Posts From February 2011
The B&B Podcast is a brand-new technology talk show co-hosted by Mr. Benjamin Brooks and yours truly. It’s a lot of fun and the logo is amazing if I do say so myself.
The name B&B is for Blanc and Brooks. But it also pays homage to a hole-in-the-wall diner back in my hometown of Castle Rock, Colorado: The B&B Cafe. The B&B Cafe is where my grandfather ate breakfast every day for about 30 years. The folks are friendly, the food is homemade, and you can sit and talk for hours.
Ben and I record on Fridays, so new episodes will be posted Mondays or Tuesdays.
Here’s the link to subscribe via iTunes. Addition subscription options are on the site. And please, take a moment to rate the show and leave a comment in iTunes. That’s the best way for potential new listeners to discover the show.
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The Story Behind the Shawn Today Broadcast
For the most part, I had all the details of the Membership launch ready to go about three weeks before I announced anything here. All the content was written, the membership drive giveaway prizes were lined up, and the whole signup process with PayPal and the IPN was in place. 1
Back in early January, when I decided to do the membership, my original idea for the perk was a members-only email journal. It was going to be a once-a-month email with written content just for members — primarily the Members Showcase, the Q&A, and then something called “The Cut List”. 2
However, there were several problems with an email journal that, in the end, didn’t sit right with me. Primarily, I didn’t want what I was writing to be hidden behind a paywall. Nor did I want to force you guys to have to get another email.
Though I liked the idea of some sort of members-only communication that had a personal touch, doing it via email, private forums, or an authenticated RSS feed just didn’t make sense.
In part because it would have made it more difficult for you, and in part because I didn’t want to have to draw the line between what writing went on shawnblanc.net and what writing went to members only. I wanted it all on the website.
Why should I put what may be some of my best work behind a paywall and then make it more difficult or annoying for members to access it? If anything it should be easier for members. And the only way I know of to keep it easy is to publish it publicly and let you continue to access it the way you have been.
So I canned the idea of the members journal. Which left me very few perks: the Members Showcase, the Q&A, and the promise of doing some giveaways to members throughout the year.
But something was still lacking. I mean, clearly, the whole point of becoming a member is to support the main writing that I do here on the site. But I still wanted a cool and exciting perk for the members.
And then, just less than a week before the announcement, I had the idea for Shawn Today. Why not do a short, daily broadcast just to the members? The premise is that the members are the truest of the true fans. So why not talk to them, “check in” with them, and let them know what’s in the pipeline for the website that day or that week.
Or, to put it another way, if shawnblanc.net is a movie, Shawn Today is that Disc 2 which contains “The Making Of” and “The Director’s Commentary”.
Having it be audio (and sometimes video) meant it was a unique enough format that any member who loves my writing but isn’t interested in the broadcast wouldn’t feel like they were missing anything. And it would be personal enough so that those who do love my writing would feel like it would be the icing on the cake.
It was the final piece of the whole puzzle that made me feel proud of the members-only perks.
What I did not expect was what a huge hit Shawn Today would actually be.
Currently more than 90% of members are listening to Shawn Today. And in the past week I have gotten more email from members regarding the broadcast than any other topic. Some have written in with responses to topics or questions I’ve thrown out during various shows, some have written in just to say how much they love it.
What current members are saying about Shawn Today
“Shawn Today is fast becoming one of my top podcasts. Concise and full of great content.” — Orin
“You guys are really missing out on @shawnblanc’s Shawn Today.” — Ben Brooks
“Dude, I know you must be hearing this a bunch. But I am loving Shawn Today!” — Myke Hurley
“Really enjoying listening to Shawn Today on my way to work. Great work!” — Stephen Hackett
“Just signed up as a member and wanted to let you know I’m really digging the extra members-only content. Already enjoyed your blog posts, so it was an easy decision.” — Alex Knight
“I listen to @shawnblanc’s Shawn Daily as I’m getting started in the morning. It’s like we’re hanging out. It’s nice.” — Dave Caolo
Sample episodes
Here are a couple of my favorite broadcasts so far:
Thoughts on Fanatics: Thoughts on fans vs. true fans (fanatics), and how I haven’t yet had a chance to read the latest Apple rumors.
Hot Coffee: Stories of brewing coffee at Anna’s grandparent’s house in northeastern Colorado.
“Aren’t We All Just 8th Graders?”: Debunking that feeling of “once I get big enough then I’ll start pursuing my idea.”
If you’d like to get access to Shawn Today you have to become a subscribing member. Your membership will help me take shawnblanc.net full time.
Ideally the value and enjoyment you already get from shawnblanc.net is worth 3 bucks a month to you and the perks like Shawn Today are just icing on the cake. But whatever your reason may be, I would love to have your support as a subscribing member.
- I had been putting off writing “Beginning” though. I didn’t write that until the night before. Mostly because I was so nervous about this whole venture and writing and publishing that article was the final step that would seal the deal and make it official. ↵
- The cut list was going to be a list of links that never made it onto shawnblanc.net for one reason or another. The name for The Cut List was Sean Sperte’s idea. ↵
NoteTask is a fast, clean, and simple note taking application that presents your text as tasks, completed tasks, and sections. By default it recognizes lines starting with hyphen and spacebar as tasks, and lines starting with exclamation mark as completed tasks. (You can customize this behavior.)
You can think of NoteTask as a simplified version of the popular Mac app (and iOS app), “TaskPaper” by Hog Bay Software, plus Simplenote syncing. We position NoteTask not as a complicated task management system to replace famous Things or OmniFocus but as a simple note app plus simpler task solution.
