Mac Geeks: The Lusers Have Breached the Walls

Dear Mac geek friends, there is no way to sugarcoat this: we have lost our high-horse control over the desktop.

When Apple said “The computer for the rest of us”, turns out they actually meant them: the average users, our pawns. Well, all the pawns have queened.

Just look at Lion: Full Screen apps, versioning, gestures, ad-hoc file sharing and —gasp— OS upgrades from the hard drive. These are our features!

We used them with hacks or enabled them from the terminal. We suffered through endless beta apps that would kind of work if you just remembered to click X and not use Y.

But it gets much worse, not only can’t we look down on average users and laugh at their ways anymore. No, to add insult to injury, we are the ones doing things wrong now.

What kind of Mac world do we live in when your mom saving ALL her files in the (iCloud enabled) Documents folder is the right way? No save dialogs, no different project folders. File system anarchy I tell you.

There where signs, I just choose not to see them. Someone would tell me about a cool Mac app that I’ve never heard of; I’ve been pretty busy this week, I told myself. A family member would show me how he streamed video to his iPad, etc.

Damn Mac App Store, you righteous easy-to-use basterd.

The Cloud is our Last Domain

These are dark times. Apple wasn’t happy just attacking our desktop superiority, they mounted a full frontal assault and invaded as far north as the cloud valley.

But there is hope, at least for while. Apple being Apple, doesn’t like chaos. And there still plenty of chaos left as our computers and the cloud merge into one.

We will still use iCloud, it will be like that fancy leather binder you take to meetings. But our heart will be on Dropbox, our digital moleskine with markdown files, symlinks and other loosely connected pipes that kind of work if you just remembered to …

We geeks are both free R&D and market research for the eventual plug-and-play solution. Lab experiments for all the permutations of how a file can be accessed, synced, streamed and shared on the cloud.

But it is our nature, no use fighting it.

And who are we kidding? We where done with the desktop either way. Bring on the next.

Twitter, tear down this #BBM!

As everyone expects, tomorrow’s WWDC Keynote will probably show some sort of deep integration of iOS5 with twitter. While I dream of an iChat client that sends DM¹, I know it’s not meant to be.

At most, tomorrow’s announcement will enable iOS to send a tweet from anywhere in the OS where you can currently send an email –which is a lot of places, and easy to implement into any app.

This is great, but doesn’t help much in achieving BlackBerry Messenger freedom.

I think twitter has almost all the elements in place to become the messenger platform. Even their mission statement seems coherent with some sort chat application:

“We want to instantly connect people everywhere to what’s most important to them.”

Easy as 1-2-3:

In my mind, twitter only needs improve three aspects of Direct Messages to make it an useful chat alternative:

1. Make it secure: I don’t care what magic you use, but chats need to feel safe. Encrypt it end-to-end, put time expirations, tie them to only one device or even only allow official apps to have this feature, whatever the case, your security shouldn’t be questioned.
   It must survive the Arab revolution test: a message that says “protest today in …” shouldn’t land me in jail that day.

2. Allow groups: Twitter already has a (very underused) feature that would work with this: Lists. Being able to DM @rmateu/friends should send a message to everyone that follows this group. Lists already can be public or private, so multiple group chats scenarios exist.

3. Make it really secure. I’m dead serious. Most people still defend BBM because of the wrong assumption that all the messages are encrypted. Revolutions, business deals or sexting, they all must be reasonably protected.

More is more:

Private accounts have not stopped twitter from becoming the pulse of the planet.

Enabling users to chat directly will ultimatly grow the user base, which as a result will make twitter’s public stream of councioness even more complete.

Removing 1-step from my Quix and Instapaper workflow

Removing 1-step from my Quix and Instapaper workflow:

Problem: My command for the Instapaper Read Later bookmarklet in Quix is rl.

Since rl is not a word, damn autocorrect would change it unless I clicked the bubble.

Solution: Add RL as Instapaper’s Nickname in your contact, and now autocorrect even suggest it!

I already had an Instapaper contact so I could remember my account email address when I forward articles and such (the second address is for my Dad’s account).

Instapaper Contact

Old Apple Press Releases

Selling a feature through text. At different points in my life I’ve had to put into short phrases either very technical benefits, or worse, extremely subjective arguments.

Whatever the case, Apple Press Releases have always been a source of fascination with their style:

Apple Discontinues Development of Newton OS

“This decision is consistent with our strategy to focus all of our software development resources on extending the Macintosh operating system,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s interim CEO. “To realize our ambitious plans we must focus all of our efforts in one direction.”

Apple Unveils iMac

“We designed iMac to deliver the things consumers care about most - the excitement of the Internet and the simplicity of the Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s Interim CEO. “iMac is next year’s computer for $1299; not last year’s computer for $999.”

Apple Presents iPod

iPod represents the next generation of portable music players that store music on an internal hard drive, yet are only 20 percent of the volume of today’s hard drive-based players. iPod stores up to 1,000 CD-quality songs on its super-thin 5 GB hard drive, and features up to 20 minutes of shock protection for nonstop playback when running, biking or other activities.

Apple Previews Next Version of Mac OS X

At the Macworld Expo Keynote, Apple® today previewed Mac® OS X version 10.1, the first major upgrade to Apple’s new UNIX-based operating system. Mac OS X v10.1 will deliver significant performance improvements, new features and additional refinements to the Aqua™ interface. Mac OS X v10.1 will be available this September and will be supported by more than 1,000 third-party native applications.

Dropbox Apps: Pick a Damn Folder Already!

Being a total Dropbox fan, I see any sort of integration with other Apps as a great thing.

However, given my OCD tendencies, the approach these Apps take of creating a folder each on my root Dropbox folder, is very irritating.

Some Apps let you choose where to create the folder, but I understand how this isn’t very elegant or user-friendly. All I’m asking really is that you pick one folder and insider setup all your naughty sync stuff — I’m looking at you Soulver, Due and Writer.

In case what you need is a catchy name, I already put all my Mac Applications synched stuff under Application Data. Since you all are cool and mobile, maybe you want to go with App Data, or App Library or even the obtuse App Support works for me.

Daily Deeds (the only App I own that tries to address this) goes with the unimaginative Documents, which while simple, could conflict with some users current folders.

The actual guilty party seems to be the Dropbox guys themselves. Nowhere in the Developer Documentation or Guidelines did I find any suggestion regarding where stuff should go, but still, it’s a start.

While I’ll try to use the current situation as an exercise for mindfulness, I do hope that at some point this mess-in-the-making gets sorted out.

Online is a state of mind

The latest Instapaper update includes a cool new feature:

Post to Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Pinboard, or Evernote using your linked accounts from Instapaper.

The use-case is simple enough: you’re reading a great article on Bill Murray and as you finish it, you heart it, and Instapaper will share this automatically (if you choose) with a twitter/facebook/etc.

Fast, simple, frictionless social sharing. Why does it make me so uncomfortable? ¹

Pop psych tells us that we all wear masks, and nowhere is this truer than online. Problem is many believe the computer itself is a mask.

It isn’t.

On the analog world, hundreds of years of social interaction has taught (most of) us not to wear a pink leotard while french kissing a tennis racket with the curtains open. However, most users assume that those same curtains protect their online persona.

