Seven Hours Over Kensington from Jim Christian on Vimeo.

Weather time-lapse from my office window. Shot with an iPhone 4S, Glif and Frameographer.

The weather’s been pretty interesting¹ for the last few days. I decided to put my iPhone into Airplane Mode, plug it into a charger, set a 1-minute time lapse and throw it up into one of the office windows from 0845-1545 on Friday afternoon.

My iPhone got pretty hot during the time, but it pulled through seven hours of constant operation without freaking out on me.

“Instagram doesn’t just want to be bigger than, say, a competitor like Path. It wants to be Facebook big. It wants to become the indispensable visual strorytelling (sic) medium. It wants to be an entertainment platform, where people can come and consume. And getting there means getting on every platform, in every country.”

and…

“And so Instagram plods along. Deliberately. Methodically. Not caring what you think about its pace. And you know what? If Facebook doesn’t eat it. If Twitter’s new hosted photos, or some other competitor, doesn’t destroy it. If it can finally ship an Andriod (sic) app, and then a Windows Phone app. If it can just keep doing what it’s been doing, but bigger, faster, better. If it can do all that, it just may get there. Either way, it’s going to be fun to watch.”

Wanting to become “Facebook big” with an already existing customer base of 15 million users couldn’t be a clearer statement of intent, really - and that’s before Hipstamatic and Android were rolled into the service. Facebook’s buyout is unprecedented, which really boils down to the stark realization that they had some serious competition building in the mobile photo-sharing space.

What existing Instagram/non-Facebook users are concerned with is Facebook’s consistent perceived mishandling of user data and ongoing privacy concerns. It’s a pretty fair assumption that every Facebook user (myself included) is aware that: it you’re not the one making the money, then you’re the product being sold. Instagram has always come across as being wonderfully simple: take a photo; apply a filter; upload, tag and share.

‘Share’, it would seem, now means something completely different.

At the time of writing, I subscribe to 25 RSS feeds ¹. At any given moment, I might have 500+ news items that require my attention, but I can’t always process that news in one go. Or at all. There’s simply too much to take in, so I’ve broken down the steps:

1. I only check through my news feeds on the way to work. Giving myself one time spot to go through my feeds prevents me from
• checking constantly throughout the rest of the day for new “stuff” and
• keeps my out of my inbox outside of 9am-9pm.
2. Instead of immediately reading articles, I shift them out of the way for reading/sharing later on.

Reeder

I’ve tried a few RSS readers on iOS, but have quite happily settled on Reeder. The interface is very clean and clutter free, and the syncing between it and my Google Reader account is flawless, leaving room for just my news feeds and me.

Reeder Feed Layout

Posts in Reeder

Using the Reeder interface, I quickly scan through news items I think I’ll be interested in. If I want to read further, I use the ‘Send To’ feature - either by long-tapping on the title of the post (useful for link blogs, such as the popular Daring Fireball), or by using the second-to-last icon at the right-top of the page. It should probably be said that I don’t actually read much here. I’ve already subscribed to these website feeds, so I’m here for a reason - to skim for items of potential further interest.

Sharing in Reeder

If it’s an article, it goes to Instapaper. If it’s a link to a resource or other media (such as a book, pdf, video etc), I send it to Evernote as I’m unlikely to want to watch or consume something longer than a few pages during my journey. I process through my Evernote account later in the week.

Doing it this way helps me get all the things I’m interested in into two logical ‘buckets’ for processing afterwards. Once I’m finished, I move on to Instapaper.

  Instapaper

Instapaper may not be the only service of its kind to cache items for reading later in one place, but it’s the first one I’ve used, and I see no reason to go anywhere else (especially since I’ve started listening to the developer’s podcast, Build and Analyze). Apart from specific apps that support it, I can send links directly to it from a browser, or via email - meaning you don’t have to use an RSS reader to get the best out of it. You can then view your saved web pages on the web, on any number of iOS clients, or even have them delivered to your Kindle. I choose to read them on the iPad.

