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timmins

95 karma · joined April 21, 2008

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timmins··on TimeMyMeeting
If you could fork this and rename to "How Long You've Been Talking Non-stop in this Meeting..." and keep the timeline, I would use it daily.
timmins··on Ask HN: Is it just me, or is the inbox is the worst place for newsletters?
Same here with Inoreader. Big fan of their service.
timmins··on “They would have said faster horses” – An example of asking wrong questions
Part of the reason you have a problem with the same man making both of those quotes is that the "faster horse" quote was likely not said by Henry Ford.

https://checkyourfact.com/2019/10/10/fact-check-henry-ford-q...

https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast

timmins··on Show HN: I made a macOS app to let me draw on the screen while on video calls
This looks great and will come in very useful when presenting visual concepts (keep the audience focused).

One suggestion for future improvement would be auto shape snapping. I assume most will use this with a mouse which can result in squiggly, unsightly lines. A number of iOS note taking apps detect a similar shape and snap to straight lines or perfect circles. Hope that helps and thanks for the app.

timmins··on Secure email provider Tutanota launches free encrypted calendar
This has been a key feature in my decision to settle on a primary email provider. With ProtonMail and Tutanota without a true suite of personal organization, I settled on FastMail with the leery eye that it may includes some compromises on privacy. ProtonMail is soon to be releasing their calendar product, though their pricing is a few times more than Tutanota.

Edit: This might be against protocol (I'll delete if so) but I did some further digging

- Why is Protonmail better than Tutanota : https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/b84kd3/why_is_p...

- And, why is Tutanota better than Protonmail: https://www.reddit.com/r/tutanota/comments/b82a05/why_is_tut...

Very interesting.

timmins··on Volkswagen Reaches Deal in U.S. Over Emissions Scandal
I read yesterday, caveat: while most news was still rumored, that VW would not be permitted to resell the vehicles.
timmins··on [dead]
Does he need to compete on donations when he has his own billions (debate on amount notwithstanding)? What stops him from funding his own campaign when the remainder of the field are begging for high priced dinner entry fees and donations?
timmins··on Ask HN: What are the best tools for analyzing large bodies of text?
I used a Win app called TextPipe. It has a large feature set to wrangle text but the visualization aspect may need another tool.
timmins··on Apple Watch Review: You’ll Want One, but You Don’t Need One
I believe the Sony is close to your requirements but not perfect. Wear can support local storage. The Sony is the only Wear on the market that has standalone GPS. The bad news is that heart rate monitoring is not a feature. I can't believe that function was omitted.

http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/smartwear/smart...

timmins··on Apple Watch Review: You’ll Want One, but You Don’t Need One
Moto 360 owner and Microsoft Band.

I won't echo the sentiments of the other comments but you may want to explore the Microsoft Band. It falls short on bluetooth music player. However, whether iPhone, Android or WP, you have cross-integration. Something not afforded by the other main products currently (though, rumored Wear will interface with iOS). The ergonomics of the Band needs minor improvements. The dedicated GPS and range of sensors is mostly in a class of its own. Dedicated GPS is only on the Sony Wear as far as I recall.

timmins··on The Apple Watch
> Apple could re-introduce the Newton and Gruber would be writing about it's "elegant simplicity" and "thoughtful processing"

While they have not re-introduced the Newton, his latest podcast mentions the Newton and very similar in tone.

timmins··on Kim Dotcom: “I'm broke” (german article)
It's more than possible. The article I read last night said his wife is full owner of Mega (the follow up to Megaupload).
timmins··on Mailbox for Mac now in public beta
I find AirMail to be similar in style with a ton of advanced features. Have you tried using that?
timmins··on AirType
The demo video shows a Surface tablet that has zero visual response to the hardware keyboard and their demo product. Who thought this was a good idea?
timmins··on Show HN: Turn sketches on paper into app prototypes
Are you sure? You can flick through the artboards in Sketch but you absolutely can not let a user independently operate a prototype.
timmins··on Facebook Paper's gesture problems
I've followed LukeW's version of reachable areas of the screen in my UI design. I think you've improved upon his.

