The 1Password Emergency Kit 3.0→

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Mike Vardy posted a really great update to his 1Password Emergency Kit today.

The 1Password Emergency Kit V3.0 is now a fillable PDF that looks and functions a lot better, and includes even more information that will come in handy if any sort of emergency arises.

Naturally, I keep a lot of my life's essential data in 1Password. Should I ever be incapacitated or pass away unexpectedly, my family can get ahold of my copy of this (which I now need to update, so don't let me forget) in order to access the things they may need.

Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and fill out your kit, too.

Deliveries for Mac→

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Junecloud's Deliveries is a fantastic little app to aid in tracking shipments that you are expecting or sending. It got its start on OS X's Dashboard feature ages ago, a feature which is being phased out in OS X Yosemite.

When the App Store came out for iOS devices, Deliveries was there. I've been using Deliveries in Dashboard on my Mac and on my iPhone and iPad for years. It is simply an indispensible and delightful little tool.

With OS X Yosemite eschewing Dashboard by default in favor of adding widgets to Notification Center's Today view, I was hoping to see Deliveries make the transition. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. Deliveries is now a full-fledged Mac app with Notification Center integration, and it also allows me to say farewell to Dashboard, which has been stagnant for years on the Mac.

If you happen to receive shipments frequently and want to keep tabs on them, you need Deliveries.

Deliveries for Mac is available on the Mac App Store for $4.99.

How to Setup Medical ID with iOS 8's Health App→

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Friend of the site Stephen Hackett goes over the benefits of setting up Medical ID in the new Health app on iOS 8. My wife and I also set this up on our new iPhones almost right away.

I, for one, am very happy to see Apple offer an easy-to-access solution such as this for something that is so important. And because it is now available on every iPhone running iOS 8, I would guess it won't take long for many medical personnel to become familiar with Medical ID's existence.

Should You Upgrade to iCloud Drive?→

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The short answer is probably not.

When you install iOS 8 tomorrow, part of the setup will ask if you want to upgrade to iCloud Drive. That same screen will also list devices attached to your iCloud account that will not yet work with iCloud Drive. Namely, your Mac running OS X Mavericks will not be able to sync with iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive is simply not backwards compatible with the Documents & Data portion of iCloud sync that we've been using for years.

In about a month's time we should have OS X Yosemite, which will work just dandy. That is the time to embrace iCloud Drive. If you use OS X Mavericks (or an even earlier version) iCloud sync will permanently break on that Mac once iCloud Drive is enabled on an iOS 8 device.

Don't get me wrong here. iOS 8 should be a fantastic upgrade. iCloud Drive will be fantastic, too — when all your devices are ready for it. It's just that tomorrow is probably not that time, unless you only use iOS 8 capable devices.

Last year, with iOS 7, Apple held off with iCloud Keychain until OS X Mavericks' release. I wish they had done the same with iCloud Drive, as the ability to sync between your devices seems like something pretty important.

Twitter is turning into a bully.→

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TwitPic is shutting down. For the uninitiated, TwitPic was the de facto place to post a picture on Twitter back in the good old days of 2008. This was years before Twitter had its own photo service.

From The Verge's piece on the news:

In a blog post announcing the service closure, Twitpic’s Noah Everett notes "Twitter contacted our legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to their API." The move shocked Everett "since Twitpic has been around since early 2008, and our trademark application has been in the USPTO since 2009." Twitpic doesn’t have the resources to battle Twitter legally and Everett has decided to shut down Twitpic instead.

Twitter as a company is turning into a bully. Plain and simple.

Quotebook 3→

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This week Lickability released Quotebook 3, a long-awaited update to one of their fantastic apps. It's a ground up rewrite and modernizes the look & feel of the app, improves syncing, and expands authors and sources with automatic lookup and Wikipedia integration.

One of my favorite small touches is that it pulls in an author's photo from Wikipedia, Twitter, your Contacts, or you can add your own. It's just a nice piece of detail that helps.

Quotebook is simply a delightful app that I have used for years to collect bits of wisdom from notable people, friends, and even my son. It's not only perfect for quickly recording a great quote, but it makes returning to those quotes and reflecting on them frictionless.

Quotebook 3 is a universal app for iOS and is $5 on the App Store.

iPhone 5 Battery Replacement Program→

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From Apple:

Apple has determined that a very small percentage of iPhone 5 devices may suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently. The affected iPhone 5 devices were sold between September 2012 and January 2013 and fall within a limited serial number range.

If your iPhone 5 is experiencing these symptoms and meets the eligibility requirements noted below, Apple will replace your iPhone 5 battery, free of charge.

If you have an iPhone 5 that falls within that date range, it's not a bad idea to follow the title link above to check your serial number. Both mine and my wife's iPhones were fine and within the range. Your mileage may vary.

Introducing the 1Password App Extension for iOS 8 apps→

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Anyone who has ever used 1Password on an iPhone or iPad has wished that it could integrate with Safari the way it does on the Mac. The great news is that the upcoming iOS 8 has extensions, and 1Password is going to be there on the forefront.

And if that isn't awesome enough for you, it's even going to work in apps that integrate 1Password's extension! If you are an iOS developer, please take a look at the GitHub page and add some 1Password love to your app.

This fall is going to be awesome for 1Password and for you. Check out the video below from Dave Teare showing off the extension inside an app.

On Hacking→

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Ben Brooks:

Hacking away at stuff I don’t understand is how I got the skills and knowledge I have today. […]

The point of all this is that you should never be afraid to hack away at things. I still hack away at the CSS on this site, and while the site is live I save the change and see what happens. Maybe the entire site dies because of that, or maybe it doesn’t — I don’t care. I don’t care because I am working at learning and those few minutes of a broken site won’t really matter to anyone in the long run, but it will help me immensely.

When I first started this site, it was on Squarespace 5. I remember having to do a lot of hacking to get the site to look the way I wanted it to. I gained my first foothold in how to manipulate CSS during that time.

I didn't need to hack nearly as much on this site under Squarespace 6, and to be honest, I feel rough around the edges with what I'd be able to do in CSS these days.

But hacking doesn't have to be just on a website's code. I became a homeowner a little over a year ago, and that has been the ultimate hack. With each small or large issue that comes up with my home, I find myself doing a little research, and then trial and error.

We learn by hacking. Let's make mistakes.