Mike Zornek

2025 Tools Audit

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:00:00 -0800

It is good to take inventory of things from time to time. Here is a list of the tools I use regularly as of April 2025.

I welcome hearing your suggestions for tools I should consider in the future.

None of the links below are affiliate links. I ain’t got time for that shit.

Hardware

2021 Apple M1 Max MacBook Pro, 16-inch with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.
- Laptop is treating me well. Never observing notable slowdowns on normal activities. I would like to revisit a jump to desktop Linux someday as my relationship with Apple continues to deteriorate. That however is a large switching cost. I might consider reinitializing my old Framework laptop and try some things later in 2025.
Keyboard: Das Keyboard 4 for Mac
- I’m fairly satisfied with this. Have had it for many years now. Having experimented with a few other keyboards while building my gaming PC, I am considering experimenting with alternatives for a different feel but a low priority when I’m generally trying to save money right now.
Mouse: Logitech Performance MX Wireless Mouse
- This is an older discontinued model but one I’ve been very happy with. I’ve replaced the internal rechargeable battery a few times but it has held up great. I have a newer MX Master 3S model for my gaming PC. It fits my hand as well.
Microphone: Shure SM7B
- This is complete overkill for for my daily needs but I had intent on building more video content at one point, and it was purchased as part of that project. I do use it a lot, but mostly for Zoom and Discord calls.
- I also use a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen USB Audio Interface to handle the input.
Camera: Canon VIXIA HF G21 Full HD Camcorder and Elgato Cam Link
- This is an older 1080p camcorder that I connect to my laptop via a HDMI adaptor for use as a standard laptop camera input. It is rather bulky and sits upon a collapsed tripod behind my main monitor. It generates good enough video quality but feels a bit like an overdue hack deserving of replacement someday.
Monitors: LG UltraFine
- I use a pair of 24-inch LG UltraFine monitors mounted on Fully Jarvis Dual Monitor Mounting Arms. These monitors are working ok. There is some screen burn-in, and compared to the new gaming monitor I have, they feel a little dated but are more than fine for the coding work I do. The monitor arms are really nice and keep the screens at a much higher eye height for me. I recommend investing in monitor arms, Jarvis or otherwise.
Laptop stand: Rain Design mStand Laptop Stand
- I use my laptop open when connected to the monitors and then place the laptop on this stand to get some extra height (though not even with the main monitors on arms). This gives me three monitors in total (one for terminal, one for code editor and one for the browser).
13-inch iPad Pro (M4)
- I bought this in 2024 after using my previous iPad Pro for about 8 years. I went for the higher-end version, primarily for the gorgeous screen, but I also like the camera unlock and overall feel. I use this daily from my recliner, mostly for web browsing and PDF reading. I have a pencil and always have aspirations of sketching things but never really happens.
iPhone Xr
- I’ve been milking this older phone for a while, and it still works great. The battery is good, and no major screen issues. I figured I’d keep using it until OS updates stopped, which I expected this past year, but it still got them. I suspect those will stop and I’ll need a new phone soon™. Might consider something else than the iPhone, though.
Eero Wireless router
- I also use the yearly pro Eero services to block ads network-wide. It is not perfect, but it helps a lot.
Gaming PC
- I blogged about this with details before. It is holding up great and providing high-end graphics for Civ7 play (as well as some limited Red Dead 2). I had one night where I ended up having to debug and reinstall fan drivers, which is kind of expected when it comes to a custom build and ongoing Windows updates.
Steam Deck
- I have not used this as much as I would have liked. The main game I played on it was Final Fantasy 6 Pixel Remaster. I feel like someday I might load it up with some ROMs and use it as an emulation hub for now it is collecting dust. I am considering using it for some evening Lunar gameplay when it comes out.
Playstation 5
- I play this all the time, mostly MLB: The Show, from my living room. I have a few other games for it, including the two Final Fantasy 7 games, but it is mostly baseball.
Switch
- I play this in phases, usually when a new games comes out or I get nostalgic. Have been considering a fresh Animal Crossing island reroll. Also have a few unopened games (Tears of the Kingdom, Metroid Prime) that I really need to dig into.
Backpacks from Waterfield
- My large backpack is a Pro Executive Laptop Backpack from Waterfield. I use this when I am packing a bunch of things, including travel. I also have a slim folio bag from them as well, which is great as a conference carry or when I just want the laptop and nothing else. I’m not sure they sell my exact folio anymore, but it is close to this one.
Batteries
- I mostly lean on my Anker power bank (forget the exact model, but it’s 90W version). I also have a Yeti 500X and solar panel from GoalZero. This is mostly for major powerless emergencies (CPAP gear, etc), but I hear they work great camping as well.

Office Furniture

A few months ago, I bought a Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk. I use the standing mode only for phone calls but I guess it’s nice to have. Otherwise, it is a fine, if overpriced desk. Previously I used a pair of full wood butcher block IKEA desks and honestly, they were a way better value. Sadly I don’t think IKEA sells good wood desktops anymore. Most models seemed composite. I still use them, but they are a side desk and my gaming desk now.
For a chair, I use a Steelcase Leap Plus. I’ve been using these chairs for years. They (like many chairs) are pricy but worth it given my profession. Steelcase also got honors from me for honoring warranties and sending out repair people for one model with some wear and tear issues well into its ownership.
I use a few Coway air filters. One in my office and others in my bedroom and living room. My allergies can get bad, and this helps keep things somewhat in check.

Local Software

Firefox Web Browser
- (Safari as secondary; Iridium to debug Chrome issues.)
Spark for Email
- I use the “classic” version and none of the new AI crap. Feel like this is a tool I need to move on from.
VS Code
- I’ve started to experiment with Cursor and would like to tinker with Zed as well.
Spotify
- I don’t like using Spotify. It does do a fair job allowing me to mix local music files with streamed files (which is a selling point that drew me to it years ago), but it also randomly removes music I have favorited. I’ve considered replacing it a few times (my music needs are kind of basic) but have not done so.
OmniFocus for managing to do items.
Obsidian for a personal notebook.
Calendar.app (connected to a Google Calendar) for some basic calendaring.
Slack for some industry and friend groups.
Discord for some industry and friend groups. We also host Elixir Book Club here.
Postgres
- I install with Postgres.app.
- And use Postico 2 for browsing Postgres databases.
iTerm terminal with fish for shell prompt.
Sourcetree for git repo work.
1Password for passwords.
Acorn for simple image manipulation.
Audacity for book club audio archive editing.
Backblaze for automated backups and some S3-compatible storage.
Balsamic for wireframing.
BBEdit for large text file manipulation / searching.
Books.app for PDF reading on my iPad. I enjoy that highlights and notes easily transfer between my iPad and laptop for reference during book club.
Docker for Docker things.
Dropbox for file backup and sharing across devices. I use Dropbox to get PDFs to my iPad, backup my files, share folders with my Gaming PC and sometimes to share arbitrary files with people.
Espanso for OS-wide text expansion of snippets.
Grammarly for helping me spel gud.
Keynote for slide presentations.
Livebook.app for Elixir notebooks.
MindNode for mind mapping exercises.
Magnet for window management
OmniDiskSweeper to clean up large files on my hard drive.
Paw for API exploration.
Responsively App is used to test web page designs at different sizes.
- I don’t use this a ton, I tend to just manually set the viewport size in Firefox while I experiment but this can be handy on occasion.
Screenflow for recording and editing screencasts.
yt-dlp on the command line to download media files.
Homebrew for package management.
- Very interested in experimenting with NixOS for this kind of thing in the future.
Soulver for personal budgeting notebook.
Steam for buying and launching games.
- Obviously use this more on my gaming PC.
SuperDuper! for hard drive backups.
- Really bummed that bootable backups are becoming a thing of the past, but this is not SuperDuper!’s choice.
Zoom for video chats. It continues to be the most stable video tool I know.
Instapaper for read later tracking.
feedbin for RSS tracking.
SavvyCal for meeting links.

Software Services

Hover for domain management and most of my email accounts.
Google Workspace for the zornlabs email.
Render for some web hosting.
AppSignal for error capture.
Plausable for web analytics.
updown.io for uptime monitoring.
GitHub for repo management and CI/CD. I pay for Copilot and some sponsorships.
Verizon FIOS for internet.
Verizon for cell phone.

Best Vinyl of 2024

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 10:14:11 -0500

In March of 2024, I purchased a record player after seeing one at my cousin’s place.

I am not an audiophile; in fact, I have partial hearing loss in my left ear. Nonetheless, I like the physicality of playing a record. The intent of putting the vinyl down on the platter, lining up the needle, and letting it play out without the distractions of a computer or phone. Taking the time to enjoy the wonderful visuals of the album art and (sometimes) styled coloring of the vinyl as the music plays out.

I constantly fret about the relationship I have with technology, and I like how grounded this feels in the real world.

Over the year, I have acquired about 20 records, but here are some that stand out.

Stardew Valley Soundtrack

Soundtrack Info, Expansion Soundtrack Info

Stardew Valley has become one of my favorite games of all time, and its soundtrack is a notable reason why. Like many of the instrumental records you’ll see on this list, I enjoy listening to this while I read my books or otherwise enjoy a nice fireplace day. The music has a wonderful mix of upbeat and somber tracks, and the alum art and vinyl presentation capture the mood well.

Red Dead 2 Soundtrack

Score Info Music Info,

Another all-time favorite game, the Red Dead 2 soundtrack and song albums bring me back to 1899 every time. I love the ambient music of the soundtrack that mixes soft exploration songs and intense gunfight anthems. When the vocal song hits, I get a major kick of nostalgia for those larger-than-life game moments and endings. These albums were not in print and easy to find, but I’m happy to have acquired them. They are regularly on rotation in my house.

Random Access Memories, Daft Punk

Album Info

I have enjoyed Daft Punk growing up. I recall bobbing my head to Discovery on my iPod during many walks and workouts. Even in recent times, I regularly enjoy the Tron Legacy soundtrack (I have it on vinyl as well) – but there is something special about Random Access Memories. It fits no genre and explores sound in a unique way that is hard to express. Spending time listening to this on a nice set of speakers and giving it your focus is special. While we all have music preferences, this is the recommendation you could give to anyone who says they love music.

Six Evolutions - Bach: Cello Suites, Yo-Yo Ma

Album Info

I’ve been listening to Yo-Yo Ma for years. My first introduction to him was during an iTunes demo, and I did not turn back. The Cello Suites: Inspired By Bach was one album I listened to many times, often while I coded. I could not find it on vinyl and ended up picking up Six Evolutions in its place. I’ve enjoyed this now as well. It’s a great album to throw on while journaling or looking for inspiration.

Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert

Album Info

This was the surprise of the year for me. While many of the albums I’ve picked up I have a deep history with, this came to me serendipitously through a YouTube video.

After sampling the concert online, I bought my copy.

I enjoy piano albums but have not done much jazz piano. It hits differently and is enjoyed. I love the story behind the concert, which adds to my appreciation for what is happening during the concert. It inspires me to embrace constraints.

How about you? Any special music hit you this year? I’d love to hear about it.

Impactful Books

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 14:39:36 -0400

A local developer Slack had an icebreaker post asking for programming books that impacted your career. I figured I’d share mine in a more long-lived format. Some are more timeless than others.

Web Development and Programming

Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman – I recall reading this in 2003 when I was just out of college and starting to invest full-time in my web development career. This book brought order to the chaos of the web design patterns of the time.
Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns by Vladimir Khorikov – This was a powerful book that helped me solidify my perspective of testing, what I want out of it, and how to accomplish those wants.
Elixir in Action by Saša Jurić – While it was not my first Elixir book, it was by far the one that sold me on the language and run time. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. The new third edition just came out. I can’t wait to reread it.
Thinking In Systems by Donella H. Meadows – This is not a programming book, but good exploration of perspectives you should keep in mind when building things.
Cocoa Programming for OS X: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide by Aaron Hillegass – While I earned a living building web applications using PHP and Rails, outside of work, I was (as a hobby) learning how to create GUI apps on Mac OS X. This book was a life-changing experience for me. First, giving me a space to learn Cocoa, which eventually became my full-time work, but then secondly, when I joined Big Nerd Ranch to become a teacher myself.
Clean Code by Robert C. Martin – This book gets some shade these days, but I recall it being one of the first books that started to get me to question the aesthetics of my code and I think highly of that event.

User Interfaces

Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug – I loved how approachable and immediately actionable this book was for my early work.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman – This book forever changed how I look at doors.
The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin P. Williams – Wonderful introduction to core design concepts.
Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan – Great focused review of common presentation patterns.

