I didn’t kill him because he was crazy; I killed him because he was making sense.
Although I read the books and liked season one, it wasn’t my favorite show. But three episodes into season two, I can’t wait for the next one. The characters and environments took shape, and now it’s pure story.
Snippet TV reviewDaniel Steinberg:
I’ve joked that if Eddie Cue loved reading the way he clearly loves music, then iBooks, the iBookstore, and iBooks Author would be amazing. Not only aren’t they amazing, they aren’t even good.
In 2013 I helped out creating ebooks for a family friends. I first did the Kindle’s version, and it was a painful experience — similar to making a website in the early days. I left the iBook for last, looking forward to the experience. A few days letter, I was back using the epub generator and converting it to the Apple format.
Sad to hear not much has changed.
snippetsMy safety razor, brush and shaving soap always go together underneath the sink… or at least they did until my 14 month old son started opening every drawer and cabinet in the house.
So I moved the razed to a top drawer. To say that my organizational OCD had an issue with this is an insight of how much time I waste in every one of my workflows. But the raw fear of our small tornado finding my Merkur razor fought fire with fire in my mind.
A week later, I’m actually enjoying the new setup. The razor, the blades and the altoids’ container for used blades now sit together on the drawer.
Parenting keeps generating outcomes likes this. I don’t know if it’s Stockholm syndrome, or sanity complacency. But the end of your personal efficiency brings some fun practical shortcuts through the valley of chaos.
Snippet parentingOne of my new year’s resolution is to be frugal. Which as a high level virtue sounds great, but can be difficult to practice everyday. The best trick I’ve found is to not purchase anything if I have some of it left at home.
For most stuff, this means running out of my preferred brand, and dusting off whatever was replaced by it. Shaving creams, aftershave, meat spices and even ebooks.
Curious how long can I last, but I do like that it feels like a rule that nudges me in the right direction.
Lifehack FinanceSometimes you work with people that challenge you, other times, not so much. In most cases it has nothing to do with smarts, just the way a company’s processes work.
On occasion, you start to get challenged because you’re being left behind. You’re set in your ways, and don’t notice the changing landscape, attitudes and objectives.
Embrace the challenge. It’s not personal, it’s business. You’re getting a chance. Enjoy the gut feeling prism that has given you a new perspective.
Once you notice the challenge, take some time to figure out were the organization is going rather than running behind it. It’ll save you time later, and you might end up getting ahead in the process.
Snippet productivityIt’s a great exit for Trello. Would have preferred that it was Github the acquirer, but it makes perfect sense for Atlassian.
It’s no surprise then, that the company’s press release specifically cites Trello’s popularity with business teams in finance, HR, legal, marketing and sales and notes that 50 percent of Trello users work in non-technical functions.
Trello is not efficient, it’s flexible. It doesn’t impose order like Jira, and if you use incorrectly it can be chaotic. But for many type of users, it’s the modern shared spreadsheet perfect for collaboration.
snippetsAre rules supposed to persuade or dissuade you from something? Take the following question:
Did you write today?
I ask and track this question in multiple ways. Its objective is to encourage me to write. But it’s really a reminder type of question. The problem is that I don’t forget to write each day, I struggle with writing.
A question that’s supposed to help me write should make a habit out of writing. It should be easier to successfully answer it than not. It should pull me towards the goal.
In which case a better question is:
Did you write 1 sentence today?
Success is learning the lesson, not passing the test. Even when I’m my own teacher, I forget this.
Personal WritingBack when I still had a Canon DSLR, my main lens was a nifty fifty. I love the concept of accepting its set of restrictions, and getting in return consistent beautiful pictures.
At the same time, knowing that it was probably the best bang for the buck, made me feel like a hip minimalist.
I need to apply this to other aspects of my digital life. My work MacBook Pro has many, too many, utilities and apps that replicate features the macOS already provides.
As I try to reduce friction in my workflows, I don’t necessary end up with increase productivity. I get endorphins from being smart about the workflow, which could come from the final work result instead.
