May 2012
1 post
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Sweep the Sleaze (via iA) →
If readers are too lazy to copy and paste the URL, and write a few words about your content, then it is not because you lack these magical buttons.
The truth is out there about social media buttons.
April 2012
2 posts
4 tags
To Hell with SMS Plans
Carriers’ text (SMS) messaging plans should be one of the most contested issues with technology consumers have today, but aside from a few loud shouts from the corners of the Internet, they don’t receive as much attention as is deserved. What’s even more disconcerting than charging for text messages is the tiered pricing levels at which you must choose your service. But as...
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WatchGave Studio Neat’s new Frameographer app a whirl while in Florida earlier this month. Set to ten second intervals.
February 2012
2 posts
3 tags
Matter →
Backed. This is the kind of project Kickstarter was meant to deliver.
It should also go without saying that you ought to back Tim Schafer’s new Double Fine game, too.
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Buster App Review
App Store - $1.99
As of 02.20.2012
Buster App in Action
Underrated, Overused
One of the most outstanding achievements in technology has been the implementation of public transportation tracking, and its availability to the public via the Internet. Apparently vehicle tracking systems these days typically use GPS or GLONASS technology for locating the vehicle as it traverses terrain. I have...
January 2012
2 posts
“…the web is now largely filters on top of filters on top of filters”
– 5 Minutes with Kottke
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Saddleback Leather
A recent discovery, Saddleback Leather is a serious online retailer specializing in leather goods. They sell geniune, 100% leather goods across several accessory lines, including wallets, business bags, luggage, and belts. The warranty for their products also happens to be 100 years. Yeah, no shit. Fortunately, the seriousness ends with their products, and everything else is military-grade wit....
December 2011
3 posts
4 tags
iPod Touch & the Mobile Market
For all of those seemingly astonished analysts (via 512 Pixels) mulling over the fact that Apple owns the mobile marketplace (even after the rise of Android OS’s footprint): how did you not see this coming? Not only does iOS still rake in the largest share of all mobile app purchases, but let’s not forget they also sell and rent movies and TV shows, and are still the number one...
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Apple Store App: In-Store Pickup
A few months ago, Apple updated their Apple Store app (the app tied to its physical retail stores, not the digital ones) to version 2.0. The added features circulated the tech blog rounds with applause, but they never caught on with mainstream media. Granted, the new features would be alien to a normal in-store shopper. And after having used them, it would take me quite a few times to ease...
November 2011
2 posts
3 tags
The Bane of Share Buttons
If you have this on your site, please remove it. Just delete the code. Please.
Why would this look good — anywhere? Seeing a variation of this row of share buttons is just as vexing as seeing Flash ads initiate without your consent. Services like ShareThis are the bane of the Internet. If someone is going to share or link to an article (or product or service), they’ll likely do it...
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"Modern" social media is shit.
Pinboard’s maestro says it best:
The funny thing is, no one’s really hiding the secret of how to make awesome online communities. Give people something cool to do and a way to talk to each other, moderate a little bit, and your job is done. Games like Eve Online or WoW have developed entire economies on top of what’s basically a message board. MetaFilter, Reddit, LiveJournal...
October 2011
4 posts
3 tags
Why is Wunderlist Free?
Every so often I run a trial of a new task/project manager and see how well it flows into my daily needs. One of the most recently popular task managers is Wunderlist, a product of the Berlin-based development studio 6Wunderkinder. As a task manager, is it useable and pretty, but hardly efficient. It’s somewhere between Ta-Da List and Reminders.app, and really can’t touch something as...
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Shit That Siri Says →
We knew this was coming.
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The Fans are All Right
Pinboard’s creator on staying true to his users with his bookmarking service, and refraining from buckling to the socializing plug-in layers that riddle so many other services. Pinboard, after all, has always intended to be “a bookmarking site and personal archive with an emphasis on speed over socializing.”
Pinboard is not a social site, and it has...