A website by my friend Josh Ink. Using the API, pretty much anything you can do from within the app you can do on this site (except take pictures and apply cheesy filters to them).
For those who’ve been asking for an option to pay for their membership by the year instead of the month, I have just set up an annual membership subscription option. It’s $36/year instead of 3 bucks a month and it comes with all the same benefits, etc.
So get this: I had never even heard of Fruit Memory until Paul Mayne booked this sponsorship to promote it. I like to check out what is being sponsored, and after checking out Fruit Memory it may be my new favorite game for the iPad. It’s just plain cute. And it’s just a buck in the app store.
I’m not really a game person — I don’t own a video game console and I rarely play games on my Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Mostly because they’re addicting and I can think of other ways to spend my free time. But I like games like Fruit Memory because it’s chill, non-addictive, and still high quality and entertaining. And the multi-player gameplay is very well done.
Oh yeah, and thanks Paul for sponsoring the RSS Feed!
The new MBPs have “huge leaps in performance”, yet still ship with 5400-rpm hard drives? True, the average consumer still assumes that processor speed is the number one factor to get a faster computer. But performance is more than how fast you can crunch a video, it’s also how fast you can boot up your library, move files around, etc… You and I both know that once you go SSD you never go back.
So why not at least make 7200-rpm drives the baseline? Is the price and performance difference between a 5400- and 7200-rpm drive really that different?
Speaking of SSDs, I put a Mercury Extreme Solid State Drive into my 3-year-old aluminum MacBook Pro last fall and it was like buying a new computer. In fact, thanks to the SSD, the specs on my old MBP match almost identically those of the brand new Air’s.
Versions, Resume, AirDrop… what used to be the geeky power-user’s add ons and hacks are becoming mainstream features.
This thing is stupid fast — 20 times faster than a USB 2 connection — plus it supports data, power, and video I/O simultaneously.
Just a buck in the Mac App Store. I rarely, rarely do video chat on Skype or iChat. And I always text my friends first before calling them on FaceTime. It just seems so personal — much more personal than a casual phone conversation.
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Membership Drive and Giveaway
Beginning the first week in April I will be writing shawnblanc.net as my full-time gig.
It is hard to put into words just exactly how excited I am about the days ahead — I’m equal parts giddy and petrified over here. There’s that feeling of: I’m actually going to do this! Um, wait. I’m actually going to do this!?
In order to make this happen for longer than a few months, I need the support of you, the reader.
And so, leading up to my first day on the job, I am hosting a PBS-style membership drive. Which means that, for the next three and a half weeks, I’ll be talking somewhat regularly about the membership. (Though I promise that it won’t be all I talk about between now and then.)
Ideally, you are signing up to become a member because you feel like this site is already worth 3 bucks a month to you. The members-only perks are a nice bonus of course (Shawn Today seems to be a smash hit already), and the fact that your membership will be a significant contributing factor to my ability to go full time is the icing on the cake.
But let’s face it: everyone loves free stuff. And, to be honest, I really do love to give things away. And so there are things to be won if you sign up to become a member.
If you haven’t signed up for a membership yet, here’s the link.
The Membership Drive
Starting yesterday, and running until midnight CST on Sunday, March 20, anyone who signs up to become a member of shawnblanc.net will be entered to win a prize. These are all top-notch prizes from some of my friends and heroes in the creative professional community.
A 20×30 print from photographer Jorge Quinteros: The winner gets to pick any print they want. These are my three favorites: 1, 2, and 3. ($50)
First & 20 t-shirt: 5 of these fantastic t-shirts. I’ve got one and love it. ($20 each)
Evernote Essentials by Brett Kelly: 5 copies of Brett’s definitive guide on Evernote. ($25 each)
Fusion Ad Burst: The Fusion Ad network is giving away one Burst Campaign. This prize will only be given to a member with something relevant for the Fusion Ad network. ($500)
A signed copy of Being Geek by Michael Lopp ($25).
A signed copy of Managing Humans by Michael Lopp ($25).
Cameron Moll’s 24×16 Signed Colosseo Poster: This thing is gorgeous. ($100)
A Redeye Bundle from Idea Cafe: Includes a plain pocket Moleskine, Action Journal, and Dot Grid Book. ($40)
MarsEdit 3: A license of the best blogging software on the planet ($40).
Limited Edition, Pre-Production, Proof-of-Concept Coffee Mug From Yours Truly: I have no clue how much these will be selling for once they’re available, but I have an extra pre-production model that I’m giving away.
Icon Resource: A video training pack of high-def movies, project files, photoshop samples, and more from the world-class icon designer Sebastiaan de With. ($130)
Learning ExpressionEngine 2 by Ryan Irelan: Two bundles of the complete series basic training screencasts for EE 2. ($48 each)
MySQL and ExpressionEngine by Ryan Irelan: Two copies of this screencast primed to help you do some customizing of EE 2. ($12 each)
Securing ExpressionEngine 2 by Mark Huot: Two copies of this ebook which details the steps you can take to make your installation of ExpressionEngine even more secure. ($10 each)
LittleSnapper: 5 licenses of Realmac Software’s popular screenshot library tool. ($25 each)
Pixelmator: 2 licenses of this top-notch, image editing application for Mac OS X. ($60 each)
Flux: 1 license of The Escapers Web-development software. ($113)
Canned: 10 copies of Sky Ballon Studio’s iPhone app for sending pre-built text messages. ($.99 each)
Canned Email: 10 copies of Sky Ballon Studio’s iPhone app for sending pre-built email messages. ($.99 each)
Attachment Tamer: 5 licenses of Lokiware’s Apple Mail plugin. ($15 each)
Flare: 5 copies of the brand-new photo effects editor from the Iconfactory. ($20 each)
Due App: 10 copies of this great timer and reminder app for your iPhone and iPad. ($5 each)
Clyppan: 5 copies of this clipboard history manager for Mac OS X. ($5 each)
TrackTime: 5 copies of the time tracking application especially built for freelancers and creative professionals. ($25 each)
The total value of all these prizes is over $2,028. Thank you to all of you who have donated to make this giveaway possible.