Product Development

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick – Will help ensure you know how to ask questions and get feedback. TL;DR: Everyone is lying to you.
The Nature of Software Development by Ron Jeffries – This is not a product development methodology but a great collection of values by which to organize your processes.
Just Fucking Ship by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman – Sharp, focused advice on how to work backward and get that project shipped.
Shape Up by Ryan Singer – Curiously enough, I’ve joined multiple teams that tried Shape Up, and it did not take just before my joining. Personally, I do think there are some good aspects to shape up, like pitch writing and UI breadboarding. If I had sovereignty over a team project, I’d like to get more experience with this style.

Honorable Mention

The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky – Writing this list, I can not recall specific essays, but I have vivid memories of enjoying this collection. It represents to me a golden age of technical blogging. I miss those days. Maybe it is time for a re-read?

Is there something I missed? Let me know your favorites.

Hacker Culture Movies For The Kids

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 15:12:51 -0500

At a recent Philly CocoaHeads Side Project Saturday event, which can best be described as a social club where the conversation jumps around in a chaotic nature amongst long-time friends and peers, we got to discussing impactful movies that helped define the computer hacking persona in our culture. Specifically, we were looking for recommendations for the younger members, born in the late 90s or 2000s, who have yet to enjoy these films.

For your amusement, a compiled list of hacker-culture movies to recommend to ’the kids'.

Note: If you want to watch any of these, I suggest looking them up on JustWatch, which can display what services you can use to stream, rent or buy.

Must-Watch Movies

Watch these right now.

WarGames - The only winning move is not to play.
Her - I need to re-watch, so I remember not to fall in love with my upcoming AI girlfriend.
Office Space - PC Load Letter?! What the fuck does that mean?
The Matrix - Remember, there is no spoon, and there are no sequels.

Good-Bad Movies

I enjoy bad movies almost more than good movies.

Hackers - Must watch for a fun take of hacker culture. HACK THE PLANET!
Tron - Wizard of Oz for a virtual world. Impressive effects for the time.
Tron: Legacy - The movie is pretty good, but I re-watch for the soundtrack almost exclusively. It is bonkers good.
Swordfish Some great camp here. Perfect good-bad movie.
Johnny Mnemonic “can carry nearly 80 gigs of data in his head.” LOL.

So-So Movies

These are ok movies but not must-watch.

Minority Report - This is pretty good, but not enough for my must-watch list.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence Beautiful movie by Spielberg in the eyes of Stanley Kubrick. Not for everyone but I enjoyed it.
Enemy of the State - This is a so-so movie I’ve watched multiple times on broadcast cable TV. It must be cheap to license.
Antitrust - Another popular cable broadcast movie I enjoyed more than I should have.
The Net - Only watched this once, but a fair representation of 90s “net” culture.
Snowden - I for one, welcome our CIA overlords.
Sneakers - Listed by multiple friends, I have yet to watch it.

Bad-Bad Movies

Only watch these if you enjoy pain. Sometimes I do.

Book Thoughts: Company of One

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 14:35:05 -0500

Company of One Book Cover

This weekend I finished Company of One by Paul Jarvis. The book pitches:

I bought the book on a whim after seeing a GoodReads friend recommend it. I thought it would be a timely book to fuel my introspection as I shut down one major project and consider what is next.

Overall I found the book to be enjoyable and engaging. I even picked up a new podcast subscription to hear the author talk more about the ideas described in the book.

I do think the book’s pitch feels a bit overreaching. Rereading it now, it feels downright misleading. There are some solid recommendations about going out on your own. However, the big idea that makes the book a recommendation for me is how it challenges us to rethink growth. Why do we want to grow sales, get more customers, hire more people? What are we doing, why, and is it sustainable? Are we hiring people so we can do less work or the company can do more work?

I align with the bootstrapper community over venture capital startups. VC’s addition to growth is a big part of that, but I think this book also brings home the idea for bootstrappers.

Even in a bootstrapped company, it would be easy to end up building a machine that you do not enjoy running. You may start the company because it gives you a stage to work with a specific technology and an audience you enjoy. Suddenly you grow too fast, without understanding WHY you want to grow, and all of sudden you are spending your days doing things that do not spark joy, like managing a large group of employees or drowning in customer support.

As I step back and consider what is next for me, I think it’ll be essential to brainstorm my ideal day, week, month, and year and build the company and products that can enable that life.

For style critique, I found the book to be a little heavy on the references of other writings and research. Specifically, it felt repetitive to have such works referenced and then very thin, terse insights made. I get that this builds a more persuasive picture over time, but it was a repetitious pattern that felt like padding.

It also did not help that some of the references felt a little dated. Knowing what we know now, maybe Basecamp isn’t a good reference for a model working environment. Bringing up Google’s 20% time for personal projects without talking about how it is no longer an active practice feels disingenuous.

For style appreciation, I like how the chapters end with introspecting questions under the headline “Begin to think about…”. Ultimately I find the most successful books help you dream up questions to ask way more than books that pretend to have all the answers.

I think this can be a helpful book for those like myself who are contemplating work opportunities, projects, or a new company. However, the valuable topics brought up are much more about growth than the title ‘Company of One’ really suggests.

Framework Laptop First Thoughts

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 13:00:00 -0400

A few days ago I took delivery of a Framework laptop, a new product that prioritized repairability in support of the Right to Repair movement. I’m enjoying it a lot and wanted to share some early observations.

My notes below will be limited to hardware-related observations. As part of this laptop experiment, I’m also running an Ubuntu install and that has its own set of challenges from a long time MacOS user. Perhaps in the future I’ll share more about that.

DIY Edition

While you can purchase a prebuilt version with Windows installed, I elected to buy the DIY edition. This version comes with a selection of customized components like SSD, RAM and network card in the box but it is your job to install them. With DIY you also do not have to pay for a Windows license, which is great for me since I want to use Linux.

Installation of the components was fairly easy (even for someone with limited hardware experience) and Framework has a wonderful setup guide with lots of pictures if you need any help. The most notable issue for me was the wifi card. I had never had to install one before and the antenna wires can be a little delicate, particularly if you have larger hands like myself. While the laptop does come with a the one screwdriver size you need, I got some help via tweezers and a flat edge tool from a iFixit toolkit I already owned when it came to the wifi card installation.

There are a ton of little design choices that make this laptop feel special.

Not only do you get a screwdriver in the one size you’ll need (many other laptops require an armada of different screwdrivers to work on), it is even magnetized to hold the internal screws just a little better while working.
The screws on the base of the laptop are captive, meaning they won’t fall out and get lost when loosened.
If you were to loose an internal screw, there are extra screws inside the case.
The base and screen frame are held in with magnets, not glue, allowing for easy opening and alignment.
Instead of picking a fixed collection of ports, the Framework laptop has a simple expansion system which allows you to customize ports based on your needs. I am currently using a mix of USB-C, USB-A and HDMI components but they also have SD cards, extra storage and other options.
The machine comes with a 1080p camera and a pair of microphones connected to physical privacy switches that disconnect them when unwanted.
There is a fingerprint sensor built into the power button. This is the one hardware feature that does not work out of the box for the current Ubuntu release but there are known instructions shared by the supportive Linux users within the Framework community forum on how to get it to work. I plan to do this soon.
The screen resolution is 2256x1504, a taller 3:2 ratio than most other laptops, giving you a little extra workspace and enough pixels to run your OS in a high DPI mode for crisp text.

The overall build quality feels great. I saw Dave2D complain about some flex in the monitor but I’m not seeing an issue in my build. Keyboard feel and travel are nice although I still struggle with location of some keys due to historic time spent on my Mac.

Observed Issues

I prefer a larger laptop, like my 16-inch MacBook Pro. I like the larger screen and overall larger body on my lap, as I work sitting on a recliner. This laptop is 13.5 inches but feels a little small for my personal preference. I look forward to future Framework options that might be larger with dedicated graphics cards.

The trackpad is mechanical and not haptic which by itself is not an issue for me but still unfortunate. More importantly I have struggled with my out of the box Ubuntu trackpad experience.

First I was dealing with a frustration that a right-side tap was signaling right clicks, but this was solved with some quick tweak software. Ongoing is an issue with two finger scrolling speed being way too fast. I think this is a Gnome issue, and am hopeful a custom preference can be found to slow things down. I hear some people on a future version of Ubuntu are not having this problem so we’ll see. Finally there is my thumb placement at the bottom of the trackpad which can interrupts pointer movement with my index finger. These are technically software issues so I don’t want to ding Framework too much but want to share my notes as transparent as I can.

Alongside my MacBook Pro, I use an external display that supplies both power and the display connection over a single Thunderbolt 3 cable. Early attempts to replicate this using Framework have failed and I’m forced to use a second cable for power and the Thunderbolt cable for the display. I’ve been told there are some other improvements coming to the firmware for this, so maybe this will be resolved in time.

The speakers are good, though not as good as my MacBook Pro speakers. They are located under the front side edges which sadly makes the audio a little muffled against my legs when working with the computer on my lap while sitting on my recliner.

At 55Wh the battery capacity feels a little on the low side, but considering my typically use will not come into that play often.

Ideas

The expansion slots are a very unique aspect of the Framework laptop and sparks imagination for future possibilities. One possible idea, though size might be an issue, would be to package a little cellular connection module, allowing internet connectivity on the road.

I’d also love to see the DIY option get rid of the Windows logo for the SUPER key and instead use the Framework logo, but acknowledge for this first hardware version that is a nitpick ask.

And once again, for my personal preference, a larger 15 or 16-inch version with a dedicated graphics card would be awesome.

Conclusion

Buying a first edition laptop from a new company is no doubt a risky move. I bought a Framework laptop because their company values have alignment with Right to Repair which I am also very supportive of. Additional, the laptop comes at a time when I am actively trying to diversify my experiences outside of MacOS and it serves that purpose very well.

It has only been a week, but so far I am very positive about my Framework laptop purchase.

Book Notes: Dreaming in Code

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:41:17 -0400

Dreaming in Code is a book by Scott Rosenberg. On the book website he write:

I finished the book last night and found it very enjoyable. Its not a must read by any means but for those programmers who like to learn about process and project management, from a storyteller perspective you might enjoy. The best chapters I think are those dedicated to the general history and art of programming.

Towards the end of the book I started using the Kindle highligher (which is a first for me). Here are some excerpts:

Video Book Review: Ruined by Design by Mike Monteiro (5m)

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:58:03 -0400

https://www.ruinedby.design

A Month with the 2019 23.7-inch LG UltraFine 4K Display

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 20:00:00 -0400

Jumping from a 49-inch ultra wide to a 23.7-inch monitor at first felt like many steps backwards. Once again I’m forced to perch my MacBook Pro on a stand to be my secondary monitor. While there are many new advances and benefits of the 23.7-inch monitor, it’s hard to ignore that it doesn’t fill the void the previous 2011 27-inch iMac (ran in display mode only) was filling even before I tested out the ultra wide.

That aside, so far the monitor is working out well.

The color and resolution are amazing. With my bedroom lighting the glossy screen avoids the typical reflection issues and so I benefit with richer colors without too much of a compromise. The 500 nits of brightness are amazing and even puts my MacBook Pro display to shame. I like running the monitor at a true retina 2x 1080p of resolution for general tasks but have nudged the monitor to a scaled 1440 while doing some longer programming sessions. With the more detailed resolution and sharper text I’ve even been able to lower my coding font to grab up some extra space.

The real benefit of this monitor however comes from its nearly seamless integration with Mac OS X. All of the expected brightness and volume controls work from the keyboard. There is no power button on the display and once you connect the Thunderbolt cord to the MacBook Pro the monitor wakes up and also starts charging the laptop. Even wake from sleep is fairly reliable. (I think twice I had to do a unplug/replug for the monitor to be found but this could have also been from the fact that the cord needs to be firmly connected and the design of USB-C can leave connections to come out a little too easy sometimes.

For downsides I’ll mention the internal speakers. I like the fact they are included but the quality is pretty bad. I’m not an audiophile so it’s hard for me to describe but in my own day-to-day I’m using the MacBook Pro laptop speakers instead (for now) as I feel like they have more range. (Aside: The old iMac had good, usable speakers, I wish the LG had them.)

I think it’s a shame the monitor only has USB-C connections on the back. I would have appreciated a few USB-A type ports so I can plug my keyboard and mouse in directly without the need for yet another $39 adaptor. I also have a slight concern that this monitor won’t be usable by any of my current or future Windows computers since they prefer Display Port or even HDMI as a backup. I dunno. I have done no testing and in general am living with the fact that this is probably going to be an Apple-only monitor for me.

