Blog
Writing helps me think more clearly. This archive is longer posts; quick updates now live in notes.
Topics: AI, blogging, photography, programming, projects, Signboard
Inspired by Shawn Blanc's post wherein he thanked the people that helped make The Sweet Setup a reality I thought I'd take a few moments to thank everyone that helped make Barley for WordPress, our team's inline editing plugin for WordPress, a reality. A plugin of this scope has no one author. It takes an entire team of…
It has been a pleasure to follow Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpiniere as they attempt to complete "the longest unsupported polar journey in history". Here's Ben, remarking on Day 31 of their journey: I think I've said this on a previous expedition, but out here I'm acutely conscious of my own heat, and of having to shepherd and protect…
App.net, the Twitter-clone turned app services turned file sharing turned something only a developer can understand…. now has released something that should be a huge hit. They call it Broadcast. In the announcement post Dalton Caldwell explains what a Broadcast is: A Broadcast is a new type of message that is always received as a push notification. A user only…
Have you ever had an idea for a product or service? If you're like me you've probably had a million ideas; thousands were crap, hundreds were so-so, a few were great, but you've probably only succeeded at getting a few out into the world over the course of your entire career. Making things is really, really hard. Much…
Bitcoin is going a little nuts this week. But the price at which a bitcoin exchanges at isn't the only factor by which you should value the currency. Far, far from it. As Fred Wilson puts it: Everyone focuses on the price of Bitcoin these days and it is no wonder why. But for Bitcoin to be anything…
Today Shawn Blanc launched The Sweet Setup, a resource to find the very best applications for your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. There are so many fantastic apps and other tools to help us with all these tasks. And that’s why I built this site. Because I want to use the best tools for whatever the task is and…
Late again this week. However, I did manage to get this post out the door. Here are some interesting things I saw this week. Noisli – Need some nice background noise while you work? I find myself using this every day now. I love that you can combine more than one sound too. Videos: Roadmap 2013 by GigaOm -…
Keeping software up-to-date is really important. There are security flaws that get patched, performance and battery improvements that can save both time and energy. Not to mention new features, bug fixes, etc. So why set aside a specific day to get everything up-to-date rather than just doing the updates as they come in? Simple: Software updates, as easy…
I'm still amazed at how many great things pass over my desk each week even though we've been so busy lately at work. I love how these posts remind me, each week, of how many interesting things there are on this web of ours. Cisco open sources H.264 – This is a geeky link for this series. However,…
The experience that Jay Huang had happens far, far too often. It happened to me at two companies. It is absolutely ludicrous. I mean everyone was leaving after 8 hours a day, and sometimes I would work a bit longer than everyone else, but that’s okay, because it’s on my own will and it’s usually a feature or…
It has been a busy few weeks at Plain. But even busy weeks yield interesting things online. Here are a few: Video: Slowmo iPhone 5s video on Instagram – Ryan Pernofski shares some great slow motion videos on Instagram using the new iPhone 5s. Profitless Prosperity – Fred Wilson discusses why Amazon is so valued by Wall Street….
Shawn Blanc spends a few minutes chatting about whether or not you still need 1Password after upgrading to iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks? With Mavericks support for storing passwords and credit card info in Safari, combined with the iCloud keychain syncing of that info to our iOS devices, I wanted to share about how that impacts my…
This has been an amazing week at work. I'm very much looking forward to sharing what we're up to in the future but for now, some links. Comet ISON – Did you know there was a comet up there, right now, about to zing passed us and the sun and back out into space? Don't miss it. Jeff…
Mark Boulton in the appropriately titled WYSIWTFFTWOMG! One of the other pain points of a complex dynamic website, where ‘pages’ are created with bits of content from all over the place is ‘where the hell do I go to find that bit of content to edit it?’. That is a painful moment in a content person’s daily life….
I've read less on my computer this week than many, many weeks due to travel and busy work getting in the way. So this week might be lighter than others. Our Culture of Exclusion – Ryan Funduk is sick of drink ups. It is nearly impossible to hold a meet up of any kind and not exclude someone….
Fall is in full swing and the leaves are all but gone. This time of year has been torn between the desire to be outdoors, soaking up what is left of the season, and being indoors around a fireplace in my pub. There is so much awesome happening each week on the web I'm having trouble keeping up….
Jean-Louis Gassée postulates that it is a good thing for Apple that pundits and industry types constantly spell out their doom. I recently experienced a small epiphany: I think the never-ending worry about Apple’s future is a good thing for the company. Look at what happened to those who were on top and became comfortable with their place…
DistroKid allows anyone to quickly upload a music track to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon. First track is free, just $19.99 per year thereafter. This seems like a steal of a deal. If Philip Kaplan can get the word out about this then I think it will be a huge success and (more than likely) acquired within…
I'm not a great programmer. In fact, at this point in my career I wouldn't advise paying me to write any complex code. But I'm an excellent hacker. I love to chip away at things with my limited programming knowledge and get something working. I wrote the working prototype for Barley. Which Jeff immediately threw out and re-wrote…
Yesterday Chris Dixon tweeted a link to this thought-provoking blog post by Cal Newport about needing downtime to truly get into deep work. I agree with much of it, such as this nugget: If you’re looking for the next Tao, in other words, ignore the guy checking e-mail while running to his next meeting, and look instead towards…
There was no link list last week because I was at the beach. And this week I'm a few days late because our team had a half-day with some festivities. My apologies. I hope this week's video-heavy list makes up for having none last week. 575 Free Movies Online – A boat load of movies that you can…
Or, at least it shouldn't. And it is becoming less and less critical which platform you invest in. In a fair review of the iPhone 5S from Andrew Kim whom, as always, pours over the device and provides a great and visual review, I liked this bit best about picking one platform over another. We seem to get carried…
There is a growing sentiment that WordPress – though incredibly well supported and ubiquitous – is simply far too complex for some projects and for some customers. Obviously, I think so too. That's why my company is building Barley. Here are a few other notable people that seem to believe the same thing, that while WordPress is a powerful…
Last week's list was so rich with links that I had to hold a few back and work them into this week's post. Some weeks there are just too many great things to link to. Photo: M2-9 "Minkowski's Butterfly" by Hubble, Edited by Judy Schmidt. /via APOD. 10 Cultural Giants Who Died Coinless – van Gogh, Schubert, Blake…