January 2011
40 posts
Notational Velocity 2.0β4 - scrodlog →
Modestly described as 2.0β4, this could be version 3.
(OK, this is a slight exaggeration, but there’s are really a lot of new features considering the sparseness of Notational Velocity.)
Tab Bar in the iPhone Photos App
Background
With iOS 4 on iPhone and iPod Touch, Apple added Faces and Places to the Photos app. This was done by adding a tab bar to switch between sections. I believe the hierarchy of the application looks something like this:
I apologise for the diagram not being published as a scalable vector graphic. I don’t know a convenient way to go about making and publishing such a format....
Empty
An experiment:
1984
Is this interesting?
Immaculate Reception, or, A MobileMe Mystery →
MG Siegler (parislemon):
I love this. I’ve now done the same thing in Japan and France as well. You stop by the local Apple Store as the hub to sync for the day, update your apps, and upload pictures.
Now, if only Apple Stores started serving coffee. Or better, beer. I’d never leave. And I suspect they know this, which is why they don’t serve either.
I’m thinking Genius Bar.
Toshiba Tablet
So to wrap up on the Toshiba Tablet site:
Such a shame that the page displays black text on a dark background, failing to supply an alternative to browsers without plugins
Since it’s illegible, here’s the text copied and pasted:
You need to upgrade your Flash Player
This is replaced by the Flash content.
Place your alternate content here and users without the Flash plugin or...
Daring Fireball: Toshiba Tablet →
Toshiba:
Such a shame. Add this to the list of interesting places on the Internet you can’t see on your device. Of course, if you had a Toshiba Tablet, you would enjoy the entire Internet. Yep, Flash sites too.
It’d be nice if they knew the difference between the web and the Internet. They’re not alone in having this problem though…
start of term ⇒ fewer updates here
iPhone 5 Prediction
I predict than iPhone 5 will be cheaper to manufacture than iPhone 4.
I had more to say, but the Tumblr iPhone app decided to lose what I’d written.
Materials is…
Yesterday, I wrote:
When I think of engineering at Apple, I usually think of software and electrical engineering, but materials is also crucial.
This reads fine to me, but I realised it could be interpreted as being wrong. Shouldn’t it be “materials are also crucial”?
Well, no. I suppose ‘materials’ is a contraction of ‘materials science’, and this is what I have now edited the post to...
“A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in...”
– Michael Lopp
(via Shawn Blanc’s Blast from the Past Day)
Watching Pride & Prejudice →
David:
Rachel: I’ve never read this book.
David: It’s about Colin Firth.
A good ploy, although I really disagree.
My advice for P&P: read the book first (I love it) then there are a few options:
watch the film from 2005
if you have a lot of time, watch the BBC television series (off the top of my head, I think it’s about 12 hours)
read the zombie version of the book
iPad 2 Display — Daring Fireball →
Its display may be improved in other ways — brighter, better power consumption, thinner, perhaps.
The first improvement I’d make to the iPad display would be to make it able to go less bright.
Second on my list would be amount of ambient light reflected at the back of the display. I want this high so it’s comfortable to see the screen outside. (I’m not talking about...
Directory?
Caught you out again iMovie developers:
I think it’s called a folder.
Drive Space
My main storage drive is a 48 GB SSD: a Wintec FileMate ExpressCard. I’m running out of space:
And that’s with all my big files (photos, movies) on the hard disk (the MacBook Pro’s ‘normal’ disk). Storage use visualised by DaisyDisk, an app that does one thing beautifully.
Trying out a clean theme
I made a new theme today, which I’m trying out now. It’s still not finished, although all the key aspects are in place. My inspiration was seeing the One Thing Well mobile site in a desktop browser.
I did not intend to use this design for this site, but I really liked how it turned out. I still might switch back, but there is a lot of value to me in that I’ve made this theme from scratch, rather...
There is no place for just shitting all over other... →
Jason Z. at 37 Signals:
No one is trying to make shitty software. They’re doing the best they can with the constraints they’re given and the talent they have. Not everyone is a maestro. Maybe these folks are just beginners. Is that how we welcome them into the fold? The point is, they’re making something. That’s awesome.
