Apple’s just announced their special event on September 10.

Fantastic interview.

So Microsoft bought Nokia for $7.17 billion, and Matt has some great questions and observations about the deal.

My only thought is that this is Microsoft’s next hope at buying itself back into relevancy. All the other smartphone players (Apple, Google, Blackberry) do their own hardware and software. Now Microsoft can be a part of that group as well. And with the best Windows Phone out there: the Nokia Lumia.

Today you can get the audio bundle of my book, Delight is in the Details, for 20-percent off. That includes the ebook itself, the audio book, and all 8 stellar interviews.

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There’s an nice new screenshot annotation feature built in to the latest version (3.5) of Droplr. It lets you add arrows, circles, rectangles, text, and freeform scribbles onto any screenshot and then upload to Droplr with one click. It’s a more streamlined workflow than what I’ve been doing with the old Skitch app.

Note that the Draw feature is for Droplr Pro Subscribers only.

Devir Kahan asked me some questions about working from home, what apps I use, and more.

The new Instapaper site looks absolutely fantastic, and I very much enjoyed reading Grant’s behind-the-scenes perspective on redesign. This gives me high hopes for what they’ll be doing with the Instapaper apps.

Jeff Atwood collaborated with the guys at WASD Keyboards to design his ideal mechanical keyboard. It uses the Cherry MX Clear switches and has backlit keys.

Though the Clear switches are not “clicky” like the Blue switches are, they are still noisy by virtue of the fact it’s a mechanical keyboard switch. Even though they’re called “silent” like the Brown switches, they still make a whack noise when you’re typing on them (see this YouTube video).

Compared to the Brown and Blue switches, the Clears require slightly more pressure to actuate, and I guess some folks think they give a bit more of a tactile feel than the Brown switches. This forum post on overclock.net has some excellent movement illustrations and information about all the different Cherry MX switches.

Last year I spent an obsessively long amount of time testing and reviewing mechanical keyboards. I spent time with an Apple Extended Keyboard II, a Das Keyboard, and a Matias Tactile Pro. Then I reviewed some tenkeyless keyboards: the Leopold and the Filco Ninja Majestouch-2. After all my testing, the Ninja is the keyboard I kept and still use today (typing this very sentence on it).

So, all this to say, though I haven’t used the CODE keyboard, I bet it’s awesome. (I wish my Filco Ninja had backlit keys.) And $150 for a well-built mechanical keyboard is about right. My only request, is that it’d be nice if it also came in a Mac-layout version as well, with the Command key, the OS X-specific modifiers on the top row, etc.

This comic illustration is just great. It’s illustrated by Gavin Aung Than and uses a quote from the graduation speech Bill Watterson gave at Kenyon College in 1990.

It sure hits home for me (no pun intended), considering I quit my day job two-and-a-half years ago and now work at home for myself. One significant reason for my career change was so I could be more flexible and present as a dad.

David Sparks:

The reason I was so willing to think synchronization stopped with companies like Apple and Google was because the servers and back-end required to make that happen were so expensive that small developers simply could not roll their own sync services. I’m no longer convinced that is the case.

Nice tip.

TOM Hanks likes to TYPE on typewriters:

the tactile pleasure of typing old school is incomparable to what you get from a de rigueur laptop. Computer keyboards make a mousy tappy tap tappy tap like ones you hear in a Starbucks — work may be getting done but it sounds cozy and small, like knitting needles creating a pair of socks. Everything you type on a typewriter sounds grand, the words forming in mini-explosions of SHOOK SHOOK SHOOK. A thank-you note resonates with the same heft as a literary masterpiece.

Speaking of coffee, I reviewed a handful of coffee timer/recipe apps a while back. Of the lot, I’m still using Brew Control.

P.S. Members of the site, don’t forget about the section of this site dedicated to coffee methods. It includes my favorite recipes, recommended gear, and several how-to videos for brewing with different coffee contraptions (Siphon, AeroPress, et al.).