More inspiring Instapaper development insights…
(Source: marco)
Great update for one of my favorite iPad apps, including a new feature I have been waiting for (length & progress indicators). But what really strikes me with this update and blog post, is to see how much thought goes into Instapaper’s features and Marco’s attention to detail.
Just look at the section about the new automatic dark mode preference:
You can now have Instapaper automatically use dark mode at night and normal (light) mode during the day.
But how, exactly, do you define “night”? There’s no API access to the iPhone’s ambient light sensor, so I can’t just enable dark mode in dark rooms.
And I can’t just define hour boundaries, because 8 PM in December is much darker than 8 PM in June.
And I can’t just look at hours and the date, because 5 PM in December is much darker in Alaska than in Costa Rica.
So I used with the most reliable method I could think of: sunset times in your location. Yes, Instapaper is now location-aware, but only for this feature.
I love this.
For example, he could have presented that slot-machine-ish control to the user to set the time range when it’s dark. He didn’t and I think that’s awesome, because it makes it almost effortless for the user to use the feature. And it’s very clever.
During the weekend of October 16th and 18th, I participated in the Rails Rumble 2010 coding competition. The exercise was to build a web app from scratch in 48 hours using Ruby and Rails.
Our team consisted of 3 people: Tim, Falk and myself.
The app we produced: Pianrra - An online keyboard with recording and playback functionality.
Sven’s comment and question after giving his opinion to my GF2 quote post:
And: you need a comment system, Daniel ;-)! Reblogging seems a bit heavy for leaving comments to me.
Doesn’t toto with karakuri look tempting to you?
toto and karakuri do look interesting but not really tempting at the moment. It’s just gives me more stuff to fiddle around with. While I like that, it just prevents me from focusing on the actual purpose of a blog. Tumblr just feels right for me.
Concerning comments, I think this post (not mine) sums it up nicely:
The reblog function allows some sort of commentary but also puts a cost on the commenter. I can reblog somebody’s comment, but my response now goes on my tumblelog with all the other things I put there. If I have something valuable to add, I will add it. If all I have is something stupid ([…]) I won’t bother leaving a comment. It is sort of like a comment—but I have to have it on my tumbelog for everybody to read. By increasing the cost of leaving a comment, reblogging eliminates comments left by people who know they are stupid.
However, I agree that it sometimes is a bit heavy to reblog for a comment. But if you follow me on tumblr, you can leave a reply via the dashboard, which will then show up in the notes.
Initial thoughts on the GF2 announcement — Satellite — Craig Mod
That’s pretty much what I am after as well. I think a Leica M9 is an incredible sexy and capable camera (without ever having used one) and the only full-frame camera I’d be interested in. But financially it’s just so out of reach.
I pretty much agree with his first impressions of the recently announced GF2. I think I will still rather get a GF1 for a lower price instead. The new features of the GF2 are just not compelling enough. And getting the latest and greatest is just a waste of money anyway.
The only way I can focus on my craft and my art is if I don’t constantly dilute it.
Lots to learn from in this excellent post from Randy Murray about the importance of saying “no”: This has been a hard lesson for me to learn (and I’m still learning). More often than not, it is the most compassionate answer one can give. Remembering this bit helps:
The key to saying no successfully is to understand that you are not saying no to everything, you are saying yes to those things you want.
So, so, good. Seriously, if you read nothing else today, read this.
I, agree. But I find the first part of this series even better. Here’s the key passage (at least for me):
If I try to multitask I find that I get absolutely nothing done. It’s only when I can select a specific project and turn off everything else and still the noise of other projects and demands that I can make progress. But the second part of what makes it work is this: I don’t have to focus on one thing exclusively all day long.
I’ve found that if I have specific, short deliverables or milestones I can move a project to a certain state, then take a break and shift to a different project and give it my focus. I am dividing my attention, but I’m dividing it into periods of hours, not minutes or seconds. From the perspective at the end of the day I’ve worked on many tasks and I’ve accomplished a great deal. From the perspective of the hour, I’m laser focused on just one thing. Those who attempt to shift their focus more quickly, from minute to minute, are fooling themselves. It is exhausting and counterproductive.
Of course, it’s cheaper to manufacture a DVD, print a guide, put it in a nice box and make a real person deliver it, than just sending a couple of bytes over a telephone line.
Nice tip in the latest Heroku newsletter: “Use Git Tags to Manage Versions”.
I use Git tags to manage the version numbers of my Rails apps. Every time a new version is ready, I tag the current commit like this1:
git tag -a v2.3 -m "adding version tag v2.3"
My environment.rb file defines a constant to hold this information (in this case “v2.3”):
APP_VERSION = `git describe --always` unless defined? APP_VERSION
This constant simply contains the output of Git describe2. Now I can use it anywhere in my app where I would like to display the version number.
You are using semantic versioning, right? ↩
The backticks execute a shell command. Here’s more information: http://gist.github.com/4069 ↩
This is just too awesome.
/via Yehuda Katz
Prior to last week, the limit was improperly calculated: articles in folders weren’t being counted. I fixed the bug so that up to 250 articles were downloaded from the Read Later folder, and the other folders were downloaded in order, as long as there were any slots left, until it hit 250.
And then I got a deluge of email.
My email was one of them.
Great to see an explanation for this.
This nice little Ruby library/gem/plugin is a great helper when you need to execute long running tasks from the terminal.
As the name suggests, it displays the progress of the task and even gives you an ETA for when it thinks it will be done.
Check their examples:
% irb --simple-prompt -r progressbar
>> pbar = ProgressBar.new("test", 100)
=> (ProgressBar: 0/100)
>> 100.times {sleep(0.1); pbar.inc}; pbar.finish
test: 100% |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo| Time: 00:00:10
=> nil
>> pbar = ProgressBar.new("test", 100)
=> (ProgressBar: 0/100)
>> (1..100).each{|x| sleep(0.1); pbar.set(x)}; pbar.finish
test: 67% |oooooooooooooooooooooooooo | ETA: 00:00:03
I used it a lot for rake tasks that convert/import/export tons of data.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 In Depth Review | neutralday
Sounds great to me!
