Apps & Services on Numeric Citizen Blog

Anthropic: you can do better

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 07:34:46 -0400

From the DF Archive: ‘Electron and the Decline of Native Apps’:

The ironic frustration with Anthropic’s Claude app being an Electron turd is that Claude and especially Claude Code are so capable of helping to create good native Mac apps. It’s one thing for a big company or organization with cross-platform aspirations but no institutional Mac expertise, like Notion or Slack or Discord, to choose Electron to create their Mac client. It’s another when it’s a company like Anthropic, whose only product’s single most impressive ability is generating programming code, including high-quality AppKit and SwiftUI code for the Mac. To return to my hammering-screws-into-the-walls metaphor from yesterday, it’s as though the building into which Anthropic decided to hammer all the screws is a renowned screwdriver factory.

Bingo.

Bye Bye ChatGPT Atlas

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 07:08:04 -0400

Back home. Rebooted my Mac because of an issue with macOS 27 Golden Gate. Got this warning. Oh well, I didn’t use Atlas anyway. I’m not even sure if Atlas is on OpenAI roadmap for the long run.

Why Inkwell is so useful while on vacation

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 05:05:25 -0400

I use Inkwell quite often and I like it. While on vacation, I tend to spend less time reading my RSS feeds so my unread count goes up quite a bit. How do I catch up efficiently? I stop for a small reading session, I switch to Inkwell and use the Today tab but also the Recent tab which is super useful to see what I have missed. In extreme case of disconnection, the Fading tab comes to the rescue. If you’re an RSS feeds junkie, you should consider trying Inkwell.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:19:10 -0400

These are my custom-built apps. Icons aren’t the best and my goal is to refresh them to create a visually coherent set. Eventually.

Microsoft 365 Needs Better Meeting Preparation Intelligence

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:57:31 -0400

At my job, I spend most of my time on Microsoft 365 office products, especially Teams and Outlook. I spend a lot of time preparing meetings, sometimes with 15 or 20 participants. I don’t understand why Microsoft hasn’t invested in tools to help plan these meetings.

For example: I need to prepare a meeting with 15 participants; if the 4 or 5 must-have participants are available, those time slots should be clearly highlighted to make it easier to spot the best time to schedule the meeting. But that’s not what happens. Although some participants are mandatory, they don’t all carry the same weight.

I wish Microsoft would improve this aspect of their products; in fact, I wish they would show more empathy in their functional design. I feel like today’s Outlook is very similar to the one from ten years ago.

SwiftUI or Catalyst for Notion?

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 10:02:22 -0400

When reading about SwiftUI and how it leads to less than optimal Mac apps, I’m not convinced that rewriting Notion in SwiftUI is a good idea. Why not use Catalyst instead? Craft is a great example of a Catalyst-based app.

Testing Micro.blog for Mac 4.0 beta 1

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:41:16 -0400

I think the time to upgrade to a beefier Mac is coming… maybe this fall. Even if it’s a native Mac app, I think I prefer my custom-built Microblog Poster web app. Now, returning to normal programming.

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:09:30 -0400

Google’s Gemini Mac App Is Native, in a Distinctly Google Way, But Annoyingly Presumptuous, but John Gruber had this to say:

(Sidenote: The Gemini Mac app is a native Mac app, but it is … weird. Gus Mueller poked around at it and found that it’s the product of a Java-to-Objective-C converter that Google made, and much of it was originally written for Android.)

A trillion dollars company can’t make great Mac app, i.e. native Mac app. 🤢 Pass.

Software Quality is Not Goal Anymore

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:23:56 -0400

Working on my iPad and Microsoft apps during lunch while attending a webinar… if you think Apple software is full of paper cuts, you ain’t see nothing because Microsoft apps like Outlook and Teams are literally full of bugs, mostly user interface related. 😩🫤

My Reading Workflow Revealed

Sat, 30 May 2026 13:57:28 -0400

I’m getting there… by myself. I’m finally getting the reading workflow and tools that I always dreamed of. It might sound complex, but it isn’t. I can start at any reading circle level; no need to go with the smallest one (my blog roll). Seventy percent of the time is now spent in Ink⋅well. More to come.

Other Browsers Keep Disappointing Me

Sun, 24 May 2026 11:53:03 -0400

From time to time, I open a different browser to see if I’m missing anything. I tried the Dia Browser again, but I still don’t quite like it. I feel unsure about it. Its design doesn’t appeal to me, and it seems slower than the ARC Browser. My default choice remains Apple Safari. Oh, I want to like the Zen browser, but I don’t like it to be based on Firefox.

Now That Google Broke Its Promise to the Web, What's Next?

Sat, 23 May 2026 11:39:36 -0400

In “Google Betrayed the web”, Mike Elgan argues that Google has broken the foundational “Grand Bargain” of the internet—trading traffic to content creators in exchange for indexing their content. Google now uses creator content to train AI models and serves answers directly to users, bypassing the original sources. This shift eliminates referral traffic to publishers and independent sites while allowing Google to profit from their work twice over. Elgan calls for a post-Google internet as a response to this betrayal. His response centers on Google’s alternatives: Kagi, Perplexity, Fastmail, and Antropic. All alternatives that I personally use, except Perplexity.

The Irony of the App Store

Tue, 19 May 2026 19:52:10 -0400

Why is Inkwell stuck in review:

I submitted Inkwell for iOS to Apple for review on April 21st. It has gone through numerous rejections, code changes, resubmissions, clarifications, one phone call, and one appeal to the review board, which I’m still waiting to hear back on.

What a bizarre yet expected journey for a small developer trying hard to secure a little place in the App Store sun. I wish Manton a sooner-than-later resolution to this matter. It would be sad to see such a nice, little, and useful app not make it to the App Store. An app that can exist because of the open web, but can hardly live on a closed platform. How ironic. 😔

Bye Bye Grammarly?

Mon, 18 May 2026 22:25:23 -0400

Apple Expanding AI Writing Tools With Grammar Checker in iOS 27:

Apple is planning to introduce a dedicated AI grammar checker for Writing Tools that will work like Grammarly. When writing in Messages, Mail, and other apps there will be a translucent menu that slides up from the bottom of the iPhone’s screen, and it will show suggested revisions next to the original written text.

I feel Grammarly is a hack and offers spotty integration with apps like Craft. For something like writing and text editing, Apple has always been ahead of the pack compared to Windows. It’s time for a complete system-level solution.

Open Web + People = ?

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:10:01 -0400

Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead:

Social network Reddit recently began blocking mobile visitors to its website while pushing them to download the official Reddit app, and it’s fair to say that the move is not going down well with users.

Two things come to my mind about how Reddit was even possible in the early days: the open web and people. Now, Reddit put the first part of the equation in the trash. The second part might already be happening, thanks to AI.

Test Micro.blog Native App

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:02:00 -0400

This is a test blog post from the Micro.blog app for Mac. This nifty 5 MB app, which is rather extremely small by today’s standards, keeps slowly but surely improving. Now returning to normal programming.

Come On Apple, Take It!

Tue, 05 May 2026 07:06:54 -0400

Manton Reece is struggling with Apple’s efforts to publish Inkwell on the App Store. He shared some details about his recent difficult experience, and I hope he will reveal more once the app is available.

The state of the App Store is astonishing, in a bad way. I recently spent a few minutes browsing the Mac App Store to find an iPhone app and check its compatibility on a Mac. The number of poorly made apps is incredible. It appears Apple no longer recognizes when an app is genuinely well-designed and serves a real purpose.

I use the TestFlight version of Inkwell every day.

Feeling Tired of Apple Keynote?

Mon, 04 May 2026 07:13:36 -0400

Since I started making YouTube videos, I’ve used Apple Keynote to design all my thumbnails because I found it approachable, easy to work with, and capable of helping me quickly create acceptable designs. However, this morning I feel that my approach needs reevaluation. I briefly tried Canva, but the free version is too restrictive, and I dislike software with constant subscription prompts, as if I’m using a demo. I also thought about Acorn, but it never really resonated with me. For now, I plan to stick with Keynote unless someone suggests a better alternative I haven’t considered.

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:27:04 -0400

Woah, what happened to Pinterest? Ads, videos, AI Modified / AU generated stuff… 😟😵‍💫 Come on! What is happening to the thing we used to call the Internet?

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:03:06 -0400

App host Vercel says it was hacked and customer data stolen — TechCrunch

Vercel said the hack may affect “hundreds of users across many organizations,” and not just its own system, warning of potential downstream breaches spanning the tech industry.

All my web apps are hosted on Vercel. I got an email this morning to tell me my account wasn’t impacted by the data leak. Should I trust this statement? One thing that blows my mind: how on earth such a serious company don’t have a more restrictive policy as to what employees can download and test?

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:37:08 -0400

After several years of loyal service, I finally closed my Mailbrew account. This service was sold by its creators a few years ago, and since then, development had completely stopped. It’s a shame because when Mailbrew first appeared, it was an innovative idea that filled a niche for news and reading enthusiasts. I’ve moved on to something else. My reading workflow evolved around RSS and using the best client for the task.

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:46:21 -0400

Gemini App for Mac:

Gus Mueller:

Took a peak at it and … it contains 1,856 Objective-C classes whose class name starts with Java. What in the world are they doing? So I had Gemini analyze Gemini. Looks like there’s a lot of shared Android code in there, but compiled to Objective-C and Swift.

Better consider that 95% of new apps these days aren’t native to the platform.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:56:24 -0400

Business Insider Profiles Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s ‘CEO of Applications’:

People stay on Facebook and Instagram even as the experiences worsen because everyone they know is also still on those apps. There’s no network effect like that for ChatGPT. Claude is already rising to near-equal status in popularity, and Gemini isn’t far behind, and Simo hasn’t even started enshittifying ChatGPT yet. People will just switch.

I don’t use my Facebook account, Messenger, yes, because of others who refuse to let go and don’t understand alternatives. I already switched to Claude. I couldn’t be happier. I didn’t have to wait for the obvious to come.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:48:32 -0400

Successful products — Manuel Moreale

A product being popular is an indication of a lot of people using it. Doesn’t necessarily mean that the product is good. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s successful.

Exhibit A: all Microsoft 365 products, which contain so many paper cuts.

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 19:28:04 -0400

Micro.blog News:

Added new “OPML Sync…” button on Account for Inkwell users. This lets you set an external OPML file (for example from FeedLand or another feed platform) that Inkwell will automatically import feeds from.

Oh, cool! I updated my RSS reader to generate such a consumable file, making it the single source of truth.

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:29:53 -0400

Untitled — Manton Reece

NetNewsWire via AppleScript via MCP… I wonder what the future of scriptability is. We’ve got AppleScript, Shortcuts, App Intents, and MCP. But meanwhile you have agents which are fine just firing up command-line tools.

One day, I would argue that most apps will come with their MCP endpoint.

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:02:15 -0400

Mark Gurman (@markgurman@mastodon.social)

Google is ramping up development of a dedicated Gemini AI app for Apple Inc.’s Mac computer lineup, looking to step up competition with OpenAI and Anthropic

Suddenly, building a Mac app is sexy again. Who knew. There is an ad concept, right there, Apple!

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 08:21:43 -0400

Since my bookmark manager is almost complete, I plan to record a demo to share here. I like its integration with my other web apps, such as the Micro.blog front-end for posting linkposts and the feature that exports selected links and quotes to a markdown file, which will be included in an upcoming ephemeral scrapbook edition.

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 09:46:23 -0400

ChatGPT Plus subscription cancelled. Now, I could upgrade my Micro.blog subscription to Studio to support @manton in its mission!

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 07:52:11 -0400

Grammarly’s ‘Expert Review’ Feature Presents Fake Advice in the Names of Real Journalists and Authors — Pixel Envy

Grammarly’s “expert review” feature uses AI-generated text attributed to real people and deceased figures without their consent or knowledge, merely slapping their names on insights they never created.

Can we say “Corporate slop”? I think we can.

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:24:27 -0400

I didn’t expect Inkwell to come with an API… I’m very curious about that because it could mean that I could replace the data persistence layer of my personal RSS web app with Inkwell’s. Something to think about. 🤔👨🏻‍💻

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:22:35 -0400

My use case for Inkwell, for now, is to consume content from my blogroll feeds. I asked for a sync option with Inoreader, my beloved RSS sync service, but I don’t want to break the calmness of using Inkwell. 🙏🏻

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:52:23 -0400

Introducing Inkwell: manton.org
Manton Reece https://www.manton.org/2026/03/09/introducing-inkwell.html

I was (and still am) so excited about Inkwell that I created a video tour. Very personal. I originally thought the name would be Micro.ink, but the real name is Inkwell, while the URL is micro.ink. I wasn’t sure when I recorded the video yesterday. Now I know. Thanks to @manton for this!

Dim that background for me, will ya?

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:32:50 -0400

★ HazeOver — Mac Utility for Highlighting the Frontmost Window:

What HazeOver does is highlight the active window by dimming all background windows. That’s it. But it does this simple task with aplomb, and it makes a significant difference in the day-to-day usability of MacOS. Not just MacOS 26 Tahoe — all recent versions of MacOS suffer from a design that makes it difficult to distinguish, instantly, the frontmost (a.k.a. key) window from background windows.1 Making all background windows a little dimmer makes a notable difference.

For some reason, I forgot about this Mac utility. It was installed on my Mac mini, but disabled. It’s now installed and enabled on my MacBook Air with a 40% dimming value. Makes a big difference.

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 08:56:06 -0400

Of course, I had to create my own… miniroll… nice mini webapp… still wondering if I’m going to support Chris. Probably.

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 17:05:46 -0400

You might have noticed more linkposts than usual here today. The reason is that I’m testing this new RSS thing in Micro.blog… or part of Micro.blog future offering. It’s pretty solid.

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 08:04:08 -0400

Fastmail is preparing to launch an updated photo gallery functionality in approximately two weeks. I wasn’t certain they would keep updating this feature, so I’m glad it’s still available and that it keeps improving. I have a few test images there, but with my own web app for sharing photos now, I’m unsure whether I would switch to Fastmail’s version, since my version and Fastmail’s are quite similar.

Micro.blog + RSS = ?

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 20:14:43 -0400

Micro.blog is set to launch soon what could be its most exciting new feature yet: an integrated RSS reader. If I’m not mistaken, this could significantly change how I use the service. I currently follow many Mastodon accounts from news sites, so their updates are pushed to my timeline. With a possible RSS integration, I could use the RSS feeds directly, eliminating the need to follow the Mastodon account. I don’t know how the new feature will integrate with the rest of Micro.blog features, but I’ll find out very soon. I can’t wait. Why? Because I’m a fan of Micro.blog and of RSS.

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:51:09 -0400

Microsoft finally makes OneDrive look like a Mac app as it gets an all-new UI — 9to5Mac

The all-new OneDrive Activity Center embraces the Swift UI design language, including support for Liquid Glass on macOS 26 and native accessibility options like VoiceOver and Full Keyboard Access.

Can we say: finally?

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 07:31:18 -0400

9to5Mac’s article “Google launches Snapseed camera for iPhone with pro manual controls, retro film”:

Snapseed, a photo editing app by Google, has launched a new camera feature for iOS with manual adjustments, professional mode, and various film emulation styles. The updated app allows users to customize their photos with real-time filters and provides a full editing stack that enables post-capture modifications. The app is free and available in the App Store, with plans to update the Android version in the future.

I never quite understood why Google is making such an app. It’s great but… why?

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:22:22 -0400

How many new RSS readers can we get in a week? I’m counting two so far. Might be a third one coming soon? Cc @manton

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 07:21:15 -0400

Using Claude Code, I added an OPML export feature to my RSS Flow webpage so that I could move my feeds into Current so that I could compare the reading experience of a RSS river… let’s see.

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 22:26:21 -0400

I bought Current. I’m not sure it’s for me. It doesn’t support Inoreader. It might be in a future version. Information density is too low. I like some of its design decisions. It seems that some useful features will come the more I use the app. I’ll see.

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 09:37:55 -0400

I’m still tweaking my RSS Flow web app using Claude Code. It’s addictive and fun. It’s becoming the exact RSS reader I always wanted.

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:41:08 -0400

The more I tweak my personal RSS reader, called “RSS Flow”, the more I like it. It wouldn’t scale to the level of Inoreader, though. But for a dozen of RSS feeds, it’s really nice.

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:35:34 -0400

Manton Reece on Aeronaut

Trying out Aeronaut for Bluesky. Very nice. I don’t actually visit Bluesky directly that often because I post to it and follow within Micro.blog. Good to have a dedicated app for things like feeds, though.

Tried it for five minutes on my Mac. Nice, indeed. Certainly better than Bluesky’s offering which is iPhone only. The only thing is that I never quite remember what to use as my Bluesky username.

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 22:13:06 -0400

Yesterday night I installed and configured ClawdBot on my M4 Mac mini sitting on my home office desk. Now, I’m remote-controlling it with Discord, preferring it over Telegram or iMessage because Discord support in ClawdBot felt more mature. I can ask simple things and get simple answer. It’s exciting. Yet, it was more complicated than I originally thought. ClawdBot is a nerdy thing for really nerd people. More comments about ClawdBot can be found on MacStories.

I see a lot of potential for learning and testing new things with ClawdBot. I’ll probably dedicate a lot of my spare time to it in the coming months. But for now, because I’m very close to leaving for a vacation trip to Egypt, I’ll put that aside for a few weeks.

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 13:22:46 -0400

Open source vs. open platforms — Manton Reece

Open source gives power to developers. An open platform gives power to everyone. The web needs business models that can sustain both.

Well balanced point of view, something we see less and less often these days.

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:50:15 -0400

Yesterday, I suscribed to Edovia’s Screens so that I could remote control my Mac mini upstair to configure ClawdBot where it is running. Like many other apps, Screens now comes with Liquid Glass support and it’s a mixed bag. Plus, this thing is a battery drain powerhouse! 🫣 I’ve been using Screens 3 a long time ago when we couldn’t remote control into other Macs via FaceTime. I’m happy to see it still around, especially that I know the developer behind it.

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 23:24:53 -0400

Asking Claude Code to suggest new features and improvements for my photo-sharing app is a lot of fun. Reviewing the list, I see several valid suggestions. However, as a “product manager”, I must decide what gets implemented and what does not. It’s kind of a power trip. You know “A thousand no for each yes”? 😎

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 22:51:13 -0400

Miniroll: what a great idea, and a well-designed one above all. Is it for me? I don’t know. I barely update my blogroll on Micro.blog. I’ll certainly keep an eye on the changelog to see where it’s going, and who knows…

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 22:01:22 -0400

Digg is finally in public beta. They also introduced a refreshed design (compared to what was available during the private beta), and I think it’s way better. Also introduced are user-defined communities. It’s currently limited to two per user, which I think is fair. This is my profile. I was looking to create a community, only to realize I was about to dilute myself again. My community is here.

Apple Creator Studio - A Few Comments

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:42:34 -0400

On today’s announcement by Apple:

Now we know why it took so long for Apple to update Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Where is iWork? Why no iWork subscription without the pro stuff?
I don’t understand this bundling of pro apps with consumer-generalistic apps. Is Apple trying to upsell Pro Apps to consumers via a new subscription? They might be. I don’t think pros want to get Numbers or Pages, though.
Icons are utterly un-Apple, or Apple has become something I no longer relate to software-design-wise. It’s not a good sign.
Yes, Apple does look like Adobe and … Microsoft. And less, Apple.
No mention of Photomator. I believe merging Photomator into Photos is not a good idea; combining a photo browsing app with a photo editing app isn’t ideal. Currently, Photos functions more as a photo browser than as a dedicated editing tool, and both aspects risk becoming mediocre. I want a focused, serious photo-editing app that doesn’t try to rival Photoshop. Is that too much to ask? The challenge lies in Apple’s prioritization of profit over user needs, which makes it difficult to develop such an app.

What a strange start to the year.

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:13:16 -0400

It appears that Photomator in MIA in today’s announcements which doesn’t bode well for its fate. 😔

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 19:36:05 -0400

I just discovered that Raindrop.io offers many integrations, including n8n! I might need to reconsider my bookmarking strategies, yet again. I’m currently using Anybox. 🤔 I’m exploring ways to move the data around. If you made a similar move, I’ll be more than happy to learn about your experience. For now, I’ll prompt ChatGPT for strategies.

My Defaults as of 2026-01-10

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 10:16:00 -0400

Changes from the last edition are in bold. ✉️ Mail Client: Fastmail 📨 Mail Server: Fastmail 📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes ✅ To-Do: Things 3 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app 📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Photomator 🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app 🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud 📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader 📇 Contacts: Contacts 🕸️ Browser: Mobile Safari + ARC Browser on Mac + ChatGPT Atlas 🧠 AI: ChatGPT + Claude AI 🔎 Search: Kagi Search 💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad) 🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox 👓 Read It Later: Inoreader 📜 Word Processing: Ulysses, Craft 📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers 🛝 Presentations: Keynote 🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders 🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None 💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers 🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news) 🎶 Music: Apple Music 🎧 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts 🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain & Apple Passwords 👨🏻‍💻 Blog hosting: Ghost, Micro.blog, Scribbles.page 🌐 Web Services: Cloudflare, Chillidog Hosting, DigitalOcean

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 11:38:53 -0400

Kagi News is really cool and well done. Here’s an example of Apple Vision Pro news.

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 10:51:07 -0400

I cannot stress enough how flabbergasted I am by the value Tinylytics is offering. Just finished configuring recently added options. What you see is my Blips analytics dashboard. Hat down to Vincent.

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:44:50 -0400

I’m making quite a bit of progress with my Micro.blog UI frontend to the point where I’m wondering how much of the whole experience I could rebuild using Vercel and Claude Code. Challenge?

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:59:55 -0400

I decided to try building a small website on GitHub Pages. I have no idea if I’ll ever make something useful out of it. Since I’m spending some time with GitHub, I have found some interesting side features.

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 13:56:43 -0400

I saw many times people talking about Ghostty for Mac, a terminal emulator. My question: why use Ghostty instead of Apple Terminal? I just downloaded it and my first reactions are: less window chrome, bigger windows, split-window mode, better font and better default colors scheme. Adopted.

MacUpdate Is Dead?

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 11:59:21 -0400

From MacUpdate website:

Unfortunately MacUpdater 3’s promised lifetime of “until 2026-01-01” is now over. There will be no MacUpdater 4 or any continuation of the MacUpdater product from us. Our daily maintenance has been stopped and we don’t verify updates anymore. MacUpdater 3.5 is now unsupported but free-to-use including all previous “Pro” features.

WTF?? 😩

In 2026, I’ll Keep an Eye On…

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 17:29:29 -0400

I’m already turning my attention to 2026, in no particular order:

Ghost.org next moves, now that are a better Fediverse citizen.
Plausible Analytics, which seems to be overkill for my needs but I might find a use for their service exposure via their APIs.
Craft because they finished the year with a bang and I’m super anxious to learn what’s next.
Apple because of Apple Intelligence and Siri promised updates. Will they deliver? They are the underdog right now but it could serve them well in the end. Remember the Mp3 players market before the iPod? I do. I don’t want another features rush but a bug-fix bonanza. Will they deliver? I have my doubts. What’s next for Photomator and Pixelmator?
Micro.blog might also surprise me with features like RSS reader integration. Who knows.
Anthropic and OpenAI offerings… will they keep the pace? Will they slow down? Will they surprise us? Will they crash? Is enshittification on our way?
Inoreader is also evolving at a steady pace and I wonder if it will continue in 2026.
Things to-do manager: will it turn to version 4?

