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Welcome to the lab.

Sponsor: Almond+

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Thanks to Almond+ for sponsoring BrettTerpstra.com this week.

There are over 750 routers available on Amazon, but Almond is the highest rated of them all, beating even the Apple Airport Extreme.

  • A Router for the Jetsons.
  • Easy Touchscreen WiFi Router.
  • Easier Home Automation.
  • Extremely fast gigabit speeds.
  • Exquisitely Designed.

Reserve this “Jetsons” worthy Router now.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Glui: a lightweight alternative to Skitch

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I’m among the many who are discontent with the latest version of Skitch. I’ve reverted back to the previous version and have been using it happily, but there’s a new alternative.

Glui ($2.99 US introductory price) provides screen, window and crosshair snapping (with keyboard shortcuts available), basic annotation and easy sharing via Dropbox with short urls. URLs for shared snapshots are automatically placed in your clipboard. You can also hold down the Option key to be able to drag the image anywhere you want to put it (or directly to Acorn for further editing). I’m also using this with Droplr to share screenshots via my custom ckyp.us1 domain. I just hold Option, drag it to my Droplr menu bar item and paste the resulting URL on my clipboard into chat or a Tweet.

Glui is currently lacking the ability to change the color of annotations, and to output any format other than PNG. For most of my purposes that’s fine. If I want multiple types of annotations, I’m probably using Clarify, and if it’s headed to my blog I’m running image conversion and optimization via Dropzone destinations anyway. For fast sharing, Glui is a perfect option and a great alternative to Skitch.

Get Glui on the App Store.

  1. My tribute to one of the greatest bands of my generation, but nobody ever gets it.↩

Quick Link: A cheat sheet for pitching your app

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App Design Vault has gathered tips from a few recent articles and books on pitching your app to blogs (including my own and Pitch Perfect by my friends Steve Sande and Erica Sadun). I maintain that getting blog coverage is the #1 path to app success, so I consider this a great resource.

The information is gathered in a really nice infographic format. It’s easy to read and there are a lot of great tips in there.

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Getting Reviews On Top Blogs

Systematic #33 with Merlin Mann

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I had the pleasure of hosting Merlin Mann for a second time this week. The topic was “failing gracefully,” and the conversation was surprisingly on-point. Suprising for me, not for Merlin. He’s a pro.

The top picks of the week were especially fun, and we covered some great apps. Thanks as always to Merlin for taking the time, I hope everyone enjoys the show! Check it out at 5by5.

Markdown Service Tools 2.0

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Thanks to a big hand from Joe Workman, the Markdown Service Tools are at 2.0. There aren’t a lot of new tricks in there, but everything should be codesigned to avoid Gatekeeper issues and there are many improvements to functionality:

  • Outdent Service preserves sub-indentation, run it multiple times to outdent everything to the left.
  • Indent and Code Block services separated. Indent now uses four spaces, and Code Block indents everything by one tab.
  • Link list from clipboard has a better regex and removes ending punctuation, etc. from links surrounded by quotes or brackets.
  • Additional minor tweaks all around

The services have been reorganized to sort better alphabetically. To keep everything manageable, you’ll want to delete your existing set of Markdown Service Tools and replace them. This means, unfortunately, that you’ll need to reassign any keyboard shortcuts. I highly recommend downloading a copy of the Services Manager. You can find additional installation instructions in the howto section, and more details on the set on the (soon-to-be-updated) project page.

Please give the new set a shot and let me know about any issues you run into.

Markdown Service Tools v2.0

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Download Markdown Service Tools v2.0

Markdown Service Tools is a collection of OS X Services to make creating Markdown-formatted text that much easier. Services work in any Cocoa based application.

Updated Sun Jan 13 2013.

More info…

Now that there’s a new and (hopefully) stable foundation to build off of, I’ll be adding new services soon. I may actually take these and build a bundle I can sell for a buck or two on the App Store, but they’re free for now. If you’re making heavy use of the Markdown Service Tools, a donation would be welcome!

