Year: 2015
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Three weeks into the social break
Today is day 21 or about one-third of the way through my most recent break from social media. This morning I read my post from the end of the first week and I can say that not much has changed since then. But, as a matter of exercise I’d like to answer the questions again.…
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Duck Duck Grow
In June of 2014 I mentioned that my search engine of choice, DuckDuckGo, was being added as a search option to my then browser of choice Safari. At the time DDG was getting roughly 5M daily search queries. Today? 12M daily search queries. If you haven’t switched your browser, tablet, and phone to using DDG…
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The first week of the social break
“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.” # Today marks the first week of my social break. This has been a complete break from Twitter, RSS, Instagram, Facebook, any Slack channels that aren’t work related, Ello, Flickr, VSCO, Google+, etc. and most recently Swarm got the axe. To be certain that…
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Another social break
In mid-2014 I took a two week break from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In October 2014 I took a 30-day social break and wrote about why I was doing it when I had hit the midway point*. I feel like it is time to take another break and this time I think it will be for…
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How to be like Steve Ballmer
David Barnes for Packt Publishing on Medium: It’s easy to mock Ballmer. You see videos. The Windows TV ad. The “developers developers developers”. What a loser. What a goofball. But that’s the point. Here’s somebody who’ll wear their mediocrity with such energy, with such boundless enthusiasm and unbridled passion, that nobody else even tries to…
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Every app needs a remote kill switch
Kyle Slattery on the 3e8 journal on why every mobile app should have a way to “kill” it remotely: The tricky thing about setting up your kill switch is you need to do it before any problems pop up. The good thing is, it’s not that difficult to do (and you should always be thinking…
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The Library of Discount Stores
Me, on our company blog at Plain: Every site is different but as a whole they make up the general feeling of the Internet. Like a neighborhood of homes with well manicured lawns feels different than a neighborhood with old, dilapidated, unkempt homes with decommissioned vehicles in their front yards. I suppose I just wish…
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The VTech breach
VTech: Our customer database contains user profile information including name, email address, password, secret question and answer for password retrieval, IP address, mailing address and download history. In addition the database also stores kids information including name, genders and birthdates. In total about 5 million customer accounts and related kids profiles worldwide are affected. Over…
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An interview with James Gurney
I had the privilege of interviewing James Gurney, creator of the illustrated book series Dinotopia, over on my other “blog” The Watercolor Gallery. Gurney also runs a daily blog called The Gurney Journey. During our interview I asked him about his experience with running the blog: Doing a blog is a lot of work, and it…
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A recap from the future
Back in October Kyle Ruane (Plain & Coalwork co-founder) put together an opening for Great Scott! A Back to the Future art show that he held in our space at Coalwork. He did a fantastic job with the opening and I’m glad he’s written about what he learned on Plain Text and also put the…
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Ben Brooks on exposure vs. money
Ben Brooks on his own stinkin’ blog: In short: never give your writing away for free. Even if you don’t make money on your site at the moment, don’t give your writing away for free. On more time, all together now: don’t give your writing away for free. Read his entire piece. You’ll come away…
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Simplenote’s moment
The running theme the last few weeks is how many people, including myself, are leaving Evernote behind for either Apple’s Notes or Simplenote. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the people that are leaving Evernote are those who first started using it when it was still simple and mostly text-based. So while there are likely thousands and thousands…
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Kerri Krueger says farewell to Evernote
Kerri Krueger on her blog: What was once fast and simple suddenly…wasn’t. Evernote’s beautifully slim and functional former self disappeared into a bloated garbage fire that rendered it all but unusable. Yesterday I switched from Evernote to Simplenote for the same reasons as Kerri. See also: Evernote vs. Notes, Chambers, Pogue.
