About James McCullough

http://www.foursides.ca

A young father, working as a hotel consultant, following a paleo diet thanks to books such as The Primal Blueprint and The 4 Hour Body. I use Byword for writing, and do my work using this iPad keyboard. Connect with me at Google+ or Twitter

Posts by James McCullough:

Mentally Exhausted

I’m not particularly stressed, I’m not particularly overwhelmed. I’m not even mad, but for the past week I have just been feeling bored.

– Ben Brooks, Mentally Fatigued

Unlike Ben, I am feeling quite stressed, but I can definitely relate to his feelings of boredom.

I can never quite pin-down exactly what is happening. I will scan through Twitter, or Facebook, or the RSS feeds and mentally throw my hands up in the air and give up. Very little captures my interest so intently that I want to explore further into a topic and gets me excited to share it with everyone. I almost want to take that drastic measure of nuking everything and starting over. I know better to do that, however, because I know it won’t solve my problem.

I am likely to build myself up to the same point in time only to get frustrated again and want to renew myself.

Ben’s solution is to take a break. Others take a digital sabbatical.

I could never completely detach myself from the digital world, mainly because my job depends on it. Taking a mental break would be welcomed. This is fitting considering we are in the period of Lent.

With this in mind, I will strive to do a few things over the next month:

  1. Stop reading the Twitter stream, and only interact with it through updates, mentions, direct messages.
  2. Same thing with Facebook. This may be a great break from seeing all the inspriational/funny graphics polluting the internet.
  3. Condense my reading of Google Reader to scanning at the end of the week, not daily, and liberally use “Mark All as Read.”
  4. Do more slow reads to fully understand longform pieces and read more outside of my own home.
  5. Write more, in generally.

We will see how well this goes for me. I naturally retreat to reading online when stressed out so it will be a challenge to not pick up the phone to scan Twitter and such.

Who else is participating by giving up something during Lent?

The Dishonest Truth

 We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

– Plato

When someone offers you a compliment, regardless of what it is about, how do you respond?

Most people I come across give the same reaction, “Thank you, but…”

Do I really need to finish that sentence? It’s rampant, it’s everywhere I go. The person receiving the compliment isn’t really at fault though, because the other thing I see happening are the dishonest truths.

To me, the dishonest truths are the phrases told to someone to bolster their ego, to break down their defenses in order to utilize them at a later date. Whether it is telling someone they are doing a good job before telling them they have to work overtime for free; telling someone that their cooking was really tasty but then expecting them to cook every meal; or going up to a woman to say they are beautiful and intelligent in order to go home with them that night.

The reversal happens so frequently that when we know it is unlikely to come, we have the tendency to not believe the person. We do not have a fear of that darkness that is to come later, because it is being lit by the good light. Not having that darkness at the end is not a natural feeling for us. We fight it, resist it so much that we live our lives with a burden of doubt in who we are and our abilities.

Instead of focusing on the darkness at the end, what if we instead choose to believe in the light and not allow it to be extinguished?

Just because someone tells you a compliment in order to get something out of you does not mean that they told you a lie.

You are smart.

You are attractive.

You are a brilliant writer/chef/baker/designer.

You are a valuable worker.

If we get over this fear of the light and believe in every word that someone says, we will live a much fuller life. This isn’t to say we can’t be constantly refining who we are in all areas of life. What I am saying is you are smart, and can become smarter, healthier, turn good into great.

Believe in yourself; help others believe in themselves.

Mailbox: A Fresh Approach to Getting Things Done

At first the idea seemed crazy. Email felt like this massive thing that startups don’t mess with. “This path is paved with corpses,” one friend told us. To be really blunt, we were scared. But as we explored the idea and the capacity of our team to tackle it, we felt emboldened. We realized we could apply everything we had learned about building fast, friendly, mobile collaboration tools to the inbox. We can’t replace email, but we can change how we interact with it.

