Mac Power Users Episode 95, Engineering Workflows with Dr. Drang, is up. In it, one of my very favorite people in Internet-land joins us to talk about how he uses his Mac to figure out how things break and tell the story. Get the episode over at 5by5. Also, don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes. To learn even more Dr. Drang lore, make sure to download the AfterDark.

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Last week, Squarespace released version six of its most awesome web hosting platform. Because I can’t help but be the canary in the coal mine, I immediately started moving the site over. After spending way too much time on this project, I’m happy to display the newest version of MacSparky.com. This new version takes full advantage of Squarespace 6 and adds several features.

Links in Titles

Finally, I can link the title of the post to source website. Now my reference entries will actually link over to the source in the title, instead of linked words within the post body. I’m not going back and fixing old posts but this works on everything else going forward, effective immediately. I’m going to use the right facing triangle (▻) at the end of a post to indicate it links somewhere else. On those posts, I’ll also put an infinity symbol (∞) at the bottom of the post with a permalink to the MacSparky article. I’m considering adding something smart to long original pieces, as pioneered by Mr. Gruber, but I also realize that now I’m talking crazy.

Mobile Version

The website now automatically senses when it’s being viewed on an iOS (or other mobile) device and adjusts itself accordingly. MacSparky now looks great on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Easier Navigation

The menus are now live, some of which include submenus making the site cleaner and easier to navigate. I realize the “More” button is a huge nerd faux pas, but it just seemed to make sense. For example, it gave me a place to put my occasional picture galleries without giving them undue exposure on the site. Who knows, maybe I’ll even add some music at some point.

Regardless, my love affair with Squarespace continues. These guys make it ridiculously easy to build an attractive website. Moreover, they enable me to continue to fiddle with the site as I continue my desperate effort to remove every unnecessary pixel.

There are a few pieces I’m still working on. The Search function isn’t fully baked yet and there are a few remaining hiccups that I’m still sorting out, with some help form Squarespace. Overall, I’m really happy with the transition.

Once in awhile, it is fun to put down the computer and work with my hands. A few years ago, I made this watch cabinet for my sister. I was visiting my sister today and admiring how the cabinet is holding up. I’m really proud of this cabinet with hand-cut dovetail joinery and some simple looking, yet tricky, knife hinges. My influences are the Arts & Crafts movement and James Krenov. The cabinet is all maple, except for the hand carved pulls, which are cherry. There is no stain. I just used a bit of finish and wax. If you are into this sort of thing, I posted a small gallery with more pictures.
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I thought I was really clever in MPU 82 when I talked about cooking ideas but it turns out John Cleese figured this out in 1991. I’ve received tons of feedback from that episode and everything affirms my ideas. If you have a project, start it early and work on it daily in bite-sized chunks.

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I’d like to Thank Ita for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

Ita is a brand new list-making app that’s designed to make it fast and simple to collect and organize information. You can drag items to rearrange them, tap to mark items completed, and add multiple items quickly, all from the main list view. If you make lists, you’ll love how fast Ita makes it to collect and complete your stuff.

Ita is beautiful, taking inspiration from high quality paper notebooks and classic typography. And as you use lists, they’ll show signs of wear, just like a piece of paper. Your lists will remember how they look, and that look syncs across iCloud with the rest of your data. Ita is a universal app for iPhone and iPad and is fully accessible using VoiceOver.

Ita is on sale this week for $1.99. Two bucks for the first list app that’s actually better than a piece of paper.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate

Today we celebrate International Terpstra Day. Brett Terpstra make some really amazing stuff, most of which he gives away. Gabe summarized all of Brett’s projects. Not a day goes by that I don’t use one of Brett’s creations. I’m writing these very words in nvALT.

Brett is my kind of nerd. He thinks about all those points of friction in our lives and comes up with something fiddly that completely obliterates them. What is there not to love about that?

The best thing about Brett Terpstra is that I get to call him my friend. If you’ve ever met him in real life, you know he is one swell fellow. So tonight raise a glass to our favorite nerd. Happy birthday Brett.

Mac Power Users Episode 94, iPad Productivity Kit, is up. In it, Katie and I cover some of our favorite iPad apps for getting things done. Get the episode over at 5by5. Also, don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes.

Also, the Mac Roundtable is back. I joined some of my favorite people (Steve Stanger, Adam Christianson, and Chuck Joiner) where we talked Apple, Nexus 7, and other things geeky. Get it here.

Randall Munroe answers hypothetical questions with physics. I’m so hooked. For instance, today I learned that if you hit a baseball traveling at 90% the speed of light, you’d vaporize. It is a good thing Nolan Ryan retired.