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A new start for Ignite
Brady Forrest on Medium: The goal was to have a night where geeks could share their ideas. We gave the speakers just 5 minutes on stage with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. I remember going to my first Ignite in early 2007. I went to three more that same year I think (Philly,…
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Firefox for iOS
Firefox for iOS just hit the App Store and will work on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Why would you use Firefox for iOS? Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac: You might want to use Firefox for iPhone and iPad if you use Firefox on the Mac, due to UI similarities for the browser chrome or just…
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Horace Dediu and the iPad Pro
Horace Dediu of Asymco “reviews” the iPad Pro in this video by going through the evolution of the “desktop computer” as Apple has posited it over the last 5 or 6 years. Horace attempts to be funny in this which I think misses (no offense Horace) but the point he makes about the iPad Pro being used…
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uMake
Speaking of very different use cases for the iPad Pro … how about as a 3D sketch tool? uMake makes a pretty compelling use case I think. Obviously this sort of thing can be done with a Wacom tablet or even with an older iPad. But with a Wacom tablet you’d need to bring along…
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Windows 10 update
Terry Myerson: Today, we reach our next milestone as the first major update to Windows 10 is now available* for PCs and tablets. With this update, there are improvements in all aspects of the platform and experience, including thousands of partners updating their device drivers and applications for great Windows 10 compatibility. Looks like a…
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Gruber’s iPad Pro review
You can see why I believe Apple is going to regret not making OS X available on iPads by reading some of the points in John Gruber’s iPad Pro review: First, when the iPad Pro is open with the keyboard attached, holding your arm up to touch the screen for anything longer than a moment…
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Microsoft Surface Book vs. Surface Pro 4
Lee Morris of Fstoppers sits down with the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 side-by-side in this video review. He also has a short write-up on their site when they compared the Surface Book to the MacBook Pro. At the end of the day the Surface Book is an amazing achievement. I don’t understand how…
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git from the inside out
Mary Rose Cook: The essay focuses on the graph structure that underpins Git and the way the properties of this graph dictate Git’s behavior. Looking at fundamentals, you build your mental model on the truth rather than on hypotheses constructed from evidence gathered while experimenting with the API. This truer model gives you a better…
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Pen vs. Computer
Mike Vial on his blog about using a pen or using a computer to write a song: They may be right, but I’ve tried abandoning my computer many times to no avail; I always come back to the laptop, breathing a sigh of relief. See also. I see this as a shift. My mom? Pen…
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Split-Screen on El Capitan
Josh Ginter: It’s taken a little while, but OS X El Capitan’s split-screen multitasking (see also, iOS 9 for iPad) has become one of my favourite features of Apple’s latest desktop OS. Ditto.
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Analog remembrances
Sarah Pressler, also a fellow Coalworker by extension via Texas since she is our Project Manager at Plain, writes about giving up note taking on paper: I’m not willing to give up on my love for paper, planners, and photos from film, but I think it’s time I join the 21st century and stop taking…
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Ben Brooks is doing his own NaNoWriMo
You’ve likely heard of NaNoWriMo. Ben Brooks wants to take part but in his own way: I would write a novel, but honestly I have no good ideas for one, and did not have time to plan out a novel before November. I only decided to do this thing a week ago. I could probably…
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I don’t know if I “Like” your tweet yet
Twitter is pulling a switcharoo on Favorites and is now calling them Likes and using a heart icon rather than a star icon. People went a little nuts about this for a variety of reasons but I’m writing this post to point to when/if people ask me why I liked, or didn’t like, a particular…
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Kayaking in Back Bay, Sandbridge, Virginia
In late-September Eliza and I drove to Sandbridge, Virginia for two weeks with a bunch of friends, food, beer, and of course the kayaks. The first week was a wet, raining, windy disgusting mess. But that didn’t stop my niece from Florida, Leyana, and I from getting out and doing some paddling in the rain.…
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Nick Semon’s Mock Nines
Nick Semon, fellow Coalworker, has started a blog called Mock Nines. This from an entry on Apple Cider Donuts: I type this in the immediate vicinity of an empty bag, which previously was the second-to-final resting place of a half dozen of these not-actually-apple-flavored fried innertubes of spongy delightfulness. They now rest in pieces, masticated…
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Scranton does not understand bicycling
The aforementioned Nick Semon on his attempt to pick up a bike plate today: I stopped into the Licensing, Inspections, and Permits office today. They handle everything from building permits to food trucks to entertainment licenses. But all three of the friendly folks had never even heard of a bike license plate. Scranton Pennsylvania does not…
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Ben Brooks: Death to Analytics
Ben Brooks: If you are starting a new blog, or have one already, the best thing you can do is turn off all analytics. If you are worried about knowing when your site is “big” then worry no more. Trust me when I tell you: you will know when you site is big, with or…
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Pogue leaves Evernote
David Pogue on his Tumblog: But here’s the thing: Over time, Evernote has grown bulky, complex, and buggy. He also shares how he moved to Apple Notes using an AppleScript. See: here, and here.
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Woman Entrepreneur Monday
Joanne Wilson, blogger, entrepreneur, traveler, investor, uses her Monday morning blog post to feature a woman entrepreneur. Great idea — especially given her perspective. My only critique would be that she doesn’t link to the women’s Twitter, web sites, company web sites, etc.
