their Dropbox account is suspended due to too many downloads.
Their 3rd album, the Grammy nominated Ash & Clay, is available on iTunes.
]]>We talk music, CDs, LPs and organizing by name or date and how we're missing out on the physical in our modern world. We start talking about movies Tim needs to watch. And we discuss Marco Arment's new podcast app Overcast and wonder where the heck this show has gone.
]]>Overcast includes a nifty tool to import your subscriptions from other podcast apps you may use - in my case Pocket Casts. Instructions are included for many popular podcast apps. (Ironically my email from Pocket Casts went into my spam folder. Perhaps because the company is named Shifty Jelly?)
[gallery link="none" ids="21999,21973,21974,21975,21976,21977,21978,21979,21980,21981,21982,21983,21984,21985,21986,21987,21988,21989,22000,21990,21991,21992,21993,21994,21995,21996,21997,21998"]
You can read more from Marco about developing Overcast. He's a developer that's opinionated about his software and we all benefit from that. Overcast won't be for everyone but by using the in app purchase model Marco's made it possible for everyone to at least try it out to decide if Overcast is right for them.
]]>We chat Crocodile Dundee, Chris reviews Oblivion and we discuss breakfast options. Chris has a lot of tips for shooting video, especially when you're trying to shoot videos of yourself for a Patreon page or other sites.
]]>I talk about a discussion I had with my brother-in-law on Lost and Lemon about video editing, which lead to thoughts on doing a Patreon page which leads to my plans to actually launch a Patreon project. Whew.
]]>A few thoughts on Myke Hurley's announcement that he's leaving 5by5 for something new.
]]>With last week off for CanadaUSA days, you'd think we'd have a lot to catch up on, right? Big week. Huge week. Everyone's leaving (Chris says sorry) and we're talking swearing and expressing yourself on Twitter.
]]>(If you've heard about the gore of Game of Thrones, there's none to be seen in this video. Nor is there any real spoilers if you've never watched the show or read the books.)
https://vimeo.com/100095868
They do film a lot of it on location around the world (Ireland, Croatia, Malta) which probably helps the actors as opposed to standing in front of a green screen.
Now when is season 5 going to be available?
]]>Day One is a great journaling app that's only drawback is that you still have to write your journal articles yourself. Which you really can't fault it for.
If you enjoy it on your iPhone or iPad, be sure to give the Mac version a spin.
[gallery type="rectangular" link="none" ids="21958,21959,21960,21961" orderby="rand"]
]]>Tim's got a new show coming - go buy a shirt! We talk about the podcast network hullaballoo, going it alone vs with others and our experience with Goodstuff. We end with a discussion of financial models for supporting creating your art online, including a chat about Patreon.
]]>We talk more about Patreon and how it could work as an additional bonus on whatever you happen to be doing online. It won't work for every creative person, but it might work for you. Plus Chris has a new video out!
]]>Blaine joins Chris this week to talk Amazon Fire Phone, Starbucks free University tuition, Angry Birds Transformers, playoff beards and Slingshot vs Snapchat.
]]>The only thing standing between you and making your ideas happen is story that you tell yourself about why you can't do it.
I've never been diagnosed with depression, nor have I had the opportunity to talk to a therapist about it, but I know I struggle with some form related to my work and creative output. Today I'm really struggling with the idea that what I do is pointless, that my work through Lemon Productions is just a hack job. That the podcasting I'm doing is dumb.
When I'm in a bad place mentally, it's hard to tell myself a better story. I can't hear the good thoughts over the voice in my head telling me that I suck. That I'm never going to amount to anything. That I should just pack it in, quit, try to find a job, and stop dreaming of doing something I love for a living. Nobody wants me to do it so stop lying to myself. "They" think I'm stupid for doing it.
The idea that, at least for me, I need to just tell myself a better story and all will improve makes me want to punch the wall. If I could just think different, I would. I don't enjoy feeling this way. I certainly don't enjoy wallowing in it. I want to go all in. I want to be positive and assume that the video I'm making, the website I'm building or the podcast I'm recording is going to be awesome and who cares what anyone might think.
I don't share this kind of thing lightly. I prefer to keep these thoughts in my head or in a private journal. But occasionally I've found it helpful to talk more openly - if only to get the thoughts out of my head and into the world so they lose their power over me.
But...
I have made it a personal mission in 2014 and beyond to be more honest and authentic in whatever I attempt to do online. Not that I've been lying about things, but I've certainly held back because of fear. I feel if I'm going to do something as personal as podcasting - talking into someone's ear on a daily or weekly basis - or blogging, I'd better be myself rather than trying to be someone I'm not.
]]>Glass "explorers" suffer so much.
Also: great to see Comedy Central finally realize YouTube exists and allow people to watch their videos directly instead of forcing US/Canada/elsewhere site specific videos.
]]>]]>It's Adam therapy time - we talk through the why's of an audience, money, time and fame.
It's Tech Talk Tuesday time and I'm joined by Kari Halsted to talk about MosoConf 2014, a local mobile social conference Kari attended last week. Also, Bill Murray.
Go listen to Daily(ish) and find out about a great Saskatoon based mobile/web conference.
]]>We discuss a new parenting podcast for Goodstuff, bookmarking services abound, picking a focus for your writing and deciding when, if, why you might change careers. It's a great therapy session episode folks!
]]>https://youtu.be/ZH2wGpEZVgE
]]>If you want to do something evil in America, wrap it inside something boring.
It's something happening in the US right now but will surely effect the rest of us if the internet is allowed to be changed the way the cable companies want.
]]>Check out Macrumors roundup of what's expected or ignore all the rumours and enjoy whatever Tim Cook and co. happen to announce.
]]>As each person left and said goodbye (nephews and nieces, family friends, his pastor) he would say āThe Lord be with youā to each person. As I kissed him on the forehead and said goodbye, he said the same to me. I replied by saying āand also with you Grandpaā. I donāt really know if he knew that this was our final goodbye.
I told him I was looking forward to seeing him at his 95th birthday party in August. He smiled and laughed quietly. Heās easily tired and often short of breath so any verbal exchange takes a lot out of him.
As people came by, he would wake up to say hello. Sometimes he knew their names and recognized them, at other times, he struggled. When he did, my aunt would quietly whisper it to him.
When he said goodbye to Helen, his wife, as she left for home for night, he seemed more sad than usual. My mom thought this made him remember that he wasn't going back home again - back to the apartment they shared and the life they had. He seemed to be almost crying to himself. There were no tears, I think he was too weak for that, but he closed his eyes and seemed to cry inside to himself.
Before we left for supper at my cousin's house, I sat with him. Just my grandpa, my mom and I in the room.
I held his hand as he drifted off to sleep and I could feel him gripping my hand. Iād like to imagine in his dreams he was back in his bed on the farm, having a nap during a break at a family gathering. Looking forward to whatever my grandma was going to make for supper, the card games weād play after dinner, and the laughter and fun of having the whole family together under one roof.
I wish he would see his 95th birthday in August, but I know the pneumonia will take him before then, if something else doesn't fail him first.
I pray that his final days are filled with family and friends, smiles and cries. And that when he does finally go to sleep, I pray that he gets to enjoy the deepest, most comfortable sleep heās had in recent years.
Just like the sleep I had with him many years ago as I curled up on the floor of the combine on a hot, fall day during harvest.
[caption id="attachment_21932" align="aligncenter" width="600"] My Mom, Grandpa K and Me in 2012[/caption]
Update 2014-05-27 4:36 PM: My grandpa passed away peacefully in his sleep. Goodbye Grandpa.
]]>Postbot will create a post for each photo and schedule it to appear at a certain time over a given number of days. This is the ideal way to share a lot of photos without having to manually create and schedule each one.
When everything is ready just pick a schedule ā a start date and the number of days between each photo ā and weāll do the rest. If you want to exclude the weekends then thatās fine too.
In order to use Postbot on a self-hosted WordPress site, you'll need to have the Jetpack plugin installed with the JSON API enabled.
The obvious use for Postbot would be for a photography blog, but using it on a regular blog to interject photos could be a great way to keep the site fresh without having to manually post something as often.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgcdc8uH64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_Mkd2CbEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI-sBU1v7IA
]]>She doesn't do dishes, or what?
Me too.
Here's what you can do about it.
Buy 1Password for your Mac. It's on sale for 50% off right now in the Mac App Store.
While you're waiting for it to download and install...
Watch Don Mcallisterās free tutorial video on using 1Password 4.
Don does a great job of explaining details of an application from the very basic to the advanced. I've written about Don and ScreenCastsOnline before and even interviewed him on a podcast. Don's a great teacher and it's worth looking into a membership on his site if you need some Mac and iOS training.
Generate new passwords for your valued accounts on Facebook, Geocities, Minecraft, Friendster and of course MySpace. Oh, and your bank, email address(es) and Amazon account.
Pick up 1Password for iOS so you can have all your fresh new passwords on the go on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. The built in 1Password browser makes it super easy to use really long, complicated passwords on your mobile device. Much better than 'password1234'.
Don McAllister has a tutorial video on using 1Password for iOS as part of his membership program that you can check out.
Now you just have to remember one password instead of 10 - 50 passwords.
If you're too lazy, cheap or scared to try the above - at the very least change your email password to something secure and not easily figured out. If a hacker gets your email address, they can probably get into pretty much anything else doing simple password reset requests.
If you use a Gmail account, consider enabling 2 factor authentication which means you have to enter a code from your smartphone before logging in.
Here's a list of a bunch of other sites that, as of December 2013, supported two factor authentication as well. Don McAllister has a great tutorial video on this as well.
Are you a Windows user looking to improve your security? You're in luck - 1Password has released a version for Windows. Using Dropbox you can keep the passwords in sync across Windows, Mac and iOS.
]]>It's a replacement of sorts for SSKTN, though there's still a couple podcasts that will live there for now until we decide what to do with them.
For our launch day I came up with an idea (on Monday no less) that it'd be neat if we could try and stream live for the whole day - 8 hours of it anyway. Thinking that between the three of us co-founders and the various hosts of other shows we have it wouldn't be that hard to fill up the day.
At 1am the night before while I was convincing my daughter that it'd be a good idea to go back to sleep I started to feel a little panicked that we had promised more than we could deliver. I envisioned a straight hour of just heavy breathing and lots of "uhms" and "ahhhs". A deer caught in the virtual headlights of a Heil PR40 microphone.
A look at our schedule for the day.
When we finally turned off the live stream at 5pm CST I realized we had actually done it. 8 hours (with a few potty breaks) of always on broadcasting for our new podcast network.
While some of the day's content may have been rough at times and there's certainly lots to improve on, I'm immensely proud of how the team of people working on Goodstuff came together and did it.
It was also great fun to see all the folks who tuned in to listen live and participate in the chat room - giving feedback, suggesting and voting for show titles and cheering us on.
There's exciting times ahead for Goodstuff and I'm pumped to be getting to be a part of it.
We didn't record everything we streamed out - that'd be insane! Maybe for the version 2 launch party next year? Here's a list of the shows we did record:
Want to support Goodstuff? Buy our launch special t-shirt:
If you do buy a shirt, please drop me a line with a photo. I'd love to see it out in the wild. And thank you tremendously for listening and reading along with all the weird stuff I do. It means a lot to me and the other folks involved in Goodstuff.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
]]>Concentrate on the content and simply write down your thoughts and Deckset turns them into awesome-looking slides.
Great looking default themes and writing/support for Markdown. Awesome.
Deckset is $19.99 in the Mac App Store
[gallery link="none" columns="2" ids="21914,21915,21916,21917"]
]]>Beautiful design and smart gameplay with artwork inspired by M.C. Escher's work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC1jHHF_Wjo
Direct link to Monument Valley trailer
From Macstories.net review:
Although it may not last for weeks or force you to think over individual stages for several consecutive hours, every chapter is enjoyable and delightfully realized. Monument Valley is an elegant and fun iOS game that offers a beautiful experience with no equal on iOS.
Monument Valley is available on the App Store for $3.99
Don't be turned off by all the orcs, wizards and whatnots in this game. It's a great card/battle game (think the old game of War with fancy clothes on) that you can now play on your iPad.
I've been playing it on the Mac - available on the Mac or PC for free - and it's fun and easy to get into but there's a lot of depth to the game if you've got the time (I don't) or know how (I also don't).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZVFmDr9l20
HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft is available for free in the App Store with in-app purchases.
What games are you playing on your iPhone/iPad these days?
]]>Happening sometime in 2015. Still my favourite all-around talk show host even if it's felt like he's been phoning it in at times in recent years.
I don't agree with Andy Inhatko's assessment of Jimmy Fallon, but his write up on who he prefers to watch in late night TV is spot on with regards to Letterman. He wrote it a week ago but maybe he sensed (or knew?) something was happening:
]]>I concede that this kind of traditional desk-and-chair show is old-fashioned and I doubt that the concept will survive long after Dave chooses to retire. But night after night, Dave delivers the goods and proves why this time-worn format is a killer with the right person behind the desk.
After dictating a reminder to iOS, when Siri asks for confirmation to create it, simply state āMove it to my So and so list.ā
View the full quick tip for more ideas of how to use Siri with reminder lists.
]]>Using a specific ratio of asian people to black people to women to white men, we want to make sure we represent your needs and interests or at least a version of your skin colour in our ads.
Based on an article at McSweeneys using stock footage from dissolve.com.
]]>Several website, including The Verge, are reporting that Microsoft is about to announce Microsoft Office for iPad. While we've heard this before, this one feels more real than past promises and threats. I believe there has been a war raging on the inside at Microsoft between factions that wanted to keep Office on Microsoft Platforms only (to help drive sales of Microsoft platforms, like the Surface) and those others that see the iPad as a 100 million plus potential Office customers. I bet it was ugly.
I think Microsoft has realized they need to get their apps everywhere and let people use them on whatever platform they choose, including iOS. They've long supported the Mac platform with Office for the Mac so it's interesting that up until now they've drawn the line at "mobile versions".
Microsoft recently released OneNote for the Mac for free in the Mac App Store which compliments the previously released OneNote for iPad and OneNote for iPhone.
Getting people to lock in to your platform - Office365 subscriptions in Microsoft's case - is the hard part. Once you've got them, give them the ability to work with their data on your platform on whatever device they want to.
Eventually they'll choose a device based on whether it works with your platform but until you've earned that, people are going to choose a platform that works with their device.
]]>Over on the Backblaze blog they've written up details on their storage pod 4 - the system of hard drives they build to back up all their customer's data:
Storage Pod 4.0 uses forty-five 4 TB hard drives for a storage capacity of 180 TB
They've managed to get the cost per gigabyte down from $0.117 for their original Storage Pod in September, 2009 to $0.0517 currently on Storage Pod 4.
You can learn how to build your own for around $10,500 or order it from 45drives for $12,600.
We will never have enough storage.
]]>First make sure your device meets the compatibility requirements Apple has specified for iOS 7. You can check Apple's website or view the screenshot I've embedded below:
[gallery type="rectangular" link="none" ids="21912"]
Unlike your computer where you might be able to run a new game or app on an older computer that doesn't meet the minimum system requirements and just deal with slower performance or graphics, Apple's iOS updates simply won't install on a device Apple hasn't approved.
It's the gear looking icon. If you can't remember where you put it, try swiping down to use Spotlight and start typing "settings":
Scroll down until you see General
Tap Software Update - which might have a 1 beside it indicating there's an update waiting. Otherwise tap through and it will check for an update.
Your iOS device will ping Apple's software update servers to see if there's a new version.
Tap the Download and Install option to get this party started.
Lawyer speak for "We're not responsible if this breaks your phone because, like, yo."
It'll now begin downloading. Your download size will vary depending on what version of iOS you're upgrading from. In my case I had iOS 7.0? installed so it was a 152MB update.
At this point you can switch away and use your iOS device for other stuff while it's updating. (I got a phone call during my update. Thanks Mastercard!) From my roots in the Microsoft Windows world I'm always sketchy about doing anything else while a software update is happening so your mileage may vary.
After downloading it will prepare the update.
...and then it will continue to prepare...
Confirm that what you've started you'd like to finish.
Note: Depending on your device and version of iOS that you're upgrading from, it can take a half hour to update. So if you have a meeting in 5 minutes, you may want to do it later.
Wait! We need to verify that what we just downloaded is what we want to install. So wait!
Now you wait while your iOS device gets updated.
It took about 30 minutes for me start to finish. Your mileage may vary.
If you navigate back to Settings.app, General and Software Update you should see that you're good to go with iOS 7.1.
How does iOS 7.1 feel on your device? My initial impressions on my iPhone 4 is that it's snappier. We'll see after more extended use.
]]>The AeroPress was conceived at Alan Adlerās dinner table. The company was having a team meal, when the wife of Aerobieās sales manager posed a question: āWhat do you guys do when you just want one cup of coffee?ā
Read the rest of the article: The Invention of the AeroPress. Link via @theotherhilary
Want to buy an AeroPress?
Useful if you need one for the bathroom?
]]>Chris Enns is the guest host for Tim Smith and he chats with Wren Lanier about her journey onto the web, how her start was due to poison ivy, and her advice for those seeking success and recognition on the web.
Hey that's me!
I got the chance to guest host for Tim Smith on The East Wing and ended up having a great chat with Wren Lanier.
]]>It's mainly for my own curiosity and experiments in podcasting. As we continue to build GoodStuff.fm, I wanted to have a small space to mess around with podcasting. So that's where pdcst.ca comes in.
You can start back at episode 1 and continue from there or subscribe in iTunes or via RSS. If you're on ADN, you can subscribe to the Broadcast channel and I also tweet out new episodes with direct links to the MP3s.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iS3tULXMQ
If that's too long, there's also the 1:30 Season 4 trailer.
]]>For every download, a US corporation donates a dollar to support RED in the fight against AIDS.
As far as the song goes, I really dig the sound. Throwback to the 80s with a different vibe from your typical U2 tune of late. It's not going to be the lead single from their forthcoming album so it's not necessarily an indication of whatever direction they're headed but with Danger Mouse producing - or at least producing most of the songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEyKdpsHKy0
There's also a 3 minute "In the Studio with U2: Making of Invisible" on Facebook.
]]>Justin Jackson sits in for an ill Adam Clark and we talk more GoodStuff stuff, Canadian stereotypes and other follow up. We spend the majority of the episode having a good discussion of different ways we shut off stresses of work when trying to enjoy home, friends and family. (Hint: Donāt have kids!)
We took a tweet from Jesse Atkinson and used it as the basis for our discussion. Fun to have the Canadian majority on TIRP for a change.
]]>https://youtu.be/zEiKGR9rGfw
Jim Dalrymple has had a review model for a couple weeks and he likes it:
Overall, I loved AMPLIFi, both as a guitarist and from a technology standpoint. The 75 watt version costs $399 and the 150 watt model is $499. This is an amp Iāll be using a lot.
The sacrifice in tone to a cheaper DSP makes me worried about giving up my Marshall tube amp1 but the practical side of having a great Bluetooth speaker and amp in one package sure is tempting.
So good.
]]>Thirty years ago, the Mac put the power of technology in everyone's hands, launching a generation of innovators who continue to change the world. This video celebrates some of those pioneers and the incredible impact they've made.
There's a great site up on Apple.com including a neat "Tell us about your first Mac" visual form.
https://twitter.com/iChris/status/426730346411851776
]]>Big! Announcement! Episode! No more teasers ā in this episode we finally talk about what weāve been building behind the scenes and boy is itā¦ good. We also talk project management apps and skills including Basecamp, Trello and others.
If you're at all curious about what's going on with SSKTN and where it's headed you'll want to listen to episode 21 of TIRP.
]]>āEvery company that made computers when we started the Mac, theyāre all gone,ā said Philip Schiller, Appleās Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, in an interview on Apple's Cupertino campus Thursday.
And where the Mac is headed now in 2014:
āThere is a super important role [for the Mac] that will always be,ā Schiller said. āWe donāt see an end to that role. Thereās a role for the Mac as far as our eye can see. A role in conjunction with smartphones and tablets, that allows you to make the choice of what you want to use.
I really like that phrase - "as far as our eye can see" - because it says there's a long future for the Mac but we can only see so far. Who can really know what's going to come.
]]>The worst sin would be not to take any chances.
The Edge
I could geek out about their show production almost as much as their music.
There's never been anything this expensive.
The way all the various systems (performer, lights, cameras, screen, stage gear, etc.) have to work together when the show is on, plus then be able to tear it down, pack it all up into trucks and move it to the next stadium quickly is incredible.
]]>Geekdom is not defined by historical entry points or even shared experiences. A geek must possess just two things: knowledge and enthusiasm.
John Siracusa on his road to being a geek, using his love of the Mac, RC cars and U2 as examples in his own life.
You donāt have to be a geek about everything in your lifeāor anything, for that matter. But if geekdom is your goal, donāt let anyone tell you itās unattainable. You donāt have to be there āfrom the beginningā (whatever that means). You donāt have to start when youāre a kid. You donāt need to be a member of a particular social class, race, sex, or gender.
Agreed.
]]>So great.
]]>Just go to your videoās settings page, upload your caption file, and it will be available in the player. Theyāre supported in all desktop players, Mobile Safari on iOS 7, Chrome on Android tablets, and Kindle Fire, for now. Weāre working hard to bring them to other platforms and devices as soon as we can.
https://vimeo.com/76979871
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4xY0ugc2Q
In addition to all that, if you haven't picked it up yet - go grab a copy right now while it's free. I suspect that the Noodlecake crew is just suffering brain issues from the intense cold we're experiencing here in Saskatoon and will likely put the price back up to $2 when it warms up.
So really, you've got some time I think.
[gallery link="none" ids="21827,21828,21829,21830,21831,21832,21833"]
]]>This line stuck out to me as a great quote for anyone struggling with their past and how they're letting it affect their present and future:
I need to separate the busted kid from the man I am now.
I wonder if this digital internet world we live in enables people to not have to grow up in the same way people had to 20+ years ago.
]]>The antidote Iāve found for this is to write for only two people. First, write for yourself, both your present self whose thinking will be clarified by distilling an idea through writing and editing, and your future self who will be able to look back on these words and be reminded of the context in which they were written.
Second, write for a single person who you have in mind as the perfect person to read what you write, almost like a letter, even if they never will, or a person who youāre sure will read it because of a connection you have to them (hi Mom!).
Matt's post reminds me of John and Merlin's talk at SXSW '09. Deciding on who you're writing for will go a long way towards informing what you should be writing.
]]>Scanner Pro transforms your iPhone and iPad into portable scanners. It allows you to scan receipts, whiteboards, paper notes, or any multipage document.
Scanned documents can be emailed and printed, uploaded to Dropbox, Google Drive and Evernote, or simply saved on the iPhone/iPad.
The application incorporates special algorithms that remove shadows, make scans sharper, correct perspective and make them as readable as possible.
I already use Evernote for this type of collection of documents and receipts so I'll have to see how Scanner Pro might fit into my workflow. I suspect the main use will be combining multi-page documents into a single document.
[gallery link="none" ids="21814,21815,21816,21817,21818"]
]]>Downton Abbey uses shaky handheld cinematography when the subject is the servants, but steady and composed shots when the wealthy figures take screen time.
I hadn't picked up on this simple detail despite being a big fan of Downton Abbey. It's a detail that seems so obvious once you hear it, but obviously it's done subtle enough that they don't slap you in the face with it.
]]>1Password for $9.99 (regularly $17.99)
Tweetbot for $1.99 (regularly $4.99)
Launch Center Pro for $2.99 (regularly $4.99)
Day One for $2.99 (regularly $4.99)
Calendars 5 for $2.99 (regularly $6.99)
PCalc for $6.99 (regularly $9.99)
Screens VNC for $14.99 (regularly $19.99)
Vesper for $2.99 (regularly $4.99)
You can visit AppSanta.co for more apps on sale.
]]>But what's the fun in that?
Let's price out the top end Mac Pro with a shiny new Sharp1 display.
All for $13,957.00 + tax.
You can check out the previous generation Mac Pro loaded up (spoiler: it was $12,917.00+tax) and see they're offering more for less, depending on how you feel about having your hard drives internal or external.
I won't be buying one anytime soon but I'll be curious to hear about real world usage for Final Cut Pro - which also saw an update today to 10.1 - and Logic Pro X users.
Nice way of talking about an iPhone 5S, Apple TV and iMovie for iOS without ever putting a product name, hashtag or price on the screen.
]]>Last "December I bought some favorite Christmas specials for my kids with the idea they could watch them every year. Went tonight to watch one and it was gone from our library and couldn't be found on the site at all. Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and 'at this time they've pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.' In other words, Amazon sold me a Christmas special my kids can't watch during the run up to Christmas. It'll be available in July though!"
It boggles the mind that some person or people decided this would be a great way to help increase sales.
Disney has always done this with their movie purchases - they'll pull The Little Mermaid for a year or two from shelves and then bring it "back from the vaults" in order to increase hype/demand. Which was a bit sleazy when it was VHS tapes or DVDs. But pulling people's purchases from their digital vaults is like going into their homes and pulling the DVDs off their shelf and leaving a note saying "You'll get it back in July!"
Theft.
]]>Instapaper is the simplest way to save and store articles for reading: offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, perfectly formatted.
On a recent episode of The Intellectual Radio Program, Adam, Tim and I debated Instapaper vs Pocket (which is always free). I still stand by Instapaper as my go to read it later app of choice, and especially now that it's on sale for the low price of free.
[gallery link="none" ids="21794,21795,21796,21797,21798"]
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjKO10hKtYw&hd=1
]]>]]>All three amigos are back in the SSKTN studios. We follow up on Adamās 13ā³ vs 15ā³ debate, his smoke alarm battery, and we have a group therapy session on getting projects out the virtual door. In the words of mudmonster from the chat room ā āthe best TIRP yet.ā
The two that jumped out at me are Forbidden Desert, sequel to Forbidden Island, and Hanabi.
A lot of board games make for great iOS games. The reviews on some of these look great - and for a fraction of the price of the full board game you can play and practice strategies on your iPad:
What board games (iOS or regular) are you looking forward to playing over the holidays?
]]>Max Temkin, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, wrote up why and how it all went down:
This is a difficult time of year for us because we spend almost no money on marketing, and itās easy for us to get lost in the noise and money of the holiday season.
Turns out a lot of people talked about it. The press ran stories on it. And Cards Against Humanity kept their position as the best-selling toy or game on Amazon.
The interesting thing to note is that we got a nice lift in our sales the day after Black Friday (āRegret Saturdayā). That might be from people who were waiting to buy the game until it came back down in price, or, more likely, those are sales from people who heard about the game after our Black Friday press. Not bad for an ad that paid us to run it.
Unlike most of the party games you've played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.
The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a Black Card, and everyone else answers with their funniest White Card.
Having not played it myself, it seems like an adult version of Apples to Apples with funnier responses.
Pick up your regular priced copy of Cards Against Humanity and the various expansion packs:
The feature length documentary by 2 Player Productions chronicling the genesis of the Minecraft phenomenon.
https://youtu.be/ySRgVo1X_18
A great look at the people behind the game as well as the worldwide community that's sprung up around it - chronicling their efforts to get version 1.0 of Minecraft out the door in November, 2011.
According to Wikipedia, as of October 23, 2013, the game has sold over 12.5 million copies on PC and over 33 million copies across all platforms
There's a great quote from Peter Molyneux in the documentary, creator of many great games such as Populous, on why Minecraft is such an important game in this time:
Lego at the moment is like traditional game design. Buy the box, open the box, turn to the instruction sheet, make the model, stick it on the shelf and buy the next box. That's exactly like traditional game design - buy the game, go through the challenges, finish the challenges, stick it on the shelf, buy the next game. Where Lego used to be just a big box of bricks and you used to take the bricks, pour them on the carpet, and then make stuff. And that's exactly what Minecraft is. There was no instruction booklet.
If you watch nothing else:
https://vimeo.com/79887421
Rank things and judge your friends on the way they rank things.
]]>But absent from a lot of the public dialogue has been the one company that arguably has had a greater effect on bringing clean power to the state of North Carolina than any other: Apple. While the stateās utility has just now become more willing to supply clean energy to corporate customers, several years ago Apple took the stance that if clean power wasnāt going to be available from the local utility for its huge data center in Maiden, North Carolina, it would, quite simply, build its own.
Sounds like something the Deceptions would attack.
Via Daring Fireball
]]>The first two episodes are out already and include my conversation with Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks and ShopTalk and the most recent episode is my chat with Katie Floyd - who co-hosts the Mac Power Users with the previously mentioned David Sparks over on 5by5.
Most ads are dramatic. We want them to be traumatic.
https://youtu.be/4sxAOkAguqc
It's funny but I expect advertisers will actually be trying this in the future as they continue to lose the attention span of consumers.
]]>This new book explains the best methods, technologies, services, apps, and workflows to make email work for you.
Email by David Sparks is $9.99 for iBooks - now on your Mac, iPad or iPhone with OS X 10.9.
You can also buy a PDF version of Email by David Sparks.
While you're at it, be sure to check out the previous Macsparky Field Guides:
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]]>See, most venture capitalists swing for the fences ā all the time. They donāt care about base hits, doubles, and sometimes even home runs. They want the grand slam, the big idea, The Next Facebook.
Small, profitable companies; particularly ones that donāt display pump-and-dump potential get shunned by VCās. They even have patronizing phrases to describe such operations, like ālifestyle businessā. (wwww)
Worth reading down into the comments where one of the Everpix founders responds.
Worth checking out: Picturelife seems to do what Everpix did, only they're actually charging real money for the service. I'm gun shy right now but might give it a shot to see how it compares.
]]>Smart kid.
]]>In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ā09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis.
It goes on to list features coming back to Pages, Numbers and Keynote. It's odd for Apple to be as open about future plans as this - but it probably speaks to the volume of comments they got wondering where things like customizing your presenter display in the new Keynote went.
There are also instructions on how to revert a document to a previous format:
Itās frustrating (to say the least) that we cannot continue to work on Everpix. We were unable to secure sufficient funding in order to properly scale the business, and our endeavors to find a new home for Everpix did not come to pass. At this point, we have no other options but to discontinue the service.
Dang. I really liked the way the service was shaping up.
I agree with John Siracusa:
https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/397779967876288512
Apple should buy Everpix. Or something like it. A service that gets that I want the canonical version of my photos in the cloud and not on every device.
If Google+ wasn't owned by Google, it'd be a great service to recommend. I've continued using their background photo sync which keeps a backup of all my photos from my iPhone, in addition to the Dropbox backup I do as well.
I'm glad I decided to use the Dropbox route with Everpix as my photos are still organized in Dropbox by year/month. But until Dropbox builds a better front end for it to view photos, it's still lacking what Everpix had for photo viewing/sharing.
]]>When I see a story this big, I say "Whoah"
Great promo video for the new Breaking News site, as well as a great back story on the video's production by Adam Lisagor.
I can't wait for the inevitable wikipedia entry that links all of the Sandwich Video productions together in one long story arc.
]]>While we do not have a traditional āphilosophyā of āchildbirth,ā we have been heavily influenced by orthodox Wholefoodism and the ā(d)well baby/good designā movement. We believe strongly in the power of the female body and a long-term night nurse. We are opposed to torture/gluten. In the event you are ever unsure how to proceed today, please ask yourself, āWhat Would Gwyneth Do?ā
WWGD.
Please donāt put the baby on a scale, as we donāt want her to have the same body image issues as her fat mom.
Anti-vaccination.
]]>We will not be vaccinating our baby. Please vaccinate all other babies on this floor.
I use Fantastical on the Mac($14.99 in the Mac App Store) and love it's use of natural language for entering events.
Check out the MacStories review and Shawn Blanc's video review of what looks to be a good update to an already great app.
As is to be expected, there is no upgrade path for current Tweetbot for iPhone users - so grab it while it's on sale.
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We got off to a bit of a rocky start. With 3 kids under 6 and one still in a playpen/car seat/high chair you've got a lot of stuff to pack when you're travelling for a week. Even with our minivan we're jammed pretty tightly so stepping down in overall cargo space to an SUV was going to be tough.
In the end we managed to get everything in but we were pretty close to calling it off and going back to our minivan. 1 But the idea of taking a new vehicle and with some nudging from some friends we decided to go for it with the Traverse. 2
On the highways and byways to Dawson Creek, BC. the Traverse drove great. During the longer stretches when the cries of "how much longer" grew the loudest we put on a movie and our two oldest loved that they got their own wireless headphones to put on and listen with. My wife and I loved that we didn't have to listen to Crazy Frog or whatever video we had played on the DVD player for them.
Comfortable driver and passenger seats made the long hours on the road very do able.
Hooking up my iPhone to the GM Traverse's sound system worked really well. Connecting via Bluetooth or using the built-in iPhone cable connection port both worked well. And like I said above, with the kids having their own sound and headphones we could have something entirely different playing in the front.
The comfortable ride of the Traverse combined with the media options for the kids (and adults) made a long trip go really well.
Next time we'll try it when there's snow flying and get to see how the Traverse handles the mountain roads when they're slick and icy.
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]]>We strongly recommend you use TextExpander 4.1.1 with Mavericks.
What's interesting to me is how many humans are actually involved in the manufacturing process of a Mac Pro. There's certainly a lot of robotic/machines doing things, but there's a lot of hands touching a Mac Pro before it lands on your desk.
]]>Cabel is the founder of Panic Software, creator of great Mac apps like Transmit and Coda, and for his talk at XOXO 2013 he spoke about the process and toll of building a company and its products.
The mental struggle you go through in trying to build a business and a passion is something I wasn't completely prepared for - and still deal with almost every week. Intense highs and even more intense lows that leave you crippled and wondering how you can face your spouse or your kids.
Like Cabel, I don't have an answer. I know for me the micro details are what bog me down and get my brain headed to darker places. When I'm able to take a step back and look at things at a macro level I can usually breath again.
It's a bit like being on your knees, face down in a pool of water, running out of breath and not recognizing that you can just put your hands down to lift your head up to take a breath of fresh air.
Talks like Cabel's help a lot. I'm far from alone in my efforts - but it helps to see others who have been through the fire and are still standing.
]]>Price before tax - $12,917.00. Applecare for $279 would be a no-brainer if you're buying all that.
Now how about the iMac?
Price before tax - $4,088.00.
We'll see how this looks by tomorrow afternoon after the Apple event. If the Mac Pro gets a final release date and new cinema (cough retina cough) displays get released, I suspect the $12k price point could actually go higher and not lower for the latest, greatest Mac.
Coming in 2014.
]]>And for a bonus, Alec Baldwin drops a Saskatchewan reference:
]]>When you lived where we lived, that was Saskatchewan.
With todayās Launch Center Pro 2.0 for iPhone, a free update for existing customers, Contrast wants to ask: in the era of Drafts actions and Control Center, can Launch Center Pro still have a spot on a userās Home screen, and possibly in the dock?
I've never picked up Launch Center Pro mainly because while I know there's a lot of power in using an app like that, it feels like I'd have to spend too much time fiddling and not enough time doing on my iPhone.
I already have Drafts (see my post on v3 of the app) that I already forget to use when it could save me taps, I don't know that I can justify another app that I'll forget to use.
But if you like the idea of having shortcuts to commonly done tasks on your iPhone, it'd be worth taking a look at Launch Center Pro.
]]>We were motivated to do it because our nephew and cousin was recently diagnosed with leukaemia. He lives in Australia which feels even further away now.
They have a blog chronicling their journey, and they sum up why we wanted to take part in the walk in this recent post:
Coming in to the hospital, completely unprepared, exhausted emotionally and physically, and faced with a barrage of information, away from our home and usual resources such as internet, we felt very powerless in our situation. Even trying to figure out where to stay seemed like a mammoth task. Luckily, there are organisations which have seen these needs and, thanks to generous supporters, are able to offer services which help remove those burdens. Our biggest relief was when we heard word from the Leukaemia Foundation that they would take care of our accommodation while we were up in Brisbane! How amazing! They sorted everything out for us, which let us focus on the needs of Sam and the family. Red Kite is another organisation that provided us with a big bag of things as we arrived at the hospital, including a teddy bear for Sam, a handmade quilt and pillow case, travel mugs, a diary, and many other useful items. Things like that take on so much more meaning when you are feeling fragile and scared, and it really made me feel like there were people who knew what we were going through and cared.
So, to everyone who has ever dropped a coin in a wishing well, bought a sausage at a fundraiser or donated to any of these charities, thank you, because it made a difference to our little family.
On behalf of my family, I want to thank you for donating to our fund-raising efforts. We had set a goal of $400 as a family and in the end raised $515.
We are very grateful to everyone who donated but I wanted to especially thank those of you who gave and have never met our family or our nephew - those of you who donated via a tweet or Facebook post.
Your generosity is overwhelming and meant a great deal to us.
]]>I'm still on the fence on how much I want to use Evernote, but if you're at all into using Evernote this is a recommended book to pick up and learn more about a great app.
Note: These are from the iBooks version on my iPhone 4.
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]]>I don't love every single thing Pearl Jam has put out. But I like a lot more of their stuff than most other bands that started out in the 90s and are still around.
And I could read articles like this interview with Eddie Vedder about the making of a new record on Rolling Stone all day long.
On current pop music:
These pop songs almost feel like tabloid journalism, in a way. It's crap that people seem to like. And I don't know if it has meaning. I don't know if one of the pop songs of the summer has any fiber in it. People are consuming it, and is it healthy? I don't know. Maybe it's some kind of way of taking themselves away from their problems. Maybe there's some healthy property or some restorative property that I'm not receiving. It seems like it has a really high fructose content.
You can pre-order Pearl Jam's new album Lightning Bold on iTunes.
See also: Pearl Jam Producer Brendan O'Brien on the new recording.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven donāt want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Lifeās change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so donāt waste it living someone elseās life. Donāt be trapped by dogma ā which is living with the results of other peopleās thinking. Donāt let the noise of othersā opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
- From the 2005 Stanford commencement speech by Steve Jobs
Tim Cook on the second anniversary of Steve Jobs' death:
I think of him often and find enormous strength in memories of his friendship, vision and leadership. He left behind a company that only he could have built and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We will continue to honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to the work he loved so much. There is no higher tribute to his memory. I know that he would be proud of all of you.
https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/386493665406746625
Worth reading today: And Then Steve Said Let There Be an iPhone.
]]>For a full review, check out Tim Smith's full review of 1Password 4.
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]]>Then today I saw that Izzy of Izzy Video put out a free tutorial series on iMovie so now I can send people there.
It includes:
I know from watching many of his Final Cut Express/Pro tutorial videos over the years that Izzy does a such a great job producing these training videos. He's certainly one of the main inspirations for my own screencasts and tutorials.
]]>So I did what any self-respecting internet nerd and guy who loves making screencasts would do - I started a YouTube channel where I publish screencasts explaining Minecraft. As of this posting there's 5 episodes up, starting from the basics of buying and installing Minecraft to the most current episode where I've started planting wheat and building a cow pen. Really.
If you're interested, hit the subscribe button on the YouTube page or check out the video playlist at the bottom of this post.
I'd love to answer any questions about Minecraft that you might have so leave a comment below or on the contact page and I'll do my best to answer it in future episodes.
I feel like a bit of a dork that I'm (a) doing these videos and (b) talking about it publicly but I'm having lots of fun doing them and I know that at least four people have admitted to me that they've watched more than one of my videos so I'll continue. For now.
]]>Last Friday, Appleās iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c went on sale. The company sold nine million of them in the first weekend, breaking the five-million-phone record it set last year with the iPhone 5. I sort of thought that was clearly good news for Apple and the iPhone. Or at least not, you know, worrisome news.
Then I read a piece by Sandy Cannold at ABCNews.com (which I found via MG Sieglerās ParisLemon). Cannold says that the new iPhones selling so well and generating so much hoopla is potentially alarming.
Skeptics will always be skeptics. And the narrative that Apple is doomed to failure is just too juicy to pass up for many journalists and armchair technology pundits - but at least base your story in fact and not twisting everything around to fit your narrow view of how the tech world should work.
Jobs has "...a total of six industry-changing items, or one every 860 days on average, though the gap was sometimes substantially longer."
Now, thatās a remarkable streak. But itās not a revolution every other year. And Tim Cook has been CEO of Apple for only a little over two years, so thereās nothing deeply troubling about the fact that he hasnāt boiled any oceans yet.
Every single thing Apple releases will be trumpeted by Apple fans as the greatest thing since the iPod and pointed to as the downfall of Apple by the doomsday crowd.
Meanwhile Apple keeps working at its products. Incrementally making them better with each new release.
]]>Unlike other video games, there are few if any instructions in Minecraft. Instead, like the name suggests, the goal of the game is to craft, or build, structures in these 16-bit worlds, and figuring things out on your own is a big part of it. And parents, itās not terribly violent. Sure, you can kill a few zombies while playing in the gameās āsurvival mode.ā But in its ācreative mode,ā Minecraft is about building, exploration, creativity and even collaboration.
The Xbox 360 version I've played with my son includes a fair amount of built in instruction simply because it's more difficult to do some of the crafting/building with a controller. But having recently tried the PC version there's little to no instruction included in the game, especially when it comes to how to craft the various in game items and tools.
Earlier this year, for example, a school in Stockholm made Minecraft compulsory for 13-year-old students. āThey learn about city planning, environmental issues, getting things done, and even how to plan for the future,ā said Monica Ekman, a teacher at the Viktor Rydberg school.
So interesting.
]]>It's even easier if you're already an App.net user and have the App.net Passport app installed on your iOS device.
Your photos are stored on App.net which you have full control over. As Scott mentioned on App.net:
I think @favd demonstrates the potential of ADN. Download the app, tap two buttons and are authenticated (w/Passport) and have a complete social network set up. No hunting for users to follow. I haven't had a "That's it?!" experience like that in a while.
The money making side of Favd comes in the form of in-app purchase of filters. Which is what so many people wished Instagram would have done rather than going after users and advertisers. Favd sells individual filters for $0.99 or a bundle of 5 filters for $3.99. 2
The people who scoff at App.net and wonder "why do we need another Twitter?" are missing the point. Actually, they're missing the point of the internet. There's plenty of room for another social network. You don't have to use it but that doesn't make it invalid. For every person that makes fun of Google+, there's another 5 people getting a lot of community and fun out of it.
Similarly for App.net. It might not be your preferred social network, but there's a large group of people who consider it their primary place of discussion online.
And while Favd might look like "yet another Instagram clone", it's taking the parts of Instagram that people enjoy - taking and sharing photos with friends online - and leaving behind the corporate shadiness that comes with being associated with Facebook.
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Starting today, all the screenshots you take can automatically be saved straight to your Dropbox. And on top of that, Dropbox will also create a link to your screenshot and copy it to your clipboard ā so your pictureās instantly good to share. Whether youāre capturing screenshots of websites, favorite dog videos, or video calls with your buddy in SĆ£o Paulo, now Dropbox can help keep your computer a little more organized.
Like this screenshot I took of the Dropbox blog. Meta.
Don't have Dropbox yet? Install it for free and start screenshoting your way to happiness!
Dropbox works some magic on your Mac so it no longer puts the screenshots on your desktop but throws them right into Dropbox folder/Screenshots.
The iPhoto import comes at a good time for anyone checking out Learning to Love Photo Management. Besides syncing your iPhoto library to Dropbox, it looks like Dropbox will give you up to 3GB more space if you turn on iPhoto syncing.
]]>In Myke's defence, photo management has only gotten more difficult with iPhones, iPads - not easier. It's certainly easier to take great pictures than it's every been before thanks to the amazing camera software/hardware combination in iOS devices, particularly the iPhone 5S, but maintaing the photo library from device to computer to cloud is getting increasingly frustrating - especially when you add in a spouse 1 or family members who also take photos with their own devices.
Which is why Chambers wrote Learning to Love Photo Management - a digital book he currently sells for $2.99 in PDF format or iBooks version:
Oddly enough, this book shouldnāt need to exist. Our devices should just handle all of this for us. They donāt, though. Our only option is to try to build the simplest solution we can in the mean time. This book is about how I have taken control of my importing, backup, organizing, and enjoying of all my digital photos. Use this book as a template or as a spring board to develop your own methods.
After listening to Chambers' explanation on The Prompt, I picked up a copy of his book and plan to spend some time this weekend setting up my iPhone 4 and my wife's iPad mini with our Macs on Dropbox and Everpix - the latter is the photo service Apple should just buy and replace iCloud with.
Learning to Love Photo Management is well written, easy to read and looks great in the PDF format I chose to buy it in. I'm sure it looks just as great, if not better, on the iPad.
My only criticism is that he doesn't touch on photo editing/adjustments. But I'd guess most people do very little of that on their iOS devices aside from if they share it on Instagram with a filter.
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A good filing system is one where you can find whatever youāre looking for in less than a minute. As of this sentence I have 2,334 bookmarks ā I use Pinboard to collect any and every URL that is or was interesting to me ā and Iāve never had trouble finding what Iām looking for when I go to search for a particular bookmark.
I wanted to share a few of the tools and services I am using with Pinboard. If you are wanting to get more out of Pinboard, then hopefully this will help you out.
Pinboard isn't the same as saving bookmarks in your browser. These aren't typically sites you visit on a daily basis. These are sites, articles, tutorials, photo galleries, etc. that you come across that you want to save for later. In fact, I saved Shawn's article to Pinboard so that I could access it later when I have more time to dig into it.
It's currently $10.21 1 to sign up for a Pinboard account. Well worth it in my opinion.
Buy a new video camera or buy an iPhone? Obviously it depends on what your goals are for the final video but there are becoming less and less reasons to buy a $2,500 video camera when the phone in your pocket does it almost as well.
]]>Don't put hashtags. Hashtags are for the machines. Write for humans. Unless it's like Tumblr and other CMS's where that kind of metadata is hidden away, don't do it. Don't feed the machines.
]]>The beauty of Simplenote being under Automatticās wing is that we are already blessed with incredibly fruitful businesses in WordPress.com, Akismet, and VaultPress. The biggest thing I didnāt like about the old app was the ads, and as youāve noticed those are gone in this new version. Our main goal is to pour our heart into something and make it great, then it with the world. I find Simplenote indispensable, delightful, and use it every day, and I hope you will too.
I hope Matt finds more apps I like useful and indispensable and buys them, makes them free and remove the ads. Starting with Instacast and Reeder.
Simplenote is a cross platform note taking app: iOS, Mac, Android and Kindle.
]]>Head over to Settings, tap on Do Not Disturb, scroll down to the bottom, and set Silence to Always, instead of Only While iPhone Is Locked.
When your kid is finally asleep, the last thing you want is some stupid Instagram video to start playing.
]]>]]>
- By The Seaside
You are Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Except in this version of Cocktail, the film starts right when you arrive in Jamaica and ends right before you stupidly flex your man-pride and show off for that older woman at the tiki bar, you know, just to prove you could get her? With that improbable match trick? Leaving poor Elisabeth Shue pregnant and betrayed? That part never happens. You donāt even think about that part. Instead, you perpetually live in the waterfall where your passions grow. You no longer require food nor drink to survive. Love and a crooked smile are the only forms of sustenance you need. The soundtrack is updated. The swimsuits are not.
Since 2006, it has been a given that we would see a Pixar film released during the summer season every year. The first indication that this streak was at risk of ending arrived with the news that The Good Dinosaur director Bob Peterson had been taken off the project. The film, which was scheduled to arrive in May 2014, was taken over by a collection of Pixar veterans such as John Lasseter and Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, but no replacement director was named. For an animated film that was less than one year away, it signaled significant trouble.
Quality over quantity is a great thing to say when you're talking about small projects - but Pixar would generate hundreds of millions of dollars just putting out a film, period.
Bumping The Good Dinosaur back a year means the Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory is now pushed into the summer of 2016.
Hope somebody told Ellen Degeneres.
]]>There's a ton more, with plenty of screenshots, so go check it out.
]]>With support for version control (the ability to go back to a previous version of your document), Markdown support, exporting to HTML, Markdown/text, Word .docx and Kindle .mobi it's a robust editor that you can use anywhere. Plus collaborative tools that enable you to share it with someone else for editing/co-writing as well as the ability to hire a pro copy-editor right within the app to improve your work make Draft all kinds of awesome1.
Nathan Kontny, the developer of Draft, recently updated it with a new feature he's calling "Hemmingyway Mode" which, when enabled:
Draft will turn off your ability to delete anything in your document. You can only write at the end of what you've already written. You can't go back; only forward. To return to normal mode, use the same shortcut to turn Hemingway Mode off.
Another feature that's new to me, but I think it's been in Draft for awhile, is the daily quota which allows you to set a daily quota for yourself of how many words you would like to write each day - and Drafts can email you a reminder each day to motivate/annoy you to write.
Draft is free to use and has an option to register and support Nathan's development of Draft for $3.99/month or $39.99/year.
It's worth checking out Draft if for no other reason than to see how a modern web application can disappear into the browser and feel like a native application.
If it's good enough for Shawn Blanc, it's good enough for me.
]]>With the new sensors you donāt have to move your finger, just press it against the reader. And like the sensor in the iPhone 5S, the sensors that will be in laptops and keyboards and other phones can detect the ridge and valley pattern of your fingerprint not from the layer of dead skin on the outside of your finger (which a fake finger can easily replicate), but from the living layer of skin under the surface of your finger, using an RF signal. That only works on a live finger; not one thatās been severed from your body.
This will protect you from thieves trying to chop off your finger when they mug you for your phone (assuming theyāre tech-literate thieves, of course), as well as from people with fake fingers using the fingerprint they lifted from your phone screen.
Nifty technology.
]]>It is one of our maxims that has come up over time: āIf you have to ask, the answer is no.ā So if youāre like, āWell, is this good enough for this song? Is this the way we want the song to go?ā If youāre asking, the answer is no. Because when it is right, you want to listen to it and you almost fantasize that you were in the band that is playing that song, youāre like, āOh, I wish I was those guys. Oh wait! I am. Wait, we didnāt do this.ā
I think that maxim can apply to projects, web sites, tweets and other creative endeavours.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WclYUYe6k4
In this video I am going to show you how to make a DIY Steampunk Top Hat out of an old camping mat and some craft foam. You can make your own top hat quickly and easily by following along at home.
You can find the pattern for this top hat here
Episode 53 of the show is where Chris talks about recording the video and what he hopes to accomplish with it.
First of many from Chris. Be sure to subscribe to his channel on YouTube and check out his website for more cool jewelry.
]]>Chase Reeves sets the record for the most markers in an episode. Youāll have to listen to find out why. Besides talking podcasting, Logic X, making money online and sucking up to Merlin Mann we also talk Aeropress brewing methods. And hemorrhoids.
He also just published a great video on the Think Traffic YouTube channel called Write Quick & Better: The Aha index Card Method:
Smart guy. Sure hope he gets some help for those hemorrhoids.
]]>https://twitter.com/erinpaigegray/status/369816700243296258
https://twitter.com/HarleyRivet/status/369700566575751168
https://twitter.com/kayayarai/status/369699037345116160
https://twitter.com/kayayarai/status/369699408318701568
https://twitter.com/WhitneyWarring/status/369829966617133056
https://twitter.com/GuruTechnics/status/371076869200052224
https://twitter.com/zachristy/status/370705271531642882
https://twitter.com/jaytorres/status/369872390341144576
Regarding visiting the Apple HQ:
https://twitter.com/jaytorres/status/372067625074835456
More responses added on Monday night:
https://twitter.com/littlemrsmosher/status/372209305967005696
https://twitter.com/dmosher/status/372209624532799488
Great interactive map from @mattsteeele:
https://twitter.com/mattsteeele/status/372210530850598912
https://twitter.com/mattwiebe/status/372214026605842433
https://twitter.com/zachristy/status/372357574315610112
https://twitter.com/Hildylee/status/372242761824477184
Other stuff in the plans include:
Anything to add?
]]>First off, watch these:
Get caught up on the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy via Wikipedia.
Then watch the trailer for The World's End:
Great trilogy of films that I'm looking forward to seeing the final instalment of.
]]>The fall edition of SURVIVOR, themed "Blood vs. Water," will feature former players competing with - and ultimately against - their loved ones who share the same goal: to outwit, outplay, outlast and ultimately be crowned Sole Survivor.
I like the idea of bringing two people who are friends or family together into the game, but I wish they'd just ditch the former players. I get that it's easier for the producers to go with a known entity - there's a lot less of a risk bringing on a former player who you know versus an unknown new applicant - but it's getting a bit old now. It's no longer a "once in a lifetime" thing to be on Survivor. It's becoming more of a "get my character out there so I can come back next seasons" which tarnishes the reality TV angle of the show in my opinion.
Redemption Island Returns... The twist this season, however, is loved ones will be forced to choose whether to "save" their partner on Redemption Island and switch places with them, thus allowing their loved one to immediately re-enter the game, or leave them in exile to survive on their own.
Redemption Island is what helped save the series for me a few seasons back when contestants would go on a run of victories trying to win their way back into the actual game. We'll see if this extra twist on what is already a gimmick in the game will make it interesting or just more unnecessary drama.
You can check out bios and photos of the cast. At first glance you might think they picked people based on the swimsuit competition part of the show. Aside from Rupert I suppose. Can't have real people on reality TV can we?
]]>Editorial is a plain text editor for the iPad with powerful automation tools and a beautiful inline preview for writing Markdown.
You can combine a large selection of simple text processing actions into your very own workflows ā all in an intuitive drag'n'drop interface that makes it easy to see what's happening ā even if things get complex.
And if that's not enough, you have a full-fledged Python interpreter at your fingertips, including modules for easily accessing the editor's text, the iOS clipboard, or even your photo library. Editorial is the first fully-scriptable writing app on iOS.
When smart folks like Merlin Mann are tweeting things like
https://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/357947436775391232
then you know this app is in an interesting space.
Federico Viticci of MacStories said:
When Iām on my Mac, I miss Editorialās automation and editing features.
which is an interesting thought since most people assume it works the other way. When you're on a smaller, less featured device like an iPad or iPhone you'll miss features, not the other way around. Check out Federico's full review of Editorial for iPad - written on Editorial for iPad. Just keep scrolling.
I'm excited to see where iOS apps are going and Editorial for iPad is a great landmark app of what's possible on iOS in 2013.
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]]>Check out Noodlecake for all the details or just Super Stickman Golf 2 - Noodlecake Studios Inc" target="itunes_store">go play/pick up a copy of this great game if you haven't already.
]]>When the betaworks team sat down with Instapaperās creator, Marco Arment, back in April to get a download of his ideas and to-dos for improving Instapaper, the first thing on his list was to update the Instapaper website. Well weāve done it, and itās now ready for you to check out and test.
Looks good. Can't wait to see what they do with the updated version of the iOS app.
I've tried to use Pocket but I keep coming back to Instapaper as my go to read-it-later app of choice. The iOS version could certainly use some polish and shine, but it still works great.
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Link via MacStories.net
]]>In addition to that it also adds the ability to record the call.
Sending audio over Bluetooth could possibly introduce audio issues. The developer recommends you use headphones:
For a good and stable audio quality, you need to use a headset while making phone calls with Dialogue. We're using the Apple EarPods.
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In episode 1 of the show titled "Punch You in the Targaryens", we talk about Time Warner pulling a CBS blackout and then reversing their decision, Netflix setting up viewer accounts within a family, and Marco Armentās post about what having internet fame gets you in terms of sales in the App Store.
We spend the last half of the show talking through episodes 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones, season 1. Plenty of spoilers abound so youāve been warned.
Take a listen and then be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a rating or review while you're there - it helps us get the show out to more people if we get a review. Especially the 5 star reviews.
]]>Although to be honest, I've gotten way more spam SMS messages from my own phone company than I have from any other source.
]]>The lead ticket is anything where you go in and are trying to leverage somebody's time and attention in order to get something of a relatively, usually, small amount of value by doing something they wouldn't ordinarily do. That could be clicking an ad, gotta put something on your Facebook page. It's this thing where you're encouraged to allow yourself to be photographed next to the logo in order to get a free raisinette.
Some brand manager came up with the idea of "oh, we've got to leverage social media." The lead ticket is something that buys you very, very little long term value and you grudgingly give away a little piece of of yourself which most people don't seem to mind. Which troubles me.
Merlin's like a voice calling from the wilderness reminding us of a time when we used to value our souls. And our friend's attention span.
Want more Merlin and/or Jeremy Fuksa of The Shakes? Check out Merlin and Jeremy on my podcast Show Me Your Mic.
]]>āKevin [Systrom] has always been clear that weāre building Instagram to be a business,ā Zuckerberg said. āWe expect over time to generate a lot of profit from it. We think the right focus for now is to continue increasing the footprint of Instagram and, when the right time comes, weāll think about advertising.ā
When they do this, they should also offer a $5/year pro plan to not see ads. And that's it. Just a little button that takes $5 from your Facebook widget bank account thing 1 a year so you don't have to see ads.
I'm not saying every internet thing has to charge money to be successful. Just give folks an option to pay you and not default to ads as the only way.
A beautiful app for alerting you when Game of Thrones makes it's return.
TeeVee 2 is free right now in the App Store (regularly $0.99).
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]]>]]>So you're wasting your time going on the internet, going to the comments and typing some racial slur for a Cheerios commercial. That's dumb to me.
Check out reviews by Jim Dalrymple over at The Loop:
First of all, I should address the fears of many users. Rumors have circulated for a long time that Logic Pro was going to be discontinued or that it was going to be reincarnated as some sort of āGarageBand Pro.ā Clearly, it hasnāt been discontinued, and I can tell you from my own experience, this is far from a GarageBand knockoff. This is the same professional digital audio workstation software that weāve used for years, only better.
and Christopher Breen at Macworld:
While Logic Pro has indeed adopted some of the look of Final Cut Pro Xāwith its dark visage and panes that can be invoked or dismissed as the mood strikesāAppleās digital audio workstation (DAW) has lost none of its power and gained valuable features on just about every front.
I'm not going to be buying it anytime soon as what I have in Logic Pro 9 (9.1.8 technically) works fine for what I do over at SSKTN - but new apps are always hard to resist. Especially when there's the possibility of making the thing I love to do sound better and be easier to do.
Speaking as a musician, the new Drum Kit Designer and virtual drummer sessions look really cool and handy for us non-drummer types, but in reality these often disappoint and seem limited in practice.
You can pair Logic Pro X with the free Logic Remote app for iPad that Apple also released today to control Logic Pro X remotely.
Check out the Logic Pro X promo site on Apple.com for screenshots and videos of the new features in action. Looks like a solid update to an already decent audio app.
Will you be picking up a copy of Logic Pro X?
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]]>Every movie is connected and implies major events that influence every single movie. Here we go. Brave is the first and last movie in the timeline. Obviously, this movie about a Scottish kingdom during the Dark Ages is the earliest time period covered by the Pixar films, but itās also the only Pixar movie that actually explains why animals in the Pixar universe behave like humans sometimes.
I love stuff like this. See also: Leonardo Dicaprio movies.
]]>I come from a long line of travelling salespeople on my mother's side.
I'm not sure why it seems so fuzzy though - out of focus. Not sure if that's how they uploaded it on purpose to degrade the viewing on YouTube intentionally?
]]>What's great about his videos is that they're family friendly. So many of the Minecraft videos we've tried to watch end up being a group of kids swearing at each other and making racist comments - it is the internet after all.
You can click here to jump to the more interesting part of the video where he starts actually building his house, or watch the whole thing below.
As of this post, he's got almost 670,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel and that particular video has almost 900,000 plays.
I don't know what rate he's on with YouTube but using videos I've uploaded as a rough guide, let's say YouTube pays out around $0.005 (half a penny) per view. A video with 900,000 plays would give him $4,500. Not bad for 20 minutes worth of video.
But that's just one video in that particular series of 80, as of this posting, videos. One video in that series has nearly 3.5 million views or approx. $17,500 using my very rough calculations.
On average a video in the series ends up around 450,000 views - give or take. So 80 videos x 450,000 = 36,000,000 views x $0.005 = $180,000. Again, very rough and guestimatey math here.
The first video in the series was posted, if the data is correct, sometime in January, 2012. So $180,000 over the last 19 months isn't bad work if you can get it.
Except that's just that one series.
His Paul Plays Minecraft series has 43 videos with an average of 240,000 views. Using the same numbers as above, that's another $51,000.
He's got a whole ton of other videos - over 1,400 as of this post - and a lot of them have under 1,000 views. And I don't know what rate he's actually being paid by YouTube for the ads playing before his videos. Could be less than the $0.005 I'm guessing - but likely it's more.
It's interesting times when someone can make money showing others how to do stuff in a video game - but how much different is it than somebody trying to make money showing others how to use apps on their Mac? And Paul does an amazing job of keeping the videos entertaining for both me and my 6yr old son.
Plus he gets to play with his sons which is all kinds of awesome.
]]>And here are a few that I haven't tried myself but look interesting:
Which apps are you most excited about grabbing?
]]>I'll just quote from my intro on the episode:
It would be hard to overstate how much of an influence Merlin Mann has had on my online escapades. From the way I blog on my weblog, toot on my Twitter or tumble on my tumblr. You get the idea.
Merlin's a great guest and a pro when it comes to broadcast/podcasting and so while I felt the most nervous before our chat than I have for most other interviews, the actual interview was the easiest I've ever conducted. I think it came off really well and I really enjoyed it - Canadian jokes aside. 1
I was also pleased to be able to share the story of my son peeing on the slide at McDonald's with the potentially biggest listener audience I've ever had. Making my family proud!
We need to keep pushing forward without them, and do what weāve always done before: route around the obstructions and maintain whatās great about the web. Keep building and supporting new tools, technologies, and platforms to empower independence, interoperability, and web property ownership.
It's exciting times but the march towards silo'd platforms like Facebook, Google+, etc. doesn't bode well for the future. It's not enough for Google & Facebook to offer a data export tool - Google has a pretty good one in Takeout - but the interoperability of web apps is what keeps things interesting.
Flickr allows you to share your photos elsewhere - admittedly still keeping a link back to Flickr. But you don't see a Share button on Facebook that will send your video you upload there to YouTube or Vimeo.
]]>Spoiler alert: McNulty was in The Phantom Menace?
I can't even imagine the amount of editing Jason Snell had to do to put this 2 hour epic podcast together. Looking forward to chatting with him on Show Me Your Mic in the future.
]]>It'll be interesting to see what payment processor they work with. In the US Kickstarter uses Amazon to handle all the verifying and credit card processing. I'm hoping for Stripe but maybe they've worked out all the details with Amazon Canada.
]]>And while it's too early for me to tell, there's clearly a lot of support among her peers for Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany as a great actress:
When you get Patton Oswalt going on the subject of Orphan Black and its star, Tatiana Maslany, he gets a little shouty.
āShe absolutely deserves an Emmy,ā he said recently on the phone at an escalating volume. āThereās just no argument to it. Not a nomination. AN EMMY. An. EMMY.ā - Why Patton Oswalt Thinks āOrphan Blackāsā Tatiana Maslany Is The āBest Actress Aliveā
Watching the show I just assumed Maslany was British but in fact she's Canadian and grew up down the road from where I live:
Maslany grew up in Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. Her father is a woodworker and cabinetmaker; her mother is a French/English translator ā wait! That explains the accents she does on Orphan Black. āMy mom taught me German before I knew English,ā she said. āAnd I went to French immersion school. Itās been around me. I think because I learned it at a young age, your brain understands how languages are structured.ā (Her natural accent is one of mild Canadiana.)
Mild Canadiana? Aren't all Canadians pretty mild?
Article link via @adtgrg
]]>After driving it around and getting friend's opinions, nobody else thought of it as a Grandpa car so it's clearly just my history that informs my view of the Buick brand.
The Enclave feels luxurious. From the dashboard to the seats to the steering wheel, you definitely feel like you're in a luxury vehicle.
We fit my son's bike in the back for a little father-son afternoon outing with room to spare.
The sales guy at my local GM dealership talked about how the user interface was attempting to be as much like the iPhone/iPad so it would be familiar to users. I'm not sure I see it - and especially now with iOS7 on the horizon. But that's just me the Apple nerd talking. The average user probably would be delighted with how touch screen focused everything is becoming.
Some of the buttons/dials on the Enclave don't feel quite right to me. They need some sort of texture or way of differentiating one button from the next without having to look at them.
The dual temperature controls in the front are nice, as are the rear temperature/media controls. Our kids are still too little to make use of the volume knob/etc. in the back but once they're older I'm sure they'd love the ability to play their own music/DVD in the back while the front gets something a little less annoying to listen to.
This is not a GM authorized method of testing out the back up camera - but they were just too cute not to take a picture of.
Plenty of sensors to alert you to vehicles or possible pedestrians/bikers around the vehicle. It takes some getting used to but once you're aware of the different tones and alerts, it's really helpful in figuring out if you're ok to back up out of your garage or pass on the highway.
The XM interface on the Buick Enclave is one of the better ones I've tried. And of course I had it tuned to Pearl Jam Radio first thing.
Our 3-year-old was so tired out after putting the Enclave through its paces that he couldn't even make it inside. Or maybe he was so sad to see it go he was doing a sleep-in protest on the driveway?
The model I tested had the skyscraper two panel sunroof which was great for lighting up the whole vehicle with natural light - particularly for the kids in the back seats. The 3.6L V6 engine had plenty of get 'up and go.
I accidentally tested the OnStar system when my son asked me what a button did. Upon pressing it, the car dialled OnStar and I was connected with a support agent. I sheepishly had to tell him I was just testing the car out and didn't actually need any help.
"No problem! Happens all the time. Have a good day!" was the cheerful reply and I felt like a dork.
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]]>If you can imagine it you can build it with the six Toca builders! Join your new builder friends on an island far away and create a whole new world with blocks. Jump, walk, roll and rotate the builders to use their unique skills, and they will help to build whatever you can imagine!
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]]>Set aside for a moment the fact that this is an Apple produced video which obviously has marketing spin to it - the technology available to regular people is incredible.
]]>iOS 7 is an interfaceās coming of age, acknowledging that its users ā and our industry ā are now all grown up.
Read iOS 7 on mattgemmell.com.
]]>Via @daveshumka
]]>There are a thousand no's for every yes.
On one hand this video is exactly what Steve Jobs seemed to push Apple to be - and yet the direction Tim Cook and company are taking Apple as evidenced by the WWDC 2013 keynote, particularly iOS 7, is one Apple could only take without Steve Jobs.
]]>The only caveat they had was we happen to notice you're not black. And your co-writer who is Ed Burns, the former police detective on The Corner, he's not black either. Can you get a black ā do you know any guys?
A great look at the mind behind one of the best series on television.
]]>The keynote started with a great video that spoke to the direction Apple is headed - the focus that's required as well as the ability to start over and wipe what you've done off the table - a great prelude to what was to come in iOS 7.
Designing Something Requires Focus
There's also a "Made in America, Designed by Apple" push that Apple is making, starting with the new Mac Pro as evidenced with the new page and promo video.
It's hard to judge an OS until you've had some time on hand with it but at first glance I'm excited about the direction Apple is going with iOS 7. It looks fresh, clean and like the kind of move forward that will have us looking back at the pre-iOS 7 design and wondering how we stared at it for so long.
]]>Give it a listen to This is Not My Beautiful Life, episode 26 of Quit!, on 5by5.tv.
]]>The next thing you need to understand about money is this: all of the things you picture buying, they are only worthwhile to you because you cannot afford them (or have to work really hard to acquire them). Maybe you have your eye on a new Audi -- once you can easily afford it, it just doesn't mean as much to you anymore.
]]>Their marketing line "Stop Sending Emails to Yourself" is precisely why this app could be really useful - I frequently email or text myself something from my iPhone or vice versa rather than manually re-type it.
Forget about emails you send to yourself just to get a phone number, an address or a hyperlink onto another device. BeamApp analyzes your clipboard, your active application or background tasks on your desktop and opens the right apps on your other gadgets. It connects your technology so you can instantly continue your ongoing action on the device that suits best.
It's a free download for both the Mac and the iPhone:
]]>There's a lot of similarities between the 2013 Ford Escape and the 2013 Ford Explorer in their look and feel. Having reviewed them back to back, the Explorer feels a bit like just a larger Escape - and that idea will help shape whether you're a fan of the Explorer or prefer something more like the Escape.
The 2013 Ford Explorer looks a lot different than I expected it to. The outside design and styling is much more sleek and modern than what I remembered of previous generations of Ford Explorers.
The ride is great. For being a bigger vehicle it handles corners and stopping/starting without feeling like a large boat. The driver's seat and area is much roomier than the Escape as well. For me as a larger guy this was nice as the Escape felt a bit cramped - especially if you were on a longer trip.
Having used the MyFord Touchā¢ and SyncĀ® in the previous Ford vehicles I drove there wasn't much new to see here - other than the SyncĀ® seems to hate my iPhone 4.1
What I can say about MyFord Touchā¢ is that the interface is worlds ahead of what I've experienced with other vehicles. As a nerd I appreciate the effort that goes into making a user interface that's actually usable. And making a touch screen interface for a vehicle is a completely different animal than making an iPad or iPhone interface. As much as I'd love to see an Apple designed vehicle interface, I don't see any car makers handing over the virtual keys to Apple any time soon.
The display is easy to read while sitting back in the carseat and easily viewable by both driver and passenger. It smartly locks certain features out when you're driving. Listening to Sirius XM, AM/FM radio and music and podcasts on my iPhone all works very well and is seamless - provided your phone maintains a connection.
For our family with 3 kids we've been ruined, for better or worse, by owning a minivan and any vehicle now feels like a step down from that - short of a newer minivan (cough Ford cough). Moving multiple car seats in and out of the Explorer isn't nearly as easy. And with our kids being 5 and under it's not as easy for them to get in and out of the vehicle as in our Odyssey. But if your kids are older, it's great to be up nice and high in the comfortable rear seats of the Ford Explorer.
My main issue with the Explorer is how large it is. I found shoulder checking, backing up (though the rear camera helps a ton and works great), parking in a parking lot and even passing on the highway to be difficult to know where the vehicle is and if there's anything around me that I might run into. As with most vehicles, you do get used to them and become aware of where the bumpers are the more you drive them - but I never really felt fully comfortable in the 2013 Explorer.
How big the Explorer feels will be a big plus for you (i.e. interior room/seating) or a negative (i.e. parking, etc.), depending on your perspective. For me, I preferred the smallness of the Escape for parking and driving despite the negative of it having a smaller cabin space.
One big positive for me is how much thought and care has gone into the buttons, dials, knobs and widgets in the Ford vehicles. Rather than just being flat they're textured, beveled or just different in some way from each other so it's much easier to figure out which button you're trying to adjust without having to look down from the road - kind of an important thing to keep your eye on.
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Sue and I were talking about which of the 3 Ford vehicles we've tested we liked best and I really wanted to like the 2013 Ford Explorer 2. And I suspect that if it was the vehicle that I got first for review it'd probably be my favourite. But my favourite is still the 2013 Flex. 3 For me it's the combination of the funky, boxy styling of the exterior with a great roomy interior to make for the best driving experience of the three.
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We spent about ten hours researching, interviewing almost a dozen different bartenders, cocktail experts, and scientists to find the best choice. Then we did our own tests and the data backed up their choice.
10 hours researching ice cube trays and more than 2,500 words - the best ice cube tray on Sweethome.
]]>Pick it up in the Agile Store or via the App Store links below:
If you had to start somewhere, I'd recommend the Mac App first. It's the easiest to get going with and then eventually you'll want the iOS version so you can keep logging in to sites and services with your secure passwords.
Here's a screencast on one way I use 1Password to use long, annoying passwords AND save time logging in:
]]>Instacast for Mac takes everything that was great about the iOS version and transfers the experience to your Mac. This means that you can expect to manage your podcast collection with ease, enjoy hassle-free playback, quickly download your favourite episodes, interact with your podcasts and synchronise your entire library with Instacast Cloud. Moreover, Instacast for Mac also has a number of unique enhancements not yet found in the iOS version. For example, you are able to easily search your entire library for specific keywords, use the Up Next playback queue to quickly manage playback order, access a large amount of storage for downloading episodes and financially support shows via Flattr.
I've been using the beta and have bee loving finally having a great podcast playing app on my Mac.
It's on sale at $14.99 until the end of May and then goes up to it's regular price of $19.99.
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]]>The creators of The Wirecutter have launched The Sweethome which is The Wirecutter for the rest of your house. Some examples:
Via kottke.org
]]>It's funny that in 2013 they still have to pretend like they haven't completely planned this (i.e. host saying "I don't want to put you on the spot.. you can tell me no.") but still fun to watch.
Via Neatorama.com
]]>But while you're waiting you can read a better response by Michael Cohen over at TidBITS:
The answer to that, Iām afraid, may disappoint those who want cut-and-dried answers to complex questions: it depends on how you use Photoshop, and what you use it for. In my case, and in the cases of other members of the TidBITS staff whom I asked, the answer seems to be āYes.ā
Link via MacSparky
]]>But even the cursing Minecrafters are better than pre-tween-targeted sitcoms on Disney or Nickelodeon. Let my sweet impressionable kid spend a day with China on AntFarm or Alex on Wizards of Waverly Place and my parental battles erupt. Bad language is easy to curb, but stupid adult stereotypes, sarcasm, backstabbing behavior, and contempt are not.
