Last Call for the 2012 Membership Drive Giveaway

The 2012 Membership Drive comes to a close this Sunday, March 25, at midnight CST. If you sign up for a membership before then, your name gets thrown in the hat to win one of the over $4,200 worth of prizes. (Veteran members are eligible too, of course.)

To become a subscribing member, click here.

If now is bad for you, you can sign up for a membership any time you like. The members-only perks carry on year round, and whenever it is you sign up you’ll get instant access to all the archives of every episode of Shawn Today and every previous Members Journal.

But, if you become a subscribing member before Sunday night, then your name will be in the hat to win something awesome.

If you have been sitting on the fence, wondering if you should sign up for a membership or not, I say go for it. You’ll be directly supporting the writing I do here, you’ll get access to Shawn Today and The Members Journal, and you’ll be entered to win something cool.

However, if all that is still not enough, I have but one final tactic to see if I can convince you: a picture of the cutest and newest Blanc in town.

Noah Blanc

Last Call for the 2012 Membership Drive Giveaway

Codename: Svbtle  →

Dustin Curtis shares a peek at the blogging engine and network he’s been building, codenamed Svbtle.

What I like about this is the way drafts are called “ideas”, and his emphasis on having an open and basic text entry field for writing the posts. As he says in his description there are no plugins, post types, social “share” buttons, etc. Fundamentally, Svbtle is similar in concept to Marco’s blogging software, Second Crack, or to Calepin. In that the emphasis is on simply writing something and then publishing it.

More and more I feel that the categories I use on this site are irrelevant. New readers to the site are not as likely to go back through the archives so much as they are to check in each day and read what’s fresh. And long-time readers looking for a past article are probably going to use search to find it.

My point being, there is this mindset that says “only what is fresh is what’s important.” I am not advocating that mindset, but I do see an extreme amount of value in blogging platform which encourages you to turn your ideas into something formed and then to hit the publish button.

Codename: Svbtle

iBooks 2: More Than Meets the Eye?  →

Todd Olson:

In our view, iBooks 2 + iBooks Author + iBookstore = a new Wild West of publishing. And not only that, with interactive widgets, iBooks can also be a much less expensive way to create certain kinds of iPad applications, particularly ones that are primarily about presenting content. And not only that, iBooks could become a platform for publishing all kinds of other highly-interactive crazy stuff, from fancy ads to annual reports to digital album extras to college course catalogs to user’s manuals to movie promos to…you get the idea.

It seems like the news and excitement around iBooks 2 and iBooks Author has all but fallen by the wayside since it was announced in January. But I just keep thinking that iBooks Author will prove to be a big deal down the road.

iBooks 2: More Than Meets the Eye?

Retina Web Clip Icons and Reeder for iPad

Thanks to the new iPad’s Retina display, it’s possible that you need to update your website’s custom Web clip icon.

The icon size for the new iPad’s Home screen is 144×144 pixels. Up until last week my site’s Web clip icon was 158×158 pixels (Apple.com’s was, and still is 129×129). I’d been using 158 because of Nathan Borror’s suggestion from way back in 2008 — it was a size that seemed scaled well on both iPads and iPhones.

Even though 158 is still big enough so that a Web clip icon on the new iPad’s Home screen doesn’t get scaled up, it is not, however, big enough to fill the space allotted in the new Retina-version of Reeder for iPad.

Web Clips in Reeder for iPad

Reeder for iPad uses an icon size of 241×241 pixels to display the images for individual feeds.

If you’ve got a Web clip icon linked-to within in your site’s header, or uploaded to your site’s root folder, then Reeder will find and use it. If it’s big enough then it will fill the space, if it’s not big enough then Reeder will center it and it will have a white border. If there is no Web clip icon at all, then Reeder will use your site’s favicon and that will be small and pixelated.

A few days ago I updated this site’s Web clip icon to be 300×300 pixels.

It looks great in Reeder, and it looks good as a Home screen icon on new and old iPads and on the iPhone 4/4S.

There are two (yea, three) ways to upload your Web clip icon and make it discoverable:

  • Upload a PNG file titled apple-touch-icon.png to your site’s root folder. So: `http://example.com/apple-touch-icon.png`

  • Upload a PNG (you can call it whatever you like) and reference it directly from within your site’s header code:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="http://example/apple-touch-icon.png" />
  • Or, if you don’t want iOS to automatically add that glossy half-circle effect to your icon, you can reference it as being precomposed:
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="http://example/apple-touch-icon.png" />

You can read more about application icons and custom Web clip icons on Apple’s HIG pages here.

Retina Web Clip Icons and Reeder for iPad

Is the New iPad Screen Too Good for the Web?  →

If you’ve got a new iPad, one of the first things you’re likely to notice is that graphics on the Web look fuzzy when next to crisply-rendered text.
Graphics could look blurred on the iPad 2 as well, but it was not nearly as contrasted as on the new iPad. I don’t think many people plan to go through their site and update all the pictures, screenshots, and etc. found in their past articles. But one simple thing that websites can do to improve their look on every iPad is to use SVGs or upscaled PNGs for their header and sidebar images.

