Evernote for creative filing

It’s no secret that I love Evernote. Here’s a new use I’ve found for it. If you’re a designer or involved in the visual brainstorm process you will likely find this useful.

The problem I’ve faced is that though I’m good at looking at a lot of inspiration over the course of a month I struggle with a way to catalog the things that inspire me. I regularly use Bloglines to read material. It provides a way to “keep post as new” or clip an article but I rarely make it back to those files, and it’s cumbersome to browse them.

I also find myself on different computers when I have the free time to browse. I use a desktop to edit on at work (where I rarely have spare time), I carry a laptop, I use my home computer on occasion, and I use my iPhone for blog reading about 50% of the time. I needed a system for filing and amassing digital images (primarily JPEGs) from all of these sources. The images also need to be viewable from anywhere.

Enter Evernote.

I created a notebook called “Ideas.” About every week or two I create a new post within that note called “Inspire #,” incrementally increasing that number just to keep track of things.

With the Evernote Desktop client I can literally drag a JPEG directly from the web browser directly into that Inspire note. Drag. Drop. Evernote automatically syncs everything.

[photopress:ev02.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:ev01.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

A few alternative variations are required to make this solution fully ubiquitous. First, on the iPhone there isn’t a drag and drop.

1. Click and hold your finger on an image for about 2 seconds, you’ll be asked to Save the image.
2. Launch Evernote. You from the title screen choose Saved Photo Note.
[photopress:iphone_2_1.png,thumb,pp_image]
3. Save it to your “Ideas” notebook.
4. When back in the Evernote desktop application select your Inspire note and the newly uploaded image note. Do this by selecting the first note and either Command-clicking (Mac)or Control-clicking (PC) the image. Right click either of the selected notes and choose the last option, “Merge Notes.”

If you are on a computer that does not have the Evernote desktop application on it (like my poor OS X 10.4 machine at the house) just save the image to your desktop. Then using the online version of Evernote attach the images to the Inspire note.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about another use for this image archiving technique.

Quick and Dirty camera car mount

I really like this… a home made car camera mount. I will be trying the next time I drive through a city with actual traffic. (view it in action here)

Apple App Wall

At the WWDC this year you can see this, Apple’s app wall. It shows in near real time (supposedly) movement at the purchase of an app from the iTunes app store. Pretty dang cool.

[photopress:ap3.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

moog modular sequencing

Nice, a little old school moog modular sequencing. This gets me really stoked about the upcoming Moogfest.

A few links

These are assorted and not intentionally related, but here are some thing I think you should know about. First, this is the reason engineers shouldn’t get tattoos. And for all intents and purposes this is the reason I should get a tattoo, either. You just don’t know what would happen.

[photopress:3equations.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Secondly, I’m fascinated about these tiny computers. They price in at around $99 right now, but are expected to drop to the $40 price point fairly soon. (via Lifehacker). This about the possibilities afforded you with a tiny, inexpensive computer. I’d like to see them Wifi enabled to keep the cords down to just power, but then the sky’s the limit. They could control cameras, your garage door, your oven / fridge / microwave. And imagine what else?

Percussa Audiocubes

Before you start up, I’ve already told myself “no.” But aren’t these great? Music cubes, capable of controlling a variety of MIDI or sound parameters. They interact with you or each other. Here is a Youtube video showing the technical side of how they work. And this video demonstrates them in action.

I am really fascinated about this trend of controlling / creating music with unique interfaces. It’s really a dream come true for someone with my background, and engineer who also used to play guitar but now loves electronic music.

[photopress:percussa_audiocubes.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:audio_cubes_richard_devine.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Birdhouse App

A few weeks back I decided to drop a whole $3.99 on Birdhouse, an iPhone app that serves a somewhat of a notepad / queuing area for Twitter. It works alongside your favorite twitter application (Tweetie, for me) as a place to jot down your thoughts for future twitter updates. Their marketing write up says that if you are a person who likes to marinate over what to say as opposed to just putting it out there, this is the app for you. As I’m rounding 4,400+ twitter updates (the lions share generating from my iPhone as opposed to a desktop computer) I decided this app may be for me.

It’s difficult to judge the effectiveness of such an application with an unbiased assessment, but I will say I really like it. They suggest if you drop a twitter update at the right now (ie., not 2:00am Wednesday, but rather 9:45am Monday) and take the time to properly tweak and compose it, it may be of more value. I tested that theory on a recent tweet. I wrote (and tweaked over the course of a few weeks) this:
If my mac could do no wrong it would be infatuation. Because I see an occasional flaw I know it’s love.

Within the next hour or so I found that tweet replicated (ie., retweeted) several times.
Here, Here, Here, Here
Here, Here, Here (technically, this is a response… but it still counts).

I surmise that tweet got a reaction, whether by its timing, its composition, or the fact that it was marinated for a week or so before released to the public. Regardless, if you frequently release thoughts at the wrong time (or… feel you need to delay a potentially harsh reaction) I would recommend trying out Birdhouse.

[photopress:full_1.png,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:full_3.png,thumb,pp_image]

Automator Actions – Sync Folders

How do you preserve your digital data? Are you prepared to lose a hard drive and everything on it.

At the Wilson house data integrity is a high priority. All of our family photos are digital, our music is digital, our videos (thanks to the Flip Mino) is digital. To lose a simple hard drive would be catastrophic with regards to our media.

The easiest was to protect your assets is redundancy. At our house, I have a Buffalo NAS* on my network and all crucial files are directed there via a plethora of means (manually, or automatically via Windows backup utilities). Since moving to the Mac, I’ve been seeking a way to automate the task of replicating this drive onto another external hard drive.