Mailbox is the latest attempt to try and fix email on the iPhone. It was released on Thursday after months of hyping from some tech journalists, notably M.G. Siegler. Unfortunately, it is not being released all at once, but instead being slowly rolled out to people. When I received the email saying the app was live, I entered in my reservation code and was in the top 15,000. Within 30 minutes, the number behind me in the queue had grown to over 400,000 and was well over 500,000 Friday morning. People have complained about the wait time to get access, but I didn’t have a major problem with it.[1]

Meet Mailbox from Mailbox on Vimeo.

My reservation went live for the app Friday evening. You can get a good overview of the app and its functions over at The Verge, but here are my initial thoughts:

  • beautifully designed, more appealing than Gmail app
  • love how it hides “Original Message” or “begin forwarded message” etc. A simple tap on the message will reveal everything if necessary.
  • ability to rearrange messages in the Lists
  • can take a picture from the compose window (Mail and Gmail can only attach a photo you have already taken.)
  • love being able to defer emails to specific times or generic (“Someday,” “This Evening,” “This Weekend”)

The negatives:

  • no labels
  • not able to send message under an alias address[2]
  • Gmail only, no IMAP support for other accounts
  • no “Important” or VIP mailbox

Overall, the app is well-designed and I am going to use it as my default mail app for Gmail. Will stick to using Mail for my IMAP accounts still and see how it goes.

Using Mailbox to Get Things Done (GTD)

The best approach to using Mailbox is to treat it differently than you would a normal email client. Our instinct with email (and other consumable digital interactions like Twitter) is to want to read a message immediately, and respond right away. Our systems tend to get bogged down when we try to decipher between messages that need to be read, need to be responded to, are for information purposes, or none at all.

The most popular way to resolve this issue is to filter the messages down into labels/folders. Messages sent into those folders tend to get forgotten about completely, unless you have worked out a routine to check the labels consistently.

The other way people resolve this issue is by forwarding the email to a GTD/productivity application of some sort (Basecamp, Orchestra, and so on). By sending it to another app, you are telling yourself, “Deal with this later.”

Snooze

Mailbox resolves this issue by including the GTD controls within the app through the Snooze function. A quick swipe on a message and you get the option to be reminded about the message at a later time or date. There is no need to send it to a GTD app and then set up a reminder afterwards. One step and you are done.

What this allows is the ability to work not in your Inbox, but in your “Snooze” Inbox.

Instead of leaving messages sitting in your Inbox and having that message list continually grow, you can instead focus on what needs to be Today or Tomorrow. With Mailbox, you can turn off the notifications for New Messages and instead be reminded of your Snoozed Messages, which is probably more valuable to people. You will still have to go through your Inbox to quickly categorize things, of course, but this may give some peace of mind to people bogged down a constant influx of email.

I will also have to do better at using Lists to get rid of the newsletters or other lengthy emails to read later at my leisure without having that nagging feeling that I should click on the email right away. I don’t subscribe to many newsletters now, so it is more of an issue with lengthy emails that I really do want to read and respond to at some point.

The catalyst for this post was reading Michael Galpert’s post which includes this great tip:

If you want to use an existing folder in the app you can by simply renaming it in gmail to [mailbox]-folder-name for it to show up in the app.

If you are interested in or currently using Mailbox, I highly suggest reading his full post: Mailbox + Sanebox is the best mobile email app to date

Mailbox seems like it will be a great tool for people who use Gmail regularly. Powerusers will likely still prefer the Gmail app or Sparrow. For everyone else, I would strongly suggest getting in line and experiencing the app for yourself.

It will definitely change how you handle your email.

Available_on_iTunes_Badge_US-UK_110x40_0824

  1. Here is Robert Scoble’s apology for all the hype surrounding the launch. In the comments of a VentureBeat article about Mailbox that Scoble linked to was a post by Jason Thibeault, Sometimes Marketing Genius Isn’t About Storytelling. His post is rather critical of Mailbox and how they planned for the waiting list from the beginning since the queuing system is baked into the app. In a world where everything is hyped, it is puzzling as to why people are still annoyed that companies would use these tactics to gain attention. It is pretty much the norm now and it is unlikely to change any time soon.  ↩
  2. The alias allows me to send a message from “[email protected]” in my Gmail account.  ↩

Obsession x Voice

Find your obsession.

