[Alex](http://crowdfavorite.com) and I are in San Francisco for the annual WordPress conference hosted by Automattic. I’m always interested in meeting up with new folks and friends alike, just let me know if you’re around!
Author Archives: Devin Reams
We at [Crowd Favorite](http://crowdfavorite.com) have been working with [MailChimp](http://mailchimp.com) on a slick new plugin for WordPress for a bit now. In short: it allows you to broadcast new posts to Twitter and Facebook, pulls in replies, mentions, comments and retweets, then allows visitors to log in as Facebook/Twitter identities and leave comments. This is a nice compliment to comments because it allows folks to continue the discussion elsewhere (like on Twitter, a la [Cognition](http://cognition.happycog.com/article/is-this-thing-on)) while allowing your site to remain the center of focus. You can see [Social](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social/) in action here on [my site](http://wordpress.reams.me/?p=2095#comments).
Email: “unread” should mean “I have not yet read”
5 Replies
I’ve been trying out the new version of [Apple Mail](http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/mail.html) in OS X Lion and it’s really nice. I would say it’s 90% of what I want in a native (e.g.: not web-based, like Gmail) email client. One thing [Alex](http://alexking.org/) and I noticed was that the new two-column view (view the message alongside the list of messages) forces a new problematic workflow.
## Two-column view forces unread status
When you remove a message from the current mailbox, for example you delete or file the message away, you’re automatically pushed into viewing the next message in the mailbox. This marks the next message read every time you act upon an email.
If you didn’t want to reply to that next message and hoped to keep it “unread” so you know to follow-up, well, you’re now forced to mark a message as unread every single time you do something in your mailbox. That’s annoying and a lot of extra work.
## Maybe I’m the problem
But then I thought about it more, and it seems that I may have been doing it wrong this whole time. Instead of keeping any email I need to follow-up marked “unread” in my inbox (or any other mailbox), why not treat unread as “have not yet read this” — as the name of the status implies.
There’s no real good reason to keep marking things “unread” in an Inbox, if you treat it as a true Inbox: something comes in, you then need to take action and get rid of it.
By allowing things I’ve actually “seen” and “read” to change status, the unread counter in my dock or on my phone are true representations of what has not been seen by me yet.
Then, the remaining “read” messages in my inbox are items that need action taken: a response, to be filed away, a follow-up task to do something, etc. This forces the need for me to get a clean “inbox zero” inbox and I don’t have a crazy scary “unread” count that I need to think about every time I glance at my phone: “23 unread? Does that mean I already got seven, or was it eight, new emails since I last checked?”
## Switching to Sparrow
While Apple Mail is great, I’ve found [Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/) has helped me stick to the Gmail-style email that I’ve come to love with all the benefits of a native app: offline email storage, fast searching, a dedicated (full-screen) window. It’s worth checking out.
It’s been an amazing couple of weeks here in the Streams (Stephens + Reams) household. Much to follow…
When will Apple enable Newsstand for iOS 5?
I’ve seen discussions wondering when the Newsstand functionality will work in the iOS 5 betas. If iOS subscription compliance was due yesterday, and many periodicals have been featured in the App Store lately: I would bet Newsstand support will be flipped on, along with the new store, at the final release. I don’t expect any of the developer betas to have this feature available.
My belief is this is Apple’s only feature to encourage content owners to offer subscriptions through in-app purchases and they want to control the launch and publicity behind it, not some loose-lipped developers.
Google+ Project invitation system is broken by design?
I have a few observations about the introduction of [Google+](http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/demo/) to the social space. A lot of people are clamoring about it but, even as of last night, not nearly enough of my “friends” are on it yet. So what’s going on?
First, a social network launched by such an internet powerhouse should not be held back in this day. Sure, there can be bugs and beta qualifiers, but the network effect is already matured over at Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Launching a network needs to allow people to quickly and easily have someone and all their friends join in order to gain immediate traction.
Second, the first people who do actually join within the first week after the announcement are power users and super nerds because they know other power users. Of course, this is by definition: early adopters join early and others are expected to tag along later.
Third, I don’t see mainstream users jumping on after the early adopters because once you hear about it, you want to try it. If you’re told you have to wait, the social network has just missed its opportunity to be relevant. Think back to Google Wave, the first and *only* people who received invitations and joined were the early adopters and widespread usage didn’t catch on.
But finally, maybe this is all the point of Google+? Only power users and nerds are expected to use this and Google thinks they can really capture the social space of the individuals who don’t enjoy Facebook or find Twitter a bit limited. In a world where Facebook refused to use the word “Blog” to describe the “Notes” app, the fact [Google used the phrase “nerding out” and “geek out” to describe sharing things](http://www.youtube.com/embed/MRkAdTflltc) is quite telling…
DigitalOne raid by FBI: Instapaper vs. Pinboard
I couldn’t help but compare the two reactions to the (potentially overreaching) raid by the [FBI on DigitalOne’s datacenter in Virginia](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/sites-rebuild-after-f-b-i-raid-on-data-center/). In short, the FBI ceased a bunch of servers in a bust on Latvian crime rings in which two unrelated web services were affected.
Here’s an example from [Instapaper’s blog](http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6854208028) by Marco which rambles on suggesting the FBI may or may not have our data, our passwords may or may not be safe, he is going to make some changes soon, and takes a vindictive pause regarding the datacenter lessor (not the physical owner of the space):
>I’m not convinced that [DigitalOne] did everything they could to prevent the seizure of non-targeted servers, and their lack of proactive communication with the affected customers is beneath the level of service I expect from a host.
Compared to Maciej’s well-organized update at the [Pinboard blog](http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/06/faq_about_the_recent_fbi_raid/) which answered the tough questions: Are my bookmarks safe? (Yes) Does the FBI have my data? (Legally, not likely) Is my password safe? (Yes and no) And concludes with the following:
>**How can I get my data off of Pinboard and close my account?**
>
>Use the [export page](http://pinboard.in/export/) to grab your bookmarks, then send me an [email](mailto:[email protected]).
A conscious effort was made to keep the export functionality available although the remainder of the bookmarking service was degraded due to the lost server. This simple sentence reminds users how they can quickly re-take ownership of their data and disassociate with the service that may have lost their trust
Pinboard has actually continued to win so much more of my trust than any web service I’ve used to-date. Kudos, [Pinboard](http://pinboard.in).
Want your name in lights on the new “Credits” page in [WordPress 3.2](http://wordpress.org/news/2011/06/wordpress-3-2-release-candidate/)? This page shows up in all WordPress.org blog dashboards (but interestingly enough, not on WordPress.com). If you use WordPress every day it’s pretty easy to get involved testing, filing bugs, and submitting patches on [Trac](http://core.trac.wordpress.org/). I found two small bugs in the new Twenty Eleven theme in about 30 minutes and submitted patches in just as little time.
Add missing file extension to file names
For Mac users: if you ever happen to download a bunch of similar files and they’re all missing extensions (like a directory full of photos crawled using wget), here’s a quick one-line command to add the extension to all the files: for i in * ; do mv $i $i.txt; done;
The team behind MacHeist has released a $0.99 iPhone/iPod touch game. MacHeist has raised over $2 million dollars for charity in the past by creating fun mission-based games and selling bundles of Mac software for heavy discounts. This new offering, an iOS game has four classic game types (like one similar to soduku) with varying degrees of difficulty. The best part: you can ultimately unlock what I presume to be a download code for Steam’s very popular Portal game called Eets (via GigaOm) For only 99 cents, it’s a beautiful game, innovative, very well done, and worth a download.