Sawyer Paul's Blog, page 89
August 7, 2012
Evernote isn't for everything, just yet
Brett Kelley of Bridging the Nerd Gap recently wrote this article: Why I Use Instapaper (and not Evernote) For Reading Stuff Later. In it, he explains in great detail his preference for Instapaper, while at the same time defending Evernote for doing other things incredibly well. It's an opinion I share, but I can see where it gets thorny. Evernote is good, yes? Evernote has an Instapaper clone called Clearly (and a web clipper), yes? So why do people (at the very least, Kelley and myself) prefer Instapaper? It's incredibly simple. Evernote may do the thing that Instapaper does, but it doesn't do it half as well.
The Evernote Web Clipper does two things: it can either save the text from a webpage to an Evernote, or it can save the entire webpage, images, links, ads, and all. To do this, you need to click the button, wait for the clipper to load, change the title, pick a tag, select a notebook, and then decide if you want just the text or the whole website. That's a lot of clicking. To read an article later in Instapaper, one needs only to click the "read later" bookmark once. Kelley noted this in his fourth point, but he's pretty forgiving of the Evernote web clipper's overall functionality. For me, the clipper works about 30% of the time. Sometimes it forgets to save a thing. Sometimes it quits halfway. Sometimes it makes me log in over and over only to error out.
Kelley also mentioned syncing and offline reading. Yes, Evernote's mobile apps generally allow offline storage. They also generally only work about 30% of the time. I've never been able to successfully sync new items to an already synced folder on any device. Because of this, I generally only use Evernote on the desktop, where it shines in almost every regard except passive reading. For that, there's just no beating Instapaper.
Kelley wrestles with a larger point: how can we love Evernote for some things and not others? I think it's because we think of it as one app, even though it really isn't. Evernote is a suite of services, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Pardon the somewhat insulting comparison, but I think of Evernote more like Microsoft Office than as a thing by itself; I use half of it all the time and couldn't live without it, and I've never, ever opened up Access and Outlook, and that's okay. Increasingly, I'm using Evernote as my desktop file system, and its online 'home' as remote access for files and resources. I have several IFTTT recipes pushing content (like this blog) into various archival notebooks. I also treat one notebook as a sort of diary. But it's not even installed on my phone (the Windows Phone app barely works), and the web clipper is not on my browser. I've never even checked out Evernote Hello or Evernote Food, and I don't really have a personal or professional use for Skitch (though it's great whenever I've tried it).
The nice thing about Evernote (and, I suppose, Office), is that it probably serves many different people's ideas of archiving. It's still experimenting, growing, and doing fun, strange things. It's an app I totally love. But I don't think it's the best thing for everything, at least not yet.
August 6, 2012
Leslie Spit photos
I rode out to the Leslie spit today and took a few shots on my cell phone. Normally that sentence would sound ominous, but I'm impressed at the quality of the Lumia 800 Carl Zeiss lens. See for yourself.
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August 4, 2012
Hypercritical #79: Grandpa Uncle Joe
Merlin Mann (60:08):
I've been so inspired over the years by people who felt just perfectly out of my reach. Far enough out of my reach that it pushed me forward, but near enough that if I do this thing really well, this person might not hate me.
In any field of the arts, it's difficult not to look up at the top pros and think "God, I'm never going to be that good." I'm not sure how useful that is day to day, so I do my best to put it out of my mind. Instead, I do what rock climbers do: I look up to the next reachable point. I do this with people I admire. I do this with reachable, attainable, respectable people. They're not megastars, but I still think they're amazing, and they're even more amazing for being relatable and, more often than you'd think, more than willing to recognize your existence and help you out. It's not a matter of trying to reach some top, because that thing doesn't exist. There's just more tops the higher you go. It's about recognizing that one of the best ways to get better at this thing you love is to ping off people who do that thing you love in a way you can eventually attain.
