Author Archives: devan

Issues with Issuu: An Open Letter to Literary Magazines

By devan | Published: May 3, 2012

Dear literary magazines, I’m writing you this letter to beseech you not to use Issuu and to explain why I feel so strongly about it. I will be as concise as I can, but the platform has many problems. Let’s start with the most obvious: Nobody visiting your website on an iPhone or iPad will [...]

Posted in Technology, Web, Writing | 4 Comments

AirPause?: Nobody’s Perfect, not Even Apple

By devan | Published: February 1, 2012

Below, a shot of AirPlay in action. (Pardon the hairy arm, but timing and metering this shot while pressing play was no easy task and didn’t seem worth repeating.) On the TV screen, the play button appears while the video is playing, while in iTunes, the pause button does so. This difference, while it may seem [...]

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Classic #fux: The New Netflix App for XBox

By devan | Published: December 10, 2011

On the happy occasion of a bug fix by way of which my list of recently watched titles reappeared in the new Netflix app for XBox, I unleashed a tirade on Twitter against the rest of what’s wrong with the app, namely, a handful of new features. I’ve adapted my rant for the blog, added [...]

Posted in Movies & TV, Web | 2 Comments

Isolating Facebook for Privacy

By devan | Published: November 12, 2011

Based on lots of chatter about this on Facebook and on the sudden zombie-like reemergence of passive sharing in my Feed, I thought I’d share some basic steps to isolate Facebook completely from the rest of your browsing experience. There are other ways (using incognito / private browsing mode, e.g.), but this strikes me as [...]

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Go with the Flo: What Good Customer Service Looks Like

By devan | Published: September 2, 2011

I just submitted the long, happy note below as part of a survey in response to my having filed an insurance claim on my scooter, ruined in a flash flood. I’ve spent enough time whining about lousy service on Facebook that I thought it would be worth posting my praise for Progressive just for the sake [...]

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