Tommy Collison

@tommycollison • tommy@collison.ie

Category: computery stuff

Stop Ruining Your Phone With a Stupid Case

I know that it’s hardly a rare occurrence that Gizmodo publishes something incendiary and with flawed logic, but I couldn’t let this one slide, even if I am late to the party. On January 30th, Jamie Condliffe published “Stop Ruining Your Phone With a Stupid Case”. He surmised each of his arguments under two main [...]

Briefly Weighing in on the iPhone Mute Switch Debate

Recently, an iPhone alarm disrupted a Philharmonic performance. The unmistakably jarring sound of an iPhone marimba ring interrupted the soft and spiritual final measures of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 at the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday night. The conductor, Alan Gilbert, did something almost unheard-of in a concert hall: He stopped the performance. But the [...]

Path

I’m really, really liking Path. It’s something that seamlessly combines Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare for me. Images and check-ins are integrated in the main feed, saving the need to click on links. Crashes aside, their UX is gorgeous and fluid. What I especially love is the fact that it feels like a genuine journalling app. [...]

Find My Friends

One of the iOS features I was most looking forward to was Find My Friends. Unsurprisingly, it’s a location-based app for seeing your friends as little dots of a map. Privacy is handled like this: I can only see your location once I’ve sent you a request to do so, and you expressly accept that [...]

An Episode in Buck-Passing

Last October, I ordered a pair of Bose QC 15s from Amazon while I was in the US. I loved the headphones and used them a lot. Since they were expensive, I took care of them, using the case when not in use and not wearing them around my neck. I rarely used them on [...]

OS Dictionary Short-cut

If you’re on OS X Lion (and if you’re not, you should be), there’s a neat little short-cut if you want to look up a word: double-tap the word with three fingers. It was turned on by default on my MacBook, but you can toggle it it and off in System Preferences » Trackpad.

The App Store

The idea of a ‘two-tier’ App Store isn’t a new concept, but I’m becoming more aware of it recently. The idea is that there are really two App Stores. One is for cheap apps, usually less than €2. They’re designed to be flashy and attention-grabbing to entice you to buy them. They rely on being [...]

Skewing

I don’t agree with everything TheJournal.ie does, but I do check it every couple of days. This blogpost is based on a thought I had a few weeks ago, but a recent poll on the site made me write the post now: The problem that The Journal faces, and one I haven’t seen them address, [...]

Name-Change

Recently, I changed my Twitter username from @TrustTommy to @TommyCollison. While a great moniker, I felt that more comfortable (and more professional) using my real name, so I made the change. You can argue that Trust Tommy is an excellent brand-name that I’d used for years, but isn’t your name the best brand-name you could [...]

iPad review

So I finally caved and bought an iPad. I’ve been playing around with it for a while now, so here’s some thoughts on it. – STILL no Dvorak love. I don’t use the QWERTY keyboard on my Mac, instead choosing to use Dvorak, a different layout which I find to be much faster. However, the [...]