Posted 1 week ago

One-click solution to sending URLs to other devices

Inspired by the Chrome to iPhone extension, I wanted to make a better solution to sharing links between my desktop browser and my iPhone. I had two major issues with the Chrome to iPhone extension:

  1. It only works with Google Chrome! If I’m browsing a page in another browser on my computer, I’d have to open it in Chrome before I could send it to my phone.
  2. It’s a one-way route for sharing pages. I cannot “save” a page from my phone and pull it up on my desktop. As the name says, it only works from Chrome to iPhone.

My solution solves both of these problems. First, instead of being a Chrome-only extension, it’s a pair of bookmarklets you can use in any browser that supports bookmarks. Second, there are two bookmarklets, one to “send” and one to “get” a saved page. It’s as simple as clicking SendURL on one device and GetURL on another.

Give it a try! Click the link below to generate a pair of bookmarklets for yourself.

SendURL

Posted 1 week ago

Norwegians Can Be Attractive Too: Apple's Attention to Detail

In July 2002, Appled filed a patent for a “Breathing Status LED Indicator” (No. US 6,658,577 B2). They described it as a “blinking effect of the sleep-mode indicator in accordance with the present invention mimics the rhythm of breathing which is psychologically appealing.”

The average…

Posted 2 weeks ago

NoteSpark Starred Notes Notifier

I’ve been searching for the best notes/todo solution for a while now, and I think I finally have one that does everything I want. First I have the NoteSpark iPhone app (iTunes link) that gives me access to my notes offline and syncs to the NoteSpark website when I’m online. I can star important notes and the iPhone app shows a badge icon reminding me of the important task every time I look at the screen. When I’m at my computer, however, there is nothing to remind me of important notes or tasks, so I forget.

To solve this problem, I created this Google Chrome extension that shows a badge notification in the toolbar with the number of starred notes I have. Now I always have an annoying little red box on my screen, whether I’m on my computer or phone, reminding me theres something important I need to do.

Check it out in the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery. Make sure to rate and leave comments.

NoteSpark Starred Notes Notifier

Posted 1 month ago
Posted 2 months ago

penllawen:

(UPDATE: I have a followup piece about Apple’s new press release here)

This infographic hopefully shows that:

  1. I’m not a graphic designer.
  2. Why some people who can’t see the iPhone 4 reception problem when they hold their phone might still be affected by it.

As Anandtech published today, the range of actual signal strengths the iPhone 4 represents as “five bars” is unusually broad. It’s so broad, in fact, that if you are at the top of it, the (quite severe) drop in reception caused by holding the phone with a bare hand isn’t enough to even show up on the display.

Whereas, at the bottom end of the scale, your signal can be quite weak and it will still be shown as five bars on the screen. This is the “worst case” shown above, and taking Anandtech’s figures for attenuation, holding the phone will instantly plunge reception down to a single bar.

I suspect we will be seeing an iOS fix soon that will remap these areas to be more evenly spread out. This will make the problem look rather less alarming to end users, although it won’t change the underlying physics.

I should also note that Anandtech discovered the iPhone 4 to be excellent at hanging on to calls down at low signal levels, so despite the alarming reading where the signal strength meter plunges to zero, the phone itself might keep working perfectly. This is the source for the anecdotal reports of “my phone meter said no signal but my call didn’t drop”. Of course, it’s not magic — reduce the signal much more and it does eventually drop the call, as many other users (myself included) have seen.

As I said before, the bottom line is: signal strength meters are not to be trusted.

(Credit for finding the numbers I’ve used in this graph goes to Anandtech/Brian Klug.)

Posted 2 months ago
Posted 3 months ago

mnlsv:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(via groucho)

Posted 3 months ago
Posted 3 months ago

Facebook vs. Facebook Users

Seems many Facebook users don’t seem to understand that Facebook’s existence for being is to collect as much personal information about you as possible, and sell it to the highest bidder. Privacy is the enemy of that.

You’re not paying Facebook for their service, so they’ve got virtually no…

Posted 3 months ago

daath:

totes:

claytoncubitt:

Alex Webb, people playing volleyball using the border fence between Arizona and Mexico as the net, 1979