November 1st, 2012
My favorite iPhone application for shooting black and white photos, Hueless by Curious Satellite, just got a massive update. Even though the update would be worth paying for again it is available for free to current customers in the App Store.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Curious Satellite does with the upcoming Huemore.
October 8th, 2012
Wedge is a Mac client for App.net that I really like. It just hit 0.3.3 with a slew of updates.
The rapid development of these clients, the feedback loop, and the growth of App.net is all very compelling and fun to be part of once again.
October 4th, 2012
“Apple has added the ability for the sensor in the iPhone 5 to take pictures at 4 times the sensitivity. If you’re a camera buff this means the ISO can go from a limit of 800 before, up to 3200 now!”
Camera+ was always too slow to use on my iPhone 4. Since upgrading to the iPhone 5 Camera+ has made its way onto my main Dock. I’m glad for this update.
One quibble, though, would be that I wish Camera+ would save its photos directly to my Camera Roll rather than to its own Library.
September 25th, 2012
If you use Instagram and you updated to iOS 6 or bought an iPhone 5; you may now update. Seeing the first few comments in addition to the likes on a photo in Instagram is actually a palpable upgrade in experience.
Addendum: Something I didn’t notice, because I literally have never used this feature, is that Instagram is “phasing out live filters”. Live filters means that when you take a photo you can optionally choose to see how the filter will look even before you shoot the photo. It sounds great on paper but it forced Instagram to create what some feel are less superior filters overall. So, by getting rid of them, they can presumably make better filters and – perhaps – even more filters more quickly? We’ll see.
Addendum /via John Gruber.
June 26th, 2012
Instagram was just updated to version 2.5. Here are a few of the highlights.
- Revamped profile tab
- Search for users and tags in the Explore tab
- Improvements to commenting
- User search autocompletes based on people you follow
- Visual improvements
- Speed optimizations
- Optionally share likes to Facebook (enable in your Profile > Sharing Settings > Facebook)
This is a decent upgrade and there are a few things to note. Instagram’s rapid growth has been, in part, due to its Popular tab. Even if you were new to the network you could easily see stunning photos. The Popular tab is now called Explore. And this is important for product people to note. Instagram needed an easier way to find photos you might be interested in (such as an event or other interest) and also find users. And many would be scared to “mess with” the Popular tab. However, taking the most popular tab (the Popular tab) and adding those features to it really shows what Instagram considers important. They want people to discover people and photos easier than ever.
Also, cross-network “likes” is an interesting concept that we’re about to see a lot more of. It will even be in Mac OS X Mountain Lion next month.
There are some hidden gems in this release to including this one from Keegan Jones.
June 14th, 2012
The latest version of WordPress has been released featuring a pretty great live theme preview feature. Theme developers will need to do a few things to make their themes compatible. Upgrade!
May 21st, 2012
Not-so-hot on the heels of my interview with Panic in September 2009 comes Coda 2 and its sister? iPad app Diet Coda – both available on May 24th. Coda 2 looks like an amazingly big update.
March 25th, 2012
Tumblr, in their recently-updated Terms of Service that all logged in users are being asked to agree to.
You have to be at least 13 years old to use Tumblr. We’re serious: it’s a hard rule, based on U.S. federal and state legislation, even if you’re 12.9 years old. If you’re younger than 13, don’t use Tumblr. Ask your parents for an Xbox or try books.
I’d add, if you’re less than 13, try going outside. But this is good.
March 20th, 2012
This week I’ve added a new feature to Nilai called Smart Labels. Nilai currently offers seven labels that can be used to categorize a bookmark: Read Later, Video, Recipe, Shopping, Inspiration, Documentation, and Research. Each time a new bookmark is added the member can simply choose a label and they’re done.
Starting today Nilai will begin automatically labeling bookmarks based on their URL. Some sites are dedicated to a certain type of content such as YouTube, Viddler, SimplyRecipes, Amazon, and others. If a bookmark is being saved from YouTube chances are you’ll want to label that bookmark a video. So why force people to choose the video label every time? Nilai will now do that for them. Saving clicks and time.
