New York Times“On Wednesday morning I stopped by the SoHo Apple store in New York City to purchase an iPad for a family member. As I had anticipated, a store clerk said they were out of stock and recommended that I check back the following morning. When I asked what time I should arrive, the clerk hesitated, looked around as if about to tell me a secret and said: “Well, do you see that group of people outside? They’re already here waiting for tomorrow’s shipment of iPads.—
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NO SOUP FOR YOU!
Yahoo! News: “Students who attend Chicago’s Little Village Academy public school get nothing but nutritional tough love during their lunch period each day. The students can either eat the cafeteria food–or go hungry. Only students with allergies are allowed to bring a homemade lunch to school, the Chicago Tribune reports.”
Say what? This is the dumbest thing I’ve EVER heard. Wouldn’t this be considered child abuse?
Hopefully there’s no truth to the story.
San Louie: “We’ve released San Louie issue 1 to iPad. Users will need to install the free MagCloud app, enter San Louie in the search field, and bingo! No need to pay anything, please enjoy this holiday present from San Louie and let us know what you think.”
I think we’ll have to subscribe.
If you’re a former SLOcal why not subscribe?
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THE HOBBIT at 48fps? It’s true.
Peter Jackson: “It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D. We’ve been watching HOBBIT tests and dailies at 48 fps now for several months, and we often sit through two hours worth of footage without getting any eye strain from the 3-D. It looks great, and we’ve actually become used to it now, to the point that other film experiences look a little primitive. I saw a new movie in the cinema on Sunday and I kept getting distracted by the juddery panning and blurring. We’re getting spoilt!”
I’ve been looking forward to The Hobbit and I hope Mr. Jackson can recapture all the magic of The Lord of the Rings, but I see something very troubling in his post. Can you spot it? Yep, it says 3D. Sigh. When will the ugly trend stop?
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Tumblr over WordPress?
WP Candy: “Remember when WordPress was criticized for being “just a simple blogging platformâ€? Many smart and well intentioned people have worked tirelessly moving WordPress in the direction of a full fledged content management system. I was among those asking for it [more CMS features] years ago. However, was basic blogging ease and simplicity a sacrifice that had to be made?”
WordPress is a great weblogging platform. I evaluated quite a few before switching to WordPress last year. I’d been on Blogger for nine years prior.
Tumblr is very nice and I like the posting options but you have to host everything on Tumblr. Sure, you can configure it to look like your domain, but you can’t host everything. Tumblr has had some issues scaling recently, but they’re extremely successful.
At first I wasn’t a fan of Posterous but over time I’ve become a VERY BIG fan of the platform. It’s straightforward and gives you the option of publishing via email, which is quite nice. You can also use it as an aggregation point, say you want to cross publish to different outlets, it’s great at that. My brother uses it for cross publishing. It’s worked very well for him. I love the Posterous iPhone App, very clean UI, gets right to the point, and it’s easy to work with.
As for WordPress. I can’t say enough about it. It’s beautifully designed, the UX is great, it has a great developer community, and it’s very extensible. The idea that it’s too complex comes down to UX and UI more than the underlying power of it. That can be fixed if you want a trimmed down UI.
WooThemes has done a great job of creating a UI that mimics Tumblr, it’s called WooTumblog. To take advantage of it you need to do some special stuff to your theme, but that’s not a big deal for a WordPress Professional.
I can see a small business cropping up from this need. Why not offer a lightweight version of the WordPress UI that uses WooTumblog, or something like it? From the WordPress Dashboard it would be a matter of limiting what a user is allowed to see. If your job is contributing content you should only see UI related to contributing and publishing content.
When I’m editing content I don’t usually see my WordPress Dashboard, I use MarsEdit from Red Sweater Software. It has everything I need to edit and publish to all my weblogs; WordPress and Tumblr, it’s does not yet support Posterous, but for me that’s not a big deal. It’s a great product. Fast, stable, and simple. Content contributors would probably love this UI because it’s like using a word processor.
