Thord D. Hedengren

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  • Lack Of Trust

    Open source communities are built on people volunteering time and knowledge to something they want to support. This isn’t always without friction. Sometimes users of contributed code react poorly to bugs, to delayed launches, to answers they didn’t like, and so on. As someone who has given my fair share of time to open source projects over the years, I know how hard it can be not getting any appreciation for your work.

    Time spent doing something so that others can enjoy it, is fragile.

    Yes, the word is fragile. Because if people keep thinking the worst of you, thinking that you’re not doing the best you can given the circumstances, then you get fed up. Actually, you get angry, annoyed, sad, and then you get fed up.

    Why spend your free time giving something to others when they don’t appreciate you?

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  • Episerver och Sitevision får propagera fritt i Internetworld-artikel

    Internetworld har publicerat en förbryllande artikel där de vill ta reda på framtiden för CMS, så här beskriver de den:

    Vad är nästa stora grej inom cms? Internetworld frågade några tillverkare och leverantörer av publiceringssystem vad de tror kommer att hända den närmaste framtiden.

    Oavsett vem vi frågar verkar framtiden ljus. Såväl tillverkarna av proprietära system som leverantörer av öppen källkod-lösningar tror på en ljus marknad framöver.

    Här ges Episervers säljchef Gustaf Snöbohm och Sitevisions VD Anders Korsvall utrymme att sälja sig själva, och de är inte ett dugg oroliga.

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  • Apple Won, Google Maps Is Available Again

    Google Maps is out for iPhone, which means that Apple won. The whole point of throwing out Google Maps was to get a better map experience on iOS, since the Google Maps app prior to iOS 6.0 was sorely lacking when compared to the Android offering. Despite all its troubles, Apple’s Maps.app is a better technical achievement and will no doubt be a great map alternative in the future.

    I think Apple knows this. I think Apple wanted Google Maps for iOS, but they wanted the same great Google Maps experience that Android users were getting, with turn by turn navigation and whatnot. I think that Apple’s Maps.app was just as much a pressure tool made for getting Google to release a proper Google Maps app for iPhone, as it was a declaration of independence from the largest mobile competitor.

    And thus Apple won, not only getting free of Google where maps are concerned, but also getting the Google Maps app they wanted.

    The job is just half done though, now comes the tricky part. Apple’s Maps.app can’t be allowed to be so bad compared to Google’s offering, that won’t look good. Maps.app is an embarrassment for Apple, and while they did get what they wanted with Google Maps, they also got a whole load of additional pressure where their own Maps.app is concerned.

  • The Magazine And What Marco Arment Got Wrong

    Marco Arment, of Instapaper, and more recently The Magazine, fame has written a post on the future of publishing. He says that several parties have contacted him about licensing The Magazine’s platform, a business he is reluctant to be in. He also says this:

    The last thing I’d want is for a bunch of The Magazine lookalikes to flood the App Store with mediocre articles that haven’t passed through an editor and should just be (or already are) someone’s mediocre blog posts, just so they can easily charge for a subscription.

    Well, too bad. Success will be copied, and The Magazine is not only successful, it is successful within a niche where people are starving for a solution, any solution really. I’ve already explained why that is, so let’s all take a moment to remember, shall we?

    Marco Arment then says this:

    If the App Store gets spammed with hundreds of bad clones, The Magazine itself will lose credibility and potential subscribers as people make incorrect assumptions about its article quality.

    I disagree. With that reasoning there could not be any blogs with credibility, since there are so many “bad clones” out there. Still there is, and still there is quality writing, bloggers with fanbases large enough to launch niche tablet magazines even…

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  • WordPress 3.5

    WordPress 3.5 är släppt och som alltid ska du självfallet uppdatera. Den största nyheten i 3.5 är den uppdaterade mediahanteringen, ett rejält steg framåt. Andra nyheter inkluderar putsat admingränssnitt, xml-rpc påslaget som standard, och att Länkar-delen numera är ett tillägg – men bara för nya installationer. För utvecklare finns det en del att kika på, se alla förändringar sammanställda i Codex.

    Min ebok, Webbpublicering med WordPress, kommer förstås uppdateras till 3.5. Det blir först nästa vecka dock eftersom jag har lyckats få en elak inflammation i axeln och inte klarar av längre tider vid tangentbordet. Det här skrivs således på min iPhone, med appen Poster för övrigt.

