High of 70: The weather is fine!

Unnecessary Knowledge. Neat-o.

I can’t wait to see these fellas on August 1.

I just read Walt Mossberg’s review of MobileMe (via Daring Fireball) and it’s prompted this little rant. Mossberg and Gruber’s complaints are different than mine, but taken together I think they paint a picture of a half-baked and only marginally useful service.

I’ve been looking for a way to sync my calendar, contacts, and bookmarks between work and home forever. I thought MobileMe was the ticket, but goddamn it, it’s just not.

I was using SpanningSync, and I was generally happy with it. I set it up like so: My Entourage calendar at work syncs with iCal at work, which syncs (via SpanningSync) with Google Calendar, which is syncs (via SpanningSync, again) with iCal at home. Against all odds it worked. And SpanningSync 2 (currently in public beta, though I haven’t tested it) promises to include Address Book syncing. Huzzah! (Because the iTunes Address Book sync function fucking sucks.)

That leaves bookmarks out in the cold though, which is a pain in my ass. How is it possible that there is no 3rd party application that syncs Safari bookmarks? I use bookmarks heavily, adding technical articles I want to reference on a daily basis, so it’s tough to keep up with by either emailing links or sending bookmark files to-and-fro. I can’t be the only person who needs this.

So anyway, Mobile me looked like a winner, as long as I could justify the $100/yr. cost. I started thinking about what it would allow me to stop paying for:

GoDaddy WebDAV storage: $10/yr. iDisk meets this need. Score one for MobileMe.

Flickr: I hoped to be able to replace Flickr ($30/yr. for a Pro account) with MobileMe too, but no way. Look, MobileMe’s photo galleries are gorgeous, but there’s none of the joy of discovery you get from Flickr. I want to post to Flickr because I enjoy spending time browsing around after organizing my own photos. The community is fun. MobileMe’s Gallery? Pretty, but flat. It’s no contest.

SpanningSync: $25/yr. MobileMe meets this need.

So, I could save, potentially, $35. Is bookmark syncing worth $65/year? Probably not, but even if it were there’s another problem. Email.

I’ve been using Google Mail for 3 years or so. I like the interface and I like the organizational concept, which is basically “here’s your new mail, and here’s all the other shit you’ve ever received, and it’s highly searchable.” I want to continue using my gmail address as my primary address, and although I could forward it to my @me account I would lose the convenience of having my contacts, calendar, and email all in one place. I seems ridiculous to check my mail in one place and my calendar in another.

I think in MobileMe filled one more need I might pay for it. I haven’t had the technical problems that others have (I also haven’t been notified of a subscription extension either, oddly enough.) The interface is thoughtful and efficient. But the features are just not there.

So, it’s probably back to SpanningSync for me, and if anyone knows of a bookmark syncing app, I’ve got $64.99 burning a hole in my pocket.

Can’t wait for these to come out, assuming the sound quality is improved sufficiently.

Just saw the Dark Knight.

It was better than Batman Begins, but still meandering. The movie felt about 30 minutes too long, and I really just don’t buy the various plot twists and turns.

Visually, it was quite nice though, and I loved seeing Chicago in it. It reminded me how beautiful that city is.

The batsuit sucked. Much too much rubber and fake articulation. But the batcycle was a great addition. More thrilling than the tumbler/batmobile I would argue, and more believable (to a point).

Lastly, Christian Bale makes a much better Bruce Wayne than Batman. The Batman voice is waaaay over the top. He nails Bruce Wayne here though.

Shannon and I just returned from Palm Springs, where we spent the weekend with some friends. I would like to write a long post about the city of Palm Springs in the near future, but for now I just have to say that every time I go there I come back feeling like there really is something different about it. It’s freakishly quiet.

I’m having a lot of trouble getting this blog off the ground. Much of the problem is that I don’t like writing. I overthink, second-guess, and go in circles. If I write something there’s a good chance that when I go back and look at it later I’ll literally cringe at what I put down.

I’m the same way with design. I’ve designed and redesigned this page three or four times now. I’ve added content and removed it again. I even decided to ask some friends to contribute, but now I don’t think that’s the way to go.

After checking out Big Contrarian this weekend (via Daring Fireball) I’ve decided to take a big step back to basics.

Big Contrarian has a couple things going for it (besides good writing): a clear focus and a design that plays to the strengths of its medium. Both of those are hard to find on the web. The technologies offered by the internet change and accumulate so quickly that it’s hard not to be overwhelmed. Why not throw in a buch of extra shit? It’s all free!

But all of that free shit is noise, and I hate noise. We’re going minimalist, baby!

Welcome, reader. May I offer you a wine cooler?

My name is Matt. This is my blog. I decided to start a personal blog at the excellent SEED 3 conference in Chicago last month. It can be a good marketing tool, indirectly at least, and SEED was about nothing if not self-promotion. While I’m not exactly dying to write on a regular basis, I figure I should try to remember how to string words together. It’s easy to get out of practice, after all.

So what’s this blog about? I’ll be writing about music, art, design, technology, maybe some films and televisions shows, and possibly politics. The only area in which I can claim any expertise is design, but what’s an expert anyway? I can talk some shit though, and I have some opinions, anxieties, and hopes, so we’ll give it a whirl.

The website is a little bare bones now, but I’m learning to use the (excellent) Expression Engine CMS. Finding a good Content Management System was tough. Most of them require a higher degree of adherence to templates. That’s a problem because I prefer to build the HTML and CSS files on my own. But EE is quite easy to customize, and I’m enjoying using it. I’ll be adding features as needed or requested.

So, that’s that. In the future the posts will be a little more content rich, but this will do for now.