No matter how many times I explain Private Browsing to non-technical neighbors, there’s always a number of, ahem, exotic websites on their history when a new round of tech support happens.

Ask anyone around you if they are aware that it’s likely all their Google searches are stored on their accounts. You will encounter a wide-eyed stare followed by an uncomfortable laugh.

Modern digital coolness is not so much about being online, it’s more about reflecting online our analog existence: check-ins, photos with geolocations, group coupons, etc. are only really interesting if we go outside our doors — and the farther, the better.

In practice, the current push model allows for easy filtering of what I see as the digitization of our life:

• Hanging out with friends on a pier with balloons? Share status and location.
• Watching a sunset while reading poetry? Share pic and poem quote.
• Looking for a rash cream at local pharmacy? Errr, never mind.

Yet, as life offline becomes more tied-in to our online accounts, we get closer to a seamless-sync push model. And before you think all this is scary or bad, look at the exciting part:

You go to a store and grab a wine bottle, scan it and see if your friends on XYsocialnetwork have bought it before, see a review and instantly get notified that if you and 5 more friends purchase it, you get a 50% discount. Through XYsocialnetwork, you know that Marie, Joe, Carol and Roger are in the city and without plans, send them a quick message and suddenly you have an impromptu wine-fest with friends.

Cool right? At least I think so. Thing is, for this to happen, information needs to be shared, and on a bunch of levels. And just like the initial uproar over the Facebook News Feed, outrage will likely give way to embrace when the perceived benefits trump the fears for most users.

How will this all play out? If I had to predict now, I’d say that soon it will be hard to separate your online personality with your analog one. Roberto Mateu — and not @rmateu or ticotek1981 — loves Battlestar Galactica, Pizza and French Maid costumes².

You’ll use your Facebook account to pay for things when out at night, get into a party with a twitter invite and find a cab with a Groupon discount.

For the vast majority of people, online anonymity will be something as strange as youngsters who wear hoodies not to appear on CCTV cameras.

The big question for me is: will most people choose not wear a hoodie online? (nothing to hide, convenience, bla bla bla), or will using one be an impossibility for all but tech hackers?.

I like to believe we are close to the inflection point of normal users understanding that online privacy is neither a birthright nor a feature of the internet. If deemed important by the public, it needs to be defended and implemented.

We are still a long way off though, it’s not like our online activity is affecting our analog surroundings … Oh, wait.

Kids, Take Note

Two note taking Apps that made me wish –just a little– that I was in a class environment again:

• CourseNotes:

  CourseNotes lets you take notes during your classes and keep them organized by subject and class meeting. Review your notes later and search through multiple class meetings and notes all at once. You can also keep a ToDo list by marking notes as ToDo items, or track them as assignments by providing a due date.

• ActionNotes:

  ActionNotes is ideal for taking notes during meetings where you’re likely to end up with a list of things to do, or for brainstorming sessions when you just need a way of getting your thoughts down quickly, then highlighting the important ideas and tasks.

I’d probably still end up with Simplenote + Notational Velocity, but these two Apps look beautiful.

On Netiquette and Dating

This is language. A new vocabulary, the likes of which the world has never seen! ~Robert McNamara on Thirteen Days

After a very long term relationship, singleness on the Facebook age has been an interesting experience.

Gone are the akwards calls to the landline hoping that the girl was the one that picked up (told you it was very long term).

Nowadays Like’s, status comments, and messages rule the day. Worth mentioning is that I’ve never seen a poke in my life, maybe I just don’t hang out in the right crowds ;).

And of course, emoticons: ;), :D, , etc. They have to be the greatest evolution in written language in my lifetime. Just add a couple of characters and suddenly you have a sentence with with enough depth and intrigue to match a Shakespearian paragraph.

You have issues ;)

vs.

You have issues :(

vs.

You have issues.

A whole new language I tell you.

Still, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It used to be that you played it cool, as in: not call for a day or two. However, in a ever connected world, how can you pull this off?

Unless you where in an Arab country in the last few days, there’s no way you couldn’t pick up any device just to say hi.

To make matters worse, even if you try, analog lives are now reflected on the web in almost realtime. Go to a party while your status claims you’re chilling at home with my dogs, and you’ll likely be tagged on a photo, with a jackass comment underneath.

And yet—in the end, the problems that existed before the mobile era remain, and some of its greatest features have become huge inconveniences.

With ubiquitous communications, silence is louder than ever: the use of it can show interest –just like the old days– but it can just as quickly imply disinterest.

Or as they used to say (apparently it’s lame now): it’s complicated.

Egypt Offline: We’re So Full of It

And by it, I mean shit.

Egypt’s Government shut-off of the internet has sparked the expected Twitter trending topic, Facebook fan pages with a gazillion ‘Likes’ and spam-levels of emails with a powerpoint presentation of photos you’ve already seen.

Two things:

1. This is not a knock on social network websites. I do believe that they teach/enable/empower free speech, and therefore, freedom.
2. There is nothing wrong with us talking about it over these same networks.

But lets be clear: we’re gossiping over the water-cooler.

A retweet with the #Egypt hashtag won’t do anything to help those in the conflict. You’ll feel a lot better, true. And maybe, some geeks will have a moment of pleasure seeing the whole internet looking at them.

But very soon they’ll notice we’re just looking. And talking. Even if you post/write/tweet/scream “INJUSTICE” at the top of your bandwidth, we’re still in the bleachers, looking down on the events. Clicking, clicking, clicking.

Of course, some click their way to making a difference. But this implies you have to protest, to disrupt, to break things. It can be hacking a site or writing a document that gets summited to court (blogpost is still gossiping).

This new networked planet allows us to be equally affected by people and issues far and close; yet we somehow neglect items very near because they don’t arrive through the modem.

Check around. Many countries have either the capability –or the proposed legislation– to allow an internet kill switch like Egypt used last night.

Preventing and protesting this type of control locally, does a heck of a lot more than telling angry, scared and tired people half a world away that your tweets are with them.

From MessagePad to iPad: A Love Story

You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve been called an Apple fanboy a few times ¹

No shit.

In all truth, fanboism implies a fanaticism I don’t think is accurate to peg me in. While I love Apple products, it’s usually because they make really good ones.

I’ll be the first to agree that they aren’t the best choice for everyone. Even today I’ll recommend an Windows 7 device if you’re an Excel nerd. Or an Android device if you just want a smartphone.

But there is something about the level of detail in Apple products that pushes the enjoyment past the purchase into the usage.

Although many people attribute this to the genius of Steve Jobs, I don’t think that completely fair or accurate.

More than a decade before holding the iPad made me say “this is so fucking cool”, another Apple product had me saying it for the first time: the Newton MessagePad 2100.

Newton Ipad

Many have ridiculed the Newton for its handwritten recognition software, which was far from perfect, but still the best for many years to come.

What really took the top prize was the User Interface. At a time when friendly seemed to be the buzzword, the Newton UI was plan natural: deleting a documents crumpled it and threw it on the trash, erasing a word was just a matter of scratching over it.

It wasn’t only the software that was great, the hardware was beautiful and built like a tank. After 14 years (with 5 of heavy use) my Newton still works, with the dim backlight being the only clue of its age.

