An Alternative to CloudApp

I share a lot of screenshots. And I'll often want to share those images by uploading them to "the cloud" and giving someone the URL. For years, CloudApp was been my weapon of choice for this workflow. It was fast, reliable, free, and I used it all the time without issue.

But a few months ago, CloudApp updated their free pricing tier to only allow 10 file uploads a month. Which, you know, whatever. They have a good service and need to make money to keep it running. I get it.

But I don't want to pay an ongoing fee to share screenshots with people.

"No problem!" I thought when I first hit this Cloud App free plan limit. "There must be hundreds of apps that do the same thing without charging me every month." 

Turns out, it's been difficult to find an alternative to CloudApp that fits my criteria:

  • Works on OS X
  • No ongoing fee (though I'd be happy to pay an upfront cost)
  • Able to drag images onto a menubar icon to selectively upload to the server
  • Auto-copies a URL for that uploaded image to your clipboard

After a lengthy search, the best alternative that I found was this open source solution by Github user zbuc that uses Imgur as the backend. Even though it wasn't exactly what I needed, the fact that it's open source meant that I was able to make a couple of small changes so that it fits my needs more precisely.

Wow that Adium icon sure is blurry...

Now I have this cute little dot sitting in my menubar, ready to devour as many images as I can drag onto it. If you, too, would like a cute little dot in your menubar, feel free to download it for yourself and let me know what you think.

Download Imgur Uploader

The Best Music Streaming Service →

The Sweet Setup's music streaming service of choice? Spotify.

Spotify is the go-to choice right now because it has nearly every feature other services have, it has the most users (your friends), plus it’s gotten really good at what it does.

Special shout out to Discover Weekly playlists, which have been on point for me the last few weeks:

If you’re less interested in doing the work, Spotify now features a personal “Discover Weekly” playlist updated for each user every week. The Discover Weekly playlist has been widely praised for its song selections, despite being powered by an algorithm.

I even agree with their major criticisms of the service:

However, if you manage to discover new music, sharing it still remains a pain. Since Spotify has a free tier that is currently used by the most people (75 million worldwide as of June 2015), sharing a Spotify link has the best results. The company’s embeddable playlists remain as frustrating as Adobe’s Flash, but the communal aspect Spotify holds is nothing to sneeze at.

Unless I know that somebody is a regular Spotify user, I'll almost always pass them a Soundcloud or YouTube link if I find a song that I think they'll like. And even though Spotify has a built in messaging platform that allows you to share tracks with friends, I've found their notification and badging to be so unreliable, that I often don't even know that somebody has shared something with me until days later.

There's a lot of music streaming services out there now, and I have a feeling that the first one to do social features right that will be the the one that is most successful in the long run. Spotify is close, but they're not there yet.

Techdown #46: We Want Johnson →

This week's episode of Techdown features the return of Adam Johnson - our first repeat guest. It's Adam's goal to always be the person with the most guest host appearances on our podcast, making him the Alex Baldwin of Techdown. Now all we need is someone to be our Steve Martin and we'll be in business.

Buy This Shampoo →

I spent 32 years of my life not giving a shit about what shampoo I used. I'd get whatever was cheapest from the supermarket and it would last me for what felt like years. Everything was fine I guess. Whatever. Ho hum.

About 6 months ago I decided to splurge and purchased a bottle of this Krieger + Söhne Tea Tree Oil infused shampoo off of Amazon and let me tell you, I freaking love it.

It's not so much that my hair feels different or is cleaner or anything like that. It's that the process of cleaning my hair is just so much more enjoyable now - I actually look forward to it each morning. This stuff smells like a York Peppermint Patty and makes my scalp tingle with pleasure. Plus the bottle looks totally bad ass.

I'm telling you guys, it's about time for me to re-up on shampoo and I can't even imagine going with anything else. And I absolutely recommend that you buy some for yourself. You'll thank me later.

Picker UI Testing Added to Xcode Beta →

Good to see this in the latest Xcode release notes:

Not being able to select a particular picker option was becoming a big hurdle for me with my UI Tests. It was such a glaring omission that I didn't even spend any time trying to figure out a workaround because I figured this update had to be in the works.

I've got a couple dozen lines like this in my tests that I'm looking forward to replacing tomorrow:

[app.pickers.pickerWheels[@"1 of 13"] swipeUp];
[app.pickers.pickerWheels[@"1 of 32"] swipeUp];
[app.pickers.pickerWheels[@"1 of 112"] swipeUp];

Test coverage for my current project sits at about 70%. This update should get me up around 90%. Hopefully an automated way of granting location/contact permission is coming soon, otherwise that is going to be my ceiling.

Rewind the Future →

Really drives home the point of how healthy habits need to be enforced from an early age.

Ever since Connor's been about a month old, I've been trying to involve him in as many of my fitness activities as possible. When I workout downstairs I bring him with me. He usually comes along on my runs (weather permitting). And I can't wait until he's a little bit older so we can do other healthy activities together like cooking meals, going on bike rides, and of course, snowboarding.

Pac-Man 256 →

A fun little endless runner Pac-Man game from the creators of Crossy Road. Available for both iOS and Android. Free(mium).

This game has so many neat little touches. The way the camera zooms in when you're about to eat a ghost, the way that Pac Man's "wakkawakkawakka" speeds up as he gets closer to a 256 pellet combo, the little wave distortion effect when you die. It's all very nicely done.

It's also really slick being able to switch between portrait and landscape in the middle of a game; I know how hard it can be to implement that in a UIKit app, so I'd imagine that it was something that they spent considerable development time on.

The Best Car in the World →

I think Gear Patrol likes the Tesla P85D:

You can’t beat the track-ready handling of a Ferrari, the low-slung ferocity and menacing roar of a Lamborghini, the ethereal grace of a Rolls, the technical wizardry of a Merc, or even the hyper-alert vigilance of the latest safety-stacked Volvo. They all make amazing cars, but Tesla has something going for it that not a single one of them can truly claim: it is a tangible slice of the future. Its design remains the sleekest and most timeless of any car on the road, its forward-thinking eco-benefits are now beyond argument, and its power, particularly in this model, renowned. Though many cars try to be many things, they check off boxes at different levels: luxury, power, performance, handling, etc. Model S simply checks them all off higher.

Still saving my pennies...

Final Fantasy VII for iOS →

I have such fond memories of this game. Now that I can play it on my phone, I might actually be able to chisel out a half hour here and there to work my way through it again.

It's $16 USD, which is actually $4 more than it costs on Steam, where you can play on a larger screen and without touch controls. But then again, a month from now maybe everyone will have downloaded this game from the Apple TV App Store and will be playing it with an iOS game pad.