Week 30 felt like it went by way too fast. My kids' last week of Summer, as they go back to school tomorrow. All four of us went to the Atlanta United Leagues' Cup game Friday night, which they lost on Penalty Kicks. While it was a good time because all four of us were there, it's been a rough season to be an Atlanta United fan. After seven years, since their first season, of having season tickets, I think I might be canceling for next season, because they raised the price again. We haven't been having as much fun at the games as we used to. I'm still waffling though.

This week's media consumption has been Olympics, Olympics, Olympics. I really enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremony live, and am really glad I have nothing to do with LA 2028 because that thing would be a hard act to follow. There are currently three TV's in our house streaming different sports. I am, of course, watching the surfing from Tahiti, which is once of the coolest venues on our tour. My older son has been fencing for years, and this is one of the very few opportunities to watch that sport at its highest level. The whole family has been watching those events.

Watching the USA basketball teams is, for me, just so much fun. I'm excited for another week of this. The huge smile on Kevin Durant's face during their game against Serbia brought a smile to mine, too.

I really enjoyed this Atlanta Michelin Eats Video from a YouTuber who I wasn't previously familiar with, Mike Chen. A few of my favorite spots were featured in this video, like Fred's Meat & Bread, Arepa Mia and Food Terminal. It still had some that I haven't tried, and those have been added to me to do list. There's something fun about watching travel and food videos about the town you live in.

I finished four books this week.

After really enjoying my read of Moonbound last week, I managed to find Sourdough by Robin Sloan on Libby and it was available! This one was a quick read, delightful as well, and I will read his other book as soon as the queue comes up. This book made me want colder weather so I could enjoy a nice bowl of soup and a piece of sourdough.

I continue to plow through all of Erik Larson's books, this week it was The Demon of Unrest. This one is mostly about the start of the Civil War and Fort Sumnter. It provides a real lot of details about the transition from the Buchanan administration to the Lincoln administration and the origins of secession. It's not one I would recommend unless you are really interested in that amount of information on that topic, but I really got a lot out of it.

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang had been on my Libby queue for a really long time, I think since last Summer. This book about a chef working for a billionaire in a timeline where planet's food supply has been disrupted is well crafted and worth your time, especially if you're really into food. It actually paired well in a weird way with Sourdough above, without any intention to pair them on my part.

Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Niobe Inazō reads like a guide to the chivalric traditions of Japan. I mainly read this looking for parallels to Stoic thought, and they were there. It is a very old book, and felt old.

I've been meaning for a few weeks to find one of these entries to talk about the pair of Ray-Ban | Meta Glasses that I bought and have been using. First, I don't particularly trust Facebook/Meta, and I have turned off anything even remotely creepy with these. No location services especially. I mainly use them when I go for walks, which have been much more frequent since my surgery in May. For this purpose, these things are an amazing combination of sunglasses/headphones/camera. The pictures they take are actually pretty good, the headphones are serviceable. I'm getting a fair amount of use from them. Again, not wearing these anywhere where taking pictures would be creepy.

This post spans two weeks, partly because one of those weeks was a very busy work trip, and the second of those weeks was a vacation. Here we are in the 30th week of the year, wow.

I had the fun, and stress, of taking my first work trip, to Los Angeles, since my spinal surgery in May.  One day in our new office in El Segundo, and two days in Santa Monica. Some pretty intensive meetings, and lots of interesting conversation. Overall, it went well, but I learned that I do have some physical limitations, and sitting in a hard chair for 6-8 hours a day in a meeting ended up causing some soreness. The flights, at least, went by without any issues.

I landed back in Atlanta, via a red-eye, to drive with my family from Atlanta to a beach house we rented for the week down in 30A in Florida.  I then had a week that was mostly off, going to the beach with my family each day. Reading on the beach while listening to music is one of my happiest places.  The beaches down there are some of the nicest in the US. We also always make time to head to Seaside for a day of walking around in the shops, and browsing the stacks at Sun Dog one of my absolute favorite book stores. We also send some postcards from the cute post office there.

I finished Moonbound by Robin Sloan. I’ve always been a sucker for Aurthurian fiction and this inventive and interesting science fiction take on that classic tale was no exception. I hadn't previously read anything by Robin Sloan. I am going to read his other two books, I added them to my Libby queue as soon as I finished this one.  Recommended.

I also finished Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami, who is one of my favorite authors. This one reads like a career autobiography, with many interesting notes on his perception of his progression as an author. I found a lot to be inspired by while reading this one on the beach and away from work.

I also finished The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. This "Lady Astronaut" novel is an alternate history of the US where a major disaster has altered the course of history and space exploration. Lots of social commentary, as the book happens in the 50's and 60's, and I really enjoyed it.

I read using my Boox Palma the entire week I was on the road for work and at the beach. It's a great device for both travel and at the beach. My daily carry beach bag for the Palma, my iPhone 15 Pro Max, wallet etc. is the Channel Sacoche in Black from Makr. It is the perfect size for everything without being too big. They don't have any made right now, but said they would be making more soon. They aren't cheap, but are really high quality.

