I wrote a little pocket knife review for Tools and Toys on the James Brand County knife. It’s is simply gorgeous.
Month: February 2016
-
Android Encryption
Although 97% of Android phones have encryption as an option, less than 35% of them actually got prompted to turn it on when they first activated the phone. Even then, not everybody chooses that extra layer of security.
This is entirely a messaging and opt-in problem. Encryption should be on by default and a user should have to active search to turn it off. There is very little reason not to have it on. Hopefully this starts to change. I’d love to see Apple have FileVault on by default for new users.
The message to users should be clear: secure your phone by keeping this option on.
-
Dumbshit got hacked mid-air while writing an Apple-FBI story
Steven Petrow:
That was last week, when the standoff between the FBI and Apple seemed much more about principle than practice to me. That’s when I thought I’d write a column on whether this legal fight matters to regular folk — people like my mother, a retired social worker; my best friend, who works in retail; or even my 20-year-old niece in college. That was before I found out — in a chillingly personal way — just why it does matter. To all of us.
This story would be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing. Not because he was hacked — that’s what you get for not protecting yourself on a public WiFi network — but rather because Petrow was going to write about a complex topic without even coming close to understanding it. He is just one journalist, but I suspect it is far more common for those writing about this Apple-FBI fight to not truly understand what is at stake, and instead just pretend that they know right from wrong here.
It should be up to each of us to decide what to make public, and what to keep private, he continued. For me, I felt as though the stranger on the plane had robbed me of my privacy—as was explicitly his intent. He took the decision of what to share out of my hands. He went in through the back door of the Gogo connection.
So much for the oft touted “but I have nothing to hide” line. I’d like to buy this so called “hacker” a drink for his public service.
-
The $500 Freewrite Word Processor Is Pretentious Hipster Nonsense
Christina Warren on the Freewrite(the entire post is a must read if you ask me):
Yup. You know why I think this product really upsets me? I buy everything. Like, seriously. I buy everything. I’m every horrible stereotype you can think of of an early adopter crossed with a label whore. I’m actually the worst type of consumer. But even me — someone who once backed an Instagram digital photo frame — is like, “you know what, I’m good.” Like this is too pretentious, even for me.
The Freewrite is a mechanical keyboard paired with a tiny e-ink screen for “focused” writing. It’s absurd. Even more than the price, $500, is the look of this thing. It is fucking ugly. It’s like what would happen if I decided to take all the toys my kids have and the gadgets I have, and tried to then go into my garage and make this. Actually, I could probably make it a little better.
This is fugly.
I am also getting damned tired of this need by people to have tools made to help them “focus”. Tools which turn of social media sites, or the Internet, or whatever.
Focus is a discipline, not a feature.
-
The Upside of Changing the Way an Apple Pencil Works
Federico Viticci on the changed behavior of the Apple Pencil in 9.3’s beta:
Using a Pencil to scroll lists and interact with menus has serious benefits for people with RSI problems, and, I have to say, it’s just convenient if you don’t want to switch back and forth between touch and Pencil all the time.
-
iPad Arm Fatigue
Stephen Hackett on the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard Cover:
All that said, if you can get used to reaching up and tapping the screen a good bit, using the Smart Keyboard is a much better experience than I first thought it would be.
I’ve seen this repeated a fair bit recently. The idea that using the Smart Keyboard with an iPad Pro means you are reaching up to the screen a lot. It is, frankly, bullshit.
I’ve been using only an iPad Pro since mid-November 2015 and have not seen this in practice. If you are just casually flipping to the iPad Pro, then yes you will find yourself reaching up a lot and thinking people are crazy.
In reality though, living with the device daily, you don’t tend to reach up much at all. If I’m scrolling, I am doing so with my wrist on the desk and my thumb flicking at the screen. Almost all the tasks I do on my iPad rarely require me to have my arm hovering in the air like a scene from Minority Report.
I was worried that my arms would tire, but it was unfounded. Add in some keyboard shortcuts, and adjusting for the device through time and use, and I find it far less tedious than contorting my hand to work on a trackpad all day long.
-
Reign of the Algorithm
Writers, remember: the more we play the algorithmic game, the more the algorithmic game plays us.
-
We Are Now at Peak TED
Like Obama in his last term, TED seems to have run out of fucks to give. It’s doubling down on its TED-ness.
🙄
-
Instagram Ads: Too Much?
Om Malik on Instagram ads:
Great ads are actually great fun. I mean, the best parts of the Super Bowl are the ads and talking about them on Twitter and Facebook. But bad ads are just bad. They distract and they disappoint. And a lot of advertising on the internet is dumb and boring and punishes us for using services.
He’s spot on. My negative feelings about advertising on the web is with the tracking associated with it. Most good ads don’t need that tracking to be effective. All of the tracking and analytics just make for lazier ads.
-
Thoughts on Twitter
Twitter is dying. Again.
Or so I’ve been told, or seen, or heard — someone else said it, not me.
But I’ve been thinking about this lately as I watch more than half the tweets roll by my Twitter stream, muted and never to be seen. What I’ve come to realize is there is a discoverability and interest problem on Twitter — with Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram you can fairly easily find niches that conform to what you enjoy, what you are looking for, or what you are interested in.
