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The Weekly Bump: Episode 2

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I’d aimed to have this done on Monday, but my energy levels have been all over the place the last few days, and I just never got to it. Small subtext is that I had a medical situation a couple of weeks ago, and am recovering from it, but slowly. The energy levels are really the last thing to get back to normal when you don’t eat for a few days. I won’t get more specific than that, I’m reluctant to post medical related information on the internet or social media.

Like most of the gaming world, I’ve really been enjoying Fortnite this week and for the last month or so. For those who aren’t gaming adjacent, it’s a “Battle Royale” style game that has skyrocketed in popularity. The game is available across a wide variety of platforms, but I play on PC. I am “bumpish” should you want to friend and play with me, but don’t set your expectations too high on what my level of skill might be. I’d love to play with you in any case. I’m only on a few times a week, and for a brief time, I don’t get much dedicated PC gaming in these days with family duties.

I’m also enjoying the rollover to the Year of the Raven in Hearthstone, which happened this week with the release of the Witchwood expansion. I exalt in the end of the mill deck era. There is one card, Shudderwock, which is totally broken and makes things less fun than they could be. Here’s a great video from Disguised Toast that elaborates on how broken, at least the animations, if not the whole mechanic are.

I did go to the Atlanta Pen Show for a couple of hours until I ran out of gas.  My new purchases were an “Aiken” pen from Carolina Pen Company, which is colored to look like the Northern Lights using the same material as this pen, and a Seed A5 case from my friends at Nock.

I did also buy some Gigante Note Cards from Nock while I had the chance in person. These folded over notecards are a favorite of mine, and I keep a couple in my pocket sheath with me all the time. They are essentially the smallest available notebook, with only 4 pages.

Top of mind for me on the music side is Black Moon Rising from the Black Pumas. There are listen links for a variety of music services on that page. At first I thought it was Cee-Lo Green, but it’s not. I haven’t been able to find anything else by them, they are from Austin, TX.

Last night we watched the first episode of the Pastry Chef season of Chef’s Table about Christina Tosi from Milk Bar.  If you have Netflix, I highly recommend this episode, I found it really inspiring. Be careful though, you can order just about anything in the episode from their web site. My cookies are on the way.

I’m thinking about getting a ReMarkable Tablet based on the recommendation of some folks online who swear by it.  Seems like it might either completely replace my work notebook, or it won’t work for me at all though, making the price tag a little tough to swallow. The iPad hasn’t really worked for me for this particular use case, and I love my e-ink Kindles, so the idea of the product might be in my sweet spot.

ttfn.

 

My Quick Take: Vesper, Adieu

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What went wrong was very simple. We never made enough money.

Source: Vesper, Adieu

 

I really like(d) Vesper, but it never stuck for me. I was a day one user, mainly because I am huge fan of all three of these guys, and also consider their QA lead an internet friend.

I don’t know what they could have done differently, especially with only three of them, I do think that, for their core audience, there are three platforms that matter:

  1. mobile/iOS
  2. Desktop Mac
  3. Web

I think to be successful in the market segment they were in, you need to have solutions for all three. Other solutions, like Apple’s Notes app and SimpleNote, while they might not be as elegant as Vesper, win based on the utility on multiple platforms. That’s why Vesper never stuck for me. Having said that, even Evernote, which appeared to be a juggernaut in this market, are having their own issues with a subscription business model.

Only Brent, Dave and John know for sure, but from my outsider’s view, this was a part time job for all three of them. I suspect that if even one of them had made this more of a full time job, it might have generated perspective and possibly drive to succeed. Just guessing on that bit, and I could be completely wrong.

I’m currently using Apple Notes as my primary phone/tablet/desktop text tool. iCloud sync has worked great for me.

Flow for iPad

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Flow for iPad by bump
Flow for iPad, a photo by bump on Flickr.

Instagram doesn’t have an official iPad client. Who knows why this is? I have used a bunch of different iPad apps, most recently Iris, which is also quite good, to use this service on my iPad. Recently Flow was released, and I really like it, I think it’s the best Instagram client for iPad.

There are a few different reasons why I like this over the other alternatives out there. First, it’s all about the pictures. As you can see from the image above, the app is designed to only be used in landscape orientation, and fits the maximum amount of pictures into the iPad viewport with a minimum of chrome. Second, the app is snappy, and the transition animations between screens are well thought out, pleasing, yet not over the top. Third, they’ve made it easy to navigate the sea of pictures, allowing you to move picture to picture while viewing in detail mode. Also of use, and well designed, are the abilities to search and bookmark specific tags, users and locations. I have a small list that I check on a regular basis, for example #vscocam, which yields a really nice set of pictures. All the expected Instagram functionality you’d expect is there, and well supported.

Flow is free to download, and does not currently contain any advertising, so I am not sure what their long term plan to make this app into a real business might be. I guess I always wonder about this whenever I download a new app these days. I’d just much rather pay for the app than wonder what could happen in the future. In this case, given that Instagram is still figuring out how to make money too, I think I would be a hypocrite to not use this free app when I am already using this free service. The app is not perfect. The lack of portrait support, while not a deal killer, seems like an oddity in an otherwise well thought out application. I’ve also had to fiddle with it to get the pictures to refresh at times, but I do think, in lieu of an official Instagram client for iPad, that this is a really nice replacement.

The 2013 iPads and me

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I’ve had one iPad from every release generation so far.  I ordered the original iPad from the hospital on the day my first son was born.  In many ways, and most of them that count, my iPad is my primary computer at this point.  It travels with me, attends every meeting I attend, and is my constant companion at home.  I read my news feeds on it using the newest generation of Reeder.  I answer most of the email that I actually answer on it.  It’s a work tool, and a personal tool, and, as a result, the yearly release of the new iPads is an assumption of upgrade.

For the last year, I have had two iPads that have seen some amount of use.  An iPad 3, only 18 months or so old at this point, and the iPad Mini, which was purchased/provided by my employer.  As the year went on, I used the iPad 3 less and less.  I love the iPad Mini’s weight, despite the obvious tradeoffs that came with, these are well covered on the web already, and old news, I won’t cover them here.   When this year’s iPads were released, it seemed like a slam dunk that I would wait for the Retina iPad Mini, and that would be the penultimate iPad for me.

Oddly, that’s not the way that I went.  I purchased a 64Gb Verizon iPad Air, and I couldn’t be happier with it.  It weighs about what the Mini weighed, and it’s just so much better for typing. As I have started using the device more and more as my personal computer, the size of the on screen keyboards touch targets has become important to me, I have meaty brawler hands. I’m sure that I could have been happy with the Mini as well.