Federico Viticci of Macstories is compiling a list of new external keyboard shortcuts that work with iOS 7. As someone who primarily works with an iPad and a Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, I can attest that some of these shortcuts are daily lifesavers for me.
Some others that have already been supported for a while and that I use all the time are these basic text-selection shortcuts:
Nathan Barry and Jeremy Olson have put together an excellent resource for anyone looking to get started with app design.
The full package – which includes 9 video tutorials, 9 video interviews, and a handful of resources such as Photoshop files and Xcode samples – is $199 for a limited time to celebrate the launch, and will go back up to $249 soon. The book can also be purchased by itself for $29 (soon $39) or as a middle-ground package that includes fewer resources than the full package.
Featuring lots of awesome goodies, this is a great place to start if you're trying to put a gift shopping list together for the holidays.
Marc Edwards compared a month's worth of results between the two devices. As you might expect, some days are more closely matched than others, but overall the M7 chip and FitBit Zip performed pretty similarly.
“The study of History is particularly poor, with very little teacher interaction and no group work of any kind. Students were frequently found to be asleep during these lessons and, on one occasion, the teacher was also sleeping at their desk. Clearly this is not good enough, and suggests that Senior Leadership need to have far more rigorous CPD in place for struggling teachers, alive or dead.”
Entertaining read, and one that manages to mention series plot points without being overly spoiler-y. (Via Kottke)
My buddy Matt Alexander, who I interviewed a while back, has announced the launch of his until-now secretive startup, Need:
“And now — all of a sudden — it’s here.
Deeming it surreal would do injustice to the term. It’s more of a cocktail of anxiety, excitement, and blind naiveté. Realistically, too, it’s an intense moment in which I’ve come face-to-face with the motto of the independent entrepreneur: "I have no idea what I’m doing."”
So what exactly is Need? Matt explains further down in the blog post:
“In short, Need is a monthly retailer and lifestyle magazine for the modern, discerning man. Each month, Need curates and sells an extremely limited quantity of items — including clothing, literature, furniture, artwork, alcohol, coffee, and so forth — whilst also commissioning independent journalism, photography, video, and so forth.”
Congratulations to Matt on the launch! I'm very excited for him, and about the site itself, which is quite handsome and features some great-looking product. This is definitely a company to watch.
My family and I returned from our trip this weekend. It's always a bit weird coming back to "normal" life (whatever that means) after such vacations, especially to a house on solid ground after a week living on a floating vessel. Not to worry though, our land legs are returning gradually.
So, how was the trip? Well, I don't want to sound too cliché talking about a Disney trip like this, but in a word, it was...magical. A week without internet, but filled with awesome food and wonderful experiences we'll treasure forever, was even more restorative than I'd imagined it could be. I sound like an advertisement, but it's true.
Of course, no vacation we take would be complete without some kind of mishap, and this one was no exception.
On the day we boarded the ship, we dropped off our car at a paid parking lot, which had seemingly good reviews and offered a shuttle to the port. There were two ships leaving from the port that day — ours, the Disney Wonder, and a Carnival ship I'm forgetting the name of. Our shuttle dropped off some passengers at the Carnival ship first, then we were taken "next door" to the Disney station.
As we got off the shuttle, we found that some of our luggage (which they had loaded for us) was missing:
The driver realized he had dropped off that stuff at the Carnival ship, and went to get it back for us. He managed to recover the baby carrier and duffel bag (including our passports, so we could board the ship), but the suitcase was still missing. We were told at this point that it's out of the parking lot's hands and we needed to personally get this taken care of with the two ships' staff.
A few angry phone calls were exchanged with the parking lot manager (who hung up on us multiple times) as we stood outside, and I ended up doing a lot of walking back and forth between the two drop-off areas to speak with Disney/Carnival managers and their luggage personnel. Eventually, the best answer anyone could come up with was to go ahead and board our ship, and if our bag was found, it would be held for us somewhere.