Instapaper for iOS (iPad view)

If I like a particular article and want to share it with others, I can do all that from here. I primarily send to Facebook, or if there’s an article I think my department should know about, or for friends and family that don’t have Facebook accounts, I email the full text of the article. ²

Share To…

I can also send to Evernote here if I want to, but chances are I’ve already used that process in Reeder.

That’s pretty much it - but by getting myself away from the fire hose of information that is my RSS reader, I’m in a better head space to actually process and do something with that information - and it stops me from fruitlessly burning cycles hitting the refresh button.

Links

• Reeder
• Instapaper
• Evernote
• Google Reader

• This event will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education
• I learned of the event back in September when it was originally scheduled for late Fall in New York but it was eventually postponed. 
• The event will be in New York rather than in the Silicon Valley because New York is more centrally located for textbook and publishing.

I’m excited at the prospect that Apple might be returning their focus towards education, but part of me worries that they may be focusing more on Higher Ed than other areas. In the primary school where I work, the client-facing (ie teachers and students) tech is predominately Apple, and for years we’ve relied upon their solid commitment to the education market. Tools such as Remote Desktop, Workgroup Manager… the various methods we employ to manage users and deploy software all changed with the release of Lion and iOS. Even the App Store model makes it difficult for us to license software across the network, as it requires an Apple ID and can only be used on up to five machines, forcing us to contact vendors outside of the App Store to see if concessions can be made.

Third-party mobile device management (MDM) tools for iOS devices (apart from the now inaccurately-named IPCU) tend to be expensive and have an entirely different learning curve to them - which can make it even more difficult to integrate the device. Although it’s possible Apple didn’t countenance the popularity of the iPad in schools. Unlikely though. John C Welch has a book worth reading on the topic. Don’t even get me started on how to license software for iOS devices.

I would really hope that any big announcement will include digital textbooks and a solution for buying iOS apps. Even sorting out all the various tax issues Apple has in the EU to bring the App Store Volume Purchase Program to this side of the pond would be a massive step in the right direction.

Full text here via Daring Fireball.

While the world has lost one of the most creative and visionary minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, there are many of us who feel that we have lost much more than that. Steve Jobs was someone whom I never met, never saw in person, never communicated directly with - but whose presence has been a strong influence throughout most of my adult life.

Everything I love about information technology - teaching people how to use software and hardware, helping break down the barrier of fear between them and the computer, developing a sense of how to guide them through the user experience - has been influenced by the products and presence that Steve Jobs and Apple have created. My present career path is one that has been heavily influenced by Steve Jobs’s vision. I have been, essentially, Made on a Mac.

Apple will, I believe, continue to thrive and grow. We must be careful not to confuse the art with the artist. Steve’s legacy will continue to be evenly distributed the world over, and I count myself as one of the lucky ones to be able to feel it.

In Hoxton, there’s a shop. No big deal you might think. But this is a shop that caters for the everyday needs of monsters, and monsters can be pretty demanding. You might know other shops, but not one like this: a place where monsters can find the most mundane of their needs. Tinned Fear if they’re running low on the stuff; Thickest Human Snot and Olde Fashioned Brain Jam if they’re hungry.

I read about the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies shop on Neatorama this week, and then had the chance to visit it today when out and about north London visiting friends (I bought ‘A Vague Sense of Unease’ and some ‘Zombie Fresh Mints’, pictured). It’s a spot to help encourage writing for young people, with workshop space in the back and a shop front where you can buy ‘Tinned Fear’, that also comes with a short story to kick-start inspiration.

After posting about it over on MetaFilter, it turns out that this isn’t so uncommon in the US with the 826 Project, a network of nine nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing. (Update - turns out it was directly inspired by the 826 Project and went ahead with its blessing).

The 826 is responsible for:

• The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company
• Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company
• Pirate Store
• The Boring Store (Undercover Secret Agent Supply Store)
• The Museum of (Un)natural History
• Bigfoot Research Institute

More information can be found at the Ministry of Stories, where volunteers are always welcome. More pics.