08-11-10
The Evernote firefox plugin is even better than the full app
So it's been a while since I used Evernote regularly, and I think I know why.
Although Evernote for windows is great, I always relied completely on the firefox plugin to feed it. But around the time FF3.5 came out there were problems with the Evernote plugin. In my case, it stopped working but could not be uninstalled without some dark magic system file editing trickery. So I tried the bookmarklet, but it kind of sucked. It was slow and didn't really do everything I expected. Later on, I began using Chrome exclusively and forgot about Evernote almost completely (except when I wanted to go and retrieve something I'd stored there). Fast forward six months or so. Now I'm using a mac most of the time, and went back to firefox because chrome for mac isn't very stable and safari doesn't really do it for me. Fast forward two more months. Now I'm using evernote a lot on my iphone, and decided to give it a try on the mac as well. I've been doing a lot of research lately, and needed a way to organize everything. Needed the proverbial "external brain". So I installed the evernote plugin on firefox, and fortunately this time it worked with no problems. Much to my delight, it's better than ever! Look at that screenshot. Everything's there. You can clip stuff, add notes, view and search all your existing notes. And it's lightning fast, much faster than the standalone application. And for me, lightness and speed are everything. I'm sick of applications getting heavier and heavier. So well done, Evernote! Think I finally may get one of your "I <3 Evernote" tees.08-03-10
Why jailbreaking sucks
Unlike my mate Tiago of scooterpt.com, I was never very enthusiastic about jailbreaking my iPhone. But, fed up with my 3G’s inability to display wallpaper images, yesterday I decided to give jailbreaking a shot.
So I went to this nice website that promises to jailbreak the iphone online, for free and in just a couple minutes. Apparently, all it does is install Cydia, which is like an App Store for teh hax0rs. Once Cydia is installed the phone reboots and you’re ready to enter the land of freedom, milk and honey.
… Except for one single detail. The entire Cydia experience sucks. It’s like a big black hole of user experience failure.
You can’t really appreciate the work Apple has done on the iphone interface until you jailbreak your iphone (or try a friend’s souped-up Android). It’s like… well, it’s like going from MacOS to Slackware Linux. There’s no doubt you’re getting an extremely capable system, but it’s a pain to learn and operate.
Cydia has to load what feels like a terabyte of data every time you open it. Then you get some kind of connection failure and need to try opening it again. Then there are more connection failures whenever you try to install an app, which the installer completely fails to notice when it tells you the installation is “Complete!”. Oh no, it isn’t. You’re going to spend the next few minutes searching every single home screen looking for the damned thing, only to realize it isn’t there. So you try installing it again, and again, until it works. Oh, and God have mercy if you let your phone go to sleep while something is downloading: it’ll just freeze there.
When you finally open the damned app, get ready for a shock. It was almost certainly designed by someone who thinks “User Experience” means kinky porn.
Let me give you an example.
All I wanted from the jailbreak was to find some way to maybe enable the display of wallpapers on my iphone 3G, right? So I googled around a bit and discovered that you need Winterboard to change themes and wallpapers. Download Winterboard. Download Winterboard again. Reboot. Restart spingboard (whatever that is). Open Winterboard. Decipher martian. Google some more. Huh, apparently, winterboard ONLY allows you to change the entire theme, not just the wallpaper. That’s not really acceptable, since all the themes look like they were designed by 12 year olds.
Google some more. Apparently there’s this Bosspaper app that lets you change JUST the wallpaper. Huh. Install Bosspaper. Two more times. Reboot. Open Bosspaper and… what?? There are 20 different buttons to push. One button block is labeled “Image / Folder selection”, and I’m left wondering what the hell does a folder have to do with a wallpaper image. Tap “individual pictures”, tap “add”, tap “wallpapers”…. strange, there’s nothing here to select. I could have sworn this folder is full of slick wallpaper images, but, whatever. Tap “back”, tap “back”… strange, nothing happens. Tap “back” 100 more times. Nothing. Close and reopen Bosspaper. Try selecting an image from the camera roll instead. Huh. Instead of thumbnails, I get only a list of file names. Do I want to have IMG_1005.JP or IMG_1006.JPG as my wallpaper? HOW THE HELL DO I KNOW? Select one at random. Turn on the thing that says “BossPaper Enabled”. Go back to the home screen and behold the glory of… absolutely nothing. Lock and unlock the phone. Nothing. Google again. Apparently, bosspaper doesn’t work with iOS4 unless you do a little hack with winterboard, reboot the phone and sacrifice your first born to the underground gods. I lay down the phone and go to sleep.
Fast forward to today. My friend Tiago rolls into the office, cheerfully showing off his wallpaper and multitasking enabled 3G. I tell him my woes and he replies that all I need to do is download a file editor and change two configuration settings on the iphone:
wallpaper=true;
multitasking=true;
Seems simple enough. I try downloading iFile, the app he used to edit the configuration file, but all my five downloading attempts fail. I finally give it up, ruing the hours I lost over this mess.