I see a clean install in my future.
ProductivityTurns out, however, Apple did eventually publish the extension — they just never told us. We don’t know when it happened, but it was likely around or after Thanksgiving, because we’d checked a few times since receiving that last email saying we were still under review.
There’s very few cool/new extensions for Safari nowadays. This dev makes the case that it’s a terrible experience for programmers. iOS/Mac codebase consolidation is likely the cause, and again, the Mac gets a downgrade in experience because of it.
snippetsIt’s amazing the influence social network have in our life. The topic of followers and how to get more came up more than once during our Christmas family gatherings.
How many posts are ok? What sort of content is best? These were questions that didn’t need much explanation across generations.
The basic utility that social networks have become in the smartphone era is probably one of the fastest adopted applications ever.
I do hope this oversharing phenomenon will become this decade’s bell bottoms. Something my son will shudder and laugh at in the future.
SocialMost people would describe their first impression of my Dad as quiet, and of my Mom as fun. I have always enjoyed hearing that I’m certainly my mothers son.
For a long time I wondered: am I good fun? or bad at being quiet?
There’s two situations that have given me clues that I’m more of an introvert that I let myself believe. Big social events and personal conflict. Both of these extremes exhaust me. More than swimming 5k, more than doing an all-nighter. I’m knocked out when I get home, and I’m tired for days.
In both cases, my extrovert script fails. There’s too many interactions in which you can’t plan ahead… or think about it for a while. But I’m OK with this.
My concern recently has been that I feel a kind of regret when I let myself go off script. When I’m perfectly honest and spontaneous, I later look back at the conversation with uneasiness. Because I know it could have gone better somehow.
I’m planning to work on this on 2017.
PersonalDuring the last year, I started cooking a lot more. Mostly because I got into sous-vide cooking, and suddenly a lot of weird complex steps had a methodological process with logical flow.
By starting with something that was also new to my wife — which is an awesome cook — I managed to defeat my initial fear of failure. That’s dumb I know, but smart I’m not.
In just a few weeks I noticed the benefits of cooking. Not only did I help Ana during the week, but in most cases I felt happier after I finished cooking. Even if you’re preparing a vinaigrette for a salad, all the work cruft that’s top of mind when you arrive home is pushed away.
As with every new topic, I quickly realized how much I don’t know. Yet, there’s many shortcuts that with a 80/20 level of effort, get you to some delicious meals.
Since I mostly did meats this year, I’ll close with the easiest one: temperature. So much anxiety in my past cooking could have been avoided with a thermometer. Some people might have a 6th sense with cooking times, but for everyone else, there’s a target temperature and you’re done with it.
Of course not. But as I go through the list of chapters of The Elements of Eloquence, this was only polyptoton I could come up with today.
Still, something strange is happening with my reaction to keyboards. And my preference is changing.
When my 12in MacBook arrived, I had a common first reaction: the keyboard click is weird — and the arrows layout sucks. For a few weeks the keyboard in the 2015 MacBook Pro and old wireless keyboard felt just right and at home.
Then last week I borrowed the newest Magic Keyboard from the someone on vacation at the office. Although it has more key travel than the MacBook keyboard, it’s closer than the old keyboards.
By the end of the week, the keyboard of the MacBook Pro 2015, started to remind me of the keyboard of the MacBook 2008 I use as a media server. The key’s felt mushy and too far apart.
As I write this, I’d rather reach for my MacBook 12in than my MacBook Pro. Maybe it’s complacency or muscle memory. But maybe just maybe, the new keyboards are better.
KeyboardNext week Manton Reece is expected to launch a kickstarter campaign for Micro.blog — his upcoming social network / mini publishing tool.
I will place my pledge without pause.
My past software pledges (Ghost and Macaw) have not been a great personal investment, but I felt strongly about both. Ghost is the most similar, and the biggest disappointment since it hasn’t become the cheap and easy blog platform I’ve hoped.
