Blog
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NEPA WordPress Meetup February 2016
Last night was the NEPA WordPress Meetup for February 2016. The weather got a bit crazy yesterday and so the organizers, Phil & Joe, decided to take the meetup online rather than at Coalwork. So that’s what we did. We chatted using Google Hangouts and answered questions presented to us via Slack. It seemed to […]
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A few YouTube subscriptions
I’ve been loving YouTube lately. I watch much more YouTube than traditional TV. I find a lot more value in YouTube. Though I spend a lot of time researching particular topics there are a few channels I’ve subscribed to. Here are a few of them in no particular order and without comment: MKBHD Smarter Everyday […]
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LIGO detects black hole merger
I wrote a bit on Space Bits about LIGO: Once built all we needed to do was wait for a large enough gravitational event to happen that we can measure it with this new tool. Well, it turns out one already happened and the gravitational waves from it were just about to whoosh passed Earth. […]
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Launch Feed
I’ve been going through my older tweets lately and reposting and commenting on a few of them on Twitter. In May 2007 I tweeted about a service called Launch Feed. Using Archive.org’s Way Back Machine we can see what it would have looked like at that time. I thought I’d pull it up today and […]
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Farewell
Fred Wilson recently published a post that I can wholeheartedly agree with him on. Regarding employees leaving your organization he gives the following advice: The thing I caution against is the tendency to get upset at departures and departing employees. I’ve seen leaders take the mob boss approach of “your are dead to me now” […]
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Bijan be gone
Bijan Sabet, on his Tumblr: I deactivated my Facebook account this morning. The slide continues. Ironically, today is the day I decided to cut my #60daybreak short and I jumped back on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. I have my reasons. More soon.
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Publish anywhere you can export your data and keep your URLs
Dave Winer recently wrote that if you have something you want to publish that you should publish it anywhere but Medium. His argument is that Medium could shut down or change course at any moment and your content and your URLs would then be in jeopardy of disappearing. He’s right. That could happen. But that […]
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Wither Wheaton
Anne Wheaton, wife of Wil Wheaton, on her personal blog: I deleted my Twitter account last night and immediately felt relieved. I will miss the tweety buddies who were awesome that I don’t know in real life. I will continue to stay in touch with my friends around the world by phone or by my […]
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Simmons off-air
Brent Simmons on his personal blog: Here’s what I found: being off Twitter, that squeaky treadmill, gave me back some time, and it made me happier and calmer than I would have been. And: I’m not deleting my account, but I’ve turned off all notifications and uninstalled the app from all computers and devices. I […]
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Not long now
I’m concerned about Flickr. I’m concerned about Flickr because Yahoo! is going through a tumultuous time as a company. Last year it was speculated that Yahoo! would sell off its share in Alibaba to earn some dough while they continued to attempt to turn the company around. That quickly turned into rumors about Yahoo! splitting […]
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Peach still fuzzy
I gave Peach a try for 10 minutes (even though I’m on a break). Here are my thoughts: I don’t know if text-based commands will triumph over buttons. Path had buttons for many of the ‘shortcuts’ that are built into Peach, such as sharing your location, and that never “took off” relatively speaking. Will people type them […]
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App wishes
I saw that Bijan Sabet wrote a short post enumerating a few things he’d like to see in some of the applications that he uses. I thought that was cool so I’m doing to do it too. git, the command-line source control tool that I use, has every conceivable feature you could imagine. Except undo. […]
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Thirty five down
I’m now on day 35 of my 60-day break from social media. I wanted to write a post on the 7th, since that would have been a calendar month since the start, but I didn’t. So, today I thought I’d jot down how this experiment has been going. To do so, I’ll answer the same questions […]
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Mike Vial is on a tear
I don’t know Mike Vial. I found his site through the /now page movement. Have you seen my /now page? A few months ago I linked to his blog and shortly thereafter I got a nice email from him thanking me for the link. It felt like it was 2004. Back when the blogosphere was alive […]
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Continuum is great
In Gruber’s link to The Verge’s review of the Lumia 950XL and the Continuum feature (the feature that allows mobile apps to run like desktop apps when the phone is connected to an external display): I’ve seen Continuum demoed, and technically it is impressive. I’m not sure though that it’s something anyone wants or needs. […]
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iCab
Looking for a browser on iOS with a ton of features? Try iCab. Gabe Weatherhead has a great post on iCab. Great apps like this, which are updated far more often than the official apps, are still crippled by the fact that iOS does not allow for choice of default browser or mail client. I […]
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Is the Apple Watch a flop?
Fred Wilson going over his predictions from last year: The Apple Watch was a flop. This is the one I took the most heat on. So I feel a bit vindicated on this point. No sources cited here. I have read many “the Apple Watch is a flop” pieces but none of them have convinced me […]
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The Apple Watch is the original iPhone
I really liked this comparison by Michael D. Shear for the New York Times and I think it is spot on. My wife has an Apple Watch. I’d call her a “light user” of the Watch. She wears it every day but mainly uses it for glancing at text messages. There are a myriad of […]
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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.
Writing helps me think more clearly and to form or transform my opinions. I write about what interests me such as blogging, photography, technology, social media, and my personal creative projects.
Series archives: Diversions, WIS, typicalday