I’ve been enjoying my free time quite a bit while I workout a new framework for understanding other humans. I’ve made specific efforts to avoid “news” in all of its grotesque forms. It’s a challenge partially alleviated by finding other mental outlets.
Two outlets I’ve enjoyed are Hardbound and Timeline.
Hardbound presents a series of simple slides to illustrate a broad topic with attractive graphics and video clips. Examples of topics include Magnetism, The Electoral College, and How Explosions Work.
I’m moving some of my Mac scripting solutions to iOS. One of my favorite Hazel setups on my Mac is for uploading files to an SFTP server and returning a URL for the file. I use this for almost every blog post the has an image. I select the file with Alfred and move it to a folder named “FTP” which is monitored by Hazel. There’s no other action required other than pasting the URL in my draft article.
I read a lot. Until recently that included Twitter. To replace that source of information, I’ve shifted to other, more curated, sources like my RSS reader.
I’m a big fanatic for Pinboard. It’s almost completely plain, minimally styled, text on a blank page. I capture every web link that I find interesting right into Pinboard. I also use it as a reading list. It’s great.1
I was asked on Twitter about using DEVONthink (DT) as an RSS reader or Pinboard alternative.
The iOS “Today” view is one of my most used screens on my phone. I wish it received more attention from Apple but I’m glad my favorite app developers pay it special attention. One area that it really shines for me is with weather apps. The only time I need to actually open a weather app is if there’s a big storm on the horizon. Otherwise my Today screen suits me just fine.
If you’re like me, then you may be looking for some distractions this week that don’t involve Twitter, the internet, television or even other humans. I’ve found solace in iBooks and the Kindle service. Hardbound and Viki for Wikipedia are also great distractions.
Thanks to internet good guy Merlin Mann, I use Fakespot whenever I consider buying something from Amazon. It’s a free service that attempts to analyze product reviews and ratings to identify deceptions. It also aggregates tests and scores sellers so you know if you’re buying from a supplier that is trying to manipulate the system.
Now Fakespot has an iOS app that adds a new sharing extension for URLs.
The extension does little more than open a web view with Fakespot results, but that’s enough.
Two years ago, we released TapCellar for iOS. This week we removed it from the store. You can hear all about it, including what it cost to make the app, on the latest episode of Nerds on Draft. This was a labor of love to make an app that we wanted to use. While I’m sure it’s a disappointment to the awesome users that have said so many nice things about it, it’s a bigger disappointment to us.
iThoughts v4 for iOS and Mac is out today with a great new feature: format with Markdown. This is just wonderful if you like Markdown. Format lists, links, footnotes or even just font weight with Markdown. I think the feature makes working between plain text files and concept maps really seamless.
Check out the release notes. There’s also a quick intro to the features on the ToketaWare website with some nice examples of how it handles copy and paste from the web too.
It’s nice to see Dropbox working on core features again. I haven’t been thrilled with what they are doing on the Mac but iOS is getting some new stuff today. The last time I used the iOS Dropbox app was to authenticate another app to use Dropbox. Hopefully this is a new focus for them.
Mr. Reader was my absolute favorite RSS reader on iOS. But, let’s face it, the RSS reader market is a rough road to travel. Now, Mr. Reader has been discontinued and removed from the App Store which is a pretty sad day for the intersection of iPad users and super RSS nerds.
By way of @roguemonk on Twitter
