Edge Cases and Bugs

Elements developer Justin Williams lays it out responding to Merlin’s comments on the Mac Power Users about being an edge case. Speaking of Elements, it is my “go to” App when I sync to Scrivener. A great text writing environment.

The Murder of Humpy Dumpty

Today I give my annual talk at the elementary school about how the judicial system works. We conclude the talk with a mock trial concerning the untimely death of Humpty Dumpty. Was it an accident or was it murder? For legal minded nerds and teachers, I have all the materials for this session if you too want to volunteer at the local school. If you are interested, drop me a note.

Home Screens – David Wain

Even after publishing MacSparky.com for 4 years, part of me still sometimes forgets that other people read it. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard from writer, director, and actor David Wain (twitter and IMDb). You can learn a lot more about David at his Web site. I’m a fan of David’s from way back. If you’ve never seen it before, you really should check out The State, perhaps the best sketch comedy show ever. David, when not writing and directing the latest Jennifer Aniston movie, is busy playing with his iPhone. So David, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

I’ve been using GPS Drive while on an extended work trip to Los Angeles (normally I don’t drive when home in NYC). I love having one less device to keep track of, and I particularly like how it pauses the iPod (like when I’m listening to Mac Power Users) when it wants to tell me where to turn. It also syncs with my address book so I rarely have to type in an address.

The other one I find indispensable in the car (as well as when running) is FlickTunes which allows me to control my music and podcasts with simple one- two- and three-finger swipes – I never have to look down at the screen.

I’ve also been enjoying Dialvetica’s smart way of knowing which contacts I want to have in front of me when I open it.

What is your favorite app?

Instapaper, no competition. It has erased that agita I get whenever I come across something I want to read but don’t have time at that moment. When I get into bed at night, I read my Instapaper articles (in the dark mode that automatically kicks in after sundown). I prefer reading in bed on the iPhone vs the iPad because of the retina display and the much lighter weight. (It’s amazing that just a couple of years ago when traveling I used to bring books, magazines, a GPS, white noise machine, iPod, cell phone, address book, alarm clock and day planner. Now ALL of that is in the iPhone, and actually better.)

I also love MOG – like having an iPod with millions of songs. So much fun. Honorable mention: Simplenote, Yelp.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I play Words With Friends with my sisters pretty much every time I sit on the toilet. I know that sounds gross but you know what I mean. I love flipping through my Twitter feed but try not to because it’s so addictive.

What is the app you are still missing?
The one that controls brightness without having to go to settings > brightness. I’m adjusting brightness all the time.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

I’m definitely one of those for whom the iPhone has become an appendage. It’s just so damn useful! I’m going to try to do electronics free Saturdays when I’m done with my current work stint, because it can get to be too much.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

I love the overall “just works” factor. That things tend to happen the way you expect them too, and they’ve got it to the point where you don’t have to fiddle with it too much (if you don’t want to).

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?
I’d let those users who care to customize their experience be allowed to do so. They can still have the automatic user-friendly closed version for casual losers, but let the geeks go under the hood if they want!

Also I hate when I pull out my phone because I want to show someone my home screen image of my kids, but there’s a text message there so it blocks it. These are the kinds of things they should allow us to customize!

AND I hate the podcast organizing system. Why can’t you erase a podcast on your iPhone and have it then be erased on your iTunes!?

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve never publicly gotten so Mac geeky. Thanks for letting my inner nerd shine!

Thanks David!

Expected Site Outage

I’m switching the domain over to Hover. So far the transition has gone swimmingly but I’m informed the site may go dark for a bit while the final tubes are reconnected. If MacSparky goes dark for you in the next day or two, hang in there and it will be right back.

Thanks for your patience.

Book Recommendation: Typography for Lawyers

I’ve been a fan of Matthew Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers web site for some time. Recently, Matthew expanded on the subject and wrote a book. Having spent the last few weeks with it, I recommend it to any legal professionals (or anyone else that generates formal documents).

Having spent the last 20 years reading poorly written, unpersuasive looking briefs, this book should be required reading for all first year law students.

While I generally prefer books in electronic form, this book is only available in the paper version. This make sense. It is, after all, a book about typography. Regardless, the book is a good (and attractive) read.

DropDAV, WebDAV for Dropbox

Dropbox just continues to get more useful every day. At this point, I believe it is mandatory for anybody who wants to get work done on an iPad. If Dropbox’s own developer API, letting you load and save documents to your Dropbox space from iOS devices, wasn’t enough, you can now turn your Dropbox storage into its own WebDAV server. Using DropDAV, I now have the ability to access my Dropbox storage through any Webdav enabled application. Most importantly, this opens all of the iPad iWork apps to Dropbox storage. I’ve been using it a few weeks without a hitch.

You still need to save the work back to Dropbox when you are done but at least it lets you thumb your nose at the iPad iWork team for not enabling Dropbox access. The services is free with a 2GB Dropbox account and $3/month with a 50GB account. You could also use this to sync your OmniFocus database. If any readers have ideas for other uses of a WebDAV connection to Dropbox, sound off in the comments.