So much fun is awaiting, I’m sure.

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 14:04:36 -0400

In my piece this published this morning, I totally forgot to mention the possibility of enshittification of AI offerings by Anthropic and OpenAI, which could trigger some decisions on my part if this happens. For unknown reasons, I have better trust in Anthropic staying away of this for a longer time than OpenAI.

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:10:59 -0400

I got a lot of positive reactions about my Micro.blog front end for writing and publishing posts in a simplified user experience. I wasn’t expecting that. To me, it might mean that it’s filling a small void in Micro.blog offerings. Thankfully, Micro.blog is an open “platform” which allows such experiments like mine.

Some people asked me to make my app open source. I’m hesitant. I don’t want to feel the pressure of having to support others in using my work but who would like to add their own touches. I think, for now, I’ll respectfully decline. I would rather encourage anyone to follow the same route that I did and experiment with the tooling. 👾

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:22:34 -0400

I won’t write my predictions for 2026, but I want to write about how I envision using different AI offerings to support my creative journey next year.

Craft & Inoreader in 2025

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:09:02 -0400

In 2025, two notable apps or services received numerous and meaningful updates: Craft and Inoreader.

Craft received long-awaited tag support, with APIs and MCP support added. The latter two are quite transformative, and I expect 2026 to bring many new users to the app. Personally, I’m barely scratching the surface of Craft APIs. Craft is at the center of everything that I create, and I couldn’t think of a better app to support my creative journey.

Inoreader also got a bunch of updates, many of them focused on AI-based empowerment (article summaries, podcast and video transcriptions, tag suggestions, etc.). More than ever, Inoreader is an essential part of my digital toolset.

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 21:51:59 -0400

It’s fascinating how building things with Claude AI and Vercel made me forget about my desire to expand my knowledge and experience of Apple Shortcuts. I no longer see the need for that. My wish, though, would be to see Apple bring a way to build Shortcuts using Apple Intelligence.

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 20:13:35 -0400

I see a lot of interest in my experiment with Vercel and Micro.blog if the reactions are any indication. I’m going to do a small write up about this. I didn’t expect my experiment to be successful. Can’t wait to share more details about this on meta.numericcitizen.me.

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 14:06:49 -0400

One of the reasons for building my own web app for posting to Micro.blog: having the title field and categories shown by default 😁🤣

And Now Microblog Poster Web App is Live!

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 11:58:12 -0400

It’s a web app (on Vercel) just for me to use so that I can write blog posts on the go with a clean UI. It’s my second web app on Vercel built entirely with Claude AI.

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 16:37:34 -0400

When I’m hitting my Claude AI credits allotment, it’s time to do something else. 😅

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 20:33:53 -0400

Moving from Apple Keynote to Freeform for my next content creation workflow diagram update. It’s a sneak peek. It was much easier to convert (a simple copy-and-paste was all that was needed to kick-start the process). I also made significant changes to the way certain things are presented.

Who's Right?

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:13:46 -0400

Apparently, web analytics is not an exact science. Here are three web analytics versions of the same period: from November 23rd to December 23rd (Top: Ghost Analytics, Middle: Plausible Analytics, and Bottom: Tinylytics). Plausible feels conservative, with about half as many unique visitors as Ghost, while Tinylytics seems to overestimate. The patterns are barely the same, too. Who’s right?

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 14:21:47 -0400

My wife and me quite extensively used a group conversation in ChatGPT to help us face some health-related issues. It was beneficial to a visit to the hospital and still is after the visit yesterday. It is so much more helpful than having to google things and try to figure out what is going on.

Consuming AI Can Be Expensive

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:10:20 -0400

While experimenting with n8n and LLM services, I realize that using artificial intelligence can become a very costly hobby. The fact that the consumption of these services relies on two separate offerings — the subscription to the interactive service and on-demand billing for APIs — requires careful management and wise choices of providers.

Currently, I use ChatGPT and Claude AI in interactive mode, but I also need a provider to access AI via APIs. This latter mode of consumption is particularly expensive if you’re not careful.

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 10:43:41 -0400

Woke up this morning and appreciated the results of my first n8n automation: a Craft Daily note with a list of topics for the day automagically created for the current day. I did use Craft Templates before, but I prefer the programmatic route because it enables much more powerful content creation by consuming different sources via APIs. For now, my automation doesn’t, but I’ll iterate on that.

My Learning Approach

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:58:43 -0400

Still exploring n8n, slowly but systematically. Because I’ll be using all sorts of external services like Craft, Micro.blog, Ghost, Inoreader, my strategy is to do individual integration tests instead of trying to build a biggy workflow and find all sorts of errors. Each of these micro experiments is forming the building blocks of something bigger. This approach is not different from the one I used for building iPhone apps and learning Objective-C and Interface Builder back in the day. I guess I’m a bottom-up kind of guy when it comes to understanding this kind of stuff.

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:08:11 -0400

Just completed a one-hour WordPress+Email issue-debugging session with my daughter-in-law. It was a harsh reminder of how much I hate WordPress.

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 23:15:25 -0400

Got my first n8n instance up and running on DigitalOcean. Running 2.0.3. That was easy. Enough for tonight.

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:47:53 -0400

Started learning more about Vercel. I see a lot of people using it for many different things. Seems quite capable even on the free tier. I might need it for some projects involving Craft. 🤓 Anyone using Vercel here? Thoughts?

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:36:24 -0400

I knew I could build my Discord server, but didn’t really pay attention to it and couldn’t figure out what purpose it served. Now I do. So I created one so that, among my many use cases for this, it can receive a webhook call when one of my websites is down, thanks to Tinylytics’ webhook support.

Goodbye, IFTTT

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 22:56:25 -0400

It was a memorable, long journey. I officially shut down my IFTTT account tonight after over five years of use. It wasn’t costly, but I have the feeling that IFTTT started to trail behind competitive offerings like Zapier, Make and now n8n. It wasn’t the most user-friendly for debugging issues. Now, I’m turning my focus towards n8n. In the coming days and weeks, it will be my next digital playground for experimentation.

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:28:54 -0400

After testing Claude AI, agentic workflows and Craft this weekend, I’m genuinely thrilled about certain aspects of AI—it’s a level of excitement I haven’t felt since I first explored the web and started using the iPhone.

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 12:59:33 -0400

Just finished verifying my options for backing up my Synology NAS to the cloud and Synology C2 is still offers the cheapest option. Yet, it’s not cheap.

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 13:35:23 -0400

Seriously thinking of moving out of IFTTT to a self-hosted n8n instance on Digital Ocean. My IFTTT use case is simple: archiving RSS feed articles into Dayone. This seems quite possible to move this workflow into n8n automation.

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:56:00 -0400

Tonight I’ve been testing something really cool: using Claude, Craft MCP connections, and Craft Agents to write a blog post to Scribbles. The blog post was written by Claude under my instructions but I could tweak the workflow to get the text of the blog post from a Craft Collection instead. Something to experiment during the upcoming Christmas holidays.

Saved 50 Minutes

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:34:32 -0400

Realmac Software shared their latest dev talk video. The video title mentions conversations about future plans for Elements. I was curious because I want to know where they are going with the CMS and RSS. I headed to YouTube and asked AI the following question: did they mention CMS? In a few seconds, I got my answer: yes, and they also talked about better support for RSS, which is something I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t watch the video; I already had the information I wanted. I saved 50 minutes of my time.

Now, one question: how is this good for Google? We’re so accustomed to being manipulated by platforms designed to increase our engagement with them; with this AI feature, it’s the opposite—I’m less engaged. Is this another subversive move by Google, part of a master plan that escapes my awareness?

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 20:47:14 -0400

I’m happy (and quite surprised) to have made it to third place in today’s Craft Winter Challenge — a.k.a. the hackathon — for my submission of the Year-in-Review Writing Assistant. It’s a 500 US$ prize! 😅

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 22:43:23 -0400

What a night & day difference between Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Opus 4.5 models. The latter is much more effective at working through my MCP connection to Craft. But boy this baby consumes a lof of credits. 😅

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 21:46:09 -0400

I’m trying something new this year for my year-in-review blog post. Using all my monthly post digests stored in Craft¹, I’m using ChatGPT to look at those digests, take into account last year’s year-in-review article, plus this year’s document personal milestones to suggest ideas. This is now possible because Craft now supports MCP. Using the best ChatGPT models, I get a lot of material to consider but somehow I feel this is really overwhelming. I should be more directive like limiting the number of possible scenarios, their length, etc. I’m still exploring this workflow.

I subscribe to my own blog post digest newsletter for archival purposed. ↩︎

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 09:29:18 -0400

Time to renew Kagi Search. I’m on the starter tier. Upon examination, I’m doing about 45 searches per month. The trend is decreasing. I use their Article Summarizer on the iPad and iPhone much more often. I want to support them because I believe we need diversity when it comes to searching the web. But it’s not cheap, and my search requests trend is going downward, thanks to AI. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Any Kagi users in the room?

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 15:30:14 -0400

I spent the last few days putting together a workflow to help me write those year-in-review articles. As we get closer to the end of the year, it’s the right time to start working on this. I documented my workflow in this Craft document and submitted to the #winter_challenge on Slack. Hint: my first real use case for MCP.

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:39:44 -0400

I don’t like the idea that a service like ChatGPT tries to present itself as a friend, an agent, or a human. With instructions, I can ask it to avoid this type of behavior. But I like the service’s appearance to be warm. Perhaps that’s why I prefer Anthropic’s Claude. Claude, even though it’s a proper name, presents itself better; its visual style seems friendlier to me. I feel like this is a contradiction.

I asked Claude about this possible contradiction. Here’s what he responded:

“I don’t think it’s actually a contradiction. You’re distinguishing between two different things: false intimacy (an AI pretending to be your friend or a person) versus pleasant design (a warm, welcoming aesthetic and tone). Wanting the latter without the former is perfectly coherent—it’s the difference between a tool that’s agreeable to use and a tool that’s trying to deceive you about its nature.”

Thanks, Claude.

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 08:02:10 -0400

I’m experimenting with Claude for a month because I want to test MCP connections with Craft. ChatGPT does support MCP connections but the experience is not as mature as configuring an MCP connection with Claude. Claude is not cheap: pricing is similar to ChatGPT’s but plan usage limits are easy to reach.

Three Years Already

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 19:14:45 -0400

Three years of ChatGPT. Time flies. A few thoughts on that are mandatory it seems. ChatGPT certainly turned things upside down not only for me as a writer but for many creators. The entire software industry also was turned things even more upside down. It’s hard to imagine what would have been software roadmaps or new features pipelines without generative AI. See? We almost forgot about what it was like before ChatGPT. Can’t imagine where things are going. Generative AI integration into apps and user experience is the next frontier where things will be interesting to watch.

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 13:59:00 -0400

I made a new video about the latest release of Craft (v3.3.1), which I think it’s a game-changer. Long live to Craft!

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 10:01:44 -0400

As much as I love Tinylytics, I wish there was some basic analytics on Micro.blog, just like Bear’s. I should update my Micro.blog wish list. If @manton don’t want to spend time working on this, maybe he could find a way to integrate a Tinylytics dashboard inside Micro.blog? 🙏🏻

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 09:44:45 -0400

I found a video of mine in my archives showing a full edit session with Snapseed on my iPad. The resulting image was part of an old blog posts collection called The Perfect Imperfection series initially on Instagram and later on Exposure. Sadly, this photo collection no longer exists because I closed both my Instagram and Exposure account. You’ll understand why I chose this naming when you see the resulting image. Enjoy the short ride here in the video below.

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 08:56:10 -0400

As I’m spending 70% of the time on ChatGPT Atlas, I decided to go further with ChatGPT Atlas and set it as the default browser on my MacBook Air. 20% is with ARC Browser, 5% is Safari.

AnyBox

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:01:17 -0400

I’ve been a long time user of AnyBox, after leaving Raindrop.io, and Pocket, but I was a light user until recently. I revisited the app thoroughly and now it’s sitting at the center of my newsletter preparation workflow. I love this app so much; it feels native, fully-featured, and offers the right information density. The only missing thing would be to have a cloud-based version…

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:58:05 -0400

Using Micro.blog’s upgraded video features, here’s my latest video round-up highlighting this year’s Micro.blog improvements. Previous videos were posted on my YouTube channel. I hope you find this to be useful.

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 14:57:35 -0400

This is Micro.blog in 2025; Am I missing something? 🤯 Let’s be honest here: that an incredible value for the money.¹

This is not an ad. I’m just a bit enthusiastic. ↩︎

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 22:50:01 -0400

As hard as I wanted to get extensibility in Craft (with APIs, for example), I still fail to see a practical use case for me. The APIs are really simple, but what am I going to do with them? I just don’t know. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 21:03:46 -0400

With just-released support for vertical tabs and Passkeys, ChatGPT Atlas is two more steps closer to replacing the ARC Browser.

iPadOS 26.2 with External Display: Are We There Yet?

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 20:44:47 -0400

I’m giving the iPad Pro with external display another try (under 26.2 b3). As far as I can see, it’s not all Apple’s fault if there are many paper cuts: third-party apps support with external display is lacking. Make no mistake: iPadOS 26.2 as come a long way… but iPad-only rules still make the iPad a bit too far from the macOS experience. Borderless-windows in dark mode makes it hard to distinguish which app is which.

Long story short: no.

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 20:58:54 -0400

Something must be going on with Apple’s iWork not being updated with Liquid Glass at this time of year. Apple might be working on better integration with Photomator and PixelMator Pro beyond Liquid Glass adoption. What is your take?

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 07:37:09 -0400

A bug in the Apple Shortcuts editor on the Mac. One of so many. Can you imagine if Apple allowed third-party Shortcut editors to create shortcuts? That would be awesome.

Bye Bye Zapier, IFTTT, Still a Keeper

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 22:23:52 -0400

I have finally deleted my Zapier account after a few years of inactivity. It’s significantly more complicated than IFTTT and much more expensive. IFTTT is far from perfect. It seems to be stagnant even. But, for my needs, it’s ok. I have two applets: 1) Save all posts on my RSS superfeed into a **Day One **journal, 2) Save a link into a Google sheet of a YouTube video that I like. The latter could probably be eliminated.

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:55:35 -0400

I might have made some progress… last try for today. Please, ignore. 🙏🏻

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:49:14 -0400

I’m not particularly skilled at making API calls, apparently. 😔

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:35:07 -0400

Like I said, things never work the first time. And rarely the second time, too.

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:18:42 -0400

Currently testing Craft API capabilities to save this blog post via my blog’s RSS feed via IFTTT. Let’s see what happens. Things never work the first time.

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 10:07:21 -0400

With iPadOS 26 multitasking, I found that the best way for me to add another app besides an existing one is to go through the App Library, search for it, then tap and drag into place. Is there a more efficient way?

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:41:57 -0400

In recent days, while on vacation, I spent some time cleaning up my Shortcuts library. It was a mess: unused shortcuts, non-working ones, unnecessary settings for Apple Watch or search availability, wrong tile color, etc. I’m still not done yet.

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:18:27 -0400

Opening a link to the App Store now defaults to opening the App Store web version, requiring another tap to go in the App Store to download the app. Why forcing people to visit the web version first?

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:04:29 -0400

I learned that Day One offers an MCP server for the Mac. Craft is about to launch its own MCP support. Now, could this mean I could build a bridge for exporting data from Day One to Craft (using a Shortcut for example)?

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:20:54 -0400

After Craft, Ulysses, still in beta, might be the second-best take on Liquid Glass adoption. I love it.

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 11:15:07 -0400

Apparently, you can upload a .shortcut file into ChatGPT for analysis!? 🧐😱🤯 it’s great for learning. Will try it soon.

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 14:30:48 -0400

In my latest video, this is how I’m using, for now, Craft + ChatGPT via Atlas. My reading workflow is finally taking the right direction. AI haters, I hear you but not everything is bad in AI land.

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:53:37 -0400

I experimented with a few agentic prompts using ChatGPT Atlas browser on my Micro.blog timeline. I asked it to list my posts for the day. It took only 17 seconds, and voila! It’s quite impressive when it functions correctly.

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:21:55 -0400

Apple’s strong quarter in services revenue shows that people are willing to pay for additional storage, among other things. I don’t think Apple will feel the need to increase the free storage tier beyond 5 GB anytime soon.

Building a 'Relationship' With Corporations

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 07:08:43 -0400

I tend to be super loyal. I’ve been an Apple fan forever (read “The Roots of my Passion for Apple”), even though there are things that put me off (too many to list here). The same is slowly happening with OpenAI. I’ve tested alternative services but always come back to OpenAI’s offerings. They’re far from perfect—just like Apple—both from a corporate point of view and in terms of products and services. And yet, I’m increasingly hooked on ChatGPT, Atlas, and their LLM “personality.” The conversation memory in ChatGPT and the browser memories are helping build this relationship on the knowledge OpenAI is slowly building on me. It’s scary.

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 17:14:19 -0400

I hate creating Shortcuts in Apple Shortcuts. There is no easy way to debug this shit. No quick start for anything. It’s not fun at all. There, I said it (again).

ChatGPT Atlas is for?

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 07:40:23 -0400

I’ve been testing the ChatGPT Atlas browser heavily in recent days. It’s already controversial, but I’m in the camp that likes it. Of course, this is Chromium with a ChatGPT button bolted on. But that’s the point: helping eliminate app switching that I was constantly doing anyway. Of course, it’s not the real web experience, but who said OpenAI was pretending to offer the classic web as we’ve known it over the last 30 years? Those years are already behind us, you like it or not. One thing I do is summarize my browsing activities, focusing on reading my RSS feeds in Inoreader. It’s very impressively done, complete with a back link to each Inoreader article. I’m not using, and don’t plan to use, agentic browsing activities due to their apparent lack of maturity and highly questionable security issues.

Speaking of Inoreader: the service allows you to summarize a bunch of selected articles using AI, but it’s an extra that costs more! With ChatGPT Atlas, a simple prompt while browsing an RSS feed or a group of RSS feeds does the job wonderfully.

More to come soon.

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 07:40:26 -0400

If ChatGPT could read RSS feeds for summarization and other tricks, it would probably be a game-changer for me. Inoreader offers such a thing, but it’s a paid addition on top of an already rather expensive subscription.

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 17:23:47 -0400

MCP support is coming soon to Craft. They are taking a more cautious approach than Notion’s. Oh, and APIs are also coming, too. I like that. We will see how things go. So far, it’s fun to play with.

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:30:31 -0400

In “Creative neglect: What about the apps in Apple?” Joe Rosensteel from SixColors discusses the lack of attention and updates for Apple’s creative apps. Of particular interest to me: Photomator. It didn’t receive meaningful updates since its acquisition. Don’t get me started with the Apple Intelligence support, it’s a gimmick. At the same time, I’m afraid of the Liquid Glass treatment Photomator will eventually get. It’s a strange vibe, not to be excited about any impending updates.

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 19:18:27 -0400

Using ChatGPT Atlas for my personal browsing activities offers an unexpected plus: at the end of the day I can ask to summarize my browsing activities and group them by subjects and themes. It’s very cool.😎 But is it secure? 👀

Hot Take on ChatGPT Atlas - More Thoughts

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 22:09:13 -0400

The original ChatGPT Mac client is now mostly integrated into this new web browser. Chrome extensions are supported. My use of the Mac client might decrease significantly over time. Having ChatGPT inside the browser has big implications for my reading and information workflows. Processing YouTube videos is easy; everything happens within the same app. Thought: Google’s cautious AI integration in its browser (Gemini) might stem from a fear of conflicting with its business model, which involves tracking users to sell ads. How do you sell ads within AI-generated content? I could try using ChatGPT Atlas as my main desktop browser for a few days to see if it truly makes a difference.

Hot Take on ChatGPT Atlas

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 20:58:29 -0400

From the initial download, install up to a few visited websites and prompts. Here’s my hot take. Nice icon. Nice onboarding, but with a few typical sets of questions (default browser, import current bookmarks). Minimalistic browser window. Just like Dia! Another Chromium wrapper? It better be good. I like the integration with ChatGPT and the browser memory. I wonder if it is linked to my ChatGPT memory. It seems yes! I wonder if ChatGPT Atlas could replace the ChatGPT client altogether because all my past conversations are available in a collapsible left sidebar. The integration of ChatGPT’s past conversation, memory, and current browser context seems a powerful combination. Bye-bye, Dia, please, return to developing the ARC Browser. More to come soon.

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 19:02:33 -0400

Thinking of subscribing to VSCO pro plan. Just for fun. This would be the third photo-sharing service that I use. But it feels so different than Glass and Pixelfed. It’s all about filters!

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 21:10:58 -0400

I’ve just noticed that YouTube appears to offer an “Ask” button for each video, as shown in this screenshot. I tried it twice and found the summary quite clear and helpful. The consequence is profound: I didn’t watch the videos. As someone who creates videos, I’m pondering the implications for my and all other video creators.

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:09:55 -0400

As reported by 9to5Mac:

“Apple will be leaning into the vertical stack of Apple TV in Apple TV on Apple TV”

All bets are on the table.

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 06:52:12 -0400

It’s sad to see Micro Social being abandoned. Are there other ways? Why not make the source code open source? Or sell it? Can someone take over the development?

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 21:58:21 -0400

As reported by 9to5Mac, AltStore is to support Fediverse with its own Mastodon instance:

AltStore is embracing ActivityPub and the fediverse, with its own Mastodon server, allowing developers and users to have a more direct channel of communication and interaction.

This is, among other things, what we are missing with Apple’s tight control on its App Store.

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 07:24:06 -0400

For a few reasons, I’m tempted to subscribe to… The Verge. This would be the first such case of subscribing to a news site. I kind of like the site design and content; there is a community vibe if commenters are any indication. However, even as a subscriber, I may still receive ads served to me. 😑 Anyone subscribing to The Verge here? Thoughts?

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 21:48:23 -0400

OpenAI unveiled some impressive developments today at their developer conference, including apps in ChatGPT and Agent Builder. I’m much more impressed by this than by Sora. 👀

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 14:26:38 -0400

Weirdly, Apple Music Replay are web-only…. even when using music.apple.com, Replay is located on a separate website.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #3

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 10:30:30 -0400

Doing serious work on the iPad now feels… exhausting. The efforts that you have to deploy to avoid the too many paper cuts is exhausting. I don’t know who, at Apple, is working on Files.app but the team should get in touch with those who work (if they are still there) on the Mac Finder. I ended up doing many of the files management tasks on… the Mac.

Photomator doesn’t work well with files located on a remote SMB share, apparently. After granting permission to the root folder as requested, Photomator is stacked in a “Processing…” loop. Not good.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #2

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 09:55:31 -0400

The iPad running Files.app with two windows, side-by-wide for easier file management.

Working with Files.app is still very frustrating and unpredictable. For some reason, I cannot drag & drop a file from my iPad downloads folder to a specific folder (on my Synology). The only way to get around this is to go up in the folder hierarchy, drop it there then later move it inside the intended target folder. Also experienced one crash with numerous “Content Unavailable” conditions like shown on this screenshot. So far, no file management done. WTF? Let’s try harder.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #1

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 09:28:29 -0400

My current iPad desktop on the external display.

