You can be as obscure as you need to if you don’t want people tapping your code, or be as friendly as you can, when you need to share…

But this isn’t about me. It’s about Apple.

Onomatology
(n) The science of names or of their classification.

Apple has basically a bi-range of devices. Those running Mac OS, and those running iOS. You could say that there are two ranges based on usage, but that’s not completely accurate.

So, for arguments sake, let’s break these devices in the two general groups.

Can you spot the anomaly?

I really don’t know what Apple has been thinking, but wouldn’t it make far more sense to rename the iMac to plain Mac and the Apple TV is just begging to be named iTV. I don’t actually approve of the iX naming convention, but it’s a brand you cannot (and don’t want to change), so why not just go all the way?

What are your thoughts on this?

There are two types of No’s. The good and the bad No. Initially there’s not much of a difference, but the outcome is worlds apart.

No as a good thing

As odd as it may seem, No can be very positive. Especially in a very tight situation, saying no might well produce better results. We’ve all been exposed to extremely short deadlines, and every time you look back, you always think “did I need to do that?” or “What if I hadn’t done that?” – would results have been better? It’s hard to answer. But somewhere inside you, you know that saying No to an idea would have saved you valuable time to produce less but far more higher quality results.

No as a bad thing

Saying No isn’t always about saving time/resources in order to allocate them somewhere else. Sometimes we say No just because we need to. Without actually thinking if we should or not. That is a negative No – yes, obviously you know that. As everything in life, we need to think before we say No. Perhaps twice as much before saying anything else.

A single No can kill an unborn idea, but it also has the power to create greatness where a Yes would have just created something mediocre.

Think before you say Yes.
Double-think before you say No.
But always consider saying No. 

This isn’t new, I know. But it strikes me as a contradiction every time I find a new app claiming to be the next “big” UI evolution of an already evolved (sic) app eco system. Only to find out that it introduces new metaphors and gestures, which makes it all the more harder to memorize and thus use. We’re all impressed with a new UI and we surely do love a new design approach, but is that what really makes a great app?

In a fast paced world, trying to keep the balance between innovation and innovating is a hard task. The least thing you want to do is get the user to think before acting.

I just happened to read Jason Fried’s latest post, and cannot agree more. There are plenty of ways to get excited about a new app, but making something simpler and less confusing is always going to be your best bet.

Twitter’s 140 character limitation has spun a whole range of new services for linking, better known as short url services. You’ve probably heard of Bit.ly and the likes. Google also jumped into the game with goo.gl. But there’re also a few lesser known services which might interest you. Allow me to explain how I use CloudApp without disrupting my daily workflow…

CloudApp now powers my blog, my desktop and my phone without disrupting my flow and using the same unified short url. That is gold!

I started this post by saying that “if you were anything like me”, what I actually meant is that if you also liked to have all your assets conveniently packaged into services without disrupting your daily flow, then this article is for you. I’ve been a long standing user of CloudApp and I’m very happy with their Pro plans. I’m sure there are plenty alternatives such as Droplr, TinyGrab, DropApp etc. And you could also find plenty of articles comparing these apps. I’m also pretty sure the following will apply to any of these services so long as they provide an API.

CloudApp’s Pro plans are on the higher end of the market, but the service is great!

A few years back, I decided to add a custom short url to my blog and I found a great bargain on a .me TLD, so I purchased j76.me. I did some research and I started using YOURLS pretty much the same day. So, I was all set. My blog was running short urls through the YOURLS API and I had CloudApp for my desktop needs, like sharing files, images etc. But there was one problem. Since CloudApp needed a mapped url for their custom url support, I couldn’t directly use j76.me, but rather a subdomain. I opted for s.j76.me. And that’s where I started breaking my flow.

