If you haven’t already exported your Google Reader subscription, today is the day. Google is pulling the plug on Monday. If you are still flummoxed as to how to export your Google Reader feed list, Katie Floyd made an excellent tutorial (using MPU sponsor Clarify) to show you the way.
I was a bit coy in the MPU RSS show about exactly what I’m doing about RSS as the big change is upon us. Here it is, plain and simple.
Feed Wrangler is innovative and exactly what I was looking for with this change, something to move the ball forward. I’m not sure if I’ll still be using Feed Wrangler in a year but I suspect I will. Creating Smart Streams that serve me up posts I’m particularly interested in is great. Letting me create filters to automatically mark posts including words like patent, lawsuit, and Ballmer as read so I never see them is magical. (If you are trying to wrap your head around Smart Streams and Filters,Shawn Blanc explains further.) Feed Wrangler’s developer explains they are going to put even more logic into these features so I can create filters that contain Boolean logic terms (e.g., Filter: Samsung AND commercial). There are other tempting services out there but for me, Feed Wrangler scratches the itch.
I most often check RSS on my iPad. I took a few cheap shots at Mr. Reader’s icon yesterday on Twitter and received a mixture of scolding and agreement. I can’t help it. Those RSS eyes creep me out. Once you open, Mr. Reader though, it is a really nice experience. I’m using it for now. When Reeder lands on the iPad with Feed Wrangler support (which is promissed), I’ll switch back to my precious Reeder unless Mr. Reader wins my heart in the interim, which isn’t out of the question.
I know Reeder is coming but have yet to find an attractive app for the iPhone. The free Wrangler App is not a long term solution. I suspect a lot of good RSS app developers are consuming vast quantities of coffee right now.
The Feed Wrangler website isn’t bad. It has keyboard shortcuts, runs fast, and is in your browser so you can quickly open articles in additional tabs for sending to your read later service. Again, I’m not convinced this is a long term solution. I just bought ReadKit and am playing with it as a possible replacement. I also expect we’ll get back Reeder for Mac when they add Feed Wrangler support.
As you can see, this is still a bit of a work in progress but even with the juggling I’m doing on the client side, the Feed Wrangler Smart Streams and Filters have me feeling really great about Google’s decision to pull the plug. Innovation in RSS is back.
I recently discovered nvALT’s ability to link notes by simply including the name of another nvALT note with double brackets [[like this]]. As a result, I’ve started creating links between notes and I’m loving it. For instance, I’ve got links between notes that have related legal text and forms. I’ve also got another note listing every case I have set for trial and the trial date. This gives me a quick way to make sure I don’t double book myself when the lady in the black robe is bearing down on me. Now these lists are linked to the notes with all the details related to the particular cases.
For instance: [[Donald v. Daffy]] – October 1–15, 2013
I’m just starting to wrap my head around this trick which I discovered here via a link by my pal Brett Terpstra.
Yesterday I was a guest on the Maccast and had the pleasure of talking with Adam Christianson and Ken Ray about several Apple-related topics including memory upgrades, the future of television, and the deification of Steve Jobs. It was a lot of fun and you can download it now.
Just in case you are part of the vast majority of my RSS subscribers that use Google Reader, you’ll want to move this feed to your new reader before Google pulls the plug on July 1.
Click here for the MacSparky RSS feed.
Also, if you are having trouble deciding where to go with your RSS feeds, this week’s Mac Power Uses episode will set you straight.
Over the weekend, Dan Benjamin and Haddie Cooke were in Los Angeles. I finally got to meet Dan in person and we attended a 5by5 meet up in Santa Monica. Every time I meet MPU listeners, I’m amazed by how smart and charming they are. This time was no different. Moreover, Tim Bennett was there with his micro four-thirds camera and this amazing lens with a .95 aperture. These pictures were taken by candlelight and look amazing.
In Mac Power Users episode 143, Katie and I survey the existing options for RSS following the demise of Google Reader. The good news is now that there isn’t a Google monopoly, developers are coming up with some innovative (and better) solutions. Check out this episode to find out what works best for you.
I think using Apple software makes me vulnerable to malware. After so many years of driving a Mac without virus software, I have this sense of invulnerability that will probably end up biting me in the ass someday.
Until the last year, I gave no thought to malware on mobile devices. However, mobile platforms (at least some mobile platforms) are becoming a target. As much as limited nature of iOS can vex me, I don’t ever want to deal with malware on my iOS devices. I don’t envy Google and Apple in the task of keeping mobile safe.
