Evernote just released version 6 of their OS X app. And there are a lot of great things about it. For example, the first user interface redesign that looks good.

But, I have some concerns about where Evernote as a company and product is going. They have introduced two new features that I don’t get: Chat and Contexts. I can’t understand how either of them belong in Evernote. There are a lot of better chat solutions out there. And Context in it’s current form is more or less useless; and I also have som Privacy concerns. Context wouldn’t be that bad, if it was limited to your notes.

Anyways. I hope that the company moves back into just improving the product.

The thing I really hope for in 2015 is a real competitor to Evernote. They need it for two reasons: to get their act together and make the service as good as possible, and to make sure they focus on features that are relevant to the product.

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I sometimes write about both my thoughts, and problems about making money on apps, podcasts and websites. This might be odd to some people. But the reason is quite simple. I have a website, while I don’t have any podcasts or paid apps. I might get into them at some point. But I would love to be able to make money on my site at some point.

But the real reason I care is that I love the work indies and small companies are doing. For example app companies like Tapbots and Agile Tortoise; podcast networks like 5by5 and Relay; or writers like John Gruber and Patrick Rhone. Just to mention a few.

They all provide something large companies or media houses can’t. Small podcast network or indie podcasters test and do the stuff the large corporations can’t. Small app developers do all kinds of great and interesting things, that large companies can’t; and they can afford to make delightful apps, that target a small audience. While indie writers can do the kind of writing that I love to read; it’s not generic writing; it’s personal, something large websites can’t.

We need both small and large; but we need to figure out how to make both parts of the business sustainable.

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I spent a large portion of the weekend trying to figure out why I couldn’t access the App Store from my phone. The strange thing was that the step listed at all the sites I visited didn’t work. But I finally managed to find out how to fix it last night.

I’m just writing it up here, to know where to look the next time around. I’m going to include all the usual tips, plus the thing that solved it for me.

1. Restart your phone.

2. Hard reset: press and hold your home button and power button until the device powers off.

3. Reset Network settings: Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset network settings

4. Force quit the App Store app; double click your home button, find the app store app, and drag it up and out to kill it.

5. If on wifi: try Celluar; and the other way around.

6. Reconnect to your wifi network; go in to Wifi settings and “forget” the network, before connecting again.

7. Reboot your wifi router.

8. View your AppleId; go to Settings – iTunes & App Store -> Click on your Apple ID -> View Apple ID. This is the one that solved it for me. It asked me to enter my password, and suddenly I was able to use the App Store again.

9. Restore your phone. This is the last resort. There are times when this is the only option.

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Ustwo released an update to their amazing game: Monument Valley, not long ago. The game is amazing, and the $4 game, with the $2 iAP to get access to new levels is worth it.

It always makes me sad when some people on the Internet start complaining about having to pay for extra features or new versions.

It’s okay to complain somewhere the company behind it can respond. This is unfortunately impossible on the App Store. And we also see the same “1 Star” problem every single time. The amazing thing that happened this time was that a lot of people that love the game, and respect Ustwo went on the App Store and responded with adding 5 star reviews; after they tweeted about it.

Monument Valley is my all time favorite iOS game, and you should go and get it.

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I just wrote about Serial. They are the fastest podcast to reach 5 million download, according to The Guardian.

I was met with a “please donate” pop up, when I went to their website last night. It’s clear that there are some shows where ads alone might not be sustainable. Too limited audience or large production cost are two possible reasons for it.

I don’t mind ads on podcasts, most of them are good. But I think a combination of ads and listener support is the only sustainable way going forward. Unless we don’t want any experimental or only shows with huge audiences.

Even 5by5 are doing it. I think things like Patreon is great.

I have no idea where this will end, but I hope it is a place where podcasts are funded with a combination of ads and listener support.

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This American Life is without doubt a great podcast. But it never clicked with me. There are many “radio” podcasts that I just listened to in certain periods of my life. They created the first spin-off a while back called Serial. This is one of the best podcasts, I have heard in a very long time.

They have done something very interesting. The whole premise for the show is to back it with investigative journalism and use a season to present it.

You should check out Serial if you haven’t done it yet.

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Launch Center Pro, is one of the apps I just never got started with. I have had it installed on my phone more or less all the time since it launched. But I have never found a use for it.

One of the things I have done, and still do a lot on my phone is to launch a few different sites. Everything from every few days, to many times a day. These are sites like Facebook, Fastmail, my university e-mail address, and a few other university related sites. The common factor for all of them is that I need 1Password to log in, but I don’t want to stay logged in.

I might be lazy. But I hate typing those URL’s all the time.

My solution to the problem is to use LCP as a glorified bookmark “launcher” for 1Password.

The problem with my needs and LCP was, and is that the there are not much between what Drafts + TextExpander or Editorial + TextExpander can do, that LCP would be a elegant solution for.

