The Brooks Review

Month: February 2011

  • Use TextExpander to Format Numbers With a Thousands Separator

    Just like the title says — and what a great tip.

  • Name that file…

    Continuing with what I started yesterday with my post about Simplenote naming — and expanded on by Ian Hines, Dave Caolo, and Stephen Hackett — here is some more about how I name things on my Mac.

    When it comes down to how people ‘file’ stuff on their computers I see three main methods people use to file: ((Most mix and match two of these methods.))

    1. The Nesters: they create sub-folder upon sub-folder until they end up with stuff like this: Project A > Year > Month > Day > Hour > Minute > File. Ok not usually that extreme, but you know what I am getting at.
    2. The Desktoppers: Everything is filed on the desktop for fear that one may ‘lose’ that file forever if it is moved elsewhere. ((I can’t be friends with you if this is how yo file.))
    3. The Searchers: Just throw files in one massive folder and then use search methods to find the file later.

    I doubt that most of us fit into just one of these categories — in fact most of you are probably hybrids of two of these options. I am a hybrid of 1 and 3. That represents a sweet spot for me, but no matter what, you really need to make sure you are properly naming files and that you aren’t a full 2.

    I am a huge fan of Dropbox and instead of keeping a ton of files in just the main top level Dropbox folder I have a series of sub-folders. The main reason for these subfolders is so I can find what I need quickly in the iOS app for Dropbox. (This is doubly important when you have clients looking over your shoulder at your iPad when you are looking for the file. I like to pull up the relevant folder prior to the meeting.)

    So inside my Dropbox folder I have a series of subfolders. These subfolders are classified for the various parts of my life (Work, Home, Blog and so on). So I have my office, my back up, my reference, my Simplenote and so on. Most folders residing at the first sub-level of the Dropbox folder are items that are in place for syncing only or strictly for other programs to interface with.

    The real business happens inside the folder labeled: Inbox.

    My inbox folder is where I keep 90% of all files I am currently working — the only stuff not in the folder are large files that would throw me over my Dropbox limit. Initially I just kept a ton of files in the folder, but as time wore on I realized that to find things quickly in iOS I really needed a few subfolders — but not too many.

    I keep one subfolder in Inbox that is called ‘Projects’, inside of this folder I keep others that tie directly into OmniFocus projects that I currently have active. Thus the Inbox structure looks like this: Inbox > Projects > Project Name, where the ‘Project Name’ folder is linked into OmniFocus. I keep other files that are single action in nature in the Inbox folder itself (more specifically scans and the like).

    This is as far as I take my subfolder routine. From here all files are named with a rather cryptic looking description — much like how I talked about naming Simplenote files.

    TBR_P_2011_02_14_Name

    The above is a representation of the basic structure I use for naming a file. What the above name tells me is that the project is TBR (designated always between 2-3 letters). The second piece, the P, tells me that the file category is a ‘Post’. I use a single letter to help designate a general category (P for post, O for outline, D for design). This way I can have two files with the same name, but different types:

    1. TBR_P_2011_02_14_Pluto
    2. TBR_O_2011_02_14_Pluto

    Where the first would be a post with the name Pluto for the project TBR and the second would be an outline named Pluto for the project TBR. Basically I can run a search in Spotlight for: TBR + Pluto and get both files and know the difference between those files. Likewise I could also search TBR + O and see just outlines. This allows for very scannable file names, while keeping them easily searchable.

    I do the same for all projects — I even label my website files this way when they are on the Mac.

    To Each His Own

    I always create a TextExpander snippet for file naming, this way I don’t waste time wondering what day it is and where the underscore key is (both happen more than I like to admit). What I know without a doubt is that this file naming system will not work for you. You need to come up with your own — I am sharing mine with you to help you see how I do it and perhaps you can steal portions of this to help your filing.

    Underscores, Hyphens and Dates

    I want to mention why I do two things in the above naming scheme that I haven’t touched on. Specifically why I use underscores over hyphens and why I use dates in the file name.

