Tag Archives: ios

Byword 2.0

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Byword, one of my favorite apps for the Mac and for my iOS devices just upgraded to version 2.0. They have included publishing to blog platforms as a Premium feature and used the Mac App Store or iOS to distribute the added functionality for $4.99. So far I love this app and this was one of those features that I’ve been dying for, so I’m quite pleased. I can do all my writing using Byword and not have to worry about distractions or anything on the screen getting in the way of my writing. It’s all clear, clean, and simple.

The last post to my WordPress blog about Invention was written using Byword 2.0 and I’m quite impressed with it. I could suggest some other enhancements like enumerating the Category list and suggesting possible tags in WordPress posting, but I will take what I can get from the get-go. One thing that was a little dismaying, but not a show stopper was that the purchase of the Premium add-on only works for the App Store that matches the platform you are buying it for. The Premium add-on for Mac App Store is separate from the one for the iOS App Store. Their support was very clear and I pretty much assumed so even before I wrote to support, I just wanted to be sure. Frankly I could give or take the extra features on my iPad or my iPhone as Drafts works brilliantly there along with Poster app on those devices. Drafts hands off to Poster well enough without having to worry about buying Byword 2.0 Premium again for the iOS App Store. I bought the add-on for the Mac App Store because that’s where, when I blog on my Laptop or on my iMac, this will be the app that I’ll use to blog.

The only irking thing, and it’s not really anything really overwrought is the lack of pick lists and tag suggestions for WordPress, but I have faith that eventually they might take their software in that direction. Only time will tell, and developers. :)

Google Reader RIP

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Google just announced that their RSS Service, Google Reader is slated to be shutdown on July 1st, 2013. This upsets me greatly but I’m not really surprised. There was never any real traction for the service and they let the web component of it languish in the past. There was some noise that they were going to integrate the social features into Google Plus. Good luck with that.

What does this mean for the majority of users out there? Nothing really. I would say that if Google is going to pull the plug, essentially pull the rug out from under their customers by surprise like this, is that you get exactly what you pay for. Google Reader was great, and it was free and now it’s a dead service walking.

I can’t really see Google Plus succeeding against Facebook. That’s the battle to come. So they are reorganizing their infrastructure and pointing it to failtown. Okay. I would say that if you use any other Google product, like Picasa or Blogger, that you should migrate to something else like Flickr or WordPress as soon as you can, because if they kill Reader, who’s to say what’s next? The only thing I am planning to use now is Google Mail, which may be the last refuge for these scoundrels. It’s best to leave of your own volition than to be unceremoniously tossed out on your ass by surprise.

Drafts Changes Workflow

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The more I use the Drafts app for my iPad and iPhone the more I love it and the more I want to use it. It’s actually changed the workflow for my “Post-a-Day” WordPress blogging as well as my regular blogging in general. What I used to do was copy the Post-a-Day prompt emails over to my WordPress blog and set the post type to Drafts and let them sit there. I’ve never been a huge fan of the editor built-in to WordPress, but copying the emails to Drafts and storing them there, syncing them to Simperium which then synchronizes them across all my devices that have Drafts loaded on them, which is now just my iPhone.

The app itself has so many neat features, being able to store multiple drafts and have them swipe-accessible from the left makes switching files a breeze and then when the post is done and ready to be published I can swipe from the right and select as many services as I want to send my drafts off to. It’s the perfect promontory to launch Day One, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress. Generally speaking, the drafts themselves almost always follow a certain path, first to Day One then to WordPress because then WordPress sends links to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr on my behalf with the publicize feature. But sometimes I write things that don’t go to my blog, in that case I can send to Day One and Facebook. I have configured the apps representation in Facebook to conform to my “Sharing” security group, so even if I tap the Facebook option I don’t have to worry about my private sharing thoughts leaking out where they don’t belong.

The only thing (yes, there is one of these for every user) that I would really love is a Drafts app for Mac OSX. That would let me hack away on Drafts entries on my iMac without having to clear off workplace desktop space to set up my iPad. I think it’ll just be a matter of time before we see those options start to become available. I would pay $15 for an app like that without even batting an eye.

Cloze

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Discovered a neat new site and I sent invites out to everyone who I thought initially might find it useful. The site is called Cloze and it combines email and social networking in one view. There are free apps for iPhone and iPad as well. So if you got some email from me and you weren’t expecting it, now you know who it was from. I had to use my work email because many of the addressees on the mail were work contacts and they wouldn’t know who I am if I used my gmail account.

