Blog
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The parts of Lion that I like
Chris Coleman on Twitter last night: All of the things that are great on iOS are the same things that are absolutely worthless in OS X Lion. Since upgrading to Lion I’ve come to love many of the iOS-lessons-learned that Apple had decided to bring "Back to the Mac" and so I was puzzled by […]
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3D Camera mapping brings old photos to life
Although I’ve seen this done with modern photography tricks I don’t recall ever seeing [3D mapping done on old images](http://vimeo.com/25392699). The result is captivating. /via [Laughing Squid](http://laughingsquid.com/historical-photos-of-hungary-brought-to-life-with-3d-camera-mapping/).
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ifttt
[If This Then That](http://ifttt.com/) is a web service that allows you to plug into a few other web services and trigger actions based on certain criteria. Example: If I take a photo using Instagram store it in Dropbox as well. /via [Kyle Neath on Twitter](https://twitter.com/kneath/statuses/112593350426763264).
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Six ways to tackle boring tasks
Earlier this year I wrote a rather blabbering post about how you should reward yourself while you’re doing tasks that you don’t like doing. I gave the example of treating yourself to your favorite drink for filing your quarterly taxes. Well, it turns out I’m not alone in thinking that this is a good idea. Timo […]
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Innovation’s best friend is routine
Geoff DiMasi on [how to rid yourself of too many decision-based distractions in order to spur innovation](http://punkave.com/window/2011/04/13/innovations-best-friend-routine): >"In my estimation, the best way to make innovation happen is to make time for it by making many other things in your life routine. >Put your keys in the same place when you get home each day. […]
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M27: Not a comet
Sixteen months or so ago [I suggested](http://cdevroe.com/links/astronomy-photo-of-the-day/) that you subscribe to the [Astronomy Photo of the Day](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/). You’ve been subscribed ever since, right? On 1 September [the featured photo was of M27](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110901.html) a nebula first cataloged simply as being ‘not a comet’ by Charles Messier in 18th century France in his catalog of things that […]
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Footnotify
[Footnotify](http://openideas.ideon.co/2011/rehabilitate-disruptive-footnotes) is a great extension for Safari or Chrome that enhances the default way these browsers handle footnotes. I’ve been using it for a week and I can’t imagine not having it now.
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Thai Thai
Pla Jean. Steamed mussels. These came from a new place in Scranton, PA called Thai Thai. Excellent food.
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Save these two kittens
I [warned you](https://twitter.com/cdevroe/status/110382150850846720). These two kittens are going to the ASPCA tomorrow if we can not find a home for them. Desperate times call for Sarah McLachlan measures. Oh, Sarah, don’t sue me. Everyone should totally [buy your music](http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/sarah-mclachlan/id111192).
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Found: Two kittens
If anyone wants one or both contact me pronto.
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Indy Hall turns 4
Today [Independents Hall](http://www.indyhall.org/), a coworking space in Philadelphia, turns 4 years old. To think, [I was there on day one](http://cdevroe.com/notes/indyhall-opening/). Congratulations to all involved that have worked very hard and made a big difference in Philadelphia. Alex Hillman, cofounder of Independence Hall, [covers it a bit more thoroughly](http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/09/4-years-of-jfdi/).
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An increase in traffic from StumbleUpon
Fred Wilson about [his daily pageviews nearly doubling recently](http://www.avc.com/a\_vc/2011/08/somethings-happening-here.html): >"In the past week, the daily visitors at AVC have gone from an average of 10k per day to over 20k per day. Where is it coming from? Well the answer to that is pretty obvious – StumbleUpon." I too am seeing an increase of traffic […]
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Everyone is going Github
A few days ago [I linked to CodeIgniter on github](http://cdevroe.com/links/ci-github/). Now [Crowd Favorite](http://crowdfavorite.com/), a WordPress development shop, has [moved all of their stuff there too](). It would be so awesome if sometime soon [WordPress](http://wordpress.org) itself moved to Git and used Github.
