The little bits of animation here and whimsey there are simply fantastic. I love how the IFTTT logo gets mirrored when app’s main screen flips over to the settings pane.
Month: July 2013
Take Control of LaunchBar →
Take Control of LaunchBar is an in-depth “user’s guide” for LaunchBar by Kirk McElhearn that’s part of TidBITS always-amazing Take Control series.
If you use LaunchBar, you’re going to want this book. I’ve been reading through it over the past few days and have learned several new things that I’m putting to good use already. I don’t tinker as much as I used to. Instead I prefer to learn new things about the tools I already use day in and day out.
Also, the Objective Development guys are running a deal: get McElhearn’s book for free if you buy LaunchBar.
The Prompt: An Annoying Mispronunciation →
The Prompt is one of the coolest new podcasts around. (They also have the most number of unique accents amongst any podcast I’m familiar with.) Yesterday they asked me to join them as a correspondent for one of their segments where we nerded out about photography gear, workflows, and photo management.
Day One for Mac, 1.8 [MAS Link] →
Yesterday, Day One for Mac got a significant update. It’s now on feature parity with the iOS version, which means on the Mac you can now add photos, your current location and weather, tags, and more.
I’m personally a huge fan of Day One, and I wrote a review of the 3-app suite last fall. Ever since the iOS app added the ability to include photos in journal entries I now use it often to record memories and moments. The Mac app’s ability to now add photos makes it much easier for me to log and save some of my favorite shots from the E-PL5. Whereas up until now, most of the photos I’ve been putting in Day One have been iPhone shots.
Day One is $10 on the Mac App Store. And on iOS it’s free this week to celebrate the App Store’s 5th anniversary.
Are You Creatively Satisfied? →
“That’s a loaded question.”
Overcoming the Talent Ceiling
What happens when our vision and desire to create amazing work reaches further than our ability to actually create that work? How do we handle it when we know we can be better, and we want to do better work, and we know how it should look in the end, but we don’t yet have the skills to meet our goals?
I think most artists and makers live in this state perpetually.
And if we’re fortunate, we’ll stay there. Ideally our talent will never surpass our drive to make things, because if we wake up one day with more skill than drive, we’re probably burnt out.
Though the feeling of lack sucks, it’s also proof that we’re hungry to do better and go farther in our work.
And I think the pain and frustration we feel when we’re confronted with our lack of talent and skill is also the path to overcoming our talent ceiling. The pain an athlete feels when exercising is the proof that they are getting stronger.
Which is why I think the most important character trait of a successful maker is perseverance.
* * *
Last week I asked if anyone wanted to share their story of how they’ve overcome their own talent ceilings. The emails I’ve received so far have been much more encouraging and personal than I could have imagined. I’m still trying to read through them all and I’m realizing this is such an important and personal topic.
Here are a few excerpts from some of the emails I’ve read so far:
- Chase McCoy: Talent ceilings are a burden and a blessing. They restrict our work, but they force us to think around a problem and find our own way to the solution. Sometimes that journey is more important than the end goal.
-
Michael Schechter: I’m banging my head against that ceiling daily. Seems to be the only way I’ve found to raise it.
-
Guido O.: I guess that overcoming your own talent ceiling just requires you to trust yourself, to give yourself space and time to grow. Talent may grow indefinitely, but it is not an immediate process.
-
Larry D.: I got around my talent glass ceiling by enlisting the help of others who do have the talent and exciting others in the company about the benefits. What I’ve learned professionally is that we need to dream big, dream beyond our own capabilities. We can enlist others to help us on our journey because we can’t all be good at everything. The talent ceiling may exist for an individual, but not for a team of the right people. I’ve found people want to help if you have a big, great idea.
As Larry mentions just above, I think the second most important character trait of a successful maker is relationship and community. In fact, community and perseverance go hand in hand, like two sides of the same coin. Have a community to go to and work with and get feedback from gives us continued energy to persevere.
* * *
Right now I am working on a project for people who make things. And in it, I go into more detail about this topic as well as many others related to the making of things. If you want to get an email when it’s ready, I’ve made a little signup form.
