“Attention to detail, like most facets of truly good design, can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.”
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Quote of the Day: Marco Arment
“Attention to detail, like most facets of truly good design, can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.” — Marco Arment
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RIP Things
I have thought a little more on the blog post by Cultured Code from yesterday and the more I think about it the more I despise it. Ignore the fact that they wrote a slightly patronizing post detailing what OTA sync is (which is funny given the demand for OTA sync you would think that…
I have thought a little more on the blog post by Cultured Code from yesterday and the more I think about it the more I despise it. Ignore the fact that they wrote a slightly patronizing post detailing what OTA sync is (which is funny given the demand for OTA sync you would think that Cultured Code was the one that didn’t know what it was). Ignore that OTA sync is still a few months away. Ignore everything but: the wallpaper and speed.
The Wallpaper
They have got to be kidding me with this wallpaper crap right?
Cultured Code basically offers a wallpaper as an apology — a wallpaper that looks like yet another patronizing act. Don’t be fooled by this; I have made you a better wallpaper.
Speed
Do you know how long people have been wanting OTA sync for things, since July 10th 2008 (2008).
Here is what Cultured Code said about syncing upon releasing the iPhone app:
Second, syncing with the desktop version of Things is not yet possible in 1.0. Based on your feedback we decided that seamless over the air sync with the desktop version is a must.
Yeah…
By comparison OmniFocus for iPhone in a preview stage still had OTA sync back on June 15th, 2008.
Change
Here’s the thing: I have written about Things versus OmniFocus a few times (here and about OTA here) — each time I basically said that both programs are great and if you don’t need OTA sync it is a real toss up. I am a huge OmniFocus fan, huge, but I have a respect for Things and think it is a great app too.
I have always said you really can’t go wrong with either app — always thinking that OTA sync was just around the corner for Things.
Until today: I think you are throwing away good money if you buy Things at this point. The development has stalled and seems hell bent on only releasing bug fixes. OTA sync should have been done over a year ago — I just can’t recommend this app anymore.
That kind of makes me sad, but spend your Holiday money on a copy of OmniFocus. As I have said before you really can get away with the iPad version only to start out with.
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Is Google In A Dream World?
MG Siegler lays the smack down on Google: Still, it’s great to dream big. And Google has the ability to do that thanks to a huge amount of revenue coming in as a result of the original times when they had big dreams. But the world was different then. Well, actually, it was just a…
MG Siegler lays the smack down on Google:
Still, it’s great to dream big. And Google has the ability to do that thanks to a huge amount of revenue coming in as a result of the original times when they had big dreams. But the world was different then. Well, actually, it was just a different world. Search engines were just starting to pop up. Google came along and did it right. Search monetization was basically nothing. Google came along and did it right.
With Google TV, Android, Google Music, Chrome OS, and a range of other products, Google is trying to change established industries. And they seem to think they can just because they’re Google. But as we’re seeing again and again, they’re having a lot of issues.
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Quote of the Day: Steve Wozniak
“I don’t want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. This is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today’s Internet.” —Steve Wozniak Read this entire letter to the…
“I don’t want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. This is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today’s Internet.”Read this entire letter to the FCC from Woz — powerful and true.
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Still No OTA Sync for Things.app
Jürgen on the Cultured Code blog, regarding OTA sync for Things: The final release of cloud sync as part of Things is still off by a few months. But we plan to publish more details about what we are doing (and have been doing) every few weeks. He wrote an incredibly lengthy post about perfecting…
Jürgen on the Cultured Code blog, regarding OTA sync for Things:
The final release of cloud sync as part of Things is still off by a few months. But we plan to publish more details about what we are doing (and have been doing) every few weeks.
He wrote an incredibly lengthy post about perfecting syncing — the entire thing read as though customers should be understanding of why this has taken them so long. Decide for yourself, but I think OmniFocus is a far better solution — further I still don’t think they will hit their ‘few month’ target for OTA sync.
I hate to be so harsh, but it ain’t real ’til it ships.
