I’ve been helping my wife setup a new blog the past week. She published her first post last night and it’s a great one. ((Though bias alert!)) My wife is an excellent photographer, and 99% of the time she uses just her iPhone for everything from image capture to editing.
So she wrote about it, and it’s amazing to see the before and after on some of her pictures. Do go and check it out. ((She’s got a lot more great posts in the pipeline.))
Thomas Wong:
When I’m asked about the Isar, my elevator pitch is this: it’s basically a thin laptop backpack with a duffel bag grafted right onto it. That’s a brutal way of putting it that strips out all the magic of the design, but it gets the point across.
The Isar is the one bag that I keep looking at, wanting to try out to see how it stacks up. It's a gorgeous looking bag.
Really stellar new app from Built by Snowman. In my prior career I was looking for something just like this for some staff, and I wish we had Shifts.
I put together an Ona Bowery review for Tools and Toys. It expands on the one I had written for this site. Shawn added some photos of his bag so you get to see the leather version too.
Garrett Murray, disagrees with me that fixed-lens cameras take some getting used to:
There’s nothing to get used to with a fixed-lens camera. You can still use it point-and-shoot, or you can take the next step, learn more, and make better photos.
He makes good points, I still think it’s not the right camera to recommend to the non-photographically inclined. As I think it is harder to get used to zooming with your feet, and to find the composition for your one focal length instead of just “zooming” to make it work. Meaning, raise your camera to capture a stunning sunset, only to realize it looks too distant, or you are getting to little of the surroundings — you have to think about what might work, or forgo capturing it. Whereas most beginners would just “zoom” so it looks more like a postcard. ((I don’t mean that as an insult, just an example.))
I glossed over this whole position in my post because I’m still too new to only having a fixed lens camera. However, I did mostly shoot all my other cameras with just one lens. That said I still think there is a large distinction to be made, and a large enough one that beginners aren’t well suited towards fixed lens. ((Then again watch me change my mind in another month.))
The only thing I can't figure out about this app is just how creepy I think it is.
The rumors of the 12” Retina MacBook Air reached a new level of stupidity. People writing about the computer as if it were real. As if it was the messiah coming to save them from wasting $5,000 on a retina iMac. Many proclaimed it would be the perfect laptop.
Which is just silly, because it’s not even real. Not yet at least.
Really great video showing one of the best pieces of travel gear out there.
Michael Lopp:
It’s a business and there are good fiscally responsible reasons as well as culturally ones to move to an open space, but who is doing the math on productivity? Who understands the compounding productivity interest earned with each consecutive uninterrupted minute of work? It is there in those hard to capture collective minutes where your best work is happening.
Seems to me like remote working solves all of this. Just saying…
Josh Ginter has a fantastic post outlining the value of good lenses for any camera system. It’s a good read and you should go through it if you are just getting into photography.
There are a couple of things that I wanted to weigh in on though, that Josh doesn’t get wrong, but that I differ in opinion on.
A rather interesting approach to a modern Address Book. I would love to be able to launch into a specific service from within the iOS Address Book. One of my favorite features of Slack is that I call click on a persons profile picture and see a popup which allows me to call them with Skype. So handy.
Good post from Stephen, and I am linking to him because his thoughts on the protruding camera lens on the iPhones 6 at the end is spot on.
One point I disagree with him on is the iPhone camera being ‘good enough’ — it’s down right a better camera that my Fuji in many respects. Better macro, better fast action, better video, etc.
If you are a design oriented nerd you’ve likely run into a
the same conflict I run into it everyday, where ergonomics is constantly in direct opposition with a beautiful desk. The knowledge you possess tells you how things should be positioned on your desk and this positioning is never really how you want your desk to look.
Your monitor needs to be at this height, so that it is ergonomic, and your desk at this height, which all means your desk is always lower than your display. And now you need a stand for that.
A new photo essay of mine.
I currently have a White/Silver iPhone 6. It is a Verizon phone, 64GB, with AppleCare. I’m looking to trade for a 6 plus.
Specifically the 6+ needs to be at least 64GB, preferably one of the white models, on Verizon, with AppleCare.
I’m willing to make up for the price difference on the trade as follows (assumes AppleCare is already linked to device):
Anyone interested? Priority to people nearby me. If we are doing shipping that’s fine too, we would each pay our own shipping with comparable speed of shipping. (I don’t want to use my 5S for very long.)
My phone is in near perfect condition with only two light scratches on the front. Only visible when the screen is off.
M.G. Siegler:
I suspect this new MacBook will be the last laptop I end up buying. Again, that doesn’t mean the MacBook is dying anytime soon, but I believe this will be the pinnacle of the product. We’ll get spec bumps for years to come. But it will be the long, slow fade we just witnessed with the iPod.
Just a reminder that I have started a photo a day project, pretty fun stuff.
Garrett Murray comparing the X100T to the plethora of other cameras he has used of late:
It fits better in my hands and it still takes amazingly unique photos.
I picked up the X100T before the holidays and it has been an amazing tool.
In part, because I am a nerd, I have a page on my blog where I list things that I’ve found to be the best. I pursue buying the best things in the aspects of my life where I’ve found that I use something very often, or need a new item to replace an old, or broken one. I try many options so that I may eventually say, with some sense of expert confidence, that this is ‘the best’.
Of course it’s likely only the best if you are me, after all, who’s to say what is the best weather app, radar app, PDF reader, or knife? Not me. It’s all subjective, and we could debate this all day, but it doesn’t matter.
I saw this Mac preference pane app in action today, and I was blown away. I am not at my Mac, but this is something I plan on installing the moment I get home.
You can create custom gestures to do all sorts of things, such as:
And so much more. Very cool tool.