Speaking of the internet and Alan Adler, here is a Q&A interview he did on Slashdot just a couple months ago. (Via Marco, of course.)
Month: March 2014
The Invention of the AeroPress →
Zachary Crockett wrote a profile of Alan Adler and his story of inventing the Aerobie Pro disc and the AeroPress:
This is the story of how Adler and Aerobie dispelled the notion of industry-specific limitations and found immense success in two disparate industries: toys and coffee.
And you’ve gotta love this line, when comparing the marketing tactics of the Aerobie Pro in the ’80s compared to how the word got out about the AeroPress in the early 2000s:
Whereas Alder had previously relied on traditional media and television to market his flying discs, the internet brought the AeroPress great success…
Now I think I’ll go brew an afternoon cup of coffee. (Thanks, Mitch!)
WhatsApp is Different →
Om Malilk and Keila Fong compare the usage numbers of WhatsApp to other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al. And the numbers are staggering — talk about making the case for mobile.
Inside The Facebook-WhatsApp Deal →
I enjoyed this Forbes article by Parmy Olson sharing some of the behind-the-scenes storyline to the Facebook-WhatsApp acquisition. I do all my messaging on iMessage, SMS, and Twitter (and Whisper during nerd conferences), so when I first read about the $19 billion deal it was with just about zero knowledge of what WhatsApp was and how big it was. Olson’s article gives a lot of context to the service.
The Affordance of Intimacy →
Robert McGinley Myers:
What makes the iPad stand out from other tablet computers, and what makes it so much more appealing, is that it was designed with intimacy in mind. And I think we’re just on the cusp of discovering how that intimacy affords different kinds of behaviors, different kinds of creativity and productivity.
This is an excellent article by Rob. And, tangentially, he articulates why it is I ended up picking the iPad mini rather than the iPad Air after my 3 months of side-by-side comparative usage. In short, though the larger screen on the Air was technically better for most things — writing, reading comics, watching videos, surfing the World Wide Web, etc. — the smaller form factor of the iPad mini made that device more appealing to me.
There’s just something a little bit mind blowing about a personal computer that can fit into a purse or the side pocket of your winter jacket.
Karelia Software Acquires Potion Factory and The Hit List →
Good news for fans of The Hit List (via DF):
We have been big fans of The Hit List, Potion’s flagship app, for a while now. We’ve looked around, and we’ve never found a better designed app to handle personal task management than The Hit List, perfectly balanced between power and ease-of-use. We use it every day. And we wanted to keep improving it, but also bring to it a bigger marketing force and level of support than Andy was able to, so that it can reach a bigger audience.
A few weeks ago on Twitter I mentioned The Hit List and was blown away by the number of responses from so many folks that either (a) still use THL, or (b) wish they were using it but had to move on to something different because of it’s slow development cycle.
I personally never got into The Hit List — I was a devout Things user back when THL was at its peak, and I later moved to OmniFocus — but I know a lot of people that were (and apparently still are).
In fact, the very first Sweet Mac Setup interview I ever did here was with Mark Jardine, and he was using The Hit List at the time:
I manage my life and projects with this app. Omnifocus was too much, Things was not enough. The Hit List is the perfect balance of power, simplicity, and beauty. It doesn’t have an iPhone companion yet, but it’s so good I don’t mind waiting for it.
Media Temple’s New Managed WordPress Hosting Service →
I have been with Media Temple for years and have always been extremely happy with their service. I started with (mt) when I had to move this site to a Grid Server back in 2007 shortly after a link from Daring Fireball crashed shawnblanc.net for like two days.
A few years later, the traffic here outgrew the Grid Server’s monthly GPU allotment and so I moved to a DV Virtual Private server. I also set The Sweet Setup on its own VPS machine and have been very pleased with the performance of the new Managed (dv) servers I’m on. We did almost 200,000 pageviews in our first 24 hours and the site didn’t even blink.
And that’s why I pay for the DV servers — not because I want a dedicated server environment, but because I need servers with more horsepower than the (gs) can handle.
I have considered moving my sites to WP Engine, but I would need one of their custom Premium plans, which means pricing would have been over $250/month — more than double what I’m currently paying for my two dedicated virtual servers on Media Temple.
Last week I spoke with Rick over at Flywheel, and they don’t even cater to guys like me who have a few WP sites and just need good fast managed hosting.
Well, now there is this brand new WordPress Premium Hosting service from Media Temple. And it’s just 29 bucks a month. It’s for folks who want to run a WordPress site or three, and who don’t want to fuss with updates, caching, backups, maintenance, troubleshooting, etc. That pretty much describes me exactly.