One very recommended gadget that we use at the beach is our Ultimate Ears - WONDERBOOM 2 Portable Bluetooth Speaker (I'm linking to the 4 because they don't have a page on their site with the 2 any longer.) I bought this speaker on clearance from Best Buy in 2020, and we use it all the time, it has held up really well and sounds great. I have it attached to a HeroClip to make it easy to hang from the umbrella or chairs.

I've decided I am going to try to do something roughly in the vein of The Installer Newsletter, which I look forward to every Saturday. Many browser tabs are opened.

I've been recovering from having lumbar spinal fusion surgery over the last few weeks, and have been limited in terms of what I'm able to do. I returned to work this week, but my energy level is nowhere near as robust as it normally is, yet.

This week, I finished On Photography by Susan Sontag. She passed away 20 years ago, but many of the thoughts about the art of photography in this book endure. With the emergence of digital photography and now ai applied to photography, someone could easily write a thoughtful sequel to this book.

I also finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larsen. This non-fiction book about William E. Dodd, who was the US Ambassador to Hitler's Germany in 1933, was actually a pretty quick read. I am going to read more Erik Larsen in the short future. Lots of really interesting pre-war context in this book. Shout out to Libby for making it easy to borrow these Kindle books from our Public Library.

I watched Godzilla Minus One the moment it was up on Netflix, and have been re-consuming it in bits and pieces in my home office while doing glamorous CTO tasks like my expense report. It's excellent, not just the best Godzilla movie, but a really good movie in it's on right.

I've also been watching a lot of music on YouTube while spending my doctor mandated times on the couch here at home. Lots and lots of OMA, who do instrumental covers of hip-hop songs, this video is a good jumping off point for them, but you can't go wrong with anything on their channel. Perfect background music for your day. If you want something a tad more aggressive, this live performance by DJ Z-Trip is a classic.

I've been enjoying the new multi-column layout that Threads has released on the web. It works pretty well on iPad as well. I do wish they had lists, like vintage Twitter did, that's how I consumed so much of my Twitter content over the years.

I'm (still) playing a ton of World of Warcraft Remix: Mists of Pandaria. I'm enjoying it so much that I didn't even start playing the new Destiny 2 expansion as planned this week. My gaming time is limited as I am only allowed to sit up for 30-45 minutes at a time. Still also doing Wordle and Spelling Bee almost every day too.

Super excited that SDW updated his site this week, he's one of the more inspiring folks on my radar. I subscribed.

I listened to a lot of podcasts this week, catching up on the ones I missed. The State of the Hardware 2024 Episode of Cortex is the one that had me buying a new microphone for future audio pursuits. Really enjoy all the "State of the" episodes of Cortex.

Seems like enough for this week. Hope you have a great weekend. Really looking forward to WWDC on Monday. Wish I was allowed to travel for it.

Here are some things I’ve been enjoying recently, in no specific order. I am not compensated in any way, even referral payments, for these links. Hope I turn someone else onto something they enjoy.

Mela

After years of being a devoted user of Paprika, I have completed converted over to Mela as my digital recipe keeper. Mela is from the same developer as Reeder, which is the RSS reader I have used, in conjunction with Feedbin, as my newsreader or choice for a long while now. Why did I switch? First, Mela just has a much cleaner user interface, feels more current and modern than Paprika, and is more in keeping with my personal taste.

Second, because this app comes from the developer of a feed reader, it has the same concept built into it. This allows me to add my favorite recipe sites to the app, and quickly be able to see the recipes that they have posted recently, then easily add them to my recipe collection in Mela. I like this workflow better.

Migration from Paprika was very fast and I haven't found any issues with my collection of recipes. Once I purchased both the Mac and iOS versions, my recipes appeared everywhere via iCloud sync without issue.

Mela is $4.99 for iOS and $9.99 for the Mac.

Sportsletter

I'm a big fan of sports. I've also worked in sports for the vast majority of my professional career now. I'm not sure where I found it, but The Sportsletter is just an absolutely great and completely free daily sports email newsletter. It hits my inbox every morning about the time I get out of bed, and they do a phenomenal job of giving a sports fan the news, notes, stories and schedules for the day. Here's an example newsletter for your perusal. I think maybe the best thing about it is that it's not junked up with ads.

The Week: 10 Things You Need to Know Today

While I am suggesting email newsletters that hit your inbox in the morning. I have to suggest this daily news email from The Week. They are a credible source of daily news headlines without a lot of bias. You can subscribe to this one here. It's exactly what the title says, ten things in your inbox, linking to credible news organizations about the stories if you want further information. If you're interested in getting a bit more information every morning, this is a good way to do it.

Notorious EDC Beer Bomb

I wouldn't consider myself a big EDC guy, but pens have been sort of a gateway drug for me into this world. The moment I saw the Notorious EDC Beer Bomb, I knew that I had to have one. (I borrowed this image from their site, sorry Tom.) It's a bottle opener, a pry tool, and just a delightful little guy to carry around. I'm finding all sorts of uses for mine, and I kind of can't wait for it to get beat up with use. Here's a great little history of the object.

Now the bad news, getting your hands on one of these isn't super easy, and it seems like it's getting harder all the time because they have gotten so popular, come in different color ways, and have attracted a bunch of avid collectors who congregate over on a private Facebook Group. Your best bet, if you want to take on the challenge of purchasing one of these, is to follow them on social media, and get into the Facebook group.