I wish this wasnāt true, because I love all of the Disney movies, and appreciate the recent releases with strong female characters, but I have yet to see an episode of any tween sitcom (as Iāll call them) in which the adults are not morons and the dialogue between the young characters is not caustic.
To give an idea of the scale of this game for those readers for whom Minecraft is a foreign idea and looks kind of stupid, the people on Twitter she talks about in her article that her daughter watches have 170,000+ and 110,000+ followers on Twitter. SkyDoesMinecraf has 3.2 million subscribers on his YouTube channel and his most popular video as of this post is around 8.4 million views.
Crazy huh?
]]>How do you say ānerdā in Irish?
Wanker.
Via Caroline over at prolific.org who's finally jumped back on the blogging bandwagon.
]]>Scott Johnson, of Frog Pants Studios, is a dad who lets his 12 year old son teach him about Minecraft.
Minecraft is hard to explain because it looks and sounds tremendously boring. But at it's core it's like having the biggest Lego set in the world that you can build just about anything with. Out of square blocks only. And there's zombies at night.
I asked folks on Twitter to tell me what Minecraft is:
https://twitter.com/nikephorus/status/338009159884763137
https://twitter.com/ADDandy/status/338020497830842368
https://twitter.com/DrSciFi/status/338021270941741056
I'm watching videos like this so I can attempt to stay somewhat ahead of my son. For now.
Part 2 of Scott's series is up if you want to continue watching people build stuff.
I showed Damien, my 5 year old son, Minecraft for all of 10 minutes and his eyes lit up and his brain started running with questions.
]]>But a lot of that would be a bit, er, inside football to the uninitiated. So Iāve decided to focus on something thatās happening on a more individual level. Right now two men playing in the Spanish League (La Liga) are playing to a sustained level of individual brilliance and one-up-manship that is unparalleled in the history of football, perhaps in the history of sport.
The drama and intensity of football 1 is more interesting to me than what we see focused on in hockey and other sports here in Canada. It's just the time zone differences that make it difficult to keep tabs on what's happening - I need a football friend to remind me of important games coming up.
We promise not to screw it up.
Yahoo has had a bit of a history with screwing up purchases like this - having purchased Geocities back in the day for around a billion dollars as well and then never doing anything with it until they killed it.
And then Flickr, which Yahoo owns, announced a redesign and new plans for the photo sharing service including a free terabyte of storage for every account:
Weāre giving your photos room to breathe, and you the space to upload a dizzying number of photos and videos, for free. Just how big is a terabyte? Well, you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one.
It's kind of like way back when Google offered a free gigabyte with Gmail - 1 terabyte is so much space right now that it's hard to imagine ever needing it.
]]>At one point as I climbed the stairs and approached the second floor, I saw a group of five people wearing Google Glass, all silently staring off into space. I couldnāt tell if they were wirelessly having a conversation through their eyeballs, or just bored by the presence of real humans in front of them.
Nick Bilton writes from the Google I/O 2013 conference.
I love new technology. I love lots of new things Google is doing. But Google Glass scares me because people already disappear from reality into their phones - and that's with a physical thing they have to make a choice to pull out of their pockets and use. And these are decidedly non-tech people.
Imagine giving those same folks even more immersive, distracting technology that they don't have to make any sort of obvious external signal that they're using? At least right now when some dumb parent drives through a school zone with their face down in their phone, you know what they were doing.
If they're wearing a pair of Google Glass(es), you'd have no idea.
I think a lot of the new stuff we're being sold in technology is too powerful for the average person. At least on a societal level. It's like giving a 16 year old a brand new Ferrari for their first vehicle. Or maybe a loaded up semi truck.
And parents can't teach their kids about proper phone/device usage etiquette because they don't know how to handle it either.
As someone who loves new technology it worries me how poorly I see people handling and coping with new technology as it invades their lives. And it scares me that it often feels like I, the guy who loves new technology, am the only one noticing it.
It should be the other way around, no?
See also: Technology is Evil, Long Live Technology.
]]>And while we're at it, here's Harrison Ford refusing to answer Star Wars questions on Kimmel:
]]>I was hoping you could give me some tech advice/suggestions: how do you back up your work? External hard drives, I'd imagine? Do you store them on DVDs as well or is that antiquated? My one and only external hard drive decided to quit working today and I store ALL of my stuff (including computer backups) on it. I'm kind of freaking out. I can mount it temporarily but there's a lot of GBs on there that would take hundreds of disks to back up to. So would it make sense to back up my external hard drive with another external hard drive? I need something that makes the most sense, is cheap, and takes little space on my desk. Please help!
My advice to Crystal went something like this:
Backup. Backup. Backup.
]]>May 26th is when we sign up for Netflix again I guess.
Seen on 512pixels.net and the rest of the internet.
]]>So when contractions started one week before my due date (what? NO, I still should have a week to get ready!), and then we got sent home from the hospital because they slowed down, I decided that would be the time to go buy the car seat. We went to Walmart, picked the one that seemed to be the best choice, and bought it. Unfortunately, I have regretted that choice for almost 6 years through all three kids.
So, if you are in the process of buying your very first car seat, hereās some advice that I wish I had read before we went shopping.
Seriously, I hope thereās more of you out there that are smarter than me, but Iām telling you, go out at least a month or two before your due date and get the car seat. It really is the one big purchase that you need to make before you go to the hospital. Especially since they wonāt let you leave without it.
Crib? You could survive at least a week without (laundry basket, anyone?). Stroller? Even a 12lb baby is pretty manageable to carry for a couple weeks. High Chair, toys, even a change table - you can survive just fine without for several months.
But the car seat? Just go buy it.
You are supposed to have your straps tight enough that you can only fit one finger between their chest & straps. Because babies grow fast, and different outfits (or even how full their diaper is) can affect the strapsā tightness, you are adjusting them all the time. So, if your straps are hard to adjust (such as needing to flip the car seat over to adjust them... like ours), you end up not having them tight enough, or too tight, and feeling frustrated that you didnāt think about making them tighter before you got the baby strapped into the seat (not to mention, youāre already late, because you have chronic lateness problem!)
We got the one with the Z shape in it, because it seemed like it would make it easy to carry. But 90% of the time, you are carrying it over your arm. Unless you are massive body builder that enjoys working your triceps with your baby, you are going to be slugging that handle over your arm as soon as you can, because that is the easiest way to hold a heavy, awkward bucket for longer than 3 minutes.
I actually donāt even know if they make ones like this. But our car seat requires two hands to click the buttons on either side of the handle to get it back to its top position - and it usually clicks into the ābackā position as soon as you lean it away to get the baby out. So, you have a baby in one hand and you need to move your car seat out of the way to avoid being the annoying parent that left a big car seat in the entrance... but you need two hands to get that stinkinā handle up so you can pick up the seat. How many times have I wished that I could click that handle up with just one hand? Many, many times.
We are currently using an expired seat (GASP!). It is only one month past its expiry date, and we are only going to be using it for a few more months, so we are not buying a new car seat. BUT, had I looked through the boxes and found the seat that had the latest manufacturing date, I might not be in this predicament 6 years later. Even if youāre only having one kid - the closer the expiry date, the easier time you will have to sell your seat when youāre done with it.
]]>It isn't only that young people are kept awake by messaging their friends or using the internet. The light from the screen, held close to the face, is physically disruptive to the natural onset of sleep.
From BBC News: Lack of sleep blights pupils' education.
I hear of a lot of people who complain about not being able to sleep and then talk about how when they can't sleep, they stick a bright, flashing, animated light up close to their face as if that's going to help.
As Dr. Karrie Fitzpatrick is quoted as saying in the article:
Having a computer screen that is eight inches away from your face is going to expose you to a lot more light than watching a television on the opposite side of the room.
First, you must obliterate any notion that words can be divided into good and bad. Any words can be used to good or bad effect. Curse words are strong words, not bad words, but they are susceptible to being made weak and dumb through overuse. To teach this is far more challenging than it might seem, because every other part of the world in which we seek to raise our children into decent adults is working against you here. And if your children inhabit that world without obedient awareness of the line between good and bad words, they will encounter constant friction.
Too many good lines from this post on Medium by Geoff Barnes about how to teach your kids to curse properly.
One more:
When you do curse, settle for nothing less than your very best. Whether an understated monotone curse or an animated swear fiesta, show respect for the form.
Go read it. And yes, it should go without saying that there are a few swear words in the article.
]]>Screens VNC is what I'd buy if I had it to do all over again. And both their Mac and iOS apps are 50% off right now. Screens VNC for Mac is $14.99 and Screens VNC for iPhone and iPad is $9.99 right now during their sale.
With iCloud syncing of all your bookmarked computers it would make it simple to log in and update, fix or check on any of your Macs, Windows or Linux PCs.
Check out iMore's review of Screens for iOS below to see how it works.
Systrom downplays the idea that this courtship was in any way remarkable. āI think everyone thinks that the acquisition was made in a dark room with Trent Reznor music playing. Do you know what I mean? Like there was some dramatic thing,ā he says, referencing a scene from The Social Network. āAnd it turns out that some of the biggest decisions get made relatively quickly, without much fanfare.ā
]]>For anyone who doesn't understand, visit Wikipedia, watch a movie or two or watch a whole bunch of tv.
]]>This is the Most Important App Ever Made. Ever.
The url spells it out - pizza-compass - but it's worth visiting to check out the promo video. $0.99 in the App Store.
]]>I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasnāt Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?
How Robert Downey Jr. helped her grandmother is a great story.
(See also.)
]]>Thereās no filters or camera roll import, so you can be youāin less time and without all the stress.
Really? Adding a filter or having to import a photo from your camera roll is so stressful? I'm all for minimalism and simplifying but the hyperbole goes over the top.
And apparently it's not simple enough for one App Store reviewer:
Talk about your first world problems, amiright?
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]]>Using a text message to ask someone to do something substantive, like write a sales proposal, doesn't make sense. It is too hard to capture big projects out of text messages. If you are assigning or requesting work, I would argue that rather than send a text message, you should be writing an email (or sitting down with someone) where you can provide a more thorough explanation, giving your recipient a chance to better understand the assignment and have a nice easy platform to get it started from.
He goes on to talk about how he captures and records any to dos or next steps from a text - Apple doesn't make it easy to actually act on a SMS/iMessage - but I really wish people would stop sending requests that belong in an email or phone call through a text message.
(Ok, I'll pull my post out of the draft bin and jump off David's post. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.)
To me a text message is a low level form of communication. You use it to:
If your request involves the other person having to do just about anything else on their computer/device - send an email or phone them. 1 For example:
I get tired of people who shun using technology blaming new technologies for the problems they seem to bring. But the real probem isnāt the technology itself, it is the people who use it that are the problem. People who donāt think before they act. Who donāt question the technology and look not only at its 2 benefits but also its negative effects.
Which reminds me of a recent post on Cameron Mollās site where Cameron quotes Neil Postmanās excellent book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology:
Most people believe that technology is a staunch friend. There are two reasons for this. First, technology is a friend. It makes life easier, cleaner, and longer. Can anyone ask more of a friend? Second, because of its lengthy, intimate, and inevitable relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly bountiful.
But, of course, there is a dark side to this friendā¦. Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that. Nothing could be more obvious, of course, especially to those who have given more than two minutes of thought to the matter. Nonetheless, we are surrounded by throngs of zealous Theuths, one-eyed prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo.
I remember reading Technopoly back before Twitter, Facebook and all the intrusive web technologies we take for granted today were around. The most invasive technology back then was text messaging, blogging and fancy digital cameras that offered a glimmer of what was to come. Reading Technopoly back then was a bit like putting on sunscreen before heading out on a hot day - some mental protection for the future.
Completing the link train back to the source of Cameronās post is this quote from Frank Chimeroās blog:
But, technology is only as good or bad as what we use it to do, and I donāt think anyone who works in tech gets into the field with malice as their intent. In fact, usually the opposite, which is why I like this business. Hell, Iām one of the the folks in technology, so none of this criticism excludes meāI only suggest we stop looking at technology as the primary way to fix problems, and stop turning a blind eye to its negative consequences and to the new problems it produces.
I love that peers I look up to in the web/design industry are thinking critically about these things and not rushing blindly into the future. It gives me hope that just as the tools theyāve built and designed filter down to the masses, the spirit of questioning technology will as well.
Or as Stephen Hackett put it:
Finally, our long national nightmare of listening to our iPhones at our desks is coming to an end.
The Instacast for Mac beta is now available to try out and I'm excited to give it a spin.
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I've been hanging on to Instacast 2 on my iPhone but it looks like I might finally have to take the plunge and upgrade to get Instacast Cloud support for syncing of playlists and podcasts between the Mac and iOS.
]]>]]>It's hard to say exactly what changed. I guess those first months felt so good because I felt the absence of the pressures of the internet. My freedom felt tangible. But when I stopped seeing my life in the context of "I don't use the internet," the offline existence became mundane, and the worst sides of myself began to emerge.
Via One37.net
Iām happy to announce that Iāve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. Weāve structured the deal with Instapaperās health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.
I was actually thinking about where Instapaper was headed a little while ago and recently had tried out Pocket, which is an Instapaper competitor/clone. I really like Instapaper but it has felt like the iOS app (Instapaper in the App Store) hasn't seen the design love that something like The Magazine has gotten.
I'll keep using Instapaper until there's something about it that either pushes me away or a feature in another app that draws me in. For now I don't feel like there's any reason to change and I trust Marco's judgement in who he has sold Instapaper to that they won't destroy what he's built any time soon.
]]>Version 3.0 includes:
Check out the version 3 blog post on agiletortoise.com for full details and screencasts or read the MacStories review.
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]]>I've never really properly celebrated Paperless winning one of Apple's Best of 2012 awards last December. Earth Day seems like the right time to do so. Through this Saturday, Paperless is $6.99. If you know someone that that could use some Paperless help, send them along.
I'm pretty close to telling anyone who asks me for iPad help that this book is required reading before we can talk.
I don't think they're on sale, but you should also check out Markdown and 60 Mountain Lion Tips for some more great Mac nerdery on the iBookstore.
]]>I have spoken with a handful of people that operate in the podcasting world about this and they all seem to agree with me ā even though they all came to this conclusion long before me ā it is important to create work you are proud of and if you are consistent and you keep working hard at it, youāll get the outcome it deserves.
In my experience it's one of the hardest lessons to learn and remember in the online world: consistently creating great content while you wait for your audience to find you.
]]>Path Finder and Little Inferno are unlocked once a certain number of sales have been reached - which they always do.
Fantastical is the app that I'm most interested in picking up. I just don't do enough calendar/event scheduling that it makes it worth it to me. And the places I do a lot of scheduling for, namely SSKTN, I do it in Basecamp so Fantastical doesn't help there.
Totalled up the apps would cost $250 if you bought them all. Just about all the apps included are more than $9.99 on their own so even if, like me, you're after just one it's still worth it to pick up the bundle.
Will you be buying the 2013 MacHeist Bundle?
]]>Bookmarked for viewing later.
]]>His most important bit of advice is something applicable for anyone doing any sort of tech support:
Also, be upfront about what you donāt know but still be willing to help them get help.
A big part of the reason I couldn't stand working in tech support is there's always someone else out there willing to lie and give out an opinion as if it's fact.
Nothing that a left cross wouldn't fix.
]]>These templates would work for any application but it's a neat idea for a great journaling app like Day One.
And this one https://join.app.net/p/hnnnmlkddx may work too. Not sure if it ever got redeemed or not.
]]>]]>It wasnāt until that moment that I realized how heavy StevieSnacks had become. For 4 years I had been doing nearly everything myself. Nobody could help me, it all was all on my shoulders. If I stopped, the business stopped. I had been carrying around the weight of an warehouse of ideas with no relief in sight.
Widgets that are included for display are:
Clock and Weather are exactly what you expect. Calendar will display the events from one or more of your local iPad calendars, even Exchange. Mail can show you mailbox counts, list incoming messages, or graph message volume. Twitter can show you tweets as a ticker, or chart Twitter volume. RSS will show you the latest articles in a feed, or graph article volume.
There's also three pro widgets: Table, Chart, and Do-It-Yourself (which is a basic web view).
]]>Playing with the Pro panels, however, made me reflect on the nature of Status Board and exactly the kind of market Panic is going after. Will individuals working from home be able to fully enjoy Status Board, or is this app aimed at teams sharing an office space where a large HDTV can act as a Status Board hub? Ultimately, is Status Board a playful dashboard for everyone or a data tracking tool for companies?
I think Status Boardās greatest strength is that itās flexible. Its canvas may be limited to a handful of panels, but the possibilites are endless when it comes down to the combinations of data and services you can put together. Right now, the app is skewed towards the developer community with its three Pro panels (admittedly, the average App Store customer wonāt like the idea of writing JSON files), but the six Instant ones should be enough to grant everyone a glimpse at Status Boardās full potential.
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I have an older Fast Track series audio device and they work great as portable recording studios for podcasting or music production. Paired with GarageBand for iOS ($4.99 in the App Store) it's crazy how powerful a recording studio you could have in your backpack.
]]>[caption id="attachment_21325" align="aligncenter" width="600"] 2013 Ford Escape Titanium Edition[/caption]
One of the big features of the Escape that Ford is promoting is the foot-activated liftgate. Or in other words, perform a kicking motion and the back gate will open as demonstrated by my son in this video:
It works as advertised and 9 times out of 10 it saves you fumbling for your keys or the FOB to open the rear gate. It's the 1 time out of 10 when you're kicking the back of your vehicle in the middle of a Co-Op parking lot that makes you reluctant to use it. But carrying a load of guitar gear out to the Escape in snow drifts it was certainly nice to not have to put the gear down in order to load it in the car.
Not that kind of action.
With three kids, all in varying degrees of car-seatedness (that's probably not a word) we weren't sure if we'd be able to fit the whole family in the Ford Escape. But aside from being a bit awkward for our son in the middle booster seat to get his seat belt hooked in, it actually worked quite well. You'll have to take my word for it when it comes to photographic evidence of all our kids in the car seats. The last thing you're worried about when you've finally got the all kids in the car is taking a photo of them. JUST DRIVE ALREADY!
I wouldn't want to do it multiple times a day, every day, but if you were headed out on a longer trip it was certainly comfortable for the kids. And it made it much easier for us to reach back and hand the kids games, snacks or deal with a disagreement. 2
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I'll ditto Jordon Cooper's review where he talks about all the sensors on the vehicle and one issue with them:
The collision avoidance sensors get dirty and covered with grime and ice in Saskatoonās winters. When that happens, they beep. A lot. Kind of like this. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
The sensors and rear back up camera are great over all though. Having indicators of vehicles and possible pedestrians all around your Escape is a great use of technology in a way that's sure to save lives - just so long as they figure out a way to build in mini-wipers so they can handle the spring melt.
You should also read Jordon's review for tips on getting the Ford MyTouch sync working if it drops your phone - so long as a new Pope is being chosen you should be fine.3 Suffice to say, the majority of the time the Ford MyTouch worked great and I loved being able to just hit play on a podcast or some music and have it play through the car's great sounding speakers without having to fiddle with cables.
At our current stage of life with 3 younger kids, it probably wouldn't be a viable, "only vehicle" option. I'd certainly look at it for a second vehicle - something to have fun driving around in when we could leave the minivan at home or I was going to work.
My thanks to Ford Canada for the opportunity to have some real world experience with the 2013 Ford Escape. It's awesome that they give people who aren't official car testers an opportunity to use their vehicles in real world situations - and equally surprising to me that no other vehicle manufacturer has done the same.
Be sure to check out Jordon Cooper's review or for another viewpoint check out Tenielle's post titled 5 Reasons the Ford Escape Titanium Rocks.
I think weāll know well before the end of this year how Facebook Home affects handset sales. If buyers start asking ādoes it have Facebook Home?ā ā and I think many will ā that will be bad news for both Google and Apple. However, the Google ā Facebook war is sure to be more vicious than the Google ā Apple war because Google and Facebook have the same customers: advertisers. Users are their currency, and Facebook is about to rob the bank.
An interesting thought because Apple could stand to come out ok in all of this since they're not dependant on advertisers - Apple depends on users. Apple is happy to advertise on Google and Facebook because they need to sell real, physical things to users - not sell user's data to advertisers.
]]>Like I said in my earlier post, I'm still finding my way with Drafts but a lot of what Merlin said helps me know I'm at least on the right track with attempting to use Drafts in my workflow on my iPhone.
]]>The reason Iām writing about this is because knowing the true nature of introverts was incredibly liberating for me. Most of my life I thought there was something a little bit broken about me. That I wasnāt quite right. That if I could just snuff out this part of myself everything would be a lot better.
It helps tremendously to identify these traits in people around you - friends and family. Your spouse. Not that everyone is necessarily one or the other, but taking a look at someone and thinking if they are drained when being around others might help you understand why they don't always want to go out or talk as much as you do.
And like Chris says in the article, it's not like I want to be locked up by myself in a dark cave somewhere - I just need to recharge sometimes and recharging for me is alone time.
]]>In 2007 I started putting free guitar lessons on YouTube. In January 2008 I began selling longer videos. In 2009 I left my job to keep. Today StevieSnacks has been my fulltime job for over 3 years.
This blog is the place where I write about the day-to-day work and decisions involved with running an accidentally successful business.
My work at StevieSnacks is complicated, tedious and extremely nerdy. Sometimes when I have a nerd victory, I need to share it with someone.
Subscribed.
]]>Kids let that be a lesson to you. Anything is possible if you're patient and you beg hard enough on national television.
]]>Toca House is a free play toy for kids that takes them through the everyday chores of a household. Cleaning, washing windows, delivering mail, taking a bath or mopping the floor. These are all familiar themes for kids that they see every day, but often canāt participate in. But now they can ā and itās fun too!
Via @epramono on ADN
]]>[caption id="attachment_21307" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Blank screen in Drafts[/caption]
Maybe that's just me?
Reading through Advanced Tips for Drafts App my brain hurts a bit trying to figure out how I might use Drafts. The idea of appending notes to a text file in Dropbox is awesome and confusing at the same time.
So my simple use for Drafts right now is to post a tweet without having to actually log in to Twitter.
Why would I want to do that?
Well if I load up Tweetbot then I see the stream of tweets that I haven't read since I last looked, plus any replies or mentions I might have gotten as well. Not that I'm so popular that I have a lot of either, but it still pulls me in to keep up.
Here's how it works with Drafts in a few screenshots.
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Here's that tweet:
https://twitter.com/iChris/status/319215023375413248
Fancy hey?
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Like I said at the beginning, I've barely scratched the surface of how I could be using Drafts. I'm beginning to use it to send tasks and thoughts to Omnifocus, also to send entries to Day One but I often forget and just end up using the apps directly. Which is fine - except that on my iPhone 4 Drafts starts up much quicker than either of those two apps.
Have you used Drafts yet? I'm curious how you've integrated it into your workflow.
]]>Reeder for Mac and iPad will be updated to 2.0 in the coming months. Version 2.0 will add all the features of the iPhone version, including all sharing and syncing services. Until then, Reeder for Mac and Reeder for iPad will be free, starting today.
Download Reeder for iPad or Reeder for Mac for free to try them out if you haven't yet. I use Reeder for the iPhone a bit but really prefer to read my RSS feeds on the Mac. I'm sure if I had one I'd move to the iPad for reading RSS feeds.
]]>The phone wars, the platform wars, should be left to people who work for Apple and Samsung and Google and Microsoft and Nokia and BlackBerry. Do you work for Apple? Do you work for Samsung? No? Then shut up.
Nobody cares what kind of smartphone you believe in. Itās not a religion. Itās not your local sports team even. Stop being a soldier. You are not a soldier. You are just wrong. Shut up. You there, with the blog, in the comments, in the pages of the newspaper or the magazine or on Twitter or Facebook. Whatever your opinion is, as soon as you employ it in partisan fashion, itās deeply and profoundly wrong. Just by sharing it, you are wrong. And nobody cares. Except for the people who do. And they are wrong too. Myself included.
Mat Honan is a smart dude.
]]>Your Apple ID is the key to many important things you do with Apple, such as purchasing from the iTunes and App Stores, keeping personal information up-to-date across your devices with iCloud, and locating, locking, or wiping your devices. Two-step verification is a feature you can use to keep your Apple ID as secure as possible.
Using Apple's free Find My iPhone app for iOS or a SMS/text message you can have a secondary level of authentication in order to access your Apple ID.
Visit support.apple.com for how to set it up. Unfortunately for my fellow Canadians, it's not being offered in Canada at this time:
]]>Initially, two-step verification is being offered in the U.S., UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.
The people who were interesting told good stories. They were also inquisitive: willing to work to expand their social and intellectual range. Most important, interesting people were also the best listeners. They knew when to ask questions. This was the set of people whose shows I would subscribe to, whose writing I would seek out, and whose friendship I would crave. In other words, those people were the opposite of boring.
I need to apologize to Scott for making him listen to some of my podcasts that I've submitted over the years. Luckily for him he no longer works at Apple and is free from any new podcasts I submit.
]]>A bozo is someone who thinks they are much smarter and capable than they actually are. They constantly over-estimate their abilities and under-estimate the risks and threats around them. They typically donāt keep an open-mind. They look instead for data that confirms a previously held bias.
The article includes great quotes from Steve Jobs over the years and points to, in at least one small way, why Apple has been able to stay focused and "bozo-free" for so long.
]]>This book demystifies Markdown, making it easy for anybody to learn. This book includes 130 pages and 27 screencasts totaling more than one and a half hours of video. This book will take you from zero knowledge of Markdown to being a Markdown pro and change the way you write for the better.
I write in Markdown on this blog. I use it when I record notes for podcasts I record and when I'm taking notes in conversations for my day job. It's so quick to write when you work in a web/real world hybrid like I do.
There's the version in the iBookstore and there's also a PDF version available if you're not a iOS user.
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]]>If you're like us, we have dozens of posters that are just lying around in tubes or drawers. They never made it onto the wall because we never got around to framing them. Custom framing can be expensive and is limited to holding one size of print. We designed OpenFrame as a simple, flexible way to hang posters, prints, and photos of various sizes and configurations.
I really love the idea of OpenFrame on KickStarter. It seems so simple and yet works so well. I also like how the rewards for projects like this are easy - support as much as you want relative to how many frames you want. No gimmicks.
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]]>My apologies if you saw a couple of posts about financial news last night on the site or via RSS - somehow a person/bot created a user account on my blog with administrator privileges and posted a couple of articles. I haven't figured out anything else they might have done but I will be scanning the site throughout the day and watching for anything else odd.
The place I noticed an odd setting was under Settings -> General (/wp-admin/options-general.php on your WordPress install):
How My Install Was Configured:
How It Should Be Configured:
I don't think I set it up the way it was with anyone being able to register AND be given Administrator access - but I have had this blog running for a long time so maybe I did at one point and forgot to turn it off. Or maybe there's a backdoor somewhere in one of my plugins?
Sucuri didn't turn anything up but like I said, I'll keep scanning throughout the day. Thanks to @claybitner for pointing it out to me this morning.
]]>Yesterday, CCTV, Chinaā state-run television network, ran an expose on Apple, generating to an outcry against the company on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. News quickly broke, however, that CCTV had paid celebrities to post anti-Apple remarks. A slip up on the part of Peter Ho, a Taiwanese-American movie star and spokesperson for Samsung Galaxy, provided a glimpse behind the scenes.
]]>]]>By market share alone, one can argue that Samsung is winning, but as Iāve stated above (and repeatedly recently), the iPhone has never been close to a market share leader. By market share alone, the iPhone is far behind even Nokia.
The desire for the āOh, how the mighty Apple has fallenā narrative is so strong that the narrative is simply being stated as fact, evidence to the contrary be damned. Itās reported as true simply because they want it to be true. Theyāre declaring āThe King is dead; long live the Kingā not because the king has actually died or abdicated the throne, but because theyāre bored with the king and want to write a new coronation story.
Reader is a RSS subscription manager/reader service Google made for free that effectively destroyed any other service available at the time that might compete - why would you use something else when Google made Reader for free?
You either depend completely on Google Reader for managing your RSS feeds, like me, or you have no idea why so many nerds are gnashing their teeth over this decision by Google.
I posted a question on Twitter earlier today wondering if Gmail could be next in line for Google's house cleaning:
https://twitter.com/iChris/status/312268730333818880
I got some responses from Adam Clark and Tim Smith, both podcasters among other things, and we decided to record an episode of Too Lazy to Blog to talk about Reader's demise, the merging of two podcast networks in 5by5 and 70Decibels, and also Tim's new training site for front end developers appropriately titled Tim Likes to Teach.
Go listen to Google Is the Company of Nerds vs Podcast Networks.
]]>Replete with rock puns and good news on the data about extreme poverty around the world.
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]]>See it in action over on my tumblr.
I love how quick and easy Tumblr is to use and read. For content creators and people who just view content, Tumblr is such a great platform to be on. I'm just too much of a finicky nerd who likes to mess around with stuff to give my whole blog over to it.
]]>It's important to note that you'll need a few things to play SketchParty TV properly.
SketchParty TV requires one of the following AirPlay Mirroring capable iOS devices: iPad mini, iPad 2, iPad 3rd and 4th generation, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, or iPod touch 5th generation, as well as an Apple TV 2nd generation or newer (these are the requirements for AirPlay Mirroring). You'll also need an HDTV and a wireless router. Oh, and electricity. Maybe some comfortable couches. Snacks. And friends and family.
Via Federico Viticci
]]>āI value that,ā he says. āI like reminiscing. I do it more now watching basketball than anything. Man, I wish I was playing right now. I would give up everything now to go back and play the game of basketball.ā
ESPN profiles Michael Jordan as he turns 50. Doesn't sound like he's a great dad, friend or boss - but at least he's got money, right?
In case anyone in the inner circle forgets who's in charge, they only have to recall the code names given to them by the private security team assigned to overseas trips. Estee is Venom. George is Butler. Yvette is Harmony. Jordan is called Yahweh -- a Hebrew word for God.
And he's obsessed with getting back to his playing weight:
He never says it, but it seems as though he's playing the game in his head, using his rage for its intended purpose. He still knows how to play. He could shut down LeBron, if his body wouldn't betray him, if he could hold off time, if he could get to 218.
Glory days well they'll pass you by.
]]>It's less of a "don't play these bad, women-disempowering video games", as the host is clearly a fan of the games, but it's more of a call to modern developers to do something different and recognize the patterns they're falling back on.
Looking forward to part 2.
]]>Many Mac nerds are disappointed with the built in Calendar (formerly iCal) app and have happily forked over the money for BusyCal 2 - which ironically enough is as much as the OS X Mountain Lion upgrade itself.
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You can download a trial version or check out a screencast by Don McAllister to find out more.
Link via MacSparky.com
]]>You can check out their Instagram or Tumblr feeds to get an idea of what's possible.
Could be neat if used properly. Very annoying if used a lot. With great power comes great responsibility.
]]>Anything you've listened to lately that you'd recommend? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below.
]]>The main attraction for most people is getting Parallels Desktop 8 for $49 when it retails for $79 normally. Parallels allows you to install and run Windows (or Linux) operating systems on your Mac.
Some of the other apps included in the MacUpdate bundle include:
To help you connect better with Siri, Lex Friedman has a couple of articles up at Macworld that will get you talking to Siri again: Four ways to get things done with Siri is all about setting reminders, scheduling events, texting and taking notes, and Six tips for mastering Siri is an older article that has a good overview of commands you can use with Siri.
My wife uses Siri ever day for reminders, alarms and timers. We'd probably use it a lot more except that either our house (aka kids) are too loud or it's more of a distraction to sleeping babies to use Siri.
]]>...you're falling into the audience and you're trusting each other.
Via PatrickRhone.com
]]>I'm a Mac user and obviously have a bit of a focus on Mac news and nerdery so it would make sense that there'd be more Mac users reading my blog than Windows/etc.
So between iOS and the Mac, over 75% of my readers are Apple based in some form.
The struggle of every web designer out there - all the difference browsers that are out there.
No real surprise here, given the OS stats from the previous stats. Happy to see Internet Explorer below the "I'm not going to worry about it" line.
Mac users are known for upgrading their software and staying current. Do the stats bear this out?
I'm surprised there are as many people still on 10.6 or lower. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it I guess. But for the 15% of you still on 10.7, OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 is only $19.99 - I wouldn't over think that upgrade for too long.
If someone comes to my site via a link on a social network, which networks send the most traffic?
I don't invest a lot in Facebook or other networks and Twitter is by far the most commonly used social network, in my opinion, among the types of folks who'd likely find my blog interesting.
Nothing earth shattering to me in the numbers. I'm a bit surprised that Twitter is as high as it is in referral traffic. The rest of the numbers confirm what I'd suspected to be true - a Mac focused blog attracts a lot of Mac users.
]]>I loved this quote from the discussion:
Yahoo is an internet company thatās scared of the internet.
David Heinemeier Hansson was a guest on this episode and he offers some fresh, honest 1 advice on building a new "thing" and running a modern company. David is a partner at 37signals, creators of Basecamp, Highrise and Campfire.
It's an interesting time and it's certainly not for every business - but you have to believe that in a few (5? 10?) years we'll look back on how people all used to have to go to a physical office and wonder why we lived that way?
I'm not saying every business will be that way, nor will we all live in little digital holes in our basement. But if you just think of the amount of time our society spends driving to and from work - hours a day - and imagine what could be done with that time2?
]]>]]>Squarespace is a next generation web publishing platform for creating beautiful custom websites and blogs with zero coding knowledge. With robust tools and a fully hosted environment, Squarespace is the perfect publishing solution for everyone.
I just saw this post on TUAW.com about Griffin's new Twenty Audio Amplifier that integrates with an Airport Express:
Wouldn't it be nice if you could grab those humongous speakers that you bought back in college and somehow hook them up to an AirPlay-enabled amp? That's the idea behind the Griffin Twenty Audio Amplifier (US$99.99), which uses your existing speakers and an old AirPort Express (not included) to let you stream music to your towers of power.
So for $99 you can buy an AirPort Express, add another $99 for the Griffin Twenty Audio Amplifier and connect your old speakers and you've got a sweet wireless stereo.
]]>The biggest addition to the game is A-Sync Multiplayer or what we are calling, Turn Based Multiplayer. In this mode you can compete with your friends or randomly against strangers on a hole by hole basis. If you played Song-Pop or Draw Something you will be familiar with the āyou go first, then I play my turn, then I play the next turn, then wait for youā mechanic. Oh yea, you will also be able to play this mode cross platform on iOS and Android. How do you like them apples?
Looking forward to it.
]]>@U2.com interviewed producer Steve Lillywhite about the recording process:
You know I haven't listened to the album for many years, because I never do. And there are some strange things that are unique to War that are not like any other U2 album. Things like trumpet solos. - See more at: https://www.atu2.com/news/trust-trumpet-solos-and-long-lost-interns-remembering-war-30-years-later-with-steve-lillywhite.html#sthash.tNOW28lA.dpuf
And if you weren't a fan of their last album, you're not alone:
]]>Don't get me started on the last album.
I can certainly identify times in my own career where I've been sitting around waiting for someone to hand me authority. And I can also remember times where I just stood up and took that authority, whether I really believed I was capable of doing it or not. I certainly regret the former and haven't ever regretted the later.
Thanks to Scott Morrison, owner of Indev Software and newly transplanted Saskatoon resident, for reminding me about the 2012 (and 2011) videos available on Vimeo. They've got great talks from really smart folks in the Apple community viewable for free if you're interested in that kind of thing.
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Planned and upcoming features include Import/Export of CSV and Excel files as well as iCloud, Dropbox, G Drive, & SkyDrive support.
]]>The difference is, of course, I can put the phone in my pocket the second you start talking to me. It is not part of our conversation and there is no screen alerting me to a new message or enticing me with some video. Putting the phone in my pocket is a way to say, āOkay itās just you and me talking now.ā But wearing that computer on your face is a reminder that, well, you have a damn computer on your face.
Andre Torrez on Google Glass, link to Torrez article via Daring Fireball
As a tech geek I'm intrigued by Google Glass. But having seen how little self control most people have with their smartphones - turn off notifications, put it away when you're in a conversation, your 5 year old doesn't need an iPhone - I can't imagine handing over this level of distraction to the average person.
Think of that annoying person who's texting, tweeting or Instagram'ing constantly while you're sitting together at a coffee shop. Now imagine that they're doing all that on a pair of glasses so it kind of looks like they're talking to you but completely not.
What? Oh sorry. No I was talking to my glasses. What were you saying?
When this is more widely available, it'll really test the old saying that you wouldn't punch a person wearing glasses.
]]>All Michael Jordan wanted to wear was adidas in the NBA.
Although he wore Converse at North Carolina, because his coach Dean Smith was getting paid about $10,000 a year to put the brand on his players, the German make was his dream.
But adidas wasnāt making an offer. It wasnāt that they thought Jordan wasn't worth anything; they were just caught at a bad time. After company founder Adi Dassler died in 1978, his wife, Kathe, took over the business. But she had her son, Horst, and her four daughters each running separate divisions.
A great story on ESPN.com detailing Jordan signing with Nike and the rest, as they say, is history.
]]>a business model by which a product or service (typically a digital offering such as software, media, games or web services) is provided free of charge, but a premium is charged for advanced features, functionality, or virtual goods. Wikipedia entry on freemium
From the blog post at ADN HQ:
Although App.net has had only paid account tiers thus far, we initially conceived of App.net as a freemium service. It took some time to get to this point, but we are now ready to make this vision a reality.
Free accounts are limited in the following ways:
Here's a couple of invite codes to try out for yourself if you're interested. First come, first serve:
I'm iChris over there if you're on.
]]>It's a clever way of simplifying a useful function without making it useless. The words or accounts you've muffled are then synced across iCloud to other devices you have. Watch the video to see how it's done.
]]>Weāre not Threadless, but having grown two orders of magnitude since starting this little union, we know the pain of scaling in every part of our operation. Whatās the difference you ask? Everything.
They cover switching from Big Cartel to Shopify, sourcing a printer, and many other decisions (and mistakes) they've made along the way.
]]>Evernoteās problem: itās a blank canvas, an empty sheet of paper. You download it, fire it up andā¦ now what? There are so many possibilities, itās hard to get started. And once you do, itās hard to know how to organize your Evernote data.
Your problem: youāve heard the hype and you want to get started with this earth-shattering product, but you donāt want to spend hours upon weekends learning not only how to use it, but the best ways to use it.
You can request a sample copy or buy it outright.
]]>The cars are $100,000 right now. But give it a few years and we'll be all buying cars like this.
An interesting thought - what kind of car will my 5 year old son be taking his driver's test in when he turns 16? When I was a kid there would've been no question in my parent's mind that I'd be driving some sort of newer version of a gas guzzling vehicle.
Now? Not only is it likely to be an electric vehicle of some sort, if the gas industry is disrupted enough by electric and other types of vehicles who's to say what else might pop up?
Via SplatF.com
]]>I keep meaning to record a screencast and write a blog post with details on how and why I use Markdown - but until that time I wanted to point people to Ryan Irelan's excellent screencast titled The Basics of Markdown.
For only $9 you will learn how to:
Create portable, styled documents with Markdown, a simple-to-use markup language for web writing and more. In this 33 minute video, learn the syntax and the tools you can use to create beautiful Markdown documents.
Ryan's a really-smart-guyā¢ who's also a great teacher and when he's not helping keep the cogs happy at Happy Cog he also publishes video training materials at Mijingo.
I recently watched his free video on using Soulver to create budgets - which is still on sale in the App Store I believe - and very quickly understood the app and could tell it'd be worth picking up.
]]>The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now starts at $1,499 for 128GB of flash, and $1,699 for a new 2.6 GHz processor and 256GB of flash.
Via MacRumors.com
]]>Any questions or things I should check out with it?
]]>]]>Itās with all this in mind that we came together to make Editorially, a new collaborative writing and editing platform. We believe that the web is not merely another distribution pipeline, but a unique and deserving space for both reading and writing. Our goal is to support and encourage that writing process ā from the first flash of inspiration all the way through to publication, and at every point in between.
]]>Facebook is a continuing nightmare of privacy disasters. Itās the bathroom door that resists all efforts at locking, swinging open again and again while youāre trying to poop.
Here's Adobe's instructions on how to uninstall Flash player from your Mac or you can follow John Gruber's method of removing Flash.
Google Chrome works as a stand-alone Flash player but most of the popular services (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) offer HTML5 based players.
From my afternoon of usage without Flash installed, any site that pops up with a missing Flash player error so far has been because an ad wanted to play. So - not missing much. The only issue I'll have is needing to find a better player for the live feed at SSKTN.com.
]]>Here's the apps I'd recommend or am familiar with that are 50% off:
You can view the rest of the applications on sale here and let me know in the comments below or on Twitter which apps you like from the sale list and if I've missed one in my feature list above that should be there.
]]>Another requirement Apple has is that you are not allowed to use white Apple products in your advertisements or videos. It's odd since Apple obviously has no problem using them in their ads.
I know. You're shocked. Apple apparently has double standards for their developers. /sarcasm.
Read all 5 Nate items or follow his link to Apple's new marketing and advertising guidelines PDF released in September of 2012.
]]>Launch the app and tap anywhere to increment the counter, no need to look at the iPhone to find the right button ā just tap anywhere.
Simple app that does a simple thing well.
]]>I've only used two of the apps on the list:
Unclutter (on sale for $1.99) looks neat as a way to organize links, random thoughts and things that usually just get dumped somewhere. MindNode Pro (on sale for $9.99) is an app I've tried the demo of in an attempt to get into mind mapping/project planning but it's just never stuck for me.
My mind is un-mapable.
]]>Running a job board isn't a new idea. Nor is being inspired by the way another company runs their job board. But copying all the branding, functionality and pretty much the whole website is wrong on every level.
Authentic Jobs Canada (I'm not giving them a link) has copied almost everything about what Cameron Moll and his team at Authentic Jobs built up - including a Canadian version of the domain name and quick WordPress based job board theme.
I can only guess that the legal hassles involved for Cameron don't make it worth going after these jackasses.
The problem really becomes apparent when I, as someone located in Canada, does a Google search for Authentic Jobs. This is what I see:
If I'm a Canadian business owner looking to hire and I've heard good things about some "Authentic Jobs" listing service, I'm likely going to skip down to the .CA version.
Not only does Cameron run a quality job site, he also puts a lot of effort into the charity:water initiative which has raised thousands of dollars for the charity.
I'm just posting this so that hopefully somebody who does a search comes across this and decides to use the authentic Authentic Jobs site and not the scummy Authentic Jobs Canada rip off.
]]>So even if you're not sure if you're ever going to use ADN, I'd recommend grabbing the apps so you have them on your Apple account. They're normally $9.99 I believe:
If you'd like to give ADN a whirl, I have 3 one month trial accounts that I can give out. No credit card required and you get a month of full ADN to experiment with. Leave a comment with your email address below if you're interested.
]]>So they certainly don't need to be taking advice from a web designer and podcaster at this point in their company's life.
But I was thinking about what made me switch to the Mac and buy an eMac originally. And I think Apple does need that thing that makes you tell you friends about it. That helps separate them from the other options out there. I don't think they can just sit out the rest of the so-called PC wars because it's ending soon. There's still some money to be milked from the Mac.
The iLife suite isn't what it used to be - not to say that the software isn't great. iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes 1 are solid and work really well. But they're not a differentiator the way they used to be.
I switched to the Mac because of iMovie and iPhoto. There was literally nothing like it on Windows. I'd still maintain that there's nothing as good, but that has a lot more to do with personal preference than arguable facts.
The iPad (and iOS platform in general) is certainly close to being that thing - and maybe it is. Maybe it's because of, not in spite of, Apple's success in getting the iPad into the hand(s) of so many people that there just isn't the opportunity to wow people anymore with how amazing iMovie is on the iPad.
I had this post sitting in draft and then ended up having a conversation on ADN with Neven Mrgan along similar lines.
There's little on the horizon as a big thing that Apple needs to conquer or develop in the same way that the iPad's announcement and iPhone before that were. There were rumblings of something coming before we knew what the iPad or iPhone was going to be. Not just leaks but a general sentiment that Apple had something coming out.
These days I'm not sure what that might be. Depending on who you talk to an actual Apple TV might be that thing, or maybe smart watches2?
If history repeats itself, at least as far as Apple is concerned, then in a year or two from now we'll all be looking back and wondering how we could have lived without our Apple iToaster. Or Apple iBabysitter. Or maybe iHoverboard.
I'm just an Apple nerd who's curious what the conversation is like at Apple's R&D department these days.
The game they play is fundamentally the same as the schoolyard version: One player is "It" until he tags someone else. But men in their 40s can't easily chase each other around the playground, at least not without making people nervous, so this tag has a twist. There are no geographic restrictions and the game is live for the entire month of February. The last guy tagged stays "It" for the year.
That means players get tagged at work and in bed. They form alliances and fly around the country. Wives are enlisted as spies and assistants are ordered to bar players from the office.
Mr. Schultheis once refused to help a colleague change his tire, fearing the guy had been recruited to help get him tagged. He sometimes goes to Hawaii in February, partly to lessen the chances of getting tagged.
Doing anything consistently over a long period of time is hard. Committing to it with 3 other adults for 20+ years is incredible.
It Takes Planning, Caution to Avoid Being 'It'
Via kottke.org
]]>At any rate. Here's some podcast episodes I've enjoyed recently that may do good things to your eardrums:
Glenn Fleishman, writer for The Economist and executive editor of The Magazine interviews Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners and have a great discussion about The Deck Network, an online advertising network, Field Notes and in general the business of running a creative business in 2013. I'm tempted to just loop it in my office for the next while to let things soak in.
Jeffrey Zeldman interviews John Gruber of Daring Fireball about how he got his start, why investors don't like Apple and where he got the name for his blog. As a long time reader of Daring Fireball and follower of @gruber on Twitter, I enjoyed the look behind the blog that Zeldman got out of Gruber in this podcast.
Shawn Blanc, of ShawnBlanc.net and my guest on Welcome to the Internet awhile back, has a great chat with host Myke Hurley about taking a side business full-time and answering some great listener/reader questions along the way.
That's what's been in my ears lately. How about you?
]]>Apple also released an update for the Apple TV - hit up Macrumors for more with some great new features:
A Bluetooth keyboard option is great for anyone who has tried setting up an Apple TV and had to type in long WiFi/Apple account passwords. And the ability to send audio from a video you're watching to another AirPlay device is great for listening to a video while you're making a sandwich in the kitchen.
]]>Today App.net announced on their blog a new file storage API along with 10GB of storage for it's users built around the promise of "unbundling":
Imagine a world in which your social data (e.g. messages, photos, videos) was easier to work with. For instance, imagine you could try out a new photo sharing service without having to move all of your photos and social graph.
For more on why this is interesting at a deeper level on the web, check out an interview with ADN founder Dalton Caldwell at The Verge:
Caldwell won't confirm this, but if you switch the frame from free media to paid storage, with social messaging as a layer on top of that, you now have a model for App.net to offer a free tier. It's Dropbox's model; it's Evernote's; it's Flickr's. It's freemium. Come for the free storage and services, pay more when you run out.
At this point in the web's history, that doesn't sound weird or utopian. It sounds like the oldest thing in the world. But can it work when there are already so many free one-stop shops for social media? Caldwell is betting that as long as people want to own their own data free and clear and keep it one place, it can.
I don't know what the future holds. But I'm glad there's somebody like ADN trying to build a platform to compete with the likes of Twitter and Facebook.
The only problem with these apps is you spend more time trying to decide on an app to use than you do actually getting anything done.
]]>YouTube Spaces is the name of a different sort of incubator/start-up space built to allow people access to high quality production studios and equipment to create more videos for YouTube.
...this one doesn't give you any money, or claim ownership of your final product. Instead, it offers the tools to make more professional productions, and strategy to build and grow audiences-- while linking with creators on a profit share.
Like most things on the web, the minority of folks at the top of the food chain can make a lot of money while the rest of us plod along with a couple bucks here and there. But the view from the top is pretty incredible:
The space's first resident, Freddie Wong, boasts more than 4.3 million subscribers and 785 million video views on his channel. There's big money on the table for Wong. And he's taking it.
YouTube is letting Freddie build a new soundstage for season two of his scripted series, Video Game High School. And it didn't even have to spend a penny. Neither did Wong. He raised the money through a Kickstarter project and private investments.
More views on videos means more advertisers want to advertise which means more money for Google - you own YouTube. So it's in Google's interest to get better content - and more of it - on to YouTube.
I've seen minimal success in uploading videos to YouTube but it is a bit addicting when the odd video gets a lot of plays.
]]>I've read the odd book on my iPhone or my wife's iPad mini, but I just don't have the time to read like I used to (#kids) so I can't see the need. But if I was headed on a trip or sitting on a bus I'd be picking up a Kindle.
]]>I can still remember some of those early meetings, with 3 or 4 of us in a locked room somewhere on Apple campus, with a lot of whiteboards, talking about what iMovie should be (and should not be). It was as pure as pure gets, in terms of building software. Steve would draw a quick vision on the whiteboard, we'd go work on it for a while, bring it back, find out the ways in which it sucked, and we'd iterate, again and again and again. That's how it always went. Iteration. It's the key to design, really. Just keep improving it until you have to ship it.
Read the full article for more great stories about working with Steve Jobs.
I like that these kinds of stories slowly trickle out. That some folks, seemingly the ones closest to Steve Jobs, take time to process and think about what's worth sharing and what they want to keep personal.
Via @counternotions
]]>Our technology choices reflect our values. People willing to yield some control to Apple for their needs are more likely to enjoy the benefits that Appleās products bring by exerting that control. But people who donāt like being told what to do ā people who believe they know whatās best for them, want full control over everything, and are willing to accept the resulting responsibilities ā will be more comfortable with the alternatives.
The philosophical differences between these approaches, and the frequent failure to understand both viewpoints, are the roots of anti-Apple anger.
Great article by Marco Arment that was originally published in The Magazine, Issue 4.
I have about 3 different draft posts sitting on my blog where I try and articulate most of what Marco writes. What I often get from people is this desire to make sure I know if they think Apple is faltering. And it seems as if they're giddy with delight to point out "Hey'd ya see that Apple isn't selling as many iPhones as analysts thought they would?" only once you actually try and have a conversation with them about what's going on, they really don't care nor have they done much more than read a headline.
I enjoy Apple both as an interesting company to watch as well as using the products they build. I enjoy the ongoing story of how Apple, Microsoft, Google, RIM, etc. are all trying to navigate what we are able to do now with what's going to come in the future.
Currently I place my money1 on Apple being the best way forward in terms of what's best for me and how I use technology as well as those around me. But Apple won't be around forever. Eventually they'll be blind to some new thing the same way everyone else was blind to the iPhone.
But for now, I'm going to enjoy the well designed hardware and software they ship.
IterĀaĀtion. Itās the key to design, really. Just keep improvĀing it until you have to ship it.
Besides Bono's great hair you'll also get a glimpse of a young Ali Hewson - his wife to this day. No easy feat for a lead singer of the one of the biggest bands in the world.
No embed options so you'll have to watch it on rte.ie.
Via @atu2
]]>Today 37signals announced Basecamp Personal that looks like a great option for small groups (5 people or less) to plan and organize events or projects.
You can see how it compares to regular Basecamp but the best part is that it's a single $25 fee to set up a project. No monthly costs or recurring fees.
My only issue with the limitations of Basecamp Personal is the user limit. A one-off, short-term project won't necessarily be limited to 5 people. You might need a group (i.e. a volleyball team fundraising for a trip) of people involved who won't all need to have active accounts, but at least be able to check in on what's going on. I guess for those scenarios 37signals would tell you to set up a regular Basecamp account - starting at $20/month - and then just cancel when you're done.
At present they're only opening it up to current Basecamp customers but you don't have to be an owner of a Basecamp account, just a user on someone's project. So if you're interested in trying it out and don't have a 37signals ID, leave me a note in the comments and I can invite you to a project so you can check it out.
]]>https://twitter.com/iChris/status/292793410849472512
It went from being a "why would I ever use that?" to "I can't run a website without it" in the shortest time of any plugin I've used on WordPress.
The plugin hadnāt been updated in an embarrassingly long time, but I finally got around to fixing some bugs around mobile publishing and updating the included Markdown Extra library to the latest version. It wonāt go without updates so long again.
Markdown on Save Improved (or MOSI as I prefer to call it when I never say it out loud) is developed by Matt Wiebe.
]]>We've chosen to connect the lamps with wifi technology. When you receive your Big Lamp you use a USB cable to connect it to your laptop and program it to remember your wifi name and password. Once that's done, you can plug in your Big Lamp anywhere you like. The Little Lamps connect to a Power House which also has a wifi chip which you program in the same way. When you collect many Little Lamps, simply connect them to each other.
This is something that seems right in line with what James Sapara and I were talking about on The YXE podcast earlier this week - a computer doesn't have to be in every device, but having every device connected in some way can make for some really neat tools and toys.
At Ā£89 (approx. $140CDN) it's an expensive lamp set. But this is version 1. We'll see what happens in a few years.
Via @jasonfried
]]>Via kottke.org
]]>Teenagers Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta worked for two years to recreate the entire Toy Story movie as a live-action film using actual toys! They even got permission from Pixar for the production.
You can see more on the Facebook page.
Via neatorama.com
]]>Love it or hate it, this will be the 26th season of a television show that many picked to be gone awhile ago.
If you're more of a Survivor fan than I am, you could start watching anyone of the many other Survivor spinoffs from around the world as listed on the Survivor Wikipedia page.
SPOILER ALERT
Not to ruin the episode, but I want to grow SSKTN this year. Barring extenuating life circumstances, I want to be able to say in 10 - 12 months whether it can be a thing I do.
More to come.
]]>For a quick test I listed a recently published (and freely available I might add so probably not worth actually buying unless you really want to support SSKTN) episode of the Lost & Lemon podcast I do with my brother in law.
Ep41 - Getting Fresh with Freshbooks
You won't be charged unless you start entering payment details.
[gallery type="circle" link="file" ids="21110,21111,21112,21113,21114,21115,21116,21117"]
I really like how quickly and easily I could list something for sale. Services like this that take all the friction out of selling a product are great because it enables anyone who's creative to put their stuff out there without much effort - aside from all the effort of creating whatever it is.
For me I could see using it to sell special one-off audio files (i.e. a tutorial or review), a training video or an ebook. There's other services out there that you could use - Tinypass is another one I've come across recently - but Gumroad seems to be the quickest from signing up to listing your masterpiece that I've come across.
]]>In Canada if you want a refill on your coffee you are required to sing an Elton John song in 4 part harmony with at least one key change.
Via @heather_mo
]]>At the heart of the iXY is a matched pair of Ā½ā cardioid condenser capsules, fixed in a perfect 90 degree ānear-coincidentā alignment. This results in immersive and true-to-life stereo recordings, captured in incredibly high detail.
Great idea for reporters, podcasters or anyone doing any sort of audio work. I have their VideoMic that I use for recording interviews and it works great.
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His son is 8 months old and he posted a list of baby stuff that he and his wife have used that they've found to be high quality and work well.
We're on child number three so we're not about to plunk down a bunch of money for new stuff at this point, but there's a lot of great ideas of things I wish we'd known about back when we first started having kids like the wipes dispenser and snotsucker.
]]>To win: tap & grow floating bubbles until they add to 100. There's just one catch: They turn red when touched. And if a bubble collides when red, you're dead.
Simple in concept, deep in design, Hundreds explores emergent puzzles that combine the minimal with the strategic by introducing a multitude of objects over the course of 100 unique puzzles. For ages 2 to 222.
I haven't picked up a copy yet because we're still deep in our Letterpress addiction but Hundreds looks like a great game to play while you're waiting for your turn in Letterpress.
]]>Damon: The very first day, I remember we started crying, because it was a scene between Robin and Stellan. And when Gus called action and we watched these guysāI mean accomplished actorsādo our scene verbatim, we had waited so long for this to happen. I remember just sitting next to Ben and I had tears rolling down my cheeks because I was just so happy and relieved that it was really happening.
Great story about the film that launched the careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
]]>Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.
Bad bug that shouldn't have been too hard to test. Especially bad timing since Apple just started advertising the feature.
]]>Everything revolves around Belushi, the most electric and popular comic actor of his time. It would be inaccurate to blame all the movieās problems on Belushi. He isnāt responsible for the late-developing script or the unwieldy action sequences. It would be even more inaccurate to say Belushi isnāt responsible. He has become a blessed wreck, thanks mostly to his spiraling (and ultimately lethal) addiction to cocaine.
Via KungFuGrippe.com
]]>There's 18 points on the contract, all of which are great. I particularly like:
- It does not go to school with you. Have a conversation with the people you text in person. Itās a life skill. *Half days, field trips and after school activities will require special consideration.
Turn it off, silence it, put it away in public. Especially in a restaurant, at the movies, or while speaking with another human being. You are not a rude person; do not allow the iPhone to change that.
You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together.
I don't know about you, but I see more grown adults having issues with their mobiles these days than kids. Common sense and basic rules of interactions are thrown out the window by people who otherwise should know better.
*The site is currently down so here's a cached version of the page in case the link above doesn't work.
Via tuaw.com
]]>I thought I'd post a bit of a recap with links to some of my favourite things I've posted over the past year.
I relaunched the Too Lazy to Blog podcast as a sort of audio commentary for this blog. It has been reasonably well received/downloaded and Iāve had fun doing it so I think Iāll continue it in 2013. Having a weekly random guest keeps it interesting and challenging.
On to the Year in Review...
So that's the year on my blog. I'd hoped to have written more original material but at the same time it's very much a hobby site for me to post things I find interesting so I'm not too disappointed.
I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions but I do enjoy using events that mark the passing of time to evaluate what I'm doing and why. But that's for another post to come. Hopefully in 2013.
Thanks again for reading, visiting, sharing, linking and liking here on Faraway, So Close. I appreciate all the silent lurkers who pop in from time to time and really enjoy the few that decide to leave a comment or question every now and then.
..cue Auld Lang Syne
]]>Don't remember what OS X used to look like back when dinosaurs used to roam the planet and Apple's OS ran only on PowerPC processors? We've mined more than a decade of our own OS X reviewsāstudiously authored by John Siracusaāfor screenshots and other OS X-related memories that trace the development of Apple's desktop OS through the 2000s.
I started into the Mac as Apple made the transition to OS X. I wasn't a Mac user at all - mocked them if anything - but OS X changed it for me. I didn't actually pick up a Mac until we bought an eMac / (photo) in 2003 which likely shipped with Jaguar v10.2.
Jump in the time machine and take a look back at how far OS X has come.
]]>If you add in an extra Mac application called Reflector ($14.99), you can use your Mac as the output device so you can see what's on the iPad on your Mac. Throw in a screen capture program like ScreenFlow 4 ($99) and you can record videos of your iPad or iPhone which are great for training or reviews.
I recorded a quick test using Reflector and Screenflow while I played a quick game of Ski Safari ($0.99).
Add a little voice over and a few title/graphics and you could do a pretty professional looking app review or promo/training video for a new app.
What do you think? Worth doing for a few apps I talk about on here?
]]>Facebook today announced a trial that could let paid advertisers directly message users' in-boxes, which have traditionally been held for messages from friends.
So it's spam but it's paid-for spam so it's ok? And I'm pretty sure you're not going to be able to filter these paid-for messages out in any way.
]]>Found an app you'd recommend that's on sale? Let me know in the comments or on Facebook.
]]>I'm listing these games to show that I already have them to play. I'm looking for other ideas of what to play.
We've never really played any Wii games. We have an Xbox 360 so we've played any games that are available on both platforms (i.e. Lego Star Wars, etc.)
Up until the Wii I was a huge Nintendo fan and owned the original NES and played a bunch of games on the Super NES.
So my question to you, faithful and knowledge readers of my blog, what games should we play in our short window with a Wii?
Reply in the comments below, on the Facebook page or to my Twitter account. I'll post a follow up with all the suggestions.
]]>There's lots of information about the old Furbys but not much out there about the new, 2012/2013 model that everyone will be getting for Christmas.
Ours was completely unresponsive after less than a week. We thought it was out of batteries so we replaced those and it was still dead with a fresh set of batteries.
The older Furby models apparently had a reset button. We couldn't find any reset button so I thought I'd try another trick of the old Furby models - hold down the Furby's tongue while you put the batteries in.
That worked!
Our Furby bounced back to life with a weird dance. The bonus, in our case, is that this completely reset the Furby's attitude and personality. Instead of being slightly valley girl'ish ("Like OMG, no WAY?!"), our Furby is now a burping, farting, beat boxing little weirdo - which is much more in tune with what I want for my boy's playmate/toy.
]]>I spent a few afternoons in high school setting up games of Axis & Allies. By the time you got to play the game it was time to head home. This seems like a much better way to enjoy a game like this these days. Especially when you've got little kids running around that could knock over the game board.
You can check out a series of YouTube videos demoing the game and read more about it at Shenandoah Studios' website.
Story via The Loop
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]]>Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth
Jesus could you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No-one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the color in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
That's peace on Earth
They're reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won't get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Anne and Breda
Their lives are bigger, than any big idea
Jesus this song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth?
This peace on Earth
This really isn't very complicated and will up your game in front of your next audience. I find losing the electronic tether improves my engagement. During my last major trial, I still tethered the iPad to the projector, which was pretty awkward. Now that I've been using this wireless setup for awhile, I'm sold and don't see myself going back.
What he means by "losing the electronic tether" is that since he doesn't have to always go back to his laptop or Mac to click to the next slide he's able to stay in whatever rhythm he's in while giving talks because he's carrying his iPad with him. Which makes the iPad mini all that much more attractive.
]]>I'm willing to bet that Flickr will happily play nice with Twitter, unlike Instagram who recently pulled support for showing of their photos in Twitter's cards. To which Twitter responded1 by adding the ability to filter your photos, as if the filters were the thing people flocked to Instagram for.
If Flickr can pull the community back from the various services they've left to (500px, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, etc.), then it could be a great homecoming of sorts for one of the first great photo communities on the web.
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Iām not a religious man, but I do think there is deep wisdom in tradition and ritual. The Jubilee offers a way out of oppressive expectations, even if they are our own. This year, Iām practicing a digital jubilee by archiving my inbox, deleting my RSS subscriptions, and unfollowing most everyone on Twitter. These, of course, will fill back up as time passes, but now I have a recurring way to purge. Practices like these have been coined ādeclaring bankruptcyā by the digital lifestyle blogs, but I think the phrase misrepresents the practice. Cleaning the digital slate is not a practice of giving up. It is one of self-forgiveness.
This idea really resonates with me.
So if you wake up on January 1 and I'm not following you on Twitter, don't get upset. It's not you, it's me.
Via Shawnblanc.net
]]>Which got me to thinking - if I was blessed with an anonymous donation for the SSKTN studio, what would I upgrade the mid-2008 iMac I use for recording podcasts and producing video to, and how much would it cost?
The $200 upgrade to the Core i7 would help when bouncing a recording out of Logic to an MP3 for a podcast or exporting a video edited in ScreenFlow 4 or Final Cut Pro.
Going from the stock 8GB DDR SDRAM to 16GB for $200 would be an upgrade I probably wouldn't do if it was my own money - but since we're playing fantasyland here, why not? Going to 32GB though is excessive.
The $250 upgrade to Apple's new Fusion drive would be a mixture of wanting the performance that an SSD gives you plus curiosity about new tech. An extra $150 would give me a 3TB version which might be good - except that more storage means you just have more to backup. I kind of like having limits - like the 256GB SSD on my MacBook Air - that force me to decide what to keep and what to toss rather than just being a digital packrat.
I'd upgrade the video card to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5 for $150 but only if it wasn't my money. I don't need it really but it would come in handy for those occasional Motion edit sessions or random game that I get 5 minutes to play.
So far we're at $2,799 + tax for that configuration.
I'd probably grab the $69 upgrade to the Magic Mouse/Trackpad combo just to have a Trackpad around and throw on the $199 AppleCare. It might be a cash grab for Apple but I can't afford to be fixing an iMac over the next 3 years so it's worth the insurance for me.
So the grand total would be $3,067.00 + tax.
It says a lot about how far the iMac has come and how far the Mac Pro has fallen behind that I wouldn't really even consider a Mac Pro for this kind of setup anymore. If you'd asked me 3 years ago there's no question I'd have jumped straight to the Mac Pro config page if I was looking to upgrade my home studio hardware.
Alright anonymous donor. Time to step forward.
]]>Starting at $2,390USD and based out of Maine it might not be practical to get one sent up to Canada.
Via Neatorama.com
]]>But the real innovation here is the paper. Itās maybe not even fair to call it paper. The whole book is printed on Yupo Synthetic paper, an amazing water- and tear-proof paper extruded from polypropylene pellets in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Be sure to check out the 12 "scientific" test videos on the site.
]]>Rebrickable will show you which LEGO sets you can build, by reusing the sets and loose parts you already own. You can choose from official LEGO sets or custom made MOCs (My Own Creations) by many different designers. All MOCs include building instructions, some of which are even better than the official LEGO ones!
Awesome.
]]>Direct link to video on YouTube or Apple.com.
Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock Holmes in the great Sherlock BBC series) as the villain could be a great choice.
]]>Google+ has some advantages. For one thing, you have more control over your experience. And your feed isnāt cluttered with ads. In general, Google+ feels like a cleaner, nicer place than Facebook, which has never been very attractive and is starting to look old and tired.
Ironic that a feature of a Google product is, at least for now, the fact that it's not "cluttered with ads". I can't see that lasting forever but it's a nice counterpoint to how ugly Facebook is.
The bigger news, however, is that Google+ now has 500 million members, 135 million of whom are active users of Google+ itself, while 235 million are considered "active" by virtue of interacting with Google+ from other Google sites. That total number of 500 million is up from 400 million only three months ago.
I get tired of people on Twitter/etc. cracking "Remember Google+?" or "Is Google+ still around?" jokes just because they haven't figured out a use for Google+. I'm not very active on there right now either but you can't deny that a lot of people are finding real uses for Google+, particularly photographers.
Their new Communities feature (essentially groups/forums within Google+) is only going to help that growth as more people are able to gather around similar interests.
I'm the last person who wants yet another social network to come along. But just like Google and Microsoft with Apple in the mobile phone space, competition is a good thing. A company that has dominance in a market eventually gets stagnant and looks out only for the bottom line and not what the users need or want in their products.
]]>In his most wide-ranging interview as CEO, Cook explains how Apple works now, talks about the perception that heās ārobotic,ā and announces the return of Apple manufacturing to the U.S.
I'm guessing that the anti-Apple folks will find a way to spin that last item as "Apple stealing jobs from China".
]]>You can also upload your recordings to YouTube - check out a sample video of how it renders a tape playing for the video.
I'm a bit curious why the developer hasn't built in support for uploading to a service like SoundCloud as well but maybe that's not a great use for this app.
]]>]]>Youāll have to wait awhile to stream your favorite Disney films, though. The companyās backlog, which includes the animated Pixar library and Star Wars franchise, will be available on Netflix beginning toward the end of 2016, after Disneyās current deal with pay-TV network Starz expires.
I think I saw 2 or 3 of these this year. Kids.
Via @majornelson
]]>March 31, 2013 can't come soon enough.
]]>Founder (and friend) Elon Musk doesn't just want you to drive the fastest, sexiest and most modern car ever built -- that's too easy for our generation's da Vinci. No, Elon wants you to drive the hottest car anywhere at any time for free. For the rest of your life.
At $50,000USD they aren't out of reach for a lot of people so it's confusing why something like this doesn't get more press for being as amazing as it is. It speaks to the power the existing auto industry has over anything that might come along and attempt to disrupt it.
But just as I'm sure the horse and buggy industry was worried about all the jobs Henry Ford was going to kill when he introduced the Model T in 1908 - but people can be retrained and learn new skills.
Earlier this year Tesla Motors introduced supercharging stations that, according to the article linked above:
So buy a somewhat more expensive car but then get free "gas" for life.
I can understand why the powers that be would be scared of something that innovative.
So, you're going to buy half as many cars and you're going to drive for free for the rest of your life. The punch line to all this? We could have been doing it in the '80s or '90s, and we could rush this technology to mass adoption in the next five years if we wanted.
Energy independence, sexy cars with better performance, no emissions and no reason to go to war in the Middle East over oil! And what would happen to our economy if all the money families and businesses spent on gasoline was freed up? Teachers, roads, jobs -- oh my!
Maybe not quite the utopia he describes but still. Better than where the USA finds themselves right now to be sure.
]]>Download it on the web or via Software Update under the Apple menu on your Mac.
]]>Fantastical's DayTicker is the efficient and enjoyable way to view your schedule. Make sense of your upcoming schedule at-a-glance and quickly swipe to see the past and the future.
Even better, the DayTicker and the event list are connected. Just swipe the list and the DayTicker will update automatically. With Fantastical, you'll see your events like never before.
The Mac version of Fantastical (also 50% off right now at $9.99 in the Mac App Store) has gotten rave reviews for it's ease of date entry and quick access to your day's events.
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]]>See full specifications (PDF).
Customize your guest book with our original background artworks or use your own. Create background slideshows. Protect your settings and information with a passcode.
It's the kind of app you'd run on your iPad at a trade show, concert or speaking engagement where you want people to be able to sign up for your email list or to be contacted later for updates/promotions on your products.
At $9.99 in the App Store it likely needs to be helping you generate some sort of income or marketing presence to justify.
Alternatively if you only use Mailchimp, they have a free iOS app that ties into your mailing list.
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]]>āBy the end of the year Iāve already promised this, so the engineers ā when I promised it publicly theyāre already mad at me so they can keep being mad at me,ā said Costolo at UM. āNow, again, once again, I caveat this with the engineers who are actually doing the work donāt necessarily agree that theyāll be done by the end of the year, but weāll just keep having that argument and weāll see where we end up year-end.ā
We'll see.
Other facts from Costolo's talk at the University of Michigan:
āIt took three years, two months and one day for the first billion tweets to be sent. From the time the company started in 2006 to mid-2009 three years, two months and one day for the first billion tweets to be sent. It has a nice rhythm that it was three, two, one. It probably wasnāt exactly one day, but we like to say that; so itās three, two, one,ā he said. āWe now send a billion tweets every two and a half days. So the volume, the noise level has increased dramatically.ā
A billion tweets are sent every two and a half days. How many of those are spam? I'm curious if the ratio is anything like the ratio of email spam to actual emails.
I always wonder why TV shows put a hashtag on the TV during their shows and think "who responds by using a hashtag that a tv show dictates to me?"
When the TV show The X-Factor (U.K.) put a hashtag on the screen, it generated 27,000 tweets in 90 seconds.
I guess that's the answer.
The service will ānever changeā its 140-character limit.
Never is a long time.
Via @viticci
]]>As best I can tell, there are two useful types of meeting: alignment and creation. Briefly:
Alignment meetings sound like this: āItās red, are we all in agreement itās red? Ok, swell. Wait, Phil thinks itās blue. Phil, here are the 18 compelling reasons itās red. Convinced? Done now?ā
Creation meetings sound like this: āWe need more blue. How are we going to do that? Phil, youāre our blue man. What should we do here?ā
There are other meetings out there, but you will learn to avoid them. One being the therapy meeting. They sound like this: āShow of hands, who likes to talk about blue? Or red? I donāt care. Letās explore our color feelings for the next 60 minutes.ā
The article is written from the perspective of a tech company, but many principles could easily be applied to other businesses or companies.
Reading it gave me newfound respect for managers at my previous employers.
]]>Keep your crayons sharp, your sticky tape untangled and always put the tops back on your markers.
]]>I've always loved the tycoon style of game - i.e. SimCity, Transport Tycoon, etc. - and Railraods!1 is a great game in that style.
The game is heavily focused on economics ā players have to build and sustain entire industries using the railroads they develop. Gameplay changes from previous editions of Railroad Tycoon include a system where new technology is first auctioned to the highest bidder. This gives the player a ten-year exclusive use of that technology. Similarly, individual industries are also put up for auction amongst players. Tracklaying is automated and much easier than other editions of Railroad Tycoon. When combined with the more "compressed" terrain, it allows for tactical placement of track to obstruct and frustrate opponents.
Part of the fun is just laying tracks and seeing your little trains run on them like a personal train set that you could never afford. But there's also a whole lot of strategy and economics at play that keep it interesting beyond just making trains crash into each other.
The game also allows head-to-head play over a LAN or the Internet, supporting up to four players per game, either human or artificial intelligence.
