Bridging the Nerd Gap

About three weeks ago, I quit reading RSS feeds.

I didn’t gradually unsubscribe from a few feeds here and there until they were gone. I just stopped.

Now, I read Kindle books and hand-picked articles in Instapaper instead.

And it’s been fantastic.

Why I Quit

There was too much noise. Even with the relatively small number of feeds to which I was subscribed, almost none of it was interesting to me. I realized that, for some reason I couldn’t quite recall, I felt obligated to stay abreast of new developments in technology and such.

That fabricated obligation led me to routinely scan big lists of headlines and, more often than not, mark the whole mess as “read” and go on to something else. Imagine this happening 2–4 times per day and I was spending between 10–30 minutes per day skimming or ignoring stuff that, for the most part, wasn’t what I wanted to read.

What’s Different Now

Since that fateful day, the app I reach for when taking a walk or answering the call of nature has become the Kindle app. I’m reading and enjoying more books now than I have in quite some time. Reason being, I rarely set aside large blocks of time to read (a problem I’m in the process of rectifying) and this newfound habit has meant that I now take small bites of books throughout the day and week instead of letting them collect digital dust until I can don my smoking jacket and park it outside with a cigar and a brandy for two hours.

(Note that I don’t actually like brandy.)

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s probably better (or, at least, more efficient) to read books in larger blocks of time than I do. The cool part about my existing setup is that I don’t have to click back a few pages to get context when I pick up [one of several devices] to read — it usually hasn’t been more than 3–4 hours since I last read that same book and what I last read hasn’t had time to go stale in my dumb head.

My other go-to reading app is an old favorite for many of you: Instapaper. The difference is that now I don’t just open the app once in a blue moon and discover dozens of articles that I no longer have any interest in reading. Now the app gets opened once every two or three days, minimum. The contents aren’t so old that I don’t recognize them and the list is almost always manageable.

Basically, I now spend more time reading what I want to read instead of what I decided I should read months ago (when I subscribed to a given RSS feed).

“Ok, Smarty Guy. What About News and Other Timely Happenings?”

It’s probably good to point out here that, in recent months, my interest in technology news has dried up considerably. I used to really give a crap about the newest mobile dingus or which company is suing which other company this week. Let’s just say that I no longer give anywhere near the size of the crap that I once did about these things. Not a value judgement or anything — if that’s your thing, then I heartily encourage you to continue giving larger craps about it than I do.

If something really “important” (because, really, most of it isn’t) happens, I usually find out via Twitter. I still follow a whole pantload of tech enthusiasts and they’re the perfect delivery mechanism for what’s new and exciting in the world. Except now, instead of feverishly clicking through to see what all the hubbub is about, I just add it to Instapaper. Then, I give myself permission to not read it if, when I do come to it in my list of unread articles, it doesn’t interest me anymore.

The Philosopy

As white dudes go, I’m pretty busy. I’ve got a wife (who is also a stay-at-home mom and homeschool teacher), two kids, a day job and plenty of after-hours activities to keep me busy. It may sound narcissistic, but I feel a lot better laying my head down at night knowing that I spent 30–45 random minutes reading books and articles that I actually want to read instead of frustratedly skimming news that usually doesn’t interest me.

And, like I said earlier, I love it.

Actionable Advice

If you find yourself wishing you read more books and such, then let me implore you to give this a go. I can tell you that whatever worries you have about missing the latest [OMG whatever earth-shattering thing] are probably unfounded.

Going whole-hog might be a bit of a stretch for some of you. I get that. If you’re not quite ready to cut this particular cord just yet, then may I suggest “un-automating” your news consumption habit a skosh. Pick a handful of sites you really like and just, you know, visit them in your web browser every couple of days. Really, anything is better than having yet another inbox you have to check, feel bad about ignoring, then summarily clear out like Grandma’s garage every few days.

I want to talk to you about ideas. More specifically, ideas that can ultimately become (probably small) businesses.

For example: the ebook I sell started its life as a little brain fart I had one day at my desk at work. I like to think that most cool ideas begin in a similar fashion.

Maybe you have an idea. Something you imagine yourself building and polishing and then offering to people in exchange for money. This isn’t a new concept, but maybe you’ve got a little muse floating around in your head that looks and smells like one of these ideas.