September 2011
6 posts
3 tags
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Insta-Excess
Up until the turn of the century, we’ve accessed entertainment media by purchasing tangible goods (even if the actual product wasn’t). But digital distribution methods, storage-infinite portables, and the instantaneous speeds of an ubiquitous high-speed network have changed all that – indefinitely. So how do we treat the act of using and enjoying media – whether it be film, music,...
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“When you use a free web service you’re the underclass. At best...”
– via The Guardian
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Air Video
While it’s been out for quite some time, Air Video has proven itself as an exemplar app for the entire iOS ecosystem. The video streaming app works on two impressive levels:
Streams a video file to any iOS device from just about any source
Converts on-the-fly just about any formatted video to any iOS device (or from a mobile one to the Apple TV)
These things, in combination, draw genuine...
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“One hundred years ago, everybody had to write. What do we have now? A bunch of...”
– Aaron Draplin, Draplin Design Co.
August 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Internet Tendency Vol. 1
Some links gathered through the week:
MUBI Notebooks – Touted as a “digital magazine of international cinema and film culture.”
CW&T – Brooklyn design studio of things “hard and soft.”
FAUXGO – Tumblr tracking fictional logos for companies/organizations throughout film and videogames. (My favorite, of course)
Fab.com – Curation of...
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Tearing Off iCal's Torn Pages (Lion) →
A much-needed solution.
/via Big Bucket Software
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Maneuvering Around Distractions
A classic from last year, to get things going: Jason Fried on
why work doesn’t happen at work:
“The real problems are what I like to call the M&Ms – the managers and the meetings. Those are the real problems in the modern workplace.”
It is amazing that tools of our time are not better encouraged – even enforced – in opposition to the...
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The New Yorker App Success
The New Yorker has succeeded where others have failed. The Atlantic Wire reports the journal has grossed one million dollars from the sale of its iPad app. An update on their subscription numbers:
75,000 of the subscriptions are print subscribers given the option of an iPad subscription. The other 20,000 are new subscribers who paid $59.99 for a subscription from...
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Deflex App
Deflex, like Llamasoft/Jeff Minter’s other works of digital insanity, is confounded by bleary visuals and wrangled voice clips, supported by a dreamily dynamic piano soundtrack. I don’t know how he codes a game like this – it’s really something you need to see to understand. It’s arthouse interactivity for the iOS folks. Many will cringe, others will hate, but...
July 2011
6 posts
3 tags
This is Why Your Newspaper is Dying →
I would also add a degeneration in journalistic integrity.
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OS X Lion UI Impressions
I know: everyone is weighing in on their OS X Lion impressions. The release is significant in a number of ways, most notably its departure from physical disk installation (you get it via a 3.75GB download on the Mac App Store). While there are several important feature implementations and updated applications, the most glaring changes are in the user interface. And...
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Rollover Minutes: Worst Case Scenario
Seriously, AT&T? After all this, you email me the most insulting reward for using your service?
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Using Writeroom with Coda to Write, Export...
Mac OS X has seen its share of brilliant writing applications over the last several years, but it’s increasing hard to justify investing in any new ones. In particular, one of the latest newcomers in distraction-free/minimal writing environments, iA Writer, has me frothing with pixel lust. But since I already own a solid collection of word processing applications, there isn’t any real benefit in...
1 tag
Lotus Notes Fuck-Ups →
For anyone who has ever had to suffer the incompetence of IBM’s Lotus Notes — this blog is for you.
June 2011
9 posts
3 tags
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RSS & Twitter: Meta Consumption
Shawn Blanc recently posted a comprehensive look into the sub-culture of nerds with respect to their habits of checking news/personal items via mail, RSS, and Twitter. (To support some of his opinion, he had posted a survey several hours earlier requesting input from his readership on the subject.)
There is some good stuff here, especially this:
However, if there are feeds which you just...
