Category: Sub

I was pretty sure I would only get to 25,000 — maybe 30,000 — words for the month. But as I write this, I am already safely past the 50,000 word benchmark. I had always planned on writing a wrap up for the last day, as sort of an easy way to get in the last however many words I needed to, but I never considered I wouldn’t need any words.

This was way easier than I thought. I wrote every night when the kids went to bed until 9pm, and then edited posts and published whatever was done. This really only worked because my wife was stuck in bed for the majority of the month healing from foot surgery — so there was little else for me to do.

The first night it took almost 2 hours to get 1,300 words, but by the end of it I could crank out 2,000 or more words in just a couple of hours.

It felt really good.

I had always assumed I went through lulls with writing, but I think I just get lazy and fall out of the habit. I am going to be sure to set aside time everyday for writing from here on out, but taking my time more with the posts.

As it turned out the hardest part was editing. I didn’t account for how much time editing would take, and because my goal was just not writing the words, but also publishing them, this became a big struggle. As I write this I have two posts waiting to be edited before the end of the day to hit my word goal.

I need a better way to edit, so that’s next up on my list to tackle.

Topics were pretty easy, but a large part of that is thanks to the iPad Pro having showed up at my house. Without a new device to write about — especially one as important as the iPad Pro — I think I would have been a little thin on topics.

My biggest concern, more than the word count, was quality. I wanted to be sure to keep quality up, but since I typically take a week or more on each post, I was worried I might not be able to do this. I am not the one to judge the quality, but there are only a few articles which I look back on and cringe a bit.

Overall I am pretty damn happy with what I produced this month.

It was a fun month, and while I am not likely to do it again, I hope to keep my writing up and to be writing a lot more.

Thanks for those of you who encouraged me, and who actually read the massive amount of words I published this month.

Final stats:

• 50,856 total words
• 41 articles posted (including this one)

Thanks!

One thing that I keep hearing, is people trying to figure out if Live Photos are a gimmick or not. No one has had access to Live Photos long enough to know for sure, but I can say, that when I get little moments like you see in the video of a live photo below — well that makes it something I will always cherish.

(Should be on Vimeo soon if this embed fails on you.)

So far, it seems Live Photos are anything but a gimmick.

Android is taking a beating in the security arena lately. First that MMS vulnerability. Now reports that fingerprint data can be stolen from phones. And then there’s this story about how the iPhone is the best choice for most people from a security standpoint (with obvious caveats about iOS).

And all this on my mind as carriers are killing subsidies on smartphones — something which certainly plays a huge role in sales of Android devices.

A few thoughts on how summer brings peace in the home.

This is a repost of the audio originally published to Spoken.co

This is a repost of the audio originally published to Spoken.co

Dustin Curtis on Apple’s stance on privacy and security, versus Google’s arguing that giving up privacy to Google is a far better solution:

As long as people understand the potential risks, the answer to the second question is almost always, “Yes.” And with the emergence of artificial intelligence, the answer to that question will become increasingly more clear. The vast improvements in user experience far, far outweigh the potential security risks to private information.

I obviously disagree with this notion. But I defer to someone with far better knowledge than I, Edward Snowden:

Technologists have worked tirelessly to re-engineer the security of the devices that surround us, along with the language of the Internet itself. Secret flaws in critical infrastructure that had been exploited by governments to facilitate mass surveillance have been detected and corrected. Basic technical safeguards such as encryption — once considered esoteric and unnecessary — are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies like Apple, ensuring that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private. Such structural technological changes can ensure access to basic privacies beyond borders, insulating ordinary citizens from the arbitrary passage of anti-privacy laws, such as those now descending upon Russia.

Once the information is out there, it is out there. You can’t reel it back in. Google has it all and knows how to find it all, which means it can be exploited.

If Apple isn’t storing it, and even has a hard time making sure I get all my iMessages across devices ((Which I have never had a problem with, personally.)), then that seems like a small price to pay to protect myself in a small way from the exposure I get with Google.

I watched the event with everyone else and I wasn’t going to post about it. I had nothing to say, but on the drive home something happened. I missed a text.

I didn’t hear it, or see it. When I got home I was annoyed I missed it. And I was amazed at how many calls and text messages I miss daily because I either don’t or can’t hear my phone (or feel the vibration).

It drives me nuts.

