Subtraction.com

kooaba Shortcut Feed Sponsorship

2012-02-08T00:00:00-05:00

kooaba Shortcut is a shortcut between real life and the Internet: take a picture of what you are reading in a newspaper or magazine and instantly get connected to the digital version.

Using image-recognition technology, Shortcut recognizes what you’re reading. Once recognized, you can share the digital version of the pages via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email, or store them in Evernote. This works with over 1,000 newspapers and magazines worldwide. (See http://www.kooaba.com/products/shortcut for a list of publications.)

Shortcut also works with advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and billboards with the Shortcut icon. After taking a picture of such an ad, you gain access to extras such as coupons, sweepstakes, or store locators.

With Shortcut you no longer need to type links into your phone, google for information, or cut out articles - Just take a picture instead!

Shortcut is available for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7.

Déjà Vu Feed Sponsorship

2012-02-02T00:00:00-05:00

Déjà Vu is your visual memory. Use the app by taking pictures of things you would like to remember. For example, products you see in a magazine, recipes you read in a cooking book, wine labels in a restaurant, Newspaper article, DVDs, CDs or event flyers. Each picture is a visual memo. A regular camera app doesn’t distinguish those photos of stuff from “regular“ photos. Déjà Vu helps people organize and structure their visual memos in an easy and effective way. It does this by a tailored interface for tagging and categorization and integration of image recognition technology.

Features

Quick shot camera (allows faster picture taking)
Image recognition integrated
Syncs with cloud account
Easy search (find your visual memos by keywords and tags)
Map location (locate your visual memos on a map)
Available on iPhone and Web

Free for up to 30 visual memos/month. Learn more at Kooaba.

Rambling Thoughts on Tumblr, WordPress, Posterous, Pinterest and Blogging

2012-01-27T14:28:59-05:00

We just relaunched the Mixel blog yesterday along with a refresh of our main Web site. The main goal was to bring the look and feel of both in line with one another and, specifically for the blog, to create a more editorial-friendly presentation. As I explained in this post, the Mixel blog turned out to be a more text-intensive product than we anticipated, and so we needed a design that would accommodate that. We also needed to switch to a publishing tool that was more suitable for that kind of content. Tumblr wasn’t doing it for us.

I wrote about Tumblr a while ago with great admiration in this blog post, and I still think it’s an amazing company and one of the best social content products out there. As a ‘traditional’ blogging tool though, I’m more ambivalent about it.

The Writing Kind of Blogging

It’s true that many folks, like my friend Cameron Moll, use Tumblr to publish their text-heavy blogs and are very happy with it, and so I don’t argue that it can work great for this purpose. But we found it to be less reliable than we’d like; the editing interface is unpredictable, to put it politely.

To be fair, we were also using it in a way that wasn’t a truly good fit for what Tumblr is good at; the first rule of digital content is that it must be true to the native characteristics of its delivery channel, and we weren’t doing that. We’re not giving up on Tumblr though; its network effects are truly amazing, and we have some ideas for a different editorial product that will hopefully be a much better fit for that network.

In place of Tumblr, we’re now using a WordPress blog hosted over at Page.ly. The theme was developed by my friend and amazing WordPress guru Allan Cole. In spite of having developed a premium WordPress theme of my own (Basic Maths, which was designed and developed with Allan), I’ve never been a heavy WordPress user until now. I have to admit, its most recent version is full of the fun, geeky features that I like as a blogger, stuff that allows designer-editors to fully tweak the way content is output. It’s great.

MindNode Feed Sponsorship

2012-01-26T00:00:00-05:00

MindNode is an elegant, easy-to-use mind mapping tool for Mac and iOS. Whether you’re brainstorming for your next project, organizing your life, or planning your vacation, MindNode lets you collect, structure, and expand your ideas. And thanks to built-in Dropbox and WiFi sharing, even your biggest ideas can go anywhere your iPhone does.

MindNode is easy mind mapping for your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Try out Mindnode Pro and MindNode touch today!

Scrivener Feed Sponsorship

2012-01-19T00:00:00-05:00

Writing a book or research paper is about more than hammering away at the keys until it’s done. Research, shuffling index cards to find that elusive structure - most software is only fired up after much of the hard work is completed.

Enter Scrivener, a content-generation tool that lets you compose and structure long and difficult documents based on material from multiple sources. Adopted by novelists, screenwriters, journalists, lawyers and academics alike, the program allows users to split the editor and view documents, PDF files, multimedia and other research materials next to each other. A virtual corkboard and outliner help with structuring or providing an overview of the draft. Collate, read and edit related text without affecting its place in the whole using Scrivener’s Collections feature. Close out the world in Full Screen mode. And when you’re finished, export to e-readers or the most popular word processing programs for submission.

Available for Mac OS X and Windows at Literature and Latte.

Android Doubles Down on Design

2012-01-13T14:24:40-05:00

It’s probably a good idea for everybody involved in design to follow closely what happens with Android Design, a portal that Google launched yesterday as part of a new initiative to raise the mobile platform’s user experience to the next level. Aimed squarely at Android developers, the site sets out a creative vision (tied closely to the awkwardly-named Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0 release); its central tenets are “enchant me,” “simplify my life,” and “make me amazing.” Those three ideas are supported by a series of design principles and a library of design patterns and building blocks that should make it easier for developers to adhere to the vision.

All in all Android Design is a well-executed package, and it’s significant in that it’s the first — or at least the most cogent — articulation of what designing for Android is all about. It puts forward clearly delineated concepts that Android developers should hold in their heads when they set out to create a product on this platform, and backs those up by identifying the specific, tactical methods that Google feels are most effective at arriving at these ends. Good stuff.

Design for Everybody

What struck me the most about the site, though, is that its vision is so broad that it becomes broadly generic, too. There’s nothing about “enchant me,” “simplify my life,” and “make me amazing” that’s objectionable, but there’s also nothing about those concepts that sets the platform apart from what iOS or Windows Phone are trying to do, either. The design principles are smart and illuminating, and in fact everyone should read them as they offer a lot of good advice. But again you could apply these to just about any design system, whether an OS or a suite of products. The only material that shows how Android is different lies in the lower-level patterns and building blocks; this is a little bit like saying that Android is different because its constituent parts are different, but not truly explaining why they are the way they are. This was a chance for Google to clearly state how its Android design philosophy is different from the rest of the pack, but it doesn’t seem to me that they followed through on that.

However, Android UX director Matias Duarte promises that the Android Design site that launched yesterday is just an opening salvo, and that over time its resources will grow deeper and, presumably, richer. This is why I think watching this initiative will be very instructive for any designer or design professional: Google is trying to engender a design culture where, frankly, there isn’t much of one at the moment.

This kind of effort is something that few companies can successfully pull off: changing the character of the platform in mid-stream, splicing in a new design-savvy gene even as the organism is growing with incredible rapidity. It’s a nontrivial challenge, to say the least, and if Google can make it work — I hope they can — it will demonstrate to many kinds of organizations that design can be successfully evangelized, even in environments where it was not deeply rooted at the beginning. For my part, I have no opinion on what their chances are, only to say that the successful design platforms that we’re most familiar with tend to be ‘born that way,’ whether it’s Apple or Adobe or even Windows Phone, which had to essentially reboot the notion of Windows to properly integrate the kind of design culture that Microsoft aspired to. There’s plenty of prior evidence that design can come late to a company and still succeed, of course; there’s less evidence that design can come late to a platform and still win over that platform’s whole ecosystem. Anyway, it’s going to be fascinating to watch.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

HelpSpot & Open Source Help Desk List Feed Sponsorship

2012-01-12T00:00:00-05:00

At HelpSpot we’re big supporters of open source software and simply couldn’t run our business without it. So, 6 years ago we created Open Source Help Desk List to assist companies looking for an open source help desk software solution. It’s success has been beyond our wildest expectations; serving as an invaluable tool for thousands of companies to find the solution they need. We hope it can help you as well.

If you’d prefer a professionally developed and supported help desk application, then give us a look: HelpSpot: Help Desk Software.

Thanks!

Ian Landsman Founder, UserScape

P.S. Checkout the newest project we’re working on, the PHP framework Laravel

The Miracle of WD-40

2012-01-10T09:02:01-05:00

An apparently common problem that many iPhone users encounter is that, after many months of use, the home button — the sole physical button on the device’s face — starts to lose its responsiveness, sometimes precipitously. When this happens, it may take several presses, or a prolonged press, to get the button to produce any results. And sometimes where one press of the button is intended, the device registers two. Very annoying.

I was surprised to discover from a friend that Apple technicians diagnosed this problem on her phone as software related, which struck me as counter-inuitive, as it seemed to me to be very much a hardware problem. There has also been talk of the button needing software recalibration. I don’t know if that approach works or not, but I’ll tell you what worked for me: the miracle “water-displacing spray” WD-40.

Spray and Play

In my experience, on not just my own iPhone 4 but also on my girlfriend’s, WD-40 restores the responsiveness of the iPhone’s home button to basically like-new condition. I just sprayed a little bit of WD-40 directly on the button, then pressed the button rapidly a few dozen times, tested its responsiveness afterwards, then repeated the process two or three times until it began to improve. Then I used the phone for a day or two to see how well the button did in actual use; I found that after a few days the problem ebbed back slightly, at which point I applied more WD-40. After the second or third application, the responsiveness remained indefinitely.

Caveat lector: I make no guarantees, and have no idea if this does any long-term harm to the device. I’m nearly certain someone will insist that it does, so anyone reading this and thinking about using WD-40 themselves should assume that this is a potentially risky fix, and I can accept no responsibilities for any damage done to your device. But for my part, I’ve had no problems with it, and it’s been six months or so since I tried this.

(Update: A friend suggests that this will void your warranty. I have no further knowledge on that issue, so, again, use your own judgment.)

In fact, I’ve found WD-40 to be a reliable and enjoyably analog fix to digital hardware for years. I first discovered this many, many years ago, when I asked an electronics repair technician if it was worth trying to fix an unresponsive button on a portable stereo that I then owned. He said don’t bother; just try a bit of WD-40. Since then I’ve used it on buttons on all sorts of hardware, always with success. The best part, of course, is that a can of WD-40 costs about as much as a sandwich and has a thousand uses.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

Carnegie Mellon University Feed Sponsorship

2012-01-04T00:00:00-05:00

Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Information Systems Management (MISM) degree with a Business Intelligence and Data Analytics (BIDA) concentration is developing an elite set of graduates cross-trained in business process analysis and skilled in predictive modeling, GIS mapping, analytical reporting, segmentation analysis, and data visualization.

Students in the MISM-BIDA program acquire the skills to integrate cutting edge information and analytic technology practices with applied business methods. The program features world-renowned faculty teaching a cohesive blend of data analytics, management, strategy, and IT courses. It is this unique mix that makes our graduates highly valued by corporate recruiters. Our MISM graduates have a ten-year track record of receiving highly competitive employment offers from financial service firms, consulting companies, technology agencies and start-up organizations.

Learn more at Carnegie Mellon Heinz College.

Now You Can Try Mixel without Logging In

2011-12-30T17:15:39-05:00

Happy new year everybody! Here’s one last holiday gift: there’s a new build of Mixel, our social collage app for iPad, available right now in the App Store. Version 1.2 adds a few minor interface changes for existing users, but its main feature significantly improves the first-run experience for new users — and for those who have until now been reluctant to give it a try because of our Facebook login requirement: you can now open up the app and browse the entirety of the network without having to login at all.

Come on In

Previously, when you’d open up the app, what you’d see was a screen that said, essentially, “login or go home.” There was no way to sample Mixel’s great content or see all the terrific stuff people are doing with it every single day, much less try your hand at making a mixel yourself. Frankly, it was not a great experience at all, but there was so much for us to do to get Mixel out into the world that it was one of the unfortunate causalities of our limited resources.

Well we finally found the opportunity to fix this. With version 1.2, when you fire up the app, you’re free to browse around without logging in at all — in fact, you don’t need to identify yourself in any way. This version lets you browse any mixel, see how it was put together, follow its constituent pieces to any other mixels in which it might be used… you can even remix any mixel or start a new one of your own.

Right: What you used see when you opened up Mixel for the first time.

Right: …And what you see now. No registration required to have a look around.

What you can’t do, however, are all the operations that normally require you to identify yourself: comment on, like or love mixels, or post any mixels or remixes you make to the network for others to see. There’s just no way to let you do any of these things without attaching a name to them. However, any mixels that you do make can be saved to your Photos app (see the feature we enabled in version 1.1) so you’ll be able to save copies of your work. And, once you register or login (Facebook is still required), those mixels can then be posted to the network, of course.

We’re working on making Mixel as accessible and easy to try as possible, and we think this goes a long way towards doing that for new users. Download it today and give it a try.

To follow me on Twitter click here.

Subtraction.com

kooaba Shortcut Feed Sponsorship

Déjà Vu Feed Sponsorship

Rambling Thoughts on Tumblr, WordPress, Posterous, Pinterest and Blogging

The Writing Kind of Blogging

Other Stuff Posted at Other Places

MindNode Feed Sponsorship

Scrivener Feed Sponsorship

Android Doubles Down on Design

Design for Everybody

HelpSpot & Open Source Help Desk List Feed Sponsorship

The Miracle of WD-40

Spray and Play

Carnegie Mellon University Feed Sponsorship

Now You Can Try Mixel without Logging In

Come on In