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Netflix Features: Removing & Minimizing
Good design requires sound decisions about what not to include rather than what to include. Netflix has been trimming down and streamlining several areas of its website. Two recent changes have stood out:
Removal of profile attributes to customer reviewers (avatar image, nick name, and bio)
Immediate playability of films while browsing thumbnails within featured categories (namely on a...
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McSweeney's Internet Tendancy Gets HTML Surgery →
They’ve also provided a rundown of changes to the back-end of their site, most notably explaining how they’ve migrated from “just a bunch of hand-edited text files”.
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“But — No, shut up.”
– Michael Wolfe on why Dropbox was built and why it works so well for its target market.
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Ben the Bodyguard
I’m particularly tempted to drop $5 on this just to support the developer’s successful effort in applying a debonair personality to a security app. Ben the Bodyguard keeps 256-bit level of encryption for passwords, photos, contacts, notes, and reminders on iPhone/iPod touch, all the while keeping a classy French assassin vibe to the whole undertaking.
As is the tradition with most...
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The Dark Art of Caffeine
I don’t know if caffeine has an effect on me, but it sure the hell makes for a good breakfast. I’ve been on the drug for as long as I’ve had human memory, and while it started with polishing off a 12-pack of Coca-Cola every three days, it’s moved into the more laborious — but rewarding — territory of tea and coffee. Some people enjoy sharing their coffee setups, but it...
May 2011
7 posts
1 tag
The Brother Makes a Short One
My brother just recently finished his capstone short animation project. It’s called The Princess & the Knight: A Love Story. It’s a bit like a deconstruction of the knight-rescues-princess cliche with a ludicrous ending.
Obviously: enjoyable.
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Fantastical App
Another brilliant piece of Mac OS X software that was recently ushered out the gate: Fantastical. It specializes in fast, elegant calendar management via a natural language engine and event creation hotkey (assignable by you). It’s similar in concept to something like 37signals’ Backpack calendar, but far more sophisticated in its understanding of semantic syntax.
Rarely can you...
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Isam
This one slipped me by — Amon Tobin’s new album, Isam, was released early for digital purchase (official release for May 23rd). Surprisingly challenging, the album is like a struggle between machine, man, beast, and a child’s toy room. What’s even more fascinating about the virgin soundscapes is that unlike his previous album, Foley Room, the artist has confirmed...
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Kottke on Kane
Simple and accurate film commentary on the great Citizen Kane (70th anniversary today):
Citizen Kane is The Beatles of movies, not just because of its universal influence and acclaim, or because it really does live up to the historical hype, but because on top of its arty aspirations, what it really wants to do is entertain the hell out of you.
This is the kind of encouraging film criticism...
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iA's Oliver Reichenstein Drills Online Newspaper...
The Article: Business Class: Freemium for News?
Attention. Ads. Content. If you want an ideal approach to online newspaper design going forward, this manifesto is your gateway drug.
Simple words of reason go a long way:
The idea of creating a business class for online news where is not about buying information, but buying better experience, it’s about service and customer experience....
Regarding Orbital Content
Cameron Koczon recently wrote an excellent post about orbital content. It tangentially relates to my recent post on the Performics blog. Users from the modern consumption era of Internet access are increasingly using apps and bookmarklets to parse out the useful content from sites into much more mangageable, easily accessible “orbital” collections. But:
Calling Instapaper a content...
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Link Building in the Age of Instapaper →
A piece I wrote for the corporate machine. Surprised they kept the title with Instapaper in it — I’m guessing it’s geek beyond their readership.
April 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Migrating Domains & Using Tumblr
TL;DR Abstract: Domain transfers shouldn’t suck so bad; Tumblr should provide payment plans.
I just recently migrated my domain registrar from Google’s Google Apps/GoDaddy clusterfuck to iWantMyName. The process has been far from smooth, and for three full days my blog was in hiatus. At first, I thought this could be the result of relying too heavily on Tumblr as the primary content...
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“Those who do not understand creativity think it has a well-defined and...”
– Michael Lopp | A Hard Thing is Done by Figuring Out How to Start