eat.sleep.mac

twine, a tiny gizmo that holds the internet's future

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:35:00 -0800

this looks so cool! brilliant innovative design that could be super useful around the house. i want one or five.

twine, a puck filled with sensors, detects anything from moisture to magnetism: stick it anywhere, and it’ll tweet status updates at your command. and there’s no coding skills required.

“in the future, your house will send you a text message to warn you that your basement is flooding.” sounds like the kind of hooey you only hear in those fantastical “future of…” videos, doesn’t it? not anymore. two mit media lab graduates have created a “2.5-inch chunk of the future” called twine that does exactly that, and more, and is available right now.

for a video and more go to fastcodesign

don't be a free user

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:22:33 -0800

maciej ceglowski of pinboard:

what if a little site you love doesn’t have a business model? yell at the developers! explain that you are tired of good projects folding and are willing to pay cash american dollar to prevent that from happening.

the sheer volume of people asking me for this was one of the biggest reasons i launched instapaper’s $1/month subscription program, which offers almost nothingfor the money — just the knowledge that you’re supporting a service you like.

people pay out of sheer goodwill. it really works.

via macro arment

"because if anyone’s willing to throw massive piles of money at gaining marketshare that isn’t worth..."

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 17:32:00 -0800

“because if anyone’s willing to throw massive piles of money at gaining marketshare that isn’t worth anywhere near what they spent to gain it, it’s microsoft”

- marco arment

via the brooks review

must watch: 46 seconds on life from steve jobs. via davemorin

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:13:05 -0800

must watch: 46 seconds on life from steve jobs.

via davemorin

ipad mount and charger awesomeness. expensive awesomeness but...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:31:03 -0800

ipad mount and charger awesomeness. expensive awesomeness but still a revolutionary way to use the ipad around the house. love it.

via launchport

ht cult of mac

"the right tool, learned deeply, used when appropriate, no matter how basic, can beat the pants off..."

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:22:06 -0800

“the right tool, learned deeply, used when appropriate, no matter how basic, can beat the pants off of “features” any day. because it isn’t about the tool, or the feature, it is about your ability to use it to achieve the goal at hand. the better you know the tools you have, the less likely you are to seek out replacements for them”

-
patrick rhone from keeping it straight, know your tools

via minimal

what a difference 10 years makes! via cult of mac

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:13:55 -0800

what a difference 10 years makes!

via cult of mac

copycats

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:11:00 -0800

spot on post by matt gemmell about the trend of copying your competitors designs that includes these brilliant points:

copies never, ever achieve the success of the thing they copied

innovation isn’t creation in a vacuum - it’s making something new from something that already exists

as with any industry you care to look at, the technology industry is awash with copycats. a copycat, of course, is someone or something that deliberately mimics a successful person or product, hoping to obtain some portion of that success.

there’s an entire spectrum of terms available besides ‘copied’, ranging from “inspired by” to “plagiarised”, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be influenced by the work of others. the key is to ensure that you’re consciously agreeing with a design, rather than just aping (mimicking unthinkingly - a definition which no doubt does our hairy cousins a grave disservice). sadly, much of the technology sector simply apes.

justin williams skewers the ipad magazine experience

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:02:00 -0800

justin williams skewers the ipad magazine experience:

david chartier on justin william’s post about how reading magazines on the ipad is an exercise in frustration:

justin wrote a lot of what i’ve been meaning to say about the generally terrible state of ipad magazines. over 2,000 words just about the download and initial out-of-box experience (the painful process of actually reading these things is the subject of a forthcoming post), starting with:
remember, kids. the first rule of app club is that no one gives a fuck about your brand. a splash screen with a giant logo is something that makes editors and marketing directors feel good, but to a user it just feels like a meaningless delay. you know that feeling of frustration you get each time there’s a 15-second preroll before a video on the web? that’s what a splash screen with logos and advertisements is.he cites gq, sports illustrated, and esquire, but he could be talking about most of the app store’s magazines. part of the problem is that most (but not all) magazines are built with adobe’s crappy ipad platform, which entices publishers with the same “write once, run anywhere” philosophy that makes adobe air apps such an eye-gouging pleasure to use.

justin doesn’t just bang his drum about what’s wrong, though. he ends his post with a good list of ways to fix many of these problems.

