Agile today released an update to the 1Password Safari browser extension that adds a nice little animation as it fills in web forms. People sometimes ask me why I trust 1Password to manage my passwords. When they sweat litle details like this, you can rest assured the big details are well in hand.
MPU 130: Computing with Kids
This week’s Mac Power Users episode include guest Natali Morris and we talk about the challenges of raising children around technology. Natali is really smart and had some great ideas.
Sunday Night Advice: No Snooze
Great advice. Not always so easy Monday morning.
iCloud Two-Step Authentication
Yesterday Apple announced two-factor authentication for iCloud accounts. I immediately enabled mine and it was no trouble at all. Apple still is really good at taking complex technologies and making them simple to understand and implement.
The idea behind two-step authentication is that you need two things to reset your password or get access to your account from a new device. In this case, you would need your iCloud password and a secret code sent to your iPhone or iPad or a double-secret code they send you that you are hopefully locking away in your 1Password database.
In my initial draft of this post, I recommended that you wait a week or two before enabling this so we could make sure all the kinks were worked out. But after having done it personally, I think this is good to go. Enable it on your account and make sure to sent this along to your non-geek friends and family members. If you need any help, MacStories did a nice walk-through. Apple also has a FAQ.
Wow
Yesterday was a great day for the MacSparky Field Guides. Markdown launched with a lot of success. I really enjoyed the twitter stream and feedback about the book. I particularly liked the tweets and email from people who always wanted to try Markdown and found this book the way to get them over the hump.
When Eddie and I first decided to do a book on Markdown, several nerd-friends told us we were nuts and that Markdown was such a niche topic that nobody would care. I think just the opposite. I think Markdown is a technology that needs to find its way to non-geeks and that’s why we wrote the book.
At a deeper level, I enjoy writing and distributing these books so very much. In a lot of ways, it feels like the best work I’ve done of my lifetime. Thank you everyone for supporting me in this.
What’s up next?
I am going to issue an update to Paperless. Several technologies and workflows have changed since the last update last September. You can expect that pretty soon.
As for the next big Field Guide, I’ve already got a big pile of words towards it and I’m looking forward to really digging in. The subject is another one of my personal crusades and I can’t wait to share it with you. You’ll probably see it sometime in the summer (hopefully early summer).
Thanks again everyone for supporting me on the MacSparky Field Guides.
New Field Guide: Markdown
Hey everybody, I just pushed the button on my newest MacSparky Field Guide.
Markdown
I co-wrote this book with Eddie Smith and I’m really proud of it.
Markdown started as a clever way to write for the web but has become so much more. This book demystifies Markdown, making it easy for anybody to learn. This book includes 130 pages and 27 screencasts totaling more than one and a half hours of video. There is also an additional hour of audio interviews. This book will take you from zero knowledge of Markdown to being a Markdown pro and change the way you write for the better.
I’ve learned a great deal writing these Field Guides and I’m really happy with this book. Chapters include an explanation of why Markdown is important and why you should learn to write with it; full text and screencast walkthroughs of all the major components of Markdown (including cheat sheets), app and workflow recommendations for the Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, and the web; advanced markdown techniques and tricks (including automation); and audio interviews with some of my favorite Markdown writers including Merlin Mann, Fletcher Penney, Brett Terpstra, Federico Viticci, and Gabe Weatherhead.
The book is built with iBooks Author and has all of the rich media you’ve come to expect from the MacSparky Field Guides. The book costs $10 and is available now in 51 countries and PDF. Get it while it’s hot.
Learn more at the Markdown webpage.
John Siracusa on Self-Reliance
John Siracusa looks closely at the the dependencies between Google, Samsung, and Apple. This post includes everything I love about John’s writing (including an obscure link to a Gone with the Wind clip).
At one point, John explains Google’s overall success with Android:
“Google’s present position looks weak, but it has two big trump cards. First, Google has proven to be one of the few companies capable of creating, popularizing, and supporting a platform. Despite all the skinning and branding by handset makers, Google is still the driving force behind Android. This power can only be negated by another company that’s willing and able to match Google’s Android efforts on all fronts: OS development, app store, developer tools, evangelism, the works. That’s a tall order.”
I still don’t get how Android really helps Google. I’m sure there is some revenue and they want a foothold as a “player” in the mobile future, but I have to wonder how much they spend on Android vs. how much they make on the back end? While giving away search was a smart, I don’t think that business model works for a lot of Google’s other services, as we’ve recently seen with Reader. I especially don’t think this works for building an operating system. It seems to me Google is eventually going to have to either start charging license fees to manufacturers or stop giving Android away entirely and distribute it on their own Motorola designed hardware.
John’s second point about Google, their dominance in online services, is an excellent one. Apple is clearly behind in online services. They simply can’t deliver the bandwidth that Google does. Don’t believe me? Compare the speed of Siri vs. Google’s voice search on your iPhone. I think one of Apple’s greatest vulnerabilities is its inability to deliver online services at the same level as Google. Apple is getting better at this but they need to start closing the gap a lot faster.
Solarized
I’ve received several emails asking me about my love of Ethan Schoonover’s Solarized color scheme. Solarized is a set of colors Ethan selected for use in a text editor or app development platform.. Computer programmers spend a lot of time gazing at computer screens and Ethan thought it would be a good idea to package up a pleasant and complimentary set of colors for the purpose. While I don’t spend much time programing computers, I sure spend a lot of time looking at screens and I’ve been using the Solarized colors set for years. I’ve got no training on picking colors and I’m happy to take advantage of Ethan’s generosity here.
The download file has the colors in several formats including Adobe Photoshop, Xcode, BBEdit, and even Vim. (Yes, Vim. I really like the way it works with the Apple Color picker. Here’s how you install it.
First download the file from Ethan’s site.
When you open the file, you’ll see there are a lot of places to install Solarized.
I opened up the Apple color picker folder. Inside there is a script to launch the color picker. Fire it up.
Click on the palette and then open. Then select the ‘Solarized.clr’ file and you’re in business.
PermaLinking with Squarespace, revisited
I recently posted my trick for using TextExpander to add permalinks to link posts. James Smith figured out some clever code injection to make this automatic. The only down side is that it goes on every post, not just selected link posts (like this one). I’m not sure I want a permalink on every post so I haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
PDFpen Sale
As promised, for the next two days you can get PDFpen 6 for $29.99 and PDFpenPro 6 for $39.99. I recommend getting it from the App Store for the iCloud support. I just purchased my copy of PDFpenPro. Because I know the developers, I could probably have asked them for a free promo code but I didn’t. I plan on using the heck out of this software and in these days of $1 apps, I want to make sure that companies willing to put more effort into their products can stay in business. Anyway, that’s enough of the soap box. It’s a great app and now is your chance to get it at a great price. If you missed it before, here is a link to my PDFpen 6 screencast.