Link Posts
The setup of Katie O’Shea, barista at Intelligentsia and bike fanatic:
My dream set-up would be a bike/coffee shop that offers fully-built frames, parts, & service for randonneur-style touring bikes as well as specialty coffee & home brewing equipment. No cream or sugar.
There are two things which irk me about the iPhone’s native Voice Memos app: (1) If you record a memo that is too long, the only way to get that memo onto your computer is to sync; and (2) the only other way to get the memo onto your computer is to email it to yourself.
I often record voice memos to myself regarding articles I’m working on or other ideas. This is especially when I’m in the car because things have a tendency to pop into my mind when I’m driving around running errands, and the only way to capture that is to record a voice memo.
Also, there are times (such as while I was in San Francisco last week) that I record Shawn Today using my iPhone.
Last week I began using DropVox instead of the native Voice Memos app. Basically this app creates a folder in your Dropbox account, and then when you launch the app you have one option: record. You record your voice memo and the app uploads it to your Dropbox account in the previously created DropVox folder. And it uploads it fast, too.
The audio quality is not quite as good as what you’ll get with the native Voice Memos app, but the utility of DropVox is superb. If you’re regularly recording voice memos that you don’t want confined to your iPhone, this one-dollar app is a great choice.
Many thanks to Typekit for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. As a matter of fact I decided to sign up for a Typekit account about two weeks ago. (They didn’t give me any sort of deal — I paid for it myself with my own money.)
Before I signed up for Typekit I had a few preconceived notions about it. That: (a) installing Typekit would be difficult; (b) using Typekit would slow my site down; and (c) I had no need for custom typefaces for the sake of branding my site.
However, since Typekit offers a free 30-day trial I decided to give it a shot. It was one of those evenings where you feel like hacking away on some code, and I figured it’d be a chance to have fun and educate myself on precisely how Typekit actually works. Well, I learned that all three of my assumptions about Typekit were wrong.
For one, Typekit was incredibly easy to set up. I simply picked out the header and body fonts I wanted to use, added them to my “kit”, put some javascript code into my site’s header and then changed what typefaces are first in my CSS file’s font stack.
Secondly, my “kit” only weighs in at 196K, or about the size of a few screenshots. I’ve noticed no lag or issues with the loading of the site.
And Thirdly, the branding issue: Yes the typefaces I’m using are unique, but more importantly is that I find the site more readable than it was before. I used to use Lucida Grande as my body font. It was too small at 12px and at 13px it starts looking ugly. Now I use Gesta which is very open and has a generous x-height. It looks great on the screen and I think make the site very readable.
Creatiplicity is a brand new podcast featuring yours truly and Chris Bowler. It’s the official Fusion Network podcast, and we will be interviewing the fabulously wonderful people within the Fusion network. And I love the name. Chris came up with it by combining creativity and simplicity. That is the heart of what we’ll be talking about on the show.
You can subscribe in iTunes. And while you’re there please be sure to give the show some ratings and reviews to help get it off the ground.
I think Federico’s article is not as wild of an opinion piece as it sounds. All this week at WWDC the idea that “iCloud is the operating system” was a common conversation I had with people. For one, on those big banners in the Moscone lobby — where it said “Lion + iOS 5 + iCloud = WWDC” — Apple placed iCloud on the same level as its two operating systems. And secondly, think about this:
And so, if iCloud is the operating system then it’s almost as if Lion and iOS 5 have become a type of app. It’s an interesting and exciting time to be a nerd.
The best RSS reader on the iPad and iPhone now has a Mac app. For further reading, check out Federico’s review at MacStories.
Goes on pre-sale in 10 days and starts at $500. The TouchPad looks great; I’d love to try one out.
I’ve had several conversations with people wondering about how iCloud and iOS 5 will work for those of us with multiple family members each with their own iDevice (or two, or three). Specifically: if each person has their own Apple ID for their personal calendars and mail and contacts, how then do you share purchased music and apps? Brian Stucki’s figured out that it will be possible, though (currently) it’s a bit of a hack.
Ben and I have talked before on the B&B Podcast about how long until carriers sell data-only plans instead of voice plans with data add-ons. And though it certainly would have some drawbacks, at least at this point in time, an iPod touch with a 3G data plan (like the iPads have) would be all that many people need thanks now to iMessages.
If you’ve got questions, Macworld’s got answers.
Lessien’s thoughts on the WWDC 2011 keynote.
A huge congratulations to this year’s Apple Design Award winners.
It was a sly, bold statement this morning when Steve Jobs said it was time that our Desktops and Laptops exist on the same plane as our iPhones, iPods, and iPads. The central hub for all our “stuff” is now no longer our main computer, but rather The Cloud.
As Gruber points out, this is the same idea that Google has but with fundamentally different approaches:
In both cases, your data is in the cloud, and you can access it from anywhere with a network connection. But Google’s vision is about software you run in a web browser. Apple’s is about native apps you run on devices. Apple is as committed to native apps — on the desktop, tablet, and handheld — as it has ever been.
Apple:
This is the cloud the way it should be: automatic and effortless. iCloud is seamlessly integrated into your apps, so you can access your content on all your devices. And it’s free with iOS 5.
Today’s keynote was huge. I don’t think any of us were expecting quite such a mind-blowing announcement today. It’s going to be an exciting year.