Greg Cooper

A Brand New Interstate

Sat, 05 May 2012 11:57:46 -0700

TL;DR: Sign up for the new Interstate BETA at http://interstateapp.com/beta/.

After months of radio silence from us here at Interstate, we’re very happy to finally announce the BETA of a brand new Interstate.

We decided to build a brand new Interstate simply because the product which we have today is very different to what it was when we first launched. The first release of Interstate was a very simple one-page app that just let you make a public roadmap. Since then Interstate has evolved in to a full-blown project management tool but we haven’t changing much of the UI or codebase. Whilst we’re happy and proud of the current product we have today, we’ve known that it could be much better if we had the chance to re-build it from a clean slate - so that’s exactly what we did and boy is it good.

The new version of Interstate is now ready for BETA testing and so we’re looking for users willing to try it out.

Simply go to http://interstateapp.com/beta/ and enter your email address to show your interest and we’ll shoot you an email when we’re ready for you!

We are really looking forward to launching the new Interstate, it’s certainly both our most exciting and our most advanced release to date and we think you’re going to love it. We know that we do.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's iPhone Story

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:49:00 -0700

I was watching the interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson on On The Verge where he was asked about his life as a meme and his wishes for NASA. However the interview then moved onto gadgets and Tyson is a particular fan of Apple products and says his MacBook Pro is a part of him, not just a computer. He then told the story of how he first bought the iPhone, I’ve tried to transcribe it as best as I could below;

Some years ago, the year when the iPhone first came out, I had semi-season tickets to the Yankees. So I’m at Yankee’s Stadium, the iPhone had been out for a month. When you have season tickets you know the other people in the sections. I’m there on a Wednesday afternoon game and a couple comes in, kind of young, if I were to stereotype them I’d say fresh out of college, first internship in new york, summer intern, right? So maybe early twenties, a couple. They come in and sit to my left. She sits to my left, he sits to her left.

The woman is especially attractive, like on a scale that’s just kind of off scale. [Interviewer: Beyond 10?] Yeah 11. He is kind of frumpy, you would not have pair them but love knows no bounds, so it’s fine. So they’re looking around and, it’s my town, it’s my stadium and clearly they’ve never been to the stadium before. So I said “Have you been to Yankee Stadium before?” “This is my first time ever at any sporting event.” she replied. So I said “Oh okay well that’s Babe Ruth’s Corner and that’s where they…” While I’m saying this, it’s the first and a half inning, she’s on the jumbotron so the left field camera found her. Who ends up on the jumbotron? Really beautiful people and crazy people end up on the jumbotron, right? People with like their underwear on their heads, stuff like that. So it wasn’t just my assessment, the left field camera from 200 yards away found her and put her up on the jumbotron. So she think everybody’s turn is up next because beautiful people don’t really know what the world is actually like.

So he pulls out his iPhone, and so I looked because I’m thinking about the iPhone but I want data. Data not supplied to me by Apple alone. So I lean to him and I say “How do you like your iPhone?”, she answers “It’s his new girlfriend!” and I said “Wooooooaaaahhh”. So that was a Wednesday and by the Monday I had my iPhone. If he’s looking at his iPhone and not her and she’s on the jumbotron that’s gotta be an awesome device.

So to this day, I think about this all the time, if I ever have the opportunity to build a time machine with Stewie (Griffin), we go back and if I were to meet Isaac Newton and bring one thing back it’s going to be the iPhone.

You can watch the interview over at On The Verge and Tyson’s interview starts at roughly 22:30.

The Mac login screen has some sexy little user picture...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:24:25 -0800

The Mac login screen has some sexy little user picture containers. Decided to make a replica PSD, free for all to use.

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I'm a Steve Jobs fanboy...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:24:46 -0800

As many of you know today (March 7th) they announced the 3rd generation iPad with a couple of hardware updates and some sleek new applications. Nothing that impressed me but I’ve not been impressed nor expected to be impressed since the original iPad. As a product the iPad is a sidekick to my iPhone and Mac. It only comes into its own when I have an 11 hour flight ahead of me.

What I noticed today whilst watching the live blogs and streams of the Apple event is that I’m definitely not an Apple fanboy like many would label me. I’ve known that for a long time since I still consider products like Apple TV and iTunes to be some of the worst in their field. Apple TV mostly due to its lack of content, especially comparing to the likes of Roku. iTunes because it’s still overpriced for non-music content and it’s possibly one of the worst pieces of software that I use regularly.

