James Duncan Davidson’s Review of the Sony DSC-RX1  →

This is a great review of what’s got to be one of the hottest cameras on the market right now. The RX1 is, more or less, the guts, power, and ability of a full-frame DSLR tucked into the body of a compact.

When I bought my Olympus a few months ago, one of my fears was that I’d soon feel it was out of date and that something better was available. But reading Duncan’s review of the RX1 was actually an encouragement to me that I made the right choice with the E-PL5 and Panasonic 20/1.7. Duncan is a professional photographer with so much more experience and know-how than me it’s not even funny. Yet he loves the small size of the RX1 and the fast 35mm prime that’s attached to it and hasn’t felt held back at all. In short, if he’s satisfied with his camera considering his skill level, then there’s no reason for me to be unsatisfied with my rig considering my skill level — I haven’t even come close to feeling held back by the Olympus.

James Duncan Davidson’s Review of the Sony DSC-RX1

The Membership Giveaway

Yesterday was the kickoff to the 2013 membership drive. As mentioned in that post, there is a new membership system which is now based on Stripe. Also, I announced a new, members-only perk: the Coffee Methods section to the website.

Today, I aim to make things even more fun through the giveaway.

But first things first: my sincere thanks to all the new members who’ve signed up in the past 24 hours. Welcome!

Also, thanks to all the current members who have chosen to migrate their membership over to Stripe. For those of you who aren’t sure if you should migrate over to the new system, I hope you will. Unfortunately, I cannot port your membership for you, nor can I merge the two — which means there are two unique systems in place. Those who wish to stay with PayPal will continue to get access to the membership benefits just as they always have. But new Stripe-based system is leaps and bounds better than the PayPal system, removing nearly all of the frustrations and shortcomings of the latter. I apologize for asking you take this extra step, but I think it’s worth it and the feedback I’ve heard from all the members who have migrated so far has been great. Everyone gives Stripe two thumbs up.

For those who haven’t yet signed up for a membership, well, like they say: there’s no time like the present.

Members contribute nearly half of this site’s income. Which means there is no way I could be writing here as my full-time gig without the generous support of the members.

The Giveaway

Ideally, you are signing up to become a member because the value and enjoyment you get from the writing on this site is worth it to you. But, modesty aside, the members-only perks are a sweet bonus as well, if I do say so myself. But that’s not all.

During the next two weeks of this membership drive my chief aim is to try and sweeten the deal as much as possible. Therefore, I’ve arranged for some sweet prizes to give away to all members who are currently active, or who sign up for a membership on or before March 1.

Anyone who signs up for a membership before 11:59 pm CST on Friday night, March 1 is eligible to win. And all members who already have an active membership are automatically eligible as well. In short, if you’re an active member as of Friday night, March 1, then you’re entered to win.

There are a slew of top-notch prizes donated by friends of the site, with an aggregate value of $3,150.

The List of Prizes

How to Win and Other Rules

  • Anyone who signs up for a membership before 11:59 pm CST on Friday, March 1 will automatically be in the runnings to win something.

  • If you are already a member with an active membership, you are eligible to win.

  • You do not have to live in the United States to win — international members are most welcome and most eligible.

  • The drive ends at 11:59 pm CST on March 1, and the drawing will be held sometime the following week. It will be random and I will contact the winners via their PayPal or Stripe email address.

  • If there is a certain prize in particular that you’d like to win over another, please fill out this form. I will check it once the winners are drawn to try and get people a prize they prefer. You do not have to fill out the form to win, only to request a particular prize.

The Membership Giveaway

The 2013 Membership Drive

Welcome to the kickoff of the 3rd Annual Membership Drive.

This is always a fun time of year for me because not only do I get to give away some awesome stuff (check back tomorrow for the giveaway), but I also get to brag on the current members a bit as well as try my best to persuade any and all non-members to sign up.

It’s been two years since I quit my job and began writing shawnblanc.net as my full-time gig. It’s amazing how vividly I remember being scared out of my wits the morning I announced my intentions to take this site full time. It’s worked out well so far, and I have every intention of continuing.

