Collin Donnell

Last January I wrote a post about what tools I thought were “essential” in 2011. A lot of my favorite tools from last year I still use all the time, a few have fallen away, and I’ve added a few that either didn’t exist or I didn’t know about a year ago. In the interest of keeping the list shorter I’ve also left off some things that would be repeats from last year if I didn’t have anything new to say about it.

Hardware

13” Macbook Air
It’s the same one from 2011 that I was using last year. I’ve just ordered a thin new 27” iMac, so I’m considering moving to an 11” Air once the next time they’re updated. The 13” is a great size, but if I have a fast desktop to use when I’m at home, I’d like to be even more mobile when I’m not.

iPad mini
I still have my third generation iPad — and use it sometimes when it’s more nearby — but I’d estimate that I’m using the mini 90% of the time.

Non-Tech

Coffee Setup
My primary coffee maker is still the Chemex, but this year I’ve also added an Aeropress that I sometimes when I’m just making coffee for myself. I upgraded how I heat my water this year with a Bonavita electric hot water kettle that lets me set a specific temperature. Something that hasn’t changed from last year is that I use a Baratza Virtuoso burr grinder.

Public D8 Bicycle
I bought a new bicycle last March and have ridden it everywhere. Portland is pretty great for getting around by bike, and I routinely go weeks or more without driving.

Mac Apps

Xcode
It seems to be more stable now than it was a year ago.

OmniFocus for Mac
Still the best way to keep track of everything in my life and do GTD on a Mac or iOS. I’m extremely excited to see what’s changed in 2.0 this year.

LaunchBar
A year ago, I was going back and forth between using Alfred and LaunchBar for an app/script launcher, but I’ve since solidified on LaunchBar. Alfred is a really great app, but I finally got my head around using instant send in LaunchBar and that’s made it stick.

NetNewsWire
I can’t wait to see what this app eventually becomes, but it’s still as great as ever. I’ve been using various versions of NetNewsWire for 5 years now, and it’s still my favorite way to read news.

Fluid
I’ve been aware of Fluid for a long time, but never really got into it. Recently I paid the $5 upgrade price from the free version, find it the best way to deal with using Gmail on a Mac.

Kaleidoscope
Last year my only wish for Kaleidoscope (I wouldn’t call it a complaint) was that it would support merging as well as comparison. It now does and it’s awesome. Besides that one thing, Black Pixel has done a great job making every part of the app better and I use it more than ever now.

Tower
I don’t always use a client for Git, but when I do I use Tower. It’s a bit overwhelming in that it does so much, but so is Git, and it’s the only app that doesn’t require me jumping to the command line to perform basic tasks.

MindNode Pro
I use this app for mind mapping all sorts of things, development related and otherwise. One of my favorite uses this year was when I needed to diagram a complex data model for a web service I was working with.

Slicy
If you work in Photoshop ever and need to export images, you need Slicy. It makes it really easy to get export both 1x and 2x versions of app graphics without pulling your hair out.

Tweetbot
Much like the iOS version, I like it because it just works so great. An excellent way to use Twitter on a Mac.

Moom
A window management utility that makes it easy for me to put each thing in it’s own special place like a crazy person.

Byword & Marked
Still my two favorite apps for writing blog posts. Byword for the writing, and Marked for Markdown preview. I use Moom to put them side by side on my MacBook Air.

Terminal.app
The one app I use the most everyday.

iOS Apps

Pinbook for Pinboard
I’m not mentioning it to pimp my own app, but because I really like my own app. I use it constantly.

Reeder
What I use to read RSS on my iPhone and iPad. I resent that’s it’s both not universal, and that the iPad app has been left to languish for so long, but it’s still the best I’ve found so far.

Flickr
They recently updated their iOS app and I’ve been using a lot since then. I hope to see the iOS and web site both continue to improve this year. It feels like the things I put here are a lot more permanent than with something like Instagram, and I like that.

Instapaper
An outstanding app and service, Instapaper is an app I use for saving longer articles I’d like to read later.