Style vs. Substance in Mobile Software →
Michael Mace:
The most beautiful app is not the one that looks most striking; it’s the one people can actually use. You should design your app to be usable first, and then make it as pretty as you can. The highest form of beauty is functionality.
This pretty much goes for all design, but it’s especially true of mobile design where (a) the usage contexts are so extremely varied, (b) the devices are relatively small, and (c) standard UI and UX practices are still being learned and developed, and perhaps just now are maturing out of their infancy.
Apple TV and Plex →
Bradley Chambers writes up how he uses Plex as the brains for his home media server and as a “home grown iTunes Match for video” solution. When I wrote up about how I’d converted my old PowerBook into a home Mac media server, a lot of readers wrote in to say they were using Plex and loved it (one very cool feature, as Bradly points out, is that you can stream your movies from your Mac to your iPhone/iPad even if you’re on the other side of the planet.)
A Day in the Life of Ryan Sims →
Nice profile of Ryan Sims, the head of design for Rdio:
Music is magical. Discovering and consuming it should be a joy. One thing we’ve tried to do with Rdio is bring the music to the foreground by pushing everything else to the back. If Rdio is the canvas, the music is the paint. And we are trying to compose spectacular landscapes. Being a company that values design at every level and having such a design-driven product, we can take some pretty big design risks where others might be more cautious and conservative. This is one hell of an opportunity and it’s something every one of our designers has a good grasp of and takes very seriously.
Some Great iOS Apps, Currently Free →
This week will be the 5th anniversary of the iOS App Store. Though Apple hasn’t yet announced anything officially, several popular developers are offering their apps and games for free this week presumably as part of a special 5th-anniversary promotion that Apple will do. These are some great apps and, man, you can’t beat free.
Update: The 5-year celebratory page for the App Store is now on iTunes.
Sponsor: Backblaze: Online Backup & Data Backup Software →
1 in 2 computer users lose data every year. Back up all your data with Backblaze online backup. It’s unlimited, unthrottled, uncomplicated, and unexpensive.
Don’t risk losing your music, photos, movies, and whatever else you’re working on or editing. Backblaze continuously and securely backs up all the data on your computer and external hard drives.
Need to restore or access your files? Download a single file or all your data from any web browser or have Backblaze FedEx you a flash key or USB hard drive. Even quicker — access your files right from your iPhone.
Whether it’s a broken hard drive, lost external, or a stolen computer, data loss happens all the time. For less than a cup of coffee, just $5/month, Backblaze can back up all the data on your computer.
It’s easy. Stop putting it off. Start your free trial, and get your backup started today.
* * *
My thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. I have been using Backblaze as my offsite backup solution for years now and am very happy with their service and price. Definitely worth checking out.
‘Adrift’ →
Simon Christen spent two years filming this beautiful video that he calls a love letter to the fog of the San Francisco Bay Area:
I spent many mornings hiking in the dark to only find that the fog was too high, too low, or already gone by the time I got there. Luckily, once in a while the conditions would be perfect and I was able to capture something really special. Adrift is a collection of my favorite shots from these excursions into the ridges of the Marin Headlands.
The Sea of Strangers →
Seth Godin:
Is there anything more frightening than showing up (really showing up) in the place where you are unknown and alone?
All our warning systems are on high alert. From an evolutionary perspective, strangers represent danger. They are not only a direct threat, but carry the risk of rejection and all the insecurity that comes with it.
But the opposite can be true: Strangers can represent opportunity. The opportunity to learn, to make new connections, to build bridges that benefit everyone.
Wow. This post by Seth Godin fits hand-in-glove with the story I shared on today’s episode of Shawn Today, regarding how I overcame one of my own talent ceilings.
iOS 7 Versus the Rest: Black & White Photo Filters →
Among these comparisons I like Instagram’s Inkwell and Camera Noir best, but I will say that the photo filters in iOS 7 are done quite well. Side note: the Camera app (along with Safari) is one of my favorite new apps in iOS 7 — both in terms of its new design and its added feature set. Also, the Camera app gets bonus points for not having a poor icon.