August 3, 2012
More Things, August 3, 2012
More Apple things:
Jonathan Ive: Apple's goal isn't to make money
On Paid Apps Being Acquired, Apps Abandoned
Mac App Store easter egg
More Beautiful Things:
Gorgeous Photographs of Forgotten Palaces
Reflective Beauty at the World's Largest Salt Flat
France in the year 2000, as illustrated by people in 1900 (pictured above)
More Toronto Things:
Sarah vs The Fence, Or How The TTC Finally Broke Me
Where to find abandoned TTC buses and subway trains
Get the new 2012/13 Neighborhood maps
More Internet Things:
The State of the Music Industry from the Oatmeal
Honey Badger BBQ Sauce Kickstarter
August 2, 2012
A Record Year for Rainfall: New Scene
Originally, this scene was Bret shopping for an apartment, and Album trying to convince him to leave. But I've been retooling the motivations of the characters, and one thing I've been modifying is how much Bret wants to leave Las Vegas. Now, he's thinking about it from page one until the end, so it would make no sense for Bret to be getting a new place there after being kicked out of his last one. Album, on the other hand, is looking to put down roots, and has an influx of cash. Therefore, I placed them at the Veer.
[image error]Bret had called Album immediately after leaving the Bellagio. Album told him to meet him at the Veer. He was there looking at apartments, because Album was apparently the sort that wanted to own a condo on a street full of hotel rooms.
They stood in the centre of an empty living room. Devoid of furniture and well-lit, the realtor conveyed, in his surprisingly pubetic voice, “This is where you can put, like, a couch, or entertainment unit. Or, I suppose, an ottoman. Anything, really. It’s a living room!”
The Veer Towers were a new pair of condo buildings at the front of Vegas’ new City Center, a behemoth project meant to either push Vegas into the 21st century, or revert it back to the 60s. Nobody was really sure. The Veer Towers were one part the residential plan, along with the Mandarin Oriental building, just south of Veer. Placed behind them from the strip was Aria, a ludicrously expensive hotel to build. Below the Veer Towers was a shopping mall filled with the most expensive brands on the planet.
The joke of it all was just how empty the place was. The mall barely had any customers, though half the stores were still under construction. And the condos were barely sold. It was a conflux of sorry intentions and short term thinking. The people who made these buildings thought there would always be money, but they also thought that people who would want to live in Vegas would also want to be this close to it.
Up on the 23rd floor, Bret circled around the kitchen's island again. He kicked the cupboards as if they were wheels on a used car. He opened the fridge. He wondered if he was the first person to ever open it. He walked around. He looked out the windows. Beyond the speckle of neighbourhoods, Bret mostly saw desert.
“It's quiet,” Bret said. “You can't put a price on quiet.”
“The question, of course,” Album said, mostly to the realtor. “Is whether it can be loud in here and quiet elsewhere.”
The realtor smiled, doing his best to not scare us off. He had a little sweat on his forehead, and his game face was lame. He was too short to be authoritative, and too young to know better. Bret felt old even looking around this place, even though no one over 40 would ever consider it.
“Can we talk?” Bret asked. “Something really weird just happened to me.”
“No, you can’t move in here with me,” Album said. “I know you’d want to. It’s nice, right?”
“Sure, it’s fine,” Bret said. “Wait, no, that’s not what I’m asking. I quit, remember? I'm quitting. I quit yesterday. It feels nice to keep saying that. Anyways, there was another photographer at the Bellagio.”
Album put his hand on the floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking out. He pushed. The realtor took a step forward. Album was testing him.
Album said, “Really? Another paparazzi where a celebrity was spotted? Come on, man. That's not news." He touched the blinds near the windows and scoffed. "Seriously though, these blinds? Are they removable?”
The realtor shook his head, and told us about the remote control that shuttered them, turning the entire apartment into home theatre-quality darkness.
“I don’t think he was there for Rosario,” Bret continued. “I think he was taking pictures of me.”
Album hadn’t looked straight at Bret since they started touring the place. He disappeared into the bedroom.
“Hey,” Bret said, following. “This is a problem.”
“The problem,” Album responded, fingering the closet door open. “Is that there is not nearly enough room in here for a double king.”
Bret said, “Seriously? Double King?" He shook his head. "You know what? Your frame size isn’t important right now.”
“Frame size says so much about a person, Bret. You should know that. You sleep on a couch.”
“That's not my fault. That's your fault. All of this is your fault.” Bret spat. “I’m worried about this guy, and you're picking a nice place to wreck.”
“It’s likely Fane’s man.”
