Merlin Mann’s Great Discontent Interview

The Great Discontent did a great job on this interview with Merlin Mann. There is a lot worth quoting here but this passage really resonates with me.

“Over the years, I’ve learned to be a little bit easier on myself while simultaneously trying to be more realistic about what I can actually do. I think a lot about do-ability with whatever silly project I want to do next. I don’t think about whether something is easy or not: I think about what trade-offs I have to accept in order to do it well, on time, and on budget.”

I still find saying “no” and making hard decisions about what projects to take on extremely difficult. Merlin was the first person that confronted me on this issue and I’m grateful for that. My own neurosis aside, this is a great read.

Animated Sheet Music from Miles, Bird, and Trane

I so much enjoyed reading/watching this post. For your Sunday afternoon why don’t you sit back and watch Charlie Parker do something amazing with Confirmation.

Final Chance for the Productive Macs Bundle

There are just a few days left on the Productive Macs Bundle. You can get Default Folder X, Keyboard Maestro, Circus Ponies Notebook, FX Photo Studio Pro, Trickster, Vitamin-R, and Numeric Notes all for $29.99. I’ve bought most of those apps over the years and paid a lot more than that.

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Philippine Relief Fund Through iTunes

I’ve not said or written much about it but 20 years ago, I had the good fortune to marry into a Filipino family. I’m not bragging when I say I have the best in-laws in the world. Filipino culture is amazing. There is great food, and love, and compassion for one another without reserve. We celebrate each other’s victories and cry each other’s tears. Don’t believe me? Here is my mother in law last Christmas, who decided to jump on the coffee table to model her new jacket.

So I’m sure you can understand we’ve all been watching the tragedy in the Philippines with a lot of concern. I am contributing to the relief fund today through iTunes.

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The Email Field Guide

I just published the fourth MacSparky Field Guide. This one is all about email. I’ve spent most of the past year looking very closely at email and how it works. This new book explains the best methods, technologies, services, apps, and workflows to make email work for you.

There are over 300 pages and nearly 1.5 hours of video screencasts and 200 screenshots as I walk you through. I’ve also included several audio interviews with friends including Serenity Caldwell, Rob Corddry, Merlin Mann, Fraser Speirs, Jeff Taekman, Aisha Tyler, David Wain, and Gabe Weatherhead, that provide even more perspective on the best ways to tackle email.

The book features a new craftsman-style design and is illustrated by Mike Rohde. In a lot of ways, this book feels like the culmination of everything I’ve learned along the way. I’m really proud of this book and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it. It is available in the iBooks Store and PDF for $9.99.

Buy the iBooks Store Version of the Email Field Guide

Buy the PDF Version of the Email Field Guide

Visit the Website

The Field Guide Mailing List

You may not know it but there is a mailing list for the MacSparky Field Guides. My goals is for it to be one of the lowest volume mailing lists on the Internet. All that being said, if you are interested in learning about new Field Guides and big updates, today would be an excellent day to sign up for it.

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Hands on With the iPad mini with Retina Display

I got to spend some time this evening with an iPad mini with retina display in the local Apple Store. The store was slow enough that I could take my own personal iPad mini and compare it side-by-side. I spent about 20 minutes putting the new iPad Mini through its paces and here are some initial impressions.

The Retina Screen

The retina screen is obvious and gorgeous. It’s everything you expected. Because it has the same pixel count as the larger size iPad packed into a smaller display, it’s actually sharper than the iPad air. All that being said, looking at the iPad mini with retina display and iPad air side-by-side, I couldn’t tell any difference. Pixels were invisible on both devices. As an aside, I never noticed before how Apple cranks up the brightness to maximum on in-store devices. That’s smart because they looked really great.

The Weight

I could not tell a difference between the weight of the two devices. I understand the iPad mini with retina display is slightly heavier than my existing iPad mini. I thought I could perceive a slight difference between the two until I had an Apple Store employee hand them to me with my eyes closed and I guessed the wrong one of the two as heavier. If you’re afraid about increased weight with the upgrade, you shouldn’t be.

Processing Speed

The new iPad Mini with retina display is a lot faster than its predecessor. Even doing silly little things like jumping between applications are noticeably quicker. It renders webpages faster, loads complicated applications faster, does Garage Band tracks faster, and generally kicks some serious ass. Having used an iPad mini for the past year, this upgrade was much more obvious than I expected it to be.

First World Problems

This truly has come down to the question of how big do you want your iPad. Whether you want large or small, there is an excellent option for you.

Bringing processor speed, weight, and retina screen parity between the two devices means everybody has a good option without having to compromise something. That’s right. I said it. This is the Apple version of “no compromises”. I suspect it’s going to be a very happy holiday for Apple.

Pixelmator gets 1,000,000 downloads.

I recently wrote about the release of Pixelmator version 3.0. Today Pixelmator announced they’ve had over 1 million downloads. I’m thrilled for their success. Pixelmator truly is a disruptive product bringing powerful imaging tools to your Mac for just $30. I used it extensively in the new Field Guide I’ll be announcing very shortly.

“Desktop-Class”

Speaking of Fraser Speirs, he wrote up his new iPad Air and is impressed.

“I don’t want to bury the lede here: the major story about the iPad Air is not the reduction in size and weight but the increase in performance. It is, to put it simply, an utter delight to use. “

I’ve heard a similar version of this from all of my friends driving iPad Airs. What is even more interesting than how fast the A7 is making existing apps, is what kind of new apps developers will create to harness this power.

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MPU 163: Education and iPads with Fraser Speirs

This week Fraser Speirs joined us to update us on the progress of the 1 to 1 iPad program he has been administering for several years. Fraser has unique insight on the iPad and education and this one is a great listen for that alone. We also talked at some length concerning his impressions and thoughts on the new iPad Air.

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