I would have also appreciated a basic camera for conference calls. I have an external USB camera I can setup (with ANOTHER adaptor) but not having a camera/microphone for this common need seems like an oversight for such a high end monitor.

My final complaint, and this isn’t for the monitor directly, is that using it makes my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) run hot. Check out this graph, the early days are when I was working from home with the monitor attached and then the later days are me on the road at a conference with no monitor. Connecting the monitor seems to double the temperature, just to push the pixels let alone when I’m really pushing the CPU with code compliers or video exports.

I worry about running a laptop with high thermals like this regularly day-to-day. What really stings is that under a better scenario I would be connected to a modern and affordable Mac Pro tower that would have more cooling capacity – but I digress.

In short, I’m generally pretty positive about the monitor. I think it does have a bit high of a price tag and notable compromises but the improved Mac OS X integration makes up for it for me. I wish we had more options on the market. I also wish Apple would just make a monitor for the rest of us.

PS: A few days ago LG refreshed the 5K version of this monitor sold through Apple Stores. The previous 5K was discontinued when I had to make my choice which is a shame since I think the 27-inch might have been a better match for my needs. I think I’ll sit on my hands for a while and watch for the new reviews. Perhaps in time I’ll sell my 23.7-inch 4K and upgrade or maybe I’ll just buy a second 23.7-inch 4K. That is one other benefit of the 2019 refresh is that the 23.7-inch has better support for monitor chaining. But then again, if I’m getting too much heat with one monitor I wonder how hard two would push my laptop.

The Great Monitor Search Continues (again)…

The Great Monitor Search Continues

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 19:30:40 -0400

TLDR: The LG 49 inch UltraWide monitor is pretty cool, but not very Mac compatible (specifics defects below). Next up for me is the Apple Store approved, 23.7-inch LG UltraFine 4K Display, which will trade screen real estate for retina, better color and native controls.

Backstory

I’ve been anxious to buy a new monitor for my MacBook Pro for a few months. I decided to hold off until Apple announced their Mac Pro + Display plans as I generally like all the conveniences that come from using an Apple monitor with Apple hardware and would love to buy one.

So WWDC has come and gone and while amazing, that new Apple monitor is not for me. Instead I bought what I had been eyeing for a while, the LG 49WL95C-W 49 inch 32:9 UltraWide.

YouTube Reviews: Linus Tech Tips, The Tech Chap, MacRumors

Defects

I got to use the LG 49 inch UltraWide monitor for about two weeks and while I enjoyed the extreme screen real estate, I just ran into too many hardware issues and so it’s getting returned.

First, was random screen blackouts. I actually was prepared for this from reading reviews before purchase, but I also read that recent firmware updates fixed it. In my own experience I had some early blackouts on day one, used the (very non-Mac like) LG software to update the monitor firmware and didn’t see anymore … until today, where I had a few pop up while watching YouTube. (Maybe the monitor has figured out it’s getting returned and it is out to get me?).

The bigger issue however is screen resolution and refresh rate. If you wake up a connected MacBook Pro via a keyboard connected to the monitor you have about a 30% chance it will get the resolution right. When it goes wrong you’ll either end up with an extremely distorted view (as in the OS doesn’t know what monitor is connected and everything is stretched out) or you’ll get the native resolution but the refresh rate will only be 30 Hz. That refresh rate is really iffy too, sometime I see a pull down in System Preferences that lets me switch to 60 Hz, other times I get no pull down and my only recourse is to power down the monitor and attempt a reconnect or a system reboot. It’s pretty annoying and a deal breaker for such a high end piece of equipment.

There are other problems too, like not being able to edit the speaker volume or brightness using the native Mac system controls but since I’ve started my monitor search months ago I sadly came to accept some tradeoffs. Frankly it’s really hard to find a good monitor to pair up a Mac with.

I’ve begun the refund process with Amazon and it seems like I should get a full refund since it’s under 30 days. We’ll see.

Round Two

For my second contender I’ve chosen the more Apple approved, 23.7-inch LG UltraFine 4K Display. While it does not have anywhere near the size or screen real estate of the previous 49-inch monitor it will be a retina display, that comes with better color and more integrated controls.

YouTube Reviews: MacRumors, 9to5Mac

My general thinking is that maybe in the long run I’ll get two of these (it has some nice thunderbolt chaining possibilities) to get back my extra room, but will test drive just one for now.

While I’m sure I will enjoy the Mac integration, there is part of me that also worries that this might not play nice with Windows should I ever need to use the monitor with that OS. Again, lots of compromises to be made when shopping for monitors right now so sadly I’ll deal.

Book: The Common Good

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 10:00:00 -0500

I’ve been a long time fan of Robert Reich and particularly enjoyed his documentary Inequality for All from 2013. This year he has a new book, The Common Good – and I liked it a lot.

I like this book because it goes above the here and now issues to ask the bigger question of how our society broke down and then offers some thoughts as to what it will take to fix it.

The book ends with a discussion guide which doubles as a fair outline of what’s in the book. Check it out, and if you want to know more – get the book.

A Discussion Guide for The Common Good

PART I: What Is the Common Good?

How do you define the “common good” in America? What do Americans have in common other than national symbols like the flag and the national anthem? What do these symbols mean to you?
Do Americans have obligations to the nation in addition to paying taxes, serving on juries, and voting? If so, what are they?
Some say Americans are selfish and self-centered. Others point to acts of kindness and courage—first responders to emergencies, everyday acts of altruism. How would you describe our national character?
Has America’s character changed over time—since your parents were children, for example? If so, how and why?
Do you trust government to do the right thing most of the time? Do you believe in our system of government—the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, federalism, and the rule of law?
What’s the difference between a concern for the common good and nationalism?
What role does a president play in setting the moral tone of the nation?

PART II: What Happened to the Common Good?

Why has the public’s trust in all major American institutions—especially government, big businesses, banks, and the media—plunged over the past forty years? What events or trends have been most responsible for the decline?
Americans appear to have become far more partisan than we were forty years ago—liberals have moved to the “left” and conservatives to the “right,” Republicans and Democrats are less willing to compromise, and everyone seems to be angrier. Why has this happened?
Have widening inequalities of income and wealth played a part?
Has the flood of big money into our political system played a part?
Are the two related?
Why before the 1980s did big corporations have responsibilities toward their communities and their workers, in addition to their shareholders? Why after the 1980s did big corporations focus solely on maximizing profits and shareholder returns? Should corporations go back to their former ways?
A major theme in the 2016 presidential election, coming from both major parties, was that the economic system is “rigged” for the benefit of those at the top. Why did this theme appear so prominently in 2016 and not before? Do you agree with it?

PART III: Can the Common Good Be Restored?

What are the attributes of good leadership? Do leaders of business, government, and the media have responsibilities to restore trust in their institutions? If so, how should they go about it?
What roles do honor and shame play in contemporary American society? Ideally, who should be honored and for what, and who should be shamed and for what? How should such honoring and shaming occur?
Who do you trust to inform you about public issues such as climate change, the economy, or dangers posed by foreign governments? What are the qualities or characteristics you look for in deciding whom to trust in conveying the truth?
Does a democracy depend on a shared reality, or can a democracy function with people believing fundamentally different facts?
Are Americans adequately educated about how government and the economy are supposed to work, as well as how they actually work? If not, what should that education consist of, and when should it begin?
Do Americans have sufficient understanding of the obligations of citizenship? If not, who should be responsible for providing this understanding? Parents? Teachers? Public officials?
Do we have an obligation to break out of our self-made “bubbles” of friends, neighbors, and Internet algorithms that confirm everything we believe? If so, how can we do it? If not, can we still be effective participants in our democracy?
How do you think the common good can best be restored?

31 Days, 31 Products: Skitch

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 21:16:17 +0000

Day 31: Skitch

Skitch is a screenshot and notation tool from Evernote. With Skitch you can take screenshots using various options and then annotate them with vibrant pink arrows, shapes and text. Like this:

I really enjoying using Skitch during app audits where I can take a bunch of screenshots on device and then import them for annotations. Having the visual evidence to help back up your argument is really handy. The software itself is fairly strait forward and focused. With an Evernote account it will sync all your files though I usually import and export them as I need.

Skitch is a free download on the Mac App Store or directly from the Evernote website. Enjoy!

31 Days, 31 Products: OmniDiskSweeper

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 02:40:39 +0000

Day 30: OmniDiskSweeper

When choosing software for this series I particularly get a kick out of linking to products I suspect many might not know about. With that in mind, tonight I present OmniDiskSweeper!

OmniDiskSweeper is a little app from the OmniGroup they’ve been distributing for years that let’s you scan a hard drive and sort every folder by the size its taking up. OmniDiskSweeper is a great tool to use when you are trying to figure out how to trim down your hard disk usage.

I currently have an iMac whose main system drive is a 256 GB SSD and between my Dropbox, video games and video editing work it’s very easy to fill up. Using OmniDiskSweeper I quickly figure out what needs to get deleted or migrated to my external media drive when free space gets too small.

OmniDiskSweeper is a free download. Enjoy.

31 Days, 31 Products: iOctocat, GitHub on your iPhone and iPad

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 23:11:29 +0000

Day 29: iOctocat, GitHub on your iPhone and iPad

For mobile GitHub management nothing beats iOctocat. If you find yourself on the road and needing to check in with GitHub this is a must have app. I use it mostly for keeping track of pull requests and getting push notification of status changes.

iOctocat is a free download on the App Store with in-app purchased to unlock a Pro feature set for $14.

31 Days, 31 Products: Reeder

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 03:05:02 +0000

Day 28: Reeder

I had a bit of an RSS resurgence when I got my iPad Pro last year and my reading app of choice is Reeder.

Simple and consistent can sounds kind of boring but I think that it can also make for the best iOS apps. Apps that get out of the way and let their content be king work best — and for Reeder this is no exception.

Using Reeder you can import your feeds from a large list of “feed hosts” (I use Feed Wrangler). Like similar reading apps Reeder provides a nice sanitized version of the articles as well as quick links to their original HTML version. When you are done reading or skimming, Reeder has actions for Instapaper saving or otherwise sharing what you’d found on Twitter or other social platforms.

While I enjoy Reeder primarily for the iPad, it works for iPhone devices as well. Reeder costs $5 and can be purchased from the App Store.

31 Days, 31 Products: Flixster

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 01:52:03 +0000

Day 27: Flixster

We just had a great year of movies and 2016 keeps them coming. The app I use to keep on top of trailers and showtimes is Flixster.

I feel like I installed Flixster when I first got my iPhone. It’s a great app to launch when you have some time to kill. I love watching trailers and looking at the release calendar.

A free download and simple UI. If you don’t have Flixster, give it a shot.

31 Days, 31 Products: Dash

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 18:58:12 +0000

Day 26: Dash

Dash is a super nice and clean API Documentation Browser.

I use Dash with Xcode and iOS/Mac API primarily but you can in fact integrate Dash with a long list of other third party code editors and download over 150 language/API document sets too.

Having the API docs available at the click of a mouse (or key command) from your favorite text editor is a must have for any serious developer. If you been limited yourself you Xcode’s default experience I highly encourage you to try out Dash.

Dash does have a free trial available with an in-app purchase to unlock the full version for $25. It is available from the App Store as well as direct.

31 Days, 31 Products: Sketch

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 18:19:08 +0000

Day 25: Sketch

Sketch is a vector-based design tool for the Mac that is very good for people designing user interfaces.

I’ve owned Sketch for a while now. I’ve used it to mock up some UI and icons in the past but I’m not really an expert. I know enough to say I do like it and if you are interested in using it for interface design I highly recommend it.

I have a goal for the new year to become more proficient in Sketch. I’m signed up and really looking forward to attending the Big Nerd Ranch class on UI design in April. It includes teaching Sketch along side higher level UI concepts. I’ve also bought an online video course that I hope to start working through soon.

If you are at all curious I encourage you to download the free trial of Sketch and give it a go. If you like it, a license can be purchased for $99 from their online store.

31 Days, 31 Products: SuperDuper!

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 26 Dec 2015 19:47:44 +0000

Day 24: SuperDuper!

This is a timely recommendation as just yesterday I had a bit of a scare where my external 2TB (platter-based) media drive decided not to mount. Happy to say the drive did wake up eventually but I wasn’t too concerned since I has a fairly recent backup I made with SuperDuper.

SuperDuper is a cloning tool that can help you clone a hard drive to another drive or DMG file. The drive based clones are fully bootable and can help you out when your main drive bites the dust. SuperDuper can do full or incremental backups, and these can also be scheduled to run overnight.

