A certain recent addition to the Blanc household has given me a heightened interest in photography. I’ve been playing with the beta of Lightroom 4 and as a non-photography guru I found it much easier to use than I expected — and the preset filters and settings are great.
I’ll keep using it for the full length of my 30-day trial before I decide to buy it, but so far it sure seems like a killer upgrade from iPhoto for editing.
Lukas Mathis goes through several of the better features from webOS and how they could help solve a few of the pain points on iOS. Based on the time I spent with an HP TouchPad I couldn’t agree more with Lukas’s suggestions — especially regarding one app, many screens and and quick access to regularly-changed settings.
This time last year I was sitting at my desk with MarsEdit open and my mouse pointer hovering over the “Send to Blog” button. I remember my palms were clammy, like when you lean over a ledge, and I just sat there, hesitating, for what seemed like the entire morning.
The article was my announcement that I was taking shawnblanc.net full time. So long as that article stayed in my Drafts Folder, then things could continue on as they always had. But once I hit publish, I knew that I was committed.
Publishing that article was like announcing that I was jumping off a cliff and hoping to make it to the other side. And my only hope to make it was to humbly ask that you guys — the readers — be willing to support the site directly by becoming members.
I have been shocked and humbled by the incredible response to the membership — thanks to the direct support from the readers, I’ve been able to write this site day in and day out for the past year. It has been fantastic. And I’d very much like to keep writing.
For those of you who have signed up for a membership in the past year: thank you. With no exaggeration, I mean it when I say I am honored and humbled by your support. As your membership renews I hope you will continue to stay on as a direct supporter of this site.
Two points of note for current members:
Regarding the Executive Membership: I’m introducing a new subscription level that gets you all the same benefits as the $3 membership but for $12/month. This is for those who have offered to or who are glad to pay more for their membership.
If you want to switch to the Executive Membership you’ll have to cancel your current subscription and sign up for the new one.
Excluding last year’s membership drive, I have done little to promote the membership over the past year. Primarily because, in my opinion, storing up all the attention of the membership for a big annual membership drive is more fun.
And so, for those of you who are new to the site, or who perhaps are long-time readers, but have not signed up for a membership, this is the time of year where I humbly ask that you consider signing up for a membership.
The direct support that comes in from readers makes up for nearly half of this site’s income. I literally could not continue to write here full time without the support of subscribing members.
The primary membership benefit is that you’re allowing me to spend my full attention working on this site.
There are of course, some additional, members-only perks:
The Members Journal: This is a new-in-2012 perk that I’ve just launched. The Members Journal is an email sent out on occasion. It’s not a regular email (as in every week or every month) because I don’t expect to regularly have content for it. But, when it does go out it will contain things such as:
A membership is just $3 a month — like a good cup of coffee — and you can sign up here.
Want to make time-lapse or stop motion videos with your iPhone? Get this app. It rocks.
A lot of furious feathered friends in these lists.
A big thanks to my internet pal, Federico Viticci, for being a guest on the show this week while I took some time off to hold Noah and change diapers.
I was a guest on Jeremy Fuksa’s fun video podcast for creative folks, The Cocktail Napkin. Since we’re both KC locals we recorded the show in person at a local coffee shop. Jeremy asked me about how I got into writing, the story of taking this site full time, and a few other fun things.
That drink in my hand? It’s an Americano.
I’ve noticed that a few times per week Backblaze the mds load would kick in at 100% and it was driving me and my MacBook Air’s fans bonkers. I knew it was related to Backblaze but didn’t know if it was normal or not and if not then what to do about it. Well, it’s not normal and this trick worked for me.
I love how Marco is always making things a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better. Another for instance: the Instapaper mobilizer web view was also recently updated and looks a whole lot nicer.
Noah Michele Blanc was born this past Saturday the 25th of February at 6:21 in the morning. At 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 19.5 inches tall, he is just perfect.
Being a new dad is filled with wonder and joy. Right now there’s nothing I’d rather do than hold my little boy and tell him how much I love him and how proud I am of him even though all he knows how to do is eat, sleep, and poop. Oh, and look cute:
My thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.
TinyLetter is the simplest way to send email newsletters. Creating signup forms is a breeze, and TinyLetter even makes it easy to reply to your readers individually. It’s also free.
TinyLetter doesn’t have all the features most email services offer. It’s built for people, not business. Just compose your message, send it to your readers, and find out what they think. That’s all there is to it. 
Nicholas Felton’s annual reports are one of those things I look forward to every year. There are still things where the print version is far superior to the digital version, and the Feltron Report is one of them. I just ordered mine, and you should too before the limited-edition print run sells out.
In his iOS 6 wish list, Federico Viticci wishes for a new iOS Home screen. Viticci has written about the problem of the iOS Home screen before, concluding that “Apple needs to tear apart the whole concept and rebuild it from the ground up.”
I agree. I think Apple does intend to rebuild the iOS Home screen from the ground up. I also think their intentions for the new Home screen are exciting, ambitious, and will prove to be a big deal.
Not until recently have we felt much of a need for a revamped home screen. Since 2007 iOS has evolved significantly in both its functionality (i.e. multitasking and Notification Center) and in the amount of available apps (thus folders, and multiple Home screens). After five years the Home screen is feeling cramped and outdated.
If I were a betting man, I would wager that the iOS Home screen as we know it today is not Apple’s long-term plan. My hunch is that the Home screen is still the way it is because the long-term ramifications of what it could be are huge.
A reimagined springboard is a prime opportunity for significant innovation. And significant innovation takes time.
Rebuilding the Home screen isn’t just about increasing usability. It is also about innovating at that “front-door interface” of how and where we get to the stuff on our devices (you can hardly do anything on your iPhone without going through the Home screen). Moreover, the ramifications of a reimagined Home screen go beyond iOS. As we are now learning via Lion and Mountain Lion, innovation on iOS is a setting of the stage for innovation on OS X.
During a recent episode of The Talk Show, John Gruber talked about how OS X is stuck with the “Desktop” whether they like it or not. Twenty years ago the Desktop as a folder for quick access to your files and your file system made sense. But that was when people predominantly interacted with files first before launching an app. Apple is now steering people away from the need to interact with the file system. With iCloud, automatic and in-app document saving, and versioning, we are seeing a shift in personal computing where people interact less with files first and more with apps first.
Khoi Vinh recently said:
Right now the most interesting [design] thing happening on the desktop, by far, is Apple’s iOS-ification of OS X. They’re clearly in the process of upending a decades-old paradigm for thinking about desktop software, and whether it’s successful or not is going to be very interesting.
A new iOS Home screen is Apple’s chance to get the “front-door interface” right. When they change the Home screen it’s going to be a big deal, and it will become a core part of iOS for the next decade.
Another reason why a new Home screen is such a big deal is because what Apple does to reimagine it on iOS will impact OS X and the Desktop and Dock (or perhaps the next evolution of Launchpad).
Put another way: I don’t see Apple just stealing ideas from Android and Windows Phone and implementing “live widgets” onto the iOS Home screen. When they update the Home screen they’ll have skated to where the puck is going to be.