Google+
So far I’m enjoying Google+ as a new place online where the early adopter tech crowd is active. For me, it’s a bit like the early days of Twitter with more varied types of content since there’s no 140 character count constraint. Instead, there’s a mix of links, videos, personal updates, and overall, a high ...
On Creativity
Even more so than inspiration, creativity requires dedication.
Instapaper 3.0
Instapaper 3.0 for iPhone and iPad is now available in the App Store and the Instapaper website has been updated to include many of the new features as well. The biggest new features in 3.0 is that stars are now likes and you can browse likes from friends connected through Facebook, Twitter or your email contacts. You ...
Photojojo iPhone Lenses
Excited to try these Photojojo iPhone lenses that arrived today, including the telephoto, fisheye, the two-lenses-in-one combo macro and wide angle, and a bonus dino.
Mac App Store Launches
Apple launches the Mac App Store. The store comes as part of the OSX update to 10.6.6. I’m on vacation for a few days and the OS update took a crazy 3 hours over hotel wifi, but I suspect at home in SF, it would’ve only taken about 20 minutes. The app store is another standalone ...
Find My iPhone/iPad
Plugged my iPhone into sync and got a message to signup for free “find my iPhone” feature in MobileMe. The find feature for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch lets users find the missing device remotely by tracking the location of the device. You can then remote lock it, wipe the data if it’s been stolen, send messages to ...
Loving Instagram
I didn’t think I needed another iPhone photo app, but turns out I did. Instagr.am mimics other mobile photo-sharing apps, but it’s captured the appeal that comes from extreme minimalism. While you can use it to cross-post to other sites (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare), the web-side is pared down to just the photo page. ...
ThinkUp: Social Media Insights Engine
Since Feb 2007, I’ve been playing with different methods of importing my social network activity and data into my own database and site. I first used a plugin to import data into my then Expression Engine blog. Later when I switched to WordPress, I used variations of the Lifestream plugin and then eventually the Twitter ...
Twitter for iPad
Just downloaded the first version of Twitter for iPad (iTunes link) and trying it out. On first glance, love the clean, properly-sized UI. Try pinch/zoom on a tweet to see more info. Pinch again to close. Swipe down with two fingers to see a thread. The “write a tweet” view overlaps a bit much for my ...
Urban Forest Map
I was still curious after taking this photo of the trees on 24th Street at Bryant earlier today. How could I identify these trees? I did several searches on variations of “trees on 24th street mission san francisco” which brought up some great local links, including SFTrees and a good list of trees in the Mission ...
Facebook Joins Geo-location Services
Facebook finally launches its geo-location social app, Facebook Places, bringing location features to its 500 million users. You can checkin to locations, see who’s nearby your vicinity as well as tag the names of other Facebook friends who are at the same location. As a test, I checked in from the iPhone app and added ...
Internet consumption trends
Steve Rubel has an interesting article in AdAge, although I would argue that innovation, simplicity and utility have always been dominant trends even with PC internet browsing. I do think that the scale in which we consume has rapidly changed and the “always on” generation views content and connectivity as ubiquitous. Technology is just catching ...
Activism through Foursquare
Spotted a series of ads for Earthjustice in the Montgomery St. BART station here in SF. Check into the ads on Foursquare and Earthjustice donates $10 to various activist and environmental causes. The ads have been running since May. Great use of social media. Also funny, but not surprising to see my Twitter friend KyNam ...
Google Earth for iPad
Playing around with Google Earth for iPad (iTunes link) tonight. Great fit for the iPad with touch and swipe and zoom controls. On the iPhone, it always felt too small, but the extra size of the iPad feels perfect. Now, if Google Earth had the ability to toggle to street view, we’d be all set.
More Typefaces Coming to the Web
After designing for the web for over 15 years, it’s exciting to see more typefaces finally becoming available for the web beyond the original 7-10 web fonts, or image replacement with JS/Flash. For a quick background on how web fonts have evolved, see the excerpt below from FontFeed from November 18, 2009. The August 2007 ...
Mockingbird: Wireframes on the Fly
As a UI/UX designer, I’m constantly looking for new tools and methods to allow me to more rapidly create initial user flows and to prototype an application. Mockingbird is a new online tool that let’s you create and share wireframes quickly and with interactivity. It uses a simple drag and drop UI library, gives you ...
Twitter Lists
I took a screenshot of the Twitter lists following me at the moment. Undoubtedly, the “listed” number will be used as another metric of social influence, but that’s not what I find intriguing. It’s the self-curated/created nature of lists that I like. It’s been insightful, humbling and amusing to see what lists I’m added to. ...
Real-time Attribution
I was working on a blog post tonight and wanted to attribute a person as the source. Normally, I would just link their name to their site/blog if they had one, which would then alert them by email if they had a Google search alert on their name or URL, or it would show up ...