John Gruber

43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann's Blogging Panel at SxSW

Merlin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:33:08 -0400

SxSW ’09 - Gruber & Mann - HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility! (audio mp3, free on iTunes)

My pal, John Gruber (from daringfireball.net), and I presented a talk at South by Southwest Interactive on Saturday, March 14th. We talked about building a blog you can be proud of, trying to improve the quality of your work, reaching the people you admire, and maybe even making a buck (in a way that doesn’t blow your deal). Here’s what we had to say:

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N.B.: Awesome drawing by Dave Gray. Here's more.

Selected Notes

”43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann's Blogging Panel at SxSW” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 25, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Spotlight on Spotlight

wood.tang — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:54:47 -0400

The good man in brown just delivered my family pack of Leopard, and I'm itchin' to go a upgradin' all through the house. I'm particularly anxious to try the new To-Do features in Mail and iCal, the two apps besides a browser that I spend most of my time in each day.

One thing that especially intrigues me, though, is the reported performance improvement in Spotlight. Like many of 43 Folders' Mac users, I'd long given up on Spotlight in favor of Quicksilver. But on their latest Talk Show episode, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin raved about Spotlight's improvement, to the point that Dan (I think) said he hasn't reinstalled Quicksilver on Leopard yet.

Now I'm assuming this means he uses Quicksilver mainly as a launcher like I do. I've watched Merlin's demo videos and I've read about all the mind-bending things Quicksilver can do, but I've just never gotten past doing much else with it besides using keyboard triggers to launch applications and open documents. The setup and re-training of my brain feels like too much work to me.

Apparently there's a reason for this too. Again, Gruber points out a piece by Bruce Tognazzini, founder of the Apple Human Interface Group, in which he says that while users and developers commonly believe keyboarding is faster, testing consistently shows that mousing is faster. Remembering keyboard shortcuts is an advanced cognitive function that actually takes a few seconds to work out, whereas mousing counts on visual cues.

I'm going to leave Quicksilver in place when I upgrade this weekend, because I'm curious to see how it compares with the new Spotlight as a launcher. Sometimes I wonder how much easier it might be just to type "itu" to open iTunes rather than trying to remember whether I mapped "Ctrl-I" to that or iPhoto. And I'm going to keep the icons of my favorite apps in the Dock instead of launching them solely through triggers or Spotlight, based on the Tog article, to see if it feels any different than keying alone. I suspect that once I get used to it, I'll probably still go with a combination of both.

What's your experience with the new Spotlight so far? Could you live without Quicksilver now?

”Spotlight on Spotlight” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 02, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Gruber on "Rethinking Email"

Merlin — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:47:13 -0400

Rethinking Email

Good insight from Chairman Gruber, related to the email system he's started employing since moving to Mail.app

...I can classify all incoming personal email into three broad categories: (a) messages that are either very important or very interesting; (b) messages that are utterly non-interesting; and (c) those which fall somewhere in-between.

The vast majority of my email falls into the latter category. Under my previous “system”, I let them pile up in my inboxes, under the assumption that some day I’d get around to answering many of them. Under the new system, if I don’t respond immediately after reading them, they go right into my archive. Out of sight, out of mind.

For folks who haven't crossed the line to where this realization really clicks, I understand that this can sound harsh, even uncaring. But once you have gotten into the habit, you realize the amount of bullshit you had been shoveling to yourself -- hoping that all that stuff in your inbox, which you knew in your heart you'd never do anything about, would just...what?...grow wings and fly a response back to its sender? It's daft.

It's so tough to be honest with yourself about your real situation with email, but once you've made the admission, you're weirdly freed up to communicate more authentically, and, in my experience, with a renewed enthusiasm.

”Gruber on "Rethinking Email"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on August 28, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MacBreak Weekly: WWDC Special Edition

Merlin — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:13:23 -0400

MacBreak Weekly 44: WWDC Deconstructed

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, Andy Ihnatko, and John Gruber

We run down the WWDC announcements, and John Gruber explains why Safari for Windows makes sense...

Here's a direct MP3 download of MBW 44.

Comments are open for your own thoughts on the WWDC keynote.

”MacBreak Weekly: WWDC Special Edition” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Hand-picked, artisanal, remaindered links, 2007-06-04

Merlin — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 12:34:14 -0400

These are lower threshold links to stuff I've recently enjoyed.

The Macalope On MacBreak Weekly - "Yes, it’s true. The Macalope will be on next week’s edition of MacBreak Weekly." The MBW crew seems to remain convinced that I am the Macalope. Tune in this week, and we shall see...
Daring Fireball: iPhone SDK, iPhone SDK! Wherefore Art Thou iPhone SDK? - Gruber's analysis seems spot-on to me: with a product this big, it pays to manage expectations and hold out the possibility of an unpromised lagniappe or two.
How to talk to the press | fortuitous - Mathowie talkes to the press a good bit more than I do, so I learned a lot from this. Love the tip about listening for frenetic typing.
Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » How I Did It - JoCo tells the story of how he got where he is with his music and the internet. Essential reading for those who want to go indie on the web today. Would love to see more of these from other folks as well.
Rosetta Stone for Unix - (PDF) - Ginormous table that lets you compare commands between different flavors of Unix. (via: adurity's bookmarks on del.icio.us)
MailTags 2.0 leaves beta, goes official - The sine qua non Mail.app plugin goes 2.0. Can't imagine using Mail without this guy plus Mail Act-On.
Twitter Blog: Are You Twittering @ Me? - "In other words, if somebody Twitters "@biz liking the new Replies tab!" it will get saved at Twitter.com/replies." I love this feature. I can't keep up with the (gulp) 2,300 folks who've been kind enough to "friend" me, but at least now I can see when they're saying something in my direction. Very cool.
Facebook | Merlin Mann - In related news. I succumbed. Largely because of this awesomeness. (links require Facebook membership)

Submit your ideas for links to del.icio.us, and be sure to include the tag "for:43folders."

”Hand-picked, artisanal, remaindered links, 2007-06-04” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 03, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Introducing the Hipster Shuffle

Merlin — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 21:50:58 -0500

Restless Dreaming » Hipster Shuffle

The crickets. Awesome.

[ via Daring Fireball ]

”Introducing the Hipster Shuffle” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 29, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

43F Podcast: Snell & Gruber on iPhone applications

Merlin — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:28:23 -0500

Jason Snell and John Gruber on iPhone applications

Merlin talks with MacWorld Magazine’s Jason Snell and DaringFireball.net’s John Gruber about the likely future of applications for the recently announced iPhone. Who will be allowed to play? How does it affect the ostensible competition? Will this end up feeling more like a phone with an iPod, a Mac with a phone, or something altogether different? (5:48)

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here:

”43F Podcast: Snell & Gruber on iPhone applications” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 10, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"