    • I have found that underscores make the name much more readable to my eye than hyphens do. Both hyphens and underscores accomplish the needed separation between elements of the name, so there is no right or wrong. You can and should use whatever you like best. For me that is underscores to help me read the file names easier, for you it may be hyphens — just don’t use periods (you will regret that).
    • I know a lot of people that don’t put dates in the file names and will rely on the built in date metadata to see when a file was created — personally I found out the hard way that those dates are incredibly unreliable. If you have stored your files on a communal server at any point then you know what I am talking about. Egnyte, the server we use at my office, messes with these dates like you would not believe and there has been several instances where I couldn’t tell when the file was made because of this. It is easy to attach the date if you use TextExpander and if you don’t use it — then at the very least attach a year and month (you can thank me later).

    As Detailed as You Need

    We need to borrow from Patrick Rhone’s philosophy of ‘enough’ here. Your file naming and folder structure should be nothing more detailed and nothing less obscure than what works for you. A good place to start (and where I would start now) would be with moving everything into one single folder and then naming the files with a very detailed name. From there play with the naming of the files and add back folders only as needed.

    I recommend doing it this way because people tend to never remove folders if they start with many and will rarely add more information to file names if they start with abstract names. A big bucket forces good naming and good naming will reduce the amount of folders needed. Plain and simple.

    The Desktop

    Lastly, if you are a person that files everything on the desktop: stop and stop now. Again, you can thank me later on this one.

  • Apple Launches Subscriptions on the App Store

    Apple PR:

    Publishers who use Apple’s subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

    Two interesting things here:

    1. Developers can keep 100% of subscription revenue if the subscription is done outside the app, but (and this is a big but) developers must offer a subscription through iTunes for the same (or less) cost. I don’t see many new subscribers doing so outside the app.
    2. This is the killer part for apps like the Kindle. Developers are no longer allowed to kick users out of the app to buy things (such as books). This will be interesting to see how it plays out, especially since there is a limit to the amount of items you can buy in-app. Apple isn’t done changing the way you buy books just yet — I am guessing there will be more to this announcement.

  • MG Siegler’s iPad Life

    I want to welcome one of my favorite writers, MG Siegler to my iPad Life interview series. He is probably best known for his great writing on TechCrunch.

    Tell me a little about yourself, what do you do, where do you live?

    I’m a writer for the site TechCrunch, focusing on a wide range of things, including yes, Apple. I’ve been with TechCrunch for about two years now. Before that, I was doing more or less the same thing at VentureBeat for a year and a half. I’m based in San Francisco and have been here for three years now.

    Before that, I was a web developer down in Southern California. I did front-end work: HTML, JavaScript, CSS. And before that, I worked in Hollywood for a few years. That was fun, but soulless.

    Originally, I’m from Ohio and went to school at the University of Michigan.

    What was your reaction when the iPad was launched?

    I was extremely excited. Of course, we had all been hearing the rumors for months (and really years) of Apple doing a tablet. But I had no doubt that when they finally did it, they would do it right.

    I laughed at the “big iPod touch” criticisms at the time, knowing that those people would all change their mind when they got their hands on the thing. Why? Because I really believe that touch is the future of everyday computing. We’ve all grown accustomed to desktops and laptops with mice and keyboards, but think about how ridiculous some of the learning curves are on that for a second. Then think about the iPad. As we’ve seen, babies can use it. It just makes sense.

    Which model did you order and why?

    64GB WiFi. The 64GB call was easy as I wanted to put a lot of media on it. The WiFi versus 3G debate was tougher, but I ultimately went with WiFi simply because of my hatred for AT&T. Living in San Francisco, it simply does not work. So I wasn’t about to pay them more money to prove their incompetence in another way.

    But now that Apple and Verizon have partnered up, I’ll definitely consider a 3G version of the next iPad (assuming there’s a Verizon option). On the other hand, the Hotspot feature on the Verizon iPhone sort of makes it pointless.

    How are you using the iPad on a daily basis?

    It has basically become the living room computer in our house. If I’m on the couch, chances are that I’m using it to surf, read, tweet, etc. I basically only need my laptop for when I’m going to write something — I still would not use the iPad for that.

    When I’m on my laptop or desktop, I usually use Instapaper to bookmark things to read later on my iPad. And that’s usually how I go to sleep at night.

    Can you give me a quick run down of the apps that you use the most?

    Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse, Instapaper, Reeder, ScoreCenterXL (ESPN app), Boxcar, iBooks, and, of course, Safari.

