January 2012
2 posts
2 tags
Samsung Is the Next… Acceptable Apple →
So you have two superlatives: biggest phone manufacturer and biggest TV manufacturer. Add in some tablets, some washing machines, and some acceptable software and you have a real and vibrant ecosystem.
Adding crap on top of even the greatest thing makes it crap too. So, at most, you get an acceptable ecosystem.
1 tag
TRIGG: A Framework for Predictions
Quickly identifying the type of a prediction will help you either create your own list or going through others’ much easier.
There are 4 types of predictions.
Truism. This category should be obvious. Already confirmed facts, sometimes in a new packaging that is supposed to make them sound new, carrying no actual value, no new or interesting information.
PR-esque. There are types of...
December 2011
4 posts
1 tag
18 Fonts I'd Use, ComicBookFonts, and Their...
It all started with searching for and experimenting with different monospaced fonts in IDEs. But then reading and writing so much slowly transformed me into a font maniac. For a while the Personal and then Portfolio Typekit plans offered me comfort.
The last episode of Andy Ihnatko’s podcast introduced me to the ComicBookFonts and their special offer on each year’s Jan. 1st: every font for...
3 tags
Analysts, Reports, and Market Predictions: Carrier...
While it’s outside the main focus of my NoSQL blog, reading that IDC nominated Carrier IQ—let’s say it is a Big Data company—in its 2011 Innovative Business Analytics Companies Under $100M to Watch, made me wonder how often are analysts off or how limited are these reports. Were they off when predicting the future of NoSQL Database companies too?
3 tags
The iOS Missing Gesture
The 4-fingers gesture on iPad is better than double-tapping the home button. But this would be the perfect one.
2 tags
Power Is Fast Shifting From End Users and Software... →
Jonathan Zittrain:
If we allow ourselves to be lulled into satisfaction with walled gardens, we’ll miss out on innovations to which the gardeners object, and we’ll set ourselves up for censorship of code and content that was previously impossible. We need some angry nerds.
November 2011
6 posts
3 tags
Two Decades of Productivity: Vim's 20th... →
The vi text editor was originally created in the late ’70s by Bill Joy, an early BSD developer who later went on to cofound Sun Microsystems. The original implementation of vi was conceived as an interactive “visual” mode for an ed-like line editor called ex. It was developed at first on an old ADM-3A terminal, about a decade before computer mice became ubiquitous. Users relied on commands and...
2 tags
Daedalus Touch: Tools That Do the Unexpected
I was getting ready to post a hint about the nice[1] iPad editor Daedalus Touch being available for $1.99, when I’ve discovered its dark face.
One of the features I was looking for is Daedalus Touch’s integration with Dropbox. The action is called “Import from Dropbox”. But this import has a dark face: if the files you are importing have a non .txt extension they get deleted and replaced with...
2 tags
Developers Explain Changes in Growl 1.3, but Miss...
MacStories published a short summary of the explanation provided by Growl’s developers about the mess in Growl 1.3.
Unfortunately the summary missed one very important aspect in the devs’ post:
Out-of-date applications don’t work with Growl 1.3 - Due to the changes in Growl 1.3 in order to get Growl into the App Store, some applications currently do not work with Growl and will need to be...
Steve Jobs's Ideas vs Execution
Steve Jobs:
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
and separately:
You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90 percent of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,”...
1 tag
Day-O →
Not only does it look nicer than the OS level clock, but it provides a tad more functionality.
3 tags
WriteRoom 3.0 →
Somebody should stop me.
Luckly WriteRoom 3.0 is not expensive: $9.99 in the Mac AppStore.
October 2011
16 posts
2 tags
Tablets and News
Stephen M. Hackett quoting a Pew Research Center report:
Consuming news (everything from the latest headlines to in-depth articles and commentary) ranks as one of the most popular activities on the tablet, about as popular as sending and receiving email (54% email daily on their tablet), and more popular than social networking (39%), gaming (30%), reading books (17%) or watching movies and...
