Shawn Blanc

Your client deadline is in the morning and you really need some web design resources to finish out the project. A dollar here and a dollar there, often stock items add up quickly.

Just because you’re using stock doesn’t mean you have to jack up your prices. There is a better way to stay competitive.

Lootback, the newest addition to your design toolbelt, pays you to make your purchase from the big stock retailers like Envato, iStock, Shutterstock, DepositPhotos, and ThinkStock.

With Lootback you can search all the marketplaces in one spot. Once you find that perfect item, create an account with Lootback, then head over to the other marketplace and buy it. Lootback will track your purchase and get paid a commission for generating the sale. Then they split that commission with you and credit your account to lower your overall costs.

It’s a pretty unique idea that I’ve never seen before. Lootback will save you time and money, so be sure to give it a try.

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

I had two small quibbles with Tweetbot 3.0: (1) I wanted app-specific control of text size rather than Tweetbot using the system text sizing; and (2) I missed being able to set a list as my main timeline.

Both of those (along with a few more cool things) were added in yesterday’s update to Tweetbot. Nice.

So the Apple online store went down for a few hours last night, and when it came back on, lo and behold, the iPad mini with Retina display is now available to buy online.

I ordered a Space Gray, 32GB model with Verizon cellular about an hour ago and my order says the iPad will be available to ship within “5-10 business days” and thus is expected to arrive between Nov 26 and Dec 5.

If you’re ordering one of the 16 or 32GB models, they’ll be available to ship within 1-3 business days (which also means some Retina minis will probably be in stores sometime this week).

That’s what the shipping range was when the iPad minis first went on sale early this morning, and it looks like that’s what the shipping times still are at the moment.

Fraser Speirs:

The major story about the iPad Air is not the reduction in size and weight but the increase in performance. It is, to put it simply, an utter delight to use.

Agreed. And I’d add that the two dynamics of the new iPad — speed and size/weight — go hand in hand to increasing both usability and delight of use. The lighter form factor make the iPad easier to use more frequently, the significantly better processor make the iPad more enjoyable to use when you are using it.

Two points that stuck out to me: (1) David’s first app was built and submitted before he even owned an iPhone(!); and (2) he’s shipped around 80 unique app concepts over the last five years.

Update 2: Hold on. I’m not so sure this is actually what’s happening.

The exact language from the Photo Stream KB page says:

There is no limit to the number of photos you can upload to My Photo Stream over time, but iCloud limits the number of photos that can be uploaded within a given hour, day, or month to prevent unintended or excessive use. […]

There is no limit to the amount of photos you can upload to My Photo Stream over longer periods (such as several months or years). Photos uploaded to My Photo Stream or shared photo streams are not counted against your iCloud Storage.

That sounds like unlimited photo stream uploading forever. But I think what they’re actually talking about is throttling your uploads if you get out of hand.

This FAQ page says that “The photos you upload to My Photo Stream are stored in iCloud for 30 days to give your devices plenty of time to connect and download them.”

That’s how it’s always been. You can upload all you want and have at least 30 days to get them out of Photo Stream and onto your computer. But when the dust settles you’re still only allowed 1,000 photos.

Alas, I don’t think that has changed after all.

Also worth noting is that the FAQ page was updated on October 28, 2013 while the photo stream KB page was updated on September 18, 2013.

Below is what I first wrote with my original link, but I think I was wrong in the interpretation. I deeply apologize for my mistake.

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This is great. You can now store unlimited photos in your Photo Stream and they don’t count against your iCloud storage plan.

Though it isn’t a complete replacement for what we lost with Everpix, it does solve one of the biggest problems we had with Photo Stream: that 1,000-photo limit.

Everpix actually solved two issues: (1) syncing all your photos from all your devices to all your devices; and (2) assisted re-discovery.

This updated Photo Stream limits help with the first problem — syncing all photos to all devices — but it doesn’t solve it quite as elegantly as Everpix, Loom, and ThisLife. For example: the pictures I take with my E-PL5 which I then save to my Mac, are not automatically uploaded to my Photo Stream — I still have to import them into iPhoto.

And the second problem — assisted re-discovery of old photos — isn’t solved at all by Photo Stream.

Here are some of the things I loved about Everpix that aren’t a part of how iCloud Photo Stream works:

• Daily flashback emails that would send me the photos from this day in history (one year ago, two years ago, etc.)
• Auto detection of “more important” photos. Everpix basically had a “highlights” reel that — based on the quality of the image and the contents (people vs food) — would show you what it thought were most likely the best photos from all your pictures.
• Auto upload from the Mac of any folder you chose.

BUT! I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. The lifting of the Photo Stream sync limit is fantastic. Photo stream is better than ever before while retaining its simplicity — it doesn’t require any fiddling, and it’s exactly what most people need.

Update: Totally missed this the first time through, but this Apple Knowledge Base article was last updated almost two months ago, on September 18, 2013. Curious that myself and a few others I’ve talked to have not seen an increase in Photo Stream capacity, also why wasn’t this bigger news back on or around September 18th? It’s kinda a big deal.

It’s a good one this year. Some returning champions — such as the Kindle Paperwhite, the AeroPress, and the Apple TV — along with some new toys, such as the new B&W P7 headphones, the Spyderco Sage pocketknife (thanks, Ben!), and one of the nicest iPad cases I’ve seen.

There is some great and interesting coverage of Twitter’s IPO in today’s edition of Dave Pell’s Next Draft newsletter.

Marc Edwards charted out a month’s worth of steps counted by both the M7 in his iPhone and his FitBit Zip. The stats are extremely close.

Methinks if you’re casually interested in step counting and keep your iPhone in your pocket most of the time, it might be worth saving the money you’d spend on a pedometer and put that towards a 5s (if you don’t already have one).

P.S. Pedometer++ is a pretty cool, and free, app for tracking steps on the iPhone 5s.

Catherine Price wrote an awesome article for Slate about the Vitamix 5200:

When you first buy a Vitamix 5200, the so-called Ferrari of blenders, two thoughts are likely to pass through your mind. The first is “Did I really just spend more than $400 on a blender?” And the second is “This machine is going to change my life.”

Anna and I have this very same blender in our kitchen. We bought it two years ago — at the recommendation of about 13.4 different friends of ours who also own Vitamixes — so we could save money by making our own baby food (my wife was pregnant with our oldest at the time). Little did we know how awesome it would be. Did you know the Vitamix can make homemade whipped cream in about 7 seconds? It literally takes longer to get all the ingredients into the blender than it does to turn them into a dessert topping.

This season’s Productive Macs software bundle has some excellent Mac apps.

Keyboard Maestro is one of the most indispensable apps on my Mac. And I know a lot of people nerd out over Default Folder X as well, but I never got in to it. The rest of the apps in the bundle are new to me.

You can get al 7 apps for $30, making it worth the price of admission for Keyboard Maestro alone.

This is an excellent piece by Kyle Baxter. I linked to it in my article last night about the iPad Air being the first iPad without compromise, but Kyle’s article deserves a link all its own.