Windows 8

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I just returned from a meeting at work and Windows 8 reared it’s ugly head near the tail end of the meeting. I have to admit, for every Windows release there usually is a red-hot cavalcade of rah-rah supporters coming out of the woodwork. Some of the contingent are fanboys, some are apologists, and in general there is always this sense of celebration leading to a general pause and then recriminations as the inevitable suffering sets in.

As I was listening to the back and forth, it appears that many people do not like the Metro interface, and that there is (or was, maybe) a registry hack you could perform to effectively pre-empt Metro and force the system to go to Classic mode. Some people claimed that Microsoft blocked the hack when they went from RTM to the discs that people received to upgrade to Windows 8. It doesn’t involve me, so I put it out there as an anecdote, either way I don’t care. Then others mentioned applications you could add to the product to force the system to “Classic Mode” and re-establish the Start Button, much like the way it was with Windows 7. I find this to be really quite awful – and a really bad sign when your customers have to hack and pry the system right after installing it because you screwed up and delivered a half-baked interface and then, and this blows my mind, possibly remove or defeat end-user choice about which interface to use. That stuns me.

Much of this Windows 8 discussion and apparent kvetching has passed me by. I professionally stopped working with Microsoft products and hopped off the bandwagon at the height of Windows XP SP2. I have fully missed Windows 7 other than installing it as a Virtual guest on our Mac’s VirtualBox installations. I don’t really find Windows 7 to be useful, to say nothing of graceful or elegant or even supportable. I should make one thing clear and that is I am a Macintosh fanboy through and through. If you were to saw me in half, the rings would all be in the shape of the Apple logo. My adoration of all things Apple has left me in a very disconnected place from all these other people railing against Windows 7 and Windows 8. It just does not involve me.

So then we get to the Metro interface, which is what Microsoft is trying so hard to push on everyone in Windows 8. The last time I saw Metro was in the consumer preview of Windows 8 which I downloaded and installed on an old Dell box I had wasting away here in my office. I see the direction and understand quite clearly what Microsoft is trying to do, and their release of their Surface tablet just reinforces that my educated guess was correct. Microsoft and Samsung both are arm-in-arm for being caught flat-footed by Apple when Apple released the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and most recently iPad Mini. As I was driving back from my meeting it occurred to me that Surface and Metro, and to a lesser degree the Android system running on Samsung hardware are all vague attempts to me-too on Apple’s bandwagon when it comes to tablets. There is a problem with how these two companies are proceeding forwards. Putting tablet computing forward is in itself not really a problem, however forcing a tablet interface on Desktop users is a really bad idea. At best adoption will be sluggish and at worst adoption won’t happen and you’ll have regression and backlash. I see the latter happening at least in higher education as what I was witness to today – that people are invested not in seeing how Metro can work for us, but how to regress and defeat it.

Back in 2010 when I first got my first generation iPad I remember sitting next to a work peer and as I was actively using the tablet in the meeting this peer mentioned to me that he would never be caught dead with something like what I was using because it lacked a stylus attachment. I smiled and shrugged and it felt like there was an implicit invitation to argue the merits of stylus versus finger interfaces that was primed up before me. I didn’t allow the interaction to engage and shrugged it off. I think that’s one of the core features of the iPad and the genius that Steve Jobs and Jony Ive designed as they brought the iPad to market. We all have seen previous stabs at tablets before the iPad and they all featured too-much-and-too-busy. First the OS was never ready for being put in a tablet, Windows XP with stylus extensions and then the hardware was just wrong, a laptop that you could turn and flip the screen inside out so it looked like a heavy tablet. Apple proved that all these designs were wrong but above all else, that using attachments like styli was just the wrong way to go. I understand the thoughts behind what Apple did and when Apple brought their tablet device and their interface to market, the market responded by breathtakingly adopting the device in mass quantities. Apple singlehandedly reimagined the entire Tablet marketplace leaving Microsoft and Samsung in a lurch. Then came the design-by-Xerox that both of these companies did. Recently Apple had to express publicly that Samsung didn’t copy their designs and while the courts can say whatever they please, I say that, in my opinion, Samsung definitely did copy, quite shamelessly, Apples design for their phones and tablets. So, back to the tablets, now we have Surface and the Galaxy Note from Samsung. Still we have that awful design floating around with an interface that really doesn’t get it – and more stupid attachable styli.

