Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake has launched a new web tool called Hunch. It’s hard to explain the concept without visiting the site. Check it out.
March 2009 Archives
SelfControl is an application that allows you to block email and websites from yourself for a period of time. The catch is that quitting the app or restarting your computer will have no effect, you have to wait for the timer.
(via Waxy.org)
Listen to this.
Haley and I are leaving today for a week long road trip from SF to Seattle. We’ll be posting occasionally on a tumblog right here. Come follow us if you please.
Buzz Andersen responds to Doug Bowman’s farewell post on his departure from Google:
But I think a useful way to think about the difference between the two companies is: how likely is an individual contributor from each category to be present in a meeting with the CEO? Based on my experience at Apple, I’d say the answer is: pretty unlikely for an engineer, far more likely for a designer. I don’t have any direct experience with Google, but I suspect just the opposite would be true there.
This is something I’ve felt but have never been able to pinpoint, but Buzz is spot on. Google creates applications that are feature packed and work great, but they lack the connection. Apple’s products create that personal connection, and what is the result? I’m still excited every time I get to use my iPhone.
Jack Moffett wrote a bit about Apple’s addition of cut, copy and paste to the iPhone on Tuesday, and added to it with this piece:
Finally, our friends at Apple, and Steve especially, are very picky folk. They will not release something until they feel it is right, a trait for which I have a lot of respect. That doesn’t mean that they always get it right, but they do more often than not.
I think Jack hits the nail on the head. Yeah, cut and paste could and should have made it onto the iPhone sooner. But Apple’s decision to improve other features first was made for a reason, and probably a good one.
Related:
Who cares? I’ve had Cut Copy on my iPhone for months now. Their new album rools. - @ryantomorrow
Everything looks really cool with the exception of two things.
1) The controls are on the headphones. If you want to use better quality/more comfortable headphones you either need to buy a yet to be released adapter (clunky), or third party headphones (generally clunky). This is kind of a bummer, but Dan Moren sums it up pretty well:
Think of it this way: expensive headphones are not accessories for iPod shuffles. iPod shuffles are accessories for expensive headphones.
2) The graphic Apple uses for the VoiceOver feature is just awful. At first I thought it was just me, but then the Internet blew up over it. Those purple quotation marks? Terrible.
In China, you can purchase an iTunes gift card of $200USD value for about $2.60USD. Hackers have cracked the hash algorithm and now create codes on the fly using a key generator. While the iPhone is still a grey market product in China, this could be quite a problem for Apple as well as the developers trying to make a living off of the App Store.
(via @chockenberry)
Last week, my roommate Justin and I picked up a few pounds of steak from the store while it was on sale. We discovered later that night that the meat was just terrible. We’re not sure if it is too lean, a bad cut, or what, but the fact of the matter is that it’s not going to work out on the grill. That left us with one choice – stew. We threw it all in the freezer and forgot about it. I had a random idea to try and make some jerky out of it, so I researched a few recipes online and got some strips marinating last night. This morning, I put the strips in the oven on the lowest setting, 170°F, before I left for work. Justin checked them in a few hours and pulled ‘em out – the jerky was ready.
The result? Fantastic. I was surprised to see how well the seasonings held to the meat, pepper flakes and all. This will be the perfect snack mid-afternoon to hold me over until dinner. I have a second bag of strips marinating as we speak.
Alan Taylor, author of Big Picture, has created Big Picture Notes to publish photos that didn’t make it to the main page. Subscribed.
Guys, ever wonder how so much fuzz finds its way into your belly button? A chemist in Vienna has solved the mystery.
Today Apple dropped the firmware updates for their previous generation Airport Extreme Base Station as well as the first generation Time Capsule. Most of the updates are bug fixes/security fixes, but they also brought in one of the new features of the just updated hardware: remote access to drives. For the Airport Extreme, this means accessing any USB mounted drives, and for the Time Capsule, it means accessing the internal drive from anywhere with an internet connection.
So far it’s working great for me. What would really take this to the next level though would be the ability to perform Time Machine backups over remote access. Until then, the main purpose this will have is shuffling movies back and forth when I am in a pinch.
So as I posted yesterday, I bought a David Sedaris book on Kindle for iPhone, and I still haven’t been able to stop reading it. One of the side effects of my reading is the deep desire to share his humor with those around me. Unfortunately, I’ve continued to ignore the fact that reading his writing out loud just really isn’t that funny. Three times in the past 24 hours I’ve attempted to read an excerpt that had me LOLing by myself earlier, only to be met with a blank stare from my listener. Anyway, the point of my writing this is to apologize in advance if I subject you to a reading, just remember that I mean well, and do me a favor and pretend that it’s as hilarious as I think it is.
The Big Picture is a fantastic photo blog compiled of pictures by photographers from all over the world. About once a week it’s updated with a new set of a certain theme or location. The best part about it is told in the name, the pictures are big. Some of my favorite sets are ‘At Work’, ‘The Sky, From Above’, and ‘2008, the year in photographs’ (Parts 1, 2, and 3). If you haven’t checked this out before, do yourself a favor and subscribe to their RSS feed.
Last night, Amazon released an application called ‘Kindle for iPhone’. As Jason Kottke mentioned, it’s odd that Amazon is using the name Kindle for the application, when Kindle is the name of the device they sell. I downloaded a sample of David Sedaris’s When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and enjoyed it so much I bought the book on the spot.
So far, I haven’t been able to stop reading. We’ll see how I feel in a few days.
Steven Frank has recently published his discontent with star rating systems.
The problem with rating systems in general is that only people who feel very strongly about something will take the time to rate it. For a five star scale, that suggests mostly one and five star ratings.
He followed up today with this screenshot from Amazon as another example of how star rating systems are flawed.
I agree with almost everything on this list. Some of them, like auto @ completion and tweet threading should absolutely be there. None of these are technically challenging, so it’s a mystery to me as to why we haven’t seen any of them yet.
BusinessWeek has published an article on an increasing trend of employers asking employees to work from home. I can’t image a more welcomed request.
Corporate offices aren’t going away any time soon, but some of them are making big changes.
Adieu to cubicle farms, fixed walls, and standing-room-only conference rooms. Hello to sliding walls, moveable furniture, and lots of lounge areas. Space will be allotted by function, not title. Square footage will be based on office presence, not rank. The flexibility will cut costs and at the same time accommodate both loud talkers and hermits. The new workplace will be less about working alone and more about working together.
Sounds like they’re finally figuring it out.
(via Hivelogic)