Posts
200,000 galaxies in one enormous image
“What happens when you take a monster 4.1 meter telescope in the southern hemisphere and point it at the same patch of sky for 55 hours?” … (Read More)
Is your OS X Messages Beta showing a badge that won’t go away on its Dock icon?
I’ve been using the Messages Beta since it came out & on the whole it’s pretty good stuff. Over the last couple of days, however, I’ve been experiencing an annoyance: the Messages icon on the Dock showed a badge with the number 1 in it. Nothing I did could get rid of that 1, except this: … (Read More)
A great place to download album art
AlbumArtExchange: “Dedicated to collecting and sharing meticulously scanned and edited album cover art, for those of us who are ridiculously obsessive about such things.” … (Read More)
More on who uses Pinterest
A while back I posted about Pinterest (Pinterest, a social network for … women?), in which I made a hypothesis concerning the site’s users. Attack of the Blog provides a pie chart that really breaks down Pinterest’s users in a helpful way: … (Read More)
Reminder: don’t spend more than a few bucks on HDMI cables
My buddy Rich emailed me asking, “Any recommendations on HDMI cables?” … (Read More)
Nice web utility to convert strings to MD5 & MD5 to strings
Sure, you could use the command line, but it’s nice to have a webpage you can go to as well. So here it is: … (Read More)
Valletta, a new Markdown editor in the App Store
There’s YAME (Yet Another Markdown Editor) in the Mac App Store, & it has a pretty unique, clever, interesting feature: … (Read More)
Mayhap you should give DuckDuckGo a try. Just a try.
On a local mailing list devoted to open source, I linked to an article called Why I Left Google: … (Read More)
Some thoughts on Britannica leaving print behind
I distinctly remember it was a Christmas day, but I don’t know the year. It must’ve been about 1980 or so, because we’d just moved into our new house. Mom sat my brother & I down after we’d finished opening our presents & told us, “Boys, we have a special present for you that will be here in a few days. It cost a lot of money, but we think you’ll really like it.” … (Read More)
Collusion: a must-have plugin for Firefox for those concerned about privacy
From the website: … (Read More)
Textastic, the best text editor for iPad, just got even better
The best text editor for coding on the iPad? Textastic, easily (App Store link). Why? Simple: it has the most & best features while still being easy to code in, & it’s only $10. Now, with version 4.0, it’s even better. For proof, watch this short video from the developer that shows the new code completion features in action. This is what I look for in a text editor on any platform when I’m coding HTML, & it’s beautifully done in an iPad app! Tell me again how you can’t use the iPad for creation? … (Read More)
Coolest web development trick I’ve learned in a long time
I can’t tell you how many times WebSanity (my company) has had complications dealing with websites that have a mix of HTTPS & HTTP content. Most web developers have had to mess with that, & it can be a real pain. … (Read More)
CrossOver XI (a far better WINE) announced
I don’t use it as much as I used to, but for a long time (primarily when I ran Linux as my main desktop) I relied on CrossOver heavily. In fact, several of my books were formatted (formatted, not written1) using Word running via CrossOver on both Linux & Mac OS X. I hate writing with Word. Mostly, I use vim. The problem is that publishers want documents handed to them in Word so they can use all this fancy VBA-based formatting. So I write in vim & then copy & paste into Word to give to publishers. ↩ … (Read More)
The most accurate description of Google’s "Help" Forums I’ve read
Ever tried to use Google’s Help Forums to actually get, y’know, help? I have. Awful. Daniel M. recently asked for guidance solving a Google problem & when someone suggested trying Google’s Help Forums, Daniel responded with this1: And keep in mind that Daniel lives in New York, so that city bus gains a new sense of hopelessness … & accuracy. ↩ … (Read More)
I can finally record a screencast of my iPad on my Mac
I’ve been wanting to record screencasts of apps on my iPad for quite some time, but it hasn’t been possible. Until now. … (Read More)
Quote of the Day
From Marco Arment, in reference to Google’s Andy Rubin (Mr. Android) blaming poor sales of Android tablets on a need for “education” of users & developers: … (Read More)
One photo that shows the changed media landscape from 50 years ago to now
Next time I’m talking to my students at Washington University in St. Louis about the fragmentation of modern media, I’ll show them this photo from LIFE: http://life.time.com/history/the-best-of-life-37-years-in-pictures/?iid=lf%7Ceditors-pick#28. … (Read More)
The best Markdown editor for Macs just got better
Mou is a free (while in beta) Markdown editor for Macs that, even though it’s in beta, is still my favorite. Today it released an update (0.71) that added some nice features. From the release note: … (Read More)
Why protecting your personal info when you register a domain is a bad idea
On a mailing list I run, we’ve been discussing good places to register domain names & host websites cheaply. One person had this to say about Hover: … (Read More)
Advice to a young man considering his first Mac notebook, which he wants for iOS development
A young man whom I taught at Wash U for several years while he was in high school, & who’s now at Harvard studying computer science, emailed me last night: … (Read More)