The Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock

My current setup is a Retina Macbook Pro with 27" Thunderbolt display. While I love the extra headspace the Thrunderbolt display offers, the available ports on the back a kind of pathetic. There's one FireWire 800 port and zero USB3 ports.

That's why I jumped at the $300 Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock when it was introduced. I've now lived with mine for about 3 weeks so I feel comfortable writing a review.

The dock is smaller than I imagined and very light. It is easily portable as long as you are willing to heft along the power converter. I mounted mine on a Twelve South Backpack.

The real advantage of the Express Dock is the plethora of connections it offers. Here's what's it available:

2 Thunderbolt connections

1 Gigabit Ethernet

1 FireWire 800

1 1/8" Audio Out (speaker)

1 1/8" Audio In (microphone)

3 USB3 connections

This is better than the current Thunderbolt Display. USB3 and audio connectors are not offered on the display.

I was pleasantly surprised by the audio connectors on the Express Dock. One of my annoyances with the rMBP and Thunderbolt Display was that the audio connector for my external speakers still needed to be plugged into the Macbook. I thought it was silly since that the Thunderbolt connection didn't just take care of the audio. Belkin gets it right.

The audio is presented as a USB PnP interface and works as expected. Audio is clear without any artifacts or distortion.

The Express Dock delivers exactly what I expected. I've connected mine into the Thunderbolt connector on the display. I'm using it to provide additional connectivity to the Thunderbolt Display but I'd recommend this to anyone that just wanted some extra connections for their MBP.

If you need more connections than the Macbook Pro provides but don't need a Thunderbolt display (or just want USB3 on your display), then it's hard to beat the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock.

The best parting shot I can provide is the one showing how few cables are connected to my rMBP to connect to Ethernet, 1 FireWire 800 drive, 1 USB3 drive, external speakers, a ScanSnap and a UPS Monitor:

Felony Charges for a Same Sex Relationship in High School [Link]

Still a long way to go for equal rights. Sad, really. Also, move the fuck out of Florida and stop spending money there!

This relationship occurred when they were both minors, and my daughter's girlfriend's parents waited until she turned 18 to arrest her.

Customer Discovers the Limit of FiOS [Link]

Wow, apparently Verizon FiOS does have a limit. 77TB is pretty generous.

I have never heard of this happening to anyone. But I probably use more bandwidth than any FIOS customer in California so I am not super surprised about this. My monthly bandwidth usage so far this year has been:

January: 35 TB

February: 32 TB

March: 77TB

April: 28TB

May: 19TB (so far).

So anyway it sounds like I am just going to be going back to business and paying more again. They used the whole 'You can't run servers on residential service' and we will disconnect you by July 14th if you don't stop the activity or change to business.

Original Source at DSL Reports

Tim Verpoorten [Link]

Incredibly sad news. Tim Verpoorten passed away last weekend. I've listened to Tim for years. What a great guy that actually cared about people. Such a huge, huge loss of a kind soul. He will be missed and remembered. The latest Mac Roundtable has a wonderful remembrance.

Creating an Awesome Diagnostic Drive for the Mac [Link]

A nice walkthrough by Jordan Merrick to create a diagnostic utility disk. I'm definitely dedicating one of my old disks for this purpose.

Homebrew StackExchange [Link]

The Homebrew site on StackExchange is a nice alternative to sifting through homebrew forums. Don't get me wrong, forums like HomeBrewTalk are chock-full of information. But the StackExchange answers are succinct and user rated which makes quick and accurate answers easier to find.

Once Upon A Time, The Catholic Church Decided That Beavers Were Fish

FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month

An Itch Is Not a Low-Level Form of Pain

Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

ADN client comparison

Thanks to Igloo for Sponsoring Macdrifter [Link]

I hearty thanks to Igloo for consistently sponsoring this site. You should check out their latest ad spots made my Adam Lisagor and Sandwich Video. Awesome stuff.

Igloo has some funny new Sandwich videos to lighten your day (and maybe convince your boss and/or IT to upgrade your intranet to something more human). Check them out:
 
 Intranet
 Updates
* Versions
 
(You can also get a free 30-day trial and bring back Cake Fridays here.)


Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Zefrank Science [Link]

Humor is often the best tool for education. I really love Zefrank:

Despite looking like a tiny sausage encased in testicle skin, the naked mole rat is a highly social animal.

Evernote Reminders [Link]

This a pretty big announcement from Evernote. Evernote entries can be set with a reminder. The reminders trigger notifications in iOS and on the Mac when they are due. It's a nice little system for people that aren't buried in a task manager but still want to remember to work on something. I like where this is going.