Several days went by with no news, and we were sure the iPad was gone with the wind. I had used the 'Find my iPhone' app on my iPhone to put the iPad into "lost" mode with a passcode and everything, but I wasn't getting my hopes up. It's a WiFi-only model and I had no way of monitoring its movements.
On Thursday, the day the Carnival ship had returned to port (and a couple days before our own return), a Disney rep contacted us in our room to let us know they had been working hard behind the scenes (communicating with the Carnival people along the way) to track down our bag. Thankfully, they did locate it – on the Carnival ship, of course, meaning it took a little cruise of its own somewhere else – and it was waiting in the Disney lost-and-found area as we disembarked.
Everything in the bag was unbroken and in working order, fortunately. What could have been a completely ruined trip was saved by some Disney reps I'd like to hug right now. We don't have extra money lying around to replace such a device, so whether the Disney people know it or not, they've been complete lifesavers to us.
So now you can see why I dubbed the vacation "magical". Cliché or not, I'm now a fan of theirs for life (not that I wasn't already, mind you).
Starting tonight and lasting through next Sunday, my wife, my son, and I will be leaving town for a vacation. A Disney cruise, in fact, one that we started saving for last year and purchased many months ago — long before I lost my job.
It feels strange to be leaving for such a trip, what with our low spending budget these days. I keep having to remind myself that the money's already been spent, so I might as well enjoy it.
Anyway, the point of this announcement is that there will probably be complete radio silence around here for the next 9 days or so. Our devices will be in airplane mode for most of this trip, and we're not 100% sure if we'll have any WiFi to work with at any of our port destinations.
That means: no social media, no email, no blogging, nothing else of the sort. Of course, my wife and I both have this irrational fear that we'll be missing important things while we're gone, but that's just the addiction talking. Hopefully a week away from everything will be healthy for us.
See you on the other side!
Now that Mac OS X Mavericks is available, there are some things I recommend reading to get up-to-speed:
As always, John Siracusa has written an epic (24 pages!) review of the new OS for Ars Technica. And as always, I recommend preparing beforehand by doing some calisthenics and brewing a cup of coffee (or three). Also be sure to read John's additional explanation of the review and the various formats you can read/purchase it in.
Stephen Hackett also has a great review of Mavericks you should check out. I'd say it's for those people who prefer a shorter review than Siracusa's, but who am I kidding — the true geeks among us will end up reading both anyway.
Last but not least, Federico Viticci and the other guys at MacStories have put together a list of over 70 tips, tricks, and details that will help you get the most out of Mavericks. Lots of goodies to discover here. In another article from this morning, Federico outlines what it's been like to do his work on Mavericks after a year of predominantly using iOS.
As awesome as yesterday's Apple product announcements were, one of the coolest things to come out of the keynote was this fascinating video showcasing how the new Mac Pros are made. I could watch this sort of thing all day.
Follow up the video by reading Greg Koenig's thorough breakdown of it.
Apple just wrapped up an event that was loaded with new product announcements. I won't bother going into insane detail since the big-name blogs will have it covered, but here's a quick rundown on what was talked about.
The biggest news here is that OS X Mavericks, the iWork suite, and the iLife suite have all been made free (the caveat being that iWork and iLife are only free for newly-purchased devices from this point on) and they're all available for download today. Mavericks will also work on devices dating all the way back to 2007, which I think is pretty cool.
The iWork and iLife apps have been totally redesigned across the board, with new features throughout.
iWork:
iLife:
Hardware was really the juiciest part of today's keynote. Along with the iPhone 5s/5c, Apple has now refreshed nearly their entire hardware lineup ahead of the Christmas season (excluding iMacs and cinema displays, basically).
The Retina MacBook Pros have been updated to be more powerful, and yet cheaper to purchase. The 13" model is now $1299 (down from $1499) and the 15" model is $1999 (down from $2199).
The new Mac Pro that will be available in December and starts at $2999, making it the most expensive ashtray I've ever seen. All kidding aside though, it does have some neat features:
Now, the new iPads were the most exciting announcement for me personally. Rather than calling the new full-size model 'iPad 5', they went with 'iPad Air', and they're releasing an iPad mini with Retina display!