The current list of sites that Smart Labels will handle out-of-the-box are YouTube.com (video), Viddler.com (video), Devour.com (video), PHP.net (documentation), api.rubyonrails.org (documentation), ruby-doc.org (documentation), docs.jquery.com (documentation), codeigniter.com (documentation), CSS-Tricks.com (documentation), developer.apple.com (documentation), SimplyRecipes.com (recipe), AllRecipes (recipe), Svpply (shopping), Amazon (shopping), Fab (shopping), Zappos (shopping). And I plan to add more in the near future.
Smart Labels are also smart enough to know when you may be bookmarking a page on one of these sites that don’t fit the label. For example, if you were to bookmark Devour’s About page, Nilai will not think it is a video.
Smart Labels can be overridden. If you’d rather label bookmarks from PHP.net as research rather than documentation you may do so. In fact, every member can set up their own Smart Labels for any URLs of their choosing. (see screenshot) Simply bookmark a link, select a label, and click Add a Smart Label. All future marks from that domain will be labeled automatically. Saving you clicks and time and making Nilai’s Smart Labels feature even more useful to you.
Here are a few Smart Labels I’ve already set up for myself: Daring Fireball (Read Later), Viddler’s Developer docs (Documentation), Tweets (Read Later), Dribbble (Inspiration), and Uncrate (Shopping). This makes my life a lot easier. You may want to do the same, or, you may want to set them up completely different. Your choice.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Smart Labels evolve as Nilai’s members use them.
Smart Labels are not the only updates to Nilai that were released this week. Members can check out the changelog for the slew of updates that I’ve managed to get finished.
March 16th, 2012
Instapaper 4.1 just hit the shelves. Here’s Marco Arment with what’s new:
The biggest two changes are the six awesome new reading fonts and the distraction-free, full-screen reading interface.
I just updated Instapaper for my iPad and iPhone. For free. Marco puts a lot of thought and care into this application and it only costs a few dollars. If you’d like to mark things to read later I suggest grabbing Instapaper.
Side note: I’m hoping to integrate the brand-new-not-even-finished-yet Nilai with Instapaper in a future update. I do not foresee Nilai supporting any other read later services.
September 26th, 2011
A very, very nice update of WordPress for iOS was been released. The application for iPhone and iPad now has a simple content editor and the QuickPhoto feature can now post images from your Library instead of going straight to the camera.
Although I wish the app supported Markdown format (rather than just HTML) I’ll take it.
Just in time for our trip to Ireland too.
Update: A small, yet very welcomed update, is that the Posts tab is now the default tab rather than the Comments tab. This makes things so much quicker. Again, a very, very nice update to WordPress for iOS.
May 15th, 2011
My favorite launcher application, Alfred, has been updated to version 0.9. I suggest buying the Powerpack but it is free if you want to kick the tires.
Calling it a launcher application is sort of limiting. Alfred can help you play music, give you quick access to your clipboard’s history, and even help you attach files to your emails. Its absolutely great and version 0.9 is packed to the gills with new features and updates.
March 25th, 2011
Even though there is yet to be an announcement on the WordPress for iOS blog, 2.7.1 has been released on the App Store and it comes with two key updates (at least from this blogger’s chair).
I use my iPad to write posts and, now that I have iPad 2, I hope to do it a lot more often while on the go. WordPress for iOS has been making very steady progress lately and this update is a very timely one.
Why are these updates key for me? Because iPad 2 would instantly crash when trying to add a photo to a blog post. I was able to work around it by using iPhone but it was pretty frustrating. Also, I write posts, save them as drafts, and then schedule them for publishing all from my iPad. This allows me to pick the time that a post gets published regardless of when I feel impelled to write it and also gives me time to edit them (which I did poorly on yesterday’s post). Being able to see which posts are in draft right in the posts list is a very welcomed update.
Thanks WordPress for iOS team.
October 27th, 2010
I was going to wait until The Watercolor Gallery hit 150 or even 200 pieces in its archive before I gave another update but several key things are going on and I want them documented. For context see the announcement post, the 30 pieces update, the tools of The Watercolor Gallery, and the post celebrating 100 pieces in the gallery.
Today I’m going to focus on audience. I haven’t really talked much about audience since I began. To be honest, I wasn’t really focused on it. I was tracking it but I wasn’t worried about where the audience would come from or actively trying to grow the audience on my own. I didn’t buy any ads, share any links, or do anything special whatsoever. I simply focused on making a gallery that I would like to visit. In fact, the only update I gave regarding audience was back in August when I said:
“I have many, many ideas for The Watercolor Gallery and I’ll be working on them as the site gets more and more of an audience. Right now, after only a week, the audience seems to be near 50 people per day. I’m extremely happy with this.”