Who wants to set up a LAN and have a Friday night of Railroads!?2
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]]>I keep meaning to do a screencast showing why Pixelmator is so great as a Photoshop alternative for 75% of what people typically use Photoshop for - so until I do that you'll just have to take my word for it that Pixelmator is a great deal at it's regular $29.99 so at $14.99 it's a steal.
For anyone with a Retina Mac it's also Retina ready with their recent update:
Both Pixelmatorās friendly user interface and its powerful image editing engine are now optimized for the new MacBook Pro with Retina display.
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]]>I get an affiliate payment if you do pick up a theme or two so thanks in advance!
]]>Paradise (Live 2012 from Paris)
Just put a +nameofcontestorwebsite after your regular email name but before the "@" sign. So if your email address is promommyblogger@gmail.com, and the website you're signing up for my email list you'd use promommyblogger+chrisenns@gmail.com.
Any emails that get sent to promommyblogger+chrisenns@gmail.com will still come to your inbox just like emails sent to promommyblogger@gmail.com - but now you can filter or mark as spam automagically using Gmail filters.
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Using a filter for that specific address allows you to tell if I'm spamming you. And then you can have Gmail filter it automatically and delete it, mark it as important or do whatever you want with those messages.
Alternatively you could just consistently use a promommyblogger+contests@gmail.com address for all contests you enter and then just mark them as read, archive them into a folder and then go back every so often and look through those emails to see if you've won. That way all those emails will skip your inbox so you don't have to delete them and you can also go back easily enough to search for the winning message.
If you're a guitar player, getting Capo alone makes it worthwhile as it normally sells for $49.99 - picking up Fantastical and TechTool Pro (normally $99) makes it a really great deal.
]]>Enns is a web developer in Saskatoon who describes himself as "passionate about podcasting" and has been producing podcasts for quite some time. He said the idea for The YXE came to him through conversations with other people in the city.
You can read the story or you can listen to Jane interview me on the most recent episode of The YXE. I thought that since the story was about podcasting and The YXE podcast in particular, it was only fitting that we record it and publish it as a podcast.
]]>Which brings me to one of my favourite features added to iOS 6 for the iPhone: Do Not Disturb.
We've got a new baby. Sleep is a precious commodity right now. The last thing I want if I manage to sneak in a 30 minute nap is for someone to text, email, phone, or otherwise do anything to get between me and catching the fast train to sleepsville.
Do Not Disturb simply doesn't let any notifications, texts, phone calls, Game Center notifications or Twitter replies through. Short of an emergency (we'll get to that), your phone is dead to you so you can be dead to the world.
It's the one that's got the gears on it.
There's a quick On/Off toggle you can do to enable Do Not Disturb right away.
This effectively shuts the iPhone off to outside noises. One key point is that if you're using your iPhone (i.e. it's on and you're just checking Twitter one more time. Just one more time.) it will still vibrate and make noises as normal. I guess it assumes since you're using the iPhone you're ok with being disturbed.
But if you lock your iPhone and set it down/put it in your pocket, you'll be free from iPhone related disturbances.
Do Not Disturb is turned on.
If you'd like to adjust the settings for Do Not Disturb, tap into the Notifications button just below the Do Not Disturb toggle button. Then tap Do Not Disturb:
You'll then be presented with a screen like this one:
If you turn on the Scheduled switch, you can specify when your iPhone should automatically go into Do Not Disturb mode:
I should probably go to bed earlier.
I hear you. And so does your iPhone.
Let's say you're taking your nap and one of your kids gets a call from the school that they got really muddy and you need to bring some pants - hypothetically speaking of course - Do Not Disturb's Allow Calls From option is where you want to look.
In Mail/Contacts in iOS 6 you can set certain people as Favorites. (You don't have to tell them - don't worry!) Then if those people are calling you it will allow them to get through the Do Not Disturb zone of sleep protection™.
Similarly you can set up groups of contacts in your Address Book and then check those off as being allowed through. This way you can have your school's phone number and important family/friends who you do want to allow to get ahold of you even if you're deep in sleep.
The last feature that you can turn on is Repeated Calls:
If enabled a second call from someone within a 3 minute time window will be allowed through. Like, for example, if the school really needs you to bring clean pants for your muddy kid.
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Got any questions about 'Do Not Disturb'? I'd love to try and help answer them - leave a comment below. Just don't disturb me while I'm trying to get some sleep!
]]>The cast and crew of Big Bang Theory staged a surprise flash-mob choreographed dance production to "Call Me Maybe," surprising the show's execs and live audience. It's pretty amazing -- be sure and watch to the end for Sheldon's coda.
Via boingboing.net
]]>Great ad as usual from Apple.
]]>Via kottke.org
]]>As always, I welcome your feedback in the comments below.
Letās count the ways in which this is great:
I thought the same thing when I saw the ad in today's Globe and Mail. And what's with quoting a random Twitter account as an authority on your ad campaign? Especially one who's obviously a Mac developer of some sort.
]]>On the other, it's Angry Birds.
I'm conflicted as to whether I should post this or attempt to bury it. But I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do with the information.
Or as Stephen Hackett wrote:
]]>Feel that?
Itās as if millions of nerds suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
The iOS app is $1.99 in the App Store and the Mac App is on for 50% off today only at $6.99.
]]>By the always great Sandwich Video, Adam Lisagor's video production company. I'd love to be Adam Lisagor when I grow up - beard and all.
I love the way they've described the process of building a video for a client on their How it Works page:
Speaking of money, how much does a video cost? One million dollars.
Not really one million dollars. But thatās as absurd an answer as any we could give without knowing a whole lot more about your project. The price of a video depends on a couple of things, like the nature of the creative concept and the resources available to you. Generally speaking, our clients fall into three categories...
It's how I often feel like answering when people ask how much a website design costs as if there's a flat rate for designing & building whatever it is they might be imagining in their head. I'm always happy to help people understand what's actually involved and the range of costs because I understand most people have no idea (nor should they) of how building a website works.
]]>Fast becoming my favourite song on Babel.
You can listen to their full interview on Q. There's also a full concert available on Youtube from their performance on the Letterman show.
]]>Hereās what I recommend: go to a really good liquor store in your area and select the most expensive bottle of whisky that you are comfortable purchasing. Now put it back on the shelf and pick up one thatās twice as expensive. For example, a Laphroaig 18 year old Islay Single Malt ScotchWhisky. And prices can go far higher than this fine bottle. Find the edge of your comfort zone, then blast on past it. Make yourself uncomfortable.
Could be the lack of sleep that makes this seem like a really good idea. More articles in the series.
]]>The best (or worst) part is looking at a few of the YouTube comments where people are debating whether this is for real or not.
Via @brad_frost
]]>My take after spending a bunch of the weekend with the iPad mini: This is the real iPad.
I'm still skeptical but I keep reading more reviews of people's experiences with the iPad mini and they all have a similar theme:
I'll be curious to see what people like Dan are using in a few weeks time once the novelty has worn off. My wife has a 1st generation 32GB iPad that we're toying with selling in order to buy an iPad mini. Having a camera for Facetime calls and taking the odd photo of the kids would be a nice upgrade - never mind the speed and easier portability of the iPad mini.
According to current Apple Store shipping estimates, we've got at least two weeks to decide.
]]>Collected here are images of Sandy's aftermath, many from New York City, which suffered widespread blackouts and a record-setting high tide early this morning.
]]>āFor the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,ā said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. āItās now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. Iāve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. Iām confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disneyās reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.ā
Crazy. I really didn't think I'd see a new Star Wars release, let alone one without George Lucas having complete and utter control over it, in my life.
By the time we save enough money to take our kids to Disney, they'll likely be a Star Wars ride and/or theme park.
]]>First of all: a confession. I came at this vehicle already loving the look of the car. There's something about the boxy exterior that appeals to me. I recognize it's not for everyone - my wife wasn't completely sold on it - but I love it. When I got the call saying that I had a 2013 Flex to test out I was excited to see if I liked the interiror as much as the exterior.
I was actually quite surprised how roomy the Flex is inside. I'm not sure what it was, but from the outside I kind of expected it to feel tight and constrained inside maybe because of it's truck-like appearance. But there was plenty of both leg and head room - and I'm not short at just over 6'.
The dash and controls are all fairly well laid out. Coming from older vehicles without all the digital dashboard integration it's a bit overwhelming at first to see everything presented with a digital display. Connecting my iPhone was really easy. The Ford Sync technology works seamlessly to play my music back, listen to podcasts or other media.
The vehicle provided had Sirius Satellite radio installed and hooked up which sounded great and was simple enough to find different stations - I'm just too into my own music and/or podcasts that I didn't spend too long using it. A new 2013 Flex apparently comes with 3 months of free Sirius Satellite service which should give you more than enough time to figure out if you're going to make use of it or not.
At the time of the review, we just had two kids and so putting two car seats in the middle seats wasn't a problem. A smaller person than I would have a bit of an easier time attaching the belt that loops around and behind a seat - but I figured out that by folding the rear seats down I could quickly latch everything in properly.
Our 5 year old could easily reach down and open up the cooler between their seats - how awesome is it having a cooler inside your car? - which could prove to be a bit of a problem if you're hoping to store some chocolate milk back there on a road trip and they decide to help themselves.
Left and right climate controls in the front and a separate set of controls for the rear seats work well to allow everyone to be able to be as hot or cold as they want. We had the 2013 Flex during a warm week in fall and so didn't have a lot of need for heating or cooling - but the air conditioned seats were a big hit for my 9 month pregnant wife!
One feature I loved is all the sunroof/moon roof placement in the 2013 Flex. You can see the photos in the slideshow below, but every seat has plenty of natural light shining in from above - along with a screen to slide out if it gets too bright. This lends to the roomy feeling inside the 2013 Flex and also comes in handy when you point out a plane to your kids in the rear seats and they can look up and see it instead of getting frustrated.
The rear camera view for backing up was a big hit with the kids as well and with me. A larger vehicle like the 2013 Flex does make it harder to know if there's any little people, toys, bikes or parking pillars behind you and having the assurance that you can back up safely. With all the sensors on the 2013 Flex (i.e. assistive cruise control that automatically adjusts your speed to the flow of traffic, alerts on the side mirrors if a vehicle is beside you and it's unsafe to change lanes), it feels like we're inching closer to the day when we just ride along in our car while the onboard computer drives.
Maybe in 2014?
The biggest hit of all for my 5 year old was the ability to press a button and have the rear seats adjust to how you want them configured. Control each individually or have them both in the same setup, he tried them all.
(I'm sure Ford has tested those controls extensively, but I don't want to know how many times he pushed those buttons!)
I took him out of the city and found a nice spot to switch to the rear facing arrangement and watch a sunset.
Or at least as much of it as he could handle until he kicked me out to try a different arrangement of seats. Check out how much fun he had in the quick video I shot below:
Too much fun.
One funny thing that I noticed, and I feel odd mentioning it, but the turn signal sound - you know, the "bing/ding/?" your car makes when the left/right turn signal is activated - didn't sound as cool as the rest of the car felt. Odd, right? I even asked a friend and he concurred. Something about the sound of the turn signal reminded us both of old people - like my grandparent's car's turn signal. Not sure why.
The push button start takes a bit of getting used to. Not requiring the key in the ignition means the key fob can be anywhere inside the vehicle. If you put it anywhere other than back in your pocket when you get in means you're likely to forget it in the vehicle when you get out. I suspect this is one of those user issues where if I had this car on a regular basis I'd just get used to the patterns of just putting the key fob back in my jacket or pants pocket.
https://twitter.com/iChris/status/256775124936687616
The last issue we came across was that before we had the child seats installed, our 2 year old was climbing around behind the front seats and found the button that collapses one of the middle seats in order to get easier access to the rear seating. It didn't come down hard or fast, but was enough to give him a little bonk. And a normal kid would've never touched the button again and all would be well. Our 2 year old happens to have a thick skull and decided to push the seat up and press the button again, laughing as the seat smacked him. Again - your mileage may vary depending on your kids.
Overall I really loved driving the 2013 Ford Flex and was very reluctant to return it. It's a stylish, distinctive looking vehicle that would make a great company vehicle for my business in a nice bright Lemon yellow colour - hint, hint!
[gallery type="rectangular" ids="252,251,248,249,250,259,258,257,256,255,254,253"]
]]>I've wanted a place to write about stuff that's more family focused - particularly on life with kids and all the stuff besides technology that is going on - yet still written from the perspective of a guy who's into tech, the web and all sorts of other nerdy stuff. Reviews of products we like or get to try, a future podcast with my kids talking about their favourite things and maybe even a guest post or two from my wife if I can coax her into it.
If it was still appropriate I'd put up a "Under Construction" animated GIF on the site but I prefer to just get the site launched as it is and refine it as I go.
So while this site will remain the same Apple focused tech/nerd fest, MyDadPodcasts.com will be more of a dad/family focused nerd fest. Of course there's the obligatory Twitter and Facebook pages as well if you want to follow/like those. Fairly barren for now but more to come.
]]>As always, I welcome your feedback in the comments below.
Ever wake up in a Hangover like haze and need help figuring out what you did the day before?
Yes.
]]>iPad transforms the way you work. Learn how iPad features and applications can help businesses get the job done.
A great collection of free video podcast episodes covering various apps and tools available to use on the iPad.
They're only a minute or two long so you can get back to being a thought leader in your business opportunities for the fourth quarter projections in no time.1
Find words, steal tiles, color the board! Letterpress is a fresh new word game for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Play with your friends using Game Center! The perfect blend of fun and strategy.
[gallery link="file"]
It's available for free in the App Store with an in game purchase option that, according to this review at Macstories, unlocks:
Specifically, a $0.99 in-app purchase will let you play more than two games at the same time, itāll unlock themes, and itāll allow you to see played words during a game.
You'll need a friend to play with as it's multiplayer only. There's an auto-match feature in game to try and pair you with someone else.
]]>The latest version (10.0.6) of the video editing software now supports native RAW editing of content from RED cameras, lets you expand multichannel audio files so you can edit each audio channel separately and adds a paste attributes window that lets you choose specific effects to copy between clips.
Motion and Compressor also saw updates.
]]>Philip Schiller, Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing at Apple, defended their pricing:
"The iPad is far and away the most successful product in its category. The most affordable product we've made so far was $399 and people were choosing that over those devices. And now you can get a device that's even more affordable at $329 in this great new form, and I think a lot of customers are going to be very excited about that."
Translation: Cheaper tablets from our competitors are cheap. We sold 100 million iPads when the least expensive model was $399. We think people will happily pay $70 less to continue buying iPads.
]]>Here’s my notes and observations.
“You knew there’d be something called mini in this presentation, didn’t you?” Phil Schiller
I love that Apple is devoting press time to this app - it means it’s more likely to stick around. I think the potential is huge here for both education publishers as well as self publishers. Getting your own book into the iBook store looking exactly how you want is a great feature and service to offer.
I’m surprised they’ve kept the iPad 2 in their lineup alongside the 4th generation iPad and the new iPad mini - particularly as they touted all the ways the iPad mini improved upon the iPad 2. If someone was asking me, I’d say decide on the size you want and then buy. iPad mini for smaller/portable or iPad with Retina Display.
I’d guess it’s because they want to hit certain price points, but the iPad mini with 32GB is only $30 more than the iPad 2 with 16GB - why wouldn’t you go for that if you’ve got $400 burning a hole in your pocket?
You can watch the keynote on Apple's website or on your Apple TV.
]]>If thereās no viral action on your music, youāre just not good enough. Donāt get mad at the audience, get mad at yourself. Either give up or get better.
Great stuff from Bob Lefsetz on rules for the music industry - but the same can be applied to other creative endeavours online.
]]>A couple of days a go, my friend Linn sent me an e-mail, being very frustrated: Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation.
Although this may be a fairly isolated incident, this is one of the downsides of handing over all our media purchases to the digital world. If she had bought her books at a brick & mortar bookstore, they're not likely going to be able to come after her and take back or destroy all the books she'd purchased.
]]>A couple of fans are making a documentary about Arrested Development. Visit the website for more information including the previous trailers.
Via neatorama.com
]]>Magically sync your timeline read location, direct message read status, and mute filters with Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad via iCloud.
I haven't decided if I'm going to pick up a copy yet. I think they're fully justified in charging $19.99 for an awesome looking app that I'd use everyday to access a service that has provided a good portion of my business clients. I just am unsure about where Twitter is headed as a company and if my money would be better spent on the coming launch of Netbot for Mac[1].
[gallery link="file" columns="4"]
[1]: It's not out yet. But with the success they're having with Tweetbot for Mac, it won't take long.
]]>Meet Lucy:
Feel free to leave your best advice for parenting a girl in the comments below.
]]>As always, I welcome your feedback in the comments below.
Complete with someone attempting to record it with their iPad.
Via Twitter
]]>Like I said in my original post, it won't be for everyone but it could hit the sweet spot for a few in the note taking, to do list/GTD area.
Even at it's sale price of $14.99 it's a bit too much for what I can currently see myself using it for.
For more information you can read about the tests DuckDuckGo ran or check out their site dontbubble.us.
Obviously it's in DuckDuckGo's interests if you stop using Google search and start using their search. But even if you don't switch your search engine of choice, it's good to know how much of what you're seeing is filtered or manipulated before it gets to you.
Video link via @ttscoff
]]>As you are likely aware, Amanda committed suicide last week - a month after posting the video.
It's important to watch to be aware of the struggle kids have against bullies but also for parents to be aware of what their kids can be exposed to online and to have open discussions about the tech they are using. This isn't just bullying - it's blackmail and sexual harassment.
And as much as you should be worried about your kid being bullied - more parents need to be educated about the fact that their kids could very well be the bully at their school. Reading Amanda's story, it's hard not to get angry at the thought of parents of the other kids not stepping in and discipling their kids for their actions and teaching them about apologizing and seeking forgiveness.
CBC's Jian Gomeshi devoted his opening essay on Monday's show to Amanda and bullying which prompted me to try and find Amanda's original video and post it here.
]]>In short, then, Scapple is a tool for getting early ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them. The main advantage of doing this in Scapple instead of on paper is that you don't run out of paper (the Scapple canvas expands to fit as many notes as you want to create), you can move notes around to make room for new ideas and connections, it's easy to delete and edit notes, and it's easy to export your notes into other applications when you know what you want to do with them.
In the past I've used software like this to plan out large projects (i.e. a website with a whole bunch of content/pages) and I've found it really helps because you don't have to worry about connecting things together like in a spreadsheet or text document right away - just dump it all on the "page" and connect the dots afterwards.
]]>Yep.
If the bearded pope of Apple news says so, then it must be so.
]]>The Rolling Stones blend past and present on "Doom and Gloom," their first new song together in seven years. Mick Jagger sings about class tensions and oil fracking over a Keith Richards guitar riff with shades of Sticky Fingers, while Charlie Watts propels the whole thing with an unfussy, rock-solid beat.
A good Stones tune is needed for every generation.
[Direct link to video]
Available on the iTunes Music Store as a Single or as part of their new greatest hits collection, GRRR!, selling for $24.99.
]]>I'm crying I'm laughing so hard.
Via kungfugrippe.com
]]>]]>Creating an event with Fantastical is quick, easy, and fun:
Open Fantastical with a single click or keystroke
Type in your event details and press return
...and you're back to what you were doing with a shiny new event in your calendar!
I am often asked for advice by young writers ā those with young families who are just starting out in the business. My best advice is to strive to be the best without paying the steep price that I did.
Great piece from Jim Dalrymple, chief beard at The Loop.
]]>Steve's passing one year ago today was a sad and difficult time for many of us. I hope that today everyone will reflect on his extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place.
Posting this after the previous post: It's worth mentioning that in spite of Steve Jobs' great accomplishments at Apple it's sad to know, from reading the Walter Isaacson biography, how much his family apparently suffered for it.
In light of that thought, I think this quote from Steve Jobs is appropriate. He was obviously referring to Apple when he said this at the 1997 Apple World Wide Developers Conference but I know I've often spun it to help me remember to say no to things that will cost me time with my wife and kids:
]]>People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.
Still have friends on Twitter? You can use Netbot to crosspost your Posts to Twitter. You can also use the search tab to see which of your Twitter friends are already on App.net.
They've released an iPhone and iPad version: Netbot for iPhone - $4.99 in the App Store and Netbot for iPad - $4.99 in the App Store.
[gallery link="file"]
]]>Click on the 'Watch Movie' link at the bottom of the FoldingText site - I'm unable to directly link to it - to see how it works as well as features that are coming. The to do list and timer functionality that are coming soon look particularly neat. My mistake - these are in there I just didn't read the instructions properly.
It won't be for everyone but for the right type of Mac user, FoldingText could be a great simple, powerful tool.
[gallery link="file"]
]]>According to three people familiar with the sequence of events, several senior engineers on Mansfieldās team vociferously complained to Cook about reporting to his replacement, Dan Riccio, who they felt was unprepared for the magnitude of the role. In response, Cook approached Mansfield and offered him an exorbitant package of cash and stock worth around $2 million a month to stay on at Apple as an adviser and help manage the hardware engineering team.
Bob Mansfield is one of Apple's main voice over artists in their promotional videos and is also on the executive team at Apple. His PR photo recently changed as you can see below:
As always, I welcome your feedback in the comments below.
I'm always skeptical of video apps on my iPhone. Perhaps coming from the video editing world of Final Cut Pro I have a hard time believing that the same things can be done on a device that fits in my pocket.
For this video I just grabbed a preset flavor ("Chaplin") from Game Your Video and let it override my video with settings and sounds.
For this video I just hit random effects. Though the end is kind of how we as parents often hear our kids crying. But we love them anyway.
I like how quickly and easily you can apply different effects and get a video out to YouTube or Facebook for sharing. The novelty of editing video with filters and effects wears off for me much quicker than photo editing does simply because it takes longer - but Game Your Video does a great job of keeping the processing / rendering time down and allows you to preview a lot of the effects live on your video.
It works decent enough on my iPhone 4. I'd imagine on a newer device the rendering/export times would only decrease.
[gallery link="file" columns="4"]
]]>First, we are introducing a $5/month Member plan. Second, we are dropping the Member price from $50/year to $36/year. All existing members will get the benefits of the yearly price drop.
Smart move. $50/year was just too much for the average person to justify on a social network - even one that promises to not repeat the mistakes of Twitter.
The membership of App.net is just about to cross the 20,000 user level, which creates some economies of scale for us. Remember, the original pricing model assumed 10,000 users.
20,000 x $50 = $1,000,000. Not to mention some of those initial accounts were $100 developer accounts.
]]>Brett Terpstra and David Sparks join forces to share 60 of their favorite tips, tricks, and hacks to turn you into a Mac ninja. This book contains 53 screencasts and over 1.5 hours of video so you can follow along and learn with Brett and David.
At $6.99 in the iBookstore, you'll be certain to find something useful and new about Mountain Lion - or Mac OS X in general.
Nobody is allowed to show this app to my sons. Or to me.
]]>It's a bit reminiscent of the early days of Twitter: fairly nerd/developer/design users, no marketing spam and auto-tweeting douchebaggery, etc. Lots of navel gazing as to how App.net should work and how it compares to Twitter.
Anyways. Here are the clients I'm currently interested in for App.net. A lot of them remind me, just like the service, of the initial wave of Twitter clients we saw back in the day. Only now they're able to stand on common Twitter conventions that we take for granted - reposting, viewing a conversation thread, starring, etc.
moApp is a cute and sophisticated AppDotNet client. It's already very stable and almost feature complete and polished. It offers Notifications, Global Hotkey, Gestures, Favorites (Stars), Disabling of the Dock icon and lots moreā¦ But, of course it still need a lot of work and performance improvements.
URL: myownapp.com/apps/
This was the first app I used outside of the App.net website. New versions come out almost daily, if not weekly and so you get a first hand glimpse at the development process that goes into an app like this.
It feels a bit slow to me to use - like the interface is dragging a bit. But I'm sure that will improve with development. It's still in beta so no word on final pricing and availability.
All of the basics: post, reply, star, repost. View followers, threads, hashtags, and more. Unified Stream of posts and your mentions. Notification Center support and an optional status item in your menu bar. Full support for the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Swipe gestures and animations!
I just came across Wedge and really like it so far. It's replaced moApp in my dock for now. It feels like Tweetie used to before Twitter took it out behind the shed and put a shotgun to it's face.
Crisp and clean with a smooth interface, a proper Preferences page. Still in beta as well so we'll see what kind of pricing it gets once it's released in the Mac App Store.
AppApp is the first native iOS client for AppDotNet. It's maintained by a global team of badass iOS developers
URL: github.com/sneakyness/AppApp
Somehow I was able to get in to a beta for this iOS App.net client. It's a decent app that feels smooth and clean to use on my iPhone. I don't check in to App.net a lot yet on the go - I typically check in on my MacBook Air while I'm working - but a great mobile/iOS app is going to be one of the key ways App.net takes off.
I'm just not ready to plunk down any cash on a app yet until the platform is more solidified as a go to place to go for conversation for me.
Which brings me to Felix.
Felix provides a first-class App.net experience. It gets out of your way to let you focus on what's important - the people and conversations you care about.
By the accounts of bloggers and nerds who have more disposable cash than I 1, Felix would appear to be the best iPhone client for App.net currently available. And for those folks, the $4.99 price tag hasn't turned them off. For me it's still too early to tell how much I'm going to use App.net and so to drop $5 on an app like that just isn't worth it - yet.
I've happily paid money for Twitter apps - Tweetbot and Tweetie 2 so it's not a question of buying apps.
Update 2012-10-05
Hold the iPhones. Tapbots has released Netbot - an App.net client based on their hugely popular Tweetbot app.
Netbot is a full-featured iPhone App.net client with a lot of personality. Whether itās the meticulously-crafted interface, sounds & animation, or features like smart gestures, thereās a lot to love about Netbot.
URL: Netbot for iPhone ($4.99) or Netbot for iPad ($4.99)
I love Tweetbot on my iPhone and my Mac (currently in beta awaiting Mac App Store approval) so I don't know why I wouldn't love this. Just debating whether to spend the last bit of App Store gift money on a App.net or Twitter client.
What about you? Are you on App.net? What are you using to post and read?
They've also released an iPad version which looks great for editing photos on a bigger screen which when combined with iCloud support would make for a sweet mobile photography workflow. One person shooting photos on the iPhone 5 while an editor edits them on an iPad.
Both versions of Camera+ are priced at $0.99 right now: Camera+ for iPhone or Camera+ for iPad.
[gallery link="file"]
]]>iPad and iPhone ready.
Check out a review on BeautifulPixels.com. I heard about it on Systematic episode 11
Once you've turned it on, you can decide what shortcut key to use to enable Dictation.
As you can see from my tests below, it's not great. It even conveniently "missed" the isn't in the first sample.
]]>The dictation is great but it would work in a pinch.
I use dictation to write this part of the post
As you can see it forgot the D and Mr. Cents and I can say. Again.
Attempting to say. This while you're dictating doesn't work very well because it will put it. Very sad.
As always, I welcome your feedback in the comments below.
This official companion book gives fans new ways to enter this fictional world and discover more about the beloved (and reviled) characters and the electrifying plotlines. Hundreds of set photos, production and costume designs, storyboards, and insider stories reveal how the show's creators translated George R. R. Martin's best-selling fantasy series into the world of Westeros. Featuring interviews with key actors and crew members that capture the best scripted and unscripted moments from the first two seasons, as well as a preface by George R. R. Martin, this special volume, bound in a lavishly debossed padded cover, offers exclusive access to this unprecedented television series.
Order Inside HBO's Game of Thrones from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com
There's also a Collector's Edition that will be available for $146 if you're a hardcore fan.
Via BoingBoing.net
]]>In July I was approached by a friend, who's basically an IT genius, and he offered some help. He said that he could trace the hackers and trolls for me using perfectly legal technology, which would lead to their IP addresses. I said yes.
Interesting story of one man confronting an online troll and the surprise he found. A good read for parents as they navigate the digital world with their kids.
]]>We've all seen it. We all hate it. And too few of us know we can do something about it. Here's how to change the default shape style in Keynote
Link via @hicksdesign
]]>You can also watch their performance live from the 2012 iTunes Festival on iTunes or on your Apple TV.
]]>Note: Ford didnāt pay me to attend the event. They did provide a light lunch, fruit, pop and an interesting mashed potato martini bar supper. So take that for what you will while you read my account of the day. Mashed. Potato. Martini. Bar.
I had the opportunity to take a 2013 Ford Escape for a quick tour of the city on our way to Praireland Park for a vehicle road test. Using the pre-programmed GPS was unique as up to this point I've only ever used my iPhone for any sort of driving directions. The built-in GPS is certainly easier to use over all - though Apple's new Maps system in iOS 6 could change that once it gets up to speed.
With a course setup designed to show off the braking and maneuverability of the new Escape - particularly when it comes to avoiding hitting pylons and interns holding up flags that are meant to simulate little puppies and small children running out onto the road.
Iāve never driven a car the way we were pushed to on that course. Accelerating as fast as you can and then slamming on the brakes as hard as you can. Turning at the last possible second before hitting a pylon isnāt something Iām going to allow myself to do with our minivan. 1 Iāll leave that for my son when he turns 16 in 11 years.
One particularly neat feature of the Escape is the foot activated gate/rear hatch. Basically you do a kicking motion (motion being the key word - you donāt need to actually kick your vehicle) and it triggers the hatch to open. They had us do a race between the various groups to see who could get a vintage box into the back of their Escape the quickest using the foot activated gate.
One important security detail that Ford thought of with the foot activated gate is that you need to have the key within a few feet of the rear of the vehicle in order to active it. So that itās not like anybody can just come up behind your car and open the gate. Or if youāre involved in a race and you forget to get the key from the previous team, you probably wonāt be able to complete the race. 2
As Tenille over at FeistyFrugalandFabulous.com said, itās great how Ford is taking the time to show off their vehicles and bring out local bloggers, tweeters and other social media folk to chat about their products. No other vehicle manufacturer is doing that to the best of my knowledge.
Note: Ford didnāt pay me to attend the event. They did provide a light lunch, fruit, pop and an interesting mashed potato martini bar supper. So take that for what you will while you read my account of the day. Mashed. Potato. Martini. Bar.
I had the opportunity to take a 2013 Ford Escape for a quick tour of the city on our way to Praireland Park for a vehicle road test. Using the pre-programmed GPS was unique as up to this point I've only ever used my iPhone for any sort of driving directions. The built-in GPS is certainly easier to use over all - though Apple's new Maps system in iOS 6 could change that once it gets up to speed.
With a course setup designed to show off the braking and maneuverability of the new Escape - particularly when it comes to avoiding hitting pylons and interns holding up flags that are meant to simulate little puppies and small children running out onto the road.
Iāve never driven a car the way we were pushed to on that course. Accelerating as fast as you can and then slamming on the brakes as hard as you can. Turning at the last possible second before hitting a pylon isnāt something Iām going to allow myself to do with our minivan. 1 Iāll leave that for my son when he turns 16 in 11 years.
One particularly neat feature of the Escape is the foot activated gate/rear hatch. Basically you do a kicking motion (motion being the key word - you donāt need to actually kick your vehicle) and it triggers the hatch to open. They had us do a race between the various groups to see who could get a vintage box into the back of their Escape the quickest using the foot activated gate.
One important security detail that Ford thought of with the foot activated gate is that you need to have the key within a few feet of the rear of the vehicle in order to active it. So that itās not like anybody can just come up behind your car and open the gate. Or if youāre involved in a race and you forget to get the key from the previous team, you probably wonāt be able to complete the race. 2
As Tenille over at FeistyFrugalandFabulous.com said, itās great how Ford is taking the time to show off their vehicles and bring out local bloggers, tweeters and other social media folk to chat about their products. No other vehicle manufacturer is doing that to the best of my knowledge.
[box]This post originally appeared on my personal blog.[/box]
]]>The most important thing is authenticity. Once you can fake that, you've made it.
The biggest changes include support for Shared Photo Streams, the ability to send audio content from the Apple TV to AirPlay-enabled speakers and devices (including AirPort Express and other Apple TVs), and the ability to switch between multiple iTunes accounts.
I love our Apple TV.
]]>Donāt build an app based on your website. Build the app that acts as if websites never existed in the first place. Build the app for the person who has never used a desktop computer.
Link and quote via DaringFireball
]]>One change that I think might confuse folks is in Mail - to be able to mark messages as unread:
If you want to mark a message as unread from Mail while viewing the message, tap the flag icon and select āMark as Unreadā.
and also you can finally insert a photo or video into an email without having to copy/paste from Photos.app:
]]>Mail can now insert photos and videos from within the app. Tap and hold on the messageās body then select āInsert Photo or Videoā.
Q: Does Apple have nothing but contempt for its users?
A: Yes, Appleās evil. When Apple barred Flash from iOS, Flash was the best and only way to play .swf files. Appleās video alternative, H.264, wasnāt nearly as widely used. Thus Appleās solution was āinferiorā and appeared to be against its own usersā interests. Sheer corporate greed! Trillion words have been written about just how misguided Apple was in denying its users the glory of Flash on iOS. Well, Flash is now dead on mobile. And yet the Earthās obliquity of the ecliptic is still about 23.4Ā°. We seemed to have survived that one.
There's no question Maps in iOS6 is worse at displaying relevant data on a global scale than Maps did in iOS5 and previous. And people are rightfully upset since Apple talked up Maps as a major new feature in iOS6.
But to think that Apple isn't working hard to improve and make it better than Google Maps, which has been around for 8 years, is naĆÆve.
For now you can use maps.google.com on your iPhone if you need a more detailed map, which isn't as good but should hold you over for the next few months until Apple gets it's act together.
]]>I don't like it when they bring on celebrities because it starts to feel like a ratings grab - except that typically the celebrities they bring on are huge fans of Survivor and want to be on the show as badly as anyone else.
This edition's famous players include a former Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player, Jeff Kent, and Lisa Whelchel who was an actress on the 80s TV show Facts of Life. The ironic thing is that most of the other contestants are probably too young to even know or care who a 80s TV star is anyway.
iPhone 5 in my hand, this talk of micron-precision, fine watch craftsmanship, and the computerized selection of best-match inlays sounds not the least bit bullshitty or blustery. It simply sounds like an explanation of the level of obsession that it takes to create a mass-produced device that feels this, well, nice. It even feels as though theyāve put some serious work into the iPhoneās one historical weak spot: the home button.
Approximately 3,200 words on Apple's latest phone. Something to read while you're waiting for iOS 6 to finish downloading and install.
]]>A great line-up of 10 internationally recognized educators and industry leaders that includes Jessica Hische, Daniel Burka, Kristina Halvorson, and several more! Longer sessions means more time to have all of your questions answered and really grasp the topics covered.
Register before October 15th and get early bird pricing on your ticket.
]]>Useful for kids or in a kiosk or demo situation where you don't want people to be able to quit/change apps.
]]>For now I'll just say it's a semi-regular podcast that I'll release when I feel like I have something to talk about.
The podcasts I do over at SSKTN I typically am involving another person - which is what I really prefer - but it makes it hard to schedule and hard to keep consistent. This will hopefully give me a way to keep pushing myself and honing my podcast related skills as well as test and play with audio related workflow.
As always, I welcome your feedback.
Not by coincidence I'm sure, Tweetbot for iPad is on sale
Easily my favourite app. I don't even have an iPad (yet?) and I'm tempted to pick up a copy of Tweetbot for iPad just so it's on my account. For now I'll save my money until Tweetbot for Mac is finished.
]]>A few notes:
As I mentioned above, I'm using a 2 year old 32GB iPhone 4. I've got a year left on my Telus contract so I'd be looking at $180 to upgrade plus the price of a iPhone 5 (Black 32GB is what I'd do if you're wondering) so it's just not worth it to me to upgrade and throw away $180.
If anything, our family is going to need to upgrade my wife's iPad 1. With iOS 6 coming soon, the iPad 1 isn't able to run it and so she'll start to miss out on some of the newer features as they get added. Plus iOS 5 is running so slow on the iPad 1 that we'd be looking to upgrade even if there wasn't the iOS 6 issue.
So that's where, if anywhere, our gadget upgrade money will go in the near future.
Thanks to all that bothered to fill out the survey. I really do appreciate you satisfying my nerdy curiosity about what the readers of this blog are doing with their tech/nerd money.
]]>Apple has added the web versions of Reminders and Notes to the public iCloud.com website for access from desktop Macs and PCs.
I don't ever log in to iCloud.com but maybe you do.
]]>What does Apple do when it deems a technology past its expiration date? They abandon it. What do tech writers do when Apple abandons these outdated but ubiquitous technologies? They pitch fits. Happened with the floppy drive. Happened when the original iMac went USB-only. Happened with optical drives. Happens every few years with display adaptors.
And the event itself:
]]>And what shows they were. When Schiller unveiled the iPhone 5, it rose from the stage floor on a smoothly-rising and rotating pedestal, pinpoint spotlights hitting the phone and only the phone. The rotation of the iPhone atop the pedestal was in perfect sync with the rotation of the iPhone projected on the big screen at the back of the stage. Thereās no store where you buy such pedestals; Apple designed and engineered it specifically for this event. It was on stage for about a minute.
The iPhone 5 is the greatest phone in the world. It has top-notch hardware with a zippy new A6 processor and amazing four-inch display. Its new operating system, iOS 6, is slicker than slugs on ice. And its ultra-slim body, an all-glass and aluminum enclosure, is a triumph of industrial design. There is nothing not to like about the phone. Itās aces. Just aces.
And yet it is also so, so cruelly boring.
Mat Honan nails it.
]]>I'll publish the results in a day or two.
[gravityform id="3" name="iPhone 5" title="false" description="false" ajax="true"]
]]>āApple is testing the patience of its fans,ā said Tero Kuittinen, an independent analyst and a vice president of Alekstra, a company that helps customers manage cellphone costs.
Apple's dock connector has been around for over 10 years. To change it now is not "testing the patience" of their fans. It's making a choice to get rid of a bigger connection for a smaller one - which in turn allows Apple to design a better phone - and eventually iPad.
CNNMoney is also wrong with their assertion that Apple's $30 Lightning adapter won't work with old speakers (Link via @danfrakes). Just have to ask Apple:
https://twitter.com/danfrakes/statuses/246359997137682432
Read all about the Lightning connector at Macworld's article "What Apple's new Lightning connector means for you".
Yes, Apple will make money by selling new adapters. Apple has made money on a variety of adapters over the years, as do most tech companies. Apple often 1 attempts to make money from the products it sells.
But if you think that Apple is going to hang on to a 30 pin adapter because other companies profited heavily from selling devices based on that adapter, then you clearly haven't been following along with Apple's story long enough.
A list of a few other things Apple has changed because they felt it was best for their customers in the long run:
The cynic says Apple does it to make money. And that's partially true. The irrational Apple fan says it's just part of the experience of owning a Mac.
The truth is somewhere in between.
The most recent one I listened to was his interview with Lorne Micheals, producer of Saturday Night Live. In particular I really liked this quote from Lorne on how SNL works:
We don't go on because we're ready. We go on because it's 11:30.
They may not always hit it out of the park, but when you start to think about the constraints they operate under it's incredible just to get an hour and a half long live show on the air at all.
Also worth listening to is Alec's interview with David Letterman.
]]>Highlights for me:
New version of the operating system for mobile Apple devices. The first one that won't work on original iPads while still apparently working on the iPhone 3GS - though I can't imagine it'll perform all that smoothly. Still pretty incredible for a mobile device that was released in June of 2009 to run a modern operating system that's pushed as aggressively as iOS is.
See the bottom of the What's New page to figure out if your device will run iOS6.
Available September 19th, 2012.
New earphones. All the marketing speak (years of research!) won't mean anything if they don't sound good. Have to wait and see.
A redesign of iTunes that is sorely needed. We'll see if user's needs are trumped by iTunes Store needs - pushing people to buy more stuff in the App Store or iTunes Store vs letting them manage their music library is proving to be a difficult line to walk for Apple.
Coming in October 2012 - details available here.
]]>]]>What you got they can't deny it,
Can't sell it or buy it.
Walk on, walk on,
Stay safe tonight.And I know it aches,
And your heart it breaks,
And you can only take so much,
Walk on, walk on
Rarely do I watch Joe Biden give a speech or an interview without looking for some evidence, in his eyes or the lines of his face, of the fact that he lost half of his young family when he was 30 years old. It is inconceivable to me, always has been, but especially in the years since I became a father. For all his goofballism, Biden has gone through a crucible that I cannot imagine. And he did so when he was 30, an adult, already deeply invested in the life he was building.
Via Dooce comes a link to a transcript of Joe Biden's speech to commemorate the events of September 11th, 2001:
]]>My hope for you all is that as every year passes, the depth of your pain recedes and you find comfort, as I have, genuine comfort in recalling his smile, her laugh, their touch. And I hope youāre as certain as I am that she can see what a wonderful man her son has turned out to be, grown up to be; that he knows everything that your daughter has achieved, and that he can hear, and she can hear how her mom still talks about her, the day he scored the winning touchdown, how bright and beautiful she was on that graduation day, and know that he knows what a beautiful child the daughter he never got to see has turned out to be, and how much she reminds you of him. For I know you see your wife every time you see her smile on your childās face. You remember your daughter every time you hear laughter coming from her brotherās lips. And you remember your husband every time your son just touches your hand.
]]>The number of buttons open on Craig Federighi's shirt during the keynote, never mind that heās the Mac software guy, not iPhone.
The future of sustainable app development is to give away as much value as possible and empower those who receive more value to pay more for it.
Via shawnblanc.net
Timer is such a great idea for a timing app. It allows you to set up to 12 separate timers, each with their own length and notification sound. And even better - once a specific timer runs out and it has alerted you, it starts flashing and counting back up. So if you forget to go check on whatever it was you were supposed to do when the timer ran out you'll know how long it's actually been.
So smart.
[gallery link="file"]
]]>Auto-upload any video you save to Dropbox. Just choose your auto-upload folder, save a video there and weāll handle the rest.
]]>You helped build Twitter into the global platform it is today. You were the ones who saw something meaningful in what others considered stupid and superfluous. You gave Twitter āatā replies and short links and hashtags and everything else that made the 140 character limit just a little easier to deal with. You were the true innovators - not them. But your services are no longer required. Please pack your things and go.
Youāve been replaced with immature teenagers, attention-starved celebrities, āSEO ninjasā, and companies pretending to build relationships with their clientele when in reality, theyāre simply making it easier to appease dissatisfied customers before bad word-of-mouth gets out of hand.
Twitter doesn't want the nerds anymore. And the nerds are attempting to move on. Which is where, not coincidently, I found the link to the article I'm quoting.
]]>The ability to take a photo of a receipt for expense tracking will save me having to send those kinds of documents through Evernote - though having a back up there might not hurt if the tax folks came calling.
Download FreshBooks Cloud Accounting for iPhone from the App Store for free.
[gallery link="file"]
]]>As with Googleās implementation, Dropboxās two-factor authentication relies on two separate elements: something you know (a password) and something you have (in this case, a separately generated code). While the combination of these two elements doesnāt guarantee your security, it does make it much harder for a potential hacker to gain access to your account.
Smart way to make your Dropbox more secure. I use the free Google Authenticator app for iPhone already for my Google account, so this is easy to set up.
If you're not already using Dropbox to backup and share your documents, sign up here and we'll both get extra storage space.
Update: Some recommendations for users of 1Password to not use this version of Dropbox (yet) from 1Password:
The bottom line is that I am strongly recommending that 1Password users not be early adopters of this. Early adopters should:
]]>
- understand the data security gains and risks thoroughly (discussed below)
- take steps to reduce those risks (have great backups), and
- be very comfortable using pre-release systems
These expire August 28th, 2012 - though I assume someone will use them before then. I think they're only available to Canadians. If they don't work for you, chances are someone else typed faster than you did. Sorry!
Click to embiggen them if you want.
See also: How to redeem a code in the iTunes store
If you're too late for the free copies of Instapaper, I'd still recommend picking it up for only $2.99 in the App Store if you haven't already. I use Instapaper every day to read articles from various blogs and websites.
]]>The bottom line is that Apple will approve the latest app - SCOtutor for iBooks Author - which is the "re-engineered" version of the App, and will re-instate the other older versions of the Apps, but I will need to bring them up to the latest version.
I'll post links as soon as they're back in.
Update In honour of the app being back on the App Store, Don's made SCOtutor for iBooks Author free for the time being.
]]>A mini review of The Listserve, if you will.
In the couple of months since I signed up, I'd say that over 3/4 of the emails have been somewhere between good to great. And I don't feel any obligation to read every single email that comes along - if I fall behind I just delete the previous ones and start with the next day's email.
Here's a quote from today's Listserve email by Vitor Bosshard from ZĆ¼rich, Switzerland:
The thing is, my heart is broken. Literally. I have a genetic disease that deforms the heart over time, causing it to pump less efficiently, so every physical activity is more demanding. Every time I overexert myself I risk permanent damage to my heart, making the condition worse. I've known this for a while now, but I had been ignoring it and pushing myself to the limit nonetheless, just because I couldn't deal with the idea of reverting to my old unfit self. I'm slowly learning to accept my limitations, however, no matter how unfair they feel, and am trying to find a middle way that keeps me fit and protects my heart at the same time.
I want you guys to take a minute today to appreciate the wonder of this incredibly complex and fragile machinery we inhabit, which keeps ticking along day in and day out, without us even noticing until something goes wrong. Maybe take another minute and ask yourselves if you are putting enough effort into maintaining it, considering you'll be stuck inside for the next 20, 50, 80 years. And if you have a suggestion for an awesome, low-intensity sport that's engaging and fun, I would absolutely love to hear it!
Sign up at thelistserve.com.
]]>The fact that Samsung's lawyers seem to be as inept as Samsung at arguing their case is both sad and hilarious:
]]>On the topic of damages, Charles Arthur writes for the Guardian that when rebutting Appleās $2+ billion figure:
Samsung argued that Apple, which was struggling to keep up with demand for the iPhone 4 from July to October of 2010, did not have the capacity to have delivered on those additional sales. āApple couldnāt service its own customers with the iPhone 4, but it could service customers it didnāt have?ā Samsung attorney Bill Price askedā¦
This took my breath away. Hereās an opportunity to say āThese people chose to buy Samsung instead of Apple. We are clearly bringing something to the table,ā but instead, Price concedes āThese people settled for Samsung because they couldnāt have found an iPhone anyway.ā (Samsung may well know this for a fact because itās supplying many of the components Apple needs to satisfy customer demand; see āhaving Appleās numberā above.) It was extremely shortsighted.
Fox is trying to find a home for a single-camera sitcom based on his own life. He's teaming up with Sam Laybourne (writer of Arrested Development and Cougar Town) and Will Gluck (director of Easy A), and surprise! The networks are very interested.
Looks like NBC won the bidding war.
As long as there's room for cameos from the Family Ties cast, I'm in.
]]>Via kungfugrippe.com
]]>I pointed out the huge number of video tutorials on the iTunes store, but that was met with a virtual shrug and the comment that it will take them a long time to get round all the video tutorial apps to review.
I pointed out several video tutorial apps that had been reviewed and accepted into the store THIS MONTH but still no capitulation on the fact that they considered my Apps movies.
I pointed out the rework of the SCOTutor Apps to included additional app functionality, but still they won't budge.
See my previous post for more explanation of what's happened thus far.
Terrible situation for Don as I know he put a lot of work into making the iOS apps initially, and then even more work trying to get Apple to approve them upon removal. The only hope now is that someone higher up at Apple sees the complaint and reverses the decision in Don's favour.
For whatever reason, the SCOtutor for Mac apps are still available in the Mac App Store. Time to pick one up and support Don:
If you donāt know the people, or donāt care, itās probably not social media. Itās just media. It doesnāt matter if itās created by an individual or a corporation.
Agreed.
]]>There is much else to praise about the machine. It is wickedly fast, with benchmark scores that place it alongside the Mac Pro. Think about that: a laptop with no performance tradeoff compared to a high-end desktop. It wakes from sleep nearly instantly. It sports the best laptop keyboard Iāve ever used. Itās no Air but itās noticeably and appreciably thinner and lighter than any previous MacBook Pro. Like no Apple device since the original 2007 iPhone, the new Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro feels like a device from the near future, something slightly beyond the ken of todayās cutting edge.
But the main thing is the display. That display. This display. Oh my.
John's love letter to the new Retina MacBook Pro is worth a read for a great history of how far we've come with print and screen.
]]>The Mac version of the new SimCity is slated to arrive alongside its PC counterpart in February of 2013.
Great news for gaming fans. Not great news for fans of getting anything done.
If you're really hardcore, you can try signing up for the beta to help test it.
]]>In case that video gets taken down, here's an alternate link to CBS.com.
From his new solo album Rhythm and Repose ($12.99 in iTunes).
]]>If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.
Disgusting.
]]>It's fitting, I suppose that a player who had stopped cursing would introduce f-bomb into common parlance. Someone who generally refrains from profanity is probably more likely to use such a profanity-avoiding phrase. And a converted non-swearer is also, perhaps, more likely to recognize the awesome power of that particular four-letter word, and thus to verbally grant it metaphorically explosive powers.
My favourite catcher growing up and the best player to ever wear a Expos uniform.
Via Next Draft
]]>This is probably boring to most of you. But if youāre someone whoās thought about starting a business, maybe thereās something in here that will help shape your approach to business. There are other successful approaches, and Iām no expert, but this is what has worked for me, and allows me to sleep at night.
If you're wanting to learn blues guitar, particularly in the Stevie Ray Vaughn style, shame on you if you're not learning from Anthony Stauffer.
]]>While available on other platforms, from Facebook to - albeit briefly - Xbox Live Arcade, the iOS version of Reiner Knizia's game of risk and reward is easily the best, combining snappy controls with smart visuals and a surprisingly pleasant soundtrack.
Not much on the official website as far as whether it's multiplayer only or if you'll be able to play against the computer. But the company making Lost Cities is the same group behind the excellent iOS version of Carcassonne so I'm sure it'll be good.
]]>See Kottke's remembrance and this article on The Atlantic.
Daring Fireball was one of my main motivations for starting a blog of any sort. Back in the day before RSS readers & Twitter notifications, it was the first website I'd check in my daily routine of finding out what was going on on the web and in particular with Apple. It wasn't the source for the latest inane Mac rumour - it was (and continues to be) the place to go for smart analysis of the best of the Mac rumours floating around the web.
As discussed in the afore linked article on The Atlantic, as Apple has risen to the top the story that John has written on Daring Fireball has become slightly less interesting than the previous underdog narrative.
But John remains one of the best tech writers on the web and worth reading if you're at all interested in smart thoughts on Apple and related tech.
]]>Recently he developed a series of iPhone/iPad and Mac apps that took his training videos and moved them onto the two App Stores as a series of excellent apps devoted to teaching and informing, in particular, new Mac users about the wealth of great software available on the Mac and iOS platforms.
[gallery link="file"]
Here's the thing with the App Stores. Apple giveth and can taketh away. Don's apps were happily in the App Store for a while, helping him recoup development costs and rising up the various sales charts. He posted an article last night detailing all that has gone on with his apps in the two App Stores:
Once I had recouped the original development and design costs, I made two titles free; āSCOtutor for iPadā and āSCOtutor for Mac". These were aimed at brand new users of the iPad and Mac and were extremely popular, obviously even more so once I'd made them free, both reaching the top of the free Education charts. Each app has several hours of top quality education and were also unique, in that they were the only apps in the iOS App store with closed captions for accessibility.
This week Don's iOS based SCOtutor apps have been pulled/rejected by Apple because they primarily contain a movie and as such should be submitted to the iTunes Store's movie section - which is next to impossible for the average user to do because of the restrictions on submission:
As a side note, itās impossible for me (or any other independent video trainer) to register to sell video tutorials directly in the iTunes store as suggested in the rejection statement, as I do not meet the requirements of ā5 feature-length movies or documentaries that were released theatrically (or) 100 feature-length movies or documentaries that were either released theatrically or direct to video.ā
As you can read in his blog post, Don's tried various ways of adding more features to his apps (adding chapter markers, note taking, lesson lists) all at a cost to him in an attempt to appease the App Store reviewers, to no avail.
It's really too bad that Apple is handling Don's situation this way, particularly when:
despite this ruling a search for āvideo tutorā on the iOS App Store reveals 60 iPhone Apps and 50 iPad Apps are still available for sale on the iOS App Store.
Don's really one of the good guys that Apple should be encouraging, helping and promoting. He does so much work helping and developing resources for new Mac & iOS users to ease their transition to the platforms - they should really just buy his videos and include them for free along with a new Mac purchase.
Instead they're pushing him out and making him spend valuable time fighting with opaque App Store rules.
At it's regular price, it's worth picking up so you can't argue with free.
[gallery link="file"]
]]>[gallery link="file" columns="2"]
]]>]]>Things Cloud stores your to-dos and automatically keeps them updated across all your devices. All you have to do is turn it on in the Settings and create a free Things Cloud account. Itās that simple.
"She's not in any pain," my mom said. She had the tone of a woman talking to a small child, and I was totally fine with that. She held my hand as we walked into her room and there she was. My grandmother was named Lenora. She was an accountant, and later a teacher, and she could play piano and tap dance. She had a big funny laugh and was a genuinely kind person, and now she was in hospital bed; tiny and crumpled and connected to a million machines, all beeping.
A year ago this week both my grandma and my wife's grandma passed away. I had posted my own thoughts on their passing in a blog post here after attending both funerals within a few days of each other. And now I found myself reading an article a year later telling the funny and sad story of someone else's Grandma passing.
And I kissed her forehead again and walked out, leaving behind a huge part of me. She has been a part of my life for my whole life and now she isn't. My mom called the next morning to say she'd gone. That it was peaceful. All the things you say. And that was that.
I miss my Grandma. I love the internet for reminding me of that.
Wawra, who lives in Kalamazoo, Mich., is a police officer. While on a recent visit to Calgary, he and his wife, Debbie, were approached by two young men on a pathway in Nose Hill Park, who asked the Wawras if they had been to the Stampede yet. When they asked the question a second time, Wawra moved between the men and his wife and told them he had no need to talk to them. He said they looked ābewildered.ā The parties then went their separate ways.
Unreal.
Great comment from a reader on The Herald's website:
]]>āI can see why they were frightened. If you rearrange the letters in ābeen to Stampede yet?ā you get āa beset potted enemyā.ā
I'm busy preparing the next update to Paperless. It will release some time in the next month. When it comes out, you'll be able to delete the current version from iBooks and download the updated version. You won't have to buy it again. I'll post the update notes and details when it releases. There are new screencasts, new sections, the works.
It's currently $5. Next week it goes up to $10. Now's the time to buy it if you're curious what a modern book can look like.
]]>Paperless takes the mystery (and fear) out of going paperless with your Apple technology. The book includes 32 screencasts, 4 movies, over 26,000 words, and other rich-media assets to turn you into a paperless ninja. The material is accessible to beginners and power users alike with a thorough explanation of all the hardware, software, and workflows necessary to finally conquer paper.
Just drag an e-mail from Mail to Reminders and a new Reminder is automatically created with the subject of the e-mail as title and a link to the e-mail in the notes.
I did a quick screencast to show this.
I use Omnifocus' clippings shortcut but this is a great way to accomplish a similar thing with the apps built in to Mountain Lion.
]]>Sure, Apple has had a low point or two in its advertising past ā but its low points are usually higher than most advertisersā high points.
This is different. These ads are causing a widespread gagging response, and deservedly so. I honestly canāt remember a single Apple campaign thatās been received so poorly.
You can view the ads on Apple.com or YouTube.
Initially I was in the camp of thinking that these ads aren't targeted to me as a Apple fan so don't worry about it:
https://twitter.com/chockenberry/statuses/229260571659345920
But upon second (and third) viewing, I'm starting to think these aren't a great way to tell the story of the Apple Genius available in Apple's retail stores - particularly in that they, as Segall states in his article, make customers seem so clueless:
Therein lies another problem with this campaign. In the effort to show that the Genius is the most helpful guy in the world, Apple has created customers who, shall we say, are on the dim side. In past ads, Apple has shown āordinary people doing extraordinary things,ā simply because Apple products are so easy to use. Now we have thick people who want to be better, but need a Genius to help. Not exactly flattering.
It feels a lot more like "The Dell Guy" than an Apple campaign.
https://twitter.com/lonelysandwich/statuses/229408190863921154
]]>āOur goal isnāt to make money. Our goal absolutely at Apple is not to make money. This may sound a little flippant but itās the truth,ā said the British designer, who is credited with shaping the iPad and iPhone.
But I prefer this thought when he was talking about when Apple was nearly dead and Steve Jobs was brought back in to help revive the company:
]]>āYou would have thought that, when what stands between you and bankruptcy is some money, your focus would be on making some money, but that was not [Steve Jobsā] preoccupation.
Rumours of what's to be announced can be found at imore.com, & allthingsd.com among others places, but the gist of it is:
So if someone asks you if they should buy a iPhone 4/4S between now and September 12th, you can send them here and say to wait until September.
]]>As it's a half hour-long video, I haven't yet watched it all the way through since uploading it to Vimeo. So if you do watch it please let me know in the comments if you see any issues with audio/video.
I had the opportunity to be the video camera guy and editor of a video my wife's father, Derek Oatway, wanted to put together that told the story of his uncle, John Oatway, a World War 2 pilot that was lost in battle. He had a lake in Northern Saskatchewan named in his honour and many years later John's brother (my wife's grandpa) wanted to put a plaque on the lake to honour John's memory and tell the story of who the lake is named after should anyone ever come across it.
We rented a professional HD camera and a couple of wireless mics and set off to La Ronge, Saskatchewan to catch a float plane ride over to Oatway Lake. That's part of the story you'll see told in the video.
The other part is the telling of the short life of John Oatway through pictures and a voice over narrative written by Derek.
It was a fun challenge to try to weave the two stories together. Obviously it's of primary interest to close family and friends, but we tried to tell the story in such a way that it would hopefully be interesting enough to watch for someone who is into World War 2 and/or Saskatchewan history.
]]>Includes a switch to change from directional to super-directional depending on the type of recording you're doing. $40 + shipping. If it works as well as is shown in the demo video.
]]>status.twitter.com states that their engineers are currently working to resolve the issue.
]]>Via Dropbox blog
]]>Via Neatorama.com
]]>8 other WordPress users and/or developers came out and we had a good time discussing plugins we use, backup procedures and also listening to Ryan Smith's talk on what he's used to help run and maintain Ominocity, a local website promoting the arts, music and independent media.
For anyone interested, here are my notes from the meeting with links to relevant plugins/themes/etc.
The most in-depth review you could possibly find of Mountain Lion.
But hang on a second. For a desktop OS in the year 2012, which direction is "forward," anyway? The obvious answer is "toward iOS," but Lion proved that it's not quite that simple. And really, there has to be more to it than compulsive imitation, otherwise why continue development of the Mac platform at all?
Mountain Lion is Apple's answer to all these questions. It is the digital manifestation of Apple's belief that the Mac is still relevant, that it can be made better than it was before. In some ways, I feel the same as I did over a decade ago when considering a new version of OS X: I want to believe.
Related: Read Marco Arment's review of John Siracuas's review if you want some truly meta-review level reviews in your head.
The 10.8 review maintains Siracusaās standard at approximately 26,000 words, an impressive feat given that the interval between 10.7 and 10.8 was much shorter than most previous OS X update intervals.
But Mountain Lion isnāt billed as a blockbuster release, and it isnāt priced like one. Itās just nicer. And itās the little things, the attention to detail, that show it best. Iāve spent most of my time testing Mountain Lion on a 2010 11-inch MacBook Air. Iāve noticed that wake-from-sleep times have gotten faster over the course of the beta period. And the MacBook Air woke from sleep just fine on Lion, by the historical standards of Apple notebooks waking from sleep. But āfasterā isnāt fast enough, and the Air now feels like itās getting pretty close to the instant-on wake-from-sleep feel of an iOS device.
iOS is both the learning ground and the excuse for the simplification of OS X.
I am not going to attempt to exhaustively work my way through all two hundred plus features and write in detail about each and every one. The plan is to hit the highlights, tell you what's changed, and let you know why that's a good thing -- unless it isn't. In which case, I'll tell you why not. Think of this as the amuse-bouche to Ars Technica and John Siracusa's no-expense-spared tasting menu.
Send them all to your Instapaper cue for reading.
]]>Your Mac must be one of the following models:
Make sure you have Lion or the latest version of Snow Leopard.
While you have the About This Mac window open, check what version of OS X your Mac is running.
If you are running Lion (10.7.x), youāre ready to update to Mountain Lion. Go to Step 3. If you are running Snow Leopard (10.6.x), update to the latest version of OS X Snow Leopard before you purchase OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Click the Apple icon and choose Software Update to install Snow Leopard v10.6.8, the latest version.
Download OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store.
Click one on the appropriate link below for your country and go:
If you click one of the links above to purchase Mountain Lion I'll get a bit an affiliate payback from Apple and you're supporting my work on this blog and my podcasts. Thanks for your help!
]]>Then your parents come walking into the room with a big wheel that you thought they'd never actually get you.
Link to the video from Michael Lopp's excellent writeup of what being on the inside at Apple during their famous keynotes was like:
As you can see from that collection of āOne More Thingā introductions, early in his return to Apple, Steve literally acts like he almost forgot to introduce a product that has likely been in the works for years, involving hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Understanding the reasoning for this well-orchestrated and completely manufactured moment gives you a glimpse into the identity of Apple.
I get the impression that Steve Jobs was one of the key drivers behind the theatrical side of Apple's presentations. Not that there aren't plenty of people there who also enjoyed it - I think he really enjoyed getting to do the big reveal. I hope Apple keeps having fun with the theatrics of announcing new hardware and software. It conveys a certain amount of pride in the products that they're building and excitement about the future of Apple's chosen direction.
]]>Since it's only available at $0.99 for today, I thought I'd post a quick gallery of screenshots of the initial setup of Checkmark which should show you a lot of the care that went into making this app. After I've played with it for a while I'll post a more thorough review.
My initial impression is that it's a great looking app with lots of little touches (like the ability to set the range for how far from your location the app's "radar" should alert you) and better usability than Apple's own Reminders.app included in iOS5.
Click on the first image and scroll through to see the procedure of setting up Checkmark for the first time, adding a few locations and adding a location-based reminder. 1
[gallery link="file" orderby="title"]
Get it today before it goes up in price: Canadian App Store / US App Store
]]>As previously mentioned on this blog (here & here), Sparrow is a nice interface for using a Gmail or Google Apps email account. It still is a great email client, even though Google bought the Sparrow team, it's just disappointing to know the direction they were headed with an independent app will be swallowed up inside the Google machine.
It's ironic that most of Sparrow's customers will be notified of this through their app. An app they purchased in part because they didn't like Google's iOS interface or Apple's Mail.app.
The good news is that Sparrow for iPhone will continue to work as advertised when it was purchased. And whatever new features the Sparrow team were hoping to add in will hopefully be rolled into a new native iOS email app from Google.
As Mark Boulton tweeted in response to the news:
https://twitter.com/markboulton/statuses/226361099002449921
...to which I'd add that Sparrow decided to be "eaten" so we can't put the blame solely on Google.
]]>Evening Edition brings you todayās world news without push notifications. It has no streams or feeds. It doesnāt do [BREAKING] or [UPDATING]. Itās delivered by website to your device of choice every weekday at 5 p.m., and itās just the right amount of reading for the subway ride from office to home.
The way forward perhaps? There's something in this that could work for a variety of subjects or niche topics. Almost like if I held all my posts for a day in draft mode and then published them at 5pm.
]]>Apple Inc. (AAPL) was ordered by a judge to publish a notice on its U.K. website and in British newspapers alerting people to a ruling that Samsung Electronics Co. didnāt copy designs for the iPad.
As well as Appleās website, the company must pay for notices in the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, Guardian Mobile magazine, and T3, according to a draft copy of the order provided by Samsungās lawyers.
...in his July 9 ruling that Samsungās tablets were unlikely to be confused with the iPad because they are ānot as cool.ā He declined yesterday to grant Samsungās bid for an injunction blocking Apple from making public statements that the Galaxy infringed its design rights.
So I guess Apple wins some and loses some.
]]>...the six Walmart heirs now have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined, up from 30 percent in 2007. Between 2007 and 2010, the collective wealth of the six richest Waltons rose from $73 billion to $90 billion, while the wealth of the average American declined from $126,000 to $77,000 (13 million Americans have negative net worth).
For more Walmart related charts and graphs, check out their series on just how big Walmart actually is.
]]>I don't know if it was something in the air yesterday or what, but I kept tripping over my thoughts and words during the interview. Luckily Brett handled it like a pro and he did a great job of answering my meandering questions.
]]>Via kottke.org
]]>Podcasting's greatest strength is also what hinders it from being a sexy buzzword that you'd hear about on the news:
What podcasting still offers is a chance for anyone to get behind a microphone and, for all intents and purposes, make a radio programme. But even for the biggest in the business, it takes a little time for it to get going.
I'm still trying to figure out my way with podcasting over at SSKTN - but I still really believe in it as a medium for fostering community, discussion and support in the digital age.
]]>The young today shun the hardware of the past. The young package their messages in media that fit their messages, that is, they create new media to fit their messages.
From Edmund Snow Carpenter's 1970 book 'They Became What They Beheld'.
One more quote from 'They Became What They Beheld':
Artists don't address themselves to audiences. They create audiences. The artist talks to himself out loud. If what he has to say is significant, others hear & are affected.
An interesting thought from a 42 year old book that describes the way internet popularity and creativity often work. Someone starts a blog/podcast/YouTube channel about a topic that they want to talk about or share. Someone else finds it, shares it and brings more people to the original work. The audience is created because of the voice of the original person. Because of their obsession about a topic.
Put another way, obsession times voice creates an audience.
]]>Inkodye is a new creative tool, a water-based dye that develops and fixes its color permanently with exposure to sunlight.
Nifty video by the Sandwich Video crew for a neat product from lumi.co called Inkodye.
]]>For only $9.99 on Steam you can pick up the entire AoE 3 collection.
]]>There's also a new iPad version called Tiny Wings HD, $2.99 in the App Store, that would look great on a new Retina iPad.
But it's important to not over think these games. :)
https://twitter.com/scottjacksonx/statuses/223719015967760385
]]>The Xbox 360 from Microsoft has been a very successful video game console. In order to have access to certain other features, primarily related to online activities such as playing games against friends, you have to purchase a Xbox Live subscription on top of the purchase price of the console.
Which is where the ugly details come in.
People who donāt play video games would be forgiven if they turned on an Xbox 360 and didnāt realize it was a device used to primarily play games. The first screen you see on the Xbox 360 Dashboard is often a mixture of ads for all sorts of goods and services, and many times games are in the minority of ad slots. The latest redesign increased the ad space that can be sold to advertisers, and that in turn increased this problem.
And it doesn't sound like it's going to go away anytime soon since they're making so much money.
Read the rest of the article from The Penny Arcade Report, Ads up, games down: The ugly, profitable details about Xbox Live advertising.
]]>Weāve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.
Key words being eligible products.
]]>Among other things, Samantha is the creator of Style Tiles - a different take on mood boards for a design/web project.
Give the interview a listen if you're involved in design or typography on the web.
]]>Tempting.
Via 512pixels.net
]]>]]>As with Lion (OS X 10.7) last year, Apple is advertising Mountain Lion as dead-simple to install. But as with every major upgrade to OS X, there are a few things you can do before Mountain Lion is released to ensure that your Mac is ready for the new release.
Since this is the first post on this site something you need to know about me is that I love to shoot and edit video. You can see some of the videos I've produced on my Vimeo account - a mix of personal/family stuffĀ and also some work for clients.
So when it comes time to record a family event for posterity, I'm the one who:
Ok. That last one isn't true - at least not for personal video shoots.
But this time we had some other family in town, including my brother in law who also enjoys shooting video. And so I asked him if he could record the event for me and I'd just use my Nikon DSLR to take pictures.
Handing over control of something like recording my son's birthday party to someone else isn't something I typically like to do. It often has very little to do with the other person is actually capable or not - which in this case, my brother-in-law certainly was - but more to do with me wanting to make sure everything is the way I want it.
But as you can see from the video above, a two things happened:
So for the next party or family event where normally you'd be the one to have your face stuck behind the camera - see if you can't outsource it to someone else. Obviously you'll want to make sure they'll do a good enough job so you have something watchable at the end - but being able to relax and enjoy the moment rather than worrying about a camera's settings the whole time is more than worth it.
]]>I use WooThemes for a lot of my client sites over at my day job and for a variety of personal projects. You can read about some of my favourite themes on my Recommendations page.
You can get 40% off their themes and WooCommerce Extensions or huge discounts on their Standard Membership or Developer Membership.
The sale runs until midnight July 13th 2012 (PST).
Full credit to WooThemes for including a low point, when their site got massively hacked back in April, in their timeline of events on their birthday announcement page. Customer data, money and information was kept secure and they recovered the rest of their site and managed great support along the way.
]]>Download from the App Store for free.
I really love the tech and design of Google+ - but I'm not willing to try and convert anyone to use it just yet. And that's perhaps the biggest problem facing Google. People will try and convince friends/family to join Twitter or Facebook. Google+ is still a 'meh' for most folks. You can circle me on Google+ if you like - but for right now it's mostly links to blog posts here and the occasional attempt at Hangouts.
]]>Dropbox Pro now comes in flavors of 100 and 200 GB, but at the price of the original 50 and 100 GB plans. For those of you who need even more space, a brand new 500 GB plan is also joining the posse! If youāre already a Dropbox Pro subscriber, just take a seat and enjoy the fireworks ā your Dropbox will supersize itself automatically tonight.
100GB will be $9.99USD/month or $99USD/year. 200GB will be $19.99USD/month or $199USD/year. No pricing yet on the 500GB plan, but presumably it'll be $40USD/month or $400USD/year?
As a paying user of the 50GB plan, I love that they're just throwing in double the space for the same price.
Sign up here and I'll get some free space and so will you.
]]>Apple "said their design direction was no longer consistent with the EPEAT requirements," CIO Journal quotes EPEAT CEO Robert Frisbee as saying. "They were important supporters and we are disappointed that they don't want their products measured by this standard anymore."
I agree with Guy in that it's likely something to do with the new Retina MacBook Pro since all recent Mac laptops were EPEAT rated before it came out. EPEAT information has been pulled off the main Apple.com environmental footprint page but as of this blog post, EPEAT information is still on Apple's iMac page - I've put a screenshot below for posterity:
Apple still has a recycling program and I suspect they'll still try to follow environmental suggestions and requirements so long as it doesn't get in the way of a serious design decision. Not that they'll club baby seals to get a slimmer iPhone, but as with everything, there are tradeoffs and sometimes the benefits to a user will outweigh whatever standards that EPEAT had set for materials in electronics.
https://twitter.com/marcoarment/statuses/220968507117015040
If Marco says it's true, then I guess it must be true. More of his reasoning is fleshed out here but this quote sums it up pretty good:
Even though itās (retina display users) a small market today (although donāt forget about the iPad 3), itās inevitably going to increase substantially in the near future. Donāt you want to get ahead of that? Do you want your site to be ready the first time someone views it on a Retina screen, or are you OK with it looking like garbage for a few years until you happen to buy high-DPI hardware?
I'm not actually going to upgrade any time soon, but my next major computer purchase will definitely have some sort of retina/high-DPI capability.
]]>The iconic Canadian coffee brand announced this morning that it will begin rolling out free, high-speed wifi to its stores across Canada. Timmys says that at least 90% of its restaurants should have wifi by September
Mediocre (but cheap) coffee and free wifi seems like a great option to have. It would be interesting to be able to track how this affects local coffee shop usage by freeloaderslancers.
Via @scott_henderson
]]>Guitar Pitch Pipe, by Hypercompact is $0.99 in the App Store (US App Store link / Canadian App Store link).
]]>Eric Meyer is one of those people and we got a chance to interview him for the latest Non-Breaking Space episode.
Eric has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and web standards. A widely read author, he is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, which counts a wide variety of corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies among its clients. Eric, along with Jeffrey Zeldman, is the co-founder of An Event Apart.
It was my great pleasure to be able to sit in on the interview. If you're at all interested in web design, I'd encourage you to go listen to the show.
You can also listen to a bit of the after show where he teaches me about paying attention to details.
]]>I can't remember if I've ever used the USB to Ethernet adapter I picked up when I bought my MacBook Air so I won't be rushing out to grab one.
But if I was moving around more video files, it'd be the first thing I'd pick up.
]]>I had to laugh at one feature omission I complained about five years ago: āIt would be nice if Safari allowed users to upload certain kinds of content in order to, for example, post pictures taken with the iPhoneās built-in camera to the Flickr photo-sharing site.ā Five years later, that feature is slated to be part of the iOS 6 update this fall. See? Sometimes patience is rewarded.
Up until this year, I hadn't realized that the iPhone and my son are the same age.1 I didn't get an iPhone until the iPhone 4 came out but looking at my iPhoto and/or Flickr library, 90% of the photos since then are from an iPhone.