Cleartune
A good guitar tuner for iOS (universal) that is both updated for retina and taller iPhone screens.

Fantastical
A nicer way to add calendar items and view what’s coming up this week on your iPhone.

Elements
Still the only text editor on iOS I can stand using for an extended period of time.

Online Services

Pinboard
I use it to save all kinds of links, and pay for the $10 a year archiving service. I like it so much I wrote an app for it.

AppFigures
Every night they download my sales reports from iTunes and send me an e-mail to let me know how things went. They also track where my apps have been featured and how they’re ranking in the store. I’ve never had any problems and think can’t imagine not using it.

Tender
A web app for dealing with customer support. At some point Tender started offering a $9/month plan that is perfect for a one man shop such as myself. It lets users communicate through e-mail, helps me manage a queue of support requests, and integrates with both GitHub Issues and Lighthouse.

HockeyApp
Last year I was using TestFlight for managing beta builds, and have since moved to using Hockey. They recently had a big update that improved the entire experience. I’ve done pretty well with not shipping any huge show stopping bugs in Pinbook, and most of that credit is due to thoroughly beta testing the app (as well as having great testers).

Google Apps for Business
Besides that Gmail and Mail.app don’t like each-other, this is the best, easiest to set up and most flexible way I’ve found to manage e-mail and calendars for my business.

There’s a very informative article on Daily Kos where the co-author of the law that makes it possible to mint a trillion dollar platinum coin explains what that actually means and what the results would be.

Pinbook 1.2.1 is out now on the App Store, adds support for sending to Readability (if Readability’s app is installed), and fixes these issues:

• Delete not working properly when searching.
• Tags and date overlapping in bookmark rows.
• The description screen appearing blank when editing or creating bookmarks.
• A crash that could occur when editing certain bookmarks.
• Media auto-playing when viewing a bookmark (like if you saved a link to a video).

I also learned a couple of development related things during this update that I think are worth mentioning.

Using URL Schemes for UIActivity Subclasses

The one new feature I’ve added is sharing to Readability for people who have their app installed. Instead of trying to implement something using Readability’s API, I just wrote my UIActivity subclass to use their apps URL scheme to send whatever URL.

I think it’s a pretty fair assumption that if someone really wants to send a URL to a service like this, they probably have the app installed. It also means that Readability users don’t need to go through the hassle of typing in a username and password for pretty much no benefit. The other advantage of doing things this way is that if in my UIActivity subclass I return NO from -[UIActivity prepareWithActivityItems], UIActivityViewController will automatically hide that option without me having to do anything different my view controller. This means that I can check -[UIApplication canOpenURL], and the option won’t show up for users without Readability installed. The code might look something like this:

- (BOOL)canPerformWithActivityItems:(NSArray *)activityItems {
NSURL *readabilityScheme = [NSURL URLWithString:@“readability://“]; return [[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:readabilityScheme]; }

Code Cleanup and Maintenance

I did a lot of code cleanup during this release: trying to refactor things to be more orthogonal¹, and remove code that wasn’t serving a purpose anymore. I’d classify the code in Pinbook as very clean, but I also know that it will only stay that way if I keep on top of it. It’s the kind of work the user doesn’t see, but if it let’s me continue to put out updates quickly and keep them bug free, they’ll benefit from it.

One example is that I improved the way that Pinbook checks if it needs to update. The way that Pinbook knows that it needs to update is it asks Pinboard for the last modification date, and gets back some XML that looks like this:

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8” ?> <update time=“2011-03-24T19:02:07Z” />

Instead of actually parsing the date out of this, what the app was doing was just checking if the entire thing had changed and comparing it to whatever we got back the last time. In the new version I’m pulling out the date and using actual date comparison methods to check it against the last seen update time. It’s a part of the app that I don’t know of causing any issues, but it made me uncomfortable because the approach was lazy, and I was afraid it might have caused an issue for someone I didn’t know about.

