Month: November 2013

Newegg Loses to Patent Troll

TQP’s single patent is tied to a failed modem business run by Michael Jones, formerly president of Telequip. The company has acquired more than $45 million in patent licensing fees by getting settlements from a total of 139 companies. TQP argues that the patent covers SSL or TLS combined with the RC4 cipher, a common Internet security system used by retailers like Newegg.

I think it was Andy Warhol who predicted: “In the future, everyone will have 15-minutes in court with a patent troll.”

Squarespace redesigned on iOS

Whoops…spoke too soon.

After writing another post about the problems of posting to Squarespace from iOS the night before last, they went ahead and released some updates.

We’re excited to announce two brand new iOS apps for Squarespace customers – Squarespace Blog and Squarespace Metrics – as well as iOS 7 updates for Note and Portfolio.

As Squarespace’s functionality continues to expand, we’ve focused on creating an entire suite of applications around Squarespace’s core product. This lets us focus each app on specific functionality, providing a clear, targeted interface that helps you accomplish exactly what you need to do on the go.

I’m using the new iPhone app to write this. So far it’s working well. And wow is it great to look at. It seems to have the full functionality of the desktop website. Which probably wasn’t easy to do.

I was hoping for a URL scheme to work with or some kind of Dropbox integration. There’s a lot to be said for being able to write in a proper text editor. Though that probably makes me a bit of an edge case for their target users.

I’m afraid that after looking into so many blogging services that use Dropbox to publish markdown formatted text files as posts, any other method of posting seems a little bit inefficient considering that I’m already doing all of my writing in Dropbox synced text files.

Sven just wrote about moving Simplicitybliss to [Kirby] and I am incredibly jealous. Also, I’m happy to see that one of my favorite bloggers shares my inability to Stay. Put.

Kickstart an Urban Orchard in Richmond

Some folks here at Martin have partnered with Enrichmond & Blue Bee Cider to create a community apple orchard downtown:

David Vogaleer:

But before we can plant the trees, we have to clear the land. That’s where the “kids” come in. Instead of using heavy equipment or chemicals to clear the land out, we want to use goats. Lots of goats. And I’ve seen them in action, they can tear some through shrubbery.

We are hoping to raise $5k by the end of our kickstarter campaign to pay for the goats, and we have some really cool prizes to go along with backing it.

Great to see the agency doing good here in the city. David also worked on an incredible interactive mural a few months back. I wrote a post about it but it was eaten by the Squarespace sarlacc.

Don’t you want to help pay for some goats? At least read about it. You’ll be glad you did!

Go here to pitch in or read more about it.

More complaining about posting with Squarespace…

Chris Gonzolez put together a Squarespace wishlist that reminded me of some of the frustrations I’ve written about. He makes a number of great points, but this continues to be my main frustration:

If Squarespace isn’t going to update its own app – it’s been 25 weeks (!) since the last iPad update – they should open up some kind of public API for 3rd-party apps to use. If I could just publish directly from Byword or Editorial, it would change my entire game.

Their head of operations (I think?) replied to a frustrated tweet of mine with a cryptic “stay tuned,” but at this rate it could be years.

I’ve been thinking of continuing to use Squarespace for a home base, but moving my blog to a platform better suited to day-to-day posting. Tumblr or any of the Dropbox blogging services offer much better blogging functionality.

But maybe if I wait long enough…

Via Unretrofied