Whey Too Much: Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side

Score one for the antiscience cranks in Portland on fluoridation

Vermont sues patent troll over small business shakedowns

Discover the Secret of the 17-Year Cicada, But It Won’t Get You Tenure

LA Screenwriter [Link]

LA-Screenwriter is another nice site for screenplays and general screenwriter stuff. It's all links but hey, a reasonable index of popular movies. I found the other thing I was looking for.

SFScripts [Link]

SFScripts is a great resource. So anyway, I found what I was looking for.

Derp derp: Moving to open-plan offices makes employees less productive, less happy and more likely to get sick

OmniPresence Available May 22nd

The OmniGroup announced that their new syncing engine, OmniPresencem will be available tomorrow. This is a major milestone for all Omni products. When syncing comes to OmniOutliner for iPad, I will be back to using it like a maniac.

But OmniPresence is more than a back-end for the OmniGroup's products. It is a ubiquitous sync system available for pretty much anything. I really like their implementation. One benefit adds over iCloud: a visual indication that stuff is actually happening.

Check out the demo video:

OmniPresence Intro from The Omni Group.

Keyboard Maestro 6 Update

Keyboard Maestro 6 is out today and it adds a lot of nice features to one of my most used applications. There's been a bit of a UI overhaul and KM has all new icons for the application and actions. Overall it's a welcome change.1

KM6 also adds a new icon picker to help make macros a bit more visually distinct.

But you're not limited to the icons in the picker. You can easily paste in other icons to make macros visually distinct on a busy palette.

This update is about more than aesthetics. Keyboard Maestro 6 adds some nice options for developing complicated macros too. There are now debugger actions to set pause and breakpoints in large macros.

Not to mention the option to quickly create a screenshot of a macro.

The screenshots turn out clean and clear and make sharing macro snippets easy.

Speaking of sharing, KM6 brings a new plugin architecture to the party. There are a couple of basic examples available but the nice documentation should mean many more will be coming out soon.

There are a number of new actions and triggers worth mentioning too. The USB trigger recognizes when a specific device is attached or removed and there is a similar trigger for volumes and wireless network detection. I also really like the new Trigger Macro by Name action. It's one action to setup:

Triggering that macro allows the user to select from all active macros by searching for a name match. It's like Quicksilver for Keyboard Maestro.

Some of my other favorite new actions are the Get Substring from Variable and the Display Notification in Notification Center.

Finally, the biggest addition to Keyboard Maestro may be one of the most requested over the years: Macro syncing. Keyboard Maestro 6 provides macro syncing across machines using Dropbox. This is a big deal for people with multiple macs. There are a few fine grain controls that are used to disable or enable macros on a each machine. I no longer have this need since I went full-time on a rMBP. I would have loved it a year ago.

Keyboard Maestro 6 is a $25 upgrade or $36 for new users.

Disclaimer: I was a beta tester for KM6 because I really like the application. Other than that, I have no vested interest in KM6. ↩

Migrating from iPhoto

Panayotis Vryonis has a nice post about moving out of iPhoto into Dropbox. Dropbox has done a lot recently to make that easier and there are a number of good apps for iOS photo management with Dropbox.

I highly recommend Seth Brown's post about naming files and adding searchable meta data to photos.

Advice on getting better with XCode and objc

Be Badass [Link]

This was a wonderful talk by Kathy Sierra

If only I had engaged more with brands...

Kathy is a great speaker that knows how to tell a great story. While she is talking about how to win over users by being awesome, I took a lot of what she said as just really good advice for anything. The competition to be mediocre is high. The competition to be amazing is actually pretty low.

SoftewareIndie.com is a good Web site to follow if you are interested in software development. Smart stuff all over the place.

Generational with Bradley Chambers

This week Bradley Chambers joined Erik and I to talk about information capture and recall with Evernote. Bradley just launched a new project today too, called Learning to Love Evernote. I really enjoyed learning about how the other side lives and how amazingly useful Evernote can be. Bradley is full of good ideas.

Apache and htaccess

→ Learning to Love Evernote via MacStories http://www.macstories.net

popSlate E-Ink iPhone Case [Link]

The popSlate looks incredible. It almost seems too good to be true. It's an iPhone case with an interactive E-Ink back. Take a picture and set the E-Ink on the back to display it.

By way of Mike Rundle

Mad Mimi Email Sponsor

Thanks to Mad Mimi for sponsoring Macdrifter this week.

Mad Mimi is a design-oriented email newsletter service founded in 2008. Developed to provide a mobile-app-like feel, and with a drag-and-drop email composer, Mad Mimi offers a simple, elegant user experience that helps customers create, send, and track beautiful html email campaigns. 

Mad Mimi also offers robust APIs, integrations, and add-on features. This makes it a perfect fit for today’s visionaries, artists, and entrepreneurs, including great digital brands like Fancy and StumbleUpon, who use Mad Mimi to communicate with their customers. 

Best yet, Mad Mimi is free for up to 2,500 contacts. We hope you’ll give us a try or email us with questions. 

