Ian Robinson:

I was thinking recently that it would be useful to have a month to focus on doing an app from start to finish. I’ve dabbled with development for ages, without knuckling down and getting something done. I’ve decided to do it in December. Take 31 days and use my spare time to do an iPhone app that I want for myself. I floated the idea on Twitter and a few people seemed interested in doing something themselves. Of course I’m doing an iPhone app, but there is no reason that any other sort of app couldn’t be done. A Macintosh app, a Windows Phone 7 app, an Android app, a web app, or an app for whatever platform you like.

Great idea.

Marcelo Somers:

Occupy Wall Street (and all the associated movements) completely defies what is amazing about today. I hate it because it’s sending young people every wrong message. Instead of inspiring the youth of today to create amazing things that add value to the world, it’s inspiring them to complain.Get out of the park and rethink the finance industry. Instead of protesting their ways, build something so great that society has to listen to what you’re doing, and take them down.

The world’s most comprehensive mapping of Apple products, this print shows every computer released by Apple in the last thirty years, from the original Mac through the MacBook Air. Products are sorted according to type, including the connections between various form factors which have arisen as Apple has invented–and reinvented–insanely great products.

It’s an 18-inch x 24-inch poster and there are only 500 available.

You really have to see this to appreciate it. Ellen tells an entire story of what made her happy using only photos. You can see and feel why each particular image made her feel the way she did.

Much more dramatic than writing 1,000 words explaining your week.

Andy Baio:

Nonetheless, I found his other blog in under a minute — a thoughtful site about technology and local politics, detailing his full name, employer, photo, and family information. He worked for the local government, and if exposed, his anonymous blog could have cost him his job.

Kind of amusing.

[Via Streakmachine]

Jason Snell at Macworld:

So you’ve bought iTunes Match, which gives you access to shiny new 256kbps AAC versions of your audio files. But by default your iTunes library is still packed with your old files. So how best to upgrade all of those old files, in place, to the new versions?

I tried this on a few songs last night and it worked flawlessly.

Peter Ha at The Daily:

Like most convergence devices before it, the Kindle Fire doesn’t do anything exceptionally well (except for buying things via Amazon) but the price is right at $200. Buyer beware. Perhaps the rumors of this model being a stopgap before the real Amazon tablet is released next year are true.

Ouch.

Brian Caulfield for Forbes:

Record sales to businesses helped Dell post stronger than expected third quarter earnings, even as the Round Rock, Texas-based company fell short of sales expectations Tuesday.

It’s cute that Dell’s still around.

Nancy Gohring:

Stanton, chairman of venture capital firm Trilogy Partners, said he spent a fair amount of time with Jobs between 2005 and 2007. “He wanted to replace carriers,” Stanton said of Jobs, the Apple founder and CEO who died Oct. 5 after a battle with cancer. “He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision.”

Gibson.com:

A member of the British Parliament is moving to make guitar god Jimmy Page a knight, according to the NME. Conservative MP Louise Mensch is suggesting knighthood for the Led Zeppelin guitarist, announcing the news on her Twitter page: “I’ve proposed Jimmy Page. Waiting to see if that finds favour with Honours Directorate. I hope so.”

One of the greatest ever.

Shawn Blanc does a great review:

It is clear to me that the UP is not a workout tracker as much as it is a low-level activity monitor. Or, put another way, I’d say the UP is an easy-to-use tool to help you become more aware of your own activity.

The UP would die on my wrist.

Christian Zibreg for 9to5Mac:

Dag Kittlaus, a 44-year-old from Norway, is living an American dream with his wife and three kids in a nice Chicago suburb. His life took a turn for the better following a special phone call from Apple last year. Norwegian publication E24!, which profiled the entrepreneur in a lengthy article, explains that Steve Jobs himself bothered to give Kittlaus a buzz.

That must have been an amazing phone call.

Scorecerer 5.6 for iPad works seamlessly with any DAW, including Cubase, ProTools, Logic and MOTU Digital Performer. For solo musicians using a DAW sequencer to play backing tracks, for example, it’s easy to insert a program change into the Scorecerer track that will trigger the correct page to be displayed automatically at exactly the right moment so there’s no need to tap the screen or fumble with a foot switch.

Amazing. The apps for musicians on iOS devices just keep getting better.

Florian Mueller:

I’m starting to see a pattern. For any intellectual property issues facing Linux (or at least the most popular Linux derivative, Android), Linus Torvalds has a standard answer at hand: after admitting that he doesn’t know the facts, he claims that “this [whatever it may be] seems completely bogus.” Or, interchangeably, “totally bogus”.

Great article from Florian.

Tabletop is the first musical environment designed from the ground up exclusively for the iPad. The heart of Tabletop is a modular environment where you can mix and match different devices. Each device has its own uses, characteristics, personality — ranging from classics like drum pad samplers to touchscreen effects. Buy only the gear you need from an expanding catalog and share your creations quickly and easily on SoundCloud

I am really enjoying watching SoundCloud expand. They’re in Pro Tools 10 and countless other apps. It’s all about integration and they get that.

Now that’s handy.

Daniel Eran Dilger:

Research by Morgan Stanley involving NPD figures reported by analyst Katy Huberty indicate Apple’s thin new MacBook Air models lacking an optical drive now account for more than a quarter of the company’s notebooks.

I just love my MacBook Air. It’s powerful and so light, it feels more like you’re carrying a magazine than a computer.

Corey Tamas at Macgasm:

The sheister in question approached his mark in Dark Lane, Bentley and offered to sell him an iPad. Once agreeing on a price, they went off to a cash machine together and completed the transaction. After leaving the scene, the buyer discovered he had been sold a bag of potatoes (because why would you ever buy an iPad off a guy on the street and check what’s in the bag before parting ways?).

People, people, people.

For the first time in the entire history of Unicode standard, the full encoding range for dingbats (U + 2700 – U + 27BF) is now covered by a complete, contemporary quality font. Erler Dingbats is a spin-off of the distinguished FF Dingbats 2.0 family, and was designed as a special collaboration between designers Johannes Erler and Henning Skibbe.

Macworld’s Jason Snell has more details on how you can identify your music in iTunes using iCloud status icons. Worth a read for everyone using iTunes Match.

Apple has an explanation for all of those icons you see in your iTunes library after activating iTunes Match.

Andrew Richardson on how he thinks Apple’s new EasyPay feature may work:

Combine the authorized-by-EasyPay transaction record, the customer’s location within the store as reported by the app, and an RFID tag inside the product box. An automated system can determine which products may pass through the security portal without sounding an alarm and which cannot. The key is the customer’s phone.Hand the paid-for product to your buddy and hear the alarm sound as he walks out the door without your iPhone in hand.

I have no idea how it works and how they stop people from stealing.

GamePro:

HealthCanal reports that a new study of nearly 500 12 year olds found noticeably increased creativity among those who played video games, while use of cellphones, the Internet and computers (for non-gaming purposes) were unrelated to that particular branch of the imagination.

The gauge for creativity is the Torrance Test, a broadly accepted academic gauge used to measure creative thinking.

Pixelmator — beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X.