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Geofences by Flickr
Happily, Flickr is back at doing a little innovating in the photo space. >"Geofences are special locations that deserve their own geo privacy settings. Simply draw a circle on a map, choose a geo privacy setting for that area, and you’re done. Existing photos in that location are updated with your new setting, and any […]
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How to: Put a Mac running OS X Lion to sleep
[ad#Adsense: Horiz 468] As I outlined in [_Recent software problems_](http://cdevroe.com/notes/recent-software-problems/): >"Since upgrading to Lion my Mac isn’t going to sleep. It is frustrating as I’m the type of person that never, ever shut my Mac down. Instead I usually would just close the lid and be on my way. But, now, when I come back […]
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I use core iPad apps
Marco Arment [writing about core tablet apps](http://www.marco.org/2011/08/29/what-does-the-amazon-tablet-need-to-do): > "I see normal people using iPads all the time, and I hardly ever see them using Safari, Calendar, Maps, or Music." Maybe I’m not what many would consider "normal" but I use the core iPad apps all the time. In fact, I spend most of my time […]
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Inkling by Wacom
[ad#Adsense: Horiz 468] [Inkling from Wacom](http://www.wacom.com/en/Products/Inkling.aspx) records what you draw on paper and creates vector graphics, complete with multiple layers, that you can transfer to the computer in a variety of formats. It is also extremely portable and well-designed. WANT. Watch the demo. /via TechCrunch.
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Dominoes
Good weekend for games.
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Hurricane Irene as seen by NOAA GOES-13 satellite
 Easily [the most impressive photo of Hurricane Irene](http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6083128930/in/photostream/lightbox/) and it was taken by NASA’s NOAA GOES-13 satellite.
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Swinging ship
Weee!
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CodeIgniter, now on Github
I don’t use PHP often but when I do I use [CodeIgniter](http://codeigniter.com/). And now [it is on Github](https://github.com/EllisLab/CodeIgniter).
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Companies are buying iPads in bulk
Orders like these surely help the iPad maintain its dominance in the tablet (read: iPad) market. [United Airlines just picked up 100,000 iPads](http://www.splatf.com/2011/08/ipad-united/ ) for their employees and [the Tampa Bay Bucs got one for each of their team members](http://www.splatf.com/2011/08/bucs-ipad/) (50 ). And I thought owning two iPads was a lot.
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Harford Fair
"High and dry here."
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High praise for The Economist for iPad
Ryan Singer of 37signals [about The Economist for iPad](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2995-the-economist-on-the-ipad-perfect): > "I don’t get to say this often: it’s a perfect execution." Though I have purchased books I have yet to purchase or subscribe to a magazine or newspaper on the iPad. Ryan’s praise for The Economist may change that.
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Jig
[Jig](http://jig.com/) is a new service from Joshua Schachter, who built del.icio.us, that is a place to find things you need. You can’t buy a new watch on Jig but you can ask people for suggestions on the best watch to buy or where to get the best price on a certain watch or even how […]
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Quality is contagious
Kyle Neath on [_Relentless Quality_](http://warpspire.com/posts/relentless-quality/): > "Broken windows are the reason most large software projects suck to work on. A little technical debt here, a few shortcuts there, and pretty soon you’ve got a codebase so full of broken windows that no one even cares if they throw another pile of broken glass on the […]
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Using Markdown
I know I’m late to the game but I’m now using John Gruber’s [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/markdown) for writing on this site as well as documentation at work. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Oh, I’m using [Mark Jaquith’s](http://markjaquith.com/) [Markdown on Save WordPress plugin](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/markdown-on-save/) and it works great.
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3,000 hours of television from 9/11
Archive.org’s collection of [3,000 hours of television from 9/11](http://www.archive.org/details/911). Chilling. /via [Andy Baio](http://waxy.org/links/).
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A shorter URL for Google Maps
> "Starting today, when obtaining a link to a Google Map using the ‘Link’ button on the upper right-hand corner of the page, you now have the option of obtaining a convenient, shortened link by clicking on the ‘Short URL’ check box. Shortened URLs can make it easier to coordinate events and share maps with […]
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Piano Across America
[Dotan Negrin](http://pianoacrossamerica.com/) is traveling across the United States playing an upright piano he drags along with him in his truck. He’s living off donations given to him while he plays in some really cool locations. I’ve been enamored with his posts for months and I’m finally getting around to sharing it. I hope that when […]
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Blue Sky Caf
Ate lunch with Kyle and Jeff. 5 stars.