To believe a product is ahead of its time is to assume you can never be amazed when something new arrives.

By that definition, no one should be surprised with the this explosive new tablet age. However, seeing normal people using iPads (and upcoming devices like the PlayBook, Android and WebOS pads), I see the same fascination I experienced with my faithful Newton.

And I’m glad everyone is joining the club.

Online Collaboration With Humans (i.e. non-geeks)

Over the past few months I’ve had to work with normal, non-technical people. They have lives in the analog world and say things like: “I didn’t get the email, but don’t worry, that happens sometimes”.

I’d love to share some success stories on how we all arrived at a collaboration panacea, but currently most of my experiments ended in failure. Skip to the end if you just want some tips.

High-Standards

Pat Paulsen used to say:

I’ve upped my standards. Now, up yours.

Which to be fair, applies perfectly here. Opera Software was a collaboration nirvana. The tools weren’t advanced at all, but it was so ridiculously simple (plain text emails and wiki’s) and everyone was so technical, that online collaboration just happened.

Lowest Common Denominator

It’s email.

Talk all you want about social networking or Sharepoint, but if you’re working with people that bought a CD during their lifetime, the mail package analogy is the only one that sticks.

You can judge, laugh or scream, but a document needs to arrive, be modified, and sent back. The opportunity cost of explaining a shared folder, a public wiki or an online calendar, quickly leads you –the geek– to accept defeat and send … an email with the date of the event, the agenda and your version of the document attached.

Gratis is the Enemy of Good

One caveat I should mention is that an almost non-existent budget and a soft-requirement for spanish versions hasn’t allowed me to play with some interesting looking solutions.

Some open-source solutions exist, but the free price sticker quickly evaporates when you start investing your time to set it up. Higher minds than myself could make it all work, but I couldn’t justify it.

Blackberry is the Enemy of Done

Blackberry’s are ubiquitous in Venezuela, most of the normal humans feel very comfortable using it. While its closed system can become a problem (some users are not included), the biggest problem is that you’re limited to working on smartphones.

Although I’ve been amazed with what some people can type in those tic-tac keyboards, and the settings where the typing happens (“Give me 15 minutes to write it, I’m stuck in traffic”“). In most cases emails need to become a document, or some format that can’t be created in these devices.

Some Tips:

Enough bitching (if you suffered the above, thanks for reading), here are some things I’ve noticed myself doing to make my life easier:

Flood the Channels

Geeks hate duplication. Two songs in iTunes, three apps that do the same thing, five identical emails. Normal people don’t care.

If you created a mailing-list but also have a group of emails, send it to both. Include the same info on the website and also push it on the newsletter.

When somebody complains, you’ve found a fellow geek or the jackass of the group, both are important to identify early on.

Be the Duct Tape

There’s always something that you know just won’t happen unless you put it on Google Docs. Put it there and send the link.

Normal humans hate figuring things out online, but they love when their stuff becomes a link.

You’ll start getting stuff directly to be put online. (I didn’t say it was going to be fair or efficient, but at least it’ll be geeky)

Take Control of Naming:

If you don’t have Digital Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you can skip this. But I can’t read/work/recieve a file named Untitled 5 ~ TEMP.doc.

This is just a specific example of the above, take the file and rename it. For some time I used:

• Document Title v2r3.xyz

(V)ersion denotes major change and (R)evision incorporated feedback.

Smile, you’re now a carbon-based revision system.

Never Break a Working System

Very important.

If you’re late to the party, and somehow the regular humans have survived using one hotmail account and sharing notes as draft emails: Don’t Panic!

Look around, if no one complains, take a deep breath and leave. You really don’t want to be part of that accident.

Kill BBM - Part Uno (@Twitter)

Sometimes good things come in horrible packages.

I don’t seem to recall any motivational poster with the statement above, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Perfect example: Blackberry Messenger.

On its own, a really good messenger app. It could use a some usability love (Do you really need to confirm every time I wish to end a chat?),but the UI is clean, and the push infrastructure is superb.

Problem is, it’s stuck in the glorified pagers called Blackberry phones.

No point going into why I don’t like Blackberry’s. We don’t even have to fight about it. Let’s just agree to disagree, by which I mean, some people enjoy things that reset themselves and have looked exactly the same for 4 years, and I –on the hand– have tech taste.

Voting With Your Fingers

Believe I have tried alternatives: WhatsApp, GoogleTalk, Textie, Beluga, Kik, etc, etc. My pal Nav has tolerated every new app invitation I’ve sent him. But all of them loose to Blackberry, because they need the user base to grow in other platforms.

The only one that managed to be useful for a while was called Chirpy. It basically was a Twitter Direct Messages chat App. If your friends had Twitter (and most of mine do), they will get it as a DM.

Problem solved? Not quite. In part because Twitter DM are as unsafe as loggin into Facebook on a public WiFi.

SDM: Secure Direct Messages

So here is my one and only feature request for Twitter (now that Tweetie 2 is out), develop a new type of DM that is encrypted end-to-end.

You can read it, I don’t care, but have the message itself be secure from my device to your server, and from your server to the other person. Make it so that only one device is authorized to read the messages, and -this is important- you can’t read these SDM from http://twitter.com/.

That’s all I ask. Trust me, if I tell my friends and relatives this is the last type of messaging app I’ll tell them to install (and most won’t, since they already use Twitter), they’ll gladly do it just to make me stop bothering them.

It’s a win-win-win: I can flirt from my iDevice of choice, you become even bigger because people will now perceive you’re secure (they don’t, but that’s another post), and tasteless persons can continue to use Blackberry.

More Relevant Gmail Inbox In 3 Filters

I wake up. Stretch. Pickup my iPhone/iPad/MacBook to check three things:

1. Twitter
2. Google Reader
3. Gmail

Two out of three of these services use a streaming behavior to consume information.

You don’t need to mark all Tweets you’ve seen as read when you go through them. Or, if you subscribe to more than a dozen blogs, you probably skim headlines and read what strikes your fancy.

Being a Gmail user for many years, my account responds to multiple personalities, but it has receives two main types of emails:

1. Important emails I need to read.
2. Emails I like to skim, and maybe read.

The first group is self-explanatory. The second is more complicated: it includes everything from the triple forwarded conspiracy theory my mom sends me, to the website invite I subscribed weeks ago. My payment reminders and newsletters also fall within this group.

While I like to mentally group my emails this way, they all arrive in the same inbox. Below is the best solution I’ve found to separate these two automatically.¹

Enter the Gmail Filters:

After some trial and error, I arrived at three Gmail Filters that takes care of filtering my inbox so I can create the two email inboxes mentioned above:

• Talk to me: This makes sure emails are being sent to you. Any forwarding from another email, CC, and especially BCC gets filtered.

  -from:your@email.com AND -to:your@email.com AND -list:Newsletter
  

• Love me back: Good rule of thumb for an automated email is that you can’t write back. If you can’t write back is should not clutter your inbox.

  from:(do_not_reply@ OR noreply@ OR donotreply@ OR support@)
  

• Must not subscribe: I’ve acumulated these over the months. At some point I restarted from a lifehacker tip.