There are two big-ish barriers to turning such an idea into a real thing you can look at, point to and in which you take a measure of pride:

1. How to get from idea to “thing you made”.
2. The knowledge and skills required to get there.

Number one can generally be sorted out with the help of a couple of quiet hours on the patio with a few delicious beverages (and, if you’re like me, a delicious Alec Bradley cigar — get a Prensado if you’re curious because they’re exquisite). Of the two “problems” enumerated here, I’d call the first one “the easy one”.

Of course, you may need to look a few things up, send some emails to some people to clarify certain points, but overall the process is something very surmountable by a sufficiently driven human being. At least, I think so.

The second obstacle is, I think, pretty easy to overcome. We live in an age of specialized information and accelerated learning.

I won’t say the notion of higher education is passé, but I truly think that the kind of knowledge a budding (Heaven forgive me the uttering of this word) entrepreneur needs is readily available and, in many instances, doesn’t require you to speak or even encounter the word “matriculate”.

No, there are gobs and gobs of topics for which the basics are available right now. On the Internet. It’s pretty crazy.

Lots of people (and, by that, I mean thousands and thousands) have jumpstarted their Evernote knowledge using the thing I made. It costs relatively little in terms of time and money and it gives you a big shove in the right direction.

Thing is, tons of similar products exist which are aimed at folks like you who want to start their own thing. And they’re really good.

My buddies Adam and Karol (pronounced “Carl”) do this thing every year where they put together the very best tools and programs on the web and offer them at an absurd discount for three days. Due to some kind of administrative error, they also included my thing (joking).

It’s called Only72 and, as the name suggests, it’s only available for three days, then it’s gone. But, if you act within those three little days, you’re staring down the barrel of a 90% savings on a gargantuan collection of the finest ebooks and online learning materials the web has to offer.

Things like my friend Corbett Barr’s guide to Starting a Blog that Matters and my insanely smart mentor Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guide to Publishing. Also, Men with Pens makes an appearance (“are you kidding me”? nope.)

No joke you guys — I’ve personally purchased some of these products with my own money and can attest to their quality.

And you can get the whole freaking kaboodle for 90% off of what they normally go for. Including Evernote Essentials.

Oh, and you’ll also get Chris Guillebeau’s new book, The $100 Startup. In hardcover, shipped to your freaking door. It’s bordering on insanity.

I’m honored to be included among the fine folks who make up this package of goodness. I’m also proud to tell you about it now because, as you know, I’m really weird about selling. It makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, I know, but it really does.

Click here to check out the awesome offering Adam and Karol have put together. By the time you read this, I will have already bought mine.

If you have an idea that you want to make into something real, the knowledge contained in this offer is probably going to put you right where you want to be: moving forward, equipped with the knowledge you need to build something awesome, hang out your shingle and know that you did something effing cool.

And, for those of you still reading: Thanks.

Thanks for reading my stuff, buying my ebook and supporting my family. I’ve got a (very) beautiful red-haired girl and two kickass children who benefit directly from your support. No joke. I appreciate you.

The Dock. That little area on your iPhone or iPad that contains a handful of apps which are available on every screen. It says something about what you’re about and what you want to achieve.

So existential, I know. Hear me out.

For me, the Dock represents a balance between two things:

1. What I do most
2. What I want to do more

I send and receive a good deal of email. So Mail is in my Dock on both my iPhone and my iPad. Because mail, for all its faults, is an important and useful tool for me.

But the Dock is something of a sacred space. It’s not just where I put things that I frequently need, but also where I put things I want to regularly see and be prompted to use.

When I unlock my device, it’s no accident that all {4,6} Dock items are within very easy reach. Nor is it coincidence that my eyes reflexively dart down to that part of the screen. I’ve behaved this way for as long as I’ve had these little gizmos and this behavior, along with an intentional approach to populating the Dock, help reinforce my priorities.

• Byword is in my Dock because I want to write more than I do.
• OmniFocus is in my Dock because I have things to do that need some doing.
• Evernote is in my Dock because I need easy access to the information it houses.
• Instapaper is in my Dock because I want to read interesting things curated by either myself or somebody smarter than me.

Now, by contrast…

• TweetBot isn’t in my Dock because, fab as Twitter is, it’s a timesuck.
• Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are far and away my favorite iOS games, but are nowhere near my dock because then I’d just play all the time.

