Technology - Sam Hardacre

Digital Minimalism

On the day I wrote down my thoughts about maybe ditching social media, I decided to buy a book I'd had on my wishlist for a long time, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. The book arrived the following day and within 24 hours of its arrival, I was

Apps

Audiobooks on Spotify

A few months ago, Spotify rolled out audiobooks on their platform. I went to have a look at the selection and there were a few books I could get but most had an additional cost on top of my Premium account so I left those alone. A couple of weeks

Technology

Nick Cave on ChatGPT (read by Stephen Fry)

Beautifully sums up why creative people, and humans in general, should approach reliance on AI with caution. As humans, we so often feel helpless in our own smallness. Yet we still find the resilience to do and make beautiful things and this is where the meaning of life resides. Nature

Technology

Thoughts on AI

As an artist, I often get asked what my thoughts are on AI, specifically AI-generated images. The very short and straight-to-the-point answer is: I don't like it. And not just because it relies on stealing the work of artists the world over. One reason for me goes much

Social Media

The genius of Threads onboarding

With Twitter continuing to circle the drain, the race to take it's place is picking up pace with the FOMO-inducing invite-only approach of Bluesky and open floodgates of Threads by Meta. I joined both this week so had the opportunity to reflect on the stark difference of the

Technology

Slowly changing habits

Aside from Instagram, there's been a steady decline in my active posting on social media. I'll sometimes have a burst of replying to people on the likes of Twitter but I'm mostly now a passive consumer of the content on there. Same with Facebook,

Technology

Sleepwalking to ruin?

Talk of AI has been rampant for a while on the internet and it seems to have trickled down to the point where it's becoming a regular discussion at work. I have what I feel is a healthy scepticism about AI, particularly AI-generated imagery. We've seen

Technology

Nokia bringing back the old school

This week I randomly came across the Nokia website and learned they've got a whole host of Feature phones on their website. I don't know if they're all refreshed classics like the 3310 or if some are just brand new models but I was

iOS

Moving back to iOS

Last Summer I switched my old iPhone 4S for a Nexus 4. I'd had a Nexus 7 for some months by that point so I was familiar with Android and going by my expreience with the tablet, felt comfortable that the Nexus 4 would be a good fit.

Web

Merging lives

Activity in social media has grown exponentially over the last ten years. It's gone from a way to simply keep in touch with friends to sharing scores of information with the world. The things we watch, read, the places we visit and the things we see in our

Apps

No pushing

This morning saw Twitter going a but mental for the release of the popular desktop email client Sparrow's iPhone app. I tried the desktop version a long time ago, and found it didn't quite have the features I was looking for but looking again at it

Apple

Steve Jobs

Like many today, I woke to hear the sad news that Steve Jobs had passed away. There have been many wonderfully [http://ryanhavoctaylor.com/personal/reflection/] eloquent [http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/steve-jobs/] blog posts published in tribute to a true visionary and I wanted to add my own to show

User Experience

Just a thought

Like many people, I use my iPhone all day every day. I use various apps for various jobs and on occasion I like to share certain bits of information on a social network like Twitter or Facebook. There's one thing about sharing on iPhone which has bothered me

Apps

Invisible Interface (round 2)

Not to be confused with my article from earlier this year [https://blog.nocturnalmonkey.com/the-invisible-interface/]. I've been thinking a lot lately about how we go about using our devices and computers. Times are changing and people don't see devices the same way they did ten

Technology

The Daily Stack

This is The Daily Stack, a little device that helps you keep track of your workflow in a tangible way.

Technology

The future is geo-based

Yesterday, photo-sharing website, Flickr, published an article [http://blog.flickr.net/en/2010/06/23/a-new-photo-experience-your-photos-happier/] detailing a number of improvements they've made to the user interface. Among them a more prominent Map feature, allowing users to add geo-location data to their photos which harks back to my

iOS

iPhone iOS4 update

Yesterday Apple released their latest iPhone software update. I wasn't as quick off the mark as some of my friends so this morning I deliberately ignored Twitter and other social media so I could make my own mind up without being influenced. I don't like doing

Apple

First impressions on the iPad

For the most part, Connected are an Apple loving company so there was a lot of excitement among us yesterday as we awaited the arrival of Apple's latest piece of kit. Despite my initial skepticism when it was announced, my opinion quickly changed and I couldn't

Apps

The Invisible Interface

Having used the majority of standard word processing applications over the years I, like many I'm sure, have become used to the features that now come as standard with most applications, the ability to change font sizes, weight, typeface, colour, alignment etc. which are lovely features to have

Opinion

If I could change anything on the iPhone 3G...

...it would be the ability to flip between apps without returning to the homescreen. Today I was watching Cloverfield and got a text. I hit "Reply" which pulled up the keyboard. Once I'd sent the text, I had to return to the homepage, access the iPod

Apple

First post on my new MacBook

Yes! I'm glad to report I've finally made the transfer back to Apple and about time too! My old PC threw in the towel last Wednesday and as I need a computer I had no choice but to scamper off to my nearest Mac stockist. I&