Cameron Moll's Blog, page 37

Matt Gemmell's Review of the 11" MacBook Air

Matt Gemmell's Review of the 11" MacBook Air:

Matt, an iOS and OS X developer, submitted his Air to a week-long review, and he summarizes the experience as follows:

I haven't felt so thrilled by a new piece of hardware since I bought our first iPad, and the same feeling of experiencing a new class of device is present here too. If you're tempted by the 11-inch model's portability but are worried about whether you could get your work done, put your concerns aside – it's an excellent machine and more than up to the job.

iPhone Alarm Glitch Leaves Users Snoozing

iPhone Alarm Glitch Leaves Users Snoozing:

Probably old news for many of you, but I found out only this morning that the glitch was a global thing and not just limited to our phones at home. I've been offline most of the past two days.

For me it's been another subtle reminder of how dependent our lives have become on technology and what can happen when that technology fails, especially unknowingly. In our household, it's critical that Suzanne or I get up during the middle of each night (usually around 2am) to check on our diabetic son. His blood sugar levels can rise or lower during the night, and the latter becomes a threat if he drops too low and we don't do something to bring his levels back up (usually by giving him a juice drink with natural sugars).

Neither of our phones have gone off the last two nights due to the glitch, and it means we've awoken in a minor state of panic. He's been fine, thankfully. But for us, the glitch hasn't necessarily been a trivial matter.

If there's one positive thing to come of this, it's that we've discovered we need to add something to our emergency preparedness kit (we live in hurricane country, you know) — an analog alarm clock.

Build Apps, Not Businesses

Build Apps, Not Businesses:

Sahil Lavingia:

David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals is known for lambasting businesses that seem oblivious to the concept of profitability. I don't really agree with him. I think that you should spend time doing fun little projects. Many fun little projects. Recognize that most of them will die, but that one or two may do well.

I got a degree learning how to write business plans and marketing plans. I haven't written either since leaving school. I have, however, turned a couple side projects into profitable businesses.

That said, I do believe there's a need for creating a good foundation for a business at the onset of an endeavor. But I also believe in executing ideas regardless of whether or not they become a business.

Seth Godin: Maybe Next Year...

Seth Godin: Maybe Next Year...:

An excellent companion piece to yesterday's What Did You Ship in 2010?

Notable Posts From My Tumblr-Era Archives

I made the switch to Tumblr in March of this year. As 2010 draws to a close, I've sifted through my archives since the switch. Below are some of the highlights.

One — Among everything I wrote this year, this piece is the most meaningful for me. It was from the heart and gave me a chance to share a side many of you aren't familiar with. Just as importantly, it was posted in conjunction with our hugely successful charity: water campaign.

Instagram, Flickr's Likely Successor — I have to admit I wasn't entirely convinced my reasoning was sound when I wrote this. Two months and more than a million users later, I'm convinced. (See also Following Up on Instagram, Flickr.)

Capturing Ideas in the Shower —If someone else had written this and I thought it were bookmark-worthy, I probably would have filed it under Bizarre-But-Marginally-Useful Ideas. Speaking of, I used it again just this morning.

Review: DODOcase for iPad — I'm no longer using my DODOcase, as I've found I enjoy the natural form factor of the iPad coupled with the Twelve South Compass stand. Nonetheless, my review might be helpful if you're considering one.

The Mobile Web vs. the Objective-C Web — Eight months later, my closing remarks still linger as fresh as the morning dew:

I have to admit I'm a bit concerned with this trend and don't entirely expect us all to be writing Objective-C in place of HTML/CSS in the future. After all, HTML5 and CSS3 offer some incredible capabilities akin to the smart client experience.

Or maybe I'm fooling myself. Again.

Visual Hierarchy is the Art of Managing, Not Eliminating — One of the most ignored and underutilized principles of design, visual hierarchy is something you'll continue to hear me write and speak about. A free PDF summary of my "Good vs. Great Design" presentations is included in this article.

Self-Employment, 12 Months Later — Now going on 15 months and still working on bettering my C+ grade average.

Here's to an incredible twenty-eleven, everyone.

URL Design

URL Design:

Some thoughtful advice from Kyle Neath on designing your URLs from the first forward slash to the last. This was a nice takeaway for me:

URLs are for humans. Design them for humans.

Seth Godin: What Did You Ship in 2010?

Seth Godin: What Did You Ship in 2010?:

Seth Godin's recap of 2010 in terms of what he shipped. We'd all do well to do the same, as he suggests:

Your turn to post a list somewhere… You'll probably be surprised at how much you accomplished last year. Go ahead and share with your friends, colleagues or the web… don't be shy.

Jon Tan: 2010 in Retrospect

Jon Tan: 2010 in Retrospect:

Lovely little piece recapping Jon's year in prose with photos.

Daniel Balsam Hates Spam, Became a Lawyer to Fight It

Daniel Balsam Hates Spam, Became a Lawyer to Fight It:

An inspiring story about a California marketer who quit his job and got a law degree to sue spammers. In a nutshell,

'I feel like I'm doing a little bit of good cleaning up the Internet,' Balsam said…. 'I feel comfortable doing what I'm doing, and I'm not going away."

Typefaces for Dyslexia

Typefaces for Dyslexia:

Ian Litterick, an assistive technology specialist (from what I can tell):

Serif fonts, with their 'ticks' and 'tails' at the end of most strokes (as found in traditional print fonts such as Georgia or Times New Roman), tend to obscure the shapes of letters, so sans-serif fonts are generally preferred. Many dyslexic people also find it easier to read a font that looks similar to hand writing as they are familiar with this style, and some teachers prefer them. However these types of fonts can lead to confusion with some letter combinations, such as 'oa' and 'oo'; 'rn' and 'm'.

The size of the ascenders and descenders of letters (the 'stems' on letters like p and b) is also important as many dyslexic readers rely on recalling the visual shape of a word due to poor phonological awareness. If ascenders and descenders are too short the shape of the word is more difficult to identify and can make reading slower and less accurate.

A line at the end of the article suggests this was written at least four years ago. So while the list of typefaces could use an update (especially with the advent of web font embedding), the advice regarding readable type for those with dyslexia seems perfectly relevant today.