Droplings Simplifies Public Sharing With Dropbox

Dropbox is a fantastic tool for everyone, from individuals to small businesses and teams. At MacStories, we use Dropbox every day. But while it is perfect for working or outsourcing important files you want to access anywhere, there is one feature in Dropbox which always bothered me: quickly creating download links to share files with friends or colleagues. Both in the Dropbox Finder window and web interface the process is just too intricate. I’ve always used other services like Droplr and CloudApp, although lately I’ve been growing tired with using multiple services for the same purpose.

Droplings, a lightweight menu bar app developed by fellow German freelance developer Carlo Zottman (developer of the Instapaper-to-Kindle sync tool Ephemera) could finally change that. Currently in beta, Droplings makes it easy to upload files to your “Public” Dropbox folder and share them afterwards.

Firstly, enter your Dropbox ID in the app’s settings. Then, just drag and drop the respective file onto the menu bar icon, and within seconds the file will be uploaded and a Droplings preview link will be in your clipboard, ready for sharing. The default preview page looks pretty nice (as you can see from the screenshots below) and the embedded download link will be based on Dropbox. By clicking on the app’s menu bar icon, you have access to the last five uploaded files, as well as the app’s Preferences, which basically just activate your Dropbox ID and offer an option to activate custom HTML templates for the preview site. Droplings is simple and fast, and, in my opinion, way better than copying files into the Dropbox Finder window and right-clicking to generate a download link.

Droplings for Mac

Droplings for Mac

If you miss this simplicity of sharing with Dropbox as much as I do, go ahead and try Droplings. Since it is currently in beta (v. 0.9.x), you can download it for free on the app’s website.

Firemonkeys Announce Real Racing 3, Coming Later This Year→

Firemonkeys Announce Real Racing 3, Coming Later This Year

Jordan Golson of MacRumors writes,

Firemonkeys, the new combined studio from EA combining the IronMonkey and Firemint gaming studios, has announced the development of Real Racing 3 for iPhone and iPad.

[…]

Real Racing 3 will be the first game in the franchise to have real racecourses and will allow 22 cars to race simultaneously. No system requirements have been released yet.

Announced on Twitter and shown off on the Real Racing Facebook page, Real Racing 3 almost looks like it could be a current gen console game. And that says a lot, especially when there’s a disclaimer noting that it’s pre-alpha footage. Real Racing has always excited fans by pushing the limits on iOS and by making good use of AirPlay on the Apple TV by allowing players to use their iOS devices as controllers while the race takes place on the big screen. Not to disappoint, catch the trailer on Facebook and look forward to Real Racing’s 3rd installment later this year.

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Scratch Review

Scratch

Scratch

For the past week, I have been trying Scratch, a new quick note-taking app by Karbon. While the app still can’t replace Drafts in my workflow, it has some unique ideas that will be worth a second consideration in the future.

The idea behind Scratch is to offer a simple way to save plain text in Dropbox. Like Drafts, Scratch allows you to create notes that you can forward to a variety of services like Messages, Email, and the aforementioned Twitter and Dropbox. Unlike Drafts, Scratch is also capable of appending text to an existing file in Dropbox. A number of hacks to manually add appending capabilities to Drafts have surfaced in the past month.

I like the design of Scratch. The app sports custom toolbar and menu design, but it’s the kind of carefully thought-out custom that’s a great fit for the iOS platform, now mature enough to accept and foster an ecosystem of different-looking apps. The main point of interaction in Scratch is the compose area, where you’ll be jotting down your notes. As in most text editing apps these days, there is a formatting toolbar located above the virtual keyboard; in Scratch, the toolbar is fully customizable and offers quick access to other features of the app as well.

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Evernote Adds Account Switching→

Evernote Adds Account Switching

Evernote account switcher

Evernote account switcher

From the Evernote blog:

As a Premium user, you’ll be able to switch between one Free account and as many Premium accounts as you like. Whenever you switch from one account to another, the Evernote app screen reloads and displays the other account with all the notes that had synched the last time you viewed it. There’s even a keyboard shortcut CMD+CTRL+A to quickly switch accounts.