I just started a one-hour work session with my M4 iPad Pro connected to an external display (LG 5K Ultra Fine) running iPad OS 26.1 beta 1. I should probably update this article I wrote more than a year ago: “Using the iPad With an External Display — Space Oddities”. Let’s see how it goes.

First issue: I started writing this blog post in Micro.blog client. Sadly, Micro.blog’s iPad app is buggy with an external display: I cannot set the blog post category… the little gear icon is missing and iPadOS 26 menus aren’t supported, yet. My fallback plan: Ulysses. Works great. Next step: doing some files management with Files.app using an SMB share on my Synology NAS. Let’s see how it goes. Oh, and ShareShot works… but not without strange visual issues.

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 17:16:22 -0400

Are there any Craft users here? I’m curious to see if sharing short videos¹ about Craft would be of some interest.

Micro.blog is soon launching better video hosting; I might take advantage of that instead of YouTube. ↩︎

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 17:07:31 -0400

Please, would you be kind enough to explain this graph to me (the top portion)?

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:10:24 -0400

I no longer use the Mac App Store to update my apps on my Mac; I prefer using the brew “mas outdated” and “mas upgrade” commands instead.

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 07:42:01 -0400

Comet, Dia: these AI-focused browsers aren’t clicking with me. I tried many times. I prefer to use a native client like ChatGPT, which will surf for me when needed.

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 17:39:37 -0400

I created this diagram in MindNote Next today for a video about Craft and tags usage. There is a “Focus Mode” where the UI disappears, allowing us to focus on the content, as shown in this screenshot. There is one big problem with this: the “Focus Mode” status button at the top. It is highly distracting to me; I can’t focus. 😳

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 21:47:15 -0400

Today, I decided to add Screen Studio to my digital toolbox. Some form of video editing is tedious and much less intuitive in ScreenFlow, and I think Screen Studio really shines here. Using this type of quick animation helps focus on what matters most.

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 21:27:50 -0400

It’s been two weeks (if not three) since Apple released iOS/iPadOS/macOS 26 are out… and still no iWork update. 👀 It must be hard to implement Liquid Glass… even for Apple.

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 09:48:42 -0400

I think that, from what I observed and experienced since Apple OS 26 releases, some apps inherently lend themselves better at Apple’s Liquid Glass adoption because of dev abilities but also because of the very nature of the app. Craft and Reeder are good examples. There are a few others.

Journaling While Traveling - A Third Option?

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 06:49:39 -0400

Journaling and documenting my experiences while travelling has always been something that I wish I could do effectively, without too much friction. I did it in Italy in 2022 using Craft and again this past summer with Apple Journal. Two different kinds of vacations, totally different solutions. I’m still not satisfied with either of these options. Next time, maybe I should consider using the real deal: Day One?

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 20:46:31 -0400

Apple’s iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) is still not updated for Liquid Glass. Mmmmm. 👀

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 12:24:32 -0400

There is no clipboard manager on my office PeeCee… at least, nothing that I could install anyway if such a thing exists on Windozzzz. 😒

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 11:54:10 -0400

Flighty is increasing by 33% their yearly subscription fees. This is… massive. I recognize the constant improvements to this app but boy, that makes me pause and reconsider.

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 07:49:00 -0400

While read later services are enticing and convenient, I often forget about the saved content and the service itself. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:49:19 -0400

I’ve been installing and applying app updates en masse for a few days. There is a clear trend. Big corporations like Medium, OpenAI, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc. release notes that are like “We’ve been hard at work updating our app so you get a better experience, blah blah blah”. At the same time, indie devs will write, “We’re happy to introduce support for Apple’s latest innovations like Liquid Glass, transparent widgets and on-device Apple Fondational Model for a richer experience.” See the difference?

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 17:48:02 -0400

It’s really fascinating how third-party apps adopt Apple’s Liquid Glass. For some apps, like Things, changes are minimal… but for Craft, it’s a godsend. Flighty seems to sit in the middle. Does it depend entirely on Liquid Glass, or is it an interpretation by the developer of how far to take this new visual metaphor? It’s probably mostly the latter.

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 07:26:57 -0400

Today, Apple releases a slew of operating system updates, including Liquid Glass, an already controversial, divisive, and well-documented user-hostile unified visual language across all of their operating system. I’m pleased to announce the addition of a “Before & After” section in my now-famous website: “Where Apple’s Liquid Glass Crashes the User Experience”. Have a look and see how developers adopted Liquid Glass.

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 15:20:23 -0400

Here’s a really strange thing: for some apps, adopting Liquid Glass seems to be a step back (lower information density, too much spacing in some areas), while for others, it appears to do the opposite and enhances the app. That’s the case for Craft. I genuinely believe Craft with Liquid Glass is much better. Craft’s take on Liquid Glass is well-balanced and executed. Bravo.

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:20:09 -0400

Apple Liquid Glass not only creates usability issues (harder to read, user content conflicts with prominent UI elements), but also somewhat reduces information density as well as content space, as illustrated in the following example with 1Blocker, before & after animated GIF.

Going Apple TV-Only?

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:40:34 -0400

Based on our experience earlier this year with Apple TV as the only way to watch TV content, along with rising costs and an unstable service, we are seriously considering cutting our cable service and keeping only our Internet service. Even though the apps on Apple TV are far from perfect, they generally allow us to replace cable service. Rumors suggest that Apple is working on a new iteration of the Apple TV, which could make the timing even more favorable.

Why All This?

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 20:14:39 -0400

Read later services (Readwise, Pocket, Readwise, Inoreader, etc.), bookmarking apps and services (Anybox, Raindrop, etc.), downloading, summarizing, and tagging—whether used together or separately—the issue remains the same: I rarely revisit content. Content quickly becomes outdated and loses relevance. This pattern reflects a common challenge in digital content management. Despite the ease of saving and organizing information for future reference, the practical use of these saved digital tidbits often diminishes over time. As new information emerges and contexts change, what once seemed valuable or interesting can fade into obscurity, making the effort of saving feel less worthwhile. This raises questions about the effectiveness of these tools and whether they truly serve my long-term informational needs.

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 07:24:40 -0400

While testing MyMind and reading this article, I discovered the existence of Recall. 😳😅

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 06:38:54 -0400

While I’m testing and experimenting with MyMind, I realize that there is a lot happening these days in the apps and services space for reading and processing information. Besides the traditional read-later services that have existed for years, we now have AI-powered summarizers available through various platforms, including apps, websites, APIs, and browsers. The experience also differs between desktop and mobile devices. It’s hard to ever settle on a digital toolset and workflows.

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 21:25:20 -0400

I don’t see many developers sharing details, such as screenshots of their apps updated for Liquid Glass, except in a few cases. Is it still too soon? Is this a result of a silent pushback? Or a bit of both?

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 19:28:58 -0400

Josh Ginter in Sunday Edition 09-07-25 about MyMind:

I am obsessed with this app. It is unlike any other app on my devices. It uses AI in unique ways, has limitations that I wish it didn’t but which make good sense, and looks as beautiful as Things or Day One or Ulysses or Craft. I want to save everything in my life to MyMind — quotes, links, screenshots, thoughts, highlights, books — and I want to use the app all day long. I truly haven’t felt this way about an app in a long, long time.

It’s far from the first time that I read about MyMind, but I never experienced it. With Ginter’s words, I couldn’t help myself and opened a free account. It’s very early, but I like what I’m seeing. It’s not cheap, and I’m not sure there is a place in my digital toolset. I will see.

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 13:22:39 -0400

Home sweet home. I’m back and working from my M4 Mac mini running macOS 15.6.1. Feels good to be out of this Liquid Glass turmoil. I’ll probably wai a long time before upgrading my Mac mini.

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 14:05:47 -0400

I spent two hours today experimenting with Riverside.fm to see if this solution could replace ScreenFlow. So far, the experience is good, but I will need to try again at home with my M4 Mac mini and my usual recording setup.

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 11:01:02 -0400

It seems that the browser war is heating up with Atlassian buying the Browser Company and all other AI startups working on building their own AI-browser, the future conduits to the next web.

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 10:27:12 -0400

What is more depressing than spending the day inside Microsoft’s productivity suite, on Windows?

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 17:42:14 -0400

Recent additions and improvements by Inoreader for podcast listeners and YouTube content consumption are game changer for me. It will take some time to process that and see how I adapt to this. Of course, AI is not far.

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 07:44:15 -0400

ooh.directory appears to be dead, already. It didn’t last long. But the guy behind it is still active.

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 22:17:21 -0400

Currently, I’m testing and experimenting with Inoreader’s Email Digests. I like what I’m seeing. But it’s not cheap.

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 07:35:31 -0400

I began my writing project for the Apple Journal review. For this project, I will try a different approach¹. I started experimenting with the Perplexity Comet browser to survey past reviews. I use genAI to create quick summaries of previous articles. I save text highlights in Inoreader for the most interesting past reviews. I use Craft to compile all my knowledge and copy-paste the genAI summaries. However, I’m unsure where this will lead.

Dare I say ‘modern approach’? ↩︎

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 17:33:18 -0400

I’ve been using Apple Journal this summer to record my experience at a chalet by a small, beautiful lake. It’s really an inspiring place. Now that I fully experienced Apple Journal, and Apple’s vision of personal journaling, it’s probably time for me to put together a write-up. Spoiler alert: Apple Journal is full of paper cuts.

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 09:12:06 -0400

Here is a strange issue in Photomator: during photo editing, an .XMP file is created, which likely contains the editing steps applied to the photo. Additionally, a Photomator native file is also generated. Some of these files are very small, while others are quite large. For example, one file is less than 300 KB, while another is nearly 120 MB. Despite using the same editing process, the file sizes vary significantly. These files aren’t package files, it’s impossible to peek inside them. This is strange.

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 21:56:50 -0400

If you have digital assets on GitHub, if your software dev workflows depend on GitHub, you might want to read this. Should we trust Microsoft, now?

AI as a Complementary Tool

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 20:23:15 -0400

One of my rules for using generative AI is to avoid starting a creative project with AI prompts. Today, someone at the office challenged this rule, arguing that beginning with AI can effectively kick-start the creative journey. While that may be true, I prefer to keep the human touch at the center and use AI as a complement to the process. Starting with AI risks making us lazy in the long run.

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 21:10:35 -0400

Just got two invites for Digg. Interested? Find my email and I’ll send a code.

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 20:56:45 -0400

When creating backlinks in apps like Craft, if there is no automatic suggestions based on current document’s content, as the number of documents grows, it becomes mostly impossible to select related documents to potentially link to.

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 12:28:25 -0400

Learning to use Confluence when you already know a lot about Notion feels like a major step back. 🥴

A Strange & Frustrating Mac App Store Issue

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 08:02:44 -0400

Here’s a strange and frustrating issue with the Mac App Store on macOS Tahoe: I cannot re-download an app after testing it through TestFlight. This first occurred with Craft, which I tested this summer. When the version I was testing became official, I tried to download it, but the download froze at the end. Quitting the Mac App Store and rebooting my machine did not resolve the problem. Now, I am facing the same issue with Reeder. I tested the beta a few months ago, only to discover that the developer removed the build from TestFlight. When I went to the Mac App Store to download the official version, the download froze again and never completed. Now I’m unable to use an app for which I’m paying for. Submitted a feedback to Apple. Beta6 doesn’t fix the issue. I’m really hoping for a fix soon. See the behavior here.

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:26:03 -0400

I’m about to move some stuff to Chillidog… advice?

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 19:58:49 -0400

Looking at the latest dev diary video from The Realmac software company, Elements CMS is progressing well, in my opinion. I can’t wait to try it out on Who Is Numeric Citizen website. But before that, I’ll have some more work to do, particularly on the highlights section that will be broken up in a few subsections. Stay tuned.

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 15:31:45 -0400

Got this a few times already, is this legit?

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 11:02:50 -0400

Something I just learned this morning about Micro.blog:

Do cross the streams! Bluesky starter packs now available to follow within Micro.blog. Here’s one in Micro.blog on the web with people who post about books. No batch follow yet, but a fun way to discover new users. An experiment that we’ll refine. You can search for a Bluesky pack URL to open it.

manton https://www.manton.org/2024/11/18/do-cross-the.html

Starter Packs are great to quickly browse and see who might be interesting to follow… but following the whole starter pack is a no-go for me. The way I understand it is that you are following all the pack members in one hop. I prefer to pick and choose.

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:18:37 -0400

Two apps. Tapestry on the left, a beta that supports Liquid Glass. Micro.blog on the right, still not supporting Liquid Glass. Look at the elements spacing and content areas. This is the future that awaits us.

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 12:17:48 -0400

OneNote, an app made by Microsoft, running on Windows 11, an OS made by Microsoft, doesn’t support text selection by double clicking on a word and dragging across, word-by-word. It’s 2025, for god’s sake. But we have AI everywhere, there’s that. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 07:10:49 -0400

I’ve been trying Claude AI recently and beyond the answers I get to my prompts, I really like the output style, much more than OpenAI. By order of preference, it goes like this: Claude, Perplexity then OpenAI.

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:52:55 -0400

I’m testing the Comet browser with Perplexity integrated, though I’m not entirely sure what that means, yet. It took me less than 30 seconds to summarize a 23:40 minute video, as shown in this screenshot. If millions of people do the same, video creators will likely see a significant drop in view counts. And millions of people will probably save a lot of time watching a video that could have been a one-paragraph blog post. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 20:38:14 -0400

I’m really liking my experience with Realmac Software’s Elements to build my new landing page. I’m not an expert at website design but with Elements, I feel empowered. The learning curve is not the easiest one but following all the videos they publish on their YouTube channel plus visiting their forum helps a lot.

Bye Bye Grammarly?

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 08:14:13 -0400

I received a reminder this morning about my upcoming Grammarly renewal. After reviewing past invoices, I decided to cancel my subscription on a whim. It’s an expensive service. As I’m planning some changes on other areas of my digital presence, I’ll reallocate the money to that instead.

For the next new weeks, my subscription ends on August 14th, I’ll be turning off Grammarly and see how things goes. I might use AI service from Raycast, ChatGPT or even Apple Intelligence Writing Tools to compensate. I do use the free version of LanguageTool, too. I’ll report my conclusions in due time.

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 07:43:50 -0400

The upcoming CMS feature in Realmac Software Elements is sooooo cool, flexible and powerful. Even RSS feeds are supported! You can see that in action in their latest Dev Diary video.

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 11:57:43 -0400

I realize that I should use Inoreader’s ability to generate a RSS feed from a folder and subscribe to this feed in Reeder instead of subscribing to individual feeds in Reeder. This would make Inoreader the source of truth. I’ll work on that this weekend.

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:21:54 -0400

Journal on macOS Tahoe feels unfinished, barely a proof of concept to me. Who’s designing this at Apple? It feels it was put together the day before WWDC. Too many things to list here. Next betas can’t come soon enough, and I’m really curious to see how much improvements we’re going to see from beta2 to beta 3 and beyond.

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 17:58:09 -0400

I’m starting to like Windows 11 and Office 365 more than I expected. Who knew? OneNote is a solid note-taking app, and Outlook Tasks is also solid.

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 07:48:54 -0400

My new Windows PC laptop at the office makes me realize that the best Office 365 experience (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, OneNote) is on a PC, not on a Mac, which will always be a second citizen for Microsoft.

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 07:50:58 -0400

Unpopular opinion: The Browser Company should have made Dia a part of the Arc Browser. I don’t see the need for a new paradigm to achieve what Dia is trying to do as a stand-alone app. Plus, how come a browser company rely on someone else’s browser engine to do its thing? My understanding is that Dia is built on Chromium, just like the Arc Browser.

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 06:59:36 -0400

I mentioned earlier this week that I began exploring alternatives to Mailbrew. Digest seems to be a similar service. It appears to be a clone of Mailbrew. The thing is, it looks like abandonware, too.

Directly from... Raycast!

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 13:59:46 -0400

Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!! Just kidding, I’m testing a blog post from Raycast. Sounds cool, right? Yes, it is!

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:41:47 -0400

It seems I overlooked that Inoreader can’t send email summaries of RSS feeds on the Pro plan; an Enterprise plan is necessary. That’s disappointing. I’ll search for alternatives to replace Mailbrew, then. 🤔

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 17:40:13 -0400

I wonder if Inoreader is working on a Pocket importer.

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 15:34:08 -0400

Well, I’m going to drop Mailbrew because of the lack of updates to the service in recent years. I’ll try to replace that with Inoreader, a service I already depend on. Otherwise, I might give a look at Digest.

I'm Already Feeling The Upcoming Loss

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 14:24:17 -0400

The last time I used a Windows PC was with Windows 10 sometimes around 2020. Since then, Windows 11 came out with a few major releases along with it. I’ll have to relearn so many small things to flex my muscles memory. Also, and it’s probably the biggest lost: so many small utilities like Raycast, CleanShot X, Paste, PopClip and so many more that were making me much more productive are gone with Windows 11. Am I going to survive?

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:00:29 -0400

Starting with my new job next week, I won’t be able to use LucidChart anymore and that makes me sad. LucidChart is such a pleasure to use and has been supporting my creativity for a few years until this week. The next best thing is Apple Freeform, but I won’t have access to this either. Hello Microsoft Visio. 🙄

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 10:49:05 -0400

Started to think about my knowledge organisation scheme with Microsoft OneNote for my next job. OneNote works with Notebooks, Sections and pages. I might start with one notebook then later subdivide the data as my knowledge accumulates. I don’t hate OneNote. It’s a rather well designed app IMO.

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 20:33:50 -0400

Due to some important professional changes, I canceled my Fantastical subscription. It’s a great app that I would recommend anytime, but my current situation no longer justifies the expense. I’ll share more info about all this soon.

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:34:48 -0400

The timing is right, and it’s a clever blog post that explains why Inoreader is a great read-later solution, without mentioning or referring to Pocket. Following the announcement of Pocket demise, people are looking at alternatives and rarely Inoreader get mentioned. With this blog post, they make their case. I do use Inoreader as a read-later service, too. It’s quite capable.

Sun, 25 May 2025 07:43:27 -0400

Catching up recent Micro.blog updates and I really like the new AI-generated categories feature. Coupled with filters, it’s a great way to organize posts not only for me but for the readers. It’s tempting to add many categories, but it could make my blog homepage a little bit crowded. 😅

Wed, 21 May 2025 07:29:09 -0400

Reading a lunch menu in Spanish with Apple Translate. First experience with live translation. Pretty cool and useful. I know this has been available on the other platform for a long time but using in a real situation is handy. No need for an English menu.

Wed, 07 May 2025 22:00:39 -0400

Here’s an interesting idea from Parker Ortolani: portable memory format so that we can move our ChatGPT memory across generative AI service providers. THAT would be innovative. I think generative AI is so profound that preventing lock in would be seen as a positive sign of good will from the tech world, something we are missing these days.

On Managing Digital Good Purchases

Wed, 07 May 2025 21:21:38 -0400

I just spent some time trying to find the payment provider for a specific app that charged me the wrong amount (paddle.net, which I won’t name). I realized I used different emails for different apps, so my purchases are scattered across those addresses. It’s a mess and hard to manage. The Apple App Store has many questionable rules, but having one place to manage purchases and subscriptions is invaluable.

Tue, 06 May 2025 07:51:12 -0400

Since Apple bought Pixelmator, here’s what happened so far: No new features. No new subscription. No more release notes. Enjoy the silence. Couldn’t be more excited about the future of Photomator and Pixelmator. 😒

Sun, 04 May 2025 08:48:02 -0400

I’m playing around with Realmac software Elements these days, and I’m working on a new website (to replace an existing one). One of the most difficult tasks is to select the right fonts for headers and body. So hard to choose from all those fonts. Google Fonts website is a great tool to help me achieve that.

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:13:58 -0400

Cancelling my Ivory subscription to make room for the Bluesky version later this year. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Incoming: AI subscription fatigue...

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 10:50:13 -0400

ChatGPT. ChatGPT APIs. Notion AI. Inoreader Intelligence Reports. Raycast AI. Perplexity AI. I may have forgotten a few others¹.

In bold: those I’m currently subscribing. ↩︎

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 19:14:32 -0400

How is it possible that the « new » Meta AI app already got reviews many of not most of them dating back to three years ago? What am I missing here? Not that I want to try it, mind you. 🤔

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 20:36:33 -0400

I have to get myself ready to leave the ARC Browser behind and come back to Safari. It’s obvious that it is becoming abandoned. I will miss the left sidebar.

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 15:44:06 -0400

Here’s a video for Micro.blog users who want to learn more about ways to interact with the social web from Micro.blog. I hope you enjoy and learn something new today. cc @manton

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 07:46:56 -0400

Realmac Software Elements is going to be a powerful blogging tool. This video shows a few upcoming features for bloggers. Currently in beta, Elements should ship in coming months. Can’t wait.

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 06:58:19 -0400

It’s now possible to change the default username provided by Ghost’s Fediverse support. Currently, it is @index@numericcitizen.me, but I’m unsure what to replace @index with. 👀

My Next YouTube Video About Micro.blog

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 10:09:40 -0400

I finally found the subject and inspiration for my next YouTube video: how people can interact with Micro.blog users. In it, I’ll explain how posts can be cross-posted to other platforms and how people can reply to them, keeping the discussion ongoing even from seemingly different platforms.

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:47:03 -0400

One thing that I really appreciate about ChatGPT is their native macOS app. It would be too easy for them to do like so many developers these days and offer the “good enough” solution.

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 07:51:44 -0400

I wish Ghost would expand their support for what are called “social accounts.” Given our current situation, I find this approach short-sighted. I wish Mastodon and Bluesky received more attention for this type of configuration.

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:56:24 -0400

Gumroad is going open source!? Are they ok is it a last-resort move? They have a detailed roadmap, though.

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 13:46:10 -0400

That’s a useful website for Markdown lovers: Online Markdown.

Must Have Features in a Read Later Service

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 07:30:47 -0400

Read later service for me should have these features and attributes.

Be cloud-based to enable access and syncing across different devices and platforms.
Support metadata (tags, folders & description).
Offer a well-designed share sheet implementation on iOS and iPadOS.
Offer a great browser extension.
Offer a native mobile application.
It should work well with my go-to RSS reader, Inoreader.
Be good at data mobility. In other words, it offers a data export option.
Support article summarization with generative AI.
Should be free if possible.
It must support all Apple platforms.

Inoreader check them all.

Can you say Chaps?

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 06:36:10 -0400

Intriguing new product coming from the makers of Craft: Chaps. It seems to be a conversational service where users can build their own AI-based agents. Not integrated with Craft in any way, at least for now. The demonstrated UI seems polished as we can expect from them, but sadly we don’t get to see how those agents are built. I think “Ch_apps_” would have been a better name than “Chaps”, though. I hope they don’t get too much distracted from Craft because it still needs a lot of work and long-lasting issues are yet to be addressed.

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 10:41:13 -0400

I just realized there is no way for me to see the list of Micro.blog accounts that I’m following… am I missing something here? 🤨

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 18:56:43 -0400

A newcomer in the sources of trafic in my analytics: ChatGPT.com. 🤨

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 16:50:19 -0400

From my point of view, with recent security breach from the government members, more signs point to being much closer to a dictatorship than we are willing to admit. Many cabinet members are using Signal on purpose because they don’t want scrutiny, they don’t think they owe anything to the American people.

