CheatSheet is a nifty little application that lets you quickly review all available keyboard shortcuts for the application that is currently in the foreground. Any keyboard shortcut that is listed in the menu of an application will show  up in an overlay, sorted by menu item.

I haven't been using it for long, but for these moments when you simply can't remember that one shortcut, this app might come in handy. Give it a try, it's free.

Link over at Macworld

Teaser trailer for Star Trek 2 (2013). This movie is still about a year away, but I'm already unhealthily excited.

via Devour

Kelly Stewart showcases why Zack Whittaker is a childish New Media Douchebag and should not be mistaken for a journalist or anything close to it. The incident describes Whittaker perfectly and summarises not only his behaviour, but also gives you a taste of the quality of his writing, grammatical mistakes and all.

Earlier today, Harry Marks posted an article on his site rebutting an argument made by Jim Cramer of CNBC. Here's the quote:

When the smoke clears off this miserable Dell quarter, people will realize that Apple’s behind the destruction of the laptop,” Cramer said. “And with that destruction comes a world of hurt for just about everyone, save Apple.

Harry Marks replied by saying:

It’s not a matter of the iPhone and iPad obsoleting the laptop. Apple’s success isn’t just with iOS devices, it’s with MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros, too. What Apple has done is obsolete poorly-made computers, poor shopping experiences, and poor customer service.
Apple isn’t destroying laptops, it’s making its customers happy. What are the other guys doing?

He hit the nail square on the head. The other companies aren't only not doing anything, they're not even thinking.

Not limiting this to the tech business, I believe we might be witnessing the decline of "Bullshit Companies"; companies that are trying to bullshit their (potential) customers in many different ways: By pre-announcing products that might never see the light of day, by making promises they won't even attempt to keep,  by adding asterisk after asterisk and footnote after footnote in order to shroud the truth about what they are trying to sell and last but not least with bad customer service.

Apple being the one of the forerunners here (and a gargantuan at that), I'm starting to see more and more "Non-Bullshit Companies", companies that seem to work by a very simple business principle:
Here's what we offer. We believe it'll make your life easier in this and that way. Nothing more nothing less. This is how much we want for it.

Among other things the wild success of social funding platforms (like Kickstarter) illustrates where things are going:
If you have an honest and good value proposition, people will pay for it. Not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they know they're going to get something out of it.

Here are a few examples of this, that I've noticed around me lately:

• A new bus company has started to take advantage of the fact that the Deutsche Bahn (Germany's predominant railway company) isn't properly serving the population of the region. They set up a bus route covering the major cities on the way from Luxemburg to Frankfurt Airport. Their prices are good, the service is executed well and they know how to communicate.
• A local beer garden, situated in one of the most scenic spots in Trier (with everything from a great vista, large meadows to football and beach volleyball courts) put up a sign telling customers that they could use its accommodations and bring their own food, as long as they buy their drinks here. You have no idea how uncommon this is and I'm sure that this was not the case last year. I should add that their beverage prices are very decent and the service is excellent, which only adds to the positive impression. This tactic has gotten them a lot of good will from guests and from what I have learned their food sales haven't declined and overall business seems to have improved.
• How funny it may seem, my cellphone operator o2 Germany is on this list. The company has many flaws and does plenty of things wrong, but they offer a post-paid plan that is as simple as it can be, not forcing me into a long-term commitment, while having per-minute and data prices that are decent even compared to prepaid plans.

Customers are smarter than most companies think and those still believing that trying to fool customers is the way to go, are going to realise that "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me." will turn into "Fool me once… FUCK YOU!" more quickly than ever before.

People don't begrudge companies for making money (not even for making boat loads of it), they just hate companies who are trying to do so by making false claims and essentially ripping people off. Only those businesses that are trying to make money without feeling the need to scam customers will prevail long-term and prosper. These are the companies that will get the money I earn.

Yesterday John Gruber linked to an article over at the New York Times, which stated that Facebook's messaging system, Apple's iMessage and similar services are slowly reducing the usage of SMS around the world. He said:

It’s hard to think of a technology that more deserves to die than SMS.

I have to disagree with that. SMS might be a limited standard in terms of what can be transferred, and as the link in Gruber's quote shows, the average cost for a SMS is incredibly high in the U.S.A. (even more so over here in Germany). Still, the service is useful, because 1. it is universally compatible with almost all types of cellular networks around the world and 2. because it's fairly reliable due to the fact that it works when a data connection (needed to send any kind of email, iMessage, Facebook message, etc.) cannot be established. More info on SMS here.

The problem is—as it is so often—greed by the carriers. A simple network-inherent, ubiquitous functionality is marketed and sold at a premium, with nearly no price decline over the last ten years.
SMS doesn't need to die, carriers should just stop charging customers for a fairly limited service that costs them close to nothing.

If you believe that any of these sentences have meaning at all, you need to have your brain examined. The bad thing is, hundres upon thousands of marketing students and normal people, too, believe this stuff, becoming New Media Douchebags.

Thanks to Kate Solomon for the link.

P.S.: Don't know what a New Media Douchebag (short: NMD) is? Watch this little video to get to know the most harmless types:

I encourage everybody to read this post and if you can stomach it, the comments by the misogynistic prick below the post.

"this is the trouble that women cause and I therefore try to avoid hiring them" http://t.co/gmUtDaLm

— Nadyne Richmond (@nadyne) May 4, 2012

I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing this is and how much I want it! Radiators a such a boring, but often necessary evil in our homes—if you like it warm in the winter, at least—but this solution is absolutely incredible.

Don't see it? Ok, imagine being a child again, sitting on a comfy pillow, leaning against this radiator, watching The Land Before Time for the first time in your life.

Thanks to Erica Sadun for the link and be sure to check out the design process, which Art Lebedev has documented in pictures on their site.

APOD: 2012 April 18 - The Flight Deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour:

Explanation: What would it be like to fly a space shuttle? Although the last of NASA’s space shuttles has now been retired, it is still fun to contemplate sitting at the controls of one of the humanity’s most sophisticated machines. Pictured above is the flight deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour, the youngest shuttle and the second to last ever launched. The numerous panels and displays allowed the computer-controlled orbiter to enter the top of Earth’s atmosphere at greater than the speed of sound and – just thirty minutes later – land on a runway like an airplane. The retired space shuttles are now being sent to museums, with Endeavour being sent to California Space Center in Los Angeles, California, Atlantis to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Merritt Island, Florida, and Discovery to the Udvar-Hazy Annex of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. Therefore sitting in a shuttle pilot’s chair and personally contemplating the thrill of human space flight may actually be in your future.