512 Pixels

This week, Federico returns with lots to say to Myke and I about working on the iPad.

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The CyanogenMod team:

After reaching out to the Play team, their feedback was that though application itself is harmless, and not actually in violation of their Terms of Service, since it ‘encourages users to void their warranty,’ it would not be allowed to remain in the store.

We’ve seen hundreds of thousands of installations of the application, proving the demand for more choice, and that the need for an alternative Android experience exists. As we work through this new hurdle, we will continue to make available and support the installation process via our own hosting services.

Something something open platform.

With the future of TextExpander touch uncertain, I started to look into Apple’s own basic keyboard shortcut system built in to OS X and iOS. With Mavericks and iOS, these shortcuts can synced via iCloud’s vaguely-named “Documents & Data” feature.

While Apple’s tool doesn’t allow for the complexity that TextExpander offers, for simple stuff, I though it’d be fine.

Sadly, the feature is half-baked.

While shortcuts created on iOS sync to OS X, those created on Mavericks aren’t pushed back to mobile devices, as seen in these screenshots:

While this doesn’t rule Apple’s system out as a semi-replacement for TextExpander, entering my mission-critical snippets via iOS doesn’t sound like much fun at all. Moreover, it’s yet another example of Apple being sloppy around the edges of its software products.

Update: According to lots of people on Twitter, bi-directional sync does work here, but even after nuking my com~apple~TextInput iCloud container, I can’t get it to work. I’ll update again if I can jumpstart it.

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Two of my favorite nerds.

Dr. Drang, discussing Mrs. Drang’s all-iPad lifestyle:

It works for my wife for the same reason it works for Ben Thompson’s mom and tens of millions of others—it removes many of the computery aspects of using a computer. I’m willing to put up with the computery stuff because I already know it and I’m not willing to give up the power and control I get from it. My wife has no need for that power and control and shouldn’t be forced to confront it whenever she wants to send an email or read an article on the web.

Thus, a MacBook Air for me and an iPad for her. The best fit for each of us.

There’s been a lot of talk around the ability of some in the community to go all-iPad. It’s a topic that won’t be going away anytime soon, and Dr. Drang reminds us of the simple truth: whichever platform is right for you should be the one you use.

Jeremy Reimer walks through the history of the ill-fated IBM project.

Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has posted a 900 word guide to Google+. The topic? Converting to Android from the iPhone.

Content wise, it’s fairly accurate, however phrases like “The latest Mavericks requires the use of iCloud for Mac users if you want to transfer contacts” and “Take the SIM out of the iPhone and insert it into Android” are just poorly-written.

His advice about Safari is especially cringe-worthy:

Be sure to use Chrome, not Safari; its safer and better in so many ways. And it’s free.

I’ve wasted so much money on Safari over the years, my kids may not be able to go to college.

A great interview of two of the most amazing designers our generation will ever see. The bit about designing tools of instead of “just art” is particularly applicable to Ive’s work at Apple.

Greg Scown:

Yesterday, after a period of engagement with the App Review Team from Apple, they informed us that TextExpander’s use of Reminders for shared snippet data storage is not an intended use of Reminders and will no longer be accepted. TextExpander touch will not clear review until this is resolved. Apps which implement the current TextExpander touch SDK may not clear review until their TextExpander touch SDK is updated.

We have less than two weeks to develop an alternative data exchange mechanism, and this is complicated by the impending Thanksgiving holiday.

On one hand, I don’t blame Apple for stopping this use of Reminders, as a TextExpander (and Smile) fan, this bums me out. I hope they can get this figured out quickly.

Federico Viticci:

I considered switching to Safari because I was fed up with Google’s creepiness, and I ended up actually liking Safari more than Chrome overall.

I particularly enjoyed the section of this article where he writes about switching away from Google where possible. It’s a well-thought, well-written piece.

I like Alfred and Pinboard.

Alfred is a powerful, extensible launcher and Spotlight-replacement for OS X. Pinboard is an excellent, no-nonsense online bookmarking system.

Through the use of some simple workflows, Alfred can be used to search Pinboard quickly. While this does require Alfred’s Powerpack, you probably should already be using it, as it’s awesome.

While there are some excellent workflows out there for Alfred and Pinboard out there, I really just want the ability to search the site from anywhere on OS X.

Pinboard offers several search parameters:

Below is how to set up a workflow for each one, with options to just download what I’ve already built. Of course, as these are just firing off URLs, the workflows can be easily adapted for use with other applications.

“Search Mine”

This workflow allows you to search just your bookmarks on Pinboard. To search your private bookmarks, be sure that you are logged in to the Pinboard website.

Open Alfred’s Preferences and add a new workflow. Mine is named “Search my Pinboard,” with a very exciting description of “Search my Pinboard bookmarks.”

(I’m using this image as my icon for all three workflows.)

This workflow is set with a keyword. I set mine to “Pin.” The keyword triggers the “Open URL” action.

Here’s the URL:

https://pinboard.in/search/u:INSERT-YOUR-USER-NAME?query={query}

You’ll need to replace INSERT-YOUR-USER-NAME with your Pinboard username and make sure both “Encode query using UTF8” and “Encode spaces as +” are both checked.

Download this workflow here »

“Search All”

This option allows Pinboard users to search all public bookmarks across the site. It’s a great research tool, and one that I use often while writing.

This workflow works the same as the one above. I named mine “Search all of Pinboard” with the keyword set to “pinall.” The URL needed for the action is:

https://pinboard.in/search/?query={query}&all=Search+All

“Encode query using UTF8” and “Encode spaces as +” should both be checked.

Download this workflow here »

“Search Full Text”

Pinboard offers a premium service around archiving. The $25/year membership gives users the ability to view and search archived versions of sites linked to in the user’s bookmarks, ensuring that if the content that the user bookmarks is always available, regardless of what happens on the actual, original website.

The “Search full text” tool is only available for archival members, and is the best way to find content locked away on archived pages.

However, this is a conditional — it can be applied to either “Search Mine” or “Search All.” Thankfully, Pinboard’s URL structure makes it really easy — adding &fulltext=on to the end of the search query will toggle it on. So, here are the URLs for this:

Search Mine: https://pinboard.in/search/u:INSERT-YOUR-USER-NAME?query={query}&fulltext=on

Search All: https://pinboard.in/search/?query={query}&all=Search+All&fulltext=on

To make Alfred workflows out of these, I simply copied the ones above, added “text” to the end of the keywords, edited the URLs and was off to the races.

Download the “Search my Pinboard Archives” workflow here » Download the “Search all Pinboard Archives” workflow here »