How to Win
Anyone who signs up for a membership by midnight CST on Sunday, March 20 will automatically be in the runnings to win something.
You do not have to live in the United States to win — international members are most welcome and most eligible.
I’ll be setting up a way for you to request a certain prize if there is one in particular that you’d love to get.
The drawing will be sometime the last week in March. Winners will be contacted by via their PayPal email address.
If you haven’t yet signed up to become a member, now would be a good time.
Clearly this is the week for launching new projects. Dave Caolo has his first book coming out in just a few weeks: Using Your iPad as a Business Productivity Tool. Dave is a fantastic writer and communicator and he knows his stuff. This book looks great!
It’s available to pre-order for just 5 bucks for Kindle, but I’m holding out for when it comes to the iBookstore.
Speaking of great companies releasing awesome new products, these Stickto’s just came out today. They’re portable, sticky-note-style to-do list from the awesome guys at Paste. And better yet, they’re for sale at Idea Cafe.
Canned is an iPhone app for sending pre-written text messages, and I use it every day. It’s one of those apps where you’re not quite sure if or how you would use it until you actually do and then it becomes indispensable. (Like Pastebot, for example.)
And now, the fine fellows at Sky Balloon Studio have just released a version of Canned for email. Only a buck in the App Store.
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A Quick Update
This morning, around 7:00 am, I was just sitting here in front of MarsEdit with the announcement written and ready to publish. And I just sat here. Too nervous to hit Publish. It was probably just a minute or less, but it felt like half the morning.
In some ways I thought today would never come. And for those few final moments before I published “Beginning” I had this uncanny feeling of sheer excitement coupled with total fear. I was giddy at the thought of letting you guys know about such a huge and exciting change. And simultaneously afraid at what trolls may come out of the woodwork to criticize my decision or poke fun at my (admittedly) bad video.
My wife, Anna, was this site’s very first reader back in July of 2007. She has proofread, edited, and given constructive feedback on every major article I’ve written — I never post those things without her feedback first (I figure if she likes it, and I like it, then it can’t be all that bad). Anna also helped me behind the scenes in the early days of this site by giving suggestions on questions I should ask certain interviewees — such as asking John Gruber what he eats for breakfast.
It was some time right after this past Christmas, just before the 2011 New Year, that Anna and I were having dinner at home and I pitched the idea to her about actually taking shawnblanc.net full time. I’ve tossed it out there before over the years, but it was always somewhat casual. But this time I meant it. And she meant it when she said she would be 100% behind me.
I brag about the readership of this site quite a bit. And I mean it when I write how amazing and talented you guys are. But, with all due respect my fellow nerds, this site would not be the site it is today without the support and encouragement I have received from my wife.
Thank you, Anna, for everything.
Also, I want to thank you guys, the readers. The support and positive feedback I received today has been absolutely phenomenal. Many of you have been helping spread the news on your website or via Twitter as well as writing in to say congratulations. Please keep it up, because so far sign ups are looking good.
It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet, so I really have no way to know if things are going really well or not. But I do know for sure that there is still a long way to go in order to make the memberships a viable enough source of income for me to keep the full-time aspect going for longer than the summer.
Those of you who have signed up already, thank you! If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?
Current Members: Regarding your Perks and Info
For some reason unbeknownst to me, PayPal won’t let you build or customize the autoresponder emails that are sent when someone becomes a subscriber. Which means that the information about your perks as a member are given out on the final page stage of the subscription process. This includes the information on how to subscribe to the members-only broadcast, Shawn Today.
This was, by far, the most frustrating piece of the whole membership puzzle for me. There are many alternate options and workarounds, but I opted for what I felt would be the easiest for me to maintain and the easiest for you to access.
If you’ve signed up for a membership and accidentally missed this information during your subscription check-out, please email members@shawnblanc.net from your PayPal address and I’ll send you the info you need.
Coming up next: A Membership Drive With Some Sweet Giveaways
A little surprise for tomorrow: some extremely amazing and generous folks have donated a handful of prizes and gifts as bounty for a membership drive that will kick off tomorrow.
In short, between this morning and midnight on Sunday, March 20th, anyone and everyone who signs up for a membership will be eligible to win some amazing prizes. And these aren’t just hum-drum giveaways. They are top-notch, drool-worthy, items. But more info on that tomorrow morning.
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Beginning
This is a sentence I never thought I would publish: Beginning the first week in April I will be writing shawnblanc.net as my full-time gig.
When I began shawnblanc.net in July of 2007 it was with the intention of enjoying and exploring that place where creativity and computers come together — I am fascinated by that blend of the artful and the technical. And for almost four years now I’ve been exploring that place while writing this site on the side, as I’ve been able.
But writing on the side, as I’m able, is no longer enough for me.
I simply have to go full time. And so I’m jumping in head first. I’m actually doing it. And I can hardly believe I’m saying this.
After four years and hundreds of articles it all feels like the beginning. As if the hundreds of thousands of words that I’ve written here so far are simply the prologue. I cannot wait for what is next.
