Siri on the Mac
I would love to see Siri come to the Mac. It was one of the major reasons I upgraded to the 4S.
The problem is, I, like others, rarely use it. It’s a combination of layers of friction: it requires forming new habits, the service is often down, and Siri often doesn’t understand what I say (my wife knows how Siri feels). Those three items on their own might be easy to overcome, but when you put them together, it’s been frustrating enough that I never think to use the service.
Having Siri available on the Mac would help me to force myself to make changes, simply due to the amount of time I spend on OS X.
Iconic with Jack Cheng
Episode 30 of Creatiplicity is out today, with guest Jack Cheng. Jack has written two of my favourite online pieces in recent years: In Praise of Lo-fi and Habit Fields, so it was fantastic to be able to talk with him one-on-one and see where he’s at in these areas.
Give it a listen.
InVision Prototyping Tool - Weekly Sponsor
The UI prototyping phase of the design process is crucial to get right. It’s about figuring out how your product will work, and ensuring everyone is aligned before moving into building.
InVision is a web-based prototyping tool that lets you paint an accurate and realistic picture that anyone can understand.
InVision lets you share single screens or full projects with the click of a button. InVision creates a short URL link that you can easily send to others where they can add comments directly on the screen.
As a special offer for our readers, InVision is offering a 30 day free trial along with a special discount for the first six months.
Design anywhere. Bring it to life with InVision. 
A big thank you to InVision for sponsoring the feed this week.
Doing What You (Don’t) Love
Four years ago, I started down the path of moving from working in IT to doing something I loved. Web design was where my heart was, but I started writing a blog first because I felt there was a better opportunity to earn an income there. I had no design experience. And so I started The Weekly Review.
That year was amazing. I wrote a lot, met new people online, and eventually, started Fusion Ads with Michael Mistretta. 18 months after publishing my first blog post, I was able to quit my job and work for myself full time.
Full Circle
Last November, after we sold Fusion, I was at a crossroads and unsure of what was next. There were a few options available, but I wanted to make sure that I was moving down the path to doing what I loved (front end web design). My time at Fusion was amazing, and I enjoyed a lot of my tasks and responsibilities, but it wasn’t what I loved. Now that there was some money in the bank, I wanted to start on the ‘next thing’.
One of my available options came out of nowhere. Some of my former employers heard I had sold my company and may be available for work. A day later, I had three offers come across my desk. This was completely unexpected and they certainly weren’t options I would have pursued. Go back to working around the corporate environment? Get involved in the politics of government funded healthcare? Work on Windows powered equipment? No thanks.
A funny thing happened though. It turns out the opportunities were contracts, not positions. Working for myself rather than working for the man. Since November, I had been praying and asking my Father to help me be open to whatever He might have in store for me. And so I couldn’t ignore any opportunity, including one that wasn’t my first choice.
The Cost
The benefits of doing what you love are widely touted. It’s the golden carrot of our web-enabled age. But when you consider what to do for a living, you also have to weigh the cost of doing what you love, every day.
To clarify, doing what you love doesn’t mean you love every single aspect of a profession. Every job has drudgery. When I say doing what you love, I mean you wake up in the morning looking forward to going to do whatever it is you do to provide for yourself [and your family]. And you feel that way 9 days out of 10.
Back to the cost then. It’s simply this: when you do what you love, it can often lead to being all that you do. It’s what you think about when you wake up, when you’re in the shower, in the moments of peace and quiet, and as you close your eyes at the end of the day.
As far as work is concerned, that’s not a bad thing. But you have to realize that other areas of your life will pay the cost. There may be hobbies like woodworking, gardening or cycling that interest you, but you never get around to picking up. There are the missed family events. Or, even worse, you’re present in body only, your mind on the ‘thing you love’.
Being a spouse, a parent, a congregrant — these things all take time and energy. Doing what you love for a job so easily takes over your thought life, everything else can get lip service only.
Both
So I’m spending the next year working part time on what I enjoy, but not love (project management), and working part time building the next dumb idea (which involves doing what I love). This scenario comes with two benefits: a) it pays the bills and b) it’s a bit of an experiment to see if I can stop paying lip service to certain priorities and actually treat them like the priorities they are.
New PatternTap (Beta)
I love Pattern Tap as a resource. Like Dribbble, I use Pattern Tap when I need inspiration, usually for a particular UI element. The redesign of this app has been a good while coming, but I like what I see.