I also find it fascinating how Facebook's main iOS app and Paper (per your article) conflict with your reachable zone. In the major app, they relegate the Search action in the farthest corner from right hand users. In addition, their overflow button on the bottom tab bar sits in the other 'Ow' zone.

Great write up.

timmins··on Ask HN: How do you focus?
Lately, it's been a combination of removing distractions like IM, e-mail and the like. Putting on headphons and listening to Coffitivity. Then, I either grab a paper and pencil or tablet and stylus and sketch what I should be designing. I take components and use Vitamin-R (pomodora) and get working. If this seems to fail at any steps, I take a walk around the block with the expectation that there will be no delays when I return.
timmins··on All New Mac Pro Available Starting Tomorrow
It's not retina. 2560 x 1440 is the highest resolution.
timmins··on Pencil
While it may not be mechanically pressure sensitive, Paper has a really smart algorithm for drawing pressure. It's not a 100% substitute but it's noticeably better than the majority of sketching apps - stylus or not.
timmins··on Coin
Cool hipster dude = Adam Lisagor. Really smart fellow with a history of success.
timmins··on Apple Special Event October 2013 Live Stream
10 AM Pacific, 12 PM Central
timmins··on Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper
In the latest update, 7.0, there's quite a bit of conversation that this is no longer possible. It's recently come out that it can be done with a gimmick, typing 'okay maps' I believe, but it remains unintuitive as a primary task let alone worthwhile feature.
timmins··on Log in to Yahoo by July 15th to keep your email address
Maybe. My perspective is that Yahoo! did some research on why people left, stopped using, or never considered Y! as their mail service. I presume one of the responses is that people dislike non-vanity addresses. Instead of tedthomas@yahoo.com, the only variations that remain include thomasted110@ or tedthomasemail@. Ugh.

A simple query would show that these vanity addresses are sitting stagnant. A touch of PR and awareness instills or revives interest.

I think an optimistic view is that Yahoo! is willing to cut the fat and take chances on reuniting strayed in addition to inviting new users.

timmins··on Poll: Which RSS reader have you switched to?
That's a really good point. I would recommend upvoting the suggestions at their uservoice site. They're actively listening, although I'm sure they're busy. In fact, I believe the uservoice voting is one of the primary reasons Feedly is headed to Windows Phone 8.

Vote: https://feedly.uservoice.com/forums/192636-suggestions/sugge... Suggest: https://feedly.uservoice.com/forums/192636-suggestions

timmins··on Jony Ive’s new look for iOS 7: black, white, and flat all over
Outside of striped lines to brushed aluminum, has the design of 10.x changed dramatically year over year? I would suggest no.
timmins··on My last Android app sales figures and why it's still great to start a mobile app
I wonder how much impact to this shady practice occurred when the Play store changed to Google+/Gmail profiles.
timmins··on Everpix
Unreal. I never thought about that (since photos are on a NAS) even though I use and swear by Crashplan. Such a simple practice. Thank you.
timmins··on Everpix
I explored Everpix. It started importing all of my photos from my account. It was seamless, I loved it, and wanted to explore more.

So I was about to upload from my NAS. I realized they don't support RAW. I guess having JPGs, etc are better than nothing but I don't shoot in JPG. I shoot in RAW and maybe convert to DNG.

I looked over the size of my library. I was shocked to learn the size. This made me realize I need something serious, reliable, etc. I reached out to their customer support and asked what exists or what is intended when I lose everything and want my entire archive. I received a link to a support article that didn't address my question. I asked again and they said they couldn't support such a request. Make sense but that's when I knew it wasn't the right fit.

Since then I've looked into Trovebox.com, Smugmug.com or just going manual with Amazon services, S3 or Glacier.

timmins··on Everpix
Another competitor in this space, Trovebox.com, does exactly this.
timmins··on Google Maps One-Hand Zoom on iPhone
While this gesture may not be intuitive, I have to give credit to the initial stage double tap and then the zoom calibration with the vertical slide gesture.

There's another app that has a very similar gesture, Readmill. They allow brightness adjustment with a vertical slide. The downside is the lack of initial gesture to toggle its activation. So, while reading, trying to vertically scroll the page has caused the gesture to activate brightness adjustment. It becomes frustrating.

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