I think the reason this didn’t get fixed earlier was that I probably wrote it quickly during development just to get something working, intended to clean it up later, and never did. It’s a lesson for me that if I know how something should be done, I should do it that way upfront instead of saying that I’ll clean it up later, and possibly get side tracked.

As someone who writes a client for Pinboard, it’s probably not surprising that I use it a lot. The most important aspect to keeping myself adding links to and using Pinboard has been lowering the friction for getting things into and out of it. On iOS, Pinbook has made both of these a lot easier, but on the Mac I still find the process of hitting ⌘+2 in Safari (to activate Pinboard’s bookmarklet) and then typing in the details of the link I want to save a bit cumbersome. And, once again, I’ve written an AppleScript to solve this problem for me.

The script is based on this one by Tim Bueno for sending links from Chrome to Pinboard using Alfred. The code itself has changed from Tim’s script quite a bit, but the way they work is nearly identical:

1. Bring the script up in LaunchBar (I type “STP”)
2. Type out a list of tags separated by spaces
3. Press Option+Return
4. Get notified in Notification Center when it's finished

The script itself looks like this:

{% gist 4472918 %}

One of the things that’s different in my script is that instead of keeping your password directly in the script, it uses your Pinboard API token. Your token can be gotten by going to Pinboard’s password settings page.

One of the things that’s a big kludgy when using a system like Octopress is the manner in which you create a new post and get it loaded into your favorite text editor. It sort of goes like this:

1. Go to blog folder in Terminal
2. Enter a command like rake new_post["post title"]
3. Copy new path from pasteboard
4. Type open and paste the path Octopress just gave you

One way to deal with this (in Octopress, specifically) would be to edit your “Rakefile” and change the new_post command to open the file that was just created. But since I’m on a Mac and use LaunchBar already, a more appealing option was to create an AppleScript.

{% gist 4472948 %}

What the script does is ask for the post title you’d like to use, tell Terminal to run all of the right commands to create the post and then open the most recently added document from the posts folder in your default editor. So now the steps to create a new post and start editing it are:

1. Run the script from LaunchBar
2. Type the post title you'd like to use

AppleScript itself is so weird and kind of crappy as a language, but I’m really glad to have it for what it can do when I want to scratch a small itch like this.

I’m pretty sure there’s a rule against switching to a static blogging system without writing at least one blog post about it. I’ve been considering switching to a static system for a little while, and for all of the normal reasons: faster loading time, the feeling that Wordpress was just a bit more than I needed, having all of my posts stored automatically as plain text files and liking to try with new things. Looking at the available choices, it came down to three options for what I might switch to:

• My own thing
• Pelican
• Octopress

My Own Thing

As someone who writes software, this option really appealed to me. If I wrote my own system it wouldn’t need to be as complicated as any others, because it wouldn’t have to be useable by anyone else. I could write it as a Mac app, and any issues I had I could just fix because I would understand every line of code. Carter Allen actually did exactly what I’m talking about, and the results look really good.

The reasons I didn’t do this is the time it would take to do it, and that I’d be solving a problem that’s already been solved. There’s a pretty good chance I’ll come back to this option at some point.

Pelican

Pelican is written in Python, and was almost what I went with. In some ways it seems a bit simpler than Octopress, and Gabe wrote a great post about migrating to Pelican on MacDrifter that made it not seem too terrifying.

The reasons I didn’t go with Pelican are because it was a bit more difficult to get set up the way I needed it, and I didn’t feel as comfortable with the tools I was using. I probably could have gone with this and been equally happy.

Octopress

The biggest reasons I ultimately went with Octopress over Pelican are that it was easy to set up and that once I made it through the initial setup, and that using it felt the most like using the tools I already know. Besides the commands which are specific to Octopress (create a new post, publish the site), the primary tool that I use to work with it is Git. Your sites folder is a Git repo, New themes are usually installed as submodules and upgrading it means pulling down the latest source from GitHub.

Both pre-made static blog systems seem like they can produce pretty much the same results, and either I think either is a good choice. The biggest question — I think — that determines if someone will like Octopress or Pelican more is they’re more comfortable with using Python specific tools or Git.