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Twice-baked potatoes

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And now for something completely different.

I’m not a chef. I’m barely a cook. I do have my moments, though, and today’s lunch was one of them. Even my wife agrees. I thought I’d take a minute and record the recipe for posterity and my own reference, but you can try it if you’re looking for something to do. This is distributed under the WTF license, of course, so do whatever you like with it.


I love potatoes. I’ve even heard tell (from people who make their money on potatoes) that they’re good for you. I don’t really care. I’ve baked, boiled, fried and mashed various concoctions together, but this was my favorite thus far. It’s a standard recipe modified to my tastes, but a good grounds for experimentation. This is basically a meal, unless you’re all into pyramids or whatever the FDA is suggesting these days.

First verse

  • Four large russet potatoes:
  1. Preheat oven to 400°
  2. brush under cold water
  3. rub in olive oil
  4. sprinkle with sea salt
  5. bake at 400° for 1 hour

Second verse, different from the first

Slice the top 1/3 (horizontally) off of each potato. Scoop out the insides of the remaining two thirds with a spoon and place in a large mixing bowl. The other 1/3 can be added, but when this is done you’ll have leftover filling anyway, so make chips out of them. Or just eat them right there. You know you want to.

Add mixing ingredients to bowl of potato innards. I like:

  • 3 Tbsp milk
  • 2 Tbsp sour cream
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped, pan-fried brussel sprouts
  • Grated cheddar cheese to taste
  • A little bit of salt.
  • Pepper. A lot of pepper.
  • Chives

Save some cheese and sour cream for topping the potatoes before baking.

Mash the potatoes and mixing ingredients until consistent, but don’t over-blend. They get gooey if you do, and chunkiness is far preferable. It tastes good. It feels good. Go with it.

Scoop the mixture back into the potato skins you emptied. Fill them up and pile it on, then add a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese on top. Place the resulting potato boats into a baking pan and bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes.

Regarding bacon

I made my last batch without bacon for reasons I won’t go into. If you like the bacon, though, put some in the oven for about 15 minutes (or until sufficiently crisp) while you’re baking the potatoes the first time. Take them out and let them cool, then crumble them and include in the mixing and topping lineup.

nvTagNavigator 1.1 with automatable tag indexing

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When I posted the nvTagNavigator application, I had mentioned that you could automate it to run at regular intervals. I didn’t think about the fact that it pops up two dialogs every time it runs, making that impossible. The new download includes a script that can be automated.

nvTagNavigator indexes your nvALT tags and creates a panel for navigating your notes based on tags. There are two applications, makeTagsList and nvTagNavigator.

Now, the first time you run the makeTagsList application, it will store your responses in your system defaults. From that point on, running the included nvtaggenerator.rb will automatically use the preferences you set when you ran makeTagsList. You can then automate that script using launchd. The screenshot below shows the settings I use in LaunchControl:

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You’ll need to update the path to point to wherever you install the script. You can also use Lingon with the same type of settings.

If you don’t want to use either, you can edit the plist below in any text editor, and save the final file as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.brettterpstra.nvtaggenerator.plist. Be sure to change [username] to your username and adjust the path as necessary to point to wherever you install the script. The “7200” in the script indicates that it should run every 2 hours (60*60*2), and can be adjusted to whatever interval you want.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.brettterpstra.nvtaggenerator</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/usr/bin/ruby</string>
		<string>Users/[username]/scripts/nvtaggenerator.rb</string>
	</array>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>
	<key>StartInterval</key>
	<integer>7200</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Hopefully that will help (at least the more advanced) users make this process a bit less of a hassle.

nvTagNavigator v1.1

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Download nvTagNavigator v1.1

Collect and navigate your nvALT tag collection

Updated Fri Feb 15 2013.

More info…

Sponsor: Treehouse

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Treehouse is a better way to learn technology. library of step-by-step video courses and training exercises will give you a wide range of competitive, in-demand technology skills that will help you land your next dream job or build your startup idea. No experience? No problem!