2 tags
Technology and Design →
Stephen Fry:
Henry Ford didn’t invent the motor car, Rockefeller didn’t discover how to crack crude oil into petrol, Disney didn’t invent animation, the Macdonald brothers didn’t invent the hamburger, Martin Luther King didn’t invent oratory, neither Jane Austen, Tolstoy nor Flaubert invented the novel and D. W. Griffith, the Warner Brothers, Irving Thalberg and Steven Spielberg didn’t invent...
2 tags
KeyStroke: Customizable Shortcuts for Safari →
This is just a fantastic Safari extension. No need to move your hands away from the keyboard anymore. Thanks Brett Terpstra for the hint.
1 tag
Information: Paper vs Digital
From an old Make issue:
[…] our real challenge today is not to use less paper but to keep less paper.
For ubiquitous capture, planning, and brainstorming, paper’s tought to beat. For storage, searching, and editing, the point goes to digital.
Considering information works the same way as code—written once, read many times—an optimal system should allow the usage of both mediums. For a while I...
2 tags
If Google Reader Changes…
Considering there was never an official API, if Google Reader will make radical changes, does it mean that it will break all the apps we came to love—Reeder (Mac, iPhone, iPad), Pure Reader, Mr Reader, River of News? That’ll be just a new way for Google to piss off some more users.
I couldn’t find a better way to say this than MG Siegler’s comment about Google products:
And I’ve spoken with...
3 tags
Multimarkdown Composer: Yet Another Mac Markdown...
If you thought we’ve already got enough Markdown editors on Mac, just add another one to your list Multimarkdown Composer. This one comes directly from Fletcher Penney, the guy who extended Markdown into MultiMarkdown. At first glance the app looks like an extended version of TextEdit with support for syntax coloring and auto-generating syntax. And it integrates very well with Marked.
As a user...
2 tags
How Does Google Make Money? →
Dan Frommer:
In a word: Ads.
This past quarter, Google generated $9.7 billion of total gross revenue. […] Google says it paid out $1.8 billion last quarter to AdSense partners, and another $400 million to “certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website.”
Google is making aprox. 5 times more than content producers by indexing their content. It is the living proof...
1 tag
Hidding Purchased Apps in App Store
If you are playing with a lot of applications either on the Mac or your iOS devices, the list of purchased applications just gets longer and longer. But I noticed that you can remove apps from the App Store:
Was this feature there before?
1 tag
iTerm2 Tips & Tricks
Probably known by many of you, but some of these were new to me:
Search: Cmd+f
Autocomplete: Cmd+;
Paste history: Cmd+Shift+H
Instant replay: Cmd+Alt+B
iTerm2 Exposé: Cmd+
Alt+E
Support for many of the readline bindable commands: Ctrl+a: beginning of line
Ctrl+e: end of line
Ctrl+f: forward 1 char
Ctrl+b: back 1 char
Ctrl+l: clear screen
Ctrl+p: previous history
Ctrl+r: history...
1 tag
Growl 1.3 in MAS: Paying to Break Compatibility
Paying $1.99 for Growl 1.3 to break compatibility with quite a few programs.
Christopher Forsythe:
Trillian needs an update if it’s not working. Also make sure you have the Growl preferences enabled in their preferences.
Skype is going to need an update from Skype to make Growl notifications work again.
The list can go on for a while. And that’s not the only issue with this release.
I...
#ThankYouSteve →
1 tag
The iPhone 4S
Everything has been said about it. Except:
There are two types of Apple users: the hipsters: “look at my shiny toy! Apple is sooo coool!” and geeks: “just my perfect tool”. For the former category, hardware upgrades are not shiny. As far as I could count the latter are already preparing to pre-order or to line up for it.
Then there are the analysts and “journalists”. The firsts must talk...
2 tags
The Writer's Block →
Seth Godin:
Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better.
2 tags
Trusting Corporate Talks, "Terms of Use", PR
Just 3 statements about Facebook tracking users outside their website. Hat tip Michael Arrington.
