CMD+Space Episode 78: The Sweet Setup, with Shawn Blanc  →

My pal, Myke Hurley, invited me back to be a guest on his awesome interview podcast show, CMD+Space. Myke asked me all sorts of questions about The Sweet Setup, and topics include the site’s genesis (I give the whole answer that dates way back to before there was even an iPhone), the site’s goals, and what in the world a dorky guy like me is doing running three different websites.

(Side note: rumor has it that Marco Arment, Jason Snell, and myself are currently tied for most-frequent guest on CMD+Space with 3 appearances each. First one to 5 wins?)

CMD+Space Episode 78: The Sweet Setup, with Shawn Blanc

The New Droplr  →

Droplr is one of my most-used Mac utility apps. Long-time readers of this site will know that I’m a huge fan of the app and its service — I’ve been using Droplr since it was just a wee little beta.

Today the Droplr guys announced a few big updates: for one, the service is now paid-only. There is a basic plan which runs $5/month and gets you unlimited uploads and file sharing; then there is the Pro plan which is $10/month and gets you extra features like custom branding (use your own short URL instead of the d.pr URL), password-protected drops, the Droplr Inbox, etc.

All current Droplr users can get the basic plan for $3.50/month forever. And they’ve also set up a referral program so that if your friends sign up using your referral link then you both get a 10-percent discount for life.

The second big update is to the Mac app: you can now download the app direct from the Droplr website and the hot-key shortcut for “upload this file I’ve already selected” is back. There are also some very nice visual and functional improvements to the Mac app as well.

Droplr is a great service and utility and as something I use regularly, I’m delighted to see that it has grown into a healthy and sustainable business.

The New Droplr

Seven Weeks With Two iPads  →

Checking back in, it’s been a month since writing my iPad mini vs iPad Air impressions and everything is still about the same as it was a month ago: I’ve now been trying to use both iPads side-by-side for nearly two months and they’re both awesome.

However, bit by bit I find myself grabbing the iPad mini for almost all the time for almost all the things. Though I prefer the iPad Air when writing, that task only constitutes 20-percent of my iPad usage. The rest — reading, surfing, twittering, RSSing — is better on the mini.

In short, if forced to pick just one today, I’d pick the mini.

Seven Weeks With Two iPads

VSCO Film x Mark Weinberg  →

The VSCO Journal featured some pictures by photographer Mark Weinberg from his trip to Norway and they’re absolutely stunning.

And I love this answer he gives as advice regarding composition:

Shooting with a large format camera forced me to work slowly and methodically, examining and controlling every variable, especially the frame. I loved contact printing, which is printing with the negative directly on the paper and thus no enlarging or ability to crop the image. What was on the negative was exactly what was in the print. The different movements available on a large format camera also taught me principles about seeing and framing that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned.

My advice would be to slow down. In the film age, we would study the shot, frame it up, and maybe make some test polaroids but rarely shoot 400 variations. Now, with digital, things have shifted a bit to where I feel like we shoot many more images than we would on film. This can be a good thing. Now, we get to actually see each step in our study. It doesn’t matter if we take 2 or 400 images of a scene, but studying and paying attention is what matters. Digital actually allows us more freedom to experiment than ever before and I love that.

VSCO Film x Mark Weinberg

Pebble Steel, Et Al.

Yesterday Pebble announced the new design of their watch, the Pebble Steel. While I do think it looks nicer than the original (which isn’t saying much), I’m still uninterested.

My disinterest with smart watches like the Pebble (or the Gear, or the MetaWatch, or…) is three-fold:

  • For one, I don’t feel the need to be more connected to notifications (if anything, it’s the opposite). The things that the Pebble does best — such as notifying me of an incoming text message or phone call, telling me the outside temperature, etc. — don’t appeal to me.

  • And then on the flip side, for things like the Pebbles new apps such as Yelp, why not just use the app on your phone? Is it really that much faster and easier and more convenient to use the little buttons on your watch? I could be wrong here, but if the Pebble needs a smartphone to work (the apps can’t get their data without using the connected phone’s network signal) then what is the advantage of navigating a miniature version of the app on your wrist? Perhaps it’s more polite than pulling out your phone?

  • And then, not to mention, the watches themselves just don’t look all that cool or attractive to me.

People are saying that the trend today (and the future?) is wearable computing, and that may be true. But in my mind there is still a long road ahead.

Smart watches, smart glasses, smart bracelets, and smart tie stays (or whatever) need to reach a point where they are simultaneously more useful and friction-free than just using the phone that’s already in our pockets as well as being attractive and cool to wear.

The FitBit and FuelBand are good examples of this. They are subtle and do/did something that our iPhones didn’t: track our steps and movement throughout the day. However, our phones are getting more and more capable every year, and so wearable devices such as the FitBit also need to provide an advantage that our phones won’t make obsolete.

Pebble Steel, Et Al.

Sponsor: Step-by-step Learning with Mijingo  →

We all need to keep learning new skills and improving those we already have. Mijingo helps you learn web design and development topics through our well-crafted video courses.