I found this this post by Doug Russell on coalescing messages (turning multiple message sends into one) using performSelector:withObject:afterDelay: to be a really simple and useful technique.

(via Brent Simmons)

TextExpander is one of those apps I use so much on my Mac that I only notice when it’s not there. One thing I’ve been using it for a lot the last few days is fixing places in my code where I forgot to use NSLocalizedString and should have. If you’re not familiar, NSLocalizedString is a macro that Cocoa developers use for making strings localizable, which means the ability to display in the correct language for the user in cases where the app has the text for that translation.

So, if I see something like this in my code: self.title = @"Edit Bookmark", and I want to change it to this: self.title = NSLocalizedString(@"Edit Bookmark", @"Edit bookmark view title"), I cut the entire string and type ;lcl to trigger the snippet (you can make that whatever you want), which automatically pastes the corrected text back into the same location.

The snippet itself looks like this: NSLocalizedString(%clipboard, @"%|"). What it does is paste the contents of the clipboard (my string) into the first parameter, and puts the cursor into between the quotes of the second parameter so I can type out my comment.

I can’t think of anyone besides Brent Simmons who can publish two blog posts in a day that send me going through my code reexamining everything to I’ve committed no deadly sins. Thankfully it’s not too bad since most of what Brent mentions is now stored in the parts of memory which keep me breathing and walking upright. If you write any Objective-C code at all you should read both of these, and also the posts which they link to.

• Coders in the Hands of an Angry God
• UITableViewCell Is Not a Controller

The Guardian

Sayonara, netbooks. The end of 2012 marks the end of the manufacture of the diddy machines that were - for a time - the Great White Hope of the PC market.

What does this mean for Google’s Chrome OS? Wasn’t it being made explicitly for netbooks?

(Via Daring Fireball)

The Omni Group:

With "iPad or Bust!" out of the way, we've been able to move some of our projects off the back burner and here are some highlights of what's coming: OmniFocus 2. OmniOutliner 4. Automatic document syncing. Sandboxing. Accessibility. Visio and Microsoft Project compatibility in our iPad apps. Upgrade pricing from Mac App Store apps.

Holy cow that’s a lot.

This year as I buy presents for the people closest to me, I’ve decided that I need to keep track of what I’m buying, how much I’ve spent and for who. There’s a couple of tools I could have used for this, OmniOutliner is a great fit for this kind of thing, and even plain text files could have worked OK, but ultimately a Numbers spreadsheet is the perfect place for keeping track of this information.

The columns I’m using to keep track of my purchases are: Purchased Date, Item, From, For, Confirmation #, Delivered and Price. One of the features I like best about Numbers is being able to right click any of the columns and select “Categorize by This Column”, which breaks the table up based on by any category I like such as who I’ve bought what for, or where I’ve purchased what from.

I find myself gravitating towards using the iWork apps whenever I can due to iCloud working so well with them. It’s like entering an alternate dimension where everything we were promised with iCloud has mostly come true.

One of the changes that I made in Pinbook 1.2 was to supporting iOS 5. I started working on Pinbook before iOS 6 was released, so I decided to try and support both. For example: on top of using UIActivityViewController for sharing, or UIRefreshControl for pull to refresh, I also implemented UI that people on iOS 5 would see. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as I went forward I started to realize how much of my code was just there to support the older OS.

I wanted to take it out support for three reasons. First, I knew I was going to be adding iPad support and that the first generation iPad could not run iOS 6. Anyone else running Pinbook on iOS 5 would be able to upgrade, but if I started supporting these other users and then dropped support in a future version there were going to be some people who got left out and couldn’t do anything about it. The second reason is that since I don’t run iOS 5 on any of my primary devices and I’m a one man shop, that version of the app was never going to be as well tested. Lastly, it was adding more code to the app than needed to be there and I didn’t like that.

The potential negatives of dropping support were that I’d have a vocal group of pissed off iOS 5 users, or that sales would go down. Thankfully, neither of these happened. I’ve received no complaints, and sales have been better for this version. Dropping iOS 5 also let me lower the total amount of code in the app by about 8 percent.

