Just found this app this morning, a nice version of Seasonality for your Mac. I have a lot of the same complaints and accolades for it as I do the iPad version. I do like the control you have over the graph data. Seasonality’s graphs did take me a minute to figure out what they are for, so don’t feel like you are the only one if you get confused at first.
*(Also there is [Wx](http://hrtapps.com/wxmac/) that offers a far more, umm shall we say, nerdy view of weather data.)*
Jean-Louis Gassée on RIM:
>Of course, there is one intriguing possibility left: Microsoft could do to RIM what it did to Nokia. They could convince RIM to abandon its unlikely-to-succeed “native” software effort and become the second prong in Microsoft’s effort to regain significance in the smartphone wars. We can picture the headlines: RIM Joins Nokia in Adopting Windows Phone, Microsoft Now Firmly Back in the Race…
I think the smart move for RIM is to forget about devices and create apps for Windows Phone, Android, and iOS. You have your BlackBerry app that ties into your secure corporate server where your email, contacts, BBM, and calendars await you. Yeah, I wouldn’t use it, but I bet RIM could convince security conscious companies that this is a “smart move”.
I think Gassée is right when he speculates that no one is going to buy RIM for their patents — and at this rate why buy them at all?
I think Lyons should be a bit higher, but that’s just nit-picking.
A comprehensive and detailed list and comparison chart of just about every iOS text editor I have heard of, by Brett Terpstra.
A call to disband the TSA.
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 being, by applying a certain degree of tolerance shouldn’t be patentable regardless of who was first to come up with it. That’s why I agreed with Motorola’s request to declare the patent invalid for indefiniteness. But Apple won in Chicago, Apple won at the ITC, and now Motorola and Samsung, and the Android ecosystem at large, face a serious threat. If Android devices can’t implement any of the gestures described above, they won’t be competitive.
I’m with Mueller here, that this patent shouldn’t be allowed, but it seems that at this point it is legal and could really screw over Android. Basically forcing Android touchscreens to work like crap, or pay a stiff license fee to Apple.
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 her, you can connect to her through Facebook, see her full name, profile photos and send her a message.
Yeah, I don’t see this app sticking around for much longer.
UPDATE: Foursquare has cut off the api access to the app.
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 Readability (myself included, I assume):
>So it’s no wonder that even smart, thoughtful writers can say surprisingly vitriolic things with uncharacteristic thoughtlessness when writing about an area as exciting as this one.
Is it really that surprising that people got pissed when you started taking money on their behalf without permission?
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 tested for safety; and the mental harm suffered by both abuse survivors and children: the things screeners tell them as they touch their bodies are uncomfortably similar to what child molesters say.
and:
>The current TSA measures create an even greater harm: loss of liberty. Airports are effectively rights-free zones. Security officers have enormous power over you as a passenger. You have limited rights to refuse a search. Your possessions can be confiscated. You cannot make jokes, or wear clothing, that airport security does not approve of. You cannot travel anonymously. (Remember when we would mock Soviet-style “show me your papers” societies? That we’ve become inured to the very practice is a harm.) And if you’re on a certain secret list, you cannot fly, and you enter a Kafkaesque world where you cannot face your accuser, protest your innocence, clear your name, or even get confirmation from the government that someone, somewhere, has judged you guilty. These police powers would be illegal anywhere but in an airport, and we are all harmed—individually and collectively—by their existence.
A great post from Modahaus listing out tips for getting some really great shots from your iPhone using their gear.
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 your mind is already full of the “knowledge” of how bad it is there.
Culpan also talks about how workers want more hours, not less — a story that [jives with a Reuters report](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/apple-foxconn-workers-idUSL3E8EU4I820120330).
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 user and the publisher, we’re now linking shared articles on devices directly to the publishers site.
Nice.
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 seconds.)) Here’s what I got:
That is roughly 19 million hits in a day. I monitored the CPU load during that test and it peaked at 80% and settled around 68%. No too shabby. ((I don’t know how “real” this testing system is, but it is pretty neat.))
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 a crappy 3G connection, or you’re simply in a rush and don’t have time. But it still means an article is getting sucked off a publisher’s site without anything of value exchanged in return.
When Twitter overhauled its infamous Twitter for iOS app they changed it so you *had* to visit a site before sending it to Instapaper. It was the single most annoying thing to me, but perhaps they were just trying to be “noble” about this content scraping stuff.
I don’t disagree with Chartier, but I also don’t think this is something that is likely to stop — ever.
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 source article.) Or as A.T. Faust III put it:
>Still, intentional or not, Readability’s current setup is tantamount to content theft, and that’s a problem for everyone involved.
[Here’s how you ‘opt-out’ of Readability’s madness](https://brooksreview.net/2012/03/opt-out/).
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.
Dan Frommer:
>Not only is RIM in worse financial shape, but all bets are off for its recovery.
>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 your carrier’s voice and data strength. Then view all four carriers side-by-side. You may be surprised by the facts.
Good to know.
Still use this script from Shawn everyday. I love it so much I thought I would remind everyone of it.
*Finally*