The Next Chapter
In many ways, shawnblanc.net will be the same as it has been. The focus and direction of this site is not changing.
But in some other ways shawnblanc.net will be different. Or, at least, I hope it will be different. I hope that the quality and the pace of the publishing will rise to a new level of excellence. I hope that the community here will be able to grow and connect more. And I hope to expand to new communication methods in addition to writing.
It is hard to put into words just exactly how excited I am about the days ahead. I’m equal parts giddy and petrified over here. There’s that feeling of: I’m actually going to do this! Um, wait. I’m actually going to do this!?
An Invitation
And so, in order to make this happen for longer than a few months, I need the support of you, the reader.
I am inviting you guys to join me on this journey, and help me take shawnblanc.net full time by becoming a member.
A membership subscription is just $3 a month — like a good cup of coffee — and includes some members-only perks. You can read all about the membership and watch a video I made by checking out the membership info page. But here’s the gist of the members-only perks:
- Supporting the full-time writing and growth of shawnblanc.net
- Access to Shawn Today, a daily video/audio broadcast of ideas plus what coffee I’m brewing that morning
- The Members Showcase
- Ability to ask questions, get advice, etc…
- Possibility of winning some cool stuff
Hopefully the value and enjoyment you already get from shawnblanc.net is worth $3 a month to you and these perks are just icing on the cake. But however you slice it, I would love to have your support as a subscribing member.
Thank you
Surely shawnblanc.net has one the most amazing readerships out there. Because of you guys this site has been able to grow and mature into what it is today. And that is what is enabling me to take this leap and go full time.
And so now, I’m humbly asking, will you take this next step with me?
Seth Godin:
By trying to reach as many as we could, we were never intimate enough to generate conversations that mattered or ideas that spread…
Seth’s talking about the booth you set up at a trade shows, but I’m applying this advice to my own website. Because, in a way, isn’t your website like a booth at a global event called the Internet? You can try to be the biggest and the flashiest and be the talk of the show, or you can try to develop personal interactions with those who are willing to give you their time and attention.
Fruit is good for your brain and so is Fruit Memory HD for the iPad. This fun, well-designed, memory-matching app is a great huddle game built to play solo or in groups of up to 4 players.
An educational and entertaining memory game that is loved by people of all ages, Fruit Memory was built by the father of 3 toddlers, who grew tired of shuffling and dealing cards on the living room floor. With the added characters, sounds and great design, the Fruit Memory HD experience is well worth the $.99 in the iPad app store. Enjoy!
Many, many thanks to the amazing guys at Resen for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote Curator.
Curator is a web app built to simplify and speed up the process of creating presentation docs for your design mockups. You simply upload your designs (logos, webpages, cover artwork, photographs, whatever…) and Curator does the rest and then gives you a high-quality PDF.
I know that a lot of web designers don’t own InDesign or Illustrator in order to build their own presentation docs, or their time is better spent on other things. Curator handles both of those problems. You can upload your designs and build your presentation doc for free, and if you’re happy then it’s just $0.99 for the PDF download.
And speaking of snowboarding, remember this final run at the 2010 Olympics where Shaun already had the gold medal cinched and so his last run of the night was this awesome show-off run where he busted out the Double McTwist 1260 at the end? So electric.
I can’t find NBC’s official footage of the whole run. If you want to see a more professional version of the McTwist 1260, here’s a more official promo video done by Red Bull. But it’s not from that electric Olympic night.
God knows I love the mountains and snowboarding. Doing runs like this seems like a dream come true and a nightmare at the same time. The thrill of being up there and being on runs like that, combined with the sheer terror of flying down those runs makes my heart pound.
Ian Hines conducts a fantastic Interview. And his site, intrv.ws is steadily building some top-notch features. This month, you get to read about me, how I began shawnblanc.net, what I do every day, and other interesting tidbits. Thanks, Ian!
You’ve seen the latest episode of Put This On, right? Good. Now read Jim Ray’s post to find out what and where to buy all that awesome shaving gear. That’s what I’m doing.
I love that the place was intentionally architected to facilitate spontaneous, bumping-into-people-in-the-hallway type of meetings.
Gorgeous looking, widgetized stats board based on Panic’s cool status board. This would look great on a big screen in the Web Team’s office. (Via Jimray.)
Speaking of “Desk Envy”, remember Josh Farmer’s sweet Mac setup?
“I don’t even know what it means to have a handmade desk.”
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Fanatics
There are fans and then there are true fans. The fanatics.
You can be a fan of many things. But when you encounter a brand, or product, or person that you really connect with — that’s when you become a true fan. A fanatic.
For instance: I’m a fan of Starbucks, but I’m fanatical about Crowfoot Valley Coffee (the local coffee shop in my home town).
Fans are people who have decided to give you their attention. They like you, and they’re willing to watch what you do and to stop by to say hello from time to time.
But true fans — the fanatics — they go out of their way to stay in touch with what you’re doing. They read every word on your site. They talk to others about you. They buy every one of your albums (even the crappy ones). And they miss you if you don’t show up for a few days.
The reason I’m a fan of Starbucks is because they’re convenient. They are all over the place and I know I can go to any one of them and get a decent cup of coffee. But I’m fanatical about Crowfoot Valley Coffee because it’s one of a kind. Not only does the owner know me by name, he makes the best Americano in the country.
Am I biased about the quality of Crowfoot’s coffee? Probably. But fanaticism is, by definition, single-minded.
The bridge from fan to true fan is built with emotion.
