Email is Good for Remote Productivity

Bron Gondwana, CEO of FastMail, explains on the company blog why “Now more than ever, it’s time for email.“

He says,

Through all the interruptions and turmoil in your life, email is a constant. Everyone has email, and every email system can email every other. It lets us stay connected, but doesn’t demand an immediate response. You can read it in your own time, and have the space to craft a thoughtful reply.

The beauty of Email is that you can use it in your own way. While it’s a great form of asynchronous communication, it’s also a fantastic tool for collaborating with your team and getting work done much faster. At Readdle, we have been working on some exceptional new things for Spark that we can’t wait to show you.

I have been using FastMail as my primary email service provider for several years now, and it is worth every $$. It’s great to see an email service so focused on privacy and core email experience. FastMail has been rock solid over the years and I urge you to consider it. If you sign up using this link, you’ll get 10% off.

May 23, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Manton Reece's Archive of App.net

How cool is this? Manton Reece, creator extraordinaire and the man behind the awesome microblogging service Micro.blog, has created an archive of all posts from the now defunct microblogging platform App.net

In the final week before App.net shut down, I whipped up a few scripts to download every post on the platform via the API. After that finished, I also attempted to download small versions of many of the photos, but ran out of time. This data has been sitting on one of my servers for the last 3 years.

Why did I bother? At a high level, see my post from 2012 called Permanence. I also hoped to build a tool that would let anyone export their personal archive, or even migrate it to a blogging platform like Micro.blog.

Here are all my posts, with my first post created on December 16, 2012 and the last one on February 01, 2017, totaling 3320 posts.

The internet needs more things like App..net, and definitely more people like Manton Reece.

May 12, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Spotify Signs with Saregama for India

Vikas SN, reporting for ET Tech:

As per the deal, Spotify will get access to more than 100,000 music tracks across various genres like Film, Carnatic, Hindustani classical and devotional music in over 25 languages. This includes songs from artists like Lata Mangeshkar, R.D. Burman, Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mahmood, Manna Dey, Kalyanji-Anandji, and Hemant Kumar among others.

Saregama’s “Carvaan” is one of the best collection of songs on this planet, and I’m glad some (most?) of that is coming to Spotify.

May 11, 2020 ✚ Permalink

1917’s In-Camera Editing Techniques

1917 is one of the most incredible films I have ever seen, and sits high on my list of favorite films of all-time. It is directed by Sam Mendes, with the Cinematography helmed by the “God of Light“ Roger Deakins. 1917 is such an amazingly crafted film that I do not have enough words to describe it.

For the uninitiated, 1917 is set in the war-torn era of 1917 and follows two English soldiers trying to deliver a message in an attempt to stop 1600 fellow men from walking into a trap. What makes 1917 a beautifully crafted cinematic experience is the way it is presented — one, single, two-hour-long continuous shot that follows these two protagonists.

Of course, it’s impossible to actually shoot a two-hour long film at this scale and polish, so the are going to be cuts. But Sam Mendes, together with Editor Lee-Smith and VFX studio ‘MPC’ have done a remarkable job of stitching together and hiding these cuts.

However, 1917 is still impressive for the fact that in many scenes, Sam Mendes manages to utilize blocking to move the camera where you’d traditionally require a cut in other films. This brilliant video essay by Thomas Flight explains why 1917 is so good:

I’ve been mesmerized by the art of Cinematography for a long time, and am a sucker for one-shot long takes. It’s fascinating to sit back and study how films like these were made.

If you can still find a way to watch 1917, please do watch it. You probably won’t enjoy it as much as watching it on the big screen, but you can surely enjoy and praise Sam Mendes’ impressive direction, Roger Deakins’ surreal cinematography and Lee Smith’s crafty editing.

Sidenote: While not the same thing, there’s also a really-impressive 12-minute long scene in Netflix’s new film ‘Extraction‘ starring Chris Hemsworth. It’s definitely worth checking out for the action-alone.

