best of

Click on the wrong link sometimes

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Wait. I sound like I want you to deliberately click on advertising links or something that would bring me giant pools of money. What I mean is that sometimes in our constant journey through the internet, the odd left turn can be a very good thing.

There are entire sites devoted to sudden left turns, most notably or at least most famously StumbleUpon.com which has nothing but new links and at most a gentle hand on the tiller to steer you in directions you might like.

But today I was going to meet someone and as I read her blog, I found she's in to productivity and had what sounded like a great link to a David Allen Getting Things Done video. Except when I tapped on it, I didn't notice that I'd actually tapped on the next link down. No connection to productivity, no connection to the woman I was going to meet, just something she had found and liked. Something I had not heard about. So while it took me a moment to realise this wasn't David Allen, I am so glad that I found it:

Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: she had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.
Jill Bolte Taylor's Powerful Stroke of Insight – TED talks

I should go back and get you the David Allen link too but, ah, Bolte Taylor is more interesting.

Apple says these are the best productivity apps of 2013

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They don’t, actually. The word productivity doesn’t come in to it. But the company has published lists of the best apps of 2013 for iPhone and iPad – and amongst all the games, there is some tremendously useful software.

I’m not sure what the metric is for defining best: there’s certainly a heavy weighting due to the number of times they’ve each been downloaded, I imagine sales income must be a factor, but there is also an editor’s pick element. You can see the entire list, which features movies, music and TV too, here but note this takes you to iTunes automatically if you have it installed: http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=Bestof2013

If you don’t have iTunes installed, it takes you to a very boring page suggesting you install iTunes. 

But while we’re talking, here are the highlights.

Duolingo

The language-teaching software is the App of the Year for iPhones. Interestingly, the App of the Year for iPads is less immediately obviously productive: it’s Disney Animated, a tour of the film studio’s work. None of the runners-up for iPad are work tools but the iPhone’s pick includes Citymapper, a free journey planner for London and New York. It’s good, it’s free and it’s about New York? I’m sold.

There are also further lists of, presumably, didn’t-quite-make-it items and these include some noteworthy entries. For the iPhone, there’s the calendar replacement Fantastical 2 and the iOS IFTTT app for the If This Then That service. On iPad, the list features the superb Reeder 2 – can you tell that’s the only one so far that I’ve used, and used a lot? 

But if you look away from software and into the other categories that iTunes sells, you get some notable inclusions such as Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In and the particularly absorbing Letters of Note by Shaun Usher.

Seriously, though, how many links must a man write down? Have I overdone it this time?