But Manton has been dreaming and working on this project for a long time. His attention to details — such as how links should work — make me excited about his vision for a service. And his experience developing against Twitter, App.net and Flicker is a good enough reasons of why he’d want an alternative.
Software SnippetI’m in love with my AirPods. They’ve made me understand Apple’s priorities.
If Apple had to decide that in 2016 it would launch the AirPods or a new Mac Mini, I’m happy with the decision.
In just 1 week, small headphones without wires have changed how/when/where I listen to my iPhone. The effects of a sub $200 gadget are going to be significant in my behavior.
There’s no wire you can cut on a Mac that will have this effect.
Apple biggest constraint is opportunity cost. It’s a new MacPro vs augmented eyewear, it’s macOS features vs Siri features, it’s a new old thing vs a new new thing.
Snippet→ Blade Runner 2049 Announcement I’ll allow myself excitement over this. The look is right and feel right — as in uncomfortable.
→ Shake Shack’s mobile app now takes orders across the US This could get ugly — and by this I mean me.
→ Spotify Updates Mac App With Full Touch Bar Support for MacBook Pro That was fast. Sadly no AppleTV or Apple Watch version in sight.
→ Duet Adds Touch Bar This is cool. If you have a 9.7in iPad, it’s fairly good Touch Bar test.
tidbitsI was planning to post this next week, but App Santa includes so many good apps, that I want to share early:
The easiest way to include more than 5, without including more than 5.↩︎
Andy Greenberg on Wired:
“Now when people in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates send a Signal message, it’ll look identical to something like a Google search,” Marlinspike says. “The idea is that using Signal will look like using Google; if you want to block Signal you’ll have to block Google.”
Smart. Since Signal is not as widely used as WhatsApp, blocking it doesn’t cause same uproar. This workaround ties its fate with Google, which is like using Godzilla for your canary in a coal mine test.
snippetsExcellent point by Jason Snell:
So maybe it’s a mistake to think that Macs are trucks. Maybe today’s Macs are more like SUVs: they’re more expensive and better appointed cars. It’s a category that’s just as popular as the car, and way more popular than the pickup truck.
Any analogy taken too far always breaks down. But I think this observation works very well.
snippetsSummers in Miami are fairly long — or at least that’s the excuse I’m using for procrastinating on so many reviews. Rather than wait until next year to catch up with them, here are some quick notes from the books I read/heard from July to October:
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper (★★★★☆)
A great example of Sci-Fi as an unobtrusive setting where a story takes place. Some interesting gender roles topics and religious discussions. A denser than normal book that made me think after closing it on many days.
Ringworld by Larry Niven (★★★★☆)
Classic Sci-Fi, which while enjoyable seemed a bit banal after reading Grass. Still, a fun ride in an amazing universe. Not sure I’ll come back for the sequels, but I may re-read it at some point.
Abomination
Abomination by Gary Whitta (★★★★★)
Excellent. A page turner, but with a different twist on many fantasy stories. I felt for a few of the characters and will love to return to this world if follow-up books are published.
Red Rising (Book 1) by Pierce Brown (★★★☆☆)
If you like The Hunger Games as a genre, then you may really like this. It felt too similar for me, and I found myself struggling to finish it. It did leave me curious with the setup for the next book in the series, so I’ll likely read one more.
Steelheart (Book 1) by Brandon Sanderson (★★★★☆)
Not a great story, but a fantastic world. Some cliché conflicts as a result of the its young adult target. I love the rules and restrictions the characters have, so I’ll read the next book for sure.
The Fold: A Novel by Peter Clines (★★★☆☆) A solid book with a very intriguing main character in a different setting. This could make a great movie. The story gets weird for the resolution, but it’s a good page-turner.
Changer (Book 1) by Matt Gemmell (★★☆☆☆)
I’m glad most reviewers don’t agree with me. I really wanted to love this book — since I’m a fan of @mattgemmell tech writing, but it was predictable without any strong characters.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (★★★☆☆)
This books has a very important message, but it suffers from booktitis. What could have been a short and to-the-point (essential?) booklet, gets inflated with stories that don’t add much and get repetitive. But if you’re interested in the topic, I’d still recommend it.
