Nilai will be renamed, redesigned, and be completely open sourced. We’ll offer a fully hosted solution that people can use for both for free and for pay for but anyone that would like to they can download the application and run it themselves. We’re going to build it out in the open, which means that we’ll be publishing our roadmap, our internal discussions, our design mockups (both failures and successes), our business ideas, our marketing materials — anything and everything we can publish as early as we possibly can. In short, we’re going to rebuild Nilai into something new and do it in public.

Interesting. This comes from the folks who make the Barley CMS.

Totally agree with Gruber.

Jim and Dan talk about Canadian blizzards, Jim’s missing 2013 Mac Pro, the LaCie Fuel, Dropbox, DROPOUTJEEP, coding on an iPad, apps that Must Always Be Installed, Jim’s amazing new rig, and more.

Sponsored by Ting, Squarespace, and Freshbooks.

Yeah, I did it. Enjoy.

Some interesting thoughts from Om Malik on the Snapchat drama of late. I don’t know, I think they really screwed up, but maybe I’m in the minority.

The gathering featured some 200 manufacturers displaying an array of gadgets that is quaint by today’s standards, but must have been impressive at the time. As The New York Times described it, the conference’s audio section alone offered products ranging from “phonographic needles to the tiniest radios and TV sets, to giant high fidelity, stereophonic sound systems.”

It’s great looking back. I enjoyed this more than any CES coverage this year.

I love this.

[Via Coudal]

I’m not one of those crazy Batman people, but this cool.

I don’t have these new versions, but I swear by the older models of these products. Apogee makes quality.

Some of this stuff is just great.

Pro Tools updates have been coming fast and furious. I like it.

Gretsch makes some fine instruments.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere has big balls. They should have let him stay.

It’s nice to see someone starting out put so much time into thinking about the right ways to monetize a Web site.

I’m thinking not enough rehearsal time.

Despite running Android, the devices come with a Windows 8-style tile interface called “Magazine UX,” which Samsung says is better optimized for large screens.

There is just no stopping these guys.

Access your iPhone’s data on your computer with iExplorer. Easy to use, fully loaded and well polished—this app is a great tool for anyone upgrading to a new computer or iPhone.

Text messages, playlists, songs, voicemail, voice memos, photos, notes, files and more—iExplorer makes it easy to transfer or backup an iPhone to a Mac or Windows computer. Download the app, connect an iPhone and click transfer. Your files are now on your computer.

Use coupon code LOOPSWAG and receive a free Macroplant branded USB thumb drive with any purchase of iExplorer placed before January 13th. Get the free trial version today.

Speaking of Randy Rhoads, this show is coming up on January 25.

Randy Rhoads is one of the greatest guitar players to ever pick up the instrument. Alex Vollmer shows you how to play the solo from “Crazy Train.”

Happy Birthday Strat. Fender posted a great timeline of the guitar too.

There are a lot of great elements to webOS. I’m really looking forward to seeing what LG can do with it.

My thanks to Focus for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Focus is a beautiful and easy to use pomodoro timer. Built exclusively for iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, Focus is the best way to focus on a single task for a period of time.

What is the Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management philosophy that aims to provide the user with maximum focus and creative freshness, thereby allowing them to complete projects faster with less mental fatigue.

The process is simple. For every project throughout the day, you budget your time into short increments and take breaks periodically. You work for 25 minutes, then take break for five minutes.

Each 25-minute work period is called a “pomodoro”, named after the Italian word for tomato. Francesco Cirillo used a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato as his personal timer, and thus the method’s name.

After four “pomodoros” have passed, (100 minutes of work time with 15 minutes of break time) you then take a 15-20 minute break.

Focus lets you enter and manage your task, work with customizable session length, see you completed tasks and incorporates the latest technologies. It helps you to focus on your tasks and stay productive all the time.

Focus is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with iOS 7 and also for OS X Mavericks.

They say it’s coming January 23, which would be at NAMM.