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Twitterrific for iPhone Tips
I’m an Apple fanboy and I’m a fan of Iconfactory Apps. I use Twitterrific for iOS and Mac so I thought I’d share some tips with my fellow Twitterrific for iPhone users.
Two of the things I love about Twitterrific are the nice shortcuts from the timeline view.
Tip #1: Double Tap
No, not rule #2 from the Zombieland Rules List.
While viewing your timeline you can double tap on an item and up pops a shortcut menu. This is super handy for replying and retweeting. I use it all the time. Here’s what it looks like.
Tip #2: Tap and Hold
The second feature I really appreciate, and use all the time, is tap and hold. This works from the timeline and from the tweet detail views. Simply tap and hold a link to see the shortcut menu. Great stuff. Here’s what it looks like.
I use the Send to Instapaper and Copy Link options all the time. Notice they’re placed toward the bottom of the menu. I’m pretty sure the fine folks at the Iconfactory did this intentionally since they’re the options people will probably use the most.
Hopefully you find these tips useful.
I love blockbuster season, here’s the list of movies I’d like to see.
| Armadillo | April 15th | Trailer | |
| The Robber | April 29th | Trailer | |
| Dylan Dog | April 29th | Trailer | |
| Thor | May 6th | Trailer | |
| Hobo with a Shotgun | May 6th | Trailer | |
| Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides | May 20th | Trailer | |
| Kung Fu Panda 2 | May 26th | Trailer | |
| The Hangover Part 2 | May 26th | Trailer | |
| X-Men: First Class | June 3rd | Trailer | |
| Super 8 | June 10th | Trailer | |
| Troll Hunter | June 10th | Trailer | |
| Green Lantern | June 17th | Trailer | |
| Cars 2 | June 24th | Trailer | |
| General Orders No. 9 | June 24th | Trailer | |
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 | July 15th | Trailer | |
| Captain America: The First Avenger | July 22nd | Trailer | |
| Cowboys and Aliens | July 29th | Trailer | |
| Fright Night | August 19th | Trailer | |
| Conan the Barbarian | August 19th | Trailer |
Just for grins, here’s my 2010 list and my 2009 list.
Of the films on this list the movies I’d most like to see are Super 8, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Captain America, and Cowboys and Aliens. If I could see only one film this summer I think it would be Super 8. It takes me back to my childhood, back to Star Wars and E.T.
Bill, tag, you’re it.
UPDATED: June 1, 2011
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Gowalla for Android
Gowalla: “Gowalla 3 for Android is a completely new vision of using Gowalla. While it features many of the things that people love about its iPhone counterpart, we wanted to make the Android version something both uniquely Gowalla and uniquely Android. Every screen has been rethought and reworked. No stone was left unturned.”
It looks like the boys and girls from Texas took a page from their iOS playbook and ran with it. The result, a beautiful mobile application for Android.
Well done.
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Too Many Tasks
Steven Vore: “Now when anyone brings me a task and interrupts my work, I turn to the board and ask if it’s important enough to keep these stories from being completed by the end of the week. If they say yes, I cross the story off the whiteboard, making it plain that they’ve made a decision to change priorities for me and my team. I’ve found that this helps provide focus to other managers as well — and that can only help reduce frustration throughout the organization.”
amybites: “If you’ve read the books or seen the movies, you know that butterbeer is a beverage in the Harry Potter universe. There’s been a lot of speculation in the fan community over the years as to what it tastes like, and there’s been lots of recipe experimenting. However, I think that whoever developed the recipe for the park did an amazing job. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff! It was served in two forms: regular, just like soda, or frozen, like a slushie (my favorite)—both topped with a delicious, creamy, frothy, thick foam. The way I can best describe it is like butterscotch cream soda—but better.”
I’ve wondered what a butterbeer taste like for years, now I know. The article goes on to describe a recipe for butterbeer cupcakes. Maybe Haileigh will make some for us?