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 18:59:34 -0400

Notion Mail is Gmail with a different coat of paint. Prove me wrong.

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 09:21:27 -0400

My content creator ecosystem got updated today. Enjoy and I hope you find some inspiration in my digital tools selection.

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:27:00 -0400

I’ve been using Apple Invites app for a family-related event in early May. It’s a rather nice app for a family entrenched into Apple’s wallen garden. But a majority of people don’t understand that they need to visit the invite link then accept or refuse, instead a majority of invitees will reply to the message by saying “I’m going”… which is not enough… something is broken.

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:31:46 -0400

If you screenshot a post on Reddit on your iPhone, you get a warning telling you that sharing the post gives better results…. Yeah, of course, but for who are they advocating here? 🤔 spoiler: not the users.

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:19:35 -0400

I believe that for the first time in five or six years, not changing my digital presence is a positive thing. This feeling is especially strong since I resolved my email issues with Fastmail. Now, everything fits perfectly and meets most of my digital needs. It feels like time has stopped.

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 10:47:05 -0400

My transition from HEY Mail to Fastmail is likely the best digital move I’ve ever made, and I wish I had done it sooner. It’s truly a blessing. ICYMI: the migration process is available here.

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:08:11 -0400

I’m starting to get excited about the rumored redesign of iOS 19 because I love visionOS UI. Will current apps adopt the new iOS 19 visual language automatically, or will they need to be recompiled for iOS 19 in order to do so? How long Apple will support the pre-iOS 19 UI changes?

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 07:43:09 -0400

I spotted a great game on Steam a few months ago, Tiny Glade, and I was ready to buy it because of a promotion taking off 20% off the price until I found out that it doesn’t run on Macs! Too bad because that’s exactly the type of games that I like!

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 16:23:30 -0400

I need to find the time to update and finish this photo-sharing services comparison table. Anyone interested in the completed table?

My Updated Defaults as of 2025-03-12

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 07:20:55 -0400

So many things changed since my previous update.

✉️ Mail Client: Fastmail
📨 Mail Server: Fastmail
📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes
✅ To-Do: Things 3
📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app
📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Photomator
🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app (Personal Life) + Fantastical.app (Work Life)
🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud
📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader
📇 Contacts: Contacts
🕸️ Browser: Mobile Safari + ARC Browser on Mac
🧠 AI: ChatGPT + Perplexity
🔎 Search: Kagi Search
💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad)
🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox
👓 Read It Later: Inoreader
📜 Word Processing: Ulysses, Craft
📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers
🛝 Presentations: Keynote
🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders
🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None
💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers
🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news)
🎶 Music: Apple Music
🎧 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain & Apple Passwords

The Unexpected Challenge of Moving a Custom Domain From iCloud+ to Fastmail

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 08:54:09 -0400

Did you know that you can use iCloud+ with a custom email domain? Yep, that’s right. This is what I was doing for hello @ numericcitizen.me until this week when I started my migration to Fastmail. But there is one challenge that I didn’t expect: I wanted to bring this custom email to Fastmail, too. Custom email domains with iCloud+ is managed only on the iCloud website.

Having Apple Advanced Data Protection (ADP) is cool and nice but can make managing iCloud+ Custom domains a pain. As a reminder, to use ADP, you must turn off iCloud web access. I’m not really sure why. As soon as this is turned off, you can no longer manage your custom email domains that you might have configured for use with iCloud+. To complete my migration to Fastmail, so that I could write and respond from that custom email address from Fastmail, I first had to remove that domain from iCloud+, but it’s only possible on the iCloud website. To do that, ADP must be turned off. Once done, you can re-enable iCloud website access, then remove the custom email domain. After some cleaning up of Apple-related DNS records, you can re-enable ADP and disable iCloud website. Only then I can go on Fastmail Settings and configure my custom email domain.

Now you know.

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 08:34:57 -0400

Now that my migration from HEY Mail to Fastmail is essentially completed, I started writing an article about the whys, the hows and the gotchas. That’s the type of article that I love to put together. It will take time, but it will be well worth my time. My goals are to help others quit HEY Mail because it’s a great way to send a message to their owners. I’ll use the Fastmail referral program to get some form of potential compensation to pay for the service (I hope). While you wait for that article, I’ll share my referral link here and tell you this: if you are on the fence, trust me, Fastmail is really good.

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 07:33:34 -0400

And just like that, AI summaries arrives in Inoreader and they are called Inoreader Intelligence! While you can’t ask to generate summaries automatically for a specific RSS feed (yet?), the addition of manually triggered customizable summaries is super handy.

Migration to Fastmail Going FAST

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:34:14 -0400

Spent a few hours in Fastmail to get it ready to fully replace my HEY Mail subscription. Got my new email domain name set up in Cloudflare. The Screener functionality that I liked in HEY is now fully operational and is based on a Contacts Group. The Paper Trail is also set up and based on another Contacts group. Basically, if an email uses a contact not in the Screener, it will be moved in The Screener label. The same happens for the Paper trail. If I want a specific email to go to the Paper Trail, the contact is created and added to the right contacts group. One email account (Gmail) has been configured for Fastmail to pull content from it (no need to use email forwarding, so everything is configured from Fastmail. My Gmail account is a low-volume account so that I can tweak things before connecting my primary email accounts (both are Apple-provided).

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 13:39:03 -0400

I’m not sure if I’ll actually need to set up a paid subscription to Fastmail, maybe paying for one month will be needed to fully evaluate the capabilities, though, but from my current experiment with this service so far, I must say that I really like what I’m seeing. It’s certainly fast.

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:09:25 -0400

While browsing Substack yesterday and this morning, I stumbled upon a writer from Ukraine that I’m eager to follow. Isn’t it surprising that I can’t subscribe to his content via an RSS feed? I’m quite impressed by how this platform is so tightly controlled. It’s too bad.

Emails Shuffle

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 07:52:31 -0400

I’m making progress in cleaning up my email mess. I closed my Yahoo Mail account, which I only used for Flickr when the authentication backend moved from Flickr to Yahoo¹. I closed two Gmail accounts: one of the two was used when I was developing iPhone apps between 2009 and 2013. This means I have three fewer email redirections for HEY Mail. Most of my newsletter subscriptions are now redirected to Inoreader, which is another dependency removed from HEY Mail.

So, what’s left in HEY Mail? Two email redirections: one .me email account¹ and my primary iCloud mail account. These are my biggest email accounts. Of course, I also have my HEY Mail account that I use in a few dozen places. That’s the last part to move out. The question is: which email account should I use instead of my HEY Mail? Is this where Fastmail comes into play? Or should I merge them into one of my Apple-hosted mail accounts? If I choose the latter, I don’t see the point of using Fastmail unless I want to replicate the Paper Trail functionality of HEY Mail. Even then, Apple’s latest updates to Mail offer something similar. I should probably try the latest betas on my Mac and see how well it performs. Stay tuned for the next update on my emails shuffle.

I also officially closed my Flickr account. ↩︎ ↩︎

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:30:33 -0400

There is something so satisfying in closing online accounts and deleting data. It’s really hard to explain. This process only happens when moving things around (like moving from one email provider to another).

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 16:23:53 -0400

I think I found a viable way to replace Readwise with Craft¹. The fun thing is that I found this while recording my next video. It’s possible because of a recently launched browser extension that saves an article into Craft. More details in my upcoming video. Here’s a sneak peek.

I cancelled my Readwise subscription today. ↩︎

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 11:33:23 -0400

I logged into my Substack account today because I’m working on something and I couldn’t believe how different it is from a few years ago. I don’t even recognize it anymore. Are they trying to become another LinkedIn or Facebook? Or maybe they’re chasing TikTok or YouTube? What is going on?

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:01:30 -0400

Another pricey subscription cancelled: Timing.app. After the initial excitement to learn about how I spend my time on my computer, I think it’s time to conclude: I spend a lot of time on a computer for doing a lot of different things. There is a cheaper alternative called Currentkey, that I plan to test in the near future, though.

Bye Bye Readwise?

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 12:48:49 -0400

Just got a reminder to close my Readwise account, probably because the subscription renewal is coming soon. That’s not a cheap one. Beyond serving as a repo for text highlights from Micro.blog and Inoreader, I don’t really have a meaningful use for it. I don’t use the Readwise Reader either. I export highlights into Bear from time to time as markdown files. I almost never search them. Sometimes I’ll read a few highlights with amusement or nostalgia, but nothing more. Why am I doing all this, then? 🧐🤷🏻‍♂️

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:52:21 -0400

Posting to Pixelfed from Micro.blog is cool on paper but can be very frustrating to see that the cross-post action didn’t pan out… no clue as to why, unless doing some digging in the account logs… no easy way to “try again” either. Reconsidering my approach. Again.

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:57:49 -0400

I don’t care if Reddit offers a paywall option for Subreddits. Unless I’m missing something: I could create and built a community over there and at some point ask for a paid subscription, right? What is the difference then compared with Substack or Ghost?

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:29 -0400

I wrote this about Apple’s Aperture more than five years ago. Now we have something to talk about.

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 15:24:59 -0400

I can’t count the number of times I wish I had maintained an archive of all my screenshots over the years, even going back to the earliest days when we could take screenshots of screens. 🤦🏻‍♂️😔

Netflix vs Apple: Who's the Dumbest?

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 14:37:47 -0400

While Netflix is sorry for making their product too convenient by showing up on Apple TV app for a few hours to a few users, Apple is making Apple TV app available anywhere, including Android more recently. Netflix seems run by stupid guys. Apple? I prefer not to answer that one. It’s tricky and complicated when looking at the big picture (pun intended).

Testing Summaries - Part Deux

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 22:48:55 -0400

I understand this is only the beginning, but I find it strange that summaries aren’t available at post time, only at edit time, after the initial post publication. It’s like a backward rollout. For my first test, I used the AI-generated version. For this one, I’ll write it manually. The first part of my experiment is available here.

Testing Summaries

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 22:32:44 -0400

I’m testing the new blog post summary feature of Micro.blog. For now, according to my assessment, the summary field is only available while editing an existing post, which seems a bit strange. It’s a work-in progress and a few updates should help complete the full vision of blog post summaries. If AI support was disabled, the feature isn’t available. More info here.

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 08:47:06 -0400

There is something that I wish was different with blogs hosted on WordPress: commenting and liking. I never comment on those blogs because I don’t like Gravatar or I don’t want to create a WordPress.com account just to write a comment. Again this morning, I clicked on “Like” on a blog post and for some reason, my email prefix was displayed, and I don’t remember having a Gravatar account still active. In fact, it didn’t have one, after some checks. I prefer to log in using something like my Mastodon-friendly identity or Sign in with Apple. I want the blog to give me more choices than their own authentication service (and I don’t want to use my Google account, nor Facebook login). In fact, I want an identity provider that doesn’t build a social graph or bases his business model on where I’m headed on the web.

Am I alone with this thinking?

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 09:09:54 -0400

Just finished some subscriptions cleaning on YouTube. I was following way too many channels, many of which are dead. I came to do this this morning because I was looking for low-volume channels to add to Reeder. Low volume streams are the best to add to an app like Reeder. The sum of low volume content channels eventually lead to high-volume content to look at.

And the Winner Is...

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 10:24:04 -0400

Three apps, three different designs. On the left, Tapestry, in the middle Reeder (new), on the right Reeder (old). For me, the winner is the new Reeder which offers a much cleaner design. I’ll keep an eye on Tapestry, but I don’t see how its design could change much.

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:13:48 -0400

I’ve been experiencing crashes in the Mac App Store and iOS App Store in recent times like never before. Right after an app update finishes, the store quit unexpectedly or just by looking at the list of available updates. Surprising.

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 14:42:36 -0400

Quite positive experience with Apple Invites so far. I feel they move the needle and bring a much more enjoyable experience compared to other similar offerings. Nice user interface visual language. It feels new and very Apple. I like it. Is it something that preclude what is coming up with iOS 19?

Finally!

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:46:22 -0400

I’m finally enjoying this moment where I can show the title field while writing a blog post on Micro.blog.

Where Tapestry and Reeder Fail

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 09:39:43 -0400

Thought on the morning: I think that apps like Tapestry and Reeder¹ are failing at one thing: a single timeline where content converge is enough. It isn’t. I came to realize that the world is complex and requires many angles of content consumption. Another problem is the diversity in feed velocity. If one feed takes over the timeline, it’s crash the whole thing. Until they add multi-timelines and find a way to moderate high-volume feeds, I’ll refrain from adding these apps into my daily routine.

Update #1: I stand corrected by one of the founders of the Iconfactory: you can have multiple timelines within the app and switch across them at will. As a backup of Tapestry on Kickstarter, I should have known better. Sorry about that one.

The new generation, not the old one. ↩︎

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 08:16:15 -0400

Great article from Adam Engst comparing Grammarly to Apple Intelligence Writing tools. It’s ironic that a third-party software brings better integration, less friction to the writing experience than Apple’s first-party offering.

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 21:23:24 -0400

An upcoming version of Craft will incorporate an embedded DeepSeek R1 model to enable fully disconnected prompts answering. I’m not aware of other apps which include LLM. Beta is expected this week to a few early birds willing to test. I’m wondering how well will we be able to query our Craft content. It’s a potentially exciting twist.

In Support of Greg Morris' Micro Social App

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 23:09:56 -0400

I just realized that my face was on a few screenshots of Micro Social, an app currently being developed by Greg Morris. He shared an article today on his blog where he talks about the timeline feature. That’s cool. What is even cooler is that I decided to support him with a $1 a month subscription via his “Buy me a coffee” page. Can’t wait to test this myself.

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 08:58:15 -0400

DeekSeek or DeepSink? It might be ugly today on the markets. #deepseek

Use Disable Delete - Bye

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 08:27:42 -0400

I tend to disable my accounts instead of deleting them permanently. It’s the case with Facebook and Twitter. This weekend, I’m going to say goodbye to Twitter for real by deleting it. I imported my tweets archive a long time ago, thanks to Micro.blog’s import capabilities. I’m not sure why I kept it for so long… because when I see someone who’s sharing something on X, I simply ignore that. Oh well. Time to move on for real this time.

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 13:27:50 -0400

The popular RSS feeds consolidator and reader, Inoreader, released version 6 of their browser extension, available on Chrome, Edge, Firefox… but not on Safari. Grrr. Another reason to use the ARC Browser.

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 18:46:58 -0400

Eighteen months ago, in July 2023, I wrote an article about migrating from Instagram to Pixelfed. It was well received, but something is happening right now for sure, if this graph from Plausible Analytics is any indication. People are massively looking at Pixelfed as an alternative, and I think it’s a good sign.

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 16:39:48 -0400

I initially thought Micro.one would be a suitable platform for my new French blog, but after spending the entire weekend experimenting with it, I’ve already realized that I miss two essential features from the full Micro.blog experience: personal notes and support for newsletters. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 15:46:07 -0400

Here is a funny one: the Get Info box for an exported image from Apple Photos. The image was indeed touched up with Apple Intelligence’s Cleanup tool. 🤫

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 12:58:19 -0400

Ghost 6 to include ActivityPub, later this year. I can’t wait for that, and I’m even happier of having left WordPress last year for Ghost. There is still a lot of work to be done, for sure, but I’m patient for that one.

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 12:52:43 -0400

Idea of the day for @manton : what if people could submit a blog post for inclusion in the Discovery section? Users could be allowed to submit one per week or per month. The “moderator” could then decide to release it or not. If not, it could provide a reason to the original poster. Just an idea.

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 23:47:24 -0400

TikTok is a modern digital plague. Good riddance. To those who were depending solely on it, it’s a lesson: diversity is the key.

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 08:27:29 -0400

Raycast Focus is nice until you realize that it doesn’t integrate with macOS Focus modes and can’t start an automation like a shortcut to turn off other things so that we can really be focusing. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 08:27:55 -0400

Pixelfed finally gets the attention from the public. The release of their mobile app and the general negative sentiment toward Meta’s offerings are two key factors here. I hope they can keep up with the load.

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:41:03 -0400

Using ChatGPT latest feature: scheduled tasks, you can schedule a daily summarization of an RSS feed content each morning. That’s cool and actually useful.

Micro.one is the seed for something bigger

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 21:40:25 -0400

Today, I think I finally found a real use case for Micro.one. I bought my domain and set up my account. It was rather quick and easy. If I had let Micro.one set up my domain name for me, it would have been even easier.

I think the ingredients of Micro.one are all there for an accessible solution for those who want to get out of Meta or other silos and start owning their little space on the web, free of tracking, free of ads, and built on open software technologies. Of course, Micro.one isn’t the only service of its kind. But it does offer the right feature set to be an open and federated web citizen.

I feel an overwhelming desire to explore and savor this type of web content even further. I believe that sharing my passion for this subject matter could potentially ignite a similar level of enthusiasm in those around me. Even if it doesn’t, if people are genuinely curious enough to inquire about the reasons behind my enthusiasm, it’s a positive development, potentially marking the beginning of something more substantial. After all, who knows what the future holds?

I’ll share more in the near future.

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:20:21 -0400

Started something new with Micro.one… but in French this time… seems the Micro.blog branding is never too far… which is confusing. One question for @manton: can you check why uploading an image doesn’t work (clicking the button starts the upload, but it never completes), and the “Post” button for posting something doesn’t work either.

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 08:59:48 -0400

I’m seeing more and more online stores using Shop.app for shipment tracking. It’s great to have a consolidated view of all the shipments (better than Parcel? Or what used to be Delivery?). I wish Apple would go further in that space, even including buying receipts to be standardized and electronics-only.

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 22:57:25 -0400

Starting Up… RealMac software Elements beta. I paid for it, to show support for the team. I have three websites that I want to build with this thing eventually. Stay tuned. It’s a 2025 and beyond adventure¹.

I always need something new to try and experiment with. ↩︎

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 15:18:16 -0400

After finding an old document in Notion where my text highlights from Matter were saved, I was curious about Matter, the reader-later service that I once used a while back before trying Omnivore. Their website still refers to “Twitter”, not “X”, their last post on their X account dates back to 2023. I cannot find a Mastodon account. KI can’t find a changelog either. Is this thing still alive?

Who's Right? Apple Intelligence or Grammarly

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 08:19:50 -0400

While working on the next edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter, I wanted to proofread and rewrite some text portions. I first started with Apple Intelligence Writing Tools then pasted the results into Craft. Grammarly instantly took the ball and verified the pasted text, highlighting everything wrong that needed some attention. Is Apple Writing Tools sloppy or Grammarly too picky? Writing in English is not an easy thing for me to do. And it’s not easy for generative AI either, apparently. From what I understand, Grammarly tries to be less wordy and is very iterative in its text proofing execution.

Here is the final tweaked version:

1️⃣ First and foremost, I want to extend my warmest wishes for a prosperous and fulfilling new year. I genuinely hope you find success and happiness in your professional and personal endeavors. 2️⃣ Secondly, this marks the inaugural edition of this newsletter for 2025, and I’ve decided to introduce a few changes. Firstly, I’ve decided to eliminate the summary at the beginning of each newsletter. This section provided an overview of the number of blog posts, photos, and other content I’ve shared since the previous edition. While I appreciate the interest in these statistics, I believe it’s unnecessary to brag about them, and it takes a significant amount of time to maintain and update this information. I’ve also officially decided to retire the podcasts section from my newsletter. While I enjoy podcasts, I don’t find them particularly relevant to my current content creation schedule, and I believe it’s not worth dedicating time and resources to them.

Where The Social Web Fails

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 14:12:34 -0400

Dislike buttons on YouTube, or elsewhere for that matter, should come with a mandatory “here’s why I don’t like this” explanation text field. In this specific case, 2 people out of 18 didn’t like my video. Why? How can I improve myself if you don’t tell me what’s wrong? This is the part of social web that I feel doesn’t work.

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 06:44:10 -0400

How many people signed up for micro.one are coming from micro.blog? And why? Me by curiosity but I don’t want to take the place of someone else who is entirely new to micro.blog. Dilemma.

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 14:48:54 -0400

Any Final Cut Pro users here? What advice would you give to someone who knows about Screenflow for recording his YouTube videos but is looking for something more powerful… mostly doing screen recording with my face as a médaillon…

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 15:17:37 -0400

Something acting up since early morning on my Ghost hosted blog. Every few hours, I get a new registered subscriber to the free tier of my newsletter using a randomized name but a real user email address. 😕🤨

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:08:11 -0400

New Bluesky subscribers rush seems to be easing because I’m stuck at 153 followers for the last week!

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:53:37 -0400

In recent days I’ve been thinking and imagining what could be a useful and powerful WebClipper for Craft. I’ve built a shared document for that purpose. Have a look.

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 16:24:41 -0400

This is the last edition of the year of What’s Up with Micro.blog. I hope that you find it useful. cc @manton

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 08:53:43 -0400

I’ve been playing with iA Presenter 1.4 again this morning. I like what I’m seeing with the share presentation online feature (example here). Now, I have to wonder: what is my use case for this? I always come down to this question when trying new features, new apps or new services.

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 08:46:03 -0400

Why doesn’t the Arc Browser provide Kagi search as a default search engine option? 🤔

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 14:59:29 -0400

I think there is something really nice here that Micro.blog should copy to improve its blog post editor. cc @manton

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 09:05:40 -0400

This weekend, I’m going to record and publish the next edition of the “What’s Up with Micro.blog” series. The last edition was shared last August. Don’t miss it!

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 10:33:57 -0400

Microsoft Teams for iPad is probably the buggiest app of all when used with an external display. So many weird UI behaviors. It might Apple’s fault, too.

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 10:22:41 -0400

Just bought Soulver 3 for iPad as a big fan of this app for the Mac. I cannot live without it on my iPad today while at work. Not cheap but so well done. I wish I couldd export a sheet into Excel with all the values and formulas transposed for me.

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 13:49:09 -0400

This post is for testing purposes only. Please ignore as I’m testing Ghost ActivityPub feature. If everything goes as advertised, I should see this post from the Ghost Admin page, under the ActivityPub section.

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:37:19 -0400

Look what we’ve got here. Can you tell what is happening here? 👀

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:18:40 -0400

I don’t know why I’m paying for Ivory, I’m not often on Mastodon, much more often here and on Bluesky.

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 15:43:59 -0400

I’m still exploring ways to monetize my experience with Craft. After creating The Craft Bible, now it’s Craft Support Call. I don’t expect much from this, but I’m curious to see how it goes if I ever get one request.

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 11:42:43 -0400

When writing, I start in Craft and then export to Ulysses for final review and online posting. It works great, but I’m not always satisfied with Ulysses, which sometimes feels overwhelming. Enter iA Writer, an app that I remember using in its early days and that I liked for its simplicity. This blog post from Greg Morris reminds me of the perpetual questioning of my decision to settle on Ulysses.

This morning, I decided to download a trial of iA Writer. The first thing I checked was which publishing platforms it supports. To my surprise, it supports all the ones I depend on: Ghost, Micro.blog, and, to a lesser extent, Medium.

This blog post was written on my 15-inch M2 MacBook Air using iA Writer trial edition. Sadly, iA Writer couldn’t post as draft, so I had to manually copy and paste the content into a blank post on Micro.blog.

My Ulysses subscription ends on March 25th, 2025, but this publishing bug is a deal-breaker for now. Back to Ulysses.

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 10:05:20 -0400

A quick behind-the-scenes post: the same overall content, with two different apps. This is the “script” for this video. On the left, Mindnote Next, on the right, Zavala. This is sort of a cue card for use during video recording, the Mindnote version was much easier to read. Zavala’s version is more for documenting purposes. Even the outline view in Mindnote feels better.

My Apple Intelligence Writing Tools Mixed Experience

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:51:18 -0400

My experience with Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools is mixed. One significant issue is the absence of a feature to compare the original text with the revised version. In contrast, Grammarly excels in this regard, as its suggestions are contextual. Additionally, the constant need to select text to “feed” the Writing Tools becomes tedious. Another challenge arises when using Writing Tools with markdown content or links. These get mangled in the revised version. Finally, speed is also an issue. Even for simple text to process, it can take quite some time to get a response.

For now, Grammarly remains my preferred writing assistant, and I have no intention of switching to Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools anytime soon.

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 19:02:31 -0400

Will we ever see some generative AI or AI-based features added to HEY Mail? 🧐

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 11:13:23 -0400

Adobe Lightroom for Mac is the best Mac app of the year? In light of Apple buying Pixelmator, I find this a bit surprising.

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 08:34:39 -0400

I got an email from Ghost to participate in the ActivityPub beta for my blog. I’m not sure how my blog will be named in the fediverse, but I can imagine being able to get comments from people here on Micro.blog and having those comments appear at the bottom of my blog posts. Will see soon enough.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 08:13:59 -0400

For all Craft users out there looking or already using Craft Collections, I made a video about that this past weekend. It’s a longer-than-usual one, but the subject is dense.

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 11:46:21 -0400

I’m reading good comments about the new subscription from The Verge. I’m not a fan of their website design, but I do read their articles from time to time. I’m tempted to give it a try. Yet, “serving better ads” to subscribers is not exactly a turn on. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 16:32:37 -0400

I’ve seen a drastic increase in new followers on my Bluesky account (+50%) in the last 3 weeks while no new followers on Mastodon in the last six months. 🧐🤨

I’m 90% of the time posting on both (from Micro.blog), like this post.

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 13:45:42 -0400

If only Bluesky had an iPad version of their mobile app. Is this in the works? (Posted from Micro.blog but asking the Bluesky community).

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 13:43:15 -0400

How does an app get updated on a weekly basis without any new features or apparent bug fixes? Exhibit A: Medium. Is someone trying to game the App Store?

Paying to Be a Beta Tester? Really?

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:45:06 -0400

Paying to be a beta tester: is this a new trend? Glass Series was available to patron subscribers only while being in beta testing. RealMac Software offers Elements in beta as a subscription but at a reduced price. Active beta testers are actually paying of their time to use a software still being debugged and refined. Isn’t that enough? I understand that building software is hard and requires resources… but paying to be a beta tester seems to cross a line here.

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 22:46:52 -0400

I’ve been playing with Glass Series and I must say that I really like my experience with it so far. Series are like albums, like this example.

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 10:05:08 -0400

Bye bye Tot; I’m so in love with Raycast Notes!

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 07:58:46 -0400

This year, as I explained in this article, I completed a migration from Adobe to Photomator. I rarely use Pixelmator Pro, but I’m a fan of Photomator. I hope this week’s news won’t make me regret my decision.

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 12:19:09 -0400

So, Apple is buying Pixelmator, the maker of my now beloved photo-editing app: Photomator. My fingers are crossed for Apple to not to fuck this up. But, business-wise, if they have FinalCul Pro, it makes sense they do it for photo-edition too. Next up: podcast-editing software?

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:41:40 -0400

ChatGPT Search is probably the final nail in the coffin for my usage of Google Search (and maybe Kagi Search too). Still testing and exploring the feature.

Bye Bye Omnivore, It Was a Short Nice Run

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 08:28:29 -0400

Omnivore’s future is not looking good, following the announcement received by email yesterday night, by one of the founder himself. Omnivore was the best read-later service after Matter and Pocket, two services I didn’t really like or were too expansive. But now, with Omnivore’s future and slow demise, I’m getting fed up with those one-man-shop open-source projects. Pixelfed is another one that I’m getting tired of¹. So, I’m going to refocus on Inoreader for read-later functionality and text highlights. Following their recent redesign, which is actually much better than the previous iteration, I’m more than ever committing to Inoreader.

More of that Pixelfed fatigue in a later post. ↩︎

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 07:23:07 -0400

For those using macOS 15.1 and have enabled Apple Intelligence, have you noticed a spike in your Mac CPU usage when requesting Apple Intelligence to proofread text? The longer the text, the more pronounced the spike. The CPU will reach 100% for a moment before slightly decreasing before receiving a response. Interestingly, I couldn’t identify an AI-related process associated with this spike. Instead, the kernel_task process is the one who consumes the CPU cycles. Apparently, Apple Intelligence runs in the kernel space.

Bye Bye 1Password, Hello Apple Passwords.

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 07:10:07 -0400

I’ve finally completed the arduous migration from 1Password and canceled my subscription. I didn’t encounter any issues with 1Password transitioning to an Electron-based application. While it was an excellent and overkill solution for managing my passwords and secrets, I generally prefer integrated solutions for fundamental products or features like password management. Is Apple Passwords the perfect solution? No, but it’s more than adequate for my needs. One positive outcome of this migration is an enhanced security posture, as I had to revisit many credentials and enable two-factor authentication for numerous services.

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 07:32:51 -0400

This morning, I’ve been experimenting with Apple Intelligence writing tools using a beta version of Ulysses. Initially, I’m torn between my feelings. The requirement to select specific text to activate the writing tools disrupts my writing flow. On the other hand, I find Grammarly’s continuous monitoring of my writing more preferable. I suspect Apple prefers the intentional nature of this feature over feeling constantly tracked.

On Using Notion AI

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:47:43 -0400

Today I decided to give a serious try to Notion AI to support my study of some Microsoft Azure materials. So far, I’m liking it a lot. Basic workflow goes like this: I visit the webpage, save it to Notion using a browser extension, then upon archival of the content, I ask Notion AI for a summary that is inserted at the beginning of the page. I read it then I read the actual original content. I’ll highlight some words or phrases and I might add some inline comments while reading. It’s a great study experience.

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 09:39:29 -0400

I love what Inoreader just released. Massive.

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:55:12 -0400

I’m starting to warm up to Tapestry… I’ll expand my testing of it this week-end!

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 09:02:55 -0400

iPhone mirroring on macOS Sequoia is so handy. For example, getting a notification on my iPhone to approve a request in the MFA application is so handy.

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 15:00:10 -0400

The fact that apparently Microsoft is not using an Intel CPU for their Cloud PC instances says a lot about Intel’s future.

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 12:20:16 -0400

My general sentiment towards iOS 18 is rather vastly positive but improvements come at the cost of complexity. More than ever, we need to « manage » our devices to get them work as we want them to work.

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 06:43:47 -0400

I’ve been spending more time on Bluesky in recent days, since the Apple Event. I like the feel and of this service. It’s fast, there are no ads, features-wise it’s rich and useful.

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 15:45:13 -0400

I did a test login to my Twitter / X account. It still works, but didn’t post anything. Scrolled my timeline for a few minutes. 👀🫣 What. The. Actual. Fuck. Is. This. Place. Now? Super random and controversial content appearing. This place has become the Internet dumpster.

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 14:00:14 -0400

Today, I’m again giving a serious try to iA Presenter. I want to love this app. It is so different from any other presentation app. I’m working on a YouTube video explaining concepts around Craft Objects.

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 08:55:00 -0400

My newest Craft video, this time for beginners: what should you do when you are just starting using Craft? I chose to organize these actions into five categories.

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 19:30:09 -0400

I have one thought regarding apps like Reeder (the new one) and Tapestry. I fail to see any comments regarding the inherent limit of those apps. How do they fare when you are adding a few dozens of sources, some with high volume of posts? Merging those feeds into a single timeline make the latter rather overwhelming to consume.

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 11:23:59 -0400

Today, I had no choice but to request the use of a Cloud PC by Microsoft for using a crappy app: Visio. I like this idea of renting a PC instance in the cloud, though.

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 17:14:39 -0400

Craft developers aren’t shy of sharing teasers and opening a private beta for Craft Objects and Style. While we all wait for any official release, I made this video today.

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 19:29:10 -0400

I find myself preferring to listen to podcasts via Apple Podcasts web interface instead of the native app on Mac. It feels lighter.

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 17:59:54 -0400

I’ve been playing with Substack in recent days and boy this platform is different now compared to its initial launch. I’m not coming to write there but I do want to read more content there, a few times a week.

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 13:35:21 -0400

Today I experimented Slack Lists to track messages for which I want to make sure to get a response. It’s pretty useful. But I still don’t really like Slack in general🤦🏻‍♂️. The included screenshot is not from my own list but a template provided by Slack, just to give you an example.

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 12:50:14 -0400

Bye bye Apple frames shortcut¹, hello Shareshot!

Currently not working under iOS 18 beta. ↩︎

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 12:36:08 -0400

I’m currently testing a new blog post editor on Micro.blog. On the surface, everything looks familiar. The preview button behaviour is the one that surprised me the most as it replaces the blog post content with the preview, unlike before where the preview was underneath. Not having “auto-save” functionality is still a bit troubling to me, in 2024, though.

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 18:34:42 -0400

When I read the Threads app data privacy fact sheet on the App Store yesterday night and read a few « reviews », I quickly came back to earth and decided (again) to not join Threads. Time to focus on what I already have.

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 22:01:12 -0400

At the very least, I could reserve my username on Instagram and Threads, just in case. While maintaining strong principles is important, being open-minded and reasonable can also be valuable. May the night be beneficial. 😒

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 11:11:13 -0400

Something really BIG is coming to Craft: Objects. Thoughts?

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 19:46:18 -0400

If I get it well, each iOS 18.1 beta release will be a few days later than each iOS 18.0 betas, provided that iOS 18.1 gets all the fixed and features in iOS 18.0, right? But public betas will be a week later for each iOS 18 branch release? Or iOS 18.1 branch will be devs only? Still with me? 🤪

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 18:55:30 -0400

If I set my iPad to use US English so that Apple Intelligence can do its magic, my iPhone is also set to use the same settings automatically. What?? What is going on here?

I want to use my iPad in full US English for Apple Intelligence testing but leave my iPhone alone so that I can use it in French Canadian is the old Siri stuff. 😳😔😡

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 18:13:15 -0400

I believe it could take anywhere from 12 to 18 months for Apple Intelligence to make its way to Canada and support the French Canadian language. (This text was originally written by me than processed by Apple Intelligence to make it more friendly). #appleintelligence

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:57:27 -0400

That’s interesting. #ipados181 #appleintelligence 🧐🤨😏

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:14:05 -0400

I am installing iPadOS 18.1 beta 1 on my iPad Pro right now because… just for text proofreading¹ and summarizing, it’s worth it. Most of my creative hobby happens to be done in English. Also, changing the device region (not the Apple ID region) to US is not a big deal. Finally, I don’t talk too often to Siri on my iPad (which I do in French on my iPhone, though).

Soon: bye bye Grammarly Premium. ↩︎

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 12:26:59 -0400

Is today’s world (AI models training, security, etc.), I wonder if site owners are well equipped with robots.txt as the only way to control who’s in and who’s out when it comes to deciding free and massive content consumption on their site.

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:01:39 -0400

I had a bug in one of my IFTTT applets that usually gets each post I share and stores it on Day One. The applet hasn’t run since July 7th, but I only found out today. Sadly, the IFTTT RSS feed service doesn’t keep a pointer of the last successful import. I’m not sure what to do to recover the posts that weren’t saved. 🤔😒

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 16:57:13 -0400

FYI: Synology Drive Client with macOS Sequoia aren’t going well at all together. Beware.

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 06:58:07 -0400

Jeff Perry on Reddit deal with Google for content access exclusivity in indexing their content: The Enshittification of Search Continues

This could set a precedent for other sites like Hacker News and Pinterest to start searching for the highest bidder to make their content exclusive on another search engine. Eventually other sites might do the same in hopes to thwart the serial scraping of their content for AI models to learn from and make a few bucks in the process. It is just another byproduct of the Enshittification of the web.

Troubling, indeed. Emphasis is mine.

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 10:54:52 -0400

Seriously considering closing my Reddit account. It’s not worth it. And their corporate attitude don’t align with my values.

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 07:16:45 -0400

Anyone using macOS Sequoia beta 4 in here? Is it stable enough to install on a secondary Mac? Asking for a friend.

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 18:36:12 -0400

Today’s positive post: I’m happy to have installed iOS 18 beta 3 on my phone. A few bugs here and there and glitches but nothing earth chattering. 🤗

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 08:09:10 -0400

In today’s positive post, it’s about Inoreader filtering capabilities. Without them, cutting out the noise from feeds from AppleInsider or MacRumors just to name a few obvious abusers would be impossible. These feeds are usually filled with ads disguised as posts. Filtering keywords include: Amazon, Deal, Rebate, Gift, Discount, Prime, Amazon. You get the idea.

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 02:48:12 -0400

I wish there was a “Edited with” mention in Apple Photos app because sometimes I’ll use built in editing and other times I’ll use Photomator.

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 17:54:54 -0400

Is it me, or Automattic is missing a big opportunity by not enabling users to publish their journal entries to a custom blog or website directly from Day One? I think they do.

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 11:28:30 -0400

Last minutes adjustments before traveling: revisited the “on vacation” focus mode on my iPhone to make sure to receive notifications from certains apps¹, updated the home screen and lock screen wallpapers to be more in line with traveling mode. I also bought and installed my eSIM from Airalo². Decided not to renew Halide subscription but will I’ll try to use it anyway over Apple’s camera app³.

I’m excluding all work-related apps, of couse. ↩︎
They offer a great buying experience and usually flawless when I travel abroad. ↩︎
Photomator can easily open and edit images from Halide camera. ↩︎

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 08:51:12 -0400

What Ghost.org is doing to introduce Fediverse support looks really cool and promising. The day this officially comes out, it means users will be able to subscribe to my website from their favorite Fediverse instance and client. This also means people will be able to comment on my blog from their Mastodon client too! cc @manton

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:54:41 -0400

I wish I had an embedded “recent photos” feed on this blog, something along the line of Greg Morris’ blog, but I’m clueless to add such a thing to a Micro.blog hosted website. 😞

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 11:33:33 -0400

Anyone using a VPN client when they travel abroad? Why? Which one? I considering using this when I’ll be in Croatia and it must be compatible with iOS and iPadOS. Thanks.

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 16:56:35 -0400

Reddit can be a toxic environment, with bullies and users who aggressively enforce their views on what is appropriate content for a specific subreddit. Today is a bad day for me. 😞 How should I react to this?

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 13:10:47 -0400

The narrated blog posts are now working correctly on my blog. You can listen to the first post and second one. Disclaimer: I’m using Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech for the post recording audio improvements.

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:35:52 -0400

For the first time since joining Mastodon, I wanted to get an idea of what was happening with ChatGPT¹. I conducted a search using the #chaptgpt tag to see the live updates. This was something I used to do frequently when I was on Twitter while big events were happening.

ChatGPT suffered major downtime in recent hours if not days. ↩︎

Windows 11 AI Recall Recalled?

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 21:24:51 -0400

The upcoming Windows 11 AI ‘Recall’ feature, which is designed to take regular screenshots of a user’s PC content to help them find past information, has been called a security disaster by a security researcher. According to the expert, Kevin Beaumont, the Recall feature is essentially an “infostealer” that can be exploited by hackers to access sensitive data, such as user interactions, text messages, passwords, and websites visited. Despite Microsoft’s attempts to improve the security of Recall, the researcher claims the feature will “set cybersecurity back a decade by empowering cybercriminals” as the underlying database can be accessed through malware-infected PCs.

I wonder how differently Apple would fare if it implemented something similar. Would it be better?

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 13:59:51 -0400

The new narrated posts feature of Micro.blog has an unexpected twist. Since my blog also hosts a podcast, any narrated blog posts will end up on Apple’s Podcast directory. I’m unsure if this is what I want, but I appreciate the possibility for those who prefer to consume my content as an audio file.

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 06:56:26 -0400

I’ve been relying on Raycast AI more and more in recent days to help me summarize the articles I read through my RSS feeds in Inoreader. I’ve also found it useful for improving the quality of my own writing. I’m quite tempted to upgrade my Raycast AI subscription so that I can fully leverage its capabilities, despite the fact that I’m already subscribing to ChatGPT. However, the cost of the upgrade is something I need to weigh carefully before making a decision.

Side note: why do I keep thinking that Apple will introduce Siri+ this summer?

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 19:14:40 -0400

HEY World is probably “mostly” dead. Each week, I hit the dice to visit a random HEY World site and 9 out of 10 sites were last updated in 2021, around the time HEY World was launched.

First Narrated Blog Post Experiment

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 14:50:13 -0400

Hi everyone. I might be late to the party, but I finally sat down for a few minutes to test Micro.blog’s new feature: narrated blog posts. It is strange because this is my first use and I cannot write a full review because as I’m writing this, my audio recording is still not done, and I don’t know how is the audio attachment and processing will actually work. It might be similar to when I post a new podcast episode. In any case, I think this is a clever addition to an already useful and enjoyable blogging service. Thanks to @Manton for this. Now, should I say, “have a great day and see you for another blog post?” Probably not.

[Update #1]: It seems the play button doesn’t show up. Probably a bug with the Cards theme. Investigation started. [Update #2]: I found out that narrated blog posts come out as podcast episodes on Podcasts. I’m not sure this is what I want.

Wed, 29 May 2024 10:25:12 -0400

Today I decided to cancel my subscription to Toggl time tracking service and to Timery, a wonderful Toggl client. I used to track my time as a creator but I think it’s time to move on and leave those behind. You can see my reports in each weekly creative summary. It’s quite a chore to always think to start and stop timers. I feel relieved now.

Tue, 28 May 2024 11:19:46 -0400

This Microsoft Word bug is really starting to get on my nerves. It’s been going on for weeks now.

Sat, 25 May 2024 16:17:42 -0400

With Omnivore, these are the tags that cover 99% of my tagging needs.

Mon, 20 May 2024 14:04:33 -0400

Just downloaded three YouTube videos on my Mac, ran MacWhisper¹ to generate the transcripts, then uploaded the resulting files into ChatGPT for a summarization and to get a few answers to my numerous questions. I saved about an hour of work. What a wonderful time to be alive!²

A great Mac utility to do video transcription using GenAI. ↩︎
From a tech standpoint. ↩︎

Sun, 19 May 2024 17:48:27 -0400

I wonder if a good way to learn about Final Cut Pro is to start with the iPad version. I’ve started testing it with the sample project. Surprisingly, the iPad had trouble handling my UI interactions. This is a M4 iPd Pro, mind you. 😣😳 Also, FCP for iPad reminds me a lot about iMovie. And I’m not sure this is a good thing.

Mon, 13 May 2024 21:44:24 -0400

There is one thing that I really want to try and master with the new iPad that I couldn’t do before: explore and learn Final Cut Pro for iPad. It seems a more approachable version than on the desktop. Am I wrong?

Mind Blown Again

Mon, 13 May 2024 20:35:03 -0400

I really liked the OpenAI short keynote, especially the few jabs at Google. What OpenAI is doing is simply mind-blowing. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all this. What isn’t clear, though, is as a paying member of ChatGPT, why would I continue to subscribe if I don’t use the live translation? One last thing: Siri looks like a prehistoric bot. Apple has to do something about this, and fast.

Sat, 11 May 2024 06:16:06 -0400

If OpenAI upcoming announcement is about launching a search engine, I’ll take it in a heart beat. Anything that is challenging Google’s dominance is a win for all, even for Google.

Thu, 02 May 2024 07:13:58 -0400

Information Architect¹ is working on something that could prove to be super useful for me: shareable presentations using iA Presenter. It’s currently in testing. Judging by their blog post, it looks slick. I could build online presentations that go with The Craft Bible or The Craft Starter Kit that I’m working on. Can’t wait to try it out.

The maker of iA Writer, iA Presenter. ↩︎

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:43:11 -0400

Three years later and it’s funny to remember where I came from and why I’ve migrated to Ghost for everything¹, not only my newsletter.

Not exactly, everything, but for my main website where I share my newsletter and some other long-form posts. ↩︎

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:35:44 -0400

For some reason, tonight, I miss Medium. I used to love writing for it and reading from it. I still have close to 800 followers, albeit the number really never change, which I find strange.

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 15:07:05 -0400

Calling for suggestions: I’d like to back up my iCloud Photos Library content locally on my Synology NAS, but I don’t want to use the built-in “Download Originals to this Mac” of Apple Photos. Any utility that does that? Thanks!

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 12:49:17 -0400

You want to know more about all the new features and tweaks introduced on Micro.blog in the last two months? Here’s a video that I made today for you guys. Enjoy. cc @jean @manton

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 09:42:31 -0400

I’m currently recording the next edition of the “What’s Up with Micro.blog” episode and I’m Testing cross-posting to Bluesky. This post includes #hashtag. Let’s see if it works!

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 11:31:30 -0400

I forgot about my “numericcitizen.photos” domain. It was due for renewal. I cancelled it. I feel better.

Overrated x 1000

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 10:17:36 -0400

Microsoft 365 or Office 365, if you prefer, is so overrated. Microsoft is the master of selling licenses but when it comes down to doing real serious collaborative work with Teams and the rest of the software suite it falls apart really quickly. For example: trying to collaborated on a Word document, creating comments and assigning a task toi someone… nobody knows really where the task is actually saved! And no one seems to get a notification… or nobody cares to look at the activity tab in Teams because it is so overwhelming! Oh and don’t get me started with Microsoft Loop, a pale copycat of Notion. And should we talk about Visio? I prefer not.

I’m so fed up of working in an IT field where everyone is short sighted with Microsoft. I mean, there are so much more powerful collaborative apps out there.

/rantoff

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 07:02:23 -0400

Hey guys, I’m looking for an app that can browser folders containing photos. This app would display photo’s metadata too and allow for adjusting the thumbnails size. Any recommendations for me? I’m looking for an alternative to Adobe Bridge. Thanks.

Ghost and ActivityPub Support - We All Win

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:17:26 -0400

I’m a bit late to the game but I just read the announcement by Ghost about their ActivityPub support that is coming to their platform. I find this development super exciting; one of my site is on Ghost. Having people subscribe to my content via their favorite Mastodon client is super cool. But what is cooler is that people will be able to reply to my articles right from here on Micro.blog and get their reply published right under my articles, just like on Micro.blog. I think this is a good way to offer a reduced friction experience compared to having to log in to post a reply, which is the standard way to interact with a Ghost blog post. Can’t wait to see this coming this year.

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 20:08:35 -0400

Dashboards are among the most popular use cases for Notion. As a Craft user, it is tempting to try creating a dashboard that suits my needs, but that gets its inspiration from what others are doing in Notion. I tried it and the following video tells it all. Enjoy.

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 13:27:27 -0400

I love ❤️ Scribbles but the lack of support for Plausible is a bit sad for me. 😔 cc @vincent

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 07:56:06 -0400

Why would you need Echofeed when using Micro.blog to syndicate to Mastodon et al.?

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 07:39:54 -0400

Funny that, reading a random post this morning, stumbled on that one. A year later and I found a use case for Bear.

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 06:46:37 -0400

My two main problems with omg.lol: the branding is no-go and no free tier to try it out. I’m still pondering my options. For now, Scribbles FTW!

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 08:56:39 -0400

Testing Micro.blog macOS app version 3.2. I should use it more often when I’m on a Mac, which is 95% of the time! Fun fact: If I understand Micro.blog premium subscription capabilities correctly, I have one more blog available in my five-blog allotment¹.🕺🏻👀🤔

I might use it for travel journaling. ↩︎

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 11:05:37 -0400

I like HEY mail but I rarely use the client to read The Feed, which is a bit sad. There was no improvement to the reading experience since HEY release. Anyone with the same experience?

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 13:13:26 -0400

Brought my iPad with me but failed to use it once after arriving at the hotel as I prefer my iPhone¹. I wonder what it means, if it means anything regarding my love of the iPad and my future plans of upgrading.

On the plane, I use the iPad more. ↩︎

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 06:09:42 -0400

Using Arc Search on iPhone to get a summary of an issue affecting a specific tech setup (hardware + software) is brilliant and a time saver. Searching for “Nikon zf raw image format macOS” gave everything I needed using the summary view. 😀🤓

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:15:25 -0400

Dear @Vincent, why is this page not showing on my Scribbles blog? BTW, I love Scribbles a lot and finally found my real use cases for it. I think people do like it too. Conitnue your good work!

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 06:49:41 -0400

I really wish there was a way to save a thread from my Micro.blog timeline because right now, there is a great discussion happening that I wish I could save for later. @manton

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 19:19:31 -0400

Reading product reviews through Kagi’s summarize page feature is rather cool and a great time saver.

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 15:40:31 -0400

I’ve been setting up a group of to-do lists in Apple Reminders for managing our home improvement project. Each list is shared with my wife which means that each task can be assigned to one of us. I really like my experience so far.

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 09:22:29 -0400

Just spent¹ 30 minutes trying to configure a contact form for use in one of my Micro.blog site using https://web3forms.com/. Micro.blog is having difficulty rendering the HTML. Directed my question on the MB help forum. I’ll see where it goes from there. If you have used this service yourself on your Micro.blog website, chime in!

“Wasted” might be a better term. ↩︎

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 21:12:11 -0400

I just discovered that I can no longer use my Apple ID on my 2013 Mac Pro running macOS 12.4, thanks to Advanced Data Protection enabled on my other devices. So, I cannot update or install apps from the Mac App Store. Not cool at all. One less use case for this aging Mac. 😔

On Craft for iPhone

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 11:51:51 -0400

Craft on iPhone is so much different than on the iPad. It feels like a totally different app. If I were an iPhone-only user I wouldn’t buy a Craft subscription because the iPhone version is so bad. Thankfully the iPad version is much more workable and the Mac version is probably the best Catalyst-based app out there. It wasn’t always like that btw. Was much better before version 2.7. I don’t know when that situation will change.

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 11:19:30 -0400

If I were in my thirties, I would run my own instance of Pixelfed. If I were in my twenties, I would build a Pixelfed alternative.

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 12:05:58 -0400

Dear @Manton, the lack of editing a blogroll entry or moving an entry between blogrolls are really killing me. Putting everything on hold for now until we have a better way of updating this stuff! 😩

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 07:40:56 -0400

Been testing FeedLand this morning. I’m still trying to figure out what it is really about. As a subscriber to Inoreader, I wonder if I really need FeedLand in my digital life. Anyone using FeedLand here? 👀

The Fascinating Game of Moving Between Hosting Platforms

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 17:02:53 -0400

I find those stories always fascinating when I read about a blogger moving from one platform to another. It is as if every hosting solution cannot have it all. There is always too much friction, or something is simply lacking, which prompts us, content creators, to drop one service and search for something else. One service can have a great visual design¹yet lacking from the analytics side. One platform can be well-designed but very hard to keep up and running². Another solution that can be dead simple to publish lacks visual design flexibility³. Can we have it all? I sense a business opportunity here.

I’m permanently questioning my current options. Right now, I’m fine with my hosting solutions, but one never knows when something no longer fits my needs.

Note: this article is a modified version of the original text published elsewhere on 2021-03-05 under my other metablog website using Craft.

I’m looking at you, Squarespace. ↩︎
I’m looking at you, Ghost. ↩︎
I’m looking at you, Micro.blog. ↩︎

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 11:19:20 -0400

Just finish experimenting with Obsidian¹. I’m always fascinated by Obsidian but also unpleased by its user interface’s uninspired and unfinished feel. Passing for now.

I do this occasionally, as if I was trying to convince myself that it is something should use. ↩︎

Sat, 09 Mar 2024 15:51:00 -0400

I prefer Bear 2 over Craft for managing my reading notes created when using Omnivore and Readwise. This is what the following video is about: migrating from Craft to Bear and why I made that decision. Enjoy.

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 09:24:48 -0400

I’m considering buying the Elgato Prompter for use during my YouTube video recording. But I’m not sure that reading a script while recording is something that I’ll feel at ease with. Plus, writing those scripts takes some time. I’m more of an intuitive got with the flow guy when I record. Quality might suffer from this, though. Decisions, decisions, decisions. 🤔

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 11:30:48 -0400

For Micro.blog lovers and enthusiasts, I made a video summarizing February improvements and additions. Enjoy.

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 08:23:51 -0400

The Craft team is introducing collaborative whiteboards to Craft. I tested the feature and made a video about it.

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 15:33:49 -0400

Thought of the day: Micro.blog is probably the most fun and flexible thing on the open web these days that I can play with. It is approachable which in itself is a great quality. It is a creativity “unleasher”. When something is fun, I want more of it. I want to spread the word and share my excitement. 👊🏻

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:00:23 -0400

A new post category in micro.blog, filtered to include existing posts writingslowly.com
Writing Slowly https://writingslowly.com/2024/02/15/a-new-post.html

Great explanation for using categories with Micro.blog.

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 09:27:19 -0400

I officially enabled Shoutouts on this blog! It is quite easy and fun to setup¹. Happy to show support for @vincent.

Easy to spot at the end of each individual post. ↩︎

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 07:46:26 -0400

I’ve been granted a Microsoft Copilot license at work for testing purposes. I have a love and hate relationship with Microsoft software in general. This will probably extend to cover Copilot as well. I shall not be deceived by this video. I will see.

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 08:21:29 -0400

Apparently, in Ghost, you cannot filter past published posts other than by “Newest First”, “Oldest First” or “Recently Updated”. What if I want to list of articles from 2019? 🤔

Update #1: Apparently, you need to go through Ghost Content APIs for this.

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:10:33 -0400

Since we cannot use an iCloud+ email alias for sending mail in HEY Mail, I depend on free Spark mail client for that, the last version that came out before switching to a subscription. Not a bad solution but annoying nonetheless.

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 17:01:42 -0400

While I’m still waiting my invite for Scribbles (tick tock tick tock @vincent 😬), I’m thinking of a possible use case. And I think I might be on the verge of finding one. My digital presence goes like this: Space ➡️ Blog ➡️ (…something small, tiny blips…) Blips. More to come soon.

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 13:54:31 -0400

I have too many ways to create link posts on Micro.blog: a bookmarklet, Apple’s Shortcuts, using Ulysses, etc. I wish I could standardize on one approach working on all my Apple devices¹. 🫤

Maybe it should be part of the recently introduced Save Bookmark browser plugin? ↩︎

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 08:27:27 -0400

I discovered the “Copy URL as Quote” in Arc Browser, this morning. I love this feature. I get a nice preview in iMessage when sending the link, but what about here in Micro.blog or on Mastodon? Here is an example.

Update #1: it does partially render on Mastodon using the Ivory client. But the content seems missing.

Update #2: The cross-posted post from Micro.blog lacks the preview, but the native post as Micro.blog exposes it, does contain the full previous.

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 13:52:29 -0400

With today’s addition regarding Bookmarks and AI-based summaries, Micro.blog is getting very close to be a read-later service, too. Which I like a lot. Synching highlights to Readwise would be cool too. Hint hint @manton 🙏🏻

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 11:58:29 -0400

Our @nileane reviews feeeed, a very nicely designed alternative to classic RSS readers. Instead of just following RSS feeds, this app supports RSS *and* a variety of sources like Mastodon, YouTube, Reddit, newsletters, and more.
We're going to see a lot of apps along these lines thanks to decentralized social media. This one looks very intriguing to me: https://www.macstories.net/reviews/feeeed-embracing-feed-diversity-and-personal-news-curation/
Federico Viticci :ticciseal: https://mastodon.macstories.net/@viticci/111879635685799969

Similar to the Tapestry project? Seems really well done.

About This Permanent State of Being Undecided With Apps

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 09:25:41 -0400

I have been a happy user of Apple Safari for the last decade. If possible, I prefer using Apple’s browser, thanks to its privacy protection and features. If something doesn’t work in Safari, I will try Firefox. I’ll do everything possible to skip Google Chrome. I use Microsoft Edge because of its integration with Microsoft 365 at work. But Safari is never too far, just in case. It’s now my fall-back plan. Why this change? Because of the Arc Browser, which is now my main browser.

I’m the type of user who always tries to find a use case for an app that I really like, even if it is superseded with a better one. I love Craft. I always use it in my creative hobbies, but I found a great use case for Notion at work. I like Apple Reminder for family-related tasks but use Things 3 for my creative hobbies. I like Apple Calendar for my personal life but prefer Fantastical for the office. I keep both. I like HEY mail but must use Outlook at the office.

This constant duality in my choices about which app to use sometimes looks like psychological trouble. 😬🤷🏻‍♂️

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 08:15:40 -0400

Craft release v2.7.0 is a big one. There are lots of improvements that should please a majority of users. I played with it while in beta and created a video to give users a visual look at what’s new. The Craft Bible also was updated to include the release analysis, now part of the subscription.

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 22:24:22 -0400

I learned a lot of things over my long career in IT. But, there is one thing that I fail to learn and master is everything related to CSS¹. I don’t get this, at all. If I could master this thing, plus some of Hugo² concepts, I would create my own Micro.blog visual theme. 😔

I learn so many languages and dialects: Pascal, Cobol, C, Assembler, Fortran, Lisp, Objective-C, etc. What is wrong with me and CSS? ↩︎
I do get Hugo more than CSS, strangely. ↩︎

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 15:45:40 -0400

Let me guess again the upcoming “big” new feature for Micro.blog: a fully-featured Read Later feature. It could complement Bookmarks wonderfully¹. 👀 That’s the only feature that I can think of that would require a separate app and a browser extension.

If not replace it altogether. ↩︎

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 17:02:07 -0400

The lack of proper footnotes support in the Ghost editor is… how dare I could say that… perplexing? This solution is a bit… overwhelming for me. Oh well.

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 16:53:39 -0400

If you’re a Craft user and are looking for ways that Gen AI could add value to the Craft Assistant, I wrote this document. I think there is an untapped potential in Craft because of minimalistic support for the ChatGPT entry-level model. Feedback is welcome.

The Next One Is My Best

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 13:02:16 -0400

I just completed recording my next YouTube video (my YouTube channel), which will come out early next week. It’s probably the one I’m the most proud of at many levels. The release will match the release of a new version of an app that I like a lot 🤫. Technically, the sound is good. I’me using Bezels to demo the app on the iPad and the iPhone, a first for me. The video structure seems logical and should help the viewers in learning new things. Can’t wait to share that one. I hope it will get the attention I’m hoping for. 🤞🏻

Fri, 02 Feb 2024 07:46:46 -0400

The Arc Browser is the perfect browser to consume my Micro.blog timeline. In fact, it’s the best browser to consume, period. I’m (mostly) in love. I know, I may be late to the party.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 22:45:57 -0400

Currently exploring and testing the Arc browser. This thing looks seriously cool. I wish Apple invented it. My only serious concern is iCloud Keychain support. 👀🤔

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 10:21:24 -0400

Message to me📌: don’t subscribe to Scribbles. don’t subscribe to Scribbles. don’t subscribe to Scribbles. don’t subscribe to Scribbles. don’t subscribe to Scribbles. don’t subscribe to Scribbles. don’t subscribe to Scribbles. I left Write.as to focus on Micro.blog, why try Scribbles? It makes no sense.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 07:51:42 -0400

Just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out Safari Profiles, tab groups, etc. Am I alone in thinking that this is far from being user-friendly? I just can’t understand how these things work together.

Imagining Micro.blog’s Next Big Offering — I Think I Cracked It!

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:58:11 -0400

I’m wondering about this upcoming Micro.blog “big new feature” quite often. What new feature could require its own section on the left sidebar? What could mandate the release of companion apps on iOS and Android? Let’s try to think about it for a minute.

So, MB already covers text (as blog posts), more generic content (as pages), photos, books, newsletters, and podcasts. What’s missing here? Videos? Movies? Something else? Could Podcast be more explicitly exposed where the Transcript section becomes Podcast? Is MB building its own podcasting player app? Or a podcast recorder? Can AI play a role in this new feature?

But what else is missing from Micro.blog? Instant messaging? I own a Wavelength group of Micro.blog users. The group is currently hosting 50 users. Here’s the invite link. Near real-time interactions are something I wish Micro.blog had for supporting discussions about specific events¹. Frankly, instant messaging is probably the closest thing I can think of that would require a dedicated section and a dedicated set of apps on mobile devices.

Your thoughts? Please join in! 🙏🏻

Like Apple Events, sports events, etc. ↩︎

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 21:56:43 -0400

I’m excited for Tapestry, so I’m supporting it. Mastodon, RSS feeds, and Bluesky can be quite busy sources… how Tapestry is going to tackle high-velocity information feeds is interesting.

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 07:46:31 -0400

I just lost 20 minutes of my life trying to figure out how to log back into a Slack community with the original email that I used initially. It’s probably the most frustrating experience I ever experienced. Slack is unique in that respect, and I just don’t get why it didn’t evolve over time. I ended up creating a new account, which made me lose all my past conversations. 🙄

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 20:51:25 -0400

The work to switch my blog’s visual theme is going really well. It’s a bit easier than I thought to set the desired colour theme, thanks to the plugin’s settings and user-friendliness. I may try the switch tonight, so buckle up during the transition. Reminder: I’ll switch from TinyTheme to Cards Theme. Why? Here’s why: 1) the overall design gives some bit of depth to the content. 2) Post categories are exposed and provide an easy way to browse the blog content. 3) The theme plugin settings give some flexibility. 4) Long posts with a title look better. 🛠️

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:04:52 -0400

5x traffic spike on Gumroad for The Craft Bible. Saturday, I bought a dedicated domain name for this subscription on Gumroad. Coincidence? 🤔 I’ll have to see the coming days to make a final judgment.

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 14:20:16 -0400

Inoreader is on a roll so far this year: Team folders, monitored feeds, and now the ability to follow Bluesky users! These are all welcomed additions.

Now, if only they could give some love to their mobile apps¹.

My preferred client is Reeder, yet I wish the Inoreader app would receive a refreshed look from Inoreader developers. ↩︎

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 08:43:52 -0400

I just realized that I could (and should) use Raycast AI to summarize articles saved into Omnivore and save the summary into the article notes. Then, I could finish up the metadata with appropriate tags. I used to do that within Craft before, but the Craft AI assistant uses GPT 3.5, limits the length of the input into the summarize request and doesn’t support “real tags” like in Omnivore.

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 16:42:06 -0400

So, I made the decision: Bye-bye Write.as👋🏻. It’s fun to move things around on the internet, but I pay the price for being too impulsive and not intentional in some of my decisions. It was an impulsive decision to subscribe to Write.as. There was something seductive in the post editor, and being open source is the way to go. But I have to admit that it was a diversion. Now, focusing on Micro.blog. 😊

Sidenote: I find great satisfaction in simplification. This reminds me of when I was an indie iOS developer: I remember the instants of removing lines of code and making things leaner. It procured a lot of satisfaction.

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 11:19:01 -0400

I want a dedicated domain name for The Craft Bible. I did some research this morning to find out that I can buy craft.com for a mere 4960US$! WTF! 😳 Meanwhile, thecraftbible.com is available for a mere 9.77 US$. 😅

Update: finally bought and configured thecraftbible.com with Cloud Flare.

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 10:37:15 -0400

Another bill to pay, I guess. I love Keyboard Maestro.❤️

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 10:09:46 -0400

Does anyone know if Cultured Code is actively working on Things 4? Any rumors about what could be the gist of this release? Asking for a friend who’s considering switching to Apple Reminders¹.

That’s me. 🤫 ↩︎

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 09:08:17 -0400

After watching this video, I came to the conclusion that 95% of what I’m doing with Things 3 can be done now with Apple Reminders. Tags, templates, folders, section headers, it’s all there. Some of the things are better presented in Reminders (link previews), and there is a column view that can act as a Kanban board. Something to reconsider. 🤔

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 20:36:53 -0400

My ChatGPT usage at work made me think about using GenAI in general. I came to the conclusion that you must be experienced in the field you are asking questions to be able to distinguish good answers from bullshit. My thought.

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:25:17 -0400

👉🏻Cast your votes guys! This is your chance to influence what’s next for Micro.blog! I did.

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 20:25:51 -0400

So, is Notion Calendar essentially a Google Calendar frontend? This is what Cron was? Is that right? What am I missing from my experiment? The first thing the app asks is to authenticate to my Google account. 😳

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 07:55:01 -0400

9to5Mac reporting about WhatsApp usage in the US:

The fact that more people in the US have been using WhatsApp recently is definitely intriguing. Source: WhatsApp has been getting more attention in the US

iMessage usage in Canada is probably similar to that in the US. I started using WhatsApp when I went to Morocco last summer. I also have a friend who moved from Canada to Mexico, and he switched to WhatsApp, so now I have to use WhatsApp to reach him. I must say that I like it. I also follow some news channels, just for fun. I like the messaging app format to get news; that’s why I also use Telegram for the same purpose: to follow news from Ukraine.

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 18:55:44 -0400

Finished my work day in Microsoft Loop because one of my colleagues insisted on using it for a special project. Boy, this thing sucks. After many months of availability, Loop feels more like a proof of concept than a productivity tool. I guess Microsoft will iterate on it, but so far, as a Notion user, meh.👎🏻 Sorry for the rant.

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 12:27:53 -0400

Google announcement regarding egress fees:

Starting today, Google Cloud customers who wish to stop using Google Cloud and migrate their data to another cloud provider and/or on premises, can take advantage of free network data transfer to migrate their data out of Google Cloud. This applies to all customers globally. Source: Eliminating data transfer fees when migrating off Google Cloud | Google Cloud Blog

This is major. I often see clients forget to consider the exit costs of any hyper-scaler in the TCO calculation. Getting into the cloud isn’t cheap. And up until today, getting out of the cloud wasn’t either. Now, for those on GCP, it is. I expect the others (looking at you, AWS, and Azure) to follow, maybe not this year, but they will, either by their choice or they will be forced. This is an anti-competitive measure to charge for egress fees.

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 14:58:12 -0400

For those who are new to Micro.blog, in this video, I talk about creating and managing pages and redirects on your Micro. blog-hosted website. I hope you learn something. Now, time for a wish: @jean and @manton could create a page on the help.micro.blog site referring to these videos that I’m creating for the platform¹! 🙏🏻

I’m not paid for this, BTW, in case you ask. 😌 ↩︎

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 08:13:01 -0400

I’ve been testing Up Ahead the past day, and one thing is clear: software doesn’t have to be boring. Up Ahead is anything but boring¹.

The screenshot was uploaded to Micro.blog using a shortcut from Jarrod Blundy. Works great. He should make it available soon on his website. ↩︎

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 07:59:38 -0400

My complete toolset page was updated to start the new year. Make sure to pay a visit if you want to make a few discoveries.

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 14:56:10 -0400

Is TextMate abandonware? The last post was in early 2020. I like this app (free). I wonder if BBEdit is the obvious replacement (which is not free!). 🤔🧐

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 16:22:39 -0400

Today, I spent some time with a friend to talk about Craft, among other things. Video available here (In French). Tagging @abc because he likes French content!

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 09:49:22 -0400

It appears that my goal of cancelling CleanShot Cloud was not a good idea. The savings wouldn’t be that substantial. I’m paying for two Macs, which is 49$ for a one-year updates license. If new releases come out after that time, the renewal cost will be 19$ to keep receiving them. I know that I’ll be upgrading each year to stay current. Updates are relatively frequent and add value. The CleanShot Cloud brings many features and I think are worth the price difference. CleanShot is central to my workflows. I use it all the time. Pricing information is available here.

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 17:25:25 -0400

Zavala, an outliner for the Mac, iPad and iPhone, recently got a series of updates after a year of silence. I’m happy to see this app is still alive and well.

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 17:11:19 -0400

Frankly, I had to read these instructions many times but couldn’t figure it out. The Kagi Safari Extension 2.0 looks like a major change in design and how it works. They had to revert back because too many users reported issues. I understand Apple’s guidelines and privacy protection might be the root cause for this less-than-user-friendly setup.

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 12:48:32 -0400

I’ll be doing a YouTube Live tomorrow, January 7th, at 11AM EST, where I’ll discuss Craft with my cohost. The show will be in French. cc @abc

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 10:31:14 -0400

While preparing my CleanShot Cloud account closure¹, I realized that I had a bad idea at some point: saving screenshots on CleanShot Cloud and referencing them in articles posted on Micro.blog, or Ghost. Closing my account will probably invalidate many links, which is really bad. 😒 It seems there are no easy way to search for past posts on Micro.blog which contains a specific URL like “cloud.numericcitizen.me/*”. Am I missing something?

CleanShot Cloud is expensive and I cannot justify its cost. I’m using a free setup based on a combination of DropShare and Backblaze instead. ↩︎

Hey Calendar First Impressions

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 09:41:27 -0400

HEY Calendar is being rolled out to a limited set of users. It will be free, and a separate app will be released for the Calendar in the near future. It’s not as controversial a take as the email counterpart. Day view and week view only, by design¹. I’m not sure if this is a deal-breaker for many.

Time tracking seems limited and cannot replace Toggl / Timery in my workflow. Data can be exported as a CSV file. I wonder if it can be really useful in its current form. The jury is still out on that one.

Interesting habit tracking support: simple enough to be useful. Limited icon selection, though. No iOS app just yet, only web and desktop. No Microsoft Office 365 support yet. iCloud calendars can be integrated, but they must be made public to get an iCal URL that HEY Calender subscribes to. Same for Google calendars. Some tasks are managed as things to do eventually in the week, appear at the bottom, and move to the next week if not completed.

My initial impressions of HEY Calendar are neutral. That’s it for now.

This could be controversial. ↩︎

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:15:05 -0400

Now that HEY calendar is officially rolling out, I’m curious about the time and habits tracking it comes with. Could they replace Toggl (very pricey subscription) and Timery? Who got the new calendar feature enabled?

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 14:40:51 -0400

Why do we stilll get blank widgets on iOS 17.2? Who’s to blame? Apple? The developers? A combination of both? How do we fix these?

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 09:10:57 -0400

I’m happy to see Zavala is still being updated. 😊

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 13:24:52 -0400

I’m curious: who in this room is using Apple Advanced Data Protection? If yes, are there any issues? If not, why? 🤔

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 09:01:37 -0400

Added Kagi search to my subs. F*** Google and their business model!

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 13:14:09 -0400

Believe it or not, I’m looking at use cases for Capacities. 🙄

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 08:06:08 -0400

After the My Defaults trend, here comes the My Subscriptions trend.

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:14:56 -0400

Omnivore is out with a new beta today (1.4). Boy, this thing is moving in the right direction and pretty fast. It makes me wonder if one day I’ll get rid of my RSS reader to be all in with Omnivore’s RSS reader. I can see that happening.

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 18:20:57 -0400

Why does logging in Slack have to be so unfriendly? I’m not exactly sure which email I used for which space. I’m lousy at keeping track of this information, I know… but…

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 10:16:21 -0400

I wish Ghost.org provided an easy way to directly respond to users’ comments from the dashboard. I need to log in to my own site to respond, but I can’t because of this two-step process where I don’t receive the email for logging in. Grr. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Strike One

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 09:26:05 -0400

After publishing more than 70 YouTube videos on my channel, today I got my first content violation warning for sharing a review about Play 2.0, a video manager for YouTube that facilitates downloading YouTube content for free. Oopsy.🫥 I did the highly recommended training by Google.

If you are a serious YouTube video consumer, consider using Play 2.0. That is all.🤫¹

I wonder if I could make my video available elsewhere…🤔 ↩︎

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 10:03:20 -0400

I created the Craft Feature Request Board on Canny.io, because the Craft team doesn’t want to do it themselves, apparently. If you are a Craft user with feature requests, file yours!

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 10:02:17 -0400

Wish of the day: I’d like to connect an Apple TV to an Apple Studio Display.

HEY, what about Improving Newsletters Reading Experience?

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 12:18:51 -0400

As a paying subscriber to HEY mail, I find it strange that the newsletter consumption feature has never been updated since its initial release¹. A product is rarely perfect on its first try. For example: newsletters are presented in a semi-expanded form, but I wish I could display them as “newsletter titles only”. Also, there is no integration whatsoever with third-party read-later service to easily send a newsletter to Omnivore, for example². Once expanded, it’s not obvious our to return to the list of newsletters sitting in the bin to read the next one.

The Feed is the feature I’m referring to here. ↩︎
I know that we can forward the newsletter to a custom email @ omnivore, but It’s not exactly what I would refer to as “an integration with a third-party service”. ↩︎

My First Genuine Ah Ah Moment With Generative AI

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 10:04:00 -0400

Here is a quick recount of my “Ah ah moment” this morning, involving generative AI in a simple workflow. I’m still in awe about it.

If I stumble on a long and chatty YouTube video that might be interesting, I’ll use this workflow to quickly get the gist out of it. First, I use Downie (a Mac utility) to download it on my M2 MacBook Air. Then, I use the Whisper Transcription Mac app to transcribe the spoken discussion into text that I export in a PDF¹. Next, I open ChatGPT, upload the PDF file and let ChatGPT ingest the content. Finally, I prompt ChatGPT with things like: what is the subject of this discussion? Are there any apps mentioned in the discussion? Who is talking? Is this a controversial subject? Generate a title for this discussion. Generate a summary in less than 300 words. Etc. It’s very effective. You can use the GPT I created for this². Oh, and I guess you can use the same workflow for a podcast episode!

This workflow was also documented in “My Micro-Workflows Explained” mini website.

Because I like the formatting used instead of plain text. ↩︎
ChatGPT paid subscription required. ↩︎

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 16:10:21 -0400

There is so much buzz around the Internet about the newly released Ubiquiti Unify Express router. To me, it seems to be a capable router at a reasonable price. Man, I wish Apple was still in this market¹.

I know Apple’s version wouldn’t be as features rich as Ubiquiti’s, but… ↩︎

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 20:06:35 -0400

Happy with Ulysses. 😊 #iawriter7

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 22:30:34 -0400

I finished watching this video today while waiting for my car at the garage. Andrej Karpathy gives a great talk explaining Gen AI and how the whole process works, and then some more explanations about the possible future around AI. It’s a must-see.

Fri, 24 Nov 2023 08:11:19 -0400

Today it’s time for an update to my creative and blogger workflow¹. You can get an overview in this diagram, and the changelog here on my metablog. Any questions? 😅

The previous version was published on 2023-04. ↩︎

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 07:58:48 -0400

I created my Backblaze account earlier this week to replace Dropshare Cloud. Today, I discovered that Cloudflare offers S3-compatible storage too, with a similar free tier (10 GB). Since CF is my domain name registrar, maybe I should have created my S3 bucket with them instead?¹ 🤔

But the Dropshare client probably doesn’t yet offer a connector to CF storage. 🤷🏻‍♂️ ↩︎

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 20:44:59 -0400

A follow-up to my previous post about Dropshare: Are any users of Backblaze over here? Thoughts? Which service do you use? S3-compatible storage or client (Mac) backup to the cloud?¹ 🤔

Users can get 10 GB of free storage, which should be enough for my needs. ↩︎

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 18:50:46 -0400

Dropshare Cloud is being… dropped¹. Too bad. I’ll need to redo my custom-made file share space.

Dropshare Cloud is being phased out in Feb, 2024. Too bad. I’ll have to rework that for me. ↩︎

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 12:37:42 -0400

I can’t stress enough how Apple’s Freeform is a joy to use. Is this a sleeper hit? If you don’t use it, do yourself a favour and try it. It’s the most intuitive, frictionless diagramming app out there on the Mac. And the iPad.

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 09:28:13 -0400

The more testing and experimenting I do with ChatGPT, the more I feel we are at an inflection point like Netscape or the iPhone was. We live in exciting and challenging times.

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 20:01:06 -0400

According to Grammarly, ChatGPT is really bad at English.¹

Or is it Grammarly that is really bad? 🤔 ↩︎

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 16:41:09 -0400

Raycast is cool. I’m cool. And because we’re cool, here is a rebate. One month free of the Raycast Pro. ¹

But the app icon is really ugly! 🤮 ↩︎

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:20:42 -0400

So, how is** iOS 17.2 beta3** going? Stable? I’m asking for a friend.🤭

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 09:42:58 -0400

I started subscribing to ChatGPT today so that I could experiment with Dall-E and GPT-4. I’ll probably cancel my MidJourney account if all goes well with ChatGPT. I like the idea of having one place to do many things.

What Happened to the Shortcuts Editor?

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 09:43:02 -0400

I’ve been working with Apple Shortcuts editor recently¹, on my iPhone and on my iPad, and boy, what a shocking experience! This editor is nearly unworkable, thanks to scrolling sluggishness, object ordering bugs, object variables becoming empty, constant freezes, keyboard masking input fields, changes not being saved and plain and simple editor crashes. 😤 What is happening with this, Apple?² I can’t believe Viticci is able to endure this for all his work around shortcuts.

I’m working on something new, involving Plausible APIs, Charty for iPhone, and Apple Shortcuts. Stay tuned for that one. ↩︎
I don’t expect a response from Apple, of course. ↩︎

These Are My Entry Points to AI Usage

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 07:40:34 -0400

I’m working on something related to using AI in my creative work. I came up with this. AI is used through these front-end clients within my creative workflows:

- ChatGPT website
- Raycast AI Chat
- MidJourney
- Whisper
- Micro.blog podcast episode transcription
- Audio Hijack Transcription block
- Kagi Summarize Results, Summary Document, Ask Questions
- Craft Assistant
- Grammarly

And I expect this list to grow in the coming months.

NSUserDefaults defaults = [NSUserDefaults NumericCitizenDefaults];

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 07:36:28 -0400

Following the episode (#097) of Hemispheric Views, it’s my turn, I guess, with a little twist for the post title. 😜

✉️ Mail Client: HEY mail
📨 Mail Server: HEY mail + iCloud Custom Email Domain
📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes
✅ To-Do: Things 3
📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app + Halide.app (for travel)
📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Adobe Cloud
🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app (Personal Life) + Fantastical.app (Work Life)
🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud
📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader
📇 Contacts: Contacts
🕸️ Browser: Safari (more and more using Kagi for searching)
💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad)
🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox
👓 Read It Later: Omnivore
📜 Word Processing: Ulysses
📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers
🛝 Presentations: Keynote
🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders
🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None
💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers
🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news)
🎶 Music: Apple Music
🎧 Podcasts: PocketCast
🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain (also 1Password, I should merge with default)

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 16:26:45 -0400

Ok, I may be late to the Mac automation party, but Keyboard Maestro is really nice and powerful. And approachable. It’s an almost instant buy me! ¹ It’s super handy to automate portions of my newsletter creation and many tasks in Craft, too!

And it’s a one-time purchase! No subscription! ↩︎

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 08:12:49 -0400

For those who are curious, I just updated “my Micro-Workflows Explained” page to list all my ChatGPT and AI use cases. I’m not shy to expose when I’m using AI in my creative work¹. The list of use cases is growing and reflects the relative invasion of AI in our digital landscape.

Who’s shy of telling people about using Spell Checkers or Lightroom filters? 🤔 ↩︎

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 18:01:04 -0400

👉🏻 I’m thinking about parking my “numericcitizen” name on Threads. Just in case¹. 😳 But, then, after doing a quick research, I was reminded pretty quickly that I need an Instagram account. It was at this exact moment that I thought that I should move on to something else².

Yes, I know; I repeatedly said that I hate Meta. ↩︎
Or maybe just create a dummy account on Instagram with my name and then create that Thread account? ↩︎

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 17:41:38 -0400

💡 Thought of the moment: owning my own Pixelfed instance would be cool¹. But how much work does this imply? 🤔

Imagining: photos.numericcitizen.me! Can we use a sub-domain with Pixelfed? Would I be able to migrate from my current instance? ↩︎

In Search of Augmented Capabilities Using AI

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 07:15:52 -0400

I want to augment my creative capabilities¹. I’m considering the best way to pay for Augmented Intelligence (AI) services². I’m currently subscribing to MidJourney for imagery. ChatGPT with GPT-4 is not cheap at 20 $US a month, but I get Dall.E 3. Raycast enables GPT-4 for 8 $US on top of my 8 $US, totalling 16 $US monthly, but I don’t get Dall.E 3. I prefer MidJourney over Dall.E 3 as it seems to allow more diversity in requests. And there is the ChatGPT client to consider. Raycast is one of them. MacGPT is another one. Even Grammarly and Craft are ChatGPT clients³. I need to continue my analysis. Ideas? Suggestions?

Go faster, go further, explore better creative ways. ↩︎
Yes, I’m okay with taking advantage of modern tools like AI, just like I was okay with using a spell checker in Microsoft Word 1.0. ↩︎
But you cannot configure Grammarly to use the GPT-4 model. ↩︎

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 12:29:39 -0400

I wish Inoreader offered some form of article summarization via AI for some of my feeds…

Looking for a Useful and Secure Search Engine

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 06:38:56 -0400

I’m fed up of Google’s search capabilities and business model. Search results quality has gone downhill in recent years. I don’t like the visual design of Google’s online products in general, especially Google Search results formatting. What search engine are you using? Are you willing to pay for using one, if yes, which one? 🤔

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 18:00:26 -0400

👉🏻 I just finished updating my complete content creator toolset with recent changes in my workflows. Enjoy the ride!

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 16:45:09 -0400

Since iOS 17.1 in Music.app, Favourite 🌟 replaced Love ❤️? What if I love a song but it is not one of my favourites? 🤔

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 08:31:32 -0400

I spent some time on Bluesky this morning… found out that I have 6 invite codes. Is anyone looking for one of them? Let me know.

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 06:44:01 -0400

A recent addition to Mailbrew made me discover Brief.news¹. So far, I like what I’m seeing. News briefs are generated with AI (with LLM models, I’m guessing). It’s a great use case of AI, right here. The combination with Mailbrew makes perfect sense, too.

It’s a free service for now. I wonder what is their business model? 🤔 ↩︎

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 17:10:28 -0400

I’m a subscriber of Inoreader, but I read the feeds using Reeder 90% of the time. I only wish that Reeder could update the engagement stats on Inoreader. Is that even possible from a RSS client perspective? I highly doubt it. You’ve got an opinion on this subject? Let me know.

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 16:50:26 -0400

Apple’s use of Swift and SwiftUI in iOS 17 by Timac:

Objective-C is still at the core of iOS and is used directly or indirectly by most apps
The adoption of Swift and SwiftUI continues to grow rapidly
The share of Objective-C, C and C++ continues to decrease

It’s a must-read for the curious around here.

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 16:36:27 -0400

If you are like me, with macOS Sonoma, you like widgets on the Mac desktop. The Mac experience can become quite busy with many widgets. This is why, more than ever, I depend on HazeOver to reduce the distraction caused by widgets¹,².

I set it to 50%. Yes, I set the widgets to be in monochrome when the focus isn’t the desktop. ↩︎
I know, this sounds like an ad. 😜 ↩︎

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 08:45:24 -0400

Why am I getting this on YouTube to watch one of my own videos? I’m using Safari and tried disabling ad blocker, NextDNS, StopTheMadness. Works fine on Firefox. 🤔 Help!

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:40:42 -0400

For some reason, I feel the urge to try iA Writer. I must be bored…¹

I’m a satisfied Ulysses user. But, Ulysses feels busier than iA Writer, from what I can see. ↩︎

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:44:29 -0400

There is a Midjourney plugin for Raycast… but man this is hard to configure and make it working. Moving on for now.

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:43:02 -0400

For those on Craft, this is my release analysis for v2.5.18 that just came out.

404 - Page Not Found

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 07:37:27 -0400

I have an issue with Short.io. I want to contact their support to find a solution to something that partially works, but no contact information is available in the /Support section. The /Blog section shows a small “Contact Us” button leading to a page not found error. There is no mail address either. They ask for $ 250 / year for a “Personal” subscription plan. How can I trust them if I cannot contact them for support?¹🤔

The problem: not all links are leading to the destination page under the go.numericcitizen.me domain name. Why? This used to work for all links, but it’s no longer true. Why? Exhibit one: this link works. This one won’t.

Instead of 404 - Page Not Found, this should be 404 - Support Not Available 😔

Update: I got my answer after chatting with tech support through their chatbox on their website, which wasn’t initially showing because of content blocking in Safari. 🤦🏻‍♂️ All is fine now.

Their Twitter account is a ghost town; the last tweet was posted in 2021. ↩︎

A Definitive Solution to a Simple Problem

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 17:33:58 -0400

I finally found the right setup to definitively fix my audio record quality. The problem triggering this endless trial-and-error journey is that the Blue Yeti microphone can be too sensitive and pick up too much background noise¹. On paper, the macOS Voice Isolation recording should fix this. However, ScreenFlow 10.0.9 has issues with audio recording from a USB microphone while Voice Isolation is active².

The solution? Use Audio Highjack³ to record from the USB microphone with Voice Isolation active and output to the ScreenFlow audio capture driver. When recording, I start the Audio Hijack session, then switch to ScreenFlow and hit record. Voilà. I do use Adobe Podcast Audio Enhancer too. The results are quite good! You can hear it in my latest podcast episode. A screenshot of my Audio Hijack workflow is included so you can look at it⁴.

People in the house don’t always pay attention when I’m recording my stuff. We could hear them quite easily. ↩︎
The sound is highly distorted. It’s a known issue, apparently. ↩︎
Audio Hijack is a superb piece of software if you ask me. ↩︎
More tiles are included so I can make sure there are no lingering background noises after Voice Isolation makes its magic. ↩︎

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 14:53:40 -0400

I’m getting an issue with Short.io where domain name cloaking is no longer available. It used to be just fine. Something has changed recently. To get it back, I have to subscribe to the personal plan costing 250$. Looking for alternatives. Cc @Mtt who uses the same setup as mine.

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 14:51:50 -0400

Discovery of the day: I can use Audio Hijack with ScreenFlow to record the Mac audio from the Finch Pixel USB-C¹,² mic and the Mac screen. Why use Audio Hijack? Well, so that it can use the macOS Voice Isolation feature and output the results to the Mac audio, which the special audio driver of ScreenFlow, in turn, picks up. Without this, ScreenFlow 10.0.9, with direct voice isolation, creates distorted sound.

With the Lightning version, I had no issues with the iPhone 13 Pro, macOS Voice Isolation and Screenflow. The problems come from using USB (A or C) microphone devices. It’s a known issue, apparently—no fix in sight. ↩︎
I spent way too much time and money trying to fix the sound quality for my recordings. ↩︎

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 15:40:24 -0400

hey, bloggers and writers on WordPress¹, enable the Fediverse plugin and share your blog “handle” with the world so we can follow you right from here! Can’t wait!

I left WordPress.com a while back, but I’m happy to see them adopt Fediverse! ↩︎

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 21:38:51 -0400

Thought of the day: read-later services or applications are a consequence of facing or having too much content available and a lack of time for consuming that content in a timely matter. ☝🏻

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 21:31:07 -0400

I love Omnivore more and more. There, I said it.☝🏻

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 19:53:40 -0400

Sometimes, a website doesn’t work well (or at all), and the problem is that my NextDNS client blocks some traffic. When that happens, I turn it off… and forget about it, only to find out a few days later that I forgot to reenable it. This makes me angry—all the time.

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 14:07:36 -0400

Ghost offers a new default theme: Source. 👀 And I kind of digg it a lot! Will have to investigate further this weekend.

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 08:59:15 -0400

The “new” Microsoft Teams is now available on Mac. Gosh, that is not ready for prime time, at least on macOS Sonoma. Going back to the Classic version.

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:37:32 -0400

I spent the early morning on Gumroad to set up something… 👀

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 12:57:29 -0400

Got an email this morning from Mailbrew about an issue (resolved since then) of logging into the service. So, there is life, apparently! They said they have a “team” working on the next features… 🤔 I would love to see this service thrive instead of being an abandonware. 🙏🏻

Announcing "My Reading Workflow Explained"

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 07:46:30 -0400

I’m finally publishing the details surrounding my reading workflow. It’s been long in the making. More than a year. The reason? Because this workflow was full of moving parts. One example: is the read-later service. First, it was Pocket, then came Matter, Readwise, to finally settle on Omnivore. All the details are here on the Numeric Citizen I/O metablog. Feel free to comment or ask questions! 😊

Sat, 30 Sep 2023 13:43:52 -0400

Why doesn’t the “Switch To Profile” menu item always appear in Safari 17.0? I can’t understand what triggers this option to show up. Is this a bug?

What a Strange iCloud Drive Bug!

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:28:24 -0400

I have a folder named “Noto” in my iCloud Drive folder that keeps populating empty folders inside of it, on all my devices. Noto is a note-taking app that I tried in Feb. 2020. Today, I found out that I had more than 30K empty folders sitting there. I deleted the folders from my Mac mini, and it came back. Same with the MacBook Air. It came back. I visited all my devices to see if Noto was still installed. Nope. I reinstalled it on the iPad to see if it would populate something. Nope. I went on Files.app on the iPad to delete the root folder. Still re-appearing. On all my devices, I reinstalled Noto, to disable iCloud sync. I visited the iCloud storage section within Settings on the iPhone. The Noto folder isn’t there. But, on the iPad, it was there. I deleted the item from iCloud storage management. Yet, the folder keeps coming back. What a strange bug. Help.

Update: the issue went away after rebooting my M2 MacBook Air to fix an issue with Screenflow screen recording permission request. I went back to the iCloud Drive folder and sure enough, the Noto folder didn’t come back. I guess the issue is resolved.

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 10:22:04 -0400

Currently testing Safari profiles. I kind of like it so far. Still exploring. Currently devising work from personal life. I will probably create one for my YouTube video recording sessions too. Are you using Safari profiles? Are you using Safari at all, I might ask?

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 07:06:11 -0400

I’ve been working on my reading workflow for many months. I’m very close to publishing an article about it. While waiting for it, along the way, I created a comparison of the following read-later services:

Matter
Pocket
Raindrop.io
Readwise Reader
Omnivore

You can download it here: https://go.numericcitizen.me/pFscoL0x. Any comments, suggestions?

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 06:30:46 -0400

When adding widgets on macOS Sonoma, there should be a visual cue telling me which widgets are coming from the iPhone vs from installed apps on my Mac. This screenshot shows two Dayone instances, and Fitness Totals is on my iPhone.☝🏻

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 21:57:55 -0400

Rewind is nice, but this is such a resource hog. Battery life is miserable since I run this thing on my MacBook Air. Is it worth it, just for a few possible queries a month?¹

I fail to see more than 2-3 use cases so far. ↩︎

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 21:45:15 -0400

What happens when you run Micro.blog.app and the web app side by side? Here is a peek at Activity Monitor on the memory consumption tab. There’s the native app. Fine. But, for each web app, Sonoma seems to spin three other processes (Graphics, Networking, and some root process using the web app URL name). Fascinating. Native apps don’t consume as much memory.

Already at Four Web Apps in My Dock, and You?

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 21:21:49 -0400

So far, I have created four web apps on my Dock in Sonoma: Micro.blog¹, Pixelfed², Tinylytics, and Omnivore. I like this a lot³. For Omnivore, the web app provides a better experience than the “native” app, which is probably not really native⁴. What other apps could I set in my Dock now?🤔

For Micro.blog, it doesn’t make too much sense as there is a native Mac app already. ↩︎
It’s better than having a Safari tab for that. It’s fast and feels native. ↩︎
I know, it’s already possible on Windows. ↩︎
It feels like an iPad app on the Mac. ↩︎

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 21:00:45 -0400

Testing a post from Micro.blog as a web app ¹ running on macOS Sonoma.

Is this how we should call a web page saved in the macOS Dock? ↩︎

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 21:59:31 -0400

The Mac is the last platform to get my trust for an upgrade of macOS. I do iPhone and iPad in a heartbeat, but the Mac, no. I wait a few weeks so that my must-have apps receive updates. I don’t want to ruin anything by upgrading to Sonoma so soon. I’ll probably wait until November.

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 07:13:27 -0400

I’ve recently been using Apple’s Freeform for different articles I’m working on. I’m really falling in love with this app. It’s a sleeper hit for me. Its apparent simplicity shouldn’t put you off. Freeform is capable of supporting the creation of rather sophisticated diagrams. I really feel Apple’s designers brought all their craftsmanship and attention to detail here. Everything feels in the right place.

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 13:01:58 -0400

I read in recent days that the Craft team is supposedly very interested and invested in AI for Craft. I’m not sure if this is good news. Notes and document-writing apps should focus on the core experience and capabilities to support the writing process. Today, I don’t see AI at the core for most people (yet). AI should be a complementary feature. There are so many things to be improves and fixed in Craft; I’m afraid they spend too much time on the AI stuff while neglecting the bugs and highly requested basic features, again.😔

Sun, 24 Sep 2023 17:28:19 -0400

I finally found THE use case for the Action Button: running a shortcut¹ to 1) take a screen capture and 2) run the Apple Frame shortcut. It’s super handy. The camera already has a button on the screen that is easier to grab when I want to take a picture.

Haptly named “Action Button”. ↩︎

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 15:42:26 -0400

Here is a weird one: I’m using iCloud+ Custom Domain with an email address (hello@numericcitizen.me). Mail on iOS 17 doesn’t allow me to set the “From:” as the email address for this custom domain. It’s only possible on iCloud.com. Am I missing something?