See, I’m working like hell at the moment trying to launch Treddie (not to mention the challenges at the day job that keep my mind busy enough as it is), so losing two hours over this jailbreaking stuff really hurt my schedule.
I’m very unhappy about the way Apple handles its customers. We’ve been getting bullshit for years now (copy/paste not working, camera not recording video, the 3G being left without wallpapers or multitasking, iphone 4 antenna-gate, etc), but the fact is, the alternative doesn’t quite cut it for me. Jailbreaking requires too hefty a time investment. It may work for you if you’re willing to put in the effort, sure. But then why do you have an iphone? You’d be better off with an android.
Later today I’m going to do a full restore on my phone and forget about fancy wallpapers.
08-02-10
Shutting down the information overload
I used to check twitter and facebook every day first thing in the morning. Then I’d re-check dozens of times during the day, plus one more time right before bed.
Other than my real life friends, I followed only tech blogs and startup-related people. It was a rather restricted group of sources, but it still meant I’d go through hundreds of tweets every day. That in itself wasn’t bad, since the average tweet can be read and mentally archived in well under a second; the problem was that my focus kept switching from the task at hand to whatever these tasty bits of information got me thinking about.
I want to start something. Build a web app or service that’s useful to many people for a good long while. Trouble is, my focus keeps moving from one project to another and I rarely get to finish anything. I know this pattern is broken, I know that I really need to focus on something and stick with it, but I have a VERY hard time working on stuff I’m not enthusiastic about. And I’m devilishly good at whatever catches my fancy. My challenge here is to find ways to manipulate my environment so that these traits start working in my favour, and I think I found one.
By following a lot less people on twitter and checking it once a day – tops – I stopped the main flow of stimulating new ideas. This is great because, once I start something, I really don’t need further inspiration. I just need to research stuff that’s directly related to the project and try to avoid becoming too excited with anything else.
My iPhone notifies me whenever people try to talk to me directly on facebook and twitter, I’m not missing anything important by not checking them. And shutting down the information overload has really helped me get stuff done.
Why, I even found time to update my blog!
01-11-10
Avatar beats piracy
There’s a lot of chatter going on about Cameron’s new movie, Avatar.
Much has been said about the special effects and the filming techniques, but I’l like to focus on the box office results. Yes, it’s on its way to beat Titanic and become the #1 box office hit, ever. In its fourth weekend in cinemas, Titanic grossed about 28M dollas; Avatar grossed 48 million. It’s up to a 1.3 Billion total already, and shows no signs of slowing down.
And all this despite currently being the most downloaded movie on Peer to Peer networks. Oddly enough, the movie industry is not complaining much. Why?
Well, first, because the movie is only any good if you strap some 3D glasses on. Otherwise it’s little different from Star Wars. If you do watch the 3D version, it becomes much more than a movie. It becomes an experience, something you can’t possibly match at home. Not even with a full blown home theatre system, let alone on the measly screen of a laptop.
So all those people downloading the crappy pirate version are in for a disappointment. And then comes the kicker.
Thanks to a brilliant marketing effort that masterfully leveraged the power of social media, anyone who uses Facebook, MySpace or Twitter (and that’s like 400M people) knows that Avatar is all about the 3D. Everyone whose friends use social networks knows that Avatar is all about the 3D. The message spread far and wide.
So all those P2P downloads of the horrible pirate version actually become the Free part of an awesome Freemium model. You watch it on the laptop. It’s crap. But everyone raves about how great it looks on the big screen, especially in 3D. And you look back and wonder “Well, it does have some sweet scenery, it should look good in 3D”. Next thing you know, not only are you taking your sweetheart to see Avatar at the movies, you’re also forking out a few bucks for the 3D glasses.
Again, a product whose quality is impossible to replicate beats piracy.
So chalk one up for marketing, social media, and James Cameron.
And let’s hope the movie industry as a whole learns something from this.
01-10-10
Nexus One vs iPhone: i’m too busy for this.
So, the Google Nexus One “superphone” is here, and even I can’t ignore it.
Information overload is a very real problem. I work for the online advertising industry, and am therefore up to my neck in tech news. Smartphones in particular are a nightmare. Every other day there’s a new state-of-the-art handset which features another megapixel in the camera, or a few more pixels of screen resolution, or maybe voice recognition a cut above the rest, or some marginal advantage like that.
It’s madness, really, and Google’s Android OS just made it all that much worse. If you follow newsfeeds from the likes of Mashable or Engadget, you’ll soon be drowned in news about Android handsets. My method for staying sane is: take notice of the new phone’s core features, then ignore all others news pieces about it.
