Kelake

I have a thing for sneakers, which other than coffee is one of my few arguably necessary indulgences. I’ve long run in Hoka One One’s with their super sized cushion but after running 900km in a pair of Bondi 7’s have become a Altra Running convert. It takes time to adjust to these shoes, as they are zero drop and place a greater emphasis on a natural foot position. The last time I tried this kind of change in shoe it was with a pair of Soloman’s and I developed plantar fasciitis as a result. This time I am taking it a bit slower and paying attention to any discomfort or tightness in the lower kinetic chain.

The orange pair in the middle I bought specifically for winter trail running, which I have since found out is prohibited (and the fact of which still annoys).

Via iA Writer

iA Writer has a new style check function which looking through my old blog posts shows how poor, at least in its eyes, my writing has become, or has always been.

Unfortunately it offers no suggestions for improvement, nor unlike the built in spell checker, suggests any replacements.

Despite adding all kinds of new functions over the course of their app development, iA Writer manages to keep true to it’s minimalist routes.

I wonder if we all started using the many AI powered writing tools that are available (Gmail auto-complete, Grammarly et al), will we all start sounding the same?

Yeah, that’s my sketchbook. It’s very cheap. I like it because it doesn’t put pressure on you. I prefer cheap. I don’t like the moleskins or those other notebooks because they’re so expensive. They look like a book with no printing inside, and it puts the pressure of getting something that a real book, which people have been editing for a year, that’s the kind of pressure you get for every little line you put in.

This is exactly how I feel about many of my notebooks – the paper (especially the paper), binding and cover all have a quality to them, so much so that I feel whatever I put in them would not be worthy of the space that they occupy. But I love notebooks, so my collection keeps growing, until one day in the future when I have a wall full of empty notebooks. Perhaps by then I will have something worthy of their empty pages.

What’s In Your Bag, Simon Stålenhag?

I haven’t had much time to be in front of the keyboard since my family arrived from Taiwan, but I’m glad that the above keyboard, in all its bent and dirty glory, made the trip along with them. I’m not a fan of most recent Apple keyboards, especially on their laptops, so though I’m not much of a typist, being able to use this again is a relief.

My daughter has been raving about these pens for the past few months so I broke down and bought a few. They aren’t really promoted as anything special but they write really well – especially suited to filling out disembarkation cards. The 3mm would be perfect for teeny tiny Chinese text. They turned out to be a bit pricey at Amazon or other American/Canadian online shops, but fortunately extremely cheap here. Also included in the picture is a Nokumori mechanical pencil, a gift from my daughter for fathers day.

I bought a new Dell monitor recently and despite what must be the worst out of box experience I have ever seen, you basically have to destroy the box to take the monitor out, it feels like a pretty descent purchase all around.

Except for one thing …

The bottom of the stand and the monitors bezel are unaligned and it drives me crazy. Dell really needs to work on their attention to detail and QA.

I’d return it but other than the fact that the box was nearly destroyed, it’s a real hassle to return products bought online.

A bit like sketching in hardware. Love it.

LittleBits is an opensource library of discrete electronic components pre-assembled in tiny circuit boards. Just as Legos allow you to create complex structures with very little engineering knowledge, littleBits are simple, intuitive, space-sensitive blocks that make prototyping with sophisticated electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together. With a growing number of available modules, littleBits aims to move electronics from late stages of the design process to its earliest ones, and from the hands of experts, to those of artists, makers and designers.

littleBits

For the longest time using a web application as your primary means of accessing e-mail was certain to be an experience full of frustration. I could never understand why people used them; they are slow, full of ads, difficult to manage, and especially with Hotmail customer adverse. When dealing with large volumes of e-mail client software always wins hands down. That is until Gmail.
While I still use Apple Mail, at least for now, Gmail is in many respects superior. I find it faster in almost every regard and especially so when searching (makes some sense since it’s google). Ask Apple mail to find a search term and it grinds to an almost standstill on my powerbook. Gmail handles the same request with ease.
The point of mentioning this, beyond a bit of praise for Google, is that like everyone else with a Gmail account, I have invites. About 50 more invites than I have friends. If your interested in an invite send me a note at kelake at gmail.com