My Dock reflects my priorities. Does yours?

Even for a technology enthusiast like myself, Apple as an organization has an ivory-like opacity about it; the stores, the employees and even the products themselves present with perfectionism. It’s not that there aren’t flaws or mistakes, but it’s clear that every effort has been made to ensure that customers see as few of these blemishes as possible.

My friend Stephen has recently released Bartending, a collection of memories from his time as the Lead Genius at his local Apple retail store. Aside from being an extremely fun and engaging read (and it really is), I think the part I enjoyed most about it was how thoroughly human the accounts are. I’d never heard of an Apple employee physically destroying an iPhone in a frustrated rage before I read this book, and I’m pretty sure I won’t again anytime soon.

I’ve been a fan of Stephen’s writing since before he and I became friends and Bartending is a great example of why that is. It draws a nice balance between Macs that are laughably packed with homemade porn (Chapter 6, “So Much Porn”) to customers who shed hopeless tears in his presence because priceless family memories appeared to have been gone forever (Chapter 8, “Nearly Tragic Data Loss”).

If you’ve ever stood on the firing end of the Genius Bar at your Apple store, then I think you’ll enjoy reading about what it looks like from the business end.

Go right now and grab Bartending as a DRM-free ePub (which works with iBooks on your iOS devices) or for the Kindle for less than what you’d pay for a pint of crappy American beer on a Friday night. It’s a great buy and I’d recommend it even if I didn’t like Stephen (he can be a jerk sometimes, but don’t tell him I said so; dude gets mad).

I mentioned on Twitter a few minutes ago—as I write this—that I wasn’t a big fan of Byword for iPad. Here’s the exact toot since they can now be embedded in web pages (which is pretty sweet):

Wow, Byword for iPad is pretty awful.

— Brett Kelly (@inkedmn) April 8, 2012

Some folks wondered to what, specifically, was I reacting when I wrote that. Welp, Imma tell you.

(And, yes, I recognize that I very recently railed against evaluating slightly-different solutions to problems that have already been solved. Mea culpa.)

1. The show/hide gesture for the list of files and folders on the right is incredibly janky. If I’m not extremely careful to swipe in a perfectly horizontal motion, the gesture is interpreted as a vertical swipe and it scrolls me away from where I was writing/reading. Super annoying.

2. I have no idea what Byword calls this feature (or if they even have a name for it in their feature list), but it does the thing where it tries to guess what character you mean to type. In the thing I was writing a few minutes ago, I had a parenthetical statement inside another parenthetical statement, like this: (I’m in (double parentheses!)). When I tried to type the second opening parenthesis, it kept inserting a closing parenthesis. This may seem like a niggle, but I hate software that tries to be smarter than me because, most of the time, it’s not.

3. At some point in the last 48 hours, Byword ceased being able to open any of the files I had in my Dropbox folder (including files created and edited using only Byword). I got some cryptic error message about the file not being available. Getting everything working again required me to quit and forcibly kill the app. Yes, this is another nit-pick, but I’m in the middle of a list here and it was just another straw my camel had to carry.

4. It does zero Markdown highlighting. The desktop version of Byword does this, but the iOS app does not. I don’t know why this is.

5. If you want to configure it to sync with a specific subfolder within your Dropbox folder, you have to type in the path to that subfolder by hand (instead of browsing through the folder hierarchy and choosing the folder you want).

I realize lots of people love this app and that’s totally cool — use what works for you. I just found the combination of the above annoyances to be ample reason for me to stop using it.

OmniFocus makes me a better person because it reminds me to do things, even if they need to be done at a date and time considerably later than when I realize they need to be done.

Some examples:

• Last July, a friend of mine told me that there was a possibility that some of her artwork would be featured on a popular television show. Thing was, the episode would air sometime in the first part of 2012 (6-8 months later, in other words). I added a task in OmniFocus to hit her up about it starting on January 2 and, sure enough, I saw it and I asked her about it.

• My son told me in August of 2011 that he really wanted a slot car track for his 7th birthday (in July of 2012). I just checked OmniFocus and there’s a task that will become active on June 1, giving me plenty of time to shop around (and find out if he’s even still interested in the idea).

• By and large, our family abstains from eating out during Lent. I’m a pretty social guy and regularly meet friends for dinner or drinks, so I have a handful of tasks that describe the people with whom I have tentative plans to meet. They’ll all become active the Monday after Easter.

