On this week’s episode of my podcast: analog vs digital; low-fi vs high-fi; old school versus new school; manual versus automatic — appreciating and taking advantage of today’s awesome technology while also celebrating the more traditional and hands-on way of doing things.

Brought to you by:

• EverWeb: the fastest and easiest way to create professional websites on OS X.

• The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: their support makes the work I do a sustainable possibility.

The only devices remaining that still use the 30-pin connector are the iPod classic and the iPhone 4s. And the only non-retina iOS device is the original iPad mini. These are the extreme devices: the iPod classic for the those who want the most storage possible (160GB); the original iPad mini and the iPhone 4s for those who want the cheapest iPad/iPhone possible.

EverWeb is a powerful, easy to use website builder that is a great alternative for Apple’s discontinued iWeb builder. EverWeb provides a full drag and drop user interface while still allowing for advanced features such as mobile websites, drop down menus, rollovers, image sliders, built in search engine optimization, and more.

EverWeb includes built in templates to help you get started with a professional looking site, or you can start from scratch. It also comes with built in widgets for adding contact forms, social media, e-commerce, and HTML5 video or audio.

Try EverWeb for free today.

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My thanks to EverWeb for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

Completing the 3-app trifecta, Microsoft’s OneNote is now on the Mac App Store. I have a handful of friends who used to adore this app back when they were PC users, but now use Evernote. Personally, I’m more of the one-app-per-function persuasion: OmniFocus for tasks, Simplenote for notes, not-sure-yet for shared lists, Paprika for recipes, Pinboard for bookmarks, and Fantastical for my agenda.

Speaking of Amazon Prime, Nick Bilton recently stayed indoors for a week, relying only on apps to get life done:

There is no denying that today’s technology-powered hyper-convenience can be a wonderful thing. The other week I holed up with my smartphone, apps and online services to see how far I could go without leaving home. The short answer: very far.

Marco:

This has not been a popular decision, to put it lightly, but most Prime customers — which I’ve been since 2005 — aren’t really going anywhere. There’s nowhere to go. Amazon has either destroyed or bought every competitor that has ever come close to its retail business.

I’ve also been a Prime customer for years, and though the $20 price hike is a bummer, of course, Prime is still worth it for us. There are so many one-off items — such as batteries, coffee filters, baby toothpaste, organic coconut oil, printer toner (ugh), charcoal lighter cubes, fine-tip gel ink pens, etc. — that are easier to order from Amazon than to put on the shopping list for the next time we’re out running errands. Heck, I have a friend who bought his lawnmower on Amazon Prime so he wouldn’t have to borrow a truck to go get one at Lowe’s.

But Marco’s complaint isn’t so much with the price increase as it is with the ever-evolving spamminess of Amazon Prime:

The biggest annoyance recently is that Prime members are now being forced through [an] interstitial ad between checkout steps […]

Showing this once is bad enough, but I see it regularly. Amazon is now annoying their best customers with desperate, obnoxious, tricky interstitial ads.

Reminds me of a few other examples of companies who spam their best customers.

Curiously, I have never once seen the ad that Marco sees regularly. However, Marco says he’s never once watched a video through Amazon Prime, whereas Anna and I have watched a few videos.

We’re fans of the Agatha Christie Poirot shows, and a few of the newer episodes aren’t on Netflix but are on Amazon Prime. We would probably use Amazon Prime more often if the viewing experience wasn’t so awkward for an Apple-centric household. To watch the Poirot episodes we had to download the Amazon Prime iPad app, find the shows, and then stream them to our Apple TV. It’s alright, but not nearly as nice as the Neftlix app on the Apple TV.

On this week’s episode of my podcast I answer several listener-submitted questions, mostly related to picking a CMS, building an audience, and if there’s a difference between “writing” and “blogging”.

Brought to you by:

• CocoaConf: The developer conference for those who think different. Use the code BLANC to save 20% on tickets for any Spring event.

• The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: thanks to their support which makes the work that I do a sustainable possibility.

Scott Adams:

A study showed that people are more creative when there’s human background noise, such as in a coffee shop. My experience agrees with the study. Back when I owned a restaurant, I brought my laptop to lunch one day to do some work in a booth while my order was being prepared. Ideas came to me so rapidly that I ended up writing an entire book while sitting in the restaurant during lunch rushes.

My experience agrees as well. It’s one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed working out of my coworking space for the past month and a half. Just being around others who are also working, and hearing the traffic outside, the tapping of other keyboards, and the occasional side conversations and phone calls, just helps me keep on my own track.

It wasn’t just all the emails and tweets that Nguyen was getting which led him to pull the game from the App Store, it was also the barrage of local media attention:

As news hit of how much money Nguyen was making, his face appeared in the Vietnamese papers and on TV, which was how his mom and dad first learned their son had made the game. The local paparazzi soon besieged his parents’ house, and he couldn’t go out unnoticed. While this might seem a small price to pay for such fame and fortune, for Nguyen the attention felt suffocating. “It is something I never want,” he tweeted. “Please give me peace.”

Over on The Sweet Setup, Stephen Hackett wrote a quick rundown of how iCloud’s Safari tabs work and why they’re awesome. Synced browser tabs and the new iCloud Keychain sync are by far and away my two favorite iCloud features.

Pay attention. You’ll be quizzed on this next time you use your iPhone.

Ben Ubois:

The next time you read somebody declaring the death of RSS, you can just smile to yourself as you mark it as read in your favorite reader and move on to the next article.

CocoaConf: the developer conference for those who think different

What do you get when you take some of the best Apple dev authors, trainers, and speakers and combine them with the most passionate, engaged developers in a region? You get a learning and networking experience that will not soon be forgotten! You get CocoaConf!

CocoaConf is back this Spring and better than ever! Joining us this tour are folks like Casey Liss, Daniel Steinberg, Dave Wiskus, Jaimee Newberry, Justin Williams, Matt Drance, Mattt Thompson, and Mike Rundle.

We just wrapped up CocoaConf Chicago last weekend, and a great time was had by all. If you weren’t able to join us there, we still have four more events this Spring in cities across the U.S:

Herndon, VA (DC)	March 28-29
Austin, TX	April 4-5	(Sold Out)
San Jose, CA	April 25-26
Raleigh, NC	May 9-10

Readers of Shawn’s blog can save 20% on any CocoaConf ticket by using the promo code BLANC at cocoaconf.com.

Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity — remaining tickets are going fast!

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My thanks to CocoaConf for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

We’ve got an excellent setup interview this week with my long-time internet pal, Ian Hines. Ian’s interview is especially fun because I also interviewed him almost 5 years ago to talk about his Sweet Mac Setup. Back then, in 2009, Ian had a couple of BlackBerrys, a white plastic MacBook, and he and his wife were pregnant with their first. My how things change.