-
Studying Business
Joshua Taylor presents an interesting case for designers learning business. I was talking about this the other day with a friend, about how it is a shame that every college, or high school, student isn’t required to learn basic accounting and business principles. It’s the foundation of most societies and helps everyone at any level. Accounting helps you with your personal finances, and general business will help you make money in life — no matter what path you take to making money.
However, in this instance, I’m not sure it is about designers understanding business as much as it is about them understanding what they are trying to do. Design isn’t just visuals, it’s broader problem solving. You can give a beautiful answer without understanding the problem, but only give a great answer when you fully understand the problem.
-
Finding Good Content
I am a huge fan of rss and subscribe to hundreds of feeds through the system. And as any rss user will tell you, there’s a lot of crap you have to dig through to find the good stuff. That’s the nature of the beast — what you curate in your rss feed is subject to being filled with a mixed bag of bad and good content.
There’s piles of shit every where you look, which you have to sift through item by item in order to find something decent — it’s even more work to find something good because you can’t judge good until you finish reading it.
-
Quartz News App
I recently wrote about how I’ve slimmed down to just three apps for my news consumption. However Quartz News came out with a new app yesterday and it is fascinating. It’s news delivered via a chat like interface.
Basically it gives you a headline (you can click to read) or prompt for more information or to move to the next story. I found the entire interface (which is next to nothing) to be simple and well done. I really enjoyed it.
Of course the key here is going to be the alert notifications. Can they get them right? I don’t know. Time will tell there.
For now, if you are a news junkie, this is an app you really need to check out.
-
A Samsung Printer
I had the need to pick up a new printer a little over a month ago — while I have a nice photo printer, I needed a new laser printer. Most people don’t need printers anymore, but I had become so tired of fighting with my old one that I broke down and picked up a new one.
-
On Medium’s Release Notes
Casey Newton on Medium’s bullshit release notes:
Over the past year, the duo have tried to rein themselves in. “The most common blowback we get is from people who want to know what’s in the release,” Fisher says. “They hate these because they have no idea.”
So, by their own admission, their release notes don’t even do the fundamental job of release notes, which is to let users know what is in the release. I… It’s… Fuck.
-
Control Centre Is Fine
You can’t make everybody happy, but with Control Centre as it is today, Apple has made sure that every iOS user can find a certain degree of usefulness. Not an easy balance to achieve.
I use the piss out of control center — and I have to say it works nicely for me. Perhaps it would be cool to be allowed to customize it, but I also think that might be overkill. It’s a dead simple feature with access to things that most people need access to.
-
iPads for Writing
Good post from Watts Martin, responding to my post about the compelling features of iOS. He does have one part I disagree with:
I confess this strikes me as akin to those “As Seen on TV!” commercials trying to convince you how much time you’re wasting by not using their in-shell egg scrambler or electric rutabaga dicer or what have you. I don’t disagree with Brooks’s contention that the iOS approach is easier, but are there truly that many Mac or Windows users who spend hours dragging windows back and forth in anger and frustration?
Moom, Divvy, Keyboard Maestro, Spaces, Expose, SizeUp, Cinch, BetterSnapTool — that’s eight apps off the top of my head which are either dedicated, or can be used to, manage application windows on Mac OS X. Eight. So while I concede that it sounds a bit ‘As Seen on TV’ of me to bring up that point — it is very much a real problem with an ecosystem in place for profiting from trying to solve the issue.
Martin also points out the poor ergonomics. In truth this is a mixed bag. It’s no worse than using a laptop, and likely easier on your wrists as the keyboard (the Smart Keyboard Cover) is nearly flush to the desk. However it is the neck angle that is terrible. Beyond terrible.
There’s just no solving this right now — I do hope there is something I can figure out to alleviate that, but in practice I have not had many ill effects because I end up moving my computer around more. With a laptop it was on the desk.
With my iPad I pick it up to read in portrait, move about the house on calls, and yes, use it on the desk. Time will tell — I know Martin is right that the ergonomics are worse, but I don’t think it is wholly worse. For one: I leave my desk a lot more.
-
Fifteen Hundred Words and Stop
I’m tired of overwrought “reviews”. I am just as guilty as everyone else — so I know it is painful to hear, but this is out of hand and it needs to stop.
Just as I don’t have time for podcasts, I don’t have time to read about a new app for 30 minutes when I could try it for myself in 5 minutes. It makes no sense to read these beastly posts when I could do the work the reviewer was supposed to do — but in less time than I would spend reading the review.
-
Shot on iPhone 6s World Gallery
Immensely proud of my wife for being one of the 41 photographers Apple has included in the latest gallery and campaign. (I wonder what my daughter will think when she grows up, knowing Apple promoted an image of her.)
The images in the gallery are great. There’s some great articles out there about the campaign too.
Mashable has an article on the new gallery, which is a great look at a lot of the photos.
This quote from Time’s article:
One of the photographers featured, Erin Brooks, was included in the campaign after she posted a portrait of her three-year-old daughter shot on the iPhone 6s Plus on Instagram. “I honestly couldn’t believe that they contacted me,” she tells TIME in an email.
You should probably take this time to follow Erin on Instagram/Twitter.