Updated with a great tip from a reader — for the less frequent travelers out there.
Year: 2015
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Apple Retina Laptop Shootout
Bare Feats on why they didn’t test the MacBook Air lineup:
As I indicated in the first paragraph of this article, the newest MacBook Air lacks a Retina screen. That makes it almost obsolete in an Apple product line that includes not only three models of Retina laptops but also a Retina iMac, a Retina iPad, a Retina iPhone, and Retina iPod.
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Let It Be
I’ve started to notice and interesting trend among the people I follow on Twitter and people converse with in my small nerdverse™. The trend goes something like this: “Does anyone know how to make X app, look/work/feel/do something like Y app?”
In other words they are looking at using a new application, but something about that new application doesn’t work how they want it to work, based only on other applications they have used in the past. It could be the UI itself, a niche feature, or any number of other things.
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Never trust a computer you can’t lift
There are very few, a select few, people that put up with me. One of them is Stephen Hackett — and truthfully he is a great guy. He’s decided to go full time with his site and Relay FM.
He’s started a T-Shirt drive because THAT IS WHAT YOU DO. Anyways, go buy a bunch and support the most authoritative source on the web for old Mac support. ((Sorry Brand, you win for Newtons though.))
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Coda for iOS
I’ve had the pleasure of testing this app for sometime now, and it really is stellar. One of the best iPad apps, and now it is on the iPhone. Coda on iOS is how I update the status page for this site.
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Importance of Sleep
This three part series on sleep has been making the rounds and just last night I read through all three. Wow, really interesting stuff and something I think everyone should read.
Needless to say I went to bed a bit earlier last night.
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Ulysses 2.1 for Mac and iPad
Great update that brings backups to Ulysses. I’ve been using it for a while and it’s yet another solid update to the best writing app money can buy.
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A Simple Toiletry Trick
Years ago I read an article (which I sadly can’t find) about keeping your toiletry bag fully stocked at all times. I took that to heart and have, since reading that, always kept my toiletries bag ready to go.
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Push-Triggered Sync in OmniFocus
Yet another reason why OmniFocus is amazing, this new push based sync system works with custom WebDAV syncing too. Full security and full convenience.
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Quote of the Day: Shawn Blanc
“If you’re also slowing down this summer to think about what’s in store for the next season of life, instead of trying to figure out how you’re going to do it all, maybe try to do one thing really well.” -
How to Cut Children’s Screen Time
Jane E. Brody reporting:
One girl among the 1,000 children she interviewed in preparing her book said, “I feel like I’m just boring. I’m boring my dad because he will take any text, any call, any time, even on the ski lift.” A 4-year-old called her father’s smartphone a “stupid phone.”
It turns my stomach to think my kids might ever feel like that.
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Close your laptop. Handwriting could make you smarter.
I’ve found this to be the case in my own life, and it is the primary reason why I take most notes by hand during calls and meetings. I’ve even found that I don’t need to refer to notes as often when I take them by hand.
The downside to all of this though is: search. It is a real pain to search through my notes and find what I am looking for, when they are hand written.
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Daily Summary Email from OmniFocus
Some time ago I tried Todoist as a replacement for OmniFocus. It didn’t stick, largely because they don’t seem to take encryption seriously, so I was back on OmniFocus. But the one thing missing from OmniFocus that I loved about Todoist was the email I received every morning telling me the tasks for the day. It was a really nice way to look at my day’s overview before I sat down at my Mac.
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Nox
A neat little app was just release from Cosmic Owl called Nox. This app can send you a notification for sunrise and sunset. I loved using it while we were at Disney to know when the sun would set — typically I had the app remind me 15 minutes before sunset.
It gave me a good sense of when I would be slightly less sweaty.
Handy.
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Getting my Daily To Do List Out of OmniFocus
This is really neat and similar to what I do — except I have OmniFocus send me a daily email.
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The problem with calories
Conor McClure with the smack down on health:
The takeaway should be this: you don’t have to be a slave to the numbers to get the results you want. I would in fact argue the opposite: succumbing to the conventional wisdom of weight loss will only lead to unsustainable habits and disappointment. Take the long road, and be in it for life.
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Personal Journaling
I’ve struggled with the personal journal concept my entire life. It’s something that I envy when I see others doing it, even back when it was a spiral notebook journal, but no matter what I do, I can’t keep it up for more than a week or two.
And I love Day One — it is a gorgeous app. I love many of the other journal type apps too. But none of them stick. And it’s not a problem with apps, it’s a problem with my approach.
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Starting Fresh
Just about every 3-4 months I used to reformat my computer, doing a fresh install of the entire system. It was the best way to speed up the computer and clean out a borked registry.
I am, of course, talking about when I used a PC. I could do the whole process in an evening, and thought it was just an elite skill I had.
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GPS in Airplane Mode
Michael Tsai:
Presumably the GPS does not perform as well without access to cellular towers or Wi-Fi. But this could potentially save a lot of battery life when you’re in an area with poor cell service. Plus, it would let you track your flight process while on an airplane, if you had the maps preloaded.
I can attest this is the case in 8.4, as my photos show from my recent flight. Phone completely in airplane mode, wifi off, all my photos are geotagged. Which is pretty neat as I snapped photos out of the plane and had no clue what I was looking at.
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A Pixel-To-Pixel Showdown
Alik Griffin comparing the Fuji X-T1 and Sony A7r:
My take away from all this is that you have two RAW files that are geared for two different users and it comes down to preference. Would you rather apply noise reduction yourself in post and have a sharper image at low ISO, or would you rather have a cleaner image at high ISO to start with? For me I would rather have clean high ISO since sharpness is a lot easier to apply than noise reduction. And I think most average Joe photographers would prefer this as well.
As with cameras on your iPhone, these days it is less about the sensor and a lot more about the image processor. No doubt in my mind that Fuji is leading the way in that regard.