[Ron Nixon, reporting for the New York Times, on the recent absurd USPS financial loss](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/us/politics/postal-service-reports-a-nearly-16-billion-loss.html?_r=0): >The Postal Service on Thursday reported a record $15.9 billion net loss for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, bringing the financially troubled agency another step closer to insolvency. Additionally he notes: >Nearly $5 billion in other losses were…
[Ron Nixon, reporting for the New York Times, on the recent absurd USPS financial loss](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/us/politics/postal-service-reports-a-nearly-16-billion-loss.html?_r=0):
>The Postal Service on Thursday reported a record $15.9 billion net loss for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, bringing the financially troubled agency another step closer to insolvency.
Additionally he notes:
>Nearly $5 billion in other losses were because of a decline in revenue from mailing operations. The agency also reached its $15 billion borrowing limit from the Treasury.
The USPS, isn’t stupid enough to think that they don’t need to change, no Congress are the ones stupid enough to keep USPS from changing. The USPS wants to cut back to five days a week and grow into shipping beer and wine. Yet Congress hasn’t allowed it.
This is so beyond stupid. Here we are as taxpayers, paying for a company to exist that just lost almost $16 billion dollars in one year, when the solutions are so obvious:
– Cut costs.
– Raise rates.
I get that not everyone has a computer and therefore mail service for all is still seen as a vital infrastructure component for the U.S., but I have to wonder how many computers $16 billion would buy because perhaps the solution is dissolution of the USPS.
That is: if we shut down USPS, repurposed all the money they were blowing through on providing those without means an iPad and low-cost internet, how much of the money that we allocate to USPS would we (as a nation) use?
[Wikipedia notes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service) that the USPS has an annual budget of $70.634 billion dollars: that’s 175 million iPads at $399 for an iPad 2. So not every U.S. citizen, but it’s not like we are talking unfeasible to think we could just give people a different communication means and shut down the money pit that is the USPS.
Hell, we could buy 351 million Nexus 7s. And [as best I can tell](http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm) we only need to buy 70 million devices to reach those that don’t currently have internet connectivity. So we would be half way there in one year’s budget for the USPS. And then save $70 billion a year every year afterwards — that’s almost a no-brainer.
Now, I’m not saying we do this, but this should put the absurdity of the USPS in perspective.
Again, over a five year period (it seems) that it would be cheaper to supply every non-internet-connected American with a tablet and subsidize internet access, then it would be to continue to operate the United States Postal Service. Think about that.
**Updated on November 16, 2012 to fix a decimal point error that makes this an even stronger case.**
Before I start sharing a bunch of Keyboard Maestro macros, we need to be on the same page when it comes to understanding the inner workings of Keyboard Maestro. So let’s get that out of the way. Keyboard Maestro is a two part application. The first part is what you see when you launch the…
Before I start sharing a bunch of Keyboard Maestro macros, we need to be on the same page when it comes to understanding the inner workings of Keyboard Maestro. So let’s get that out of the way.
Keyboard Maestro is a two part application. The first part is what you see when you launch the application: the macro editor where you can build your macros. The second part is the very lightweight Keyboard Maestro engine — this runs in the background to monitor user input so that Keyboard Maestro can make your macros actually work.
There isn’t much to know about the engine, but you can stop and start it from the `File` menu in the Keyboard Maestro macro editor. So unless you don’t have any macros, just leave the engine running — conversely if your macros don’t seem to work, check to make sure the engine *is* running.
The Keyboard Maestro engine isn’t something you can control, instead everything the user does is inside the editor interface so that’s what I will focus on.
## The Editor
Once you launch the editor you will see three main panes. From left to right these are:
– Groups: I will touch on these more later, but these serve as a way to group macros together and add additional functionality to the groups of macros by limiting them to certain applications.
– Macro list: A simple list of all your macros.
– The Macro: this is the detail view of a selected macro, showing the triggers and the actions (more on those in a bit).
The interface only get’s more complicated from here, so let’s break this apart a bit more.
## Grouping Macros
I mentioned that you can get additional power out of macros if you add them to a group. Groups are not a way to organize macros, they are a way to limit the power of macros and thus make your life a bit easier. For instance: there are bound to be macros that you want to work only in a certain application, or more often, never in a certain application. Groups are where you set up such controls.