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Fitbit hack
Darren Pauli for The Register: Attacks over Bluetooth require an attacker hacker to be within metres of a target device. This malware can be delivered 10 seconds after devices connect, making even fleeting proximity a problem. Testing the success of the hack takes about a minute, although it is unnecessary for the compromise. So, attack…
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I’m sad that White Oak Pond is being drained
Above: A panorama I took at White Oak Pond on October 20, 2015. My favorite place to paddle within 25 minutes of my front door is White Oak Pond in Waymart, PA. And now, due to the dam in the area being structurally unsound and having no budget to fix it, it is being drained.…
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A great developer can come from anywhere
Finally a voice of reason in all this hoopla around Marco and Overcast 2 — Manton Reece on his blog: We often see someone go from nothing to a top app in the App Store. We often see someone start without an audience and then make friends on Twitter and blogs through the quality of…
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Brent Pennington’s photos from NEPA BlogCon 2015
Brent Pennington, official photographer for NEPA BlogCon 2015, on his blog: I’ve had a unique perspective on BlogCon, both by being the organization’s official photographer and due to the fact that I live with one of the co-organizers. From it’s humble upstart beginnings, NEPA BlogCon has grown and matured into a powerful, full-featured conference that…
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Clean out a messy “Open With” menu in Finder
Dan Moren on Six Colors: We’re used to cruft accumulating in all sorts of unwanted places in our lives, but among my least favorite is the Finder’s Open With contextual menu. Follow the link to see how to do it. Good tip.
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Great Scott! A Back to the Future Art Show, hosted by Coalwork, begins tomorrow
Kyle Ruane, my partner at Plain and Coalwork, is hosting a Back to the Future art show that begins tomorrow at 6pm and runs through the end of November. Should be a grand time. I’ll be bringing my GoPro.
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Bradley Chambers leaves Evernote
Bradley Chambers: As of 10/18/15, I’ve completely left Evernote. What started out as a simple “delete notes that are not longer needed” project, ended with me completely exporting everything out. Evernote hasn’t added a feature in a long time that I cared about. Keep in mind that Bradley literally wrote the book on Evernote. Evernote…
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Paper by Dropbox
New note writing thingy from Dropbox named something completely original; Paper. Remember this?
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Paddelfahrrad
Paddelfahrrad is German for “paddle bike”. Kai Eggemann and Michael Meyer-Coors created a prototype paddle bike and it works pretty well. Supposedly they are moving forward on making these through start-up funding and crowd funding. Good for those two. Fun thing to work on. /via Paddling.net
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Evernote or Notes?
Brett Kelly ponders the switch from Evernote to Notes and the differences between the two services. While listing the main differences he remarks: Evernote works on platforms beside OS X; if you’re all hot to trot with Notes.app and you have a Windows computer at work, Notes becomes a whole lot less usable. This isn’t…
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A Simple Secret to Better Street Photography
DL Cade writing for 500px: Motion. Simple as that. In my experience scrolling through thousands of photos every single day, the street photos that make me stop and stare, the ones that captivate my imagination, imply a before and after to the frame they captured, and they do this through the use of motion. Yup.
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DuckDuckGo News Search
Searching for a term which results in news stories is getting better and better over on DDG, my search engine of choice on all of my devices: With better coverage, you can expect to see news show up more often and in more relevant situations. The visuals were updated to improve readability and make the…
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Overcast 2 is free
Overcast, the podcast player I use on my iPhone every single day, just got a rather nice update. Marco Arment: After a year of work, Overcast 2 is now available as a free update for everyone. It’s mostly a major under-the-hood improvement, with relatively few user-facing changes. But they’re pretty good, I think. I think…
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WeWork valued at $10B
Nitasha Tiku for BuzzFeed on WeWork’s recent round of financing: The company has raised $1 billion in less than half a decade, and its valuation has grown commensurately. In February 2014, WeWork’s financiers said it was worth $1.5 billion. In December 2014, a new set of financiers pumped that number up to $5 billion. Half…
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Ad control
Something else to consider during this ad blocking and ad serving conversation is that if you publish your words, photos, sounds, videos on your own web site you can control the ads that are shown on it. In fact you can choose to show none at all. If you share these things on sites, services, or…
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Kayaking Dunn Pond in September
I shared a few photos from my paddle in August and I plan on sharing some from paddles in October, November, and December. Hold me to it. I don’t mind getting cold to catalog how the pond changes over the next few months this fall. Here are a few photos from last Friday, September 11th.…
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Sleep++
From _David Smith, the creator of Pedometer++ (which I highly recommend) comes Sleep++ — an app for Apple Watch that monitors how you sleep at night based on your movement. This obviously creates an issue since most people would charge their Apple Watch while they sleep. He offers this solution: The TL/DR is to charge…
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Unblocking The Deck
I run Ghostery in Safari on my Mac. Currently I’m allowing Google Analytics (stats), Adobe TypeKit (fonts), and The Deck (ads). Here is why The Deck is the only ad network I’m currently allowing through. Some may block TypeKit for speed but I don’t mind a small amount of load time to read the current…