via windonaleaf.net

simple social networks

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:24:00 -0800

a great post from shawn blanc about simple social networks like the new app stamped that includes this great line:

what twitter is to status updates, stamped is to our favorite things in life

the apps i use the most tend to be apps that do one thing well. no doubt the vast majority of those reading this opening paragraph are of that same disposition. instead of using apps which do lots of things fairly well, i much prefer to use apps that do just one thing and do so very well.

whatever works for you

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:13:00 -0800

a recent post from marco arment about helping people with their pc computer problems that included this gem:

his father has many good reasons not to switch, and i don’t understand any of them

in my earlier 20s when i knew everything, i was a much bigger evangelist for my technology choices. i’m accused of fanboyism a lot more these days, but only because hacker news keeps sending huge waves of people here who tell me i’m an idiot. but i used to be much more annoying with pushing my choices onto others.

i’ve naturally reduced such evangelism as i approach 30 and realize i don’t know anything, but i’m now making a much more conscious effort to stop it.

i spent thanksgiving weekend in my hometown and visited my friend’s parents. they used to generously pay me to fix their computer problems, but it wasn’t always productive: everything took far longer than i thought it would, and my efforts to fix one problem often created others. it was inevitable: they’re an architect and a graphic designer, and i was a computer nerd with very little professional it experience, so i never fully appreciated the complexity of their software setups or their priorities for getting their jobs done.

occupy flash! join the movement to rid the world of the flash...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:58:35 -0800

occupy flash! join the movement to rid the world of the flash plugin

find out more at occupyflash

miscosoft’s tell me vs apple’s siri a couple days...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:59:00 -0800

miscosoft’s tell me vs apple’s siri

a couple days ago a microsoft executive commented that apple’s voice offering in siri is ‘nothing special’, and that it comes down to ‘good marketing’:

people are infatuated with apple announcing it. it’s good marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could argue that microsoft has had a similar capability in windows phones for more than a year, since windows phone 7 was introduced.

you can pick ‘em up and say ‘text eric’ and say what you wanna say and it transcribes it. you can query anything through bing by just saying the words. i mean, all that’s already there. fully functional, been there for a year.

techau decided to put siri (still in beta) versus tellme to a head to head test, to see what service performs better. watch the video above and see gems like this from the windows phone tell me software “create a meeting tomorrow at teen anal”

via iphoneincanada

you guys are millionaires right?

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:37:30 -0800

shifty jelly on what it’s like to be an independent developer:

you put an enormous amount of effort (and yourself) into every product you make. sometimes you find people deriding it, or dismissing it after spending 13.2 seconds using it. people tell you not to take that personally. good luck with that. when you invest 6 months of your life, day and night, creating a product there’s no way in hell you can’t take other people’s comments personally.

there’s a lot of truth here.

via marco.org via shifty jellys blog of mystery

my mac set-up

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:04:00 -0800

most essential app: alfred…by far.

i can’t even think of living without alfred now. it is so much better than spotlight and has completely changed how i use my mac. i rarely use the dock anymore (it is shown in the pic just to show the apps i use, it is normally hidden). i use alfred to launch/switch apps, search the web with duck duck go, do quick calculations, define works, tweet, look up contacts, get the weather, the list goes on and on. it is even capable of so much more using extensions, hotkeys and the powerpack. i wish i had alfred on my iphone.

rss feed reader: reeder

by far the best rss reader for mac and iOS. well designed with a clean UI. still wish i could hide the sidebar and just have the list view but other than that i love it.

reading articles later: instapaper

instapaper is by far the best service for saving articles from the web for reading later. with a simple keyboard shortcut using a bookmarklet i can save articles from safari to instapaper. i wish there was a mac app, or a at least a less cluttered website. i currently use instapaper in a fluid app, but i have also used it in safari using the minimal instapaper safari extension to clean up the clutter and make it more minimal.

twitter: twitter for mac

my favorite twitter app for mac. love the autocomplete and the simple UI especially after opening the main window in a new window to get rid of the sidebar. i have also used itsy but it doesn’t have autocomplete.

tasks: taskpaper

i was a long time things user, but the outdated busy non minimal UI really got to me not to mention the lack of sync as well. i was so happy to find taskpaper. it is just a simple white page using plain text that syncs with my dropbox. love it!