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday (★★★☆☆)
I thought this book could go two directions: either summarizing stoic principles or bring up some insights from stoicism for today’s age. It rather goes somewhere in between, and it didn’t work that well for me. Still, if the topic is new for somebody, I’ll probably consider this book as a good gift.
Scrum by Jeff Sutherland, JJ Sutherland. (★★★★☆)
Sprints, backlog, scrum meetings — if you’ve heard any of these words a few times, I recommend this book. You won’t become a scrum master, or have to do exercises, but it’s a great overview of the reasoning behind the scrum process. Even you don’t practice it religiously, it has some good stories.
Losing the Signal
Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff (★★★★★)
Very surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I thought I knew the RIM story, and how they messed up. But as usual with every topic, the more you dig in, the more you realize the complexity. It’s also a fun reminder of the last 20 years of gadgets.
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes, Joe Layden, Rob Reiner (★★★★★)
This is a total feel good book. If you like the Princess Bride movie, and wanted to hear entertaining stories of how it was made, then have fun storming the castle. For even more fun, listen to the audiobook, is narrated by Cary Elwes, so it feels and an audio commentary.
If you’re curious of what I’m currently reading and plan to read, visit my Book List Trello board, which I keep up-to-date.
fiction non-fictionA self-delusion in three acts:
Almost 7 years ago, I wrote the following regarding the launch of the iPad:
The arrival of the iPad at Apple Stores next month is going to mark the beginning of a deadly fight. Not with Google or Microsoft, but within Apple product lines. This is not a problem for Apple, since Jobs probably believes that if anyone is going to cannibalize Mac sales, it better be Apple itself.
However, for Mac fans, it’s judgement time. It’s now time to pay for sins against the Apple II.
Companies have limited resources. Customers have limited budgets. My dad programmed with punched cards, I used a Newton in high school, and my 1 year old is already bored with my iPhone 7. The deadly fight was likely over before it started in the minds of Jobs and Cook, but iOS sales sealed the deal.
Within the incoming tsunami that iOS devices represent, the Mac is the foamy crest a the top: clearly visible but irrelevant in the context of the wave. The end game is clear: an iPad(ish) device will be on desktops in 10 years. We’re just arguing and lamenting over the minutia of the transition.
A leaked Tim Cook message yesterday:
Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops. If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.
Just the fact that it needs to be made very clear, shows that it’s not completely clear. But while the overall message is dipped in shit, let’s not miss the chocolate filling: the Mac is not dead. Tim Cook wrote this knowing full well it was going to be leaked outside Apple — he wrote it to us.
People-familiar-with-the-matter whisperer, Mark Gurman, today published a fascinating exposé of the alleged state of Mac affairs within Apple.
Gurman has proven to have excellent sources, so there’s little reason to doubt the overall story here. I’m a little skeptic of some of the details — not because they might not be true, but because without context the twists and turns of product development always looks messy in hindsight.
But the main point rings true:
Interviews with people familiar with Apple’s inner workings reveal that the Mac is getting far less attention than it once did. They say the Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial design group led by Jony Ive and the company’s software team. They also describe a lack of clear direction from senior management, departures of key people working on Mac hardware and technical challenges that have delayed the roll-out of new computers.
On 2017 we will be accept this new reality. Our great expectations will give way for appreciation of at least being invited to the party: AirPods, Apple Pay, Apple Music, TouchID, Siri, APFS; they could not be supported.
The Mac’s are now the trucks Steve predicted. Heavy lifters with basically the same functionality over the years and limited innovation — other than features inherited from other vehicles in the product line. But they’re still needed, because until drones get big enough — you’ll need a pickup to move a stiff dead horse.
Apple Mac Opinion→ Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before No numbers, so it’s a marketing statement. But still not surprised.