My current home setup includes an 2011 iMac with 2 internal hard drives. A 256 SSD acts as the main system HD and a 2 TB platter-based drive is cut up for various purposes (1 partition is a Bootcamp drive, 1 is a mirror backup of the SSD and the other is a time machine backup of the SSD). I then have a separate 2 TB external media HD which has my iTunes library and general archive (the largest files consisting of old video projects).

I use SuperDuper on a scheduled backup to clone my main system hard drive and then I use a OmniFocus monthly todo remind me to plug in another 2 TB drive to mirror my main media archive. The incremental backup works get here making the task really quick and easy to do.

SuperDuper has save my ass many times and I highly recommend it as a valuable tool to help you migrate data around and help facilitate your backup strategy.

A free download of SuperDuper is available but if you want to unlock the incremental, scheduling and scripting features you’ll need to purchase a license. A license costs $28 and can be purchased from the Shirt Pocket store.

31 Days, 31 Products: Status Board

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 01:38:22 +0000

Day 23: Status Board

Status Board is an iOS app from Panic that lets you turn an old iPad into a visual collection of actionable data.

Like all Panic software the app itself is incredibly well put together. New in version 2 you can have multiple boards, wallpapers, photo panels and more. You can even output the status board to a TV to make a large status board (as seen from Panic itself):

While I love having my own old(er) iPad show me status, my biggest complaint, and warning for people interested, is that the default panels provide very basic data and you are more than likely going to have to do some work to get the good numbers out of your system of interest and in into their format. Panic does link to various third parties that can help but I still feel like more could be done to support the community.

Status Board is a free download from the App Store with an in-app purchase to unlock all the panels for $10.

31 Days, 31 Products: BBEdit

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 22:15:07 +0000

Day 22: BBEdit

There are lots of text editors out there for Mac OS X and I’ll be up front in saying I use different ones for different tasks. When it comes to extremely large files, large find and replace, text file corruption or general system configuration files, I turn to BBEdit.

I’ve been a long time BBEdit user, going back to when I first started with the Mac during the “Classic” days. It’s one of the most solid, stable text editors out there and a great tool to add to your collection.

BBEdit has a free trial available. A license will cost you $49 and can be purchase directly from the Bare Bones Software store.

31 Days, 31 Products: Vimeo

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 21:55:26 +0000

Day 21: Vimeo

When it comes to professional video hosts, I choose Vimeo.

Vimeo is a video hosting site that empowers creators to have more control over how their content is displayed and distributed than other services like YouTube.

I like using Vimeo since I can pay for a Pro account which then let’s me upload HD content, have access to that content via an API and makes sure no ads are ever shown over my content. Vimeo is also much more reasonable about ownership right.

Right now we use Vimeo for Philly CocoaHeads content and I have a personal channel as well with some odd and ends. No doubt as I look to do more work for my upcomming project you’ll see a new channel open up soon.

Vimeo has a few tiers of membership with different options and you get started with a trial account.

31 Days, 31 Products: OmniGraffle

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 19:28:26 +0000

Day 20: OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle is a an app from the OmniGroup that lets people design, I’ll call them, component-based compositions; things like data models, website wireframes, and more.

I’ve been a long time user of OmniGraffle, in particular I love using it to make flow charts to help visualize app launch sequences or data download flows. I’ve even recently come to use it to help me plan furniture arrangements in my apartment (side note: I really want to get more space in the future, I miss having a dedicated office space).

OmniGraffle is probably not an app you’ll need on a daily basis but when you do, it’s really nice to use and can help you produce some awesome documentation. Like all the Omni apps, it’s extremely well done with lots of polish and documentation.

While this plug is for the Mac version of OmniGraffle I do want to mention that I did purchase the iOS version when I got my iPad Pro a few weeks ago too. While I’ve only spent 15 minutes with it on the iPad it really feels well done and I encourage you to check it out if interested.

OmniGraffle for Mac does have a free demo available. A license can be purchased for $99 Standard or $199 Pro from the Omni Store or the Mac App Store.

31 Days, 31 Products: Trello

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 02:38:44 +0000

Day 19: Trello

Trello is a product I’ve been using for years. It’s an online software version of a Kanban board. Google explains:

Kanban boards are a great way to organize tasks that have to travel through a status flow. While a physical version of the board has its own merits in my work and collaborations it has been much more important to have these boards online, enter Trello.

You can start using Trello with very simple boards like this:

As you become more familar with the app you can then add media to cards, create checklists, add summaries, assign owners, and so on.

The first time I remember jumping in and really getting a lot out of Trello was back in 2010 when I was part of a startup. We used Trello to manage almost everything; sprints towards our product work, consulting efforts and even our sales pipeline. It worked great.

In more recent time I’ve seen the CocoaLove team use Trello. They tracked marketing efforts, speaker proposals, sales, sponsors and more. Having it all out on a virtual board, shared with the team and updated in real time — it gave a visual sense of completion and progress that was much appreciated.

For more info check out this walkthrough video or Trello’s own Getting Started Guide. Experimenting with Trello is extremely low risk. They have free accounts that let’s you really get to the know the product and then price tiers if you want to start some more sophisticated collaboration or integration. Trello is highly recommended.

31 Days, 31 Products: Postbox

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 01:50:45 +0000

Day 18: Postbox

Email apps can be a point of contention for many people. For me I’ve settled into a very functional but plain setup.

At the base, I use a few Gmail accounts with lots of server side filtering into folders (for things like mailing lists, automated responses, etc). Then I use an IMAP-friendly desktop app. In recent years the IMAP-client of choice for me has been Postbox, a fairly clean and strait-forward email client that has its roots from the Thunderbird project. Despite the cross platform support of Postbox (it runs on Windows too) it still fits in well on the Mac.

My email flow is as follows. I archive most email while deleting the outright trash. I’ll scan the new messages in my spam folder about once a week. I find I usually pull out a few emails which while are promotional though I wouldn’t consider outright spam. I do try to unsubscribe form things that are too noisy. When I need to search Postbox does a fairly good job for resent stuff though I’d be lying if I didn’t jump to the web version of Gmail for searches that need to go deep into the archives.

So yeah, Postbox is not the sexiest software out there for email but it serves me just fine and might be worth a look if you want something solid and simple.

A free trial of Postbox is available, and, if you like it, a license can be purchased from them directly for $15.

31 Days, 31 Products: Elgato Game Capture HD

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 02:36:44 +0000

Day 17: Elgato Game Capture HD

Elgato Game Capture HD is actually a hardware/software combo. Its an external capture device that does HDMI passthrough, grabbing whatever video signal you are passing through (be it from a video game console or computer display). It will them compress the video as mp4 on the device and and delver the compressed video to a Mac via a USB cable connection (which is also used for power). On the Mac you’ll run some software that saves the capture to disk and also optionally helps you stream to Twitch.

I originally bought and used the Game Capture HD to help me record some Let’s Plays.

As for my own “Let’s Play career”, it was short lived. I had a bunch of fun doing a handful of series before quitting mid-way through Final Fantasy IV. I quit because I started to have other life goals and while fun, the amount work it took to produce the videos compared to their small impact — it didn’t feel worth it.

ANYWAYS… the Elgato Game Capture HD found its way to be useful for me once more this past year when we decided to start capturing CocoaHead talks. I now use the device to capture our HDMI output (before it’s redirected to the televisions) and I have to say the recorder software holds up well to us switching machines, resolutions and what not while recording. After the meeting, I take the videos from here and then match a separate audio capture we do through a lapel microphone to build our final video, (edited in ScreenFlow, and published on Vimeo).

If you are interested in video capture you can browse the Elgato Gaming site for a rundown of the current product lineup. The device I use is the base model and costs $150 retail but there are other options if you want higher frame rate capture (mine is 30 fps, they also have 60 fps available).

31 Days, 31 Products: Hearthstone

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 05:01:10 +0000

Day 16: Hearthstone

Everyone needs something to destress, something to be a friendly distraction in-between long coding sessions. For me as of late this is a mix of podcast walks and Hearthstone.

Hearthstone is an online card game from Blizzard, designed around the heroes of Warcraft. Warcraft lore is not a requirement but will be enjoyed for those have some background. Leeroy!

The format of the game has you pick a hero class and build a deck of 30 cards (a mix of class specific cards, and general cards). As you play the game you’ll draw cards, spend mana to play cards, use cards to fight other cards and hopefully, overtime, kill your opponent. It sounds more complicated than it really is. The good news is Hearthstone is extremely welcoming to new players. It has some great tutorials to get you started.

Hearthstone is a free to play game. You can earn gold through daily quests (win 2 games as mage, etc.) and other means which let you buy more cards, expansion packs or play special Arena mode games (which itself rewards cards). These things can also be unlocked for cash directly should you start to enjoy the game and want to progress your card collection a little faster.

As it goes, being a free to play game, you’ll have a plenty of opportunity to experience the game to see if you like it without spending any money. If you do like the game, you will probably want to buy some cards to jumpstart your collection. The need for this will also vary with how much you like to experiment with new decks. Sure enough there are players our there who have gotten Legendary rank using pure Free 2 Play accounts.

The game itself is playable on the Mac/Windows, iPhone or iPad. If you every want to throw down, my Battle.net name is zorn711. Good luck.

31 Days, 31 Products: Charles Proxy

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 00:04:11 +0000

Day 15: Charles Proxy

Setting up an HTTP proxy to observe internet traffic on your machine is incredibly valuable when developing web or mobile applications. My tool of choice for such is Charles Proxy.

It’s been a while since I really evaluated what else is on the market for this kind of need but as the saying goes, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I find Charles Proxy works well, particularly for observing SSL traffic on the iOS simulator which requires a bit of setup to get working right.

Charles Proxy has a free trial available and if you like it a license will cost you $50 from their site directly.

31 Days, 31 Products: OmniFocus

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 23:22:05 +0000

Day 14: OmniFocus

OmniFocus, from the OmniGroup, is a task manager that embraces the work style of Getting Things Done.

I’ve been an on again and off again user of GTD / OmniFocus for many years now. I’ve done GTD through index cards, automated scripts over OmniOutliner and then eventually OmniFocus. For the years where I did stop, it was mostly because I was taking time off my side work and frankly didn’t have that much to keep track of. Over the last few months however I’ve been taking on more things and setting up some long term goals. OmniFocus has really helped me stay on track and keep up with my responsibilities.

A bit about my setup. I use the Mac version primarily but also own the iOS version for occasional reference and general OmniGroup UI-fanboy reasons. I have project folders for Personal, Work, CocoaHeads and Clickable Bliss (Relaunch). I also have projects named “Tasks” and “Someday Maybe” for each responsibility which is a great place for one-off things. I’m much better about doing my Reviews since restarting, typically doing them on Mondays. I take the time to not only cleanup my inbox, mark done things which I have yet to check off but to also flag those items for which I want to work on that week. Some of my flags are a little more well-wishing then they should be but I like having the flag context be my ‘sit down at desk, what do I need to do today’ list.

I also use a browser extension for quick recording of URLs. This isn’t the Read Later stuff I send to Instapaper, but more the, hey I’m writing an app in EmberJS and here’s a great article on authentication. Let me add it to the EmberJS research project. Or, heres a great gift idea for my sister, let me add the URL to the Buy Christmas Presents project.

OmniFocus for Mac does have a free trial. When you are ready to buy you can use the Mac App Store or buy from OmniGroup direct. Standard Edition is $40, Pro is $80. The iOS app (App Store) is similarly, $40 for Standard and $60 for Pro.

31 Days, 31 Products: SourceTree

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 20:52:01 +0000

Day 13: SourceTree

SourceTree is Mac OS X app that serves as a UI front end for the popular version control system Git. (Upon writing this it seems to also support Mercurial as well, though my comments below are from the perspective of a git user.)

While I think it’s important for all git users to be comfortable with the command line interface I can’t help but personally prefer to interact with my repos more visually on a day-to-day basis. The SourceTree UI isn’t going to win any Apple Design Awards since it leaks the command line git to the user, but that’s fine with me. I’m not looking for visual-only version control for non-geeks — I just want a solid UI for my git interactions.

My favorite features include, spell checking my commit messages, diff-ing branches, easily stashing and de-stashing code snippets and the open in terminal window (for when I need it). I also enjoy having a visual UI for when I’m reviewing the commit stage and want to make sure no frivolous xib changes are going to be committed via accidental saves in Xcode.

SourceTree is a free download available from the Atlassian website though you may need to register for an unlock license.