LePen

Do you remember LePen? When reading my weekly Pen Addict member newsletter a couple of weeks ago, there was a link to a blog post from The Stationer about the tools Tessa currently uses. Lurking in that list was a pen that I had totally forgotten about, LePen. I remembered how fun these skinny little pens are, and decided to order some from her shop. These pens are just as fun to have around I as remembered, and I am now using them to add color to my Bullet Journal spreads. I especially like their Olive Green color.

Well, that's enough for this post, more to come soon.

Here are some things I've been enjoying recently, in no specific order. I am not compensated in any way, even referral payments, for these links. Hope I turn someone else onto something they enjoy.

Hydrow Rowing Machine

This is an equivalent for rowing to Peloton, and by all accounts the best interactive rower on the market. I grew up as an endurance athlete, but I just hate riding stationary bikes, and I find rowing a better workout as well. Hydrow offers great instructors, a great community of people to support you as you progress, and it has worked for me. I know, this thing is crazy expensive, and also requires a monthly subscription, but I was able to cancel my gym membership altogether. We’ve had ours for about 11 months now, and I have worked out on it 300 days. This device, and the service it comes with, which includes guided yoga, pilates and strength classes, has been a key to maintaining my sanity and improving my fitness over the last year. Since we purchased it, I have lost about 26 pounds. (I don’t care that much about weight, I care about fitness, but it’s still an encouraging metric.)

Nomad Base Station Stand

I love this little wireless charging stand that I keep on my desk. It holds/charges my iPhone 12 Pro Max in either portrait or landscape, making it great for my ten hour shifts monitoring the live streaming coverage of our events through our app. It also wirelessly charges my AirPods Pro. It’s a game changer to be able to see your phone screen while sitting at your computer.

Tip Top Cocktails

You may not be able to find these too far outside of Atlanta yet, but I'm fairly certain that you will be able to at some point. While most cocktails in a can that I have tried have been, frankly, gross, Tip Top came to the table with Old Fashioned, Negroni and Manhattan cocktails in a well designed can that are delicious, and have become a staple for me. In the last month, they added new Daiquiri and Bee's Knees cocktails to the lineup, and these two are both a welcome taste of Summer. I am not recommending their Margarita though. Start this Summer with the Daiquiri, you won't regret it. So great for a delicious cocktail on the go.

Poco Loco Burritos

This neighborhood burrito joint opened last month in Kirkwood, on the edge of the Atlanta/Decatur line. If you are local, I would recommend joining their mailing list, which gives you ordering access to their Wednesday pre-order an hour earlier than people not in the know. Most burritos are protein-rich breakfast bombs, really flavorful and very filling. Each week they change their menu, introducing a new meat burrito, a new veggie burrito and a new frozen burrito, typically all named in some theme. (This week is Steve Martin themed.) There have been weeks, since they opened, when I have consumed one of their burritos for lunch 5 out of 7 days.

After using the same desk since 1998, I picked up a Jarvis desk from Fully and finally got to set it up over the weekend. It took a few hours to get my home office ready for another desk, and to get my computers and wiring broken down. It took another few hours to assemble the new desk, re-run the cabling to be standing desk compatible, and then to set my gear back up.

I am still waiting for some lighting strips to come in, and I need to spend some more time on cable management, but today is my first day at the new setup, and I can already tell that it's going to be much better for me overall.

It’s an adjustable height desk, but I think I will primarily use it as a “sit at” desk. I just figured that it would make sense to get it and set it up in case I did want to try out that standing desk life. I wanted something that was a little wider to better accommodate my Mac on one side/PC on the other setup, and having monitor arms installed in the grommets has freed up a lot of desk space.

I continue to call this series of post "weekly" despite the fact that, based on actual data, it's really trimonthly. (Trimonthly is only defined as occurring every three months, unlike the confusing bimonthly.) I'm going to be stubborn about this in the hope that, over time, I will be able to make progress in making it more often.

I'm sure you've heard this from many others at this point, and, more than likely, you've already seen it, but, just in case, I can't recommend Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse enough. It's truly unlike any other superhero movie I've ever seen before, and I have seen just about everything.  The animation style, and techniques are so cool. Also, even if you have seen it, this Twitter Moment is worth checking out, Bagel!.  Every member of our family loved this movie, and I intend to watch it several more times.  I was also lucky enough to get a pair of the sneakers from the film before they sold out. 

I listen to many of the same podcasts each week, with only a rare few being "must listen" status where I never miss an episode. That's probably a good topic for a future blog post. One podcast that I have added to my rotation on a daily basis, however, is Techmeme's Ride Home.  This show is great in that, most days, they have pushed the daily episode before I get into my car to leave for the day. With the way Overcast works, this means that this is waiting and ready to be played when I start my drive. Each episode contains carefully crafted coverage of that day's tech news, and it's never longer than fifteen minutes. It's allowed me to stay up to date on several stories that are outside of my interest area. They do a really great job, and on a week like this one, with bucketloads of CES news, it helps me wade through the cruft to get to the interesting stuff.  The host, Brian McCollough, weaves his own humorous delivery into the stories, and that makes taking the medicine of tech news a bit easier as well.