And it hit me: that’s the actual problem the Apple Watch solves for me. I’ll feel it. I’ll get my notifications. I won’t miss things I’ve deemed that I don’t want to miss. That’s worth the price of entry, any other features is just the cherry on top of it.

MacBook

My God is that a thing of beauty. I’ve written a lot about this, but I think I’ll snag one of those. I like every spec about it except the processor, but I’m honestly not sure how much that matters anymore.

My iPad Air rocks and it’s slow by comparison to my Mac. I think I need to realize that for how I use computers the processor doesn’t matter at this point. I’m thinking base model, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one. I had thought about the Air instead, but I’ve heard a few concerning things about them and I’m dissuaded from choosing that for my needs.

It’s just a gorgeous looking Mac. Through and through. The MacBook was the best part of the event for me, maybe it’s nostalgia, but I love new Mac announcements and Apple didn’t disappoint today.

Event

Overall it was a solid event from Apple. The watches were as good as expected. The MacBook was awesome. And the ResearchKit work looks spectacular.

I’ve been playing around with my X100T lately, and snapped this from my backyard the other night. After a quick spin through Flare, it looked pretty good for a wallpaper. Here’s the image (the full resolution version doesn’t have the compression banding/artifacts):

Go ahead and download this high resolution version and take it for a spin for yourself.

Many responses I have received about my recent post over app analytics has been surrounding the use of web analytics on this site. Simply put: I’ve never liked them, but have found them necessary.

I do find them different than app analytics. As you come here to consume what I have written, not to pen your own works. My problem is when I want to pen my own work, and someone wants to put analytics on that app I use to do my own work. I don’t like that.

Further, it’s pretty easy to block the analytics on this site. However, I have taken the liberty of pairing it down to only Mint, which is housed on my server.

The weather keeps jumping down below 30° here, and that’s not normal. Especially not for this time of year. I saw a nice frosty field on my way into work. I snapped a few shots before I froze.

Are really, really nice and you should have them enabled.

Here’s why, in short, you should stop being paranoid and turn on read receipts:

1. It’s kind. I bet you love it when your buddies have it turned on, why not do the same? You love it because then you know they got, and saw your message. You also know when you pester them for an answer, and when they just haven’t checked their phones. ((Thanks Alex for reminding me of this.))
2. It can save you time when you are talking with someone. You know that I loathe the ‘thanks’ emails, this is a similar situation. “Ok, see you in ten.” That’s one of those statements where a needed response is vague. Typically I would say “Yep”. But with read receipts I can just read the message and know that the other person knows I saw the message, and now I don’t have to type anything and that person got instant feedback — if I didn’t agree I would respond.

The only reason you don’t have them on is because you want to delay your response, or “hide”. Get over it. Or just unlock your phone and pull down notification center — that will allow you to read messages without sending the read receipt.

So, go enable them.

In my new role at MartianCraft I need a lot of windows open all at once — most of them communication related. It works fine on my 15” retina MacBook Pro, but it could be much better with more space.

Sure I could buy a $5k 5k iMac, but nope. And honestly my retina MacBook Pro still has a lot of life left in it (though the SSD may need to be replaced soon to get back some speed).

So I really think I need another monitor, but the entire reason I got rid of my external display was because I couldn’t stand that it wasn’t retina.

Decisions…

I was emailed a couple of Word documents to read through yesterday. I started to read through them on my Mac, and then I realized that it would be way better to read through them on my iPad with my feet kicked up. But the files were zipped in the email.

So I went ahead and AirDropped the files from my Mac to iPad. That froze Pages for 10 minutes. Then I put the files in iCloud Drive, they still haven’t shown up on my iPad.

And then I put the files in a BitTorrent Sync’d folder, but the BTSync app on my iPad started to crash on launch.

In the end, I just emailed the files to myself and read them, finally, on my iPad.

Insanity.

I would have been done far sooner if I never bothered with the iPad. And that’s the problem with the iPad — or more aptly — with Apple’s software.

Now that I have a new job I am having to adjust to a new set of communications tools (of which there are many). Something that I continue to notice is that many of the less ‘general’ consumer focused apps are very outdated. They work, but they aren’t updated for the latest and greatest gear.

The most prominent of those is the lack of retina ready tools for Mac users with many of these apps — let alone Yosemite-esques designs.

This will slowly drive me nuts.