iCloud Beta Thoughts

After poking around in some of its not-all-the-way working things on iCloud, I found a couple of things that I did not expect. And for reference, I have one Mac running iTunes and an iPhone 3GS.

1. When they say you can re-download any of your purchased music, they mean only purchased music. If you got a redemption code for music, you won’t be included in the re-downloading.

2. Apps, free or purchased, can be re-downloaded. This is also a quick way to free up space on your iPod/iPhone/iPad.

3. Obsolete apps or apps you deleted are in the iCloud. Expect to have a list much longer than what you expect. Apple kept a list of everything you ever bought, even if you deleted it off every one of your iDevices.

4. Instapaper Free isn’t in the iCloud. It’s not surprising, but it shows that if you bought something that got pulled, Apple respects the developer rather than the purchaser. Not that one or the other is the right thing to do, but as long as I still have a pulled app on a hard drive somewhere, I’ll still have the app.

5. Other apps that have been pulled are in the iCloud. Including banned ones.


Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Today somebody told me that, after my dinner I should go and read a book on a front–porch swing. It didn’t even have to be mine. Just enjoy the night.

While trespassing.

Couldn’t have happened on a better day.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th.1 Yes, I’m breaking weeks–long silence to talk about this again.

  1. I certainly like it better than friggatriskaidekaphobia. Not that friggatriskaidekaphobia is a bad word, or anything. I just like paraskevidekatriaphobia better. If it were possible, of course, for to one could like that sort of thing.

April 13, 2011

“Product is King. Content is Not.”  
Aaron Brazell finally says what I’ve been thinking for months:
Remember the bad old days of blog networks. Like when I was at b5media championing the idea of content as the great savior of the Internet, the bellwether of future journalism, the dawn of an era of online advertising as the dominant (and only) truly valuable means of creating revenue online?

Yeah… so about that.

I was wrong.
Brilliant.
Download Squad Is Gone  
AOL/HuffPo Shuts Down Download Squad:
In a surprise move Monday night, popular software blog Download Squad became the latest tech casualty in Huffington/AOL’s so-called ‘consolidation’ of its content sites. In an end-of-the-day email, Download Squad’s staff was told that the blog was closed and they were jobless, effective immediately.
At this point can, we just finally put AOL out of our misery? Please?

How To Keep Your Blog Safe From Getting Daring Fireballed

Brent Simmons is somebody I’ve admired for years, mostly because he’s an affable chap, and the creator and curator of NetNewsWire. Of all the developers in the world, he’s one of them. Seriously, he’s somebody that I‘ve grown to trust over the years.

Lately he’s been going on about how some blogs just can’t stand massive amounts of traffic. His solution is to get rid of the middle–man. I agree, and I’ve spent several hours of several days playing around with these flat–file systems. It’s how I started back in those dinosaur days of the 1990s.

But his frustration flared again yesterday as he lashed out at blogs who can’t keep themselves afloat:

Twice today I’ve tried to go to sites that couldn’t handle the traffic from Daring Fireball. This is preposterous.

Indeed. But in a moment of rare clarity, I devised an even better scheme to keep your site from buckling under the massive weight of internet traffic the likes of whom only the mightiest of servers can stand. Instead of serving some sort of cache–crazy database system, or some luddite–enabling text file architecture, my solution is simple, and the most effective way to make sure that you blog never succumbs to massive traffic from the Gruber:

Suck.1

That’ll keep you blog safe. That strategy has kept this blog (and many others) safe from massive (or any) traffic for years now.

  1. Except, of course, if you’re Rob Enderle. Sucking is more of his raison d’être.

April 5, 2011

Daring Fireball-style Linked List Plugin Update  
The secret sauce of many a copy–cat bloggers gets even better with this update. It adds the ability to leave the contents of the post the same way as you would if you used the “Press This” bookmarklet. This is a boon for people who want to link to things Daring–Fireball–ly while using their smartphones.