So if you wanted to create a new group of macros that only works in Safari, you would simply create a group like this:
And if you wanted to create a group of macros that never work in Safari, you just change those settings to this:
The power isn’t limited there, because perhaps you want to create a group of macros that only work in web browsers, which is easily done like so:
Of course, your results will vary depending on the web browsers you have installed.
Because of the way groups work it is best to think of them as ways of preventing bad things from happening in other apps — especially if you are sharing keyboard shortcuts. However, this is not the only thing we can do, you could use the group setting in conjunction with a quit-all macro. The macro could then easily quit every application running, except those excluded in the macro group.
Groups are an important tool in Keyboard Maestro to keep in mind as you are working through the construction of more complicated macros.
## Macro Editor
The macro editor can be broken down into two views, and two panes. The two views are: description and editor. These are the views you are presented with if you are **not** in macro editing mode.
The two panes that appear in editing mode are: triggers and actions. When you click the edit button at the bottom of the macro editor you are able to manipulate both triggers and actions, and these panes are where you build your macro, so we need to take a deeper look.
### Triggers
Triggers are what’s going to set the macro into action. This is simply asking: what event has to happen for the below actions to run?
Right now there are 12 triggers, and four script triggers that you can choose from. (It’s important to note that you can have more than one trigger for each macro — as I will show in later examples.) For now, that could be a macro that runs everyday at a given time and that can also be invoked by a keyboard shortcut, or any combination of these twelve macros that you can dream up:
And the script triggers:
In this series I will primarily use time and hotkey triggers, but as you can see there are many different ways that you can trigger your macros.
To aid in the construction of macros you need to understand how each macro *could* be triggered.
– Hot Key: This is your basic keyboard shortcut trigger, and likely to be your most used trigger. It’s important to note that Keyboard Maestro will intercept any keyboard shortcut and run the macro while stopping the shortcut from working at the system level. Therefore if you were to assign `CMD+C` as a hotkey, the universal “copy” command would simply execute your macro, and not copy anything (unless that is your macro). So choose your triggers carefully.
– Typed String: Similar to the Hot Key trigger, except that this trigger watches for you to type a particular series of characters and then it will trigger (instead of forcing you to hold down a set combination of keys). I will show you some examples of Typed String triggers, but for now think of this as a great trigger to use to trigger macros while you are typing in a document — much like you would use TextExpander.
– Application: This will trigger a macro based on the state of one or more applications. Some examples would be if you launch a game, you can trigger system hogging applications to be quit. Or if you switch to a particular application, you could make it go fullscreen at that time. Perhaps when you quit an application you force the application to close all windows so that they do not reopen when you next launch the app.
– System Wake: Triggers macros when your Mac wakes from sleep. One of my favorite triggers here is to hide all applications on system wake — since I don’t sleep my computer much, there is a good chance that I am changing locations when I do sleep my computer and in these instances such a macro could save you some embarrassment if your screen didn’t have any of your previous “work” when you wake the computer — just saying.
– Login: Triggers a macro when you login into the account you used to create the macro. This can be used to replace login items, or applications that automatically start when you boot your Mac, but more pointedly you could use this to changes settings to specific defaults after you restart a Mac, among many other things.
– Time: This is a great trigger that I use often. You pick a time of day, and the days of the week, that you want the trigger to fire the macro for you. For example: Monday-Friday at 8:30am. I use this trigger to have my Mac remind me of daily things (Lunch Time!) and to keep my embarrassment level low(er) (Set volume to 0 when I get to work).
– While Logged in: Another fantastic trigger, this one will repeatedly trigger a macro within the parameters that you set. There’s three aspects to the trigger: how often you want the macro trigger, between what times of the day to do this, and which days of the week. (e.g. Trigger every 30 seconds between 8:30am and 4:00pm on Wednesdays and Fridays.) Another great trigger for automating a routine task, such as checking your OmniFocus inbox for unprocessed to-do items, or reminding you to look away from the screen.
– The Macro Palette entry is clicked.: A good trigger for macros that you build for one-off never to be used again circumstances. This trigger gives you a palette that overlays on your screen and you trigger the macro by clicking on an icon in the palette. I only use this if I build a macro for a specific document I am working on, knowing I will not need to use the macro later. This saves me from remembering a new keyboard shortcut. (Also handy for testing macros while you are making them.)