→ Google Signs Deal With Cuba to Speed Services (Paywall) Now even Cuba will play faster YouTube videos than Venezuela. I’m not bitter.
→ Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car Not surprising. Seems all self-driving rumored projects are getting a reality check.
→ ‘Apple Support’ App Launches in U.S. App Store Simple app with very useful purpose. Will be testing it soon.
→ Yahoo discloses hack of 1 billion accounts I find it hard to believe that they found out from law enforcement. Irresponsible.
→ Evernote reverses privacy policy that allows employees to read users’ notes There has to be more to this story — maybe an upcoming technical feature poorly explained. Otherwise, this was a stupid change from the start.
tidbitsApple’s interface design in macOS is set up so it is comfortable for most people at a density of about 110 pixels per inch for non-Retina, and about 220 pixels per inch for Retina — text is readable and button targets are easy to hit at a normal viewing distance. Using a display that isn’t close to 110PPI or 220PPI means text and interface elements will either be too big, or too small.
The trick is not to focus in the screen size and assume a 4K resolution is good enough. For true retina you need 4K on a 21.5in or 5k on a 27in. Otherwise it’s better to go for a non-retina 27in at 2560x1440.
snippets##» Does it Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
The Bay Area in 2016 is to technology as 1930s Detroit was to automobiles or 14th-century Venice was to the European spice trade, except that these and all other historical analogies are unable to capture the magnitude and speed of local tech growth.
I struggle with this every time I go on a job application spree. San Francisco is the place geeky things happen. But the cost of living is very scary.
If, however, you’re looking to maximize your probability of joining the next Google (or Google itself), moving to the Bay Area probably makes sense. The salaries here do cover the higher cost of living, and if you are able to capitalize on the additional opportunities that are uniquely available here, you could end up doing much more than covering costs.
Basically, if you hit it big, the high living cost will be insignificant… and you’re more likely to hit it big if you’re there.
snippetsThis reddit comment is an excellent summary on how to manage projects in Trello.
snippetsIt was time to sell off what he could, with the priority of protecting his customers, sticking by his developers, and doing the best he could for his employees.
Lots of credit to Migicovsky. It does sound like he played the best hand he could for those around him, with the cards he had.
snippets→ What is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide For Beginners I always appreciate a good refresher on Bitcoin.
→ Amazon unveils ‘self-driving’ brick-and-mortar convenience store A mini-mart called Amazon Go. This is kinda amazing.
→ Google’s new Trusted Contacts app lets you share your location during emergencies More or less a relaunch of the old Latitude app. But since it’s Android only, I don’t see any advantage over iOS’s Find My Friend.
→ Google Wifi review: Wi-Fi that works It does appear to be a solid performer vs eero at $200 less for the 3 pack ($299).
→ Instagram will soon let you turn off comments and boot followers from private accounts Both sound like good features.
→ Apple Watch sales to consumers set record in holiday week, says Apple’s Cook A lot of noise of regarding the overall trend of the wearables category.
→ NPR’s Book Concierge: Guide To 2016’s Great Reads Great recommendations in every category.
→ Play music from Spotify straight to Sonos with Spotify Connect Really happy with my Sonos, and this is going to make me even happier.
→ Mac OS X Welcome Videos So many good memories of the excitement for upgrading MacOS X devices.
→ Mr. Robot Killed the Hollywood Hacker Hacking is not magic, it’s hard ingenious work.
→ httpster - totally rocking websites. Httpster is an inspiration resource showcasing totally rocking websites.
→ Uber Should Restore User Control to Location Privacy Not cool Uber.
→ Microsoft demonstrates full Windows 10 with Photoshop on ARM chips ARM tablet/notebooks are full of compromises for desktop use, but this is a significant advance.
tidbitsBest summary of this server/cloud analogy:
This is how we should treat our servers. If we have pet servers, we have that box in the server room. We patch it, we fix things when they break. We remote in to make changes so that it keeps running correctly.