I did this for the Droid, the Palm Pre, and I’m doing it now for the Nexus One. So here’s the gist:
The Nexus One is probably the most feature-rich smartphone in the market today. It’s fast, has a great camera, smooth web browsing experience, and the Android Market is likely to feed it all the applications you could realistically need.
But I already have a phone that does all I need. It’s the old-ish iPhone 3G. The best thing about my phone is that it’s really, really usable. The next best thing is the App Store, where I can find absolutely anything I could possibly need for my phone. Then there’s the killer: I know there will be just one upgrade a year, around June-July. This is key.
I’m far, far too busy to lose an hour a day reading about the new phone that just came out and has some feature that’s marginally better than yesterday’s king of the hill. FAR too busy. Plus, it gets bothersome.
The iPhone gives me all I need, and I only need to lap up the hype once a year when the new one comes out. Call me lazy, but for me, that’s great.
So, the Nexus One, then.
Get one if you’re already in the market and don’t mind finding your phone is no longer the hottest one around in two weeks time. Otherwise, stick with your current smartphone and use the spare time to do something useful.
Desire rating:
2 stars out of 5
01-10-10
Who says kids don’t read? Certainly not JK Rowling.
I’m hammering my keyboard, spitting code out at a rather satisfying rate. But the TV is on, and something catches my eye. It’s the Biography channel, featuring a bio of J.K. Rowling. They’re talking about the launch of Harry Potter’s final book. They show as millions of fans across the globe waited in line for the launch, one second after midnight GMT in July 21st 2007. Most are children and teenagers, many dressed at characters from the series. After the launch, they eagerly collect their books, some get them signed, and then scoot off to somewhere quiet where they can finally read the long awaited story.
I see images of fourteen year-olds clad in wizard threads, sitting on the street with their friends, each with a very thick book in hand, their eyes completely lost in the pages. The perfect image of how many many kids took the books and opened them as soon as a chance presented itself, anxious as they were to drink the words in.
When an author sells over 300 million copies of her books and statistics show most of the readers are children, you really have to question the wisdom of stating “children these days don’t read”. They do. They just need books that really catches their interest.
As a marketing professional, I find this extremely interesting. I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of novels out there that match or surpass the quality of the boy wizard’s tale, and could easily appeal to the same audience. But they have no marketing to speak of, sitting all forgotten and alone in bookstore shelves.
Now, I know many governments have programs to boost readership (we do here in Portugal), but their message is usually just “read”.
I remember being a young boy and hating receiving abstract advice. “Read” is not a compelling message. “Read , people like you find it .” is much more appealing and actually stands a chance of working. It did for the Harry series.
Governments cannot favour individual publishers or authors, but there are ways they can avoid it and still make their message less abstract and more effective.
They just need to hire actual marketeers.
01-07-10
Should you work from home?
In the olden days, most people were chained to their work stations no matter what their job was. Everyone from factory worker to office clerk was pretty much anchored to his desk or machine. Only people like writers seemed to have any kind of freedom regarding where to work.
Posted via email from Pedro Gil Candeias’s posterous
01-03-10
Getting more done by accepting less work
As a freelancer, I got into the habit of accepting every job I could get my hands on. I operated in a tough, saturated market, so being very competitive was important and securing every possible contract never filled my schedule.
Nowadays it’s a different story. I work a full time job now, one that requires a lot of research and problem solving. I also work with people in three different time zones. Thus the bulk of my waking hours are taken, and what few are left are needed for personal and family matters. Still, I keep the habit of saying “yes” to most freelance jobs I still get offered. This has a nasty effect on my life as a whole. I’m constantly under stress, I have too little time for my girlfriend, I never take an hour to exercise, I’ve been postponing non-work related projects for years now, and on top of it all I no longer seem to be able to deliver a freelance project on time. I recently ran into trouble with a customer over a blown deadline and, looking at the remaining projects, there are more jobs in a similar situation. So I’m risking my reputation as well. And to make matters worse, because it takes so long to finish a project, the financial and emotional rewards of completing something are few and far between. So I’m starting 2010 by taking a simple new year’s resolution: finish the projects I have pending before taking on any new ones. And, even after I do clean my to-do list, I’m going to be very very picky about what jobs I do accept. After all, it’s about time I started attending those motorcycle driving classes.Posted via email from pedrogilcandeias’s posterous
01-02-10
(testing) configuring posterous
Just making sure it's working…
Posted via email from pedrogilcandeias’s posterous
11-16-09
Twitter Wall: The Self-Sufficient Conference
Last Saturday I went to a smashing conference here in Lisbon: Upload Lisboa 2.0.
Apart from a great selection of speakers, its main highlight was a Twitter Wall. It was a big screen to the side of the panelists, on which TweetGrid was showing all the latest tweets that used the event’s hashtag: #uploadlx.
Right-hand screen: the Twitter Wall
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