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Welcome to Smarterbits, a collection of short and long form editorials, essays and links curated, written and produced by Shadoe Huard.

Smarterbits focuses on topics intersecting technology, the arts and current events. I have a slight Apple bias; consider this your first and final warning. I’m my defense, they’re rather relevant on the technology scene as of this writing (October 2011). Nevertheless, technology - now more then ever - is essential in the fabric of our lives The goal of this website is to promote discussion on those subjects and, hopefully, be informative and engaging in the process.

Although I pour my heart into it, I don’t write Smarterbits for a living(yet). All content on Smarterbits is free of charge and accessible to all. That being said, if you’d like to support the continued development of the site, you may make a donation through PayPal by following this link. Any amount you can contribute is great and I thank you in advance for helping the growth of my writing and this site. Making a donation doesn’t unlock any special features(yet) or give you access to a secret page or exclusive RSS feed; consider it an investment on your behalf.

Note: A PayPal account is not required to make a donation.

I encourage you to get in touch with me with any comments you have and subscribe to the RSS feed to stay up to date with every updates to the site. You can find all the relevant contact info here.

Tools

I use several devices to get my work done:

- A 12” PowerBook G4 1.33Ghz/1.5GB/60GB

- New! MacBook 2.Ghz/2GB/200GB

- New! A 8GB White iPhone 4

- A 16GB HP TouchPad on loan from the handsome Steve Lyb

Methodology

On Mac OS: Longer posts usually start out either in WriteRoom or iA Writer for Mac, are formatted in Markdown and then copied over to Tumblr’s web interface for publishing. Shorter posts are written directly in Tumblr’s web interface, which also handily supports markdown. Other software I’d consider essential to running this site:

- Adobe Photoshop CS5

- Text Edit

- Twitter for Mac(Intel)/Echofon(PowerPC)

- 1 Password

- Droplr

- Reeder(Intel)/News Net Wire (PowerPC)

I live flashless, so Safari with Flash disabled is my browser of choice. Chrome makes frequent appearences as well for those times when Flash is a necessity.

On iOS: I start all my writing in Elements and publish using Tumblrs iOS app. I happen to be one of those people who’ll carry a wireless keyboard to write with my iPhone, a perfectly enjoyable experience. Other noteworthy apps I use include:

- Reeder for iOS

- 1 Password Pro for iOS

- Instagram

- Twitter for iOS or Tweetbot, depending on my mood any given week.

- Ego, for metrics tracking.

On webOS: Posts are written in Typewriter beta and published to Tumblr’s web interface. For Twitter, I use Spaz HD Beta Preview 2 and for RSS feeds, Nom Nom Nom.

On Windows: Just kidding, I only boot into Windows through BootCamp to play the latest version of NBA 2k.

I put Dropbox on everything. I’d put it on my toast if I could.

Publishing

Smarterbits is published and hosted on Tumblr, which isn’t as bad as many “serious bloggers” would make you think. My theme is a modification of Style Hatch’s Calidor. Most of the typefaces used are powered by Typekit. Main title and text fonts are Museo Sans and Depot New, respectively.

I do all additional HTML, CSS and Javascript coding myself. I know next to nothing about these languages and am entirely self-taught, so please bear with me and share bugs you find. If you’re using Internet Explorer, don’t.

Stats and metrics are tracked by Google Analytics and the RSS feed is published by Feedburner.

Using Smarterbits

As you navigate Smarterbits, you may notice a small dot (•) next to post titles. Posts containing this mark indicate that a significant update was made beyond typo corrections. Most often, this will occur when I feel certain points, sentence structures or arguments need to be refined, reworked or expanded upon. The demarcation will let you know when this has occurred.

In the event of a factual or editorial error, it’s my policy to strike through the offending content and append it with the appropriate corrections. The floating period will also be used in these situation to alert readers to the changes.

My main Twitter feed @smarterbits is sometimes filled with random nonsense because it doubles as my personal twitter feed. You can feel free to get in touch with me through there; it’s likely the fastest way to reach me. Although I try to stay on topic, please be warned that I am loud, sarcastic and frenetic. If you want to follow Smarterbits the website, but not Smarterbits the author, @SmarterBitsFeed is for you: a noiseless, RSS equivalent Twitter feed updating only to announce new posts.

When discussing a product, it’s possible I’ll use an affiliate link to link back to an appropriate Amazon page. Affiliate links are a small way to monetize the site. By small I mean I have made $0 from them. They do not affect my editorial decisions and I try to use them sparingly, ie: a product review will not repeat the name of the product 1000 times with affiliate links. I use them where they make sense and when I think my audience(you guys) would be interested in finding out more.