If we have cattle servers, they are VMs. They are easy to destroy and rebuild from scratch. In the cloud, this VM process is much easier and faster to do, so we should strive to do it.
I somehow hadn’t seen this analogy before. It was mentioned off-handely on the lastest Supertop podcast, and it really got me thinking.
As with any anology, if you take it too far it breaks. But the main impresion is very educational and even mnemonic.
snippetsJoel Spolsky:
In short, we need Anil to help support us with ideas and leadership for HyperDev (now renamed GoMix) and any future products we come up with, and we need his soapbox and industry connections to continue to keep Fog Creek Software relevant. Thus I think the perfect position for him is as CEO of Fog Creek Software.
It’s amazing that Stack Overflow has 300 employees and Trello almost 100. I admire Anil Dash, and Fog Creek is a great company with extremely solid products, so this sounds like a great match.
snippetsCompletely agree with Nick Heer:
I’ve been trying to book some time at my local Apple Store to get my iPhone’s battery swapped, and it has not been easy — at least, not compared to the way it used to be.
I got a hairline screen crack on my iPhone 7 a few weeks back, and it took me a few tries to make the appointment on the website. I had to use the Mac because the Safari on the phone kept timing out, and the soonest date available was 1 week.
Once in the store, it was about 1 hour to turn the iPhone in, and then two and a half hours to get it back. Although it’s still way better than most stores experiences, it’s not Insanely Great by any measurement.
snippets→ Canopy — Keyboard Case and iPad Stand Glad I don’t have one of the new keyboards or iPads, otherwise it would have been hard to talk myself out of this one.
→ Wi-Fi Mesh Systems Compared: eero, Orbi, AmpliFi Good overview, the short version: eero wins when price is discounted, Orbi has the most potential, and AmpliFi is a safe option.
→ Google+ Featured Photos Screensaver for Mac Looks very nice. There must be a — bored — Mac loving product manager in google somewhere.
→ Wired magazine’s creative director is joining Apple If he doesn’t like aluminium and glass, this could get interesting.
→ Netflix finally lets you download shows and movies to watch offline We will never do it. We are not considering it. No comment. It’s coming soon. It’s live! History of a feature announcement.
→ Amazon Polly — Text to Speech in 47 Voices and 24 Languages They don’t sound amazing, but the option of having this as a service is very powerful.
→ More Than 1 Million Google Accounts Breached by Gooligan Android malware is no joking matter.
→ Amazon LightSail — Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS Interesting and competitive. But no reason to run from Digital Ocean.
→ Why all world maps are wrong Ever since seeing the bit on West Wing I’ve been fascinated by the UI of maps. Great overview video of the issues.
→ Inside the world of Chinese science fiction, with “Three Body Problem” translator Ken Liu The Three Body Problem trilogy has been one of the most mind-bending books I’ve read recently. I’ve since added a few more Chinese Sci-Fi books to my queue.
tidbitsThe paper tablet for people who prefer paper. Here to replace your notebooks, sketchbooks and printouts. Paper-like reading, writing and sketching with digital powers.
This is truly remarkable. It must be using some next-gen eInk display to achieve the refresh and draw rates in the videos. The device itself looks well thought-off and designed. I wish them the best of luck, since I’ve daydreamed about this sort tablet ever since my Newton days.
However, it’s going to be a hard sell against the iPad. The $379 pre-order price (with cover and pen) could be interesting, but the $716 launch price will need to find a niche market to succeed.
snippetsFitness wearable creator Fitbit is in the process of acquiring smartwatch maker Pebble in a deal that will likely spell the end of the Pebble brand. VentureBeat has learned that the sale price will be between $34 million and $40 million.
I have gone through my stages of grief on this. It makes sense as a company — given the reckoning the wearables industry is going through. Still, kinda a sad to see Pebble as a brand and company go.
Although geeky, they did start the wearables trend.
snippets→ Amazon Prime Ad — Priest and Imam In a world that feels more like an episode of 24 rather than West Wing, I appreciate this ad.