  ("opt-out" OR unsubscribe OR "viewing the newsletter" OR "privacy policy" OR enews OR "edit your preferences" OR "email notifications" OR "update profile" OR smartunsubscribe OR secureunsubscribe OR yahoogroups OR "manage your account" OR "group-digests" OR "email subscriptions" OR "To ensure delivery" OR "To help ensure" OR "because you signed up" OR "You are receiving this message" OR "Si no deseas recibir")
  

Remember that this last one is a very organic filter. When something slips past the it, check the email contents and try to find a way to include it.

In case you don’t want to manually add the three rules above, you can download my filters here, and use Filter import/export to import it. Remember to configure the first rule, since you have to use your own email.

I Shall Call You ⠀Inbox2:

For any normal person, the hard part is done. But if you have Naming OCD, now you have to pick a good name. It has to look good, explain its purpose and sort correctly on the Gmail sidebar and iPhone Mail app.

To comply with the above, I use ⠀Inbox2. The leading braille character (Zero, I think) gives it a subtle handle that makes it easy to spot on a list and also positions it on the top of most lists.

I know, there’s probably a support group somewhere for people like me, they just haven’t decided on a name or logo yet.

International (US) Number with Google Voice and Stanacard

I’ve been waiting for some time to have this working. Little by little the pieces of the puzzle came together and yesterday, it happened: I connected my Google Voice account with the Stanacard International Number Forwarding.

So what? I know have an US phone number (for Boston, of course) that rings up my iPhone in Venezuela (or anywhere in the world where you can get a SIM card).

Why? How can you ask that? Because you can!¹

The guys at Stanacard² posted a good walkthrough on their blog. Let me add that you could have done this before with other international calls services (I tried, twice). In my case, it either didn’t work reliably or the international calls company wanted a monthly plan.

Follow the instructions on Stanacard blog, but here’s the high-level look at what happens when I make a call:

1. While in “Universe minus USA”, dial a number on the Google Voice App (remember to turn ON Click2Call so Google calls you)
2. Google calls your Stanacard Number in the US, and they forward it to your local number.
3. At the same time, Google calls the number in US (or anywhere really).
4. They pick up and you yell “wazzup”.

If someone calls your US Google Voice number, just disregard the step 1. The magic is the same.

At some point Google Voice will probably add International Forwarding themselves, and I’ll revisit this, but right now Stanacard rates seem lower that Google’s so that’s another thing to consider.

If you’re going to give Stanacard a try, I’d appreciate if you use this referral link. I’ll use it to call you. Promise. Maybe on your birthday.

My Mac App Store Day One

Since I was one vacation last week I had to wait until today to try out the new Mac App Store.

Overall, mostly what I expected, lack of uninstall seems to be the most glaring omission, but it will come.

While you can spend hours philosophizing about how it changes the Mac ecosystem (or what acronym to use), the whole point of the store is to get Apps, so here are today’s list:

• Apptivate: Really simple hotkey manager. 1
• Kindle: Mostly for my non-fiction books.
• QuickCursor: Edit almost any text field in TextMate (or your text editor of preference).
• The Incident: Fast and fun retro game.
• Twitter: No description necessary.

1. If you remap your caps lock key to the control key, a whole new world of hotkey combinations open up, and considerably more ergonomic. ↩︎

The Story of Mustang and Bullet (my MacBook Air review)

Yes, I name my computers.

That’s not the sad part; the amount of time I spend finding the right name, now that’s the sad part.

Anyway, this is my MacBook Air review. But before I tell about my 11-inch MacBook Air (AKA Bullet), I need to tell you about my late 2008 MacBook unibody (AKA Mustang).

If you’re about to scroll to the end of the post to read the conclusion, don’t bother, I’ll tell you right now:¹

I haven’t been as happy with an Apple product since the original iPhone. Yes, this includes the iPad.

Think I’m mental? Well, you have no choice now but to read on then.

A Shinny MacBook

The unibody MacBooks almost ruined my geek-creed within my analog friends. I made them all hold their laptop purchases for more than a year, ’cause a new metal MacBook was coming.

By the time it came out, my 1st-gen white MacBook was ready to become a media center and I was ready for a replacement —my powers of self-delusion are ridiculous.

Mustang was named after the WWII P-51 fighter-plane: sleek, big and shiny, with great power and long range. It must be said that I absolutely … held this MacBook in high regard.

As in a typical romcom hollywood flick, I just could never say the L word about it. Mustang did what it had to do, it looked great doing it, but the sparks just weren’t there. The battery life was a disappointment, and while I had maxed it out with 4GB of RAM, it didn’t feel any faster than the year old stock white MacBook I had at work.

Fast-forward two years —preset time for my inner upgrade cycle alarm—, and I caught myself checking store.apple.com and, surprisingly, feeling underwhelmed. Other than a remarkable increase in battery life, there wasn’t all that much that had changed on with the MacBooks².

When my pal Nav bought his Macbook Pro 15″ 2.66GHz i7 with 4GB RAM, and commented that it was more powerful, but not really faster —think iPhoto launch time vs. time to apply an effect—, the idea of buying a new MacBook was discarded.

Yet, it had been two years! a tradition that started with my first Mac, an iBook G3, had to be upheld! —told you above, ridiculous.

The consensus online was pretty clear: SSD is the next speed jump — friends and relatives, you’ve been warned, this is going to be my subject title for all your computer purchases questions in the next year.

So Mustang was upgraded, not replaced.

An 80GB Intel X25-M SSD was brought in as the main disk, and the DVD drive was ripped (killing my speakers in the process, mea culpa) with the original 250GB HD installed there.

The result? a veryvery —not a typo, it’s veryvery— fast new MacBook. It feels twice as fast, boot and app launching times more than halved. And while I haven’t done a scientific benchmark, the battery life for Web browsing has improved a good 20 minutes.

If it weren’t for my MacBook’s bad habit of not waking-up for sleep, everything would great.

Enter the Bullet

It was love at first tech specs reading.

I bought my MacBook Air before they where on display at the Apple Store. The guy even asked if I didn’t want him to bring one out just to compare the 11-inch and 13-inch.

I said no. It was just like the movies: I had $999, he had a MacBook Air in stock. Nothing more was said.

Well, actually, my bank had something to say: card denied. But after convincing the nice lady on the phone that I, was in fact me, and me really wanted to buy I a MacBook Air, everything was fine.

Bullet was born during a trip. So in a way, it hit the ground running. And this little guy can run. My concern for getting the base machine —1.4GHz, 2GB RAM and 64GB SSD— quickly went away.

I’m not delusional, without Mustang waiting for me at home, I wouldn’t have been able to justify³ such a constraining machine. Just my iTunes are iPhoto libraries are at least 64GB.

But as a sidekick, this machine is a dream. Did I mention it was fast? For 80% of my tasks, it’s blindingly so. Battery life? I just charge it when I get home, it lasts the whole day. Portable? it’s even easier to carry than the iPad. Looks great? Pluh-ezzz.

Better than the iPad? I, uh, err, hmmm … please step into my office.

The Multi-Device Dilemma (or what you reach for)

When I got my iPad, my Kindle glared at it. When I brought the MacBook Air home, it did the same.

