Jay Robinson

Back to the Woods

Nearly four years ago when I began this tumblelog I posted this quote by Columbia Professor of Music Aaron Brown, “Country music is born when the country becomes a nostalgic idea,” and it stuck with me. Partly because I have a deep appreciation for the simple songwriting of country music. Partly because when I post things it’s for my own reflection.

I’ve been recalling the quote more as of late as I notice the woods and forestry-related knick-knackery increasingly represented in today’s popular music and culture. It strikes me that the forest is now a nostalgic idea.

Just as country music fans, salt of the earth types, held on to their music and cherished their way of life while big cities teemed with big ideas, so now do young urbanites ensconced in concrete gravitate to the idea of the forest, while lusting after cabin gallery blogs, and desperately feeling the need to own a hatchet.

Monthly Playlists for 2012

Last year I made monthly playlists of songs in heavy rotation. Really enjoyable to revisit at year’s end. Instant time warp.

— Frank Chimero (@fchimero) January 5, 2012

Really excited to do this in 2012.

(Also, embedded tweets look pretty legit on Tumblr.)

Resizing windows in Mac OS X Lion

Today I discovered that you can resize windows in Mac OS X Lion with the aid of the Option and Shift key, a technique usually reserved for image editing software.

• Hold down the Option key while resizing the edge of a window to move the opposite edge the same distance.
• Hold down the Shift key while resizing a window to maintain the current aspect ratio.

This functionality was added in Lion, though I’m not sure if it’s been there from the start. I am using Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2.

How to Link to Stuff

A demo:

Check out this cool new thing here.

Check out this cool new thing.

My Week with Google Android Nexus S

I’ve been using a Google Nexus S running Android OS 2.3 as my phone for the past week and I like it. It makes for a very decent smartphone. Frequent needs can be met quickly with a minimum of amount of fuss. (Accomplishing the same task on iOS, though pretty, is not as easy nor as fast.)

For example, I could cite the non-modal Android notification system, which allows me to switch to an incoming message by swiping down from the top of the screen. Or I could mention the excellent Android auto-correct; I’ve never typed as fast or as error-free on my iPhone.

But, while I found that I enjoy accomplishing tasks quickly on my Android, I never enjoy using it for more than a minute or two. I often lie in bed in the morning and use my iPhone to check email, shared links, tweets, and new software. I never even wanted to do the same with my Nexus S, because Android is simply not a pleasure to use for prolonged activity. Android eschews user interface elegance for quick interactions and convenience; which makes the Nexus S feel utilitarian compared to iOS.

With that said, it’s unlikely that I’ll be switching to Android permanently any time soon. Let’s get into my good and bad picks of the Android OS:

The Good

• Notifications
  Text messages don’t interrupt me at all, and switching between apps is a breeze. Faster than iPhone, and I love having no badges to dismiss.

• Auto-Correct
  I’ve never been able to type as fast or as accurate on my iPhone. Hit delete after an incorrect guess and I get my original word back, rather than having to delete the word letter-by-letter.

• App Drawer
  I keep frequently used apps on my home screens, everything else goes in the drawer ordered alphabetically — excellent. I hope this feature comes to iOS. Managing folders is a hassle.

• Dedicated Back, Settings, Search buttons
  Touch-sensitive home row buttons provide haptic feedback when used, and free up screen real estate to make way for more content.

  Using the dedicated Back button at times works as an extremely efficient form of multi-tasking. Instead of double-tapping a physical Home button each time I want to switch to a previously used app, I simply tap the Back button until I’m back where I was.

  When I went back to my iPhone or iPad, the physical Home button felt clunky and inelegant compared to the smooth, touch-sensitive home-row buttons of the Nexus S.

• Omnibox Search
  It is so great to have one box to search the Web, Apps, and your phone. Same thing in the Browser: Location plus Google Search is great, as it is on Chrome.

• Hardware toggle buttons
  Eliminates multiple steps needed to toggle WiFi, BlueTooth, GPS, and Brightness. I’ve wanted this for iPhone since the 1st generation.

• System-wide Contacts app
  This system app allows other social apps to add their specific metadata. I can view phone numbers, emails, latest tweet, and last song scrobbled to Last.fm in one view. This would, and is rumored to be, a killer feature on iOS.

The Bad

• Browser
  This is a big one for me. It’s slow. Text is ugly. Text reflows are ugly. Two finger pinch-to-zoom is rough, and two big ugly floating buttons for zoom in/zoom out cover the bottom of the screen entirely too long. There is no “scroll to top” action. Makes casual browsing into a whole deal. Yuck.

• Notifications while display sleeps
  No way to see text message notifications if the display is asleep.

• Battery life
  Sucked for me the first few days. Turning off the active wallpaper helped, but I had to disable WiFi, Sync, Location services, and dim the display to make the Nexus S last all day. Never a problem with my iPhone 4.

• Lack of quality apps
  Beautifully designed, immersive apps with seamless touch gesture support is what keeps me hooked to my iPhone. In my limited trial on Android, there was nothing I saw that encouraged me to use the phone longer than I had to.

Conclusion

As an Apple enthusiast, I would often scoff at friends and family members that had Android phones, though I had never used one. Now I see why casual users are so complacent. If you’d never had an iPhone, Android makes a pretty decent smartphone. Overall, the polish of the UI sucks and offers nowhere near the rich experience of iOS, but the Google Nexus S is usable for “mere mortals”.

For accomplishing routine, smartphone tasks, Android excels. For any kind of extended use, iOS prevails.

---

Read other accounts of iPhone users experimenting with Android: Chris Clark’s Month with the Nexus S; Ryan Heise’s Dinner with Android.

ASCII Art of Heidi Klum AKA “Internet Art”

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For Jesse.

You guys know you can paste URLs directly into the Safari Downloads window right?

Okay, just checking.

UPDATE: As of Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Safari 5.1 no longer supports this behavior. Sorry, Charlie.

Some Special CSS for Twitter

table.columns div#side div#recommended_users { display: none !important; }

Make a stylesheet with this rule, go to Safari Preferences > Advanced > Add to Style sheet.

The Following Songs May Or May Not Be About Making Love to a Chicken

1. Hey Chicken - Loose Fur
2. Chicken Payback - The Bees
3. My Little Chicken - Adam Sandler

I love that *this* works.

Peter Baker:

“Shiiit” comes out exactly as it should.

(On a Mac, Control+click the word > Speech > Start Speaking)

Also, try “Mac OS X”. It’ll blow your mind.

FaceTime Me.

“Helvetica Neue”, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif

What’s your font-stack?

UPDATE: Very happy that this works:

font: bold 24px/1 inherit;

… just not in IE6/7.

Why did you start following me?

While I have found my niche on Tumblr as one who supplies you with Apple news, gratuitous photos of Steve Jobs as well as healthy portions of HTML5 and CSS3 goodness, I was curious to know why you, dear reader, started following me.

Do you ever regret your decision but feel that you just have to see it through? Did you know you can ask me anything? Did you know I allow submissions? Did you know I have an address for emails? Do you ever feel like recommending me to the Tumblr Directory and sticking me with a cute sticker?

There’s like a bajillion of you, but only one of me! Let’s use this time to bond over our digital connection.