January 2012
1 post
The Pirates Who Print Shoes
Care to download and print your next pair of shoes? Without even paying for them?
The Pirate Bay invite you to share their vision: a world in which footwear is stolen and printable. They’ve announced a new category called “physibles” — files describing physical objects that can be made with a 3D printer.
In their imagined future you do not buy the objects you desire....
August 2011
1 post
Inkling from Wacom
Wacom just announced Inkling, a ‘digital sketch pen’ that lets illustrators and avid doodlers sketch on paper, record each stroke, and import the finished drawing as layered raster or vector artwork to their Mac or PC. All for €170 (about £150/$250). Get doodling!
February 2011
1 post
1 tag
Save the Web with Readability
Readability’s new service is a great way to support your favourite websites while making web pages easier to read. It looks awesome.
The basic service
Readability lets you visit any web page and view it free of ads, oversized header graphics, and all the crap that big websites put on their pages to distract, irritate, and prevent you from enjoying their content. Making a page readable...
January 2011
5 posts
1 tag
Derren Brown The Artist
Many know Derren Brown as a thought-fiddler and thaumaturge, but few seem to know that he paints. His portraits have a twisted charm that mirror his whimsical stage and TV shows, and are a lot of fun to browse; check them out here.
Today he’s tweeting photos of his process. Watching this portrait of his father come together, live, is rather wonderful. And he’s not finished yet....
1 tag
The Ears Have It
You can tell a lot about a person from their ears. If the eyes are windows to the soul, the ears are periscopes to the stomach.
The rule is even stronger with dogs. When the golden labrador pictured here arrived in our household, it took my mother, brother, sister, and me 10 minutes to choose ‘Yoda’ as a name for him.
The puppy in front of us, with his puddled skin and pricked-up...
1 tag
Doing it for a living
Imagine a web publishing platform that costs $10 per month.
$5 of that $10 goes to the platform company for the boring stuff.
The other $5 gets split evenly between the writers, photographers, videographers, designers, and other creative people you follow who also pay to use the platform, up to a maximum of — say — 20 followers, hand-picked by you.
Now imagine if that platform...
1 tag
Everything you need to know about email
Reading about email kind of sucks. Here, then, is enough advice for a lifetime, distilled into the only three things you need to know about email:
Email is not work.
There is no right way, only your way.
The winner is the one who spends the least time in their inbox.
Do link to this page to bring a halt to any rambling blog comments, forum debates, twitter updates, or emails about email....
1 tag
The Spiffing Blog
I’ve just launched my second tumblr blog: The Spiffing Blog brings quips, tips, and interesting bits on iOS development, musings on the Mac, and other miscellany. Do grab the RSS feed and/or follow me over there if you use tumblr:
http://blog.spiffingapps.com
December 2010
2 posts
1 tag
What Browsing the Web Feels Like
A blind man turns to his friend. ‘You know, I’ve always wondered. As a sighted person, what does browsing the Web feel like?’
‘That’s a tough one,’ says his friend. He shrugs. ‘It doesn’t really feel like anything. What does eating an apple feel like, for example?’
The blind man thinks. He brings an empty hand to his face, opens his mouth,...
Best Web Books of 2010
The post I’ve written over at Goburo titled, “Top Web Books of 2010” is proving pretty popular among web folks.
This year has seen oodles of great web, graphic design, and iOS books. It’s been expensive, but I’ve learnt loads, and I recommend the four books on the list heartily; there’s very little overlap in subject matter, so it’s safe to add them all...
November 2010
3 posts
1 tag
“If you’re gonna be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as...”
– Beautiful story (audio only) from Julio Diaz at StoryCorps, about getting robbed on a New York subway platform (via Hacker News).
1 tag
Put Things Off 2
Put Things Off 2, the free update to the laid-back to-do list I made for iPhone, is now live. You can see the full preview at putthingsoff.com or buy it now from the App Store. It’s on sale for a limited time.
The app’s a huge update, and includes some fun new features you won’t have seen in any other to-do list. It follows six months of hard work, and I’d be thrilled if...
Wacky and Wonderful Domains For Sale
I currently spend about $500 a year renewing domain names I’m not using. I thought it was about time I sold some of them.
As well as listing the domains below, I’ve provided the backstory behind each one; partly to share what on Earth I was thinking when I registered some of them, but also in the hope that some of you might snap them up and build the things I never found time for.
...
October 2010
2 posts
SOLVED: Protect Yourself on Public Wi-Fi Networks
Do you use public Wi-Fi networks to access the Web? Perhaps in a coffee shop, airport, hotel, or university campus? Maybe on a laptop or iPhone?
Did you know that anyone also using that network can currently hijack your twitter, Facebook, and other account details to log in to those services as if they’re you? If you’d like to fix that, read this post. It’s about Virtual...
Kill Your Keyboard Clacks
Watching someone flick through TV channels is a lot like being a passenger in a car crash. The feeling that you’re being steered towards impending doom — be it an old episode of Friends or an oak tree — is itchy and unpleasant.
