February 2010
2 posts
TOC Report: 10 ways to enhance your iPad books →
Great writeup from Paul Biba based on a TOC talk by Peter Meyers. A list of easy ways that reading on an active screen can be an enhancement over a static page:
touch a characters name for a quick summary (or a word for definition)
highlighting and note taking, and then finding them later
interactive table of contents that draws you in
mini books and continuing sitcom type fiction
...
Launching Valentines Day Poem Flow!
Today we’re launching a new TextFlows app. Check out http://poemflow.com/valentines to create a unique and moving Valentines day message. Choose from a selection of poems, add your own dedication with text and image, and we’ll send it to your Valentine.
This is our first step toward opening up Flow creation. Its a small step on a long road but it feels like an important one!
October 2009
4 posts
“While people have been reading on screens for decades, we are only a very few...”
– Does the Brain Like E-Books? - Readers’ Comments - NYTimes.com
Interesting discussion on the NYTimes, worth reading. I’m copying over my comment.
1 tag
One Ring to Rule them All?
Is Adobe closing in on the one, common, cross-platform, development solution? Yesterday they announced updates to the Flash toolkit to allow for cross compilation and output of native iPhone applications. This means that the million plus Flash/Actionscript developers can now use Adobe tools to create and publish apps to Apples app store. A nice piece by Hank Williams got me thinking about this....
1 tag
Neats vs Scruffies, Duct Tape vs Clean Code
There’s been an interesting back and forth recently (the latest of many) between Joel Spolsky, author of the popular Joel On Software blog, and Bob Martin (aka Uncle Bob). Joel writes in praise of The Duct Tape Programmer, Uncle Bob defends Clean Code. This is an eternal debate in the software community - the ‘just get it done and ship the code’ folks, verses the ‘do it...
1 tag
Literary Mashups
A couple of interesting recent news articles point to the ways in which physical- and e-books; and text and other media, are increasingly converging. Today’s NYTimes has a front page article describing book-video and physical-online hybrids being released by several publishers. And lest week my friend Jeff at Harvard Bookstore was highlighted in Wired for his ability to publish books on...
April 2009
2 posts
1 tag
A Dispatch from the Publishing Frontier
As part of my research into the positioning of TextFlows in the world of authoring and publishing, I’ve been tracking a number of sources from the publishing world.
While there’s been a lot of talk recently about the demise of newspapers, its pretty clear that the publishing world as a whole is bracing itself for the digital onslaught. In large part this is coming to a head because of...
1 tag
How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and... →
Excellent article from the WSJ (maybe subscription access only?) on the migratation of books to digital formats. The author describes his ‘aha’ moment of ordering a novel to read while having dinner alone on a business trip. Besides the spontaneity he also explores the upcoming social aspects of reading, the additions of search and hyperlinking, and the potential (good and bad) for...
March 2009
1 post
1 tag
Clay Shirky and the State of Publishing
Clay Shirky has a great blog post up about the state of the publishing industry, particularly newspapers. No answers but a brilliant summation of the dynamics. Anyone interested in whats going on in publishing should give it a read.
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial...
February 2009
1 post
1 tag
Seth Godin on the Kindle →
Interesting thoughts (as always) from Seth on the Kindle and how it could be made more useful. I’ve been discussing it in an email thread with Kevin and some other Sonus friends. In particular I love the idea of sharing margin notes on books. If nowhere else this would be great in a corporate setting - while reading the latest business howto or tech books see what your colleagues thought...
January 2009
2 posts
“Experimental innovators don’t over analyze or put all of their hopes into...”
– Nice writeup by Peter Sims on the Harvard Business blog - like Chris Rock we should be trying stuff to see what works and what doesn’t, and then focus on the things that do.
Innovate Like Chris Rock - http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/01/innovate_like_chris_rock.html
1 tag
WatchThe inaugural speech went by too fast to really appreciate. A growing number of commentators are noting that it needs to be read to be fully appreciated. Here it is as a TextFlow.
May 2008
5 posts
“I think there in lies the bigger problem with the widget sector as a whole: no...”
– For Widgets, VC Money Easy, Revenues Not So Much - GigaOM
Secondbrain - All Your Content →
Google Sites →
Google sites looks like a pretty good way to create and share an information space. Or maybe just a family homepage.
First post
Spending some time exploring information management tools on the web as well as widget enabled apps.
Looking at Second Brain and Tumblr right now.
Just found out, was it always the case?, that delicious does not do search *inside* the pages you tag, only on the tags and comments. Seems like a big gap.