31 Days, 31 Products: Instapaper

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 03:12:52 +0000

Day 12: Instapaper

Instapaper is an app that let’s you mark articles to be “read later” and then presents them to you in a very clean, ad-free environment. I’ve been a long time Instapaper fan (before similar services like Pocket or Safari’s own reading list were even available); it’s an app that really shines on the iPad for long couch sessions. It’s also pretty good about storing the content for offline reading in case you are on a plane with a no connection.

I highly recommend Instapaper. The ability to collect up all your readings is particularly efficient. Additionally, you may find that when your time is being blocked off you might be a little more choosy about which article you want to give your time. Do not put pressure on yourself to empty your list. Treat it as an basket of possibilities.

Instapaper has clients for iOS, Android and the desktop web. The apps and the service are free, but there is a premium option for $29/year to help symbolize your support and get a few more features.

31 Days, 31 Products: TextExpander

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 17:14:29 +0000

Day 11: TextExpander

TextExpander is an app that expands text. 🙂

Seriously though, TextExpander is a great system wide tool for Mac OS X that helps you type out a single word or string and then it will expand it into the full message you wanted. Some examples of my own use:

mike@cb.com into mike@clickablebliss.com
cphone into 215-555-5555
hphone into 215-555-4444
ac- into Acceptance Criteria:
git- into (a long gitignore useful for Xcode Projects)
ddate into (current date)
ttime into (current time)

For me TextExpander really shined while I was doing customer support for my products. I would be able to break down most email responses with answers and other messaging really quickly, while at the same time mixing in the personal side of the response and not sound like a robot. I also love that I can store my TextExpander dictionary on Dropbox and share it on all my devices. Makes every machine feel like home.

TextExpander has a free trial available. A license will cost you $44.95 and can be bought from the Smile online store.

31 Days, 31 Products: Byword

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 01:38:20 +0000

Day 10: Byword

Today is kind of a two-for-one in that I’d like promote both Markdown and my favorite Markdown editor, Byword.

Markdown is a plain text format originally designed by John Gruber that let’s you style up text for later transformation into HTML. The big idea with Markdown is that the plain text itself should still be readable and convey the intent, even in plain text.

Byword is a Markdown and Plain Text editor for Mac OS X that offers a simple interface that let’s you focus on the content instead of the tools. While Byword is also available on iOS I primarily use it on Mac OS X.

I’ve been using Markdown as far back am I can remember having the option. I also remember back in the day there was a lot of competition with another format called Textile, which had a lot of support from 37signals. Markdown seems to have won the day. In particular I really like GitHub’s flavor. I do sometimes wish for something more. One feature I’d like it to be able to highlight lines or chunks of code for tutorial purposes. I’d also like to see more open source Markdown into ebook options.

I’ve been a pretty regular Byword user since its introduction. I love the content-focused UI. I like the little features, like using my h1 as the file name for a new document. I also enjoy the HTML preview window quite a bit. There are various forms on Meetup.com and some want HTML, others want rich text. Using Byword I can generate both really quickly.

Byword for Mac is available exclusively through the Mac App Store for $11.99 with a $4.99 in-app purchase to add blog publishing features.

31 Days, 31 Products: Today

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 20:09:06 +0000

Day 09: Today

Weather apps are probably one of the biggest category of apps out there. Everyone has a favorite, and Today is mine.

For me the view I like the most is the visual seven day, showing the highs and the lows, using colors to express heat.

Not sure what else to say, it’s a simple app for a simple problem with a clean design and a unique take.

Today costs $1.99 and is available on the App Store.

31 Days, 31 Products: SimPholders

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:38:25 +0000

Day 08: SimPholders

SimPholders is a great example of identifying a small but troublesome issue and building a simple solution for it. SimPholders is a menu bar extension that helps you quickly get at the most recent Xcode simulator builds in the Finder as well as a handful of other useful features.

I’ve been using SimPholders for a while and it’s really handy. I find myself often needing to sneak into a app’s documents folder to inspect a Core Data database, or fidget with some other resource and SimPholders makes it super easy. This despite all of the latest complexities of Xcode and the growth in simulator devices / platforms.

SimPholders has a free trial and when it’s up you can buy a license for $11 from their website.

31 Days, 31 Products: TweetBot & Twitterrific

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 15:35:51 +0000

Day 07: TweetBot & Twitterrific

Doing a two for one special today (Cyber Monday and all!) with two of my favorite Twitter clients.

For me, the only reason I found Twitter usable and joined in 2007 was because of Twitterrific for Mac OS X. There was no way I was going to visit the Twitter website to stay active but the idea of having my timeline live on my desktop was a killer feature, and thus a killer app.

Later on iOS, I with many others experienced an orgy of Twitter app options. I personally favored Tweetie but after that was bought and killed by Twitter itself I moved on to TweetBot.

I do prefer TweetBot on the phone, but when it comes to my iPad I’m back to Twitterrific. While a bit bulky to look at, I just love the full screen view of my timeline.

Twitterrific for iOS is a free download on the App Store with a $4.99 in-app purchase to unlock the full app. Twitterrific for Mac also has a free trial which can be licensed through the Iconfactory Store for $9.95 or purchased through the Mac App Store.

TweetBot for iOS is a pay for download on the App Store and will costs you $4.99. TweetBot for Mac is also a pay for download on the Mac App Store and will cost you $9.99.

31 Days, 31 Products: Duet

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 21:15:42 +0000

Day 06: Duet

Duet is a new addition to my toolset, one of the many apps I bought after getting my iPad Pro, and wow is it good. Duet lets you use your iPad as a secondary monitor and unlike some previous Airplay-based solutions of the past, Duet actually uses a wired connection for a zero lag experience. To run Duet you’ll install an app on the iPad and then a secondary app on your Mac or Windows desktop machine. When the iOS app launches you’ll instantly connect and have a secondary monitor available in System Preferences, just like a “real” monitor. The connection process is seamless and there is no lag on the iPad.

I’ve been using Duet at home with my iMac and it’s so helpful to have the extra space for chat rooms or long running videos. I was also considering buying a portable monitor to use while I’m on the road teaching (one screen for slide and Xcode demo, and the other for my notes) and Duet looks like it will solve that problem too.

As mentioned above it takes two apps to run Duet. The iOS app is available on the App Store for $15.99 and the Mac and Windows clients are free downloads available on their website.

31 Days, 31 Products: ScreenFlow

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 22:48:48 +0000

Day 05: ScreenFlow

ScreenFlow is a best in class tool for screen capturing and video editing. Typically I use ScreenFlow to make screencasts, short videos primary featuring action from my desktop with a voice narration. These screencasts are incredibly powerful, wether it’s a short demo to accompany a code pull request or feature walkthrough for the client. Having these screencasts not only answers questions but creates archivable value in that they can be replayed for new developers or stakeholders in the future. I also use ScreenFlow to assemble and edit the video and audio sources for our CocoaHead videos.

So even though modern OS X has limited support in QuickTime for capturing the screen, I still recommend ScreenFlow. Its capture tools are really easy to use and can capture multiple things at once (like the desktop, your camera, your voice and the computer audio — all on separate editing tracks). Once your editing you’ll have even more power to trim the movie, speed up boring things like text entry, and cleanup the audio track.

ScreenFlow has a free trial download available on it’s website and when your ready to buy a license it will cost you $99 from Telestream’s store or the Mac App Store.

31 Days, 31 Products: Acorn

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 20:54:47 +0000

Day 04: Acorn

Acorn is an image editor for Mac OS X built with tons of love, from the native UI that feels like it truly belongs on Mac OS X to some of the most impressive documentation and tutorials you’ll find. When you choose Acorn you’re getting a first class product.

I’ve been a long time Acorn user. I find it’s much quicker to open and do some quick image cropping or color adjustments than some other monster app like Photoshop. I’ve also made use of it’s excellent scripting features before to automate screenshot processing and the like. It’s a huge time saver.

Acorn has a free trial available on it’s website and when you are ready to buy you can buy direct or via the Mac App Store. A license will cost you $29.99.

31 Days, 31 Products: 1Password

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 18:25:57 +0000

Day 03: 1Password

Usernames and passwords are a broken system, yet sadly one we’re likely to still be using for a while to come. 1Password is tool that can help you generate and retrieve good (hard to crack) and unique passwords for every site you use. With apps for every platform and features like browser extensions with form fill, thumbprint identification on iOS and security warnings about hacked sites, I find 1Password to be a must have app and one of the first apps I install on a new machine.

I’ve even enjoy using 1Password to share stuff. For example, at CocoaHeads we share a group vault for a handful of credentials shared via Dropbox. Now I know they just introduced a new team sharing feature so maybe this is a little old school, but it’s working for us and we like it.

My biggest feature request for 1Password is to get something more advanced than the master password for my Mac. Some thumbprint hardware would be cool, or maybe even a face+voice recognition alternative. This would obviously get some push if Apple introduced a native thumbprint scanner on their Macbook line. Maybe some day…

1Password can be bought through the Mac App Store or their site. A Mac license costs $49 (with a free trial available) and the iOS client is a free download on the App Store with a $9.99 in-app purchase for some more advanced features. Windows and Android versions are also available for similar pricing; again, see their store page for details.

31 Days, 31 Products: Fin

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 17:05:38 +0000

Day 02: Fin

Fin is an app for iOS that turns your device into a large countdown timer; particularly helpful for presentations and performances. Fin is a universal app that works well for iPad as well as iPhone. It even has Watch support.

I’ve been using Fin via an iPad mini at CocoaHeads and it really helps us stay on time with our busy agenda. I really like the color warnings when time is running out and generally how easy it is to reset / change times with gestures.

Fin is available from the App Store for $4.99 and you can find out more about it on its website.

31 Days, 31 Products: MindNode

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 22:42:19 +0000

Day 01: MindNode

MindNode is a tool for mind mapping. Mind mapping is a process where you take a word, phrase or topic and place it in the middle of a piece of paper. From there you create branches off that first object to help explore or document an idea. Similar to brainstorming through a text-based outline, mind maps tend to be favored by people who think visually and like to accompany their maps with color assignments, drawings and more.

I’ve been using MindNode for a few months now, both on Mac OS X as well as iOS and it works great. The document format works on both sides so you can start a mind map on the iPad and bring it back the Mac with no issues. The UI of MindNode is simple but familiar. If you have experience with Keynote or Pages, you should feel well at home.

As for what I mind map, well, related to my recent announcements it’s mostly been things like naming (companies, products) and then pro/con list for different app ideas. I also recently did a map for how I organize my Dropbox files (a future blog post maybe).

MindNode is available from the Mac App Store ($29) as well as the iOS App Store ($9). A free trial for Mac can be downloaded from their website.

24 Hours with My iPad Pro

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:46:33 +0000

I’ve always been a big fan of the iPad. I’ve owned an: iPad 1, iPad 2 (which I sold to upgrade to an iPad 3), an iPad mini (retina), and now an iPad Pro.

I’ve been pretty antsy for an iPad Pro since I saw the original announcement. I can’t say I have any unquie plans for it (outside reading Big Nerd Ranch book drafts in PDF format on a much bigger screen). Mostly I just want to experiment with the all the new features like the pencil and multitasking.

As of right now I have the iPad Pro itself (I went with the high end, 128 GB with cellular) and the keyboard cover. The pencil has been a little harder to come by so until then I’m making due with the 53 Pencil I bought a while ago but never really got into due to the smallness of the iPad mini. So far, it plus the larger screen is working out well. I look forward to comparing this to Apple’s version.

There are lots of great iPad Pro reviews out there so I won’t go into major detail. The things I’m liking a lot: the huge screen, the sound system and the battery life. The things that got me down a bit: the removal of the split keyboard (it’s hard to type holding the iPad Pro in portrait mode), lack of 3D Touch and the lack of the newer thumbprint scanner.

All that said, when it comes down to it, it’s about the software. I think I’ve spent $100 in new software playing around with things. If you know of some must have iPad software let me know cause I want to see how hard I can push this thing. Tomorrow should be a great test as I fly down to Atlanta to visit the home office of Big Nerd Ranch.

Farewell Edge Cases

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 15:43:46 +0000

Cue the Journey song, Edge Cases is ending.

Edge Cases was a podcast hosted by long time Apple developers Andrew Pontious and Wolf Rentzsch. Surprising unlike many other podcasts hosted by Apple developers, Edge Cases actually embraced the code, doing weekly non-topical coverage of coding concepts, practices and history. The show ends after 128 episodes and will be missed.

I’ve been following Wolf since the MacHack days and Andrew since the blogging boom of the early 2000s. Both are incredibly insightful and genuine. I want to thank them for putting on such a great show. The dedication it takes to run a regularly published podcast is no small feat and it was appreciated. I wish them well with their future projects.

