Today we had to say goodbye to one of our family pets, Ginger. While she wasn't always perfect, she was a very sweet cat (when she felt like it) and three years is far far too short a time to have had with her. We're going to miss her a lot. It's never easy to lose a pet, but ultimately she's no longer in pain and we take comfort in that, and our memories of our time with her.
Ginger 'Bean Toes'
Informal list of some of my favorite/recommended iOS apps for 2014.
Read MoreAs I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of OmniFocus, the premiere GTD-oriented series of task and project management apps for OS X. That said, it’s not the only horse in the GTD race. I wanted to let what little audience I have know that Cultured Code’s Things is Apple’s App of the Week, so it’s iPad and iPhone apps are both free right now. They typically sell for $20 and $10, respectively, so grabbing them now, even if you may not need them now would be a great idea. They’re also running a limited time discount on the Mac version of Things for $35, about 30% off the normal price (there’s also a free demo version available from their website.)
Things has really embraced iOS 8’s design language, while keeping it’s own bit of style. It alos uses Cultured Code’s own free Things Sync service to sync tasks and projects across all three devices. The iOS versions include integration with Siri, a Notification Center widget, and Share Sheet extension for quickly adding tasks or info from anywhere in iOS. The Mac version includes a quick entry window that can pop up from a keyboard shortcut, and a Notification Widget showing your current task list. It even supports Handoff, so you can quickly jump from Things for iOS to OS X.
I’d highly recommend checking this out because this promo won’t be around for much longer.
Things for iPad - Free!
Things for iPhone - Free!
Things for Mac - $35 (free trial here )
So last year a pretty cool new piece of tech was announced called Coin. It looks and acts like a regular credit card, but has the ability to store multiple cards within it, reprogramming the magnetic strip on-the-fly to match a selected card. Pretty cool concept, and a great way to trim down a wallet.
Jump to today. The U.S. POS landscape is going to be changing in the next year. For those who don't pay attention, U.S. merchants are being pressured to adopt and support EMV cards (so called 'chip-and-pin' cards as they include tiny chip containing cryptographic data to secure and identify your transactions). This is a big deal and a good thing for U.S. consumers, as chip-and-pin is a very secure means of transmitting credit card data.
Coin, at least, in its current iteration, will not be compatible with EMV point of sale terminals, meaning it's usefulness has a lifespan of one, maybe two years as more merchants switch to supporting, then in some cases requiring, EMV cards.
On the one hand, I don't mind having helped Coin come into existence (and possibly inspire some similar products that do plan to support EMV out of the gate.)
I do feel some small tinge of buyer's remorse over dropping cash on a product with a very real End of Life date, but at the same time it's a very new category of tech so it's no surprise that it will evolve even further.
This is a test blag post using a new blogging tool for OS X called Desk. It’s got a dead simple interface, support Markdown syntax, and can post to a variety of different platforms, including Tumblr, Squarespace, Wordpress, and more. You can edit existing posts, or save offline drafts to iCloud!
I’m looking forward to trying it out some more, and the developer has been great and very responsive to a couple support issues (there’s a bug for Tumblr users using 2-Factor Authentication on their accounts that he’s vowed to squash.)
You can check out Desk’s promo video here, and read more about it at Desk.pm.