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Direct Email

I'm certainly not a model of effectiveness but I do pride myself on a few things.1 One of those things is the direct answer. I try, given enough time to edit myself, to give a short and direct answer to a question. I try to be direct.

Here's how I attempt to edit myself in emails:

1. I do not ask for additional clarification up front unless I absolutely do not understand the question.

An answer to just the minimal question will often alleviate the need for additional clarification. When I ask a question by email and get back 6 more questions instead of an answer my head explodes. Of course this rule presumes a well written and clear question was sent int he first place.

2. If I am asking questions, they come before any exposition. The questions are limited to one sentence and are in a numbered list.

Simple questions are easier to answer. Direct questions encourage direct answers. Numbered questions make it easier to respond by referencing the questions number instead of rephrasing or pasting the original question.

3. If the recipient is not someone I have a relationship with, I include a very brief context before the questions.

A greeting should state, in one sentence, why this email deserves their attention. For example, "I'm running project NERFMONSTER and you have been identified as a business sponsor."

4. Exposition should be limited to necessary clarification only.

It's almost always better to have too little exposition than too much. Really.

5. If an email requires an attachment file, I state the requirement in the email text.

It's not obvious to everyone when there is an attachment. It's really not obvious when they are on a mobile device.

6. Use context specific language.

Jargon is useful only if the recipient understands it. Spelling out an acronym is annoying to everyone if it is a commonly used term. If I am unsure, I spell it out once with the acronym.

"1. Please provide the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the NERFMONSTER platform, including all licensing, hardware and services needed."

Email is a necessary evil of the modern world. It's the best self documenting collaboration tool I've used. But there are no rules or guidelines and it's easy to make a mess of things.

The other business related things I think I don't suck at are short meetings (default meeting length is 30min), honest no-bullshit discussions and remembering that my job is just a job and at the end of the day everyone makes mistakes every single day. ↩

Blogroll for May 16, 2013

Wordnik isn't really a blog but boy is it fun. It's a english-lover's friend.

The Pastry Box is an essay site with rotating authors. There's no primary theme other than thoughtful writing by interesting people. Some are short and some are long most are interesting.

Daily Mac View has extensive and thoughtful discussions about workflows on a Mac. Kerry really thinks through his process and documents it for anyone to read.

BitQuill is a complete redesign (and maybe a refocus) of The Geek's Companion Site. It's a bit link-blog and a bit interview site that focuses on culture and technology.

Geeks with Juniors is a misleading title. This is not about parenting. There are some great workflow ideas and detailed tutorials.

Jesus Christ Silicon Valley is a nice palette cleanser from the usual self congratulatory mental-masterbation found on most tech news sites. It's just funny.

Swing File Sharing App

Swing is a new app for the Mac that enables easy file upload and link sharing. It's primarily a menubar application. Upload a file with Swing and get a link on your clipboard. It's very similar to CloudApp or Droplr.1

Here's the kicker though: It uses the ADN file service. That's pretty cool. Now, if this takes off I'll need a way buy more ADN file storage. But I like this trajectory.

Here's a linked image from Swing and ADN:

https://files.app.net/1/73926/a7n5SRQ9Ro8gtTZG...

That's a pretty darn long link but Swing also provides its own link shortener.

http://swng.it/2GyKQt

See my old head-to-head review of CloudApp and Droplr for reference. Almost everything from that review still holds true. ↩

By way of Pinner for Pinboard By May 14, 2013 at 02:14PM

By way of Amp What By May 14, 2013 at 11:32AM

Taskpaper and OmniFocus [Link]

I like when Patrick writes on RocketInk. This post was a nice bit of cleverness about using plain text based Taskpaper and UI-centric OmniFocus for different reasons.

I guess a good part of my problem when opening OmniFocus is, that there’s a plethora of tasks which are paused and undone. This subconsciously affects my self-esteem, leaving me with a feeling that I haven’t accomplished that much. Since I use the app as a library and the amount of ‘unfinished work’ stands in no relation to the tasks I checked off, my mini TaskPaper projects are more rewarding to me. It might just be a simple psychological trick, but it works for me (a bit better than just relying solely on OmniFocus).

The Hawkeye Initiative IRL [Link]

From The Hawkeye Initiative:

Our CEO loves this picture. It is to all appearances his favorite piece of comic art for the game. He had it blown up poster-sized, framed, and displayed on the out-facing wall of his office. There, it looms over the front room like a ship’s figurehead. It is the first thing workers and visitors see when they enter the building and the last thing they see when they leave. This little lady’s undermeats have been the open- and close- parens to my work world for the last six months.

If teen under-boob magazines and games are your thing, that's up to you. But own it for what it is: teen under-boob soft porn. This story has a surprise ending.