With this automator action I use the Mac Mini desktop to grab all of the crucial NAS files and move them to another external hard drive. It keeps the two drives in sync, creating a perfect backup. Two is better than one.

If your content is all digital (and I would guess most of you operate that way), the question is not “if it will crash,” but rather “when it will crash.” You really should consider a system for preserving your precious data. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but a little organization and preparation goes a long way toward insuring you won’t lose your data.

Download Sync Folders Action.

* Network Attached Storage

TiltShift Generator

I came across the TiltShift Generator the other day and though it appropriate to pass along to you. It’s an Adobe AIR application and can either be used directly from the site or downloaded as a standalone app running from your local machine (for when you want to TiltShift-simulate-and-go). The results vary, but here’s a little demo from my Twitpic backlog.

Before.
[photopress:7280401_9a6b30d509f452cdcc48475d41cfd5d9.4a0cd34b_scaled.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

After.
[photopress:tiltshift.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Now isn’t that fun?

iPhone camera performance boost

I love the iPhone camera. Sure, it’s not a powerhouse lens. But is always with me, in syncs well, lets me push images to Twitter, the avclub (via the WordPress app), and seems to take decent pictures for a phone cam. One problem exists, however.

I take lots of pictures.

And lots of pictures really clog up your iPhone. They consume precious drive space, and I’ve discovered they really slow down the response time of your camera.

In the end, I don’t really need to carry many photos with me. I love to show someone “hey, look at what I saw just the other day.” But that really only goes back a month or so. I did some digging and tweaked a system that’s really working for me.

I’ve set up iPhoto (on the Mac, sorry Windows users) to clean may camera roll off on every sync. Then I set it to grab the last 2 months worth of iPhone photos and put them back on the phone. I end up with the best of both worlds. I have a my “recent past” backlog, I’m not consuming nearly as much memory (prior to this I peaked at around 1,200 photos… geez), and the camera really responds quicker. Here’s how to do it.

(1) Sync your iPhone to iPhoto.

(2) This article explains how to purge your iPhone’s camera roll.

(3) Create a Smart album by opt-clicking the new album button (pictured).
[photopress:opt_click.png,thumb,pp_image]

(4) Enter the following criteria for your Smart Album (pictured).
- match “all”
- Camera Model, is, Apple iPhone
- Date, is in the last, 2, months
[photopress:iphone_smart_album.png,thumb,pp_image]

(5) in iTunes, set your iPhone to sync the newly created iPhone playlist (pictured). You’ll notice I also have an album of iPhone wallpapers for quick reference.
[photopress:it.png,thumb,pp_image]

(6) Sync your iPhone again. You’ll see your camera roll now empty, and the last 2 months of photos moved to the new smart album.

(7) Sync your iPhone through iPhoto again to pull of photos. Be sure to select the option to delete all photos after import (they’ll be moved back on to the phone via the smart album).

Tweetie for Mac

Tweetie for Mac. It’s here.

Tweet A Sound

So, have you been thinking “hey, shouldn’t someone create a mash-up of twitter and sound synthesis?” Well, now somebody at Tweet A Sound has done just that.

[photopress:picture_2_300x245.png,thumb,pp_image]

Teenage Engineering, OP-1

Technosynthesis lust… I’m liking where they’re going with the Teenage Engineering OP-1.

[photopress:op1.png,thumb,pp_image]

Blindoldfreak – Alessandro Cortini (and the Buchla 200e)

Enjoy a lovely photoset of Alessandro Cortini (responsible for much of NIN’s synth sounds on Ghosts). That beast he’s playing is a Buchla 200e modular synth. If that sort of thing interests you, here’s a wiki article with more history that anyone really needs to know.

If you’re in the market for a modular, extremely expensive device, you can buy them here. From what I can tell you’re looking at between $10k and $30k depending on your configuration.

Doesn’t look like a hobbist toy. Still, it’s pretty inspiring. This video shows it in action. Also, I highly recommend this demo video, too.

[photopress:3265580120_72960d6812_m.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

avclub is back

Sorry for the brief downtime, folks. On a whim I decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.7.1 and didn’t think to deactivate my plugins first. (they’re serious about that step).

DIY Lemur / monome

You need just a few pieces, but this video demonstrated how to make your own monome / lemur emulator with a Wii controller and an LED light.

what is monome?

For those who do not “get” my obsession with monome this may help explain things.

Welcome to Monome from sam_square on Vimeo.

Evernote 2.0

Evernote updates to version 2.0 for the iPhone and includes many new improvements. It’s still free. It’s still a must-have for iPhone users.

Gmail, Happy Birthday

Today marks the 5th anniversary of Gmail. I can remember getting my first account back in April of 2004. I was at an After Effects training class in Tucker, GA. I was uploading some of the notes from our lessons into my blogger account (yes, pre WordPress days) and saw a little icon saying something like “hey there, beloved blogger user, like to try gmail?” When I signed up I received 1-2 invites to give away. My wife got one, and I believe Jared Barden, of our NewSpring IT guys, got the other.

I then wrote this very insightful blog post about my new gmail address.

Five years later I’ve moved every single iota of web email and communication into Google’s hands. My old hotmail account probably still exists out there, untouched, collecting SPAM.

Read more of Gmail’s history in this Wired.com article.

Monome meets Thingamakit

And yet another interesting monome + other weird electronic gadget video called Monome meets Thingamakit. What I really appreciate is that this type of experimentation really is endless in possibilities. It’s not confined by the established rules of some other existing musical genre (nothing wrong with that, I love a good folk ballad as much as the next guy), but it just brings me joy to see something make sound from something that just wasn’t designed to do that.

It starts to get interesting around the 3:25 mark, just to save you a few minutes.

Bleepnome from barnone on Vimeo.