Bret closed the door of the bedroom, just as the realtor was trying to come in. He leaned against it. He heard the faint knocking and “um”-ing of an insecure man.
“Do you think Fane’s having me followed?”
“Probably,” Album said. “You ruined his career and he has a lot of money. That’s pretty easy math, mate.”
Bret could hear the handle, jiggling. The voice of the realtor was muffled. Album quipped, “I am impressed with how little sound comes through that door.”
Bret opened it, and the agent nearly fell in. Bret caught him, and stood him up straight. He patted down his jacked, as if it was dusty. He walked out. Album followed him through the apartment, out to the hallway. It was even quieter, there.
Bret stammered. “I don’t know how you can be calm about this. First off, if someone is tailing me, then someone is probably tailing you. Secondly, how am I supposed to be calm about someone tailing me? It's tailing. I know. I've done it. I've tailed.”
“I don’t know,” Album said. “I highly suggest getting stoned and playing some video games tonight. It will show the guy who's tailing you how harmless you are.”
Bret chewed on a fingernail.
“What do you think of the apartment?” Album asked.
“I don’t think you should take it,” Bret replied. “It’s not you. It’s not anybody. I have no idea what kind of human being this place was designed to make feel at home. Like, you remember those old point and click adventure games from the 80s?”
Album replied, “Like, those ones that were just flat pictures you had to maddeningly click on a thousand times before anything happened?”
"Yeah, as I kid I wasted hours trying to figure that stuff out. I gave up. I took up lacrosse instead."
"You did not take up lacrosse. Lacrosse is not a thing that exists."
"I did. I played lacrosse all through high school."
"No, this is serious now," Album said. "If you do not admit that you, along with every other Canadian, has entirely made up lacrosse, then I am calling Fane myself and turning you in."
Bret, with his hands in his grey hoodie pockets, his feet shuffling like an eight year old who has to pee, he shrugged his shoulders. “My point, was, if that apartment was one of those games, you’d click on the window, and you’d click on the walls, and the floor, and, you know what the game would tell you? There is nothing here. Let's go."
August 1, 2012
Hunter S Lagerfeld
Sometimes the coolest pieces come out of odd vector accidents. We were working on a tshirt design of Karl Lagerfeld, and I let go too much of the threshold and got this.
July 31, 2012
Edit your Scrivener document on any desktop browser with Writebox
There are plenty of tutorials on how to edit Scrivener documents on the iPad using plain text editor apps, but I recently discovered a web app that does the same thing.
First, you have to sync your Scrivener document to dropbox. There's a video on Scrivener's website that explains this process.
Once you've done that, visit Writebox, and login to your dropbox account. Open the folder your Scrivener document is in, and you'll see something like this:
[image error]The "draft" folder houses all of your chapters and scenes, so just click one, and get writing.
More Things, July 31, 2012
More Lit Things:
Random House Television launched
Man Booker Prize longlist revealed
More Journalist Things:
Plagiarism in Europe
Tumblr lessons from NME and The Times
More adorable things:
With a Mario Marriage Proposal This Super, How Could He Say No?
I am calling from Canada to make you feel bad about the war of 1812
Umbrella Installation in Águeda, Portugal
Hey, I Streetpassed You. And This Is Crazy. But Here's My Friend Code. Swapnote Me Maybe?
July 30, 2012
July 29, 2012
Mountain Lion limitations
Since Apple has pushed the Mac OS to a yearly schedule, more and more of its features appear to come from iOS. This is generally good, but there's one thing that's come along some users probably won't like as much. Mountain Lion, like Lion before it, has cut off support for a number of older machines. Not only that, Apple has adopted a model of cutting off support for certain features if you don't have the most modern set of hardware.
Macworld has a great write-up of what Macs can run Mountain Lion. Actually, the article has a ton of little questions that should answer just about everything. The general cut-off date appears to be late 2008, with the introduction of the aluminum Macbook Pros. That's almost four years ago, back when Leopard was the top-shelf version.
The only major features that don't seem to work with older models (in this case, anything purchased before the 2011 summer refresh of 2nd-gen core i5/i7 intels) are Airplay mirroring and Power nap. If you want to get every single possible answer to any edge case question, Apple's technical requirements page for Mountain Lion will answer any questions.