    I have dozens others installed, but those are the ones I use most frequently. Also, The Daily recent joined that group, but perhaps only because it interests me right now as it just launched. We’ll see if it stays in that group.

    Mg tmb

    Which app is your favorite?

    It’s a tough call between Twitter and Flipboard, but I’ll go with the latter. The reason is that I love that it has been thought of from the ground-up as a way to consume social content. It’s brilliant.

    Do you have any bag/stand/case recommendations for people?

    I definitely do not recommend the official Apple case. I hate that thing. I’m shocked Apple even approved it. I use a simple Incase puffy sleeve thing [Editors note: I think this is the case he is talking about]. It’s ugly (lime green), but it works well. And it keeps the iPad pretty clean.

    What features do you want to see in a future iPad?

    The main thing I’d love is for the iPad to weigh slightly less than it does. The battery life is amazing, but I’d even take slightly less if they could cut the weight a bit.

    I’d also love a retina-like display, but it doesn’t look like that will happen in iPad 2. But maybe later this year…

    The other big thing I’d love to see improved about the iPad is the screen glare. I understand it’s a hard problem to solve with glass, but the iPad really is pretty impossible to use outside at the moment, I’d love that to change.

    Oh, and more multi-touch gestures. But it looks like those will be coming as a part of future iOS updates too.

    If you had to choose between owning your Air or the iPad, which would you choose?

    That’s a very good question. For work purposes, I’d have to go with the Air. There is simply no better computer to travel with for work. And because so much of my life is work, I give it a slight edge over the iPad. Also because I know the iPad 2 is right around the corner. Very tough call though.

    I want to thank MG Siegler for taking the time out of his busy schedule to share his iPad life with me. You can keep tabs on MG by following him on Twitter where he is known as @parislemon.

    More iPad Life

    To see more people’s iPad Lives take a look here.

  • Why Nokia Needed Windows Phone 7

    The Economist on why Nokia could no longer compete:

    The first generations of modern mobile phones were purely devices for conversation and text messages. The money lay in designing desirable handsets, manufacturing them cheaply and distributing them widely. This played to European strengths. The necessary skills overlapped most of all in Finland, which explains why Nokia, a company that grew up producing rubber boots and paper, could become the world leader in handsets.

    As microprocessors become more powerful, mobile phones are changing into hand-held computers. As a result, most of their value is now in software and data services. This is where America, in particular Silicon Valley, is hard to beat.

    I typically don’t quote that much of any one article, but honestly this is a dead on analysis of what is going on in the mobile market right now. A shift from hardware driven sales (through design and the like) to software driven sales. That is why Apple can sell a rectangular glass slab with a silver band and have people swooning over it — it’s about the software.

  • iPad Blogging

    Brett Kelly on the pain involved in trying to blog using just an iPad:

    Remember, I’m not saying any of this is impossible, just that it’s prohibitively cumbersome and difficult. Pursuing this route is inserting a clunky obstacle in your way when your tools should be extensions of your hand and appropriately fade into the background.

    I agree with pretty much everything he says here. The WordPress app for the iPad is the best blogging app out there for WordPress users, but even so I rarely — if ever — use the damned app. I have yet to see a single solution for blogging on the iPad that would make me feel comfortable leaving for a long weekend without my MacBook Air.

    My solution: use the web interface for WP after typing up your post in Writer — though this is far from good.

  • Stylus Cap On The Go

    Creating a cap for a Sharpie that double as a stylus seems like a great idea — until you accidentally use the Sharpie as a stylus without the cap and quickly realize why it is not a top-selling product. (Just sayin’)

  • Quote of the Day: Don Norman

    “My intelligence is in the cloud. My life is in the cloud. My friends, photographs, ideas and mail. My life. My mind. Take away my cloud and I am left mindless.”

    In fact this entire post is both highly quotable and very concerning. I suggest you give it a read.

  • Research In Motion Acquires Professional Contact Manager Gist

    Leena Rao reporting on Gist that RIM just purchased:

    Gist, which raised $10.8 million in funding, launched in 2008 as a “professional” communications manager, aimed at satisfying the filtering needs of a business user. Like the web service, the app organizes your streams according to your email contacts so it’s a useful way of following your colleagues, friends and professional contacts.