]]>The annual cost to charge an iPad is just $1.36, according to the Electric Power Research Institute...
By comparison, a 60-watt compact fluorescent bulb costs $1.61, a desktop PC adds up to $28.21 and a refrigerator runs you $65.72.
This might also explain why there isn't the ability to manually add a RSS subscription to the app - it only allows you to subscribe to podcasts that are within the iTunes Podcast listing service.
A 70%/30% revenue share with Apple could be great shot in the arm to the podcasting industry that has to deal with finding sponsors, advertisers and other means of making money while trying to produce great content.
I for one wouldn't have any problem putting SSKTN and related podcasts behind a subscription service if Apple does a good job of making it easy to sign up, listen and subscribe to it.
Update: Looks like you can subscribe to non-iTunes Store podcasts after all thanks to Don McAllister's searching:
https://twitter.com/donmcallister/status/217737496778387456
Via @flattr
]]>Podcasts app is the easiest way to discover, subscribe to and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.
Looks interesting. Not a huge surprise as apparently podcasts were removed from the Music app in iOS 6.
Though according to this tweet, RSS support is non-existent which means it's only good for podcasts listed in the iTunes Podcast directory. Shouldn't be a problem since all a podcast has to do is submit their RSS feed to Apple for inclusion - but some podcasts may not be in there for a variety of reasons.
https://twitter.com/donmcallister/status/217676236078579713
]]>mobile.twitter.com seems to be up if you have to tweet.
]]>Via who else? kottke.org
]]>Hope Bagozzi1, Director of Marketing for McDonald's Canada, answers questions submitted to McDonald's Canada's YouTube page:
Via kottke.org
Via kottke.org
]]>See also John Gruber's comparison of how the press was able to handle an iPad vs what the press was able to do with the Surface at their respective introductions.
]]>Free to download and then you purchase a subscription.
I picked it up and am trying it out by using all my regular email accounts on Mail.app and putting my Lemon Productions account in Sparrow. My thinking is that way I can check work related stuff when I want to - or ignore it when I need to.
Don't be like Francis and miss your opportunity. :)
https://twitter.com/churowa/status/215115964017156096
Pick up Fantastical for $9.99, 50% off from the Mac App Store.
]]>As a mirror image of a legal commodities business, the Sinaloa cartel brings to mind that old line about Ginger Rogers doing all the same moves as Fred Astaire, only backward and in heels. In its longevity, profitability and scope, it might be the most successful criminal enterprise in history.
How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions on The New York Times.
]]>To be considered for promotion on the iTunes Store, your podcast cover art must be 1400 x 1400 pixels or larger, in .jpg or .png format. Please note that all images must be formatted for RGB color space. CMYK is not supported.
iTunes now supports 1080p HD video, presumably to better support the recently announced Apple TVs that also support 1080p HD. And Apple is now doing more indexing of episode metadata:
We now index episode metadata in search. Include descriptive episode titles and summaries for best Search Engine Optimization on iTunes.
Something else that's new (to me) is including different artwork for each podcast episode:
We encourage providers to include episode-specific cover art at the episode level. Further details can be found in our online technical specification.
A bit more work to put out each episode, but most podcast producers are likely editing artwork for their episode posts on the web what's one more .JPG?
Full detail can be found at Apple.com's Podcasting specs page.
These changes and improvements to the podcast spec were put out a few weeks ago and lots of rumour sites grabbed onto them as proof of a TV from Apple. In hindsight, it looks like it might have just been to help podcasts look better on the newly announced MacBook Pro with retina display.
Not that a TV isn't coming sometime, but just not right away.
]]>Laura Lang, CEO of Time, Inc. and Eddy Cue, Apple's VP for Internet software and service, confirmed in a phone interview that Time's magazine lineup is coming to the iPhone and iPad.
If you saw the above sentence on my blog, you'd think I was the one who had the interview, right? At least that's how I read it.
And that's how it's written on a recent post on TUAW1, a popular Mac news and rumour blog owned by AOL.
Except that Eddy Cue, a VP at Apple, didn't talk to anyone at TUAW on the phone. He actually talked to Amy Chozick at the New York Times for her article that TUAW linked to. And the TUAW author just copied that sentence, changed a bit of wording, but forgot the important part of the sentence which made me think Eddy Cue and the CEO of Time, Inc. had talked on the phone with a blogger at TUAW.
Far be it from me to be the bastion of good writing and proper journalism, but it is too bad that in the rush to get a story out the door first!! there's often missed opportunity to get the story right.
While I'm on my soapbox, my other complaint with the Apple rumour-mill bloggers is when they use a lead/title that implies something is going to happen, i.e. "Apple to Release an Magical TV with All Wheel Drive at WWDC", when in fact it's just a rumour and they should be titling it "Apple Rumoured to Release..." but that gets tiring and doesn't help as much with the link bait SEO tactics to drive page views and advertising clicks.
Such is the monster we've helped create.
Visit the codex for full change details.
Any Lemon Productions clients reading this, upgrades will be done gradually to your installs in the next week or so.
]]>While on a 1:1 audio call, users will see content that could spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences. So, you should think of Conversation Ads as a way for Skype to generate fun interactivity between your circle of friends and family and the brands you care about. Ultimately, we believe this will help make Skype a more engaging and useful place to have your conversations each and every day.
Luckily the new ads are only enabled in the Windows version of Skype for now and only on audio calls.
Makes using a traditional phone more attractive all the time.
]]>As Fraser Speirs points out: 2
https://twitter.com/fraserspeirs/status/212986146496585729
https://twitter.com/fraserspeirs/status/212988740740726784
Find my Friends as detailed on Apple.com:
Find My Friends is a great way to share locations with friends and family. Those who share their locations with you appear on a map so you can quickly see where they are and what theyāre up to. And with iOS 6, you can get location-based alerts ā like when your kids leave school or arrive home. Find My Friends can also notify others about your location, so you can stay connected or keep track of the ones you love.
What this means is that you can set up a geo-fence - for example tell Find my Friends the address of your kid's school - and then whenever your kid enters or leaves that geo-fenced area, you get a notification.
3 or 4 years ago, I might have trusted Google with doing this. Now I wouldn't. Right now I do trust that Apple won't abuse or mistreat this level of information about me - we'll have to see where Apple is in 3 or 4 years to know if that trust has been broken or not.
]]>There's a ridiculous amount of misinformation spreading online about the new maps in iOS 6, compounded by incorrect press reports, vague statements by Apple, and the developer NDAs. I'm even guilty of spreading it myself, based on reports I'd seen on the blogs.
iOS 6 adjusts the metallic button reflections as you tilt your phone.
]]>Apple seems to be using one of its movement sensors to detect when the phone is being tilted from side to side and adjust the reflection of the volume button at the bottom of the screen.
This book is for design beginners. If you're not a designer but sometimes are asked to do design, then this book is for you. If you've just started out in design, or are at college or university, then this book is for you, too.
Ā£35.00 for the paperback and digital editions. I have the first book they published, A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web that I frequently pull out for reference, ideas and inspiration.
It's just too bad that Five Simple Steps, the publisher, doesn't have a North American distribution because these books get expensive by the time you do the exchange and shipping.
Update: Thanks to a comment from the book's author, Rob Mills, it looks like I missed the blog post where Five Simple Steps announced their distribution plans in the USA. Thanks for the update Rob!
]]>Forever.
In honour of this event, there's a few Mac developers that have put their wares on sale. I'll try and update this post throughout the week if new ones come up that I feel are worth mentioning.
In Drafts, you can get that text down quickly, and decide what to do with it later. Extensive output options let you send your text to Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, a Calendar event, quickly save it to Dropbox or Evernote ā or forward it to a growing list of other Apps such as OmniFocus, Things, The Hit List, Byword, Sparrow and more (see below for full list).
]]>ColorSnapper is an easy-to-use tool for quickly finding out the color of any pixel on the screen. It is activated via a system-wide hotkey (configurable), giving you a magnifying loupe to easily pick the pixel you need.
The resulting color is copied to clipboard in a format of your preference.
Save your money. Buy a MacBook Pro with retina display.
Save your money. Buy a MacBook Pro with retina display.
Starting configuration at US $2,199.
Mountain Lion is the next version of OS X
Link to Apple.com's section on Mountain Lion
Maps is the big feature that they saved for near the end. Turn by turn navigation support, uses anonymous real-time crowd-sourced data for traffic flows it can alert you to a different route that might be quicker. You can ask Siri "Are we there yet?" Beautiful 3D flyovers.
Link to Apple.com's iOS6 section
Coming this fall, support for iPhone 3GS+, 4th gen iPod touch, and 2nd-gen iPad+.
No Apple TV that will change the world but given all that they announced, the only people who should be disappointed are the dumb pundits and rumour mongers who worked everyone into a frenzy saying it was coming.
Same with a new iPhone. That's on a yearly cycle now in the fall.
The MacBook Pros with retina display are going to be huge. Just like seeing a retina enabled iPhone or iPad, once you use one your current MacBook will look old and busted. So my advice stands as it did for the new iPad - just don't look at one and you'll be fine.
]]>Via kungfugrippe.com
]]>So Google held a press conference this week to announce their plans for maps. Which apparently went really well:
@jlgolson: That's the worst presentation I've ever seen. How was that anything exciting at all? It was more the "history" of maps than the future.
@stevekovach: What a waste of time.
@MattRosoff: Takeaway: Google is terrified of Apple Maps whatever, and Apple hasn't even announced anything yet.
What Google actually unveiled today is their own vulnerability in the space. Beyond a few tiny leaks, no one knows what Apple's mapping product will be like. Google has by far and away the best mapping product on the planet. But they still felt the need to hold this meaningless press conference today. That's fighting down, not up. And it's a big mistake because it conveys the opposite of what Google was trying to convey: concern, not confidence.
Assuming Apple does unveil a new iOS maps app, the one big follow-up question is what will happen on the web? Apple doesn't traditionally do a great job of web apps, although the iCloud.com web apps for Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and Find my iPhone are done surprisingly well for Apple1.
I think Apple will, at least initially, simply not care about the web side of mapping. They'll ditch Google Maps as the backend for the native maps app in iOS and replace it with their own mapping app/technology. Most people assume the mapping app on iOS is one built by Google but it's actually an Apple map, just using Google's data/mapping service. Kind of like how iPhoto for iOS ($4.99 in the App Store) uses their own mapping technology for GPS coordinates of your photos. iPhoto for iOS was a test of Apple's mapping tech.
I have no idea how many people use the native Maps app now on iOS as opposed to searching in Mobile Safari - but I know if I really want to find my way somewhere, the native app is much easier to use than browsing to Google Maps in Safari. So Apple takes over that experience and leaves the web browsing usage of mapping technology to Google - for now.
At some point in the future, Apple releases a Mac App using their technology so that you can more easily send directions and GPS coordinates between iOS and OS X.
Or maybe not? Maybe desktop/laptop usage of mapping technology is on the decline and Apple just focuses on making the best possible mapping app for iOS. If the app is so good on my iPhone, I'll be much more inclined to pick that up if I need to find my way - even if I'm sitting in front of a 24" iMac.
Whatever happens, it'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall of Google and Apple's mapping teams as it all plays out over the next couple of weeks.
Affiliate link that supports this blog and gets you a great deal.
Parallels is the app that allows you to install Windows (or other operating systems) on your Mac and run them in parallel to OS X. Great for web designers who need to test on multiple browsers, businesses that need to run Quickbooks or other arcane Windows software in an otherwise Mac world or even gamers who still want to play the occasional Windows game.
Screenflow is the app I use for any of the video capture/tutorials that I've done over here. It's a great program that's very intuitive to use and tremendously powerful despite being fairly simple on the surface. I know of a few people who use it as their video editor instead of iMovie because of it's traditional timeline editor view. I recommend this app at it's regular $99 price - a steal at $49.
BusyCal is a replacement calendar app for iCal - that suede/faux leather designed hideous app that somehow made it on to Lion. Better Google Calendar syncing and full support for iCloud/iCal Server. Think of BusyCal as a free add on in the bundle that you're purchasing one of the two apps above for that will just make your Mac a nicer looking computer.
The other apps included in the bundle are Civilization V (game), Jaksta (audio/video recorder from the web), Espionage 3 (data security), Speed Download (download manager), Attachment Tamer 3 (better Mail.app attachment support), KeyCue 6 (utility to learn and memorize keyboard shortcuts), A Better Finder Rename (utility to rename files on your Mac) and My Living Desktop 5 (desktop screenshot).
You can watch a video tour of the apps included to see if any of them might be what you're after.
Pick up the bundle while you can if any of the big three apps listed above appeal to you. The rest of the apps are hit or miss for me, but maybe you'll find a use for some of them.
]]>As a developer I have a consistent and predictable environment upon which I can create my applications. I have only a few devices, as opposed to several dozen, that I have to worry about supporting and testing. As a user I have a consistent and predictable user experience and upgrade cycle. As an uncle I have a camera that doesn't make you look like you have liver failure unless you're outside on a clear day in the high noon sun.
Of the main reasons he gives for switching, the camera is the one that would've bugged me the most. A crappy mobile camera on my iPhone would make it useless to me. It's one of the reasons I didn't get an iPhone until the iPhone 4 came out with a HD capable video camera.
]]>I prefer the look and feel of Hipmunk but it can't hurt to have the king of search trying to find good flights.
]]>CommentCast, $5 via PayPal, does some sort of magic to aggregate all the possible comments you can receive.
Via macsparky.com
Via boingboing.net
]]>A great find by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop.
]]>Here's how, according to Telus:
I'd add that it's important to note that there's two NOTE:'s on Telus' page1 so that must mean it's very important.
Apple offers a few additional suggestions before unlocking your phone - the most important of which is to back it up before you do anything.
Unlocking your iPhone allows you to take it to a different phone carrier - any carrier. Typically when you buy a phone you sign a 3 year contract and the phone you get is locked to, as in will only work with, the phone service you're buying the phone from.
Via iphoneincanada.ca - where they make use of the awful advertising plugin that makes certain words appear as links and when you accidentally hover over them you get a pop-up ad. Disgusting.
Sleight of hand and a fair amount of custom iOS programming put together to make for an impressive demo. Don't expect to see this kind of show at Best Buy anytime soon.
Via @counternotions
]]>Popular tech blogs I read (i.e. Daringfireball.net, ShawnBlanc.net, The Loop) all have mixed reaction ranging from "those insipid per-post social media buttons" to "If nobody is using the buttons on the page, Iād gladly get rid of them."
As of this posting, I have them on this site on individual posts only:
Social media buttons are not a social media strategy, even though theyāre often sold that way. Excellent content, serious networking and constant human engagement is the way to build your profile. Adding those sleazy buttons wonāt achieve anything. Social media is not easy ā there is no simple trick. Usually, what most people do is not the winning strategy but the safe strategy, and safe rarely wins.
Which on principle I completely agree with. Creating good content is the key to building a successful blog or website. I do think that the buttons unnecessarily clutter up a website. They also make you look like you're begging for someone to share your content and not just letting it happen organically. They also slow down the loading of your page, with multiple requests and bandwidth usage that can be painful for a mobile reader.
But the one part of the article I disagree with is this statement:
What I know for sure is that most people who know how to use social media also know how to share URLs
You can find anecdotal evidence to back up almost any argument if you search long enough on the internet. But I've met a few normal1 people who use Twitter or Facebook but have no idea how to copy and paste. Which means they literally do not know how to copy the URL for your amazing blog post and paste that into Facebook or Twitter.
Which is why I do include the share, tweet and G+ buttons on individual posts for now. I'll see how much usage they get over time and decide if I should remove them. From a visual and technically standpoint, I'd ditch them right away. I do think it comes off a bit desperate and looks a little pathetic to see a fat zero next to a share or tweet button.
But for the same reason I try to add an accurate alt tag description to images on my site for people who don't browse with images enabled, I want to make sure I'm helping those who wouldn't otherwise know how to share or tweet about a web page2.
]]>Here's a preview of what is all in my dock. Any app icons that you don't recognize - click through and find out more.
]]>If youāre a UI designer and like to iterate regularly, viewing your designs on device with utilities like xScope or LiveView Screencaster, then this is a great app to own.
Screenshot Journal lets you:
]]>DM1 is an advanced vintage Drum Machine. It turns your iPad into a fun and creative beat making machine. Easy and fast to use, loaded with 64 superb electronic drum kits and beautiful hyper-realistic graphics,
DM1 has been designed for a lot of instant fun.
From Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
]]>Upload your video to your channel and include "Be Serious for 30 Seconds" in the title and we'll find it.
I love random ideas like this that the internet and social media has become so perfect for.
]]>I believe that many Apple observers have been too invested in picking off the low hanging fruit of obviously out-of-touch commentators, columnists, and analysts. Apple is winning. Itās fun to pick on the idiots, and we do tune in for the affirmation that engenders, but thatās not insight. Itās a tag team wedgie patrol. It takes a cleaver intellect to dismantle bullshit but, ultimately, it often just ends up with pantsing the dumb guy. Rather than doing that letās aim to pants the A-grade quarterback.
Take the high road and point the lens back on the Mac and figure out what needs improving. Good stuff.
As far as a photo app goes, it's a great looking app and pulls the photos from your Facebook feed into a nice, scrolling view of all your friend's boring pictures of their vacations and family get togethers.
Like Instagram and other photo apps, it brings the filters that everyone loves to hate. There's an option in the settings pane to 'Save Filtered Photos' which is set to Off by default. That will save the original photo to your iOS device's camera roll without the filter applied. Change that setting to On and you'll get the original photo and your filtered/cropped version as well so the photo purists can sleep peacefully knowing you didn't destroy history with a poor choice in filter.
I'm still not sure why Facebook has chosen the multiple apps route, rather than trying to bundle it all into one app. Maybe that's where they're headed. As it is, they've now got main Facebook app, which can take and upload pictures, the Facebook Messenger, for messaging people (which can take and upload photos), the Facebook Pages Manager app, for managing your Facebook Pages (and taking and uploading photos) and now the Facebook Camera app. Which can take and upload pictures - with filters!
So explain again to your mom which one she should use to get the photos of you as a 3 year old onto Facebook again?
]]>It's also a test of using Google+ Hangouts that allows you to record your conversation and broadcast/save it out to YouTube.
Relevant links for making your purchase and supporting this blog: Coda 2 (Coda 2 - Panic, Inc. on for $49.99 half price today, regularly $99) and Diet Coda (App Store for $9.99 for now).
]]>[caption id="attachment_20445" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Coda 2 screenshot"][/caption]
I'm just putting those links there so that someone else buys them through one of them so I can justify buying it as well.
]]>Correction: In an earlier version of this article, the example involving āMidnight in Parisā mistakenly said a comma was needed after the name āJessie,ā rather than before it.
Obviously it's not as easy as it looks.
Via 512pixels.net
]]>Via kottke.org
]]>But, as this Venture Beat article about a recent Google+ Photographers Conference illustrates, do they have to be so creepy about it?
For example, say you review a restaurant. Google will tuck that information away and deliver it when it is relevant, perhaps six months later when one of your friends looks for a restaurant recommendation in the same area. āThatās a gift from me to that person facilitated by Google.ā
No. That's creepy. Google tucking anything away is creepy. Like a stalker.
The ability to upload photos and easily share them, at full quality is a great feature of Google+. Facebook compresses and mangles photos, strips metadata & exif data out so badly that when you try to grab your photos later for a slide show or something all anyone can get is small thumbnail'd versions of their photos.
āI want to know everything I can about the environment,ā said Horowitz. āI would like to know more detailed information about the roll, pitch, yaw of the camera. About the lens optics, about even the blood pressure of person whose hand is on the camera, even the galvanic skin response.ā These biological markers can be used to identify the special and meaningful moments in your life worth remembering, such as the happiness you felt seeing your kid take her first steps.
No. No you don't need to know the blood pressure of the person whose hand is on the camera. Don't be creepy! Just store my pictures in high-resolution. Allow me to share them with who I want and nobody else. And keep doing cool things like Hangouts and figuring out how to bring it all together in a non-creepy way.
[caption id="attachment_20438" align="aligncenter" width="806" caption="Ok, maybe Hangouts are creepy too."][/caption]
]]>As an added bonus, keep a copy of all your scanned or photographed receipts in a folder in your free Dropbox account and you'll have a backup stored in the cloud in case your computer ever disappears.
Even better, if you take photos of your receipts with a free Evernote account on your iPhone and you'll be able to easily search the text of your receipts later thanks to Evernote OCR'ing (recognizing the text in your images) your receipt.
[caption id="attachment_20434" align="aligncenter" width="741" caption="Searching for Coop in Evernote"][/caption]
Like magic.
]]>And yes, that's Gary Barlow of Take That fame playing the keyboard line. And Tom Jones sitting at the end of the couch doing... nothing?
Via loopinsight.com
]]>Other items included:
So a good plan to pick up an iPhone on a 3 year contract if you plan to mainly use it like a iPod touch with a phone enabled. It's certainly nice to have cellular data as an option, but I know for a lot of people they're so surrounded by wifi that they wouldn't miss cellular data.
But the iPhone 4S is at the extreme end of it's product cycle. New iPhones will likely be out in October, if not sooner. So buy one only if you can't wait.
Reprisal lets you take control of a tribe, guiding them, building land and making them grow in number. Using special totem powers you can control nature itself unleashing its full fury on anyone that stands in your way. But be warned, other tribes may not take too kindly to your intentions and will put up a fight!
Go play it and let me know how it is in the comments below. I've got too much work to do and can't afford to get distracted right now.
]]>It's $0.99 in the App Store and is by Marco Arment, creator of the popular Instapaper for iOS who's wife recently had a baby.
If you'd like to hear the full story of how it was created, you can listen to the first 20 minutes or so of Build and Analyze episode 78 where Dan and Marco discuss the idea of creating an app that wasn't Instapaper to experience the other side of the App Store.
]]>]]>Just go to View > Customize to enable checkboxes next to each pane that you can toggle.
But the way his life is built around him is going to make that very difficult. There's too much riding on his "brand" for him to get dinged and knocked around and punched in the face, to sufferāand to bounce back fromāthe kind of traumas that make a child into an adult. My mission was to make a man out of Bieber. The label's mission is to make a man out of Bieber. The only person who isn't ready to make a man out of Bieber is Bieber. He wants to be 18. He wants to be a swaggy broāhe seems incapable of being anything elseāand that's as it should be. Manhood can wait.
Being plucked out of obscurity via a YouTube video and thrown in to modern celebrity would make just about anyone insane. If Bieber can make it through the next 10 years without some sort of serious breakdown it'll be a testament to his family upbringing or to the best therapists money can buy.
I'm not becoming a Bielieber or buying any of his music anytime soon. What I am is a fan of music and the people and industry behind it.
Which got me thinking.
As great as it might be to have near instant access to your favourite musicians and artists through Twitter, YouTube videos and other social media - what made the bands of the past so great, in part, was the mythology and story created by good writers who crafted something better than 140 character tweets written by a PR team.
I'm a huge U2 fan. But it wasn't their music that drew me in to becoming a fan(atic). I liked the music. It wasn't until reading U2: At the End of the World by Bill Flanagan that I really became a fan. Reading the story behind the music and the concerts, written by a great story teller, turned me into a real fan of the band.
So not that a single GQ article is going to make me a Bielieber. But it's part of the tradition of building a musician and an artist through storytelling. If Bieber can make it through the next 10 years, maybe I'll be buying his comeback album after he goes through rehab and therapy.
Maybe.
]]>With baby #3 on the way, we're in the market for a different vehicle. Dare I say it - maybe even a minivan. Actually definitely a mini-van. I've long since gotten over the idea of minivan being a dirty word that's an insult to your integrity as a man or barometer of cool. If you're driving around in a vehicle with more than one car seat, you've long since given up on being cool in your vehicle of choice.
But I digress.
I had the opportunity to take part in the Ford Power of Choice Tour driving event at the Farmer's Market in Saskatoon to check out their 2012 lineup of vehicles, focused on the electric and hybrid models. I brought along my 4-year-old son since I thought he might want to check out the new vehicles as well.
Right now with a kid in a car seat and another in a booster and another on the way, we're definitely needing something with more seats than a typical car. As Ford has gotten out of minivans completely it's not likely that any of their vehicles will be great for us as a primary vehicle - though we have friends with a Ford Flex who are certainly surviving just fine. But I'm on the lookout for a second vehicle for work - particularly if I can get it painted a bright yellow. Or at least with a big lemon painted on the side somewhere. :)
We ended up getting to take a pre-production 2013 Ford Edge for a ride.
Damien's car seat fit easily in the back with plenty of leg room for him to kick and get in and out of the seat - although at his height right now he might need help getting up into the vehicle, depending on how you're parked.
A view of the interior dash and controls.
We also got a look at the new Ford Focus Electric. And while I didn't have time to stick around for a test drive, I did see someone else take it for a spin.
With see being the operative word. You couldn't hear a thing from the car standing outside at the Farmer's Market. It was crazy. Living in Saskatchewan you're used to big, loud trucks roaring around and cars that have long since lost their muffler and so seeing a car almost float by you without a sound was almost a bit eery. But imagining being in downtown Saskatoon where all the vehicles were as quiet as the Focus Electric is a nice future to look forward to.
Whether you agree or not with the green movement, it is nice to see the vehicle manufacturers being pushed to think about sustainability. And Ford is no exception. There's plenty of recycled components in their new vehicles including dandelion roots in cup holders, floor mats and interior trim. Recycled carpet materials for cylinder head covers. Soybeans for seat cushions and foam. Damien had a great time looking at all the different materials that went into a modern vehicle.
Ford's got a MyFord Mobile app coming for smartphones - presumably iPhone and Android at least but I didn't ask about Windows Phone or cough Blackberry2. Plenty of features that would appeal to most any modern geek such as the ability to check the battery charge on your car, set the times you'd like it to charge, trip planning, finding a nearby charing station using MapQuest and more.
Slashgear got a hands on look at the app which you can watch in the video below:
It's impressive to see the North American auto industry bounce back from near death, listening to what people actually want in their vehicles. And the Ford vehicles are no exception.
The electric and eco vehicles are awesome to see. But I'm looking forward to the 2035 Shelby Mustang that I'll be buying when my kids are moved out and I'm having my mid-life crisis.
]]>U2 frontman Bono finally has found what he's looking for--at least when it comes to tech investments.
Bono's part of an investment fund, Elevation Partners, who've invested in a variety of tech related businesses over the years. Notably Palm, subsequently bought by HP and destroyed, and Yelp, the somewhat popular review site. But with their investment in Facebook in 2010, owning 1.5% of the soon to be public company could be worth $1.5 billion. Not bad for a $270 million investment.
As an added bonus, Bono could potentially become the richest rock star on the planet:
The development means Bono could be worth, on paper at least, as much as $1.1 billion (Ā£695 million), some $300 million (Ā£189 million) richer than the current most-wealthy rock star, Sir Paul McCartney.
The stock market works in mysterious ways.
It's a beautiful day... for Bono.
The Facebook IPO is even better than the real thing... for Bono.
Hold me, thrill me, invest in me, sell me?
Bono can finally afford to give the streets a name.
The sweetest thing... is when the rich get richer.
I'll be here all week.
]]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXuzku9ZxhI
]]>If you did nothing, no email.
My only quibble is that you must have a Facebook account to sign in. I know plenty of people who either don't have a Facebook account or won't use it to login somewhere for fear of giving away everything they've ever done on Facebook to some random web app.
Also, Twitter only allows access to your last 3,200 tweets. If, like me, you've tooted more often than that in the past 365 days you won't see anything from your tweets. Timehop is apparently developing a work around.
]]>Kristina runs a company called Brain Traffic which is leading the charge for websites and other web related entities to have better content - a strategy for the content even. There's even a whole conference called Confab built around the idea that having a strategy for your website's content is a very important thing.
It's something that's been a passion of mine as part of my work at Lemon Productions - trying to push my clients to really think about what they're putting on their website, why it's there and what they hope to give their readers, clients or potential customers who visit their website.
Go listen to the interview with Kristina or subscribe in iTunes and catch up on a bunch of great interviews with the web's best and brightest.
The intro guy has quite the annoying voice though, hey?
]]>You can also buy all three books in digital form for only $17.99.
I've read the series three times, watched it twice, but still tempted to pick up digital copies. Once our kids destroy the DVDs we have, I'll come back for the videos.
]]>But I digress.
I had the opportunity to take part in the Ford Power of Choice Tour driving event at the Farmer's Market in Saskatoon to check out their 2012 lineup of vehicles, focused on the electric and hybrid models. I brought along my 4-year-old son since I thought he might want to check out the new vehicles as well.
Right now with a kid in a car seat and another in a booster and another on the way, we're definitely needing something with more seats than a typical car. As Ford has gotten out of minivans completely it's not likely that any of their vehicles will be great for us as a primary vehicle - though we have friends with a Ford Flex who are certainly surviving just fine. But I'm on the lookout for a second vehicle for work - particularly if I can get it painted a bright yellow. Or at least with a big lemon painted on the side somewhere. :)
We ended up getting to take a pre-production 2013 Ford Edge for a ride.
Damien's car seat fit easily in the back with plenty of leg room for him to kick and get in and out of the seat - although at his height right now he might need help getting up into the vehicle, depending on how you're parked.
A view of the interior dash and controls.
We also got a look at the new Ford Focus Electric. And while I didn't have time to stick around for a test drive, I did see someone else take it for a spin.
With see being the operative word. You couldn't hear a thing from the car standing outside at the Farmer's Market. It was crazy. Living in Saskatchewan you're used to big, loud trucks roaring around and cars that have long since lost their muffler and so seeing a car almost float by you without a sound was almost a bit eery. But imagining being in downtown Saskatoon where all the vehicles were as quiet as the Focus Electric is a nice future to look forward to.
Whether you agree or not with the green movement, it is nice to see the vehicle manufacturers being pushed to think about sustainability. And Ford is no exception. There's plenty of recycled components in their new vehicles including dandelion roots in cup holders, floor mats and interior trim. Recycled carpet materials for cylinder head covers. Soybeans for seat cushions and foam. Damien had a great time looking at all the different materials that went into a modern vehicle.
Ford's got a MyFord Mobile app coming for smartphones - presumably iPhone and Android at least but I didn't ask about Windows Phone or cough Blackberry2. Plenty of features that would appeal to most any modern geek such as the ability to check the battery charge on your car, set the times you'd like it to charge, trip planning, finding a nearby charing station using MapQuest and more.
Slashgear got a hands on look at the app which you can watch in the video below:
It's impressive to see the North American auto industry bounce back from near death, listening to what people actually want in their vehicles. And the Ford vehicles are no exception.
The electric and eco vehicles are awesome to see. But I'm looking forward to the 2035 Shelby Mustang that I'll be buying when my kids are moved out and I'm having my mid-life crisis.
]]>One side of my head says it's not really what people are after. The geeky side of my head likes to have an excuse to play with different software - in this case Vanilla Forums. My heart loves the idea of building and fostering community. The middle ground is that it can come in handy if someone needs something similar for my day job.
So go kick the tires on the new forum and leave a comment. Just like back in 1999.
]]>I first learned about Fraser years ago, back when iPhoto was introduced and shortly thereafter there became a need to export from iPhoto to a Flickr account. Fraser's FlickrExport was (and still is) the best Flickr export plugin for iPhoto (MAS link) and now Aperture (MAS link).
He also writes on his blog about his other life as an educator navigating the changing waters of education and technology.
]]>The book is a deep dive on paperless workflows for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. It takes full advantage of iBooks Author and includes picture galleries, interactive images, movies, 32 screencasts, and nearly 27,000 words. There is over an hour and a half of video. Not only does this book tell you how to go paperless, it also shows you.
The book is only available for iPad, though David has announced a PDF version will be coming in the future.
If you're not sure about the book or are like me and without an iPad right now, you can listen to episode 85 of Mac Power Users where David and Katie talk a bit more in depth about the paperless idea for Mac.
]]>With the information provided from Environment Canada, Degrees provides extremely accurate and detailed weather information. With our new take on the traditional weather interface, you can now quickly view all your favorite locations on a single screen.
Degrees also happens to be made by North Bits, a software developer based right here in Saskatoon.
]]>So while it's functional and it works, there's still the baseboards that need to go on and a bit of paint to fix up. So mind where you put your hands while you're poking around.
]]>He's more committed to the format of the iPod nano then Apple is.
]]>Worlds better than the built in iPod/music player for listening to podcasts - an easy recommendation to anyone listening to any podcasts on the go. Check out the product page for more details on what's new.
]]>Except if you're colour blind. I find the iPhone version basically unplayable at times because I can't tell the difference between different train cars. I wish more developers would add the ability to choose your own colours when playing on devices like the iPhone. It shouldn't matter what colour I choose on my device - the software should be able to figure out which trains belong to who.
Ticket to Ride is also available for the iPhone (called Ticket to Ride Pocket - $1.99) and iPad ($6.99).
]]>Your basic lemming style puzzle game where you have to figure out the best path for the droids to get to the goal with the difficulty ramping up as you go up in levels.
Naturally Neven thought my reply was hilarious (emphasis and assumptions of Neven's thoughts by your humble editor) and retweeted it out to his 13k+ followers.
At which point I just sat back, took a sip of my coffee and waited for the royalty cheques to start flying into my mailbox because that's how the internet works right?
Ahem.
That all happened around 4pm on Wednesday. Being a bit of a stats nerd, I would periodically check the Droplr stats for the image I sent in my reply. Each time someone clicked on the link in my tweet to the image, Droplr would register a view.
There was the initial rush of people who viewed it, somewhere between 350 and 450, and then the views slowed down to a trickle.
But what's interesting is how even now, 20+ hours later, there's still people clicking and viewing that screenshot as it approaches 600 views.
No big revelation or summary statement about society here. It's just a curious thing to me how different people keep up with the stream of information coming at them. Twitter to me is relevant information from the last few hours - anything beyond that I don't really worry about and can skim or skip past, other than close personal friends.1
Others are more interested in reading or clicking everything someone tweets.
Or maybe my tweet was just so inspiring, funny and full of knowledge that people can't help but click the url to see what's on the other side.
Anyway, back to waiting for my internet cash machine to start printing dollar bills. Better go grab some ink.
The Civil Wars perform 'I've Got This Friend' on YouTube
If you didn't pick it up back in February, I'd still recommend grabbing a copy of Barton Hollow, their debut album, off iTunes or wherever you buy music. At $7.99CDN it's a steal.
If you're too cheap to buy the whole album, at least pick up Barton Hollow for $0.99. Your ears will thank you.
]]>I don't know if things have changed since I worked in retail, but back then Apple had little to no support presence in Saskatchewan - sales and tech support was based out of Winnipeg or Alberta.
It sucks that they chose Regina though. Saskatoon would make a much better spot for an Apple store, but then I'm a little biased.
Update Looks like, if @himpster / @jackleCBC are right, that it's just an Apple reseller not an official Apple store.
]]>Particularly the 'Links from Safari Tabs'. That alone will save me a ton of time when working on podcasts.
Found by listening to episode 81 of Mac Power Users.
]]>SCOtutor for iPad is a series of training videos on how to use an iPad packaged up into an app you can watch on your iPhone or iPad. Great for anyone new to an iPad and iOS in general.
Update The Mac App version of SCOtutor for iPad is also free.
]]>It's a bit ironic that the service so many of us rely on for keeping things up to date doesn't have the ability to keep itself up to date - but that's the way it is.
Download it here or if you're not using Dropbox already, go here to signup and we'll both get a bit more space.
I'm a paying Dropbox user, but who can't use more free space right?
]]>Winnipeg is fast becoming a northern hub for AutomatĀtiĀcians, with Matt joining Ian Stewart and Krista Stevens on staff at Automattic.
Congrats Matt. I look forward to reading more of your crotchety theme descriptions.
]]>Via neatorama.com
]]>5GB for free. Pay to upgrade to more storage. iOS apps coming soon.
Nothing compelling enough to warrant switching from Dropbox in my opinion. The competition will be good but I'm not interested in giving even more of my digital life over to Google. They've already got too much as it is.
]]>But here's an easy way to get caught up. $90 for the entire Blue Rodeo Studio Album Collection. 12 albums worth of material plus 25 music videos.
It's still got to be a bit of a hard sell for artists in this day and age to try and pitch a greatest hits bundle like this. Chances are most hardcore fans already have every album. Casual fans like me have their favourite 2 or 3 albums plus have cherry picked singles off iTunes already. Including 25 music videos is a great extra though. Normally these sell for $2 - $3 each when they're released. But who sits around watching music videos?
At $90 for 189 songs, less the 25 music videos, you're paying around $0.50 a song so it's a really good deal for their library of music.
]]>There's what looks to be a great multiplayer component as well where you can drop the words you complete on your opponent while trying not to let your tower reach the top of the screen.
Via swiss-miss.com
]]>I didn't know him nor will I pretend that I'm deeply affected by his passing - other than that he's leaving behind a wife and two young children - but I do have his book, Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web, on my shelf in my office. I periodically flip through it when I need a creative break from whatever I'm working on and need inspiration from a different medium.
His book inspired and motivated a lot of what I love about this age of making videos. How accessible the tools are today is awesome, and yet, how it ultimately comes down to the creativity to make things that are as inspiring and motivating to others as the idea might be in your head to you. Working in video is something I wish I did more of in my business - but I really have only myself to blame for that, right?
Interestingly when I went to Amazon.ca to find the link for the book, Amazon told me I had purchased the book on January 17th, 2007. Which is a few months before our first son was born and I was still searching for what I should be doing to meld my family's income with my interests and passions.
I'm still searching. But I'm further up the road than I was in January, 2007.
]]>Via ShawnBlanc.net
]]>At one point, the judge asked Apple how much it would have cost them to have simply replaced my logic board when I had taken it in, and one of the Apple guys said āOh, it wouldnāt have cost us anything, Nvidia foots the bill for each board we replace.ā
The judgeās face almost hit the floor as he shot me a quizzical look, to which I just shrugged. I knew that he, and everyone else in the courtroom was thinking the same thing:
If Apple could have replaced my logic board at no cost to themselves, then why in the hell did they drag this out for so long, and why did they send two people to court to try and make sure that I got absolutely nothing? Friends, this is a question I have been asking myself for three months, and it is a question that I do not have the answer to.
I've had similar experiences while working in retail. 9 times out of 10, Apple is great to the customer. It's why they keep winning the customer satisfaction awards year in and year out.
But if you're in that group that for whatever reason Apple decides isn't worth helping, all of a sudden the Apple juice starts to taste pretty sour.
Glad this guy got his money back from Apple, but there's no way it should've taken going to court over.
Via loopinsight.com
]]>As of a couple hours ago, $165k has been raised for Caine's scholarship fund and another $165k has been raised for Caine's Arcade Foundation to support more kids.
Shutup. It's onion. I'm cutting onion right now. Shutup.
]]>Step 2: Build a tank.
]]>It's not our job to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's our job to raise it.
Apparently a quote from the television show The West Wing, found from a retweet by Hemant Naidu on Twitter. Have to process it a bit but it certainly is an interesting quote to use when developing and designing things for the web.
]]>Via @motherfuton
]]>This app does one thing but it does it extremely well. If you give presentations, training, tutorials, or speak publicly, this app is for you. Beautifully animated, with large, easy to read numbers that change colors at thresholds you determine. When the timer hits 0:00, the colors invert (black on red) and continue counting up indicating how long youāve gone over.
Reviews look good in the iTunes Store. Apps that focus on doing one thing really well are an easy $0.99 pick up for most folks.
]]>The culture is intense, an Amalgamated higher-up acknowledges at the beginning of our training. He's speaking to us from a video, one of several videosāabout company policies, sexual harassment, etc.āthat we watch while we try to keep our eyes open. We don't want to be so intense, the higher-up says. But our customers demand it. We are surrounded by signs that state our productivity goals. Other signs proclaim that a good customer experience, to which our goal-meeting is essential, is the key to growth, and growth is the key to lower prices, which leads to a better customer experience. There is no room for inefficiencies. The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week. There are NO exceptions to this policy. She says to take Brian, for example, who's here with us in training today. Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired. Having to start the application process over could cost a brand-new dad like Brian a couple of weeks' worth of work and pay. Okay? Everybody turn around and look at Brian. Welcome back, Brian. Don't end up like Brian.
For better or worse, I'd sort of assumed that these kinds of places had all moved to electronic/robotic delivery - at least in the states. Read the rest of the article.
]]>Now Mike's got a new book published by A Book Apart called Design is a Job.
The preview from chapter two isn't that reassuring of the path I've chosen but confirms that how I've been living for the last 7 months is "normal":
The biggest lie in this book would be if I told you I don't worry about where the next client is coming from. I could tell you that once you build up enough of a portfolio, or garner enough experience, or achieve a certain level of notoriety in the industry, this won't be a concern anymore. I could tell you I sleep soundly, not bolting out of bed at 4 a.m. to run laps around the local high school track. I could tell you that I never worry about enough presents under the tree. I could tell you these things, but I'd be lying. And I don't want to lie to you. Getting clients is the most petrifying and scary thing I can think of in the world. I'd rather wrestle lady Bengal tigers in heat with meat strapped to my genitals than look for new clients.
Also worth reading is Mike's blog post on his path to writing the book:
But now, with my 13 year old boy in front of me, I had to admit that I was afraid. Afraid of failing. Of walking up there with my fly down. Of being discovered as a fraud. But, in that moment, with that 13 year old in front of me, I became more afraid of something else. Of failing him. Of passing my fear along to the person who needed me to be someone better.
I ordered the ebook and print version. I have most of the other books that A Book Apart has published and they're such great quality books both in their production as well as the content that it's worth having them on the shelf to pull down for a quick read or inspiration.
It's also available in the iBookstore for $8.99 if you prefer reading on your iOS device.
]]>Too late.
In the last week I have asked Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Microsoft and others about their reports on labor conditions. Most responded with a boilerplate public relations message. Some didnāt even respond.
The other companies include Barnes & Noble, Dell, Lenovo, & Amazon.
]]>...for one billion dollars.
From the blog post from the Instagram crew:
Itās important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. Weāl be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. Weāll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.
...at least until we're able to cash our billion dollar cheque. Then we're outta here!
]]>Screen sharing is built into iChat (or iMessage beta), Google Chat (in Google+ Hangouts at least and Skype.
Screenleap is a web site/app that allows you to share your screen with anyone. Nothing to download and nothing to install other then a Java applet. Share it with one person or share it with a whole bunch of people if you're wanting to demo something to your staff or clients.
And it's free. So enjoy it while it's around because it'll probably be gone and/or sold off to a bigger company which will start charging for it.
Via appstorm.net
]]>āSiri either did not understand what the plaintiff was asking or, after a very long wait time, responded with the wrong answer. The plaintiff quickly recognized the futility of using Siri,ā contends the suit.
Which is exactly why Apple Canada doesn't advertise the iPhone 4S as coming with Siri. Compare Apple Canada's feature page for the iPhone 4S with the US feature page for the iPhone 4S - notice anything missing on the Canadian side?
Apple.com:
Apple Canada:
If it wasn't for the fact that we in Canada often see American commercials, you almost wouldn't know that the iPhone 4S even comes with something called Siri until you turned it on.
And even then, there's very clear warnings that Siri can't provide directions in Canada.
This ought to get thrown out of court and the plaintiff and lawyer be forced to pay back all the money and time they're wasting in the courts. I'm not sure what John Gruber's jackass of the month award is worth in Canadian, but he should start sending it through customs because we've got a real winner down the highway.
Original article via iphoneincanada.ca
]]>]]>She retold us how she was put onto the streets as a prostitute by her mother at the age of 11, raped at 13 and fell into addiction.
āItās sad when itās your mother, who you trust, and she was out there with me. But you know what kept me through all that? God. Whenever I got into the car, God got into the car with me.ā
The infected websites listed by the company are mainly in the .nu domain (assigned to the island state of Niue), ranging from URLs related to movies and TV streaming services to a domain called Gangstasparadise.
I'm sure a lot of readers of chrisenns.com were frequent visitors of Gangstasparadise, so if you're feeling nerdy and you can check if your Mac is infected by following these steps.
Or just run Software Update (Click the Apple in the top left corner, select 'Software Update') to get the patch from Apple.
]]>A great read if you're trying to avoid actually writing.
]]>WordPress, the CMS that powers this blog, gets a lot of flack for being unable to handle a large traffics spike. But that's typically because it's installed on a cheap server and isn't properly configured.
At the very least install a cache plugin of some sort. I'm using WP Super Cache here but have been installing W3 Total Cache on newer sites as it seems to be what more folks are using.
Your average personal hobby website/blog probably doesn't need it - but if you ever do experience a bit of a traffic spike, you want to make sure all those people can get to your site rather than see a error page and never be able to read your words of wisdom.
Via mondaybynoon.com
]]>āHow does it know where these girls are? Do you know all these girls? Is it plucking data from your address book or something?ā another friend asked.
āNot at all. These are all girls with publicly visible Facebook profiles who have checked into these locations recently using Foursquare. Girls Around Me then shows you a map where all the girls in your area trackable by Foursquare area. If thereās more than one girl at a location, you see the number of girls there in a red bubble. Click on that, and you can see pictures of all the girls who are at that location at any given time. The pictures you are seeing are their social network profile pictures.ā
This shouldn't be a wake up call to what's possible with the iPhone or other smart phones - it's something that should bring more awareness to just how much information you're sharing about yourself through social media.
Also, you're an idiot if you use something like this to meet someone.
On Twitter, visit your settings page and look for this section and make sure the box is unchecked.
If you use other apps to connect to Twitter (i.e. on your iPhone) those can also add location information. Tweetbot for iOS clearly shows you that you have location information turned on, which you can turn off by tapping the location.
On Facebook, there's the privacy settings tab that you should take a peek through and see what your default settings are like. But when you're updating your status, you'll see some variation of this:
Click the city or location that pops in below the status update and you should be able to click a little 'x' that appears to get rid of the location information.
I couldn't find a setting to permanently delete location information so I wouldn't put it past Facebook to try and sneak it back on at some point.
Same goes for the Facebook app for iPhone. Look for these buttons to prevent location information from being sent.
No, I wasn't actually at Tony Roma's this morning.
If you want to really make sure nothing is being sent from your iPhone 1, you can access Location Services from the Settings.app and turn off all location information or just select apps that you no longer want to allow access to your location information.
Like I said at the top, it's not cause for freak out and panic - just a wake up call to be aware of what kind of information you're sending.
]]>Wanting to focus and being irritated by distractions and interruptions is nothing new. Iām sure my dad missed a few of my childhood moments while he was at the office. But now the office is seamlessly connected to games, music, texting, email, social networking, entertainment, and everything else. The hierarchy of things worthy of earning our focus has largely collapsed. If it glows, itās worthy. The screen doesnāt care what youāre doing. I see modern parents miss childhood moments while theyāre playing Words with Friends. āJust give me a secondā¦ā
Each add-on sells for $1.99:
Or buy all of them for $7.99.
My own attempt with it reveals the reason why I hired a professional to design my logo:
]]>Enter HuffDuffer.
Alternatively watch it on:
Feel free to add me to your Huffduffer collective.
]]>Working with a single image as a template, and using a custom drawing tool, youāll create a unique and personal portrait of Johnny. Your work will then be combined with art from participants around the world, and integrated into a collective whole: a music video for "Aināt No Grave", rising from a sea of one-of-a-kind portraits.
Via @minigroupnews
]]>I sympathize with people who don't understand all the confusing marketing around cellular data connection speeds and technologies. And Apple clearly shouldn't be marketing their device as 4G in a country where it's not actually compatible with their 4G network.
But I'm guessing the amount of people who return their new iPads for their money back will be pretty low. More likely they'll exchange them for a non-4G version since it's useless to have that connectivity.
Via Macrumors.com
]]>So if you've already wrapped Super Stickman Golf, pick up another great game for free today.
]]>If you like Super Stickman Golf, check out their new game Lunar Racer ($2.99) for iPhone & iPad.
News via @jeffdotca
]]>The company behind the tech is MLB Advanced Media, or BAM for short.
BAM's business is more multifaceted than YouTube's; last year, it sold more than 35 million MLB tickets, more than half of the league's inventory. It streams more live video than any other sports entity--and any other company. How did a game that revels in tradition produce something so cutting-edge?
If you're a baseball stats junkie, their iPad/iPhone apps are like crack.
If you live in Detroit, you can watch Justin Verlander on a big-screen TV on cable. But if you're out of town, an MLB.tv subscription allows you to stream the game through an Xbox or any Wi-Fi connection (1). Meanwhile, BAM's AtBat app (2, 3) allows for streaming on your iPhone or iPad. It also allows fans to watch the action in "Game Day" mode (4), a data-enriched, live-graphic presentation of the game.
The MLB.com At Bat app for both the iPhone & iPad is free and then you make in-app purchases to decide on the level of subscription you want.
]]>Reminds me of volumes one, two and three of the 'What if Twitter... came to life?' collection produced by Jason Sweeney and friends.
There's comedy gold in dramatic readings of Twitter.
]]>]]>With such a long break, there's been quite a bit of Mad Men news floating around. In order to cut it down a little, most of this stuff is from the last week or so. Don't try to eat it all in one sitting you'll get a stomach ache and have to sleep off your hangover on your office couch.
You don't have to be a any sort of designer or web nerd to make use of this app - it's great for helping pick out colours for a brochure, postcard, family Christmas letter, etc.
And if for no other reason, you should pick it up for this set of preferences:
]]>I just finally got around to trying it and thought it was a pretty good tip so I thought I'd record a screencast.
As I mention in the video, one requirement is that you need to be running 1Password already. So if you're not, use the links below to pick up a copy.
By purchasing through the affiliate links above you'll be supporting what I do on this blog. Thanks in advance!
I've closed comments here but added a forum for further discussion if you have questions, comments or suggestions. Read the post and then visit the forum to continue the discussion.
]]>Update Looks like it got pulled. Sorry if you missed it.
Update #2 Try this link for now.
]]>Two hours of college basketballāwhich he viewed mounted to his car dashboard and live at tournament gamesāhad burned through his monthly wireless data allotment of two gigabytes. Now, to keep surfing the Web or watch more NCAA hoops over Verizon Wireless's 4G network, Mr. Wells will have to pay an extra $10 for every gigabyte above his current $30 subscription.
Obviously as the leader in the mobile device market, Apple has the target on it's back. But seriously - report this for what it is. If you use a mobile device on a cellular network to watch video, you're going to burn through your data allowance on your plan. iPad or not.
Jim Dalrymple offers up even better advice for readers:
]]>Hereās another tip for the user and Wall Street Journal ā donāt hit your iPad with a hammer because it could damage the device.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.
Here's a video of a Chicago TSA operative searching a three year old boy who is in a wheelchair, wearing a body-cast, on the way to his family trip to Disney World. The boy's parents were not allowed to hold him or touch him to comfort him during the procedure.
Via BoingBoing.net
]]>The China correspondent for the public radio show Marketplace tracked down the interpreter that Daisey hired when he visited Shenzhen China. The interpreter disputed much of what Daisey has been saying on stage and on our show. On this week's episode of This American Life, we will devote the entire hour to detailing the errors in "Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory."
Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast. That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.
The lies were uncovered by another public program, Marketplace, when their reporter retraced Mike Daisey's steps with Daisey's translator:
So I asked her: āDid you meet people who fit this description?ā
āNo,ā she said.
āSo there was nobody who said they were poisoned by hexane?ā I continued.
Leeās answer was the same: āNo. Nobody mentioned the Hexane.ā
I pressed Cathy to confirm other key details that Daisey reported. Did the guards have guns when you came here with Mike Daisey? With each question I got the same answer from Lee. āNo,ā or āThis is not true.ā
The attention that was focused on working conditions in Chinese factories was certainly a good thing. It's too bad that it came out of a fabricated story. To my knowledge Apple is still the only major company to put forth a Supplier Responsibility statement on what they are holding themselves and their suppliers accountable to.
]]>The world fell in love with Glen Hansard and MarkƩta IrglovƔ when their songwriting collaboration in the film "Once" culminated in a jubilant Oscar win. But behind the scenes, where their on-screen romance becomes a reality, a grueling two-year world tour threatens to fracture their fated bond. This music filled documentary is an intimate look at the exhilaration and turmoil of both love and fame.
]]>Comic author Rob Reid unveils Copyright Math (TM), a remarkable new field of study based on actual numbers from entertainment industry lawyers and lobbyists.
What disturbs me about Apple is the religion of it. Itās not just that their customers have attached transcendent meaning to Apple and its products, but that Apple actively cultivates veneration. When I spent three shame-faced hours in line for my iPad two years ago, the employees came out clapping and cheering as the Apple Store was about to open, trying to whip us up into a frenzy. I gritted my teeth, feeling as awkward as a Jew at a Pentecostal revival. I didnāt want to get saved, I just wanted to exchange money for a consumer good.
I get squeamish whenever confronted with that level of fanaticism of anything or anyone - particularly of things that I like.
When I see a hardcore U2 fan who's seen every concert, slept outside Bono's house and collected a guitar pick from The Edge's trash I see an image of what I could become1 and it makes me uncomfortable. I was in Dublin twice and felt weird about even the idea of trying to find Bono's house.
Same goes with people who, in Matt's vernacular, venerate Apple and each product release.
I get excited about new iStuff. I enjoy studying and reading about the how, why and what of the way Apple does things because they are a company that I respect. In the same way someone might debate the management of their favourite sports team, I enjoy debating what Apple does and thinking about why they might be doing it.
But at the end of the day, Apple is a publicly traded corporation who's goal is to make money. And the way they make money is by convincing you to part with yours in exchange for goods they produce at a profit to themselves. Sometimes very nice, very shiny goods.
But the goods they produce aren't going to feed your soul in the long run. Once more from Matt's post:
And yet, here I see glimmers of hope; of people striving to connect with something transcendent and significant. Theyāre horribly misguided, but the underlying impulse is sound and good. I believe that following Jesus in self-giving love is the answer to this religious impulse, but Iād settle for anything that looks a little more like service or love or justice and a little less like conspicuous consumption.
Camera+ just got added as an option in WordPress for iOS to take a picture in. Nifty.
]]>I can't do a proper review because I've already spent too much on apps recently. Maybe next month?
The main reason I see people not liking Sparrow for iPhone is that they don't include Push notifications1. Personally it's not that big a deal to me because I prefer to check email when I want to check email, not when my Mail app decides to check email. And the work I do isn't ever that mission critical that an email would make or break something serious - especially when all my clients have my phone number if they really need to get in touch with me.
I also respect the reason Sparrow's creators give for not having push notifications now. They don't want to have to store your username and password:
This is a responsibility we're not ready to take. As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk. That's why Sparrow iPhone 1.0 doesn't do push.
They tried to do it a different way but Apple wouldn't allow it so for now there's no push.
I struggled after the event to put the right words together to describe the display and a week later Iām still lost for the proper analogy. The only thing I can think of that comes close is comparing it to the first time you ever saw an HDTV. Remember how startling it was to go from one of those giant standard definition projector TVs to an HDTV? Thatās what this is like.
Reading on the big retina display is pure joy. Going back to the iPad 2 after reading for a few hours on the iPad 3 is jarring. With bigger pixels, anti-aliased text looks blurry; with smaller pixels, anti-aliased text looks good; but with really small pixels like these, anti-aliased text looks impossibly good ā and what you thought looked pretty good before (like text rendered on older iPads) now looks blurry.
Users of the iPad 2 shouldn't fret: Their iPad investment is certainly good for another year. But they might not want to look too closely at the new iPad's screen. Once you get a load of that Retina display, it's hard to go back to anything else.
And this, again from Gruber's review, doesn't bode well for me and my clients in my day job:
Websites, too ā most graphics and images on the web are behind the curve, as of today. Text looks great in Safari, but non-retina images look slightly blurry. The iPad display is so good that it shows, like no device before it, just how crummy most images on the web are.
So please don't show me your new iPad. I'm sure it's amazing but I'd prefer to stay in the dark until my bank account is in a position to withstand the unnecessary purchase of the new iPad.
]]>I don't use a lot of the editing, filters, cropping features of Camera+. The main reason I like using it to manage my photos is how easy it makes it to share photos out to Flickr, Twitter or Facebook.
90% of the photos I take on my iPhone are indoors, of our kids and as a result are lower light and are often out of focus because the kids are moving too fast. Applying filters or editing those photos tend to make them look even worse. If I take photos outside then I'll usually run them through a filter or two and do a bit of editing and for those kinds of photos, Camera+ works great.
Version 3 feels quicker to move around in which is always a plus when you're trying to quickly take photos and not worry about editing/etc.
[gallery link="file"]
You can view the photo I shared on Twitter and on Flickr.
]]>My 4 year old son and I played through the demo last night and we were both having a great time with it. If you ever played Excitebike back on NES, it's a great take on that style of gameplay only with modern graphics, fun audio and great animations and soundtrack.
]]>Might be the most Portland thing ever.
Via BoingBoing.net
]]>New episodes start March 15th.
]]>You can watch the video of the keynote or visit Apple's website for the new iPad.
No iPad 2S, 2HD, 3, iPad HDx2, etc. naming convention here. Just simply the new iPad. Which is exactly what everyone will be calling it.
I suspect the next iPhone will follow suite and be called simply 'the new iPhone'.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi + 4G
Interestingly, the iPad 2 (previous generation) is still available with a $100 price drop:
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi + 3G
There's new versions of GarageBand ($4.99) (including a new feature called Jam Session where up to 4 iOS devices can make music together) and iMovie ($4.99) and a brand new version of iPhoto for iOS ($4.99).
The iWork suite also gets updated with Keynote ($9.99), Numbers ($9.99) and Pages ($9.99) all seeing improvements for retina display on the new iPad.
The best part is that Apple is doing what they expect their developers to do - the new versions of these apps are free upgrades to people who previously purchased them.
There's also a new version of iOS with updates to a lot of camera/photo related features notably the ability to delete photos from your Photo Stream.
Follow these instructions for how to upgrade your iOS device to the latest version.
You'll need at least 1GB of free space on your iPhone or iPad to be able to install the update.
Support for 1080P video, upgraded user interface, iTunes Match, improved iCloud support with movies you've purchased, Photo Stream so that pictures you take on an iPhone/iPad are automagically on your Apple TV.
Tons of new stuff to read or watch on Apple's site.
If you already have a previous iPad, whether version 1 or 2, and you don't want to upgrade then just don't ever look at the new iPad's retina display. If it's anything like the difference between an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4 - once you see the new display your old iPad's screen will look pixellated and fuzzy, particularly when viewing text.
Reality Distortion Field Version: If you don't already have an iPad and have been holding out, this is the version to finally take the leap and jump in with.
Normal Reality Version: You'll be fine without an iPad, new or otherwise. Pick up a used iPad 1 or 2 to play with iOS if you're curious.
The iPad really is a world-changing device whether you buy one or not. Especially when you consider it didn't even exist 2 years ago.
]]>Itās impossible to put into words just how good the Retina display is on the iPad. Itās not just images that look sharper, itās text too. Reading a Web site or an iBook on the iPadās display is incredible. Even the home screen on the iPad is crisper and sharper than I expected.
iPhoto for iOS seems to be impressing a lot of people as well. Jim again:
One of the great announcements for me was iPhoto and seeing that on the Retina display was amazing. iPhoto has the potential to really change the way a lot of people use the iPad.
John Gruber was similarly impressed:
Unbelievably impressive software. The tools are useful and innovative, the use of touch is both natural and fun, and itās chock full of nice little touches, like being able to choose which side of the display you want the thumbnails on.
And Ryan Block of GDGT wants to take the new Retina Display home and marry it:
Amazing. Seriously amazing. I really love the Retina Display on the iPhone 4/4S, but this feels like a step forward even from that. Not because it's a better display (which it may well be), but because the much larger scale of the screen makes it feel transformative to the experience of looking at a Retina Display and using an iPad.
It's the best display I've ever seen. Anywhere, period. And it makes a meaningful difference to the experience -- it's not just a spec.
Not. Going. To. Pre-order.
]]>Not until 2013 and unfortunately it looks like it's Windows only for now. I suspect an iPad version won't be too far behind though.
]]>I made a quick video for my family with it who are in warmer climates while I shovel snow back home:
It works as advertised on the tin. Very easy to use and quick to get going with recording your video. Turn on onion skinning so you can see the previous frame over top of your current view - which makes lining little movements up much easier. And you can turn on a grid to make lining up objects easier.
Frames requires iOS 5.0 or later and will run on the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and the latest two generations of the iPod Touch.
Studio Neat has a time-lapse video of the user interface which shows off how easy it is to make a quick video.
I love that a company like Studio Neat would come up with a perfect software accessory to the hardware they already sell - rather than just trying to make more hardware. Smart folks.
]]>]]>In 1983, Cherry was asked by businessman Bill Hunter, who attempted to purchase the St. Louis Blues and move them to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to coach his team in Saskatoon. However, the NHL's Board of Governors rejected the move, and the Blues remained in St. Louis.
Based on the intro sketch from Portlandia.
]]>Plus it's got a sweet promo video produced by Adam Lisagor's Sandwich Video:
I really like that they include the ability to embed a result live in a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation so that you don't have to switch out to a web page mid-presentation. Also, Canada is included in their list of short code supported countries.
Pricing will either look crazy to you ("What? Why would I pay a monthly fee to ask people something?") or be a tremendous value to you if you've ever had to pay for, setup and configure a polling system.
]]>I like hockey. I love the sport, the intensity, the speed, the talent it takes to play it, the head games that go on with coaches and teams, the tradition. Watching Saturday night games with my dad - initially being more interested in watching the commercials than the actual game. Now watching games with my sons while we play mini-sticks, arguing about whether we should be watching the commercials or the actual game.
I hate the idea that fighting is necessary in the game.
I've gone on record before as saying I think it's absolutely ridiculous that hockey still has fighting in it. The fact that, in 2012, "men" who play hockey are somehow so unable to control their emotions that they just have to punch each other, bare-knuckled, until someone falls down is such an archaic thought at best. At worst, it's among the dumbest things to try and argue for today in sport.
Football has way more contact in close quarters and somehow the men manage to avoid having to fight on a regular basis. In basketball players are often nearly elbowing and punching each other, and yet aside from the occasional fight, also manage to control their emotions and play the game they're supposed to instead of pretending to be boxers.
Speaking of boxing. As much as I'm not a fan of the sport, at least they are required to wear headgear and gloves to avoid doing as serious damage to the other combatant. In hockey you're hitting with bare fists on someone's bare head/face.
Anyway, back to the article. There's so many great quotes to pull out, I'd recommend reading the whole thing yourself:
"The year before, if someone called you something, youād punch him in the face. I believe there was a lot more respect in the game back then than there is today."
āPut the half-visor on,ā he said. āNow all of a sudden youāre not as brave, and thereās a lot more respect in the game.ā
Right. Respect meaning you won't say bad words about me because I'll hit you. That sounds like a great way to explain respect to your kid.
Across the street from the Palace is the cityās old arena, where Boogaard, at age 15 and playing for another Melfort team, became enraged and went into the opposing teamās bench, throwing punches. The outburst impressed scouts from the W.H.L.ās Regina Pats, who moved to add Boogaard to their roster.
Emphasis mine.
Impressed.
Impressed?
The fact that a young man was so angry that he couldn't control his emotions and went into the opposing team's bench to fight impressed scouts.
Right there is what's wrong with hockey.
Despite his no-fighting rule, Seaman said that for older age groups, fighting is needed to govern hockey. āIf you take it right out, itāll change the game,ā he said.
This idea that the game of hockey is this thing that's out of anyone's control and if we do X, Y or Z that it will become chaos because of a lack of respect for other players is ridiculous.
If coaches would teach real respect to their players, starting at a young age, then you would get laughed out of hockey if you started throwing around racial epithets and did the kind of things that today supposedly warrant fighting someone. You just wouldn't last if you didn't respect your fellow player or opponent.
If refs actually called the game the way it is supposed to be called, then chippy, dirty play wouldn't last. If you hook a guy, you get a penalty - regardless of whether it's the last 2 minutes of a game or not. If the refs started calling the game by the books, the players would adapt. The game would change. But it would be for the better. Skill players could actually show off their skill instead of the game being dragged down to the lowest common denominator.
It's time for the old boys club to move on and retire. I find Don Cherry entertaining as the next Canadian who's chugging a beer & eating bacon in their igloo - but it's 2012. Times change and so should hockey.
The worst thing that happens? Maybe a guy like Derek Boogaard doesn't make the NHL and is still alive.
]]>Firms can search tweets back to January 2010 in order to plan marketing campaigns, target influential users or even try to predict certain events.
Until today, only the previous 30 days of tweets were available for companies to search. Regular users can access posts from the past seven days.
Nothing surprising or shocking about it but just remember that free isn't actually free. What's frustrating is that you yourself can't really get easy access to your own Tweet archive to export or do anything with your own data. If Twitter spent a bit of their time and money getting their search and history archives available to the regular user as they do for businesses, I don't think people would be as upset.
It's why I use a service called ThinkUp to archive my tweets. Not because I think they're so amazing but simply because it's something I created. I should get to at least have them.
Private accounts and tweets that have been deleted will not be indexed by the site.
For now?
Link to BBC News via @mezzoblue's RT
]]>Determined to make her own path in life, Princess Merida defies a custom that brings chaos to her kingdom. Granted one wish, Merida must rely on her bravery and her archery skills to undo a beastly curse.
A leading lady in one of their movies is good to see from Pixar. Add to that the fact that it's set in Scotland makes it great.
]]>But the more I hear and read about the poor, the more I think we need to have our eyes opened to the fact that they aren't there simply because of some bad choices in high school, or a gambling problem gone very wrong - the poor and downtrodden of our city are there because of choices made by their parents or family and other factors completely out of their control.
For example, in the Star Phoenix today there's an article about a guy who found out he's HIV positive and if not for The Lighthouse he thinks he'd probably be dead.
Typically drug user, right? Junkie who just isn't disciplined enough to quit. Took drugs because he's selfish and doesn't care about those around him.
Nope.
He still has slip-ups and does morphine occasionally, he said, but thanks to the Lighthouse he has been off cocaine for several months - no easy task for someone who was introduced to the highly addictive drug at the age of 12 by his father.
Gah. Maybe it's becoming a father that has opened my eyes to the influence, good or bad, that parents have over their kids but things like that just gut me. I don't know how you could do that to your own kid - but then his dad probably did it to him and the cycle just continues.
It's not to say that they are therefore justified in living off social assistance for the rest of their life, just to acknowledge that coming from that kind of background, with that kind of family "support" is going to be a lot harder to overcome.
There's no easy solution to the problems. But let's make sure we're looking at the root of the problems instead of merely judging based on what we see on the surface.
While nobody knows for sure what changes the iPad 3 will have, it is widely expected the device will have a faster processor, improved graphics processor and a Retina Display.
Image via Macworld
Amused, I posted it to Facebook with the line āA 55-gallon drum of lube on Amazon. For Valentineās Day. And every day. For the rest of your life.ā And then I went on with my life.
A week later, a friend posts a screen capture and tells me that my post has been showing up next to his news feed as a sponsored story, meaning Amazon is paying Facebook to highlight my link to a giant tub of personal lubricant.
Other people start reporting that theyāre seeing it, too. A fellow roller derby referee. A former employee of a magazine I still write for. My co-workerās wife. Theyāre not seeing just once, but regularly. Said one friend: āIt has shown up as one on mine every single time I log in.ā
In this day and age, it's good to keep in mind that if the service or web site you're using isn't charging you anything, there's a good chance you are the product.
Via kottke.org
]]>I think our son would love Toca Kitchen - Toca Boca. Most sell for $1.99.
Via @swissmiss
]]>See also:
Or just visit the Pronounciation Manual's page on YouTube. Not to be confused with the improper pronunciations being shown on Pronunciation Book's YouTube page.
]]>A great looking app that at the price is a no brainer if you're in the market for a simple to do app1. Much better for most tasks than Apple's own reminders app, that's for sure. And with an iPad and Mac version on the way, you'll be able to keep things in sync if you need that kind of functionality.
See also a similar article for issues with Messages on iOS.
Via loopinsight.com
]]>Their album of the same name, Barton Hollow, is selling on iTunes for only $6.99 right now.
Slap it on the same playlist as Mumford & Sons and you've got a great evening of harmonies and great song writing ahead of you.
]]>Then, she explained, the iPhone came. There was no Office. People got things done. Then the iPad came. There was no Office. People got things done. Android came. People got things done. All of those things that they, just a couple of years ago, were convinced they needed Office to do. They got them done without it. And thus, the truth was revealed.
Like the curtain finally falling from the Wizard of Oz to find just a small, frail, man pretending to be far more powerful and relevant than he really was. Microsoftās biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie ā they were not needed to get real work done. Or anything done, really.
Smart.
]]>Not only is Apple not peaking, it is likely not even close to reaching its potential earnings in its two biggest markets, smartphones and tablets. Indeed, I suspect that one of the reasons Appleās share price is so low is that it has been difficult, on a purely perceptual level, for investors to understand the financial opportunities the company is poised to realize. The numbers are just too big; it simply doesnāt seem possible that a single company could capture such a large part of the market. But not only is it possibleāit is happening. The iPhone accounts for only 9 percent of the market share in smartphones, but Apple is earning 75 percent of the profits in smartphones. Its dominance in the tablet market is even more staggering.
Plenty of "I wish I woulda bought when $AAPL was at..." Time to get a group of friends together and buy a single share.
]]>Calling it Mountain Lion, Apple is continuing their upgrade process that they started with Leopard/Snow Leopard by building on the path that Lion laid out. What Apple is learning with iOS is further influencing their desktop OS.
John Gruber's account of meeting with Apple's Senior VP Phil Schiller speaks of how things are going to change:
Thatās when Schiller tells me theyāre doing some things differently now.
I wonder immediately about that ānowā. I donāt press, because I find the question that immediately sprang to mind uncomfortable.
"Now" obviously referring to the change in leadership. While Steve Jobs obviously pushed Apple to be a certain kind of company, Tim Cook and the rest of Apple's Executive team are clearing not wasting any time in thinking differently about how they want to lead Apple into the future.
Now on to some of the key features coming in Mountain Lion.
If you're not using iCloud yet, Apple is going to make sure you are with Mountain Lion. Just like Time Machine for backing up the rest of your computer, iCloud is a great way to make sure users have their data and software even if the hardware doesn't live up to Apple's expectations.
Syncing your information from computer to computer to mobile device in a way that the user doesn't even have to think about. iCloud is working great for me in Lion so I'd expect it to work even better in Mountain Lion.
I've had countless conversations with people about this one ever since Messages came out in iOS 5. People wondering why it isn't built into their Mac and iChat. Now it is.
iChat will be renamed Messages, taking the naming convention that's on iOS. Messages for Mac will finally see the unification of instant messaging across all your Mac devices. Send a message to an iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air or iMac and you don't have to worry about SMS/text messaging fees and settings.
You don't have to wait for Mountain Lion to try out Messages though. There's a beta download available now to try out Messages on Lion.
The key thing to remember right now is if you're using Messages Beta - remember that it's a beta. Don't rely on it for critical communication and then complain if your Message doesn't go through. Save those complaints for when Mountain Lion ships later this summer.
AirPlay Mirroring is also going to be a part of Mountain Lion which is great news for anyone with an Apple TV. It also opens up the possibility of not needing a projector anymore. Buy a $99 Apple TV and hook it up to the Wifi and whatever flat panel TV you can find and you've got a presentation system, ready to go.
This is big and if it works as it's billed, could help sell a lot more Apple TVs1.
Twitter will be further embedded into Mountain Lion - meaning you can tweet from within Apps. Twitter being baked in on a OS level is yet another reason why it's going to be the dominant social networking site for years to come.
Along with Twitter integration, Sharing in Mountain Lion will also be very similar to iOS style sharing. Making it easier for anyone to share the thing they are looking at right now without having to know copy & paste functionality. Share to Twitter, Flickr, Messages, etc. all with a single click.
Apple is finally2 relenting on trying to make Mail.app and/or iCal your one-stop communication and planning hub - while trying to avoid the Microsoft Outlook level of cruft. They've renamed iCal to Calendar, Address Book to Contacts to keep inline with iOS. Notification Center and Reminders have been brought over from iOS and Notes has been given it's own app instead of being half-baked into Mail.
I, for one, like the change by not having to see useless Notes in Mail or to-dos in Calendar. We'll see how regular people take to the separation of tasks into multiple apps - ala iOS. I know of at least one office where switching apps on a Mac is a serious cause for confusion and frustration. This probably won't help make things easier.
While not a huge deal for most folks, bringing Game Center over from iOS helps continue the further syncing of your data from mobile to desktop and back. Cross platform in the sense that you can, with developer support, play a game on your Mac against someone on an iPhone just like you can right now with someone on an iPad. Think Xbox Live for your Mac, with more green felt and you're on your way.