In both cases the same thing happened, what had been a huge theoretically a dilemma in my head, turn out to figure out itself naturally when I had the devices in front — or in a bag.

The iPad didn’t take over reading on the Kindle, it just segmented reading in two: superficial and in-depth. I use Instapaper in both, anything short and time sensitive, gets consumed in the iPad, the rest falls into Kindle territory. Interestingly, my overall reading time has increased.

Replace reading with working —browsing, email, writing—, and Kindle with MacBook Air, and you get my new dynamic.

What I’d thought was going to be a duplication of functionality turned out to be a specialization of tasks.

I hear you, it sounds like an expensive pairing, but I’d argue that not so much. An iPad + MacBook Air combo runs into the same price range of a much more versatile MacBook Pro.

But, for non-video-editing-mostly-email-Textmate-Keynote-and-Excel user like myself, two devices that do more specific tasks could be a better option.

What a about Mustang? It has basically become a glorified iMac. Paired with a 22-inch monitor it’s a perfect desk computer. Yet, I still keep reaching for Bullet in my bag sometimes (even though everything is synced with Dropbox).

If I had to choose one computer, Mustang would become a media-center faster than you can say Boxee. What would I miss? more space to hold my digital baggage.

External HD’s don’t seem optimal with the current generation of MacBooks Air’s since USB 2.0 speeds are not fast enough. But, what if the external drive is a huge datacenter in North Carolina? Interesting possibilities open up.

It’s the iBook I Always Wanted

At the end of the day, the 11-inch MacBook Air represents the reasons I bought my first iBook G3, with the added benefit that it now can do everything I dreamed an iBook could, in an affordable package.

Break Mac in Case of Emergency, A Theft Checklist

The recent parting of my Mom with her MacBook thanks to some S.O.B.’s that came into the house, reminded me stop postponing updating my MacBooks Air’s security settings.

Make no mistake, the steps below are less about having a hacker-proof system and more about making it a pain to an average user (or a scum-of-the-earth thief) to get to your information if your Mac is stolen¹.

Anyways, my checklist:

Install Undercover:

You can skip this step, but I have this app installed on all my Mac’s (I didn’t on my Mom’s and I’ve kicked myself for the last week).

Visit the website for more info, but in a nutshell, it provides the closest thing to Apple’s Find my Phone on Mac. In addition, once you report it stolen, it enables some interesting psychological hacks to make the S.O.B. take it to a store, or try to sell it quickly.

Modify System Preferences:

Security:

Since I have MacBooks, it gets really annoying if the password prompt comes up every time I close the lid. The 1 hour setting is the best balance between convenience and security for me. The rest of the settings are pretty self explanatory.

Accounts:

On Login Options turn Automatic Login Off. If you didn’t install Undercover, then change Display login window as Name and password rather than List of users like in my screenshot.

The difference is that with Undercover, you want to create a Guest Account to allow the S.O.B. to login to the Mac —so we can try to take a photo of him and track the laptop–. Otherwise, we want to make the S.O.B. need to guess both the username and password.

Change Folder Permissions:

If you created any folder that isn’t inside the defaults under your username, or more clearly, alongside your Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc, you need to modify its permissions since by default, they will be viewable by other users, or if your Mac is booted in disk mode.

In my case this is extremely important since I have pretty much everything I hold dear inside the Dropbox folder².

To do this, just right-click on the folder and select Get Info. At the bottom of the panel you’ll see the Sharing & Permissions group, modify as need to get it to look like the screenshot on the right.

With this we are all set.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Don’t forget, this is only some basic precautions in case your Mac gets stolen. A geeky enough person that can get his hands on your machine and has access to time and Google (which geeky people usually do), will be able to get to your files eventually.

But the assumption here is that your Mac was stolen for the hardware, not your data. These settings will make the Mac a pain to use, unless a new OS is installed from scratch —wiping your data.

Which, while sad, is what you rather want in this situation (after getting the Mac back, obviously).

Single App Mode Retry

Been using the Single App Mode hack on my MacBook Air the last few days and I love it.

I’ve actually tried it last year, but it wasn’t until my current anti-multitasking phase —brought on by the iPad mostly– that I really got the point of how this could be useful.

The thing to remember is that this option only takes effect when you click the app’s icon on the Dock. This will hide all other application windows.

However, if you command-tab, then you get your typical overlapping windows disorder behavior.

Give it try, at least on the MBA’s small screen, it now makes much more sense.

Sparrow is a minimalist mail application for Mac. It was designed to keep things simple and efficient. No fancy stuff here… just…

Sparrow is a minimalist mail application for Mac. It was designed to keep things simple and efficient. No fancy stuff here… just your mail and nothing else.

I’m super excited about this App. Feels more like a preview than a beta, but they’re on the right track.

Reeder for Mac in Development

Reeder for Mac will change the way you consume RSS on your Mac desktop: I used to be highly dependent on the web Google Reader interface, but since I tried Reeder for Mac I made the switch. Crazy fast engine. Keyboard shortcuts. Beautiful animations. Great features.

Sign me up! I love Reeder for iPad, and while I also have it for the iPhone, Byline and Google Reader mobile get used the most.

On the desktop, I’m actually using Fluid with the iPhone version of Google Reader.

Taking a trip. iPad and Kindle are all packed up.

See you in about a month.

Taking a trip. iPad and Kindle are all packed up.

See you in about a month.

BlackBerry Data Is (Not?) Secure

Phred Dvorak, on WSJ.com:

RIM said the BlackBerry network was set up so that “no one, including RIM, could access” customer data, which is encrypted from the time it leaves the device.

All good right? Many (including myself) have been working under the assumption that BlackBerry devices — specifically their communications tools — are always encrypted.

However, something seems iffy when Bruce Schneier writes:

While the data is encrypted between RIM’s servers and the BlackBerrys, it has to be encrypted by RIM — so RIM has access to the plaintext.

This is similar to how Opera Mini handles encryption: although everything coming to and from Opera servers is encrypted, the servers themselves need see what’s going on to do its magic.

Note that I don’t think BlackBerry has a security issue. But by making a statement that seems technically inaccurate they’re setting themselves up for scrutiny from the users that should be supporting them right now.

The new Magic Trackpad

The new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer.

For some time I’ve always connected my MacBook to an external monitor when at my desk. This implied that I used an external keyboard and mouse, but every time I moved my hand to the right to use the mouse, my brain wished there was a trackpad there. I imagine that if you have to do design work, the precision of the mouse is still unbeatable, but for me, this the first Apple mouse I’m going to buy.

Apple also announced updated iMacs, Mac Pro and Cinema Display, but since I’m not getting any of those, no big deal.

Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum

Arik Hesseldah on BusinessWeek:

Released in 1984 with the Mac, it is fondly remembered not only by those who used it, but also by computer scientists for numerous first-of-a-kind innovations.

Source code as history. I love this era.

iPhone 4: El mejor peor iPhone

Ya para su lanzamiento, el iPhone 4 estaba envuelto en controversias. Luego que un ingeniero de Apple perdiera un prototipo en un bar, varios blogs tecnológicos habían recibido fotos del iPhone enviadas por un individuo el cual quería venderlo. Cuando Gizmodo publicó fotos confirmando que era un equipo de Apple, acompañadas por el nombre del ingeniero el cual lo perdió, el web se dividió al mejor estilo Team Jacob vs. Team Edward (no me pidan que explique, al parecer tiene que ver con vampiros y lobos).