Anyone can get fans by simply showing up day after day and being genuine. But to get fanatics you have to do something long enough to create nostalgia. Or you have to do something crazy or wonderful enough to give your current fans something to get fanatical about.
I love this. Even the “smaller” indie Mac shop, Useful Fruit, is seeing sweet results from the Mac App Store. Chad Sellars:
The Mac App Store has more than doubled total revenue from Pear Note, and I’m ecstatic. Sure, others are seeing orders of magnitude improvements, but doubling sales is plenty for me. Note that this happened without playing any pricing games or doing any other unusual stunts. Pear Note on the store is $39.99, the exact same price as it is and always has been when purchased directly.
Curator is a great new tool that helps designers and illustrators create nice presentations of their work for client review.
Often overlooked, presenting work in a professional manner (even in the early stages of review) can have a serious effect on a client’s perceived value of the services, and often times even their feedback.
So for those of you still emailing your clients jpegs or spending your time laying things out in Illustrator, give Curator a try and see if it can’t speed up your workflow and/or improve your image. At only 99¢, there’s not much to lose.
Similar to Daniel’s Toggle Twitter AppleScript that would activate or hide your Twitter Client of Choice, Jesse Gardner’s Toggle Audio script will switch between the various audio output options you may have.
I have two audio output devices: my Internal Speakers and my Yeti Stereo Microphone. I plug my headphones into the Yeti when I’m recording a podcast or talking on Skype, but if I’m listening to music then I’ve just got the Internal Speakers playing. And now, using FastScripts to set a hotkey (CMD+OPT+A), Jesse’s script automates the switching process for me. Lovely.
Update: Many people are mentioning another shortcut to toggle the audio output: holding the Option key and click on the volume icon in the Menu Bar. I did not know about this shortcut; very cool. However, I’m sticking to the AppleScript because I prefer the least amount of icons in my Menubar as possible.
Many thanks to Coding Robots for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote MarkdownNote.
MarkdownNote is an iPad app specifically designed for those who write in Markdown. And if you don’t write in Markdown, who are you? I write everything in Markdown, not just stuff that’s for the Web. Emails, plain text documents, blog posts? All in Markdown.
MarkdownNote has live preview so you can see your Markdown as parsed HTML. But it’s killer feature is that it has a custom keyboard for quickly add Markdown syntax to your document. Because, on the iPad, typing in Markdown can be a pain at times, when you are always having to switch between the QWERTY layout and the numeric / symobls layout.
A simple, photography-inspired icon t-shirt by photographer extraordinary, Jorge Quinteros. I’m not even a photographer and I would totally wear one of these. Just $15 plus shipping.
The Bro Show is a great tech-centric podcast, and today I had the privilege of being a guest on the show. I talk briefly about the genesis of shawnblanc.net, what I define as “success” for a website, and my thoughts on growing a website and building a network.
But that’s just the first ten minutes… Myke, Terry, and I also talk about the most recent news regarding the HP TouchPad, Simplenote’s update, Kickstarter, and more.
John Gruber:
The growth potential of this market is too big to be estimated. I genuinely believe that these platforms are the future of the entire computing industry.
My Good First Impressions Based Only by Looking at the Website:
- I’ve always thought webOS was an elegant and attractive operating system, and the TouchPad looks like a great device.
- The Touchstone looks like a very slick accessory. It’s a stand for the TouchPad that also charges the tablet wirelessly.
The coolest feature, though, is the integration between the TouchPad and the Pre3:
The next generation of Touchstone technology makes HP devices work better together. Easily share a URL with your Pre3 simply by tapping them together. Receive text messages and answer phone calls on your TouchPad so you don’t miss a thing. Start reading a website or blog on a TouchPad and then tap your smartphone to take it to go.
I would love to see this on iOS — better sharing of what you’re working on at that moment. That’s what I love so much about Simplenote, and it’s what the app Handoff is trying to solve.
My Bad First Impressions Which Are Also Only From Looking at the Website:
- It’s got a plastic back yet it weighs just slightly more than the iPad. The weight is what I like least about my iPad, because that’s what makes it most difficult to hold with one hand.
- It doesn’t ship until the summer.
I’m a sucker for Hemingway quotes:
Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?
Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.
Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?
Hemingway: Getting the words right.
That desk right there? That’s a man’s desk. 21 square feet of simplicity and awesomeness built from scratch by yours truly.
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Henri Nouwen on Writing
“Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: ‘I don’t know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down.’ But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.
“One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.”
— Henri Nouwen
And here’s another good Henri quote:
“The word is always a word for others. Words need to be heard. When we give words to what we are living, these words need to be received and responded to. A speaker needs a listener. A writer needs a reader.”
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More on Writing (or: A Case Against Editing)
Yesterday’s article on writing received quite a bit of feedback. Much of it in the form of great advice and stories from other writers about how they write. Thank you all for your feedback; this site has a lot of great readers.
Iain Broome responded with his attitude towards writing and editing:
Writing is relatively easy. Writing well is extremely tough. Without that extra, uncompromising attention to detail, you’ll find yourself writing without Writing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of editing my work. All work should be edited. I certainly spend far more time editing the articles I post to shawnblanc.net than I do writing them. I even edit my emails before hitting send.
Let me try to reiterate the two things I was primarily harping against in my article yesterday: (a) my tendency to avoid writing when it doesn’t feel like I’m producing my best work to date; and (b) my tendency to edit my work in real-time as I’m writing it.
What these two tendencies mean for me is that I often write each word, one at a time, slowly, so as to get just the right word. There are a lot of people who write like that, but I don’t know if it’s the best habit for me. But more on that at the end.
