On Ember for Mac

There are lots of ways to gather and organize files and information on the Mac. For photos and images, however, there’s not a great option. Dropbox is great for files, but Finder is Dropbox’s UI, which isn’t always the best option. Evernote is well-liked, but can be overkill for some.

Now there’s Ember.

Ember is a digital scrapbook. Like a real scrapbook, it’s easy to add photos and images, but because it’s digital, the data can be organized easily and quickly. There are tags and collections, as well as metadata and smart folders. There are some great built-in editing and annotation tools, as well.

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The Curse Of Expectation⇢

John Carey at Fifty Foot Shadows, on Instagram and Flickr:

Instagram is built for casual, mass consumption and sharing mostly lifestyle photos. The reactions to these shots of day to day life and “look what I’m doing now” moments are decidedly more quick, friendly, ah ha! sorts of moments. Those using it to share more serious work simply have to come to terms that its a mixed bag of educated reactions within the service (same goes for using Tumblr as a means to share photographic work).

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Apple Announces One Billion Podcast Subscriptions⇢

Apple:

Podcasts on iTunes launched in the summer of 2005 and since then, we’ve seen countless episodes downloaded and streamed. But the heart of podcasting is finding your favorite voices in this exciting field and subscribing to the best ones. To celebrate 1 billion podcast subscriptions, we’re highlighting some of the most popular podcasts of all times, as well as a collection of captivating new shows.

Lex Friedman at Macworld has more:

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RSS Sponsor: HostGator⇢

Web hosting is many things to many people. Grandma wants to start a knitting blog? WordPress. New tech start-up needs a server to present their minimum viable product? Ruby on Rails, PHP, and MySQL. HostGator has you covered, and with one-click installs via the proprietary QuickInstall application, free with every hosting plan.

HostGator is with you every step of the way. The Texas-based, award-winning support staff is available via telephone, LiveChat, and email 24/7/365.

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Apple Developer Site Hacked⇢

Liz Gannes at All Things D:

The company just sent developers an email explanation, after pushing them off for the past three days with notices that the site was down for maintenance.

Apple says developers’ “sensitive personal information” was encrypted, so it has not been accessed.

Before it reopens the developer site, Apple is “completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database,” the email said.

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On Our Silence⇢

Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times:

It is now 10 years since the Darfur genocide began, and we in the news media have mostly tired of the issue. It’s no longer news that the Sudanese government is slaughtering its people.

Yet our silence empowers Sudan’s leaders to pick up where they left off in Darfur. Indeed, survivors say that one of the leaders in this year’s attacks was Ali Kushayb, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed in Darfur a decade ago.

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MIT Moves to Block FOIA Release in Swartz Case⇢

Kevin Poulsen is the plaintiff in a case concerning the government surveillance of the late Aaron Swartz.

Earlier this year, the Secret Service denied requests to thousands of pages of government notes on Swartz, citing a Freedom of Information Act exemption that can apply to on-going police investigations.

Over at Wired, Poulsen writes:

When the agency ignored my administrative appeal, I enlisted David Sobel, a top DC-based FOIA litigator, and we filed suit. Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the government to “promptly” begin releasing Swartz’ records. The government told my lawyer that it would release the first batch tomorrow. But minutes ago, Kollar-Kotelly suspended that order at MIT’s urging, to give the university time to make an argument against the release of some of the material.

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VLC Returns to iOS App Store⇢

After a two-year hiatus, the free video player is back as a universal app. In addition to being the best way to play .mkv files on iOS, the new version brings features like pass code locking videos, Wi-Fi sync from desktop computers, the ability to stream from Dropbox and more.

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Publishing in a Post-FeedBurner World

Ok, fine. I know FeedBurner isn’t dead. But I can’t imagine it will last forever, and as a general rule I don’t like having business-critical things running on Google’s services.

When I moved away from Feedburner, I ended up replacing it with FeedPress, a paid service that gives publishers lots of tools to deal with their RSS feed, including statistics, custom host names, newsletters, and social media posting.

The last was especially important to me.

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