El nuevo iPhone 4:

Inclusive con muchos de sus secretos revelados, la introducción del iPhone 4 causó sensación por sus novedades: pantalla con resolución que se aproxima a papel, habilidad de tener llamadas con video y, de especial interés para todos los geeks, un diseño que de chasis que incorpora las antenas a la estructura del equipo.

Una nota sobre antenas:

Todos aquellos que recuerdan las primeras generaciones de celulares, no pueden olvidar un elemento constante en sus diseños: la antena. Colocadas externamente para maximizar la recepción –y disminuir la evaporación de nuestro cerebro por la radiación– las antenas externas fueron universales hasta la introducción del Nokia 8810. Las mejoras tecnológicas permitieron el desarrollo de las antenas internas, pero las restricciones se mantenían: garantizar señal y evitar matar al usuario. En consecuencia, todas las compañías creadoras de celulares han experimentado con lugares en donde colocarlas. El pequeño inconveniente es que la mayoría de las personas sujetan el celular con la mano –salvo aquellos que utilizan el casco de moto bien apretado. Nuestra extremidad con pulgar opuesto es un excelente bloqueador de señal, lo cual obliga a los diseñadores de celular a asumir las diferentes maneras la cual el equipo será sujetado.

El mejor iPhone, a menos que lo agarres mal

Obviando histeria de la última semana, la recepción del iPhone 4 ha sido maravillosa. Los comentarios de todos las principales publicaciones norteamericanas concordaban que el iPhone 4 es el nuevo estándar con lo cual otros celulares serán medidos y las ventas de 1.5 millones de unidades en el primer día fueron un récord, incluso para Apple. El antennagate –como ha sido llamado el problema de señal del iPhone 4– oficialmente explotó cuando el prestigioso Consumer Reports retiró su evalación de Recomendado para el iPhone 4. Ahora, la combinación del realismo no-mágico actual y una restricción presupuestaria en la moneda cuyo-nombre-no-se-puede-mencionar, me han impedido utilizar el iPhone 4, pero ciertos geeks a los cuales respeto, me llevan al siguiente resumen del problema con el iPhone 4:

En condiciones de poca señal, colocar un dedo en un sección especifica del borde inferior izquierdo, hacen que el iPhone pierda señal por completo.

Un evento de prensa sin precedentes

En una conferencia de prensa el 16 Julio, Steve Jobs abrió el evento diciendo: “Ustedes saben, no somos perfectos. Lo sabemos y ustedes también. Y los celulares no son perfectos tampoco.” Acto seguido, miles de Apple fanboys miramos al cielo y gritamos “¡NOOOOO!” Pero en vez de oír que el iPhone 4 estaba roto, escuchamos que este ha tenido 70% menos devoluciones que el iPhone 3GS –el cual fue un éxito el año pasado–, que solo 0.55% de los usuarios de iPhone 4 han llamado a Apple para reportar el problema, y que el iPhone 4 pierde señal de forma estadísticamente insignificante sobre el 3GS. Y sobretodo, oímos varias veces, que esto es un problema de todos los celulares. Apple fue tan simpática que mostró como situaciones similares ocurrían en un BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, Samsung Omnia II y el iPhone 3GS.

Ponte el forro

Entonces ¿fue todo una conspiración de los medios para destruir la revolución … del iPhone 4?, no, el problema existe. Pero tal como Consumer Reports reportó, una de las formas de evitar el problema es colocarle un cobertor al iPhone. Razón por la cual Apple va a incluir un forro gratuito con el iPhone 4. Claro, existe una forma más sencilla de evitar el problema: no poner el dedo en punto exacto donde pierde señal. Tristemente, igualmente que cuando uno le pica una hormiga y nos dicen -“no te toques”-, es imposible no hacerlo una vez que uno sabe.

¿Y entonces?

Hay que esperar como se comporta el iPhone 4 en Venezuela, pero todas publicaciones han acordado que el iPhone 4 tiene mejor señal que el iPhone 3GS en lugares retirados. Personalmente puedo decir que mi iPhone 3GS se siente perdido en la vida en varias partes de Caracas, pero que como buen fanboy acepto sus defectos, ya que Steve Jobs me aseguró realmente, son virtudes.

Nota: Este review lo escribí para LaPatilla.com.

Flock and Opera Browsers Release Betas

Both Flock and Opera released a beta today.

Flock is Windows only, but the big news is that they moved to Chromium from Firefox as their base.

Opera continues to optimize their new rendering engine, and it does feel fast.

iPad Accessories, Part Uno

The UPS van just delivered these two cases for the iPad:

Kensington Reversible Sleeve:

Kensignton iPad Case

Classic neoprene sleeve that I use for my laptop. Won’t protect agains hard bumps, but it keeps the iPad away for flying debris on bags. Fits snugly and for $5.99, you really can’t go wrong.

Ctcstore Leather Flip Book Jacket/Folio:

CTCstore iPad Case

I think leather is not the most accurate term for this leathery plastic. I mostly bought this case as a stop-gap measure for my Dad’s iPad until the Apple iPad Case is back in stock. It’s not too bad, but doesn’t do justice to the iPad inside. It feels cheap and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t survive too long with heavy use. I’m also not crazy on how it holds the iPad in place: two elastic straps that cover a little bit of the screen corners and a leather strap where you place one side of the iPad.

It’s $26.25, and does satisfy my Dad’s main requirements for a while. You get what you pay for in this case.

It’s here.

It’s here.

My backpacking iPhone apps list

When traveling abroad, how you use your iPhone changes. Not only should you be looking outside -rather than checking twitter/facebook- but also, your phone should be either in airplane mode, or with data roaming off.

Without a constant connection, it’s important to think ahead a bit so you can have most of the functionality you come to expect from your iPhone. There are also little apps that help you make the most out of your trip.

Below my most used ones:

1. City Maps 2Go $1.99

   City Maps 2 Go is a perfect application for tourists on city trips and locals who need an offline-available, quick and cost-effective tool to navigate with their iPhone and iPod Touch.

   Google Maps for iPhone is amazing, but without internet (or a jailbreak), it’s totally worthless. This app uses the OpenStreetMap data, and while limited, it’s a lifesaver when you’re lost in a new city trying to find your hostel. Remember to download the maps of cities before hand, since they’re fairly large.

2. GlobeMaster $0.99

   Offline world-wide travel guide for 260+ countries and 1400+ cities.

   This is basically a curated Wikitravel content for the iPhone. It’s no substitute to a good city guide. But if you’re just passing by, it has most of what you need.

3. Global SOS $0.99

   Are you a traveler? Do you frequently go abroad? In an emergency would you know the right foreign emergency numbers to call for help?

   Luckily I didn’t have to use this app. But everywhere I went, it displayed the important numbers. It’s an useless app, until you need it.

4. Kindle or Stanza

   I need to read to fall asleep, that’s just the way I’m wired. If you’re staying in hostels or sharing a room, you usually can’t turn the light on. With the white on black setting, these app let me read without bothering anyone. If you own a Kindle, you get the added benefit of picking up where you left once you get back.