I'm completely entranced by Reuben Wu's photography. He uses drones to create either objects made of light or to do the lighting for the photograph. This article by Ilana Herzig for Artsy does a good job of covering the basics of his vision and some of how he captures what he does. You may also be familiar with him from the music group Ladytron.  (Wishing that I could afford one of his works, but I'm on a budget at the moment.) 

What a great weekend, we didn’t do much out of the ordinary, but it was a really relaxing and constructive couple of days, with some high quality NBA Playoff games, and an Atlanta United victory mixed in. I’m continuing to take it easy, and my energy has returned, albeit slowly. I mostly played Hearthstone and Vainglory over the weekend, I want to play more PC games, but didn’t feel like shutting myself off from the family to play this weekend.

We finished our Lego Ship in a Bottle this weekend. Lots of little pieces.

A post shared by Robert Occhialini (@bump) on Apr 22, 2018 at 12:05pm PDT

I did also take my sons to the Pop’s Pancakes pop up at the Spindle on Sunday. If you have the chance to try these pancakes from my buddy Jeff, you definitely should check them out. I had the breakfast sandwich with Delia’s Chicken Sausage, and I am hooked.

A couple of Kickstarters of note that I wanted to mention. Both are fully funded.

Time is starting to wind down on the Mark One Pen from the Studio Neat guys. This pen checks all the boxes, and my friends over at the Pen Addict podcast had nothing but nice things to say about it, which is good enough for me.

The second one is the Kira Mechanical Keyboard from the Input Club. These guys really know how to put together a nice board, and I currently have and use a White Fox at home.  This board is unique in that it’s the smallest footprint you can squeeze a full sized keyboard into. It’s a bit pricey, but compared to similar keyboards, it’s a good price for the high quality they produce.

Some things I am enjoying.

Picked up a Schon DSGN Limited Edition “Punk Rock Pink” pen a couple of weeks ago, and it’s become my EDC pocket pen. I’ve always like the Fischer Space Pen refill, and this colorway is striking. This color is sold out, but they have a lot of other combinations that are equally as nice.

Upgraded my computer audio monitors to these Mackie Monitors. (Amazon affiliate link) I had been using the same Bose setup for maybe ten years before this. These speakers also support Bluetooth, so I can pipe other audio to them when I am not using my gaming PC. They sound great, and are small enough that I didn’t really have to make any huge changes. I am running out of plugs to power things in my home office.

Finally, I ran my Twitter account through Watson after reading this Kottke post about Watson Personality Insights.

Here’s what came back for me:

You are skeptical.

You are authority-challenging: you prefer to challenge authority and traditional values to help bring about positive changes. You are dutiful: you take rules and obligations seriously, even when they're inconvenient. And you are hedonistic: you feel your desires strongly and are easily tempted by them.

You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of organization.

You don't find either tradition or taking pleasure in life to be particularly motivating for you. You care more about making your own path than following what others have done. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.

Still processing that.

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

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

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.

I definitely love my Apple Watch. I ordered the Stainless Steel Apple Watch with a black sport band at 12:01 am on the night they went on sale, received it the very first day they shipped, and haven’t really taken it off, except for charging, since. I really like the black sport band, but have wanted to pick up more bands as well.  I see the sport band as a good every day band, and only really liked the black color. I wanted some variety, but found the other Apple options to not really be for me when I tried them on in store.  A few weeks ago, when the Monowear bands went up for pre-order, I placed an order for Monowear red nylon band.

I received the band while I was away at WWDC, and was pretty excited to try it out when I got home. I liked the red color as a contrast to the black band I have been wearing. I have to say that I am not disappointed in this band in any way.  I like it so much that I may be ordering additional bands from Monowear in the near future. Given the current dearth of third party bands that are available, and the premium construction, I don’t think the $59.99 price tag is unreasonable.

The band installed flawlessly on my watch, as easily as any of the Apple bands. Removing and re-installing my Apple Sport Band also proved to be a breeze.  I was definitely concerned about this the most of the various aspects of this purchase, and this band passed with flying colors.

The band itself is well made, and its metal matches the Apple Watch hardware color perfectly. This includes the three band loops, as well as the small pieces that attach the band to the watch body. I can’t find any flaws there at all. The nylon is what I would expect from a premium nylon watch band. It came out of the packaging a little stiff, and so will be a little itchy/scratchy the first few days until it’s fully broken in, but I think that’s to be expected.

Overall, this band is a good option for those seeking a red band, something Apple does not offer. I’d really like to try out their leather bands next, but may have to wait for my next paycheck to make that purchase. Keep in mind that I have only had/worn this band for about 36 hours, and my opinion may change with wear, but, for now, it’s a definite go ahead and buy rating.

Image Source: Nylon - Red Band with Chrome Loops — Monowear

Last summer I switched from Chrome to Safari for the umpteenth time. I’ve made the switch back and forth several times over the years, but Safari has stuck with me for several months now. The primary reason why is the excellent cloud tabs feature. Being able to see what tabs are open on my other devices, and actually being able to close them remotely has been a huge quality of life improvement. The syncing between devices is flawless.