calendar: ical

still the best calendar for mac. hoping that app savvy the makers of the super minimal agenda for iOS come out with a mac app. ical in lion is really fugly and its just silly to use a physical metaphor like a leather bound paper calendar. to get around this i just downloaded this fix, it turns ical back to silver.

email: mail

i was a big sparrow fan, but couldn’t get over a few things, one was that i could not customize the toolbar to remove the needless icons. they were pointless and just clutter for me since i use keyboard shortcuts to do the same things. so i went back to mail after its update in lion. it is more minimal than sparrow in my opinion. i would love mail to include the pull to refresh and quick reply that sparrow has though.

notes: nvalt

i found notational velocity and then nvalt when i went looking for an alternative to the macs built in notes with it’s ugly yellow pad design. i still don’t get why it is trapped within mail, so odd. it should be a standalone app. nvalt is an awesome standalone notes app that syncs with simplenote or dropbox. it has a simple white interface, easy search and a tonne of useful features and it is regularly updated by brett terpstra and elastic threads.

browser: safari

the best browser for mac in my opinion. lots of system wide integration. and it’s fast with a clean UI.

cloud: dropbox

by far the best cloud storage and sync service available. i use it to have access to all my documents on my iphone and to sync my notes and tasks. i also found a way to hide the icon in the menu bar to keep my menu bar icon free and minimal.

my iphone home screen the apps i use the most are reeder,...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:34:00 -0800

my iphone home screen

the apps i use the most are reeder, instapaper, twitter, taskpaper and messages.

i am looking forward to replacing facebook with diaspora

david ferguson: weather for alfred - updated

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:59:00 -0800

david ferguson: weather for alfred - updated:

introduction

alfred is a productivity application for mac os x, which aims to save you time in searching your local computer and the web. the powerpack is a set of incredibly powerful features, built on top of the robust core of alfred. deeply integrated with os x, it will make you more productive that ever!

description

weather for alfred was completely rewritten. the primary source for gathering weather data before was through gtwthr.com, another project of mine. weather.com decided they would start charging a few hundred dollars a month for the kind of access to their api that i needed and i wasn’t going to pay that, so gtwthr got scrapped (for now?). so, i rewrote the weather extension using yahoo as the weather data source. i added a few new little data elements into it. the icon is still dynamic. i added a few new little things though. you can new search for your weather location id in the extension. this makes it really easy to find your location id for yahoo. also, you can set a default location, but then you can also specify a location as well. let’s check out the commands.

via jdfwarrior

steve jobs brainstorming with his team at next from a series...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:06:00 -0800

steve jobs brainstorming with his team at next from a series called entrepreneurs

check out cult of mac for the rest of the videos

"i think a career is something your father brings home in a briefcase every night, looking kind of..."

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:18:17 -0800

“i think a career is something your father brings home in a briefcase every night, looking kind of tired”

- sean parker

from the brooks review

(via eatsleepweb)

"the way i see the web is that it was this kind of new world that opened up back in the early 90’s..."

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:43:00 -0800

“the way i see the web is that it was this kind of new world that opened up back in the early 90’s really. and at first it was this place of thinkers and experimenters. it was this weird motley colorful place. everyone had their weird homepage and their geocities page and then their myspace page, and it was just incredibly weird and diverse, kind of like going to burning man or something like that. and gradually, more and more people started to come on the web, but they didn’t know how to build houses for themselves. and so they said, well, i wanted to participate in this space, but i don’t really know how to do it, i don’t know where i’m gonna live. and so these companies swept in and they said we’ve got the solution, we’re gonna make a homepage for you. we’ll make a profile for you. you can put all your stuff here. we’ll just show you a few ads down in the lobby but you can have this beautiful free—this apartment and this big sparkling condominium. and this condominium suddenly grew and grew larger, larger, larger. now it has about 550 million rooms in this condominium and all of us have one. they’re all free, it’s great. it’s great deal. but all of our rooms look the same. we’re all living in identical apartments. yeah, we have our all photos on the walls, but the spaces architecturally are the same. and i wonder what this does to us. i wonder what it would be like if we picket back to that joy and the diversity of the motley early days of the web.”

-

jonathan harris

from gain: aiga business and design conference

(via eatsleepweb)