There won’t be much adoption for Samsung or Microsoft, people know quality when they see it and Apple has it in spades. Using my iPad 3rd generation it is clear to me that iOS is where at least I am going to be spending all my time when I use a tablet. My iPad is arguably a competent replacement for my MacBook Pro and hands-down a far better system than any other laptop from any other manufacturer. When you botch so strongly, as Microsoft has done with Windows 8, I can’t help but catch myself in a daydream of a mortally wounded Microsoft and hearing a voice somewhere in the background firmly say “Dead Company Walking”. Microsoft has lashed much of their wagon to Windows 8 and at least from what I’ve seen so far, it’s not a really great product. No fanfare, no celebrations, no long lines, and no mass adoption with the requisite flogging by the media anywhere to be seen, and I’ve been looking. When the party line is “It’s Windows 8 and, it’s got Metro, so, I guess…” that’s a phrase that’s as toxic as when the 10th Doctor says “Don’t you think she looks tired?”. It’s the kiss of death.

I would invite commentary on this blog post but I suspect the subject matter will only attract fanboys and apologists. Even still, if there is someone who can honestly rave about Windows 8, I wouldn’t mind at least hearing you out.

Barnes & Noble's Nook HD+ Is Clever

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Barnes & Noble just sent an email out announcing their two new tablets: The Nook HD and Nook HD+.

Previously to this release I was discussing with my partner, who works for Barnes & Noble ways that B&N could compete with Amazon and Apple in the tablet space. There was a concern that B&N had lost traction and that the company was going to spiral out of control and crash, eventually. These tablets have just eliminated a good portion of that worry.

For full disclosure, I came across a rather pleasant and unexpected windfall in regards to money and I’ve been kvetching about the poor performance of my 1st edition iPad and in a way, Apple has sent a clear message that they regard the device as dead because they are no longer writing software updates for it. I went ahead and purchased an iPad 3 and I’ve been enjoying it quite a lot.

This news from B&N is very interesting to me as this new device has several key areas that put up more bang-for-less-money. The first surprise is the processing speed of the Nook HD+ in comparison with the iPad 3. 1.5GHz dual-core versus 1GHz dual-core. Ever since 2003 when the world pretty much stopped worrying and loved the bomb that is processor speed ratings this distinction isn’t as compelling as it appears on paper. The two units have different core technologies, the iPad has an A5X processor and the Nook HD+ has an OMAP 4470 processor. We have seen from manufacturers like HTC and Samsung that even when you pour huge muscular processors into devices to compete, that if the experience of the user isn’t done correctly then all the computing horsepower in the world means very little. It’s not about the muscles, it’s about the refinement of the motor cortex. It isn’t how strong you are, it’s your dexterity – at least in the phone and tablet space. I do hand it to B&N when it comes to pumping numbers and keeping costs suppressed - that’s a win in their column.

The second surprise, and I’ve been half expecting someone to notice this glaring deficit in tablet OS design comes down to what I believe to be Barnes & Noble’s knife-held-confidently-behind-its-back killer feature. Barnes & Noble is going to bring profile control to the tablet space. This casts a huge pall over both Amazon and Apple devices and redefines a tablet to be a multiuser device. It is exceptionally clever for Barnes & Noble to do this because it draws a clear bead of connection from everyone’s computer experience (where you have an account and profile) off to your device. When it comes to Apple, they rejected this model and regard a device to be a one-person-only deal, which has been a weakness in the iOS OS design. Apple may be too far along to make such a fundamental change to iOS so we may see the creation of a new track of tablet technology. Is a tablet multiuser or single-user? By being multi-user, and if B&N does it elegantly, it can cast B&N in a family friendly light, more than an Amazon or Apple product because one relatively inexpensive device can serve an entire family. Instead of the onerous cost of a Kindle or iPad for each person, because each device is single-user, one Nook HD+ can be used by different members of a family without having to worry about security, privacy, preference or profile leakages between people. It’s a failure of the Apple iOS OS and here is why: When I come across another persons iOS device, I am utterly lost – I don’t know their preferences, their security settings, where they have placed icons, and I find myself having to relegate to the search screen to even find where they put the ubiquitous “Settings” icon. If B&N does profiles elegantly, this will be a non-issue. Rendered moot because each person has their own settings that they are used to, making the confusion evaporate.