One thing I did miss in the transition was Momentum, which is the new tab replacement I was using for Chrome. I’d actually posted it here a while ago. As you can see from the screenshot above, they bring in gorgeous photography, an inspirational quote,and provide a todo feature, as well as a way to configure the new tab with frequently used links. I like the inspiring nature photography, and have flirted with regular use of the various utilities.

Recently, I am not sure exactly when, they introduced a Safari extension, so now I get to have my cloud tabs and my favorite new tab replacement.

Last night, the people who were among the select group of writers to receive review units of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were finally allowed to release their hands on reviews of the new devices.

Every year, I find this night a little overwhelming as I try to read and digest the opinions of a catalog of people who I trust, and, in some cases, revere, for their opinions on this stuff. This is kind of hilarious in that every previous year at this point I’ve already ordered my device.  This year, however, more than any other, I was reading these reviews hoping that I haven’t made the wrong decision in which device I ordered. Really for the first time in the iPhone’s history, there are two “top of the line” devices to choose from. Did I get it right?

I ordered an iPhone 6 Plus at 3:40 am ET last Friday, after 4o frustrating minutes of trying to order a phone while simultaneously reloading Twitter to see if others had been successful.  My reasoning behind choosing the iPhone 6 Plus was that I wanted the extra battery life, and that, given how much I value the pictures I take with the device, that the camera with optical stabilization would be something that I would want.

I had printed out the PDF of the devices, and cut them out. It did nag at me a little that the 6 Plus was the same size as my (work provided) Samsung Galaxy Note 3. When my order went through, the app informed me that my device would be shipping the first week in October. Unacceptable, but I went back to bed anyway.

The next morning, I found that there were iPhone 6, Space Gray, 128 Gb still available for store pickup at two of my local Apple stores with a 9/19 availability date. I cancelled my iPhone 6 Plus order, and placed one for an iPhone 6 for pick up. (I can’t pick mine up until Monday because I am out of town at a family wedding the next few days.) I’m hoping that I don’t spend much time in the next 12 months regretting that decision. My reasoning was that the iPhone 6 is still a good jump from the iPhone 5S I am using now in terms of size.  We’ll see.

Here’s some thoughts on a few reviews from around the web. I don’t intend this post to be a summary of the reviews, or a review of reviews, it’s mostly my reaction to each.

Daring Fireball - The iPhones 6 by John Gruber

This review made me feel a little better about my decision to go with the iPhone 6, particularly this part, where he makes his recommendations.

 If you simply want a bigger iPhone, get the 4.7-inch iPhone 6. That’s what it feels like: a bigger iPhone.

After seven years, it is hard, really hard, to get to used to the new side placement of the sleep/wake button.

MacWorld - iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus review: Bigger is in fact better (in the right hands) by Jason Snell

That’s one heck of a line wrapping title. Jason does a great job of putting this set of device releases in the context of the history of iPhone releases at the beginning of the review. He seems to feel almost exactly the same way that Gruber does about the 6 Plus.

That being said, the iPhone 6 Plus is unlike any iPhone before it. Not quite a phone, not yet an iPad, it’s a tweener of a device that’s going to be fantastic for some people and completely wrong for others.

Reachability isn’t the most elegant concept I’ve seen Apple develop, but it does make the size of these phones more manageable when you’re using only one hand.

On a side note, Jason Snell has left MacWorld, and has a new site, Six Colors.  There are some interesting deeper insights about the screens and display technology in his first article on that site, iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus: A tale of scale. Looking forward to seeing what else he does with his newfound freedom.

The Verge - iPhone 6 Review by David Pierce,  iPhone 6 Plus Review by Nilay Patel

First, I think that it was a curious decision to do these as two separate reviews by two different writers. The two reviews above got this right, in my opinion. A single review for both makes for better reading, and they are so similar in so many ways, that this style of review is more efficient for the reader.

The iPhone 6 review does a good job of putting this phone, and it’s size, in the context of the larger market, fairly comparing it to the Android devices that the Daring Fireballs and MacWorlds would typically not mention.  This review has the nicest product photography and better screen shots than any other review I have looked at for these phones as well. It talks more about iOS 8 than the previous two as well, mentioning Spotlight for instance.

I’m particularly smitten with Spotlight, which now includes the App Store, web, local, and other search results as you type. It’s become my go-to way to find anything; it’s much faster than opening Safari or dealing with Siri, which can be fantastically useful but remains hard of hearing.

The iPhone 6 plus review did cause me some regret. Particularly this section on battery.

Huge phones get to have huge batteries, and the iPhone 6 Plus is a huge phone with a huge battery: I consistently got about two days of battery life from the 6 Plus in regular daily use — slightly more than the day and a half we got from the iPhone 6

I would be doing The Verge a disservice if I didn’t mention how well done the video reviews are. Both are excellent, and I found myself wondering why some of the other publications/sites don’t do this, as it’s way more revealing about a product like the iPhone than a written review with some screenshots.  I especially  enjoyed the shot of the reviewer walking by the line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in Manhattan, walking past the people waiting in line for the iPhone 6 while talking on the iPhone 6.  Funny.

New York Times - Review and Video: With Big New iPhones, It’s the iOS 8 Software Inside That Counts by Molly Wood

This one is another combo written review and video review in a single page. The written review sticks to the basics, and really steers clear of making a recommendation, as I think you would expect from a more mainstream media review.