If you haven’t listened to the Edge Cases show before I encourage you to browse the archives and give it a try. The content is timeless.

Star Trek: Into Darkness, Nitpicks and Plot Holes

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 27 May 2013 03:50:06 +0000

This is Spoiler Country. If you aren’t ready for spoilers, you might want to skip this post.

I haven’t even opened my M&Ms and we already got nitpicks.

Why did Khan use his blood to save the girl and have the guy drop a ring into a glass of water to destroy the lab in London? What if when proposed with this opportunity the man called Starfleet police instead? What if he let Khan cure his daughter first and then call Starfleet police? Why take these risks? Can’t Khan with his superior intellect blow up that lab on his own?
How does Spock use a “cold fusion bomb” to freeze a volcano when cold fusion in real science generates heat/energy?
Wouldn’t suddenly freezing an active volcano have other bad side effects for the planet? Volcanos help a planet release pressure. Where is all the pressure going to go now?
Was the Enterprise really designed to function under water? To be able to use thrusters under water?
Why are we hiding the Enterprise under the water just outside the village when the goal is not to be seen? There is no fucking reason for the ship to even be in the atmosphere of this fucking planet. There are shuttle crafts and beaming for this kind of stuff.
Kirk gets stripped of command, sent back to the academy and reinstated as first commander in like what, 5 on-screen minutes? Give him 5 more: Pike dies and he becomes Captain once again. For a movie with a theme of learning responsibility (which is sadly a repeat of the first movie) this just feels wrong.
How does Spock rationalize breaking the prime directive via freezing an active volcano but looses his shit about letting the natives see a starship? What a fucking hypocrite.

An aside on the “The Prime Directive” for you ignorant sluts out there…

The Prime Directive, Articles of the Federation, Chapter I, Article II, Paragraph VII:

Jonathan Archer:

Jean-Luc Picard:

Fuck the Prime Directive we have a volcano scene to shoot, I mean to stop!

Khan’s plan makes no sense!

After the events of the first movie Admiral Marcus wants Starfleet to be militarized and needs more powerful weapons. Admiral Marcus starts searching space for an edge of some kind and discovers the Botany Bay. Marcus unfreezes Khan and finds out he has super intelligence and strength. Marcus convinces Khan to help him build long range torpedoes and advanced starships to help militarize Starfleet. Khan goes along with this plan but after a while something changes and Khan leaves the secret base.

What a coincidence, they unfreeze 1 of 73 and it just so happens to be Khan once again. Why not give some screen time to Joachim?
Khan went into cryostasis in 1996, before First Contact and before we had warp capability. How the hell does he know how to make all this shit?
Why didn’t Marcus unfreeze more if not all the other super smart people? Surly more super intelligent people would help him get better weapons and faster too — Mythical Man Month not withstanding.
Why does Khan not demand the rest of his people be unfrozen right away? Perhaps Marcus doesn’t trust Khan, but if that’s true then shouldn’t Marcus have a tail on him. How does Khan get away with so much stuff while under Marcus’s nose?

Based on his character and behaviors let’s assume Khan was working with Marcus as a ruse. Khan knew a day would come where he would betray Marcus to enviably get back his frozen comrades and the advanced starship he had built with all the cool long range torpedoes and shit. This is his plan:

First he’ll take the long distance torpedoes he developed for Marcus and hollow them out. He’ll put his frozen friends in them. He then blows up the lab in London where he and Marcus were doing research and development. I’ll assume the torpedoes we’re not being stored there (maybe they were already onboard the super starship?). I’ll also assume the reason he attacks this base an no other is to help stunt Marcus’s development of advanced weapons.

Khan knows the attack will kick off a protocol meeting of high end Starfleet leaders. He’ll fly a fully armed craft right up to the windows of the meeting room and shoot. However, killing everyone at this meeting is not Khan’s goal. If it were he could just use another ring bomb and be done with them all. Apparently the goal is to scare Marcus and leave a trail to make it clear he is hiding on Kronos. He figures this location is the perfect excuse for Marcus to use those long range torpedoes with all the friends hidden in them.

Khan’s taking an awful risk no one will notice he switched out the contents of these torpedoes with people. If Marcus doesn’t trust Khan you’d think he’d have some cameras and shit on him, like Gus on Walt. You’d think Marcus would notice all the frozen people are missing.
I have to imaging there was a lot of manual labor for this plan, to hollow out these torpedoes and swap in the cryo-tubes. Why didn’t Khan just unfreeze people right there and then while he had access to them all? Why hide them and make up a convoluted plan to get access to them again later?
Khan seemed to be firing that gun pretty recklessly into the meeting room. What if hit Marcus? Considering Khan needs Marcus alive to order the torpedoes with his friends hidden in them be used, it all seems pretty dumb. Maybe he got some pointers from Neo who has no problem shooting guns right at the person he is trying to free.
If there was an attack on Starfleet London don’t you think the main headquarters would be on lock down? How the hell does an armed craft get anywhere near the windows of an Admiral’s meeting? Wouldn’t there be some shields or something?
Does Khan really expect the Enterprise will fire all 72 of these torpedoes at his location?
Why was the Enterprise given so many torpedoes for one target anyways? They at best need 3 or 5. Seems like overkill to me.
Why didn’t Marcus keep any for himself and his ship?
Have these torpedoes been updated to land softly on a planet after being fired?
I would think cryo-tubes are pretty fragile. How does shooting them at warp speeds, traveling through planet ozones and landing effect their ability to keep the people asleep?
If things are so volatile with the Klingons how does the away team fly to their home planet without being noticed from the Enterprise which parked in neural zone?

So instead of firing the torpedoes like Marcus ordered, and as Khan planned for, Kirk takes Khan prisoner instead. I have to assume being taking prisoner was not part of Khan’s plan. If it were it means he assumed a starfleet captain would have been ordered to fire but not done so. One might argue Khan specifically worked things out so Kirk would have been the one given the mission; that Khan knew Kirk would ignore the order and do the morally right thing. In reality though Khan actions killed Pike, Kirk’s father figure which pissed off Kirk a ton. It took the advice of ever officer under him to change his mind from killing Khan using the torpedoes to taking him prisoner.

Beaming as a plot device

With no real cause or reason the first reboot movie had Scotty figure out a whole new style of beaming that let’s people beam onto ships traveling at warp and long distances. It’s been some time since the events of the first movie and Starfleet is apparently using this new tech everywhere (at least when it helps the plot).

Khan can beam from Earth to Kronos but we can’t beam Spock out of a volcano?
Why can’t we beam to Kronos from Earth like Khan did?
Kirk, Spock, Uhura and two red shirts are surrounded by Klingons about to be killed, why can’t we beam them up?
Can’t beam Khan up to the Enterprise from Earth during the end movie chase scene because he is moving too fast on a ground transport BUT we can beam people to him? WTF! THIS MAKES NO SENSE?!?
Why didn’t they just beam Kirk and Khan to the Admiral’s ship instead of that space jump scene? Probably because he had shields up — but if he had shields up why didn’t Kirk and Khan smash in to them after being shot out from the Enterprise? Oh I know, Laaaaaazzzzzzyyyyy wriiiiittttiing.

Spock Prime

Old Spock you money grubbing son of a bitch. Why are you here? Fan service? Did you even come to the set to film this scene? Looks like you did it over Skype(1).

Hey Spock Prime, give these kids chance to stand on their own! We don’t need you here.

So you do realize that using knowledge from the future to change the past has dire consequences. Well that’s good to know. What? Fuck it all and tell them about Khan anyways. So much for Vulcan oaths.

For Young Spock to call Spock Prime and ask about Khan sure does seem like a shot in the dark when there are a lot of other things going on.

Why is Earth space so fucking empty?

Right before the final space battle the Enterprise is visually kicked out of warp above Earth space. If they weren’t kicked out of warp by the Admiral’s ship they would have traveled lightyears past Earth.
Wouldn’t being kicked out warp that violently cause more damage to the ship?
Why didn’t they pull out of warp right when they were being fired upon in warp. The Admiral’s ship would have zoomed right passed them ala Spaceballs.
Why does the enemy ship in these modern movies always have to be bigger and scarier looking? One of the great things about Wrath of Khan was that Khan disables the Enterprise with the Reliant, a much smaller ship.
The final battle happens right over Earth space. Why aren’t other ships there? If they were there but not shown, don’t they question this mysterious higher tech ship firing on their fellow ship? Let alone the flagship of Starfleet?!?
The first movie of this reboot had Nero torture Pike for codes to deactivate Earth’s “defense grid”. Apparently even as advanced as Nero’s ship was he was scared of Earth’s defense grid. Where the fuck is the defense grid now? Why is it not helping to defend starfleet’s flagship from being attacked?
The Enterprise has lost all power and is slowly falling to earth. Why can’t one of the dozens of ships and/or space docks that should be floating around Earth beam the crew off? Shield are obviously down as they barely have enough power for life support.

Answer: Earth space is empty is because it’s convenient to the plot. The reason the final attack happens above Earth at all is so we can have that sequence of Khan slamming the starship into the Starfleet Headquarters which looks sexy as hell in the trailer but doesn’t effect the plot at all. What’s different after that crash scene? Nothing. Khan jumps off the ship no problem (WTF?!? How is he still alive?) to start the chase scene.

Related: Having the Enterprise underwater was for the trailers too. It helps tease the idea that the Enterprise would crash into Earth at some point as we saw it inside the atmosphere of an M-class planet and we also see a ship crashing.

We may be out of popcorn but not nitpicks!

In the heat of the final battle, Scotty begins to fall and Kirk grabs him. Kirk begins to fall and Chekov grabs him. Little Chekov who weighs 90lbs soaking wet, pulls them both up the to railing. Space muscles!
When Kirk dies they figure out they can bring him back with Khan’s blood. Why Khan and not any of the other 72 frozen people in those tubes? Hell they probably had to take one out when they put Kirk under while they were waiting for Khan’s blood. I suspect coming out of cryo requires care and handling. I bet the guy they kicked out in a hurry, to make room for Kirk died. Poor guy. OMG I hope it wasn’t Joachim! 🙁
Why would injecting human blood (even if it is “magic” human blood) into a Tribble be a good idea for science? Seems like a waste to me. You have to imagine better experiments could be performed on that blood.
Bring Khan back alive they say. As if Spock can kill a man who’s blood brings others back to life?
When Scotty blasts Khan with a phaser set to stun it knocks Khan out, at least for a minute or so. At the end of the movie, for Uhura using the same phaser it takes like 10 shots to do the same thing. (Maybe his genetic enhancement gives him the power to become less susceptible to the stuns after the first experience (ala borg)? Nah, I don’t give the writers that much credit.)
At the end of the movie we never hear what happened to Khan. Did we keep Khan alive? Is he in jail cell? Are we using his magic blood to keep other people alive now?
What happened with the Klingons? We’re told we are on the brink of war and I have to imagine the events of the movie, where like 30 or so Klingons were killed with starfleet weapons, have only escalated things. The movie ends with a year of time passing but all is well on Earth. No war, plenty of time for a ship re-commissioning party. When I saw Kahn’s ship smash into Starfleet Headquarters I said to myself oh shit, Klingons are going to take advantage of this and attack Earth in the next movie. Guess not. 🙁

What year is it anyways?

It’s 2013, I don’t like being spoon fed that in the mid 1990s there was a Eugenics War with genetically enhanced humans and we also had perfected cryostasis too. I was alive in the 90s, there was no war and no frozen people, just grunge rock.

For me and I think most people, the best sci-fi is where everything in the story’s timeline matches up to your own until the event of the story. For example, if I’m in a movie theater in 2013 and we have a movie taking place in 2016 where aliens are invading Earth, I’m pretty likely to let my imagination stay with the movie. If I’m in a theater in 2013 and a movie tells me aliens invaded in 2010 it breaks my illusion immediately. (Unless there is a related multi-demential plot device with a pretty girl who throws me ammo and health in which case I might allow it.)

Movies usually fix this kind of stuff. Take for example early drafts of Back to the Future that reference 1982 as the current year but then changed it to 1985 for the official release. The Matrix did the same, referencing the year as 1997 in its early drafts and then upping the year as the screenplay saw revisions:

With a reboot like this who’s story origins come from 1960s TV it’s hard to work around the “1990s Eugenics Wars” issue I’ll accept but for us nerds who are quick at math and paying attention to the years and ages being thrown around in a movie screenplay like this it still bothers us.

Closing Commentary: The Wrath of Copy and Paste

While I’ll commend the acting and special effects I really have to roll my eyes at the writing in this movie.