Every day, explain it to

one person you respect.

Edit everything, skip shortcuts,

and try not to be a dick.

Get better.

– Merlin Mann, How to Blog

My Sunday morning was spent listening to a discussion between Merlin Mann and John Gruber that has this ridiculous title, “HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility! The discussion happened at SXSW back in 2009. It is still as relevant today as it was then.

If there was a Hall of Fame for individual podcasts, this may be a member of the first class. It is incredibly insightful for not only writers, but also anyone looking to start up their own business. Every venture comes down to one simple equation according to Merlin: Obsession times Voice.

Topic times voice. Or, if you’re a little bit more of a maverick, obsession times voice. So what does that mean? I think all of the best nonfiction that has ever been made comes from the result of someone who can’t stop thinking about a certain topic — a very specific aspect of a certain topic in some cases. And second, they got really good at figuring out what they had to say about it.

These are two items that I am continually struggling to capture accurately. I definitely know I don’t have a single obsession like some people generally do, and it is difficult for me to pare down all of my interests into one broader category. I look at the archives of this blog and keep wondering, “Who is this guy?”

I have always believed that one single topic can become boring and may not be incredibly useful in the longterm. Read my manifesto to learn more about that belief. I bring this up because it was brought up in the discussion surrounding obsession. Both Merlin and John have a belief that narrowly-focused blogs will grow an audience, while blogs with a variety of topics may be ultimately doomed. I do have to agree with them that a single focus blog will shoot up in popularity quicker though.

The part about voice is something else I keep questioning with my writing. It is a forever evolving process. I will never know for sure if I captured who I really am here, because so very few people I know “for real” read what I write. I don’t have the same check and balances that some people may have with their friends, a partner, a mastermind group, and so forth.

Merlin suggested that the best way to discover your voice is to write to someone you imagine reading your site. John’s response is that he writes for an alternative version of himself. I thought I was doing the same thing, but now I find myself thinking about my daughter. What better way to capture my thoughts, what I found important at the time, and the trials of life I have gone through than with this blog to share with her when she is older?

Maybe it will help me find the focus that I am desperately needing here.

Notes

Reminder for the podcast via MacSparky

John Gruber’s thoughts afterwards: Obsession Times Voice

Roo Reynolds’ Panel Notes

Merlin Mann’s talk, How to Blog

Interview with CBC by Merlin on same topic, How to Blog

Free Book Giveaway: Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception

It’s far more dangerous to fly too low than too high, because it feels safe to fly low. We settle for low expetations and small dreams and guarantee ourselves less than we are capable of. By flying too low, we shortchange not only ourselves but also those who depend on us or might benefit from our work. We’re so obsessed about the risk of shining brightly that we’ve traded in everything that matters to avoid it.

Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception

Opening my mailbox yesterday, I found a neat little package addressed to me from England. Inside was a book, The Icarus Deception, and a card with the words This is my art: blazened at the top:

this is my art

The book was sent to me as a gift by Adrian Swinscoe who I came across through Twitter. He has a neat project going called The Bridge, which helps young people help themselves in order to find a job. It looks like a great resource for youth in England, and I am sure other youths around the world could be inspired by watching some of the videos there.

He also runs rare business, a customer-focused strategy and social media consulting firm. A quick glance through his blog tells me that there is a lot of depth to his writing and is most likely a valuable resource for people. I will read through more of his sites and share some of the more interesting tidbits later.

For now, a brief mention of The Icarus Deception and getting down to business with the give-away.

