Category Archives: technology

My RSS System

Part of my self defined job, as curator of Minimal Mac, is to monitor a wealth of information via RSS feeds in the hope of finding relevant content to post. My job often means that I am away from my feed reader (Google Reader in my case) for long enough that I return to hundreds and sometimes thousands of items waiting to be read. Obviously, there are only so many hours in a day and catching up would be impossible. That is why I have developed the following system to allow me to process everything I need to when this happens.

I have divided my feeds into the following folders:

* **a-list** – These are everything I consider a “must see”. This is also my shortest list of feeds. To make it to the list you have to have a long history of providing top value content. Not just occasionally, but with almost every post. Daring Fireball is here, Kottke is too. I look at everything that shows up in this list no matter the count. It’s worth it.

* **b-list** – These are feeds that deliver value but not near the regularity of the ones in the a-list. This is an especially good place for the true weblogs where interesting links with short commentary rule the day over long form posts, and not everything is a must read.

* **friends** – These are people I know personally and feel compelled to read them not only to keep up with their lives and what interests them but also so that when they bring up these things in conversation I have background (“Hey, did you see my post on…?”). That said, my friends also very often are first source for interesting content. I hang out with the right people I guess.

* **other** – These are everything that do not fit into the above. Things that are nice to know but not need to know and that I can easily ignore without missing anything. In general, if it is important, I know that someone in the above three lists will cover or link to it. This is also a place for the sites that generate the most posts (Gizmodo, Lifehacker, etc.). The noisier the feed the more likely it is to go here. This is, by far, my largest list of feeds and always contains the bulk of the items in any given day.

* **probation** – Pretty much everything new I add goes here first. Only after a couple of weeks, do I then decide where it belongs in the lists above or, more likely, delete it entirely. A blog has to earn it’s way out of here fairly quickly in order to be a keeper.

Now, how that works in practice is this. If I have a lot of feeds to go through, more than I have the time scan or read, I know I can read the a-list and friends and safely declare bankruptcy and “mark all as read” on the rest. I do this more often than not and have never regretted it.

Some more things to think about…

By |yydnn|referrer|fiehe
now I am sure you know everything there is to know about the iPad. It is a stunning device. I am at a loss for words on where to begin or what I can add that others have not. That said, I am going to try to make some observations and, hopefully, add some new things to think about:

  • There is no way you can have any idea of how amazing this thing is by looking a pictures and reading sound bytes and blogs. You have to watch the video on the official site. Seriously, stop reading right now and go watch it. I’ll wait… Back now, good. As you can see, every single built in app has been re-imagined for this device. Now, here is something to think about… What if every Mac had applications designed specifically to exploit the capabilities, screen size, etc. of the device? What if the SDK’s allowed a developer to support these nuances in a single app (i.e if it’s an iPhone – look and feel this way, iPad – That way). Now, what if you had a large display that you could slide the iPad right into the side? If the software is built right it could adjust (If iPad in display – do this…).

  • It was not mentioned but the thin and light new Apple Wireless Keyboard is supported.

  • Very interesting how Mr. Jobs pushed the fact that Apple is a mobile devices company so hard.

  • Pair the iBook store with Amazon’s Kindle.app and you not only have one killer book selling device, you also have witnessed the death of the Kindle itself. That’s OK though since Amazon likely does not make a profit (I say likely because they refuse to talk about those numbers) on the device, it is simply a way to sell more books.

  • The publishing industry has been aching for a way to make money off of the content in the internet age. It’s simple, make great “iTouch” apps and make them free through the app store, then charge your normal subscription rates. I can think of several publications I would subscribe to here for a richer experience, ads and all (Wired, Vanity Fair, New York Times, etc.)

I am sure I will have more thoughts and may update this post as they come. Until then, I can say that I could easily see this being a main computer for a lot of people, especially if you have apps as robust as the iWork ones demoed at the event. Seems like it would fit a large number of people’s “enough”

Some things to think about…

“Design |idhki|referrer|datiz
is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

– Steve Jobs

The greatest technology contributions that Apple has ever made are the ones that are so obvious they are often overlooked. Apple essentially created the language of computer UI. In fact, they have done so twice now.

Xerox/PARC legends aside, it was Apple that pushed and popularized the very idea of how we interact, instruct, and use a personal computer. It still remains today, virtually unchanged in concept from the beginning. The desktop as metaphor for a real world office – with files, folders, a workspace – all are there just as they were in 1984 when Apple introduced them to the general public in the Macintosh. The idea of a pointing device and typewriter style input – yep, still unchanged from 1984 when such things were generalized by Apple as the way we interact with such a machine. Everyone, from Microsoft to every graphical implementation of Linux, now uses this established UI language. Apple established the paradigm and it became the standard.

Apple has now established the paradigm for how we interact with a new class of computer. One that is small enough to hold in your hand and fit in your pocket – The iPhone. The obvious reason is that input for such a device would not work well with the methods they established for the desktop machine, and extended to the portable machine. Previous methods, developed for the world of the PDA, were insufficient in several respects. So, Apple has established a new paradigm, a new UI language, and it has became the standard.

What many people fail to see, what is directly at the center of why Apple is successful where other companies fail, is that they define this standard of interaction with the device itself. This is where the design starts. These are the first questions – How would you use this? Why would you use this? Other companies rush to create products to fulfill a need. Apple often creates products that define the need. These are two very different and, I would argue, opposite things. Other companies rush around to create devices that use this same basic language that Apple has developed. Because it is not an organic part of the creation process, because it is just a bunch of “me too”, they can’t possibly compete or succeed. The very thing that is most important, how you use it and why you need it, is being defined by someone else.

The ads for the iPhone are a perfect example of what Apple is really selling and where their strengths lie. Apple’s ads don’t focus on how it looks. They focus on how it works. Because they are the ones who establish the new paradigm, they are compelled to consistently and methodically show not only the reasons one would use it but how they would do it. They essentially need to function as instruction videos because you have never seen anything like this before nor did you know you even needed it, and they are defining both…

Press here, swipe here, tap here with your finger, tap on this onscreen keyboard. Look, it’s where you want to go and directions of how to get there! With a picture of the destination. It’s like magic, only better!

But here is where these things get a bit less obvious. The rest of this will be pure conjecture on my part. Just a lot of “what ifs”. Some food for thought if you will.

What if the iPhone were just the beginning? What if it is the establishment of a new paradigm not just for the smartphone but for the personal computer itself? It is no secret that the interaction metaphor established in 1984 is dated and not well scaled for the future we can see in our mind and feel is just around the corner. What if that thing we keep hearing rumors about will be the next “a ha” moment in this progression towards a new way to interact with our technical world? What if all of the work done to not build upon, but strip away, the Mac OS in Snow Leopard was to pave the way for this plan? What if Apple is about to reinvent the idea of computer interaction not just for the Mac but, once again, for the entire industry? As they have done with every single market they have entered before?

You know, just some things to think about…