I haven’t posted much throughout August and at all thus far in September. Work and personal life both had huge spikes of projects, visits with friends and family and a few posts that got started but were lost in the mix and need rounded out. That doesn’t mean the well of creativity has been dry. I’m looking forward to crafting some ones and zeros for you here and getting back to a more regular publishing schedule starting today. Thanks as always for reading!

Jessica Abel’s forthcoming documentary comic looks riveting. From the site for the book:

Every week, millions of devoted fans download or tune in to This American Life, The Moth, Radiolab, Planet Money, Snap Judgment, Radio Diaries, 99% Invisible, and other nonfiction narrative radio shows. The compelling stories they produce are almost cinematic in scope and approach—intricately weaving sound into robust and engaging storytelling. A lot goes into making the shows we love. Anchored by surprising characters and big questions, their stories are tightly structured, edited, and soundtracked, and they introduce us to authentic voices from every walk of life.

Radio and podcasts today are entrepreneurial and DIY; there’s a can-do, collaborative spirit that characterizes people working in this field, fearlessly breaking new artistic ground. And more than ever, given the excellence and explosive popularity of shows like Serial, it’s clear that the creative producers working in this medium hold the key to storytelling secrets that the rest of us must learn.

Out on the Wire, a documentary comic, literally illustrates those secrets, gleaned straight from those on the frontlines of radio’s revolution. With the help of This American Life’s Ira Glass, cartoonist Jessica Abel uncovers just how producers construct a story, spilling some juicy insider details along the way. Jad Abumrad of RadioLab talks about chasing moments of awe with scientists, while Planet Money’s Robert Smith speaks candidly about his slightly embarrassing strategy for putting interviewees at ease. And Abel reveals how mad—really mad—Ira Glass becomes when he receives tough edits from his colleagues. Informative and inventive, Out on the Wire shows us the magic that makes these shows great and why we can’t stop listening to them.

I can’t wait to read this. Pre-order it here.

If you’re looking to transfer or buy a domain name I would look no further than Hover to do so. They’ve built a well designed and function forward platform for managing all aspects of your domain names that doesn’t muddle your experience with add-on services and hidden menus. With that said I recently ran into the first snag with Hover that I’ve ever had.

I transferred a domain into Hover that used Nationbuilder as the CMS for the site. Like a lot of CMSes Nationbuilder uses a www CNAME record to direct traffic to the domain for the site within said CMS. Setting up the www CNAME record for the domain was no problem but setting up a redirect for naked domain (</> for example) was something I wasn’t able to do within the DNS console. After some initial digging that landed me on this Hover support article I called Hover’s no-hold, no-transfer policy-wielding support team and Martin picked up within two rings to help me out. He explained that Hover doesn’t currently support 301 redirects but that he’d be able to get me up and running with what I needed. Here’s what we did to resolve the issue:

1. Navigate to the Domain Details tab for the domain in question.

2. Click Edit next to the Forward This Domain option and enter the domain with the www host in the URL and click Save. Example: http://www.coursecode.net

3. Navigate to the DNS tab for the domain in question.

4. Click Add New and add an A record that points to 64.99.80.30 and click Save.

5. Verify that the new A record is setup within your DNS dashboard.

What we’ve done above is to setup forwarding if someone enters / so it redirects to http://www.coursecode.net. The additional A record ensures that DNS looks to Hover for any other records to be sure email and other hosts aren’t affected. While this isn’t a true 301 redirect, I’m sure it will cover the bases for a lot of people that just need the domain to redirect to the www host for their site.

Course Code was added to Apple News on Monday, only 24 hours after I’d submitted it for approval. The application process was very straightforward and only took about a half hour to complete. I’m excited to have the potential to be put in front of millions of people when Apple News goes live with iOS 9 in the fall. I’m really excited that I don’t have to put my content into someone else’s silo in order to gain this potential. Daniel Jalkut wrote about the difference between the approach Apple News is implementing in comparison to other “publishing platforms” after WWDC back in June:

I’m optimistic that Apple’s News app will be a strike against centralized services such as Medium, Twitter, and Facebook. A strike against signing over content to a 3rd party mediator for the sake of a greater chance at connecting to an audience. Apple may not be the world’s best technology company when it comes to either storing data or building a social network around it, but they are damned good at building a captive audience of delighted users who trust the company to provide access to a variety of 3rd party content.