• Our trash gets picked up every Monday morning. So, every Sunday afternoon, OmniFocus reminds me to roll the trash cans down the driveway to the curb so they’re ready for emptying the following morning. This is a simple one, sure, but I can tell you that my wife is pretty damn happy that this gets done with consistency and regularity that it does.

“Ok, smart guy, I kinda see your point, but aren’t you being a little extravagant in saying that this app makes you a better person?”

I don’t think so, honestly.

It helps me be thoughtful. Or, perhaps more accurately, it helps me act on thoughtful gestures, regardless of when the occur to me. The things listed above would have very little hope of happening if I just tried really hard to remember them when they were supposed to happen. Could I do the same thing with a regular calendar? Not really; if the thing I want to remember has multiple tasks associated with it that need to be performed in a certain order, then the calendar simply won’t work (or it will be incredibly clunky).

I appreciate that people use simpler tools for managing tasks and such. For me, though, the only way the process can truly work is when I can put absolutely everything inside it and know that I’ll see it when I need to — even if it’s something as benign as a garbage cans or as important as delighting my boy on his birthday.

For those of us living in the old U.S. of A., the dreaded tax day is quickly approaching. For some, it’s a matter of filling out a simple form and sending a check to—or receiving a check from—the IRS.

For others, it’s the kind of situation that will send the weak spiraling into a vortex of sheer madness.

Since I now have a little side business in addition to my day job, the situation is a hell of a lot more complicated than it was just a couple of years ago. Essentially, I need to deal with many other forms (whose names and numbers I couldn’t even tell you), keep track of all sorts of expenditures and—most importantly—I needed to hire an accountant. And, thanks to my good buddy Chris, I was introduced to an absolute crackerjack named Andrew.

Earlier this week, before I went to my early-evening meeting with Andrew, I went through and collected all of the receipts I had captured using Evernote over the 2011 calendar year (each tagged with “receipt”, “2011” and “tax-deductible”, naturally). Anything that could be deducted got it’s mugshot taken and a brief description added to it. These expenditure were tallied in Numbers and that spreadsheet (saved as an Excel workbook, of course) was dropped into Evernote.

Which, incidentally, also contained every single tax form I’d received from anybody over the last year: W-2 form for my day job, 1099 forms for the little bit of freelance work I did, records of the handful of donations we’d made, etc. Every one of these forms was scanned and added to my “2011 Taxes” notebook within a day of it arriving in my mailbox.

Anyway, I shared this notebook with Andrew a few minutes before grabbing my iPad and heading over to his office.

When I arrived, he had the notebook already synced with Evernote on his computer and was ready to start plowing through the information. He was doing his dance: grabbing numbers, completing forms and flying around whatever weirdo software accountants use to do people’s taxes.

A handful of times, he needed information that I hadn’t added to the notebook before I showed up. This wasn’t a problem since all of the banks with whom I do business online offer the ability to grab PDFs of recent statements and account activity. So, I saved a small handful of PDFs to Evernote using my iPad and dropped them in the notebook where we were both working. A minute or so later, they were available for Andrew to see and use.

As our meeting wrapped up, he generated all of the various tax return forms that we’d need to sign and mail as well as a bunch of payment vouchers and other such like, then dropped them into the same notebook. By the time I got home, they were there.

But, wait! We had a problem! Houston!

Turns out, I had neglected to mention a few key figures in our 2011 financials and, as a result, just about every form he had generated for me was now incorrect and would have to be rebuilt. “No problem,” he said.

From his computer, he deleted the outdated forms, made the new ones and dropped them into Evernote. No joke, all of this fix-it business was wrapped up within like 20 minutes. Hiccups like that one would mean that one of us would be driving back and forth just to deliver or pick up a slightly different piece of paper. This is next-level stuff we’re talking about here.

First thing tomorrow, I need to complete a couple of signature pages (which I can easily do using my trusty PDFpen) and get them back to him.

I’ll give you one guess as to how exactly I’m going to do that.

(Hint: I’m going to digitally sign the documents with PDFpen and send them to my accountant using the same notebook we’ve been using for this entire exercise.)

Yet another way Evernote has proven its worth.