Gate Keeper is basically a way for developers to sign their apps and for Apple to verify that the app you're installing is the one that you think you're getting. It's a big deal for Mac developer nerds and is a big improvement that will further secure your Mac. But it will also further raise the questions about whether Apple is going to make OS X more like iOS where you can only run apps that are approved and installed through the Mac App Store. Read more in Jason Snell's article Hands on With Gate Keeper.
Apple is moving OS X to a annual update cycle, just like iOS. And while most of the features announced right now in Mountain Lion don't seem huge, you have to remember that Apple isn't in this for the now or never approach that Microsoft is with the 3-5 year Windows upgrade cycle where Microsoft has to make sure there's enough reason for millions to justify the cost of an upgrade.
Small, subtle improvements bundled with a few major changes is what you can expect from here on out. Keeping two distinct operating systems that borrow and trade features from each other is Apple's chosen direction for the future.
No pricing or specific release date other than this summer so we'll see when it actually ships and for what price. I'd put my money on the same $29.99 pricing that OS X Lion enjoys and except a ship date of late July, 2012.
]]>]]>Our system of law doesn't acknowledge the derivative nature of creativity. Instead, ideas are regarded as property, as unique and original lots with distinct boundaries. But ideas aren't so tidy. They're layered, theyāre interwoven, they're tangled. And when the system conflicts with the reality... the system starts to fail.
However, in my search for a solution, I found that many others were also looking for a repeating timer for various applications. I saw this unfulfilled demand as a reason to create my own iPhone app - something I have been wanting to do for a while.
Scratching your own itch is one of the keys to success in the wild west of the App Market. If you can't find an app to do something you want, there's a good chance others can't as well.
Article link via ShawnBlanc.net
]]>It's on sale to promote the release of Trine 2, $14.99
]]>In the last two days $AAPL market cap grew, on average, by one $RIMM per day.
Via loopinsight.com
]]>]]>Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Appleās preferred location for big announcements like these.
Tweetbot for iPad comes with the same great features as the iPhone version including support for switching your timeline to just viewing a list you created on Twitter, swiping left or right for context of a tweet and smart gestures to tap, double-tap, tap and hold or triple tap on a tweet for further interactions.
]]>This version comes with many significant improvements to the Timeline and Direct Messages. Here are the major changes in more detail:
The iPad version is a separate app available for $6.99.
Via @nheagy
Case in point - this Thursday you'll be able to watch a Paul McCartney concert live on your Apple TV, as well as through iTunes. With the Apple TV in place, Apple can quickly figure out how many people will go to their TV for an event like this or just watch it on their computer.
It also gives Apple an easy way to test out their content deliver system on a smaller scale than what they'd have to be able to push out if they actually did release a full blown TV of some sort.
I have no doubt that Apple is going to make a bigger play for the media room of homes in the near future - but the Apple TV is a great way to test the waters and get valuable insight into how people are actually using their TVs in 2012.
]]>I have yet to take the plunge, but I know that if and when I do I'll be relying on screencasts like these from David Sparks to figure out how to really make the most of Omnifocus.
When combined with OmniFocus for iPhone ($19.99) and/or OmniFocus for iPad ($39.99), you'll be getting so many things done you won't know what to do with yourself.
]]>It's a beautifully designed app with plenty of nifty little animations and visual treats to go along with the recipes.
[gallery link="file"]
The up sell for them is by selling add-on theme packs of recipes. For example, they've got a Super Bowl theme pack with drinks named "The Bloody Halfback", "Safety Kick", and "Brady Bomb" - but there's plenty of free recipes included.
A nice feature is the ability to specify what drinks you have in your cabinet (i.e. Irish Whiskey, Scotch, White Rum, Amaretto and Irish Cream2) and then it can tell you what drinks you can make from that mix (Amaretto Sour, Blow Job3 or a Godfather if you're curious.)
Or choose the drinks you want to be able to make and it will spit out a shopping list, along with suggested costs.
One minor gripe is that there's no ability to select Canadian currency as an option - though I suspect the USD is close enough for estimating your bill.
All in all, a very good app particularly when you consider it's free.
The combo updater is the full 10.7.3 fix, including all minor upgrades/patches released between 10.7.2 and 10.7.3. The update that you download from Software Update is a delta update - which only includes the most recent changes that your computer doesn't already have.
]]>It's a great template to use for quick one pager sites that don't require a lot of content to be changed later (i.e. groveyouth.com/ which isn't actually built with Bootstrap, but only because it wasn't out when I was building that landing page) or for a really high traffic site where you don't want a heavy, slow CMS making people wait for it to render out the content.
]]>Teleprompt+, from Bombing Brain Interactive, looks like a nice collection of Mac, iPad and iPhone apps to help with the unenviable task of getting someone to talk on video and appear natural while making sure they don't go off the tracks with what they're saying.
]]>I wasn't really convinced that it was worth the hassle until I read through DuckDuckGo's privacy policy which is fairly technical. If that's greek to you, then I suggest reading their illustrated guide to escaping the search engine Filter Bubble which does a great job of showing what's going on when you search.
The short version: your search results are tailored to the type of person Google thinks you are based on your search and clicking history.
Nothing really evil or mysterious if you know it's going on. But it does become a little more evil when you think about how people then start to see the web the way they want it to be seen. You'll gradually start seeing less of the things that you disagree with and/or don't like and only the things you do like and agree with - regardless of whether the thing you disagree with might in fact be the best result for your particular search.
I'm going to start by setting DuckDuckGo as the default page that opens when I open a new browser window. So I'll still use Google in the top right corner for Safari searches some of the time, but when I start fresh from a new window I'll start with DuckDuckGo.
One thing I don't like already is if I do a vanity search for my name, DuckDuckGo's results show my mostly useless LinkedIn page as the top result, where Google's results show you this website as the top result 2 - which is what it should be, in my opinion.
The OS X Lion v10.7.3 Update includes Safari 5.1.3 and fixes that:
From here on out, Facebook will be judged by its share price, market cap, P/E ratio and a whole host of other Wall Street jargon. Pay no attention to Zuckerbeg's assertion that the company won't be beholden to quarterly reports: they will (just ask Jeff Bezos, who made a similar promise when Amazon went public).
When a third of your employees could become millionaires on the day shares trade, it'll be interesting to see who decides to leave and who sticks around. There's a lot of interesting things to do once you have a million dollars - more interesting than sitting in a cubicle making widgets for a billionaire.
What Facebook's IPO Means to You for more thoughts.
]]>There's a Facebook page for this blog that basically just gets a post every time I update this site. If Facebook is your bag, then like away.
I actually need a few more folks to like it so I can get a less ugly Facebook name than https://www.facebook.com/pages/Faraway-So-Close/263157693732863 so feel free to like it even if you don't, you know, actually like it?
It's probably a bit backwards but the official Twitter account for this blog is @chrisenns, where my personal Twitter account is @iChris. But that's just the way it is.
The @chrisenns account is just an auto-tweet with a link of every post that goes out on this site. So again, if Twitter is your preferred way to keep up with sites these days, @chrisenns is where to follow along.
Still my preferred way of keeping up with websites/blogs, but I know it's on the outs for a lot of people in favour of the above methods. But if you'd like to subscribe to the site with an RSS reader, https://feeds.feedburner.com/mennoboy-chris is the address to use. Your traditional RSS feed with everything posted, full article in the feed the way it should be and links back to the site/etc.
Thanks for reading, listening, liking and commenting. I really do appreciate and value the little community that gets involved in the stuff I do. Some days it can feel like I'm operating in a vacuum and the comments on my blog, replies on Twitter or feedback for SSKTN all help to remind me why I enjoy this stuff so much.
Ok, enough mushy stuff. Back to Apple fanboy/grumpy tech nerd postings.
Cobook has a smart interface where it's able to parse what type of information you're putting in and dumps it in the appropriate field. It can connect to your social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and get up to date information like phone numbers, addresses, pictures and other details. Plus it also syncs back to AddressBook.app via iCloud so you're information will still be available on your iPhone/etc.
That last one is nice because it means if you stop using Cobook, you don't have to export and import your data back to AddressBook.app. It'll all be there as well. Cobook just acts as a nicer front end to your address book data.
I actually find myself using AddressBook.app less and less these days so having a quick menubar icon to access it the few times I do is nice. Plus the integration with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is a nice thing to have for keeping contact information up to date1.
I'll keep trying Cobook for now until they announce pricing and availability. I don't know that I'd pay a bunch for it because, as I said, I don't really use the AddressBook.app right now other than to look up a phone number or email.
It actually seems like it'd be a great bundle with Fantastical, the $19.99 Mac App that allows for a similar style of access to your calendar data through a menubar icon.
It does not end there. The biggest surprise is that unlike any other NLE, FCP X allows multicam projects to handle cameras with different codecs, image rasters, and frame rates, without conversion. Think about handling a multicam project that includes footage from DSLRs and DV, HDV, and professional cameras, without having to pre-process the content first. You can change, add, or delete camera angles at any time and work with different codecs, frame sizes, and frame rates without conversion.
So if I shoot video with my Canon HDV camera and have my iPhone 4 recording as a secondary shot, I'll be able to easily lineup and edit those two angles together without having to spend as much time re-encoding and lining up the clips.
]]>One that was new to me of the list there so far is the ability to CMD-OPTION CLICK on a Dock icon to focus on just that app.
Handy.
]]>https://twitter.com/mattgemmell/status/163737518527889408
https://twitter.com/chartier/status/163768947345342465
Issues obviously with the above embed. Something to do with his custom colour scheme on Twitter perhaps?
Fun fact: Foxconn has nearly a million employees. Less than a quarter of them build Apple's stuff. This is a bigger topic than you think.
https://twitter.com/#!/BenKuchera/status/163763286465196032
[hr]
Also gives me a chance to try out Twitter and WordPress' support for embedding a tweet in the page with full Twitter functionality.
I'm currently using the Blackbird Pie Plugin which is the unofficial-offical WordPress version but it looks like Twitter-Embed more closely follows the wording Twitter follows.
]]>That Kindle you're holding was very likely made in a factory right beside the one my iPhone was made in. And that Xbox controller is from a factory just down the street. As Devin Coldewey wrote in his response article on TechCrunch1:
Something the article only fleetingly acknowledges is that Foxconn is used by most of the major electronics brands in the world. Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, and the rest all contract with Foxconn to manufacture, assemble, or finish their products. The threatened mass suicide the other week was, in fact, at an Xbox production facility.
The web page you're viewing this article on is hosted on a web server who's RAM, CPU and hard drives were probably made in a similar factory. Just about everything in our digital world has been touched or built by someone in China who's being paid a lot less per day then you make per hour.
At the end of the day, as ruthless as Apple is painted in the article on their business practices - and I'm sure that they are that ruthless - I really do trust that of the companies building our widgets and gizmos, Apple is one of the few that will actually do something about it.
Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, emailed every Apple employee in response to the article
We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do ā and never have done ā is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word. You can follow our progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.
The supply chain that Apple has built is all Tim Cook. Under Steve Jobs, he was the one who was at the helm of setting all of this up and why Apple has been able to maintain a huge lead on competitors by buying up vast amounts of screens, hard drives, memory, etc. for their various devices. He has the most to gain and/or lose by Apple getting raked over the coals on this issue. It'll be interesting to see where Apple and the other tech companies are at on this issue 6 months to a year from now.
Nothing too fancy in this video, just renaming 7 files that could probably have been done manually but I thought I'd use the opportunity to show how Automator works and help you see how you might be able to use this app that's built-in to OS X to save some time.
I was writing a blog post on Lemon Productions and wanted to include some screenshots of the WordPress theme I was talking about and... well, I don't want to spoil the ending. Just watch the video. It's pretty intense.1
Direct link to video on Vimeo / Direct link to video on YouTube
The Mac Power Users podcast recently posted an episode on Automator that includes a bunch of helpful tips in audio form as well as a whole bunch of links to resources related to Automator. Here are a few of my favourites:
Leave a comment if you have any questions about Automator or have other resources you like for getting more out of Automator.
He goes into great detail about how it all works and what the capabilities are for setting up a course and in the end seems happy with where Apple's headed with it:
As you can tell, I think this is an extremely powerful tool for educators who want to provide their courses to the world, or even improve the experience of their local students. iTunes U has allowed me to take a class I taught for only two semesters and put it in front of tens of thousands of people worldwide, with more discovering it every day. All of this is provided for free (assuming you have an iOS device or something capable of running iTunes). While the new iBooks textbooks received most of the attention from last week's Apple event, the improvements to iTunes U should also have a significant impact on education.
Via @fraserspeirs
]]>Scorekeeper XL is developed by the same developer, Matt Rix, that I interviewed awhile back on SSKTN about his other app Trainyard for iPhone and iPad ($0.99). A great puzzle game to have on hand.
If a book could embed not only videos, but exercises on how to apply these high-level filmmaking ideas, it would cut through some of the toughest stumbling blocks of learning cinema. Imagine being able to read about the 180-degree rule, then seeing it play out in a scene. Then you could even be given a group of shots to quickly assemble into a scene right on your iPad. Itās a very different process than sitting through clips in a classroom, then firing up an editing application and getting started on a test project.
Via candlerblog.com
It's still early days since last week's announcement of where Apple is headed. As much as we need to tread slowly when it comes to the way we teach, it's exciting to hear about the excitement teachers have about the possibilities iBooks Author opens up.
]]>As one commenter pointed out, this wouldn't be possible if a bill like SOPA/PIPA was passed into law.
Via neatorama.com
]]>A new version of iBooks for iPad and iPhone/iPod touch. On the iPad there's added support for interactive elements such as video and pinching/zooming on photos and other media elements. iBooks Textbooks is only available for iPad. The iPhone/iOS iBooks app got an update but Textbooks aren't included on the smaller devices. Free download.
How to create the new books for iBooks? With iBooks Author. Your typical Apple app with nicely designed templates to start plus the ability for web nerds to author widgets and add ons with HTML5 and JavaScript. Drag a Word document right into it and have it auto-formatted. Drag a Keynote document right in to create a slide show in the book. Also a free download. Requires Lion (OS 10.7).
Previously iTunes U was only accessible via iTunes. Now available as a separate app for iPad and iPhone/iPod touch with a focus on helping teachers send out curriculum, syllabus, office hours, to-dos, etc. "Everything they need to do for a class." Obviously real world usage will dictate how well this actually works and you'll have to buy in (or convince your school's IT support nerd) to the Apple ecosystem to make it all work really well.
Read more about it at Macrumors.com or theverge.com.
]]>Which is what this video by Kirby Ferguson1 does a great job of. Explain what's at stake
SOPA and PIPA are American issues now but if enacted would certainly affect us all a great deal. And there's a pretty good history of Canada attempting to simply follow along with the entertainment/government of the USA so it's a good idea to be informed about what's going on down south.
]]>Apple also wants to empower āself-publishersā to create new kinds of teaching tools, said the people. Teachers could use it to design materials for that weekās lesson. Scientists, historians and other authors could publish professional-looking content without a deal with a publisher.
- Bloomberg.com via macrumors.com
Whatever Apple announces tomorrow, you can expect a lot of people1 to respond that Apple is only in it to sell more iPads and laptops.
Which is true. Apple is a publicly traded company that is built around the idea of turning a profit.
But now the textbook industry is a $10 billion-a-year industry that is clinging to the old way of doing things because they don't want to try to change - for fear of losing their $10 billion-a-year cash cow.
Just like the music industry before, sometimes it takes an outsider like Apple to come in and force a change. It's not like the education industry hasn't had lots of time to try to figure out the digital world. They're just too tied in to and corrupted by the publishing industry to be able to see past the dollar signs2.
]]>Their hero, or their guru, who is a rat named Splinter. You heard it here first: a rat named Splinter is the hero of this cartoon.
Wait. What? A rat is the hero? AND you're telling me this rat's name is Splinter?
...and I'm going to get rid of that Michael Jackson chocolate bar before somebody picks it up for their kids.
Sure you are. You ate it buddy and we all know it.
Fear. Be very afraid. Don't think critically about things yourself. Listen to the bearded men reveal all.
Via neatorama.com
]]>We saw the video below at the Banff Mountain Film Festival last night when it came through town. Incredible cinematography, music and editing. Viewing it on a computer screen doesn't really do it justice2 as compared to watching it on the huge screen at TCU Place. Mark it to watch later on your Apple TV.
That video is just one part of a full length movie put together by Sherpas Cinema. View the teaser below, buy the video on iTunes in HD for $9.99 or visit the Sherpas Cinema store to buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.
The most striking example I know of schlep blindness is Stripe2, or rather Stripe's idea. For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments online knew how painful the experience was. Thousands of people must have known about this problem. And yet when they started startups, they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. Why? Why work on problems few care much about and no one will pay for, when you could fix one of the most important components of the world's infrastructure? Because schlep blindness prevented people from even considering the idea of fixing payments.
If these kinds of thoughts are going around among developers then maybe3 2012 will be a great year for solutions to more of the real world problems that really smart developers and designers could be solving.
Link to article via mondaybynoon.com
]]>No option to see what the items are, just that things will be removed if you don't transfer them. Terrifying if you don't know what you happened to delete from your iTunes library that's still on your iOS device.
]]>Kingdom Rushā¢ for iPad for $2.99
You can blame Jason Kottke for the time you waste in addition to me.
]]>Google changed the way search works this week. It deeply integrated Google+ into search results. It's ostensibly meant to deliver more personalized results. But it pulls those personalized results largely from Google servicesāGoogle+, Picasa, YouTube. Search for a restaurant, and instead of its Yelp page, the top result might be someone you know discussing it on Google Plus.
Can't say I'm all that concerned yet. But it is interesting to see Google getting thrown into the same corner as Microsoft used to be a few years ago - the big, bad monster that's out to get you and every company.
]]>This year is going to be big at Flickr! In the coming weeks and months you will see significant updates to Flickrās user experience, new features and offerings across devices. Our goal is to build a gorgeous, intuitive, and truly beautiful experience for you, your friends and your photos.
I really hope this is more than just good marketing speak. My annual Pro registration at Flickr is coming due and there's less and less reasons to keep using it. It's now more of a feature on other products that keep me there, like the fact that I can stream photos from my Flickr account on my AppleTV rather than having to have a computer running.
We'll have to see if it truly is going to be a big year at Flickr or not. Flickr certainly hasn't done much innovative and creative since being bought out by Yahoo in 2005 and they've got to be ditched by a lot of people who use Facebook/Google+/etc for sharing photos these days.
]]>Via @Ihnatko
]]>I wasn't sure about it until Bill Murray's last line.
Interestingly, the way I found out about it was because a letterer & designer I follow tweeted that she did the titles for the film.
]]>Via 512pixels.net
The bottom line is this, quoting from Fraiser Speirs article that accompanies the video posted below:
...killing apps manually is fine as a troubleshooting step but it shouldn't be part of your daily routine.
That post and the video are a follow up to Fraiser's earlier post titled Misconceptions About iOS Multitasking where Fraiser goes into great technical detail to explain why you don't have to kill apps to improve performance on your iPad/iPhone.
It's not to say that you should never do it. It's just that there's no reason to do it on a regular basis. There are certainly some apps 2 that don't manage their memory very well or situations where an app is stuck/frozen that it makes sense to manually kill it. But it's not something you need to do on a daily/weekly basis to improve performance.
I recognize that since this is the internet, there's anecdotal evidence for anything so, as John Gruber said in his post about it,
Like with any voodoo, there are die-hard believers. Iām quite certain that I am going to receive email from people who will swear up-and-down that emptying this list of used applications every hour or so keeps their iPhone running better than it would otherwise. Nonsense.
I'm thinking of certain folks who I'm going to be seeing more of just so that I can get a free meal out of them.
]]>Itās time to aim higher. Letās find problems to solve that actually improve peopleās lives. Whether itās figuring out a better way to access medical records, figuring out how 14 year olds can stop carrying forty pounds of textbooks back and forth to school every day, or a reservation system for the communal rooftop farm in your building, there has got to be something more beneficial to society than the next Facebook clone.
It's something that Dale Zak spoke about at Barcamp Saskatoon during his talk entitled Building Technology vs Solving Problems and is a theme that's hopefully going to be inspiring designers and programmers to do more meaningful things with their talents in 2012. We definitely don't need another Facebook clone. Nor do we need more ways to share what we're doing with those around us - as interesting and fun as those things are. There's real problems in the world and brilliant minds are being wasted trying to figure out how to leverage the social graph to refresh more page views and maximize fourth quarter profits.1
Another resolution Mike identifies that I know I'm guilty of and hear lots of people using to defend their position on a solution is when they use their mom/dad/sister/grandma/etc. as an example of a stupid person.
Stop using "mom" as a shortcut for finding out who the people youāre actually designing for are. Find out how the people youāre designing for actually run their lives and handle their business. Good design comes from empathy, not stereotyping.
I'd add that you don't need to try to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator for fear that you might miss out a potential customer. Aim for the customer you want to work with, not just those who've figured out how to breathe through their mouth and nose.
Number 10 is a great thought for anyone new to client work. It's something that we all need to do better at in order raise the quality of all our work in the design and problem solving we do.
Youāll be amazed how many times people are just looking for a solid justification. Stop giving away the farm just because someone asked for clarification. Just calmly tell them why you think your solution is right. Youāre the line of defense for design. Itās your job to protect good design. No one elseās. Sometimes youāll win, sometimes youāll lose. But you will always do your job.
Read the rest of the article and get ready for a fun 2012.2
]]>So here's a photo dump of recent events.
We opened presents, ate food, played outside, played inside, rearranged the home office/studio, and hung up some pictures in the office.
I'll end by quoting Gruber's post simply titled "Merry":
Late last night, inspecting Santaās handiwork, a simple thought occurred to me. A decade or so from now, when, say, Iām waiting for my son to come home from college for his winter break, and, when he does, he wants to spend his time going out with his friends ā how much will I be willing to pay then to be able to go back in time, for one day, to now, when heās eight years old, he wants to go to movies and play games and build Lego kits with me, and he believes in magic?
How much then, for one day with what my family has right now? How much? Everything.
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Only 363 more shopping days until Christmas!
]]>SCOtutor for Mac is an application that includes videos with screen capture training and instruction from the brilliant Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline.com. It's a resource that's perfect for the person who's brand new to the Mac and is coming from the world of Windows.
SCOtutor for Mac is available for $4.99 for your Mac in the Mac App Store or for your iPad in the iTunes App Store.
SCOTutor for Lion is for the somewhat more experienced Mac user who is getting their first taste of Lion - Apple's most recent operating system, 10.7, also called Lion.
SCOTutor for Lion is available for $4.99 for your Mac in the Mac App Store or for your iPad in the iTunes App Store.
SCOtutor for iPad is another app with video training, this time focused on using your new iPad.
SCOTutor for iPad is available for $4.99CAD for your Mac in the Mac App Store or for your iPad in the iTunes App Store.
As I mentioned, all of the above apps are produced by Don McAllister. If you'd rather just have access to his full library of training videos and tutorials you can buy a 3 month membership for $57. 320+ tutorials plus a new video added every week.
[box style="info"]If you'd like to hear more from Don, I interviewed him on a recent episode of Welcome to the Internet.[/box]
There are new Mac blogs and websites popping up every other day so I'm sure you'll find the ones that appeal to you, but here's a few that I read regularly.
There's my quick list. I'd love to hear what sites you visit for Mac support and tips/tricks - leave a comment with your resource.
]]>In episode 66 of Mac Power Users David & Katie do a soup to nuts walk through of the process of switching over to iTunes Match on your Mac and iOS devices.
Normally with these kinds of things I just hit the sign-up button and let the computer do it's thing. But when it comes to my 4,300+ song music library, I get a little picky and worry about things disappearing such as playlists, play counts, and other metadata that is stored in all those MP3s & M4a files.
So if you're like me and want to know what's going to happen when you click the sign-up button, listen to the podcast.
Sad to see the Christopher Nolan trilogy end, but can't wait to see it.
]]>They've just released a free iPhone/iPad app which looks like it'd make a great kitchen companion.
Via swiss-miss.com
]]>The attention to detail on the icon alone makes it worth buying.
Look at your dock right now and see if any of your other icons have a moustache. If the answer is no, then you should probably buy this app.
]]>Found via a great article by Daniel Sinker, titled I'm Starting to Think Lego is Evil, that includes an advertisement that I can't imagine seeing today for Lego.
My son and I love playing with Lego together and while he likes the idea of some of the predefined sets out there 2, in the end he typically ends up just playing with it and building random houses and planes and other things that are just fun to try to make from the little pieces.
Look for the iTunes Match icon on the left hand side of iTunes, assuming it's up to date with at least 10.5.2, and then opt in for $27.99 per year to have all the music in your library in the iCloud - whether you purchased it through the iTunes store or not.
The other perk is that you get all your music upgraded to 256Kbps DRM-free, even if you downloaded it from some crappy Russian MP3 site years ago. cough allofmp3 cough
I had the opportunity to interview Shawn for my podcast, Welcome to the Internet, and it just went live yesterday. Listen to the interview. It's one of the shows I'm most proud thus far in my podcasting career and it's great to see it getting such a good response. Within 2 days, it's already become the second most downloaded episode on SSKTN and has been listened to by people in lots of different countries than previous podcasts I've put out:
Apparently Shawn is pretty popular in Poland.
You can view the entire list of films included here.
Via binarybonsai.com
]]>Go to the Canvas from WooThemes page and use coupon code 12DAYSCANVAS to get 35% off either the standard or developer 2 version.
In the past I wouldn't normally want to link to the theme I'm using on my blog, but since Canvas is so customizable and powerful it's pretty easy 3 to create something awesome and unique with each install of Canvas.
Matt Gemmell wrote a letter to TextMate that explains a bit of the heartache of waiting for an update that may never come to many a nerd's favourite text editor:
I still remember the early days - they were amazing. The bundles, new stuff every week, the syntax highlighting (oh man, the syntax highlighting). Yeah. Those were good times. It wasnāt just me, right?
And the money thing. Ugh. That really messed us up. You always insisted on paying, even though I was happy to. I could have supported you; I was glad to help with that. Maybe you could have got to 2.0 sooner. But you didnāt give me the chance. It just all felt a bit one-sided.
Yeah, so you're probably more confused now than ever.
]]>Bono would do well to bring Edge along and focus on the singing rather than playing guitar, but otherwise a coupe of great acoustic performances of two of my favourite songs from the album.
]]>Context @stevestreza.
]]>It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it.
Which is why I doubt you'll see a stylus ever ship with an iPad. It's another thing you'd have to manage and remember to bring with you to use your iPad and that's definitely not the Apple way.
That said, there's some apps that clearly would be made better with some other form of input than your fingertip and there's a lot of different stylus options 3rd party companies have produced.
But if you're going to buy one iPad stylus, you should buy the Cosmonaut from Studio Neat. It sells for $25 + $7 for shipping international. You can read Marco's review of the Cosmonaut if you need more convincing (Spoiler: He loves it.)
Studio Neat is the same guys that made the sweet Glif iPhone adapter that allows you to mount your iPhone on any standard camera mount. I have one and it works great, particularly if you want to use your iPhone for any video recording. Pick up the Glif and the Cosmonaut and you'll get free shipping.
While you're waiting for your order, check out the video detailing how the Cosmonaut is made featuring with an introduction by Mr. Rogers.
Via kottke.org
]]>Tweetbot has been my Twitter client of choice since it was released back in April.
As many others have already written (Gruber, Shawn Blanc, Ben Brooks1), Twitter version 4 is clearly an indication of where Twitter hopes to push their users to do - stick around in our app, discover more stuff you might not already be seeing, and hopefully click a few ads here and there. It's not how or why I use Twitter and so I'm glad that, for now anyway, Twitter is still allowing 3rd party apps to pull information from their site.
You do have to wonder if there's a tipping point coming where Twitter will have the majority of people viewing their tweets through the official Twitter app or Twitter.com and at that point decide to pull the plug on the 3rd party access - thereby controlling everything about the Twitter experience.
Via neatorama.com.
]]>Cue the complaining from everyone who hates redesigns, no matter what it improves.
The site fly.twitter.com is a beautifully designed explanation of how Twitter works and what the new version brings to Twitter. They mention on the site:
Download the latest version of Twitter for iPhone or Twitter for Android to get access to the redesigned Twitter on your computer.
...but I'm not seeing it yet.
I haven't been using the Twitter app for iPhone lately 1 so it feels very different to me. It's certainly a much cleaner look than what I remember it having. I can't see myself using the new Discover or Me tab very often, if at all - other than that they've buried Direct Messages under the Me tab so now it's two taps to get to your messages.
It'll be interesting to see how they've integrated the new look into the desktop app for Mac.
]]>By pulling in content from Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. you can read it all in one place instead of having to visit all the sites separately.
Were you a big Gowalla fan? Did you like Dodgeball? Did you think Trunk.ly (gasp!) was better than Pinboard? Did you make a lot of contributions to Nextstop? Do you miss Aardvark and EtherPad? Did "I Want Sandy" change your life?
These projects are all very different, but the dynamic is the same. Someone builds a cool, free product, it gets popular, and that popularity attracts a buyer. The new owner shuts the product down and the founders issue a glowing press release about how excited they are about synergies going forward. They are never heard from again.
You might not be that familiar with some of the sites he mentioned, but the idea should ring true for whatever free service you're currently using. It might be free to use, but in most cases it's you that's the product. Google sells advertising based on your use of their free email, search and other services. Same with Facebook and it's free services.
I know, I know. Facebook is too big to ever go away. You're right. Nothing to worry about.
Maciej also wins the award for the best disclaimer on a blog post:
DISCLAIMER: I run a paid bookmarking site. Every morning I wake up and dive into my vault of golden coins.
When I heard that Gowalla was acquired by Facebook I was worried that all the data I had submitted/used with their service was going to be picked up by Facebook as well - but I'm glad to read today on Gowalla's blog that the data wasn't part of the purchase:
Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January. We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well. Facebook is not acquiring Gowallaās user data.
I'm sure we'll see the creators of Gowalla leave Facebook in a year or two 2 and create something else that's awesome. And hopefully the rest of the talented Gowalla team finds a place to land that doesn't see them disappearing into the Facebook machine, never to be heard from again.
And as I'm about to post this, I see that Max Voltar isn't joining Gowalla at Facebook and is instead moving over to Instagram. Good to hear. Though I can't imagine Instagram turning away big offer money down the road as well as most web apps seem to either die or get swallowed up by Google or Facebook. Interesting times ahead.
]]>By distributing this footage only to NFL teams, and rationing it out carefully to its TV partners and on its web site, the NFL has created a paradox. The most-watched sport in the U.S. is also arguably the least understood. "I don't think you can get a full understanding without watching the entirety of the game," says former head coach Bill Parcells. The zoomed-in footage on TV broadcasts, he says, only shows a "fragment" of what happens on the field.
I assume the CFL does something like this as well - though I'm sure they're not as militant about it as the NFL would be because I can certainly recall more full field views on a CFL game.
I think this is one of the reasons why hockey1 appeals to a certain type of person. You can see what's going on in the whole field of play, minus the goalie at the other end of the ice. By being given the opportunity to see the whole play, you can appreciate the aspects of the game that someone like the NFL doesn't want to release for fear that someone might figure out a secret.
$71,756 in fines. There goes RIM's entire profits from Playbook sales.
Via mobilesyrup.com / @ryanbaldwin
]]>If you'd like to turn it off just to be on the extra safe side1, the toggle switch can be found by going to the Settings app on your iPhone and then General -> About -> Diagnostics & Usage.
Sorry rest of the world. I don't have the links for that. YouTube?
]]>Cringe as the video shows the software logging each number as Eckhart fingers the dialer.
āEvery button you press in the dialer before you call,ā he says on the video, āit already gets sent off to the IQ application.ā
From there, the data ā including the content of text messages ā is sent to Carrier IQās servers, in secret.
By the way, it cannot be turned off without rooting the phone and replacing the operating system. And even if you stop paying for wireless service from your carrier and decide to just use Wi-Fi, your device still reports to Carrier IQ.
The astute anti-Apple fans will remember a similar incident involving Apple tracking your movements via GPS which was, in the end, not nearly as bad as it may have sounded initially. Hopefully this will be resolved with a similar explanation.
But that this seems to record everything being done on the phone (...the software is installed on most modern Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones...) is pretty bad. Added to the problem is that there's a multitude of carriers and phone manufacturers involved, all with their own company reputation and stock price to worry about, and you have the makings of a PR person's nightmare.
]]>They also include a nifty tutorial on-screen the first time you launch the app:
Pick it up if, like me, you were disappointed in how Apple changed the DigitalColor.app.
]]>Every quarter that goes by, Apple reports another multi-year record high growth rate that continues to be brushed aside and overlooked by investors. Appleās stock performance relative to its valuation and fundamentals, and relative to other companies with lower growth rates and more expensive valuations is completely abysmal.
Lots of numbers and charts that I don't fully understand, but I2 don't see any reason Apple won't continue on the path it's been on - slow, steady growth.
...though Apple has grown its earnings by 600% in four years, the stock has only risen 81%. And while 81% might seem like a lot, just remember that the company is essentially 7x larger than it was in 2007. Apple has also grown its balance sheet 5-fold since that time and its cash has also risen 5-fold. You would expect to see at least a 200-300% move in the stock, and if history repeats itself, you soon will.
Unlike the other big players in tech, including Facebook who are apparently looking for a $100 billion valuation for their IPO, Apple actually sells products. Physical things that exist in the real world. Facebook and Google are online and virtual. You'd think the traditional stock market would reward the real world sooner than the virtual. But like most things, the internet is still seen as the gold rush and there's gold in them hills!
Article link via daringfireball.net
It's available from the Mac App Store for $4.99 or you can download a free trial from their website that has a neat method of expiring: you get 150 uses of the app before you have to buy it.
Interesting idea for an app, particularly one that you could certainly see Apple doing themselves down the road as more and more of iOS makes its way into Mac OS X.
]]>I don't really see it yet for the casual/semi-pro photographer, but Flickr certainly has to see the writing on the wall. It's too bad Yahoo bought out Flickr because a smaller company would be much more hungry to fight for users than a Yahoo subsidiary.
]]>iA Writer for iPad $0.99 (regularly $4.99)
iA Writer for Mac $4.99 (regularly $9.99)
Must. Resist.
]]>I own the first four books and they're just the right length to get you in over your head on a topic with enough knowledge provided so that you can pull your head above water and not sink into the abyss of web nerdery that can so often overwhelm you.
]]>See? It's all in how you market something.
]]>"According to NPD's Consumer Tracking Service, 76 percent of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn't even consider the iPad..."
So 3/4 of the people who didn't buy an iPad, didn't consider buying an iPad. Shocking, right?
Using a fairly safe estimate of 10,000,000 iPads sold, John is able to guess that nearly 90% of tablet sales were iPads.
So 10% of the tablets sold went to 5 other companies.2
Or as Jason Snell tweeted:
If I'm reading it right, it suggests 92% of tablet buyers considered iPad and 89% bought iPad. That's... not a good sign for competitors.
Time to figure out a way to buy some Apple stock.
]]>1Password combined with Dropbox syncing of your passwords makes for a great system of being very secure and also not having to remember a ton of passwords.
]]>From Macstories.net review:
Instacast HD is everything you love about Instacast, delivered in high definition on your iPad or iPad 2. Requiring iOS 5, itās quite simply the best podcatcher available for iOS. Nothing compares to the astonishing interface, the simplicity, or the even the video experience Instacast HD is able to provide. Itās perfect for the couch, where youāre likely to be reading through your RSS feeds or watching your favorite Revision3 podcast. With the inclusion of iCloud sync to help keep played statuses and subscriptions in sync between your iOS devices, you really can have the best of both worlds.
Now to go borrow my wife's iPad to try it out.
Instacast HD is available for $4.99 from the App Store.
]]>At $29.99 in the Mac App Store it's not something that's going to replace the simple Command-Shift-3 screenshot utility built into OS X for most people - but if it's something you're doing a lot throughout the day, this will save you a bunch of time. Plus the built in Dropbox sharing makes it easy to send out to clients who might not have a large email attachment option.
Clarify is also available for Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.
Here's my quick sample screenshots created with Clarify. Riveting.
]]>So now might be the time to buy yourself that early Christmas present.
]]>Update: As of 2012-07-25, Apple has released Mountain Lion (go get it!) so this guide is subject to changes depending on what version of OS X you have. I'll be writing a new version when iOS 6 is released in the fall to cover all the changes to AirPlay and both operating systems. CE
I got a few questions about the setup so I thought I'd do a quick writeup here to explain how it works.
Update Feb 13th, 2012 If you'd like to be able to select multiple speakers from your iOS device, which Apple currently doesn't allow, check out Rogue Amoeba's post using their tools Airfoil and Airfoil speakers.
The software connecting everything together is called AirPlay1. It's Apple's software that's designed to allow you to stream from one device to another - computer to Airport Express or iPhone to Apple TV, etc.
You'll need some sort of computer running iTunes. In our case, I typically use our iMac but you can also have multiple sources use the same config depending on where you are in the house - you just can't have them stream at the same time, obviously. It's first come, first serve with AirPlay.
iTunes 10.x should work fine.
All current iPad, iPod touch, and iPhones are able to support AirPlay. What I was demoing in my original photo, however, wasn't streaming from a iOS device - it was just running the Apple Remote app for iOS which allows you to control iTunes on a computer on your local WiFi network. Choose songs, podcasts, songs, etc. to play as well as where you want the media to play/stream to.
Not required to use an Airport Express, Apple TV or AirPlay - just the coolest way to use it all.
The Apple TV, selling for $119CDN, is yet another box to connect to your flat panel TV via a HDMI cable. 2 With recent additions to the Apple TV, including Netflix, NHL & MLB, Flickr, Vimeo & YouTube, it's a very compelling alternative to your standard cable box in terms of the entertainment value. No, you can't watch an episode of Community live when it airs3 - but there's plenty of other options for what you might want to watch.
iCloud allows your recent photos from iOS devices to be automatically shown on the Apple TV. AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring4 allow you to mirror what's on your iOS device to your TV - play a game on your big screen TV, for example.
I've talked to many people about the Apple TV to people and people generally don't really get how magical it is until they see it in person - particularly when paired with an iPhone or iPad.5
The Airport Express is a device that plugs into the wall for power and has an audio out jack to connect to a set of speakers or stereo. Audio then can be streamed via AirPlay to the Airport Express.
We use our iMac as the main library for music and videos. So we have your typical iTunes playlists full of various songs and a few videos and podcasts.
The easiest way to set it up is to use Home Sharing. In iTunes go to the Advanced menu and click on Turn on Home Sharing.
I won't walk through the complete Home Sharing setup - you can visit Apple's support page for more details but suffice to say it makes setting up multiple iOS devices much easier to use Home Sharing.
After setting up your iTunes to be enabled for AirPlay/Home Sharing, you need to add that iTunes library to your iOS device (iPhone, etc.).
Again, refer back to the Apple support page for more instructions on setting up Home Sharing. But once it's all setup, you'll see the playlists of your iTunes library appear in the Apple Remote App on your iOS device.
Click the little TV icon in the top right corner and you'll see a list of all the devices (Airport Express, Apple TV) on your WiFi network that, in my case anyway, are setup with Home Sharing.6
Each device can have a volume level that's independent of the other devices, including the source computer. In our setup, we have the Airport Express upstairs hooked up to a couple of old speakers, the Apple TV is in the basement hooked up to our TV and then the iMac is in the office.
So if we wanted, we can have the same music playing throughout the house all playing from one central spot without running wires everywhere to speakers. What's really incredible is how it all plays in sync - the Airport Express plays at the same time as the Apple TV.
We didn't buy all these things at once and acquired them over time.7 Here's a rough guide to pricing/options.
You'll need some sort of TV if you pick up an Apple TV. A set of speakers if you want to use an Airport Express. Your mileage may vary.
We use it nearly every day. It works really well - except when we microwave something with our Panasonic microwave. It always kills the audio and we have to restart playing music once the microwaving is done. Lately the iPad has, seemingly at random, stopped playing music as well. Overall though it's a great setup for listening to music or podcasts around your house.
Also great for playing the kids music downstairs on the iMac/Apple TV with something different on the Airport Express upstairs.
In the video, wouldn't you make sure that when the volume dial you added to your laptop is shown that it wouldn't have a hardware defect on it that's visible to even the most casual observer?
Envy indeed.
You can watch the rest of the video over at The Loop if you're not already rushing out to pickup your own volume dial equipped laptop.
]]>The second image is a screenshot from my iPhone 4 running iOS5. It has 640 pixels across and 960 pixels vertical - double that of the original iPod touch.
The screen sizes on the actual devices are the same. So despite the fact that the screenshot is a lot larger from the iPhone 4 - it's just a lot more pixels crammed into the same space on the actual device.
Holding the two devices side by side it's hard to believe we looked at the iPod touch and similar devices with as much amazement as we did considering how blurry the text is and how pixellated the icons look compared to the iPhone 4's display.
[caption id="attachment_19805" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="iPod touch (1st Gen) iOS 3"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_19806" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="iPhone4 iOS5 at half resolution"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_19806" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="iPhone4 iOS5 at full resolution"][/caption]
Looking at my wife's first generation iPad, I can't wait until they figure out how to get a Retina Display into the iPad lineup.
]]>It's selling for $7.99 and $6.93 of each album sold will be donated to Concern.
Jack White covering 'Love is Blindness' is probably the standout track for me. Damien Rice doing 'One' is also great, as is Snow Patrol's slowdown of 'Mysterious Ways'.
]]>Stop. Read that again. The key to writing is writing. Just doing it. Thereās no particular technique that will help you to be a better writer than just doing it. Write all you can. Read all you can. Move the cursor to the right. Make the clickety-clackety sound on your keyboard. When you donāt have anything to say, write about how you donāt have anything to say. When you have writerās block, write about your writerās block: its shape, texture and hue. And before you know it, youāre writing. Donāt question what comes out, like why I thought writerās block has a hue.
While Matt's talking about writing, you can apply this to most any creative endeavour. I always let myself get hung up the wrong thing instead of just doing the thing.
]]>Need an iPad. 1
]]>Just like the beloved sport of baseball, there are beer and hotdogs and players with giant egos and teams in financial distress. But unlike the beloved sport of baseball, hockey is a game that needs to be watched. You can read a book while you are watching baseball. You can vacuum the living room, play Angry Birds or enjoy the intimate company of a loved one while a baseball game is on. Chances are, you won't miss much. You can't do that with hockey because it moves too fast. And therein lies the enjoyment.
Professional queuers (people paid to line up and buy stuff), regular folks buying 5 iPhone 4S at a time just to turn around and sell them to the gray market as soon as they leave the store, making around $140 per iPhone 4S.
Apple tries to do what it can to stop the scalpers and resellers - but you can see how futile it is when nearly everyone is doing it.
Via 512pixels.net.
]]>Via The Loop
]]>Apple today released iOS 5.01 - a minor update to iOS 5 that includes:
As this is the first time for most people to be able to use over the air (OTA) updating instead of having to update via iTunes, I thought I'd post the steps to do the update. 2 3
It has the gear style icon:
Scroll down until you see the General section:
Assuming you've got 5.0 properly installed you should see a Software Update item:
The iPhone will ping Apple's servers to see if there's an update:
You should see the Download and Install option beneath the description of what's in the update:
Click here to see what's behind the Learn More option
Hooray! T&C. Make sure you run it past your lawyer before you agree to install.
If you aren't already plugged into something, it prompts you to plug it in:
It took just under 2 minutes to download but your connection speed will vary:
It took longer to prepare the update than it did to download:
Click install or watch it countdown:
Depending on how many other Apple nerds are doing it at the same time as you, this could take a few minutes:
At this point the visual tour ends as I can't take screenshots while it's restarting and installing. But my iPhone restarted a couple of times with a progress bar both times. After the second restart/progress bar, my iPhone rebooted to a normal screen and was done.
A quick check back into Software Update reveals that iOS 5.0.1 is installed and I'm up to date.
Done.
]]>The main reason being:
...HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.
This is great news for everybody developing and using a mobile device. HTML5 is an open standard. It's not an Apple, Blackberry, Google or Microsoft standard - it's open and owned by no one company.
iPhone owners have benefited from Apple's decision not to allow Flash on iPhones from day one. Other platforms - Blackberry, Android mainly - have had to suffer with performance sucking, battery draining Flash implementations on their platform of choice because Adobe kept stringing everyone along with the promise that "we'll get Flash going properly soon...ish?" Now that Adobe's thrown in the towel, everyone can move on.
And since mobile is the way forward, there's really no reason to see Flash as having much of a future on the web. Why would I, as a website designer, want to build one whole version of a website in Flash and then have to build a completely separate version in HTML for all the mobile devices?
This will hopefully mean an end to crappy restaurant & photography portfolios built-in Flash. It doesn't mean the end of crappy websites. Just crappy Flash websites.
Adobe is saying that they will continue to enable Flash via native apps built for all major app stores - so Flash developers will still have a way to use the scripting and design language that is Flash to create interesting things. It'll just have to run inside a native app. Which is good for everyone as well.
This isn't Apple's victory - though they did point the way forward. Again. This is a victory for everyone who uses a mobile device.
]]>You're employed at a job that allows you to, more or less, decide what pieces of technology you're going to use with the following limitations:
Disregarding all sorts of questions that this kind of question inevitably brings up (What happens if your computer breaks down? What if there's a nuclear war?), here's a few assumptions and limitations:
You're at $3,418 so far and haven't picked up any extra software, mouse, bag, etc. The 11" MacBook Air, to me, gives you the best trade-off of a portable (i.e. iPad) while still having the full functionality of a computer. Plus the ability to hook it up to a projector or larger monitor if that's needed is nice. 3
It's a tough task to try to account for technology over 4 years. It's good to think about and have restrictions - but $4k over 4 years feels a bit unrealistic for a modern office worker.
I've temporarily turned on comments below because I'd love to hear some discussion on what people would do.
Comments of "buy a Linux laptop with Windows 98" will be properly filed.
]]>Type "welll" to get "we'll," "illl" to get "I'll," etc. I know, right?
He says a bad word. Which isn't shocking if you know who Louis C.K. is. But just fair warning if you're playing this at work at full volume.
]]>From Twelvesouth.
]]>I've played with it on the iPad and it's a lot of fun and very intuitive to use. The iPhone screen seems a bit small to be able to play around with it like that but you can't beat the portability of having a multi-track recorder in your pocket.
GarageBand for iOS is now a universal app so if you bought it on the iPad you should be able to update and get the iPhone version for free.
Via loopinsight.com
]]>Every October, American kids like mine are treated to a wide array of chocolatesāSnickers, Reeseās Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfingersābecause hundreds of thousands of children in West Africa are enslaved harvesting cocoa beans. These children are performing this work for the benefit of most of the mainstream chocolate providers in the United States. A report from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast and other African countries estimated there were 284,000 children working on cocoa farms in hazardous conditions. Many of them have been taken from their families and sold as servants.
Read the full article while you snack on a mini-Snickers bar tonight.
This is what happens when everyone passes the buck on to the "corporation" rather than talking about say
John P. Bilbrey (President and CEO of Hershey). Somehow it's more comforting for everyone if it's a company name rather than what it really is.
Steve (or someone close to him) spotted a loophole in the California vehicle laws. Anyone with a brand new car had a maximum of six months to affix the issued number plate to the vehicle.
Via loopinsight.com
]]>Via lonelysandwich
]]>Depressing financially speaking, but it's a really well designed single page site that takes advantage of scrolling to reveal data.
]]>Fitting that it's the first digital-only book I've purchased.
]]>I first came across Anthony via the excellent tech/gear/how to podcast he did with Dan Benjamin called The Mixdown. Anthony's clearly a teacher at heart and his explanations of mic mechanics, audio software, compression, distortion and other topics gave what I'm attempting to do over at SSKTN.com a huge leap forward and it's not over stating things to say that I wouldn't be where I'm at with SSKTN if I hadn't stumbled across The Mixdown and Anthony Stauffer.
When he agreed to be a guest on my interview show, Welcome to the Internet, I was shocked that he'd take the time to chat about his business with me - some random dude from Canada. But talk he did and it has since become the most downloaded episode I've recorded to date on SSKTN.com.
Anthony wrote a great article thanking all the people who helped him build Steviesnack.com.
Congratulations Anthony on 4 years of sweet guitar tones and melting people's faces off.
I'm sure the inclusion of my name on his list of thanks was an administrative error and will be remedied shortly.
]]>It's one of those things though, like air travel, that society seems to have in it's head as true no matter how many studies come out to contradict the truthiness of the thought. I mean, you're putting a thing that receives and sends invisible bits of data right next to your head - that has to do something bad, right?
Via Boingboing.net
]]>Listen in here or go subscribe in iTunes if you'd like them sent to you automagically.
]]>Nifty.
Via @jasonsantamaria
]]>Apple has updated the www.apple.com/stevejobs/ page to be a continually updating flow of memories and thanks that people have emailed in.
]]>Check out that nice kitchen computing machine.
The poster of an apple on the wall is a nice touch.
Via 512pixels.net
]]>Faster, less signal loss, better speaker phone abilities, gentler vibration for notifications, and a better camera:
If the iPhone 4 camera was good enough that you could leave your point and shoot at home. Then the iPhone 4S camera is good enough that you should leave your point and shoot at home.
For the record, I won't be upgrading my iPhone 4 to a 4S. I'd love to be able to for the camera upgrade alone, but it's just not worth it considering how much I'd have to pay since I'm not eligible for a hardware upgrade with Telus.
]]>Instapaper is good on the iPhone, but if you've got an iPad, you should definitely pick up a copy if you enjoy reading at all.
You can listen to the first episode of Appsession where I talked about why I like it so much. I'll have to do an update of that episode with all the new stuff in version 4.
]]>With most cell phone providers you pay a lot more for international texting rates than you do for in-country texting. Now, if your friends or family have an iOS5 compatible device those costs are gone. There's no fees associated with sending an iMessage to another iMessage compatible device.
In yesterday's recording of Lost & Lemon (not out as of yet), my brother in law in Australia was asking if he should upgrade his iPod touch to iOS5. Aside from stuff that's neat or fun, I couldn't come up with a really compelling reason to upgrade right away - eventually, sure, but no rush. iMessage could change that in the same way that FaceTime did for iOS4.
Macworld has a great writeup on how to set up iMessage but one thing I like is how iOS5 makes it easy to tell if you're sending a text message or an iMessage - the message entry field tells you as well as a colour change:
Text Message:
iMessage:
One other feature that's new in iMessage is the ability to swipe down on your messages to get rid of the keyboard. Handy if you're in the middle of a longer conversation and can't remember what's been said.
]]>]]>If you use Appleās headphone with the remote it is possible to take picture using Volume-Up button. This sounds silly but think of it as a long distance shutter button.
Word on the internet is that it's because so many people are trying to update their iPhones that the validation servers at Apple aren't responding fast enough and the upgrade craps out. Keep trying?
In the meantime, make sure your Mac OS X is up to date with the 10.7.2 update that came out today as well.
Update: Looks like it got far enough to start the upgrade but then crapped out again. Now trying to wipe and restore. Advice - pull all your photos/videos into iPhoto before you upgrade just to be safe.
Now seeing this:
Followed by this:
And now it restarted back to the way it was before I started upgrading. Weird.
Update #2: Back to the "The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An internal error has occurred." loop. Going on 15+ attempts.
Update #3: After about 20 tries, all of a sudden the iPhone did a complete wipe and restore from the previous backup (2 minutes earlier). When it came back to life it was running iOS5. Now it's in the process of adding my apps back, one by one.
]]>In Apple's case, it's even better than BBM because the device can also be your Mac computer via iChat. So if someone sends you an iMessage, it'll pop up on whatever device you're currently logged in to. On BBM, if your Blackberry can't connect you don't get your messages.
Which brings up an interesting thought in how Apple is further side-stepping the cell phone providers, which John Gruber pointed out:
Very cool. And keep in mind that while your phone number changes with a pre-paid SIM, your iCloud ID doesnāt, so you can use iMessage to receive message from other iOS users.
I can cancel/stop using an iPhone, or change carriers or even countries, and still keep up with people who I used to iMessage with. I don't think the same option would exist for Blackberry users. As far as I'm aware, you have to have a Blackberry to communicate over BBM.
]]>It's the perfect app for those concerned about sharing their every move on other sites like Gowalla, Facebook and Foursquare where everything is wide open unless you turn on the security settings.
You can do things such as set a temporary time that your location is available to certain people, as seen in the screenshot below:
So if you're at a conference or a family vacation at Disneyland, you could allow everyone you know to see where you are so you can more easily meet up and find each other.
As I said on a recent episode of Too Lazy to Blog, it's one of those features that sounds really good when talked up - but most people probably won't use it that often.
]]>Cards (also free in the App Store, also requires iOS5) is available for download.
Cards lets you create a postcard from your own photos and text, using Apple's provided templates, which Apple then mails out for you. With a custom designed stamp from Apple, naturally. All for $4.99 per card.
The cards look beautiful, as you would suspect from Apple. But it is a funny app/service to release when everything else Apple is doing is pushing people away from real items into digital.
]]>Based on the dates mentioned in the Knowledge Navigator video, it takes place on September 16, 2011. The date on the professor's calendar is September 16, and he's looking for a 2006 paper written "about five years ago," setting the year as 2011.
And this morning, at the iPhone keynote, Apple announced Siri, a natural language-based voice assistant, would be built into iOS 5 and a core part of the new iPhone 4S.
So, 24 years ago, Apple predicted a complex natural-language voice assistant built into a touchscreen Apple device, and was less than a month off.
Check out the sweet 1987 era video of what they thought 2011 would be like.
Via Daring Fireball.
]]>Interesting that when Apple is phasing out the use of "Airport" in favour of the industry standard Wi-Fi (For example, the wireless network menubar used to say "Turn Airport Off", as of OS X Lion it says "Turn Wi-Fi Off"), this app is still called AirPort Utility.
iOS5 is required to use Airport Utility.
]]>Sure, the worldwide outpouring of grief/memories of Steve Jobs' death is impressive and is on a scale unheard of outside your typical celebrity death (i.e. Michael Jackson), but people aren't so moved that they're going to drop hundreds of dollars to purchase a device AND sign up for a $50+/month contract out of respect for said device's creator's passing.
But no one foresaw that the tech genius Jobs would suddenly pass away, only one day after iPhone 4S was released. Jobsā demise stirred sadness and grief around the world and itās believed that Jobsā untimely death has rocketed demand for iPhone 4S from consumers.
Unreal.
Via Daring Fireball.
]]>Use this link to download it directly or just hit up Software Update under the Apple (top left corner of your Mac).
]]>So far, Siri seems to be performing great.
From MG Siegler's review:
A number of folks have written that while Siri looks good, it seems like a feature that gives good demo but wonāt actually get used. I disagree. I think this is a feature that will sell the device. And I think all of Appleās rivals will have to act quickly to counter it. Weāve all seen the science fiction television shows and films where people talk to their computers like human beings and the computer understands them. That future is now.
And Jim Dalrymple's:
The important thing to remember about Siri is that itās not just another voice technology. Siri understands the context of what you are asking it and responds appropriately.
And Joshua Topolsky's:
The crazy thing about Siri is that it works ā at least most of the time ā better than youād expect it to. It understands and responds to you in a way thatās so natural it can sometimes be unsettling. The software even has a good sense of humor. Asking it āwhat is the meaning of life?ā will bring up a number of responses, both serious and not so serious. The first time I asked, Siri simply said ā42.ā If you ask Siri if thereās a god, the software points you in the direction of the nearest church (oddly, no synagogues, Buddhist temples, or mosques are suggested).
And John Gruber's mini-review:
Mostly amazing, sometimes just doesnāt get you, but even when that happens, itās usually easy to correct/clarify what you mean.
Finally, you can watch Jason Snell's video demoing the capabilities (or lack thereof) of Siri to get an idea of what it's capable of.
And hey Apple - if you need to send a review unit to someone up here in Canada, have your Siri get in touch with me!
Thanks to the terrific shawblanc.net for most of the reviews linked above. I have them all in my own RSS reader, but I saw most of them on his site first.
]]>It used to be Steve Jobs' signature on those fake cheques.
]]>Great other than Kristina Halvorson mispronouncing Steve Jobs' name. My apologies if she has a speech impediment when saying the word "job", but how do you not know how to say the man's name at this point?
And yes, I know I said I wasn't going to post anymore about Steve Jobs - but I reserve the right to be contradictory on my own blog. If you're sick of reading/hearing about it, there's plenty of other places to go on the internet.
]]>]]>Late last night, long hours after the news broke that he was gone, my thoughts returned to those grass stains on his shoes back in June. I realize only now why they caught my eye. Those grass stained sneakers were the product of limited time, well spent. And so the story Iāve told myself is this:
I like to think that in the run-up to his final keynote, Steve made time for a long, peaceful walk. Somewhere beautiful, where there are no footpaths and the grass grows thick. Hand-in-hand with his wife and family, the sun warm on their backs, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts, at peace with their fate.
You can skip the first 30 minutes or so of recap, unless you need to be reminded of Apple's successes in the past year.
]]>Sadly, no Siri for Canada. Yet.
It's coming, just looks like Apple has to "Canadian-ize" it first. So, adding in a few "eh's", some bacon, and the ability to understand all the requests for "Siri, why didn't the Leafs make the playoffs again this year?"
]]>The look of satisfaction and joy on Jobs' face is exactly the look you can see every time someone opens a box of Apple hardware for the first time.
The revealing of how something as inane as a bunch of chips and wires and silicon can be presented as something to be enjoyed and appreciated.
]]>Lineups start at your browser. Pants optional.
]]>"I appreciate you had your fun with our phone and I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the sales guy who lost it. But we need the phone back because we can't let it fall into the wrong hands."
I thought, maybe its already in the wrong hands?
He continued, "There are two ways we can do this. I can send someone to pick up the phoneā"
Me: "I don't have it"
"āBut you know someone who doesā¦or we can send someone with legal papers, and I don't want to do that."
He was giving us an easy way out.
I told him I had to talk to my dudes. Before he hung up, he asked me, "What do you think of it?"
I said, "It's beautiful."
]]>Just that they're going to talk iPhone.
So when they don't show that they've cured cancer AND are offering everyone in North America (except for Canada) trips to walk on the moon, it's hard to blame Apple for that.
Granted, people have their own expectations of what they think Apple should announce in order to:
Apple's marketing is genius because they don't talk about what they hope to do down the road - they just build it and then talk about what they're shipping.
So yes, you can certainly be disappointed that Apple doesn't announce that they've found a way to create a live unicorn that can play chess. But it's not because Apple "failed to live up to..." or "...finally releases..." or whatever headline a tech columnist at your local newspaper decides to write tomorrow morning.
Just about any other tech company would continue to sell the iPhone 4 and not put out anything new. The iPhone 4 is still the top selling smartphone in the US, 16 months from its release. The second highest selling smartphone? The iPhone 3GS.
Motorola sold the same phone, the RAZR, for 4 years. It was tremendously successful. And now Motorola's mobile phone division is owned by Google. Some might view that as a success.
I'm pretty sure Apple has a different view of success.
]]>Awesome reaction shot by a great parent. More ammo in my ongoing discussion with my wife about how old our kids should be before they're allowed to watch Star Wars.
Via Boingboing.net
]]>Growl is commonly used by applications within Mac OS X to notify you of tasks being completed - i.e. when you're uploading a large file to a server and you switch away to do something else and don't want to have to constantly check to see if it's done, Growl will pop up a little window to let you know the file is done.
It's not one of those apps that's critical to day to day use of a Mac, but you sure miss it once it's gone. And it looks like for support in Lion, it'll be a must purchase for most previous users.
At $1.99 it's no longer the free system notification system it used to be. But hopefully with real money behind it's development it will only get better.
]]>Once you've applied the filters you want, there's easy exporting to Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Picasa, and CloudApp.
It's available in the Mac App Store for an introductory price of $7.99.
]]>Here's the music video for her first single, Knots:
]]>Instagram is free in the App Store if you're not already using it or hating it and not using it.
You can see photos I've taken via Instagram posted to my Flickr page in the slideshow below to get an idea of what it does to photos.
]]>Also, a 30 day trial download is available.
]]>Gradient looks like it could be a good replacement. It gives you a nice menu bar based colour picker, as well as outputting all the CSS code you need to throw in a stylesheet for a nice looking gradient. It's in beta right now and you can sign up at the website for a preview download.
I'd still like the ability to grab a single colour code out and I can't seem to find a way to do that without getting the whole gradient CSS code. But Gradient.app makes a nice option for web work.
]]>Now, 20 years on, I'm proud to say I'm an Achtung Baby. It's definitely one of the best albums of the last 20 years. It's one of the only albums I know backwards and forwards on guitar, from start to finish.
From the opening crash of landing in 'Zoo Station' to the lament of 'Love is Blindness', the whole album is a wonderful journey through a band's attempt to leap from one mountaintop experience to the next - including the valley in between.
For now, view the trailer on U2.com, but I'm sure it will find it's way onto Youtube/etc. after the documentary opens at the Toronto International Film Festival tonight.
]]>You'll also get a free upgrade to version 4 when it comes out later this year. Definitely worth every penny if you value your stuff online. Stop using the same password on every website and service and start using 1Password.
There's also a version of 1Password for iPhone/iPod touch for $9.99, or a version called 1Password Pro 1Password Pro for $14.99 that handles iPhone/iPod touch and iPad devices. With Dropbox syncing it makes it really easy to bring all your passwords with you - securely.
]]>Screeny is a Mac app for capturing what you're doing on your screen and sharing it with others. I use it for showing clients how to use the various applications I recommend to them for managing their website, but it's also great for when you're having an issue on your computer and want to show a friend who's helping you troubleshoot the problem. Just capture a video of it and send it off so they can see exactly what's going on.
Here's a screen capture of how Screeny works, including cheesy stock background muzak:
Free is free. Grab a copy even if you don't think you need it.
]]>My wife is a middle child. Sad, forgotten middle children.
]]>]]>Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
My wife and I both buried a grandma last week. My wife's grandma's funeral on Monday and then my grandma's on Tuesday. My grandma's death was sudden and relatively unexpected. My wife's grandma had been sick for a little while so it wasn't a complete shock, but both equally sad to lose a mom, grandma and great-grandma. It's interesting the way people respond when I tell them how both women died. Questions of "How old was she?", "Was she sick?" "Is her husband still alive?" are all questions I would ask if I was in the same situation and is just part of how we cope with death.
You can read about my wife's grandma via my wife's sister's blog post, 1922-2011. One quote I'll pull from her post that could equally apply to my grandma is this:
Grandma was the anchor, the matriarch of the family. She always knew what was going on in each of her children and grandchildren (and great-grandchildren!)'s lives, and kept us all informed.
My grandma had an incredible memory for dates and the history of her family and friends. Birthdays, deaths, farm moves, and everything in between was recalled faster than you could Google it.
Shortly before my Grandma passed, we had just finished work on her memoirs which we had self-published through Lulu.com. We published it mainly for family and close friends, but you're welcome to pick up a copy in either print or PDF format. (Whatever minor profits come from the sale of the book are going back to support MCC and other charities she supported.)
She was an amazing woman with incredible strength, faith in God and love for her family and those around her. I'm more than a little biased, but I think her story is worth reading even if you didn't get the chance to know her.
I'll finish by reposting what I read at my Grandma's funeral as part of the program to highlight her story.
"The day was May 23rd, 1995.
As I entered my home that evening, I knew I was turning over another chapter in my life. My life would from this day forward be forever different than it had been for many years previous.
I had just returned from the hospital where my husband of 52 years, John, had passed away.
I would now be alone.
Yes, my children and grandchildren would come for a visit regularly but for the most part I would be alone.
It was one of those cruel realities of life. John and I had spent many years together and we knew one of us would more than likely pass away before the other, but it was still hard to believe it had actually happened to me.
It happened to my mother. She survived 37 years of widow hood. Now it was my turn.
I was alone.
God help me.
Lord, give me strength for each day. I knew the God who looked after my mother for all those years would also look after me."
It's with these words that Grandma Enns chose to start her memoirs. Nearly every person that I've shown her story to has teared up on page one. And that's only part of her tremendous story.
My wife, Susan and I, marveled at the part of the story where Grandma finds out she's having a baby - when she already has a 2 year old and 5 month old twins keeping her busy.
Somehow she managed to do it without the Internet, Starbucks, or a microwave.
You'd never know the hardships she endured by the joy and love she showed to everyone she encountered.
God did give her strength for each day, as He does for each of us on this day.
]]>
It's sad news because it's likely due to health issues getting too bad to be able to carry on. Definitely thinking of him and his family at this time.
]]>Phew. Said it. Now I have to do it.
First off, this means that I’ll no longer be working at YasTech Developments. I’ve been working with Michael for almost exactly 2 years and it’s been a great pleasure to work alongside him on all the different projects that came across our desks. I learned a lot about running a small business, having employees and communicating with clients from Michael and I owe him a great deal of thanks for that.
I’ve heard others say that once you’ve run your own business you’re ruined for working for others. And while there’s obviously exceptions to that rule, I can say that the little taste I had of working for myself just before starting at YasTech left me wanting to do it again. I knew it was going to be a matter of when, not if, that I would need to return to Lemon Productions full-time. And while it’s hard to leave the security, familiarity and comfort of a job you’ve been in for the unknowns of your own business - it really feels like this is the right time to take the leap.
I keep saying “I”, when really it’s “we”.
My wife, Susan, and I have spent many days and nights thinking, discussing, praying, arguing and discussing some more all the scenarios and options ahead. There is absolutely no way I will succeed with Lemon Productions without her support and I am very thankful to have such a loving, adventurous wife that is willing to travel this road with me.
There’s also friends and family that have supported me and listening to me ramble on, giving feedback and nodding in agreement when I go on about how I’d like to do things. They don’t all know it yet, but they’re being pulled along with me on this journey because without their support, we won’t make it either.
The core of Lemon Productions can be summed up with the tagline on the website:
Solving Your Online Problems
I love to help people get stuff done online. Helping a small business setup their website, social media efforts on Twitter and Facebook, email marketing campaigns. I like to see people’s eye’s light up when they realize the potential of what their website can do for them. Setting up an e-commerce section on someone’s website so they can sell the work of art they’ve created is an awesome experience.
Another aspect is media creation. I enjoy making small, short videos that help explain your business, app, website or solve a problem you’re having with your employees. Video is a great way to show and tell what you’re trying to get across to someone.
In short, I want to take the difficulty out of using the internet for your business or creative endeavour.
I feel itās imporĀtant to not only define what you do, itās also imporĀtant to know what you donāt do. Thereās only so many hours in a day/āweek/āmonth and I want to make sure I make the best use of that time for me perĀsonĀally, as well as for my clients. Often when a perĀson hears that you ābuild webĀsitesā, they just assume that since you work on a comĀputer you must also love to supĀport them.
Lemon ProĀducĀtions is not an IT supĀport comĀpany. Thereās plenty of comĀpaĀnies who will come out and trouĀbleshoot your WinĀdows Vista netĀwork conĀnecĀtion issues or figĀure out why your email passĀword isnāt workĀing. I can help you find a good one to work with.
Itās not that I donāt enjoy helpĀing peoĀple solve their probĀlemsāāāitās just that I enjoy helpĀing peoĀple solve their online probĀlems more. A focused busiĀness knows who itās potenĀtial clients are just as much as it knows who they arenāt.
All that being said, if youāre not sure if I can help you or not, donāt be afraid to ask. If itās not someĀthing I can help you with, Iāll be happy to work with you to find someĀone that can.
One aspect of Lemon Productions that I hope to be able to continue to grow is the creative projects that I build out myself or with others. One of those projects is SSKTN, a podcast network that I have been slowly building. Talking with people about technology, marketing and business is a great way for me to learn about my industry and I enjoy providing a resource for others to learn from through new media efforts such as podcasting.
Through sponsorship and advertising opportunities, I hope to be able to partially support Lemon Productions with podcasting on SSKTN, but more on that at a later date.
Thanks for reading this far. I really, really appreciate it.
If you’d like to help, you can recommend my services when you hear someone asking questions such as:
Thanks again for reading. Feel free to subscribe to my Lemon Productions blog for marketing and business articles, follow on Twitter for quick thoughts and tips/tricks, or like on Facebook because it’s what everyone does.
]]>Enter Timing - Time Tracking for Humans. Timing is a Mac App that constantly runs in your menu bar and tracks the amount of time you spend using anything and everything you use on your Mac. And when I say everything - it is literally everything. Not just the app you're using, but what particular aspect of that app you're using.
For example, within Safari you can drill down and see what web pages you have open and how long you spent on each web page:
You can see that I spent 7 minutes in Safari, the majority of which was at my blog while writing this entry. Over time, I can tell how much time I've spent writing at my blog and more easily tell whether it's worth my time and energy to write here. [ref]Disregarding the fact that I enjoy the writing, however much time I spend doing it.[/ref]
I'm not looking forward to seeing how often I've checked the Twitter app.
It's also on sale for 50% off for a limited time so now is the time to pick it up.
(Links to both of today's app posts are via Shaw Blanc's fabulous blog at shawnblanc.net. You can blame him if you, like me, are out $20 today.)
]]>I've used a free tool for a while called GrandPerspective which certainly works - but it's nowhere near as nice looking or as nice to use as DaisyDisk.
DaisyDisk is great for finding out where all the space is going on your hard drive. For example, I had no idea that I had 60+ gigabytes in podcasts stored on my computer that I didn't need to keep around.
These kind of apps are especially useful as more and more people are switching their primary storage to something smaller instead of larger. With SSD drives becoming the norm in laptops like Apple's MacBook Air, you need to make sure you're doing a better job of managing all the data on your computer - at least if you're a digital pack rat like I am.
It's on sale for 50% off right now in the Mac App Story and if that isn't enough reason to convince you to pick up a copy, what app have you used that has a preference to show a congratulatory note if you delete more than 5GB of stuff off your hard drive?
]]>As Marco Arment states in his review of the game, it's probably not the best way to learn how to play the game if you haven't ever played it before. But it is a great way to try different strategies or play with one other person on a rainy day at the lake while your kids are hopefully sleeping.
]]>When ill health forced Andre to largely quit wrestling in the late ā80s, he accepted the role of Fezzik in Rob Reinerās movie The Princess Bride. Everyone on the set loved the big man, with the possible exception of Reiner himself. Ever the sociable fellow, he kept fellow cast members Mandy Patinkin and Carey Elwes out night after night, drinking and otherwise goofing around. The actors were incapable of matching Andreās intake, but certainly gave it a serious try. As a result, they often showed up on set still loaded or suffering from the sort of hangovers that make death seem a pleasant alternative. Reiner tried to get Andre to leave the actors alone, but Andre could only be Andre, and the other cast members continued to pay the price.
The shooting schedule required Andre to be in England for about a month. When his part wrapped, Andre checked out of his suite at the Hyatt in London and flew back to his ranch in North Carolina. His bar bill for the month-long stay?
Just a shade over $40,000.
From drunkard.com
Link via americanmccarver.com
]]>Interesting timing as we were just talking about introverts and extroverts with friends on the weekend. A friend had read the book, The Introvert Advantage: Making the Most of Your Inner Strengths, and so naturally we were analyzing each other - particularly our spouses. [ref]I'm married to an extrovert so I'm quite familiar with the arguments involved.[/ref]
It is interesting to note that, at least in my circles, most of the people that are critical of technology and the terror and horror it brings to society could also be classified as extroverts. [ref]There is plenty of things to be concerned about when technology is used without any thought and having critical thinkers question new technologies is something we definitely need in our culture.[/ref]
I find it freeing to realize that, at least in part, some of the reasons why I enjoy using some of these tools to communicate is because it is more natural for me.
For introverts like myself, it takes energy to engage with other people. Doing so requires thoughtfulness. It's tiring. Expending energy, for us, isn't energizing. Please note: we're not talking about shyness, some character flaw. The problem isn't with the introvert -- it's with the demands you make on the introvert. An introvert can't force an extrovert to sit quietly in a room and read a book, but extroverts (and the stigmas they've inadvertently created) can impose social demands with ease.
It's often the extroverts who actually have more trouble controlling their use of technology to communicate - they're the ones head down into their phones or laptops when others are talking around them because they can't risk the chance that they'll miss out on something being said by someone. An introvert knows it's not worth the energy or time to try to keep up with every conversation and if something is really important, it'll bubble up to the top.
Original article link via minimalmac.com
]]>One item in the fine print is that you must submit your request within 30 days of your original purchase.
]]>Instagram is free on the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch devices.
]]>What's Thunderbolt? From Apple's page on Thunderbolt:
Thunderbolt I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gbps of throughput in both directions. That makes Thunderbolt ultrafast and ultraflexible. You can move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 and up to 12 times faster than with FireWire 800. You also have more than enough bandwidth to daisy-chain multiple high-speed devices without using a hub or switch. For example, you can connect several high-performance external disks, a video capture device, and even a display to a single Thunderbolt chain while maintaining maximum throughput.