This week’s home screen post features Chris Sauvé. (Website) (Twitter)When Chris isn’t creating brilliant scripts (like that OmniFocus Template script I gushed about a few weeks ago), he’s busy finishing up computer science and business degrees. So Chris, show us your home screen.
Looking at my home screen, I realize that there are few apps that I really love, but the ones I do are absolutely vital to my ability to continue to operate as a functional human being. There’s a group of five apps without which I would be particularly lost:
Transit: finds nearby bus routes and gives the next few arrival times for each, all updated in real-time with the buses’ location data. Since I don’t care for owning a car, I rely on the bus (and, by extension, this app) to get everywhere. I just wish it would prevent me from waiting until 2 minutes before the bus arrives to start getting ready but, alas, the solutions to some problems lay outside the realm of technology.
Instacast: I need my podcast-y goodness to get through those aforementioned bus rides, and Instacast delivers better than any other app I’ve used.
Scratch: I like the multitude of options in Drafts, but Scratch wins the spot on my dock precisely because of its more limited feature set. I love how quick and painless it makes my key text-related activities: appending text to a file in Dropbox and sending OmniFocus items via the Mail Drop service.
1Password: even if I weren’t relying on 1Password to generate and store strong and unique passwords, I would need it just to compensate for my pathetic ability to remember such mundane information. Passwords suck, but 1Password makes them bearable.
Dropbox: I use this app constantly. When you have everything scanned and stored in Dropbox, you can create some real “wow” moments for your coworkers by quickly pulling up some document you needed in the moment. If I remember to put things in Dropbox, I don’t have to remember anything else, which is exactly the kind of help I need from my phone.
One key app missing from that list: OmniFocus. I love OmniFocus and have dedicated a substantial portion of mydevelopment and writing to helping people use it better, but the iPhone app is, in my opinion, the weakest of the three versions by a long shot. I love getting notifications when out-and-about or when something becomes overdue, but I think there is still a lot of design and feature potential to be squeezed out of the iPhone version.
I don’t know that I feel particularly guilty about it, but I love opening up Reeder and seeing what’s new from my nerd family around the interwebs. It’s tough to find folks with similar interests to mine, so I really lean on those relationships, real or imagined, we can create with those online.
I’m Canadian, so the NHL GameCenter is most certainly a guilty pleasure (particularly now, in playoff season). Finally,Twitterrific gives me my Twitter fix more times per day than I care to admit.
I do a lot of visual design projects and have a pile of images of websites, apps, and print work that help get the wheels turning when I need inspiration. On my Mac, I use Pixa to manage these images, which lets you sort by color and automatically adds the unmodified images to Dropbox folders. Something similar on iOS would be fantastic. I’d also love a text editor with similar features to Folding Text on the Mac, and a better way to manage and explore code snippets (to learn about a new language, for example) would be a welcome addition to my iPhone.
I love how restricted to core iOS experience is. The Mac is a playground to which I venture far too often when I am frustrated with, or afraid of, tackling the problems with the next thing I’m trying to build. I can (and have) spent hours fiddling with the unending customizability of OS X. iOS, on the other hand, forces you to get to work: there’s only so many times you can change your wallpaper or rearrange your app icons, and that’s an incredibly good thing when you’ve got a mind with a penchant for getting dangerously off track.
Everyone enjoys voicing their pet peeves/ hopes and dreams for Apple, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t share in that pastime. However, if I were in charge at Apple, the only thing I would do is make sure that the company stays true to what makes so many of us love it. I’d make sure the company continued to sweat the little things, even if that means pushing out fewer announcements than competitors. I’d make sure that they continue to shame their peers in making their products accessible those traditionally marginalized by technology: the young and the old, the visually and hearing impaired users, and so on. I’d make sure that every bit of hardware and software stays opinionated and true to itself.
The best thing about Apple is that they are strongly idealistic: I believe that they let out the doors of Cupertino only those things that they consider beautiful, that they would be proud to use themselves, that they believe
, deeply and honestly, make the lives of their users better. The worst thing about Apple is that, in the end, it’s just another company. So if I were in charge of Apple, I would try to make sure that the business junk stays in the background where it belongs, and that the creators continue to be empowered to built more beautiful things.
Thank you, David, for all that you have given back to the Apple community. I wish everyone were as passionate and dedicated as you to building amazing things.
Thanks Chris.
I did a recent interview with Chuck Joiner on Markdown, both the language and the book. Chuck is one of my favorite people in the Mac community and I always have fun speaking with him. You can check it out here.
