When I worked in an office headphones were a requirement for me. I absolutely needed them to focus. I really don't use headphones all that often anymore since I started working remote 2 1/2 years ago. Listening to music over decent speakers seemed to be enough. Lately I'm discovering I missed the power behind having the sound close to your head. The past two weeks I've been using my headphones again to help with my attention & focus in the afternoons. My mornings start with using my treadmill under my desk to walk and work. Mid-day when I find my brain wandering, I stop working and do some sort of exercise. Now in the afternoons I'm finding putting on the noise-canceling headphones gives me the boost to wrap up the work for the day. ...

I keep a curated playlist on Rdio of songs that are excellent for dancing at your standing desk. The playlist also works well for a particularly awesome dance party. https://www.rdio.com/people/astralbodies/playlists/7569006/To_Dance_Shamelessly_at_a_Standing_Desk/ Enjoy! :)

I'm currently writing the materials for my presentation on Core Data & Synchronization of data for RWDevCon 2016. One of the requirements for the demonstration app is a web service that provides a REST API to sync with. One of the requirements of the talk is that I cannot rely upon an Internet connection. Every person going through the tutorial needs to be able to bring up a local web service to following along with while coding the iOS app on their machine. ...

Because I've had quite a few people ask... Get it on Zazzle.com

I posted earlier last week about how I figured out how the heck I was taking so many Apple Watch screenshots. Turns out there are multiple scenarios causing it to happen. I was thinking about turning the watch face around to move the buttons onto the other side. Something was holding me back until my friend Ellen said she turned her watch too. https://twitter.com/designatednerd/status/663208455449260032 Swapping the watch bands was super simple. Then I went into the Apple Watch Settings app and told it the digital crown was on the left. Boom. No more accidental screenshots. ...

My system for helping keep my brain focused during the workday is a system of lists in a note-taking program like Evernote or Simplenote. Every time I encounter an e-mail, talk to a coworker about something, or get assigned a pull request to review I turn that into a checkbox item. If I don't get to an item in a day, those empty checkbox items get moved to the next day (or week). The system isn't without faults but it seems to work. The only issue with the checkboxes is they don't portray status of longer-running tasks. ...

I've been using a standing desk for over 2 1/2 years. About nine months ago I started mixing in walking on a treadmill to my daily life. I noticed something over the course of this summer - standing at my desk brought back a ton of lower back pain. I thought I had licked the back pain early on with yoga stretches to improve my hip flexor muscles. Turns out, I forgot how to stand. ...

Here's a super interesting write up on how to implement a natural language search using Core Data in a Mac or iOS app. Black Pixel needed to find a way to bring a more natural way for users of the Inspirato app to search for the right vacation. Pretty cool stuff here and something I was very excited to read about with my previous experience with search technologies. Developing Inspirato’s Search Tool

I've noticed that ever since I got my Apple Watch that my photo stream has been filled with seemingly random screenshots of my watch face. It's easy to take a screenshot - simple hit the digital crown and the side button at the same time. So why the heck am I always causing these screenshots? Today I finally discovered the root of the issue. When I'm on a video call at my standing desk I typically put my hands in my pockets to force myself to focus on the people talking. I get seriously distracted if I don't do this. Turns out that's the exact reason for all of the photos. ...

Screen sharing over iMessage is not a terribly well-known feature of Mac OS X - but it's incredibly awesome and easy to use. The only requirements are the person needs a relatively new Mac OS X install (Yosemite or higher) and iMessage enabled on their Mac. In Messages, find your existing conversation (or create a new one with the user).Click the Details button up top and click it.Find the little icon that looks like two squares with an offset between them and click it.Select Ask to Share Screen.The other person should get a notice and they can accept it.Once you're sharing you are in view-only mode - you have to click the icon in the upper left to request control of their desktop.Pretty simple! I've had some issues in the past with the notifications never coming through for screen sharing but it seems to be resolved with Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). ...