I feel like the writers room started with a wall of index cards, one for each reference and action scene they wanted to make and then they wrote a story to make these connect. The writers were not interested in trying to tell a new unique story with these characters. They were interested in creating another trek-themed, reference-filled, no thinking action movie that placates to the masses. Arguably they have succeeded at their goals, I just had higher expectations.

Movies should stand on their own and this one doesn’t. This movie uses way, way too many callbacks to Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan. In fact “callback” or “homage” aren’t really the right words, this movie flat out plagiarizes Wrath of Khan to the point of distraction.

One example, there is the scene where Kirk is questioning his new prisoner and while explaining his past, his true identity, the camera zooms in, a long dramatic pause, “My name is Khan.” Now for anyone who isn’t familiar with the previous movies this is a meaningless event. Even Kirk and Spock “in-character” have no reason to react to the reveal of this alais. They might as well keep calling him John Harrison for all they care.

I’m sure many people enjoyed how they mirrored the Spock/Kirk death scene but for me when Spock died in Wrath of Khan it meant something more. For one, we left the theater with Spock dead. There was a significant ending where Kirk and the audience get to come to grasp with the realities of what had just happened. There was real tension that this was the end for our favorite vulcan.

When Kirk dies in this movie there isn’t much tension if you are paying attention to things and know modern hollywood. The screenplay doesn’t even give the audience enough time to grieve and collect themselves before starting the next sequence, a huge, over the top crash scene that doesn’t impact the plot at all.

Again I’ll give the actors credit, the performance of that death scene was extremely good. They matched the emotion level of the original which is a classic scene for all movies. What doesn’t click though is that the original pair of Kirk and Spock had been adventuring together for years and were extremely close friends. This version of Kirk and Spock had known each other for a year, maybe less, and have not really demonstrated a true friendship bond yet at least not at the same level as their predecessors. Having such an emotional scene copied and mirrored doesn’t really make that much sense when you don’t take into consideration this version of the characters. This version of the characters were not ready for that scene.

I think nostalgia was important for the first movie to help people make connections from the past to this new crew but I was hoping with this second film, now that it has its own timeline and canon, would be able to break out and do new things. It sadly did not and now I’m left to wonder if they ever will or if this new Trek series will simply be a collection of continued nostalgia rehashes from archives, albeit very pretty rehashes.

Panic’s Status Board for iPad

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:39:42 +0000

I finally got some time to play with Panic’s new Status Board today and I have to say it’s pretty cool.

Status Board is an iPad app that helps you produce a visually pleasing status board to keep track of things in your life. There are built-in tools for email, twitter, weather and more. The real power though comes from the free-from widgets that let you build your own data sources.

In my own first draft status board I’m using one such custom source called MintStatusBoardHelper, which is a Mint Pepper that will produce Status Board friendly JSON to help visualize website stats, in my case per-week visit counts. (Note: there was a little bug in this particular per-week source but it was easy enough to fix in PHP. I sent a report to the author as well so hopefully it’ll be gone soon.)

I was particularly happy to see that Status Board only required iOS 5. For me (and I assume others) this means we finally have a good use for those iPad 1s that sadly can’t run iOS 6 and have been collecting dust.

To stand it up I purchased a portable fold-up iPad stand on Amazon for ~ $8. The stand works well though you’ll have to plug the iPad in on the top as there isn’t enough room on the bottom. If you keep the iPad plugged in (to a full power outlet) and set the auto lock to never, the iPad basically becomes an always on screen.

Some things I’d love to see in the future:

More boards, swipe left and right to switch.
Font size options. My poor eyes can’t read the tweets.
Render single and sequences of photos. Think digital picture frame.

I was always jealous of Panic’s old HTML/TV-based status board and now I have my own. So happy! 🙂

Book Review: The Lean Startup

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:16:54 +0000

With the sale of ProfitTrain complete, my schedule has room for a new project. There’s a handful of ideas I’m working through, but, before I jump into one, I think that now is a great opportunity to catch up with some business books I’ve had on my radar.

The Lean Startup, written by Eric Ries, is a book I first received from New Relic through some promotion. Sadly, I wasn’t in much of a reading phase at the time, but with a secondary recommendation the other day, I decided to go ahead and start reading.

First, the book defines an entrepreneur as:

Using this definition, Eric explains that you can find entrepreneurs everywhere, from the typical garage startup to a division inside a larger corporation that’s been told to start a new initiative or project.

Some might say that we live in a golden age of entrepreneurship, but, while the overall number of new startups is increasing, success continues to be a real challenge. Lots of startups are failing because of elements that can actually be avoided. The Lean Startup is a movement that challenges entrepreneurs to work less on instinct on more on measurement in order to quickly learn what it takes to build a sustainable business.

Too often product ideas will come to a team and they’ll enter a long development cycle, only to find out that they’ve spent all their money and built something they can’t sell or that nobody wants. The Lean Startup encourages building “Minimum Viable Products” which will help start a real feedback loop with customers as soon as possible. Only by working with real customers can you truly learn.

Learning is an important, if not the most important, aspect for the Lean Startup movement. It should be at the center of how you spend all your time. If you are working on something that is not going to help you learn about customer behavior or evaluate a company risk, it’s probably just waste.

The heartbeat of a Lean Startup is the feedback loop, named “Build-Measure-Learn.” In practice, your actual feedback loop might look something like this:

Figure out what you want to learn about your customers.
Figure out how you’ll measure it.
Build it into the product.
Deploy it to the customers.
Measure customer behavior.
Use these measurements and metrics to define future work and pivots.
Repeat.

The feedback loop should be as small as possible.

When it comes to metrics, Lean Startup does warn against “vanity metrics” — these might be reports or charts that look good at first glance but don’t really represent whether your business is really growing. Consider an app that gets 1,000 downloads per day but also has a bounce rate of 80%. What if that remaining 20% decays over time to leave you with only a handful of active users. Showing a “Total Downloads” chart might make the team feel nice inside, but does this represent the real growth rate of the product? What you need to track will vary per business model, but the recommendation to be wary of “vanity metrics” is true for all.

There is more advice in the book, including some suggestions on using “Five Whys” to help find root causes of problems, along with a reminder than no system is perfect for everyone. That said, I really took a liking to the ideas of Lean Startup. I’m currently reading a nice followup book, Running Lean, which has a collection of real world approaches to applying Lean Startup to a business or product prospect.

Regardless of what my next project may be, I’m definitely interested in applying The Lean Startup to see how it works out.

To learn more, you can check out the book’s website: theleanstartup.com.

Aaron’s Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:41:30 +0000

A must watch lecture from Lawrence Lessig about the life of Aaron Swartz and the legal battle that led to his death.

Aaron’s Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age from lessig on Vimeo.

Netflix’d: Peep Show and Breaking Bad

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:10:36 +0000

When it comes to TV, you can usually catch me watching a mix of local sports. On the weekends, it might be some This Old House or Gordon Ramsey.

I don’t tend to get into the episodic TV shows when they are actually released. I’d much prefer to watch these in bunches. Back in the day, it would be West Wing one DVD at a time but now, with Netflix and other streaming services, it is dangerously easy to lose a whole Saturday streaming one episode after another. Of my recent Netflix binges, two shows have been extremely enjoyable…

Peep Show is a British comedy shot in first person POV with lots of internal character narration. The show itself is about two flatmates. Mark is a financially secure, but awkward and socially inept middle-aged man, with a pessimistic and cynical attitude. Jeremy, aka “Jez”, is an unemployed would-be musician who recently moved in with Mark after breaking up with his girlfriend. Jeremy has a more positive, laid-back approach to life and, while he is better with the girls, he isn’t nearly as good as he thinks he is.

The comedy is cringe-inducing and hilarious. While some of the plot lines in the later seasons are predictable, there is still a ton on enjoyment in seeing how the characters of Mark and Jez find their way through everything. You’ll know whether this is your kind of show after a few episodes, but do give the POV perspective some time to get used to. I really enjoyed Peep Show and may even give it a second pass in time.

Note: As I write this, I don’t see it listed for Netflix streaming anymore although Hulu might be a working option.

The other show is far more well-known and that is Breaking Bad. My cousins have been on me to watch this show for years and I finally gave in. Breaking Bad is great TV.

Breaking Bad opens with the main character Walter White, an overqualified high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. To help provide for his family, he partners with former student and drug dealer Jesse to cook and sell methamphetamine. In time, shit hits the fan in multiple ways that result in entertainment for us. The writing is great, the acting is great and even the cinematography is great.

There are 5 seasons in total of Breaking Bad. Seasons 1 through 4 are on Netflix and the first half of season 5 premiered on AMC in 2012. The last half will premier in the summer of 2013.

Hope you enjoyed the recommendations. If you have any for me, let me know via email or twitter.

Instapaper Gripes

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:17:27 +0000

First let me say that I really like Instapaper. It was one of the first apps that gave my iPad real purpose, and I use it pretty much daily. While the comments below might be negative and trite, there are tons of great things to love about this app too, so don’t take things too seriously. If you aren’t already using Instapaper, I’d recommend reading the the MacStories review to see what Instapaper is all about.

A lot of these gripes are based on personal usage (described early in gripe 1) that, in theory, mirror large scale usage. I’ll be the first to say that I could be way off on that. I’m not currently aware of whether Marco captures the kind of usage data that would help him evaluate the effectiveness of the Instapaper user interface, or if he has ever made those numbers public.

The big idea here isn’t to gripe on the Instapaper app for the sake of griping, but I want to start discussing interface design, the tradeoffs we make, how design evolves, and so on. I figured this post would be a good place to start, since I am unhappy with some of the choices made in Instapaper, despite the fact that it is a really good product.

Gripe 1: Always showing the collection chooser is a waste of space.

When you first launch Instapaper, you’ll be taken to the Read Later collection. Before I talk about that collection, let’s talk about overall layout and navigation.

This view tries to accomplish two things at once. First, it’s a collection chooser (overlaid in orange), which lets you switch the collection you are currently browsing. Second, it’s a collection browser (overlaid in blue), which lets you browse the articles of the selected collection and load an article to read.

I’ll take a stab in the dark and say that I am an average Instapaper user. My Instapaper usage is as follows…

Each week I’ll see various articles on the web shared to me via Twitter or mentioned in email. I’ll mark them as Read Later using my desktop browser’s bookmarklet or the built-in Send to Instapaper features of apps like TweetBot. I probably send anywhere from 15 to 25 articles to Instapaper a week. When I do find some time on the couch to read, I’ll open up Instapaper on my iPad. The collection I’ll be browsing is always the Read Later collection. I have to imagine this is the same for most others as well.

If this is true, and the majority of the user’s time is spent in the Read Later collection, I cannot understand why the interface has been designed to dedicate 15% of the screen to collection choosing, which is not something that is common in typical use. I feel like giving this space back to the collection browser, along with some ideas on improving the preview cells of articles, could greatly improve the browsing experience on Instapaper.

Coincidentally, TweetBot for iPad has a similar, always present, sidebar, but here it doesn’t bother me nearly as much, since I do frequently use it to switch collection contexts. With Instapaper, the collection chooser is, for the most part, just dead space for me.

Gripe 2: Centering the title in the collection browser looks misaligned because of the system clock.

Can not be unseen.

And, yes the TweetBot screen has the same problem.

Gripe 3: The “grid” default collection layout style is questionable.

I know there are many popular grid-oriented apps out there for presenting content on iPad. For me, I find the use of the grid in Instapaper to be more of a distraction than anything. I don’t like the flow of my eye path as I have to browse the collection in a grid.

I’d much prefer a purely stacked list of article previews. I feel that this eye flow is better, and, as a bonus, it has great synergy with the vertical scrolling motion.

Thankfully, there is an option to toggle this behavior in Settings. I don’t think it was there immediately upon 4.0’s release, as I vividly remember not liking the grid and not seeing a way to turn it off, but sure enough, I found it while I was prepping this article. Woot!

Gripe 4: Different collections should have different preview cells.

There are many different collections, but only one basic cell design for the article preview cell. I find this unfortunate because the user’s goals when exploring the different collections are quite varied and could benefit greatly from expanding the different cell preview designs. It would be great if Instapaper could offer some user preferences to suit their needs. Some examples:

Preview Cell Design for “Read Later”

Scenario: I’m browsing the Read Later collection from my couch. I have an hour to kill and want to catch up on things. The sort of the Read Later collection is based on when I added articles, so I’ll see the most recent at the top. My goals for this view are:

to remind myself about the article I added
to determine whether I want to read it now

To remind myself, the preview cell offers a mix of article title, source domain, author, and a short blurb. For me, the blurb is usually overkill. It could be subbed out for more useful information.

