Facebook Shenanigans ▻

One company’s investigation showed 80% of their Facebook ad clicks were bots. What worries me about Facebook is that the only way for them to earn the bucket loads of cash everyone thinks they should is a frontal assault on the privacy rights of their millions and millions of users. Creepy.

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TextExpander Expense Snippet

I spent most of yesterday in court. As I fired off my TextExpander expense reporting snippet, it occurred to me, “people may like this.” This snippet creates a fill-in form with all the relevant boxes. I can use it in any text application, I usually do it in a blank Byword or Pages documents and staple receipts and the other relevant pieces of paper. Download it here.


The Verge, Ltd. Pipe

There are two firehose-type websites that I like, The Verge and Ars Technica. While I don’t have time to read everything these sites publish, I do like to check them when time allows. The trouble is that they cover some subjects for which I have zero interest. Things like Windows, Android, and lawsuits get posts. I don’t want to read (or see) them.

So I made a Yahoo Pipe to filter them out. In Monday’s Mac Power Users episode on web automation, I’ll talk about my Verge, Ltd pipe. It isn’t very complicated. I fetch the RSS feed from The Verge and Ars Technica and combine them (with the Union tool). Then I run them through an ever-growing list of filters to spit out a much leaner feed out the other end. Here is the public link.

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iPad and iPhone Prototypes ▻

Don’t you think it’s got to be driving Jony Ive and other Apple designers nuts that this stuff is out? It is like releasing the rough draft of a really good novel. I don’t get everyone’s fascination with it. While I can really enjoy a fine bratwurst, I don’t want to watch it made.

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