The iPad magazine K Composite, which I backed on Kickstarter, is available on the App Store now. Grab some goodness for you iPad, I bet it’s great. Personally I’ll have to wait, can’t download issues on 3G and I’m on the go right now.
Archive for Blog
You already know that I loathe shortcodes (well, it’s not that simple perhaps) so the list of shortcodes from plugins on wordpress.org scares me.
This week’s column for WPMU.org is about how themes and plugins should be translatable, which isn’t that hard to achieve really. The piece have gotten some criticism for me sticking with more general terms than “internationalization” and “localization”, but I stand by my choice: This way it is more easily read by people who aren’t familiar with localization whatsoever. It’s not an attack on developers either, as I trust my suggestions on how we can all help each other should prove.
There are countless posts and tweets and articles being written and published about Steve Jobs right now. You’ve read mine. If you want to read more, MacRumors have a wrap-up, and I’d like to point you to Wired’s post as well. Apple dedicates its front page to Steve, along with this message as well.
Steve Jobs 1955-2011
This is a sad day. The world has lost one of its greatest minds and visionaries, in Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and obviously so much more than that. I have never met nor spoken to Steve, nor have the majority of people writing, tweeting and talking about him today. He was a hero to many, a beloved celebrity, and a leader.
We are allowed to talk about Steve.
We are allowed to feel sad.
I feel sad. In fact, this morning I decided to throw the todo list out the window, to sit down and think different. I’m dedicating this day to figuring things out, work and life and future and everything else that might be spinning around in the back of my head. Continued →
Circumstances
I have ended up in my (well, not mine but anyway) lakeside home for the week, due to a broken down car that’s in the shop right now. This isn’t all bad, although I’m not looking forward to the mechanic’s verdict and what it’ll cost me. Since my lakeside home is free of anything resembling real broadband, which in my world is 100 Mbit in both directions, this means I’ll have to adapt to a different working style. I’ve got a decent 3G connection (1-2 Mbit) so I can get just about everything done that I otherwise would’ve done from home or the Odd Alice office in Stockholm, so no worries there. However, I don’t have all the equipment I usually rely on.
- No Apple 27″ LED display for massive screen real-estate
- No Wacom Intous 4 drawing pad for logos
- No ergonomically correct chair nor desk
- No 120+ GB of music
- No movies, TV series, nor the will to download it over 3G
- No Nespresso coffee machine
Adobe has acquired Typekit, a pretty obvious move. Problem is, although Typekit is an awesome service and I congratulate the founders, this is a stupid move for Adobe. After all, give it a few years and there are no needs for today’s Typekit service whatsoever. Way to invest in the future, Adobe.
Let’s Talk iPhone predictions
There are quite a lot of posts sporting predictions for tomorrow’s Let’s Talk iPhone event, where Apple once again will convince millions of people that iPhone is the way to go. I asked on Twitter whether I should write a predictions post, and most of you wanted me to, so I was all but ready to pull out the crystal ball and whatnot.
Then a friend of mine pointed out that he didn’t want any spoilers, which got me thinking. It’s not like I, or anyone else other than Apple, know exactly what will be announced on stage tomorrow but the buzz usually has some things right. My friend wanted the keynote to feel fresh, and I see what he means. It’s not really just about the products, Apple could announce them on their website and we’d still see AAPL rise as well as products sold by the millions. The keynotes are a show for tech people, the Apple lovers, and something that has been so thoroughly embedded into what we expect from the company. This is entertainment for design-aware nerds. Continued →
Quick notes on the new Kindles
Amazon finally unveiled its tablet, and it is not an iPad competitor. That doesn’t mean it will fail, on the contrary – I think the $199 Kindle Fire will sell like crazy because there is a market for a cheaper device. At least in the US where Amazon’s various content services are things people actually can swear by, how the company intends to conquer the rest of the world I have no idea, it isn’t happening yet that’s for sure.
Since I’m in the publishing business, writing books and whatnot, I figured I’d share my thoughts on the new Kindles. Continued →
A slight publishing snafu over at WPMU.org made my Thursday column publish early. Ah well, at least you can read all about why I loathe shortcodes right now.
It is so obvious when I’m in a writing mood, the tweets comes in flows. Follow @tdh for bite-sized madness.
Reddit thanks you for not using Adblock
There are a lot of ways to block out ads these days, and while I certainly understand why one might do that, I’m not comfortable with using Adblock or similar myself. The sites I visit are free to read, and that means that usually means that advertising are their income. Today’s ad delivery software is smart enough to make sure that the advertisers won’t have to pay if the ad isn’t loaded, so users of Adblock won’t generate any ad revenue for the site. That doesn’t feel right to me, so I’m not using Adblock.
Reddit gets this, so they say thank you to users that view the ads. A nice approach I think, and also one that further builds the community.
Want to know how I display my latest tweet in the top right, and cache it on top of that? My buddy @dmrsweden made an awesome library, available on GitHub.
Because it sounds better
I’m a hypocrite and I admit it, at least on principle. You see, I have no problem whatsoever to drop the famous “it just sounds better” explanation when it comes to music and vinyls. Because it does, it sounds better. The sound is just so much more alive, more real, more natural.
Which is bullshit, at least most of the time these days. Because although you can digitally remaster any album and claim that it is the best sounding version yet, that is part of the problem. Classic albums from the vinyl years were recorded and mastered for the format, not for super-crisp CDs or hardly compressed MP3s. Continued →