– The Status Menu item is selected.: Much like the last trigger, except instead of a palette that sits on your screen, there’s a menubar icon that allows you to execute a macro from it. (Hint: If you unchecked to show the menubar item in Keyboard Maestro preferences, but it still shows — make sure no macros are using this trigger and then restart.) This is the best way to trigger macros if you are keyboard-shortcut adverse.
– The Public Web entry is executed.: A bit more complicated, but you can set up a local area network webpage that is hosted by your Mac, and any macros with this trigger set, will appear on that page. You then can execute the macro by clicking on that page. Not a bad idea if you have a Mac running with no keyboard/mouse/monitor hooked up to it — just make sure your security settings are done correctly. I use this on a Mac that I use as a server to run a few commands without having to remote-login to the machine.
– This Device key: Ok, this trigger is a bit more complex; basically if an input is pressed on a particular device, then the macro triggers (with options for holding modifier keys). One potential use would be if you have a [Griffin PowerMate](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003VWU2WA/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20) controller and want to execute macros by clicking the PowerMate. Other options would be if you wanted to have a dedicated Keyboard Maestro keyboard, you could do so without having to hold modifiers, just using the Device Key trigger. Some good possibilities, but not many which I use.
– This MIDI note: I have to be honest, before writing this book I had no idea what this did. Here’s what Keyboard Maestro’s documentation says: “The macro can execute when the MIDI note is pressed (note on), released (note off) or continuously while it is held down. This allows you to do things like have a macro execute when the key is pressed, and then a second macro execute when the key is released, for example to toggle a setting on and then off again.” Seems like it could be useful for musicians, but I honestly still can’t think of a use case.
– Or by Script: I’ll leave the scripts out, as those are more advanced triggers than we will be getting into with this series of posts, but the Keyboard Maestro documentation does show a couple of examples that might be of use.
### Actions
Now that we have the triggers all sorted out, we need to go through the action side of a macro. As the name implies actions are what the macro will actually do when it is activated. There is a wide range of actions available, and even more when you factor in that launching a script can be an action in a macro. While I won’t go through what each action does, the documentation does a decent job of that, I will say that it is worth your time to simply browse all the actions and get an idea of what’s available to you.
There *are* a few things that I want to go over about actions.
### Action Picker
The very right pane in Keyboard Maestro is the action area, and the bottom section is where the heart of your macro lies.
All you need to know here is that actions are executed in the order they are shown, from top to bottom. Clicking the green plus that says `New Action` will bring up the Action Picker that lays atop where your macros were previously listed. From this pane you can drag, or double-click, to add any new action to your macro.
## A Few Tips for Building Macros
#### Search
There’s a search box that sits in the top right corner of the action picker — this searches through all available actions. I recommend that you use this to find what you need if you already know the name of it since this will save you quite a bit of time.
#### Groups
All actions are grouped together by type, so that if you want to see all available clipboard actions, you can just select the clipboard group of actions — depicted as folders. I will reference where actions are by groups as I show examples of macros later on, this way you can find them more quickly.
## Action Items
The last, and most powerful part of actions, is that each action has additional options attached to it. A lot of the time it may not be readily apparent that there are additional options.
The best way to look for additional options is to look for arrows in the action itself after it has been added to the macro. Things like these:
There’s a lot to these options and I will dive into some of these as we go through example macros. Suffice to say that these options can double the power of Keyboard Maestro itself — they are important to look at.
## Basics
That’s the basics of Keyboard Maestro, while it takes a lot to explain, it is no more complicated than taking out the garbage for most tasks. All you need to know is the order of events:
– Pull garbage bag out of garbage can.
– Tie the top of garbage bag.
– Walk garbage bag to door.
– Open door.
– Walk garbage bag to garbage can.
– Open garbage can.
– Place garbage bag in garbage can.
– And so forth.
I like to think of Keyboard Maestro as a puzzle, where it can do anything I want it to do as long as I find the right puzzles pieces to fit together. Next up, a lot of examples.