While very helpful in reminding me about an article, the preview cell does very little to help me determine whether I should read one article or another. The cell does provide a series of dots which, if you use Instapaper over time, you might come to realize represents the length of time that the article will take to read, and how much of it you have already read. Personally, I’d like to see that changed into a more descriptive, text-based description and drop the “percent of article read” feature. After all, to do it in text would be verbose, and I’d like to think that the majority of users read these web articles in one sitting (again, I don’t have numbers on this).

What I’d really like to see is Instapaper start to take advantage of the friends I’ve added to it and the global data it has, in order to help me realize what of the things I’m browsing is worth my limited time. Which articles have been liked by my friends (show me a few of their tiny little avatars) and what articles are making an impact globally (using global read and liked counts)?

Preview Cell Design for “Liked”

Scenario: I would assume that one of the main reasons I’d be in the Liked collection is because I’m trying to find an article I’ve read and Liked previously. I probably want to reference it myself or send it off to a friend. For me, this would usually involve searching, but I’m going to wait to talk about that later. As for the preview cell design, again we see the same design used in Read Later. How to improve?

In a word, dates. If used often, the “Liked” collection will span months and months of articles. Knowing when an article was published and when I Liked it would help me find what I’m looking for during a browsing session.

Preview Cell Design for “Archive”

I feel like the design for the preview cell in the Archive collection should be a hybrid of my proposed Read Later and Liked preview cell designs.

I also think that the Archive collection (as well as maybe Liked) might do something to help group up articles I’ve read by the same author or from the same site.

Preview Cell Design for “Friends”

More than improvements to the the preview cell, what this collection really needs is a list of my friends. Show me who is actively reading and linking stuff. Let me browse their history, as a collective or as individuals. (I go on about this in more detail in gripe 9).

Gripe 5: Archives and Liked collections should load more articles as necessary.

For what are probably many valid reasons, Instapaper only loads a small portion of your Archive and Liked collections. When you browse to the bottom of these collections, it just stops. If you want to load more, you need to visit settings and tell Instapaper to load more articles for these collections. This seems clunky and non-intuitive to me. There is nothing at the bottom of the list to even suggest that you should go to Settings in order to see more articles.

What I’d prefer to see here is some sort of button that allows users to manually load more articles, or perhaps Instapaper should passively load more by making an endless scrolling list.

Gripe 6: Respect my eye line.

The article view does a great job of letting the content own the space. There is a navigation bar, but unless you interact with it, it will eventually fade away while you read.

There are two ways to bring the bar back. One is by tapping somewhere that isn’t otherwise interactive. The other is by scrolling to the bottom of the article — this is my gripe.

When I read articles in Instapaper, my eye line or reading zone (shown below overlaid in blue) is the very top of the screen. I literally read 1-3 lines and slowly scroll the page up little by little when I’m reading an article.

Eventually, I’ll be almost done reading the article and — BAM — the navigation bar comes up and covers my reading zone. What follows is an unpleasant scrolling dance that I don’t even want to describe.

I understand that it makes sense to automatically show the navigation bar towards the end of the article, but the algorithm needs to be tweaked in order to make sure that the reading zone of the user would never be hidden by the navigation bar, which, from my experience, it clearly can.

When you finish reading an article, part of the reason the navigation bar comes back up is because you have an action to perform:

Like the article by tapping the heart icon.
Archive the article by tapping the trash can and choosing “Move to Archive”.
Delete the article by tapping the trash can and choosing “Delete”.

I feel like the choice of a trash can for the non-destructive action of moving an article from my Read Later collection to the Archive collection is unfortunate and likely confusing to some new users. Trash cans in a computer context mean “I never want to see this file or object again.” A trash can is not a suitable icon for transferring an article, even if the destination is an archive. Ultimately I feel like each of these three actions should have their own icon and remove the popover entierly.

Gripe 8: Search is too elementary.

Search in Instapaper works like this: there are various search buttons in the app, and when you tap on them a modal window pops up. Then you type in some terms and a search is done against the full text of all the articles you have in Instapaper. The search happens on Instapaper’s web servers. The results are presented in a list and then, upon tapping an item in the list, you jump to another modal window with the webpage of the article.

There are many problems with this experience:

Search requires an internet connection. There is no way to simply search the stuff you have locally.
In order to accept the search terms and present a result list, Instapaper uses a modal view that fills only 50% of the screen. Half the screen is left underutilized. Why is this not happening inline in the collection browser area, as I would have expected?
There is no way to control your search context. The only option is “All.” For example, you cannot do a search for something in your Liked collection.
There is no way to reorder the results; they are presented in an unknown order. There is no way to sort specifically by the liked on date or search term relevance.
When interacting with a result, the article is presented in a modal webview instead of the expected Instapaper article view. One of the major points of Instapaper is that it filters out a website’s frame for easier article reading. Why not a proper article view here?

Overall search comes off as a minimum viable shipping feature, good enough to ship, but not where it should be. If it were just a young feature that would see improvement over time, I wouldn’t gripe as much, but search is actually the main unlock if you choose to pay extra for a monthly Instapaper subscription. In that context, I really think it’s important that search sees improvements soon. I don’t think it’s right to reward subscription buyers with such an elementary feature.

Gripe 9: The friends collection

Another young and hopefully to-be-improved-upon feature is the social aspect of Instapaper. The current version allows you to connect various friends, but the interface can be pretty clunky at times. For example, you have to add friends with one view and then remove them with another. Why does this require two views?

However, the real problem is the collection browser itself.

As I’ve said before, I really think this view needs to include the avatars of the people who are sending me this content. I know people by their avatar a lot better than by their twitter handle, and this change would make visually browsing things much faster. Also, I want the power to isolate a friend and just see what he or she is promoting. Let me browse by my friends, and then browse what they are sharing specifically.

At the bottom of the Friends collection is a toggle to show “Shared Links” or “Liked by Friends.” First off, it’s really awkward to have a toggle between a noun and a verb. Something is amiss.

What does Instapaper mean by “Shared Links” — these objects are called articles everywhere else in the app — why the difference here? Best I can tell, “Shared Links” represents URLs that people have posted on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other services. I get that there is a naming challenge here, but I am not really happy with the current solution of “Shared Links.”

In fact, I truly wonder if there is any value in having two distinct sub-collections in the friends category. Why not just one collection, and make it clear in the preview cell how this article came to the reader, i.e.: “Liked on Instapaper by Manton Reece @manton” or “Posted to Twitter by Thomas Fuchs @thomasfuchs?”

I think this, plus the power to browse and isolate content per friend, would be a nice improvement.

Gripe 10: Drop “The Feature” collection.

Described at the top of its view, The Feature is:

I never use this feature/collection. I have enough content to fill my reading time, and the idea of reaching out to this specific collection of content seems strange.

It’s unclear how many articles are posted per day. The blurb says “editorial selections” as if to say, “these aren’t selected by robots,” but then no human editor names appear either. Who is the editor? What makes these articles so “fine?” What is the focus here?

When I click on an article, it doesn’t even load a standard Instapaper article view. Instead, it loads the website. Why would it do this? For me, Instapaper is about an offline, clutter-free reading environment. This provides neither. It feels like an ad.

Maybe I wouldn’t gripe as much if this collection didn’t stare me down every time I opened the app. It just sits there in the static collection chooser area, which I never use. I wish I could turn it off.

Gripe 11: Settings

When I tap Settings in the lower left corner, I get a popover that is about 1/3 the height of the inner view (thus I need to scroll to see everything). Every other navigation-based item in this app has made use of the full screen of the iPad. If Instapaper didn’t have an iPhone version, is this how the Settings view would have been designed? I doubt it.

The Settings view should fill the screen and fit in with the visual style of everything else, probably as a collection browser if the static collection switcher style design is staying. With this extra space, you can be more specific about things, like using labels as well as icons for the various friend services.

Gripe 12: Android

First I want to say thanks to Instapaper for doing an Android version. It was very handy to have a portable tablet version of Instapaper around when iOS 6 bugs were making my iPad less than useful. I will gripe however, that on Android you are not always following along with the Android-isms. For example, I found the behavior of the hardware back button to be somewhat inconsistent. Android apps should feel like Android, and iOS apps should feel like iOS.

The biggest problem with the current Android version is the lack of scroll position saving during orientation switches, which for me are usually involuntary as I move my Nexus 7 to reach for a glass of water or something. I’ll come back and my article is not where I was. Very frustrating.

On Gripes

Again I’ll say that I really do like Instapaper, both the service and the apps overall. My gripes are meant as feedback and kickoffs for other user interface discussions. Please do not take offense.

Core Intuition

mike@mikezornek.com (Mike Zornek) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 02:48:47 +0000

Core Intuition is a podcast about the indie software business. It has a strong focus on Mac and iOS development, including the vibrant community that surrounds it. Hosted by two long-standing Mac developers — Daniel Jalkut and Manton Reece — Core Intuition releases new episodes weekly. Each episode averages about 30 minutes of discussion.

As a old Mac developer myself, I’ve been following both Daniel and Manton for many years now and have been fortunate enough to meet them both at various developer conferences. I’ve always respected their opinions about software development and the Apple ecosystem, so when I heard they started their own podcast, I immediately subscribed.

When they started, Daniel and Manton had phases of regular releases and then periods of inactivity. These days, things at Core Intuition are stronger than ever and weekly releases are the norm. There’s even some sponsorship, which adds extra incentive to hook up the microphones week-to-week.

The team structures the show around popular news threads, yet tends to run off into tangents about personal stories and struggles. Ultimately, these tangents are what I enjoy the most, especially since I get to hear about how these two work through the problems that many self-employed people run into, especially when trying to balance life and shipping code.

For a part-time, two man show, the audio quality is impressive and comparable to many other network podcasts that I hear.

Core Intuition is a great podcast for anyone who works, or is interested in working, in the software development world. The thirty minute episode format makes it easy to squeeze the podcast into the drive home or make it a short diversion during lunch.

Daniel and Manton, thanks for the great content and keep up the good work.

Mike Zornek

2025 Tools Audit

Hardware

Office Furniture

Local Software

Software Services

Best Vinyl of 2024

Stardew Valley Soundtrack

Red Dead 2 Soundtrack

Random Access Memories, Daft Punk

Six Evolutions - Bach: Cello Suites, Yo-Yo Ma

Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert

Impactful Books

Web Development and Programming

User Interfaces

Product Development

Honorable Mention

Hacker Culture Movies For The Kids

Must-Watch Movies

Good-Bad Movies

So-So Movies

Bad-Bad Movies

Book Thoughts: Company of One

Framework Laptop First Thoughts

Recommended Teardown Videos

DIY Edition

Observed Issues

Ideas

Conclusion

Book Notes: Dreaming in Code

Video Book Review: Ruined by Design by Mike Monteiro (5m)

A Month with the 2019 23.7-inch LG UltraFine 4K Display

The Great Monitor Search Continues

Backstory

Defects

Round Two

Book: The Common Good

A Discussion Guide for The Common Good

PART I: What Is the Common Good?

PART II: What Happened to the Common Good?

PART III: Can the Common Good Be Restored?

31 Days, 31 Products: Skitch

Day 31: Skitch

31 Days, 31 Products: OmniDiskSweeper

Day 30: OmniDiskSweeper

31 Days, 31 Products: iOctocat, GitHub on your iPhone and iPad

Day 29: iOctocat, GitHub on your iPhone and iPad

31 Days, 31 Products: Reeder

Day 28: Reeder

31 Days, 31 Products: Flixster

Day 27: Flixster

31 Days, 31 Products: Dash

Day 26: Dash

31 Days, 31 Products: Sketch

Day 25: Sketch

31 Days, 31 Products: SuperDuper!

Day 24: SuperDuper!

31 Days, 31 Products: Status Board

Day 23: Status Board

31 Days, 31 Products: BBEdit

Day 22: BBEdit

31 Days, 31 Products: Vimeo

Day 21: Vimeo

31 Days, 31 Products: OmniGraffle

Day 20: OmniGraffle

31 Days, 31 Products: Trello

Day 19: Trello

31 Days, 31 Products: Postbox

Day 18: Postbox

31 Days, 31 Products: Elgato Game Capture HD

Day 17: Elgato Game Capture HD

31 Days, 31 Products: Hearthstone

Day 16: Hearthstone

31 Days, 31 Products: Charles Proxy

Day 15: Charles Proxy

31 Days, 31 Products: OmniFocus

Day 14: OmniFocus

31 Days, 31 Products: SourceTree

Day 13: SourceTree

31 Days, 31 Products: Instapaper