HTML Character encode lookup

Pitchfork Daft Punk Article \[Link]

This is a brilliantly produce article on Pitchfork1. I think it's brilliant because it perfectly captures how rich reading experiences can be delivered and not feel like the generic magazine format was repurposed for the web. You know how Wired Magazine always had a future-forward article at the end that portrayed some mundane activity in our distant existence and then you'd realize you were still reading ink on dead tree pulp? Maybe that was just me but that's still kind of how I feel reading on the web. We need more fire.

I'm not a big fan of Daft Punk so I can't tell if the words in the article are very interesting. I mean sure, I like the Tron soundtrack well enough, but I also like the Up soundtrack too and wouldn't enjoy an article about that either. ↩

By way of https://twitter.com/laura_hudson/status/334440435617513472

Wow:

By way of A Specific Crowdfunding Example By May 14, 2013 at 08:47AM

By way of Crowdfunding Research By May 14, 2013 at 08:09AM

Beets Python Based Music Manager [Link]

Beets is a crazy-geeky music toolbox from the command line. I'm not sure if I'd use this but I do appreciate that it exists.

By way of Justin Mayer

By way of Solving the email-while-on-vacation problem By May 13, 2013 at 08:56AM

By way of Be an actor By May 11, 2013 at 10:22PM

By way of EventScripts and reliable Bluetooth proximity detection By May 11, 2013 at 09:01AM

How Colleges Are Selling Out the Poor to Court the Rich

Why babies in every country on Earth say 'mama'

How is Flash still a thing: Is Flash bad for your battery? (Hint: yes)

George Carlin

I've always had an affinity for George Carlin. He and Kurt Vonnegut are a huge influence on the way I experience the world. Today is George's birthday and it was a treat to sit back and watch some of his wisdom.

There are also great collections of quotes all over the intertubes

Vaccines work: By the numbers

Glacier Calculator JS [Link]

A simple little JS based calculator to figure out exactly what data storage and retrieval on Amazon Glacier will cost. Just imagine if Amazon had something this useful.

It really gives a feel for how much retrieval priority changes the cost. Sure, storing 1TB of data on Amazon Glacier would only cost me about $10/mo. Retrieving that data will cost between $1200 and $600. I always factor in the retrieval costs. Otherwise, I'm just paying a monthly fee to delete my data.

By way of How I Resize and Rename Images with Automator, Name Mangler, and TextExpander By May 09, 2013 at 12:25PM

By way of Context Is King By May 10, 2013 at 12:00PM

Expensive Friends to Follow

I guess this is part of my blogroll series, but there are a few folks that cost me a lot of money. These are people with opinions I trust that also like the kind of stuff I like. Be warned, if you follow them, you will likely spend more money than if you do not.

Rob Agcaoili

Shawn Blanc

Jeff Hunsberger

Eddie Smith

David Sparks

Brett Terpstra

Tools and Toys

By way of ‘This Is Water’ By May 10, 2013 at 12:16AM

Why Did Jodon Romero Kill Himself On Live Television? [Link]

Jessica Testa has a lengthy article on BuzzFeed this week. The piece focuses on the televised suicide of a carjacker. It's a great piece of journalism from an unexpected source, BuzzFeed. I don't normally read BuzzFeed. That's not a knock against BuzzFeed. They have section titles like "LOL", "fail", "wtf", and "trashy" which tells me they are self-aware. Their articles typically do not appeal to me but this one article restored their position in my RSS feed reader.

I really enjoyed Jessica's style and structure. The article passes back and forth between a different perspectives and time frames. It also jumps between story telling and basic news reporting. What a great model to emulate.

Wordnik Word Love [Link]

Wordnik is a very nice website if you love words. For example, here's the page for the word "epitome". There's a bit of the social overload for my taste, but I'm an old recluse.

New Features in PDFpenPro6 [Sponsor]

My sincere thanks to Smile for sponsoring this week's RSS feed on Macdrifter. I'm a big fan of Smile and love their software. PDFpenPro6 has some great new features and was an instant upgrade for me. The best in breed, if you ask me.

PDFpenPro is the advanced version of PDFpen. PDFpenPro does everything that PDFpen does, such as add signatures, edit text and images, perform OCR on scanned documents and export Microsoft Word documents. It also has the ability to create a PDF form, build a table of contents, and convert HTML files to PDF.

The new PDFpenPro 6 adds document permission settings. When you share a PDF, you can restrict printing, copying, and editing of your PDFs. You can also use the new automatic form field creation tool to convert a non-interactive form into an interactive PDF form with text fields and checkboxes automatically added.

PDFpenPro 6 is available on the Smile Store and the Mac App Store for $100. A free demo can be downloaded on the Smile site. Find out why Macworld calls PDFpenPro "the crème de la crème of PDF editing and annotating applications."

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.