New cables and adapters for everyone! Rejoice!
]]>At the price it's offered for, it's a no brainer to do the upgrade. I haven't done it yet because I haven't done a proper backup of my machine (you do backup your Mac, right?) but will be buying the upgrade as soon as that's done.
Even better for those of you with more than one Mac - as long as they're all using the same Mac App Store account, you can install the same Lion upgrade on all the machines. One thing you'll need to do before you buy the upgrade is run Software Update as there's a Migration Assistant update that is needed to help transfer all your data to the new OS. (Click on the Apple in the top left corner, click Software Update and install the upgrades)
If you'd like to support what I'm doing on this blog and are going to be buying Lion anyway, I'd really appreciate if you clicked the link above or the Mac App Store button below to buy your copy of Lion. I'll get a few bucks that would otherwise go into Steve Jobs' pocket to help pay for the server widgets that run this site.
]]>Apple's support page for Lion Recovery
One item of note is how to reinstall your iLife applications after a restore of Lion. You can just download them from the Mac App Store if Lion came pre-installed on your Mac. Here's how:
Slick. No more worrying about where your iLife disc is in some drawer you haven't cleaned out in years.
Well not quite 10 million words - but it is 20 internet pages long.
Pour yourself a cup of coffee or your favourite liquor and start reading.
]]>Apps from the Mac App Store may be used on any Macs that you own or control for your personal use.
See also:
If I have already downloaded an app from the Mac App Store, can I redownload it for free?
Yes. You can redownload apps from the Mac App Store as long as the app remains available. You may be asked to enter the Apple ID and password you initially used to download the app.
The key is to use the same Mac App Store account/login on all your computers. Then you can download and install apps on all your computers, regardless of which one you bought the application on.
So what are you waiting for, go forth and upgrade!
]]>Add an event in just two quick taps. See how full your week or day is at a glance. It works with the built-in iPhone calendar but itās faster.
In Apple style, they re-wrote it from the ground up. It looks great and I am loving the new gesture support for navigating your way around the app. Pick it up from the App Store for only $1.99.
Still not convinced? Read Ben Brooks full review and then decide.
]]>Shaw is apparently launching a competing movie service to what Netflix is doing - watch streaming movies on your TV or computer, with tablet and phone support coming later.
Where the spitting comes in is that the movies Shaw is going to offer through their Movie Club won't count against your monthly download cap, whereas movies you watch on Netflix would. If you go over your download cap, you would pay an overage fee for exceeding your download limit for that month.
So why should you care? Because, in short, Shaw is making the internet suck. It wants to turn your internet from the awesome experience where you have unlimited choice and can try any service that is out there, into the experience of cable, where your choice is limited to the channels they choose to offer you. Today they'll favour their movie service as opposed to (the much better) Netflix service. But tomorrow they may decide... hey you are using Skype instead of our telephone service, people who use "our skype" will get cheaper access than people who use skype. Shaw is effectively applying a tax on new innovative and disruptively cheap service on the internet so that you don't use them. They are determining - through pricing - what you can and cannot do with your computer while elsewhere in the world, people will be using cool new disruptive services that give them better access to more fun content, for cheaper. Welcome to the sucky world of Canada's internet.
eaves.ca The Audacity of Shaw: How Canada's Internet Just Got Worse
I completely agree with David's comment later on, referring to an earlier post of his, stating that "we need to get the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) out of the business of delivering content." Shaw's internet division should have no connection, in a business sense, to their TV division.
Original link to article via @timbray
]]>Writer has no graphical settings or formatting features. It avoids all distracting glitz in the user interface and puts all the beauty in the shape of the text. It uses an interactive logic that helps you concentrate, find your orientation and express yourself. For the iPad version we also added Dropbox synchronization, punctuation and arrow keys.
Apparently all the cool kids are using it. One of the unique features is 'Focus Mode':
Focus Mode blurs out everything except the current three lines of text you are working on. The idea is to activate it when you get stuck, blinding out everything else.
I don't have an iPad and am tempted to buy it on sale for if/when I do get an iPad.
]]>Just about every person I've heard who's bought a MacBook Air has claimed it to be the best Mac they've ever owned.
]]>Timezone Update: It is, in fact, past 12am UTC in pretty much every part of the world now so the deal is over. But the theme recommendations stay the same!
Use coupon code "HAPPYBIRTHDAY" to get a deal of 5 for 1 themes and 30% off in celebration of their 3rd birthday.
Some of my favourite themes include:
Whether you get their special deal or not, WooThemes is one of the premiere WordPress theme developers and I always look at their themes first for any project I'm working on for myself or a client.
]]>If there's anything that could convince my friend Darren to buy an iPad and embrace his inner Trekkie, this could be it.
Via ShawnBlanc.net
]]>I'd hold off on buying a copy of Achtung Baby or Zooropa since there's remastered/repackaged versions of those albums coming out this year.
]]>Capture starts recording as soon as you launch the app and stops when you press the home button. Your video gets added to the default Camera Roll just like the native Camera app. Slick.
]]>It's like what a lot of apps have built into them for their own windows, but this is system wide. So you can have a Safari window split screen with a note taking application for research, or like what I'm doing: a blog post window on the left with the source website on the right. Managed with either a menubar icon or shortcut keyboard commands.
Plenty of apps out there that do this. However, DoublePane is free for July 4th.
Pick it up in the Mac App Store for $0.00 today.
]]>After the song, Bono sends him away with his custom built Gretsch tele. A beautiful guitar and an amazing experience for this fan.
Depending on when you view this, U2's collection is on sale in the iTunes music store.
]]>True North, the corporation which bought the Thrashers, did not buy the name rights so they had to come up with a new name for the team. There was much controversy and gnashing of teeth prior to the official announcement. The people wanted their beloved Jets back. Which at first I thought was weird. I mean, imagine youāre dating this girl named Darleen and you really love her and she leaves you. Then years later you meet a girl thatās similar to Darleen and you fall in love with her and she says sheāll move in with you. You say āOK, but change your name to Darleen.ā
That was my first reaction, at least. But the more I thought about it the more I realized why it was the right thing to do. Remember when you used to scream out Darleenās name during sex? How good would it feel to do that again? Even if the sex wasnāt that great sometimes? Even if this isnāt Darleen but someone who sort of looks like her?
]]>So Iām happy to see the name Winnipeg Jets back in action. Iām happy for the city, for the hockey fans and for people like me who are stuck in the past and wish everything old was new again. Now if we could just get the Devils to move back to Colorado, Dallas to head back to Minnesota as the North Stars, give Hartford back their Whalersā¦there are so many cities that would love to call Darleenās name out again.
Failing that, I might take a trip to California for a weekend sometime soon and pick one up.
]]>Possibly the last update before Lion comes out in July. And possibly the last time you update your OS this way - from now on it'll likely be through the Mac App Store.
]]>I won't go into great detail on the speakers and/or sessions other than to say that they were better than I expected. With this being the first time MosoConf was held and being a locally organized conference, I didn't have my hopes too high. Not that I didn't think the people involved wouldn't put on a great conference - it's just hard to get quality people out your first go around. But they certainly did. Check out the list of speakers on the MosoConf site. Interesting people abounded who were there to speak and hold un-panels: people up on stage talking about a topic with an open mic to the audience to join in.
Perhaps it's because I've been staring at a computer monitor in a room by myself on a daily basis for the last few months, but even more than the speakers I really enjoyed the teeny-tinny bit of chatting and interacting (the business term would be networking but that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little) I got to do with other people in my profession.
A few highlights for me:
That's a quick snapshot of the conference from my perspective. Congratulations to all involved in MosoConf 2011 and thanks for all the hard work you put in to make it happen. I'm already looking forward to next year.
It's pretty incredible that Apple is pushing this out through the App Store and at such a low price. For perspective, when I worked in retail we sold the Final Cut Studio at $699 for education customers - regular retail pricing was well over $1,000 - and it came with 5 or 6 DVDs that you had to install.
This is a major rewrite of these applications, not just a feature release, so it's not like Apple is just pushing out a little upgrade at little to no cost to them in terms of development costs. I guess now that they've cut out all the people in the middle, Apple can sell directly to the consumer at significant savings.
Now I just need a new video project to come along and justify the upgrade for me!
]]>"I forgot to say Happy Father's Day!" and gave me a hug.
Which wasn't completely true as he had said "Happy Father's Day" on more than one occasion.
He then started digging into his pocket and pulled out an individual Peanut Butter Cup mini for him and myself. Nicely squished and slightly melted.
I haven't had a better tasting Peanut Butter Cup treat in my life.
]]>In my former life as an employee at the University Computer Store it was always a popular promo that helped move a ton of Apple hardware.
]]>It's similar to when the iTunes Music Store first launched in the U.S. It took close to 2 years (don't have the exact time in front of me) for it to launch in Canada due to all the licensing issues.
It comes down to money and the record labels wanting a little extra piece of a pie they no longer really need to be getting a part of anymore.
Via @nheagy
]]>iMessage will replace the existing Messages app and by default will attempt to use iMessage first when sending a SMS style message and only if the other person isn't on a iOS based device will it use SMS as a backup sending method.
Helps create lock-in to Apple's iOS devices and cuts out the carriers from SMS charges. But I'd sooner be locked (and I use that term loosely) into Apple than a cellular carrier. Apple has routinely demonstrated that they have their users interest very close to their heart.
Cellular carriers? I'm pretty sure they'd gut your heart out and try and charge you a service fee for putting it back in before you drop dead.
]]>Make sure you're running the latest version, 10.3.x, by running Software Update and updating iTunes to whatever is the most current version. Then hit up iTunes preferences and look for this screen:
Where there's a black bar above, you'll see your account name/email address. Check off Apps and/or Books if you'd like them to be automatically downloaded to all your devices from the cloud.
You can also look for the same setting on your iOS device (iPhone, etc.) in Settings -> Store:
At present it doesn't look like music can be automatically downloaded unless your account is in the US due to licensing issues. Hopefully that can be resolved by the time iOS 5 ships this fall.
]]>I agree with his main premise - AirPlay mirroring is a bigger deal than Apple made it out to be in the keynote. Once people wrap their heads around this one, Apple will sell a ton of AppleTVs and iPads.
]]>So if your iPhone, AppleTV or other shared computer(s) play a song, the play count goes up. Great for stats nerds like me who lost sleep over the fact that play counts weren't getting updated previously.
]]>At the start of the conference is a keynote speech, typically given by Steve Jobs and other executives. This year, there was three areas of focus for the keynote:
It'll only be $29.99USD through the Mac App Store, but you'll need to be running at least Snow Leopard (10.6.x) in order to upgrade. Full details of what kind of processor your Mac needs and other details are available on Apple's website.
There are 250 new features listed for Lion, but the big ones to me are:
This is already available to users of Snow Leopard (10.6.x). A simple and easy way to buy new apps ("In my day, we called 'em applications and you had to go to the re-tail store to buy 'em with your real money! Walking uphill there AND back! Now get off my lawn you iPhone toting hippies!). The big news here is that Lion will only be available through the Mac App Store for only $29.99USD. So there won't be a box to go buy at the store, you'll just click a button and it will download the 4GB OS and upgrade your system on the spot.
Pretty slick. But I feel for all the System Admin nerds that have to try and maintain this for a University lab or office setup. I'm sure Apple will announce some sort of server distribution system for them. (Update: Or burn a boot disc?)
A feature borrowed from iOS, applications will no longer prompt to save documents you're working on - they'll just do it for you in the background. And on top of that, they'll save versions of the document so you can go back and undo an edit if you want. This, combined with Apple's already in use Time Machine backup system, which you are already doing of course, will save more than a few phone calls to tech support.
The success of the iPhone/iPad has shown Apple the way forward is not with a keyboard and mouse. And Lion is going to bring touch and gestures even more to the forefront.
It works great already on a MacBook Pro but it remains to be seen how people will adapt to using it on a desktop. Apple sells a Magic Trackpad that is designed to bring Multi-Touch to desktops - but I can't see the average user giving up their mouse until Apple decides to stop bundling them with iMacs and Mac Pros and force the issue.
The latest and greatest operating system for the world's most popular phone gets "more than 200 new features", so for those keeping track at home, there's still more new stuff for OS X/Mac than for iOS/iPhone. Apple's still committed to the Mac.
Here are my favourite new features coming to iOS:
Apple is finally cutting the cord. This is something Google has had for awhile on their Android phones - but Apple is certainly improving on it with the addition of iCloud. You no longer need to have a Mac to setup your iPhone/iPad out of the box. You'll be able to type in your App Store username and password and download all the Apps and music right to the device over wifi without ever having to touch iTunes again.
It's no secret that Apple's notification system has been pretty poor on iOS. It was good enough for the first few versions of iOS, but by the time version 3 and 4 came out with little to no improvement people were starting to wonder. If your iPhone is locked and you have a notification of a phone call and something else, say a SMS message, once you unlock your iPhone the notification is gone and you have no way of seeing what the notifications were.
In iOS 5 you'll be able to swipe down from the top and see all the notifications displayed in a Apple style interface. Very nice and much needed.
At first glance, this one doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But what Apple is doing is attempting to cut the cellular phone carriers (Rogers, Sasktel, Telus, etc. here in Canada) out of the revenue they're getting from SMS/texting charges. Similair to RIM's Blackberry Messenger, iMessage will be a way for owners of iPhones, iPod touches and iPads to send text, video and photos to each other for free.
I'm guessing this is a bigger deal in the States because most people I know with iPhones don't have an additional SMS plan added - though I'm sure those with teenagers will appreciate it.
According to John Gruber, the cellular carriers found out about iMessage the same time as everyone else did.
Buy an AppleTV for a HDTV and along with your iPad 2, you've got the modern whiteboard. Display whatever is on your iPad 2 on the HDTV wirelessly through the AppleTV. As I linked to previously, this is going to be a big deal once people, and particularly educators, wrap their head around the possibilities.
Apple is adding a to-do list app to iOS 5. Nothing too groundbreaking there. Except that they've built in location aware to-dos. So, for example, you can set up a location like your office and have your iPhone notify you when you leave that location to remind you to pick up some milk on the way home. Or when you arrive at a certain store, get a reminder to buy AA batteries for your Magic Mouse.
It's similar to what's built into OmniFocus for iPhone (App Store link), only it'll come baked into the OS.
The Camera app is also getting a refresh. You'll now be able to use the camera right from the lock screen so you no longer have to swipe, type in your passcode, tap the Camera app, wait for it to load, and then hope your kid hasn't moved on to something more interesting than what you were going to take a picture of. They're also adding the ability to press the volume-up button as a shutter - something that I'm sure the makers of the Camera+ā (App Store link) app are none too pleased to see after their app was pulled from the store for months because Apple told them they couldn't add that feature to their camera app.
iCloud is Apple's next big thing and will likely set the direction of the company. Your music, photos, apps, calendars, documents wirelessly pushed to all your devices - Macs, iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. With 5GB of storage included for free. It certainly looks like the real deal and so long as it doesn't suffer the same syncing issues MobileMe has, Apple will certainly have a hit on their hand with the current users of their software and hardware.
It may seem gimmicky and of the moment (everything's moving to the cloud, right) - but the Apple pundits are falling all over themselves to proclaim this as the thing we'll remember 10 years from now. I don't doubt it is a big deal and it sure makes for a good turn of phrase, but 10 years is a long time. In hindsight I'm sure it'll seem so natural and obvious that we'd be moving everything out to the cloud/internet rather than relying on our local computer's hard drives.
10 years ago Apple introduced iTunes and shortly after, the first iPod. We'll see if iCloud has the same impact on Apple and the tech world as the iPod did.
]]>Great concert. Only spoiled by drunken idiots for parts of it. Full writeup coming when I can hear again.
]]>At the moment, itās costing them $1.43 to make $1, and it doesnāt look like itās getting any cheaper. Theyāre already projected to make close to three billion dollars in revenues this year. If you canāt figure out how to make money on three billion in revenue, when exactly will the profit magic be found? Ten billion? Fifty billion?
At one point, didn't companies have to actually make money before people would throw their own hard earned cash into cahoots with them on the stock market? Just because a company is online, it doesn't mean that their profits have to be virtual as well.
]]>Via this tumblr from their show in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada last night.
]]>iA Writer has no preferences. It is how it is. It works like it works. Love it or hate it. Itās unique FocusMode allows me to think, spell and write at one sentence at a time. iA Writer is fast; it works without mouse. It automatically formats semantical entities such as headlines, lists, bold, strong, block quotes written in markdown.
Check out the video preview and then check out iA Writer in the Mac app store. It's 10% off for a limited time. They also make a version of iA Writer for the iPad.
]]>It comes with the original game map and has the Europe, Switzerland and USA 1910 maps available as in-game purchases. It looks like they have a launch week promotion where you can get all the expansions for $0.99 each. You can play solo against up to 4 AI players, or online via the iPadās WiFi or 3G connection.
]]>Someone had shot at me while I was doing dishes. With a paintball gun Apparently our new neighbourhood didn't like men doing dishes. Or at least that was my solid logic.
That was four years ago and I'm happy to say that we were never shot at again, paintball or otherwise.
It's with more than a little bit of sadness that we are packing up our house this week and moving on. As much as I've complained about squeaky floors and other issues with a 1949 era house, this has also been our first real house.
Both of our boys were born here and it's all they've known home to be. And while they (at least our nearly 4yr old anyway) are excited about āthe new houseā it's still sad to see it go.
This has turned into more of a trip down memory lane than I intended so I'll stop for now. But as I stand in our kitchen typing out this post on my iPhone, I was reminded of that window and that it took me nearly four years to get it fixed. Mainly so that we could sell our house. Because who's going to buy a house that looks like it's been shot? Paintball or otherwise.
I am looking forward to our new neighbourhood and am curious to see what the reaction to a guy doing dishes there will be.
]]>I wish there was a paperback version instead of just Ebook/online because I know if I buy an Ebook version it will just sit on my hard drive/iPad and never actually get read.
]]>Via @missrogue
]]>Which you shouldn't install/run/give your password to/etc.
Via @squaredeye.
]]>Any computer system is only as secure as the person using it. If you're willing to put your admin password in (required before you can install/run something like this) then there's not much that can be done.
Bottom line: Don't ever install programs from a company or website you don't trust.
Second bottom line: BACKUP!
]]>]]>When I was ten years old, I started watching
stand up comedians on TV.I fell in love with them and I'm just as fascinated
with stand up comedy today.When I started doing TV, I saved every appearance
on every show I did.I thought it might be fun to go through all of it
and pick out three bits each day that still
amuse me for some reason or another.I've also included stuff I'm doing now, and I'll be
adding new stuff as I go.Somewhere out there are ten year olds
just waiting to get hooked on this strange pursuit.This is for them.
I'm just hoping somehow it will keep this silliness going.
Also seems like one of those apps that you spend more time fiddling with rather than just doing the thing you were using the application to allow you to do.
]]>The Osama thing is Interesting, but I'm shocked to find out teenagers use Yahoo.
]]>I'm very glad I get to vicariously buy a few of these for a client later this summer.
]]>Buy the single or her album, 21. (iTunes affiliate link)
]]>I really want RIM to succeed, both as a Canadian company but also due to the fact that Apple does it's best work when it's being pushed by competition - but RIM is falling very quickly.
]]>Via neatorama.com
]]>(Spec work is when an individual or a business asks you to do work for free in order to evaluate whether they want to hire you to do more of the thing they aren't willing to pay you for.)
]]>3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, itās maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phoneās location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.
That answers a question I had with my first generation iPod touch. I remember driving around and it would somehow still know roughly where I was when I pulled up the Map app, even though the first gen touch didn't have GPs/cellular/etc. to be able to pull that information down.
and
Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
ceases backing up this cache, and
deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
So conspiracy over. Go back to worrying whether Obama is a US citizen or not.
]]>MIN is a bookmarklet that will strip any decoration from a site. All color, borders and backgrounds are removed instantly, helping you identify the successful and unsuccessful uses of typography and layout.
Via owltastic.com
]]>It's hosted by Mike and Katie Gillum of Mule Design and they're two episodes in. Fear of Public Speaking and Never Work for Free.
Subscribed.
]]>One advantage to buying it way back when I did - the price is now $7.99 and I'm almost positive I didn't pay that much for it when I bought it. Free updates to original purchasers, even back from 2008. From the blog post announcing the update:
]]>Even if you bought it more than two years ago, youāll be able to run it on any of your current iOS devices. And at no point in time have you had a reason to regret buying Deep Green at a higher price, because it has stayed the same since after the short introductory period. If anything, price will increase as more features are added over time.
I like to think Iām immune from being influenced by technology such as this, but I know how naĆÆve that thought is.
I definitely noticed that I'd be much less inclined to quickly pull out my iPhone to check updates on Twitter at random moments throughout the day. I can't say that my time was used that much better because it really is a whole bunch of quick distractions throughout the day - as opposed to, for example, giving up TV for lent where you'll find whole blocks of time that you'd otherwise spend watching The Bachelor.
Not that I know anyone who does that.
I was also able to focus a lot more on blogging. Rather than quickly tweet about a thought, I'd have to spend a bit more time processing it and coming up with something more interesting to say than what I could spit out in 140 characters. I'm not sure if it was better for anyone else, but I certainly enjoyed the challenge of longer form writing again.
The main thing I've noticed in the day and half since turning my main Twitter account back on is how noisy it is. The retweets from people about topics I don't care about (you can remove those by looking for this icon), the location updates (people checking in on Foursquare or Gowalla, or people tweeting what a company tells them to in order to be entered into a contest.
I've turned off seeing RT's from most of the people I otherwise find interesting and I've un-followed folks who abuse the other examples too much.
It's not really. But for the stats nerds, here's where I was when I left Twitter for Lent:
Following 487 and 605 followers.
And now here's where I am after getting back on the Twitter train and kicking some folks off:
Following 378 and 601 followers.
You win some, you lose some.
As with many things in life, particularly in the technology realm, it's good to remove them for a period to be able to evaluate their worth and whether you really need to keep it around.
I'll continue to use Twitter, but will be trying to keep it's distracting ability to a minimum going forward by being strict about who/what I follow and by resisting the urge to quickly check for updates throughout the day.
]]>I guess you're waiting until Sasktel gets the iPhone too?
]]>Great games to play while recovering from eating a big meal with the family.
]]>WikiScoop, $4.99 in the Mac App Store (affiliate link)
]]>Or at least that's what you might hear on the evening news tonight.
The truth is far less interesting. Yes, the iPhone has some basic tracking data that it stores on where it's been. It's not GPS data that it stores, it's a rough location as best as it can tell by using triangulation from nearby cell towers. It can be miles off - or fairly accurate. Also, no one can get access to this information unless they can physically use your iPhone and/or computer that you sync your iPhone with. If they've got your computer and they're "bad people," you've got other issues on your hand than them knowing that you were at Subway last night.
And most importantly, it's a non-issue if you've checked this little box in iTunes under the iPhone preference pane:
I tried using the example software to grab the location data and it couldn't see it because it's encrypted.
It still is a freaky thing to hear and hopefully Apple sorts this out in a future software update. But I'd put a Grande Peppermint Mocha on Google/Android and other smartphone makers doing something very similar with their devices.
]]>Whereas we used to measure processor speed, RAM, and software the next great marketing battle is for power consumption, or lack thereof.
The only problem is:
We have been so used to crappy battery life for so many years, that now we freak out when a battery that lasts for 10 hours shows only 40% remaining (meaning 4 hours battery life left). Heās not alone, last night my iPhone 4 was at 10% battery life and I only had another 20 minutes before I went to bed ā yet the prospect of the battery reaching single digits before then was very unnerving.
10 hour battery life on the iPad 2. 5 hours of wireless web work on the MacBook Air and 30 days of standby. 7 hours of wireless web work on the MacBook Pro. Apple's definitely in a great position with all their research and innovation on the battery front - if it indeed is the next battleground.
]]>NSFW if you're not allowed to watch two turtles getting it on.
Via Swiss-miss.com
]]>Register to be sure you get one if you didn't already jump to Telus last year.
Hell hath frozen over and pigs can now fly.
]]>Via neatorama.com
]]>Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools, and the founder of the Central Asia Institute, a charity promoting education in Afghanistan, has been accused of mismanaging the charityās funds and lying about key events portrayed in the books.
More here at businessinsider.com and at cbsnews.com with the transcript of the 60 minutes piece, including this quote from author Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven):
He's not Bernie Madoff. I mean, let's be clear. He has done a lot of good. He has helped thousands of school kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan....He has become perhaps the world's most effective spokesperson for girls' education in developing countries. And he deserves credit for that...Nevertheless, he is now threatening to bring it all down, to destroy all of it by this fraud and by these lies.
Via blogs.com
]]>The bottom line is that Windows-only computer units are down 2.0% while OSX-based computer units are up 272% (this excludes both the iPhone and iPod touch).
Check out the chart on asymco.com. There's a reason a lot of Windows stats don't include iPads as a computer in their reports.
]]>The first is a new Twitter client from Tapbots called Tweetbot ($1.99, affiliate link) that is a lot of fun to use. I'm only using it on the @ssktn account to toot about new episodes. Certainly good to have an alternative to the official Twitter client.
The second is an SSH client (non-nerds can tune out at this point) called Prompt ($4.99, affiliate link) from Panic. I haven't used this one yet, but knowing the level of craftsmanship they put into their other applications (Transmit is the only FTP client you need) I have no doubt Prompt is going to be the best SSH client on an iOS device. Great that they include both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad version in the same app.
]]>I always thought these types of disclaimers in emails were dumb - you can't force someone to do something simply by the fact that you've emailed them something. Turns out I'm not the only one who thought so:
E-mail disclaimers are one of the minor nuisances of modern office life, along with fire drills, annual appraisals and colleagues who keep sneezing loudly. Just think of all the extra waste paper generated when messages containing such waffle are printed. They are assumed to be a wise precaution. But they are mostly, legally speaking, pointless. Lawyers and experts on internet policy say no court case has ever turned on the presence or absence of such an automatic e-mail footer in America, the most litigious of rich countries.
So get rid of yours if you have one. Put your contact information, cheesy slogan for your business, and favourite Tony Robbins quote, but don't fill it with legalese that doesn't do anything for you.
Via Daringfireball
]]>If you watch the videos posted by a user (part 1, part 2), you can hear the excitement from the actual editors (people who make real money doing this stuff for a living) when they see all the improvements Apple's made. Bonus Mac nerd points if you watch until the end when they give a standing ovation at the announcement of the price being only $299USD.
Plenty of features brought over from iMovie - both the Mac version and the iOS version for iPhone/iPad. Apple's clearly prepping their Mac applications for a future where touch is supported in OS X.
No mention of what's going to happen with Motion, Soundtrack Pro, or Color but you only have to look at what Apple has done with iWork and iLife to know that now that the Mac App Store is around, Apple can break apart their old bundles and just let people buy whichever applications they want. No DVDs to produce and boxes to ship and stock means they can allow customers to choose.
June can't come fast enough for anyone involved in video on the Mac.
----
DVD's and physical media clearly can't disappear fast enough for Apple, and so I wouldn't hold your breath for anything new from DVD Studio Pro. It'll likely be repackaged for one more trip around the track and then sent off to the showers.
Researchers asked 1,000 students at a dozen universities in ten countries on five continents to abstain from any kind of media consumptionāno TV, no smartphone games, no Twitter or Facebook, and no instant messagingāfor 24 hours, and then write about how they felt. A majority confessed that they actually couldn't complete the challenge.
I certainly feel the pull to be connected, but no where near the level that's described in this article from GOOD by Liz Dwyer. Giving up Twitter for lent hasn't been that hard, to be honest. I don't really miss it and am glad for the increased attention I'm able to give my kids, wife and real life without quickly flicking through Twitter to see what's happening.
These college students were born in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They didn't grow up with ubiquitous one-to-one school laptop programs, downloadable education apps for mobile phones and e-books instead of traditional textbooksāand they're uber addicted. What's going to happen to this current generation of media saturated kids when they get to college?
This kind of media addiction isn't nearly as looked down upon as TV was because there's the "social" component tacked onto it. If someone's texting, updating Twitter or FaceBook or watching a video their friend liked on YouTube - it's social and good because they're interacting. Whereas if they were sitting in front of a TV screen for that same amount of time, they'd be lazy and anti-social.
I would hope that there will come a backlash against the face down into your cell phone type, who can't hold a regular conversation. But I don't really see it coming yet from this generation. Maybe in the next generation?
Article via shawnblanc.net
]]>He presented to Boozer the newest and most cutting-edge recruitment tool that the Bulls, and several other NBA teams, had used: a decked-out iPad with a personalized app for the newly minted free agent, detailing how he would fit in with the Bulls if he would sign.
Turns out, as is typical when something new like this comes along, a lot of other teams used the same method:
]]>Boozer wound up having a stack full of iPads by the end of free agency.
Total: $2,035USD+tax.
Oh, and my 2 year old iMac is ok but this would be great, amiright?
Total: $6,415CDN+tax.
Le sigh
]]>You can hire someone from the 3rd world to "farm" for you, getting you more gold in the game while you sleep.
It turns out that in 2009 it was a $9 billion dollar industry
Tim Kelly, info Dev's Lead ICT Policy Specialist, said, "Some of the poorest people in the world are already connected to digital networks through their mobile phones. The study shows that there are real earning opportunities in the virtual economy that will become accessible as mobile technology develops. This could significantly boost local economies and support further development of digital infrastructure in regions such as Africa and southeast Asia."
Converting the Virtual Economy into Development Potential
The short term benefit of putting food on your table definitely outweighs the long term issues of basing your future on a virtual world - but it's certainly an interesting twist on supporting the economy of the 3rd world.
]]>He's not for the faint of heart, but he knows of what he speaks. And he occasionally uses a bad word (which you can probably tell by the freeze frame of the video). But he's got your (if you're in client services of some kind) best interests at heart. Plus, in the video below you can see that he's not really the jerk he likes to come across as in his blog or Twitter account.
This should be required viewing for anyone looking to enter into client services, particularly where there's creative work involved.
]]>You owe it to your children and your children's children to install this app and show them our history, our heritage, where we came from.
And then if you're really serious, pick up an iCade to plug your iPad into and show them how it was really played back in the day.
]]>Coffee Joulies work with your coffee to achieve two goals. First, they absorb extra thermal energy in your coffee when itās served too hot, cooling it down to a drinkable temperature three times faster than normal. Next, they release that stored energy back into your coffee keeping it in the right temperature range twice as long.
At $40 for a set of 5 Joulies, it's a bit too much for the amount of coffee I drink. But a coffee shop ordering a box of 20 sets of 5 Coffee Joulies for $500 would be a great way to set your shop apart from the competition. The hipsters would love it!
Via ShawnBlanc.net
]]>The dreaded question mark on the Mac display. The hard drive may be lost. Or maybe it's just a weird issue that can be fixed with a reboot/disk check. That's not the point. They said they may have some of their info backed up, but aren't sure. Luckily they're heading somewhere close to an Apple store for their holidays so they'll get great support there - but what about their data?
Say it with me: Computers are not perfect. Mac computers are not perfect. The hard drive in your computer will fail.
If you're on a Windows computer, I can't help you. I'm sure there's some sort of Backup wizard that you can use with only 10 clicks.
If you're on a Mac, you have no excuse. Time Machine is built in and will just start working if you plug a USB hard drive in. Buy a 1 TB Western Digital External USB Hard Drive for $70CDN (or a 1TB eSata/FW800/USB Lacie for $156 if you need something fancier - affiliate links there so I get rich on your purchases.. it's all a scam!)
I have little to no sympathy to people who lose their data these days. You really have no excuse to complain if $70 is too much to justify backing up all your photos, music and documents.
]]>Via kottke.org
]]>Still one of my favourite internet things to come along, and in a weird kind of way was part of my motivation for doing SSKTN.com.
]]>They also make an iPhone version.
]]>Obviously I didn't have the good sense to try and sell my invites on ebay.
Google still has the Invite a Friend box in Gmail:
Though I'm not sure why they put a limit on it when it's free to sign up for now.
]]>The web is littered with websites full of good intentions but terrible content - likely from 2002. I consistently hear from prospective and/or current clients a familiar phrase:
Jack, our receptionist, will be the one who'll update our website. He likes that kind of stuff. He loves to use MS Publisher to design our mail-outs so this shouldn't be too much different.
or
I'm going to make it a priority that everyone on our staff is going to send updates to Linda, my assistant, and she'll put them up on the website each week. I haven't talked to her yet about her workload, but we'll just make it happen because having a website is a priority!
Right. So much of a priority that you're going to tack it on to someone's job. Let's see how well that works out for you in a few weeks when Linda's regular job doesn't allow her to do anything but update the hours you're closed for a long weekend. Priority, indeed.
It's obviously a foreign concept to a lot of companies - but the good websites? The ones that consistently are updated and have great content? It's because there's someone (or a team of someones) who's full time job it is to curate, write and post content to the website. Or, in select cases, it's because there's someone at that company who is passionate about the web and knows the value of having great content and so goes above and beyond the job they were originally hired for to maintain the company blog.
Did you know there's a whole sub-industry of the web design industry devoted to content strategy? A quick google search will turn up a bunch of great resources, most pointing back in some way to Kritina Halvorson (i.e. book one, book two, A List Apart article).
Despite what many people seem to think, the hard part of a website is not the design and code. It's easy to pay someone $3,000 to build you a proper website. The hard part is maintaing that website and making sure it's content is interesting, well thought out and builds on the message your company or brand is about.
Don't call it a priority when it's not. You're lying to yourself and, more importantly, to your customers.
]]>Mr. Weiner has said he wants the show to continue, and AMC has pledged that it will definitely return, so the delay is largely due to a disagreement about money. As Mr. Weiner told Entertainment Weekly in January, apparently referring to AMC and Lionsgate, āThey are fighting over a very lucrative property, and who is going to pay for it to get made; itās one of the biggest perils of success ā everyone wants a piece of it now, and they are fighting over who is gonna get the biggest chunk.ā
Via kottke.org
]]>Still no official date given as to when the iPhone is coming. Sasktel just keeps teasing the poor folks with just enough information to keep them from jumping to Telus or Rogers.
Assuming Sasktel actually does come out with the iPhone sometime soon, June/July is the time of year when Apple has traditionally come out with a new model of iPhone. How would you feel having finally got your iPhone 4, locking in to a 3 year contract with Sasktel and less than 3 months later the iPhone 5, or whatever Apple decides to call it, comes out?
Sasktel should have been open from the beginning on what was going on, being realistic with announcements and release dates and trusted their customers to be smart enough and/or loyal enough to stick it out with them while they were negotiating to get the iPhone on their network.
Instead, they played it out as if they were Apple with this great new product that people were anxiously waiting for. But nobody has to wait for Sasktel, unless they're locked into a contract or work at a job that requires them to deal with Sasktel - Telus and Rogers have had the iPhone 4 since it was available (or shortly thereafter).
Sasktel link via iphoneincanada.ca
]]>By designing that first iMac in 1998 and its ever more sleek successors, then the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Ive has helped turn Apple Inc from an also-ran popular chiefly with designers into the second biggest company in the world, with a higher turnover than Google or Microsoft. He will receive Ā£15 million in Apple shares alone next year.
]]>Matt writes about the societal norms, or lack thereof, when it comes to use of these devices in public circles:
I am now, as in many cases, reminded of Wendell Berryās respect for the Amish in their insistĀence that all new techĀnoĀlogy must be evalĀuĀated through the quesĀtion of āhow will this impact our comĀmunity?ā Pocket comĀputers, when used indisĀcrimĀinĀately and outĀside of agreed-upon social norms, can defĀinĀitely be harmĀful to the posĀsibĀilĀity of being present to one another in community.
Spoiler alert: He decides to buy a real, honest to goodness notebook instead of pulling out his iPhone to jot down a thought.
I went through a similar bout of technological guilt and came home from a shopping trip with a new notebook. My problem is that I never have my notebook with me when I actually want to use it. Unlike my iPhone, which is usually in my pocket or somewhere nearby, I always leave my notebook in my laptop bag.
So I ended up with PlainText on my iPhone home screen. By turning off most notification/warnings from apps, I don't often get distracted while I turn on the iPhone and fire up PlainText.
Also, I'm impressed Matt lets his wife read early drafts of his posts. I can't even stand to be in the same room with my wife if she's reading my blog - never mind listening to a podcast I'm on.
]]>Actually, there was a lot customers could ask. First, why in the world do you need yet another way to heat food? Kitchens already have an oven and range, plus perhaps a toaster, waffle iron, or a grill on the back porch. And the coffee pot can keep coffee hot anyhow. Do you really need another oven? Plus, surely it wonāt work quite like an oven, or quite like a stove. Itās like something in the middle. How could we need that?
]]>As thanks for interviewing him for Welcome to the Internet, he sent me a copy of his tribute to The Sound of Music and I can attest to the quality of both the design and the print. Beautiful stuff.
Hit me up on the contact page with your details if you're interested.
Can you guess which poster finally pushed me over the edge to order something?
]]>This section is currently under contruction. Check back frequently for updates.
I like to imagine that there are people who then dutifully bookmark said website/page and actually check back frequently in the hope that there might be an update.
At least have the decency to put an animated under construction GIF on the page.
]]>Once installed, tap the microphone icon and simply speak the word or phrase you'd like to translate. It then brings back the translated text which you can then show to someone on your iPhone or press the speaker icon to have it speak the phrase for you. If you turn the phone to landscape mode, it gives you a large version of the text to make it easier to show someone:
You can save, or star, phrases that you use more often so that if you don't have a internet connection you can still use the app to communicate key phrases.
]]>There is a company that sells radar equipment to the police as well as radar detectors to the public. Clorox is one of the worldās worst polluters of water, and also sells Brita filters to get the bad stuff out of the water again. Lawyers create mazes that you have to hire a lawyer to escape. Similarly social software both creates and cures FOMO. If you didnāt know that party was going on, youād be home contentedly reading your latest New Yorker. But since you do, you hungrily watch each new tweet.
From an article posted by Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr. Via kottke.org
I always justified my use of Twitter for the social aspect of it as it relates to my work in web design and new media/podcasting, and there is certainly some of that that I miss.
It's certainly harder to find people to interview for Welcome to the Internet. I used to be able to just scan through my Twitter feed and quickly pick someone out that seemed interesting. Now I have to stumble upon a blog or website, read some of their posts (What?? More than 140 characters?? That's too long!!) and send them an email to find out if they're interested in doing it. And then wait for a reply.
Who has time for that?
]]>Itās all about the writing and not at all about anything else, like my WordPress theme.
He seems to be missing the FaceSmashYourTwitter buttons to share the content, but I'm sure that's coming soon. (/sarcasm)
]]>For those of you who prefer to get your blog post notifications via Twitter, @chrisenns is your hook up. Assuming I plugged all the wires in correctly.
]]>And then there's a special place on the floor of the bathroom stall of Hell's Walmart for people who prey on those wanting to make donations to earthquake/tsunami relief for Japan.
Crooks have also registered a large number of domains with URLs that may fool users into thinking that they're legitimate donation or relief sites, said Patil, a tactic that can also push those sites higher on search results. Patil said that Symantec spotted more than 50 such domains within hours of last week's earthquake and ensuing tsunami, all with the words "Japan tsunami" or "Japan earthquake" in their URLs.
Apple has setup a donation page in iTunes that allows you to donate directly to the American Red Cross. You can also donate at the Canadian Red Cross.
]]>]]>To turn on HTTPS, go to your settings and check the box next to āAlways use HTTPS,ā which is at the bottom of the page. This will improve the security of your account and better protect your information if youāre using Twitter over an unsecured Internet connection, like a public WiFi network, where someone may be able to eavesdrop on your site activity. In the future, we hope to make HTTPS the default setting.
It's not going to win any academy awards - but it's crazy to think what's possible with a device that slides into your pocket. Shoot HD video, edit it, add titles, and then upload it to the internet or email it to a friend.
While in some ways it's more frustrating trying to do the edit on a small screen as opposed to using a "real" computer - and my experience is on the smaller iPhone display. An iPad would make this much easier to do. On the other hand, in many ways it's much more intuitive. By being able to use my fingers to drag in/out points around and just touch what I want to change, iMovie for iOS gets the interface out of the way and lets me edit the content directly.
With a computer you have to figure out how to use a mouse with 2 or more buttons, and some sort of scrolling mechanism. Plus you still have to figure out the interface of the program you're using. On an iPhone/iPad (or any modern touch device), the mouse is taken out of the equation. You still have to learn the interface for the particular application you're using, but there's no worry about using a mouse and trying to correlate that to onscreen actions.
You can be as jaded about technology and about Apple in particular, but it's pretty impressive how far we've come in the last few years.
]]>The same RSS subscription link should work (https://feeds.feedburner.com/mennoboy-chris) so you shouldn't have to update it.
More on the reasons behind the move later - for now I need to make sure all the bits and pieces made the transition properly.
]]>Direct link to video / www.looktel.com
Via Swiss-miss.com
]]>The one line bio:
Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin on productivity, communication, work, barriers, constraints, tools, and more.
Episode 7, Vocational Wheel, was just released.
]]>Go fail at something interesting, just for fun...
For work and for other projects (i.e. @ssktn, @lemonproduction) I only really use it as a promotional/notification tool so those will still be maintained, though I will un-follow nearly everyone that I presently follow with those accounts.
I'm kind of curious to see what will happen to a mostly dormant Twitter account in terms of followers. There's really no reason for someone to un-follow a quiet account. There's no limit of number of people you can follow. And likely if an account is quiet for a month, a lot of people won't really notice.
At midnight (or whenever I go to bed) tonight, I'll post a link to this blog post and then remove the @ichris account from the various Twitter clients on my Macs/iPhone so I'm not tempted to check in.
If you haven't already, I'd also recommend you visit the notifications tab in your Settings on Twitter and set it like so:
Why do you need to be notified that someone is following you? These days it's more often than not a bot/spammer. If it's a friend then you'll figure it out pretty quickly because friends converse with you, right?
For those of you reading this via RSS, you may have noticed that this appeared last week around this time. Miscommunication between myself, my wife and my brain amounted to me getting a week ahead of myself. Sorry if I caused anyone else any confusion!
Less email FTW.
]]>Does no one think of these things in a company the size of Motorola? And didn't anyone at Google give them a heads up that this might not be a good idea?
It took them a year to come out with their answer to the iPad - right around the time Apple is set to announce the next generation iPad.
]]>Via Neatorama
]]>Via Neatorama
]]>My current iPhone 4 home screen layout. Now that folders are in iOS, It's a bit more difficult to show which apps I use on a consistent basis.
Previously:
]]>From the description on the site:
In the time it takes to read this page, millions of power cords for mobile phones, iPads, and notebooks will slide off nightstands, side tables, and desks and fall to the ground. The global frustration created by this phenomena cannot be overestimated. This problem deserves an elegant solution.
$25 gets you one, $60 gets you three (one of which is red). Add $10 for outside U.S. shipping.
]]>The little kid playing the part of Vader does it perfectly.
]]>This is serious attention to detail. Itās not something people will show off to each other on the bus, or something that you can put on an advert or trumpet on a feature list. It just makes the app a bit quieter and a bit more well behaved. The addition of this extra detail has made the app less visible than if the detail wasnāt there. Lovely.
How the iPhone mail app decides when to show you new mail.
Via Daring Fireball
]]>Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It's one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men's shirt buttons on the right and women's on the left. Every major style guideāincluding the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Styleāprescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.) Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren't for a quirk of history. In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technologyāthe manual typewriterāinvaded the American workplace. To accommodate that machine's shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do. (Also see the persistence of the dreaded Caps Lock key.)
So to sum up the article, it's proper to use one space. Not as an opinion or if you feel like it - but it's the way it's supposed to be. Just like you're not supposed to use comic sans or have sixteen different fonts in twenty five different sizes and colours, you don't need to have two spaces after a period.
Period.
]]>There's an article on WPMU.org making the rounds entitled "Why You Should Never Search for Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else" that walks through the reasons why you probably don't want to use some random theme.
The main issue is hidden and disguised links back to some spammer, virus, spyware type site that helps them build their rank in Google because the more sites that use their "free" theme, the more links they have back to their site, which in turn, tells Google to rank that site higher. (That's a simplified explanation of how it works.)
If you've ever heard of someone saying that "their website got hacked" and they are running WordPress, 99% of the time it's their own fault because:
Here's where I'd recommend getting a WordPress theme:
MIght not seem like a huge deal, but as I post this it's 9:15 a.m. and downloads of the various episodes have surpassed the busiest day ever on SSKTN.
]]>After a reboot you'll have a new app icon sitting in your dock.
Initial thoughts: I can't wait until the next piece of software I need to help my dad install and I can just send him a link and say "buy this." Definitely makes life much easier to buy and install applications on a Mac.
Recommended first apps: Twitter for Mac is free, The Incident is a great little game that I play on the iPhone as is Angry Birds. The really great thing is now you can buy individual apps within Apple's iLife and iWork suite - so iPhoto is only $14.99 and you don't have to get iMovie or Garageband if you don't ever use them.
]]>Specifically, itās going to be to try to limit the now-you-can-always-be-working! miracle of modern technology and, gulp, unplug for a while.
At the same time I'm going to be trying to grow my own business, keep experimenting with a podcast network thing that people look at me weird when I talk about and a myriad of other things I enjoy online.
Other New Year's Resolutions that may or may not be made/kept:
How's your 2011 going to look? What's your review of 2010?
]]>Assuming it's legit and does what it says, that is amazing. The app itself is free and then you buy the languages you want to translate for $5/each. (Each way that is. English to Spanish is $5, Spanish to English is $5.)
]]>My prediction: this will be played at many churches in an attempt to illustrate how hip to the internet said churches are when if you send them a message to their Twitter account, you'll never get a reply and if you click the button linking to their Flickr account on their website, they never setup a Flickr account - the button is only there because it was included in the free template they are using for their website.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Video via @stolteclan / Direct link to video
]]>I don't imagine it will last long - someone is going to complain about at least one of the movies featured, right?
Here's the list of movies referenced in case you want to watch some/all of them.
]]>But even better if you watch it in HD on Vimeo.
Via @Glen_Hansard of Swell Season fame.
]]>It's one of the best board game to video game adaptations I've ever played. And even though I routinely get trounced by everyone I play it with, I'd still highly recommend you pick up a copy.
]]>]]>Actually, most economistsāmake that all economistsādisagree with Shadegg. Give an unemployed person a dollar, and she tends to spend it, because she needs to. (By definition, she has no other source of income.) Give a rich person a dollar via a tax break, she tends to save it. (By definition, she has a lot of other assets.) Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's, has found that $1 in unemployment benefits generates $1.61 in economic activity. (That's the second most-stimulative form of government spending, behind food stamps.) A dollar in tax cutsānot just to the rich, but to everyoneāgenerates about 32 cents.
Real Madrid's defence is stretched out like spandex on Miami beach and Casillas is left naked.
Skip ahead to the 4 minute mark to hear it with enthusiasm:
]]>They are offering 5 themes for the price of 1, plus 20% off the price of that one theme. It ends up costing you $56 (USD I believe) for 5 themes if you use coupon code "BLACKPACKAGE" at checkout.
WooThemes is who I get most of my WordPress themes through and they do a quality job, not only on the design of the theme itself but also in how easy they make it to setup your website with a ton of options in the administration menu.
Here's a screenshot from their Canvas theme that I often use as a starting point:
So go check out their collection of themes and upgrade your blog to a new look. Then be sure to come back and leave a comment so I can check out your new site!
]]>All that to say - there's some really funny autocorrections on there, like this one:
]]>...because they grasp the fundamental art of making delicious foods with an attention to detail that makes each item perfect. Too many restaurants serve you something that should come with a sign saying, āgood enough.ā I get the sense that the good folks at Christieās donāt know what āgood enoughā means.
From Planet S Magazine's review of Chrisie's Il Secondo.
]]>Having recently been witness to the funeral of a veteran where the Legion honored their brother who had passed, it was a vivid reminder of the men and women who are living with the memory of war(s) in their lifetime.
Lest we forget.
Lest we forget.
I write articles complaining about how hard it is to get an iPhone, and other modern issues. And while one train of thought might suggest that a veteran might say āHow dare you complain?ā I have never felt that kind of attitude coming from any veteran I've talked with. There's none of the bitterness and cynicism that we all carry around with us today.
These people who risked their lives are happy to see us enjoy the freedoms they helped provide. It brings them joy. And all they ask is that once a year we put poppies on our shirts and pause to remember those that didn't get to see the joy they were providing, that didn't get to come home to a hero's welcome, and whose moms and dads had to open a letter telling them that their child wouldn't be coming back.
]]>A World War 2 veteran, an avid fan of curling and an even bigger fan of Unity, Saskatchewan, he will certainly be missed.
The funeral is in Unity this week.
]]>18 year old me is laughing so hard at how uncool I've become.
Current me is laughing at 18 year old me's haircut, glasses, and clothes.
]]>Who the heck dresses their kid up as Hitler?
#16 might be of interest to friends of ours who's son makes a face to go along with the costume.
]]>Follow along on their blog and read about what they are actually going to be doing.
]]>This is a screenshot from my iPhone making a video call (FaceTime in Apple speak) back to our iMac.
The iPhone is a device that is 9.93mm (0.37 inch) thin and you're able to make video calls on it. If that doesn't blow your mind think of where mobile/cell phone technology was 4 years ago before the iPhone came out. One of the most popular was a Motorola Razr. Give your head a shake and recognize how far we've come.
Right now FaceTime is limited to wifi (aka internet) connections between iPhones, iPod touches or Mac computers since to try and do it over the cellular data networks would require a level of contract negotiations that even Apple couldn't pull off right now. But it's only a matter of time.
(The iPhone isn't the only portable device to do this - it's just the first one that I've owned and that is this thin)
]]>Mumford & Sonsā music sounds authentic. There are no synths, no manufactured beats. It sounds like life. And last time I checked, weāre all human. Donāt you want something to touch your heart and soul? Great times are ahead. Acts like Mumford & Sons are leading the way. There are no rules. Practice, innovate, shoot for the stars. Do it your own way. Know that the audience is ready. Nothing touches people like music, no movie, no TV show, no Facebook wall. Get it right and people will bond to you forever. Mumford & Sons came to play last night. And so did the audience. Itās not about show, itās about communion, a relationship. The band wore no outfits, performed no stunts, they just played music. And that was enough. More than enough. Because itās not about what you see, but what you hear.
Just so you're forewarned, track 7 (Little Lion Man), has a bad word in it. No, actually it has a bad word a whole bunch of times. As in the chorus is made up of saying a bad word a lot. But it's done in four part harmony which I think redeems it, right?
]]>Thus ends the consumer portion of the event.
They also talked about what's to come for OS X. The next version of Mac OS X is called Lion.
We took our best thinking from Mac OS X and brought it to the iPhone. Then we took our best thinking from the iPhone and brought it to iPad. And now weāre bringing it all back to the Mac with our eighth major release of the worldās most advanced operating system.
Mac OS X Lion, coming out in summer 2011, will incorporate a number of features and enhancements drawn from the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch (iOS) devices. Definitely will be an interesting release that will push the desktop and mobile worlds closer together.
]]>Link to more videos on Youtube that will get updated fairly regularly.
And this group on Flickr won't just have photos of the kids, but the majority of them will be.
]]>More photos here including my personal favourite of a couple of Mexicans trying to look tough.
]]>You can see all the pictures I've uploaded to Flickr from my iPhone 4 here in this set. Considering it's a mobile phone, it's got an amazing camera on it.
Watch the above video in HD to get a better idea of the video quality on the iPhone 4.
Loving it.
There hasn't been any serious connection/cell issues that I've come across yet. The service definitely drops off inside our house if I'm holding it a certain way - but the free case that's coming from Apple should alleviate that. I've had great service just about everywhere else. And since Telus is using the same 3G network that Sasktel is building, the service should only improve as time goes on.
As Carlos said, the main drawback to Telus so far seems to be the fact that you have to have a 716-xxxx number, which sounds odd in Saskatchewan.
]]>I'll post a review in a few days. Once it finishes syncing. Which takes forever when you're waiting to play with a new toy.
]]>Step 2: Record trip home from wisdom teeth removal.
Step 3: ??
Step 4: Profit!!
]]>]]>Ok, we'll go to one of your screenings.
$1,099 gets you one of the nicest monitors around.
What's crazy is that for $700 more you can get a full iMac along with that display.
]]>We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We donāt need any more Fart apps.
If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or youāre trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who donāt want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.
]]>We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, āIāll know it when I see itā. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.
I came across this site (p.s. that's an affiliate link that I get rich quick on if you click and buy. Hypocrite!) that promises to show you how to make yourself an iPhone app by outsourcing the development and then either selling it or cashing in through advertising on the app to make cash money online. It's been ingrained in me since I was a kid that there's no such thing as a free lunch and if something seems too easy to do, then it's probably a scam.
But there's still a part of me that thinks, hmm, I wonder what would happen if I spent some time on the slightly darker side of the internet and tried selling some products, develop an iPhone app and started making some coffee money online.
It's something my brother-in-law (also named Chris) and I have been chatting about. He's on the other side of the world in Byron Bay, Australia setting up a jewellery making business online. He's started a blog about the process of setting up his business, Lost Wax Oz.
]]>Here's the website for the store, The Soda Pop Stop.
]]>"A geek is somebody who can fix your computer. A nerd is somebody who could fix your computer, but first he's going to talk to you about your computer a lot."
Link to audio download & description or play it below.
]]>I love the idea/purpose behind Saskatoon Speaks.com, just not the promo video that probably cost $5-$10k to produce. Why bother producing a video that, aside from the images, could be talking about any other city in North America? Seems like a missed opportunity for an otherwise great campaign.
]]>Thatās the sound of helicopter parents hovering over their children, worrying every second of the day that terrorists could strike Johnny's school or a stranger will snatch Jane from the bus stop.
Based on a survey, the top 5 worries of parents (presumably US based) are:
And how do children actually get hurt/killed?
So that either puts your mind at ease or gives you even more things to worry about that you hadn't thought of yet.
]]>While flipping through the Walmart flyer this weekend, I noticed this:
Maybe Apple just wanted to remind people of the great deals on the iTunes store by associating with Walmart?
Here's one possible replacement icon you can use if you're feeling like the current one just isn't matching your mojo. Here's another one that goes for more of a retro/vinyl feel.
]]>Here's a page detailing the updates that will be new to iPad owners, including multi-tasking, printing and Airplay ("Wirelessly stream videos, music, and photos from iPad to the new Apple TV, and stream music to AirPlay speakers or receivers, including AirPort Express.")
The iOS 4.2 update will be a free update.
]]>]]>"You are a guy jumping through windows and that's pretty awesome."
]]>Someday Harry, in the future, you'll be able to make commercials with just this!
They build an interactive video using an address you put in, pulling images and data from Google Maps/etc. Don't be alarmed by all the browser windows opening up and closing - that's just part of the "experience."
]]>Best Buy on 8th has (had?) just a single 16GB iPhone 4 in stock. I haven't phoned around anywhere else yet.
I'm holding out for a 32GB version. With HD video recording and a decent camera I don't want to have to worry about running out of space. I have to have my N-Sync/Backstreet Boys/Spice Girls/New Kids on the Block collection with me at all times!
]]>Faraway, so close indeed.
]]>Called over to the local Best Buy and they still aren't able to sell them due to "an email received on the weekend." The guy I talked to indicated they did still have them. When I asked the best way to find out when they were going to be able to sell the iPhone 4, his response was to "just keep calling."
]]>An update: I spoke with a Best Buy associate this evening, and it turns out they no longer have the iPhone 4 in stock; they have been recalled. No one seems to know why, or when theyāll be back. I donāt care who gets the iPhone, be it Telus or Sasktel, I just want to know when I can get one!
Very frustrating. And I'm sure the associates at Best Buy are equally frustrated. Rogers can't get any iPhones to sell and Telus can't figure out how to sell the ones they have. Meanwhile, Sasktel is still negotiating to secure the iPhone.
]]>Still no word on Telus.
]]>Neutral: Same hardware pricing as everywhere, data & voice plans are the same as far as I can tell so far, possibly better roaming agreements in the states/overseas but not really sure.
Benefits: Shared network agreement with Sasktel, visual voicemail is apparently included in their data plan (Rogers tacks on $8/month for it), better national coverage than Rogers.
Drawbacks: I feel like there should be more because I've just always had it in my head that it went, in Saskatchewan anyway, Sasktel, Rogers then Telus/Virgin/the rest.
Now I'm not so sure - any thoughts? Leave a comment or drop me an email.
Telus to Soon Announce HSPA Coverage in Saskatchewan Besides the terrible headline writing, that seems to be confirmation.
]]>Negotiations continue. Right.
As I tweeted yesterday, I think this is going to be the only path to an iPhone 4 on Sasktel's network in the near future:
You can also buy an unlocked iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 directly from Apple and then as soon as Sasktel offers microSIM cards throw that in your phone and you're good as well. (See this tweet from Sasktel in response to this question)
And that's probably all Sasktel is going to do for now. Why bother dealing with trying to get Apple's permission to sell the iPhone, which Sasktel won't make much money on anyways, when you can take people's money for the data they use on your network.
Sure, it's a great feather in their cap to be able to say they offer the iPhone (like just about every other cellular network in the freakin world) but money from data plans can help soothe Sasktel's pride at the next cellular network company get together.
]]>I'll have a thought or two throughout the week related to running an online business and felt like I didn't want to bore readers of this site (Hi Mom!) with that kind of stuff. And then I remembered that I have a freelance online business myself that I could promote with writing about running an online business and SHAZAM! - synergy!
I have a pretty low tolerance for words like "synergy", "fourth quarter profits", "calls to action" and "maximizing our earning potential" so you won't find much of that kind of stuff on the Lemon Productions blog - the stuff you'll find will be more like the kind of thing I might chat with you about over a drink, an idea that I can't get out of my head.
You can subscribe in your RSS reader or just head over to the site.
p.s. If you lurv the typography and sexy ampersands on the blog as much as I do be sure to hit up Matt Wiebe - a web designer based in Winnipeg who did the WordPress theme. I can't guarantee I'll keep that theme forever (I tend to be a bit schizophrenic with my own sites) but it's a great start.
]]>He's doing a 'live' un-boxing of a Movie Peg, a stand for an iPhone/iPad that looks like this:
Looks like a nice option. I still think the Compass is the best stand going - but I haven't actually tried either of them yet. Why not get both?
]]>For a bit of reference, here's some pics of Damien at around the same age. The video linked there isn't on the internets anymore (we have it on our computer somewhere). Here's a video of Damien at 5 months, which is where Mason is actually right now. Good to see the spastic flailing of arms that Mason has started to do runs in the family (and babies at that age.) :)
]]>The iPhone 4 is out.
I want to get one. (I've never owned an iPhone, despite being 'the Mac guy' people point to in any group of people.)
Rogers, a national cellular provider in Canada, has them. Or at least has the ability to "has" them. They currently don't "has" any in stock and "expect to receive regular shipments of iPhone 4 from Apple over the coming weeks" which translate into "we're just another company in the queue, begging at Apple's doorstep for a piece of the iPhone 4 pie and we really have no idea when we're getting more stock."
So Rogers should, theoretically, get them at some point. +1 for Rogers. The problem with Rogers is that they have terrible coverage outside the major cities/centres in Saskatchewan and that's not likely to change anytime soon.
-1 for Rogers.
The provincial cellular provider, Sasktel's, current CDMA network covers most of the province, it wouldn't support the iPhone.
-1 for Sasktel.
Sasktel is, however, in the process of launching a 3G+ network which should be able to support the iPhone.
+1 for Sasktel.
But all they can tell us is that negotiations are under way and that they have nothing to announce regarding the iPhone. And the 3G+ network will "initially provide coverage in Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, Weyburn, Yorkton, Swift Current, Prince Albert, North Battleford and most of the connecting highways."
I've lost track of the score already. Never mind.
So Sasktel's initial coverage will be just as bad/good as Roger's network. But, and this is a big but, they will be adding coverage, " similar to that provided by the CDMA network, which is scheduled to be available by the end of 2010 or possibly early 2011." So by mid-2011 the coverage should be over most of the province, technical difficulties aside.
I've waited this long, I can afford to wait a little while longer. The issue is that we have no idea if Sasktel will actually offer the iPhone. And if they do, what will their data plans look like?
And that's where the time crunch comes in.
Rogers is offering a 6GB/$30 per month plan which goes away at the end of September. After that it's 500MB/$25 per month (I believe? Roger's site is down as I'm writing this.) The data costs per month is the important question because that's where you're going to end up paying. And as much as I want to be on Sasktel's network with better coverage, I don't trust that Sasktel is going to offer a decent data plan rate to compete with Rogers - simply because they don't really have to. If you don't like Sasktel's rates, well go ahead and sign up with Rogers then. And good luck making a phone call from the highway to Waskesiu when your car breaks down.
Or maybe Sasktel won't be able to negotiate a deal for the iPhone:
Here's hoping we have a few more details before September 30th.
p.s. If you are someone from Sasktel who'd like to spill a few beans, under complete anonymity of course, send me an email. :)
]]>[caption align="aligncenter" width="334" caption="Flatten the Dough"][/caption]
[caption align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Ingredients for a Veggie Pizza"][/caption]
[caption align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="BBQ'ing the Pizza Crust"][/caption]
[caption align="aligncenter" width="333" caption="Throwing on the Veggies"][/caption]
[caption align="aligncenter" width="333" caption="Picking Basil for the Pizza"][/caption]
[caption align="aligncenter" width="333" caption="Yummy BBQ'd Veggie Pizza and Wine"] [/caption]
[caption align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="BQ Pizza from Above"][/caption]
They turned out great and were delicious. And lots of left overs!
]]>I refused to use the word because I have this view that the Ninth Commandment must mean something. I remember one year Bill Clintonāthe guy I was out to get [when serving on the House judiciary committee in the 1990s]āat the National Prayer Breakfast said something that was one of the most profound things I've ever heard from anybody at a gathering like that. He said, "The most violated commandment in Washington, DC"āeverybody leaned in; do tell, Mr. Presidentā"is, 'Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.'" I thought, "He's right. That is the most violated commandment in Washington." For me to go around saying that Barack Obama is a socialist is a violation of the Ninth Commandment. He is a liberal fellow. I'm conservative. We disagree...But I don't need to call him a socialist, and I hurt the country by doing so. The country has to come together to find a solution to these challenges or else we go over the cliff.
Mother Jones Confessions of a Tea Party Casualty
Via Daring Fireball.
]]>Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast!
]]>There's a $10 Starbucks card to 1 random person who fills it out the form. (limit of one entry per person, not valid in Quebec... employees of this blog not eligible for prize blah blah blah).
]]>Potty mouth warning for those with sensitive, uhm, eyes?
And thatās why I always hate it when someone calls you out for listening to some shitty band you grew up with and is all like āHaha you like Pearl Jam oh my god they suck so much!ā because itās like hey, yeah, thanks! Without you I never would have realized Pearl Jam sucks! But the fact that Pearl Jam sucks is completely irrelevant because thatās just all I had in 1991, and āBlackā is always going to destroy me because Ten came out right after my parents got divorced and my dad had moved out and Iād just sit in my room and listen to this song about love and loss and longing and the realization that the woman who once lit up your entire world is destined to become the star in somebody elseās sky and Iād think about my father and just fucking weep, and itās like, you know, whatever, you were probably crying over Blind Melon or the Spin Doctors or Temple of the Dog or some shit but youāre just too embarrassed to admit it because itās so much easier to be all like āoh, well, you know, Wavves really speaks to that period in my life.ā
From this article on MattLanger.com
Kurt Cobain RIP and Eddie Vedder posters in your rooms 4 evar!
]]>But they didnāt tell you ahead of time, and by the time you figured out that being her mother was going to make your life look like a nuclear bomb had detonated in the middle of it, it was too late, because sheās your daughter and you loved her even before she was born, so youāre a little biased and you canāt always see her clearly, and what you see is a high-spirited, ebullient girl with a stubborn streak, and other people see a slow-moving, cognitively-impaired kid who canāt be budged once she makes up her mind.
I, for one, can't wait to get home and hug my boys.
]]>Carcassonne is still getting a lot of use as my wife and I keep a game going back and forth (the number 1 means it's my turn). Aside from that, I use Tumblr, Twitter, Reeder and Simplenote the most.
For any 2-4 year olds out there reading and looking for apps, my son still loves playing with Doodle Buddy and Giraffe's Matching Zoo. There's a new iPad app, Intro to Math, by Montessorium that looks like it could be a good educational app to distract him with on long car rides.
What are your favourite apps for your iPhone/iPod touch?
Previously:
]]>Contrast that with Apple's own stores - it all comes back to Apple here folks - where:
Individual Apple Stores have immense latitude when it comes to making customers happy. If a Genius feels as though you need to get your iPhone swapped out, they can just go ahead and do that without even checking with a manager.
via Andy Ihnatko
So the first gas station attendant was sending all their customers to the competition rather than being able to simply drop the price of premium gasoline temporarily to keep customers at their store, buying drinks and snacks and coming away with a good customer experience story that they'd surely tell their friends about.
]]>Here's U2's apology video for the tour rescheduling:
]]>]]>Do you want to know how to start looking better? Simplify.
Stop wearing clothes with logos, prints and crazy details.
Instead, focus on great basics. When I say basics, I mean basics. White t-shirt. Blue dress shirt. White oxford. Blue jeans. Gray wool pants. Khaki chinos. Blue blazer. Gray suit. Great boots. Basic shoes. Focus on blue, white, gray. Buy good clothes that fit.
Minimalize.
Itās OK for your clothes to be a simple frame for whatās important: you.
I've watched most of the games from the 2010 World Cup and while there have definitely been exciting moments, it's felt like the teams are playing it safe and there hasn't been a lot of the flash that I had expected from some of the world's best players.
Clip from 1998 World Cup game between the Netherlands and Argentina via Kottke.org
Part of my problem is that I'm a relative newbie when it comes to watching professional soccer/football. I've learned to appreciate the game a lot more than I used to 5 - 10 years ago but I still don't understand all the subtle nuances of what's actually happening on the pitch in the same way I do when watching a sport like hockey, basketball or volleyball.
And I think that a big part of the reason for not understanding it is that aside from a couple years as a kid, I've never actually played soccer. It's something that I'd like to try sometime - maybe in time to make it on the Canadian World Cup team in 2014 in Brazil!
Prediction time: Spain 2 - Netherlands 1. How do you see it ending?
]]>For example, the exact same code as represented by Internet Explorer version 8 on Windows and Safari version 5 on Mac:
[caption id="attachment_6702" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Form as Rendered by Internet Explorer v8 on Windows"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_6703" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Form as Rendered by Safari v5 on Mac"][/caption]
Pretty different, eh? Personally I prefer the bottom version but that's just me. It actually took a jQuery plugin to make the Internet Explorer version show the placeholder text. This is the frustration/challenge (depending on the day) facing web developers and designers each day. It's definitely getting better than it used to be - and will get much better when Microsoft releases Internet Explorer version 9.
]]>Via Boing Boing
]]>The Instinctive Drowning Response ā so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) ā of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning...
From USCG rescue swimmer's site, mariovittone.com
Basically people expect drowning to look like what they see on TV/movies.
]]>Sue, however, keeps bringing this stuff home every time she goes shopping. I don't get it.
]]>They do a great job of designing themes as well as having a great admin menu system, parts of which have since been adopted into WordPress v3.0. You certainly can't go wrong with getting 5 themes for the price of one ($70).
]]>We're about making better products and what I love about the consumer market that I always hated about the Enterprise market, is that we come up with a product, we try to tell everybody about it and every person votes for themselves. They go "Yes" or "No" and if enough of them say "Yes", we get to come in to work tomorrow. Ya know? That's how it works, it's really simple. As, where the enterprise market it's not so simple. The people that use the products don't decide for themselves. And the people that make those decisions sometimes are confused."
- Steve Jobs, D8 Conference, 2010
The idea that some idiot manager/IT person gets to decide what a user gets to use for their day to day use must drive Jobs crazy. As it no doubt does for a lot of people working under an idiot manager/IT person who can't see past their own ego and dogma to use what's actually best for their staff/clients.
]]>Things got a little crazy. Someone spiked the fruit juice with extra sugar and then pulled out some fake glasses with eyebrows on them and it got real nutty in a hurry.
]]>Of the lesser lights who made the plane instead, Ariel GarcĆ© has become symbolic of Maradona's unconventional approach. The story sounds apocryphal, but it has been reported that the defender who helped ColĆ³n finish 14th in the Argentinian league was included because Maradona had a dream that his team won the World Cup and the only face he could remember being there was GarcĆ©'s. The 30-year-old has only four caps. Three came during friendlies in 2003, and one came this year against Haiti. Most supporters do not take his inclusion particularly seriously. At Argentina's farewell match at home to Canada a banner was unfurled: "GarcĆ©, bring us some alfajores." Traditionally, Argentinians bring alfajores, caramel-filled biscuits, back from their holidays to give to friends.
Via Guardian.co.uk
]]>Year: 2000
Model: iMac
Operating System - Mac OS 9.0.4
Processor - 500 MHz PowerPC G3 CPU, 128MB Memory
Graphics - ATI Rage 128 Pro, 8MB of memory (8 million triangles)
Screen - 786K pixels
Data Transfer Speeds - 1.3-12.5 MB/s (DVD-ROM-1/100 Ethernet)
Storage - 30GB Hard Drive
Dimensions - 15.0 x 15.0 x 17.1 inches
Weight - 34.7 pounds
Year: 2010
Model: iPhone 4
Operating System - iOS 4.0
Processor - 1 Ghz ARM A4 CPU, 512MB Memory
Graphics - PowerVR SGX 535, uses system memory (28 million triangles)
Screen - 614K pixels
Data Transfer Speeds - .04-20MB/s (3G-WiFi)
Storage - 32GB Flash Drive
Dimensions - 4.5 x 2.31 x .31 inches
Weight - 4.8 ounces
Numbers/stats are neat, but one crazy thing to think about is that the iPhone 4 can record and edit HD (720p) video - which you would never be able to do on that desktop iMac.
]]>From the intro:
Even if they insist that they have a close buddy for a father, there tends to be an underlying note of longing for something more.
From one photo:
He pointed to a storefront with broken glass and another damaged building. Then he got down to my level, cupped my face in his hands, looked me in the eyes, and said āThis is what happens when people hate, donāt you ever forget this.ā I never have.
What a heavy word "dad" is. Becoming a father 3 years ago and then again 3 months ago certainly changes your world and how you view your relationship with your own dad. More on that some other time, perhaps.
]]>Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple's new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.
Very nice of Apple to not throw AT&T under the bus as I'd put money on the issue being AT&T's system, not Apple's. Either way, 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders in one day is a very large number.
Good news for Apple, but disappointing for us in Canada as I wouldn't hold out hope for an actual July ship date in the great white north.
Via Macrumors.com
]]>Follow their travels at https://oatstravels.tumblr.com/.
]]>In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna's Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna's original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue's camcorder: up to $300,000). And let's not forget the glee club's many mash-ups -- songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a "preparation of a derivative work" of the original two songs' compositions - an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for -- or hope to get -- the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 -- times two.
The basic idea is that Fox, the TV network that shows Glee, is also part of the same media empire that would go around suing Girl Scout troops for singing copyrighted songs at camp.
Via Boingboing
]]>Every full-time employee also receives stock options and takes part in our bonus system called Unicorn. The way Unicorn works is that twice a month we deposit money into the Unicorn system as a revenue share with all employees. The system automatically splits it evenly amongst all employees. However, no one can simply take the money out. You can only āinvestā it in other employees as a thank you and bonus for accomplishments. This means that bonuses are paid where the company (being the employees) thinks they are due.
Just because something has always been done one way, doesn't mean you can't be creative and think of a new way of tackling a problem like this.
]]>What will likely end up being the opening paragraph(s) to the book certainly changed how I will look at my Grandma now:
]]>The day was May 23, 1995.
As I entered my home that evening, I knew I was turning over another chapter in my life. My life would from this day forward be forever different than it had been for many years previous. I had just returned from the hospital where my husband of 52 years, John, had passed away.
I would now be alone.
Yes, my children and grandchildren would come for a visit regularly but for the most part I would be alone. It was one of those cruel realities of life. John and I had spent many years together and we knew one of us would more than likely pass away before the other but it was still hard to believe it had actually happened to me. It had happened to my mother. She survived 37 years of widowhood. Now it was my turn. I was alone.
God help me.
Lord, give me strength for each day. I knew the God who looked after my mother for all those years would also look after me.
An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black studentās face, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students to be changed to Caucasian skin.
Change "black" or "latino" to "First Nations" and I'm not sure Canada, particularly Saskatchewan, fares much better to be honest.