March 22, 2011

iPad 2 + ADB Keyboard  
Use an iPad 2 with an ADB keyboard

I don’t even know how to describe how awesome this is:
This week I’ve been thinking about using my beloved Apple Extended Keyboard with my iPad. I bought an iPad Camera Connection Kit, hoping it would work with my Griffin iMate. I’m pleased to report that, despite a complaint from the iPad about an “unsupported USB device,” it worked perfectly.
For the record, I still have my keyboard from my PowerMac 9600 sitting near my desk. It’s still the best keyboard I’ve ever used.
Do You Have Anything to Declare?  
The nourishing wake

Craig Mod comes back from Japan:
Suddenly, as if by cue, she straightens up, puts on her serious face and asks, “Do you wish to change your declaration, Sir? Is there anything in your bags you wish me to know about now before I open them?”
All I Have on the Quickbar  
The Real Problem With Dick’s Bar

Justin Williams writes what I’m guessing most of the upset people are thinking, that people don’t hate the thing, they hate how the thing works:
I have little doubt that Twitter could find the engineering resources to figure out how to implement a similar system where trends are specific to each user. If the company still wants to append a promoted trend or two that goes global to pay the bills, I wouldn’t mind. Any solution would be better than the current one where I am inundated with hashtag memes or the latest Jonas vs Bieber trend war.
His place is also sporting a fresh coat of paint so give it a tumble, if you will.
AT&T’s Everything Gambit  
In AT&T & T-Mobile Merger, Everybody Loses

Om Malik summarizes just how bad AT&T’s acquisition of T—Mobile can be for everybody that isn’t AT&T:
It doesn’t matter how you look at it; this is just bad for wireless innovation, which means bad news for consumers. T-Mobile has been pretty experimental and innovative: It has experimented with newer technologies such as UMA, built its own handsets and has generally been a more consumer-centric company. AT&T, on the other hand, has the innovation of a lead pencil and has the mentality more suited to a monopoly: a position it wants to regain.
They are working to make this happen.
Google Chrome Icon Back to Beta  
A fresh take on an icon

Google Chrome has a new logo that looks like the initial design, not the next–generation. Here’s might be why:
Redesigning the icon was very much a group effort. Collectively, we explored many variations, tried the icon in several different contexts, and refined the details as we moved along. It was important to maintain consistency across all media, so we kept print, web, and other possible formats in mind. Once we arrived at a good place, we finished up the icon by resizing, pixel-pushing, and getting everything out the door.
I’ll be copying and pasting the old one back on, thank you very much.

March 19, 2011

Blogging Advice from Justin Williams  
Great video detailing just how important it is to prioritize.
Famous Objects from Classic Movies  
A game of use silhouetted objects to guess what famous movie the object came from. Some of the objects are easily identifiable, others rather esoteric. I guess they just don’t make iconic images like they used to anymore.
E-mail Becomes Email  
Only took them a few dozen years.

March 17, 2011

WANKEN  
The blog of Shelby White contains minimalist and spartan architecture that I can’t get enough of. Instant subscription.
Comparing the iPad to the Microwave Oven  
I can see this, and I can’t see this. Probably still a workable enough analogy that it will become a computer–jargonish trope.
8BIT Acquires Beacon Ad Network  
In 2007 I put together a team to do what John is doing right now. While I’m very thankful I didn’t go through with it, I’m glad me scheme worked as well as theirs has. Good luck to that team.
“Dear Open Letter Writers”  
Justin Williams is tired of the people writing open letters to people who will clearly not be reading them. Me too.

March 16, 2011

A Dropbox–Powered Social Network  
It sounds crazy at first, but this makes sense. Frenzy uses your shared folder in Dropbox to share your stuff. Brilliant. I think I may have found my Twitter replacement. And in case you haven’t got a Dropbox account yet, you can use this link to make us both 250 megabytes richer.
Lists Are the New Trackbacks  
John Koetsier explains how to know if the Twitter person who just followed you sucks horribly. I apparently suck horribly.
Netflix Gets Original  
My favorite internet–based streaming video site adds an original series to its queue. I’m hoping they will replace cable/satellite soon.

