512 Pixels

The Oatmeal nails it.

Be sure to check out Shawn Blanc’s interview of John Gruber from 2008. Great stuff.

A great interview with one of my favorite Internet writers. Ian P. Hines really does ask some good questions.

If I don’t get to interview for Shawn for “Writers I Read,” I may just link to this a dozen more times.

Dear Apple-centric media,

It’s time we had a chat. I think you know what this is about.

Writing about rumors concerning Steve Jobs’ health is not only unprofessional, but it is disrespectful.

I get that a lot of people think that Steve Jobs equals Apple. Not only is that incorrect, but it places an unfair burden on Jobs.

I totally understand that living in the public spotlight means that privacy sometimes is difficult to come by. I really do understand that. But there are still lines. While I find it distasteful, I get that the Mac Rumors[1. Update: Mac Rumors moved this story to its Page 2 section since my post first went up.] and Apple Insider teams feels compelled to report that Jobs has been seen at a cancer treatment clinic.

However, linking to stories about how long someone has left to live is a different thing entirely — and is way over the line. Gizmodo, 9 to 5 Mac, Cult of Mac and others all crossed that line today.

(My favorite part is that the original story comes from a tabloid. Way to go, guys.)

Let me share a little bit about my own life.

Almost 18 months ago, our (then) six-month-old son was diagnosed with a life-threatening, super-rare form of brain cancer. He was just a baby, and was given a very dark prognosis. Thankfully, treatment has kept his cancer in check so far, but as with most cancer patients, his battle is far from over. Every day we are thankful he is still with us.

My wife and I keep a blog running for our friends, family and others who have been nothing but supportive of us in our fight for our son’s life. We chose to fight this battle openly, in public.

The Jobs family hasn’t chosen that. No matter how famous, rich, or influential Steve Jobs is, he is still a human being, and has a God-given right to privacy. If I ever found someone talking or writing about my son’s health based on rumors on conjecture, I would punch them in the goddamn face. I have a feeling I’m not alone in that sentiment.

A Brief Interpolation Directed at 9 to 5 Mac

Earlier today, your very own Seth Weintraub linked to both reports described above. Yes, other sites posted it, as I’ve outlined here, but Seth’s post is the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

You and your writers (Mark Gurman, especially) are so immature, it is unbelievable. I’ve stopped following them all on Twitter, so I don’t have to keep reading the whining about people not linking back to you, or stealing your stories. If you want to be taken seriously, the first step you should take would be to put a leash on Gurman.

Your issues go past him, however. Your mantra seems to be “Post first.” You’re even prideful you “broke” the Jobs story first. That sort of mentality doesn’t leave room for common sense. I fear that Gurman’s attitude is an indication of how the entire site is run.

When I tried asking you the reasons behind posting the story, I got nothing but mockery back.

(Here’s a screenshot of the entire Twitter conversation.)

You continually post stories that are clearly designed for hits. I know traffic means income, but I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to sell your soul to pay the bills.

Grow up, 9 to 5 Mac. Until then, I’m not visiting, linking to, or even thinking about your site.

Let’s Change the Culture

Macgasm, MacStories and others have committed to not posting stories about Jobs’ health if — and until — Apple makes an official announcement. Even then, writers should treat the news as just that — a news story. There is no room for conjecture or guessing here.

TUAW, Engadget, Daring Fireball and others refrained from linking to today’s reports at all. I say we can learn from their examples.

Instead of trying to beat the other guys to the Publish button, let’s all just take a breath and use some common sense. Life is about more than the latest Apple rumor or product leak out of China. Let’s focus on quality writing, thoughtful insight and reasonable opinions. Our readers deserve those things, and appreciate them.

I firmly believe the antics taken by 9 to 5 Mac and others will only do them disservice in the end. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s practice good writing, firmly edit our posts, use common sense and treat people with respect.

Would that be so hard?

If you don’t listen to this podcast, at least download this episode. Shawn Blanc gives some great advice to web content producers in the first segment.

Neven Mrgan has released a new browser.

Chris Rawson at TUAW:

App developers would then have three sets of resolutions to support for the iPhone instead of two, and scaling from 960 x 640 to 1080 x 720 wouldn’t be anywhere near as simple as the pixel-doubling that got developers by in the early days before they were able to scale apps up from 480 x 320 resolution.

via MacStories

Another victim of the Internet.

For the third installment of “ Writers I Read,” I’m sharing my conversation with Ben Brooks, writer of The Brooks Review, a great blog about Apple, tech and other nerdy stuff. Stephen: Ben, thanks for taking some time to talk to me about what you’re doing over at brooksreview.net. “Meteoric” is the first word that comes to mind when I think about your site. In less than a year, you’ve grown it to one of the must-reads.

This series is all about getting to know the people behind the by-lines. I’ve read that the Brooks Review is the latest in a long string of blogs you’ve tried to pull off. Is that true? What makes this one stick so well?

Ben: Yeah I have been blogging off and on since college — so I would say I started in 2001–2002, but it never lasted for more than a few weeks with each attempt.

For me TBR has stuck because of the great emails and discussions that my writing generates with readers. I love the back and forth and it really keeps me engaged with the blog.

Aside from that, I finally have started to feel comfortable writing, while at the same time letting personal attacks roll off of me. You can’t blog and expect success if you are offended every time some one emails to yell at you.

Stephen: I agree. People can be vicious.

“Comfortable” is a good word for your writing. Some blogs read like speeches; yours reads like a conversation at a side table in Starbucks. I like that. What does your writing and editing process normally look like?

