A Tumblr collection of photos, showcasing what Sony’s RX1 is capable of. For such a compact camera, the results are stunning.

This is extremely nerdy and excellent. I’ve been adding the artwork for Shawn Today manually, via iTunes, for 2 years. The Mutagen Python library, run through a Hazel rule, now does that for me. And, coupled with my aforementioned auto-uploading scripts once I’ve recorded a show, now I simply drop the audio file into a folder and the rest is history.

To get Hazel to grab the artwork and pass it into the Python script, you’ll want to add the following towards the top:

hazelFilePath = sys.argv[1]

 

And then change the line that grabs the audio file to:

audio = MP3(hazelFilePath, ID3=ID3)

 

Not only does this enable me to upload and post an Amazon S3-hosted podcast from my iPhone, it also makes my desktop workflow significantly more automated.

It’s hard to explain the amount excitement we’re feeling over here at shawnblanc.net HQ, but let’s just say Noah was so glad to hear the news he pooped his pants and took a nap.

Episode 92 of The B&B Podcast — the final one. This was a great last episode, too. Ben and I talked about the history of the show, the Pebble smartwatch and watches in general, doing an OmniFocus workflow audit, Monoprice’s new 27-inch monitor, and the iPad as a “pro” PC.

We’ve been recording this podcast for about 2 years now, and it was a lot of fun. Thanks to Ben had the idea in the first place and asked me if I wanted to be his co-host. And most of all, thanks to all of you who listened to the show.

Mailbox, the new iPhone email app, launched today. Like a few hundred thousand others, I’m still waiting my turn in line to sign in and start using it.

Gentry Underwood, founder and CEO of the company behind Mailbox, said in an interview with The Tech Block last month:

We started [our] company on the realization that people use email as a terrible to-do list. We thought that maybe if we created a to-do list with built-in communication we could side-step this problem. After launching and looking at what was working (and what wasn’t) we discovered that even our most hard-core users still had inboxes filled with tasks. We were trying to figure out how best to solve this problem when we realized the opportunity lied in swapping our ‘solution’ on its head: rather than build a to-do list with email-like communication, why not transform the inbox in which that communication already lived into something more organized and easily manageable?

For his review at The Verge, Ellis Hamburger titled his article: “Mailbox just fixed email on the iPhone —
How a startup outdid both Apple and Google in one fell swoop”. That is a massive statement right there. Got iPhone email troubles? Not any more.

I’m not pre-sold on Mailbox, just yet. In part because I check email on my iPhone the least of anywhere else (I keep Mail on my second Home screen). Also because the whole idea of deferring an email until later, doesn’t yet click with me, nor is it how I manage my email. But nevertheless, I’m certainly intrigued.

This month’s edition of the Read & Trust Magazine is out, and the topic is “Shipping It”.

I had the privilege of contributing an article about my time leading an in-house design team and the battle we had with shipping work that was “good enough”. And that’s just one of several other great articles — David Sparks, Brett Terpstra, Brett Kelly, and Adam King all contributed as well.

Did you know that 49% of employees in 100-999 person companies are using consumer cloud services to store and synchronize their business data?

It’s because the consumer cloud is easy and fast. But it’s not always secure enough for your business’ intellectual property. It certainly doesn’t meet Corporate’s policies for auditing and data retention. It’s simply not the cloud you’re looking for.

Igloo is built in the enterprise cloud. We’re made for business, but still fast and easy to use. In fact, we have a full suite of social tools, like blogs, built around secure document management, collaboration and version control. (We have all the security acronyms you need. Really.)

It’s time you try Igloo (and check out our fancy new form, too.)

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My thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring the RSS feed again this week. Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Evan Calkins, all-around awesome dude and the man behind Hoban Press:

I’m a big fan of designing within constraints. A letterpress printed business card has some pretty serious constraints. Unlike the web, I am working with a fixed sheet of paper and generally working with one or two colors at a time. Unlike full color print work, letterpress printed pieces are relatively simple and centered around typography instead of complex graphics. I love this about the trade and I’m greatly inspired by other designers and printers who pull this off well.

Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group, in an interview with Don Southard:

When we move from one platform to the next, we try to learn how people interact with the app and we try to apply those interactions to the next platform.

Omni’s approach towards Mac and iOS app design is inspiring. Their mindset reminds me a lot of what Jeffery Zeldman wrote regarding the recent redesign A List Apart:

I challenged Mike and Tim to think of design non-canonically. What do I mean by that? Sometimes with responsive design, one particular layout (for instance, the desktop browser layout) feels like the “real” design, and smaller-screen experiences become merely usable afterthoughts. I didn’t want that here. Instead I wanted you, our readers, to feel that you’re experiencing the real thing on whichever device or circumstance you happen to encounter it.

OmniFocus is one of a few quintessential examples of software that has a version for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, yet no clear-cut canonical version. No matter which version your using, you don’t feel like you’re using a satellite version of the “real” app — each platform has its own, real, appropriate, version of OmniFocus.

Matt McGee adds up all the Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ mentions in each of the 52 nationally-aired commercials. I was surprised at how many commercials ended with a hashtag on the final screen.

And speaking of Twitter and the Super Bowl, the Twitter blog has an overview of the tweets of the game. The peak tweets-per-minute, moment? When the power went out.

The oscar-nominated Disney short that accompanied Wreck-It Ralph is online and is wonderful.

Ken Case:

[O]ur goals for version 2 are to bring back to the Mac all of the design and innovation that went into our iPad edition of OmniFocus: dedicated Forecast and Review modes, clearer navigation, and a fresh look and feel.

Never underestimate the power of good, delightful, UI design. In the case of OmniFocus, I think it’s crucial that the next version be as gorgeous and delightful as it is powerful and fearful.

I spent years using Things until its lack of OTA sync drove me to switch to OmniFocus. OmniFocus comes with quite a learning curve, and that learning curve is made steeper in part by the app’s less-than-stellar UI design.

As I said in a link to this Branch thread last week regarding the role of delight in design, if it’s true that we use something more when we enjoy using it, then it’s also fair to say that a little bit of delight can go a long way in increasing usability.

On this week’s show, Ben and I talked about responsive design and why shawnblanc.net is responsive even though it’s not “fluid”, Netbot going free, and a few other things.

Also: big news. This was our second-to-last episode. It’s been a lot of fun doing the podcast, and we’ve had a good, long run — over 90 episodes — but next week will be our final episode. It’s time to make room for new projects.

Steve Craig:

So I think some people objecting to the fact that things are skeuomorphic may really be articulating the fact that they object to having busy, stressful places to work.

For play, it’s different.