Oh, and if you have small business questions or need to hire an accountant of your own, get in touch with Andrew on Twitter or check out his blog, Business is Simple. I sleep so much better knowing that I’ve got a real expert in my corner keeping an eye on my stuff (sounds goofy, but is absolutely true).

Stop fussing around and pick one.

Then, don’t look at any others until one of the following has happened:

1. Your chosen app breaks or becomes unusable for some reason.
2. You’ve used your chosen app for six months.

The more time you spend dicking around with these apps is time you’re not making something. It’s super easy to split hairs about which app is best and which one is the most minimal or whatever, but this is such a solved problem that spending more than a few minutes thinking about it is a complete waste of time.

Here’s how you figure out which one to use.

• Figure out where (and if) you want it to sync (Dropbox, iCloud, etc.).
• Figure out which additional features you need (search, Markdown support, TextExpander integration, HTML export, etc.).
• Figure out how you can quickly easily pick up where you left off on a different computer/device (sync is crucial here).
• Buy one that meets all of these criteria.
• Use it.

That’s it. Your search is over.

Of course, you have oodles of options.

I use Notesy on my iPad and iPhone. It has all the features I need and it works just fine. Ben prefers iA Writer and (the other) Brett likes Byword. If you’re in the market for such an app, any of these would be fine places to start.

But, let’s just agree that endlessly evaluating these types of apps is a textbook case of fiddling.

(I’m honestly not trying to pick on anybody, but the above post was inspired by this post).

After the new iPad was announced just a short while ago, I had essentially decided that—like so many other Apple enthusiasts—I’d be buying one. I’ve changed my mind and here’s why.

When the iPhone 4 came out, it was a complete redesign of the iPhone. It had the Retina Display, a much better camera, faster guts, the whole nine yards. When the 4S came out, it had an even better camera than the iPhone 4, the ability to shoot true HD video and, of course, Siri. With both of these models, I was excited and willing to upgrade because both of them represented dramatic improvements over their predecessors that would appreciably improve how I used and interacted with the device.

For me, the new iPad doesn’t include any such “must-have” features.

Of course, I’m excited to get my hands on one and see how the Retina Display looks and I’m sure it’s a total screamer in just about every respect over the iPad 2 (which I’m using to compose this post, coincidentally), but those two features simply aren’t enough to get me to abandon my current iPad. At least, not yet.

There’s an entire movement surrounding the idea of “last year’s model”; the basic gist is that just because a new device arrives on the market doesn’t automatically mean you should buy it. The thing you’re currently using, while no longer the newest/fastest/whateverest option available, is probably just fine and maybe you should save your money. (There’s also a whole environmental angle to it dealing with waste and such, but that doesn’t really resonate with me because I’m an entitled white American male or whatever). But, I think they have a point.

For me, my iPad 2 has settled into a fairly narrow set of uses: writing, (very) casual gaming, light task management and reading. While there may be a persuasive argument to be made for the new iPad being a damn sight better at one or more of those things than my antiquated iPad 2, I simply don’t find such an argument compelling enough to get me to part with several hundred dollars. Yet.

The X factor, of course, is if/when apps I use frequently begin being optimized for faster hardware or a higher-resolution screen that I don’t currently own and, subsequently, begin to perform poorly on my iPad 2. I don’t see that being a big problem since I can’t really imagine many of the apps I use “growing” into such requirements, but it’s still a possibility. But, that’s not an immediate concern since all of my apps run just fine.

Among the nerdier set of people who enthusiastically purchase new gadgets with much greater frequency than regular people, it’s easy to fall into the habit of buying the new one each year. Hell, that’s what we do, right? We write about Apple on the Internet! Of course we’re buying the new [phone/tablet/whatever]!

It’s the reflexiveness that I don’t like.

That said, I’m all in favor of people making such purchases when they have the means and it truly is a function of their livelihood. For me, though, it’s not. The iPad 2 is a tool, and one that I use a good bit. But I need to remind myself that:

• This particular bit of tech cost me over $700.
• I paid said monies to Apple less than a year ago.

I think there a few miles left on my iPad 2. And, just as a CYA measure, I will say that it’s entirely possible that I’ll take one look at the new iPad and forget all this malarky and plop down my money on the spot. But, I’m going to try my best to evaluate this decision like a freaking adult and not just slide my credit card because that’s what I’ve trained myself to do.