Another bit of feedback came from reader Rory Marinich via email saying there is no such thing as bad or good writing as it relates to voice — there is simply honest writing: “Honest subjects, honest voice, and that’s all writing can ever be.” Moreover, Rory said how writing effortlessly does not necessarily mean that a writer has “arrived”, because every writer has their own, unique pace.
Thanks, Rory, for the sage advice. And in fact, this is what I was trying to communicate in my final paragraph yesterday when I wrote:
But suppose one day I do arrive at some level of skill where the ink flows like honey and the prose like fine wine. I wonder if I’d even realize it. It may very well feel just like it does right now…
My point is that my perception of what it’s like to write compared to what I imagine it may be like to Write is most likely an arbitrary perception. The process of growing as a writer — or any other creative profession — is a slow and iterative process. Today feels just like yesterday, and tomorrow will feel like today. But if we were to skip back 2 years or skip ahead, then we would notice the difference.
It is easy to compare the difference in our finished products. I can read an article I wrote two years ago and compare it to an article I wrote last week and see that the quality and flow is higher. I can see that I have better grammar and use of vocabulary. But what I can’t see is my process for writing that article two years ago compared to my process of last week’s. To me, I remember them as being the same.
Lastly, is Randy Murray who was able to sum up my entire point in a single tweet: “give yourself permission to suck, then get better.”
This is exactly the struggle I have recently found myself in. I’ve noticed that I will not publish or even write something simply because it doesn’t feel absolutely incredible at the time I’m trying to write it. It’s likely that I’ve been hindered by this fear of doing crappy work for years — who knows — but I’ve only recently become aware of it.
And though I prefer not to post gushing articles like this (especially two in as many days), I know that many of you are writers, designers, podcasters, and more. And so my hope is that by me expressing my recent discoveries and shortcomings as a writer they will help you find ways that you can grow in your craft as well. Because that’s the whole point, right? To learn and to grow?
But that’s not all…
I want to come back to the two tendencies I’m trying to pull out of: (a) my tendency to avoid writing when it doesn’t feel like I’m producing my best work to date; and (b) my tendency to edit my work in real-time as I’m writing it.
I don’t know if these are the best habits for me to grow. Which is to say that I have questions about the amount of time I spend editing my work. Mostly, I’m curious about what would happen if I spent slightly less time editing my writing and then slightly more time creating and writing the next thing?
As I said, I am a big fan of editing. But what if I edited less and wrote more? Is it possible that I would slowly become a better writer in need of less editing? Ray Bradbury seems to think so: “Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.”
Daniel Jalkut wrote this clever little AppleScript that will toggle your Twitter Client of Choice between the foreground and being hidden. I’m using it all the time now.
And, naturally, it works perfectly with one of the best utility apps out there: FastScripts.
“In hindsight Courier is such an obvious name, but only through iterating on our idea did we actually come up with it.”
This year it’s an encapsulation of the life of Nicholas’ father, based on artifacts like slides, calendars, postcards, and journals.
I never view the PDF; I order the print version every year and always wait for that to arrive before reading Nicholas’ Annual Report.
And, speaking of growing as a writer, this 2-year-old article by John Gruber is great inspiration for “anyone who wants to publish or write on the web to pursue their obsessions in a serious way.”
An article by Chris Brogan on writing that complements what I wrote this morning.
“Put your words into something so that you can look at them outside of your head.“
MarkdownNote makes it really easy to create notes using John Gruber’s popular Markdown markup language in your iPad. Using live preview feature, you can preview your Markdown markup syntax to HTML on writing. MarkdownNote allows you to create and organize your notes in folders with Dropbox.
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Writing vs. Writing
This is me, thinking out loud about my writing.
There is writing, and then there is Writing. And I am amazed at how often I will shy away from the former because it doesn’t feel like the latter. There are times when I put far too much emphasis on the fine-tuned components of writing, and not nearly enough emphasis on simply getting the words down.
You know the difference I’m talking about. The latter is tangible — it’s the times when the words seem to write themselves. But then there are times when you feel like you’re back in the 2nd grade playing Oregon Trail and it’s all you can do to remember the Home Row. In fact, for me, writing rarely feels like Writing.
I may never be a capital “W” Writer. I may never win a Pulitzer, or write for the New Yorker, or even get pen to paper for what could be the next great American Novel. But I want to shoot for it. I want to be the best. I want my writing to be engaging, clever, and quotable. I want my articles to be insightful and memorable. But that will never happen if I only ever allow myself to write when it feels like Writing.
It’s suicide to stop before I start just because I’m not feeling it. I’ve got to settle the fact that sometimes it’s just plain writing and get over it already. Because wanting to write is not the same as writing.
And thinking about writing is not the same as writing.
Reading about writing is not the same as writing.
Tweeting about writing is not the same as writing.
Having a conversation about writing is not the same as writing.
Some of these help me grow into a better writer, but how often are they really just ways of procrastinating that don’t ever produce something written? If I’m not sitting here writing then I’m not writing.
If I’m not sitting here writing, I’m not writing.
Dorothy C. Fontana said: “You can’t say, I won’t write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then… you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer.“
Do I want to be a capital “W” Writer? Yes. Do I want all my writing to feel like Writing? Yes. But I have to be okay with the fact that right now, I’m not and it doesn’t. I’m just a writer and most of the time writing is hard. It may never be otherwise.
But suppose one day I do arrive at some level of skill where the ink flows like honey and the prose like fine wine. I wonder if I’d even realize it. It may very well feel just like it does right now — like today — when it seems as if I can’t even put two words together using copy and paste.