The Icarus Deception

If you have been following my site for a while or been online the past five years, you know who Seth Godin is. I honestly don’t know where to begin with describing who he is, because he has been inspiring a generation of people for so long. The Purple Cow, Unleashing the Idea Virus are only a few of his many books.

The best place to go is his site, Seth Godin.

Seth has been hard at work publishing books and giving talks (check out his talks on YouTube. It is difficult to pick out one video to share of his, but his TED talks are excellent. His latest project is The Icarus Deception.

Having only held the book for a night, I can’t describe or review the book. Here is what it says on the back cover:

The old rules: Play it safe. Stay in your comfort zone. Find an institution, a job, a set of rules to stick to. Keep your head down. Don’t fly too close to the sun.

The new truth: it’s better to be sorry than safe. You need to fly higher than ever.

In his bravest and most challenging book yet, Seth Godin shows how we can thrive in an economy that rewards art, not compliance. He explains why true innovators focus on trust, remarkability, leadership and stories that spread. And he makes a passionate argument for why you should be treating your work as art.

The path of the artist isn’t for the faint of heart- but Godin shows why it’s your only chance to stand up, stand out and make a difference.

The time to seize new ground and work without a map is now. So what are you going to do?

The Icarus Deception from Squarespace on Vimeo.

The Give-Away

From watching the book trailer, I was inspired by the last few moments of putting a bookmark into the book to share your art that I wanted to do a little more. Adrian’s gift to me makes me want to do a little more, so I am going to be giving away a copy of the book, as well.

I will send the soft-cover of the book to someone in Canada or the United States. I will gift the Kindle version to anyone that I can through Amazon.

How do you get the book?

Leave a comment explaining your art or what you would like to be doing with your art.

That’s it. Make sure you have a valid email address so I can get in touch with you, as well.

Share this post around on Facebook or Twitter. The more comments that are left, the more books I am likely to give out.

The selection will be made on February 14th. No Valentine for me, so one of my readers will benefit from that freedom.

If you have read this book or any of his other books, let me know in the comments and spread the word of Seth Godin to everyone.

Saying Hello

It always seems strange to me when you first get to know someone new.

There is no easy way to break through that threshold and create a mutual level of respect and comfort automatically. It’s a slow process of discovery which can only happen if both parties are equally aggressive in wanting to discover that new person. That comfort level is impossible to create with only one person writing an email to someone, or giving a monologue while standing in an elevator together. Without some kind of response from the other person, the conversation ends and the process of getting to know each other is finished.

It is a challenge to come up with compelling topics to keep the conversation flowing. The internet makes this a little easier because people practically wear their interests on their chests. You can scroll through their online history to find out how they behave, their mood shifts, how often they complain. People are easily discoverable through a quick Google search about their name or reverse looking up their email address, too. Looking up my email address, for example, will give you almost everything you’d ever want to know about me, except my grades in high school. You could find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, my resume, my websites, my embarrassing fantasy league teams, and so forth.

More than that though is how we choose to communicate on the Internet allows someone to develop a better sense of who you are and whether we could ever get along with that person. This is not evident on a site like Facebook where we normally have a relationship (usually) with someone before connecting through the site. But it is the case in publishing mediums that have a strong informal voice being used (Twitter, podcasts, blogging.)

By being less restrictive in our words and images, we open ourselves up for a connection, whether it is emphatic with our struggles or apathetic with our opinions. The updates that at first seem mundane are actually a window into who that person really is. We can never get a sense of who someone is if they restrain communicating their thoughts in some way.

I was reminded of this when I stumbled across Adam Brault’s piece,
I quit Twitter for a month and it completely changed my thinking about mostly everything:

The level of candor people often share on Twitter, particularly over time, has given me a strong sense of who some of the people I follow are, how they think, and what they value. I end up including many of the people on my Twitter list in the somewhat fuzzy set of people I empathize with.