It doesn’t even matter if they’re good at it; I find it just as frustrating to watch someone struggling with an unfamiliar remote as it is...
September 2010
2 posts
A Bouncer and a Cleaner Walk into a Mac...
The bouncer turns to the cleaner and says, ‘This isn’t going to be a deeply disappointing joke, is it?’ The cleaner, quick to correct, replies, ‘Certainly not! It’s just a silly way to start an article about two really useful Mac utilities that Nick wants to share.’
With the great glimmering globs of attention that mobile apps get these days, I thought it...
1 tag
Advice From a Probable Axe Murderer
I have a theory that, in the average British supermarket, you’re never more than four aisles from a budding axe murderer. At least seven of the 20 weirdest encounters in my life have taken place in supermarkets, usually late at night, and often in the tea and coffee aisle, where the dozy and the dangerous gather to snort Earl Grey and plot sweet revenge.
The following meeting is unique...
August 2010
1 post
Life is Beautiful
A cure for apathy: switch off your phone, retreat from your inbox, and tell me you’re not moved by this short video by Everynone. The simplest things in life can be beautiful beyond words.
July 2010
3 posts
An Open Letter to Support Ninjas, Web Rock Stars,...
To Whom It May Concern
You are not a ninja. Each time you use the word ‘ninja’ in vain, another one moves into your attic. Ninjas train. Ninjas battle. Ninjas don’t check email.
You are not a rock star. Rock stars paint on silence. Rock stars trash hotels. Rock stars use Internet Explorer 6. Rock stars just don’t give a shit.
An artist? Please. Artists see....
“It’s exciting to live in a world where a vibrant blogging scene...”
– David Mitchell on paid content, writing for The Observer
1 tag
June 2010
4 posts
OUT NOW: Zen Kitten Theme for WordPress
Zen Kitten, the site design that once graced my Put Things Off blog, is now available as a WordPress theme. See the demo site or make my day and buy it now for only $69.
Put your content first
Ever thought that many blogs would be better if they weren’t so… bloggy? Ever felt that web publishers who spend hours creating content only to litter their site designs with crap are missing a...
1 tag
Email Address Formats to Slash and Burn
Your email address says a lot about you. If, like me, you work remotely away from life’s inconveniences — like traffic and other people — your address makes more of a first impression than your clothes, your car, or your pallid complexion ever will.
I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that, whenever someone new emails me, I take a few seconds to examine their email...
1 tag
The Curse of the 30-Second News Cycle
While some delight in having been first to learn of Michael Jackson’s death or hear about the man who married his pillow, I’ve never seen the appeal. For me, news websites often seem optimised to distract the bored, not to inform the healthily curious. A rapid news cycle coupled with perceived demand for breaking stories only encourages reporting of half-truths about live events, or...
1 tag
Why I'm Paying For News Again
Some of you will think me madder than a duck’s udder, but I’m happily paying £9.99 every four weeks for The Times’ new iPad app. I think it’s brilliant. Instead of sifting through a homepage of content that buries old stories as it’s refreshed throughout the day, you download a separate digital edition of the paper every morning then browse at your own pace. The...
May 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Get Up Earlier and Do More Work
“One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that if you drive into London at 6am, half of the cars on the roads are Porsches and Astons. Whereas if you go in at ten to nine, they’re all Renaults. Simple solution, then. You want a nice car? Get up earlier and do more work.”
— Jeremy Clarkson reviews the Porsche 911 GT3
1 tag
On Personal Sub-Branding
The unstoppable Mark McGuinness has a piece over at The 99 Percent called ‘Build a Business, Not Just a Client List’ that’s well worth a read for all freelancers and entrepreneurs.
He mentions me because I tend to build new projects around brand names instead of my own name. Mark is right — I do this because it creates a degree of separation from my paid client work and...
April 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Why YouTube Recommends Heroin
Ever since companies started recommending similar crap to stuff I’ve bought online at three in the morning on a drunken whim, I’ve become a whole lot poorer. But I’ve also laughed louder. Last year Amazon recommended I buy a nose hair trimmer because I’d purchased a book by Stephen Fry. Earlier this week, YouTube suggested I try Heroin.
Its rationale? I’d watched...
1 tag
Solved: Gmail, iPad, iPhone, and multiple from...
For a long time I’ve forwarded many email addresses to a single Gmail account, a setup I call Inbox Heaven. It’s great because you get a unified inbox to collect mail from multiple email addresses that you can check on any device.
One caveat has been that Mail on the iPhone and iPad won’t let you send email from multiple addresses living under one Gmail account. This means, for...
1 tag
Alice for iPad
If proof were needed that eBooks are worthy of mainstream attention at last, Alice for iPad by the charmingly named Atomic Antelope delivers in spades.
Watching their demo video [YouTube] instills in me the same sense of wonder I experienced upon playing with my first pop-up book as a child, minus the guilty feeling that anything this fun surely doesn’t count as proper reading, and...