A quick rundown:
iPad Air:
iPad mini:
Overall, this was a huge announcement by Apple. This holiday season is sure to be exciting for a lot of people.
Jerry Seinfeld recently appeared on Alec Baldwin's excellent podcast, Here's the Thing, and the only complaint I have is that it wasn't long enough. Whenever these guys have a conversation, there's always this enertaining magnetism that makes you feel like you're right there in the room with them. For another example of this, be sure to check out Baldwin's appearance on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
This is the last call for everyone to get in on the 2013 Membership Drive Giveaway. There are only a few hours left on the clock, so sign up as a subscribing member now if you want to put your name in the hat for the chance to win a nice prize.
UPDATE: Time's up! The membership drive is now over. Thank you so much to everyone who came on board to support this site. You've all helped me get one step closer to my dream, and I can't thank you enough.
The prize drawing will be held sometime in the next couple days, so if you signed up before or during the drive, keep an eye on your inbox this week to see if you're a winner.
Matt Fraction, the writer of one of my all-time favorite comic book series, answers a reader's question about depression and suicide. Powerful stuff.
“[I’d] say the things any of us don’t know, especially about tomorrow, could blanket every grain of sand on every beach of the world with bullshit. And to simply assume you are done tomorrow because you are done today is a mistake. a factual mistake, an error, a critical miscalculation.”
I find this very disheartening news. It obviously doesn't affect Unretrofied since it runs on Squarespace, but I do have another project that's currently hosted on (mt) and I will likely be looking into other options.
It's not that I have anything against Media Temple — in fact, I think they're super nice folks and they've been very helpful getting my other project started. But by continuing to support them, I am by extension supporting GoDaddy – historically one of the sleaziest companies on the web – and that doesn't sit well with me.
Update: Shawn Blanc takes a slightly more optimistic view of this announcement.
Mike Monteiro of Mule Design gave an impassioned (and profanity-laden) talk at Webstock 2013, in which he discusses the importance of speaking up when a project is about to head downhill. I think it's a must-watch for anyone in the design world, and probably people outside of it too.
If you like Mike's talk, be sure to also check out his book.
Maciej Cegłowski (MAH-tchay Seh-GLOW-ski), creator and developer of awesome bookmarking service Pinboard, gave a great talk at this year's XOXO Fest (of which there's also a transcript with slides, if watching videos isn't your thing).
As one might expect if they follow the @pinboard Twitter account, Maciej is a very funny and intelligent man, and his talk reflected both sides of his personality. I highly recommend watching it, along with all the other videos being put out by the XOXO Fest people.
Another thing many people seem not to know about Maciej is that he's also a very gifted writer and has run a personal blog called Idle Words for a long time, filled with wonderful stories about travel, food, and technology. I'd start by reading Argentina on Two Steaks a Day and A Morning in Iceland.
After the Daily Mail accused The Guardian of being “the paper that helps Britain's enemies,” the Guardian responded in kind by showing that article to news editors around the world and collecting their responses.
I can't choose a single one to quote because they're all so amazing. This is the most eloquent “fuck you” I've ever seen produced in a newspaper. Kudos to The Guardian1.
Yes, I know what I said earlier today, but this was so worth sharing that it couldn't be helped. ↩
Here's the trailer for the upcoming documentary that takes a look at the life and work of Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. It would be an understatement to say that I'm really excited about seeing this film.
After you watch the trailer, be sure to also check out Gavin Aung Than's excellent comic-strip recreation of Watterson's most famous inspirational speech over on Zen Pencils.
I tend to keep political discussion away from this site, but I agree with this opinion piece, written in response to the GOP's anti-ObamaCare tactics of late.
“This approach never had a snowball’s chance in Texas of succeeding, since two-thirds of the government — the Senate and the presidency — are controlled by people who are totally invested in instituting ObamaCare. But this salient fact did not appear to be in the script these Republicans were acting out.”