The downside of the openness is that we can all be more selective in who we choose to connect with. When you bump into someone with a different personality or mindset online, we are more likely to discard them in search of the more ideal friendship/partner. This does not leave much room to discover your common interests and learn how to get along with one another. It is rather frightening with how specific one can be in searching for someone to connect with.

It can also be equally disappointing when you finally meet someone in person that you have been building a connection with online. Much like how we build expectations in how a favourite book will be portrayed in a movie, we build expectations in how our real life conversations will play out. Sometimes, it is as though those two people have known each other forever with a seamless transition of online interactions to real ones. Others, it feels like you are starting all over with a vague sense of who that person is.

Being more selective online does not always guarantee a great friendship. Sometimes, you have to reach past your comfort zone to discover that magical person you didn’t know existed. Take a chance on that person you feel resistance to because they upset you in some way or pay more attention to someone you first viewed as trivial. Maybe it won’t be worthwhile in the end, but maybe, just maybe, it will blossom into a great friendship.

I will be the first person to admit that this isn’t easy. I can struggle to say hello to someone at the elevator, so reaching out to someone outside of my comfort zone online is a challenge. It is a challenge I have accepted, because more often than not it has turned into a growing friendship or business partnership.

Saying “Hello” while passing in the hallway is a pleasantry; saying “Hello” online is an invitation to connect and build something together.

But you must start that all by saying, “Hello.”

Tonx Coffee

But of course there are other resolutions on our company list, and on our personal lists, that are much more ambitious and challenging. For all of those, it is good that we have ample quantities of inspiringly tasty coffee to power our efforts. Launching a new version of our website? Drink more coffee. Eat right and exercise? Drink more coffee. Read more books in 2013? Drink more coffee. Be a better, more compassionate person for the people we hold dear in this life and not take anything for granted? Drink more coffee. You get the idea. Drink more coffee.

Tonx Coffee, December 30th letter

A year and a half ago, coffee and I had a love/hate relationship going on. I was pretty much addicted to the stuff. Half a pot in the morning (to myself), plus an afternoon pot or a white chocolate mocha from Starbucks/Blenz. On the days I didn’t have that much caffeine in my system, I felt lousy. I can’t recall exactly what happened, but I went a few days without any coffee and started to feel better. A few days turned into a week and before I knew it, I was up to a month without having any significant amount of coffee or other caffeine on a daily basis.

Since that time, I have been more restrictive with how much coffee I drink. The coffee maker I had originally started leaking constantly, so I quit using it. Instead, I purchased a cup now and then from the coffee shop on the main floor of my building. That helped me cut back a lot because paying $3.00 a day can really add up quickly.

Not having caffeine in my system from the moment I woke up really did improve how I felt. I was able to have more solid sleeps, was more energized in the morning when my daughter woke me up earlier than normal, and even woke up at decent hours without an alarm on the days I didn’t have her. Coffee was changing from a need to something I could enjoy on occasion.

Now that the taste of coffee started to matter more to me, I was struggling to find the perfect coffee for me. In southern British Columbia, there are a staggering amount of roasters available, from premium roasters like Cherry Hill to much cheaper Granville Island Coffee. I went through so many varieties and yet couldn’t find something I truly enjoyed. After a few months of this, I decided to take a chance on something else that I had heard about through the year: Tonx Coffee.

Thanks to podcasts like Marco Arment‘s recently ended podcast Build and Analyze and John Gruber‘s podcast, The Talk Show, I kept hearing the praises of Tonx and how much better the coffee tasted. I had wrongly assumed that it was a US-only venture, because shipping coffee to Canada would surely be a bit more expensive and not make it worthwhile. When I looked at the website, not only does Tonx deliver to Canada, but there isn’t any extra cost involved.

I was sold.

Placed my order, and within two weeks, I opened up my mail box to find this flat box waiting for me. When I opened up the box, packed inside was a small bag of coffee, but also a post card about the coffee and a short company letter. Reading through the letter brought a smile to my face. It is a nice personal touch that elicits the same reaction I get when opening a box branded with the Apple logo.