Love that orange.
Some mind-blowing stats. Like: 200 Trillion text messages are received every day.
Update: In fact, that’s so mind blowing it can’t possibly be true. 200,000,000,000 text per day, divided by 310,500,000 (the population of the United sates) would mean each individual gets 644,122 text messages every day.
Log in to your Instapaper Account screen and you’ll find the ability to link your Instapaper reading queue to your Readability account.
As a side note, last week I mentioned how the sites I most want to support are usually not the sites I’m throwing into Readability. But after using Readability for the past few days, I learned that not just sites you read using Readability are given a donation, also the sites which you simply bookmark for reading later. So now, if I read an article in the browser, I just bookmark it and it gets earmarked.
Commodore 64 → iPhone 4.
Well, it certainly skips a few, but that’s not the point. (Via Pat.)
Many thanks to the guys at HiTask for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. HiTask is a free, web-based, task-management app.
There are many task management apps out there, and I believe that these unique and diverse apps are being built because people themselves are unique and diverse. Each of us has our own way of dealing with our responsibilities and our own expressions of productivity. We’re not looking for the best app out there, but rather the best app for us.
There is no cost to sign up for HiTask, and it has many features and options. It will let you work with team members, it has an in-line calendar view (both high-level and granular), it helps you with time tracking and reporting, lets you create tasks via email, and more.
It’ll be fun to swing by my local Apple store next week and say hi to all the Verizon customers standing in line for their iPhones. Too bad for them the Verizon iPhone isn’t launching in the summer when it’s warm outside…
Media Temple just upgraded their (dv) hosting service with new hardware, updated software stacks, and better options for scaling and upgrading your hosting once you’re on a (dv) plan.
I migrated shawnblanc.net to a (dv) server in September and have been very pleased with its performance. If you’re looking to set up a hosting account with Media Temple then use this link and I’ll get a small kickback to help cover my own hosting costs.
New features for those with a premium subscription to Simplenote: (a) Sync via Dropbox if you prefer, and (b) you can now turn a note into a legit to-do list on the iOS versions of the app. The list feature is super clever and well implemented.
And the price of the premium subscription has also gone up slightly. It used to be $12/year, but now it’s $20 (or just $2 a month). I’ve been a premium member since day one, and will happily pay the slightly higher cost when it’s time to renew. Simplenote is by far one of my most-used apps.
Here are Marco’s speculations on where the MacBook Pro lineup is going. I think he spot on, especially since his guesses are based on the current MacBook Air.
These next three paragraphs I wrote back in October when the new MacBook Airs were introduced. They were part of a larger article I drafted after the press release where Apple introduced the Airs, and demoed Lion and the Mac App Store. I never finished the piece and it wasn’t ever published. But, here’s the bit I wrote about the MacBook Airs and how they are the laptops which lead the way for the whole lineup:
The Air is Apple’s the secret forerunner laptop. Over the past three years it has subtly led the way in many areas of Apple’s laptop design.
When the Air was introduced in 2008 it was the first laptop to sport the unibody design, the black plastic keyboard, and the wider multi-touch trackpad. And it was the first laptop with an SSD drive as an upgradeable option when purchasing on Apple’s website.
Now, it’s the first laptop with flash storage as the only option. My guess is that flash storage will be the default storage option in the entire MacBook Pro lineup by Summer 2011. I think the performance improvements that flash storage brings to an OS are likely a huge factors for an optimal running environment to OS X 10.7.
The transcript from Steve Jobs’ commencement address at the Stanford Graduation of 2005. (Via Marco.)
C.J. Chilvers on why he switched from digital tools back to paper ones for managing his task list. It’s interesting because much of C.J.’s change in workflow was based on the findings in Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows, which hits conclusions about how computers and the internet are re-wiring our brains. In short, C.J.’s point is that keeping a paper-based to-do list actually leads to better concentration and focus by sheer virtue of the fact that it’s on paper rather than a monitor.
Marcelo Somers just wrote what may be the most intelligent piece I’ve read all month regarding passionate independent writers, large news conglomerations, and the issue of passion and monetizing content.
Big publishers have had their blinders on so narrowly that they only have seen the internet and mobile devices as a new publishing medium, not a new business model.
And:
To be successful, people have to want to read what you write. Pure news is a commodity, I don’t care if I get it from The Daily, The New York Times, or Engadget, but it has to be great because it’s so easy to access anything. It’s hard to be great. It takes time to be great. But it doesn’t take a staff of hundreds to be great. People like Murdoch’s argument is that it takes hundreds of people to be great. He is wrong. It takes passion.
Now available on iTunes.
Announcement of The Daily is live now. (Flash required for the webstream.)
Also, live blogged from Macworld.
Clay Shirky:
The economics of content creation are in fact fairly simple. The two critical questions are “Does the support come from the reader, or from an advertiser, patron, or the creator?” and “Is the support mandatory or voluntary?”
This article was written in 2003, but it is still just as relevant today as it was then. Because 8 years later there is still no single answer. There is no clear way forward for the independent writer, designer, developer, podcaster, et al. to generate income from their work.
It’s an entrepreneurial conundrum.
Technology has created a platform for people who may have never been creative professionals to now become so. The Internet has allowed would-be writers or designers to grow into actual writers and designers. But to sustain their work, many of these curative professionals are now forced to also become entrepreneurs as they seek out ways to keep the content flowing and the lights on all at the same time.
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Ideas that Spread, Win
Somewhere, a few years back, I was listening to a live broadcast with Seth Godin. I think it was a radio show targeted towards non-profit organizations, and Seth was giving advice about marketing and spreading ideas.
