The AppStorm Freelance Mac App Bundle  →

A huge thanks to AppStorm for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote their current bundle of Mac Apps.

The bundle is $49 and has 8 top-shelf apps. And I mean it when I say these apps are top-shelf. Some that I use and rely on every single day — TextExpander, 1Password, and Arq — and the others are among the best of the best: Billings, WriteRoom, LittleSnapper, Radium, and Alarms.

The deal ends in a few days, so if you’re going to grab the bundle you may want to do so soon.

The AppStorm Freelance Mac App Bundle

Apple’s MobileMe Transition and iCloud FAQ’s  →

If you use more than 5GB of data (which does not include purchased music, apps, or books) then you’ll be able to buy more. My .Mac email address is my primary email, I’ve been using it for years, I have all those emails saved on the server, and as of today it only ads up to 2.7 GB. I wonder how fast the remaining 2.3GB will get used once I can store documents and backups as well.

Apple’s MobileMe Transition and iCloud FAQ’s

A Tale of Two Fly Papers  →

J. Eddie Smith, IV wrote a great follow-up post to my Tale of Two Inboxes article. Smith hits on what was by far the most common feedback I received, which is that Twitter is for the less important and/or high-frequency stuff; RSS is for the can’t miss stuff.

And this line — though it doesn’t work as the obligatory-blockquote-to-sum-up-the-whole-linked-to-article — is the best sentence I’ve read all week:

Too much from too few is a cognitive, guilt-laden nuclear warhead I’d rather not tango with day to day.

A Tale of Two Fly Papers

The Eleventh App  →

David Barnard:

If we took a poll of all iOS users and asked for a list of the eleven absolutely essential, can’t live without apps I bet we’d end up with at least a thousand different types of apps. A doctor might include a medical imaging app, a musician would likely include a multi-track recorder or some other musical sketch pad, an artist would include an actual sketch pad app, a builder might list an estimating app, a freelancer a time-tracking and invoicing app, and so on.

The Eleventh App

AeroPress

As I write this sentence there is a hot cup of coffee sitting next to me, brewed using an AeroPress.

I own a drip coffee maker, a Turkish coffee maker, two french presses, a stove-top espresso maker, a siphon, and now an AeroPress. The stove-top makers never get used; the drip maker is only for when lots of company comes over; the siphon gets used about once a week at most; and the french press gets used every single day. Until today.

Savvy readers of the site will know that pretty much every day of the week I brew half a pot of french press coffee. The siphon also makes great coffee and is a lot of fun to use. But it takes lot of work and is very impractical for daily coffee making.

This is where the AeroPress comes in. It makes a cup of coffee on par with the french press and the siphon and is the easiest of them all to clean up.

You can’t ask if the AeroPress makes a better or worse cup of coffee than a french press or siphon — AeroPress brews coffee differently and brings out different flavors and tones. It is not better or worse, it is different, and yes, it is good. If you like french press and/or siphon then I bet you will also like AeroPress.

There are many ways to brew a cup of coffee with AeroPress. The common way is to brew it more similarly to how an espresso machine would: by pushing a little amount of water through a lot of fine grounds in a short amount of time. Once you’ve brewed and pressed your AeroPress your cup only has about 3 – 4 ounces of coffee in it. Very strong coffee. Then you can add hot water or hot milk.

There are some huge advantages to this type of brewing that you will never get with a french press:

  • You brew the AeroPress with 175-degree water. Using a bit cooler of water means you are far less likely to burn your grounds and so more likely to end up with a cup of coffee that is not very bitter or acidic.

  • You brew a lot of grounds with very little water and you do it quickly. This means you don’t over extract the coffee and your chances of ending up with that smokey-burnt flavor is also far less.

  • After brewing you can then add piping hot water to your 4 ounces of AeroPressed coffee and bring the temperature back up to piping. I, for one, like my coffee to be as hot as possible.

All of the above advantages to the AeroPress can be overcome by someone who is good at making french press. There is no reason you can’t brew a great cup of french press (I do it every day), but the margin for error is smaller with the AeroPress. However, there is one advantage that the AeroPress has which the french press or siphon will never have: clean up.

The AeroPress basically cleans itself as you use it. Once you’re done pressing your coffee, you simply untwist the plastic filter cap, pop the coffee puck into the trash, rinse off the bottom of the rubber plunger, and you’re done. Clean up takes about 10 seconds. By far, my biggest annoyance of making french press coffee every day is the cleanup.

If you’re persnickety about your coffee and brew some every day then the AeroPress may be your cup of tea.

AeroPress