Simply Minimal

Technology, design, music, photography

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This msut be an amazing movie.

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Issue 14 of Offscreen Magazine is out. As always the content seems very inspiring.

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I almost converted to Medium

Lately I’ve been reading lots of articles about people moving their blogs to Medium. It’s true that it’s getting better and better. You can create your own publications and have your own domain name pointing there. For free. The user interface for wirting new articles is straightforward and the typography is great. Plus, by publishing your posts on Medium they become immediately available to a wider audience. If you’re just starting a blog chances are that your articles will be seen by more people if they’re published on Medium.

That’s why I started thinking about publishing this blog on Medium. I have very few posts and zero visitors so far, so I thought I had nothing to lose. In the worst case scenario the same thing would happen on Medium, but at least I knew someone could more easily discover my writing.

With that in mind I created a Medium publication called “Simply Minimal” and started migrating some posts there. The process is very simple. One of the advantages of Medium is that you don’t have to fiddle with web design, CSS and that kind of things. You just have to concentrate on your writing and everything else is taken care of by Medium. Of course you don’t have a choice of themes to customize your blog, but you do have some degree of customization.

For instance, you can change your publication’s header by choosing a color or an image and there are a couple of different layouts you can play with. You can then choose if you want to have some featured articles or just a list of your lates articles. You can even have some sort of navigation menu with the options being tags for your articles.

After I finished doing all of this I was happy with the result. But then I started to explore other publications and articles on Medium and came to a conclusion: they all look the same. Regardless of the customizations you make, everything looks the same. A title header, a subtitle, some text, some images. And somewhere you can find the writer’s name. By writing on Medium you’re giving up an important part of your identity.

Definitely Medium has it’s place on the web publishing ecosystem. For example, I think it is a great choice for publishing corporate blogs and we’re seeing more and more companies using Medium to publish their blogs. A great example is Basecamp who now hosts their popular blog Signal v. Noise on Medium. But as a platform for publishing your personal writing and building your personal brand, I think it has to many limitations.

Meanwhile I will keep blogging on Tumblr and publish some posts on Medium just to see the results.

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Beuatiful new iPad Pro charging stand from Logitech. More details here.

(via vowe dot net)

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One week with the iPhone SE

It’s been a week since I started using an iPhone SE, coming from an iPhone 6 (both with 64GB). It doesn’t seem like a rational decision, but my wife needed a new iPhone and I had the opportunity to get an iPhone SE from work. So, my wife got my iPhone 6 and I’ve got a shiny new iPhone SE!

After a week using it, here’s my list of pros and cons:

Pros:

The size. It’s ideal to carry with you and operate with one hand.

The speed. It’s noticeably faster than the iPhone 6. Everything is instantaneous.

The battery. It lasts longer than the iPhone 6.

Cons:

The screen. No matter how you put it, going back from a 4.7" to a 4" screen is a step backwards. I really miss the bigger screen.

The keyboard. Well, the keyboard is the same, but due to the size of the screen I type a lot slower on the SE.

I have yet to find time to properly test the camera, but given it’s the same found on the 6S it should be better than the 6’s camera.

All things considered, I probably continue to prefer the iPhone 6, but the SE has an hidden advantage: I use my phone less. And that must be a good thing.

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New Medium branding.

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Este é o vídeo de apresentação da nova versão do Asana, uma ferramenta colaborativa do género do Basecamp.

Eu em tempos já usei o Asana e já estava um bocado cansado do visual muito azul e branco e "chato" da anterior versão. Com esta nova versão o Asana mudou radicalmente o design, apostando numa palete alarga de cores vivas e alegres, que a meu ver transmitem uma certa jovialidade e energia. A mudança foi tão grande que se extendeu ao próprio logo da empresa.

Pessoalmente não estou totalmente convencido com a mudança. O Asana está sem dúvida visualmente mais apelativo, mas não gosto da escolha de algumas cores e da tipografia em determinadas secções da aplicação.

Continua a ser uma ferramente interessante e recomendo quem não a conheça a experimentá-la, sobretudo se o objectivo for gerir projectos nos quais estão envolvidas várias pessoas.

Há mais informações sobre esta mudança no blog da empresa.

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Um documentário sobre a importância do design no actual mundo dos negócios, com a participação de designers da Twitter, Dropbox, Netflix, entre outras grandes empresas da web.

A ver com toda a certeza.

(via Khoi Vinh)

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Jason Fried on Offscreen Magazine

Jason Fried is CEO of Basecamp and one of the web's most influencing personalities. The latest issue of Offscreen Magazine brings an extensive interview with Jason on which, at some point, he says this (emphasis mine):

I've stopped paying attention to the rest of the tech world. It' been about a year since I regularly read any industry news, be it Hacker News or TechCrunch. I no longer follow people on Twitter who opine about our industry. I find it all a great distraction, and I'm measurably happier for turning it out. Trying to keep up with the latest little everything caused me a great deal of anxiety over the years. And it wasn't until I stopped that I realised just how unhealthy it was.

Reading this alone was enough to justify the price of the magazine. First because it's exactly what I think. Being obsessed with the lastest news about technology, design, photography and several other subjects only causes me anxiety. And that anxiety is unhealthy. I've tried several times to reduce my information consumption, but I end up going back to trying to read everything.

On the other hand, it seems notable that the CEO of a technology company can afford to ignore the rest of the industry and still have a prosper company, which is admired by many. I have no doubts that much of the success of Basecamp comes from this ability of Jason to focus on his business and on what is important, without being influenced by what surrounds him.