Well, the Watercolor Gallery has found an audience. Since that update there have been several surges in both traffic and people ‘following’ the gallery on Tumblr and Twitter. The two most notable surges amounted to thousands of new people being ‘members’ of the gallery. And if I was happy with 50 people per day I’m very happy for thousands. The two main surges resulted from a painting going ‘Tumblr-viral’ and, yesterday, The Watercolor Gallery being featured on Tumblr Tuesday.
By the way, having a single post go Tumblr-rival seemingly has more legs than being featured on Tumblr Tuesday. However, being featured is only 24 hours old so I’ll withhold firm judgement until the dust settles.
I have reason to be happy with The Watercolor Gallery gaining so much momentum in such a short period of time. As I said in August, I have plans for the gallery that would be utterly fruitless without a fairly large audience. So far I’ve added two new series to the gallery in addition to the paintings.
The artist interview series has been a smashing success. It isn’t easy, and took a bit of work from me to get rolling but so far the interviews that have been published are just great and the upcoming interviews (of which I have 12 in the can right now) are just outstanding. Watercolor artists are part of a global community and this fact shines through these interviews. So far I’ve published interviews with artists in Bangkok, Thailand, Waxahachie, Texas, Scarborough, England, Los Angeles, California and Jerome, Arizona. These interviews have not been the most popular (in terms of “likes” or “reblogs” on Tumblr) posts on the gallery but – I think – they add a certain professional nature to the gallery as a whole. The Watercolor Gallery isn’t just a Tumblog that reblogs every watercolor painting that passes by my desk. It is a serious look at how artists can be inspired by looking at and learning from other artists, their paintings and their workspaces.
Which leads us to the Artspaces series. In a word, this series has been a flop. I’ve gotten absolutely zero submissions since I began this series on the gallery. Zero. The artspaces that you see on the site have been gathered by me personally. I’ve searched for them, asked for permission from their respective owners to publish them, written the posts and published them. But I’m not giving up. I believe we have a lot to learn from the workspaces of every artist. I believe every artist should want to have their artspace published on The Watercolor Gallery – for two main reasons. First, I think it is an easy way to be seen on the gallery (whether or not the artist specializes in watercolor). With the audience growing every day it now means something to be featured on the gallery. Second, I think it is a fun series and who doesn’t like to have fun? I might be wrong about the Artspaces series but I’m going to give it a little while to catch on before I make that decision.
I believe the Tumblr community is one of less interaction then online communities of the past. They’d rather simply click a “like” button on a photo then read an entire post, submit a photo to your site or compete in a contest. At least, that is the way that it appears. I plan on overcoming this challenge by, hopefully, providing something valuable to everyone that joins the gallery. I hope The Watercolor Gallery becomes a notable moment in an artist’s journey when they are featured there and for it to be another tool for artists all over the world to be inspired by others.
The future of The Watercolor Gallery looks very bright. Some of the things I thought I would have to wait months to be able to try I believe I can do sooner thanks to these boosts in audience. I’m looking forward to working even harder on making The Watercolor Gallery a truly special place for watercolor artists and those they inspire to gather together and enjoy each other’s work and company. I’m extremely happy that so many people have thought it worthy of their “follow”.
October 8th, 2010
Back in late August I was celebrating over 30 works of art in The Watercolor Gallery’s archive. Today I’m celebrating over 100. It is an amazing milestone for me personally as it hasn’t been easy to try to create a valuable gallery in such a short period of time.
To celebrate hitting this milestone I’ve begun posting interviews with artists from all over the world. I’ve been collecting these interviews for about a month in preparation for hitting the big One Oh Oh. The first interview is with Kannika Soonthornyankit from Bangkok, Thailand. I figured where better to start than half-way around the globe?
Future interviews will be with artists in New York, Texas, England, Switzerland and even some with artists that seem to have no permanent address.
The entire purpose of The Watercolor Gallery, as stated on its about page, is to help inspire me and others to do great work in watercolor. The artist interview series is just one more way that I’m trying to accomplish that goal.
I’ve got plans for how to celebrate reaching 250 and 500 works of art in the archive but you’ll just have to wait and see what those are.
