Since I’ve turned on Do Not Disturb on my phone a year ago, I’ve missed lots of notifications at night while I was still up working on my Mac. In the 10 minutes I’ve had the app installed and running — which is a quick and painless process — I’ve already received a few notifications. So, definitely worth it already.
I got the passion for photography from my dad. For as long as I remember he carried all his photography equipment wherever we went, and we usually went hiking in the Alps.
My dad is an old school photographer. He shot analog till only recently, and has been a fervent Nikon user for all his life. Younger, he used to develop his films himself in a dark chamber. For at least 15 years we stored his old chemicals in a storage room, above his prized cars. Looking back, I’m not sure it was such a bright idea given how much he likes his cars, but hey what do I know?
He had all this gear and had thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of shots we never saw. Sometimes, rarely so, he made us watch one of his films. They were all negatives so we used a projector. It was fun times, but again they were rare.
I bought a Nikon FE from him and this is what got me hooked into photography. Naturally, I followed his teachings and abode to the sacrosanct rule of thirds. Everything had to fit within the grid, and the most important subject had to be precisely at the intersection of two lines.
Slowly but surely, I distanced myself from this rule. I did not see the benefits, and the photographs following this rule were simply not any different from those which did not. So I began to shoot with a one-point perspective, straight on.
I don’t know why it appealed to me. At that time, I wasn’t a big fan of cinema, or nearly not as much as I am today. I had heard of Stanley Kubrick, but I did not associate his art with the one-point perspective.
It’s only later, much later, that I discovered Kubrick // One Point Perspective. Fascinating video that tries to enumerate all of Kubrick’s uses of one-point perspective in all his movies. Note the slightly different use but still similar in Wes Anderson // Centered.
Then it dawned on me: there is no one rule to follow. We should practice our art, our passion, to our heart’s content.
There is a new major version of Sketch! It’s well worth the price, and is actually offered with a little discount to celebrate the launch.
If you come from Fireworks then you’ll feel right at home (only a nicer, bigger, more modern home). If you come from Photoshop, then lots of things are different but it’s only for the best. It really is an awesome app for graphic design.
Deckset is a new Mac app that sits between Keynote and reveal.js: “great-looking slides from simple Markdown files.”
I could see myself using the app for my next presentations. Will see.
(Yes, that is a linked post to a linked post to a post. Deal with it.)
Marco Arment:
The low-reception-areas tip is especially good. […] Last time I flew cross-country, the two passengers next to me both left their iPhones in fully-on normal mode. I put mine in airplane mode. All three of us used our phones periodically during the flight. When we landed, their batteries were both nearly dead (which they loudly complained about for 20 minutes) and mine was still over 70% charged.
Here in Sweden (but it happens back home too) I get excellent cell coverage in the city but subpar in the rural area. Turning off the cell reception really helps me get through the day. And with iOS 7, plane mode is really quick to switch on.
Story of an Android developer banned from using his Google Play account for life. I feel bad for him.
I’ve had a similar thing happen to me ten years ago: I had a Google AdSense account and was happily using it on my website. But a “competitor” (we were stupid kids at the time… well, stupid-er than today that is) decided to generate thousands of fake clicks on the banners, which triggered an automatic action on my account.
Like Steve Gehrman, my account was banned for life, and so was a myriad of other Google accounts. I tried once to create a new account but it was instantly banned as well. It felt like at the time that there is no way to get a human to look at the issue, which really amplifies the feeling of injustice.
I’ve just discovered this app yesterday. It does cinema-like timelapses pretty effortlessly. I’ve tried to make a few and the quality is plainly amazing.
Remember it does drain the battery very hard so keep the iPhone on charge. Also, the phone tends to get very very hot. But the results are well worth it.
The existence of this website is telling that something is wrong.
Randall Munroe of xkcd fame has written a book! I’ve been following What If? religiously every Tuesday for two years, and I’ll buy his book in a heartbeat.