The post cards are a real neat idea. It tells the story of where the beans came from, who is farming them, and the tastes to be expected after brewing. Here is the story of the Musasa beans:

Musasa, in the north Rwandian district of Gakenke, has earned a global reputation for its coffee. Located near a mountain gorilla habitat, the area has excellent elevation and an abundance of the red bourbon cultivar, one we price above most. The Musasa coffee is from the Dukunde Kawa Cooperative, a progressive association with over 2000 members, mostly women, whom each own about 200 trees in small family plots.

Musasa coffees present a bouquet of florals atop some sweet red fruits – pomegranate and raspberry – balanced with bittersweet chocolate.

That is pretty cool story to me to think that I’m drinking coffee grown in Rwanda and I’m on the other side of the world in Canada. On top of that, it was grown by a small cooperative, not a large corporation. All of the beans Tonx sends to you have similar stories like this one. The latest batch of beans I received is from a small family farm in Columbia. I can’t wait to see where the next shipment is coming from.

The stories are good, but the coffee is even better. I don’t have the knowledge of the terms the coffee aficionados would have to fully express the quality of the taste. All I know is that the short descriptions that Tonx uses are dead on. It is even more telling to me that my three year old daughter likes the smell of the coffees and tries to eat the raw beans. She never showed the same kind of interest in the other beans I had been buying.

The main selling point for me on Tonx is that I receive a different coffee every two weeks. They are highly unlikely to repeat a shipment unless there is significant demand for it. This means I will never get in a rut of having to choose a different brand of coffee for a change. For someone like me who enjoys a variety of tastes in life, this is perfect.

In terms of pricing, it is slightly more expensive than a regular bag of coffee:

6 oz = $24.00

12 oz = $38.00

The prices are for two shipments of that size. So, for comparison sake, a regular bag of coffee beans in a store is usually sold in 16 oz (1 pound) bags. A pound of Starbucks beans is around $15.00. The equivalent cost for a pound of Tonx beans is $25.00.

Personally, I find the price difference worthwhile, because I know I am paying for a higher quality of bean, plus supporting the local farmers in far off places of the world.

If you are in the United States, there is a free trial (2 oz bag) to give you a taste of what is to come with no commitment. No free trial for Canada, but if you come to Kelowna, I’ll brew you a cup for free to give you a taste.

Tonx Coffee: Truly Great Coffee, In Your Kitchen, Without Much Fuss.

For more information about the company and the blends I have received, visit my ongoing catalogue of the shipments: Tonx Coffee Review

Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue is real talk when it comes to the web.

– Joshua Blankenship, Some Thoughts on Web Content Strategy

Through my life, I have been fairly good at making choices. I don’t spend a lot of time doing price comparisons, looking up reviews of products, sorting out what to order off a menu, and so forth. I tend to enter an environment either knowing roughly or exactly what I am wanting, or it simply does not matter to me. For example, if I need a power bar, I tend to scan the options for something that isn’t incredibly bulky and go for it.

Making those same choices on the web is difficult. More likely impossible. My mind is simply too interested in everything, regardless of the subject matter. I have a hard time hitting the off-switch when it comes to stop reading about something, scanning through Twitter, or getting lost in the world of YouTube videos. The absolute worst is Wikipedia or when I am trying to solve an issue that is usually technical in nature.

Tonight, the project was setting up an old Windows desktop computer as a Linux web server. Incredibly geeky thing to start doing for no real purpose other than wanting the challenge to see if I could get it working.[1] For someone not entirely familiar with the command line interface, the task has been a bit more daunting than I first expected. After several attempts of trying something, researching it on my iPhone, having a page up on the iPad to copy commands from, I decided to stop for the night.

Most people would most likely sink into their chairs to watch television. Lately, more people are probably scanning Facebook or Twitter. I usually go through all the stories showing up in Google Reader.