    Sounds very boring — which is the reason I think that RIM is struggling to compete with iOS in the enterprise. I know they still have a strong hold on the market, but more and more CEOs and others in the enterprise are preferring to use iPhones — Gist does not sound like a great iPhone type app.

  • SimplyNoted

    It is no secret that I use and love Simplenote — you really should use it too — so I want to share with you a tip for getting the most out of Simplenote when you are using it on iOS. One great thing about Simplenote is that you can instantly search any note and you never need to name a note — except that you really should be naming your notes.

    The first line in your note is always displayed as the title of the note and I like to make use of this by naming my notes. This way they are easier to find later on — you know when you need that note now.

    Most of my notes have titles like this:

    Noted_2011_02_13_NAME

    It is a very simple naming convention — I start with what the document is (in this case a note) and follow with the date (Year_Month_Day), ending with a custom name that gives a brief description of the note.

    The problem with my naming convention is that it makes for a lot of typing and keyboard view switching to accomplish in iOS. That is until you realize that all I type is nnt and TextExpander fills everything but the descriptive name. The advantage to naming files like this is that I can really drill down in searches, I can use the date I am looking for to filter quickly and I can see if I am using a note or a different file type (for example I may start the note title with Ref in place of Noted so that I know the file is for reference).

    QQ Trick

    The above naming convention works really well for 90% of all my notes, but there are times when you make a note that you know you want to be able to access quickly (perhaps you want the note to be a bit more ‘sticky’). For that I use Merlin Mann’s ‘Q’ trick. ((I have heard him talk about this before, but I can’t find a written reference for you. [Update: A few readers point to this Podcast interview with Merlin.)) Basically the ‘Q’ trick is that you start your note name with the letter ‘Q’, this way when you need to search for an important note you can drill down the name with Qs. It is best to use two Qs and then add more from there.

    This is how an important ‘Q’ note looks in my setup:

    QQ_Note_2011_02_13_NAME

    From there I just add more Qs at the beginning as I see fit. The benefit of this is immediately realized when you start to search. I keep less that 10 of these ‘Q’ notes in Simplenote among the hundreds of other notes that I have. Even if one of these notes is months old I can quickly find it by typing ‘QQ’ in the search field and right now that only brings up three notes. It is very unlikely that you will ever type ‘QQ’ in a normal text note at any point.

    I personally use two thru four Qs at the beginning of important notes, with four Qs reserved for notes that are really important. The nice part is that you can quickly keep tapping Q on the keyboard t drill down fast. Of course I title the ‘Q’ notes using TextExpander too, that abbreviation is ‘Q2’.

    Tags

    I never use tags, in part because:

    1. They don’t work with Notational Velocity on the Mac.
    2. I have never been a fan of tags.

    You can use tags to accomplish a lot of the same things that I have written about above, but they offer no real speed improvement when you consider how fast this method is when it is coupled with TextExpander. As a bonus if you do use TextExpander on iOS and your Mac, be sure to sync the snippets between the two (you knew that right?).

  • The Truth Behind the Failure of iPad Magazines

    Andrew Losowsky nails why magazines on the iPad are by and large failing to be worth while and compelling for consumers.

  • Quote of the Day: Joel Gascoigne

    “In the end though, no one else is going to do it for you – you need to stop thinking about changing the world, and do the nitty-gritty to get one step further.”

  • The Economics of Blogging and The Huffington Post

    Nate Silver analyzing the traffic at HuffPo:

    Their median blog post, by our estimate, gets only about 550 page views. That equates to about 1 in every 450,000 of the unique visitors that Ms. Huffington says AOL and The Huffington Post will have each month once they combine forces.

    That is amazingly low for how big the site is. Quality > Quantity. There is some amazing and very sage advice in this post, so I leave you with this last bit:

    Being a small fish in a very, very big pond isn’t always the way to build up a name for yourself, much less to make money from it.

  • A Not Quite Full Review, of a Not Quite Great Twitter App: Twitterrific

    As most Mac Twitter users are aware, Twitterrific 4 was released. I know a lot of people have been waiting for this app, but frankly it is just not a great app.

