Wall Street Journal Best Selling Books: #4 Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

Wall Street Journal Best Selling Books: #4 Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

Congratulations Ann!

Buy on Amazon.com (Affiliate Link)

HARDCOVER:


Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

KINDLE:


Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

ChocoNillaPeanutButter Acorns

At the Amusement Park

Facebook is adding video view count

Post by Steve Garfield.

Testing: Embeding a Facebook post with Video

Post by FB Newswire.

Myers+Chang

My First Hyperlapse

Testing out Instagram's new Hyperlapse app.


Sped up 2X

Oh no!

Hyperlapse took over my camera and microphone!




Get it here: Introducing Hyperlapse from Instagram

Zaftig's Breakfast is So Good

Zaftig's breakfast is so good, they serve it all day long.


Inside the restaurant. There's also a small bar that you can sit at.

Brookline Location
335 Harvard St.
Brookline, MA 02446

Hours:
Sunday-Monday 8am to 9pm
Tuesday-Saturday 8am to 10pm.

Instaed of getting the typical eggs and toast breakfast, I went with the Zaftig's Combo. It's not on the Breakfast menu, it's under Starters.

ZAFTIG COMBO
All of our favorites! Cheese blintz, potato pancake, potato knish, sweet noodle kugel. 11.95

I love it.


Zaftig's Combo.



Video tour of Zaftig's Combo.


Here's a look at the crunchy and tasty Potato Pancakes.

At the register there are pastries and LARGE cookies!


Chocolate Chip Cookies $1.00

Havas Moves into Old Filene's Building

Cooperstown, NY: See, Stay, Eat, and Drink

They made a Poached Egg on Master Chef, So I tried it too.

Success!

Mercedes-Benz CLA250 Roadtrip Photos and Test Drive Highlights

After I did a video review of the Mercedes-Benz CLA250, courtesy of Mercedes-Benz of Burlington, they asked me if I wanted to take it for a longer test drive.

It was perfect timing since I was planning a road trip to the Finger Lakes in New York. So I accepted without any requirements on my part. They said it would be nice if I could share some photos along the way.

That, I took as a challenge.

ROADTRIP PHOTOS:

Here are some of my CLA250 photos from the trip. I'll be posting a review of all of our stops in a future post.

Taking off from the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline MA


I was excited when the MBUSA Instagram account Re-Instagramed this one!



COOPERSTOWN: OTESAGA RESORT


ITHICA: We Saw Lots of Corn


FINGER LAKES WINE: Glenora


CROTON on HUDSON


BECKETT, MA


BURLINGTON, MA
Turning in the car at the site of the future Mercedes-Benz of Burlington.



After spending 28 hours and 1,100 miles in the car, I can say that we loved everything about it.



TEST DRIVE HIGHLIGHTS:

- The CLA250 is fun to drive. Side view mirrors are BIG and helped see blind spots.
- Has great pick up from a stop, and goes really, really fast when you need to pass. ;-)
- Air conditioning was very good, with dual controls for each passenger.
- This test drive came with SiriusXM. I always enjoy that when I get it in a car.
- Bluetooth connectivity to my iPhone was easy to connect. Plays music seamlessly.
- The seats are very comfortable. After 1,110 miles in it, I have no back problems at all.
- Headlights were very bright on the Western Mass back roads, and the Mass Pike where it was very very dark.

Questions:

- When we were on the highway and a large truck blew past us, the car shook.
- There wasn't a spare tire in the CLA250. Do cars come with spare tires any more? Answer: AMG’s and CLA/GLA don’t have them. They usually have Extended Running tires.
- It took a while to figure out how to use the control knob for the multimedia display.
- We had trouble finding a good place for an the iPhone running the Waze navigation app. Would be nice if Apple CarPlay gets integrated in the 2015 CLA250. I'd give Apple Maps a try. Otherwise, an iPhone holder would need to be purchased.

Disclosure:
Thanks to Mercedes-Benz of Burlington partner, Craig Meece, from Allbrandautos.com, for arranging delivery and pick-up of the car. Craig is great. If you need help purchasing a Mercedes-Benz, or any make of car, contact Craig.

Thanks to the future Mercedes-Benz of Burlington for the test drive. Looking forward to a future partnership. Stay tuned.

Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

We picked blueberries, then made a great cake.

Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake Recipe at All Recipes

.

AD:
Using a KitchenAid KSM150PSER Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer made this job easy.

Set Up: Hopbox one gallon home-brewing kit

I got my Hopbox one gallon home-brewing kit. I was happy to support them via Kickstarter.

Here's the Hopbox is set up in the basement. Seems like a good place for it.



I'm excited to get started.

Getting this kit reminds me of the little chemistry set I had as a kid.


Image: Antique Gilbert Chemistry Set via the artist Mary Ellen Long

Beer making is chemistry. ;-)

Microwave Corn in Husk. Pop it out.

Wet corn husk.

Microwave in husk for 6 minutes.

Chop off bottom of corn stalk.



Pop corn out.

It's hot. Be careful. Try again.



Pop corn out.

Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here Boston Backer Screening

How @CaseyNeistat is changing #vlogging with @Snapchat Stories

Snapchat Stories are going to be the next big thing in telling video stories.

@TechVoid Great post on @CaseyNeistat using @Snapchat to create a new form of vlogging.

— Steve Garfield (@stevegarfield) July 3, 2014

I've been following Casey's experiments with Snapchat Stories and creating some of my own. My excitement around this reminds me of the early days of videoblogging.

Erik Hyrkas, of the Tech Void blog, says:

Snapchat Stories are the future of vlogging (video blogging), and internet-renowned filmmaker and adrenaline junkie Casey Neistat and I are here to tell you why.

Casey explains his use of Snapchat Stories here, and how they relate to his more 'professional' work.



What Casey describes IS what we were doing in the early days of videoblogging. Capturing moments and putting them together to tell a story.

SAVING SNAPCHAT STORIES
All my earlier Snapchat Stories are gone since Snapchat doesn't save anything.

Casey decided to SAVE his stories and post them to YouTube.

Here's one of Casey and his son Owen on the French Riviera:



He also adds a nice Intro and Outro.

I don't know how he's doing it. There are a few apps in the iPhone app store that let you save snaps and stories. I decided to save and post my most recent one to YouTube.

I used Reflector, on the Mac.

Note: LIKE their page on Facebook to get 15% off.

EDITING
After saving, I imported the video into FCP X and added an Intro and Outro.

The fun of Snapchat stories is that you don't have to edit. Your story is assembled as you add moments to it throughout the day.

I decided to edit this one for fun. I also modified the audio in one spot to make it louder. I enjoy editing. Not sure how many Snapchat Stories I'll save and post to YouTube.

What do you think the criteria should be?

While editing, it totally reminded me of the videos that I used to do with my wife, that we called, The Carol and Steve Show, especially this one, Burgers and Beans Part 1 and Part 2. ;-)

Here's my Snapchat Story from July 3rd.



SUBSCRIBE
Note: I posted it on my main YouTube channel. Subscribe. ;-0

FOLLOW ON SNAPCHAT
Follow 'CaseyNeistat' and me,'stevegarfield' on Snapchat to see our stories as they happen. Swipe right to see them, and then press and hold to see the story.

Try some yourself.

Snapchat is experimenting with allowing multiple people to add to the same story, with curation. That's going to be fun when it's more widely available.

UPDATE:

You CAN shoot LANDSCAPE video in snapchat. ;-)

Two Great Apps on the Lumia 1520: Netflix and HERE Drive+

I've had the Lumia 1520 for evaluation for a while now and two apps that stand out as my favorites are Netflix and HERE Drive+.



Netflix
I use Netflix to watch House of Cards while on the treadmill. The runtime of the show is about 52 minutes. Makes watching very enjoyable.

The specs on the display are: Display size: 6". Display resolution: Full HD (1920 x 1080).

Note: The volume controls on my SOL headphones did not work though. Check first to make sure your headphone is compatible.

Here Drive+
Here Drive+ comes from Nokia and is a great navigation app.

There are many voices to choose from. Surfer Dude was fun for a while, then I tried English (UK), and settled on English (US) because street names were announced. The display is big and bright, and navigation is easy to follow. I big bonus here.

Nokia Disclosure:

Photos taken with Nokia Lumia 1520. CC BY-NC-SA Thanks @NokiaUS for the review unit.


Affiliate Link.

tech, nokia, lumia1520, microsoft, windows phone, review, teamlumia

Best #SMDay Boston Ever at @SamuelAdamsBeer

Massachusetts budget to allow for direct shipments of wine from out-of-state vineyards.

Massachusetts budget to allow for direct shipments of up to 12 cases of wine a year from out-of-state vineyards.

Massachusetts budget deal relies on casino licensing fees; bottle bill expansion dropped, setting up ballot campaign