I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Month: February 2014

And another app offers further automation possibilities … Phraseology

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

And now another app promises integration and connectivity with the growing array of URL scheme enabled apps that I own but as yet can’t work out what to do with. This one, Phraseology is a writing app for the iPad. It looks very useful, and is from the same developer who makes Drafts, Drafts for iPad and Terminology. So in theory it should tick all the boxes, and as such I’ll probably give it a try.

But it does make me wonder where all this automation capacity is going to take me, and when? So far I’ve managed to get a few things working, but nothing ground breaking, nothing that really changes my workflow and delivers enough automation against what I’m looking for. Of course, I could just be being over ambitious, that’s a distinct possibility. So for now I’ll keep at it, and perhaps try some simpler things to start off with.

Destination Nerva

Posted by on in Books and Audiobooks

I first listened to this story in January 2012. It is the first story that Tom Baker did for Big Finish productions, so it’s kind of a milestone, and not only that, it’s actually a lovely story too. It picks up directly after The Talons of Weng Chiang, which is arguably one of the best Doctor Who stories ever, so an excellent place to start in my opinion.

The story is set on the Nerva dock, which is of course the same as the Nerva Beacon, a location that crops up many times in Doctor Who. The cast is excellent, the action and the story are a joy. It’s a great way to have started his audio stories on Big Finish, and it’s lovely to listen to them again whilst I wait for the season 3 episodes to arrive every month. I think I may have to run through the whole season now that I’ve started.

A new app in the automation collection … Unread

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

I found a new app that I’m hoping will really help with some of my aspirations for automating things in iOS. It’s called Unread.

Here’s the app’s description (which I’ve edited down a bit):

Rediscover the joy of reading your favorite writers with Unread, an RSS reader for iPhone.

Unread will surprise and delight you in many ways, but that’s not important. What is important is that Unread will help you find a little peace each day through quiet, careful reading.

FULL-SCREEN READING

Focus on the act of reading with Unread’s full-screen article view. Articles are typeset in beautiful fonts from Hoefler & Co. Let nothing stand between you and the words of your favorite writers except a thin sheet of glass.

DESIGNED FOR COMFORT
Move anywhere in the app with a sweep of your thumb, all without having to reposition your hand. Unread’s stacked navigation was built from scratch to be the most comfortable interface you’ve ever used. Flick left-to-right to go back from anywhere on the screen, just like dealing a deck of cards. Tug any screen right-to-left to show options for that screen — just like pull-to-refresh, but sideways.

MULTIPLE THEMES
Like to read in bed? Don’t wake up your partner with glaring white light. Unread has multiple themes designed to make it easy to read under daytime or nightime lighting conditions. There are several fun hidden themes, too.

SHARE THE GOOD STUFF
You shouldn’t have to struggle to send articles to the places you like best. Apps should do that hard work for you. Share your favorite articles via the rich options built with OvershareKit, an open-source sharing library for iOS. OvershareKit was born inside of Unread, and is being discovered by more apps all the time.

SO MUCH TO LOVE ABOUT UNREAD

  • BACKGROUND REFRESH • Unread keeps your subscriptions up to date with power-efficient background updating. Articles and images are saved to your device for convenient offline reading.
  • SHARING • Send articles to Instapaper, Pocket, Readability, Pinboard, or your Reading List. Share articles and images via App.net or Twitter with as-you-type syntax highlighting, swipe gesture shortcuts for the cursor, and automatic smart quotes. Send a snippet of highlighted text to Omnifocus or Things for a quick reminder. Even more options are on the way.
  • QUICK ACCESS • Double tap an article summary to instantly toggle read/unread status. Press and hold to show a menu of options. This is great for quick sharing or for jumping straight to the web to view the original article.
  • LINKED-LISTS • If an article is a linked-list article, like those written by John Gruber at Daring Fireball, the article summary shows the domain name of the linked item’s site. Many times the domain is a punchline all by itself.
  • BIG THUMBNAILS • Turn on the optional inline thumbnails to see big previews of article images while you scroll.
  • FOOTNOTE POPOVERS • Articles with properly-formatted footnotes will show convenient popovers when you need to read a footnote.
  • PERSISTENT WEB BROWSER • Instead of a transient browser that disappears as soon as it goes offscreen, Unread’s web browser stays around. It remembers your back/forward history and retains the current page. Now you can finally switch back to finish an article without losing your place on an interesting site. You will wonder why every app doesn’t work this way.
  • VOICE OVER & ACCESSIBILITY • Unread has 100-percent VoiceOver coverage. Every screen and every feature is available to users with vision impairments. Font sizes are adjustable, too, from Tiny to EPIC and many points between.

What the description doesn’t really go into enough is that it is integrated with Drafts and is, as far as I can see, a reasonable step in the right direction in automation terms. So I’m going to try this out and see if it takes me in the right direction. We’ll see.