I think that B&N will pursue a marketing strategy that elevates the personal touch and the family friendliness of their Nook HD and Nook HD+ devices. That will be key, with profiles, the ability to use LendMe to share books, and their admittedly well-done “Parent recording storybooks for their children” technology they will position themselves to be “The Booksellers who care about you and your family” and they will occupy a third niche in this space. The first niche is the deep-discount one, that’s occupied by Amazon. The second niche is the elegance-at-all-costs one, which is occupied by Apple – and then last but certainly not least, the third niche which is the Friends-Family-Kids one, which is going to be Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

This niche may be the best hope for Barnes & Noble to retain their 21st century relevance.  They should maintain their “Brick and Mortar” presence and cater their stores to being a place where you feel welcome, with friendly staff and a coffeehouse/library atmosphere. The elevator sales-pitch is that B&N is more personable and immediate than Amazon could ever hope of being – you don’t know Jack at Amazon, but you know Jack at B&N. B&N’s approach to kids and family with their very deep roots set throughout America means they have already beat Apple to the market in terms of the personal touch. Yes, Apple has the Genius Bar and yes they are friendly geeks, but you don’t go to a Genius Bar to find out about Apps and Woodworking! You can only do that at a Barnes & Noble!

The real competition isn’t between B&N and Apple anyhow, since Apple touches B&N only in this one market-space. The real competition here is between Amazon and B&N. It’ll be an interesting evolution to say the least – which do people prefer more? The cold, impersonal, sterile deep-discount algorithms of Amazon or the instant-gratification, warm, personal, and direct approach of Barnes & Noble Booksellers? It may simply come down to how people refer to these two competitors. You USE Amazon and you VISIT Barnes & Noble Booksellers. That right there is something that Jeff Bezos can never buy himself into, but B&N already exists to cater to. Which do you value, the impersonal or the personal?

Barnes & Noble Booksellers may have just secured their direct relevancy in the market for the next decade with these two new devices. The proof is in the pudding of course, these devices, once in the stores, will be the final arbiter on the survivability of B&N in the tablet market space.

 

He Who Integrates, Wins!

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Google has done it. They have released Google Chrome for iOS and updated Google Chrome for Mac OSX. I have downloaded Chrome onto my iPhone, which of course pushed an identical copy onto my iPad. Then I started Google Chrome on my Macbook and updated that as well, to revision 20.

Google Chrome is faster than Safari when browsing my SupportPress site, that’s a really neat feeling to see it zoom along. So, did I switch? Yes. All my devices synchronized for tabs and bookmarks and passwords? You bet your sweet bippy! I’m a capricious user, Firefox often times pisses me off, Safari sometimes does, and even Chrome pisses me off from time to time. But I’m willing to take my lumps if I can have a synchronized centralized clouded infrastructure tying all my devices together. Safari isn’t it, but Google may win because their technology wins.

So far, Google Chrome on iOS and Google Chrome on my MacBook Pro may win my personal and professional recommendation. But if you are using browsers of your choice, don’t switch yet. These Google technologies are still a little raw, especially on iOS. Only time will tell, like most things.

Blogging on iPad with Byword and Bluetooth Keyboard

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Thanks to how silly my workplace is when it comes to access to the Internet I now have to use multiple devices to access many of the services that I previously used to run on my work machine. They have instituted a 100 connection throttle on all inbound and outbound TCP/IP connections. This explains a LOT about why I’ve been having such problems accessing the network.

Of course I won’t change my habits, I’ll just shift some of what I do onto other devices. In this case, pressing my iPhone and iPad into service. They’ll be responsible for the more social apps like Google Plus, Twitter, and such.

One thing that intrigued me was trying out Byword for the iPad using a Bluetooth Keyboard. How is blogging on my iPad different than blogging on my iMac? Byword makes this almost a seamless move. I type and the text appears on my iPad, since there are no network issues for my iPad there really shouldn’t be any lag, beach balls of death, or anything else getting in my way when it comes to blogging. The bluetooth keyboard means I can kick back and relax, put the keyboard anywhere I like and the iPad will still hear it and respond well. I don’t expect there to be any issues with WordPress. The app may be a little crunky around the edges but I can post by email just as well as open the app and copy the text into that. Sometimes I think that the post-by-email feature is more compelling for me than the application is.

At least with a bluetooth keyboard at home and at work I won’t have to lug one back and forth when I go back and forth from home to work during the day. I will however take my bluetooth keyboard with me on my upcoming work trip and see how well I can use it to do office-type things with just my iPad.

My trusty 1st Generation iPad, which by the way, still works great, has great resolution and fits me perfectly. Apple, you missed out on planned obsolescence when it came to this device!

Time to post this sucker…

Serenity

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At work I get two 15 minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I usually just work right through them paying no attention to the time I could be devoting to other things instead of work. I get into ruts where I put my head down at 8am and pick it back up at 5pm and the whole time in between I’m engaged with something work related.