If — like the rest of the web — you were shocked and appalled by the changes to Instagram’s terms of service yesterday, I’d like to point out that Flickr has recently released a pretty good new version of their iPhone app, and that if the push notifications to my phone any indication, a lot of people are trying it out right now. As a bonus they’ll even let you pay them — which is great if you’re sick of companies who ask for nothing and then take everything.

Personally I wasn’t so worried by Instagram’s changes, but already wanted to try Flickr as a replacement when I saw their new app, so the timing just kind of works out.

Gabe shows us how to rate iTunes tracks using Keyboard Maestro. I really need to check out Keyboard Maestro now.

Maciej Cegłowski is starting an incubator:

How is this different from other incubators? Participants receive almost no money, and are expected to do everything themselves, making them vastly better prepared to succeed in business.

An awesome new set of OmniFocus perspective icons by Icons and Coffee that you can purchase for only $4.99. I’ve already bought a copy and will now spend the rest of the day avoiding actual work playing with these.

Spencer and I recorded two songs last night, and I thought I'd share them. They were both recorded live using an Apogee Mic, so any difference in levels is just how far away we were each standing from the microphone. The first song is called When I Go by a band called Slow Club, and the other is titled When U Love Somebody and is by a band called Fruit Bats. I hope you like them.

I’ve just moved “Calendar” off of my home screen and replaced it with Fantastical for iPhone. It’s great. You can get it in the App Store for $2.

I found this post on Realmac Software's blog about designing graphics for retina extremely useful.

Jesse Thorn on why the clothing you wear matters:

Clothing is a way we represent ourselves to others. This self-representation couldn't be more significant. When you dress, you are making a statement; not a fashion statement, but a statement of identity. If you put on a jacket and tie, for example, you are signifying to others that you take the occasion seriously, whatever that occasion may be. If someone looks at you and interprets how you dress, they are not being superficial. They are reading the message that you wrote. If that message says, "I am to be respected," then they will respect you. The language of clothing is as complex as the spoken word, but ignorance of it is no excuse. Can one earn respect in other ways? Certainly, and one should. But that's no reason to open a conversation with someone by saying, without words, "this is not important to me."

Taking pride in how you present yourself and doing so appropriately for the situation you're in isn't silly or vain, it's a declaration to others of the respect you have for yourself and the occasion. That doesn't mean overdressing - that can be just as silly as underdressing - it means there's value in having a sense for what's appropriate and cultivating personal style.

Tokens is a new Mac app that makes it easy to generate, share and track tokens for your App Store apps. Looks awesome, I'll definitely be using this.

Daniel Pasco and Michael Jurewitz Interviewed on The Next Web:

When it came to Kaleidoscope, the company has a long list of features that they’d love to see in the app eventually. But, Jurewitz says, at some point you just have to get something out in front of the world so that you can discover how they’re using it. “So that you can make sure that you’re actually building something for your users,” he adds.

I couldn't agree more.

Everyone at Black Pixel has done such an incredible job getting Kaleidoscope to this point, as well as launching a stellar new site for their company.

The Wirecutter on Shaving:

To make my picks, I spoke with experts who have been through every razor fad and tried every setup, including beard-trimmers. I then personally tested widely available non-disposable razors on the market.

I’ve been shaving with a double edge safety razor for the past two years, and would recommend it to anyone. For a small amount of initial effort, you get to save a ton of money of blades, and get a better shave.

My recommendations for a good setup are:

• A Merkur safety razor.
• A pack of Derby razor blades.
• Proraso shaving cream.
• A good shaving brush (there's a large price range for these).

If you’re looking for a good introduction to how to actually shave using a setup like this, check out episode 4 of Put This On, which is all about grooming.

Second Gear have released version 2.6 of the best text editor for iOS: Elements. The new file browser interface is great and the reliability of Dropbox syncing seems to have improved considerably as well. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't already have this app, but if you don't I emphatically recommend going to The App Store and buying a copy right now.