5 tags
TextMate's Rewrite of the Boy Who Cried Wolf
They cried TextMate 2 at least three times already: June 2009, January 2010, and September 2011. But people are ready to pay for it again.
When migrating to Lion, I’ve made the decision to leave TextMate behind. Even before that I’ve been trying to get rid of it by learning to use MacVim. Then on Lion, I got
BBEdit and I’m still learning it.
Even if TextMate 2 will actually become available at...
2 tags
When I Use Amazon Silk, What Does Amazon Know...
From the Amazon Silk FAQ:
Amazon Silk optimizes and accelerates the delivery of web content by using Amazon’s cloud computing services. To do this, the content of web pages you visit using Amazon Silk may be cached to improve performance and certain web address information will be collected to help troubleshoot and diagnose Amazon Silk technical issues.
TL;DR: everything.
September 2011
12 posts
3 tags
Alfred File Search Filters: Alfred vs LaunchBar →
With the Search Filter Extension you can easily set up keywords that trigger a special, limited, type of search that will filter out where and for what file types Alfred looks.
Starting today I’m giving LaunchBar a try. What I’ve discovered is that it supports a similar feature, but it doesn’t seem to be as configurable as Alfred’s.
While it’s too early to write about it, my first impression...
1 tag
The World's Largest Photo Libraries →
OMG
1 tag
Must-Have Mac Apps: Federico Viticci's Lists
MacStories’ Frederico Viticci updated the list of his must-have Mac apps. I don’t want to spoil your pleasure of comparing these lists against yours, but while going through them I wrote down some comments:
Clipmenu: I’ve never used a clipboard manager and I cannot imagine the scenarios to use one for. Any ideas?
OmniFocus: I’ve only used it for an extended trial period and it came close to...
2 tags
Agenda 2.0 Gets Native, Elegant iPad Version →
With a free 2.0 update released today, Agenda becomes a Universal app that runs natively on the iPad.
Agenda is the best calendar app I’ve used on my iPhone. And from now I can use it on my iPad too.
Plus Agenda Calendar is currently on sale for $0.99.
2 tags
The Third Dimension of Computing: Sync →
J. Eddie Smith, IV:
Before sync became such a reliable reality, computing was basically a two-dimensional concept: you chose hardware, and then you chose the software to run on your hardware (not necessarily in that order).
This only if you never had two or more computers. Those that had to manage a multi-computer environment have invested a lot of energy into solving this problem.
The cloud...
1 tag
Code Editors for iPad: Textastic vs. Koder →
Ben Brooks reviewing two code editors for the iPad: Textastic and Koder:
I need an app that will allow me to connect to my server, edit CSS/PHP/HTML files and save/commit the changes to the server.
I didn’t need such an editor until now, but it’s good to know there’s an app for it®.
4 tags
Totally TaskPaper →
Within my projects like nvALT and Marked, as well as some smaller scripting projects, I’ve been keeping bugs, feature requests and general todos in TaskPaper format text files. They sync nicely in my Git repos and are easy to manipulate with or without the TaskPaper application. TaskPaper’s built-in scripting and filtering capabilities make it very easy to handle advanced views of my tasks. So...
1 tag
Color Picker Pro: The Color Detection Tool for...
In case you, like me, don’t like the Mac OS DigitalColor Meter for not displaying hex values for the colors and you didn’t get either Hues ($2.99) or Classic Color Meter ($0.99), now you can get the free and open source Color Picker Pro. There are a couple of additional feature requests in the Hacker News.
4 tags
OmniFocus vs My Ideal Task Manager
Last week after sharing my short[1] experience with OmniFocus, I’ve said I’ll follow up comparing OmniFocus to my ideal task manager. Before doing that, I should mention that for the two weeks of the trial, I’ve been using OmniFocus as my only task manager.
Input support: Excellent
The OmniFocus task capturing capabilities are very good. I’ve had to improve a bit the OmniFocus bookmarklet to...
