Shawn Blanc Reviews Coda 2 and Diet Coda

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Shawn Blanc, at his blog:

To say I’m impressed and pleased with Coda 2 and Diet Coda would be an understatement. My initial impression of Diet Coda is that it is the Tweetie 2 of iPad text-editing apps. As many people have proclaimed, Tweetie 2 was not just one of the best Twitter apps for iPhone, it was also one of the best apps for the iPhone, period. Although Diet Coda is still brand-new, it strikes me being a best-in-class code-editing app as well as a great iPad app, period. Excellent review of two great new software releases by Panic.

Tweetbot 2.3 Released

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Tweetbot is out and contains a ton of new features and improvements. Federico Viticci over at Mac Stories has a fantastic comprehensive review of the new version, but this particular feature caught my attention as I've wanted it for a long time:

Last, some minor touches in version 2.3 will contribute to improving usability and to allowing users customize their timelines to their needs and tastes: retweets from specific users can now be disabled at any time, and it’s possible to quickly open the last saved draft by holding down the tweet compose button. The timeline sync bookmark icon is now an optional setting, and Tweetbot is capable of uploading high-res images when on WiFi. So now those brief acquaintances of mine who I work with or are a friend of a friend who retweet Spa deals or topics I don't care about, I can block without having to go to Twitter.com to toggle that setting.

At 92, A Bandit To Hollywood But a Hero To Soldiers

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Alan Schwarz, at The New York Times:

“Big Hy” — his handle among many loyal customers — would almost certainly be cast as Hollywood Enemy No. 1 but for a few details. He is actually Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife. And he has sent every one of his copied DVDs, almost 4,000 boxes of them to date, free to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Awesome.

Internet, Go To Work: Help My Friend Become The Official Blogger For the United Nations' World Environment Day

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My friend and co-worker, Maggie Comstock is in a competition over at the United Nations Environment Programme, where she currently sits at third place. If she wins first place, she wins a trip to Rio to be the official blogger for World Environment Day, pretty cool The current first and second place contestants sit at around 1800 votes. Maggie is in third place with ~1360 votes. Internet, you know what to do. You can vote on it here and she has a second post as well, which you can also vote on. Live status of the current voting for the competition. Below is a snippet of one of her posts: Maggie Comstock, at the UN Environment Program, writes "The Top Three Reasons Rio+20 Will Change The World:

Though two months away, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development’s Earth Summit, better known as Rio+20, has already been labeled vital, momentous and historic. And while delegates, students and activists have yet to arrive in Brazil, we already know that Rio+20 has the potential to be a “big deal.” It all begs the question, can the people engaging in Rio+20, in-person or remotely, really change the world? My sage and inspiration for answering this question is Margaret Mead who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Simply, Rio+20 is about being part of that thoughtful group committed to "getting it right" for future generations. The outcome and commitments of the Conference will affect us all, from the farmer in Iowa to the IT specialist in India, and whether you attend the conference or not, your voice can and needs to be heard. The first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 wasn’t a quiet affair by any means. An estimated 172 governments (108 heads of state), 2,400 NGO representatives and 17,000 attendees of the parallel Global Forum participated in the original Earth Summit. Additionally, the 1992 conference yielded vital, momentous and historic gains, including Agenda 21 (the action plan supporting sustainable development goals through government engagement at all levels), the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), from which all of our climate negotiations stem. Rio+20 is estimated to eclipse the original Earth Summit in both size and breadth. The actual conference, which will take place June 20-22, will be preceded by over a week of civil society days and pre-conference events. In addition to buy-in from governments, industry and non-governmental organizations, Earth Summit 2.0 is posed to make an even bigger splash than the original.

Space Shuttle Discovery, Washington DC Flyover - The Photos

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The Space Shuttle Discovery took its final flight this morning from Florida to Washington, DC on the back of one of NASA's 747 carrier planes used to carry the space shuttle's around the country. I went down to the National Mall this morning and stood in front of the Washington Monument to photograph its many fly-overs it took before making its final landing at Dulles International Airport where it will be put on display in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, at the Udvar-Hazy Center. Below are what I think are some of my best shots I got with my 28-300mm lens (which on my crop sensor camera, turns into a 480mm zoom).
Approaching over the Lincoln Memorial.


Nice side shot with the NASA T-38 in frame.

Another good side shot.

Flying almost directly overhead.

Washington Monument flags in the foreground.

Coming out from behind the Washington Monument.

With the White House in the foreground.

Another pass with the White House in view.

Another good side shot from close underneath during its last pass.
And while I did not take this picture, I could not resist posting this awesome shot that was posted on the NASA HQ Flickr account:
Also, here is a video from my friend Ted Severson shot from the steps of the U.S. Capital building this morning:

Finally, here is a slideshow of the entire 284 photos I took and posted on Flickr:

Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out

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Paul Ford, at New York Magazine:

Facebook, a company with a potential market cap worth five or six moon landings, is spending one of its many billions of dollars to buy Instagram, a tiny company dedicated to helping Thai beauty queens share photos of their fingernails. Many people have critical opinions on this subject, ranging from “this will ruin Instagram” to “$1 billion is too much.” And for many Instagram users it’s discomfiting to see a giant company they distrust purchase a tiny company they adore — like if Coldplay acquired Dirty Projectors, or a Gang of Four reunion was sponsored by Foxconn. Paul's take on this is excellent.

Jobs’s Biographer to Page: What Part of “I’m Going to Destroy Android” Didn’t You Understand?

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John Paczkowski, at AllThingsD:

During a lecture Wednesday evening at the U.K.’s Royal Institution, Isaacson took issue with Page’s remarks, stressing that Jobs was hardly kidding around when he threatened to destroy Android, which he lambasted as a stolen product. “[Apple's iOS] is almost copied verbatim by Android,” Isaacson said as reported by Macworld UK. “And then they licence it around promiscuously. And then Android starts surpassing Apple in market share, and this totally infuriated [Steve]. It wasn’t a matter of money. He said: ‘You can’t pay me off, I’m here to destroy you.’” The actual quote, verbatim, from Jobs to Isaacson was this: “Our lawsuit is saying, ‘Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.’ Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google’s products — Android, Google Docs — are shit.” John Packzowski sums up: That’s a rant uttered for show? A little anecdote to give Apple employees an “obvious competitor … to rally around”? Hardly. If you want to talk about things that are for show, Larry, here’s a good one: Don’t be evil.