*(This post is a part of a series on Keyboard Maestro, [see more here](https://brooksreview.net/tag/KM-SERIES/).)*
[Keyboard Maestro](http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/) is the best tool you can purchase for your Mac. It is a bigger upgrade for most people than doubling up your RAM — yet Keyboard Maestro is also a daunting tool to learn at first glance. The reason I will be writing a series on Keyboard Maestro is that all too often…
[Keyboard Maestro](http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/) is the best tool you can purchase for your Mac.
It is a bigger upgrade for most people than doubling up your RAM — yet Keyboard Maestro is also a daunting tool to learn at first glance. The reason I will be writing a series on Keyboard Maestro is that all too often I watch people waste time doing repetitive things that could quickly and easily be solved with Keyboard Maestro. And yet Keyboard Maestro is not installed on most Macs.
When you really get down to it, Keyboard Maestro is a simple tool to learn and use. All you have to know are two things:
1. Your goal (Or what you want to accomplish with any given Keyboard Maestro macro.)
2. The steps to go from start to the finish to make that goal happen.
For example, if I wanted to grab text that’s highlighted in one application and paste it into the last used application, all I would need to know is the order of actions to do that:
1. Copy text.
2. Switch to last used application.
3. Paste text.
There’s no code to learn to figure how to make that work, you just look through the massive list of Keyboard Maestro actions and select the ones that accomplish your goal. Put them in the right order and move on.
Of course this is just the very tip of the iceberg for Keyboard Maestro — it can do, oh, so much more.
In the next post I will walk you through the basics of Keyboard Maestro to give you the building blocks needed to work through automating your Mac with Keyboard Maestro.
Following that I will walk you through many of the macros that I have built, so that you can either replicate them, or build off of each macro to fit your computing needs. At each step I will try to explain why I am doing something a certain way, especially if there are other ways that may be more obvious to use.
As with any tool, you will need to use Keyboard Maestro in the manner that best suits you to get the maximum benefit.
### Note to Advanced Users
If I can make a macro work without having to write a script or take you into shell commands, I will do so for two reasons:
1. It’s easier to understand and thus replicate.
2. It’s easier to change and tweak the settings without having to teach scripting.
There are many advantages to diving into scripting and shell commands, but those are for another series of posts — not this series. In some cases I will use simple scripting commands if I feel the benefits of doing so outweighs the complexity of using scripts.
“What would happen if Samsung soaks up so much profit from mobile that it’s in a position to acquire Google and control the trajectory of their enabling platform?” — Horace Dediu
“What would happen if Samsung soaks up so much profit from mobile that it’s in a position to acquire Google and control the trajectory of their enabling platform?”
[Jeff Hunter has a “collection of valueless, invasive, and annoying push notifications” that he has received](http://blog.anylistapp.com/2012/11/push-notifications/) and it is clear from his post that there very much is a problem. What’s interesting is that it appears Apple already anticipated this, as this is section 5.6 of the App review guidelines, per Hunter’s post: >5.6 Apps…
[Jeff Hunter has a “collection of valueless, invasive, and annoying push notifications” that he has received](http://blog.anylistapp.com/2012/11/push-notifications/) and it is clear from his post that there very much is a problem. What’s interesting is that it appears Apple already anticipated this, as this is section 5.6 of the App review guidelines, per Hunter’s post:
>5.6 Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind
So why isn’t this being enforced? I think it is because this is very hard to enforce given that Apple cannot know in advance what developers might notify users of.
That’s why this idea from Hunter is a very good one:
>Provide a feedback mechanism that allows users to report spammy notifications, and crack down on abusive apps.
My suggestion would be for the report feature to appear in the Notifications setting preference, inside the options for each app. So that directly underneath the toggle for push notifications is a toggle that says “Report abuse” burying it there would lead to less false-positives and still offer a way to combat ad-driven notifications.
Notifications in general have always been a problem for iOS, and while push notifications are nice, they can also be incredibly annoying when used incorrectly — or not as the user expects. I can’t be the only one that thinks half of the “Breaking News” push notifications aren’t really what I’d consider important breaking news. So this is a bit of a slippery argument, as Apple would have to define to users what is and is not OK — otherwise it would vary too much from user to user.
