Not much more I can say than an excellent lesson, great advice and a fantastic read.
Monthly Archives: November 2011
The Third Season, Autumn
Just in time to catch the very end of Autumn, I have a few photographs to share from the little opportunity I’ve had to get out throughout this season. Everything seams to have been so busy the past few months, hopefully preparing to settle down for the calm of Christmas and winter break.
There have been bright days with a clear blue sky and the leaves are a mash of colour; it’s these sort of days which make me love this season.
On another opportunity to get out, I went to Sherwood Forest with @sambrentnall. There wasn’t a trace of a clear sky on this day, nonetheless the bursts of colour from the trees and undergrowth created a great atmosphere and it was still a beautiful day.
On a side note for those who use Twitter, I have now created a dedicated account for the site; follow @_aintlifegrand to keep up to date with all future post. Enjoy.
∞ A human review of the Kindle Fire
I expected the Kindle Fire to be good for books, great for magazines and newspapers, great for video, and good for apps and games.
In practice, it’s none of these. Granted, I’ve only spent two days with it, so I can’t share any long-term impressions. But I’m honestly unlikely to have any, because this isn’t a device that makes me want to use it more. And that’s fatal.
I expected the Kindle Fire to take the cheaper, bottom end of the tablet market, but by the sound of Marco Arment’s review, I have doubts if it could even do that.
Maybe Apple will mirror the current iPhone sale model and ship existing iPad’s at a lower price to make them more accessible, with a new updated iPad taking over the current price range. Possibly that is how Apple will own the cheaper end of the tablet market?
The Notification Styles of OS X & iOS
Since the introduction of iCloud and demotion of the Mac, all iPhones, iPads and Macs are supposedly equal and the transition between them seamless. This is only true if I look at my iOS devices. Thanks to iOS 5, I have alerts now in notification center, photos, books & music syncing, mail being pushed back and forth, all from iCloud.
Yet regardless of the above, the major advantage iOS has over OS X and one that makes the transition not so seamless, is the notification system. On OS X, I have an alert badge on say the Mail.app icon, the Twitter logo glowing blue in the menu bar and growl notifications popping up with other alerts. With iOS, an email comes in, an @mention on Twitter, an eBay item ending or an iMessage, iOS 5 now tidies all these away into the notification centre for me to deal with as I see fit. To make the most of this, I use a few little tweaks to manage the flow of notifications.
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Low priority – I do not include in the notifications centre; I only have the app badge icon on; e.g. I have an iPhone app called Shows, it lets me know when concert tickets are available when an artist from my iPod library is playing within a set vicinity; this is fairly low priority and I will check the app when I see the badge alert and have spare time.
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Medium priority – I have these apps in my notification centre but not on the lock screen.
These may include Mail, Twitter or other apps that I don’t want to miss the alert but they do not require an immediate action. Once checked, they will then clear from the notification centre. -
High priority – Apps/notifications that require immediate action I will have show on my Lock Screen. This way if I glance at my iPhone I can see any important alerts from due Omnifocus tasks, missed calls or messages. Another good feature to use with important tasks is to use the pre iOS 5 notification style, the full screen alert. This you have to dismiss manually unlike the bar notification that will disappear after a few seconds making sure you do not miss your alert.
By using these methods I minimise the opportunity to distract myself but ensure I don’t miss anything that could require action immediately.
The proposed notification system from “Bringing iMessages To The Desktop“ could be extended to a unified notification system what applications and web-services could tie into. By using this, notifications and their statuses could be in sync across all devices equally.
I have high hopes for a unified notification system and I’m sure OS X Lion & iCloud are a transition to this but until then I’ll be sticking with the same system as Thomas Houston.
The hardware, software, and size constraints inherent to a mobile UI have resulted in some truly innovative ways to manage a flood of information, and with app and service usage showing no sign of slowing, it’s high time we got serious about desktop notifications. Until then, my phone will remain parked on my desk doing the work of two machines.
Reflecting
On Instagram I following amazing people who take inspiring photographs, one of them recently got me reflecting, not as a result of the image but with the accompanying text.
The trick is putting yourself in positions where a decent photo can be created. When my output slows its because I am in and out of work or places uninspiring to photograph.
This is an excellent lesson from John Carey aka Fifty Foot Shadows. My particular interest is that this can be applied not just to photography.
From just this I’d imagine John doesn’t put any adverse pressure on himself to post frequently. This is can be linked back to the age old statement “it’s not the quantity but the quality that counts”, a valuable lesson that I should remember when I’m panicking because I haven’t updated this site in a while; and as you can see from the quality of Fifty Foot Shadows, this stance clearly works.
I’m sure if you reflect on this statement you are also applying pressure where it’s not needed. Don’t get me wrong, the right amount can work wonders and push us to achieve great things as long as it isn’t damaging to ourselves or our quality of our work.
Reflect on that.