What’s New This Year?

This year there are some new and fancy things to take note of. For one, the membership system now uses Stripe for processing payments. Secondly, there is a new member’s only section to the site.

Stripe for Payment Processing

The entire membership subscription system has been completely redone. I’ve abandoned PayPal for Stripe, and I’ve integrated the members-only sections into the site in a far more easy-to-use manner.

The new Stripe-based membership system is just fantastic. I switched because Stripe allows for several advantages, including: (a) more reliable billing (many members’ subscriptions have been suspended for no reason, other than a bug in PayPal), (b) easier way to find and access Shawn Today, along with overall better integration with the content on shawnblanc.net, and (c) easier membership management and administration for me.

It really is a significant upgrade the the entire membership system. If you’ve been waiting to become a member, there is no better time than now.

Note to current members who signed up using PayPal: If you wish to move to the new Stripe system, you will have to migrate yourself. I wish I could port your membership for you but I cannot. I apologize for asking you take this extra step, but I think it’s worth it.

Current members have two options:

  1. You can keep your current PayPal membership subscription active and continue enjoying the membership benefits as you have. Nothing will change for those who stay with PayPal.
  2. Or you can move to the new Stripe system and cancel your PayPal subscription.

To migrate your membership from PayPal to Stripe, here’s what to do:

  • Sign up for the new Stripe-based membership here.
  • Cancel your PayPal Membership via this link

If you have any trouble, any questions, or if you need a refund for a recent PayPal billing, please do not hesitate to email me.

Coffee Methods: The New, Members-Only Perk

I’m introducing a new content section to the site: Coffee Methods. This new members-only section is filled with my favorite recipes for AeroPress, French Press, Siphon Vacuum Pot, and Clever dripper. It also includes gear recommendations (such as grinders, brewing contraptions, coffee storage, etc.), and videos (gear overview and how-tos). All for the express purpose of brewing and enjoying good coffee.

My Humble Request

Over the years, this site’s membership base has continued to be the primary source of income allowing me to write here full time. Moreover, the feedback I get regarding Shawn Today proves to me that the perks alone are worth the price of admission.

If the value and enjoyment you get from this site is worth $4/month, then I would be humbled and honored to have your support as a subscribing member. Thank you.

The 2013 Membership Drive

Sponsor: Treehouse  →

Treehouse is a better way to learn technology. Our library of step-by-step video courses and training exercises will give you a wide range of competitive, in-demand technology skills that will help you land your next dream job or build your startup idea. No experience? No problem!

Learn to build websites, create iPhone and Android apps, code with Ruby on Rails and PHP, or start a business. Start learning today, and get 1 month free.

* * *

My thanks to Treehouse for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Sponsor: Treehouse

Professional Grade

Rene Ritchie, in an article about how, for Apple in 2013, it’s all about iOS 7 and iCloud:

It’s not about outdated concepts like widgets or settings toggles, or inconsequential interface trends like skeuomorphism. It’s about software and services that don’t force us to hunt for data or controls, no matter how they’re painted up, but that bring data and controls to us, flat or textured. It’s about actionable notifications powered by headless apps and seamless inter-app communication. It’s about predictive data assistance with multi-layer natural language interfaces. It’s about data moving from cloud to device, or vice versa, transparently, in the background, so we have what we need, when and where we need it, without having to manage or store it. It’s about all our stuff working together directly, device to device, so using one of them is akin to using any one of them. It’s about an app ecosystem that pushes rather than than waits for us to pull, with demos and refunds, and analytics that delight developers and users alike. It’s about the brilliant interaction of software and services both on-device and in the clouds.

Agreed.

Last year was a hardware-packed year for gadgets being designed in California. Retina MacBook Pros, super-slim and bubbly iMacs, iPhone 5, iPad mini, et al.