The big tech news last night was that Steven Sinofsky was fired from Microsoft (([Ballmer notes that it is Sinofsky “leaving”](http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57548758-75/ballmers-memo-announcing-steven-sinofskys-departure/) which is a [nice way of saying that he was told to resign or be fired](http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/13/windows-8-is-just-great/).)) — Sinofsky was the head of Windows and *the* man in charge of Windows 8. Naturally, tech blogs…
The big tech news last night was that Steven Sinofsky was fired from Microsoft (([Ballmer notes that it is Sinofsky “leaving”](http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57548758-75/ballmers-memo-announcing-steven-sinofskys-departure/) which is a [nice way of saying that he was told to resign or be fired](http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/13/windows-8-is-just-great/).)) — Sinofsky was the head of Windows and *the* man in charge of Windows 8. Naturally, tech blogs exploded drawing parallels to Cook’s quasi-firing of Scott Forstall, head of iOS at Apple. Other than both companies being competitors (kind of) and both being high-level executives leaving the companies, there aren’t any other similarities between the two — so let’s stop that silliness now.
What’s more interesting about this move for Microsoft is what it means long-term for the company.
I’ve been a [long-time proponent of the “shit-can Steve Ballmer” movement](https://brooksreview.net/2011/05/ballmer/) and what this move by Ballmer & Co. says to me is: Ballmer is Microsoft’s guy.
Ballmer, in other words, just showed the world that he has 100% backing from Gates and the entire board. This, you could argue, is the closest similarity between Cook and Ballmer that exists.
>How many heads are left to roll before we get to Ballmer’s? I’m thinking none.
I’m thinking Ballmer is going down with that ship — so to speak. It’s one thing if Ballmer was scapegoating Sinofsky, but he isn’t. Instead Ballmer simply removed another executive that he felt was:
1. Challenging him as CEO.
2. He didn’t like for whatever reason.
He did this with the backing of the board.
If the board is even somewhat skeptical about you as CEO of the company, no way they let you fire a CEO-in-waiting type that has been with the company since 1989. No way.
I highly doubt any of this had to do with Windows 8 success/failure, as it hasn’t even been out a month yet — so the results have yet to “come back”. This has likely been in the works for much longer, the timing only happening now because Ballmer wanted to make sure Windows 8 was launched without a hitch — now that it has launched, he didn’t need Sinofsky any longer.
I’ve not met a single rational and intelligent person that thinks Ballmer is on the right track or that he properly guides Microsoft — yet many of those same people say Sinofsky was on the right track.
If you are Ballmer, do you want Sinofsky around? I think not.
Yet the board and Ballmer clearly knew that Sinofsky could be an easy fit for CEO, so again: no way Ballmer could fire him without full support of the board.
Ballmer fired Sinofsky.
We can now infer two things from this:
1. Ballmer is fully supported by the Microsoft elites.
2. Ballmer is going no where — the Microsoft board won’t bring in an outside CEO and there isn’t a current Microsoft executive that would fit the role at this time.
This was a very bad move for Microsoft and [any hope that they were finally seeing the light](https://brooksreview.net/2012/06/ballmer-rebound/).
[The usually rational, Stephen Hackett is trading in his iPhone for a crappy Motorola flip phone.](http://512pixels.net/2012/11/hanging-up-on-iphone/) Stephen is tired of having his head down in his phone, which I think we can all understand, and here’s how he is going about this: >In addition to my self-imposed 12-month timeframe, I’ve got an LTE iPad mini…
[The usually rational, Stephen Hackett is trading in his iPhone for a crappy Motorola flip phone.](http://512pixels.net/2012/11/hanging-up-on-iphone/) Stephen is tired of having his head down in his phone, which I think we can all understand, and here’s how he is going about this:
>In addition to my self-imposed 12-month timeframe, I’ve got an LTE iPad mini in the mail, set to be delivered Friday. It’s my first iPad with cellular data, and coupled with the Mini’s form factor, I think it will be a decent iPhone-replacement for the times I need data when I’m not in the office or at home.
Stephen freely admits that this could also be accomplished with self control:
>The problem is that five years of reaching in my front right pocket any time I’m free has created a strong habit, and I need to quit cold turkey.
Again, I get where he is coming from, but this just seems stupid to me. Not a publicity stunt stupid, or anything of that ilk, just a silly move to combat a *perceived* problem.