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Zeldman on Style vs Design
Jeffrey Zeldman: They mistake Style for Design, when the two things are not the same at all. Design communicates on every level. It tells you where you are, cues you to what you can do, and facilitates the doing. Style is tautological; it communicates stylishness. In visual terms, style is an aspect of design; in…
Jeffrey Zeldman:
They mistake Style for Design, when the two things are not the same at all. Design communicates on every level. It tells you where you are, cues you to what you can do, and facilitates the doing. Style is tautological; it communicates stylishness. In visual terms, style is an aspect of design; in commercial terms, style can communicate brand attributes.
Originally written in 1999, updated in 2005 — no joke.
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FCC Passes Compromise Net Neutrality Rules
Sam Gustin for Wired.com: The three new rules, which will go into effect early next year, force ISPs to be transparent about how they handle network congestion, prohibit them from blocking traffic such as Skype on wired networks, and outlaw “unreasonable” discrimination on those networks, meaning they can’t put an online video service in the…
Sam Gustin for Wired.com:
The three new rules, which will go into effect early next year, force ISPs to be transparent about how they handle network congestion, prohibit them from blocking traffic such as Skype on wired networks, and outlaw “unreasonable” discrimination on those networks, meaning they can’t put an online video service in the slow lane to benefit their own video services.
This is very important. It is a small step — nowhere near where we need to be — but it is a step in the right direction. One thing that irks me is when dissenters of Net Neutrality say that the measures will ‘stifle investment’ — that is just crap. If you need more money then you should charge more money. I pay like $40/mo and would happily pay twice that for faster and more reliable service. They don’t offer these plans because they can’t — stop whining already.
[Updated: 12/21/10 at 12:38 PM] There are a few who will say this does not go far enough — I agree. It does set the wheels in motion and is certainly better than nothing.
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Why I Don’t Use Flipboard, but My Dad Does
Matthew Ingram on GigaOm had this to say about Flipboard: But I wonder whether the flip-style interface for the app isn’t inherently contradictory to using it as a business or work tool — since it seems more like browsing as you flip through pages, does that make less appealing as a serious content consumption or…
Matthew Ingram on GigaOm had this to say about Flipboard:
But I wonder whether the flip-style interface for the app isn’t inherently contradictory to using it as a business or work tool — since it seems more like browsing as you flip through pages, does that make less appealing as a serious content consumption or information-intake tool?
Oddly enough the night before I read Ingram’s piece I made a note for a blog post idea in OmniFocus, that note was titled “Flipboard — useless” and in the notes field I wrote:
I digest. It browses.
Which is a rather incomplete thought meant to spur my brain when I would later see the note. Ingram said it better in the title to his blog post:
Is Flipboard Too Much Fun to Be Useful?
The short answer is: yes, but only for power users.
What started me thinking about all of this was an email I got from my dad pointing me to a blog post he read — at the bottom of this email was a line that said: “(Sent from Flipboard)”. This shocked the hell out of me — my dad uses Flipboard? I don’t even use Flipboard…
So the question is: why does my Father use Flipboard and not me?
The answer is rather easy: Flipboard promotes a browseable news experience — I being a power user prefer not to browse news — I prefer to consume news. It is the difference between an electronics store like Fry’s (or if you are old enough to remember when Radio Shack used to have parts to fix stuff) and a boutique store that you find at an over priced galleria in Beverly Hills.
At Fry’s you need to dig to find what you want — the reward though is often low prices on something you never knew existed. A boutique store shows you just a tiny bit, while the rest may be lying behind the curtain you miss it and keep looking at other things. To me that is the difference between an app like Reeder and something like Flipboard.
Flipboard is a great app for most casual users — what it isn’t and what it doesn’t pretend to be: is an app for power users.
More Power
Essentially my problem with FlipBoard is that it does too good of a job curating the content it displays. That was true at least until the most recent update, as you can now link FlipBoard to Google Reader — all of your RSS subscriptions displayed in FlipBoard.
That maybe a pretty cool feature for people that subscribe to just a handful of sites, but when you subscribe to more than 500 and are getting around 50-100 new items each hour — well flipping through virtual pages becomes highly inefficient.
Flipboard is perfect for the audience it targets and truly it doesn’t surprise me that someone like my Dad uses it. The problem is that the casual browsing nature of FlipBoard is just wasted time for a power user that knows what they are looking for. Thus the reason that I prefer a less visually stimulating app ((In the sense that Flipboard shows pretty pictures all over the place.)) like Reeder.