I took a few notes from what Seth said and just recently came across them in my Yojimbo. Here are the bulletpoints of Seth’s advice from that radio show:
- Ideas that spread, win.
- Free ideas spread better than non-free ideas.
- You monetize it by selling souvenirs.
- For example, books are souvenirs. But it’s not about selling books. If you’re in the idea business the books will sell themselves.
- Permission is the only asset. If people ‘complain’ when they don’t hear from you, then it means you’ve got permission.
- Conversations are marketing. If you can get people to talk about what you’re doing then you win.
- Words for readers, not readers for words (it’s why The New Yorker and Rolling Stone are so great, and the magazine industry makes 10 times the book industry).
- Blogs work. It’s the successful nature of dripping ideas into the place where they can spread.
I’ve been saying all day how sites I enjoy the most and most want to support are the sites I usually read on their website. But Justin Blanton has been piping them through Readability for years. Why? For consistency and efficiency in his reading:
For the last couple of years I’ve routed everything through Readability, no matter how visually pleasing I find the site, or how easy it is to read its text. (I stuck with Readability even after Instapaper offered a similar bookmarklet.) I really don’t care how good your site looks, etc. — I want a consistent reading experience no matter what I’m reading (mainly because, over time, it makes my reading more efficient).
A lot of people have been pointing this out to me today. Before today I’d never heard of Flattr.
The payment concept is a lot like Readability’s in that it’s a social micro payment system. The consumers send a flat fee to Flattr and then it gets divided up each month based on who’s sites they visited and chose to “flattr” while there. But you can only “Flattr” someone if they have signed up as a content creator and put a Flattr button on their site.
This morning, while writing about the payment distribution model in my link to Readability, I made a comment that the sites which I am least likely to read using the Readability service are the sites I most likely want to support.
Nate Peretic hits on this issue as well, and offers some other revenue sharing options beyond having to bookmark a web page in Readability:
Readability may want to consider expanding their offering to include an easy-to-update whitelist of sites that are automatically tallied as you browse. For sake of example, each time you end up at Marco.org and have the Readability add-on installed in your browser the clock starts ticking. Alternatively, a one-click way to mark an article as read without necessarily invoking the Readability interface would suffice.
But do you want to know what really excites me about this whole new business model that Readability has introduced? I’m excited about what users seem to be complaining about. They’re complaining that Readability doesn’t have an even easier way to support and fund the sites they love.
Chris Bowler, who regularly gets up at 4:30 every morning, chiming in on the recent conversation about rising early:
Many folks believe the benefits are there, but it’s simply not natural to them.
Also, this article by Steve Pavlina was an interesting read for how to create a sub-concious habit of getting up right when your alarm goes off. Did you know that if you oversleep for an hour each day you’ve snoozed the equivalent of nine 40-hour work weeks?
Daniel Jalkut on paying for good software:
But smaller companies don’t often have the variety of products and services that lends itself to such a complex strategy [of giving things away for free]. Given a good product idea and a market to sell to, they’re forced to adopt the simplest of all strategies: pure payment. Build something brilliant, and be rewarded with money. This money translates into a great motivation for the developer, which in turn translates back into product greatness. It’s easy to understand why the majority of great products in this world do cost money to obtain.
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Supporting the Independents
The creative professional community is full of independents. And the best content, apps, and services are increasingly coming from independent writers, developers, and entrepreneurs. I want this quality to increase — especially amongst my favorite developers, writers, et al.
Which is why I give my money to a handful of websites, services, and content producers whom I love. For example: I buy everything Shaun Inman creates. In part because it’s worth it, but also because I want him to keep building and creating. It’s also why I have a subscription to 5by5 and Instapaper. It’s why I buy people’s eBooks. And it’s why I buy the software I use, even if there is a free version that works just fine for me.
Obviously I can’t afford do give my money to support every website I read and for every cool app that I come across. And so, when I can’t afford to pay for something then I spread the word about their product using Twitter or my website. Or, for some apps, I try to give as much of my time as I can by helping them test and improve their software.
For the handful of my most-favorite websites and apps which I continually find value from, supporting them is a win for both of us. It’s a way to thank them and it helps them keep building and creating for the long run.
Readability is kicking off their brand new service today with some significant changes. Most notably: their membership subscription model.
You can become a subscribing member to Readability for $5/month or more. And as a member, 70% of your subscription payment gets divided up and given to the sites you read using Readability. If you invoke the Readability button on a site to or save it to your Reading List then that domain name is earmarked and the publisher of that site gets a portion of your subscription payment. If you’re a publisher, in order to get paid by Readability you have to opt in and register your domain.
Moreover, Readability now has a mobile app which was custom built by Marco and is based heavily on Instapaper. And Marco will soon be hooking Instapaper itself to your account on Readability so that publishers you read in Instapaper will receive credit as well. Meaning, in the near future, if you want to support the sites you read you don’t have to quit using Instapaper.
Readability’s subscription model is a fantastic idea. I’ve already signed up.
However, I’m curious how the model will pan out for supporting the smaller, independent publishers. It seems to me that the sites which I most want my 70% subscription payment to go to are the sites which are already optimized for reading on the web. Or, put another way, the sites I am least likely to read using Readability are exactly the sites I want to support.
I saw this poster at Denver International Airport when I was flying home last month for Christmas. It’s an advertisement for Colorado Mountain College. To find them online they give you the suggested search term instead of an actual Web address. Just like the trend Cabel Sasser saw while in Japan back in 2008.
As good URLs become more and more rare, how long until this is common place?
