Quicksilver’s future was bleak for a long time and was being eclipsed by commercial alternatives such as Alfred. It’s awesome to see the open source community pick it up and get it to 1.0. It’s really one of the most indispensable pieces of software I run and makes the Mac so much more efficient to use.
Category Archives: In Brief
I share many of Anil Dash’s frustrations toward the current walled-garden social Web and how business deals, not open standards and protocols, drive content sharing.
Additional thought: Seeing so many companies tighten up their walls and restrictions over who can do what with what data sure makes me realize just how unique the WordPress ecosystem (and the Automattic business model) really is — it’s a profitable business based on principles of total data ownership and openness, rooted firmly in many of the old-school tenets Anil discusses in his blog post.
Google Maps for iPhone is out.
Pros: Turn by turn navigation (I’m shocked it’s built in, honestly), tremendously clean design, and it’s Google’s mapping data, not Apple’s (or TomTom’s). Cons: It’s not built into the phone, so we’re screwed as far as invoking it from Apple apps (though Google has a SDK so third-party developers can route around Apple Maps).
I suspect the call for Apple to allow third-party apps to provide certain services on the phone (mapping, Web browser, etc.) will only intensify now.
Now running WordPress 3.5
jaredwsmith.com is now running WordPress 3.5. Chief among the improvements: The new media manager. It fixes a ton of my gripes with previous versions. Twenty Twelve, the theme I’ve been running for a few months, is also the new default (with 20 days to spare!) and it still performs very well. Looking forward to doing more with it. I just installed the upgrade so I haven’t yet found any major pitfalls but it is always best to stay up-to-date with WordPress upgrades for security improvements (and just a progressively better experience across the board).
Tornadic Roadblock
This video was shot Tuesday evening by Drew Cavanaugh in central Florida, where several tornado warnings were issued due to strong rotation on radar and reports of funnel clouds, including this video. Nothing like driving down the road to see a tornado kicking up ahead of you to perk you right up.
Hat tip to more people than I can name over on Google+.
The Governor thinks the SC Department of Revenue data breach is like Hurricane Hugo.
God forbid we get a hurricane right up the gut in Charleston during the Governor’s tenure.
Coming this weekend (hopefully): a recap of my BarCampCHS dual-pol radar session
Saturday marked the fourth BarCamp Charleston (these days known as BarCampCHS). I spoke for the first time since the original BarCamp; my talk covered the dual-polarization upgrade being rolled out to the national weather radar network.
Since the meat of the presentation was an analysis of the hail-producing thunderstorms that hit Summerville a week ago, I’ll need to write up a recap (with screenshots) and post it here. This will have to happen this weekend as BoomTown Unite winds down and I have some time to decompress after a conference-overload weekend.
Thanks again to everyone who attended my session! I am already looking forward to BarCampCHS 5.
The Charleston radar is running again after the dual-pol upgrade.
Dual-polarization data isn’t flowing to most people yet — based on my experience with the upgrade at Sterling, VA earlier this year, a day or two of calibration is still needed before the products are turned on over the Level III data stream (which serves a majority of the radar apps out there, including GRLevel3 and RadarScope). Dual-pol moments are available over Level II, though I’ll wait to rely too heavily on them until NWS gives the data its public blessing.
TLC was once a public channel?
It was privatized before my time, which is why I never knew. I do remember its programming during the ’90s (a lot of which was still really good) before the shift to more commercially-viable programming in this decade.
(Boy, it’s a sad state of affairs when educational programming is not seen as commercially viable…)