For example: on Sean Sperte’s site, Geek & Mild, the ampersand logo is an SVG — and so it scales well and looks crisp on any screen.

Here on shawnblanc.net I upscaled the “shawnblanc” image. Meaning the source image is exactly three times larger than the size it’s displayed at (777×138 and 259×46 respectively). It looks nice and sharp on an iPad 3.

I think a good rule of thumb for what graphics you should bother updating or not is simply this: if you want people to read it, or if it’s a critical component of your site design, then update it to look crisp on a Retina display.

Is the New iPad Screen Too Good for the Web?

Federico Viticci’s iOS Writing App Comparisons  →

If you’re still on the fence about which iOS writing application is best for you, Federico Viticci tried out 40 different ones and then picked his favorite 4 to do a side-by-side comparison of. His only criteria was that the apps had to be available on iPhone and iPad, have Markdown support, and sync with Dropbox.

Viticci’s top choice ended up being Writing Kit. Because of his recommendation I’ve been spending a bit of time in the app to see how it handles Markdown and syncing. I agree that it is a fine app. Though something I strongly dislike about it is the need to manually tap “Save” in order to sync/save your work to Dropbox.

However, something that I’ve instantly fallen in love with in Writing Kit is that on the iPad, the left and right margins act as left and right arrow keys. Tap the left margin to move the cursor one character to the left; tap the right margin to move the cursor one character to the right. This clever little feature is like Pull to Refresh — once you’ve used it it instantly feels natural and you miss it in every other app.

Federico Viticci’s iOS Writing App Comparisons

Sponsor: TextExpander  →

Editor’s Note: My thanks to Smile Software for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. TextExpander is one of those staple apps on my Mac that when it’s not running I feel handicapped. I have over 60 snippets I use — from email signatures, to Amazon and iTunes link codes, to custom replies for emails, to common miscapitalizations of certain words, and more.

Moreover, those snippets sync to my iPhone and iPad via TextExpander’s iOS App. And since the iPhone and iPad writing apps I use have built-in iOS TextExpander support, I keep many of the same writing advantages that I have set up on my Mac.

This week the folks at Smile Software are running a 20% deal on TextExpander (and all their software). As it says below, use coupon code SYN0312 in the Smile store to get your discount.

TextExpander can be as simple or as geeky as you want. Whatever your level of experience, there’s a TextExpander tip for you:

Getting Started: Make a snippet for your email address. You’ll be amazed at the keystrokes you’ll save not having to type that over and over.

Intermediate: Add one of the Predefined Groups, like HTML/CSS snippets or instant URL shorteners. There’s even an AutoCorrect group to fix your typos.

Advanced: Try fill-in snippets, which have multiple variable fields. For example, you could have a form letter with blanks for name, product, company, etc. Type your abbreviation, fill in the fields and you’re done.

Even More Advanced: Create your own AppleScript and shell script snippets.

Get the free demo. Don’t miss the 20% off special discount. Use the coupon code SYN0312 in the Smile store (Expires March 31, 2012).

Sponsor: TextExpander

Stephen Hackett’s Review of the New iPad  →

Here’s another good review of the new iPad. Stephen does a good job commenting on each of the major updates the new iPad got (the screen, battery, 4G, camera, etc.).

What strikes me after reading Stephen’s review is: what could be left for the iPad? Now that it has a Retina display and 4G LTE connectivity, I don’t see any other hardware sore spots in need obvious need of attention (other than improving the ability to hold the device with one hand).

No doubt Apple will improve the processor and the battery and the camera and the aluminum shell, but it seems that all of the main things have been brought to market already. Does this mean the future of the iPad is going to be bent towards software? And so perhaps the Mac is where we’ll start seeing hardware breakthroughs next — such as LTE and Retina MacBook Airs?

Stephen Hackett’s Review of the New iPad

‘Enough’  →

Speaking of friends launching new projects, my pal Patrick Rhone wrote another book. It’s out today, and it’s called Enough:

Enough is a very personal metric. Like our center of gravity, each of us must find what is enough by swaying from less to more until a comfortable medium is found.

The goal, then, is not to find what is, or will be, enough forever. That is impossible. The goal is to discover the tools and strategies you need to find what is enough for you right now and provide the flexibility to adjust as the conditions change.

‘Enough’

Basil  →

Basil is a brand-new iPad recipe app from my pal Kyle Baxter. I bought it this morning and it’s very nice. It’s got an open and clean interface, it automatically tags your recipes based on the ingredients, and it auto-converts directions that involve increments of time into actual timers.

In addition to letting you enter in your own recipes, Basil also sports a bookmarklet so if you’re browsing for recipes on your iPad in Mobile Safari you just tap the bookmarklet and Basil will import the recipe. Clever.

Just $4 in the App Store.

Basil