October 2012
14 posts
“Buy the steak you like. Worship the God you love. Neck with the people you...”
– Merlin Mann
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive....”
– Howard Thurman
5 tags
Chromebooks May Be the Computers for the Rest of...
Recently, I’ve wondered why Microsoft doesn’t own its position as the biggest computer platform for schools, government and business. Sure, those things aren’t as sexy as an iPad, but a commercial featuring a bunch of happy-go-lucky college students dancing with their snappy covers doesn’t seem to fit the Surface - or Microsoft’s - core competency. The unavoidable...
3 tags
The Researcher's Setup: Samuel Hansen
In tribute to The Setup, Studies in Semicolons presents occasional breakdowns of the technology setups of academics, researchers and others who do idea work. Samuel Hansen is a math podcaster and writer, whose Kickstarter-funded series Relatively Prime is currently in its first series.
Who are you, and what do you do?
I am primarily a podcaster, but I also write about mathematics for the blog...
3 tags
Putting Some Buddhism Back in Your Zen Hacks
The Internet called for Amazon’s head twice yesterday, first over a widespread outage of their Web Services that took much of the social networking world with it, then for a viral story about a woman whose Amazon account was shuttered, and its contents removed, for seemingly unexplained reasons. I’ll leave for others whether these events suggest Amazon is incompetent or unethical. But...
3 tags
Rhone: The Best Upgrade Is You →
minimalmac:
I have come to believe that the best and most cost effective technology upgrade that one can make is to themselves. I’m not talking cyborg implants here. I’m speaking about knowledge. That is, increasing your skill, aptitude, and understanding when it comes to any device, application, or tool. …
3 tags
“Active for one person is inactive for another. The only way to understand your...”
– From Paris and the Data Mind, a beautiful reflection by Craig Mod on using the FitBit pedometer, and the significance of becoming mindful about your daily walks.
5 tags
FoldingText is a Sandbox for Ideas
Out today from Hog Bay Software is FoldingText, yet another Markdownified text editor for OS X heralded by the likes of David Sparks and Brett Terpstra for its flexbility and elegance. I’ve been playing with the betas, and it quickly found its way onto my dock. Like Brett and Sparky, I knew I was in love, I just didn’t quite know what I was in love with. Now I do.
As I’m...
3 tags
Guilty Pleasure: BlueLounge Mobile Accessories
I’m a huge sucker for accessories for all my digital toys. Looking around, I’ve got three Dockem stands to hold my mobile devices to the wall, a Stump stand, and a bunch of failed phone holders, laptop sleeves and the like. Far and away my favorite designer of these little life improvements, however, is BlueLounge.
I first found BlueLounge through their Cool Feet laptop stands, a...
3 tags
Scapple (Beta) →
A simple mind-mapping application for OS X, from the people who brought you the indispensable Scrivener. I’m starting to play with this now, but this is the first mind map application which makes sense to me.
1 tag
Take Note →
A phenomenal online exhibit with high-quality images of examples of notetaking, from a variety of disciplines, taken from Harvard University Collections.
3 tags
Rhone: The Today Card →
minimalmac:
Related to the previous post, for those wondering how I drive my day. No matter what app I use to store my “big list”, I always come back to using pen and paper and this is the only thing I really follow and stays constant no matter what.
4 tags
Notability and the State of the Stylus
In class tonight, I couldn’t help but look over colleague Liz’s shoulder as she used Notability on her iPad. For lack of an iOS device, I haven’t played with it, but it looks like a really awesome way to integrate handwritten or hand-drawn notes with highlighted PDFs in notebooks, all synced to Dropbox. Plus, it’s on sale for like 99 cents, so you can’t go wrong.
...
6 tags
Hey, Calibre is Now (sorta) Pretty!
If you’ve ever tried and put away famous powerhouse e-book conversion and management program calibre, now’s the time to give it a second look. Version 0.9 adds some much needed cosmetic improvements, including rounded window corners and highlighting throughout the interface. That, and plenty of tweaking to cut down on redundant menus and toolbar buttons, leaves a program whose features...