The video review is excellent, and seeing the phones in her hands was great. It made me realize just how huge the iPhone 6 Plus is going to be for people with smaller hands. (Which I don’t have.) The video review has a lot more flavor and opinion to it, and I wish that had come through more in the written review.

Neither review impacted my possible buyer’s remorse.

I’m pushing this post out, but plan on adding additional reviews today as time allows.  There are a lot of reviews. - RO 11:44 AM ET

This weekend, I was reading Twitter, minding my own business, when I ran across this tweet by Nick Bilton. It had this picture taken from a drone attached to it.

I saw this picture, and I was intrigued. A longtime lover of photography, I am really interested in the perspectives you could capture with a drone that you wouldn’t normally be able to capture without a helicopter, or even without a helicopter.  As I do, I started searching for more information about using drones for photography, and discovered a few sites/posts with some great information.  First, this post on the National Geographic web site.  Later, I found skypixel.org which seems to be a very actively maintained blog with some really striking drone photography on it.  It also features this awesome getting started guide.  If you are at all interested in this stuff, this seems like the page to bookmark to get started.

I have gone ahead and ordered a practice drone.  Before I spend too much money on this, I want to be sure that it’s something I enjoy doing, and that I can actually fly one of these things.  Even the bare bone drones plus a GoPro camera will end up setting you back a thousand dollars.  Although it looks like rentals are going to be available soon, keep reading.

A couple of days later, Jason Kottke posted this Drone selfies post and the web exploded with drone photography interest.  The drone selfie video, which I have embedded below, was take at the same time as the shot above that Nick Bilton posted to Twitter.  It seems like this meme has exploded in the last few days, this led to more drone selfies, or dronies.  Personally, I am more interested in taking high quality stills from unique perspectives than the videos, but I probably will reconsider once I have gear.

Amit Gupta, who took the Drone selfie below, has added Drone Photography gear rental to his awesome photography gear site, Photojojo.  Go here to check that out and sign up for more information.  Looks like they are launching on May 15th.  There’s also a great guide to “How to take a perfect Dronie” on that page.

Bernal Hill selfie from Amit Gupta on Vimeo.

This post on MacRumors, iPhone 6: Everything We Know is a great comprehensive wrap up of the current conjecture about the all but confirmed larger screen iPhone we expect to see in late 2014.  I don’t really have much to add, but the image above, from the article, really did grab my attention.  (The image is from MacRumors, not me.)

The main subject of posts about this purchase seems to be speculation about what Twitter might want with a lock screen utility company. I think that’s a fairly obvious, Twitter updates without unlocking your phone.

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.

In no particular order, here are five products/sites/services that I really enjoyed having/using this year. I could have written about more, but I’m lazy.

Feedbin

I am an RSS apex consumer, subscribing to about 500 sites' RSS feeds. I was in a complete panic earlier this year when Google Reader was going away. NetNewsWire and Reeder, synced with Google Reader, were mainstays of my way of staying informed. I used them every day, and rarely declared RSS bankruptcy. Feedbin saved my ass in 2013.

With Google Reader going away, there were a few choices out there, but most of them were free services. That’s not what I wanted to use though. I wanted something that I could pay an honest fee for, that probably wouldn’t be co-opted by other business motives, and I evaluated the options out there and picked Feedbin.

This service hasn’t disappointed me one bit. It’s been consistently improved throughout the year, and client support for it is fantastic. Best of all, their web app, through one of those updates, supports many of the keyboard commands from the legacy RSS reader I used for so long. I read my feeds on every device I carry using this service, using Reeder on iOS, Press on Android, and the Feedbin Web interface on desktop. (Press is awesome, and probably the best RSS Reader app on any platform in my opinion.)

Cool Hunting T-Tech by Tumi Backpack

I own a lot of gear bags because I carry a lot of gear on a daily basis, and I am always looking for the perfect system for carrying things. At work, we support a lot of devices, and I need to have a few with me wherever I am to make sure that I can cover the support from where I happen to be.

I should probably do a post about what’s in my bag when I head out to CES next week. On top of that, I usually carry a camera system of some kind, and then a myriad of chargers etc. Suffice it say, this bag is really really nice, well made, and can hold a lot of stuff. There are a lot of great bags out there, but this has been my mainstay since the day I got it in the first half of 2013. Since it’s made by Tumi, I know that I can count on it. I have had some Tumi luggage for as long as fifteen years under a lot of travel, and it’s held up remarkably well. If you need to carry a lot of stuff, and like the backpack form factor, I highly recommend this bag.

Unfortunately, it seems to be sold out at this point. I’ll be watching Cool Hunting for future product releases, they have great taste and attention to detail.

Apple TV

Not new to this year, but this small device has really become the center of our living room in 2013. It already had a strong lineup of content, and AirPlay from our various iOS devices (my wife and I both have iPhones and iPads) has become a stock way we listen to music. Having a device at the center of our living room that is synced with our ever growing library of content in iTunes helps a lot. Integration with Flickr means that there’s a scrolling slideshow of my most recent Flickr posts happening while we’re listening to music.

