Posts in Linked

Screencast and GIF iOS apps→

David Chartier details his workflow for iOS screencasts and GIF generation. I have exactly the same setup, especially when it comes to GIFs:

After you open or drag a video into GIF Brewery, you can select a small portion of the timeline to GIF; it’s really pretty simple. You have some control over how colors are squashed for the GIF format (it only handles 256 colors, so you might have to fiddle a bit here) and the GIF frame rate. You also get an overall file size meter and warning if you get close to or over 1MB; a number of of services (like Tumblr) and web hosts seem to not like anything over that, so GIFer beware.

I love GIF Brewery ; I’ve used it for several GIFs here on the site, and I’ve always liked its simplicity (and icon).

In addition to ScreenFlow, I would also suggest ffmpeg2theora, a simple converter for Ogg Theora video files. It’s a command line utility, and I use it every time I want to embed an HTML5 video on MacStories with MP4 and Ogg source files.

Obviously, Reflector is still the must-have for iOS screencasts.

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Context→

The iPhone does not know enough. Proper context will require data in many more dimensions, dimensions which can define the user and his state. Their sheer number will placate strenuous constraints on their size and energy consumption but demand ever more accurate data. It is not difficult to realize that sensors will ride the next wave of innovation in computing. These minuscule and sophisticated apparatus will usher in the age of personal data.

Great post by Amit Jain.

More sensors and new algorithms will make our devices more personal, context-aware, and versatile. Let’s keep in mind that, however, more always-on sensors will require Apple to make significant strides in another area.

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Ecoute 1.2 With URL Scheme→

Nice update to my favorite iPhone music player: automatic download of missing artwork, iTunes 11-like “Play Next” feature, and a URL scheme (linked above).

We first reviewed Ecoute in August 2012; in October, I added:

The thing I like about Ecoute is that it displays Artists using album thumbnails. The Music app does this only for the Albums view, and then again they’re small thumbnails arranged in a list view. Ecoute is more similar to iTunes’ grid view, which I use on my Mac.

I like the new URL scheme, and especially the search action. I use Rdio on a daily basis, but I keep some albums on my iPhone. With Ecoute 1.2, I can use a Launch Center Pro action to look for a specific artist/album name and view search results for matching artists, albums, and songs. Here’s what it looks like.

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“So You Wanna Be A Mac Consultant Now”→

Great advice (again) by Patrick Rhone:

If you are not a very, very, very, patient, friendly, likable and kind people-person you probably should not be in this line of work. I’ve seen tons of consultants who quite obviously would have been happier if they had never shaved their neck beard and ventured out of their mother’s basement. If that is you, please take up some line of business that keeps you in the basement. You have to be a person who honestly likes dealing with people that are clueless when it comes to this stuff. Your thrill has to come from giving these people “lightbulb moments”.

I also like the brief follow-up by Stephen Hackett (a former Genius):

We did a fair amount of consulting, and the most important thing I told people was this: “I don’t know, but I know how to find out.”

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Bungie’s “Pathways into Darkness” Re-Released For Free On The Mac App Store→

In August of 1993, Bungie Software released Pathways into Darkness the most advanced and ground breaking First Person Shooter for the Macintosh.The game broke new ground combining Adventure gameplay with the new First Person Shooter game that was just emerging onto the scene. As time passed, the Macintosh hardware and software changed and the game Pathways into Darkness was no longer playable on a modern computer… Until Now.

Pathways into Darkness was a critical success, and it’s widely regarded as Bungie’s first commercial success as well. As Bungie’s Jason Jones said in an interview in 1995, it was “the game that launched the company”. The same company that would show, four years later, gameplay footage of Halo at Macworld.

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GIF Finder for iOS→

Reports of the GIF’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Not a day goes by that I don’t see a reaction GIF pop up in a Twitter conversation or text from a friend. Here at MacStories, we “rely” on GIFs as our daily source of visual entertainment and subtle feedback in our iMessage group thread.

GIF Finder is a recent addition to my arsenal of GIF discovery tools that is simple but well executed. The app is free and it can search for GIFs on Tumblr; you can search for GIFs matching queries like “excited” or “sports fail” and tap on a thumbnail to view a GIF in full-screen. Tap the share button, and the app brings up a menu with options to Copy URL (which doesn’t work for me), share on iMessage and Twitter, but also open in Google Chrome and Tweetbot. The app is universal for iPhone and iPad.

I wish GIF Finder could search beyond Tumblr: ReplyGIF, Reactions GIFs, and imgur’s reactiongifsarchive albums are essential resources that I’d love to see supported in GIF Finder.

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Status Board Links→

In my review of Panic’s Status Board, I mentioned that I was looking forward to seeing what the user community would come up with. That didn’t take long.

Hilton Lipschitz came up with a way to integrate Google Analytics with Status Board. He also has a version for Top Pages.

Thomas Bensmann created a script to fetch server statistics and display them in a table widget in Status Board.

Dave Verwer of Shiny Development has already updated the popular Average App Store Review Times site to include two feeds for Status Board, though he says a better version is in the works.

Adriano Manocchia posted a PHP script to parse data from AppFigures API 1.1 into JSON files ready for Status Board.

Bob VanderClay built a Nest panel for Status Board, and posted the code on GitHub.

And last, a Mint pepper for Status Board by Maxime Valette. My friend Preshit has the details:

Today, Maxime Valette, the creator of URI.LV has now released a Pepper for Mint that lets you add graphs for hourly, daily, weekly and monthly stats from your Mint installation to Status Board. He was kind enough to let me test it on my site and was quick to squash a few bugs. The installation of the pepper is simple and it even readily gives you clickable panicboard:// links that’ll automatically install the graph in your Status Board app.

I’m glad to see people are already creating cool hacks and widgets for Status Board, and I can’t wait to see more official Sources.

(Note: the URL of this linked post goes to my public statusboard tag on Pinboard, where you can find all the websites also linked above)

Update: Chris Patterson has put together a webpage collecting all Status Board-related links for hacks and scripts. Go bookmark it right now.

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