For several years now I've been trying to read less news and small articles, and read more longform pieces of text that take time to absorb and make me think. We are loosing the ability to concentrate on reading and reflecting about longer forms of text, be it in-depth reports, magazine articles or books, and we only have to blame Facebook, Twitter and all those forms of consuming information in little pieces. I recently read an article about this, which basicaly says that reading news is a waste of time.

I leave you with two interesting links about Jason Fried and Basecamp:

Jason Fried - Jason Fried's articles on Medium.

Signal v. Noise - Basecamp Blog, which has always interesting articles to read.

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Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that’s ok with them.

Alain de Botton

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Of all the iPhone 6s reviews out there, this one from Christina Warren on Mashable is without a doubt the more glamorous. Besides that, the page layout is incredible and the photos are very good.

This is what she has to say about 3D Touch:

3D Touch is something that once you use, you won't be able to stop. Going back to my iPhone 6 after spending time with 3D Touch on the iPhone 6S, I feel lost.

That's exactly what I think is going to happen to me once I try an iPhone 6s.

Other notable reviews:

Apple’s iPhone 6s And 6s Plus Go ‘Tick’ - TechCrunch

The iPhone 6S keeps Apple on top in the smartphone race - The Verge

The iPhones 6S - Daring Fireball

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Why I keep coming back to Tumblr

I've had all sorts of blogs on several platforms, but I keep coming back to Tumblr. Why?

Here are the main reasons:

Tumblr is free

It allows you to use your own domain name without any extra cost

It has several quality free themes

It supports writing posts in Markdown

It has a simple dashboard for composing your posts

It has a huge user base, which allow for a nice interaction

It's getting better all the time

Of course Tumblr isn't for everyone. If you just write long form posts occasionally, maybe Medium suits you better. Or if you want to host your own blog you should look at Wordpress. And if you are a geek, you could use Jekyll or some other static file generator engine.

But if you, like me, just want a place to share stuff you encounter while you browse the internet, if you like to share beautiful photos, if you want to be able to quickly post something, if you don't mind having your blog hosted on a platform you don't control 1, then maybe Tumblr is for you.

Wordpress is too complicated for what I need. I don't have the time to fiddle with it's interface. Static blogs are for geeks and I'm trying to be less of a geek and more of an accomplisher 2. Medium is great, but I like to publish link posts with a brief commentary, and it is not suited for that 3.

So, for now I choose Tumblr.

Given that Tumblr has millions of users and was bought by Yahoo!, I don't think it's going to disappear anytime soon. ↩︎

I'm a little bit tired of losing hours on my computer, trying new software, optimizing things, etc. etc., when instead I could be learning or creating something - writing, reading, learning the piano. So, I'm trying use technology more as tool and less of a time waster. ↩︎

Also, I think Medium is becoming more and more confusing, it's interface is becoming cluttered and it has lost it's "aura" for me. ↩︎

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Focus Backgrounds are defocused wallpapers that help you concentrate. If you use these background pictures, you'll the background will stay out of the way.

Focus Backgrounds is a nice collection of Mac and iOS wallpapers made by Joe Darnell.

After upgrading my iPhone to iOS 9 I decided to try some of the new wallpapers, but I didn't like them. When I tried to go back to my old iOS 8 wallpaper I discovered it was no longer available on iOS 9.

So, on the quest to find a new wallpaper I stumbled across this collection. This is the one I chose for my iPhone:

Go have a look.

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New Apple Store in Brussels. It looks fantastic.

(via Dezeen Magazine)

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Instapaper 7 Today, we’re launching a brand new Instapaper experience tailored specifically for iOS 9. In addition to implementing a lot of great iOS 9 features, we’ve thrown in some core...

When I had my first iPhone I used Instapaper to save articles for reading later (it was one of those apps that was always on the top charts of the App Store at the time). Then at some point, I don't remember exactly why, I started to use Pocket instead of Instapaper and have been a happy user since then.

Today I heard the news that Instapaper released a new version and I decided to try it. I must say I liked it a lot. The user interface, both the web and iOS versions, seems superior to that of Pocket. Maybe because it's cleaner and more minimalist and I appreciate that.

Besides that, the ability to take notes on articles is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. The only thing I miss from Pocket is the ability to tag articles, but Instapaper let's me organize articles by folders, which should in part compensate that.

For now I'll give Instapaper a try to see how it goes.

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The priceless pause that allows great ideas, creation & genuine connection, is disappearing. Our responsibility to save it is greater than ever. Here's one way...

The pause is disappearing. That priceless space that allows us to think big, to reflect, to plan, to create – it’s becoming harder and harder to find. Which means our responsibility to save it is greater than ever.

I remember a time when there was no such thing as smartphones. A time when I went to bed and talked with my wife about our day, our problems, our future. Or read a book in peace, without my mind racing and thinking about all the things I'm missing because I'm not on. Heck, I remember not having kids, no TV in the bedroom and only four TV channels available. And we were still happy. Probably happier 1.

I think no one was ready for this always on society. It happened too fast and we didn't have the time to adapt. And we don't know how to handle this. This constant flow of information, be it messages, notifications, news, posts or any other type of data that flows constantly towards us is excessive and unhealthy.

I really don't kwow what can be done to better deal with this. Maybe the first step should be to recognize that it's not good for us. And then, step by step, take back control of our lives.

PS - Really sad to hear that the author of this post passed away and this was his last post.

Except for the kids part. I love my kids. They are the best thing in my life. ↩︎