Friday, 24 February 2012

Friday, 17 February 2012

A Much Tastier Sandwich

Remember back when John Gruber called iPhone Web Apps a shit sandwich. And then Apple fanboys dragged Apple into native applications while balkanizing the nacent mobile software world?

Have you heard that today, WebKit is so popular other browser vendors are contemplating support -webkit CSS prefixes.

Now today, Apple announces:

  1. Mac is obsolete. All their devices are different form factors of iOS (I called this last April)
  2. OS X apps distributed via the App Store will need to comply with additional restrictions

So wait: build native apps and be ever restricted by Apple or build web apps and work across devices, across platforms, and even have non-Webkit browsers compatibility?

Leads me to believe that, as much as Apple doesn’t have the internet in it’s DNA, they’d still prefer – after all these years – that developers build web apps.

Monday, 13 February 2012

Monday, 6 February 2012

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Could You Be Fully Entertained with Openly Licensed Creative Work?

The vast majority of my business is tied to open source software. The culture I work in expects it. Being able to read the source code, update as needed (without asking permission), and share freely is part of the business of building software.

Yet, in my personal life, the expectation is that entertainment is all rights reserved.

The sheer volume of work licensed under Creative Commons indexed by archive.org and Google’s ‘Usage rights‘ search – I’m confident I could be wholly and fully entertained with work I was free to remix, share, and redistribute. All commercial free, FBI warning free, and DRM-free.

How many other inconveniences wouldn’t exist if creative work was expected to be openly licensed?

What if all broadcast media, since it’s distributed across public airwaves, must be CC-BY?

Monday, 30 January 2012

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Daily Reality Continued

“The alternative to the feckless to-do list is what I call ‘living in your calendar.’ That means taking your tasks off the to-do list, estimating how much time each of them will consume, and transferring them to your calendar.” – Daniel Markovitz

I’ve been ‘living in my calendar’ for 18 months now – since I first drew up the Daily Reality Planner. I’ve found it to be an excellent tool to set reasonable expectations (if only for myself).

Even though not everything I schedule needs to be done at that specific time – making that declaration helps me a) commit to it and b) mentally prepare for doing it.

Good things.