Via @gruber
]]>You can find me as 'iChris' in game if you'd like to play.
P.S. If $4.99 is too much to pay for an app like this, you and I have fundamentally different ideas of what's involved in putting something like this out. See also: a cup of coffee at Starbucks or Tim Horton's (x3) that nets you very little long term benefits.
]]>See the rest of the interview, annoyingly broken up into little chunks, here.
]]>Young punks and their stupid harmonizing ways.
]]>Part of it is the fact that I can go out on my terrace with a cup of coffee, a glass of lemonade, or a glass of wine and do email in a relaxed mood. If my wife or kids interrupt me, it's easy to put the thing down and engage in a conversation. The iPad makes using a computer less of a commitment and that has important implications for the way I compute. I like how I feel when I am using the thing.
Emphasis mine.
Via DaringFireball
]]>In the less-than-three months since Apple first passed Wal-Mart to hold the third highest market capitalization among U.S. companies, Apple's stock price has continued to increase while second-place Microsoft has seen its shares drift downward.
Market capitalization is a popular metric for assessing the size of a company as a representation of the investing public's notion of the company's worth. The figure is derived by simply multiplying the number of outstanding shares of the company's stock by the share price.
Many of you probably don't remember a world where Apple was very seriously on the brink of being done and was the butt of many jokes in the computer sales world. Quite a turn around.
Apple does a great job of generating a large amount of mind share (i.e. it feels like everyone has a Mac/iPhone/etc. when they are still actually in the 8%-12% market share) so it seems like it would be obvious and a given that Apple would be doing better than Microsoft.
Via Macrumors.com
]]>Yes I know how funny it is to point out that "the writer's never really knew where things were going" and that "the smoke monster is lame" and how important it is for you to let everyone know you quit watching after the 2nd or 3rd season because that's "when it jumped the shark/started going downhill/insert other reason" so save your witty comment for another time.
]]>āInterface design is when one is designing something that will be used by humans. The understanding of how a user thinks, learns and adapts is important knowledge.
Iām not down playing graphic design in any way, itās just different. For example, graphic designers have the intention to grab an emotional response visually. While Interface designers have the intention to grab a logical response mentally.ā
Maybe I should aspire to be more of an interface designer. I think I have feet in both worlds. A website is something I design in hopes that a person will use it, not just look at it. The videos I create I hope to move people to some sort of emotional response that may lead to a physical action.
Web design is not graphic design. Sure, we design graphics as a means of creating an interface, but the means in which these graphics are used is what creates the blurry distinction between the two.
Link to original article via Sam Brown.
]]>[caption id="attachment_2235" align="aligncenter" width="180" caption="Old Icon"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_2236" align="aligncenter" width="192" caption="New Icon"][/caption]
But you can't beat the fact that it's now free instead of $2.99. Give it a try.
]]>Direct link to video / Via @hjnaidu
]]>In case you haven't figured it out, this site is probably going to be exclusively Lost related until after the finale on Sunday. If you don't like that, you can quit on my blog just like you quit on Lost in season 3.
]]>"...because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it."
and
It beautifully explains the utter confidence of those who, with no expertise, remain stubborn in their views regardless of overwhelming evidence. It makes you want to shake them by the collar and scream about how stupid they are. But evidence shows that's not the best strategy.
Via Boingboing and ABC Radio in Australia.
]]>Q. How can I get Neil Gaiman to make an appearance at my school/convention/event?
A. Contact Lisa Bransdorf at the Greater Talent Network. Tell her you want Neil to appear somewhere. Have her tell you how much it costs. Have her say it again in case you misheard it the first time. Tell her you could get Bill Clinton for that money. Have her tell you that you couldn't even get ten minutes of Bill Clinton for that money but it's true, he's not cheap.
On the other hand, I'm really busy, and I ought to be writing, so pricing appearances somewhere between ridiculously high and obscenely high helps to discourage most of the people who want me to come and talk to them. Which I could make a full time profession, if I didn't say 'no' a lot.
Via Boingboing.net
]]>Unless you plan on watching a lot of movies, you don't really need a large size. From our experience here at the office (my co-worker got one sent up from the states) it's not like an iPod/iPhone where you want a lot of your music with you. It's unlikely that you're going to go jogging with your iPad on an armband. The 16GB will be plenty for most people I'd imagine.
]]>āOne million iPads in 28 daysāthatās less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,ā said Steve Jobs, Appleās CEO.
Wow.
]]>]]>STEVE KROFT: Well, I think most people think you got screwed. I mean, Jay Leno thinks you got screwed. Jay Leno thinks he got screwed.
CONAN O'BRIEN: How did he get screwed again? (LAUGHTER) Explain that part to me. I'm sorry. Jay's got The Tonight Show. I have a beard and an inflatable bat. And I'm touring city to city. Who can (LAUGHTER) say who won and who lost? I'm laughing 'cause crying would be sad.
This is the key to modern Apple. Itās a big company, and itās now wildly successful. It assumes that it can write a successful software product in any niche. Itās very talented and very confident. But always, at the back of its collective mind, is fear ā the fear of depending on the kindness and competence of others, and the fearful memory of the days when it was cowering in a dark closet, waiting for the blow to fall, while the trade press laughed and jeered.
Via this article via Daring Fireball
This post was created completely on the iPad by the way. Definitely getting used to the keyboard and touch interface. And this is definitely the future. Remember that this is version 1 folks and for my money it's the best on screen keyboard/interface since Star Trek. :)
]]>It's hard work to get to the top spot in an industry. It's even harder to stay there.
An interesting side note - Motorola currently has 117 different models of phones that they currently sell. Apple has one (two if you count the fact that the previous generation iPhone is available for sale in most markets). That's the benefit of deciding on what you're going to do and focusing on it and doing it well.
]]>Maybe itās just too easy to like something these days. Iāve had people with Twitter followers in the millions kindly link to my blog and the result has been anywhere from a handful to a several hundred new visitors. Thatās a pretty small click-through rate. In the past, people who wanted to share content usually did so on a blog. They had to create a blog, build a following, and maybe learn a little html. It took some commitment and effort to share. It was an active choice as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction. And from that time until now, I find that the number of visits from even a lightly trafficked blog is markedly higher than many Facebook likes and Twitter retweets combined.
Read the rest here and be sure to like, tweet and Facebook him.
]]>Flash was created during the PC era ā for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards ā all areas where Flash falls short.
More thoughts on this if I had time. Bottom line is - don't hold your breath waiting for Flash on an Apple mobile device. If that's your platform of choice, look to HTML5, CSS and Javascript to do what Flash could only dream of being capable of.
]]>āThe telephone was an aberration in human development. It was a 70 year or so period where for some reason humans decided it was socially acceptable to ring a loud bell in someone elseās life and they were expected to come running, like dogs. This was the equivalent of thinking it was okay to walk into someoneās living room and start shouting. It was never okay.ā
The answer the original author gives is text messaging. I'd say most people don't know how to not respond to a text message alert either. Resist the urge to always respond to the bell.
Via Marco
]]>So yeah, you're right, it is just a big iPod touch.
]]>You should note that you need to try real hard to end up at Comic Sans. So please don't.
Update: Here's an even better one and more closely mirrors my font selection process. Via Cameron Moll
]]>Standard 2 Year Old Outfit ā
]]>(He's on the left. Some dude is on the right.)
Now check out what he looked like back when he first started at Apple and think of the wonders using a Mac can do for you!
]]>Neither Apple nor Google would ever consider outsourcing IT. Itās a point of pride at both Apple and Google just how little they spend on IT compared to typical Fortune 100 companies (which typical companies, of course, use Microsoft infrastructure).
Get Off the High Horse Update:
]]>Bishop posted an update with a response from Microsoft, in which they claim this is not a change so much as a consolidation of third-party support services. And, a little birdie informs me that Apple āheavily leveragesā Infosys as well.
After the iPad was announced, I got two types of emails from readers. The first group saying they were disappointed, because they had been hoping I was right that The Tablet would be Appleās reconception of personal computing.
The second group wrote to tell me how excited they were because I was right that The Tablet would be Appleās reconception of personal computing.
Count me in with the second group. Apple hasnāt thought of everything with iPad, but what theyāve thought about, theyāve thought about very deeply. I got mine Saturday morning, and Iāve been using it since ā or at least as often as I could get it away from my son. Here are my thoughts.
I stand by my earlier assertions that the iPad is going to be a _big_ deal.
I heard on CBC radio this morning that the entire tablet PC market last year was around 1.5 million (I don't have anything official to back that stat up so your mileage may vary). Apple has unofficially sold over 500,000 iPads in less than a week - and that's before the 3G mobile data plan equipped models are available.
]]>In the interest of full disclosure some of the links (i.e. Dreamhost) give me a kickback for recommending them, but I only recommend stuff I am either currently using or have used in the past.
Have any questions about the services I'm recommending? Leave a comment here or send me an email and I'll do my best to answer your question.
]]>It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist's rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker's Guide that humankind has yet devised.
And if you're one of those nerds deriding it for not having Flash or (insert geeky feature that some other 'tablet' has), don't hold your breath:
I put to designer (Jonathan) Ive the matter of all the features that are missing from the iPad. "In many ways, it's the things that are not there that we are most proud of," he tells me. "For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there's nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with."
That's not what he's supposed to say. Tech journalists are obsessed with spec lists and functions. Does it do this? Does it do that? They often look at devices as the sum of their features. But that kind of thinking isn't in Apple's DNA.
We're still waiting on an official worldwide release date for the iPad. Right now it's only available in the USA on April 3rd. Rumour has it that April 24th is the date but nothing official has been released yet from Apple.
]]>What happens when computer designers lets go of every instinct thatās hardwired into their DNA, and starts practically from scratch?
They create the iPad. The iPad user experience is instantly compelling and elegant. Itās not every computer and every function. Itās a computer thatās designed for speed, mobility, and tactile interaction above all other considerations.
Check out more reviews that Jason Kottke has linked up from people actually using the device for more than a few minutes.
]]>Motivated by this article on 10 Essential Design Tools for Social Media douchebags Experts, I've put together a rough monthly cost of being a freelancing and trying to use the online tools recommended in the article, as well as a few others that I've used at various times.
For this article's sake, unless it's completely free I'll be using the cheapest paid plan from each service, even if they offer a free plan. The free plans are designed to get you hooked on the service so you'll eventually be paying. Trust me. I'll use USD pricing as well.
On top of the original article, I'd add the following:
So totalling it all up, you're looking at just over $140/month to make use of these tools. Not really all that bad when you think about all the stuff you're getting done with these applications - but it is important to remember that they do add up. That's the plus and negative of seemingly low monthly costs - by the end of the year you're spending over $1,600 each year on software. It's important to re-evaluate these monthly costs to make sure you're actually getting your money's worth out of them.
Any other applications that I've missed or that you'd recommend instead?
]]>For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately āroughed upā the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinkoās to upload clips from computers that couldnāt be traced to Viacom. [ā¦]
Viacomās efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.
And it's so hard to figure out why movie and record companies are dying?
Via daringfireball
]]>Police arrived on scene, just blocks from Florence's Mayfair-area home. They found him conscious but unable to communicate and with a severe head injury, Voisard said. None of his belongings appear to have been stolen.
I would guess it was either a gang initiation (i.e. go beat up some random person and you're in our club) or just a purely random stoned/drunk/whatever assault. Whatever the reason, it isn't right.
Eddie Vedder Sings Bruce Springsteen's 'My City of Ruins' at Kennedy Center Honours
]]>There's a blood red circle
on the cold dark ground
and the rain is falling down
The church doors blown open
I can hear the organ's song
But the congregation's goneMy city of ruins
My city of ruinsNow the sweet veils of mercy
drift through the evening trees
Young men on the corner
like scattered leaves
The boarded up windows
The hustlers and thieves
While my brother's down on his kneesMy city of ruins
My city of ruinsCome on rise up!
Come on rise up!Now there's tears on the pillow
darling where we slept
and you took my heart when you left
without your sweet kiss
my soul is lost, my friend
Now tell me how do I begin again?My city's in ruins
My city's in ruinsNow with these hands
I pray Lord
with these hands
for the strength Lord
with these hands
for the faith Lord
with these hands
I pray Lord
with these hands
for the strength Lord
with these hands
for the faith Lord
with these handsCome on rise up!
Come on rise up!
Rise up
Once upon a time I had a first-world problem, luckily I had a first-world product that increases my dependancy on technology, removes my need to consult other humans and deepens my handicap of extreme-laziness. My friends were thoroughly impressed.
Whew. That's a lot of via's. This would be a lot easier on Tumblr.
]]>]]>A chief virtue of digital books is said to be their economical sizeāthey take up no space at all!ābut even a megabyte seems bulky compared to what can be conveyed in the few cubic feet of a bookshelf. What other vessel is able to hold with such precision, intricacy, and economy, all the facets of your life: that you bake bread, vacationed in China, fetishize Melville, aspire to read Shakespeare, have coped with loss, and still tote around a copy of The Missing Piece as a totem of your childhood. And what by contrast can a Kindle tell you about yourself or say to those who visit your house? All it offers is blithe reassurance that there is progress in the world, and that you are a part of it.
...stopped me and asked me if I had a jerry can. He said he was from a reserve up north, out of gas, his wife was expecting and their car was stuck on Idylwyld.
Told me that everyone he met in Saskatoon had been rude to him up until that point and that I was the friendliest person heād come across. Said that he even offered to put up his cell phone for colateral at the gas station in order to get some gas but they refused. Asked me if I would buy his Iphone in exchange for some gas money...
So just make sure you're letting friends know what's going on so they don't get bit by these guys (or same guy?). If you've got other stories, please leave them at the original post so they're all in one place.
I've turned comments off on this entry.
]]>In my groggy, sleepy headed state I stumbled down the stairs and went to his door. Only there was no noise coming from his room.
Bang! Bang! Bang
The banging persisted. And now I could hear a voice attached to the banging.
Hey! Open the door. I don't want to cause no trouble. I just want to sleep. Hurry up.
I peeked out our back door and saw a guy, obviously blitzed out of his tree, standing in our doorway barely standing up.
"You've got the wrong house" I said to him through the door. He said he didn't care, he just wanted to sleep. I told him a few more times that he was at the wrong house and that he couldn't come sleep here but he persisted in banging and asking to be let in.
We decided to call the police because I didn't really want to deal with some drunk dude in my house. While I was on the phone with the police the drunk dude decided he would lay down on our back porch to rest. As I gave our address and described him to the police he continued to mumble random things about wanting to go to sleep and not wanting to fight anybody.
When the police arrived they gave him a visual look over and decided that they definitely didn't want to be touching this guy and so they told him they were going to bring an ambulance in to check him over. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive the police continued trying to figure out who he was, where he lived and where he came from.
As best as I could figure out from his "answers" to the police:
Sweet friends who take a guy out drinking and then ditch him somewhere besides his home and leave him to get picked up by the police. I was impressed that they sent him in the ambulance and that they didn't just throw him in the back of the police car to sober up. He obviously stunk quite a bit because the cops kept taking steps back from him and waving their hands in front of their face as they tried to get him to the ambulance.
Just a bit of excitement for the night. Hopefully that's the first and last time that's happened to us.
]]>I'm not going to stand on some high horse and say that I've never done it - but call a spade a spade. You're breaking the law. It doesn't matter if it's annoying/frustrating/easy to do/etc. You're breaking the law. Here's a few in case you're not aware:
Acknowledge that what you're doing is wrong. Own up to it and make an attempt to do right the next time.
]]>I should get conned more often.
]]>Stop me if you've heard this one before:
He told me he had locked his keys in his car, his two kids were over at a cousin's house (who is only 9 years old!) and that he just needed to use the phone to call his wife who worked at University Hospital to see what he should do. He lived just down the street at an address near ours and he had remembered his wife saying she knew one of the people on the corner.
I invited him in to use our phone and he called his wife. She was on a shift and couldn't leave so they figured he should call a tow truck to come and break into his truck and get his keys. He asked me for a phone book to look up a tow truck company. Which I gave to him.
Starting to wonder...
He called and tried to see if they would come, unlock his truck and drive him to his wife at the hospital who had money to pay the $40 for the tow truck. The tow truck company, unsurprisingly, wouldn't do it. So he said he was going to walk to the hospital (about a 25 minute walk one way) to get money from his wife and then meet the tow truck back at his place.
At this point, now 20 minutes or so since he first rang our doorbell, we were still slightly skeptical but at the same time you think that he's gone through a lot of time/effort to try and scam us. If I had locked my keys in the car and my kid(s) were out somewhere I probably wouldn't have my facts completely straight either.
And so he had me hooked.
You can see where this is headed. I started looking through my wallet for some money and grabbed some cash from my wife's purse and saying that he didn't have to walk all the way to the hospital and back - we could loan him the money and he could pay us back the next day when he got it all sorted.
He thanked us profusely... said he had just moved here from North Battleford and that they were worried about the big city and how unfriendly it could be. Said they were still driving back on Sundays to church in North Battleford because they hadn't found anything closer. Said that we had restored his faith in people, etc.
One day goes by with no money in the mailbox. No worries.
Two days go by with no money. Hmmm...
Three days go by. I'm convinced we were had. And now, three days too late, I'm trying to remember what he looked like and figure out what numbers he actually did dial from our phone.
We'd been conned by a very convincing con man.
Just so you don't think I'm a complete idiot, there were more minor details in his tale of woe that I've left out for length. And hindsight is exactly as they say it is: annoying.
We've since heard from two other friends who got bit by the same guy with the same basic story - only it happened to them over 3 months before he got us. So in an attempt to keep this guy from getting someone else, please spread this around Saskatoon.
We haven't called the police yet, but we will. Obviously there's nothing they can do but at least they'll be aware of it. Leave a comment if you've been had by this guy or know of someone else who has. He's obviously living in Saskatoon and hitting multiple houses. So far I'm aware of him working in the Caswell Hill/Mayfair areas.
All I'm hoping is that there's some tough biker dude out there who hears about this guy and then shortly after Mr. Con Sawyer comes to Biker-Dude-With-No-Neck's door with his sad story only to realize half way through his schpeel that Dude-With-No-Neck is on to him and is about to introduce his face to the floor.
Mmmm.... happy thoughts that help me sleep at night.
To wrap up this sad tale - it hasn't dampened my desire to help those around me. I will continue to err on the side of naivety and give the person asking me for help the benefit of the doubt. Even if 1 out of 3 people I attempt to help don't really need it, that's not my concern. I believe I'm asked to just give and not to judge the poor.
But that's just me.
]]>[caption id="attachment_2097" align="aligncenter" width="266" caption="It didnāt seem so long ago that theyād enjoyed each otherās company."][/caption]
]]>"That guy always forgets to clean out his coffee cup!"
Typically the response is a sign put up in the lunch room with 14 pixel font (comic sans preferred) stating
"Could everyone please clean out their coffee cups at the end of the day? Thanks. Mngmt."
For a few days everyone, including the original guywhowouldn'tcleanouthiscoffeecup, dutifully clean out their cups.
After a week though Mr. Guywhowouldn'tcleanouthiscoffeecup goes back to his old ways and doesn't clean out his coffee cup.
A meeting of the Admin staff is called and it's agreed that:
Sign is posted. Everyone follows through for a few days. Mr. Guywho'ssostupidandstillwon'tcleanouthiscoffeecup starts to falter after a few days. And we're back to where we started. Larger font sizes and fancier clip art. Maybe you have to put a quarter in a jar if you leave a dirty coffee cup. Oh, and this time let's send out an email to the staff reminding them of the coffee cup policy.
Etc.
Rather than just going and talking to Mr. Guywhowouldn'tcleanouthiscoffeecup directly and dealing with him in person we try and enforce the rules by, in effect, punishing everybody. Which ends up helping nobody.
We see this all around us and just accept it with varying degrees of frustration. The whole software industry (particularly on the Windows site of things) is full of copy protection aimed at stopping the few who pirate by punishing the masses that don't. The same thing goes on in digital music where because of the fear of the few pirates everyone else has to jump through hoops to get the music they've paid for play on the devices of their choice.
I'm sure there's plenty of real world examples but I know of one that I continually am frustrated by. The 7-11 near me has a "pay before you pump" policy due to, presumably, people pumping their cars full of gas and then leaving before paying. So when I go get gas I'm inconvenienced due to the sins of a few. I find it incredibly frustrating to be assumed to be guilty until I'm proven innocent - but even when I am innocent there's no reward for me when I go back to my 7-11. As a result I avoid going to this 7-11 for gas even though it's less than 2 blocks from my house. And when I do go I only get enough gas to get me through the day until I'm somewhere else and can fill up.
Do any recent policies/decisions you've made result in the many being punished for the actions of the few? Is there any way you could change it so that you reward the people for good behaviour instead of lumping them in with the bad apples?
Note: The fictional story in this post is not intended to represent any particular individual. I don't have any issues with anyone not cleaning their coffee cup. Seriously. :)
]]>Or just the muzak which is delightful in it's own right.
]]>Many more manmercials here.
]]>I'm embarrassed to show you that Foursquare and Facebook are on there, but otherwise I'm proud to show off the apps I use most often.
Any that you're using that you don't see there and why?
]]>Just a Direct link to video since the thumbnail ruins the surprise.
]]>I know you get it, but I know there's going to be a lot of people saying "it's just a large iPod touch" who aren't looking beneath the surface on this thing.
Fraser Speirs, developer of numerous applications for Mac OS X and a few for the iPhone wrote a great post on why the iPad has the potential to be a huge deal:
I'm often saddened by the infantilising effect of high technology on adults. From being in control of their world, they're thrust back to a childish, mediaeval world in which gremlins appear to torment them and disappear at will and against which magic, spells, and the local witch doctor are their only refuges.
With the iPhone OS as incarnated in the iPad, Apple proposes to do something about this, and I mean really do something about it instead of just talking about doing something about it, and the world is going mental.
And one more:
Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.
At issue is that Apple could've gone with a operating system more like the desktop/laptop version of Mac OS X instead of something more like the iPhone/iPod touch. And for a very deliberate reason chose the iPhone OS - because they are trying to abstract a layer of complexity that has been in computers for a long time.
There's no file system on the iPad. You don't have to remember where you saved a document. When you open up Pages on the iPad to work on a document, it shows you a list of Pages documents. When you want to add a picture to your document, you just click the media button and it shows you all your pictures. It's not unlike the iLife media browser you've already been using on your Mac, just taken to to the whole operating system.
]]>Need I remind you that the original iPhone came out with only a camera on it when pretty much all the other cell phones had video recording capabilities. The original iPhone had (and still has) a non-removable battery. The original iPhone couldn't (and still can't) run Flash. etc. etc. etc. And that iPhone has done fairly well for Apple wouldn't you say?
So if the iPad doesn't spit out Unicorn breath in bite size tablets (Ha! See what I did there? Tablets? Cuz everyone thinks the iPad is a new kind of tablet? Nevermind...) like you were expecting it to and therefore you're not going to buy one, fine. I don't think Apple is marketing this to you and they weren't expecting you to buy it anyway. They aren't trying to take away your control - you have a free will to buy the iPad/iPhone or not. There are a _ton_ of other cell phones, tablets and computer choices out there. Apple is making a lot (as in a lot) of money in the mobile area but they are far from the only choice.
So continue to buy your NokiaSonyMotorola mobile phone, linux powered Netbooks and cheap-like-borscht WinTel machines. They aren't going anywhere. You have that choice.
Update: Even better response than I could write here via Daring Fireball.
]]>Hands on impression video here. More video from Engadget here. Looks nice and quick.
]]>You can follow along at Engadget site at 12pm (Sask. time anyway).
To get caught up to speed on all the hoopla, I'd recommend reading The Apple Tablet: A Complete History, Supposedly or Macrumors Tablet Rumor Roundup.
If you'd like to make some predictions, you can join our office pool and see how you do at predicting what Apple is/isn't going to unveil today.
Update: Hardcore Apple nerds can watch other Apple nerds/pundits talk about the presentation here on live.twit.tv.
]]>#nerdjokes
And lost in my second game of Puerto Rico.
]]>Do you ever watch screencasts/ video tutorials on software? What do you or don't you like about them? How did I do in explaining Droplr?
Link to video on Youtube if you prefer.
Video, high definition video in particular, on YouTube has really improved lately. I've generally steered clear of YouTube for most of my video uploads in favour of Vimeo but it certainly has gotten a lot better.
But even in that department YouTube has made some improvements.
]]>]]>Conan: I should've known something was up when NBC sent me that 2010 calendar that only went up to January.
Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher.
The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamor, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.
Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.
You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad.
Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan
Via StarTribune
]]>Summary: Letterman is having a blast with this. Conan is at his best when he's the underdog. And Jay just seems as slimy as you'd think an LA talk show host would be.
]]>And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Photo via the impossible cool, quote via Kottke.org, direct link to MLK by U2 video.
]]>I'm sure Conan will end up on his feet somewhere. There's no way, if he actually wants to, that he won't have options elsewhere. And in light of everything else going on in the world, who really cares right?
See: here and then here if you, like us without TV, had no idea what was going on.
Update: See why this is all so interesting: Jay Leno's original announcement of Conan getting The Tonight Show in 2009
]]>This paragraph nearly brought me to tears as I read it:
There were a lot of people just wandering around there, a lot of people just looking. We found this one guy who was sitting by the side and he just broke out crying. We asked him if he had any relatives there. He pointed out, to one of the morgue workers, a baby that was on top of the pile. The morgue worker went over and grabbed the baby by the arm and swung her, sort of carried her over by one arm and laid her down on the stomach of his wife. They had both died while he was at work. The building had collapsed.
The girl's name was Christian Michaud, 10 months old, and her mother's name was Lormeny Nathalie.
But where there is darkness, there is always light trying to shine through:
]]>People are out on the street at night. Itās really hard to photograph because thereās no electricity. Itās pitch black. But all night you could hear them singing prayers. Itās pretty amazing the ways that people are dealing with this tragedy. It says a lot about the Haitian character. They are an amazing people.
Listen, no matter how long youāve held the baby, maybe just try to hold the baby a little longer. I mean, you donāt have any requirements on you, or parental responsibility to hold someone elseās baby, but these parents, these poor souls reaching, grasping for every shred of vitality they can muster, these fools, are your friends.
And you know what? You couples can team up on us: men going out to drink and get teary eyed about the good olā days; women staying in to put the life-taker down for bed and drink white wine and chat. Maybe once youāll get to switch that around, but I think youāll learn from your mistakes and never let a pack of men put the baby down for bed again.
Via a tweet from Don Miller.
]]>Direct link to video, via jasonpermenter.com
And the text in case you don't like video:
]]>Even the worst of us in this political mosh pit of the early 21st century can stop, on occasion, in grief and in human sympathy, in mourning, or just in self-preservation. Not Rush Limbaugh and not Pat Robertson. Weāll explore this at length later.
But Mr. Robertson, it is laughable now to try to call him reverend, explained today that this earthquake was part of a, quote, ādeal with the devil,ā that he claims the nation made in the 19th century to gain its freedom from France. āTrue story,ā Robertson says.
Sir, because of your tone deafness, and your delight in human misery, and your dripping, self-satisfied, holier than thou, senile crap, I am now likelier to believe that you are the devil.
Limbaugh, meantime, did not know just when to shut up. Today he blamed communism for the poverty of Haiti, blamed President Obama for holding a news conference the day after this cataclysm, when he did not hold one after the failed, half assed attempt in Detroit, and said that Obama would, quote, āuse Haiti to,ā quote, āburnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.ā
Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. You serve no good. You serve no God. You inspire only stupidity and hatred. And I would wish you to hell. But knowing how empty your souls must be for you to be able to say such things in a time of such pain, I suspect the vacant, purposeless lives you both live now are hell enough already.
Pat Robertson thinks that Haiti is poverty stricken (and earthquake-stricken) because the country made a deal with Satan to help them overthrow the French.
and this follow up:
Back in May, the Times Online provided some slightly better insight into Haiti's past. Beyond a vague assumption that Imperialism had probably screwed Haiti somehow, I didn't know much about the country's history. Reading this story has been nothing short of nauseating.
Summary: Haiti was forced to pay France for its freedom. When they couldn't afford the ransom, France (and other countries, including the United States) helpfully offered high-interest loans. By 1900, 80% of Haiti's annual budget went to paying off its "reparation" debt. They didn't make the last payment until 1947. Just 10 years later, dictator FranƧois Duvalier took over the country and promptly bankrupted it, taking out more high-interest loans to pay for his corrupt lifestyle. The Duvalier family, with the blind-eye financial assistance of Western countries, killed 10s of thousands of Haitians, until the Haitian people overthrew them in 1986. Today, Haiti is still paying off the debt of an oppressive dictator no one would help them get rid of for 30 years.
The rest of the world refuses to forgive this debt.
So, in a way, maybe Robertson is right. Haiti is caught in a deal with the devil, and the devil is us.
Via this article on BoingBoing.net.
In spite of (or perhaps because of) Pat Robertson's ignorance and stupidity, there continues to be an outpouring of support for Haiti, thanks to efforts by the Red Cross:
]]>You may have to wait a bit for the flash to load as it's quite a large file/site - but well worth it if that kind of thing interests you at all. Kind of makes me want to pull out that copy of Axis and Allies that I have that's never actually been used.
]]>Sign me up. Hopefully it comes out for Xbox Live Arcade sometime this year. The game is Joe Danger from Hello Games.
]]>The final season starts February 2nd. If you're one of those people who's jumped on the "Lost got crappy when...[insert comment about writing, plot, storyline here]" then that's fine - you can have your wrong opinion - but I for one am excited to see how they end this ride. It's easily one of the best drama/action shows on TV IMHO.
See also Previously on Lost: What Did You Do?, Sawyer's Nicknames - Seasons 1-3, Sawyer's Nicknames - Seasons 4 and 5 and Desmond's 'Brotha' Compilation #2.
]]>So now that Canada won silver and the games are over, now what?
For the rest of the story of Juniors2010.ca and where we're headed, go read this post on our blog.
]]>I'll betcha my Subaru can do that too - just gotta take off the winter tires and I'll be set.
]]>For a taste check out Season 01 opening scene and title and 'McNuggets'. Warning: Salty language ahead.
From a reviewer on Amazon:
]]>THE WIRE has been called Dickensian, and there is truth to the comparison. This is a great American novel, highlighting the sad state of the inner city and the scarred souls who inhabit it.
In fact, I think there should be a new word for the actual meaning of douche so that we can safely take douche out of the realm of "mysterious lady related words" and safely into the English language used at fine dining establishments.
All that to say that this post from Monsiour Mann made me laugh:
- Caucasian Benz
- No plates
- Parked in non-space near busy crosswalk
Congratulations, Tad, Trey, Tyler, or Skip. Please stop by the front desk to pick up your complimentary Bluetooth headset and unexpected cockpunch.
See also: Douche Off.
]]>Check out this quote from Newsweek in 1983:
]]>Dragon's Lair is this summer's hottest new toy: the first arcade game in the United States with a movie-quality image to go along with the actionā¦ The game has been devouring kids' coins at top speed since it appeared early in July. Said Robert Romano, 10, who waited all day in the crush at Castle Park without getting to play, "It's the most awesome game I've ever seen in my life." Wikipedia
The movie industry has turned into an alcoholic dad who beats up his family at the slightest transgression while ignoring his own gross failures -- blaming everything on external forces and refusing to confront its own problems.
Awesome.
Via boingboing.net.
]]>What's your favourite face of Damien?
]]>Download Facebook's free app for iPhone or iPad.
Via Neatorama.com / banterist.com
]]>A simple game: Go to the address bar in your favorite browser, and type one letter. Start with āaā, end with āzā.
Here's my list along with a brief explanation of some of the more obscure sites that some of you may not be familiar with:
Obviously some letters get hit more often than others. I don't think I use a lot of websites that begin with "Q", "N" or "O" as I don't ever remember actually going to those sites.
What's your list look like? Leave a comment or drop me an email with a link to your list and I'll add it to the post.
Links to other sites participating: Elliot Jay Stocks, Andy Clarke
]]>For anyone who's been looking at buying a Mac, today might be a good day to do so. Since it's turkey weekend in America, they're passing on savings to everyone else today only - Black Friday gift guide from Apple. You can save around $100 on laptops or iMacs and $48 on iPod touches. Most everything else is $5 - $10 savings, so nothing huge.
If you're a student or connected to someone who is, don't lose any sleep over these prices as they're only $1 cheaper than what Apple sells them for on the education side.
]]>That's Jimmy Fallon doing Neil Young singing the intro to 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air' from our childhood.
Via clusterflock.org via waxy.org
]]>Stick a microphone in front of someone and it'll take them 30 seconds or less to reveal their ignorance.
]]>17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat
See also 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth and 15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee.
]]>As of yet, she goes un-named. For now, we only know her as 'BeerBaby.'
Because her parent's last name is Beer. What were you thinking?
]]>As Damien played in the tub and I played on my iPod touch (Fare City if you must know) I thought I heard our screen door slam again. I figured it was probably Sue again - picking up her wallet or something else she forgot - so I didn't go check immediately. I shouted her name a couple times and got no reply and thought I'd quickly go check if the door was being blown open by the wind.
It was then that I started to think something was wrong. Something didn't feel right but I didn't know what exactly.
I phoned Sue to see if she had in fact returned inside a second time. She said she was almost to the restaurant and hadn't been back since she came back to open the garage door. I hung up the phone and started looking around and quickly realized my wallet and tupperware container of loose change was gone. I quickly phoned Sue back to see if she had taken my wallet for some reason and perhaps had moved the change. (Ironically enough she had just bought a bunch of paper rolls to roll up all the change that had collected by our back door).
As you can no doubt guess by now, she hadn't taken my waller nor done anything with the change. Someone had came into our house, taken my wallet and the change, and left. I'm thinking they were watching our house, saw Sue leave and figured they might as well try the door. When they came in, they saw my wallet and the change and then probably heard me and Damien in the bathroom and bolted.
It's quite the unsettling event to have your home invaded like that. I don't really care about the money (maybe $15 in cash and another $20 in change?). The wallet was from a trip to Mexico with my family so it has some sentimental value. There was a piece of paper with the word 'Oats' on it that I'd carried in my wallet since Sue and I started dating (her maiden name is Oatway) that would've been nice to keep holding on to. It's annoying to have to go replace all the bank cards, license, health cards, etc. but it's just stuff.
What is disconcerting is the fact that someone was willing to walk into our house, not caring about the people that lived there, and just ... take. Especially from a house that sits on a fairly busy corner, and with all the lights on. It's an ability that I really lack the understanding for. To me it speaks volumes of where that person is at emotionally, financially and socially that they are able to do that.
At the end of the day, we know it was a fairly random act and one that we hopefully won't have to experience again. We still love our neighbourhood, warts and all. Break and enters happen in any area of the city.
Luckily this was only an enter and nothing was broken.
]]>According to the report, Apple made $1.6 billion in operating profit off of the iPhone in Q3. Nokia, meanwhile, made $1.1 billion. Letās put this in perspective. Recent numbers suggest Nokia controls roughly 35% of the worldwide handset market. Apple? About 2.5%.
Not 25%. Two point five percent.
This isn't all about just pricing your product at a higher price point and then making more profit. This is about focusing on a single design - a single product - when everyone else is trying to hit every single segment of the market. Nokia has more models of phones this year (approx. 35) then Apple will put out in the next 10 years. And that's just on the Canadian site! I'd imagine Nokia has more variations than that if you count the rest of the world. Apple sells one phone wherever they have product to sell - China being the only current exception due to special laws on the phone there.
Send your mom to that Nokia page and tell her to pick out a phone. Then send her to Apple's cell phone page and see if she can figure out what to buy. That is why Apple is winning where it counts - not just because they seemingly charge more for their products.
It's why they're winning where it counts in computers as well.
From this Techcrunch.com article.
]]>What Happens When The Heart Just Stops
Buy the album on iTunes already.
]]>So what happens when the heart just stops
Stops caring for anyone
The hollow in your chest dries up
And you stop believingSo what happens when the heart gives up
But the body goes on living
The blood crawls to a slow and stops
And flows awayWell we got no-one to meet
No love we would beseech
We only have ourselves to blame for everything
The was no answer in the dust
And I'm missing you so much
And now you're sleeping
And I'm leavingEmpty-handed waiting
Time it will subside and we'll agree
It was a given
Well there was no standard we could set
And the world it does regret
To have to leave you in this state of bereavementYou see I'm feeling everything
Nothing gets byThere is a hollow in my chest
The time I won't forget
There is no comfort in the eyes
They put us always to the test
I can't prepare myself for that
But I work it out in time
There is a love that flows between us
Ever-changing everyday
I worked myself up to a crawl
But I'm not fearing it at all
We have no reason left to stay
And that's why we're leaving
And there was no answer in the dust
And the one I feared to trust
There is a lie that drags us
Beating and pulling into disappointmentI'm disappointed
]]>Your dire warning of "Everything will change now that you're married" says far more about your relationship than it ever could about mine.
The Cheese Bread Killer is still on the loose. Do not accept any food from him.
]]>Sugihara discussed the plan with his wife Yukiko and decided to risk his career and his entire future by defying his superiors. The couple then spent 29 days issuing travel visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands of refugees stood in line at his office. Yukiko would prepare and register the visas while Chiune Sugihara would sign and stamp them, hour after hour, without breaking for meals. They would work late into the night until Yukiko would massage her husbandās weary hands in preparation for the next day. Sugihara was under orders to leave, which he could no longer delay. The family departed on September 1st, but he kept signing visas even as he boarded the train. Sugihara then tossed his official stamp out to the crowd, as he hadnāt time to stamp them all.
Read the full story here.
]]>āDell and Apple: Itās night and day,ā Segall says. āItās a transactional world Dell lives in. Itās all about numbers. Everything they say about Apple making products for themselves is true. Apple ā itās about changing the world. For everyone else, itās about the money.ā
For those of you who only know Apple as the successful company where everything it touches turns to piles of money, this is a good read on how Apple averted bankruptcy.
]]>]]>Tired of media saying that the internet is isolating people. Try being a geek before the internet.
So this song has been an absolute wonderful thing that's happened to us. Like any song you you write you hope that whatever it is about the song, it's gonna work, you hope that the lyrics are gonna make sense, you hope it's going to speak from your heart, or it's gonna have some grain of truth in it. Ehm.
This song is a bit like, if I can use a metaphor, when you kick your ball and you hope it's going to get to the end of the garden because that's where your little brother is waiting for you, to ya know, kick it back. And so you kick your ball hoping it's going to reach the end of the garden... and your ball goes over the wall, it goes over the river, it goes over the next town... and then it goes into a place you've never, ever imagined it would ever end up.
And the tiny, tiny, tiny part of you that's going I want my ball back is completely out shadowed by the wonder of 'Oh my God, I kicked my ball that far!'
Go kick your ball.
]]>If you're a fan of music, or if you have some sort of soul, or you love hearing an Irish lad talk about lost love, or you appreciate a lyric that has a bit more thought put into it then the average fluff on the radio these days...
Or if you really liked the movie 'Once' or just the song 'Falling Slowly' from that movie's soundtrack...
If any of those things are true, then I suggest you check out Strict Joy (Deluxe Edition) - The Swell Season (iTunes link).
Plus, the dude can sing. Sing in such a way that if I wasn't happily married with a child I'd seriously consider gay-marrying him.
]]>Remember how you paid hundreds of dollars for that GPS unit, plus hundreds of dollars for maps and upgrades for the GPS unit? Yeah, that was fun, hey?
Currently US only and on Android phones. Pending approval from Apple it'll be on iPhones eventually.
Update: Garmin, TomTom Shares Sink On New Google Navigation Feature via Daring Fireball
]]>Parent alert: the Walt Disney Company is now offering refunds for all those āBaby Einsteinā videos that did not make children into geniuses
They may have been a great electronic baby sitter, but the unusual refunds appear to be a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect.
From The New York Times: No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund
I pity the parent... rather, I pity the child who's parent thinks that by plopping them down in front of a TV with a video playing that the child is going to learn more than if you gave them books, toys and spent time with them helping them learn.
I'm all for entertainment. Believe me, I've watched more than a couple hours of movies/TV and spent many an evening playing Xbox. And our son Damien loves to watch TV and play hockey on Xbox with me when we let him. But it's entertainment. Don't stick Junior down in front of the TV for the afternoon and claim it as educational on your parenting check list. Call it what it is. It's an electronic babysitter. And in my opinion, you're training your child to not be able to sit, think, play or do much of anything without some sort of external stimulus.
Whew. That came out differently than when I thought it would when I first started writing. :)
]]>So the real question is are you one of the folks joining in or are you the douchey lady who refuses to join in?
]]>I hope this is a real commercial. I applaud you Robert Lee and Cullman Liquidation for your honesty. If I was buying a mobile home, I'd definitely buy one from you.
Link to video / via @cameronmoll
]]>Larry goes to the market.
]]>If this is the first time you've seen a 'Hitler Finds Out About..' video, you're missing out on a whole series of funny videos.
]]>Watch her dramatization of Germany's invasion of Ukraine during World War 2 performed with sand on a giant lightbox:
]]>
Sadly I had to decline due to a prior commitment.
]]>Coincidently, it comes out a few days before Damien's 3rd birthday. Hmmmm...
]]>]]>An investigative series Iāve been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud.
The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Donāt use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.
I don't normally dig this kind of music but you got to have respect for someone creating that from scratch. Harmonizing with yourself is hard enough for most folks in the studio, let alone doing it live and keeping all the tracks running with your feet.
If you're so inclined you can go buy some of his music on his bandcamp.com site.
See also: Flow and Love Someone.
]]>Also a great excuse to go further south as winter has arrived.
]]>Here's the deal... You do not become WillowBack overnight, and the way you learn to execute well is not by creating a culture of tyranny. The secret is standards. Standards are the greatest tool for training your team and they are, for the most part, missing in the church today. Why? I think we feel so grateful for Bob (the guy who volunteers to do the PowerPoint), that on his first day, we do our best to make sure we do not upset him. After all, what if he stops coming? Then what are we going to do? No, what we will do is give him the least amount of information about his duty we can (as we do not have time to really train him) and then we will put up with him not doing it perfectly since he is so faithful (of course he has no real idea what perfection to us is), until one day we get fed up and fire him from his post and crush his spirit by telling how he "never" does it right, when we never trained him what right is.
And this quote:
There's an old adage: Set your expectations, then inspect what you expect.
I've written and rewritten a bunch of things in response but none feel right and/or appropriate. Maybe just read the article yourself if you're interested in these thoughts.
]]>From a Where the Wild Things Are photoshop contest called Where the Wild Things Ought to Be
]]>My plumber has an excellent business card. It says "Phil Jones" on the top line. Underneath that is his job title: "Plumber". It's great because it tells me everything I need to know about what he does. He doesn't try to dress up his line of work by calling himself a "Strategic Pipeline Analyst" or an "Aqueous Substance Manager". He does what it says on the tin. Your job title should do the same.
The above quote is from an article entitled "The Job Title Blacklist for the Self-Employed" but it could really apply to anyone in any size of business. Does your job title accurately reflect what it is you do?
]]>I'm not sure who Microsoft thinks they are reaching with a video like this?
Via cabel.name
]]>So many uncomfortable moments. I'm pretty sure most of these guys died having never felt the touch of a woman... besides their mom.
]]>What do you think?
]]>]]>The single most remarkable thing about Snow Leopard is that it is smaller than the previous version of the system. It is an operating system that is ā and, going back to its roots at NeXT, has always been ā evolving, not just growing. Apple doesnāt just add to it. They prune. They churn. And the track record shows that when it comes to ushering old technology out the back door, they err on the side of too soon rather than risk letting it linger too long. Apple worries about the way things should be far more than it worries about continuity with the way things used to be.
Thanks iPod touch for not correcting my spelling on that one. I'm pretty sure I meant to say 'important' and not impotant. Or impotent.
I was in no way implying that possible drug dealers who were arrested outside my house are impotent.
Please don't hurt us.
Two guys ended up getting hauled away in the back of a police car and the car ended up getting towed so we'll never know what was in the trunk.
(Not depicted on Twitter: Sue and I arguing over whether a early 80's model car would have a trunk release, as opposed to just being opened with keys, and then why the cops weren't just using a crow bar to pry the trunk open. Also not depicted, Damien waking up crying 20 minutes after everything was finished and we were almost asleep.)
]]>Looks like a great movie. Hopefully the movie lives up to the trailer.
Via kungfugrippe.com, a Merlin Mann joint
]]>They grow up so fast!
]]>Even if you're not the sermon listening to type, it's worth listening to for the random voice overs that were recorded when Sue mentioned a few local stores in her sermon.
]]>When I go to visit Store Name A (in a male voice)
I am not complaining about the sleep deprivation or the pooping. In fact, that's why I got pregnant. I wanted to live through it again, and since I'm feeling so much better this time around I'm crazy enough to admit that I'm loving it. Yeah, I don't get a lot of sleep. It can make me cranky from time to time, but in the middle of the night when it is happening it doesn't bother me much because she is so soft and cuddly and smells like the farts of unicorns drunk on happiness and Sprite.
Emphasis mine to make sure you read that beautiful piece of prose.
Just be warned that the rest of the article contains capital letters and words that might make your grandma blush. But your grandma will be agreeing with everything that Heather has to say because if your grandma is your grandma, that means she was pregnant and had a kid or two at some point in her life and she was thinking the exact same things as Heather only didn't have a blog to vent with.
Plus cursing like a sailor would have probably gotten your grandma kicked out of her bridge club.
]]>And what a story Ted Kennedy represented. Hereās the pitch: youāre the youngest child of a man whoās frustrated by the fact that despite his wealth, despite his connections, and despite marrying well, heād never be thought of as anything more than a Useful Irishman by those high in power.
Your father earmarks your oldest brother to get into politics. Heās killed in World War II. So he lines up your oldest surviving brother and he becomes President! And then heās assassinated. Again, your oldest surviving brother is lined up; again, your oldest brother is shot.
And now youāre next in line.
Quite a story.
]]>So far 40% of you prefer the Brick House Red look. I'll close the poll at the end of this week so go vote if you haven't already - or if you're on a different computer than your first vote - vote again!
]]>Current site:
Black:
Green:
Turquoise:
Brick Red:
Gray:
You can go here to view them in a larger format if you prefer.
Vote! You can choose multiple options, but you won't be able to vote more than once... unless you're a HaX0r!@!
[polldaddy poll=1898776]
]]>It goes without saying that at any job, you want to work on something you can truly be proud of and I get to work on a lot of great websites here, but I can honestly say that if I work on no other websites in my life, this one can and should live on as my legacy of my time as a web designer:
]]>Huge growth, to be sure, but 6% of the market is still a fairly small number. There's still a metric ton of other phones out there and lots of room for competition and growth.
That being said, for a smartphone to have come out and capture that much market share so quickly is incredible.
]]>]]>Twitter, in this sense, can be condensed to a stadium full of people. Most everyoneās yelling something, and as a whole itās an incomprehensible wash of noise. Every once in a while, someone will start a chantā¦others pick it up and it growsā¦maybe to the point where itās audible over the rest of the noise to a good portion of the stadium, causing other people to take notice of something they otherwise might have missed. The object is not just to amass a small army of followers, but to get them to make noise about YOU.
I'll have a Moscow Mule:
]]>INGREDIENTS
- 1Ā¼ oz Stoli vodka
- 3 oz ginger beer
- 1 tsp sugar syrup
- Ā¼ oz lime juice
- 1 sprig mint
- 1 slice lime
INSTRUCTIONS
In a copper mug or cocktail glass, pour vodka over ice. Add sugar syrup and lime juice. Top with ginger beer and stir. Garnish with mint sprig and lime slice.
You should probably click it. You'll then see a screen that looks something like this:
Where you should click 'Upgrade Automatically' and then sit back and watch the magic happen.
A few words of caution. If you're not sure if your WordPress blog has some sort of auto-backup of the database, don't click those buttons I told you to click above. My current favorite is the plugin WP-DB Backup which allows you to email yourself (remember that Gmail account you have with gigs of space you're not using?) a copy of your database on a weekly basis. Just to be safe.
]]>Buy this book with accompanying DVD.
You could also buy this book with accompanying DVD for me. If you, ya know, like me at all.
See also: the beautiful website for previously mentioned book with accompanying DVD. It ranks right up there with this site *cough* as a favorite site of mine.
]]>The research, by Don Moore of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, shows that we prefer advice from a confident source, even to the point that we are willing to forgive a poor track record. Moore argues that in competitive situations, this can drive those offering advice to increasingly exaggerate how sure they are.
I've found this to be completely true in my experience doing sales as well as when giving advice to people on tech related stuff. People who I know, or at least think should trust me more will go with someone else who appears more confident. I routinely try and give both sides of an issue when someone is asking my opinion - but that, in effect, gives the impression that I'm not really sure what I'm talking about.
Obviously the same is true of television commercials and advertising. You wouldn't trust someone trying to sell you toothpaste if they said that 4 out of 5 dentists were pretty sure it worked well.
It's frustrating at times, but I'm not willing to become Mr. Douchey Loudmouth to win people's trust. Their loss, not mine. :)
]]>From my casual observations, it seems to be the rich who complain about the recession while not really suffering and the poor who actually suffer but do a lot less complaining. I would guess that donations to causes/religious organizations are down while purchases of luxury items isn't all that much less as people buy more things to help them deal with all the stress of the recession.
At least that's my casual observation while I sip a latte in a coffee shop at the lake. (cough) hypocrite Plenty of boats guzzling plenty of gas being pulled around by plenty of trucks guzzling plenty of more gas.
Times are tough.
]]>But if you're an existing customer, you can fight this. Via www.iphoneincanada.ca:
Do me a favor right now. Go grab your Rogers Wireless monthly bill. Flip to page 2 and read number 15 under the Rogers Terms of Service:
ā15. Rogers may change these terms, and any aspects of the services, upon notice to you. If you do not accept a change to these terms, your sole remedy is to retain the existing terms unchanged for the duration of your commitment period. If you do not accept any other change to aspects of the services, your sole remedy is to terminate.ā
In other words, if you do not accept the recent change to charge for incoming text messages, you do not need to pay for them and your service can continue unchanged.
Every single post-paid (in contract or not in contract) customer of Rogers meets the requirement under Condition 15 which is āupon notice to youā. Each post-paid Rogers customer was informed of the incoming text message charge changes via their bill a few months ago.
So call Rogers at 1-888-ROGERS1 or *611 from your mobile phone and quote Condition 15. If they give you push back, ask for a Manager. Make sure the (usually uninformed) representative realizes this a legally binding document and they cannot simply say ānoā. At this point, get them to put a text message plan on your account for free for the remaining time of your term.
Read the rest of the post for more info and tips on how to avoid these charges.
]]>No comment. www.mybossismichaelscott.com
]]>This is one of the best parts of the internet. Maybe he won't get any more help from United in replacing his guitar, but at least a whole bunch more people will hopefully not fly United as a result of writing a song and making a video that gets sent around to a whole bunch of popular websites. The video as currently been viewed over 200,000 times on youtube.
You can read the full story here on Dave Carroll's website.
Via boingboint.net
]]>Via u2log.com.
]]>and Ultraviolet:
I still haven't (found what I'm looking for?) figured out a way to catch them on this tour. We'll see what happens.
More videos and full rundown of the opening night concert over at u2log.com.
]]>He missed his childhood and now heās gonna miss his old age.
Michael Jackson never had a chance. He had to succeed for his family, his parentsā dreams were dependent upon him.
And a boy with that much pressure delivers. He works truly hard, so he will be loved. Thatās all Michael Jackson was looking for, love.
Bob Lefsetz says it much better than anybody else.
It's weird to think of Michael Jackson actually being dead. My earliest recollection of him is all the urban legends that would go around in elementary school about how he had frozen himself (or was setup to be frozen) so that he could live forever, or something like that.
That and playing Michael Jackson's Moonwalker on my Sega Genesis - though I'm pretty sure I just rented it. I don't think my parents would have bought me a copy of it.
]]>Hard to believe 2 years ago:
To 1 year ago:
To More Recent:
You can tell he's 2 by the fact that it took me over half an hour to write this post while he was getting into things, learning how to go on the potty and pulling the power cord off my laptop.
Hurray for two year olds!
]]>Hard to believe 2 years ago:
To 1 year ago:
To More Recent:
You can tell he's 2 by the fact that it took me over half an hour to write this post while he was getting into things, learning how to go on the potty and pulling the power cord off my laptop.
Hurray for two year olds!
]]>Infinitesummer.org is a site encouraging people to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest this summer.
Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages Ć· 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.
Sounds like an interesting challenge. Unfortunately I've already got 4 or 5 books on my 'to read' list that I'm not going to finish this summer. Anyone up for an Infinite Fall/Winter?
]]>I also know that Iranās women stand in the vanguard. For days now, Iāve seen them urging less courageous men on. Iāve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. āWhy are you sitting there?ā one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. āGet up! Get up!ā
Worth a read to understand the tension and turmoil going on in our world.
]]>The US State Department asked Twitter not go offline for scheduled maintenance so that people could continue to communicate in Iran during the election protests.
I guess this could also be a new form of propaganda and control the US gov't is trying to exert, but at least they don't have control over the actual information being spread.
]]>More please!
]]>I forget where I found this (I came back to my computer with the browser window open) but it looks really sweet - a Photoshop window inspired photo frame. As in analog (real) photo.
The Photoshop Photo Frame is designed with all the familiar features of a standard Mac OS X Photoshop window -- scroll bars, gray and white checkered pattern and all. Every detail pixelated and screen-printed to perfection.
Nerd gift if there ever was one.
]]>I really hope this will be in a local theatre. Trailer here on Apple's trailer site.
Update June 22: The Lefsetz Letter reviews It Might Get Loud.
]]>"It Might Get Loud" is a summit meeting between three legendary guitarists, Jack White, the Edge and the aforementioned Mr. Page. They ultimately unite for a confab on a soundstage in Burbank, where they ruminate on where theyāre coming from and eventually play a great take on "In My Time Of Dying" and a superfluous, weak "The Weight". And in between, we go into each of the threeās roots.
Old guys in loafers singing about minivans through their computers. It's where I hope to be when I'm 65.
Update: Ooops. Forgot to mention that Matthew sent this my way via email.
]]>Via Carlos.
]]>Iām very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 āBaker,ā is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker.
Here's a video explaining what's new:
]]>An angry/frustrated Letterman is the best Letterman.
This incident comes at a great time when he's fighting (and apparently beating) Conan O'Brien's new show.
]]>Pretty neat that a mom came up with a more appropriate teaching method for piano tailored for her son. There's a fine line between teaching your children adult things and forcing them to learn things so that they can live out the dreams of your own childhood.
]]>And while the major labels worried about Appleās power in the music industry, music is now a footnote in the companyās portfolio. The iPhone would function just fine WITHOUT music! Youād think rights holders would wonder how they could integrate music MORE, instead of leaving it outā¦ Where is the Spotify app, which has been created yet not approved by the rights holders? God, everybody would be talking about music THEN!
It's so true. At one point it would have been hard to imagine the iPod/iPhone without music, but now it's so much more than music. For a lot of people an iPod touch is more about a calendar app with the occasional game and rarely is the iPod portion even ventured to.
]]>Oldsters tend not to get it. That the key to the lives of youngsters today is ACCESS! They donāt believe in walls, they want to be able to reach out and touch EVERYBODY! If you erect a wall, young people ignore it, or destroy it, just to let you know who is boss. You may think the iPhone is a toy, but itās a communications device! It allows you to be in touch with the world EVERYWHERE!
Apple still sells the older white 13" MacBook so check that one out if you're looking for a good deal.
]]>The big announcement from Apple today is the June 19th release of the newest iPhone, the iPhone 3GS. All sorts of updates (read more here) but the nicest feature, next to the speed increase, IMHO is the video camera along with video editing software right on the phone.
Now you can shoot video, edit it, and share it ā all on your iPhone 3G S. Shoot high-quality VGA video in portrait or landscape. Trim your footage by adjusting start and end points. Then share your video in an email, post it to your MobileMe gallery, publish it on YouTube, or sync it back to your Mac or PC using iTunes.
The camera is a not-to-shabby 3 megapixel which has a very nifty tap focus:
The new 3-megapixel camera takes great still photos, too, thanks to built-in autofocus and a handy new feature that lets you tap the display to focus on anything (or anyone) you want.
The current iPhone 3G is dropping to $99 with the new model taking it's place at $199.
Update: Keith McArthur from Rogers left a comment below with firm details from Rogers on pricing and availability. Thanks Keith!
We'll see when/if Rogers Canada actually hits the June 19th release date. I'm skeptical but I'd love for them to prove me wrong. Rogers website still doesn't mention anything on there about the new iPhone. I picture their web developers wondering why they're getting so many hits today and scratching their heads.
]]>Milo is a game that's coming out for a Natal equipped Xbox 360 that will have you interacting with a boy, appropriately named Milo, as your friend. Sounds bizarre and it certainly is. It's even more bizarre when you see it in action:
This kind of technology both scares and fascinates me. That we can do this is amazing and as I said, fascinating. But I wonder how often the bigger questions of should we be doing this type of thing and what the ramifications are for a child, for example, who gets so connected to this 'thing' that they lose the ability to tell what a real relationship is vs. a computer generated one - similar to how you can't tell the difference between what's real and computer generated in movies.
Would an 8 year old who plays with Milo be able to handle him going to video game heaven when the Xbox 360 dies? Does that prepare an 8 year old for death in real life?
The mind reels at the possibilities and the impact this kind of technology can have on a society.
]]>Once youāve created your character you need to select character traits. As in real life these are things like party animal, heavy sleeper, never nude, childish, frugal, genius, daredevil, the list just goes on. Each of the traits gives your character unique abilities and some entertaining attributes with true Sims humour. For example the kleptomaniac trait means your character will compulsively steal from other Sims, whilst also giving you the option of sneaking out at night and robbing your neighbours. The frugal trait allows you to clip coupons from the newspaper that will give you discounts when you head to the shops, or to the day spa, and my Sim does this almost religiously, and on top of this gets overly excited when he scores a bargain. (emphasis mine)
They've added the Mennonite gene! Or as I prefer to call it, the "Hurricane Grace."
]]>It's sad how spot on this is. I laughed. And cried.
]]>Quite terrifying that this is what people are wanting. There's enough demand for pictures/video of these folks that we need a good 20+ photographers taking pictures while someone walks down a carpet.
Via Rainn's tweet
]]>This is exactly what makes design/web/media work so difficult to do. Unless you're working with someone else who speaks the same language as you, it's hard to communicate what exactly is going on.
]]>Heather Dooce is 36 weeks into her 2nd pregnancy and has cracked:
]]>And then last night I was changing into my pajamas when I noticed a giant rash across the lower half of my butt. I have watched enough Discovery Health Channel to know that rashes, especially ones during pregnancy, are not harbingers of good things. It's not like, ooh goodie! A rash! This means I'm going to give birth to a giant basket of Snickers bars! It's more like, uh oh. A rash. Guess I'll get that EMERGENCY C-SECTION I ALWAYS WANTED.
If you've got talent, people want more of you. They ask you for this or that or the other thing. They ask nicely. They will benefit from the insight you can give them.
Seth Godin gives you a reason to say no.
]]>Via Matt Wiebe
]]>I, for one, am shocked. I had no idea that we as a society would unleash a new technology without having any sort of boundaries or training for it's potential users or thought given to it's impact until well after the fact.
Texting may also be taking a toll on teenagersā thumbs. Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she got for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.)
Ahh. Good to see that an Apple product once again saves the day.
Via kottke.org
]]>Via misscellania.com
]]>Handy site to bookmark if you're watching a movie and can't hold it - you can look up a movie and it will tell you when it's safe to go to the bathroom. For example, Star Trek has 4 pee times (50 minutes, an hour, 1 hour 20, and 1 hour 40) so you've got lots of opportunities to take a quick break. They scramble the part that you'll be missing so you can come back later and find out the little bits you missed.
]]>The view out our front door.
Our 1 room cabin in Jasper.
Up on top of the mountain.
Back to the fireplace in our cabin.
]]>]]>Still no swine sightings here---as far as we have been told---they are calling it the CNN Flu.
Some friends and I are blogging the happenings over at HonkinDoodle.com. It's a domain I've been sitting on for awhile and have never known what to do with. I'm not sure this is the right thing to do, but it's something to do. Got to start somewhere.
HonkinDoodle.com is basically a multi-author blog where, at present, we're just posting stuff that interests us and for whatever reason doesn't fit the flow of our personal sites/blogs. Maybe I'm grasping at something that doesn't need to exist anymore, but I'm hoping that there's still some interest in what's going on besides what you see on your friend's Facebook pages.
Interested in helping us blog the internet? Drop me a line and I'll hook you up with a login. It's a very prestigious thing to have. T shirts are coming next!
]]>The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
- CNN.com
What would Jesus do?
]]>An interesting chat to observe between two "celebrities" who are trying to use their celebrity to push for positive change in the world.
You can appreciate a bit more of how Bono is able to get stuff done for AIDS relief by the stares he gives George Clooney in this interview. You'd be hard pressed to say no to someone staring you down like that.
Via u2log.com
]]>I'm not sure why you need it to be high performance, but either way, it'd make for a sweet wall in an office.
]]>As with a lot of things in science, it seems there's a bit of debate over whether the swine flu is as deadly as the media "doctors" would have us believe:
Dirk Brockmann, a professor of engineering and applied mathematics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., used a computer model of human travel patterns to predict how this swine flu virus would spread in the worst-case scenario, in which nothing is done to contain the disease.
After four weeks, almost 1,700 people in the U.S. would have symptoms, including 198 in Los Angeles, according to his model. Thatās just a fraction of the countyās thousands of yearly flu victims.
From this LA Times article.
Via Neatorama.com
]]>The major American innovation in the congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting and requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable. It didn't take long for some of our colleagues to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our churches is to identify what they want and offer it to them.
and this one:
Scripture is not about us, either. It is about God. God has revealed God's self to us in scripture so that we might know and respond to God, understand where we are in God's creation, what it means to be called into a life of God's salvation. We do not primarily read scripture in order to develop a better self-image, or to discover the hidden treasures in our lives. Scripture is not about us. Basically, we are listening to God revealing God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
and one more:
American spirituality has an indiscriminating love of technology. We like getting things done, no matter how. Use the fastest and most efficient means at hand, but get it done. Fastest and most efficient almost always means impersonal. People ask questions, act stubborn, make mistakes and get in the wayāso bypass the personal. Under the influence of technology, we have acquired the habit of reading the scriptures technologically, scripture depersonalized into information used to get things done more quickly.
I hope he's not talking about reading the bible on your iPod. I've brought my bible to church a lot more since putting it on my iPod. :)
]]>]]>In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nationās food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly thatās been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our governmentās regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nationās food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals surprising ā and often shocking truths ā about what we eat, how itās produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
]]>My qualifications to cover health, social and psychological trends include years of childhood therapy (Iām proud to say never gave an inch and wet the bed right through it all); a doctor who responded to a Thanksgiving call from me about some concerning chest pains by saying he could squeeze me in sometime around the third week of January; and about three hundred hours in a steam bath with old Jews who often complained that I seemed to kvetch too much. Trust me, Iām your man.
]]>Ever since the web hit the mainstream sometime in the 90s, people have asked of each new conversational publishing technology -- newsgroups, message boards, online journals, weblogs, social networking sites, and now Twitter -- the same question: "but why would anyone want to hear about what some random person is eating for breakfast?" The answer applies equally well for both offline conversation and online "social media": almost no one...except for their family and friends.
Via kottke (again)
]]>And what kind of country is shipping it's single parents off to war? Surely she would have a choice to not go and support her family?
Via kottke.org
]]>Via kottke.org
]]>It's sites like these that are what the web was made for. If your organization's website isn't this loud and in your face, pack up and go home because you're just not trying hard enough.
]]>Susan Boyle sings for Britain's Got Talent
Brutally good (and appropriate) lyrics as well:
]]>I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted.But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame.And still
I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather...I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
so different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.
Also some neat marble run kits. I think Damien might want these for his birthday. :)
Via swiss-miss.com
]]>U2log.com audio podcast episode 001
I'm joined by Christopher Schmitt, a fellow contributer to u2log.com (and published author/web design guru), and we discuss U2 related stuff. Listen to me "yeah" and "ugh" along with Christopher. It's not for everyone but I know that I had fun recording it as well as editing it together and figuring out the whole podcasting recording/setup/etc. I'll post my workflow somewhere if anyone is interested. (Wiretap Studio was a great thing to get as part of the Macheist bundle)
As I mentioned, I hate the sound of my voice.
]]>Direct link if you prefer to watch the HD version
Once again Damien has decided to shake his groove thang for ya. And his dad gets to play around with the video editing software.
]]>Random clips of Damien dancing up a storm. To answer your question, yes, I do have too much time on my hands.
]]>He had a fun time showing her how to play hide and seek:
And giving her hugs while she sat in his bumbo chair:
]]>Damien spent a great deal of time last weekend with this bucket filled with cloths that he took from my dishcloth/towel drawer. He would empty it out in various places, and then pick them up one at a time and put them back in. And once they were all in, he would cram them down nice & tight so he could carry them to the next location and do it all over again. It kept him entertained for several hours (or maybe just minutes) at a time!
We also spent some time out in the leaves last week and got some pretty good pictures.
]]>Today Damien high-fived me after he farted exceptionally loud.
(single tear) They grow up so fast...
Oh, and he took his first (self initiated) steps on his own, if that's important?
]]>We're still around, and still taking lots of pictures of Damien. We kind of forgot about this site for awhile, so here's a bunch of new pictures to get us caught up. :)
Damien has started crawling up onto things - chairs, stairs and now into his wagon:
It makes it harder to just leave him in a room to play now as he can get into so much more stuff as he figures out how to climb up higher.
He's still not walking on his own - though he'll gladly hold your hand and walk along with you. He loves to push around his wagon and walk around the house with it:
]]>Here's Damien's 2nd attempt at climbing up our stairs. Only a couple slips. I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but I will say he doesn't fall to his doom.
]]>Happy Birthday (a couple of days early - 24th is his actual birthday) Damien! 1 year old now. It's hard to believe how much has changed in his life, and ours, in that 1 year.
Update: Way more pictures available here if you're interested.
]]>He finds the safest, quietest place in the whole room to just hang out by himself.
Once he got in there, he was quite happy!
Chris & I talked about it on the way home, and we both thought it was likely something he would do as a kid too.
One more cute story.... the other day I was typing a quick email with Damien on my lap, but he kept on wanting to type himself. So after getting a bit frustrated with him, I set him down on the floor. About a minute later, I look behind me and he's made his way to our closet and pulled out the keyboard from the old computer. It gave me a good laugh (and I worried that he knows too much about computers already!).
]]>Damien's been going back and forth on whether he's going to sleep through the night for the last couple of weeks. It could be teething or it could be just that he's decided he's not going to sleep just to test us. :)
But he's still just gotta smile and we cave. He's going to have the run of our lives. :)
]]>One possible side effect of getting together is that now Damien is sick. He's gotten a bit of a fever and just not himself today. Hopefully none of the other babies got sick as well!
]]>Here he's checking Grandpa's measurements to make sure they're correct:
And here Damien is trying to show Grandpa which side of the tile should be used:
]]>A video for one of Damien's grandpas who happens to be down in Mexico enjoying much warmer weather.
]]>He started with some rice cereal (but then I had a lick of that and realized it tasted like paste, so I thought we'd try something else). He moved onto oatmeal cereal quite easily, and loves it.
Now we've tried avocados, squash, pears, sweet potatos, peaches, and bananas.
He seems to like the sweet potatoes & bananas best, but opens his mouth wide for almost everything these days, so its not hard to get the spoon in with something new. Next we'll try carrots!
]]>Damien's been having a great Christmas - getting to spend lots of time with both sides of his family.
He's even tried his first bit of real food. He's liked the rice cereal and the oatmeal cereal, but definitely didn't agree with the yams we tried.
]]>Merry Christmas from us to you!
Hope you get a chance to put your head down to relax for a moment or two:
And remember not to drink too much eggnog (or whatever your beverage of choice is this time of year):
]]>Damien also got to open his first Christmas present - some fun stacking cups that he's been enjoying already!
And, of course, Damien spent some quality time with his favorite girl cousin, Gabriella.
It was a great weekend and we're definitely glad we went.
]]>Damien Spiderman went out trick or treating tonight.
No, he didn't pee his pants. That's spit up. :) Or should I say web slinging goo??
]]>Damien been's hard at work in the studio on his new album which is scheduled to drop first quarter of '08. It's tentatively titled "Mom, I Got a Package For You" but that's not set in stone.
Here I asked him what he thought of the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows. I think you can tell by the expression on his face that he really digs it:
]]>Damien seems to enjoy the "walks" as well, though he usually ends up asleep part way through.
]]>Awww... the happy family.
And one last one of Damien just chillin on the couch.
And click here to view Damien's first official video on the interwebs, "Damien at 3 and 1/2 months." He's pretty proud of it but he's looking forward to the sequel - "Damien - 4 and 1/2 Months and Still Spitting."
]]>Ā
]]>We'll call that one a draw.
]]>Sleeps in his crib,
and sits in his chair.
Especially when Mom is spending all her time chatting with her sister in Australia via Skype:
]]>Hanging with his cousin, Gabriella.
Meeting his Aunt/Cousin Deanna.
More hanging with Gabriella.
Laughing
... and smiling.
And meeting his great-Grandma Enns.
]]>I also hang out alot in my Bumbo chair now that I can hold my head up.
And finally, here's my mom and a picture of what she does all day.
]]>Damien's been getting lots of great family time with Sue's family. His cousin, Samuel (seen below sitting in a funky new chair), is in town and they've been getting on great. Lots of time spent crusing around, checking out the ladies, getting their diapers changed, the usual thing cousins do when they see each other for the first time.
We're all headed up to Elk Ridge for the week to hang out, relax, and change lots of diapers. Can't wait!
]]>Damien got an upgraded set of wheels on the weekend. We picked up a Chariot and had a great time trying it out around Waskesiu on the weekend.
It's got decent acceleration and corners pretty good. We're going to take it out and try and do some drifting tonight.
]]>Damien is 4 weeks old and changing all the time. Going into my second week without Chris, I can totally understand the need for consistency and a schedule to keep yourself sane! I now understand how our friends with kids need to have some major down time to get their kids back to normal after lots of outings and socializing. The question is, how do you keep a social life and still maintain the consistency your baby needs to stay on a schedule? Hmmm... I guess I'll just have to keep figuring that one out.
I defintely have enjoyed being a mom so far, but the hardest part for me is not being able to have big chunks of time to accomplish stuff. Rather than spending the morning cleaning my house and getting it done, I need to break it into 1/2 - 1 hour jobs, and be ok if even those don't all get done. I guess I have to stop getting my self-worth from what I've accomplished in a day! For those of you that really know me, you know that will be quite difficult. :)
]]>A tad ironic since Courtney used to cry when we were looking after them a few years back. I told Damien to cry when she was holding him. Worked like a charm.
]]>Damien has been spotted getting some tummy time:
And finally - not his best side, but the one he speaks from most often lately:
]]>We also got a visit (and some clothes) from Joel, Cheryl, Olivia and Eron. And Damien didn't get dropped! :)
]]>Damien got to meet one of his Aunt and Uncles this weekend. Jan and Paul decided to make a quick trip out to see their new nephew. And in about a month he'll get to meet his other Aunt/Uncle and cousin when Chris and Lorinda and Samuel make the trek out from Australia.
]]>Funny Damien moment: We're sitting on the couch reading/watching Tv with Damien sleeping on the cushion between us. He likes to sleep on his back with arms raised up behind his head - really relaxed. Every so often he pulls his legs up and lets 'er rip and we laugh. I think we'll have to rock/paper/scissors to see who changes his diaper.
]]>We decided to try and get out of the house a bit and have a little picnic on our deck Saturday night. It was beautiful out - just a slight breeze and warm enough to just sit comfortably.
Afterwards we met up with Mark and Susanna, who recently moved into our area as well (Go West Siders!) and introduced them to ice cream/milkshakes at Harry & Rita's on 33rd.
Can you spot Damien in the middle of all this candy?
]]>Welcome to Damien's new blog. Ā Sue and I will update Damien stuff here slightly more often than on my personal blog.Ā
]]>Tried out this technique for pictures.
It's easy to do an ok job of it (this took me maybe five minutes including taking the pictures and combining them in PS) but you'd have to do more planning/have a better camera/spend more time in PS to get it as good as the originals. Either way, it's still a neat idea for taking pictures.
Bill Gates posing on top of a desk. I guess it doesn't get much hotter than that for geeks. (blech!)
]]>Any Mac users out there who use Movabletype and are missing out on the shortcut link, bold, email, etc buttons on their entry page need to check out Firefox. Even if all you use it for is your blog entries, it's a good browser to have around. Something in the javascript support in Safari renders those shortcut buttons invisible.
