Jack Baty - the archives

Years of jackbaty.com - archived

Leica Lust

Just when I think I’m over my Leica fetish, there’s this.

Asked how he thought of the Leica, Cartier-Bresson said that it felt like “a big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch.” At this point, five thousand dollars begins to look like a bargain.

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I want an M8. I can’t have one, but dammit I want one.

PaulStamatiou: Why Private Messages Suck

Yay Paul!

System-dependent private messages blow in any context where the other users (aka “friends”) know who I am anyway. Hear that Facebook?

Please don’t use whatever social networking device is popular this week.

Do NOT send me an email with a link to your system so I can log in and read what you could have easily included in the original message.

Nielsen Is Mostly Right About Tabs

Jakob Nielsen has been back in the game lately with relevant, useful articles in his Alertbox column. And most of the time he’s right. His latest is Tabs, Used Right.

In the post, he lists a bunch of usability guidelines for tabs. The first one, however, I no longer agree with…

It uses tabs to alternate between views within the same context (not to navigate to different areas – a common mistake introduced by Amazon.com).

I don’t buy that as a requirement any more. Context is a matter of, well, context. Because of sites like Amazon “breaking” things, we no longer differentiate between “area” and “view.” My guess is that we’ve become so accustomed to Tabs As Navigation that I don’t see it ever going back to the way it was, and according to Jakob, should be.

Too Simple

There’s this new app, Jottit, which let’s you create a simple web page with notes. We’ve got at least, oh, 43 of these already so how’s this one different? Well, it’s just so dang simple! Check it out…

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In fact, it seems to be little more than an exercise in UI and feature reduction. It’s like 37Signals dialed their mantra all the way up. Jottit is admittedly a nice app, but we don’t need any more online note-taking apps. Do we?

When does the Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work become, well, too simple?

T.M. Finishes

T.M. has finished his novel. I have trouble finding the energy to read a book, so I can’t even begin to fathom the persistence and dedication that it must take to write one.

Congratulations Mr. Camp!

Work Hard, but Be Smart About It.

In my 30s I did almost nothing but work. I loved it. For a long time I didn’t have a laptop or a computer at home so I carried my desktop home every night. Fusionary was new and wonderful and nothing else mattered. Okay, Fusionary is still new and wonderful, but you know what I mean.

During that whole period I was also a single parent. New parents are quick to realize that raising kids is more than just a full-time job - it’s a 24/7 commitment. And that’s with both parents contributing. I spent a number of years under the misconception that you can postpone the hardcore parenting part while you Prepare For Your Child’s Future(tm) or Take Care of Business(tm).

That is a fallacy, don’t fall for it.

My daughter is nearing 19 years old and she’s wonderful, but hindsight helps reveal where I made mistakes. Most of them were errors of omission. They were always about me choosing the wrong thing at the wrong time. This doesn’t mean you can’t have both. It means you have to carefully balance things. When you’re “very busy” and “don’t have time” it’s difficult to make good decisions. Trust me. I still love what I do, but I hope I’m learning some perspective as well.

So what to do? Hell, I don’t know. I do have a few random thoughts of course, so here’s some advice. Some of which even I try to follow.

  • Your career is not more important than your family. Not ever.

  • Working more hours does not mean you’re more productive. You just haven’t figured this out yet.

  • When you’re “off” work, be OFF WORK. Don’t be planning tomorrow’s meeting or wishing you were reading RSS feeds. That’s for when you’re back at work.

  • When you’re working, get shit done! The usual: Work smart, not hard, Important before Urgent, 30,000 feet, all that crap. You know the right things, so do them.

  • If you say that you don’t have time, you’re already not doing it right.

Do with this what you will, but whatever you do, figure out what’s important now because you can’t do it later.

Jessica just got here. I’m going to and go talk with her for a while.

Reborn Apple Extended Keyboard

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I’ve got one of Apple’s fancy new flat keyboards and it’s much better than the mushy old “crumb-catcher.” It may be for sale soon, as I just discovered the Mataias Tactile Pro. It uses the same mechanical keyswitch as everyone’s favorite, the Apple Extended Keyboard. I miss the solid, clicky-click of that old keyboard. I wonder.

Let’s Pull Facebook Apps Until They’re Useful

I still think Facebook is Important(tm), but good lord can we just get rid of 99% of the “Apps” until someone figures out something useful? Zombies, drinking games, super-poking? I’ll wait, wake me when it’s ready.

Bloggin’ With the iPhone

just dropped the new Movable Type iPhone plugin into this here blog and instantly got a sweet UI for managing the site right from my phone. Using it right now as a matter of fact. Neat

What Is It With These People and Pricing?

In iCame, iSaw, iCaved David Carr of the NYT seems to think there’s a problem with the consistent pricing model of iTunes and suggests that variable pricing would be fine…

The Web, after all, can easily enable infinitely customized pricing. eBay proved that people will not only track prices closely, but act in their own consuming self-interest.

eBay!? Let’s see a show of hands, who likes eBay? That’s what I thought.

He also bitches that his 80GB iPod is now somehow obsolete. People need to stop demanding new products then complaining when they show up.