3 tags
Intel's New Random-Number Generator →
So if you’re a programmer, get ready for a prolific source of randomness to be put at your fingertips. And even if you don’t want to part with a pseudorandom-number generator you’ve grown to love—whether for cryptography, scientific computing, even gaming—you’ll now have Bull Mountain to produce the seeds for it.
A captivating story of computer randomness.
3 tags
My Experience With OmniFocus
You can find good reviews about OmniFocus everywhere, so I don’t intend to write yet another one. Plus the 10 days (out of the 2 weeks) I had to try out OmniFocus haven’t been enough for me to validate if it fits my needs. Anyways while experimenting with it, I’ve jotted down my thoughts. Here they are in a slightly edited form.
Good: accepting input.
OmniFocus accepts input from many...
3 tags
MarkdownNote Brings Live Markdown Previews to OS X →
Federico Viticci:
Those who prefer a more cohesive writing environment with plain text/Markdown and HTML output living in the same application, however, might want to take a look at MarkdownNote, a new entry in the Markdown editing space that’s got some interesting features.
Yet another entry in the growing list of Markdown editors. This one sounds like an enhanced editor with Marked attached....
August 2011
55 posts
1 tag
The Myth of Multitasking →
A classic:
There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.
2 tags
Measuring REST
Check out (at least) the last 10 slides from Subbu Allamaraju‘s Measuring REST:
You’ll get a different perspective on how to architect applications.
1 tag
6 Reasons for Markdown →
From another Markdown fan, Brett Terpstra:
It’s easy
It’s fast
It’s clean
It’s portable
It’s flexible
It fits any workflow
My explanation for Markdown is simpler.
3 tags
Better Looking Safari Reader Hack →
If you’re using Safari Reader you must give it a try:
The only thing I’ve changed is switched from using ‘OFL Sorts Mill Goudy TT’ to Arvo font family[1].
To do that replace in reader.html the link to OFL font with <link href=”http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Arvo:700,400italic,700italic,400” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” /> and then...
2 tags
Mozilla Chair Defends Rapid-Release Firefox →
Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker quoted by Stephen Shankland:
She pointed to two areas where the rapid-release process causes problems: add-ons that need to maintain compatibility, and businesses that sometimes don’t have time to test new software and update their own applications for the new browser.
“We need to be creative and try to find practical ways of alleviating these difficulties if we...
1 tag
Monitor Your Wi-Fi With Mac OS X 10.7 Wi-Fi... →
Lion ships with an app called Wi-Fi diagnostics. It allows you to monitor Wi-Fi networks your computer is connected to and collect various kinds of information. This utility could be very useful for finding problems or doing research on your Wi-Fi networks.
Hidden gems in Lion.
3 tags
Elements 2.0: Revamped Interface and Web... →
Chris Herbert:
Elements 2 is a major upgrade for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The new version is adding support for sharing written work to a plethora of online services – not just text files anymore. Users will be able to publish articles as a text post to a Tumblr account or as a Facebook note. Elements 2 is also adding support for exporting files in both HTML and PDF formats. Users will...
2 tags
All You Need to Know About Quick Look in Lion,...
Very impressive list of improvements in an utility I’ve rarely used[1]: Quick Preview. Then just learn a bunch of gestures to navigate it.
I had a custom Quick Look preview plugin for Markdown files, but I’ve never really used it extensively
↩
1 tag
Web Anthology: August 28th, 2011
Finagle
a protocol-agnostic, asynchronous RPS system for the JVM that makes it easy to build robust clients and servers in Java, Scala, or any JVM-hosted language
Cactus
Simple static site generator using Django templates. I think I’ve missed it when I did my research about static site generators. At that time (about 6 months ago), all failed to provide an incremental re-generation. On my NoSQL...
4 tags
App Review: Byword →
Brett Terpstra:
Full-screen and “focus” modes are available, and it does a beautiful job with them, but it puts an equal amount of effort into just creating a pleasant atmosphere for writing. Great themes, great fonts and even some of the Markdown-specific tools (auto-pairing, wrapping and list continuation) that I’m always begging for.
I’ve never agreed with the that minimalist trend where...