Now I had two url shorteners. One for the blog, and one for my desktop. Not good. But, not much to do right? Wrong…

I had completely ignored the obvious for a long time. I really cannot explain why though. I guess I never perceived CloudApp as a url shortening service. But, here’s what I did today…

I re-mapped CloudApp to use j76.me as it’s custom domain, and I downloaded and installed the Cirrus CloudApp WordPress Plugin. Yeah, there’s a Plugin for that too…

CloudApp’s custom domain support is simple to use

Essentially, the Cirrus CloudApp Plugin utilizes CloudApp’s API, and automatically converts any post’s permalink into a short easy-to-use url. Why the hell did I not think of that earlier? Well, for one, Matt released the Plugin to the public just a few days ago, on June 6th…

Needless to say, it works like a charm!

But there’s more… things get a bit more interesting (or confusing) once you consider that we don’t only use our desktop computers to post links & files. We’re on our mobile phones for the most part of the day. And since I’m on an iPhone, the solution appeared to me when I started using TweetBot. The smart lads over at Tapbots have integrated plenty of 3d party services into their app. So, just set it up and you’re good to go. All outgoing links are automagically shortened via CloudApp, which means they use my j76.me url. This goes for images and files and everything. Tweetbot rocks.

TweetBot integrates most 3d party services.

But it’s not only Twitter, right? After a bit of time on the App Store, I also found ClouDrop for iOS (iTunes link). This little app, not only interfaces with CloudApp, showing you all your files and links, but it can also share to Twitter & Facebook directly. Plus, it also mimics the native OS X feature where you can take a screen grab and it gets automatically pushed to CloudApp. Awesome!

ClouDrop is a very sleek UI to CloudApp, and also mimics OS X’s native CloudApp by automatically uploading Screen Grabs.

So, to wrap up, CloudApp now powers my blog, my desktop and my phone without disrupting my flow and using the same unified short url. That is gold!

It’s the same old story over and over again. Whenever I start creating something for myself, I always get caught up in some minor detail – be it a design problem, or development. It always needs to be *perfect*, but never is.

Reference: here’s what the blog looks like today.

This time, I finally managed to deliver my blog. It’s a far cry from what I planned on doing, but it is way better than any other default theme I could have used – and have used in the past. So, here’s to finding the time to work on your own stuff! Here, here!

I guess it goes without saying that this blog will eventually turn into a site, and also accommodate my portfolio, which currently lives at ohmylovely.com.

The ‘+’ tagging of email

Instant email address using Gmail's "+" feature.

I’ve been using it for so long, that I probably take it for granted, but I recently realised that not many people use it, or even know it exists. I’m sure that it’s also available on numerous other Email providers, but I use Gmail, so who cares about the rest…

This function is particularity useful for signing up on various sites, assigning filters or just plain labeling emails for various uses.

Get the lo-down here on Google’s official blog post (dated back in 2008) or just search Google for various uses and ideas

But, you just simply cannot ignore the fact that millions of people choose this particular event to disclose their feelings for another person. Interesting enough, this is the only reason I apprciate this “joyous” day…

People tend to break out of their shell and say “I YOU” on Valentine’s Day, and then live happily ever after. With that insight in mind, and the fact that IKEA has one of the most iconic Valentine’s (sic) gifts of all time, the FAMNIG HJÄRTA… we at Tribal DDB Athens set out to create a simple yet effective means of saying “I  YOU”.

Using Facebook (but not limited to that) we created the “SAY I LOVE YOU” app, and made it easy for over 2000 people to express their feelings in just under 36 hours.

Even if you’re not a “Valentine’s Day” person, there’s no reason why you can’t just say “I  YOU” to someone or something ;)

Head on over to ikeahearts.gr and share your love.

So, upgrading my existing MacBook it was. But, how do you uprade a 3 year old laptop? I own the MacBook 13″ Unibody (Late 2008, MacBook 5,1). The truth is that I haven’t really added anything to the computer ever since I got it apart from a new HDD (I threw away the 160Gb for a new 320Gb). So I did the obvious. I opted to add more RAM.

At the time I didn’t know you could update the firmware and go all the way up to 8Gb, so I opted for 4Gb. I Got those from my vendor of choice, Crucial.

Now, truth be told, I did see a slight increase in performance, but I wasn’t expecting anything huge. Just a nudge upwards. And that’s what I got. So we’re good. And now to the big upgrade.