There is no doubt in my mind that we, as a society, need to get our heads out of our phones, however getting rid of portable computing isn’t the solution. The solution is finding what is addicting you and limiting that.
Addicted to Facebook? Delete the app. Addicted to Twitter? Delete the app. Email? Turn it off.
All of those actions can easily be reversed on the fly, with only a few minutes lost, yet they are annoying enough to reverse that we wouldn’t have the time to reverse the actions when we feel compelled to check.
I know this works, because I’ve done it. When I stopped using Twitter in favor of App.net, I noticed that I just stopped caring about checking either that often. My App.net feed is so slow that I can catch up every few hours, in a few minutes. Twitter is so irrelevant to me that I just check my mentions every few days.
This to me sounds like saying: “I’m quitting the Fourth of July because I don’t like lighting off fireworks.” Don’t buy the fireworks. ((Communist.))
I hate it when people say “guns don’t kill people…” and all that, but in this case it really isn’t the fault of the iPhone. It’s the fault of the user for being addicted. Now, luckily, that is easily solved by removing the addicting apps.
I’ve pushed a lot of addicting apps to my second home screen buried inside unnamed folders that I move regularly. This means I can still find stuff when I need/want to, but not fast enough for me to feel like I can just check on X “really quick”.
Maybe that doesn’t work for Stephen, but the benefits of having a phone like the iPhone with you 24/7 far out weigh the costs in my book. ((I say that now, hopefully the iPhone (et al) isn’t a leading cause of cancer later in life — but I suspect that it would be all cellphones not just smartphones.))
In the most recent issue of [The Magazine](http://the-magazine.org/3), [Harry Marks makes the case that self-publishing is not always a good thing for writers who want to be good writers](http://the-magazine.org/3/the-problem-with-self-publishing). It’s a fantastic read. Prior to reading this article I had been working (very slowly) on a book of my own, a guide to Keyboard Maestro.…
In the most recent issue of [The Magazine](http://the-magazine.org/3), [Harry Marks makes the case that self-publishing is not always a good thing for writers who want to be good writers](http://the-magazine.org/3/the-problem-with-self-publishing). It’s a fantastic read. Prior to reading this article I had been working (very slowly) on a book of my own, a guide to Keyboard Maestro.
It’s been on going for what seems like months, but probably is closer to weeks. My motivation to write this book has been in the toilet lately.
Why?
I had no clue until I read Marks’ piece, but now I know: writing an iBooks book on my own turned into less about writing and more about layout, software, and editing. I hate the process. I just want a way to take all the words, Markdown formatted, from [Ulysses](http://www.the-soulmen.com/ulysses/) to published. It turns out that this is a bigger pain in the ass than actually *learning* Keyboard Maestro.
So I’ve decided to stop writing the book.
I’m not interested in writing when it’s not about the writing. iBooks Author is neat, but I don’t want to learn it — instead I’ll just “publish” the book here as a series of posts, where I know what I am doing (somewhat) and where writing is about writing and not layout, marketing, legal issues, notices, copyrights, glossaries, etc.
I thought a book would be a fun way to cull all I know about Keyboard Maestro together, while making a few extra bucks, instead it turned into a chore that I loathed doing. There will only be a couple of chapters before I start detailing the how and why of each of the macros that I have come to rely on.
I initially chose the book format because I didn’t want to overwhelm those of you that don’t care about Keyboard Maestro. However, I think that the first two chapters are worth reading for everyone — so that you can then decide if you care about Keyboard Maestro or not.
My honest goal is to not only convince you to use Keyboard Maestro, but to show you how to use Keyboard Maestro to make your life a whole hell of a lot more fluid.
It’s that time again, where *we* [debate](http://www.marco.org/2012/11/07/linking-to-bullshit) [linking](http://www.hiltmon.com/blog/2012/11/08/linking-to-bullshit/) to [shit](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/11/08/bullshit) that is [written](http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/11/07/bullshit-3/) to pad the pockets of advertising-first sites that sometimes, also, have content on them. I couldn’t care less about the debate at this point — I figure idiots tend to do whatever they want — but I think a better debate surrounds…
It’s that time again, where *we* [debate](http://www.marco.org/2012/11/07/linking-to-bullshit) [linking](http://www.hiltmon.com/blog/2012/11/08/linking-to-bullshit/) to [shit](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/11/08/bullshit) that is [written](http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/11/07/bullshit-3/) to pad the pockets of advertising-first sites that sometimes, also, have content on them. I couldn’t care less about the debate at this point — I figure idiots tend to do whatever they want — but I think a better debate surrounds the value of linked lists in general.