Turns out I’m a Steve Jobs fanboy. Even without watching him present live, just the pictures of him presenting on the live blogs gave me anticipation for the full video. I would without a doubt watch the event once the video went online however now I know for a fact I will just watch the ads and clips Apple release afterwards. As much as I think Tim Cook is more than capable of running Apple he’s just not Jobs. He’s not the father of Apple and never will be unfortunately.

I remember the first time I was properly into Apple products, it wasn’t that long ago. Up until the age of 17 (4 years ago) I was a Windows user. In fact I didn’t really know Macs existed and hadn’t even used one yet. To me Apple made iPods and that was their best product. Then I went to college and one of my classmates had a white 13” MacBook. I instantly fell in love with it and went out that weekend and used my savings my grandparents setup for me to buy one. It was not only my first Mac but also my first laptop to myself, I had desktops to myself before that but no laptops.

Within a few months the MacBook Air was going to be launched and I decided I’d give the event a watch. I discovered this fellow with grayish hair, John Lennon-esque glasses and a strangely captivating manner. Turns out his name was Steve Jobs and he founded Apple. That was me hooked, not to Apple but to Apple’s events to be entertained by this man. He made simple products sounds incredible and lo and behold a lot of them were due to their simplicity.

For many he was an innovator but for me he was also part entertainer. His captivating style and presence is among the likes of Sir David Attenborough and Morgan Freeman for me. He could narrate nature documentaries.

October sucked.

Live analytics from the day Aziz Ansari tweeted a link to Drunk...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:46:00 -0800

Live analytics from the day Aziz Ansari tweeted a link to Drunk Ron Swanson. This contributed massively to the site reaching 1,000,000 views by more than 700,000 people with more than 850 hours of dancing being watched.

Thank you very much Aziz!

Keeping Windows In Position Across Displays On Mac

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:33:00 -0800

For a while now I’ve had the problem of rearranging my application windows whenever I connected or disconnected my MacBook to a display. I first had it with my 15” MacBook Pro to a 24” Cinema Display back in 2010 and now have run into the same problem after getting a 13” MacBook Air and the 27” Cinema Display.

For a while I just used window snapping or arranging tools which allowed me to use keyboard shortcuts or drag-n-drop to arrange the windows by size and position. This was fine but still meant I had to do it every time I connected or disconnected, since I do this twice a day minimum it started to get frustrating.

I’ve now found what seems to be a pretty full proof solution to this, although slightly pricey for my taste. Stay is a menubar application which allows you to record the positioning of windows per display size. That means it detects the display resolution you’re using and arranges the windows how you saved previously. The price of $14.99 is steep but worth it if you connect and disconnect a lot I suppose.

I have experienced an issue with Google Chrome automatically being restored to the correct size and position. So far this is the only application I’ve found which doesn’t, but I simply use Window Magnet. Again it’s a tad pricey at $4.99 but worth it for originally arranging your windows into various sizes and positions.

How I like my Mac’s sound setup!

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:57:26 -0800

How I like my Mac’s sound setup!

5 years ago today I signed up to my first service as...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:00:05 -0800

5 years ago today I signed up to my first service as “Awfy” and have been using that username ever since.

Photo

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:31:41 -0800

A beautiful painting from Hyde and Francisco of San Francisco.

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:52:00 -0800

A beautiful painting from Hyde and Francisco of San Francisco.

I have a friend working with me today.

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:06:24 -0800

I have a friend working with me today.

I think Microsoft just gave up when they designed the Kinect...

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:11:00 -0800

I think Microsoft just gave up when they designed the Kinect wheel, it’s horrid!

Merry Christmas!

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:18:15 -0800

Ashlee and Jon know how to celebrate the holidays!

LG’s almost-borderless TV looks incredible. I’d love...

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:45:07 -0800

LG’s almost-borderless TV looks incredible. I’d love to see this wall-mounted so that ugly stand wasn’t there.

Apple’s new iPhone ad featuring… Santa!

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:36:05 -0800

Apple’s new iPhone ad featuring… Santa!

Bad life choice.

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 15:35:01 -0800

Bad life choice.

Wikipedia is such a bitch!

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:51:48 -0800

Wikipedia is such a bitch!

Some icons I’ve been working on for Interstate. I used...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:54:45 -0800

Some icons I’ve been working on for Interstate. I used GLYPHICONS as the base for the shapes then modified them and added the styling (gradients, highlights and so on).

I totally pimped my Reddit!

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:01:06 -0800

I totally pimped my Reddit!

My brother chooses the strangest places to use his laptop…

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:21:45 -0800

My brother chooses the strangest places to use his laptop…