To anyone that has subscribed to The Watercolor Gallery’s RSS feed, followed it on Tumblr, or followed @h2ocolor on Twitter – thank you. Thank you for being interested and hopefully inspired. Stay tuned, there is much more to come.
November 21st, 2009
Last weekend I rolled out an updated theme for this site when your browsing it with an iPhone. The main reason for this is my mobile photos. When I post a mobile photo my site automatically Twitter’s a link to it, like this, and a lot of people flood in to view the photos and some of them are on iPhones. I wanted this site to load a lot faster than it did before for these mobile photo pages and this definitely solves that problem.
However, another reason to do this theme came up last weekend. Someone asked me about fishing, particularly this fairly large bass that I caught this summer, and I had trouble, on my own iPhone, on my own site, to find that photo. Turns out I hadn’t posted it yet! It was taking forever to search the site and I got fed up with it. But, now I’ll be able to find stuff quickly given that this new theme works site-wide and has a really great search option right at the top.
Those of you without iPhones may be wondering where your theme for this site is? It is coming. I’ll be working to add all Webkit enabled mobile browsers first (e.g. DROID) this weekend and then will be moving onto other mobile browsers until I squash the majority of them.
Happy mobile browsing.
October 28th, 2009
I know we’re 1/3 of the way through Fall but for those of you that haven’t yet visited the site in a little while – come take a look at the Fall refresh.
July 9th, 2009
As of a few hours ago, if you’re viewing any of the mobile photos (such as this one that I just put up) on an iPhone or iPod touch, the viewing area should automatically ‘zoom’ into the proper area. You may send payments via Paypal.
June 19th, 2009
Annnndddd…. refreshed.
It is summer and that means its time to reach under the bed, pull out the boxes full of shorts, tee shirts, snorkeling equipment, and frisbees. Time to get away from the TV and computer screens, get outside and enjoy the sun.
That same spirit is what spurred me to give this site a slight refresh. It isn’t all about color and the photo on top either. There are literally hundreds of small edits that I’ve made (which I’m very happy with). Changes to note is the new mobile photos page, the way mobile photos display, and the home page showing the latest photos from both the mobile photos and photos categories.
I’m not going to enumerate all of the changes here. I’m going to eat my own dog food and go fishing instead.
April 13th, 2009
This personal blog of mine has been around for a long time. It started in 1996 but it wasn’t called cdevroe.com then. Over the years it has, for better or worse, transformed more than a few times. It has changed names, domains, services, software, designs, and purposes.
Today it changes again. I’ve decided that my personal blog being ‘named’ my name just wasn’t working. I’ve known this for a long time but I didn’t do anything about it because I wasn’t sure what to do. Finally I got sick and tired of thinking about it and just decided to name it after what it has already become, rather than naming it something I’d like it to become. If that makes any sense.
As of today this blog, which is still going to be my personal Web site in all of the glory that it has come to be, is known as First Initial, Last Name – The official Web site of Colin Devroe.
For several years I have admired the ‘blogs’ that have been branded with their own names yet are run by one or very few people. If you read this blog with any regularity you can probably guess the forthcoming list, but here it is anyway: Daring Fireball run by John Gruber, Waxy.org by Andy Baio, Avalonstar by Bryan Veloso, Waking Ideas by Daniel Nicolas, Monday by Noon by Jon Christopher – and many, many others. I’m listing my friends who are good examples because, well, they are my friends and this is my blog and I can do that sort of thing.
This doesn’t mean that I put my own personal blog in this same line up. I don’t. It isn’t worthy. Also, some of these examples shouldn’t be classified as blogs. Daring Fireball is a business. It is the way John feeds his family. It just so happens that John’s business is “blogging”. This site will never be a Daring Fireball.
So First Initial, Last Name it is. I may grab an appropriate domain name for it, at some point, but I’ve always done more than fine with cdevroe.com so I don’t see that happening any time soon. Who types in domain names more than once or twice anyway, really? You should have subscribed to this site by now.
Side note: I’ve recently added the Share This button to my site (come to this post to see it). If you feel that anything I share on this site is worthy of letting others know about, please consider using this button to make it quick and easy to share the post, photo, or video on your service of choice.
Thanks to all of you that subscribe, read, and participate on my site. I really do appreciate it.