Open and Shut

John Gruber in an exceptional article posted to Daring Fireball a few days ago. Not only a phenomenal piece on the history of the computing industry and the “open versus closed” argument but also an extraordinarily well-written piece — a reminder that I still have far to go.

“The Mac’s resurgence had nothing to do with being more open, and everything to do with improved quality: a modern operating system, well-designed software, and hardware designs that the entire rest of the industry now copies slavishly and shamelessly.”

Computers can be understood

Modern computers have gotten so complex that the prospect of trying to understand them intimidates a lot of people. Unfortunately, many use that fear as an excuse not to even try. Nelson Elhage has some great advice for tackling this gargantuan task.

Writer Pro

As soon as Information Architects released Writer Pro shortly before Christmas, I began collecting “first look” pieces after their phenomenal introductory video nearly caused me to shell out a hefty $40 to have the app on both my Mac and iOS devices sight on seen. Much more cautions after my poor experience with Coin though, I exercised a bit of restraint in choosing to wait until after Christmas to make my final decision. Nine days and one debacle later, I am very thankful I did.