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Square is rethinking the card case model and going more for an application that allows you to pay at Square-enabled merchants just by having your phone in your pocket. They call it Pay with Square. I love the idea. And, as I’ve said before, I really, really want these types of systems to take off […]

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AKA – August 10, 1972 Bolide. During a recent trip to a nearby observatory the presentation highlighted this little number, a comet that streaked across the sky in early August 1972 over the Tetons. Notice the trajectory. They don’t call this thing an earthgrazer for nothing. This small bit of space rock (about 9′ in […]

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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 […]

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Derek Steen, friend and co-worker, on Twitter. First, @cdevroe removes comments from his blog. Now, he’s uploading DSLR photographs to Instagram. Talk about hipster… — Derek Steen (@djsteen) March 23, 2012 I realize he was poking fun. But I wanted to address this topic anyway so I thought I might as well reply to him […]

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Loren Brichter interviewed for The Geek Talk. I did some pretty nutso stuff with that little turtle. I wonder what he’s been up to.

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I’ve seen and heard the word ‘indefinite’ used in place of the word ‘forever’. I figured it was time for another realwords intervention. The definitions of indefinite are as follows. lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time: they may face indefinite detention not clearly expressed or defined; vague: their status remains indefinite. Now […]

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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 […]

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Jon Gingerich from 20 Common Grammar Mistakes that (Almost) Everyone Makes has an addition to make to my realwords tag: Contrary to common misuse, “moot” doesn’t imply something is superfluous. It means a subject is disputable or open to discussion. e.g., The idea that commercial zoning should be allowed in the residential neighborhood was a […]

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 I’ve got a new nights and weekends project and its name is Nilai. Nilai is a simple bookmarking service and over the last few weeks I’ve been having a lot of fun working on it in my spare time. In fact, I have found it so valuable to me that it is now my homepage […]

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This is a subject that is near and dear to me. It is a bit clich to say this but I’ve been blogging since before it was a common verb. I’ve watched, very closely, as the blogging world has evolved over the last decade and even took some small part in that evolution. It wasn’t […]

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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 fontsand 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. […]

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This was a post I was going to write here but I thought the Viddler blog a much better fit. We’re seeing huge demand for reliable, talented online videographers and we think videography is poised for a boom.

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Shawn Blanc during his review of the iPad event: For $99 I think anyone with a Mac and a television should own an Apple TV. I’ll go one step further. I think anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod should own an Apple TV. Nay, two steps further. Anyone with a TV should own an […]

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With only three days left to go and Ze already raising nearly triple what he set out to raise I backed A Show with Ze Frank on Kickstarter. I chose no reward because I feel his show will be reward enough.

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Looking at Apple’s invitation to March 7th’s iPad 3 event may give away exactly what is on the agenda. This wouldn’t be the first time Apple has dropped not-so-subtle hints in their invitations. Here is the short list of things I think Apple is hinting at with their invitation. Retina Display. If you’ve ever used […]

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Since the Mac App Store debut I’ve been disappointed with the way Apple had three unique ways to update the OS, the applications on my Mac, and the applications on my iPhone and iPad. I’m very much looking forward to Mountain Lion’s consolidation of two of these. Serenity Caldwell for Macworld reports: Software Update, possibly […]

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The Messages beta is now available and full-screen mode is a great way to use the application. However, you can’t see your buddy list in full-screen mode. However, there is a trick. Here is how you can see your buddy list window while in full-screen mode. Open Messages. Close your buddy list window. Click the […]

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This would make a killer iOS theme. /via Andy "I track Oscar winning torrents" Baio.

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My favorite composer of movie soundtracks John Williams turned 80 the other day. I hope he continues to live and work another 100 years.

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Josh Davis: If you post a pin to Pinterest, and it links to an ecommerce site that happens to have an affiliate program, Pinterest modifies the link to add their own affiliate tracking code. If someone clicks through the picture from Pinterest and makes a purchase, Pinterest gets paid. They don’t have any disclosure of […]

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According to the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson Jobs reportedly told Google’s Larry Page: [figure] out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s now all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning […]

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While the phrase "Apple has changed the education landscape" may be a little premature I certainly believe that today it has provided the world with the tools and devices to do exactly that. Today Apple updated iBooks to version 2 which can now display much more interactive books than it did previously. While iBooks has […]

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This Dashboard widget post (see the others) is more for developers and designers than the average person. Colourmod is a Dashboard widget for Mac OS X that you’ll end up using much more than you think you would. I’m not a designer but as someone who fiddles around on the web I find myself in […]

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I found myselfnoddingmy head in agreement with Shawn Blanc’s It’s Just Stuff: I may drive a Jeep because I’m a Colorado boy at heart, and I may own a charcoal grill because I like things “pure”, and I may own Apple gadgets because I have an affinity for fine software. So yes, you can tell […]

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The post on GAget was mildly popular. I’m happy about that. It means that more people are seeing a useful Mac OS X Dashboard widget than may have otherwise. Especially since Apple hasn’t updated their Dashboard widget directory since very early in 2011. Well, here is another widget I suggest taking a look at. Whenever […]

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This isn’t anything new and it has been covered elsewhere in much more detail. However, there are a few ways to speed up Mail. I’ve tried two. One I highly recommend, the other is up to you because I don’t want to be responsible for any problems that may arise as a result of you […]

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Let me just admit this right off the bat; I don’t use services in Mac OS X. I’ll use an Alfred extension or two in order to make my life a little easier but I’ve never really tried to get services to stick in my workflows. I’m going to change that. This article by Kirk […]