I think, however, that there was a major shift that occurred in our home over the summer. This shift was caused by two things. June 19th, 2013, HBO Go came to Apple TV. We have DirecTV, and this meant it was like someone had bought us the boxed set of every single HBO show. The second event was Orange is the New Black coming to Netflix in July. Long time fans of Weeds, we loved this show produced by the same team, and we binge watched until they were all gone. Can’t wait until there are more, but we’re currently binging through Breaking Bad. We’re not going to be canceling our DirecTV service any time soon, but more and more, we’re watching stuff via this device. When we’re not watching, this device is what’s powering other living room entertainment.

Evernote Smart Notebooks

As evidenced by my post a couple of days ago, Evernote Smart Notebooks, in the linked configuration, have been a staple of my productivity regimen in 2013. They come with a three month extension to your Evernote Pro service. At the rate I use them, this means I won’t be paying discretely for Evernote any time soon. It’s that simple. I don’t really use the stickers, but I do take a picture of every page. Just works. I was already hooked on Evernote long before these appeared.

The Wirecutter

It’s rare that I trust a site’s advice completely, but The Wirecutter has earned that trust. Their exhaustive work in specific product categories has led to well informed purchases time and again throughout 2013. They are relentless in keeping their site and reviews up to date. I read through their deals very carefully. Some notable example purchases are our WiFi Router, the pens I use, and the cards in my cameras. I highly recommend that you check at The Wirecutter before any consumer electronic or personal technology related purchase. Here’s their guide on how to use their site.

What my iPad Home Springboard Looks like on the last day of 2014, a photo by bump on Flickr.

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.

John's post on Hypercritical: Fill Your TV points out that most people don't know to check the most basic settings on their advanced flat screen televisions. We had ours set up for us by some professionals, so they did all of this stuff, and at the time I thought some of it was overkill, but I am not regretting it at all at this point. Totally worth doing while you are home and hopefully a little bored, over the holidays.

I’ve been using Chrome as my primary browser for quite a while.  One of my favorite advantages of Chrome is the ability to change your default tab.  I’ve used quite a few different ones, but for the last week, I have been using Momentum after reading a Lifehacker post, and liking the screenshot.  I think I am going to stick with it.

I like it because I like the visual appeal of the photography that they choose, the simple access to weather, and a quick persistent todo list that it offers.  (I use a paper to do list for my primary.)  The idea of the main focus, which is a question is asks you each day, makes you contemplate that for a few moments each morning.

Momentum from Peak Experience

I'm at the office, coding away. I thought I would take a Bump update break.

The answer to the previously mentioned Palm V alarm issue seems to be soft reseting the device through the reset button on the back. Two of us have tried this with great success. Just make sure you don't erase your data.

I'll be attending the Web Design '99 Conference. If you are too and want to meet up, please shoot me an email.

Wired News has a story about a contest that Kipling , the maker of the excellent line of Hacker bags, is running. It seems that no one has been able to break their code yet despite a mention on Slashdot . I have one of their computer bags and I love it. 

I'm waiting now for Netscape to confirm my entry into their channel system .

My first piece of writing to be published in several months marks the start of a monthly Web Authoring/Web Business column in MacNow Magazine . The name of the column is Leveraging the Web . While the magazine has more of a Macintosh focus, I'm far less interested in platform specific computing these days.

Palm Underground readers get $1 off any title they buy from Peanut Press , a company that digitizes books in a Palm compatible format. I downloaded their reader application and purchased two titles last night. My first instinct would be that reading books on a Palm device would be difficult on the eyes, but I read through about half of one title last night. I actually liked it. The Palm's backlighting made reading in bed better, and it is convenient to be able to carry a couple of titles around for my spare moments. They don't have a really wide variety of titles yet, but they do have Monica Lewinsky's book(which I would never buy).

The Netcraft Web server survey documents Apache's continued growth as the number one Web server. Despite a distant third place ranking, Netscape's servers saw the most growth over the last month.

So, I love the New Beetle . It's a really well designed vehicle, and is really visually pleasing to me too. I think the funniest thing is other people's reaction to it. In the three days I've had it, I've had several people approach me in parking lots to tell me how much they like it, and asking me if they could get a look at the inside.

It looks as if Byte Magazine's revival as an online only entity is progressing well. I always loved the print version of the publication. According to the San Jose Mercury News , the site was getting 600,000 page views a month without any new content at all before they relaunched it. When the magazine disappeared, I took it as a sign of things to come in the technology publishing field. While I doubt that magazines will disappear at any point in the near future, the Web has made it easier to keep yourself up to date on things in a daily manner rather than a once a month print thing. 

The feast and famine updating motif continues. I've been doing a lot of reading and working some substantial hours during the week. Not an excuse though.

I love my new Palm V

It doesn't have a lot more memory than the Palm Professional I had before, but it is faster. The screen is also quite a bit better, and the feel of the buttons is much improved. The biggest difference is the size of the device. Where it was once too large to slip into my pocket, it now is almost unnoticeable. I picked up the aluminum case for it, and it reminds my of a cigarette case. I'm still waiting on the modem so I will write more once that has arrived. It also worth mentioning that it is much better looking too.