A major update to the excellent backup app Arq has been released this week.
Prior to switching over to Arq 3 late last year, I used CrashPlan to backup my 100 Gb photo library for $55 a year. With Arq and Amazon Glacier, it is now about $36 a year, and I have a much better control over my data.
This is a great command-line utility that, as its name suggests, throttles the CPU usage of a process. Great to prevent Handbrake from eating all the processor time while encoding some videos.
Sarah Perez for TechCrunch:
Burstly, the makers of an in-app ad management platform called SkyRocket and the parent company of popular mobile app testing platform TestFlight, has been acquired, we’re hearing. Though we’re working to get more information on this now, including deal terms, our understanding is that Apple is the acquirer here.
With the recent changes to iTunes Connect, maybe Apple is now listening to the developers. It’s time the 100-slots limit be lifted for beta testers.
I love that Samsung keeps bashing Apple on various things, and yet they cannot get lag under control. Notice how the interactions are carefully slow so not to show any lag?
Great little project by Facebook to celebrate the network’s ten year anniversary.
I know that each video is automatically generated and that each photo or status update show was chosen on the basis of its popularity, but it does feel creepy to watch a video about your life on Facebook. It’s fun, though.
However as I have reset my account multiple times—i.e. delete all status updates once a year—there isn’t much to put in the video.
Shot in a day on iPhone 5S by 15 camera crews sent around the world. And naturally, edited on a Mac.
David Smith looks back on his latest app, Pedometer++.
I don’t have a 5S but I know that’s the app I’d use over all the other apps that count steps.
If you have watched the previous first-person footage and think you’ve seen it all, you’re wrong.
Now this is the real deal.
Latest ad from Nokia. I find it extremely offensive to hobby photographers.
Also, that’s from the same company that faked the Lumia 920 ad two years ago.
This is Mike Matas’s latest app. Remember that Push PoP Press was acquired by Facebook last year.
Let’s see how good it is in a few days when it’s released. I’m not too convinced myself on the fullscreen + gestures paradigm, and there’s already a healthy debate on Twitter on apps that hide the status bar.
More importantly, while Mike Matas and his creative colleagues at Facebook may have whimsical newsfeeds with professional-grade photographs and ridiculously photogenic friends, we simple users do not.
Am I allowed to say “LOL”?
It looks interesting.
I’ve been thinking recently of leaving my photo gear and using only my phone, and Moment could be an interesting tool to make it happen. However, I like having a real camera for the time I want to take real photographs.
Good for Tony Fadell, bad for the users.
Sebastiaan de With sums up it best:
Always-on, internet connected devices with lots of sensors in your house from Google. Doesn’t get more 21st-century creepy than that.
I’ve probably watched it a dozen times already over the weeks, but it’s still a poignant story about lions.
It doesn’t quite tackle the issue of lions disappearing despite being named liked so. I found The Last Lions (2011) to be better on this point.
Still, it’s an amazing documentary on the life of Kevin Richardson and “his” lions.
Samsung’s latest attempt at awkward and creepy ads.
I cannot believe allowed the ad to be made, yet alone published.
Excellent.
Finally a teaser that is what it is: a teaser.
I cannot wait to see this movie. Nolan is my favorite director.
A new take on calculator apps. Looks great.
I’ll see if it makes me stop using Soulver.
Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.
Meanwhile, in the comments:
The person who made that video could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by buying a real computer from a real technology company like #Toshiba or #Panasonic not a #f8cking #posertoy from the #Apple #f8cktards
Trolling at its finest.
It’s Ambilight for all displays. I’ll probably get one as soon as it’s available.
I know you already know about Amazon Prime Air. I know you probably have read everything that there is to read about it. I’m sorry to impose on you.
Anyway, I love this idea. Anything that improves our lives is a welcome endeavor in my book. I’m just afraid that we are not ready for this one: We live in a society where theft and violence are common. I don’t think it’s a good idea to send drones all over the city when people can just shoot them down.