May 2009
57 posts
strange brew
marco:
Strange Brew is on Netflix-on-demand. Sorry about the loss of your next 90 minutes, you hoser.
Looks like Marco has a little bit of Canadian in him …
switching →
While cleaning up some old bookmarks in Delicious, I came across this article by Bill Westerman (he of GSD fame). It’s a good read for an unbiased experience of what switching to a Mac is really like.
meet the command line →
Dan Benjamin continues his move to independence with this, his first screencast for peepcode. Looks like a great way to get more familiar with a UNIX based environment.
Purchased.
5 questions with Tumblr’s Marco Arment →
marco:
A quick interview I did.
This gives a a brief glimpse of why Tumblr is what it is.
“Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this...”
– The reviews for this shirt on Amazon are showing up all over the Internet. This one is my favorite.
“There is a gaping chasm between a web app sitting on a server somewhere, and the...”
– This echoes our mentality behind Fusion.
[ Read the full article here ]
“You see, both of the ads from the deck and fusion are so tailored, that not only...”
– From an article by blink media on effective web advertising.
“My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This...”
– Jonathan Rauch describing introverts in an article from The Atlantic.
It’s a nice summary of the topic, but it doesn’t address a question I’ve always had about myself—what if a person exhibits characteristics of both an introvert and an extrovert? A lot of the traits he lists in...
collaborative book writing →
Interesting look at how the 37 signals crew work on Getting Real 2 from various geographic locations.
“New post up at http://patrickrhone.com/ - My daily log workflow, a step by step...”
– Nice rundown by Patrick on his personal log file usage. Reminds me of a couple of posts of my own.
[ viapatrickrhone ]
“Your life should be just that—a life; if your waking hours are entirely consumed...”
– Too much work is definitely a problem. But I’d venture to say that these days the issue is more “too much time online” … it’s not always actual work. The need to always be up to date is draining in its own way.
[ via davidkaneda ]
apple needs to embrace their community
One could spend a lot of time pondering whether Apple’s success and momentum over the past decade are due purely to their own decisions and directions or whether this success was greatly enabled by the Apple community. I know for myself, back when I was still a Windows only user, I was intrigued by the user community that embraced this company and its operating system/platform. I fondly...
this week's sign the apocalypse is upon us →
Really? $8,000 for car wax?
“It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation.”
– Thomas a Kempis
is RSS still relevant?
In the last 2 year it has become common to hear people say I don’t use RSS anymore (I’m referring to people in these circles, not the rest of the world like our parents, neighbors and coworkers). Initially, I could not disagree more—reading through my feeds was one of my more enjoyable activities.
But of late, I’ve started to see where these people are coming from. The move to...
this week's sign the apocalypse is upon us →
whilst I was away …
I’ve been on holidays this past week/weekend and spent almost all my time offline. Just catching up on things and here’s a summary of what’s been happening:
Threadless is hitching on to the Twitter bandwagon
Fusion continues to grow in popularity
Marco moved into his apartment
The Palm Pre has a launch date, right before iPhone 3.0
And some alpha male wolfman is taking...
on tumblarity
Great summary of Tumblarity and the issues a lot of people have with it by chartier:
Tumblr could quell much of the uproar over Tumblarity and the new Directory by simply allowing users to disable them. If you don’t want to see your Tumblarity displayed in the Dashboard, the option could remove that number altogether. Perhaps it could even remove those numbers from the Directory listings, or...
hivelogic - top 10 programming fonts →
This is a nice list of monospace fonts from Mr. Benjamin. I’ve been using Inconsolata for a while, but numbers 1 through 4 are all pleasing to the eye. And number 4, Droid Sans Mono gets major bonus points for such a cool name.
[ via patrickrhone ]
davidkaneda:
After surfing the new directory a bit, I figured it out: Tumblarity = posts per hour * (photos of girls, cartoons, bokeh, or animated GIFs)
I think Mr. Kaneda is on to something.
the tiniest of Photoshop tips
mrgan:
I can’t imagine working on pixel-precise graphics in Photoshop without taking advantage of multiple views of the same document, but I find that many designers don’t use this; turns out some just aren’t aware of it. Here, then, is my setup when working on UI bits and such:
For those who spend a lot of time in Photoshop, here are some interesting tips from a pixel expert.
thoughts on tumblr III
A few more thoughts on things I’ve been enjoying about Tumblr as a platform:
Maintenance
No worries about hosting. No Very little downtime. No time spent worrying about database backups or optimization or handling a spike in traffic.
Interface
The dashboard could quickly become my browser homepage.
Community
The community feel. Not that I necessarily want another feed reader or to...
“Twitter is struggling to retain its new users: More than 60 percent of Twitter...”
– In some twisted way, I find it refreshing to hear that 60% of new users give up on Twitter in the first month. Must be the nerd/geek elitist in me.
[via NYT - Bits]
create your own twitter "groups"
spaceminer:
Let’s make lemonade out of lemons, folks. Some people are upset that Twitter has changed their @reply functionality such that you can no longer see replies to people you don’t follow (from people you do follow) …
Regardless of which side of the fence that you’re on, you can now use Twitter in a whole new way. We can now rig up “groups” through twitter accounts …
So...
“The lesson: Once your user base has grown beyond a certain point, you cannot...”
– David hits the nail on the head with his reference to the above quote.
This was posted on SvN almost a year ago, but I think it really speaks to the heart of the current discontent on Twitter.
[via davidkaneda]
behind the scenes look at Fusion →
My view from Fusion.
OS X 10.5.7 →
Here’s a few items that caught my attention:
Improves the reliability and accuracy of Unit Converter, Stocks, Weather and Movies Dashboard widgets.
Addresses reliability and sync issues with Notes in Mail.
Maybe now the weather widget will stop moving around on me. It’s a small set of updates overall … I’m guessing Snow Leopard is almost ready to go.
things and things touch updated →
Cultured Code released updates to both versions of Things today. The syncing of areas is the major update that has me excited, but there are a lot of improvements in both.
I like this approach to a desktop-paired-with-an-iPhone-version software release.
“For the improvement of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws...”
– Henry David Thoreau [Via Jesus Creed]
thelongbrake dot com →
Very, very excited to see thelongbrake back behind the wheel.
1 tag
tumbularity
lonelysandwich:
As a matter of principle, I fear and thus despise the new and the different. That said, notes on tumblr’s new feature, Tumblarity.
1. The design is really neat. Keep it up, tumblr designers!
2. The Tumbluality score in my Dashboard reminds me of my mortality. Stop that. Let me hide that rapidly decaying metric or I swear to Christ I’ll never visit my Dashboard again. Consider...
owltastic →
Check out Meagan Fisher and her deliciously redesigned Owltastic.
the unibrow
Michael: http://www.flickr.com/photos/definetheline/3508687507/sizes/l/
Michael: He's back.
Chris: Dude, that is hi-def.
Michael: It was a random shot on a bus.
Michael: Glad it actually turned out.
Chris: Everyone will now see that you shave (pluck?) your unibrow!
Chris: The curse of dark hair … you can't see mine ;)
Chris: Blond is better.
Michael: hehe
Chris: Ah, I know I tease too much, never could help it.
Michael: Need to die my eyebrows blond obiviously.
Chris: You should!!!
Chris: That would look great.
Chris: This is of course, going on the blog.