Tweetbot for iPad
Paul and Mark have otherworldly talent. My gosh.
It almost makes me want to access Twitter from my iOS devices again.
kooaba Shortcut - Weekly Sponsor
kooaba Shortcut is a shortcut between real life and the Internet. Take a picture of what you are reading in a newspaper or magazine and instantly get connected to the digital version.
Using image-recognition technology, Shortcut recognizes what you’re reading. Once recognized, you can share the digital version of the pages via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email, or store them in Evernote. This works with over 1,000 newspapers and magazines worldwide. (See http://www.kooaba.com/products/shortcut for a list of publications.)
Shortcut also works with advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and billboards with the Shortcut icon. After taking a picture of such an ad, you gain access to extras such as coupons, sweepstakes, or store locators.
With Shortcut you no longer need to type links into your phone, google for information, or cut out articles - Just take a picture instead!
Shortcut is available for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7. 
A big thank you to kooaba for sponsoring the feed this week.
How to Approach a Responsive Design
Tito Bottitta gives one of the best overviews I’ve read on building a design responsively. He gives great insight into their team’s entire approach, from step one right to the end. Along with Trent Walton’s candid look at his own process, this piece resonated, identifying a few of the pain points I’ve come across on my own (on a much smaller scale).
Rhythm in Life
I quoted this piece in a recent contribution to the Read & Trust newsletter. In it, Seth Cain shares some great thoughts on work and rest.
League Archive
Launched a personal side project today, a little site for the gents in my football pool. I’ve been running the same league since 1995-ish and it got serious with the rise of the internet. We’ve got ten years of history in our CBS league and ten owners who have been pretty consistent in their involvement.
Building the site was fun and gave me the chance to use Dave Gamache’s Skeleton for the first time, as well as the jQuery Cycle plugin. But it was the trash talk I put in the team bios that brought me the most joy. Any and all feedback would be welcome and appreciated.
Go Pats!
Déjà Vu — Weekly Sponsor
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Features
* Quick shot camera (allows faster picture taking)
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* Easy search (find your visual memos by keywords and tags)
* Map location (locate your visual memos on a map)
* Available on iPhone and Web
Free for up to 30 visual memos/month. Learn more at Kooaba. 
A big thank you to Déjà Vu for sponsoring the feed this week.
Jon Hicks on Creatiplicity
As I mentioned in the intro of the show, Jon was the first real designer I started to follow online, through RSS or Twitter. He got me hooked into the online life and so it was such a pleasure to talk with him one on one.
The Syndicate
Starting this week, my site will be included on The Syndicate, otherwise known as The Web’s Most Influential Blog Sponsorship Network. This network has some of my favourite tech, design, and business writers including Shawn Blanc, Marco Arment, and David Sparks (just to name three — they’re all good). It’s an honour to have my name alongside these talented folks.
In regards to enabling writers to earn an income for their efforts, I really like RSS Sponsorships. They’re more personal. And with The Syndicate, it’s clear that the reader’s interests are given the same kind of consideration we did when launching Fusion Ads. The ads — and the products and services they point to — are relevant and of quality.
If you’re interested in promoting your product, service or company, visit The Syndicate.
xScope 3
I own xScope 2.5, but made the decision to update to xScope 3 immediately. This is an app that is so helpful, it’s one those things I notice is missing when I work on someone else’s Mac. I’m especially excited about the new iOS mirror feature.
The app is on sale for $19.99 for a limited time.
Kuru Toga
Disclosure: The nice folks at Jet Pens sent me some free stuff right before Christmas.
Full Disclosure: I’m already a repeat customer with Jet Pens, so my opinion is not influenced by free swag. I like the products I get at Jet Pens — I shop there because they offer items my local businesses don’t provide and I can get all the brands I enjoy in one place.
Short point of this post: The Kuru Toga is the best mechanical pencil I’ve ever used. I’ve seen others praise this device, but never picked one up as I had plenty of nice pencils already. But I was happy when Brad from Jet Pens sent one over.
There aren’t a lot of activities I enjoy more at work than sketching the basic building blocks of a new design. The Kuru Toga has taken over as my go to sketching tool. Lovely weight and a quality build make it a pleasure to use.
More? Check out the archives.