I think it is a great way to tell how serious people are about news: serious users are not serious Flipboard users – it just doesn’t meet their needs.
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In Response to “Cash Cow Disease”
Kyle Baxter responding the the “Cash Cow Disease” post from Ron Burk: Then, once Apple recognized this opportunity, they didn’t just start a half-hearted project and hope that it worked. Instead, they put the entire company into it. They acted like the company was dependent on its success. That’s what good companies do. They recognize…
Kyle Baxter responding the the “Cash Cow Disease” post from Ron Burk:
Then, once Apple recognized this opportunity, they didn’t just start a half-hearted project and hope that it worked. Instead, they put the entire company into it. They acted like the company was dependent on its success. That’s what good companies do. They recognize precisely what they need to do next and put their entire effort into doing it.
I found myself nodding my head in agreement the entire time I read this post.
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Quote of the Day: Ron Burk
“When you have a cash cow, you lose the discipline of having to make a good product and pay attention to your customers.” –Ron Burk
“When you have a cash cow, you lose the discipline of having to make a good product and pay attention to your customers.” -
Drive Me Crazy
Keith Barry: DriveMeCrazy, developed by Shazam co-founder Philip Inghelbrecht, is a voice-activated app that encourages drivers to report bad behavior by reciting the offender’s license plate into a smartphone. The poor sap gets “flagged” and receives a virtual “ticket,” which may not sound like much until you realize all the information — along with date, time…
Keith Barry:
DriveMeCrazy, developed by Shazam co-founder Philip Inghelbrecht, is a voice-activated app that encourages drivers to report bad behavior by reciting the offender’s license plate into a smartphone. The poor sap gets “flagged” and receives a virtual “ticket,” which may not sound like much until you realize all the information — along with date, time and location of the “offense” — is sent to the DMV and insurance companies.
That is awesome, particularly because:
His goal is to cut the number of motor vehicle accidents 1 or 2 percent by 2020, a figure that would represent 700 lives saved annually.
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Mike Lee on Games
Mike Lee: To release a game that lacks fun is to launch a rocket with a damp fuse. An excellent take on games, Lee goes on to talk in depth about why Astronut is not fun to him. I too want to like the game, but find it incredibly difficult.
Mike Lee:
To release a game that lacks
fun is to launch a rocket with a damp fuse.An
excellent take on games, Lee goes on to talk in depth about why
Astronut is not fun to him. I too want to like the game, but find
it incredibly difficult. -
Two Months and 47.5 Hours of Downtime
An interesting look at service downtimes from Pingdom – Tumblr was down for 47.5 hours on average over the span from Oct 15 to Dec 15, 2010. Not so good for Tumblr, but we already knew that. What was most interesting, to me, was that Blogger experience no downtime. [via TechCrunch]
An interesting look at service downtimes from Pingdom – Tumblr was down for 47.5 hours on average over the span from Oct 15 to Dec 15, 2010. Not so good for Tumblr, but we already knew that. What was most interesting, to me, was that Blogger experience no downtime.
[via TechCrunch] -
Mac OS X Dock Positions
I did a quick poll on Twitter the other day – asking where people have their Docks positioned. I have had my dock on the left side for a long time, auto-hiding with magnification turned on. Turns out that is not the best place for me – not by a long shot. I don’t have…
I did a quick poll on Twitter the other day – asking where people have their Docks positioned. I have had my dock on the left side for a long time, auto-hiding with magnification turned on. Turns out that is not the best place for me – not by a long shot. I don’t have some over arching point – some random insight – into where you should position your dock. No, I just am fascinated by somethings I found out.
I spent a little bit of time moving the dock around and decided that for me this is what works best:
- Position dock on left.
- Use ‘Secrets’ to enable Dock pinning to ‘End’ (this puts the dock on the left edge – coming up from the bottom).
- Magnification off.
- Hiding on.
Why the left edge? The only thing I can think of is that being left handed the left edge feels most natural for me.