  • Starting Fresh

    I feel like buying a new laptop. Not that I really need one, my 11″ MacBook Air is working perfectly well and I’m happy with it (for now), but I still feel like buying a new one. I passed on the current generation, so I’m getting the next one no matter what, but it is months – MONTHS, I SAY! – away.

    And I want a new laptop.

    Why?

    Not because I want new stuff really, no it is the matter of the clean start. I always start from scratch with every computer, only installing the apps I end up actually missing. I’ll write more on that philosophy later, for now all you need to know is that’s what I do. Incidentally I do the same with iOS devices too, starting fresh.

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  • Se alla avsnitt av Nils Prylar

    Tillsammans med Petter på FKDV gjorde jag en inslagsserie till första säsongen av Studio Bronx AW, en webbtv-talkshow med tolv avsnitt. Inslagsserien hette Nils Prylar och kretsade kring underbara Nils Olander på Tekniska Muséet, och hans härliga prylar från arkiven. Se själv:

  • The Daily And Tablet Magazines

    Rupert Murdoch shuttered The Daily yesterday, the iPad only newspaper with a staff of a 100 or something like that. Quite an operation, quite a project, and quite a project propelled by the dreams of an old media publisher and their hopes of doing the same old thing on a new media format such as an iPad. No wonder it failed, right?

    The iPad magazine business, if we can call it that, is in an interesting spot right now. To understand this, it is important to remember where it all started, with bloated versions of paper magazines, more or less behaving like an interactive PDF really. Not only did the format, with its “tap to view video” and similar, not engage readers as much as magazine makers might’ve thought, it also meant huge file sizes for every issue. The weight issue has been handled somewhat, but magazines clock in at over 150 MB more often than not.

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  • Introducing The Links Page

    Update: The Links page has been discontinued. Sorry.

    I’ve been meaning to add a Links page to this site for quite some time, sharing some of my favorite sites with y’all.

    Back in the day we all had pages like this, swapping links, oblivious of the coming onslaught of trackbacks and social media soapboxes. This was the way we did it, at least the ones of us who didn’t want to clutter our sites with those pesky buttons, 88×31 pixels or something. Or better yet, why not join a WebRing? Does anyone remember those?

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  • #wpbar Skaraborg den 14 december #wpse

    Det blir en #wpbar till i år: #wpbar Skaraborg den 14 december. Missa inte om du bor i krokarna.

  • WordPress.com, för kattbilderna

    WordPress.com vet sannerligen var de ska satsa för att knappa in på Tumblr.

  • Writing For A Living

    I’ve been writing for a living at times. As I’m writing this, I’m splitting my time between various types of writing, and running the Odd Alice web agency. While I doubt I will split my time like this in the future, it suits me right now.

    A few years back my salary was paid by various writing gigs. I’ve been the freelance writer so many times I have long since stopped collecting clippings, and to my publishers’ dismay I often wouldn’t even tweet my work. It’s not that I don’t care, I do, but rather it had become normal. When you deliver 20 shorter pieces, whether it is blog posts or niche news, a few columns, and a couple of longer articles each month you tend to forget how awesome it is. At least I did, and sometimes still do.

    Writing for a living isn’t too hard, actually. It all depends on what you want to do, and how expensive you are for the publishers. I started out being pretty cheap actually, but I had the luxury of being enthusiastic and the US$ was fairly strong against the Swedish currency. I was also a very productive person, working at a high pace, still do. As I built my personal brand I also charged more for my work.

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  • Vill du anordna en #wpbar?

    Vill du anordna en #wpbar? Det här är vad som gäller.

  • Managing Friends And Family

    A writer writes. Chances are you could do with some more hours in front of the screen, and I’m not talking about rotting away on Facebook. Finding the time to write, and then actually sit down and do it, is hard, even if we set aside the perils of the craft.

    Writing really is hard enough as it is.

    Hopefully you have plenty of friends and a great family. Maybe you’ve got kids, pets, or a wife or husband that you share your castle with. That’s great, but they are all Enemies of Writing. You see, your everyday life will invade on your writing. People will ask you for help, dogs need walking, kids want to play, adults want to play, online friends want to chat, and so on. Every time this happens when you’re writing you’ll be in a fix.

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  • #wpbar x3 den 22 november

    Det är #wpbar den 22 november – i Stockholm, Helsingborg och Göteborg samtidigt. Missa inte!