I’ve been looking at SSD’s for a very long time. Ever since they came out. Of course, there was no need back then to invest absurd amounts of cash for such a small capcity drive. But now, things have changed. After a bit of research, I set my eyes on the OCZ Vertex 3 120Gb. Although it’s a SATA-III drive, meaning it can go all the way up to 6 Gbps, my MacBook can only support SATA-II (3Gbps) but no harm there right?

What I did find out after I purchased the SSD is that my MacBook needs some tweaking to support this specific drive or else it gets stuck at 1.5Gbps, which is not good. But the fine folks over at OCZ have issued a fix, so no harm. In fact this fix also takes care of other issues that arise form the use of SSD’s, like the temperature control etc.

Now, another thing I wanted to do, is maintain maximum capacity for my laptop. Obviously 120Gb would not suffice. So, opting for a second drive on my MacBook was also a one way. I looked around for what was available, and after dismissing MCE’s OptiBay because they shipped from the US, I found some really good deals on Amazon UK, and ultimately settled for a simple HDD/SSD Bay. I also purchased a toolset.

The Operation

So here is the lo-down of what I actually did to get my SSD and my old HDD into my MacBook.

1. First off, I downloaded and burned the OCZ Fix to a CD
2. I moved everything unessecary from my HDD on to an external 2Tb backup drive. Music, Photos, Projects etc. I was left with only 60Gb of system files on my HDD, well below the 120Gb capacity of my my new SSD.
3. I connected the SSD via an external USB HDD bay (I borrowed an Icy Box) and using Carbon Copy Cloner, I cloned my entire HDD onto the SSD.
4. Once complete (it takes some time via USB, about 4 hours) I removed my HDD, and replaced it with the SSD.
5. I started up my MacBook just to test if the SSD was working. All good (and quite speedier already)
6. I restarted and booted (holding down ALT) from the OCZ Fix CD and ran the fixes to get the SSD working smoothly at 3Gbps, and stabilize the temperature issues (fan worked like crazy on the first run)
7. I started up again to see if all fixes were applied. All good and even faster, plus the fan stopped running like crazy.
8. Next stop, replace the SuperDrive with my HDD. I basically followed the instructions as seen on OWC’s demo videos. Although not completely the same procedure (I had less screws) the idea is the same.
9. Once complete, I started the MacBook up again, and tested to see if everything is connected and functioning. Only after I was sure everythign was ok, I formatted my HDD.
10. Done.

All in all, the procedure lasted about 1 hour (+4hours for the cloning). It all ran smooothly with no hiccups whatsoever.

The Result

The only before/after test I performed was Photohop launching. And I’m impressed. Prior to installing the SSD, Photoshop loaded in 30 seconds flat. Using the SSD it now loads in 6.8 seconds.

Everything is faster and snappier. I couldnt be happier.

With an overall investment just over €200, I’d say it’s definitely worth it. I’ve revived my 3 year old MacBook, for who knows how many more months (years?).

I created a list of my Best Siri responses over on Listiki. Most of them are from Shit that Siri says, and some from personal experience.

Not as the man behind the machines nor as the single figure behind all of my favorite gadgets. I knew him as the man who changed the way I think, work and ultimately the way I live my life.

Connected, productive and happy.

Although Apple has been in my vocabulary ever since I can remember, I only became an Apple owner somewhere in 2004, with my first iPod. Just by touching the device you could tell the love that went into it. The level of detail is extraordinary. Unique in its class.

Then came the MacBook, iMac 24″, iMac 27″ an iPhone 3GS and my iPhone 4.

I completely rid myself of everything else non-Apple. At work and home. I love the way everything “just works”.

If anything, these products have taught me (by example, and not by force) that the best design is the design you don’t see. The design that doesn’t interfere between you and the task at hand.

And that is what Steve Jobs accomplished. The perfect design.

So, although I never knew him, I definitely appreciated him. The man, the ideas & the ideology. The stubborn leader. The restless persona. There’s so much to be said.

This post can go on and on, but it will always close with the same line…

Thank you Steve!