February 2010
6 posts
“Each day I live in mortal fear that I’ve used up the last idea that will...”
– zefrank, in a delightful clip from yesteryear on the subject of brain crack
1 tag
That Syncing Feeling
That syncing feeling will be familiar to many of you; it is both the bane of the technorati and the cyclic five-step rite of passage for the mobile computing age:
Step 1. Set up your phone’s calendar and address book to sync over-the-air with your desktop computer, laptop, web service, or all three.
Step 2. Watch in dismay as this year’s upcoming appointments disappear, along with...
1 tag
The Five Laws of Syncing
Thou should not have to press a button labelled ‘sync, damn it!’
Thou should not have to plug a thing into another thing.
Thou should not have to be connected to your mother’s wifi network.
Thou should whisper softly when things are syncing and again when they have sunk.
Thou shalt make it feel just a little bit like magic.
More on this later in the week.
1 tag
The Curse of the iPhone Developer
As an iPhone developer, few mistakes are more costly than telling people what you do. Gone are the days when hopeless romantics thought they had a book in them; today they’re full of app ideas:
“I’d like to think I’ve got an app in me,” said one guy I met at a New Year’s Eve party.
What can you do but smile and brace yourself? A game with ninja badgers, an app for...
1 tag
“Do it now. If you bankrupt a company before you’re 25, that’s like a badge of...”
– Jim Coudal in an interview with Coudal Partners
Put Things Off is now Modern Nerd
Following a laid-back stay at Put Things Off, I’ve rebranded, donned a black suit, sold the cat on eBay, and moved to a new home at Modern Nerd, where you’ll find my essays, updates, and meandering prose from now on.
Your subscription should redirect automatically if you followed the old RSS feed, but you might like to visit Modern Nerd and resubscribe anyway, especially if...
January 2010
3 posts
1 tag
The Importance of Abandoning Crap
There’s a flimsy line between wimping out and moving on. I should know; in recent years I’ve left a comfy full time job, launched six websites, abandoned two, ditched archery, and turned my back on origami. I remember the sad words of my Cello teacher when I announced I was quitting that:
“Don’t tell me you’re starting a bloody rock band.”
I told her I’d defected to the guitar because...
1 tag
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will...”
– Oscar Wilde
About Modern Nerd
MODERN NERD blends essays, news, and how-tos into brain food for designers, developers, and creators. It’s written and curated by Nick Cernis, a designer and programmer from West Yorkshire in the UK.
Artlessly spanning topics from email overload and the lure of the iPhone to the need for luxury loo roll, Modern Nerd aims to examine, poke fun at, and occasionally solve everyday nerdish...
September 2009
1 post
1 tag
Rise of the Tablog
The blog format has devolved. Once a simple gateway to self-publishing, today the blog format is responsible for a thousand tawdry tablogs: hideous half-breeds of tabloid and blog built around odeous content, cluttered site designs, and optimised for pageviews alone. To understand how it happened, it helps to see what changed when blogging moved from a pastime to a cottage industry — the same...
April 2009
1 post
1 tag
Give Up and Buy an iPhone
I deeply distrust all forms of technology, none more so than the microwave oven. In the terrible event that I must use one – to dry wet socks or reheat my dampened enthusiasm for British tennis players – I do so only after glancing away, grimacing awkwardly, and shielding my testicles with a bread board.
A healthy disrespect for all things buzzing is what keeps me alive, despite a niggling...
January 2009
1 post
Why You Need Luxury Loo Roll
You can tell if a company values its customers by the quality of its toilet paper. That rough stuff you have to fold 16 times before grating across your rump like twisted metal on a block of 30-year old parmesan speaks as much about the company’s disregard for your custom as it does for their undeclared war on your bottom.
Good customer service trickles from the shiny sales people and free...
July 2008
1 post
The Job Title Blacklist for the Self-Employed
Want to know the fastest way to jump to the top? Start your own business. You can call yourself anything you like, wear what you want, and drink during office hours. Sadly, though, this new-found freedom comes with responsibilities, not least of which is picking a job title that won’t make you sound like a colossal berk.
Here, then, is a list of monikers I suggest you avoid when starting...
June 2008
1 post
Read One Book a Week
It started in Belgium. One sizzling summer in a third-floor flat, my parents came strutting through the lounge to find their fat little fellow merrily leafing through a copy of War and Peace. I was two years old. Impressed? You shouldn’t be. To say that I had read and digested Tolstoy’s loathsome work at such an early age would be a half-truth, because the reality is this: I...
February 2008
1 post
1 tag
Inbox Heaven
I had a dream. A dream that email could be fun again. A dream that, instead of wrestling with my inbox every day, we could share the same bus and get along just fine. Today that dream is realised and I’m going to share it with you. It won’t change the face of the planet or answer the Eternal Question (“have you seen my car keys?”), but it might save you a few hours a...