]]>Sue's making soup and I'm trying to fight off a cold.
Ever have one of those days where the thoughts in your head don't sound nearly as intelligent when you let them out of your mouth?
The recently announced Mac mini puts all other 'small form factor' computers to shame. Like a lot of Apple product, I have no direct use for it but I still desperately want one.
]]>Steve Jobs is giving the big 'reality distortion field' speech right now, but Apple decided to not stream it live from the stage so you'll have to wait until tonight to get your fill.
There's lots of sites doing text updates. Here's what's gone down so far:
Updates as they come.
]]>It all came to an end so quickly, at least it feels like it did. When you first get there it feels like two weeks will go on forever, but then by the time we're heading to the airport outside Mazatlan it feels like we just got there. The trip home definitely took forever. First a delayed flight in Mazatlan, then again in Los Angeles. We got a 3 hour lay-over in Vegas so we took a cab and hit the strip. It's amazing how something can be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time. I had just finished reading Bringing Down the House, a Christmas gift from Sue, and so the Vegas mythology was in my head. I didn't see anyone carrying around wads of cash, but the minimum limits at some of the blackjack tables were enough to do your head in.
Speaking of Christmas gifts, I got a guitar from Jamie and Ives that's down at the condo. It's a cheap, old Mexican classical style guitar and it's nice to not worry about things being in tune sometimes.
We had a New Year's fire on the beach (I'm going backwards through my photos now) and some beautiful sunsets. We got to see turtles, dolphins, and a semi-pro baseball game. (I'm not sure how those three fit together) Jamie and Ives got set up in their new apartment and my parents got a new car ('86 Jetta for those keeping score).
We met Jamie's new family, I found my new office and saw the site of Sue's family's new condo.
Ives tried fire-spinning (without the fire), we tried some really fresh shrimp, and Jamie and Ives got some baby clothes.
Enough photo linking. You can figure out the rest on your own. It's both good and bad to be back home. Mazatlan always inspires us to think outside our regular lives and look at ways we can improve ourselves as well as the world around us. Part of the inspiration comes from the world around us (poverty mixed with much wealth and the beauty and friendly nature of the Mexican people) as well as from the books we have time to read while on vacation there. A good portion of the people in Mazatlan live on around $10US per day and are satisfied and surviving on that. Most of us make at least that in one hour and are scrambling for ways to make more. Imagine the good that could come from giving up either the struggle for money or your money for good. Sue and I talked about how two families/friends could live together in a house and give away one families' income to better the world.
The problem comes in forgetting all these things we are inspired by and settling back into a routine. With a trip to Australia coming up in 3 months, I don't know that we'll have time to get back into that routine. :)
]]>It was a lot harder, emotionally, to edit than I thought it would be when we first talked about what the video might end up looking like. At first I was upset with myself for not being impacted by the scenes I was watching. I really despised the thought that I had become so desensitized to images such as these. But as I continued working, it really began to hit home. Most of these clips are taken from a ABC report on Darfur and the ethnic cleansing/tribal warfare that has gone on there.
It just boggles my mind how that can be taking place on this same planet and have little to no effect on what we do here in Saskatoon. We often look back in history and think 'How could people have let Hitler kill as many people as he did' but what's gone on and is continuing to go on all around the world are similair events that we do nothing about.
The song that's in the video is asking the question "Where Are You?" to God, but it could (and should) more likely be asked of us.
]]>We had Christmas last night with Sue's family. It was a bit lonely without the rest of them (Sue's sisters and their husbands are in Winnipeg and/or Byron Bay, Australia) but we still had a good time - despite me losing at Settlers.
]]>Swiped from www.thevirginprunes.net.
]]>It'll be interesting to see how much of the music from their tour next year gets thrown online via iTunes. Hopefully other artists start getting the special treatment from Apple/iTunes. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I love hearing different versions of songs, especially live, when a band experiments a bit.
]]>Me and my big mouth. A day after I posted it on u2log, Apple wised up and fixed the fact that you could buy all the bonus songs individually on the U2 digital box set.
]]>On hearing that it's Tim's 30th birthday:
David Brent (the boss): Things do change. It could be worse. There's a neighbour of mine, Calvin, he's 32 and he still lives with his parents.
Tim Canterbury: I live with my parents.
Tim: Oh
David Well, dad isn't... dead. He's in a home. So, as good as.
...
]]>
We had my staff Christmas party at the Faculty club on Saturday night. There was much laughter (Bwahaha) and food that was eaten. What a fine bunch of peeps... except for Trina who won the Xbox - she is the subject of much jealousy and rage from the rest of the staff.
]]>Just as in the first one, I traverse the combat oriented areas so I can arrive at the next perfected, genre defining platform section. It is like getting a ordering a pizza and getting a free walrus. Even if the walrus were excellent, I mean truly exemplary, I'm really not in the market for it and it's not why I ordered the pizza.
]]>If that link doesn't work, you need to grab a copy of iTunes for Windows or Mac.
]]>Fun weekend. We're exhausted but it's a very good kind of exhaustion that comes from spending lots of quality time with friends and family. Thanks to everyone who helped out and was a part of Ives and Jamie's wedding celebration.
More pictures here.
Enough contemplation. More work to do. Watch for pictures as they get added here. I changed the picture set to a group that anyone can join. Leave me a comment if you'd like to be included and can't get in right now.
]]>Very nice promo for Apple on Survivor tonight. They used a Powerbook with an iSight to connect the 'survivor's to their loved ones back home. The video quality looked a little too good to be true since they were connecting via satellite - and it turned out to be so as they had their loved ones hidden on the island. So maybe it was just a good advertisement for Airport wireless and the iSight. Either way, it looked cool for Apple. I've tried the iSight and it works as good as advertised.
]]>Choice clips:
]]>It's something I disagree with sitting in my chair at home, but I can't even begin to imagine being a 19 yr old in a country where a lot of people are wanting your death. I'd be pretty trigger happy as well.
]]>Continue reading for lyrics from my current favorite off the new album: Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.
Tough, you think you've got the stuff
You're telling me and anyone
You're hard enough
You don't have to put up a fight
You don't have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
We fight all the time
You and I...that's alright
We're the same soul
I don't need...I don't need to hear you say
That if we weren't so alike
You'd like me a whole lot more
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
I know that we don't talk
I'm sick of it all
Can - you - hear - me - when - I -
Sing, you're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me...
Where are we now?
I've got to let you know
A house still doesn't make a home
Don't leave me here alone...
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
Sometimes you can't make it
The best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
Disgusting. There is quite literally no excuse for a professional sports player leaving the playing field and going into the stands and punching fans. No matter what they're saying about your mama, no matter what they throw at you.
I hope they ban the players involved from the game. Realistically they may get a season suspension, but who knows. As they say, no press is bad press these days.
]]>Joel gave his right eye to see Pilate last night. I gave up 2 hours of my life listening to 2 other crappy bands (Boy and Memory Bank) before finally getting to the good stuff.
It was akin to having to wade through mushroom-capped something appetizers to get to your steak. But man was it a good steak.
Mmmm.... steak.
]]>Anyone out there still need a gmail address? I've got invitations to hand out. Leave a comment if you want one.
]]>Need an iPod?
]]>Originally uploaded by iChris.
It's not 'Say Hello to THE pig'
]]>I want to trip inside your head
Spend the day there...
To hear the things you haven't said
And see what you might see
I want to hear you when you call
Do you feel anything at all?
I want to see your thoughts take shape
And walk right out
Freedom has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby's head
The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've seen enough I'm not giving up
On a miracle drug
Of science and the human heart
There is no limit
There is no failure here sweetheart
Just when you quit...
I am you and you are mine
Love makes nonsense of space
And time...will disappear
Love and logic keep us clear
Reason is on our side, love...
The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've had enough of romantic love
I'd give it up, yeah, I'd give it up
For a miracle, a miracle drug, a miracle drug
God I need your help tonight
Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear your voice
It's whispering
In science and in medicine
"I was a stranger
You took me in"
The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've had enough of romantic love
I'd give it up, yeah, I'd give it up
For a miracle, miracle drug
Miracle, miracle drug
]]>They just don't make them rap burgers like they used to.
]]>We had the best and worst presentations ever made to people sitting in chairs in the history of mankind. I cannot believe in this day and age that companies that make real money pay real dollars to people who cannot even present their product without just reading off the powerpoint slides.
'Oh boy, was this ever a disaster. Complete nightmare. But it's a great product.'
I have no idea what that means - I think it means I'm really tired and wiped from a weekend of planes, sitting in conferences and not having a day off. At least this week is a short week. I won $15,000 at blackjack** on Saturday night.
I've got my ears on a copy of U2's new album that's making the day go a little smoother. It's going ot be a great album and tour.
**It should read 'I won $15,000 at blackjack on Saturday night playing with fake money' but that doesn't sound nearly as good.
]]>Movie Nerds:
Cars: Pixar's next movie after they finish counting the cash from The Incredibles.
If I have internet access, I'll be dumping pics up on flickr.
]]>Originally uploaded by iChris.
It's funny what you find on a memory card that nobody has used for awhile in a computer store.
]]>Originally uploaded by iChris.
Cara tries to show off her new nails - Mario don't like.
]]>I think I'm going to switch to being strictly a Mac support. Stupid Windows.
]]>mennogirl.ca is coming. But it's taking dotster.com forever and a day to figure out how to actually let me register it. Dotser is dotstupid.
]]>Originally uploaded by Caroline.
Not loving the camera. This Flickr test post has been brought to you by the letters A, B and C.
]]>Someone on a WinXP box try it out and let me know how well it works. It's getting rave reviews on some blogs, but then he works for Microsoft.
]]>So they announced a new U2 iPod. (You can catch the quicktime stream of the event here) I wouldn't kick it out of bed for eating crackers, but I wouldn't go and spend an extra $110 above the cost of the regular 20GB iPod to get it either. I am, however, scheming up a way to get the new 60GB iPod Photo. That has potential to get some serious use. And with the S-Video/RCA output on it, I'm sure they'll be adding video out on it eventually. I don't care about watching it on the little 2" screen, but it'd be sweet to be able to take a movie I'm working on, dump it on the iPod and just take that to a meeting and show it on a TV or projector.
Is there any mennogals out there that want to join Jenn as we set up a mennogal/mennoladies/something? Mennogirl.com is apparently taken? The cost goes down as more people join! :)
]]>Notice anything missing?
]]>From www.k10k.net
]]>If you're looking for Matthew Harm's site, he'll be up soon as well. And once we decide on a name, we should be going with a menno(insert appropriate female version).com. Apparently someone decided to buy mennogirl.com.
]]>Basically if you register yourself and log in, you can comment as much as you like. If you don't register, you can't comment. Simple and easy. The other mennoboy blog sites are set up this way by default right now, but it's up to each of them as to whether they keep it that way or not. It may seem like a hassle, but it's the way it's gotta be. That's why blogger is doing the same thing.
]]>That or pick up the phone and call. Crazy thought, hey?
]]>Originally uploaded by iChris.
I don't know if the picture tells the whole story, but there's not much else happening besides the whole story.
I decided to crop the guy holding a beer bottle inappropriately - I think it was a wise decision.
]]>Playing Settlers with Matt 7 Mark
Originally uploaded by iChris.
Finally broke down and picked up a copy of Settlers of Catan. Matt and Mark were nice enough to teach me how to play so I didn't have to bother with the instruction manual. To no one's surprise, Mark managed to win. :)
Then we played it with my family after Thanksgiving supper and Sue took home the 'W'. After putting myself in a hole with my initial settlement placement, I went for the development card strategy and nearly pulled it out by buying 3 straight victory point cards.
I think I just crossed a line to being even more nerdy than I was yesterday at this time. Awesome.
]]>Committed To The Wax, Tapes, And CDs
Originally uploaded by DYFL.
This is the best use of tags on flickr yet. Now if only I hadn't just thrown all my jewel cases away and put my CD's in a binder.
]]>Hearts are worn
In these dark ages
You're not alone,
In these stories' pages
The light has fallen
Amongst the living and the dying
And I'll try to hold it in
Yeah I'll try to hold it in
The world is on fire
It's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able ...
I watch the heavens
But I find no calling
Something I can do to change what's coming
Stay close to me
While the sky is falling
I don't wanna be left alone,
Don't want to be alone...
The world is on fire
It's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able ...
Hearts break ... hearts mend ... love still hurts
visions clash ... planes crash
Still there's talk of saving souls
Still the cold is closing in on us
We part the veil on our killer sun
Stray from the straight line
On this short run ...
The more we take the less we become
The fortune of one man means less for some
The world is on fire
It's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able ...
The world is on fire
It's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water
Try and bring my share
Try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able ..
- Sarah McLachlan - 'World on Fire'
Originally uploaded by iChris.
Finally got around to fiddling with my parents router to allow iChat video/audio conversations through. You can see how I'm very slowing turning my parents in to Mac geeks like me.
]]>Or something like that.
I'm feeling very disjointed right now. The Store has slowed down a bit, but one of my co-workers has left and so there's some extra work for everyone. A plus to it is that now I'm the 'official' Apple guy. Until we hire someone new, all it really means is that there's more work to go around - but hopefully once things settle down I'll be able to focus on work that I enjoy a little more.
HoW band practice tonight and a FGCC practice tomorrow night and somehow I've got to come up with a concept/design for a video/slideshow for Sunday a.m. I love the stuff I get to do, I just wish I had more time for all of it.
]]>Sue will have the pictures up later - I'll link them once they're up.
]]>From u2log.com of course.
]]>Something about that background color of #333333 that I keep coming back to though.
]]>Setting up OS X for the first time
Originally uploaded by iChris.
Setting up a new iMac is so easy, even my mom can do it herself! That 20" screen makes my 15" powerbook look tiny. :(
]]>How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Originally uploaded by DYFL.
Here's the album cover for U2's new album. The single is up for sale on the iTunes Music store but sadly, no Canadian store available yet.
]]>The Sims 2 is out. No sign of a Mac version for some time yet which is probably a good thing. I despise the game on all levels, yet I know that if I got a copy I'd sit and play it for hours straight.
]]>Everyone's Shocked By The New Watch
Originally uploaded by iChris.
I think the picture speaks for itself. Needless to say, Carlos got a new binary watch for his birthday and now the ladies are swooning.
]]>I broke down and did what I said I'd never do. Buy a cell phone.
And now I've become a ring-tone whore like I knew I would be. 50 Cent's 'In Da Club' makes a really good ring tone... right up there with 'Sweet Caroline' by Neil.
]]>Finally finished off the new computer/office room (aka Audio Visual Room). I'm still looking for an old '80's style A/V Room sign to put on the door.
]]>Further proof that I've sold my soul (besides all your email addresses) to flickr in the next couple of posts.
Currently grooving on Ben Harper's Diamonds on the Inside. Sometimes the right songs come on iTunes and fits exactly my mood. Usually I go with quick fixes (U2, DMB, Jars, Radiohead) or guilty pleasures (Timberlake... uhm... help me out here). But this Harper album is just what I needed to hear tonight.
]]>How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is the title, Vertigo is the first single.
]]>Plus all the free Apple pens, notebooks, flashlights, etc that you can handle.
]]>It's crazy nutsy busy time at the U these days. All the retarded first years running around with their gut hanging out of their two sizes too small shirt stopping at the top of the stairs to talk about how "like, I totally couldn't even understand my teacher today... and where do I, like, get my books?" Free pizza from IBM and a bunch of freebies from Sasktel have helped to nurse the rage building inside me.
]]>Interesting numbers from the article:
ĆÆ 666,666: The number of CDs Prince had to sell under his old record deal to make $1 million.
ĆÆ 142,857: The number of CDs Prince has to sell now, on his own, to make $1 million
ĆÆ 13 million: The number of Purple Rain CDs sold since 1984
ĆÆ $19.5 million: The money Prince made off those Purple Rain sales
ĆÆ 1.3 million: The number of Musicology CDs sold this year
ĆÆ $9.1 million: The money Prince made off those Musicology sales
ĆÆ 30: Roughly, the number of studio albums Prince has released in 26 years.
ĆÆ 24,800: The average number of people who see Prince in each city
ĆÆ $1.5 million: The average concert gross in each city
ĆÆ $63.26: Prince's average ticket price
ĆÆ $143.60: Madonna's average ticket price
ĆÆ $79.5 million: Madonna's tour gross
ĆÆ $45.7 million: Prince's tour gross through June 30
ĆÆ $100 million: Prince's expected gross at tour's end
Link via Caroline.
]]>I've got the week off as we hang out with Sue's family and prepare for her sister's wedding next weekend. I've got a lot of other stuff I'm helping out with (a couple of videos for next Sunday, a website that was supposed to be done a month ago and something else I'm forgetting) plus we move out of our place into Sue's parent's place next weekend to allow for Jan's fiance's fam to use our place. All in all it should be a fun week - but it'll be a crazy one as well.
]]>Maybe I should bid on his rifle?
]]>On the one hand it was really good to get rid of 2 garbage bags worth of jewel cases that had been taking up space in our place - but on the other hand that's a lot of CDs that I don't really listen to. I've ripped anything that I might even possible listen to into iTunes - that gave me 2709 songs, or 7.9 days worth of music played back to back, or 12.98GB of music encoded in AAC at 160kbps - but there's still a lot of CD's that I probably won't ever pull out to play.
I went out with Mark to the Yard last night for cheap beer and an ok chicken caesar wrap. I still haven't found a replacement for the Odeon's wrap that seemed to lift up my day and light up my night. Anyway. Trav bought the Megaman collection so we hit that up for a bit in a Megaman 2 kinda way. I wonder how many hours have been spent on games like that - where you play the original when you're a kid, and then play it all over again when they come out with a 'retro' version that you pick up as an adult?
]]>Which really means I'll be in bed by 10 on Friday after exhausting myself watching tv and trying to figure out whether a bag of smarties or a box of mini-wheats would make for a better meal. Party on! Woo!
]]>There's something like 4 billion pictures spread over 5 billion pages, so feel free to take your time not even viewing them at all. Some of my personal highlights are below:
]]>We had an early wake up call Ʊ 7:15 was breakfast Ʊ so I was pretty groggy for the first session. Great food all weekend hasnĆt helped the lethargy. David, the speaker, has an amazing amount of knowledge in his head and itĆs been great to get a lot of the background of the story in Isaiah as heĆs been teaching. Sometimes itĆs a bit much to follow (like this morning when youĆre tired) but itĆs been good. We had a 4 and Ā hour break this afternoon that we put to good use. First of all we had a good afternoon nap. Then we went for a walk down to the chapel on the grounds here. A beautiful building with lots of history behind most everything in and around the place (the pews, the pulpit, the doors, etc). It was a quick hike down, but a steep hike back up but we managed to make it back without having to resort to a van ride. Sue loved the shrimp for supper, I filled up on rice.
After another session with David we had our final small, interactive group session. I got to hear about the joys of cancer and making sure to go to your physical, etc. I was at least 20 years younger than the other 7 guys in my group Ʊ so I guess it gave me something to look forward to. Probably the best time we had was after the small group a bunch of couples (including Pal and Angie) hung out in the entry of The ShepherdĆs Inn where we were staying and chatted until midnight. Everyone else was from Ohio but we had good laughs talking about spiderbarks and getting free sandwiches.
(This one was written in the 3rd person since Sue hijacked my laptop and took over for a day.)
This Holiday Inn Express had the cinnamon buns we know and love, but a bad set up for their breakfast bar. Sue spent most of breakfast analyzing how she could improve the layout.
We got onto the road around 10am, after stopping at a grocery store for some food to take with us, following a long and windy drive to Deep Creek. The first hike was easy, but gave some beautiful views of the creek and some falls. There were many others on the hike, but most were carrying tubes to float back down the creek. It looked like lots of fun. The second hike was a bit more strenuous, but much shorter and still showed us some lovely falls.
We headed back, arriving in Ashville and finding our way to the Cove by 4pm. After registering and discovering our beautiful room, and the beautiful scenery around the grounds, we had a tasty buffet supper. We are the only ones from Canada here, which was nicely pointed out in the first session. So we have been branded and are getting a little picked on because of it. Sue was forced to be the leader in her interactive session, and Chris was assigned to be the leader in his next interactive session. Seems people think Canadians make good leaders.
Our speaker talks a little like CJ Boldt, but tells great stories and seems pretty good so far. We also met another young couple here, Paul & Angie, both just 24. Paul has been a youth pastor at AngieĆs home church (just stumbled into it with no schooling) for 3 years, a conservative Mennonite church, theyĆve been married four years, have 2 kids but parents close by, just got back from a missions trip with their youth, and are going to school in the fall. We found ourselves saying Ƭus tooĆ® a lot while we were getting to know each other. It was kinda cool.
]]>Well today we did a bit of driving. We started off by going through Gatlinburg Ʊ which is kind of like the Banff of the south. Lots of candy shops, toyshops, houses of horror and tacky t-shirt shops. We went through RipleyĆs Museum which was interesting. Apparently itĆs the one that inspired the TV show. Lots of weird, wacky stuff.
Then we drove through (and stopped along the way) Smokey Mountain National Park. It was gorgeous all the way through. We hit patches of sunlight, clouds, rain and even some fog that you could actually see rolling past us. Amazing. Beautiful views and way too many places to stop and take pictures. WeĆre planning on heading back tomorrow to do a couple of hikes before we head to the Cove. We had a nice dinner in Asheville at a fancy-schmancy restaurant. Best dessert of the trip thus far. WeĆll see what Billy Graham and his wife can cook up for us this weekend though. Time to go to sleep so that IĆm not too cranky for tomorrowĆs hikes!
Well they were all out of cinnamon buns, but they replaced them with Krispy Kreme donuts instead Ʊ which maintains our fat level intake just the same. We booked some tickets for the Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede 4pm show and then headed out to do some outlet shopping (yee-haw!) Not too bad a shopping day, picked up some taffey, a pair of sandals for myself, sweater for Sue and a birthday gift for someone else.
(Mental note: Saw SettlerĆs of Catan for $30US, was it a good deal?) By the time we were wiped from shopping, it was time to meet up with Dolly and her stampede. About 1,000 people got shuffled into a small arena and ate dinner together while watching the North (woo!) battle the South (boo!). We ate soup & biscuit, a whole rotisserie chicken, pork loin, potato, corn on the cob and a apple strudel for desert Ʊ all without utensilsĆ just like they do it in the south apparently. In the end the North, our team, ended up winning 7-3. Just when we were about to relive the war and start wiping out the south for real, Dolly Parton appeared on the screen and reminded us that we were all united as the United States of America and there is no North and South anymore. We all put down our rifles and hugged and agreed not to fight anymore (or at least until the next show at 6:30). After the show, we went for a walk down the street from our hotel and ended up going mini-golfing. We ran into a family from Oklahoma who knew a lot about Canada. The state of Saskatchewan is very cold, full of small people who all deep down inside really think of themselves as Americans. Being that they were from the south and we were from the North, I felt it was my duty to walk 10 paces and shoot them dead on the spot. Sue wouldnĆt let me. After beating Sue 48-49 in golf, she treated me to some ice cream from the Marble Slab Creamery, similar to JerryĆs ice cream with the smash-ins in SĆtoon.
The Magnum keeps getting lots of attention from the locals/tourists. ItĆs kind of making us think that getting this kind of station wagon might not be so bad after all.
]]>It was a bit odd because the last time weĆd been there was in November with Kev & Lue and Mark for the National Youth WorkerĆs Conference in St. Louis Ʊ so it felt like we were missing some people this time.
Our flight into Charlotte was a little bumpier than others and Sue started to feel a bit sick towards the end, but it wasnĆt anything we couldnĆt handle. It felt good to walk out into the 27-degree heat and actually get a taste of summer.
Somehow the economy car we rented got bumped up to a Dodge Magnum station wagon/muscle car so weĆre driving in style and power. WeĆll figure out the gas cost later. ?
We stopped at a outlet mall in Gaffney for a Pottery Barn stop (no $ spent Ʊ whoohoo! It can be done! Take that Ikea!) Then we drove through Ashville, NC (our eventual stop for the Cove) to Pigeon Cove, Tennessee. WeĆd thought about booking it straight to Nashville to try and get that in while we were down here, but it just felt like too much driving for a vacation. WeĆll save it for next time. Gorgeous scenery was all around us on the drive in. Take the best shots from Cold Mountain and youĆll have a good idea of what we were driving through today.
It turned out that somehow Holiday Inn Express had booked us into two rooms. When we moved into a single room (weĆre not THAT far along in our marriage) it was a room with two double beds, not the single king weĆd booked online. When I called down, the guy said all he had left was a wheelchair room but it had a king size bed. I said okay, so long as we werenĆt putting anyone out. When we got downstairs to swap keys, he realized that the wheelchair room was actually closed because of a leak. Now the only room he had left for us with our king size bed was a Jacuzzi room. We were more than happy to switch to that room!
We found a Atlanta Bread Company (a distant relative of the St Louis Bread Company we think?) restaurant for supper and now are ready to sleep a long, peaceful sleep with visions of Holiday Inn Express cinnamon buns dancing in our heads.
]]>We went up to my parent's shack at Waskesiu this weekend - (pics available here if you're interested) and now we're getting ready to leave for North Carolina. It's supposed to be 25 - 35 degrees down there this week so we'll hopefully get at least one full week of summer this year.
]]>Have I mentioned that I love Will Ferrell? Here's some more funny from Ferrell.
]]>Go here to check out the trailer/teaser thingy.
]]>It's a short week as I'm off again next week - this time we're headed down to North Carolina. Anyone got any good 'to-do's' down in the south besides hitting up Dolly World?
]]>Spent the last week up north with a group of youth leading fun camps for 30-40 kids in a small town. Coming home and seeing all the work related emails really has me questioning working at a computer store again. Spending my day finding a really good deal on a computer for someone just doesn't hold the same appeal for some reason.
It's part of coming down from a trip like that, I know, so I'll hold off writing a letter of resignation right now :). It's good to have reminders like this past week has been that there's a whole lot more to life though.
]]>I think Google is my second favorite corporate entity next to Apple.
]]>Those paying attention will remember that when the Electrical Storm single was due to come out, somehow a copy fell into the hands of a DJ friend of Bono's who then, "against the band's wishes", played it on air and leaked it to the world. Much press and MTV time followed for the band.
Countdown to it being available on Kazaa: 5, 4,3....
]]>It'll be the best $29US you've ever spent on your computer.
]]>That may have worked 5 years ago when companies actually made money by selling a printer - but these days they just swap your printer for a new/refurbished one and send you on your way.
]]>Get your order in now for the pink ones - they're going fast!
]]>- Beautiful quote from today's Penny Arcade.
I tried to enlighten LT about the way that Gallery (the program) goes way above and beyond any other web image gallery program I've seen or experienced. You can even upload a zip file of images and it will automatically unzip all 300 pictures of your grandma-ma's birthday party and seperate it out into thumbnails, regular image size and freaking huge size that you forgot to shrink down, all on 30 pages with 10 pictures per page and a nice easy menu system. On top of all that you can get this amazing experience for the low, low price of free.
But LT would have none of it. All he could see was my ugly face on my own gallery and wouldn't look at it.
So I changed my default images on my gallery, added some photos of flowers, a watermelon candle and even a picture of Travis killing a fly. Hopefully this will enlighten LT into the ways of Gallery.
For the mennoboys (and girl) out there, I'm thinking about installing it on our server here - but I'm a little worried about space issues. We're sitting around 130MB of our 200MB right now and if people start going image crazy we could eat that up in a hurry. But maybe I'll install it and we can see how it goes with 5 people pumping pictures onto the server.
]]>A weekend without wifi is like a weekend without warm weather. Oh wait.. I got to experience both this weekend. :)
Some new pics up in home improvement (we painted our bedroom), friends (BBQ and video gamin at our 'summer home' - props to Ging and Larissa for making the trek to hang out with us), and a couple new pics (1, 2) in the Artsy Fartsy gallery - doing some fooling around with the macro mode on my camera.
We watched In America on Saturday night and then watched it again last night with the director's commentary on. I'm a sucker for all things Irish and so I may be a bit biased, but it's a great movie. The acting by the two young girls in it is worth the rental alone.
Speaking of Irish stuff, someone was apparently hanging outside U2's studio and recorded a possible new U2 song. The sound of the wind is just all the hot air coming from Bono's mouth. (Grabbed from U2log.com.)
]]>Drop me a line if you are and we can try and hook-up and play.
]]>Among the many reasons to consider dumping IE (by dump I mean stop using it... don't even think of trying to actually remove it from your computer, that would cause way more harm than good) and switching to one of the mentioned browsers: less chance of getting a web based virus, more popup blocking built in to other browsers, tabbed browsing (explained here), security.
My main beef with IE is that despite being used by the majority of users (only 44% on my site - odd), it's one of the least standards compliant browers out there. When you have to design a web page, there's all sorts of tricks and hacks you have to add because IE (and to be fair, older versions of other browsers) don't render current designs properly - and Microsoft hasn't announced any plans to update IE until they get the next version of Windows (code-named Longhorn) comes out, sometime in 2006/2007.
]]>And if you like getting pulled into the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, check out the streaming video of Stevie announcing new displays and demoing Tiger, the next version of the Mac OS expected out sometime in 2005.
]]>Yeah, I guess I'd take a pair... if someone was giving them to me.
]]>If the blogging is a little less frequent in the next while it's cause the internet isn't available in the hot tub yet.
]]>Still doesn't have the 'coolness' of Google's gmail, but at least it removes the storage issue.
]]>Summer's beginning to look waaaaay too similair to that other season we have that starts with a 'W'!
]]>I also got to see the other side of father's day. A guy I met for the first time at church yesterday told me of how his father who is an alcoholic hasn't called him in over two years, and how the rest of his family doesn't call him either anymore. He said when he thinks about it, he 'gets some depression' (his wording - he suffers from a mental disability) and thinks about ending his life. When he prays, those thoughts go away.
I found out later that he's seeing Mark's dad, who will be able to offer him infinitely better help than I could. I appreciated his honesty and openess and I wish more of us could be transparent like that in our low times as well as when we're "ok".
]]>This isn't really anything new, but it is new to me.
]]>If you're in Dublin, head by the studio with a minidisc recorder and grab some samples of the tunes. :)
]]>Mark I've already sent you one since you were begging yesterday. :)
]]>BTW, before anyone starts getting all uppity remember that it's a SATIRE site.
]]>I sent one to David Mosher so if anyone else wants one, lemme know.
]]>Pasteur's Fight Against Microbes
Antoine Lavoisier: Founder of Modern...
Louis Pasteur: Disease Fighter
The Polluters: A Community Fights Back
Linus Pauling: And the Chemistry of Life
Philip's Science & Technology: People,...
Thomas Edison: The Great American...
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza...
]]>A little rain can't stop us from enjoying some fine BBQ'd kabobs. It's starting to feel a little like BC here with the constant drizzle/rain we've been getting. I think we're happy to put up with it though because the alternative is dry, dusty Saskatchewan. It should make for a much greener summer!
]]>I think we need to convince Sue's sis and bro-in-law who live in Australia to get themselves a mac with an isight. heh heh.. Friggin Apple. It's like a cult.
]]>It's mainly because there's no MySQL required and PHP comes preinstalled on Mandrake (and most current Linux distros) so a monkey could do it really.
]]>Don't ever say I don't do nuthin for the peoples.
]]>From binarybonsai.com, one of the most prolific link blogs run by a single person I've come across. Everytime I refresh my RSS reader, there's 10 new postings from his site.
]]>The Apple World Wide Developer Conference is also up at the end of the month, where new Powermac G5's and possibly an iMac G5 are expected. Both are out of my price range and out of my "need" range, but it's still cool to drool.
]]>300 queries per minute across up to 1.5 million documents - I don't think that'll cut it for our home network.
]]>After just finishing Dude, Where's My Country I'm wondering if Mr. Moore isn't behind this site.
]]>Anyone want to buy a Hawking 802.11b wireless router so I can play with (and break) a WRT54G?
]]>My sister Jamie came home from Mazatlan yesterday after being gone since January. We only got to spend a bit of time with her over supper but it was good to have our fam all together again. In a couple of weeks her Mexican b/f comes and we get to run him through the gauntlet to see if he checks out okay.
Since my mum and sister picked Jamie up in Calgary, they decided to bring along a little extra suprise for supper in the form of 2 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. There wasn't exactly 2 dozen by the time they got home, but it was close enough that Sue and I got to experience the phenomenom that is Krispy Kreme. My verdict: very low-fat and very Atkins friendly.
]]>Link from u2log.com.
]]>" I have bought more software for my Mac than I ever did for my Windows PCs, most of it shareware. Is it really that much higher quality? Or am I buying her presents?"
The Mac is a Harsh Mistress
I was asked for advice today from someone who was apprehensive about buying a new Mac, and wanted to know my opinion. This, of course, is sort of like going up to Dick Cheney and saying ƬYou know, IĆm not sure about that Iraq thing. What do you think?Ć®
Microsoft, ladies and gentlemen, is a cheap whore. She lives on the fringes of the law, but thereĆs no getting rid of her because she fulfils a certain need in our society. People want what she is selling.
ThereĆs a certain painted-on mystique to her, of course. WeĆve all been indoctrinated with the propaganda, the hooker with the heart of gold, the disturbingly wide-mouthed Pretty Woman. When you find her, though, beneath the paint sheĆs really quite plain. You take what you need from her, but reluctantly and because you have no alternative. You get what you want, but she is almost peripheral to the act.
Apple is a lover.
From the moment you meet her, you know that she wants you to be happy. She wants to be a part of your life, and you canĆt help but be drawn into wanting to be a part of hers. She is beautiful and elegant in ways that the layers of paint on the Microsoft street-walker can only desperately try to imitate.
I have bought more software for my Mac than I ever did for my Windows PCs, most of it shareware. Is it really that much higher quality? Or am I buying her presents?
There is one danger, though. So long as you are careful to protect yourself from infection, Microsoft can not hurt you. Microsoft is a transaction, and if the transaction goes sour, youĆre only out of pocket. When your lover hurts you, she can break our heart.
And Apple, for all her charm and grace, is notoriously thoughtless at times: scratch the surface of the Internet and youĆll find a string of bitter, abandoned ex-Ćs who still curse her name.
And yes, this is possibly the most disturbing post IĆve ever written.
The above is Copyright 2004 Charles Miller, freely re-distributable under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial license, and as such all reproductions should include at least these two pieces of information.
]]>Once I get PHP and Perl working I can get Movabletype going and start serving up some blogs and dump dixiesys where mennoboy currently is hosted. 20GB of storage sounds a lot better than 200MB, doncha think?
]]>Let me know if there's any broken links or things that look wierd. Off for lunch with Mark.
]]>I'm sure this is all very enlightening to the non-tech geeks out there. But you'll just have to suffer through it or go read another blog. :) It's a challenge that has been laid in front of me by Linux and I can't give in and admit defeat.
]]>I know.. pathetic. But I have to win the office pool.
]]>But I did manage to get it running as web server. FTP is still not functional but I've managed to get a basic web page going.
Nerd.
]]>On mennoboy we've officially got 4 blogs with 4 authors. That means I'd really have to look at getting the Personal Edition Volume License 1 for the bargin price of $149.95US. Ouch. Not to mention the 8 authors and 4 blogs we have on Sue's family site. There's a lot of unhappy folks in the blogosphere.
I'm really not sure what to do for the site I'm supposed to be redesigining. I have nothing personally against LT's system, but it only half works on most Mac browsers and I can't help people use something I can't see.
I'm really hoping the outcry will convince SixApart (the company that makes MT) to open up the requirements and limitations on their licensing.
]]>The Lydia's open mic gig went pretty good last night. We had our drummer drop out at the last minute but Mark (Marc?) stepped in and covered well on congos and the full kit for Desire. I find it really hard to do much dynamically on accoustic so it felt like our set just was a mash of songs blending together. I really should have gotten a better accoustic guitar a long time ago but my techie interests always get in the way of the funds being there. Maybe a nice Simon and Patrick. Hmmmmm...
I think I have a performance inhibitor in my brain. Whenever I go on stage I'm sure it looks like I'm pissed to be there and not having a good time at all. The opposite is actually true. I'm having a great time, loving the music but I just don't know what to do with myself. I get lost in playing the guitar and forget to move... and so I end up like a statue. Which is fine if you're the only one doing it in a band... but we all tend to do that so we look like a band of robots sometimes.
Ah but we're just getting started. Give it time I guess. Once we make the jump to stadium rock we'll get the stage dives, guitar solos on my knees and flaming guitars going hard core.
]]>We watched the finale to Survivor: All Stars and weren't really surprised by the outcome. It was going to be either Rob or Amber. The marriage proposal wasn't totally shocking either - and allowing us, the viewer, to vote on which over-exposed, celebrity hungry survivor gets a million dollars isn't worthy of all the hype they had - and I think Jeff knew it. Head to cbs.com and vote for Rupert. If you want to see something creepy, watch the video plea by Susan where she wishes death on a desert island where all you're left with is your teeth if you don't vote for her.
Yech. That's 30 seconds of my life I can't get back.
]]>I don't know if this is new, but they have an email to post feature which is fantastic.
]]>Got to have a bit more fun with the video editing this time than I usually do. I think we're going to really have to do a 5to9 reunion video to give me a chance to flex my brain in FCX.
]]>In other news, here's a sweet bit.torrent site for grabbing copies of TV shows, movies, etc. that you missed when they were on the first time.
]]>The more I read about them, they seem to be on the up and up. I found a review of allofmp3.com that explains a bit. They also link to a bunch of artists that have free downloads on allofmp3.com. Use your discretion. It boils down to laws being different in Russia (duh) as well as the US dollar to Russian ruble conversion being in our favor in a big way.
It's no where near as easy as what iTunes music store would/will be - if they ever get around to releasing it up north here.
]]>Basically you choose the songs you want, the rate you'd like them encoded at and then they send you an email when it's ready to be downloaded. I'll let you know how it turns out.
]]>Now if only the iTunes music store would hit Canada I could empty my bank account into music like I want to.
]]>Off to clean dorms at Bethany and collect food for the food bank before we have our "feast" (aka subs - don't try feeding 40 kids pizza after they haven't eaten for 30 hours... it'll shoot right through them!) at 7 tonight.
Darren's having a 1031 party tonight - so if you've ever been connected to 1031 Osler in any way, stop by there tonight and say goodbye to 1031.
]]>]]>
It was Lindsay's birthday last week so we went to their place on Saturday and made him BBQ our bison for us in honor of his birthday.
This picture is up for no reason than to see if Darren is still reading my blog even though he claims to be over his blog reading addiction.
]]>And one more clip to get ya going.
Standard Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn flick - but I'll still love it.
]]>You're limited to 50MB per artist, but you can have as many artists as you want - though they say they'll kill any duplicate names (i.e. No Method, No Methods, etc) if you attempt to gain more space that way.
Right now you can only put your songs up there to be downloadable. There's no streaming option since they're still working out the kinks.
]]>Imagine that? A rich, billionare CEO who listens to his customers. Do you know of any other interesting blogs like this? And don't tell me about Paul Martin's blog - it hasn't been updated in forever and was probably just some Liberal employee typing it for him anyway.
]]>His story begins below:
This is strictly a golf e-mail because I did something a little rare today. This occurred after I took Lynn to the airport in Luis' truck and then returned back to the clubhouse to play a little more golf.
Today was one of those days when I accomplished something I will probably never do again down here in my lifetime -- and for that matter I'm not sure too many people ever will in their lifetime. I did something which is very, very rare. Hole #9 is a very, very,difficult hole - a dog leg right and only 380 yards BUT the wind blows across right to left both off the tee and on your approaches, the right side of the fairway is totally lined with huge bunkers from 150 in, the green is totally surrounded by cavernous bunkers(on average at least 3 of 4 golfers in every group end up in the bunkers at the front of the green which are about 10-12 feet below the height of the green) and the green is very, very fast. Well I nailed my approach to within 18 inches and the clubhouse staff were there cheering me on when I got up there because they could go a month on this course without the 9th hole ever getting birdied. I birdied it for only my 3rd or 4th time in about 150 rounds down here. But it didn't end there.
If you're not on the edge of your seat with anticipation, you better re-read this and then get ready to go on by cliking below:
Anyways, I played the front 9 again because I was playing late tonight and I felt it better if I was 'hidden' in the back 9 so people wouldn't start asking the staff why I was allowed to play late and no one else was. Anyways, the second time on 9 I hit my approach to 130 and then the unthinkable occurred. I eagled it from 130! That is a first for me on a par 4 and I believe on the 9th hole on this course for anyone. The unfortunate part was that I didn't see it go in. The green is elevated. I knew it was a decent shot but when I got to the green I couldn't see the ball. I assumed it had gone into the sand behind the green. But nothing there. I eventually checked the hole and 'voila' there it was.
I'm not sure if all of you will appreciate how rare this event was but I am sure Lynn and Alfredo will after playing that monster hole #9 and watching hundreds of people struggle in those bunkers.
Well, that's my excitement for the day and week ....
]]>I'm still waiting for my gmail invite. Grrrrr.
]]>This is what you could buy right now if you were looking at a new eMac:
Mine is the 1Ghz model with more RAM (640MB) but less hard drive (a 60GB). We bought it August 2003 so it still has 4 months of warranty on it. I could throw on an extra 2 years of warranty for $200. iLife '04 (Garageband) is on it, as is Panther. I think we may even still have the original box.
Even if you're not interested in buying it, if I listed it on ebay is $1000 a fair price?
]]>Also check out the Dutch National Image archive. (Thanks Caroline)
]]>One more perfomance on Sunday to go, but I'm only involved with my guitar for a couple of songs. It should be interesting to see how the rockin choir is recieved. The band is having fun regardless.
The Tenebrae services went well - not without their own little glitches but nothing that noticeable to the audience I think. It's always fun to play with Brent and his djembe. We talked about hooking up to try and make some tv commercials for some of his audio clients - we'll see what happens. Watch for a casting call soon! :)
]]>Pretty much everyone who's anyone has picked up a copy of Battlefield: Vietnam here at work so we're gonna have to get some multi-player hurtin going on pretty quick. So Ryan, if you were debating - now's the time to get in on the action. Staples has it for $39.95, cheapest in town!
]]>The one April Fool's day item that's got everyone confused is the possibility of google.com offering email - in the order of 1GB of storage for each user. It sounds way too good to be true, but it's all over the legit news sites and Googles gone to great lengths to promote this. It's a win-win situation. Either the news sites end up with egg on their face and we get to laugh, or we get a sweet email service that doesn't have anything to do with the borg.
Atari releases the final clip in the 3 part series of promo videos they shot for Driver3. Slick cars, crashes... all the makings of a good video game.
]]>Link via www.k10k.net
]]>Good afternoon. I don't compete with other discus throwers. I compete with my own history. What??? What in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks does that mean?
Chris, searching for a place to purchase medication? No, not really. We have these things called Pharmacies that sell medication to me when I give them a piece of paper called money.
All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite. Older people shouldn't eat health food, they need all the preservatives they can get. I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age. Hahaha... that's hilarious Most! You tell the best jokes!
We are able to ship worldwide. Ship what? Discus throwers?
Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor. Very good point. I'll take that into consideration while I'm taking my crazy pills.
]]>And a new study by researchers at Harvard and N. Carolina states that even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero."
]]>Update: More good links care of scriptygoddess.com:
In killing for hire news, I'd forgotten how much fun Desert Combat was. It's insane that someone went through all this work to make a mod for a game and it's free. It's better than what I've seen of most of the official $39 add-on packs. You're riding along in your M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle and you can hear the A-10 WartHogs flying overhead while you set your sights on a Scud missile launcher. I think I need to go watch Apocalypse Now.
]]>I'll be adding tracks to it shortly.
Idea swiped from Caroline. Thx!
]]>Ah well, I'll still have the memories of sitting in the back of a van on an empty keg being driven around Dublin by a drunk old Irishman, eventually ending up at The Wicked Wolf packed full of people all singing U2 tunes at the top of their lungs.
]]>"Spring is finally coming and hopefully the snow is actually going to stay gone this time. We've been tempted and teased so many times by spring this year (foul temptress that she is) that it's a little hard to believe it's actually going to stick this time. But this week is supposed to be above 0 all week - that's celsius for our American friends."
Well, winter came back and beat up on spring again. We got dumped on yesterday so we're back into the snow and slush for the weekend. Now we're being tempted by +18 next week. Rest assured that as soon as I pull my bike out to go for a ride the ground will be covered in snow before I get out of the garage. Grrrr... When I see this, this or this it makes me think that maybe we should try our fortunes elsewhere for awhile.
]]>Trav came over last night and we worked on some ideas we had. One of them could end up sounding like a mariachi band - but we'll see. The other one I had thought was more of a Pilate/Coldplay inspired tune but came out sounding more like a Sixpence song... blech. We'll see though. They're both very unfinished with not much melody worked out yet so there's still hope for them yet.
I've got three videos I have to work on for an Easter presentation at FGCC. They've been a challenge to do as they're basically your typical talking head interview video but we've been trying to make them a little more interesting to watch without going over the top with edits/cuts/effects/cheese.
Spring is finally coming and hopefully the snow is actually going to stay gone this time. We've been tempted and teased so many times by spring this year (foul temptress that she is) that it's a little hard to believe it's actually going to stick this time. But this week is supposed to be above 0 all week - that's celsius for our American friends.
What's the weather like in your world today?
]]>Come on, you know you want it.
I can't imagine what would happen if the power somehow discharged into your mouth. You wouldn't just have a flashing mouth at that point.
]]>Slick little site that's growing by the day.
]]>I naturally responded:
"No."
Ooops. I was thinking she was going to offer me a chance to sign up for the National Day To Support Hamster Rights or something. So "No" just popped out of my mouth before I thought anything else. Heh heh. So now I'm a racist on campus.
]]>Carol left me a big bag of dill pickle chips to eat while I'm covering for her EDO (earned day off).
I'm really glad it's Friday today. This week has been crazy busy every night and we actually have a Friday off (Jr high was on Thursday night because of a wedding). Sue and Luanne were planning to go to Edmonton today but it's not looking good as the highways are sheets of curling ice right now. (Hurry! Hard! Sweep!) Luckily it might rain this afternoon and then drop down below 0 again so that we get a second layer of ice. That way if anyone might have actually survived out on the roads, now they won't have to worry about not getting the chance to meet their maker.
Clarence was going to try and take Sue to an autopsy today. I don't know how I feel about seeing dead people. I saw my grandfather's body at his open casket funeral and that was fairly creepy. I can't imagine what a murder victim's body would do to my stomach. Although with all the TV/movies I've watched, I'd probably just say something stupid like "that's not very realistic. You can totally tell it's ketchup."
]]>I completed my Flash course last night. It wasn't too bad as far as courses go and I got a good start into Flash, but I probably could've figured out most of what was taught in 3.5hrs instead of 7hrs. Next time I'll just go to Ryan and get him to teach me. I'm sure I can bribe him with a steady flow of Timmy Ho's.
]]>Well, except for one thing: my stepdad says that the way he and his guys would fish in 'Nam was to press a grenade with the pin pulled down into a jar of peanut butter. They would then drop this jar from a great height via helicopter, and he tells me that when the jar hit the surface of the water and cracked, the grenade was released and the resultant shockwave of water, glass, shrapnel, and I assume peanut butter would either kill fish or just kick the shit out of them, causing them to float where they could be scooped up by the Huey. Okay, that's all the facts. No more, that's it.
And:
The Gamespot review refers to the difficulty of managing these craft, and while they might be difficult compared to jeeps, I only had to crash one or two before I got the hang of it. To compare, flying helicopters in DC is like bending a spoon with your mind or trying to walk a tyrannosaur. To say they are unwieldy is to have a good shot at Understatement Of The Year.
And one more:
Since the "on foot" gameplay has always been of a very high lethality index in this series, there's no reason not to just take this class every time and act as the agent of divine retribution. Between your disposable rocket launcher and your heavy machinegun, you represent a buffet of death that is open twenty-four hours a day.
(sigh) I miss the days of playing BF1942. It was great fun to have everyone at work united in the common goal of killing each other. I wonder if I could somehow justify using my professional allowance at work to buy a better video card for my home PC that would allow me to play BF1942 again? That's pretty good use of some student's tutition, doncha think? (Note: It's not really someone's tution - it's partially from tution but mostly from union dues and sales at the store) Maybe that's why there's been so much tension at work lately, there hasn't been enough video game violence! I think I could do a study to show that video game violence helps, not hinders, the advancment of the human race.
I'll see if I can pawn that idea off on to some psych grad student that lives in the basement we call an office so I can get back to playing BF1942.
]]>Tim hit the ancient age of 28 on the weekend and we went by to help him celebrate. I took the picture above using the panoramic function on our camera. It's actually 9 or 10 individual camera shots that made up that one picture. Aside from the freaky Mark face it actually works pretty good. I think I'll have to try it more often, especially if I have a tripod to properly line up the shots.
Friday night we had the guys/girls only night with Jr High. The guys all came over to my parent's place where we played some vids, pool, ping pong and even got into some crokinole. There ended up being about 32 guys who showed up so it got a little crazy trying to keep them all entertained but between the Gamecube, XBox and PS2 we managed.
It's 11:30 and since I slept for a couple of hours this afternoon I'm not tired but I feel like I'm coming down with something. I've been popping the eichinachia today and trying to think healthy thoughts, but I feel like my head's been in a fog all day. Sue's trying to get me to watch Trading Spaces: Home Free... I think I may have to since I'm just going to toss and turn anyway if I try to go to sleep.
Oh, and we've got a girl coming to Mennoboy.com.
]]>Link from Slashdot
]]>Go give Carlos some ideas on how he should handle this.
]]>Hopefully this is only the beginning of my winning streak at Tim's.
]]>I think I'm going to have to start a Roll Up the Rim counter like I remember some blogger doing last time they had this contest. I'm up to at least 10 cups of java purchased and still no win. I'm thinking they see me coming and pull out all the duds. I just know that some guy right before me is going to win a plasma tv and someone after me will win the truck and I'll get a "Please Play Again" cup. Grrrr.
]]>Here's a blog by a guy who's attempting to run his own label that's done under a Creative Commons license so that, in a sense, it's open source music I guess? Interesting article on world musicians who sign their life over to record producers/labels and thus see no money from their recordings. This makes him not-evil.
]]>Go and play a bunch of classic video games in flash format including Pacman, Space Invader, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Tetris and even Duck Hunt.
Link via Doepud
]]>I was going to try and set this up as a news report but then I thought it might freak some people out and not realize that Travis is okay.
After Junior High we thought we'd setup a screen, use the projector and sound system that was set up in the lounge and watch a movie since Shannon had to stick around until 3am as a night-host for the 24/7 prayer room. We dispatched Travis to go get School of Rock while the rest of us setup the equipment. Turns out while Trav was driving through the intersection at Central and Attridge a lady decided she had enough time to cut across Attridge to the other side, forgetting that she was sitting on a patch of ice (also forgetting that she was a dumbass... had to say it for Travis). Luckily nobody was hurt and the main thing lost will be Trav's car to an SGI write-off. The lady seemed really apologetic: "What am I going to do.... oh this totally ruins my week... I was having such a good time with friends... oh, what am I going to do." (that's sarcasm kiddies) We still gave her a ride home so now we know where she lives so we can go egg her house sometime or something.
Oh, and since we didn't feel like driving all the way to Trav's house we ended up watching the first disc of the The Two Towers: Extended Edition instead. Such a great show. I still have the second disc as well as two discs of tasty extras to go through on that one.
]]>It's always depressing and exciting to watch musicians that inspire you to be better than you are. Depressing because you see how much time you've wasted instead of playing guitar feverishly for 12 hours a day but exciting because you can see what the result would be if you did devote yourself to practicing how much you should.
]]>For the nerds out there I've basically created 4 seperate blogs (regular blog, music, movies, photos) and am just using a single menu.php file to load the menu system so I don't have to go through and change all the individual index pages each time I want to update the main menu.
The movie page basically takes the movies I've uploaded to my mac.com page and presents them as if they're on my own site. That way the bandwidth is being used up by Apple's servers and yet still looks like a local file. Very nerdy and very cool.
]]>I'm going to have to admit it. I hate admiting I like something that someone else recommended to me. I enjoy being the one to introduce new things to people, whether it's a website, restaraunt or as in this case - music. I mentioned in the previous post that you should go to Carlos' site and grab the new Pilate album he's got up there for the pirating world to grab. I would like to now change that to a 'go download it but then go buy it' order!
I don't usually dig Canadian bands simply because they're Canadian. It's only natural that you try your hardest to keep the locals humble and down on the ground where they should be and save the posturing and rock 'n rolling to the Euro bands. (sidenote: For some reason I'm okay with 'digging' Canadian female singers, but then I have to by right of marriage) This band has all the right mixes of Coldplay, Radiohead and whatever other moderately relevant band you want to throw in there to make a 3some.
]]>I found a slick little app called Kung-Tunes that pulls the latest song listing from iTunes and throws them up into a file on my web server that I can pull into this page. Whuapaa!
I'm still settling into this redesign so expect some changes over the next little while but I'm digging the font size so it's staying. Get out your bi-focals or go someone else's blog.
]]>Alright, so I did a bit of work on the page. Waddya think? I'm not completely satisfied and obviously the links in the top menu bar don't go anywhere (or look like links for that matter) but it's getting there.
Is the font too small? Sue thinks it is, I think anything larger looks like crap so I'm not sure where to go. I don't mind it but then I've got 20/20 contacts.
If this text doesn't go down far enough, then the picture starts to overlap the entry below. Hrmmm... guess I'll just have to always be long-winded if I want to post like this.
]]>Update: The other bands didn't suck quite enough. We lost out to Postlude and Unknown Reason. Considering we had the marketability of a wet rock, I'm not too surprised. ;)
We came, we saw, we left early cuz the other bands sucked. More Pics Here
Well, that's not totally true. We only stayed for the next two bands and then split. It was a fun first time out for this crew as a whole and hope to play again. In a way not having a soundcheck and plugging in to an amp I'd never seen before tonight was a bit refreshing and we knew, aside from how we played, we had very little control over what we ended up sounding like.
You can check out a video clip here. The distortion is from the mic on the camera, not your speakers so don't worry.
Now begins our 'eastern mysticism period' where we experiment with drugs and use lots of sitars.
]]>Here's who else is playing in case you're interested:
Since I'm nerdy about being complete I'll be trying to grab as much of my old entries as possible. I didn't realize I had started this version of the blog back in May of 2002. Coming up on 2 years now. That's a lot of blabbing.
]]>So since I have to rebuild, I'm going to start from the ground up and redesign and incorporate a photo section now that we've got a digital camera.
In the meantime, go get a song sung for you and play a game of smack the penguin.
]]>Too busy today at work to think as two people (one being Phil - go yell at him for me) were away sick today. But we had a fun time in the store - the day goes by quicker when it's busy like that.
The MTV Video Music Awards are on tonight so I think we'll be watching that until it gets lame. Perhaps sneaking over to my parent's place to sit in the hot tub would be a good idea after standing on my feet all day. L8r.
]]>All this is just an excuse to test out the Trackback system... again... yes I'm stupid.
]]>For more Seinfeld stuff, check out 'I've Never Watched Seinfeld' for tips on how to talk like you're a Seinfeld expert without even having to watch the show.
]]>(read on for chords and lyrics if you're so inclined)
Electrical Storm (lyrics)
Intro: F#m / A / E / B
Verse:
F#m / A / B
The sea it swells like a sore head
F#m / A / B
and the night it is aching
F#m / A / B
Two lovers lie with no sheets on their bed
F#m / A / B
and the day it is breaking
F#m / A / B
On rainy days we go swimming out
F#m / A / B
on rainy days, swimming in the sound
F#m / A / B
On rainy days we go swimming out
Pre-Chorus(?):
D E C#m
You're in my mind all of the time
D
I know that's not enough
D E
if the sky can crack
C#m
there must be some way back
D
for love and only love
Intro: F#m / A / E / B
2nd Verse, Same as the First:
Car alarm won't let you back to sleep
you're kept awake dreaming some else's dream
coffee is cold, but it will get you through
compromise, that's nothing new to you
let's see colours that have never been seen
let's go to places no one else has been
Pre-Chorus(?):
You're in my mind all of the time
I know that's not enough
if the sky can crack
there must be some way back
to love and only love
Chorus:
D / E
F#m A
Electrical Storm
D / E
F#m A
Electrical Storm
D / E
F#m A
Electrical Storm
B
Baby don't cry
Intro: F#m / A / E / B (2x)
Verse Chords: (F#m / A / B)
It's hot as hell, honey in this room
sure hope the weather will break soon
the air is heavy, heavy as a truck
hope the rain will wash away our bad luck
D / E / C#m / D
heeeey... heeeey.....
D / E / C#m / D
If the sky can crack, there must be some way back
for love and only love
D / E
F#m A
Electrical Storm
D / E
F#m A
Electrical Storm
D / E
F#m A
Electrical Storm
B (long time)
Solo: F / C / E / A
E / A
Baby don't cry
Baby don't cry
Baby don't cry
Baby don't cry
- Doughboy (flash req'd) - no explanation necessary
- Apple plans on having real jaguar's in their stores upon the release of their new operating system, codename Jaguar. (satire warning)
- Not for the easily disturbed: the BBC looks into where all the old computers go after they die
- web nerds like myself should check out webmonkey for some great web design tips
- These churchgoers were upset about getting a parking ticket while they were in church - giving us the quote of the week:
"People shouldn't have to go to church and worry about getting a ticket"
That's it for me... have a great weekend!
]]>In other news, if you like to sit in a hot tub, play pool or watch movies on a big screen tv (on D V D ' s! yack) then you're invited to Mark and my b-day party on Saturday night @8pm. Well, actually you'll have to email me first to get directions... but you get the idea.
]]>It's supposedly pretty hot outside today - I don't really get out much during the day - so hopefully I don't melt on my bikeride home. I'll have to remember to take some H20 with me.
Possible joint b-day party with Mark and I on Friday so if you're in the area, look us up! :)
(update - maybe I did get it working.. who knows?)
(updated update - I didn't. Our server doesn't support the functions necessary... oh well)
In other news, we finally got ourselves a new bed! It's nice to have a bed that doesn't sink in the middle and you can actually feel rested after a night's sleep. We shopped around, got tired of that (pun intended) and settled on a nice queen sized mattress/box spring. The true test will be how our bodies feel after a month of sleeping on it.
Oh yeah, and happy birthday to me. :)
]]>This site lists all of Clear Channel Entertainment's pricing for college's who want to hire various entertainers and musicians for an event. So, if you're wanting to book a really special birthday party for someone, get out the old cheque-book and drum up some coporate sponsors and away you go!
Sadly, U2 isn't listed - I guess there really are some things money can't buy. :)
]]>Ok, now that I got that out of the way. :) I did my occasional reading of www.whatreallyhappened.com and came across this page which basically goes into great detail about the supposed Israeli spy ring operating in the US and basically ends up saying they (Israel) were actually behind the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
If you want to continue reading, click on 'more' below...
There's not a lot of direct proof on the page, and they link off to many other sites so it feels a bit like a conspiracy theory just to blame someone else. But what was interesting was the mention that Israel owns a lot of the telecommunications companies in the states, including Odigo which is behind a lot of the instant messaging services (ie AIM) that we use. That's freaky enough, considering they could tap into it whenever they want and monitor for certain conversations. What's even more interesting and gives more weigh to the idea that Israel is behind the attacks on Sept. 11 is that Odigo's offices are 2 blocks from the WTC towers - and recieved a warning 2 hours before the attacks occured. CNN had the story on their site, but then pulled it for some unexplained reason. In fact, if you search for Odigo on their site, a brief description of the story will come up, but the link to the actual articles states that it doesn't exist anymore. Here's what the summary states:
The FBI is looking into whether a warning sent to employees at an instant message company less than two hours before jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center was connected to the attacks, a company executive confirmed Friday.
(Some real news sites still have info on this - newsmax)
I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist by any measure, I just like to try and read both (or all) sides of a story, not just what the media decides to tell us. There may be very good reasons for all of this happening, but it just makes it real suspicious when the US government doesn't want to be open and honest about what's going on.
There. Done. End of conspiracy theory by a non-conspiracy theorist. :) Back to work.
]]>Some albums that I'm looking forward to hearing are:
- the new best-of from U2 with 2 new tunes
- Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head"
- Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" is supposed to be good, but that could just be all the whole "America looking to get back to it's roots" thing
- Holly Mcnarland's "Home Is Where My Feet Are" whose single 'Beautiful Blue' is, well, beautiful.
Does the site have two nicely laid out columns, the left one being the entries and the right one listing the archives, links, about me etc.. Or does it just go in one big long page that you have to scroll for, like, ever to get to the bottom of?
Please comment.
]]>When we got home we were so rejuvanted that we decided to start painting our basement. So far we've got the laundry room done which took us non-painting inclined folk about 4 hours - so I'd say we've got a good 10-12 hours left of painting to be done. Ugh.
Hey I finally got myself a bike (check out 'Slick' near the bottom). Nothing special, just a Canadian Tire bike that will get me too and from work but it felt good to finally do it after talking about getting one for the last couple of months.
We watched 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' last night which I found was actually a better movie than 'Snatch', but not as funny. They're both pretty similair but from what I remember of Snatch, it was more violent graphically than Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. But that could just be my memory.
Have a great day - nothing else from me to say.
]]>Go on, we can take it. We're big boys now. Let me know what you love or hate about 'em.
]]>Two thumbs up from this household.
We're off to the lake so don't expect much in the way of updates. Watch Mark's site for possibly more updates - or possibly not.
l8r.
]]>Hope everybody has a good (and safe) long weekend! Much respect and big ups to ya'll!
]]>Anyway, my posting name over there will be 'nothedge' (as in not the edge, get it?) so if you're so inclined and don't mind stomaching a little u2 fandom, stop by for a visit sometime.
In "Hey, look who else has a blog" news, my buddy Mark has got himself all blogged up and ready to go. It's still a work in progress (mainly because my work doesn't progress) but for now you can find his site here. It should be switching to an easier to remember name in the very near future but that's it for now.
Take it easy and enjoy the long weekend!
]]>Everybody to the limit. Annoy everyone around you with your speaker's cranked.
Sit on this. Just what I need right now after a filling lunch at Alexander's. Mmmm... chicken fingers and fries with dipping sauce....
To go or not to go, that's not a quote from either of these plays: Mark recommends you go to Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. He's seen Hamlet and loved it and we're planning on seeing the Alchemist sometime as well.
]]>It looks like my parents have bought a shack up at Waskesiu and so we plan to spend some time there on our holidays next week. It's got everything we need, except running water. But there's a tap nearby as well as a washroom/shower. Should be fun. I'll bring back pictures.
Today's picture is in honor of my parent's purchase - in honor of them becoming land barons:
]]>Grab yourself a sample if you dare.
In movie news, The Lord of the Rings DVD comes out in a few days. I'm a bit torn as they are apparently releasing another version in November with 30 minutes of extra footage that the version coming out now doesn't have. They're obviously doing it to help hype the next movie that's coming out in December (for which there was a trailer in the Austin Powers movie - nearly worth the price of admission just for the trailer... well, the trailer and the opening 10 minutes of Austin Powers for sure). Hmmm... well, we'll just have to see what my birthday (Aug 19th hint! hint!) brings me. :)
]]>I pretty much know who's visiting this site from Canada and from the U.K. and even Australia. But what I'm not sure about is who's visiting from the US, Japan and Indonesia (as well as the unknown 4.1%). Chances are they just happened across this site by accident and won't be coming back, but if there is someone who's a regular visitor who's name isn't Lindsay, Christine, Kenton,Matt or Mark (well, you guys are welcome to send me an email as well!) please drop me an email.
Don't read the next section if you don't want to hear about Austin Powers.
We saw 'Austin Powers in Goldmember' yesterday. While it was quite funny at points and made us laugh it's also starting to really feel like we've done this all before. But they did manage to throw enough surprises and new material in to make it entertaining. What was kind of disturbing was the fact that they've rated the movie PG-13 for crude humour, sexual innuendo and language it should've been rated higher for the violence. If you've seen the movie then you'll know what I'm talking about. Mini-Me gets his butt handed to him on more than a few occasions in very violent ways. Sue and I couldn't believe parents would bring their kids to a movie like this - especially kids that were obviously 10 and under.
Such is our culture I guess.
]]>Sorry for all those folks with AOL stock - it's a bad time to have investments that you want to take out, but a good time to buy in. I'm starting to sound like my dad. I'm sure this is exactly what he'd say if i asked why we lost $50 in one month's investment.
For those of you who know Lindsay Unger, check out the place where he's going to have his wedding. Makes me want to find a way to get there even more.
Apparently the war on Iraq is under way. Kind of scary when you think of the fact that they really haven't done anything.
BUDN (Best Use of Domain Name): https://www.filthymess.com/
Fun game to pass hours mindlessly at work (matt, I'm looking in your direction): moon lander
]]>We had a blast working with the kids up there - 17 kids came out to the DVBS (Daily Vacation Bible School). We met some new friends from the church there and our kids got to experience helping out others in a big way. An awesome example of this was when after our week-ending bbq our kids (spearheaded by Dave & Chris S.) took the extra burgers and food out random people in the community - drunks outside the bar, people just walking down the street, etc. It was truly moving to see these kids showing so much love to people they had never met and would probably never see again.
Anyway, enough sappy stuff. :) Here's some photos from the trip:
]]>In other web stuff - check out this site for a look at which albums you shouldn't have in your collection. I think I have about 7 or 8 of them. I think he's a little harsh on U2 in here - but then I could be a bit biased.
Two new websites are up and running that I'm involved with. The first is of the musical variety - Travis's song that was debuted here in a sample format now has a home on mp3.com. Check out https://www.mp3.com/t_ravisty for any of the stuff that Trav and I come up with. Also, be sure to drop by and visit Crystal Redekop's new site that I'm working on with her. It's at https://www.cyrstal-leigh.com and is definitely a work in progress though there's enough there to be able to send the few people that visit this site to check it out.
Photos probably tomorrow - unless Wal-Mart turns into 48 hour photo. ;)
]]>More details when I have pictures and more sleep.
]]>I went through a Door's phase back in high school (Oliver Stone's The Doors being one of the best rock/band movies made) and while a lot of their tunes are just drug induced ramblings - they did (and obviously still do) have a strong belief and respect for the art of the songs they wrote.
]]>Of course, they have to have it on a day when I've got a sore throat and shouldn't be drinking slurpees.
Anyway, for those of you who don't have sore throats and don't live in Quebec (sorry Matt!) go grab yourself a free slurpee!
]]>After i manged to kick the Sims habit for awhile, Travis came over and we did some recording of a tune he's had floating around his head for awhile. Click here for a sample of it.
Have a great Monday!
]]>Saskatchewan air got sold on ebay - I think I know what business I'm starting next.
Get a free game compliments of the U.S. Army.
That's it for me - have a great weekend!
]]>"I mean, what is going on with the churches? It is incredible. I tell these evangelicals in the United States there are 2,300 verses of scripture about the poor. It's the central message outside of personal redemption, the idea of dealing with the poor. And I'm asking them, where are they? Where are they on this? On a recent poll of evangelical churches, only six per cent said they wanted to do something about AIDS. It is unbelievable, the leprosy of our time if you like. " - from the cbc.ca site
]]>It's funny how a lot of our friends have reached the magic age of 25 and are starting to get paired off. I don't think it's panic or anything because nobody's rushed into a relationship that they shouldn't really be in, but it is kind of funny how last year at this time hardly anybody was even dating and now most everyone is engaged.
Except for Darren.
But that's ok because Darren's okay. Although he sounds a little less confident in his single-ness now that he's one of the few left (in our friendship group obviously). So, wherever you are tonight - raise a pint to Darren and wish him luck in his pursuit of his mystery lady who is out there somewhere, wondering where her intellectually stimulating unworldly loner of a man is.
]]>If you like R.E.M. and haven't got this already, they're giving away 10 remixes (though it's actually only 6 different songs) on their website.
To get in the whole world cup spirit, check out Ultimate Soccer Showdown (some flash req'd).
Two ebay auctions for the person that has everything. First is Christopher Walken's suit from Suicide Kings, size large for anyone interested. Also, you can get yourself your own Sony Jumbotron - I know I could use one in my basement.
]]>So send your congratulations off to Linds. They're planning for a June 2003 wedding in England so start saving your pennies and watching for seat sales!
]]>It sounds impressive, but it's actually only taken 15 and 16 qualified plays (the way mp3.com rates your song) to get to that spot and the song has been ranked 7976 and 5529 in overall performance on mp3.com.
So only 5529 more to go to number one!
]]>A literal drive-in movie in the church gym. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun with it which is what really matters. The movie they watched was Extreme Days, a Christian made movie that's actually pretty funny and entertaining in spite of the predictable story and sappy romantic sub-plot. Worth a rental if you're just looking for a goofy movie.
]]>Now we just have to paint the walls and put something on the floors. Oh, and put in the kicking surround sound theatre system so we can keep up with cam. what's that cam, you don't like that idea?
]]>u2log.com has info on the second 'Best Of' from U2 that should be out Nov. 11th. It'll probably highlight the '90's (Achtung Baby, Zooropa, Passengers?, Pop) as well as have a b-sides collection. It's funny, but even though I've already got all these cd's and most of the b-sides, I'm still really looking forward to this release. (sue is no doubt rolling her eyes at this!) The 90s are the period that I really got into U2 and it'll be interesting to see if they re-do a track like they did for the previous Best Of with Sweetest Thing or just put a couple new tunes on it to entice people to buy it.
To keep the u2 theme going, i don't know if I ever posted these pictures here - but here's pics from the u2 cover night i did with some friends back a couple months.
]]>In 'I think you've got late charges' news, someone returned a book a library in Halifax 74 years late. Not only that, but it was actually due at a library in Michigan.
And lastely, I'll leave you for your weekend to mull this one over: A BC speed skater was tackled by a naked man during a practice one night. Luckily the skater was able to identify the man as a 'white male.'
]]>It is interesting the more you read sites like www.whatreallyhappened.com it throws your mind for a loop trying to figure out who is really telling the truth. It's like an Enemy of The State/Consipracy Theory come to life moment. Only without the theme music and dramatic camera angles.
In other news, the new songs that I worked on with Mark and Kirk should be going live any day now on our mp3.com site. One is a "Without Me" parody of Eminem's new single, and the other is a popped up remix of Mark's sequel to Mennonite Girl. Both are very fresh and spicy and deserve your full listening attention. Boo-yah!
]]>Snagged from: www.u2log.com
]]>Regardless of what's really happening, that alone just makes everything look slimy.
BTW if you enjoy some good conspiracy theories, check out the site where I grabbed this info from: www.whatreallyhappened.com. Just remember there's at least two sides to every story. Be sure to check out this article as well.
]]>I off-loaded all the pictures from our travels and music/movies to my Shaw homepage so they may take a little longer to load now, but at least I'll be able to recieve my email at work and not worry about running out of space.
Other than that, I also added a 'Sign Up To Be Notified' box on the right hand side where you can pop your email address in to be notified whenever an update is done to this site. I promise to sell your email address to as many people as possible and use it to sign up for as much spam as possible.
At least I'm being honest right? You appreciate honesty don't you? I thought so.
]]>Powermac G4 933 - $3,169
17" Apple Studio Display - $1,199
Sony DCRTRV740 Video Camera - $1,099
Final Cut Pro - $449
DVD Studio Pro - $819
Firewire Cable - $12
All for only $6,747 ($7,624 w/taxes)
You can even throw in an extra $1500 for a DigiDesign Digi001 and be setup for video and audio production.
Well, all I can really do is put it on my Christmas list I guess. :)
(note: all prices are education pricing only and are available at The Campus Computer Store. :) )
]]>"Watch Bob and David push the envelope until you want to scream, "Leave that poor envelope alone!" The 2-disc set includes 288 Minutes of "Mr. Show" episodes plus bonus features (in glorious full color and Dolby Surround sound)."
It includes the full first two seasons of Mr. Show. I know of at least 1 of my many, many friends that I have that will be buying this. And I have many friends, let me tell you.
]]>Other than that, not much new to report. We got a few drops of rain today, but obviously still not enough to make any sort of difference for the crops or for the forest fires raging up north.
]]>And it's getting to do pics like this on our store webpage that makes me love my job even more. :)
]]>Things are getting crazy between Pakistan and India. Nuclear weapon use is a possibility - very scary.
]]>On a lighter note, check out this auction for a haunted walkman and be sure to scroll down and take in the photo of the walkman in use. (I'm pretty sure it's all a joke.... at least I hope so)
]]>Hope everyone has a good weekend. It looks to be pretty nice out here with a possibility of some rain (which isn't a bad thing considering how dry it is).
]]>(this picture snagged from www.realcontact.org
]]>But really all this post was for was to check out how additional text looks.
]]>