Link Posts
Tuns out, the “Air Vent” icon was designed by Norm Cox over 30 years ago during his days at Xerox PARC:
I designed that symbol many years ago as a “container” for contextual menu choices. It would be somewhat equivalent to the context menu we use today when clicking over objects with the right mouse button.
(Via Michael Mulvey.)
Speaking of The Sweet Setup, we’ve got some near-term sponsorship openings that I’d love to see filled, including this week’s spot.
The way sponsorships work on TSS is as a whole package bundle that includes a sponsored blog post with a big image, an exclusive ad in our weekly email newsletter, a few thank-you tweets from our Twitter account, and a one-month run of two banner ads served up in our sidebar.
If you’re interested in booking a spot, shoot me an email: [email protected]
This week’s interview on The Sweet Setup is with the one and only, Katie Floyd, co-host of the Mac Power Users podcast (among other awesomeness):
I’m Katie Floyd. I’ve been a Mac user since 1984 when my dad brought home the original 128k Mac, and I never looked back.
On this week’s episode of The Weekly Briefly I discuss building a platform and an audience to share the things we have to say but how those platforms can turn on us and stifle our creativity and inspiration. Or: How do we keep out of the echo chamber in order to consistently create work we’re proud of and that has value and meaning?
Brought to you by:
Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like.
The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: Their support makes the work I do a sustainable possibility.
Today marks the 3-year anniversary of my first day as a full-time employee here at shawnblanc.net HQ. Thank you so much to all of you dear readers and members who swing by and support this site with your time, attention, and hard-earned cash.
Speaking of amazing apps that shipped yesterday, Fantastical 2 for the iPad is here. I’ve been using it for the last couple months and, of course, it’s great.
And in my time using and testing Fantastical for iPad, I realized a few things.
For one, I noticed how little I actually use a calendar on my iPad. I use to think I never used a calendar app on my iPad because there weren’t any options that I really liked (though, honestly, I do think the pre-iOS 7 iPad calendar app was pretty great). However, even with Fantastical available to me on the iPad, I just rarely ever opened it. But for people who’ve been running the iPhone version of Fantastical on their iPad at 2x, they’ll be extremely happy with the native iPad app.
Which leads me to my second realization. Using the iPad version put some context into just what an amazing app Fantastical for iPhone is. With all the extra space of the iPad’s screen, the app isn’t necessarily better than it’s iPhone sibling. And the fact that an app which has a primary function of displaying and making discoverable as much relevant information as possible, would do as good a job of that on the iPhone as it does on the iPad, is a testament to the former’s design quality.
Needless to say, if you’re in want of a great calendar app on the iPad, Fantastical is a great choice.
Wow. Just wow. Monument Valley is a brand new iOS art-driven puzzler game, and it’s truly spectacular. It’s worth the $4 just to see and experience the artwork.
Federico Viticci has written an excellent review of the game. If you enjoyed The Room and The Room 2, which are a couple of my favorite iOS games, then you’ll certainly enjoy Monument Valley as well.
Excellent story-slash-life-lesson from Greg Knauss about a side-project app he made called Romantimatic and learning to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Solid advice from Matt West. I couldn’t agree more with this bit:
Taking time to think is massively underrated.
Well, so long as we’re linking to cool articles over on The Sweet Setup, I also just posted an updated review of my Origami Workstation + Apple Bluetooth keyboard. I reviewed this little iPad writing accessory a year ago, and now that I use it with the iPad mini my affinity for it is even stronger. It is, in my opinion, one of the best Bluetooth keyboard options out there for any iPad at all, and certainly for the iPad mini.
I’ve been conducting Sweet Mac Setup interviews since 2009 and not once have I done one myself. Well, the time has come.
From the overall conclusion:
The E-M10 very much feels more like a third generation OM-D model than a step-down from its two brothers. It borrows many qualities we liked from both of them and presents them in a slightly smaller, lighter package.
I’ve read a few other reviews of the E-M10 and they are all glowing like this one. When the E-M10 was first announced a lot of people pooh-poohed it, saying it was just a poor man’s OM-D. But I think that’s missing the point entirely.
Last year when I wrote my one-year review of the E-PL5, I said there were no cameras enticing enough for me to consider upgrading. I spent some time with the E-P5 over Christmas and was actually underwhelmed by it — I wasn’t getting any shots out of it that I couldn’t also get with my E-PL5, and yet the E-P5 was bigger, heavier, more expensive.
But the E-M10 has turned out to be a fantastic upgrade from my E-PL5. For one, it’s almost exactly the same size (but with the EVF on top). It has a better back menu dial button (a 4-button d-pad instead of a spinning dial), it has the two dial control rings for adjusting Aperture, Shutter Speed, and/or exposure on the fly.
But something I’ve found myself using quite often is the Wi-Fi. I thought it was just a neat novelty, but turns out it’s actually quite useful.
As an example, a couple weeks ago I was at my nephew’s 2-year birthday party. I snapped a bunch of photos of him blowing out his cake. Then, as everyone was eating cake, I import a couple of the photos onto my iPhone, edited them in VSCO Cam, and then sent them to my folks who live in Colorado.
I have plans to write a more comprehensive review of the E-M10, but in the meantime I’ll say that I’m extremely happy with it. I’m not shooting more often than I already was with the E-PL5, nor has the E-M10 suddenly made me a brilliant photographer. However, I am taking advantage of all the extra features and functions that E-M10 has over the E-PL5. And that’s the point.
For further listening, check out a few weeks back, on one of my Weekly Briefly episodes where I talked about the E-M10 and why I decided to stick with Micro Four Thirds.
I think he likes it:
Sometimes a lens comes along that is special. This is one of those lenses.
The shots look fantastic, and as I’m quickly learning with photography gear: you get what you pay for.
Olympus makes some stellar lenses at incredible prices, but there is a slight sterility to them. The Panasonic lenses, however, have a special character to them which I really prefer.
I’ve rented the Olympus 45/1.8 lens a couple of times and love it. But looking at some of Huff’s side-by-side comparisons between the Olympus 45 and the Panasonic 42.5, it’s clear that the character and contrast of the latter is there.
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My thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.