“We penalize kids for getting distracted from boring stuff at school”

by Dave Caolo on January 27, 2012 in Links with No comments

Spot-on. Brilliant observations by Sir Ken Robinson. You might have seen this before.

It’s both exhilarating and depressing. I’m nodding my head in agreement yet feel sorry for our broken educational system which, in my opinion, won’t ever change. I was bored to tears as a student and still consider myself a marginally-functional idiot, bereft of any particular talent or skill.

I distinctly remember handing an art project to my 6th-grade teacher. It was a watercolor of a man standing outdoors. She took the painting from me, opened a black marker and drew an outline around the man to “finish” it. So, the painting I made was “wrong.”

Worse, my 8-year-old already dreads school because “it’s so boring.”

 

Tilt iPad case by Hard Graft

by Dave Caolo on January 27, 2012 in Links with No comments

Hard Graft has several iPad cases for sale, all beautiful and hand-made in Italy. The Tilt Pad case is my favorite.

[Via Swiss Miss]

Things to do in San Francisco

by Dave Caolo on January 26, 2012 in Articles with No comments

I’m not in San Francisco for Macworld | iWorld this year, but I know several of you are. When I do visit the area, I always visit the following places. Yes, most of them are restaurants, but I’m a fat guy, so you should’t be surprised. Once you’ve exhausted yourself on the expo floor, unwind at one of these great locations.

Red’s Java House, Pier 30

A great place to get a delicious, greasy burger without free-range localvores staring you down for eating a cooked cow. The simple menu includes hamburgers, hot dogs, chili dogs, fries and a few basic sandwiches. It’s not gourmet but a good prescription for those whose arteries are a little too free-flowing.

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Launch Center 1.1 is a useful utility for iPhone

by Dave Caolo on January 26, 2012 in Articles, Software with No comments

App Cubby’s Launch Center is one of those rare utilities that’s helpful in a very real way. It allows you to create one-tap shortcuts to common tasks and even schedule reminders for each one.

I love Launch Center so much that it lives in my iPhone’s prime location: home screen, second row, second from the right. That’s the spot my thumb reaches most easily. We all keep track of such things, right?

Here’s why it lives in the coveted spot.

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Realmac Software teases Clear to-do manager for iPhone [Update]

by Dave Caolo on January 26, 2012 in Links, Software with No comments

The folks at Realmac Software have teased Clear, an upcoming task manager for the iPhone. It uses the iPhone’s multi-touch in an interesting way, allowing you to “collapse” and “expand” group lists of tasks (to-do, shopping, movies to watch, etc.). Plus it’s just pretty in an “1980′s Nike ad” kind of way.

I’m looking forward to this one. Check out the video above.

Update: The teaser page and video have been taken down.

Update 2: Clear is actually the first app from a new studio, Impending, formed by  Phill Ryu and David Lanham. Federico Viticci conducted a great interview with Phil at MacStories, in which they talk about the origin of their new venture and the thought process behind Clear:

“There are probably thousands of todo apps already on the App Store, but 99.9% of them all suck in the exact same way. They don’t get out of the way and just help me get things done, they ask this and they ask that, and if you want tags or if you want to schedule a reminder. They crowd the screen with buttons and switches and little decisions to make. I get how these things can be useful, sometimes, but most of the time all you really need is a pencil and notepad. So we started there.”

It’s a great interview and a compelling app. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

The Golden Headphone Awards

by Dave Caolo on January 26, 2012 in Links with No comments

The great Myke Hurley, who runs the 70 Decibels Podcast Network, recently invited me and the other 70DB 1 hosts to participate in the network’s first awards episode, the Golden Headphone Awards. It was a lot of fun, despite my having received a posthumous award 2. Check it out and congratulations to Myke on amassing a fine stable of shows.

Incidentally, the new Bro Show logo is gorgeous. Hire Aaron.

  1. That’s what the cool kids call it. Or at least that’s what Hackett told me. ↩
  2. I’m still alive. ↩

Dolly Drive Family Plan

by Dave Caolo on January 25, 2012 in Links with No comments

Dolly Drive allows Time Machine to behave just like Time Machine, except that it sends backups to the Dolly Drive servers as opposed to a drive on your desk. Let’s say you’re at a meeting in the field, only to realize that an important file is corrupt or missing entirely. If it lives on an external drive back in your home or office, you’re out of luck. Dolly Drive lets you restore it from the cloud, using Time Machine’s familiar UI, getting you back in business.

The Dolly Drive Family Plan lets you back up multiple Macs (the number depends on the plan you’ve purchased) to a single account, which is great for households with more than one machine. For example, my wife and I each have a laptop. Other families might parent/student computers while some individuals own a desktop and a laptop. The Family Plan lets you create off-site backups of each via Apple’s Time Machine. Here’s how.

Once you’ve purchased a Family Plan (pricing follows), the account holder becomes the administrator. From there you log into your account online and create a new user, entering that person’s name, temporary password, email address and more. Most important is the storage allotment set aside for that user; assign what you wish.

Your new user will receive an email confirmation. Choose a new password, install Dolly Drive, login and get started. You can monitor each account on the summary page for information like allocated storage space, username, status (active vs. Pending) and creation date. You can also edit account details.Pricing

Dolly Drive offers several family plans, starting with the Small plan that offers 250 GB of storage at just $7/mo (paying annually gives you a bit of a break) up to the Power plan which offers 8 TB of storage and starts at $198/mo.

I’ve been a happy Dolly Drive customer for years now, and am happy to have a way to easily create remote bakups for the two Macs in our house. Let me say good work to the folks at Dolly Drive.

The mother of all wrong predictions

by Dave Caolo on January 25, 2012 in Links with No comments

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get.”

You’ve seen this, of course, but it bears repeating after yesterday’s announcements. In fact, Apple’s iPhone business alone now generates more revenue than all of Microsoft.

How’s the chowder, Mr. Ballmer?

Review: Glider Classic available for iPad, iPhone and Mac

by Dave Caolo on January 24, 2012 in Articles, Reviews with No comments

Glider PRO is back as Glider Classic for the Mac, iPhone and iPad, and I’m very happy about it.

When I graduated from college in 1994, I took a job here in Massachusetts. It came with a drawer full of candy, the young woman who would become my wife and a SE/30 running Glider. The snacks and dates were fine, but boy did I love that game.

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Happy 28th birthday, Macintosh

by Dave Caolo on January 24, 2012 in Links with No comments

Steve Jobs delivered many compelling and — I’ll say it — magical keynote addresses. The iPhone’s introduction is a standout. But for my money, you can’t top the wild jubilation in this video. Note Steve’s smug confidence, too. He’s fully away of what he’s just introduced to the world.

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