People who used to write prolifically on long-form blogs are facing a similar conundrum with the rise of services such as Medium, which aim for and seem to deliver on the goal of connecting writers with larger audiences of people. Why keep writing for your own, completely owned and controlled site, if contributing your content to a centralized authority such as Medium will yield more feedback, gratitude, and criticism than publishing on your own site?

This was preceded by an excellent analogy between what Apple News can do for independent blogs and what iTunes does for podcasting:

Approximately 0% of the podcasts available to the massive installed base of Apple’s customers are actually hosted on Apple’s servers. Yet a huge number of podcast content providers thrive because of the distribution mechanism, the amplifier, that Apple provides by way of the Podcasts section of its iTunes store, and the Podcasts app on its iOS devices. If Apple decides on a whim to rank a particular podcast lower in the charts, or even to outright remove it from the iTunes directory? It’s definitely bad news for the show, but it’s not a death knell. The content lives on, access to it remains unfettered for those who seek it, and alternative clients for accessing the content are not “permitted,” because they don’t need to be. They are allowed to exist by default, because of the very nature of the web.

I know that everything I write isn’t news with a capital N but I do believe that the community of independent writers deserve a way to distribute their content in a way that respects their ownership of it. I spend my own money on Course Code for the tools to host it, write it and distribute it (via RSS). I don’t recoup those costs because I’m not at the point where advertisers that respect my readers would be willing to advertise to a readership of this size. That’s my choice and I prefer to control the whole stack. Apple News is providing an outlet that may change all of that by putting sites like mine in front of a much wider audience without having to sacrifice (most of) this control[1]. It might not do a thing for writers like me but the potential is enough to have me really excited for the launch of Apple News on iOS 9.

1. Apple News has been removing some images in my posts and the only pattern I’ve found is that these images contain logos for other companies. I’m guessing this is in the guidelines for acceptable content but I haven’t found that specifically outlined anywhere yet. ↩

Shawn Blanc writes:

You have to be inspired first before you can create.

You have to learn before you can teach.

You have to experience before you can share.

There is no shame in taking time “off” of your work, in order to learn something, experience something, and be inspired.

This is the ebb and flow of work. This is having multi-year cycles where we grow in our mastery of creation beyond just mastery of tools and workflows. This is why resting well is so valuable and why learning, thinking, and discovering cannot be underrated.

Over the last two years I’ve been going through a mental transformation to adapt to a mindfulness that mirrors what Shawn has conveyed in this piece. It’s one of the reasons Course Code isn’t updated daily and probably won’t be for as long as I maintain a day job. I’m happy with that now but two years ago I was a mess between my stressful day job, independent consulting business and expecting myself to write something of any value. It’s difficult to find inspiration when that’s how you spend your life. It’s not that I regret that time in my life, I’m glad I was able to learn from it in my mid-twenties just as we found out Courtney was pregnant with our son. I’ve been on an interesting road to a more thoughtful investment of my time since. That has included a couple of dramatic changes in our lives and spans of time where I retracted from aspects of life that I needed to let rest (this site included). Overall it’s lead me to have longer sprints of inspiration and creativity and has helped me continue to hone in on what’s worth my time.

If you’re stressed and pulling yourself a hundred different ways, take a break to assess and find what you truly want for your life. What’s in the way of letting that be the driver for the decisions you make? If you need to make changes to get there, do it. It will take time (likely more time than you’re imagining) but I can tell you that it’s worth it. Rest and reflect so you can move forward.

08/02/2015 Update: Re-framed this post to reflect monthly items without a one off purchase and provide more context as to the potential Jet has to add savings based on how much you buy at once. Thanks to Reddit user pasttense for the feedback that lead to this re-framing.

