September 2011
1 post
1 tag
A Case For Moderate Connectivity
(Originally written on July 20, 2011)
I’m sitting on a cottage porch in rural Ontario just east of Lake Huron. The Georgian Bay has chains of small islands that pop up throughout the fresh water. Rocky shorelines with evergreens surround this idyllic North America summer location spot. It’s about 82º F with a slight breeze. The morning fog has burned off and I just finished a BBQ...
July 2011
3 posts
1 tag
You Saw This Coming
It’s been one year since I unloaded my iPad. Three blog posts, many conversations, and tinge of personal analysis later I find myself writing this epilogue… on an iPad 2.
Yes, of course I’m using a Bluetooth keyboard.
My incredibly gracious wife only gave me about a week of heckling after I asked her for an iPad for my birthday. Oh, I knew I was in for it well before I...
Listen
This is a Test
Lets see if this properly posts. From email. And all of that. Line 3. 5. Fin.
May 2011
1 post
March 2011
1 post
1 tag
Five Apps
that I’m totally into right now.
Rdio
I’m certain that Apple will be giving these guys a run this year, but until then I’m more than happy to fork over $10/mo to have a near unlimited collection of new and old music anywhere with an Internet connection.
Oh, and without a connection I sync any music to my iPhone and listen to it offline. Lala was my go to for web music...
December 2010
1 post
October 2010
1 post
3 tags
On Living In Public
For me, what’s different about writing a diary in public is that I continue to think about these posts after I publish them. Anyone can read this. I feel responsible for what I post. That’s probably why I was still thinking about that June post three months later.
A week or so after writing a follow up I came across one of the many Merlin gems. First, care. hit home, and it surprised...
September 2010
1 post
3 tags
Metacognition (or why I might have sold my iPad)
It’s been three months since I’ve sold my iPad. Part of the reason why I wrote that last post was to help me deal with both buyer’s and seller’s remorse. I had a few friends thank me for writing it and a few not say anything to me about it. Since then, I’ve seen colleagues, family, and friends with their shiny, 1.5 lb, Apple toy, and I’ve missed it. But, I...
June 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Why I sold my iPad
My wife and I bought a 3G iPad last month. It was a gift to ourselves. We knew it was a luxury purchase, and we were totally excited to have it for a recent trip abroad. It took a little over two weeks to get it after we purchased it from the online Apple Store. The anticipation grew. It came literally hours before we had to leave for the airport on our trip to Croatia. I rushed through the...
November 2009
1 post
For Sale
I love the design and simplicity of tumblr, but having no way to export my data from the service (in the foreseeable future) is prodding me to look for a new blog home. That and the fact that I think I could learn a thing or two running the wordpress on my own.
C’mon, Brian, you haven’t posted since June 5th.
Damn twitter. Now I have yet another reminder. In the meantime, hang out...
June 2009
1 post
April 2009
1 post
February 2009
1 post
I’ve seen many great shows at this venue in...
January 2009
4 posts
Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time →
Amen.
It is fun to see new people discovering a love of...
Introducing the Congress API →
dalasverdugo:
(via pile)
This is how you keep news companies from dying.
December 2008
7 posts
“We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our...”
– Steve Jobs (via danw, mikehudack) (via marco)
If David Lynch would’ve met m83 in the...
Free Public WiFi
jstn:
Have you seen this wireless network? I see it *everywhere*, and it’s so suspicious because it’s always ad-hoc (meaning broadcasting from a computer rather than a regular access point). I imagined for a long time it was part of a virus; it waits for someone to connect, redirects to a page that exploits some hole in Internet Explorer, scrapes your hard disk and sends your social security...
“Rather than survey a bunch of users on every decision, the Mac team decided each...”
– Why Apple is great at interfaces when others are not | TechRadar Team | TechRadar UK (via soxiam)
I would also argue this leads to bad decisions, e.g. iTunes zoom (maximize) button activates the mini player.
Pleasantly surprised with some unlabeled music in...
Word of the Day: Portmanteau
While looking up the wiki-definition of Bookmarklet I came across this fun-to-pronounce one.
from Wikipedia:
A portmanteau is used broadly to mean a blend of two (or more) words. The usage of the word ‘portmanteau’ in this sense first appeared in Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking-Glass (1871), in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words in...
November 2008
5 posts
“Genetify’s software takes in all possible variations that a designer can...”
– Interesting. From Genetify’s homepage.
“Good afternoon!
I found your posting on Craig’s List and I thought...”
– Email received in response to a job posting we made for an on-site position. Spam like this makes me doubt the effectiveness of outsourcing software engineering jobs overseas.
Nintendostalgia
Charlie: i was struck on saturday
Charlie: as i lay on the floor in front of the 10 foot screen
Charlie: playing bomberman with 7 friends
Charlie: and i thought, "12 year old me would be SO PROUD OF WHAT I HAVE BECOME"
October 2008
5 posts
Friday Morning Music
iPhone Trism game developer made $250K in 2 months →
that’s after subtracting Apple’s 30% cut. he made a $5000 investment to develop the game.
September 2008
13 posts
Well, look what Apple’s Genius dug-up....
New York investor/incubator Betaworks raises new...
wow, summize sold for $15M. betaworks:
Rafer’s comments below on why betaworks structure may matter. Part of the points he makes below, yes, were reasons for choosing this different structure because we think it affords us the best starting place to build businesses - it’s right for what we want to accomplish, at least now. It’s why we call the things we get involved in participants in our...
han:
lamb:
Radiohead’s “Creep,” as covered by an...
Could Wall Street Woes Set Off A Crisis? →
Terry Gross has truly perfected the interview.
a project you could help with →
ze is back at it.
Sommeil by Outputmessage
A friend mentioned the...
“our design started based on the golden ratio.”
– Visual Design (Chromium Developer Documentation) (via soxiam)
very cool that they are not only disclosing the source, but also design philosophies and documentation.
Came across this old gem while cleaning out my...
August 2008
7 posts
The Stack Overflow Podcast →
I’m 18 episodes down.
Even though I don’t write a whole lot of code anymore, I still read quite a bit about programming. I’ve been following Joel for years, and was very excited when he started up a podcast. Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky are launching a new wiki-style programming Q&A website called Stack Overflow. Think “Experts Exchange” done right. (i.e. You...