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Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Systematic #32 with Daniel Jalkut

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Systematic #32 just went live. I was joined by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater software for a conversation about MarsEdit, productivity and some great picks of the week.

Thanks to Daniel for stopping by! Check out episode 32 at 5by5.

iOS App Review: Write for iPhone

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At this point, I think just about everyone knows I have a thing for iOS text editors. My proclivity for plain text and my love of my iDevices means that I track innovation in this arena pretty closely. A new app in this category has recently caught my attention: Write, a Dropbox-based text editor for iPhone.

Editing

The editor in Write is pretty standard, with an extra keyboard row offering instant access to some common second and third-screen characters. The appearance of the editor can be quickly adjusted by holding two fingers down on the screen, which pops up a dialog where you can change fonts and turn on “night mode” (inversed colors). Oddly, it includes “Marker Felt” and “Papyrus” font options. To each their own.

It supports Markdown preview, and the keyboard row can slide to the left to reveal Markdown-specific formatting tools. It lacks a “smart return” for list continuation, etc., but it’s smart enough that when you type an asterisk as the first character of a line, it adds a space after it. I found list indentation to be a little difficult, though.

File management

When you first launch the app, it defaults to starting a new note immediately. In the settings you can configure it to open the file list on launch instead, depending on your intended use for the app.

You can save the current file to Dropbox while editing by just pulling down on the screen. In preview mode, the same gesture provides a quick-delete capability. Of course, it will auto-save if you switch documents or start a new one.

Swiping from left to right reveals the file list. Write uses an app-specific Dropbox folder (which is also used by its lightweight Mac counterpart found here). You can Quick Look files by pressing and holding the filename, and you can “star” files for quick access from a second tab in the list view.

There’s a search bar in the file list for searching document titles. Unfortunately, there’s no full text search (or in-document search). That would be a very nice addition.

Gestures

One thing I’m impressed by is the generous use of intuitive gesture controls. The pull-to-save and pull-to-delete functions are handy, and the press-and-hold Quick Look is outstanding, but the rest of the gestures are gathered from other sources and standard interactions. What Write did correctly, in my opinion, is the right combination of existing gesture-based actions into one app.

One feature that’s not unique to Write but well-implemented here is the keyboard cursor control. Tapping and holding a button in the middle of the main extra keyboard row lets you drag around the screen to move the cursor (caret) position. Textastic, WriteUp and others have this feature, but here’s what I love about this one: the line up/down threshold.

When you drag up or down, there’s a certain distance you have to go before it activates the cursor movement. My biggest complaint with the implementation of this feature in any app has always been that — when dragging horizontally — the movement jittered up and down if my path wasn’t perfectly horizontal. This solves that. I didn’t see this listed in their marketing materials as a specific feature, but I love it.

Sharing

Swiping from right to left on the editor screen opens up the sharing options. Similar to Drafts, there are pre-configured actions and services, and you can add your own using url schemes.

Write includes integration with Twitter, Tweetbot, Poster, Facebook, Cloudapp, Evernote, Google Drive and others (and can disable any you don’t use). There are quite a few internal options as well, including emailing, previewing, printing and copying options. It can even put a public link to the current file on Dropbox into your clipboard.

Should you buy it?

Write is $0.99 on the US App Store. It’s a low price for what I consider an exceptionally well-done app. You probably already have most of its features via other applications, though, so whether you want to drop another dollar into the text editor well will have to be your decision.

Keep in mind that if you’re editing long-form documents in Markdown, you’ll miss some of the more advanced editing features of other editors which are more specifically geared to that purpose. And if you’re just scratching quick notes, it might be overkill. For everything in-between, Write is a standout editor in its class, combining intuitive gestures, Dropbox file management and a wide range of sharing and export tools.

Want to take a shot at yet another iOS writing experience? Check out Write in the iTunes App Store.

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