This can sometimes lead to irritation, aggravation, and this maddening buzzity restless feeling that sticks with me and starts to wear me down. If the weather is good and I’m in the mood for it I will take a jaunt around the campus which can help. Recently however I’ve been trying to find room in my life for meditation and it struck me that if I could find the right place, that I could get away for half an hour. I figure nobody would have a problem if I bound my two breaks up together and used it for something possibly good for me.

That’s exactly what I did this afternoon. Around 3:45 today I polished off the last of the tea I was drinking and grabbed my iPhone and found a little out-of-the-way place here where I could relax and meditate. I didn’t fall asleep, but I was able to get to that magical place. Each time I do it, it gets easier to reach it, each and every time. There are two apps that help keep me focused and keep me from running out of time. The first app I use to create natural sounds around me is called Naturespace and I went ahead and bought the “Entire Catalog” program option which unlocks all of their soundtracks. I especially prefer the track “Zen Wind and Water” as it features windchimes which I really like listening to. The program works with my earbuds to mask outside noises, so there is nothing to upset me while I’m trying to relax. The second app I use is Chronology and I set it for 30 minutes with a double-horn alarm at the end. When I prepare for my session I find a nice quiet place to sit, one that nobody is using and nobody would go looking for me in, and I start Naturespace and Chronology, get everything started and start to concentrate on my breathing. As usual when I’m coming down I can feel the relaxation hit my shoulders and neck first. As I’m trying to quiet my thinking my mind starts tossing stray noise at me to get me to do something else. At first it took a long time for that to quiet down, but after several sessions it doesn’t take that long and once I achieve my goal it’s as if my mind fits into a groove in my consciousness. The stray noisy thoughts are gone and they don’t bubble up. It feels almost like a physical ‘fwump’ as it clicks into place. I could try to bring in some noise but it doesn’t work. It’s just me and my breathing and nothing else. If I stay very still I can even slow my breathing down, I start to lose proprioception and unless I’ve got joints under stress I start to float away. It has nothing at all to do with falling asleep. There are no hypnic jerks, and there isn’t any loss of consciousness. I’m able to act if I must, but it’s quite nice just to exist in that state for a time.

When I hear the double-horn from Chronology I know that my 30 minutes are up. When I open my eyes and shift posture my proprioception snaps right back together but my mind retains this quality of serenity for a long while afterwards. I’ve found it’s easier to read and easier to concentrate afterwards, as if I’m still carrying crumbs of that meditative state around with me for hours afterwards. I still feel it even now, and it’s been about twenty minutes since I left that state. If nothing else, I feel much better afterwards than I did before. The maddening buzzity sensation is gone and I don’t feel quite as busy as I was just an hour ago.

If I notice any other differences, I’ll be sure to blog about them.

Spinning Governor

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I’ve come up with ways to cope with the network connection throttle that I recently discovered was behind a lot of my network woes here at work. In my regularly scheduled workaday use of the Internet I usually find myself consuming at least 150 connections if not more because everything I use was built with the assumption that establishing multiple connections is free and easy. There is no parsimony when it comes to using the network, and you see this exemplified most of all in the design of browsers like Firefox. When you fetch a page, most modern browsers will attempt to also-fetch possible pages you may want so that they can appear faster. This is fine if you have an unlimited number of connections that you can make to the network. That isn’t the case here.

I can live with the throttle. I understand why it’s in place and knowing that it exists helps in that it keeps me from questioning my sanity when I didn’t know it existed and thought the problem was with me or my computer. It’s neither. So there are some ways to address my problem. Specifically the route to a better life is ironically through the same devices that are at the center of the entire ‘running out of IP space’ problem, iOS devices. My iPhone and iPad have apps that can bring me interfaces to Internet resources that I need to use, and they can free up my computer so that I can help avoid the connection quota throttle. For example, instead of opening up Toodledo in Safari I can open up the Toodledo app on my iPhone. Different device, different connection quota. My iPhone doesn’t make so many connections and if I did need that feature I could very easily drop wifi and use the 3G data circuit. I can do a lot of other things too, like manipulate Asana, run my eMail through my iPad, that sort of thing.

So, in a way, the connection throttle has shifted the load from one device to three. At first this was kind of a pain in the ass, but over time I’ve come to see that this could become more efficient. It frees my computer up for the heavier things, like Google Reader and such. We’ll have to see how it goes.