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Forecast, let your friends know where you’re going
Interesting niche that I know many would love to see filled by Foursquare et al. [Forecast](http://foreca.st/) is a mobile application (iOS/Android currently) that lets you tell your friends _where you will be_ and _when you’ll get there_. Then, when you arrive, you can quickly check into wherever you are via Foursquare. /via [Brian Shaler](http://brian.shaler.name/).
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How to: Swap events and projects in iMovie
I’ve been messing around in iMovie recently and a few of the video tutorials I ran across confused me because they showed the events viewer on top of the projects stage. This allowed for a much, much larger editing stage than the default iMovie view. Turns out this is very simple to do. To swaps […]
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Ludum Dare
A 48-hour solo hackathon for game developers to create a game. Pretty fun. Shaun Inman, who just released The Last Rocket for iOS, put together a quick game called Data Entry Sentry that works on an iPad (or any Webkit browser). Fun to play. I don’t know where he gets the energy.
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PicPlum – Send printed photos to family easily.
I’m sure there are a million uses for [PicPlum](http://picplum.com/) but I can’t think of a single reason why someone with children and extended family wouldn’t choose to use it to mail printed photos automatically each month. PicPlum is everything printing photos usually isn’t; easy and affordable.
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Party at my sisters
We used her new olive tray.
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Towards City Hall
After a bit of breakfast.
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Just missed
I was using Eliza’s new Sigma 10-20mm and happened upon this dragonfly. If only I realized that I had to be at least 1 foot away to truly get him in focus. Oh well, this is how we learn.
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Lens testing at the lake
Eliza’s gifts are awesome.
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Recent software problems
I’ve been having some software problems lately and I thought it would be interesting to jot down what they are. Or, maybe just cathartic. Fun for me more than for you, dear reader, but alas this is my blog and I can cry if I want to, cry if I want to, you would cry […]
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Goodbye webOS, we hardly even knew you.
HP has scuttled several webOS powered devices including the TouchPad and Pre phones. Their press release leaves the future of webOS rather open… HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward. Presumably the webOS team inside of HP/Palm isn’t so large that it costs HP a ton of […]
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Hidden settings in MPlayerX
I’ve switched to using [MPlayerX](http://mplayerx.org/) ([App Store](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mplayerx/id421131143?mt=12)) since upgrading to Mac OS X Lion because it can play many more formats than Quicktime and is, in many ways, much better looking than VLC. Today I’ve stumbled across [a slew of hidden settings](https://github.com/niltsh/MPlayerX/wiki/Some-settings-you-can’t-find-in-the-UI) that you can’t find via the UI.
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How browsers work
What happens after you hit Enter on a browser? A lot. And the people over at HTML5 Rocks have taken the time to explain every nitty gritty detail about [how a web browser works](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/internals/howbrowserswork/). You’ll need to freshen up that beverage before you sink your teeth into this article. If you don’t have time now […]
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Tweeting for steak
Guy half-jokingly tweets that he wants a steak hand-delivered to an airport terminal from one of his favorite restaurants. They show up with a free meal. [Great, fun story](http://shankman.com/the-best-customer-service-story-ever-told-starring-mortons-steakhouse/). Pardon me while I tweet about that new Jeep I’ve been wanting.
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Aviatin’
Eliza got me some Aviators.
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Ireland, ready for our arrival
We’ll be heading to Ireland in a few months. According to these two screenshots from Google Maps Ireland is ready for our arrival.
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Uninstalling applications on Lion is arguably more difficult
When I switched to the Mac I was surprised how easy it was to install and uninstall applications in OS X compared to the horrible installer workflow and the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel of Windows. For those that are unaware, prior to Lion installing an application on the Mac went something like this; download a […]
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Control Spotify using Alfred
Speaking of Alfred, Jeff Johns (fellow Viddler team member) has released an Alfred Extension to control Spotify.
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Introducing Shh: An AppleScript and Alfred Extension to close all those noisy streams
As the work day progresses I find myself with more and more "streams" open. Not long after I log onto my computer in the morning Twitter, Skype, iChat, Mail and other streams are open and active and at multiple points throughout the day they steal my attention. However, there are times when I just want […]
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Marco Arment reviews Coffee Joulies so we don’t have to
Thank goodness for people that are geeks about different things than I am and are willing to share their findings with the world. That is exactly what Marco Arment is (a geek about different things than I am, willing to share findings) when he reviews Coffee Joulies (which started as a Kickstarter project). When he […]
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