Dude, When Did That Happen?

Checking my Notes app after updating to the shiny new iOS 4.3, I found that something was amiss. Instead of Marker Felt, the fonts were all messed up. It looked familiar, but I coudn’t believe they just up and changed from Marker Felt to something else. I had to look a couple of times, really, because I’m in Notes constantly.

So I went to the Notes preferences to make sure I hadn’t messed something up. I was hoping that I didn’t have some mystery font cache problem that completely destroyed my iPhone. That’s when I saw this.

Yep. Helvetica. You can now use Helvetica in Notes. It’s defaulted to Noteworthy for some reason, and even that somehow looks wrong.

I should warn you, Helvetica in Notes doesn’t look great, either. It is, however, less terrible than Marker Felt. But it’s nice to see that somebody at Apple finally listened, and at least now you have some choice.


March 12, 2011

Twitter Ecosystem Shakeup on Techmeme  
Way more than I could get to. That this is this big a story while Japan still reels from the earthquake and Apple is trumpeting the iPad 2 amazes me. Could be the downturn of Twitter.
Dave Winer on Twitter’s New Developer Roadmap  
Dave Winer, who I swear I don’t like and yet can’t stop linking to, summarizes what the new developer guideline mean for developers developing Twitter apps:
  1. If you make a Twitter client, you have a bit of time to get out of that business. If you were thinking about writing one, don’t.
  2. Twitter wants to control how tweets are presented everywhere. That means if you have an app that somehow displays them, you’d better read the new terms of service. You probably aren’t allowed to do that anymore.
  3. Analytics are OK, for now. Helping big companies manage their brands on Twitter, OK for now. Not clear what else.
  4. No mention of Twitpic, Yfrog. Instagram and Foursquare are “value-added content and vertical experiences.”

How to Turn the WordPress 3.1 Admin Bar Off

People really don’t want the new Admin Bar introduced in WordPress version 3.1. What I’m finding out is that people just don’t understand how easy it is to turn off without destroying the functionality. Took me all of 30 seconds to figure this out.

Inside the Admin interface (when you’re logged in), look for something like this up in the top right corner:

Clicking that link, it’ll take you to your personal preferences. Scroll down that page and you’ll find something like this:

Make sure those two are unchecked and it’ll go away. You’ll probably need to reload your site a couple of times because it relies on Javascript, and your browser will cache the file. Reload until the Admin Bar disappears.


March 8, 2011

500 Lawyers at the Bottom of the Ocean  
Wallaby is an experimental tool from Adobe that purports to convert Flash .fla files to HTML. I’m hoping for good things from this. Like, say, an HTML5 safe mode for Flash developers.

March 7, 2011

How Facebook is Killing Your Authenticity  
The gist: Facebook comments on blogs make you lie when you know everybody can see them.
Now Cricket Wireless Has the iPhone 4  
I’m pretty sure this won’t last long, but here’s the process:
  1. Jailbreak your Verizon CDMA iPhone
  2. Trust some guy from Cricket to install stuff on your iPhone
  3. Hope that Apple doesn’t figure out a way to sue Cricket out of existence before Friday
Full Text RSS Feed  
Web service that scrapes sites to give you a full-text feed. It works well enough for me on the ones I’ve tried.
Open Source Ampersands  
A brilliant idea from Mark Pilgrim. He whittled down some open source fonts and posted just the ampersand:
This is a selection of single-character fonts. A single-character font is, literally, a font file that only contains glyphs for a single character. The single character in these font files is the ampersand.

Each ampersand on this page is real text, not an image. Just like any text, you can select it, copy it, paste it, and apply CSS to it. The ampersands scale as you zoom the page, and they work in virtually every browser — even ancient versions of Internet Explorer.