Category: link

Byword for iOS

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I’ve liked Byword for Mac for a long time, and to my surprise, an iOS version popped up yesterday. It’s got fewer options than Elements, but more than iA Writer. It syncs with either iCloud or Dropbox and unlike iA Writer, it actually syncs! (iA Writer just gives you Dropbox file access. It doesn’t auto-update docs for you.) Byword has a nice extended keyboard and an understated UI. I just wish the UI was a little higher contrast. The font color doesn’t pop from the background quite enough. Now, I’m waiting to see what Multimarkdown Composer for iOS will look like.

Buy Byword for iOS here.

Mass Effect 3 Critique

Don’t know if you knew this, but at the top of the site is a link to “ME3″. Here you’ll find my spoilerrific semi-daily updated critique of Mass Effect 3 as I play through it. I’m not making it a blog post because people might accidentally have something ruined for them story-wise, but it’s here if you want to read it.

Super Simple Text File Task Management

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If you’re looking for a super simple task manager that’s ultraportable, check out Atea. It’s a Java runtime that sits in your menu bar and gets all its data from a single text file. If you put the file in Dropbox or Notational Velocity’s data folder and sync with Simplenote, you can have a copy on all of your computers and your iOS devices. Just update the text file that Atea’s reading and the tasks in the menu bar applet will change as well. Add ‘[]”s to make something a project and just delete the row of text to delete the task. It’s lightweight and very cool. And it’s free.

Download Atea

Wanna see what I’ve been reading?

Check out my Saved Fever Links and my Readability Favorites. These links have always been over on the side of the blog, but maybe you missed them.

Snatchcast 057: I Wish Voyager Never Existed

Mass effect shepard

Listen to Snatchcast 057

Whatcha Been Play?

  • Gears of War 3
  • Ico
  • Shadow of the Colossus
  • Burnout Paradise
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
  • Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
  • Mighty Switch Force
  • Club Nintendo Points (not a game)
  • Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
  • Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Doctor Who Podcast

The Arrow of Time

Mass Effect Series

Spoiler Alert

If you haven’t finished the Mass Effect games and don’t want the story ruined, you probably don’t want to listen to this part of the show.

Mass Effect Novels

Mass Effect

The first Mass Effect had some frustrating side missions and the Mako was a horrible experience for the most part. The story was great though and the characters that were born in Mass Effect are the series most memorable so far.

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game. It’s more playable than Mass Effect but it lacks the depth of character creation of the first game and the story isn’t anywhere near as engrossing as that of the first game.

Mass Effect 3

Everyone’s going to have wildly different stories in Mass Effect 3. There are tons of decisions from Mass Effect that affected decisions in Mass Effect 2 and this is going to be all over the place in Mass Effect 3. It will be interesting to see what happens in the end for all our friends’ games.

The multiplayer, because it isn’t required to fully experience the single player story, is a welcomed addition. The fiction of the Mass Effect universe makes it clear that Shepard isn’t the only person in the galaxy getting in trouble, so the multiplayer is a chance to be someone other than Shepard for once!

Music

Of Stars and Dreams

This piece is a tune that was originally recorded for the first Mass Effect but wasn’t used in the game. It was released separately in 2011 by Mass Effect composer, Sam Hulick.

Mass Effect Theme

Just a little bit of the main Mass Effect theme to set the mood.

The End (Reprise)

Interesting Links for December 20, 2011

America

Japan

Online

I Think I Found The Holy Grail

20111220-164910.jpg

…of dumb Japanese clothing store names.

Elevation Dock

Elevation Dock Plus

I never felt the need to have an iPhone dock but I’m really tempted to shell out $89 bucks to get my hands on a matte black Elevation Dock+. It’s aluminum like a MacBook and the + version adds an audio out.

Best of Readability: December 11, 2011

Pour One Out For The Old Bird

R.I.P. Tweetie

Gruber had a nice post about Tweetie for iPhone and its death. I stopped using what became of Tweetie a while ago, in favor of Tweetbot, but for a long time I was a huge fan of Tweetie’s simplicity and power. Brichter’s no longer at Twitter, and the death of his baby and the new design coincide nicely.