The new MacPac connectivity software is solid.(I've been using the beta version for a couple of months so it wasn't a surprise. The new software that sync's with Outlook 98 on my Gateway works really well. All in all, it seems like my impulse decision was a decent one. Two things are nagging at me though: 1)It's not expandable 2)The integrated battery make sme nervous that I will find myself without power or a place to charge up. In honor of this new purchase, I have added a Palm Resources section to the links page.

Most of my focus over the last two weeks has been down three paths. Broadband Internet access and the changes we can expect from it. Network appliances and the dissapearance of the general purpose computer in non-technical homes. Security and privacy.

Feed Magazine has a story name Getting What You Pay For that talks about the Free PC movement in detail. I guess I understand the underlying economics, but I don't understand why anyone would build a whole business model around this concept. As an ancillary information gathering arm of a larger company, it might make sense.

CNN has a story on How to make your fortune on the Web Interesting statistic in the last paragraph. There must be a ton of bad business ideas proposed to venture capitalists.

The next issue of Wired magazine came today. My personal opinion is that this magazine has declined greatly over the last two years.

Web Review's current feature is Running Open Source Software They cover GIMP, Apache and Zope. Free is definitely a good way to go with software these days.

In the non-Free software department, I have picked up a copy of Headline Studio from Metacreations. A really comprehensive solution for all of your banner creation needs. I expect to be writing a review of it for MacNow magazine .

Finally, my Erricson cellular phone passed away this week after a year of loyal service, abuse, and being dropped about a hundred times.

Here's a site with Sim City Icons for Atlanta. Now you can enjoy building(and destroying) the city I live in with the game.

I've been listening to the Pixies a lot this week. It reminds me of home. 

Howdy. How ya been?

In the process of questioning whether or not my work process is proper and efficent, I have been spending all of my time this week using my FireAnt. It makes me realize that I still wish things worked together better than they do, despite the layer of compatibility that the Internet provides.

One thing that kills me is email. I have office email, Internet email, and I access both at home and at the office. In each place, I have both a PC and a Macintosh(Each running more than one operating system.), as well as a Pilot that I read mail from. I have to turn cartwheels to make sure I don't delete mail I need. Inevitably, its 10 pm, and I need something that is a 20 minute drive away. So I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve my carrying equipment around with me everywhere I go. Web based email would be the answer, I guess, but I think that there has to be a more elegant way. Also, I prefer to be able to read and compose email offline. I also like to read my sent mail and refer to it. This has become an issue for me, and I haven't found an acceptable answer yet.

I did, however, find some useful things on my quest for an answer. The first is Magical Desk Interesting place to keep your documents so that you, or others, can access them. I am using it now to transfer documents from the office to my home. I wouldn't use the free email, if I wanted that there are a million other places, but I like the idea and interface. Since it's free, it makes good sense. It also would be great for traveling types.

HotOffice takes this idea one step further.(You also have to pay for it.) For a small business with high speed Internet access, this is a quick and inexpensive Intranet with all the expected features and a much lower cost. I wonder how many users you have to have before you hit the cost barrier of doing the Intranet in house? Great solution for a small company with a distributed workforce. Unfortunately, they seem to only support some WIN32 browsers, no Macintosh browsers. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose? Still, the idea is a good business model with the commerce they are building into it.

Scripting News is tracking the disappearance of the IE 5.0 beta from Microsoft's servers. I was waiting until I would have time to do testing to download it. I guess that makes me one of the developers that got screwed in this deal. Now I have to wait for three weeks to get it.

I'm doing the preliminary sketches for the new Bump, expect the development cycle to go beta within two weeks. I plan on adding a bunch of features, better content, and some interesting ideas.(I think)

I'm trying out Enfish Tracker Pro . It indexes and tracks information that you specify on your hard drives and on the Web and then links the information based on relevancy. Over time, I think it could be a really usefull tool in tracking writing and ideas.

Finally, there is a new Pilot in the family. Since I can't use it yet, I don't have any comments. I couldn't resist once I saw it. 

I changed the font tags on the journal text. I think it is still easy to read, but allows more text without scrolling. Let me know if you don't like the change.

I've had a 3Com Palm Pilot for a few months, but because of synching issues with my G3 tower at work(where my contact and schedule data resides), I have not really started using it until today. I installed the software on my machine at home, and hooked the Hot Sync cable up to it. I soon discovered that the Macintosh software isn't compatible with Mac OS 8.5. Right now I am trying to get some third party software to work, but I am getting very frustrated by these complications. I use Chronos Software's Consultant now for my contact management and scheduling needs. Previously, I used Now Contact and Now Up to Date, which I liked a lot more, but Now Software was bought by Qualcomm and, while they are releasing a follow package named Eudora Planner, I don't have time to wait for it.

The new version of Consultant comes with the ability to synch with the Palm devices, but it means I have to upgrade to a developmental version of the Conduit software. I'm downloading it now. There are a ton of Pilot sites on the Web, and I will add a new section of them on the links page after the dust settles from these projects.

I have to launch a new site at work tommorrow morning. I'm frustrated with the amount of time I have to spend on this task. I want to create high quality work, but don't have enough time to be painstaking about it. I'm hammering away on it now though.

Jakob Neilson has an insightful article on Personalization in alertbox.

Well I have to get back to the site for work. I have more on my software experiences of the last 24 hours, but it can wait.