5. AutoStitch $1.99

   This application unleashes the power of your iPhone’s camera to create wide-angle views and panoramas with any arrangment of photos.

   Sometimes you want to record exactly what you’re seeing. I haven’t found a better way than a wide-angle shot.

6. Skype

   Every so often you’ll find an open Wi-Fi: call your mom.

7. Extended Battery

   Not technically an app, but without juice, you won’t be able to use any of the above for long. I have the RichardSolo 1800 ($69.95) which is on the expensive side, but it has a standard mini-USB connector and a LED flashlight. There are cheaper options, but do get one.

I used all of these with my iPhone 3GS, of course, your milage may vary.

A month-in-a-post

Still not back in Oslo, but the vacation is over.

Lots of cool stuff happened in the last month. Below, a five word commentaries:

• iPad Released

  • Don’t buy yet. I’m weak.

• iPhoneOS 4 announced

  • Multitasking: no more traveling laptops.

• RIM launched Twitter for BlackBerry

  • At last, good looking option.

• Tweetie bought by Twitter

  • Please don’t kill the Mac app.

• Opera Mini 5 for iPhone approved

  • Really great in slower networks.

• Apple updates MacBook Pro models

  • My current one still works.

• Next iPhone leaked/found/stolen

  • My current one still works (v2).

Farewell to Opera

Long story short, I’m leaving Opera Software ASA. I’ll be an employee for a while longer but with 10.51 out the door, you won’t see me around the office that much.

Now is the time to click play at the top of this post¹.

I truly enjoyed my time in Opera. The people are beyond cool, I was always surrounded by geeks with an extraordinary drive to make the best product possible. Exactly type of place I like working in.

In addition, I had the opportunity to live in Norway, an amazing country filled with reserved-yet-welcoming people. If you’re ever around, wait until the second beer, that’s when Norwegians true personality appears.

I could go on and on about the great friends I’ve made and all the rest, but The Pogues said it best:

I’m sad to say I must be on my way/So buy me beer and whiskey ’cause I’m going far away/I’d like to think of me returning when I can/To the greatest little boozer and to Sally MacLennane.

Regarding what’s next, nothing official yet. There are crazy plans, and sensible ones. Some are close, yet most are far away.

Whatever the case, I’m excited. It’s a great time to be a geek, and there is no excuse for not doing something great.

SNAP (Socialist Network Access Provider)

Destroying my previous wishful thinking post, Cantv’s President has stated:

The upcoming installation of a single access point for all internet traffic has nothing to do with controlling or censoring network information.

It’s true that Venezuela is one of the few countries in Latin America¹ that doesn’t have its own NAP (Network Access Point). This means that when visiting most web sites - even local ones - traffic goes through either La Guaira or Pto. Cabello², to a NAP in Florida and then returns.

While there certainly is a speed and cost penalty, its magnitude is debatable. However, given Chavez recents threats against news websites and twitter, it’s no surprise that a technical discussion quickly leads to censorships concerns³.

If/when the Government makes private operators route their traffic through this new NAP, the technical elements for web censorship in Venezuela will be in place.

Initially, my main concern is not censorship, but repression. As far as I can tell, most political activities organized by university students use some sort of social network tool.

Without safe access to these tools, a non-violent movement will be difficult to organize and support.

The iPad is a disturbance in the Apple Store

Most geeks I know have a ritual I call the “fake shopping cart” or FSC. This is basically the online version of window shopping.

The principles are similar, go to your website(s) of preference, and try multiple configurations until you build a dreamy new setup. Just the like intricate and confusing world of female fitting rooms, FSC is not only about one item, it’s about choosing the best combination of products.

Obviously - best - is relative. Although some geeks practice no-limits FSC, the real fun only happens when a certain spending restriction is established. The restriction itself doesn’t have to be realistic at all - you could try to build the best setup for $15.000, a budget that a new imaginary sports team owner like you deserves. In any case, some sort of limit is considered good practice.

Ever since Apple switched to Intel, my FSC has focused around notebooks. While I loved my iBook G3 and G4 machines, they felt underpowered. The jump in performance of the MacBooks made my dream of an affordable notebook with enough power to substitute a desktop real. Of course, there was still room for lots of debate, MacBook vs. MacBook Pro, screen size, RAM, hard-drive capacity and the obligatory external monitor brand question¹.

Recently though, Apple has shaken my FSC beliefs with the introduction of the latests iMac’s and the announcement of the iPad.

On my last winter holiday I went to Venezuela and the US. For the first time since I’ve owned a laptop, I left the MacBook behind and only took the iPhone. I was surprised how little I missed it.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, he said that Apple saw a space between the iPhone and the MacBook. However, if you played FSC with a realistic budget recently, you may have found yourself in this situation: more often than not, you choose an iMac over a MacBook.

During his talk at this year’s MacWorld, John Gruber mentioned that next year, he would have to pick between two Apple platforms when choosing where to create, and deliver, his presentation. If the answer to this and other mobile tasks starts to be the iPad, then the functionality give the price of the mobile iMac (the MacBook), becomes questionable.

As soon as I add the iPad to my equation, the MacBook vs. iMac debate shifts from one-size-fits-all to best tool for each job.

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.

Apple iPad Ad - TV Spot.

iWant.

Shaun Inman’s “Mimeo and the Kleptopus King”

Shaun Inman talks about his upcoming game, Mimeo and the Kleptopus King:

At its core, play, and by extension video games, is learning. Call it discovery or mastery but a good game introduces new ideas (teaches), leverages existing ones (reviews) and layers them to create unique challenges (tests).

mimeo-woods

The concept and images look great, but it goes beyond that:

In addition to creating the scenario, programming and designing all the graphics I’m also composing and producing all the music.

If you don’t think coding is art, you at least need to accept that game-development is.

/via Daring Fireball

Readings highlighter

I have already professed my love for Instapaper. Below, three recent articles I enjoyed:

Interview with Mark Pincus, Adam Bryant

One thing I did at my second company was to put white sticky sheets on the wall, and I put everyone’s name on one of the sheets, and I said, “By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re C.E.O. of, and it needs to be something really meaningful.” And that way, everyone knows who’s C.E.O. of what and they know whom to ask instead of me. And it was really effective.

Profile: Jack Churchill, Robert Barr Smith

He organized his men into six parallel columns and, since the heavy undergrowth ruled out any chance of a silent advance, sent them charging through the darkness shouting “commando!” The yelling not only minimized the risk of Commandos shooting each other in the gloom, but also confused the German defenders, to whom this fierce shouting seemed to come from all directions in the blackness of the night.

Easy = True, Drake Bennett

When people read something in a difficult-to-read font, they unwittingly transfer that sense of difficulty onto the topic they’re reading about. Schwarz and his former student Hyunjin Song have found that when people read about an exercise regimen or a recipe in a less legible font, they tend to rate the exercise regimen more difficult and the recipe more complicated than if they read about them in a clearer font.

