Automatically Managed Files
I’m moving back to the desktop for a while to do some iOS programming. Many of the files on my laptop are auto-managing, so as I am moving the process, I thought I’d share how they are automatically managed using Hazel from NoodleSoft. Hazel is a background process that monitors folders and executes automated actions on matched files. Once a rule is created in Hazel, I can forget about what I have to do and Hazel takes care of things for me.
US Aircraft Embarkation Etiquette Failures
I just returned from a European vacation which involved flying in several aircraft from a wide variety of airports. Over the past few years, I have flown throughout the USA on local carriers and there are many things about the local embarcation experience that leaves a lot to be desired. Here are some of my annoyances, with proposed solutions as usual.
Recent Travels and Tech
My wife and I have been on vacation the past two weeks, the real vacation kind where you go to exotic places and are too busy seeing, trying, doing, eating and drinking things to keep up with email, tweets and blogging. We travelled to three European destinations with four iPhones, two iPads, a MacBook Pro and two plug adapter sets. Here’s how they performed. The MacBook Pro I brought the laptop along “just in case” I needed to jump in and fix any software issues while away.
Application Context Packs
When developing in Rails, I use a certain pack of applications; when coding for iOS, I use a different pack of applications; and when in a blogging context, I use a third pack of applications. And then there is the regular set of applications that I usually leave running. Starting and switching between these contexts used to take time, until I found a better way. The Old Way After a clean reboot, I would then have to go through the same dance every time, launch the regular applications manually.
My iPhone Home Screen
I have noticed of late a trend in people or sites showing off their iPhone home screens, the first page on your iPhone with the dock, and explaining why they rearranged the applications and icons. Some have even moved the Phone.app off their home screens. They are all doing it, so it must be cool. My home screen on the iPhone is factory original. All the applications are exactly in the same place that Apple put them when the iPhone was first set up.
Why Scope Creep is your fault
Christopher Butler writes in Why Scope Creep Is Your Fault (And What You Can Do To Prevent It): Scope creep is like slowly loading up your plate with little portions of everything on the buffet until you realize man, this plate is getting heavy and omigod I can’t eat all of this, what was I thinking! In essence, it’s just as much how we manage our clients as how we manage our work.
This Industry Is Full Of Crap
Lovely rant by Amber Weinberg in This Industry Is Full of Crap: We get to do something that regular people can’t understand so we’re think we’re cool. We’re not. And I’m right with her on this too: I love the fact that as a freelancer, I can choose who ever I want to work with – both in terms of clients and other freelancers.
Microsoft did not always suck
I was a Mac when Apple was beleaguered. Those were the days when Microsoft was in ascendancy, this new Blackberry thing was cool and Google was just a search engine. It’s traditional, and expected, for us Mac people to outright disparage Microsoft and all its products as things that suck. But the reality is that Microsoft has made some pretty amazing products in spite of its size, bureaucracy and inertia. These are some of the things I think they did just right.
US Dining Etiquette Failures
I’ve been living in New York for almost nine years, and I love to go out and eat at all the myriad of restaurants that pepper this town. The variety, quality and prices of food is amazing. But there are still things about the dining experience here that drive me insane. Here are some of my annoyances, with proposed solutions to each of them.
Spike UI Teaser
Following on to last week’s Spike Solutions piece, I did some work on the second spike, to see if I could use CoreGraphics to render some of the UI components I want for the new product. Wow, worked out great, one less known unknown to deal with. Turns out, CoreGraphics does a lot of what you can do in PhotoShop, just in real time and on the GPU. The following snaps were generated on the fly, quickly, using code, no image or artwork required, and the values change and update dynamically.