Month: March 2012

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Newsletter:

  • ‘The Benefits are Make-believe’

    A call to disband the TSA.

  • Judge Posner upholds largest part of Apples touchscreen heuristics 949 patent in Motorola case

    Florian Mueller: >Apple argues that “if it turns out the claims are too broadly written and run afoul of the prior art, that is an issue that may be resolved at trial or via summary judgment”, which is legally accurate, but the idea of interpreting gestures, which are inherently imprecise if made by a human […]

  • ‘The Girls Around Me App Takes Creepy to a New Level’

    Nick Bilton on a new location based app: >“Girls Around Me uses Foursquare, the location-based mobile service, to determine your location. It then scans for girls in the area who have recently checked-in on the service. Once you identify a girl you’d like to talk to, one that inevitably has no idea you’re snooping on […]

  • Readability: What We’re About

    I have a lot to say about this post, [all of which can be summed up by John Gruber in a comment he made earlier today](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/30/readability): >No word on when they’ll stop collecting (and keeping) money on behalf of unaffiliated publishers. Lastly, you have to love this dig from Ziade at people speaking out against […]

  • Reset to Default

    A while back I posted a link about productivity by [Tony Schwartz from the Harvard Business Review that was titled](http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/03/the-magic-of-doing-one-thing-a.html): “The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time”. In my link I quoted this bit: >The biggest cost — assuming you don’t crash — is to your productivity. In part, that’s a simple consequence […]

  • Airport Security: Statements

    Bruce Schneier on TSA and airport security: >The humiliation, the dehumanisation and the privacy violations are also harms. That Mr Hawley dismisses these as mere “costs in convenience” demonstrates how out-of-touch the TSA is from the people it claims to be protecting. Additionally, there’s actual physical harm: the radiation from full-body scanners still not publicly […]

  • Modahaus Tips

    A great post from Modahaus listing out tips for getting some really great shots from your iPhone using their gear.

  • ‘Now Can We Start Talking About the Real Foxconn?’

    Tim Culpan: >The problem with Mike Daisey’s lies is that they’ve painted a picture of the Evil Empire, a place devoid of any happiness or humanity. A dark, Dickensian scene of horror and tears. They also make anyone who tries to tell a fuller, more balanced account look like an Apple or Foxconn apologist because […]

  • Modahaus Steady Stand

    [](http://c276381.r81.cf1.rackcdn.com/modahaus-2.jpg) A while back a rep for [Modahaus](http://www.modahaus.com) contacted me about a new photography stand they had come out with for the iPhone and small cameras. It looked pretty neat, so when they offered to send me one of my choosing to review, I took them up on it. International shipping being what it is, […]

  • ‘Readability Tweaks Sharing Feature in Response to Copyright Theft Accusations’

    Chris Dary responds to the criticism from today and promises changes. ((For what it’s worth Dary seems to me to be on the up and up and was the only person at Readability to respond to my request to ‘opt-out’.)) Dary: >Until we are able to come up with something more graceful for both the […]

  • ’10 Million Hits a Day With WordPress Using a $15 Server’

    Neat trick. He used [blitz.io](http://blitz.io/) to test this. Out of curiosity I ran a similar test using blitz.io on this site, without making a single change, just to see what happened. Here’s the result: Not too shabby, but I wanted to push it a little further — so I did. ((250 concurrent users in 30 […]

  • Pageviews and Reading Later

    David Chartier writing about another issue he has with read later services — the fact that you can send a link to them without ever visiting the original site (as in Twitter apps): >Yes, it can be a pain in the ass to visit a page before saving it to read later if you’re on […]

  • Stealability

    Turns out that when you ‘share’ a link from Readability, the link that is shared links back to the readability optimized site — not to the original source article. This is both shady and completely at odds with the ‘goodwill’ nature of the web. (Read it Later and Instapaper share links that go back to […]

  • The B&B Podcast #54: Distraction-Free Sweater

    Shawn and I talk about business models of apps like Instagram and services like Twitter. We also discuss our iPad usage and how it fits into our workflows. Be sure to check in on 5by5 to listen to us live on Thursdays, and if you are interested in sponsoring the show drop me a line.

  • The End of RIM as We Know It

    Dan Frommer: >Not only is RIM in worse financial shape, but all bets are off for its recovery.

  • RootMetrics Carrier Coverage Map

    >How do cellular carriers really perform? Find out by entering your city, zip code or even your address in the search box below, or by selecting a city from the available list. Discover your carrier’s strength over your mobile footprint. Find out your carrier’s RootScore – an aggregate grade – and get an understanding of […]

  • OopsieFocus Script

    Still use this script from Shawn everyday. I love it so much I thought I would remind everyone of it.

  • Subtle Papers II for the Retina iPad

    *Finally*

  • ‘Yes, the iPad 2 Is Better Than the “New” iPad’ [Warning: Link to Enderle]

    Rob Enderle: >Granted, there were folks who believed the iPad 2 didn’t offer enough of an improvement over the original device to justify the purchase. I didn’t agree then, but with the 4G data limitations and the file size, power, and weight issues connected to the new display, well, I simply don’t see the iPad […]

  • “My Dad’s iPhone ‘Smoked’ Windows Phone, Denied Prize”

    Sounds like Ravi Udeshi got screwed by a sore loser.