[Since day one on this site](https://brooksreview.net/2010/04/nerd-skill-number-one/), I have run the traditional, *Daring Fireball* style, [linked list](http://daringfireball.net/linked/). Such a linked list consists of:
– Short (rarely long) commentary on a post written on another site.
– Sometimes a block quote.
– The title of the post links to the article.
– The RSS feed links directly to the article.
The linked list approach is an invaluable tool for growing and expanding any one site that is linked to by a larger site. Had larger sites not linked to me in their linked lists way back when, hardly any of you would be reading this today.
Further, [John Gruber sees](http://shawnblanc.net/2008/02/interview-john-gruber/) the linked list as not only an integral part of his site, but a damned valuable part.
So the linked list provides a nontrivial value to sites just getting started around the web, and helps to keep traffic up between articles, thus keeping up ad revenue rates. I actually have no problem with either of these, my problem is that I am not sure that such a model makes sense any longer for *this* site.
[I vowed](https://brooksreview.net/2012/07/new-tbr/) to stop linking to things with trivial commentary such as, “cool”, when I erected the paywall. Therefore I believe that when I link to something, my commentary is almost as important as the item I am linking to — certainly an egotistical view, but in line with my goal to only put smart and lasting commentary on this site.
Given that, then, it seems like there is a direct conflict with the traditional linked list and The Brooks Review, as I *desire* to have all my readers read my commentary (and want to read it) but the linked list model pushes those readers away from my commentary. I’ve thought about, and talked about, killing the linked list on this site for over a year to friends — always encouraged not to do so and I have let it go for a few weeks, only to then be nagged by the idea of killing my linked list yet again.
I’ve always seen the linked list in black or white: you have it or you don’t. Either do it “right”, or not at all. Now I see room for the gray area of the linked list, what I shall call the [Kottkeian-list](http://kottke.org). ((My apologies specifically to Stephen Hackett, whom I spent many an IM conversation pushing him into the DF style linked list.))
That is, everything is an “article”, but some articles are specifically about a linked item. That which is being linked to is no longer done in the title, but instead in the first paragraph of the article — and linked to prominently. Everything else is the same, but I like this idea better.
Why?
Because this puts my commentary on a level playing field of that which I am linking to, which is ultimately how I view the two.
Attentive readers will have noticed that over the last few months I have been sneaking in Kottkeian-list posts here and there — not a single complaint thus far.
## Change It
So I am going change the way I do my linked list to be of the Kottkeian-list style and not the *Daring Fireball* style. My goal is that by doing this two things happen:
1. Traffic continues to flow to those sites that I link to. (Although I realize that it will most likely be *less* traffic.)
2. I further minimize my reliance on other sites to create, post, and write great content for this site.
As with anything web related, this is all an experiment — we shall see how it works. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. ((The Quote of the Day will remain as is, mostly because I love sharing great quotes and adore the way they look on the site.))
Shawn Blanc finally felt the need to get a dedicated camera, and he wrote a post about what he has learned thus far: > This post is for those who also feel that their iPhone is no longer cutting it — hopefully I can give you a head start in your hunt. Shawn narrowed down…
Shawn Blanc finally felt the need to get a dedicated camera, and he wrote a post about what he has learned thus far:
> This post is for those who also feel that their iPhone is no longer cutting it — hopefully I can give you a head start in your hunt.
Shawn narrowed down his list to some fantastic options, and then had a really tough time deciding what to buy. What I told Shawn, and the advice I’d give to anyone trying to step into a camera like this for the first time is: get the camera that looks like something you would want to use and carry with you.
The iPhone is a fantastic camera simply because it is always with us. You could buy the best camera and lens on the market, but it would be useless if it was never with you.
That’s why my Canon 5D sits unused 99% of the time and the GX1 is constantly being used despite one taking better images than the other.