Of course, 2012 wasn’t strictly a hardware year. We got Mountain Lion, and OS X is now on an annual update cycle; we also got iOS 6 and Apple’s own maps app. But the updates to iOS and OS X were not of the same breakthrough caliber as the hardware updates — last year was a very good year to be in the market for a new Mac, iPad, or iPhone.

This year, I’m hopeful that the pendulum will swing towards the software-side of things.

I believe Apple wants to improve iOS in many of the areas Rene points out above. By removing some of the friction and frustration currently experienced with iCloud, maps, and more. And I also believe Apple wants iOS to be seen as a professional-grade operating system, worthy of “real work”. There is still some low-hanging fruit, and no doubt there are also some significant updates and breakthroughs to the usability and functionality of iOS on the horizon.

Of course, Apple already sees the iPad as being a legitimate work machine. As do many others (Federico Viticci being a chief example).

But I think it’s fair to say that the general perception of the iPad as a legitimate work device just isn’t there yet.

Even amongst the readers of this site — whom are decidedly, clever, nerdy, and prone to living on the bleeding edge — when I talk about using the iPad as my laptop, I get more than a few raised eyebrows and responses from people who still need or prefer to grab their MacBook when it’s time to work away from the office. Even my own wife would not be persuaded to get an iPad when she needed a new computer.

The prejudice against the iPad as a legitimate work machine isn’t isolated to just the iPad. It’s one of the few things all tablets have in common right now. Microsoft is attempting to market the Surface Pro as a professional grade device by showing people in a board room dancing.

Apple, on the other hand, I believe will demonstrate the iPad’s professional viability by bringing best-of-breed solutions and then demonstrating real-life use-case scenarios. A massive component of this is, and always will be, the App Store. But it can’t end there. Apple has more than a few areas where their own technologies and services need to catch up to those of 3rd parties as well as to those of their own competitors.

Professional Grade

Manly Marks  →

Brandon Griswold is Kickstarting a book — or rather, a letterpress printed, handmade testament to manliness:

As tough as letterpress can be, it’s strange to see it so heavily associated with things like wedding invitations and greeting cards. I mean, those are good things, but not very manly. Let’s see if we can do something about that.

Manly Marks

Design Dictatorship  →

Although you won’t find fine corinthian leather or green felt, magazine apps on the iPad are still some of the worst offenders when it comes to skeuomorphism getting in the way of usability. As Bryan Larrick points out:

Eschewing live text and making the text an image file preserves appearance, albeit at the expense of file size, search engine optimization, usability, and much of the ability to update content dynamically.

Enter magazines. Most magazines made the decision that preserving appearance is more important than utilizing all of the iPad’s functionality, so instead of pages loading text dynamically, a typical magazine page is one big png file.

Design Dictatorship

Mantia on Skeuomorphism  →

Louie Mantia:

Skeuomorphism is a word that everyone disagrees on what it means (or suggests it means all of the above), but is often used to discriminate apps that use realistic textures for the sake of joy, beauty, and delight. When you’re talking about an app that uses realistic textures, call that “theming” or “skinning” because before last year, that’s what we called it, and that’s what it is.

Mantia on Skeuomorphism

iOS: Empowered by Apps

It’s 7:00 am on a Saturday morning. Saturday, April 3, 2010. And I’m standing in line at my local Apple Store to buy an iPad.

Believe it or not, just two days prior, I had no plans to buy an iPad. But, be it gadget envy, a hunch, or whatever, I changed my mind at the last minute and I bought an original iPad on day one. And I’m glad I did, because looking back I realize I was, in a way, standing in line for a 9.7-inch slab of history.

For a year or two, my iPad primarily served as a “content consumption” device (ugh). Though mixed with casual email checking, to-do list management, and writing session, my iPad was primarily used for things like reading, watching videos, and surfing the web. Whenever it was time to get to work, I reached for the Mac.

The fact that I primarily “took in” content rather than “create” it wasn’t a limitation of the iPad so much as it was the software that accompanied it. The iPad shipped with a handful of creation-centric apps, but none that could fully replace my dependence on my Mac.