Agreed.
Microsoft says Apple’s “App Store” trademark too... →
The company argues that “app” is a generic term for an application, and “store” a generic term for a retail store.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Safari can not open the address because Mac OS X can not handle HTTP. That’s a strange response to a different problem. (I think the server doesn’t know what type to serve the file as.)
Fun with Spotlight
weloveapple:
Typing ‘pie’ into Spotlight returns 8.5397342227
Wikipedia Style
I used Kridsada Thanabulpong’s User CSS Safari Extension to apply some custom CSS rules to Wikipedia. (Extension found via Daring Fireball)
My goal was to increase readability by changing the font and removing page elements I never use. I required that my modifications were lightweight; I don’t want to make as many changes as Beautipedia. Here is the CSS:
@media screen {
* {
...
Blocking the iPhone from seeing apps
I wish the iPhone App Store app would let me see apps I can’t download or use. I’m sometimes using my iPhone and follow a link to an iPad app’s App Store page. Information and screen shots would be far more useful than a sparse screen telling me I need an iPad to get the app. OK, I know it’s an iPad app, but I’m using my iPhone right now!
Already, I’ve come across a...
Dashes beat underscores
My new addition to Mac OS X text replacement:
Replace underscore with em-dash.
This way if I miss type a dash (missing out the option from shift-option-hyphen, which is not unusual) then I will still get a dash.
I use dashes quite a lot, but very rarely use underscores. If I do want to type an underscore… I’ll work that out if it ever occurs.
iWork for Mac pricing
Update: My discussion here is somewhat flawed. I became fixated on the idea that the iWork apps are now very cheap after seeing the UK prices. So, yes, for in the UK iWork is now much cheaper so I think my points stand. However, iWork has always been priced lower in the (larger) US market so there isn’t really much interesting about the App Store pricing.
The pricing of the iWork...
I want my title bars back!
Regarding the iPad-ification of Mac Apps (Reeder, App Store), I don’t think the title bars and toolbars are being merged so much as the title bars are being removed. The close, minimise and zoom buttons are then relocated to the toolbar.
Moving widows around is more tricky without the title bar. One situation is discussed below.
Because vertical space is more limited, I often have windows...
Android Isn’t About Building a Mobile Platform →
A thought-provoking and illuminating article by Kyle Baxter regarding Google’s position with Android. Essential reading for business and techie folks.
(via Ben Brooks)
The Dock’s invisible boundary (comment)
So there is an invisible boundary in the Dock between pinned and not pinned applications. The behaviour is quite different on the sides of the line. Is it easy to understand what is going on?
The Dock’s invisible boundary
Dad: Where’s that application gone?
Me: It’s not pinned in your Dock. The easiest way to pin it is to open it then drag it up beyond the line. (Dock is positioned on left side of screen)
Dad: This line? (points to divider between apps and folders)
Me: No, it’s an imaginary line.
iMovie team is looking out for me
I added a whole long block of video into a project, so iMovie gave me this handy tip. It amused me. Maybe the next version of Pages will give notifications about poor typeface choices.
ReadWriteWeb: Firefox Ousts Internet Explorer as... →
Chrome is still in third place in Europe, but it has grown substantially over the past year: up from 5.06% in December 2009 to 14.58% in December 2010. “We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last,” says Cullen. As part of its anti-trust settlement with the...
I love the new audio player on 5by5. It’s using HTML5 audio. Great for listening from iPhone Safari, which I always do. For example, Build and Analyze #6: Cycles of Motivation - 5by5
Most websites with accounts like to tell you about how they’re using a secure connection and everything is fine. Not Facebook.
German Skype Email
Skype sent me this email:
An unsere geschätzten Kunden:
Das Jahr 2010 neigt sich dem Ende entgegen und ich möchte mich gern bei jedem von Ihnen für Ihre Geduld, Ihr Verständnis und Ihre Unterstützung während des kürzlichen Ausfalls bei Skype bedanken.
Wir wissen, wie wichtig Ihre Konversationen per Skype für Sie sind und nehmen jede Störung bei Skype sehr ernst. Wir freuen uns,...