One of the posts led me to something Joshua wrote yesterday, How to Ensure Your Ideas Are Never Criticized. Being the curious guy I am, I kept reading before coming across the post I quoted above.

His post is about writing content and how people need fewer options because the amount of content is getting out of control.

Everything we do on the web is a part of a whole, and if the whole doesn’t sing in harmony, that dissonance will confuse and turn off people.

After I read the “decision fatigue is real” line, and went through the piece again, the above sentence really stood out for me. Not in terms of how others were viewing the web, but instead with how I was using the web.

I started to think about how I could use the web better to align more with who I am. There are some things I share on Twitter or Tumblr that are ephemeral, not something I would ever want to read or listen to again. If it isn’t something I don’t want to see again, what are the chances someone else will want to click through to see it?

I don’t think I need to develop a full content publishing strategy since this is more hobby than business for me, but I do want to rethink about what I share and what I create here.

This blog has been forever evolving for me, it seems. Time to nail it down.[2]

  1. I am a big proponent of Douglas Rushkoff’s Program, or Be Programmed theory that he presents in his book. I have wanted to learn how to program, but instead decided setting up a web server is probably a bit more manageable at the moment.  ↩
  2. A little bit, at least.  ↩

One Sip is All It Takes

There is nothing quite like the sound of a ceramic mug when it first touches down on a table, full of steaming, hot liquid.

It is a mental signal to us marking the end of a previous moment and the start of a new one: it is time.

It is a beginning of a time for work, of reflection, of relaxation, or a conversation amongst peers.

Drawing the cup up to our lips is like a comma in our life being written down. A pause to savour the smell of the tea or coffee, to gaze across at our screens or friends and think of what will happen next. A taste of the liquid brings us back to life regardless of whether we were alive before that sip or not. And as we swallow that first sip, another pause happens allowing us to have that universal thought, “This hits the spot.”

That first sip is most likely ingrained into us from birth, because I have witnessed my own three year old daughter have those same moments when drinking some warm tea or hot chocolate. There’s a sip, a pause, and then a question of “What’s that?”

Yes, what is that mysterious liquid that brings so much goodness to our bodies in just one cup? It doesn’t matter if you prefer coffee or tea, or apple cider or chocolate milk. Once they are warmed up and put into a cup , they are all made equal. A warm, magical sip causing us to breath again and become whole.

It’s the one thing we all look forward to after a cold afternoon of playing in the snow, or a long walk through the mists after a rainfall, or a miserable sleep: a warm drink to snap us back into reality and instantly make us feel a thousand times better from head to toe.

One sip is all it takes.

Best WordPress Editor: Poster

Today, one of my favourite apps was updated to 2.0, Poster.

I have mentioned it a few times in posts when writing about the iPhone on this site. In short, it’s by far the best way to publish and edit posts to a WordPress site.

The reason why it is so good to work with is because it just works. It really is that simple. There were a few minor problems when it was first published, but the developer, Tom Witkin, was prompt with a response and released an update right away.

Besides the obvious of being able to write/edit posts in plain text, Poster is designed to support the Markdown language out of the box. Being able to write out HTML links and format the posts without having to deal with a lot of clicking in the WordPress editor is wonderful. You can also pull in text from Dropbox files or send files to Poster (e.g. from my preferred editor Byword or Scratch.)

Those functions alone make this app worth downloading. There is a lot more goodness to be found within the Inspector (the settings for an individual post.) Change the basics:

  • Title
  • Categories
  • Tags
  • Post Format (if your theme supports it)
  • Publish Date and status (scheduled, draft, publish)
  • Custom Fields

With the release of version 2, there are some added benefits:

  • Manage up to 9 blogs at once
  • Reorder your blogs
  • insert images at any location within a post
  • Edit a post’s excerpt or set it as sticky
  • Share a publish post

And more.

Check out the screenshots on iTunes or on the website. Poster is available for iPad or iPhone, with both apps having the same feature-set.

It has already changed how and when I blog. I am willing to bet it changes how you do, too.

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