Last weekend I discovered a new service for shopping online called Jet through this conversation on Twitter. I was intrigued to see if this new service could compete with Amazon on pricing, specifically for Subscribe & Save items. We’ve used Amazon Subscribe & Save for about two years now to have our staple household items delivered to us on a schedule and (primarily) to save between 5% and 20% off of those items in doing so. The biggest downside for us with Amazon Subscribe & Save as of late is that a lot of the offerings that qualify for the program are bulk size quantities and we’ve moved into an apartment that’s a third the size of our previous home[1]. We just don’t have room for all items to come in bulk orders like we used to and I’m sure we’re not alone in that. After perusing Jet’s site I decided to build our monthly cart and see what our cost differences would be. I’m going to share those differences below in the simplest form, by count.

While everything above provides a fair representation of a regular month’s order, there is one last item that I ordered which shows where the real power of Jet kicks in. With Jet, the more you buy the more you (can) save. In this case I ordered a hand mixer as I’ve been making chocolate chip cookies more frequently and our literal hand mixer recently broke which has left me using wooden spoons like an animal. With all of the above items in my cart I received a substantial discount on the hand mixer as you can see below. Adding this to the total calculations adds another 12% to the savings Jet may provide compared to Amazon when purchasing items together.

You can find the calculations behind everything above here. I highly recommend you check it out as there are links to each product along with the breakdown. It was compiled in Soulver.

Comparing Code

I wish that the amount of time I spent compiling the breakdown in cost above was able to stand as a solid argument as to which service was cheaper but the truth is that we live in the age of dynamic pricing . The main difference between buying these products from Amazon or Jet is the algorithm used to give me these prices at the time I went to purchase them. Amazon has long been the master of dynamic pricing with the largest product base at their disposal to continue honing the ability to supply us with giant boxes of Nerds at cut throat prices. Jet admits that dyanamic pricing is their competitive advantage while (wisely) bludgeoning the explanation of their algorithm with Kumail Nanjiani as the jester in their video explaining how the service works.

Overall my experience with Jet has at least gotten me interested enough to continue using it during my free 6 month trial[2] to replace my monthly subscribe and save purchases if it comes out ahead in cost. It’s going to take a lot to untangle my Amazon usage but competition is always a good thing.

1. Thanks cost of living differences! Chicago costs all of the money to live in while Memphis only costs part of the money. ↩
2. Use the promo code lessmayo when signing up to get 6 months instead of the standard 3 month free trial. ↩

Being that I spend the majority of my days in front of a PC I’m genuinely excited to start using Windows 10. I jumped on board installing the upgrade yesterday. Unfortunately tomorrow will be my first day of using it due to a mis-step on my part.

If you use any VPN clients (I had 4 installed to cover the variations in networks I work with at my day job) you are best off uninstalling them before making the jump to Windows 10. Most VPN clients adjust network settings or create their own network interface when you install them on Windows. Unfortunately you may get stuck in the same situation that I did if you upgrade to Windows 10 before removing (or ((eventually)) updating) the VPN software where you can’t remove it once you’re on Windows 10. For me the issue was that my network interfaces weren’t present in the network settings of Control Panel even though they were registered with proper drivers in Device Manager. After screwing with the registry (and remembering why I prefer OS X) a colleague pointed out that the VPN software was the most likely culprit. If you’re already in the same boat I was, read on for the next steps to get things fixed up and get your Windows 10 fix.

Microsoft has implemented a really handy function in Windows 10 that allows you to roll back to the previous version of Windows you had installed. The main caveats of this function are that you have to use it within 30 days of performing your upgrade and that you’ll lose any system changes you’ve made in Windows 10 since upgrading. To roll back, just follow the steps below.

Open the Start menu and click settings

Next, click Update & Security.

Click Get Started under the Go back to Windows 8.1/Windows 7 option.

Provide feedback to Microsoft for why your rolling back and click Next.

Be sure to read over the caveats for the roll back. Any system changes you’ve made in Windows 10 will roll back to the way the system was before you upgraded.

The machine will run through a couple of preparation screens and reboot to a roll back screen. Expect this to take about an hour. When it reboots again you’ll need to uninstall the VPN software you’re using. The biggest culprit I’ve found online is the Cisco VPN Client. In my case it was the first VPN client I tried to remove and it failed out stating that it couldn’t manage network settings and thus couldn’t uninstall the program. I would recommend rolling back to remove any VPN software right now to ensure nothing gets borked with the registry. Once you’ve got the VPN client(s) uninstalled just re-run the upgrade for Windows 10 and you should be all set. If you run into any snags, let me know in the comments!