Ben: Oh boy, my writing/editing process looks like the back of a desk — a mess of cables going unknown places. At least that is how it feels right now. In simplistic terms my process looks like this:

• Idea
• Add to list of ideas
• Pick an idea from list
• Start writing in TextMate (markdown only)
• Edit
• Convert to HTML and paste into MarsEdit
• Add missing links (it is at this point I usually forget to add some pictures)
• Add pictures
• Post

That is the short version. The long version is that I get two types of ideas: ones I want to write now, and ones that I want to write at some point. The ones I want to write now I do write as soon as I get the time. The rest I write and work on over longer periods of time. I used to work on multiple posts at one time (5–6), but that felt like my attention was being pulled in too many directions. Now I try to work on no more than 2 posts at a time. If I need to I will create an OmniOutliner document and start jotting down ideas for the other posts.

This keeps me from getting too overwhelmed with everything.

Stephen: It seems like you and I have very similar workflows, except I just work right in MarsEdit in HTML.

That type of workflow — for me, at least — can be quite manic. Do you go through periods where you don’t have ideas or just don’t want to write? Or is your desire/idea flow pretty stable?

Ben: There are definitely times when I don’t have any desire to write. I usually will have the ideas, jut not the drive to write them up. Either that or I go through spells when I have ideas, but they all suck. When ever that happens I take it as a sign that my brain wants to do something else, so I go do something else for a bit.

Stephen: Gotcha. I know you seem to stay busy between TBR and your business. What other hobbies do you enjoy?

Ben: Outside of the tech world and running a business I love to get out and hike as well as dabble in photography. I started hiking when I was young and my grandfather would take me out, teaching me about survival and just general manliness. Photography took a different route as digital is really what made me get into it. The idea that I could twist a mediocre picture into something great with Photoshop really stuck with me.

Then I found out that you still need to be an artist to make a crappy picture look good with just Photoshop. I decided it would be easier and faster just to learn the photography and try to make great pictures from the camera. I like photography a lot, but sadly it is the hobby that seems to get put on the back burner most often.

Luckily photography and hiking go very well together and Seattle has a lot of great trails to get out and enjoy.

Stephen: Cool — I didn’t know you were into hiking. My best friend from high school lives in Seattle now, and loves it. I’m a pretty serious mountain biker, and started with my dad when I was just a kid, similar to you and your grandfather. I love just getting into the woods — it really helps clear my mind. If we had any hills here, I’d probably be all about some hiking, too.

I think a lot of people think that {insert any photo app ever here} can cover up a bad shot. Sadly, you’re right. That said, I’ve seen some of your shots — I think you’ve got a good eye. What kind of camera gear do you use?

Ben: I am a Canon guy. Currently I shoot with a Canon 5D (the original not the sweet mark II) that was a hand me down from my Grandfather. I couple that with a few lenses that I have accumulated: Canon 50mm f/1.4, Canon 100mm f/2, Canon 17–40 f/4L, Canon 80–200 f/2.8L. That covers most of the range, but honestly I use the 50 most of the time and the 17–40 when I am hiking. The other two I usually use for portrait work.

Along with that I have a ton of light modifiers, but only one flash. I have an Canon G9 that I will take on overnight hikes so that I don’t have to carry the bulk of the 5D. The G9 also gets a lot of use by my wife to taking product shots. Lastly the iPhone 4 has become my primary and go to camera most of the time. It is not great in low light by any means — and turning on the flash is the worst thing you can do to your images — but it does a great job for macro shots and for general out and about snaps.

Stephen: Dude, I am a total G9 fanboy. I carry mine everywhere I go, and simply love it. If you don’t have it, the wide-angle attachment is killer — as is the macro mode.

What do you process your photos with?

Ben: Every time I use the G9 I am reminded just how great it is. I was a heavy Aperture user for a long time, but in September 2010 I switched to Lightroom. It came down to speed and quality. Lightroom just feels a lot faster to use, even though I don’t like the module layout of the app.

What really swung me to Lightroom was how nicely it applies any treatments you do (skin smoothing, neutral density filtering). It is done in a way that doesn’t make your photo look over processed. Overall I like Lightroom a lot, but Aperture still has its uses.

Stephen: Cool. I appreciate you taking the time and chatting about what goes on behind the scenes at the Brooks Review. As a nice way to close this out, what advice would you give to those who either want to start blogs or grow what they are already doing?

Ben: No matter what endeavor you take in life, people can always tell if you are passionate about it. The minute you become complacent in your writing, or work, is the same minute that people stop caring about what you are doing. We can all see through pitchmen when they are hocking goods in three easy payments of $19.99, but we can also pick up on when someone is selling something they truly believe in.

Passion is what will sustain you long term on any project that you start — I truly believe that. If you are starting something new, make sure that your heart is in it. If you are trying to grow something you already started, then you need to assess if your growth has stagnated because your passion is waning.

At least that is my $0.02.

Be sure to check this great interview at Cult of Mac on the new Gmail client for the Mac.

MG Siegler:

Apple is betting that the allure of being tied into their incredibly efficient iTunes payment ecosystem (along with its 100 million + accounts tied to credit cards) will outweigh the downside of having to pay them a 30 percent fee. The same 30 percent fee they currently take from the thousands of app developers collectively making billions of dollars off of the App Store. And the same 30 percent fee they currently take for all other types of in-app purchases.

It’s hard to ignore iOS if you’re a publisher wanting to push into the mobile scene. I think most will end up buying into Apple’s system simply because they are out of options.

via Ben Brooks

Low End Mac’s Dan Knight takes a look back at the MacBook Pro.