After the first time you sign in, Evernote won’t ask you to enter the password again. I’ve just tested it with my two Evernote accounts, and it works as advertised.

Not only is this useful for classrooms and families (where it’s more likely multiple accounts are being used), I also think this is a convenient option for people that use Evernote with IFTTT. Until today, I have used IFTTT to build an archive of all my tweets in Evernote. Links to over 6500 tweets weigh only 1.6 MB in Evernote. With this new option, I can log Twitter (and other social) updates to a separate account, easily switching back and forth my personal and “archiving-only” accounts with two clicks.

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Angry Birds Update Adds New “Power-Ups”, 15 New Levels

Rovio may have just released Amazing Alex a few weeks ago, but it’s committed to bringing more levels to its Angry Birds franchise that continues to be popular. In an update released today, the original Angry Birds game for iOS got 15 new tropical levels that sees the “piggies continue their beach vacation”, that is, until the birds show up.

Today’s update also sees the addition of four power-ups; King Sling, Birdquake, Super Seeds, and Sling Scope.

  • King Sling upgrades your slingshot for “maximum power and velocity”
  • Birdquake will bring the pigs’ defenses “crashing to the ground”
  • Super Seeds will turn your bird into a “pig-popping giant”
  • Sling Scope lets you use laser targetting for “pinpoint precision”

Upon launching the update you’ll get 20 free uses of a power-up and each day you get one additional use. But of course, if you can’t wait that long there’s a bunch of in-app purchase bundles to give you more uses of those power-ups, ranging from a 5-pack of any power-up for $1.99, 10 uses of a single power-up for $0.99 or you could go all in for 125 power-ups for $20.99.

A little side-note, Rovio has now (finally) brought full retina support for the iPad 3 so you can enjoy the game on the wonderful Retina display.

Review: The New Day One

Day One

Day One

Twenty years from now, what will you remember?

Last week, a friend of mine found an old MP3 player in her drawer. Upon recovering the contents of the device[1], she synced its music back to her iPod nano, and then she gave it to me. It was full of songs we used to listen to years ago. If songs can be associated with certain moments or periods of your life, than that MP3 player was like a photo album in sound form. Memories. Old emotions and melodies coming back to life, not a distant echo anymore. It felt like grabbing the headphones of 16 year-old me, today, with the knowledge that those moments won’t be coming back, but the experience of someone who cherished them will.

But what do I remember?

In twenty years, I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember the songs I like today, or the faces of people that I care about now. I don’t even know if I’ll be around in twenty years. But I do know that I want to do everything I can to make sure I can get there with my own memories. We are what we know. And I want to remember.

Where the human mind can’t get, I think software can help. In the connected and post-PC era we’re living in, I believe the devices and apps we use play an important role in enabling us to create memories. But just as relevant as “content creation” has become to this discussion, we have to ensure the memories we create today will be preserved digitally for the future.

For the past few months, I have been using a new version of Day One to build an archive of my life. Released today, the new Day One goes beyond the previous version’s support for text entries and adds photos, location, and weather information in an app that, for me, has become more than a simple journaling utility.

Developed by Bloom, Day One went through a remarkable evolution to get to the major updates published today. Last year, I took a look at the app and noted how it was helping me build an “archive of my thoughts” thanks to its simple and elegant interface:

There’s one thing I never really considered storing in a digital archiving app — memories. I’m talking about things like “what did I enjoy doing today” or “I decided to take a walk with my girlfriend” — specific moments that matter in life, that are important, but which our brains often blur and forget after some time to make room for new data to process and maintain.

And then again:

I try to enjoy every moment, but there’s so much the human brain can remember and it’s perfectly normal if something will get lost in the process of assimilating thoughts and processing them to turn them into memories and experiences.

If 2011 Day One was the TextEdit of memories, the new Day One is their Evernote. With support for photo attachments, location data, and improvements to sync and Mountain Lion, today’s Day One wants to overcome the limitations of text to become the window into your past life.

Day One is visual memories. Read more