Why at the bottom and not centered? I used to have it centered for a long time – the problem I always ran into is that I keep Tweetie on the left side and when I go to switch ‘tabs’ I often would pop open the dock. This is no longer a problem when I have it coming up from the bottom as I keep Tweetie pretty high on the screen.
Dude why no magnification? Again I used to have magnification on all the time – I am a huge fan of the way it looks. When I pinned the dock to the bottom magnification would push off the bottom icons as I moved my mouse over the dock. Those icons could still be clicked on, but it made the entire experience, look, and feel wrong. I turned off magnification and I must say I love it this way because:
- You get fixed targets: no moving and dodging stuff.
- It looks and feels very clean and fast.
- Truly feels like ‘pro’ mode to me.
Hiding…? I don’t know why you wouldn’t hide your dock. Sure it takes a half a tick for it to pop up on screen, but not having icon badges distract you is well worth that extra tick.
I wondered how many others use a similar setup – turns out that isn’t many. Take a look at the results of a small Twitter survey:
Position:
Magnification:
Hiding:
Of Note
What really interests me – more than anything else – is just how many people don’t use magnification. My only guess is that because it is off by default, most don’t see the need for it.
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NoteTask by Coding Robots
NoteTask. It is a fast, clean, and simple note taking application that can present your text as tasks, completed tasks, and sections/projects. By default it recognizes lines starting with hyphen and spacebar as tasks, and lines starting with exclamation mark as completed tasks. (You can customize this behavior). There’s a free version, NoteTask Lite. It…
NoteTask. It is a fast, clean, and simple note taking application that can present your text as tasks, completed tasks, and sections/projects. By default it recognizes lines starting with hyphen and spacebar as tasks, and lines starting with exclamation mark as completed tasks. (You can customize this behavior).
There’s a free version, NoteTask Lite. It lacks Simplenote sync but everything else is the same.
NoteTask is on special holiday sale. It’s only $0.99 for limited time.
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All Internet porn “To be blocked” in the UK
Martin Bryant: Under the plan, customers would have to ask the ISP for access to pornography. Can you imagine how awkward the conversation would be with the guy in India when someone calls to ask for access to porn?
Martin Bryant:
Under the plan, customers would have to ask the ISP for access to pornography.
Can you imagine how awkward the conversation would be with the guy in India when someone calls to ask for access to porn?
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nvALT
I have posted about nvALT before – the Notational Velocity fork by Brett Terpstra. He now has a project page for it and a new name nvALT. What is nice is that once you download the latest version you can use the in-app update engine from here forward.
I have posted about nvALT before – the Notational Velocity fork by Brett Terpstra. He now has a project page for it and a new name nvALT. What is nice is that once you download the latest version you can use the in-app update engine from here forward.
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Last Chance to Enter the First Ever TBR Give Away
Just a quick note – I am stopping the entries for the giveaway tomorrow morning at 8a. Be sure to enter before then if you have not already.
Just a quick note – I am stopping the entries for the giveaway tomorrow morning at 8a. Be sure to enter before then if you have not already.
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BMW Burns Logo onto Cinema-Goers’ Eyes
This is incredibly clever – while showing a normal advertisement at a movie theater BMW shot a flash from behind the screen. The end result of the flash was that when the ad ended and viewers were asked to close their eyes they would see the BMW logo with their eyes closed. This works in…
This is incredibly clever – while showing a normal advertisement at a movie theater BMW shot a flash from behind the screen. The end result of the flash was that when the ad ended and viewers were asked to close their eyes they would see the BMW logo with their eyes closed. This works in the same way as staring at a bright light (the Sun) will cause you to see bright spots when you close your eyes. Very clever.
I think if this happened to me I would be the guy sitting there begging for them to do it again…
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MarkdownNote
An interesting Markdown note app from Coding Robots. I gave it a try today and while I don’t particularly care for writing in the app – there is one thing I really like: you can copy the text you wrote in Markdown out of the app as HTML. Basically meaning that I can post to…
An interesting Markdown note app from Coding Robots. I gave it a try today and while I don’t particularly care for writing in the app – there is one thing I really like: you can copy the text you wrote in Markdown out of the app as HTML. Basically meaning that I can post to this blog much faster with the iPad now (I am very slow when I must write in HTML).
Neat.