If you listen to Radiolab, Invisibilia, Reply All or The Truth then you’ve likely heard about Cast Party. The podcast festival will be broadcast live from NYU’s Skirball Center to theaters nationwide next Tuesday at 7p CST and is sure to be something great for those who enjoy these shows. Much like the live shows that Radiolab and This American Life have done in the past there will be content formatted for the stage that stems from some of the best podcasts you can find. I love that podcasting is just the start for the possibilities of the modern evolution of media and provides a platform for these creative forces to find unique ways to broaden their horizons with different forms of media. Be sure to get your tickets from the Cast Party website and join the party next Tuesday evening.

7-24-15 Update: Jim has mostly gotten the issue of the missing music sorted out. Unfortunately it required Apple intervening and explaining the process and even then it’s a mess to understand. There’s still a lot ahead to make Apple Music the mainstream product it should be.

Apologies for the post title. I’m feeling southern today I guess.

There have been plenty of complaints to go along with the praise for Apple Music over it’s first few weeks but yesterday’s Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it post by Jim Dalrymple is by far the most damning account that I’ve read. Here’s Jim writing about what I find to be the most offensive and concern worthy part of his whole experience:

As if all of that wasn’t enough, Apple Music gave me one more kick in the head. Over the weekend, I turned off Apple Music and it took large chunks of my purchased music with it. Sadly, many of the songs were added from CDs years ago that I no longer have access to. Looking at my old iTunes Match library, before Apple Music, I’m missing about 4,700 songs. At this point, I just don’t care anymore, I just want Apple Music off my devices.

I trusted my data to Apple and they failed. I also failed by not backing up my library before installing Apple Music. I will not make either of those mistakes again.

That part about backing up his library before installing Apple Music is likely to cause most nerds to shrug off Jim’s frustration as a one-off issue that he should’ve planned ahead to avoid. This is where I point to Jason Snell’s further elaboration on the issues Apple Music has had as of late:

Yesterday, Apple had a pretty severe cloud-services outage. And with it went my access to Apple Music. Most of my music listening takes place on a Mac without much of an iTunes library, so I’m largely playing music stored in the cloud. Yesterday, the music stopped. My Mac wouldn’t play anything. My iPhone wouldn’t play more than a few saved tracks. I ended up spending most of the day listening to music via Home Sharing from the Mac mini in my house that’s got a copy of my entire music library.

There was also another (shorter) outage last Friday, when I repeatedly received a message informing me that “Cloud Music Library was not responding (503)” and that I should check my firewall software. When your error messages conjure Windows 95-era Microsoft, you’re doing it wrong.

Between outages and data loss I’m thinking the beta label would’ve been proper for Apple Music thus far. It’s not that it’s unusable, I actually think it’s pretty great, but it comes with a slew of power user pre-reqs to avoid potential catastrophe. I imagine being a Genius at the Apple Store and having to face someone who lost a large chunk of music because they tried Apple’s new music service. There’s no easy way to explain that it’s brand new and these things happen. I doubt they’ll be doling out iTunes gift cards to repair the relationship with those who’ve lost music they (hopefully) paid for. So with that said, please, please, please keep good backups and tread lightly with Apple Music for now.

While StartUp, the podcast that started it all for Gimlet Media ended a few weeks ago, a bonus episode dropped last week. The episode was a status check on the company, specifically in regards to advertising. This episode had exactly the behind-the-scenes coverage of the company that the first season provided when Alex Blumberg set out to launch his new media company. This bonus episode also lead to the announcement of the Gimlet Media membership program.

Joining the new membership program gives you early access to new shows that Gimlet is piloting. You can also pick a shirt if you sign up for an annual subscription. The designs feature the Gimlet logo or the logo of one of the three current shows that Gimlet produces; StartUp, Reply All, and Mystery Show. This is the first iteration of the membership and Gimlet promises to add more value to the program as they figure out exactly what that looks like. I would expect this to include more behind-the-scenes access to the production of Gimlet’s podcasts. At $5/mo or $60/yr the membership program is a no-brainer for anyone who enjoys even just one of Gimlet’s shows. The early access alone is worth the price.