Relay FM have launched another great show, where Jason Snell and David Sparks talk about how they became independent.

From the Relay FM blog:

Last year at WWDC, I had tea with Myke, Jason Snell and David Sparks.

At the time, I was on the fence about leaving my job to work on Relay FM full-time. It made sense on paper, but I was nervous about taking my fate into my own hands.

All three of them were already independent, and were very open about the challenges and rewards that working for yourself brings. (I think they’ll admit there was a little peer pressure going on to, but that’s beside the point.)

Today, Jason and David are launching a new fortnightly podcast named Free Agents. It’s all about work, and while they are both self-employed, the topics on Free Agents are applicable to all sorts of people. – Relay FM Extras

I’m a big fan of both what Jason and David do for their blogs, Six Colors, and MacSparky. So I’m really looking forward to hear everything they have to say about going independent, and any tips they have for the rest of us!

Anyway, the first episode is titled "The Temptation of Yes", where they discuss the problems when saying Yes too much, and also how to narrow your scope when it comes to work.

You can find more about Free Agents, and the first episode on Relay FM. There’s also links to follow them on Twitter, and also on your favourite podcast app.

As you may already know, Scrivener, the great writing app for Mac/Windows, has now come to iOS!

I’ve heard about Scrivener a lot before, and it seems to be the most popular app for novelists. Well as you would presume, it’s pretty feature packed. And I didn’t really know where to start when trying to learn about it. Now it’s on iOS, it seems like that’s version I would use myself.

Fortunately for all potential Scrivener users, the developers, Literature & Latte, have released a 10 minute video which goes over all the features in the iOS app!

Scrivener for iOS – Feature Overview from Literature & Latte on Vimeo.

If you want to read a bit more about Scrivener, here are some articles I found:

• Six Colors – Hands on with Scrivener for iOS
• TidBITS – First Look at Scrivener for iOS
• VentureBeat – Hands-on with the Scrivener writing app for iOS
• 9to5 Mac – Review: Scrivener for iOS app is finally out next week, and it’s worth the wait

Scrivener for iOS will be available on the 20th July in the morning (UK time). So you can either just search Scrivener on the App Store, or use this link which will direct you to the app once it’s live.

I wrote a piece/rant about notifications and how I deal with emails over on Medium.

For a while now, I’ve been slowly turning off notifications on my devices, but today I made the decision to switch off my email notifications as well.

It all comes down to my growing need to focus.

It’s about a 7 minute read, so you may want to put it aside for when you have time. But I hope I can change your mind about how I (and maybe you in the future) deal with notifications.

Read the whole piece on Medium.

Wow!

I can’t wait to see this! I’m also excited for the trailer that we should be getting in a few days.

[IMDb]

I watch TED videos a lot, but I thought this one definitely had to be shared.

Forests don’t have to be far-flung nature reserves, isolated from human life. Instead, we can grow them right where we are — even in cities. Eco-entrepreneur and TED Fellow Shubhendu Sharma grows ultra-dense, biodiverse mini-forests of native species in urban areas by engineering soil, microbes and biomass to kickstart natural growth processes. Follow along as he describes how to grow a 100-year-old forest in just 10 years, and learn how you can get in on this tiny jungle party.

It’s just under 10 minutes, but I found it very fascinating, and it proves there are things we can do to kickstart nature.

Michael Kennedy, writing for ScreenRant:

While the Pokémon franchise never really went away entirely, the amazingly successful launch of new augmented reality game Pokémon Go has returned the property to a level of pop-culture ubiquity it’s not seen in many years. With millions of people currently spending their free time trying to catch ’em all, Nintendo’s stock price has rocketed up 25%, and the company’s financial outlook now looks quite rosy. Naturally, Pokémon Go’s success has led Legendary Pictures to start working overtime on a deal with Nintendo to produce a live-action Pokémon movie. While a deal is still not finalized, reports are suggesting who might be in line to write the script, if and when contracts are signed.

Really. Pokémon and Live-Action?

I can’t imagine this being anything other than a terrible idea.

That’s not a headline that many would expect, but Razer have indeed created a mechanical keyboard for the iPad Pro.

They’ve made this keyboard, and packed it into a case which also features a metal kickstand, and a protective outer case for the actual iPad.

The kickstand isn’t fixed to any specific angle, like most other cases/stands, and can be adjusted to any preferred position. That’s a pretty big improvement on the rest.

They also developed “ultra-low-profile” mechanical switches for the keys, which you can read more about. They say the force needed to recognise a key press is 70g, but I don’t really know what this means. I use a mechanical keyboard sometimes, but I don’t see any huge difference between them and my MacBook.

It also allows you to type in dark environments, as it features backlighting! Which once you’ve tried, you can’t not have.

The battery life is okay if you use the backlighting constantly, which will give you approximately 10 hours on a single charge. But if you turn off the backlighting, it will last approximately 600 hours. So I guess it isn’t that bad, just don’t use the backlight too much.

It’s available in the store already for a whopping £159.99, but it seems it’s currently being shipped from the US. So while you get free shipping, there will probably be a customs/tax charge with it.

Overall, I really like the design, and I much prefer typing on a mechanical keyboard to a glass screen. But not enough to spend that amount of money unfortunately.

If you’ve ever wondered what a glass skateboard would look/ride like, then check out this video by Braille Skateboarding.

They also have some other videos, where people have sent in some interesting skateboards, so check them out as well!

I personally would love a skateboard that I can ride in any weather.

Joe Caiati, writing for The Sweet Setup:

News has changed dramatically. Today, there are remnants of the way news used to work, but these traditional channels are slowly becoming a distant memory.

In an age past, the newspaper was delivered to your doorstep in the morning ready to be digested over a cup of coffee. When you returned home from work and settled down on the couch, the nightly news on TV caught you up on the day’s events.

While those outlets are still around today, news is much more complicated.

He talks about what news is, and how we tend to consume news nowadays,

There are innumerable online publications hurling stories everywhere. Some of them are pertinent to your interests, some of them waste your time, some of them are shared by friends, and then there is still the unknown that you may be missing out on.

To combat this news overload, a group of apps have tried to tackle this problem in hopes that they can bubble up the right stories so that you don’t have to work so hard to stay up-to-date on your interests and current events. We have tested many news digest services and found that Nuzzel is the best.

It’s a great read, and I’m a Nuzzel user myself. But even if you already use the app as well, Joe has written a very intriguing piece on news in general, and also more in depth into Nuzzel features you may not be aware of.

Dan Lages has written a piece on how WordPress is relied upon by a lot of different people and websites, but in most cases it isn’t really the optimal solution:

“That’ll do.” I can only imagine this is what was said to the WordPress developers as they bolted website service together with the initial blogging platform. It is clear that the WordPress is tailored towards bloggers, the initial audience of the service. As a result of this, users are left facing an endless amount of themes that prompt the use of posts, not pages. How many times have you seen a blog on a company website?

In fact, every element of the service appears broken without a heavy backlog of blog posts. From the menu system, to an empty archive sidebar that is included by default. The result of this horrendous integration is a collection of un-utilised pages and elements that leaves users with various questions. – dlages.com

I seem to agree with everything he’s written, and if you read it for yourself, you can clearly see for yourself why WordPress isn’t the best idea.

It may be used a ton, but it really shouldn’t be. I for one started to use Ghost recently, and I really prefer it over WordPress.