#FreeWebVe will be a trending topic soon

Liza López, from El Nacional (in Spanish), writes:

The reform to the Telecommunications Law, left in a drawer since 2008, establishes a single, state-controlled access point, as in Cuba, China and Iran. The presence of cuban vice-president Ramiro Valdés, known as the censor in the island, and congressmen statements over the terrorist character of social networks, have unleashed suspicions.

Six months ago, I wrote:

The government can, and probably will, establish some sort of online censorship. It will not work as expected for the reasons already mentioned. Nevertheless, they will be able to monitor a lot of traffic. And if things someday really heat up, they can disrupt most important Web sites for a considerable period of time.

I’ll revisit my notes and post some useful links when the technical aspects become clearer. However, this is not good.

We are about to see if a generation that grew up under internet freedom, is going to tolerate Government meddling of Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry Messenger.

Quix: the next best thing to command bar browsing

I love bookmarklets.

When I shared some of mine last year, I explained that as I moved from Firefox to Opera, bookmarklets had managed to fill almost all the gaps left by Opera’s lack of extensions.

Quix takes all of this to a whole new level. It lets you have 1 bookmarklet that can access all the rest. In a way, it’s a command line for bookmarklets.

If you are an Opera/Firefox/Camino user, you’ll probably wonder why you need this at all. You could just add a keyboard shortcut to your favorite ones and be done with it.

That’s exactly what I thought until yesterday. The big benefit for me, is that you can have the bookmarklet for many browsers (I know, blasphemy). I’m usually running a few versions of Opera at the same time, while also development versions of the other guys.

The second great feature is not out yet, but it’s in the works. Currently, you can add your own bookmarklets with a pretty simple syntax. I easily wrote my own syntax text file and created a customized version of the bookmarklet. Now, the really cool part will come when commands sharing is available.

I recently found out from Neven Mrgan that you could put your iPhone in a plastic bag, and still use it like normal.

(via First &…

I recently found out from Neven Mrgan that you could put your iPhone in a plastic bag, and still use it like normal. (via First & 20)

I plan to use the same trick when I take my Kindle to the beach sometime in the future.

Obligatory iPad brainfart

Every time Apple has an event in which they announce a new product, I need about a week to get out of Jobs reality distortion field¹ and be able to process information on my own again.

Mind you, the post-event week is not easy on us geeks. It’s an emotional and intellectual roller coaster. You go through euphoria, disappointment, hope, financial analysis and inner-discovery in a short period of time. Then you open Google Reader, and it starts all over again.

So, the iPad. It’s here. If you have followed some of the news you may have heard the following:

1. The iPad is just a large iPhone/iPod touch
2. You should wait for version 2
3. It’s probably better to buy a netbook

To which I say: No, yes, not really.

iPad and iPhone

There is no question that the iPad shares most of the same DNA as the iPhone. But so does a dolphin with an orca. Point is, the fact that something so different looks like it works in such a similar way, speaks volumes of the detail that went into making this device.

The similarities of the iPad with the iPhone are not because of laziness on Apple’s part. Most likely, it’s the results of a strict design restriction. If you own an iPhonesOS device (like other 75 million people) you needed to be able to know how to use the iPad. Which you do.

iPad and you:

Should you run out and get it? Probably not. Am I getting one? Of course. -“But,”- you say -“it doesn’t have a camera!”- I know. -“And it doesn’t even support multitasking!”- Very true. -“What about your new Kindle?”- Would you shut up and hear me out?

Ok, I got nothing. However, this is about you, not me.

There are couple reasons why should wait a little. For starters, if the iPhone and iPod touch are any indication, it’s likely Apple will update the storage sizes and maybe the prices around November. Also, unlike with the iPhone, it looks like Google “& partners” will be able to quickly deliver their own answer for this segment in the same timeframe.

iPad and laptops:

Obviously, all of this assumes that the hoopla around the tablet form-factor has legs. Which I believe it does.

If you typically turn on your TV and immediately open you laptop, you’ll eventually feel the need for the iPad. If do the same with your iPhone or mobile phone, it would happen even sooner.

Try not to dismiss the iPad (or the whole tablet category for that matter) because you feel perfectly fine with your laptop or netbook. Most people where perfectly fine with CD player six years ago, and with a basic Nokia phone even more recently.

iPad and me:

With the iPad, Apple has clearly signaled where they think personal computing is going. Or at least, where they are going to stubbornly pull it towards. Make no mistake about it, the iPhoneOS is the future of the Mac.

In desktop OSes, all complexity is staring back at you every time you use an application. My Mom can always find a way to change something once, and never be able to get back to the same place ever again. I call this UI dead-ends.

On good touch UI’s, this isn’t as common. The iPhoneOS has a great UI.

That’s why there will be an iPad in your wish-list someday. Maybe not this year, but sooner or later you’ll see how effortlessly something is done on it. A task that usually takes more than a couple clicks on your computer will be done with a few gestures.

Then you’ll know. Just like I do now. That you need one.

More blah than awe.

Still, no equal. The Apple iPad.

More blah than awe.

Still, no equal. The Apple iPad.

My Kindle 2 review (before the reality distortion field)

Less than a day before Apple is supposed to reveal their new Tablet, I wanted to write my thoughts on the Kindle 2.

I’ve had my Kindle for a month, and it that time it has doubled my volume of reading. Which, by my own measurement, makes it a great device.

The Kindle design is elegant, strong and lightweight. Specially important, the screen quality is newspaper-like, and using it for an hour every night doesn’t tire my eyes at all. The software is also very polished, with almost everything being very self explanatory.

My biggest surprise has been how much I use the New Oxford American Dictionary. This was one of the ‘meh’ features when I was deciding to purchase, but I continually find myself doing quick-checks on words. Many of these I already sort-of knew, but on a few occasions I’ve found historical and geographical references that in the past I would have just overlooked.

Only issue I have with comes from the Location, which is the Kindle’s version of a page number. I understand that with the ability to change the font size, in conjunction to being able to read content in other devices with very different screen sizes, leads to difficulties in having a static page number. Nevertheless, the current implementation which looks like 1239-48, is confusing.

The Amazon Store is pretty good. With an acceptable selection of eBooks that while it doesn’t contain every book I had on my wish-list, it has enough available to keep me busy.

One thing to note about the store, specially if you don’t live in that US, is that prices are extremely competitive. Newer books are cheaper than paperbacks here in Norway, and even if I bought the books from Amazon UK, the final price would be almost the same.

Finally, one of the best things about the Kindle has nothing to do with Amazon. It’s called Instapaper. With this Web app, you can easily save for later any article you find online. I’ve used the iPhone application since it came out and it’s brilliant. On the Kindle, you can download your most recent 20 articles or have them delivered automatically every week.

In conclusion, compared to physical books, the Kindle’s lightness and dictionary take the prize. In regards to the iPhone, where I can compare my use of Instapaper, the screen really makes a big difference for extended reading. But the biggest advantage is the Kindle’s lack of any good use other than reading. When I pick up a Kindle, I read. There is no Twitter, RSS, email, games, etc.

Tomorrow Apple is probably going to tell us why their Tablet should be the one starting point for all media consumption. From TV shows to the internet. In terms of reading, they’ll probably be right for magazines, newspapers, comics and school texts.

But if you want to sit down and quietly read a book, I think the Kindle will still be the best device tomorrow evening.