Moreover, when the iPad was new, things created on the iPad liked to stay on the iPad. In Pages, for example, the process of syncing a document was a joke. Notes were synced awkwardly over IMAP to the Mail app on my Mac. And Syncing my Things to-do list, though clever at the time, needed all devices to be on the same wi-fi network with Things launched.

When I first bought my original iPad back in 2010 and friends and co-workers would ask me about what makes it so great, I’d usually tell them about the 10-hour battery life. I can take notes, check email, and surf the web in this little tablet the size of a pad of paper, and I leave the cables at home. Part of what made the iPad so magical wasn’t entirely about what it could do, but what its potential promised us that it would one day be able to do.

Today, a lot of that promise of potential has been realized. Robust software abounds. As does over-the-air syncing of just about everything. Pretty much all of our stuff is accessible, usable, and editable from our Macs, iPads, and iPhones.

Some people don’t even need a Mac anymore, since the iPad is perfectly capable as one’s primary PC. And for those who still rely on OS X, the iPad is so much more than the satellite device it was in 2010 that for many, it can serve as a very good secondary work machine.

For those of us who need a powerful computer for the bulk of their work as well as a computer they can take on the go, we’ve gone from (a) a setup comprising the best desktop computer possible and the cheapest laptop possible, to (b) owning simply the best laptop possible, to (c) owning a Mac and an iPad.

The laptop of yesterday is the iPad of today.

Today, the iPad is what — back in 2010 — we envisioned the iPad could be. So, what has happened between now and 2010? Well, thousands and thousands of world-class 3rd-party apps. That’s what.

The fundamental capabilities of the iPad itself are, more or less, the same today as they were in 2010. Strip away the hundreds of thousands of 3rd-party apps from the fast, Retina- and LTE-equipped iPad, and all you’ve got is a device which is only a little bit more capable as a work machine than what you had in 2010. Albeit, that device is significantly more advanced and delightful than its predecessor. But, without the software, it’s just an attractive slab of glass and aluminum.

When the iPad was new, many of us had ambitions of one day leaving our MacBook Pros at home and traveling only with our iPads. But, at least for me, that idea quickly faded away as I ran head-on into the fact that I just couldn’t get a lot of the work done on my iPad that I needed to do. The iPad was by no means useless, it just wasn’t the laptop replacement I wanted it to be.

But that was nearly three years ago. And, like I said, a lot has changed.

Last summer, I took only my iPad with me to WWDC. It was a bit cumbersome at times, and I had to suspend my daily Shawn Today podcast, but I survived with nary a scratch. Today, I don’t even hesitate for a moment to walk out the door with nothing but my iPad and Origami Keyboard.

I recently looked back at an article I wrote in 2010 about how I used my iPad, Mac, and iPhone. Comparing my usage in 2010 to how I use them now, I use my iPad and iPhone for work-related things much more often. Also, my iPad and iPhone do a much better job at those work-related tasks than they did in 2010 — the experience, usability, and reliability of using these other devices has increased tremendously. And it continues to get even more usable, reliable, and delightful.

This is thanks entirely to the apps I have available to me (along with some nerdy Mac server hackery). These apps have evolved to such a place where I can work from my iPad anytime I want. The projects I’m working on are all in sync, and the apps I have at my disposal allow me to complete the same work.1

My iPad workflow relies heavily on apps and services such as Dropbox, 1Password, TextExpander, Poster, Simplenote, WritingKit, OmniFocus, Instapaper, Reeder, Tweetbot, Diet Coda, and Pinbook. Many of these apps didn’t exist on the iPad in 2010. But now that they do, I can leverage them to get the same work done on my iPad that I do from my Mac.

Our iOS devices have been empowered by 3rd-party apps.

  1. There is one exception: graphic design and photo editing. I use Photoshop for editing graphics and Lightroom 4 for doing post-processing work on my pictures. I know there are solutions for doing graphic editing work, screenshots, and the like on the iPad but I haven’t yet crossed that bridge. ↵
iOS: Empowered by Apps