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This edition of real words doesn’t really come from me but rather from Wayne Bartz who manages the Ben Franklin TechVentures incubator in Bethlehem, PA where Viddler was annexed for the first five or so years. He seems a bit miffed at people mistaking an incubator for an accelerator. The best argument I could use […]

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Henry David Thoreau, on January 7, 1852, pretty much nails my thoughts of every evening. We never tire of the drama of sunset. I go forth each afternoon and look into the west a quarter of an hour before sunset, with fresh curiosity, to see what new picture will be painted there, what new panorama […]

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Robert X. Cringely predicts that Eric Schmidt could be Microsoft’s next CEO replacing Steve Ballmer. I’m not saying it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen but I will say it would be an even worse move than when the Board decided Ballmer was a good choice to replace Bill Gates. At the end of his piece he […]

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That artisan style bread recipe I published the other day has spurred on a few people to make their own. It really is very, very easy to make this style of bread. It is rewarding and delicious to boot! So, if you’re reading this and you sorta kinda wanted to try to make your own […]

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Artisan bread isbest described by thinking about the person who makes the bread. An artisan baker is a craftsperson who is trained to the highest ability to mix, ferment, shape and bake a hand crafted loaf of bread. They understand the science behind the chemical reactions of the ingredients and know how to provide the […]

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Jeremiah Warren recreates level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. using paper and stop motion animation. It is remarkably well done.

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For the last few nights I’ve been playing around with The Night Sky on iOS. It is really fun to use and a wee bit magical. If you want an app on your iPhone that has some wow-factor – this is it. Everyone I’ve showed this app has purchased it immediately after seeing it.

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Roger Ebert gives six reasons why he thinks movie revenue was way down in 2011. Here is one of them: 3. The theater experience. Moviegoers above 30 are weary of noisy fanboys and girls. The annoyance of talkers has been joined by the plague of cell-phone users, whose bright screens are a distraction. Worse, some […]

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Om Malik on the tech start-up scene in Berlin: The lack of classical German industries means it is a city with fewer jobs than other parts of Germany. It also means the city has lower wages compared to the rest of Germany and much of Europe. The sprawling nature of the city means that Berlin […]

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You may remember that Jorge Garcia and his girlfriend Bethany Shady had a podcast for behind-the-scenes LOST stuff appropriately named Geronimo Jack’s Beard. Well, Garcia and Shady are back with a new podcast for behind-the-scenes stuff on Alcatraz, a new show coming in the spring, named Diego’s Soul Patch.Here isthe iTunes feed. I’ve seen the […]

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Joanne Cronin on restaurant reservations that end up in no-shows: This problem isn’t limited just to Irish restaurants as I’ve also noticed similar complaints emerging from English tweeters. Understandably, restaurants are annoyed at these no-shows and late cancellations and the Restaurants Association of Ireland started a press campaign to highlight this issue. Many venues are […]

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I found this interesting, perhaps you will too. Molloy & Sons is a weaving business in Donegal, Ireland.Sadly I didn’t visit Donegal during our visit to Ireland this past October. However, I am glad that they have an excellent website, Put This On recently made an episode video about them, and Nowness also made a […]

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This makes sense. Sabri Ben-Achour for NPR reports that birds sing different tunes in cities than they do in the country. The buildings, noise and other factors in city life make it hard for birds to hear each other unless they sing at different pitches than the surrounding noise. This doesn’t seem like such a […]

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I’m glad someone is finally saying it. Eric Eldon for Aol/Techcrunch: "That’s not 62 million active users, though — a point that everyone covering these numbers seems to have missed. It’s just the number of total users. And specifically, it’s the number of new surnames that Allen’s team has tracked being created on the service. Because […]

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Somewhat related to my last, Adi Robertson on The Verge provides a quick step-by-step on how to add personal documents to your Kindle. I’m cataloging these in hopes of one day buying Eliza a new Kindle and I inherit her old one. Shh, don’t tell her.

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Last night I needed to transfer an EPUB file to Eliza’s Kindle from my Mac. It turns out that Kindles no likey the EPUBs. (I didn’t know this, I’ve never really used one.) So, after a bit of searching I found Calibre that, while it doesn’t have the best looking UI, is sort of the […]

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Horace Dediu of Asymco thinks so. Him, on Twitter: I’m starting to believe that if and when Apple TV is updated the hardware price will be surprisingly low. As you may very well know Eliza and I use our Apple TV a lot. We don’t use all of the features but we use it daily. […]

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At least, not in the same way. Andrew Mayne wrote on Google : "Much of the sales were generated by the news sites and blogs covering the story. This works great once, but is hard to repeat it. Other comedians, even established ones aren’t going to get as lucky. The publicity was a black swan […]

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At least, not in the same way. Andrew Mayne wrote on Google : "Much of the sales were generated by the news sites and blogs covering the story. This works great once, but is hard to repeat it. Other comedians, even established ones aren’t going to get as lucky. The publicity was a black swan […]

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At least, not in the same way. Andrew Mayne wrote on Google : "Much of the sales were generated by the news sites and blogs covering the story. This works great once, but is hard to repeat it. Other comedians, even established ones aren’t going to get as lucky. The publicity was a black swan […]

Continue ▻

At least, not in the same way. Andrew Mayne wrote on Google : "Much of the sales were generated by the news sites and blogs covering the story. This works great once, but is hard to repeat it. Other comedians, even established ones aren’t going to get as lucky. The publicity was a black swan […]

Continue ▻

At least, not in the same way. Andrew Mayne wrote on Google : "Much of the sales were generated by the news sites and blogs covering the story. This works great once, but is hard to repeat it. Other comedians, even established ones aren’t going to get as lucky. The publicity was a black swan […]

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