Right now you can get our 8-course The Happy Cog Way series for only $99. Through this series the experts at Happy Cog teach HTML5, Sass, Responsive Web Design, website deployment, typography, and more.

* * *

My thanks to Mijingo for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. They truly do have some great video courses for learning new skills and topics. If you want to step up your web design/development chops this year, then Mijingo is a great place to start.

Sponsor: Step-by-step Learning with Mijingo

Changes Coming To Droplr  →

Josh and Levi:

Next week we will release some exciting new features to Droplr that we’ve been working on for a long time and that many of you have been asking us for. At that time, we will be discontinuing our free accounts. All current free accounts and new sign ups will be placed on a 30-day trial. At the end of 30 days, you’ll be asked to pay for a Droplr subscription if you’d like to continue using it. If you don’t want to pay, you won’t be able to upload any more files, but none of your existing data will be deleted, and all of your links will continue to work.

As a special thank you for being a Droplr user we are also going to offer you a 30% lifetime discount on any of our paid plans. We’ll have 2 plans to choose from, Droplr Lite and Droplr Pro. Additionally, we’ll be announcing a new referral program where you can earn Droplr Pro for free.

Changes Coming To Droplr

A Brief, Unordered Miscellany Regarding the Olympus E-PL5, E-P5, and E-M5 Cameras

(Why do camera names always have to be a mouthful of awkward? Nevertheless,) I’ve not been silent in my affinity for the Olympus E-PL5 which I bought over a year ago and have been using and enjoying ever since.

To give myself context when writing about the E-PL5, I’ve rented two other awesome M43 cameras: Last spring I rented the E-M5 (which was the Olympus flagship M43 camera at the time) and over this past holiday I rented the E-P5.

In a nut, each of these three cameras are more-or-less capable of producing the exact same quality of images in almost any circumstance (because they all have the same sensor and image processor on the inside). For the most part, the variables are the lenses and the burden is on the photographer.

However, there are some nice features and other bells and whistles that the E-M5 and E-P5 have which the E-PL5 does not. Such as:

  • E-PL5 doesn’t have any dedicated dials for adjusting Aperture, Exposure, Etc.
  • The E-PL5 has 4-axis In Body Image Stabilization, while the E-P5 and E-M5 have 5-axis IBIS.
  • E-M5 has weather sealing, E-P5 and E-PL5 do not.
  • E-M5 has a built-in viewfinder.
  • The E-P5 has a built-in flash.
  • E-P5 has an ISO range from 100 to 25,600 (the E-PL5 and E-M5 only go down to 200).
  • The E-P5 has a max shutter speed of 1/8000 (presumably for taking pictures of the sun at high noon with your f/1.4 lens’s aperture wide open) compared to 1/4000 for the E-PL5 and E-M5.
  • The E-M5 has good battery life, the E-P5 and E-PL5 have great battery life.
  • All cameras have a dust reduction system that silently vibrates the sensor each time you turn on the camera to help “fling” any dust which may be there and keep the sensor clean.
  • The E-P5 has a wi-fi mode that can connect the camera to the Olympus iOS app and send images to your iPad/iPhone.

In my two weeks using the E-P5 during this past Christmas and New Year, I oftentimes wanted to (and even did) reach for my E-PL5 instead. The E-P5 is noticeably larger and heavier (albeit, not significantly so). And, to my surprise, I hardly ever used the manual dial controls for quickly adjusting aperture, shutter speed, exposure, on the fly.

What I enjoyed most from my rental gear wasn’t the better camera, but was actually the 25mm f/1.4 lens. I haven’t used this lens in over a year and I had forgotten just how fast it is to autofocus when compared to the 20mm f/1.7 lens I have been using, and how much more character there is in the images it makes.

In my opinion, the advantages of the E-M5 and the E-P5 over the E-PL5 are almost entirely in the bells and whistles and not in the end-product capabilities of making photos. For many people, the extra features and controls are worth the extra cost. But for me, I think the $450 saved by buying the E-PL5 instead of the E-M5 or E-P5 is money better spent on a nice lens.

One day I’ll upgrade my E-PL5 to something a little bit bigger with a few more features. But for now, I’d much rather invest in another great lens (or two). The more I’ve tried different cameras, the more I realize the important thing is to just find a kit you love to use. If you find yourself saying “it’s magical” then you’ve got it.

A Brief, Unordered Miscellany Regarding the Olympus E-PL5, E-P5, and E-M5 Cameras

AT&T Launches “Sponsored Data”  →

Kevin Fitchard:

AT&T is officially putting its idea of a subsidized internet to the test. A new program allows internet companies to exempt their content from data plans. Instead the content providers would foot the bill.

It’ll be interesting to see if and how this takes off. Suppose AT&T could get Netflix to sign up and sponsor all (or some) Netflix-related data. Then, if your iPad works on AT&T, you could watch all the Netflix videos you heart desires using your LTE connection without it draining from your monthly data allotment (because Netflix would be paying the bill for that data to AT&T on your behalf).

AT&T Launches “Sponsored Data”