May 9, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Apple Updates the 13-inch MacBook Pro, Kills the Butterfly Keyboard for Good

Apple today announced the release of an updated lineup of its 13-inch MacBook Pro that introduces the new Magic Keyboard, doubles the storage, and adds faster RAM and newer CPUs in the top-end models.

The biggest change, of course, is the replacement of the terrible Butterfly keyboard with the newer and better Magic Keyboard. The 13-inch MacBook Pro was the only notebook in Apple’s current lineup that featured the sucky keys, so good riddance.

The new lineup also offers Intel’s 10th-generation CPUs and 16GB of faster 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory, but only on the topend model that features the 2.0GHz Core i5 processor. While the lower model does get the option to upgrade to 16GB of RAM, you’re limited to the much slower 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM only.

Effectively, the base model of the “new” 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro that will go on sale in India late next month will come with:

  • Magic Keyboard
  • 1.4GHz quad‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i5
  • 8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM
  • 256GB SSD
  • Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645
  • Two Thunderbolt 3 (USB‑C) ports

and cost a whopping INR 1,22,900 or $1625.

If you have to actually take advantage of the newer processor & RAM, you have to get the topend model with:

  • 2.0GHz quad‑core 10th‑generation Intel Core i5
  • 16GB of 3733MHz LPDDR4X RAM
  • 512GB SSD
  • Intel Iris Plus Graphics
  • Four Thunderbolt 2 (USB-C) ports

and costs INR 1,74,900 or $2315.

If you need 1TB of SSD storage, i.e. +512GB in the above config, you have to shell out INR 20,000 extra, taking the total to INR 1,94,900.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at INR 1,99,900.

May 4, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Backblaze B2 Now Has S3 Compatible APIs

Backblaze has just announced that it’s cloud storage service B2 is getting S3 compatible APIs. This is a massive release that makes the low-cost service compatible with tons of products, services, plugins, and apps out there.

For reference, B2 pricing starts at just $0.005/GB/month compared to $0.021/GB/month offered by Amazon.

May 4, 2020 ✚ Permalink

ICANN Rejects .ORG Sale to Ethos Capital

I completely missed this update earlier this week. ICANN announced that it has categorically rejected the sale of the .org domain registry to Ethos Capital — a private equity firm.

Karen Gullo and Mitch Stoltz, writing for the EFF:

We’re glad ICANN listened to the many voices in the nonprofit world urging it not to support the sale of Public Interest Registry, which runs .ORG, to private equity firm Ethos Capital. The proposed buyout was an attempt by domain name industry insiders to profit off of thousands of nonprofits and NGOs around the world. Saying the sale would fundamentally change PIR into an “entity bound to serve the interests of its corporate stakeholders” with “no meaningful plan to protect or serve the .ORG community,” ICANN made clear that it saw the proposal for what it was, regardless of Ethos’ claims that nonprofits would continue to have a say in their future.  “ICANN entrusted to PIR the responsibility to serve the public interest in its operation of the .ORG registry,” they wrote, “and now ICANN is being asked to transfer that trust to a new entity without a public interest mandate.”

All’s well that ends well, I guess.

May 4, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Backdrops Wallpaper App Now on iOS

Backdrops — the only wallpaper app on Android worth talking about — is now also available for iOS devices.

Backdrops has a massive collection of awesome wallpapers and it is very frequently updated with new content. You’ll find different kinds of wallpapers in the app, and you can browse by categories, browse by tags, or just browse the ones featured on the main screen. You’ll possibly never run out of new wallpapers in there.

Just like on Android, the iOS app is available for Free on the App Store. There’s an optional $3.99 upgrade to “Backdrops Pro” that enables an ad-free experience, unlocks exclusive collections and supports the developers.

Get Backdrops for your iPhone & iPad →

April 29, 2020 ✚ Permalink