    The Problems

    • After you post a tweet your Twitter stream is not updated, so you see your new tweet at the top of the old tweets. Then when Twitterrific does update, the new tweets jump into position where they should be in the timeline. Your new tweet, that was at the top of where you had read, is now mixed in with a jumble of other tweets. You could get used to this, but you shouldn’t have to get used to non-sense like this.
    • The title bar with all the icons is very imposing and throws off the balance of the entire app. Even with all icons removed it is still just too thick. Twitter clients should always feel like small-apps and not like full-blown apps ((Who likes the way TweetDeck looks?)) — Twitterrific fails at this.
    • The sidebar is not attractive. You also can’t collapse saved searches or global trends (though you can remove the trends). Not to mention that you can only resize the window to a certain point before you are forced to collapse the sidebar to continue to make the app a useable size.
    • Light mode’s colors are not so good — particularly the mention color.
    • If you want two accounts you need to pay $9.99 — which is silly given that Twitter for Mac is free.
    • You can’t remove the menubar icon.
    • There is a badge on the dock icon with a new tweet count, I never have been a fan of badge counts (exception on Mail.app).
    • You can’t close image windows (Twitpic and the like) with the keyboard.
    • This is my biggest gripe: the direct messages show up as a random hodgepodge based on the time sent. So I can’t view the entire conversation thread, I just see messages in a confusing and un-helpful way.
    • No live streaming of the Twitter feed, which at this point is basic and mandatory. ((In the past I hated the live stream, but now it has really grown on me.))
    • No drag and drop support for posting pictures — I mean I guess sending the file path for the picture could be useful at times.

    The Good

    • Instapaper support. I have no clue why this isn’t standard on Mac Twitter apps, like it is iOS.
    • The dark mode colors look nice.
    • The conversation thread is nice. The pop-up window is much less confusing than sliding in a new ‘sheet’ like Twitter for Mac does.

    The Undecided

    • The compose window slides in from the top. I like that the window is hidden and not static in the app, but I typically prefer a new window that pops up. This way I can compose many tweets at the same time.
    • The icon: I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it.
    • The ads in the free version are from The Deck, so they look good, but they are still ads.

    Bottom Line

    The app is stable and works. It does what it says. I can’t help but feel a lot was left out to get the app out. Most of the problems can be easily fixed with updates, but for a version 4 product these issues should have never shipped. Making sure CMD+W closes picture previews and that dragging in pictures to a compose window attaches the image, is basic stuff for a 4th version product.

    The biggest problem with Twitterrific 4 is that there is no compelling reason to use it over Twitter for Mac when you factor in the $9.99 price tag for the non-ad, mutli-user version. ((I get that some people don’t like the look of the Twitter app and that is valid, but there are still better free options than this.)) I have been harsh on this app, more so than I normally would be, but I have been harsh because Iconfactory should be cranking out better apps than this. It doesn’t feel finished — it feels like a version 1.0 product. If this was a version 1.0 then I would be excited for its future, but given the version 4 nature I am hardly impressed.

  • iOS Notifications

    Federico Viticci on iOS notifications:

    As you know, iOS notifications don’t have “quiet times”, which is annoying because you can’t set the iPhone to not get any notification (and thus, possibly, a sound) at night. Some 3rd party developers have deployed a quiet time option server-side.

    That is the worst part of the notification system in my view. I can’t tell you how many times I am woken up moments after I go to bed because of a notification (I typically mute my phone at night, but I sometimes forget).

  • iPad Fingerprints

    Neat. Mine usually just looks like one big smear.

  • (dv)’d

    I spent all night working to get this site migrated from a Grid Server (gs) to a Dedicated Virtual (dv) from Media Temple. I managed to do this so far without any support calls (particularly proud of this). If you are seeing this then the DNS changes have made it through and we are now on the (dv).

    I hope we all notice some improved load times!

  • Quote of the Day: Craig Grannell

    “Microsoft, on the other hand, spent years arsing about with its mobile strategy, before surprising everyone with the stupidly named but otherwise rather good Windows Phone 7 (for Windows Phone 7 phones—see what I mean about the name?).”

  • Matthew Rex on Twitterrific 4

    I agree with everything on this list, but my list is much longer. I hope to post my thoughts this weekend.

  • My Home Desk [video]

    Tour of my Desk from Ben Brooks on Vimeo.

    A quick look at my home desk (thanks to Brett Kelly for the idea). Sorry for the shakiness, I was shooting with a camera I am not familiar with (Canon 5d mkII).

    What you see in the video: