Paperless 1.2

Sam Harrelson on September 16, 2012

Paperless is one of those books that I thought would be enjoyable for reaffirming what I already know but has turned into a constant reference guide for how I get things done and process info.

Paperless, Version 1.2 — MacSparky: “It always made me a little crazy with my prior books that I couldn’t update them. I was in Barnes and Noble just the other day looking at a copy of iPad at Work on the shelf. By and large, the book held up pretty well. However, there are a few areas in it that I would desperately like to update. Of course that’s not possible given that most of the copies are sitting on people shelves and I don’t have control over the digital copies either. The ability to update a book was one of my big motivations to self-publish.

I’m particularly interested in the ability to update books on the iBooks Author platform and am in the middle of some pretty exciting things with it myself at the moment.

More on that soon 🙂

Evernote Amoeba Takes in Skitch

Sam Harrelson on September 11, 2012

I’ve been a long time user of Skitch (since the early beta days… ’07 or ’08?) and a user of Evernote for just about that long.

Both have become integral parts of what I do as a teacher and with my work at Harrelson Agency.

It’s very cool and promising to see something as core to my workflow as Skitch get its proper due in the rapidly expanding Evernote ecosystem.

Evernote is Bringing Sketching App Skitch into its Core Service: “Evernote is moving to integrate its annotation and sketching product Skitch into its core note-taking product,which it says will strengthen the service by bringing syncing, searching and sharing features to it.”

I wonder when they’ll do the same with Penultimate?

Why Apple Really Ditched Google Maps in iOS 6

Sam Harrelson on September 3, 2012

Google Earth is the single most important property for Google’s position as market and thought leader of search and discovery. That’s always been the case since they purchased Keyhole Tech in 2005.

Apple knows this as well and that’s why they are going on their own in iOS 6 with a mapping technology that’s in house.

Mapping (discovery) is the new search:

How Google and Apple’s digital mapping is mapping us | Technology | The Guardian: “There is a sense, in fact, in which mapping is the essence of what Google does. The company likes to talk about services such as Maps and Earth as if they were providing them for fun – a neat, free extra as a reward for using their primary offering, the search box. But a search engine, in some sense, is an attempt to map the world of information – and when you can combine that conceptual world with the geographical one, the commercial opportunities suddenly explode. Search results for restaurants or doctors or taxi firms mean far more, and present far juicier opportunities for advertisers, when they are geographically relevant. And then there’s the most important point – the really exciting or troubling one, depending on your perspective. In a world of GPS-enabled smartphones, you’re not just consulting Google or Apple data stores when you consult a map: you’re adding to them.”

Mapping/Discovery will be the verb akin to “searching” of the next five years.

We’ll have “Discovery Optimizers” just as we have search engine optimization and “But are we appearing at the top of people’s discoveries?” questions as we have “Are we on the front page of Google?” now.

Discovery motors will quietly, but quickly, replace search engines.

It’s about time (and place).

A Day of Outages or Why I’m Sticking with RSS

Sam Harrelson on August 17, 2012

I’m becoming more and more convinced that the best way for the web to work is for us all to have our islands of identity that are linked via coral reefs and communication channels.

Today has been a heck of a day for the web.

First Twitter.

Now Charter.

Mediums that we normally associate with stability and user interest continue to disappoint and disgust.

I’ve often talked about how I want to “Bring it All Back Home,” but I’m really close to pulling that trigger and relying on tried-and-trusted RSS as the vehicle to deliver that information rather than a walled island that I have to (or will have to) log in to such as Twitter or Facebook.

RSS – Wikipedia

I don’t trust my identity and my content to 3rd party islands anymore. This is me and for me and hosted by my dollars.

So here’s to a free, open and federated web.

If you want me, I’m here. Grab the RSS.

Twitter APIocalypse

Sam Harrelson on August 16, 2012

And here we go…

Changes coming in Version 1.1 of the Twitter API | Twitter Developers: “At the end of June, I wrote about how we’re working to deliver a consistent Twitter experience, and how we would soon introduce stricter guidelines about how the Twitter API is used. I’d like to give you more information about coming changes to the API and the migration plan while offering insights into today’s Twitter ecosystem and why we’re making these changes.”

Sad to see awesome apps get called out:

That upper-right quadrant also includes, of course, “traditional” Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Echofon. Nearly eighteen months ago, we gave developers guidance that they should not build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” And to reiterate what I wrote in my last post, that guidance continues to apply today.

This is not your parent’s twitter.

“People are crazy and times are strange, I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range, I used to care but things have changed.”

Hope this is true…

Wow, what a day.