Minimal Mac
It’s a very selfish approach, but I don’t have the spare time to cater for everyone’s requirements.
I’d say this qualifies as the exact opposite approach as the last link. I respect them both equally.
After we do some more testing in the coming weeks, we’ll submit a basic, working version that should hopefully become available within a month or so. This version won’t have much extra in the way of features just yet, but with time it will evolve based on your feedback, just like we did with Simplenote for iPhone.
I just checked with my friend, Mr. Tortoise, and he claims this is the way you win any race. Mr Hare disagrees, but he was in a rather foul mood.
The Bugs Me List
I recently took the time to listen to Merlin Mann on Mac Power Users Podcast Ep. 23. It is an excellent listen where he details much of the software, tools and tricks he uses to get the daily job done. If you are in anyway a nerd for this sort of thing your time will be well spent. That said, I wanted to call out a particular segment of it that I found really smart. It is the idea of the “Bugs Me” list.
It goes like this: Anytime you are working away at your computer and you run across something that gets in your way, that you find frustrating, a repetitive task you hate having to do, write it down and then get back to that task at hand. Then, every so often, spend some time going through that list to see if you can find solutions to those annoying little bugs.
I have been doing this for the past few days and it really works. I have come up with good solutions to many issues I did not even realize were getting in my way until I became aware enough to write them down and do something about them.
Warning. If you click this link valuable time that can be spent on making and doing will be wasted.
Just in case you need it. You know, for your Mom or something.
Twitter soft launch for now but, oh so good.
Permute is a great example of how less user interface makes technology more approachable. Less doesn’t have to mean less functional. If I need to recommend a video converter to a new Mac user, it’s most definitely going to be Permute.
Ooh, this looks like it’s going to be good. Thanks Milind for bringing the linkage to the sexy.
This works like a treat. My desk looks much less like a spidersweb now. (Submitted by mattyoak)
Did I see this before anyone else submitted it? Yes.
Did several people submit this? Yes.
Did I use this one because he used the word “pence” in his title and I am an unabashed Anglophile? You bet your arse!
The ideal view would contain today’s events in great detail, then events from the next few days in less detail, then an overview of events in the next 3-5 weeks.
Marco has some interesting and, I dare say, “what we believe in” ways to make the standard calendar metaphor even better. I like it. I want it. I’m going to fire off a few emails to see if someone I know can build it.
Well, there it is folks. At some point in the time I closed my computer to fix dinner and the time I opened it just now, we hit follower number 5000 in Tumblr. That means some Sweet Schwag™ to send to a couple of lucky Tumblrs. Why a couple? Well, the person who is number 5000 will get some of course but I also wanted to pick a random other Tumblr and send them something too just for following and making this who little blog a little bit brighter.
Without further adieu, will Tumblr users…
katloveslifeandhannah
-and-
gorgeoustakethecity
Please send email to me at patrickrhone@gmail.com with your mailing address and I will send that Sweet Schwag™ right along.
So, maybe, at least in some small way, this stupid thing will help remind me that finishing shit means first getting off your ass and then working really hard until you know you’ve earned your keep.
Classic.
Just in case you were wondering. (thx to Michael Armstrong)
I worry that this is one area where hiding the filesystem on the iPad could have detrimental effects on a user’s experience. If I am an average user, my experience has taught me that deleting a file from a folder doesn’t really mean the file is deleted; it’s in file-purgatory. If I bring this mentality to the iPad, though, it could result in devastating losses of data.
With any shifting of the paradigm, some things are forgotten and other things are left behind. It will be interesting to see what happens to this real world metaphor in the new future.
Just a side note that is not specifically pointed out here and may not be obvious to some. The Trash UI metaphor is one of my favorites because it is directly mapped to how it works in the real world as well. Just because you throw something in the trash does not mean it is gone for good. You can retrieve it at any time before the trash collectors come and take it away to a landfill. Even then, it is not really “gone”, it is simply beyond your capability to retrieve. Same is true of deleting things on your hard drive. Even after you empty the trash, the files remain on your hard drive. They are simply hidden from the file view and marked to be overwritten at some future time.
Both my wife and I are freelance consultants. I’m a technical consultant and she’s a non-profit and arts management consultant. Because of this, our “office” is usually wherever we are. We spend many days shuffling between various locations. Our computing needs have to be highly portable and durable. We always buy the most machine for our long term needs and always purchase the piece of mind that Applecare provides. We even keep a spare machine on deck should one of our machines need to go in for service. Generally, we replace our laptops when the Applecare runs out (i.e. every three years), which just happens to be this month.
For my beautiful wife, we decided to get the new Macbook (2.26 GHz, 250GB, 2GB RAM) to replace her previous three year old model (1.83 Ghz, 120GB, 2GB RAM). Her needs are basic – web, email, office apps. For that, this is more than enough machine and should last her very well for the next three years. It’s an amazing machine for the price and we recommend it highly.
For me, I decided to “replace” my self upgraded black Macbook (2.0 Ghz, 320GB 7200 RPM, 4GB RAM) with an… iPad (WiFi only, 64GB). I know. Crazy right? Well, here’s the thing – the Macbook I have is more than enough machine for me capability wise. The upgrades I have given it mean that it will be enough machine for several more years to come in this respect. I did not need “more machine”. What I needed was “greater flexibility and portability”. The iPad will serve me well in almost every situation I can think of. It will allow me to do everything I need to 99% of the time. My Macbook will become a desktop machine, an adjunct to the iPad, with the added bonus of being able to be portable for those rare times I need more machine when out and about at a client. But, for all intents and purposes, the iPad will be my main daily machine.
Still think I’m insane? Well, wait until I tell you that I used a Newton MessagePad as my main “daily worker” for years. Every model from the introduction of the MessagePad 120 all the way until the 2100. I used it for web browsing (as it was at the time), reading, email, notes, calendar, address book, word processor, and much more. In other words, exactly as one would use any portable computer. During that time, I saw the sort of computing I was able to do with a handheld device, and the way I was doing it, as the future of computing. With the introduction of the iPad, my faith in that future is regained.
I am sure the time will come when I have to replace my current Macbook. But that is at least a couple of more years off as I see it. The iPad really is a return to the future for me. Call me crazy.