Rob Williams: >The answer of just how wrong Microsoft is to cram advertisements in its commercial software will differ from person to person, I’m sure. Me, I’m not too bothered, but I can totally relate to anyone who is. From all I can tell, none of the ads are intrusive, and I appreciate that. Actually…
Rob Williams:
>The answer of just how wrong Microsoft is to cram advertisements in its commercial software will differ from person to person, I’m sure. Me, I’m not too bothered, but I can totally relate to anyone who is. From all I can tell, none of the ads are intrusive, and I appreciate that.
Actually I doubt there will be that many differing opinions on this: it’s a stupid as fuck move. The commenters on the article say this is in built-in apps and Microsoft is using these ads to showcase advertising potential to developers . As for the ads not being intrusive, bullshit. Just look at the two screenshots and tell me that’s not intrusive. The Pantene ad takes up a huge portion of the screen and is ugly as sin.
The only time I can recall seeing ads in a Mac app was, I think, Tweetie for Mac ((I at least know it was a Twitter client.)) had partnered with Fusion Ads to show ads for those that did not pay for the app. I really hated that move.
Since I took the time to read the comments, I must share my favorite comment with you, from `vitriolix`:
>Kindle Fire has ads in the OS.
If I’m Microsoft, that’s worse than Windows 8 being compared to Chrome OS.
UPDATE: [It was Tweetie](https://alpha.app.net/huw/post/1471782), and Twitterrific still does it I am told.
Chris Foresman for Ars on the “light, performance, value” aspects of the 13″ retina MacBook Pro: >If you truly want something that’s sort of a compromise of all three qualities, then the 13″ MacBook Pro just might suit you. The 13″ MacBook Pro has always kind of fit that category: not *that* light, not *that*…
Chris Foresman for Ars on the “light, performance, value” aspects of the 13″ retina MacBook Pro:
>If you truly want something that’s sort of a compromise of all three qualities, then the 13″ MacBook Pro just might suit you.
The 13″ MacBook Pro has always kind of fit that category: not *that* light, not *that* fast, and kind of cheap. It is also probably the most popular Mac.
For me though the retina Macs are solely about the display. If you get one of these machines you get it for the display, all other aspects are secondary to that. So I don’t necessarily think that the 13″ retina MacBook Pro is a bad machine, if you want a retina screen that is 13″, it’s the best and only option. That’s not bad — it just is.
>In an action-packed tips and tricks episode, Ben and Shawn talk about the powerhouse app that is Keyboard Maestro. They give an overview of how Keyboard Maestro works and some of the basics for using it as well as sharing many of the custom macros they use. This week we a sponsored by the lovely:…
>In an action-packed tips and tricks episode, Ben and Shawn talk about the powerhouse app that is Keyboard Maestro. They give an overview of how Keyboard Maestro works and some of the basics for using it as well as sharing many of the custom macros they use.
Harry Marks: ((Whose blog is now a must read and among my favorites.)) >Passbook has the possibility of not only rattling the retail sphere, but email, as well. I don’t need a stack of Walgreens coupons in an email folder I never check, I need them where I can use them: on the other side…
Harry Marks: ((Whose blog is now a must read and among my favorites.))
>Passbook has the possibility of not only rattling the retail sphere, but email, as well. I don’t need a stack of Walgreens coupons in an email folder I never check, I need them where I can use them: on the other side of my Walgreens loyalty card in Passbook.
He has some very strong points, and I too have unrealistically high hopes for Passbook. I cannot stand loyalty cards, but Passbook makes them tolerable.
What I think Marks is missing though: is that these stores have a reason to not want to remind you about coupons. You see if a store sends you a coupon and you forget to use it, shame on you not the store. The store wins because it *tried* to be nice, but you lose because you forgot. The anger isn’t directed towards the store, and the store misses out on that sale, but also doesn’t have to discount the goods.
If I am a store, I like that model.
Coupons are made to get you in the store with the idea that you buy more. Passbook would change that, making you use *more* coupons when you are already *in* the store. The only thing that would mitigate the bad for stores is if Passbook sent you reminders to get in the store *not* to use your coupons.
So, color me skeptical on the hopes of coupons in Passbook, especially if the coupons are hidden as a part of a loyalty card and are thus not motivating you to get to the store.