Check out LCP if you look for a fast way for opening a predefined set of urls in 1Password.

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Tim Cook: I’m Proud To Be Gay

I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.

I read this article yesterday, when everyone else was linking to it. I didn’t have the time to write anything, but there it is. This is one of the best things I have read in a very long time.

The quote above is my favourite from the OP-ed. Activism isn’t for everyone, but doing something is. What Tim Cook is doing here, is to sacrifice something that obviously is important to him(privacy), for the greater cause; that is even more important.

Everyone should read it.

There are still assholes out there that think it’s okay to discriminate people on the color of their skin, their sexual orientation or their religion(or lack of religion). Seriously. Upgrade your values to 2014.

Everyone is different. Accept it. And embrace it.

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This is a post, about how my Jekyll blog setup is, like I promised. There is also sections about how I post, from both iOS and OS X. Why I chose static and Jekyll. And also some information about who I think a static blog is for.

My reason for changing is quite simple, I wanted a workflow for posting to my site from both OS X and iOS that didn’t involve copy-pasting, or required me to go for a dynamic system like WordPress.

Why Static?

Why someone should go for a static blog is quite simple. A static site is the simplest of simple, when it comes to the server. The only thing your web server have to do is to deliver static files.

I generate the files once, every time I update my site, and then I’m set, until something are updated.

There are in my eyes two very good reasons for going static. You don’t have to think much about security — like you have to with dynamic content management systems. And your site can handle more or less anything even on the cheapest of cheap hosting alternatives.

Why Jekyll?

Well, Jekyll was the one I liked best. I tried to implement my site in more or less every popular static (hybrid) system out there. Jekyll is fast and it took me two hours to make everything work, and another few to get a usable design.

That’s a fraction of the time, compared to all of the other alternatives I tried.

General information.

The central piece in how my site is managed is Git. I currently store my repo at bitbucket, but you could store it on Github, or anywhere you want. Everything is stored in that Git repo; except for the generated HTML files, they are excluded to avoid 99% of merge conflicts. This is because I generate the site on the server, and on my mac when I test stuff.

In other words: I use Git to sync stuff.

Server setup.

The server setup couldn’t be simpler. I have the git repo there. And I use Nginx to serve the generated files from Jekyll. My system is 100% automated. I have a small shell script that run in cron, every 15 minutes. It does three things.

1. It adds, and commits and pushes any changes in the repo on the server back to bitbucket.

2. It pulls any changes on bitbucket back to the server.

3. It re-generstes the site.

This makes it possible for me to change something or the site in three ways: – Change it directly on the server – Send it over ftp – Or make the changes in the git repo and just push it.

How to update from iOS

One of my goals this time was that it had to b simple for me to post from iOS. The great thing about a VPS, is that this is very simple. I’m set as long as I can place a file on bitbucket or the server.

There are three apps on my iOS devices that makes this easier.

The core in all of this is Editorial. It’s a great editor that can be extended to do more or less anything. And I found a cool workflow that I managed to change to let me transfer new files over ftp.

Panic released their great ftp client for iOS a few weeks ago. And it solves a simple problem for me, and that is to make minor edits, or delete stuff, from my Jekyll site on iOS.

They also updated their ssh client for iOS at the same time. Prompt, let’s me log into the server and preform simple tasks like restarting stuff or re-generating the site, if or when I have to.

How to update from OS X

Doing stuff from OS X is very simple. I just edit or add files to the Jekyll repo, and push the changes to bitbucket. And let the shell script magic to the rest.

Conclusion

Jekyll, and the similar systems aren’t from anyone. But I think it might be for you, if you are the kind of person that love working with the terminal. It is simple to deploy stuff; everything you need to do is to make sure your markdown files are in the right folder.

Two things:

1. Make sure you get a VPS, so you can generate your site on the server, if you ever need to post from your iOS devices.

2. Get the apps and scripts working before you need them.

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Spaces was my favourite feature introduced in OS X 10.5 Leopard. This is a feature that you will find in most Window Managers and Desktop Environments, if not all for X Windows. In other words: all old Linux and Unix users know what they are.

The problem with Spaces, Workspaces or whatever you call them is not power users. The problem is make it understandable and approachable for regular users.

The version that shipped with 10.5, was more or less the same as what I had in Linux many years before, then Apple started to really improve on the idea with 10.7. But I think it is now, with 10.10 that they finally cracked it.

The big change is of course to combine Maximise and Full Screen, in the same green button. It makes the whole idea of spaces more approachable for most people. Not because it is better, or anything; it isn’t. But it makes it impossible for any OS X user to avoid it.

Spaces and full screen apps is powerful features; but they shouldn’t be considered power user features; they should be something everyone uses.

I hope 2014 will be the year people finally started to use them. They are one of the best ways be more productive on a smaller screen. It’s not as good as having a larger screen, or multiple screens; but it is almost as good.

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