Ok. It just arrived – quickly after I sent a message via his contact form. I’ll edit the following text later.
——
I have been using the free-ware version of Tasks, a hierarchical, web-based personal task manager, for over a year now and despite some glitches I have been more than pleased. The developer Alex King released a far more polished multi-user version, TasksPro at a reasonable cost and later an update to the single-user version, Tasks 2.0. Having decided to purchase a Tasks 2.0 license I was looking forward to installing it over last weekend.
At this point I should be writing a glowing report about Tasks but alas despite having paid for the license last Friday I have yet to receive the download link. The form does say it may take up to 48 hrs to receive said information, why that is exactly we are not told, but after 96 hrs with nothing more than a confirmation of billing – no link. Sunday I even sent a polite e-mail to the developer asking if there was a problem. No reply from him.
There could be a logical explanation. I am using a Taiwan credit card which could cause problems due to either the ineptitude of the Taiwan bank or simply a longer than usual payment. I would assume the payment went through as no problems were mentioned on my receipt. The e-mail containing a link could have been caught as spam by the two spam filters I use but I supplied two e-mail addresses, one of which has no filter at all.
I have faith that this is just a slip-up, that this isn’t a story of lousy customer service nor yet another internet scam. The developer’s (Alex King) web site and software are excellently crafted but it’s these small details (answering e-mail and sending out paid for product on a timely basis) that can either make or break a good experience. How you handle these glitches can win or lose you a customer. It will be interesting see how this works out.

I foolishly upgraded to Flash MX Professional 2004 like the corporate sponsored minion that I am and am suffering through my first flash project this year. What a pig this program has become. With a name conjured up from the Microsoft school of marketing and sluggish performance from the same school of programming I am kicking my ass for just deleting my older copy from my desktop. I am really glad I didn’t remove said license from my Powerbook. It’s not the fact that the software is so damn slow that bothers me, I am using a fairly recent G4, but its the removal of the ‘normal’ mode from the actionscripting interface that kills me. Yes, I admit, I have to learn some actionscript but I had come to rely on those helpful hints versus looking things up in a book. I hadn’t used the product enough to justify the time. Now with tight deadlines I’ll end up having to look up old code, what would have taken a second in MX becomes minutes in the new version with too long a title.

is a wonderful resource ” that will (help) validate the use of standards compliant code while showing all the benefits that such authoring offers to clients, partners and business owners everywhere.”

What Every Web Site Owner Should Know About Standards: A Web Standards Primer

A brief non-technical explanation of Web standards for Web site owners and managers. This article explains the benefits of Web standards, how they work, and how to begin implementing them.

The Way Forward with Web Standards

The MACCAWS white paper on Web standards. This article assembles arguments and information about Web standards into one document and explains Web standards in terms of how they affect business.

“Put Weblogs to Work” (Macworld) is a good introduction to how to start a weblog. It discusses hosting options, single vs. multiple authors, interactive features, notifications, syndication, searching, and more.
Link: Put Weblogs to Work

The amount of information avaliable from weblogs is incredible. How can a user keep track of it all? If you rely on an increasingly large number of weblogs it seems impossible to stay in touch with more than a hand full each day. Fortunately, a solution exists to simplify the process of reading large numbers of blogs: RSS (rich (or RDF) site summary).
Some articles detailing RSS/syndication and aggregators:
“Content developers make their RSS files available by placing them on their web server. In this way, RSS

I downloaded this software and have been using non stop since. Seldom does software create as much joy so simply as this MP3 server/jukebox. The developers describe it as, “MP3 Sushi is a set of two applications: MP3 Sushi Server and MP3 Buddies. MP3 Sushi Server allows you to turn your Mac into a Jukebox or a Radio broadcast station in a few clicks. It’s a cool way to share and stream your music among a local network or the Internet.” It is without a doubt a wonderful compliment to iTunes, even if you don’t plan to broadcast over the Internet which you might hesitate doing unless you want a billion dollar lawsuit from the draconian RIAA. True random play of my entire MP3 collection makes for an eclectic listen.
More info: MP3 Sushi Server v1.4.1