I spoke with Media Temple’s customer support earlier today. The Managed WordPress hosting service uses SSD servers, offers unlimited traffic (most manage hosting serves charge by pageviews), and should be able to easily handle the modicum of traffic my sites are doing.
Federic Lardinois, writing for TechCrunch about the new service, says:
Dante Baker, Media Temple’s product manager for this project, tells me that the managed WordPress hosting will offer a one-click setup for developers and designers who don’t want to have to deal with setting up servers and dealing with performance and scaling issues. Just like similar services, it will offer automated updates and one-click backups.
I’ll probably move The Sweet Setup over to the new service and see how things do for a month or two. If I move all three of my sites — TSS, shawnblanc.net, and Tools & Toys — it would save me $85/month in hosting costs. Not to mention the peace of mind of having WordPress-specific managed hosting.
Tweet Small Change →
Fun and clever new project from Patrick Rhone and Bethany Gladhill:
Tweet Small Change is $140.00 micro-grants given to compelling arts projects that are pitched via tweets.
Tweet Small Change just launched today, and they are accepting submissions. You submit your grant request via Twitter. You can read more about it on Patrick’s site.
Sponsor: Creative Labs AXX 200 →
We believe there’s so much more that your portable wireless speaker should do for you. That’s why we made the AXX 200.
The AXX 200 is a Bluetooth wireless speaker + Sound Blaster audio processor. This means a portable wireless speaker with power for real-time audio enhancement.
Intelligence. That’s what the AXX 200 brings to the table.
- Make a call. Listen to music. AXX 200 intelligently adjusts the audio settings for you.
- The Sound Blaster Central App for your iOS or Android device places the control in your hands.
- Built-in quad array microphone — that’s FOUR microphones in a single wireless speaker for 360° of clear, unmatched audio pickup for voice calls and recording.
- A wireless speaker that automatically cancels out noise during voice calls. For real.
It’s for work, it’s for play.
It can be everything you need it to be.
The AXX 200 is now on sale for a limited time at Creative.com and Amazon.com.
* * *
My thanks to Creative Labs for sponsoring the site this week.
Talking About iPads and Real Work
The always astute, Lukas Mathis, wrote a fantastic article about why he switched from an iPad to a Microsoft Surface so he could finally do “real work” using a tablet:
In general, I really love the Surface, and I use it much more, and for many more things, than I ever used any iPad I ever owned.
His thoughts on doing productive tasks with an iPad, and his review of Windows 8 — in which he clearly articulates the good, bad, and horrible — is all just excellent.
There are folks who are tiring of this whole racket around if we can or can’t use the iPad for real work. But I’m not tired of this topic at all.
The way I see it, being part of this ongoing conversation about “using the iPad for real work” is sort of like sitting in the front row and watching the personal and mobile computer landscape shift right before our eyes.
To quote Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
As amazing as mobile and personal computing is today, it is still in its infancy. The iPad is only a few years old, and think of how far it has come already. Twenty years from now, the average PC will probably be much more like a tablet (or a cell phone) and much less like a laptop/desktop. When my oldest son starts his freshman semester in the fall of 2030, I doubt we’ll be weighing the pros and cons of the iPad’s ability to do real work.
One day, as Lukas himself points out in his article, it won’t be newsworthy when someone does something creatively productive on their iPad:
If it was normal for people to use their iPads for creative tasks, there would not be newspaper articles about people using their iPads for creative tasks. The iPad will have arrived as a productivity device when news sites stop reporting about people who use iPads for productivity. So in the end, all of these links to articles about people who use their iPads to create things only seem to support the notion that this is not how most people use their iPads.
He’s right. Most people probably use their iPads for reading, surfing the web, light email, and checking Facebook and Twitter. And that’s fine.
But then there are apps like Drafts, Diet Coda, PDF Expert 5, Launch Center Pro, Editorial, and so many others (plus all the equivalent Windows 8 apps that I have no idea what they are) which are pushing mobile computing forward in small steps.
And those who are using these apps are also influencing the future of mobile computing. Because, and maybe I’m being grandiose, but I think those who are doing “real work” from their iPhone and iPad, are, in a small way, helping steer the direction of the personal computer.
Current Members: Fill Out This Form to Request Your First Choice Prize →
Just a note to all the current members, if there is a certain box in particular that you’d like to win over another, please fill out this form.
(Here are details about what’s in the Seven Boxes of Awesomeness.)
Later today I’ll be using a random number generator to pick the seven winners of this year’s membership drive. Once the winners are drawn, I’ll check the spreadsheet first and try and assign each winner their first-choice pick if possible. You do not have to fill out the form to win, only to request a particular prize.