The Alton Browncast coming soon to Nerdist »
Alton Brown, on his blog:
A lot of you have been inquiring via Twitter and Facebook as to the current condition of my podcast a.k.a. The Alton Browncast. Many of you took part in our initial recording session back in…well…a while ago and you rightfully deserve to know what the heck is going on.
Well, there is good news. Our podcast is going to be part of the famed Nerdist network of podcasts. We’re joining up with Chris Hardwick and his gang because they’re swell folks and seem to always be having a lot of fun and fun is good. So, the Alton Browncast will be available at Nerdist.com and on itunes as well as the new AltonBrown.com which is coming to an internet near you.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
—link via Mark Siegel
Add a list to Things using Drafts »
This is a great x-callback tip from Andrea Patruno on getting a list into Things from Drafts. One thing that always drives me nuts is that Things’s URL scheme is crap, to put it bluntly, and doesn’t allow adding more than one item at a time.
Andrea’s scheme uses Drafts’s built-in List in Reminders action to send a full list — with one task per line — over to Things, provided you have Reminders integration turned on. Everything will show up right in your Inbox. The post is a little hard to understand since I don’t think English is Andrea’s native language, so here’s the scheme:
drafts://x-callback-url/create?text=[[draft]]&action=List%20in%20Reminders&x-success=things://
Wish I would have thought of this earlier.
The One-Person Product »
Marco Arment has a great piece looking back on his time at Tumblr, and giving us a look inside.
David always had a vision for where he wanted to go next. I was never the “idea guy” — in addition to my coding and back-end duties, I often served as an idea editor. David would come in with a grand new feature idea, and I’d tell him which parts were infeasible or impossible, which tricky conditions and edge cases we’d need to consider, and which other little niceties and implementation details we should add. But the ideas were usually David’s, and the product roadmap was always David’s.
Read the whole piece. It’s incredibly interesting.
Flickr reborn »
The official Flickr blog:
At Flickr, we believe you should share all your images in full resolution, so life’s moments can be relived in their original quality. No limited pixels, no cramped formats, no memories that fall flat. We’re giving your photos room to breathe, and you the space to upload a dizzying number of photos and videos, for free. Just how big is a terabyte? Well, you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one.
And yep, you heard us. It’s free.
A terabyte. Holy crap. Big week for Yahoo.
The Impromptu #61 — Spiraling Web of Insanity »
I’m finally back on the show with the larger group (sorry!) and we talk about Facebook Home’s weaknesses, then get on to iOS 7 craziness as we creep toward WWDC. Listen in, and if you have a minute please rate the show in iTunes. It’s greatly appreciated!
Google's Big, Closed Target »
Harry pretty much nails it here. We don’t always agree on everything when it comes to Google, but he’s absolutely right; they need to stop acting like they’re different from everyone else. It’s okay to control your ecosystem.
Why I Replaced OmniFocus »
Chris Martucci:
So I had it backwards. I was trying to put up a productivity system first and then use it later. But when it came time to use it, I defaulted to something completely different than the thing I had so carefully constructed.
This isn’t a post about why you should stop using OmniFocus and start using Notational Velocity. I only wanted to share my experience and the lesson that I learned: Your productivity system should be tailored to fit the way you actually work, which may be difficult to discern in the tranquil hours when you’re fiddling with your apps.
I had the same exact experience. OmniFocus is great, but I fiddled far too much. Things 2.x, despite some small gripes, has been great for me.
✱ Sorting Dropbox Camera Uploads
I’ve had some conversations lately around how people deal with using the “Camera Upload” feature in Dropbox, mostly around what the best way is to sort through this mountain of photos. I don’t have a super-sophisticated setup, but using Hazel is a great way to manage them with ease. If you’re not using Hazel, I don’t know what to tell you. We probably shouldn’t even be friends.
The easiest way I’ve found to do this takes a tad bit of manual setup in Dropbox. In my Camera Uploads folder I created folders named Screenshots and Videos. This will make it easier to parse those out from my actual images I care about. Then I made some simple Hazel rules to take the auto-uploaded photos and sort them out. Here’s the first:
This first rule takes all of the images and renames them based on the date created, then files them away in folders that Hazel will create and name based on the date added. Pretty simple. It’s not perfect since sometimes I’ll have to sift through folders to find what I’m looking for, but it’s far better than having a huge photo dump.
The next rule takes any videos and basically does the same thing I have set for photos.
And finally, a way to sort those screenshots that seem to pile up.
I also use a rule to trash the screenshots that are more than a month old so they don’t pile up in Dropbox, taking up that precious space.
That’s it in a nutshell. Like I said, I’ve been having some great discussion around this issue lately and figured I’d share how I deal with it. This workflow is only scratching the surface of what Hazel can do. If you have a cool — or better — way, don’t hesitate to give me a shout.
Limelight for iPhone »
There’s no shortage of apps that share the same goal with Limelight, but I have to say that there are very few that look this good and are this easy to use. I can’t think of any strong gripes I had while using it as the development team sent improved builds very quickly. Limelight is a gorgeous app that doesn’t try to go overboard with features; it just helps you keep track of movies you love.
I took a quick look at Limelight for iPhone, a new movie tracker from 9:42am, over at Culture Milk. It’s a very nice little app. Check it out.
Tamper »
My friend, Chris Masterson, and former Rdio developer Jeff Dlouhy have started a new app shop, and their first offering will be called Morning. I can’t wait to check it out. These guys are talented. Keep an eye out.