Take my Skillshare Class! Create an iPhone app!

Posted by on . No comments.

Come join me on July 3rd for my class The Non-Programmer’s Guide to Getting an App in the App Store! If you use the code IAMDANN when you register, you’ll save $5 off the cost of the class (in addition to the $5 scholarship from appssavvy), and you’ll get to sign up for the class at 50% off the full price1.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may be familiar with my blog post that inspired this class. On July 3rd, we’ll actually be putting those principals to use, workshopping everyone’s own app ideas and crafting them into a form that can be communicated directly to developers and submitted to the App Store.

It’s going to be a blast. I really hope you’ll come!

  1. If money is still an issue preventing you from attending, send me an email and we can work something out. ↩

Depression and Internet Usage

Posted by on . No comments.

Sriram Chellappan and Raghavendra Kotikalapudi wrote an interesting piece called “How Depressives Surf the Web” for The New York Times. Their findings include:

The more a participant’s score on the survey indicated depression, the more his or her Internet usage included…high levels of [peer-to-peer] sharing files (like movies and music)…very high e-mail usage…[and] increased amounts of video watching, gaming and chatting.

This is why I feel like online social communities, such as Reddit, play such an important role on the Internet. These signals of depression are the same types of behavior that bond such networks together. They make people feel like they’re not alone, like there are others (hundreds of thousands of others) feeling the same, thinking the same, and relating to their individual personal experiences.

So what do Sriram and Raghavendra plan to do with this research?

We hope to use our findings to develop a software application that could be installed on home computers and mobile devices. It would monitor your Internet usage and alert you when your usage patterns might signal symptoms of depression.

The application will then generate a post for r/DAE, complete with more kittens than you can count.

My About.me Profile was Featured

Posted by on . 2 comments.

Apparently About.me decided to feature my picture in their latest outgoing email blast. Hadn’t really logged into that account since I created it. But hey, can’t argue against free publicity! Great company too, based on my personal experiences thus far.

Soldering RAM to the Motherboard

Posted by on . No comments.

Ian Chilton, discussing the innards of the new MacBook Pro:

[Apple has] soldered the RAM to the motherboard, so you not only can’t use cheaper third-party RAM, but you can’t upgrade the RAM at all.

Apple’s obsessive control over hardware or simply the best design decision for a laptop this small and powerful?

Twitter’s New Logo Kinda Sucks

Posted by on . No comments.

Twitter recently announced their new Twitter bird logo. Joshua Johnson, over at Design Shack, wrote a great piece showing the evolution of the Twitter bird and a breakdown of the new logo:

I don’t like it. They shaved off too much weight and it looks especially bad at smaller sizes. Glancing at the new Twitter logo in Rapportive or on website share buttons is a bit more ambiguous; the separation between the tail and wings isn’t apparent at first glance.

I do, however, appreciate the circles that create the logo.

The math behind the design is brilliant. It’s the end result that I find substandard.

[sc:newsletter]

Finally Debt Free

Posted by on . 2 comments.

I made my final credit card payment this month, paying off almost $21,000 in credit card debt in about four years. Mandi Woodruff wrote about it for Business Insider:

At 22, Berg graduated from the University of Hofstra armed with a shiny new diploma, the whole world at his feet and $21,000 in credit card debt.

Being credit card debt free is amazing. Next up: over $50k in student loans…