→ Eero’s WiFi hubs get faster, smarter and now support Alexa My apartment is perfectly covered by our ASUS router, but I dream of the day I’ll need one of these new mesh ones.
→ Apple Will Replace iPhone 6s Batteries in Phones That Unexpectedly Shut Down My 6s suffered from shut downs — seemed to happen under heavy loads. Should have taken it in at the time.
→ Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers Sadly unsurprising. I undestand the economics behind this, but I still think it’s a strategic risk: Apple’s home automation solution will have less leverage.
→ Apple - Frankie’s Holiday Awww Apple, I can’t stay mad at you.
→ Worldwide Market for Used Smartphones Forecast to Grow to 222.6 Million Units in 2020, According to IDC Always take these with a greain of salt, but it does sound like the normal progression of mass market products.
→ Microsoft brings Solitaire to iOS and Android And now it’s official… the desktop is dead.
→ Alter — Turn text into an image. Useful for Twitter and even email code examples.
→ Giki is a Markdown-powered Wiki Wiki and markdown? What sort of sexy talk is this?
tidbitsSetting up a new MacBook — more in this soon — and I hastily deleted a symlink that uploads my work MBP Desktop to Dropbox. A minute too late I realized the delete action was propagating to the new Mac. Really bad planning on my part.
Since I use the Desktop as a sort of current projects folder, this wasn’t my brightest moment. I knew in the back of my mind that everything was going to be alright since I have a trifecta of tools: Dropbox, Backblaze and Arq.
Initially I went to Dropbox to restore the folder, but since I had deleted the folder on both Mac’s, not everything was there. I then logged into Backblaze, and while waiting for the data restore selection — it can take a while — I checked out how easy the Arq restore process was. Mind blown.
In all honesty, I run Arq as the last line of defense — in case all of the above fails. I was surprised how easy it was to restore the file. Also, how fast the 900MB downloaded from Dropbox 1
Everything is now restored and my stupidity forgiven.
I am left wondering about my backup plans cocktail. The current setup does give peace of mind — specially when thinking about my wife’s MacBook. But maybe Backblaze plus Arq might be an overkill when I’m trying to cut down on expenses.
I upload my Arq Backup to an unsynch Dropbox folder.↩︎
→ Amazon editors — Best science fiction and fantasy of 2016. Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past), is fanstastic and a great ending to the series.
→ PhotoScan printed photo scanner app. I’ve tried lots of apps that do this, and still I haven’t scanned my parents collection.
→ Drop — A beautiful color picker for macOS. Why would you pay for this? because a good designed is obsesive about all her tools.
→ WhatsApp launches video calling. A new default for most people. So long Duo.
→ Casey Neistat MacBook Pro with TouchBar video review. Fun review with some valid points. He still bought it, which proves Apple is right though.
→ PoisonTap, a $5 tool that invades password-protected computers. If you’re careful (use a Mac, have firevault, don’t leave it unlocked), not as bad as it sounds. If you’re not careful, that same password you use for everything is going the be the least of your problems.
→ OnePlus 3T released. More battery, megapixels, processor and bit higher price. Still the best bang of the buck in Android. Just wish it had a smaller 5in screen.
→ You can now check Due Dates as Done is Trello.
Best news of the week. If you organize your team in Trello in some sort of pseudo-sprint setting, this is very helpful.
→ Barnes & Noble debuts $50 Nook tablet to take on Amazon. Lifeboat for the 5 users they have left. Still, a persuasive price.
→ Firefox Focus — a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS. Why not? Privacy is going the pop-up blocker of the next few years.
→ How Stephen Wolfram invented interstellar travel for Arrival. I wanna see this move, I wanna see this movie.
→ Asana introduces Boards — similar to Trello Kanban rules the world.
→ iPhones Secretly Send Call History to Apple, Security Firm Says I’m much more worried about my mobile operator having my call history.
→ MacBook Pro Bulbs ad I might be missing something, but this is a cool video and then an basic MacBook Pro ad.
→ Apple’s Chip Choices May Leave Some iPhone Users in Slow Lane Lets not forget these are still glorified walky talkies. Real world performance in the context of mobile operators has many variables.
tidbitsGabe Weatherhead on his blog:
My tactic was to avoid pay sites. I avoided following and sharing links to paywalls. I wrongly refused even the steepest of discounted access. We can argue about the path that brought us to this point. We can frame the denials of market forces and the effect of an open Internet however we like. But, what we can’t do is insist that democracy survives without paid journalism.
Emphasis mine. I’ve always knew in the back of my mind that journalism needs some sort of payments. But the cheapo in me always screams when something goes above $10 a month.
I currently subscribe to The Economist Espresso and used to NYT Now, before it went free and then was closed. For Venezuelan news, I try to “regularly” contribute to Caracas Chronicles and Efecto Cocuyo — if yearly counts as regularly.
This post reminded me that the price good journalism is not only about the value I get, but the responsibility of believing in real information. And that costs more than a yearly contribution.
snippetsFrom Version 5.9 release notes:
Have an Apple TV 4th Generation? Download the new Nest app from your Apple TV and enjoy the convenience of monitoring your home and viewing all of your Nest Cam live video feeds right from your TV.
Been waiting a year for this. The use case for us is simple: you place semi-concious primate on crib, cross fingers, and then stare into TV instead of iOS apps for heavenly signs of sleep
snippetsNintendo:
Super Mario Run can be downloaded from the App Store at no cost, and players can try elements of the game’s three modes for free. Once the game has been downloaded, a one-time payment of $9.99 will grant unlimited access to each of the three modes in this release.
Love that it’s pay one and play. Regardless of being a gamer or not, this is going to be big.
snippetsApple today announced the release of a new hardbound book chronicling 20 years of Apple’s design, expressed through 450 photographs of Apple products.
At $199 and $299 for the small and large one, respectively, I’m pretty sure most geeks are thinking: nice, but I hope nobody buys me this instead of some AiPods.
If you do want an Apple designs book, I can easily recommend:
Ana has given me both as a gift, and I love them — and both are under $50.
snippetsWhile we go through the bureaucracy of your parents country to get you a Venezuelan passport, your birth country had an election. It was a surprise to us that the good candidate didn’t win. We weren’t alone. Probably half of those who voted were surprised with the results — which in hindsight seems like the obvious outcome for any election.
There are many reasons why I dislike the candidate that won, but mainly it’s because he’s a bully, and bullies don’t use ideas to make their point.
But this letter is not about why somebody won or lost. It is about trying to teach you that if you’re unhappy with an election result you have remember that this didn’t happen to you, it just happened.
It may be unfair, sad, or worrying. But unless you were the candidate, grieving is not the best option to balance out the winners celebration.
Telling you to disconnect after loosing an election is borderline laughable if you inherited your mom’s passion or my OCD, but it’s still the best advise I can give you.
See, at 35, your dad has lost every presidential election he has ever voted on. And from my point of view, the consequences have been catastrophic for Venezuela. But becoming frustrated by the individual decisions of millions of people doesn’t help at all.
So, go watch a movie. Or just meet with your friends to have a drink and talk through what happened. But don’t let your heart darken, or your life get blue. Take a deep breath every couple of minutes, and start trying to answer why it happened?. And how you’re going to help fix it.
Politics PersonalMatthew Izatt:
When you get the next Gmail iOS app update, you’ll notice some exciting changes: The biggest overhaul of the app in nearly four years.
I use Google Inbox as my main email client on my iPhone, and leave the Gmail app for when I have to do grown up searches or email thread paleontology.
This update brings the Gmail App to where it should have been 4 years ago:
https://twitter.com/rmateu/status/112126613952532480
For Calendar on my iPhone, I constantly switch between Fantastical and Google Calendar. If you don’t mind the non-native look, Google Calendar is an excellent alternative.
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5typos.net