I Rarely Visit the App Store

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 06:38:15 -0400

I opened the App Store this Monday to see how Apple would promote new app releases supporting iOS 17. Then I realized that I rarely open the App Store except to go and get app updates. When was the last time I went to browse the productivity category? When did I last browse the store for popular photography apps or new utilities? I can’t even remember when I last bought an app discovered in the App Store¹. I wonder if this is only me or reflects a more general trend.🤔

I usually make my discoveries by external reference. ↩︎

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 13:06:04 -0400

Playing with recently updated apps and their respective interactive widgets. They all come out to their default view. Rebooting the iPhone is mandatory to fix this issue. Adding another widget and again defaults to the blank screen.🤦🏻‍♂️ iOS 17.0.1, I guess, will help fix this.

Some Thoughts About Apps Support of StandBy Mode and Interactive Widgets

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 10:21:24 -0400

Many apps are getting updates today and this week. Yes! 😃 But, so far, I have found some bugs in iOS 17 to display interactive widget content once they are added. They often stay blank with a white background. Rebooting doesn’t help. I don’t know if it is an iOS 17 bug or an issue with the app. 🤔 One design issue: if an app supports the StandBy mode¹, it should also support the landscape orientation, not only the portrait orientation. Tapping a widget to launch the app and the app comes up in portrait mode. It’s bad. WaterMinder is such an example, and… Apple’s Stocks app! The latter is inexcusable. In general, StandBy mode seems a work-in-press, to be honest.²

this is how the StandBy mode is triggered on the iPhone. ↩︎
Make no mistake, I do like it a lot, though. ↩︎

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 21:16:29 -0400

After three years of availability, I experienced the first App Clips case today. I was close to a Dairy Queen-type so I was presented with an App Clips allowing ordering from my iPhone. There aren’t a lot of App Clips, apparently.

Testing Apple's USB-C to Lightning Adaptor with iPad Pro

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 13:17:49 -0400

I wanted to follow up a previous post of mine about using my Lightning-based Lavalier microphone with a USB-C device, like my 2018 iPad Pro¹. I ordered the USB-C to Lightning adaptor on the day of the Apple keynote. I got it this morning. If you are wondering if it works with Ferrite and Apple’s Voice Memos on my iPad Pro? No, it doesn’t.😔

A positive conclusion would have been a good sign on the prospect of making it work with the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max. Now, it’s not sure at all. ↩︎

An Update About My New Quest of Leaving Adobe Lightroom

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 06:56:30 -0400

Yesterday night, I spent nearly an hour reading articles and forum posts about the implications of closing my Adobe Photography subscription¹. The implications and how to recover my photos differ for Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC. It’s not that hard, but it will be a tedious process if I want to keep some organization that the Lightroom catalog currently provides. I’ll put this project on my list of things to do in 2024. This will give me some time to plan for the migration².

I subscribe to the photography plan which gives me 2TB of storage, which is currently used at 110GB. ↩︎
Or change my mind. 🤦🏻‍♂️ ↩︎

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 19:07:50 -0400

How do you get out of Adobe Lightroom? What if I want to focus on Photomator and Pixelmator instead?

Waiting for more interactive widgets…

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 13:08:42 -0400

✅ WaterMinder

✅ Longplay

Timery 👀

Focused Work 👀

What else?

Pixelfed Is Working on “Solo”

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 13:53:15 -0400

I’m really curious about this. The idea of having my personal instance of Pixelfed is tempting. I like the idea of having full control and not being at the mercy of some other admin, updating the codebase as I wish while being part of the Pixelfed federation¹. It’s expected to be released on October 20th. I should start planning my domain name and username.²

Of course, other instance could decide to block mine, but that’s not going to happen, unless I’m being a bad actor in the federation. ↩︎
Does that mean Micro.blog would need to do something in order to cross post to my personal instance? ↩︎

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 13:40:51 -0400

⁉️This iCloud Upload of 78 items has been going on since I migrated from the 13-inch MBA to the 15-inch MBA with Apple Migration Assistant. Any ideas on how to fix this? ¹🤔

Annoying as hell. ↩︎

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 07:51:00 -0400

I wish there was a way to subscribe to a RSS feed within Day One. This way, I could delete my IFTTT account. ¹😐

IFTTT read my Micro.blog RSS feed to save a copy of my posts to my personal journal on Day One. ↩︎

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 07:28:45 -0400

I find it surprising and annoying that Apple’s PodcastsConnect doesn’t support… Sign in with Apple.¹🤦🏻‍♂️

It means a new podcast episode is coming up soon! ↩︎

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 18:26:13 -0400

I wanted to increase my podcasts listening time. I decided to put Overcast on the first home screen page. It worked. 👌🏻🤓

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 08:02:30 -0400

Wondering if @mtt Tiny Theme is compatible with Hugo 0.117… 🤔

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 06:33:57 -0400

While Elon Musk wants the Twitter brand to disappear from the earth’s surface, you can see the Twitter icon and references everywhere on the web. X is not taking over at all. Services or apps that depend on Twitter for logging in, news sites asking people to join them via social networks, apps offering a sharing action or whatever the needs are, most continue to use Twitter’s original branding. In support of those who refuse to let go the little bird, here’s my contribution¹.

Thanks to Midjourney 😜 ↩︎

On Apps by Apple

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 22:00:27 -0400

What a strange move by Apple. This website made by Apple promotes first-party apps for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. Why? Why now? I would understand in the context of being forced to allow third-party App Stores. Apple reminding people about their apps while people are getting excited by side-loading and third-party App Stores would make sense. Is Apple up to something here? They usually plan for the long run. This could be the first baby step for a more open ecosystem.¹ 👀

Interestingly, you can launch each app with an Open button if you are visiting the website from your beloved iPhone, iPad or the Mac. ↩︎

Remember Apple’s Freeform?

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 06:53:25 -0400

I’m curious, is anyone using Apple’s Freeform? For what use case? Personally, I was curious about Freeform and experimented with it for a while, but then I stopped using it. I prefer using it on the iPad than on the Mac.

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 06:32:38 -0400

Pixelfed is rolling out Stories. 😒🤦🏻‍♂️ I’m not a fan at all. I’m not sure that I want PixelFed to take that direction. I decided to unfollow anyone who shares one of these.¹

I left Instagram because it wasn’t about photography anymore. ↩︎

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 07:48:32 -0400

I got an Ember coffee mug¹ for my birthday, yesterday. The first thing the Ember app detected after pairing the mug with my iPhone was that an update to the mug’s firmware. It took 5 minutes to complete. Software is everywhere now guys. 😳

The mug keeps the coffee at the right temperature. Great and well-design coffee mug. ↩︎

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 20:45:47 -0400

I played with Apple’s Maps Places feature, as shown in the following video. It’s nice, but it’s not exactly intuitive. There are many missing features, like setting a path between places and adding photos to a place within the guide, from the Photos.app for example to name a few. Also, it’s not clear if a shared guide gets updated if new places are added, or places are removed.

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 13:15:37 -0400

I updated my toolset website today¹ with three additions under consideration: Digest², Lazy³ and Heptabase⁴. The statuses of my current projects were also updated. Thanks for paying a visit.

Use the table of content at the top of the site to locate the right section. Convenient, heh? ↩︎
To replace Mailbrew. ↩︎
A super-charged “save-for-later” service. Could replace Omnivore or complement it. I put myself on their waiting list. ↩︎
A hard-to-define service / apps for supporting research. Could complement Craft. Or not. Another subscription. Gush. ↩︎

One Podcast, Three Looks

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 12:34:04 -0400

From left to right: Overcast, Pocket Cast, Apple Podcast

I always subscribe to my own content distribution channels for quality control purposes ¹. I’m using Overcast, Pocket Cast and Apple Podcast to display my latest podcast episode. In these screenshots, I selected the info button to display the episode details. I’m a paid subscriber of Pocket Cast. I prefer the Pocket Cast display, but it has a caching issue as it doesn’t get the latest podcast artwork, but the other two do². Bold text is missing on Apple Podcast for some reason. The overcast look is… mildly ugly.

This blog post looks like a mini-plug for my podcast. It is. ↩︎
The artwork display issue is also present on the web version of the Pocket Cast player. ↩︎

Episode 01 — This Is Not a Drill!

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 09:47:07 -0400

Bad weather 🌧️ means time to the coffee shop for creative work ☕ 👨🏻‍💻 on my next YouTube video about Craft YouTube Integration. I paid a visit to the Apple Store to get my iPhone screen replaced 🛠️. I came out without a replacement; learn why in this episode available on Apple’s Podcast. 👀

Transcript

On Dark Sky and Apple's Weather

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 19:23:28 -0400

A Eulogy for Dark Sky, a Data Visualization Masterpiece

The design of Dark Sky was so wonderful that I could understand the shape of the weather at a glance, even from a zoomed out view of the app.

Great analysis of the now-defunct Dark Sky weather app. I’m a bit late on that one. I don’t remember using Dark Sky because I think it wasn’t working in Canada. I’m not sure about this. Once Apple took over and brought the redesigned weather app with iOS 16, we could visually feel the Dark Sky’s influence on it. But Apple being Apple, they dropped a few things here and there and made a few things their own. I tend to use Carrot Weather more, but recently, I deep-dived into Apple’s Weather, and frankly, they did a good job. Yet, there was something unique in Dark Sky that I don’t feel in Apple’s offerings. Is it too close to the Yahoo Weather look & feel? Maybe.

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 19:02:51 -0400

We’re truly honoured to be able to announce that we have taken over development of Toolbox Pro, Logger for Shortcuts, and Nautomate. Source: Toolbox Pro, Logger for Shortcuts, and Nautomate | Snailed It Development Ltd

It is good to know that there is a future for this nifty utility. I plan to use it for a project involving Plausible analytics API consumption to display graphs using Chartyon my iPhone.

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 19:00:00 -0400

I’m a big fan of AnyBox (YouTube video) and in the latest update (v1.27), information density increased a bit. I love it. 😍

Learned Something New Today

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 20:56:27 -0400

Today, while reading this blog post, I found out that we could have a “popup” note inline in a blog post. I was curious and asked the author, who gladly responded with all the required information to do the same on my blog. A plugin is required, which I gladly installed in a snap¹. This blog post is a test of that feature². The day I learn something which in turn helps me improve one of my things, is a great day. 😊 I love this community so much! 🫶🏻

You can find it here, on Gitbub. ↩︎
Thanks to @dandycat for your help. ↩︎

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 22:01:54 -0400

Craft Docs vs CleanShot: two different apps in different categories and two philosophies of asking for user feedback. Craft is closed, and opaque while CleanShot is outgoing and openly asks for “what we should work on next”. I’m a subscriber of CleanShot Cloud, and yes, I want a few improvements. If only Craft would change their mind…

Pilot Episode #2 — Testing, Testing, Testing, 1-2-3

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 21:04:49 -0400

This is the second pilot episode of my brand-new podcast (“Thoughts & Tribulations of a compulsive creator”). I made many changes to the recording setup. I like the results. 😊 My support templates are ready (one in Screenflow, Things and Craft) for the first real episode that should be coming soon. One last note: I discovered yesterday that Microblog will automatically generate a transcript of each episode. This is so cool! 🤯

Transcript

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 20:20:02 -0400

As a subscriber to Pocket Cast, I would love to be able to use the iPad version on my Apple Silicon Mac. It’s currently not possible. Yes, there is a web version, but an app is much better. Overcast, a very popular alternative, is available for the Mac but is not native. But I’m ok with that; it’s better than nothing. How much effort does it require to make an iPad app available on the Mac without having to depend on Catalyst? 🤔

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 20:05:56 -0400

Glass questions at 2 years

There are effectively no success stories for Glass’s current business model. Small clones of Instagram and Twitter usually fail. To break out, there has to be something fundamentally different. For Micro.blog, the answer is simple: we are a social network but our business is blog hosting, a proven model. For Glass, the answer is less clear: they care deeply about photography, community, and design. I think the founders deserve a lot of credit for creating something beautiful. Is that enough?

My recent enthusiasm for Pixelfed comes down to being a good alternative to Instagram, open and not afflicted by a toxic business model. It might become a good alternative to Glass too if the latter doesn’t open up a little bit more to the modern world, post Meta-as-we-know-it.

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:32:08 -0400

I’m back with a new video about Micro.blog. This time, I explore the use of Categories and Tags. I hope you find it useful to better make use of Micro.blog features. Enjoy. Comments welcome, here or on my YouTube channel. Next up, something about… podcasts 👀. Stay tuned. 😀

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 07:50:50 -0400

A commentary video about Craft updates while waiting for the next wow moments for Craft. An update is supposedly coming out this week. My expectations are low.

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 08:54:52 -0400

Today marks the day I’m returning to the regular schedule for YouTube video production. Next videos in the pipeline: an update about the lack of meaningful updates to Craft in recent months and what this could possibly mean for Craft users. Then, working with Categories and Tags in Micro.blog. Busy week-end. 😅

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 07:18:51 -0400

I made many updates to my Complete Content Creator Toolset to reflect recent additions and removals. If you are curious about the apps and services that I’m using, this is the place to watch!

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 06:42:50 -0400

Creating a Custom Branded File Sharing Service for Free mattlangford.com
Reader: mattlangford.com
Matt Langford https://mattlangford.com/2023/07/27/creating-a-custom.html

Thanks to @Mtt, I completed my version in about an hour.

Sun, 13 Aug 2023 10:26:35 -0400

I decided to add a small collection of mini reviews that I read from time to time to my digital garden. The first two to make it to the collection: Matt Birchler’s comments about Ulysses and possible free and similar alternatives. The second is Manton’s comments on text editors for developers or other text manipulation.

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 08:17:30 -0400

I’m thinking of creating an email address like hello@numericcitizen.me using iCloud+. I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle, though. I’ll had to tweak the setup a bit for it to work with my current DNS settings at CloudFlare.

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 20:28:20 -0400

Every single day, I read a new post by Pixelfed about upcoming features, additions or redesign. The list is too long to write here (and to build!). All apps are in beta. It’s a maturing platform / service for sure, but man, ship it already, stop the talk!

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 21:49:38 -0400

Running beta5 of Sonoma on my soon-to-be returned MacBook Air. I’m not so sure this thing is quite ready yet. I’ll wait a few more betas before installing Sonoma on my new MacBook Air.

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 07:39:49 -0400

I think I’ll use my previous MacBook Air to test Sonoma this week-end before returning it to Apple! Who knows what will break.

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 07:32:41 -0400

I just enabled cross-posting from Micro.blog to my Pixelfed account. I’m not sure I’ll use it, simply because I don’t post that many photos here. I prefer to use a dedicated service for photography. But who knows, it might come in handy at some point. Thanks, @manton, for being so quick to add these features!

On Apple's Migration Assistant

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 07:01:48 -0400

Ok, can we agree that Apple’s Migration Assistant is magical? 🤯 After the new Mac got updated, it was required to match the version of the source Mac. It took about 45 minutes to transfer 375GB of data (with a peak speed of 650MB/s over Thunderbolt 4 cable), and boom. Of course, I had all those required permissions to be set again. But, wow, writing this on my brand new 15-inch MacBook Air this morning. It was my first experience with this process of getting a new Mac set up. I already feel at home on this machine.

My Non-Review of Apple's Latest Betas

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 19:35:55 -0400

Earlier this summer, when Apple’s OSes were at Beta 3, I installed iPadOS 17 on my iPad to test the latest improvements and additions to a maligned OS. Maybe I was bored too. I started gathering my notes, thinking that it would be part of a mini review. Then I upgraded my iPhone because my experience with iPadOS 17 was good for a beta. Then I upgraded both of my Apple Watch (Series 4 and Series 8). Then my two Apple TVs. All is good, and generally speaking, these are all great improvements to what can be considered a set of mature OSes. I tried to put my observations together, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Besides having the general impression of getting a new Apple Watch, thanks to Apple, who dare to revisit many fundamental aspects of the UI and many micro-interactions with watchOS 10, for all other platforms, most of the changes are great and show that Apple is headed in the right direction. Your mileage may vary, and this is ok. The end.

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 13:14:20 -0400

It took Adobe Lightroom on my iPad Pro all morning to upload all my 350 photos to Adobe’s cloud. That is SLOWWWW! How does semi-pro photographers (or even amateurs) endure this? My upload experience always has been consistently slow with Adobe’s products. Am I alone?

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 04:24:12 -0400

Each passage in an airport is a reminder of how useful Flighty can be.

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:03:59 -0400

Thought of the day: if only we spent as much time on great rollouts (Apple) than we do on really bad ones (X)… oh wait, we do actually! Seriously, I’m tired of those comments about X…

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 10:05:50 -0400

Oh nice: the Citroen car info system reboots as soon as we try to use Car Play. 🤣 can’t use Apple Maps or Google Maps. ☹️🫣😨 It takes 5 minutes for the whole process to complete. 😩

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 04:31:28 -0400

I started testing Safari’s Profiles feature that comes with iOS 17. And judging from my initial experience, just like Focus modes, it takes a lot of management and understanding to make it work to my liking. I’ll make it work, but not today.

Thoughts on Micro.blog Tags

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 03:37:31 -0400

I’ve been playing with Micro.blog’s new bookmark tags. At first, I thought the feature was underwhelming. I don’t think there is a way to add more than one tag to a bookmark. This might be a good thing after all. Still undecided on this. Then, I discovered how you can select a tag to display associated bookmarks. Hoping for the iOS app to receive an update soon. I updated a few dozen bookmarks to add a tag. I’ll see if it makes a difference. My bookmarks are not that many and many are deleted after a while.

Update #1: someone pointed me that we can have more than one tag, simply by adding commas. Update #2: I can see Micro.blog bookmarks as a complement to Anybox, but focused on content originating from people I follow on Micro.blog / Mastodon. I don’t see that replacing Anybox anytime soon.

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 21:29:04 -0400

Is anyone looking for Reddit alternatives? Is Beehaw such a viable alternative?

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 21:04:18 -0400

I digg iOS 17 beta 4: much smoother. I’m guessing we will start to get new betas weekly from now on or maybe from beta 5. I still have to test iPadOS 17 beta 4, though. Are you having a similar experience?

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 07:51:38 -0400

My analysis of Craft’s latest announcements for the summer. They think they are announcing a roadmap. They don’t. No words about eXtensions. No words for better automation support via Shortcuts. You must look at what isn’t announced to get a real view of what they did.

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 21:06:14 -0400

Putting the final touches on my analysis of today’s announcements by Craft. I’m not sure they will like my take. I tend to be very critical of them. I’m still happy with Craft, but I’m honest in my sentiments.

The Beginning of My Journey to Midjourney

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 08:23:44 -0400

“A man sitting in front of a retro computer doing some important work”. 👀

This is my first ever prompt sent to Midjourney. I think this image is an excellent representation of my current state. A guy experimenting with Midjourney in front of my computer. I’m blown away. What a great time to be alive! Discord, as a client of this back-end service, is fascinating. 🤯

I subscribed for one month to the basic plan. I’m not sure how I’ll use the service. One example could be to create illustrations for my blog posts on Numeric Citizen Space. Another use case would be for illustration purposes for my work. I’ll see and continue experimenting. I’ll report back here my discoveries and impressions.

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 21:46:11 -0400

A new camera app for the iPhone. Photon. 📸 By the makers of Camera+. I’m currently subscribing to Halide since my last trip in late June. I will skip that one, but Photon feels simpler to use yet more powerful. And I like the name.

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 14:30:01 -0400

Surprising how many Reddit posts about Notion never get an answer. It’s the vast majority in seems (3 out of 4 questions). This /r/Notion is super popular, with many subscribers (292K)! Weird.

I'm Subscribing, Now What?

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:04:09 -0400

Now that I’m a subscriber of Tapbots’ Ivory client for Mastodon, what’s up with the updates? Is it because it’s summertime? Why do I feel that the development of new features and improvements has considerably slowed in recent weeks and months? After all, the roadmap is clear here.

Tweetbot followed the same trend. Not all developers or companies follow the same product releases, but regarding Tapbots, the trend is slowing and is a pattern. Now, look at Mastodon’s official client; there is an update nearly every two weeks or at least monthly. Ok, there are more than 40 contributors to the open source project of r the iOS app while Tapbots is a three-person company.

I’m ok with subscriptions, but just like the subscription itself, the commitment from the developer has to keep up. The subscription model is everywhere and is here to stay. The software and services landscape has changed forever. Expectations from customers like me are changing too. It’s too easy to grab my money regularly without showing up in the App Store “Updates” tab.

I’m watching you, Tapbots. Don’t deceive me again.

Yeah, Tweetbot was a great app, just like Ivory is, but it lacked some love in the last few years before its demise.

Ranting off. Sorry.

On Clipboard Management & Subscription Model

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 08:28:37 -0400

I’m testing Paste, a clipboard manager software utility for Mac, iOS (link). I kind of like it. It has better management features than Unclutter, which also offers some clipboard management. I’m on a 14-day trial period, but 19 $CAN, a year for a utility without a one-time purchase option, is bugging me. Will see where it goes.

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 19:40:26 -0400

🔎 Calling for hints: what do you use for sharing text snippets or sharing a single image with others (something like “pastebin”)… 👀

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 22:00:00 -0400

I’m a big fan of Inoreader. Make no mistake. But one quick comment. Consider the following screenshot where you can see the article-sharing option. You can see options like Blogger, Evernote, and Twitter. The first two options are dead horses. I mean, Blogger, really? Evernote is the next in line to die. The third is soon to be a dead horse, too. No other options are provided. I’m surprised that we don’t get to send an article by Fax, too.

Notion Can Be Impressive

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:25:22 -0400

I’ve been working hard with Notion at work for a unique project. It’s a 14-database setup containing 18 database relationships, many calculations as well as a place for knowledge management. I think I’m pushing the boundaries of what Notion is all about. It’s still manageable, and Notion still is speedy. I’m really impressed by what this tool can help achieve. 🤩🤯

On Data Portability in the Modern Digital World

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:24:02 -0400

I recently read about the news that Evernote is currently downsizing its operations worldwide, especially in the US. It’s not the first troubling episode for Evernote. I remember when they “redesigned” their app, which created a massive pushback from the community.

I used Evernote in its early days and was appreciative of its capabilities. For some reason, I left for another solution. But for those who built massive data collections inside Evernote, now might be the time to think about going elsewhere. But there is a big gotcha: after searching for a way to export all the data, I discovered that it’s not that easy. And people are angry. This brings me to the data portability of modern software and services. Evernote’s ENEX export format was not a standard the last time I checked. A handful of apps can import ENEX files; Notion is one of them. HTML is also supported but is far from ideal. Options are limited and are seriously hindering the data portability of services like Evernote. Besides content, metadata is also critical (tags, dates, location, backlinks, etc.).

Is Notion suffering from the same potential issues? PDF, CSV, and HTML are the supported formats. 🤔

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 07:16:25 -0400

For those interested in what others are using in their workflow, I spent some time this early morning updating My Complete Content Creator Toolset. Added Plausible + Tinylytics, among other things.

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 14:09:36 -0400

Even as a satisfied Plausible analytics subscriber (see current analytics), I proudly support @tinylytics on my blog (see current analytics). I paid for a year to show my support in a more concrete manner.

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 08:51:46 -0400

This screenshot is from Patreon about my profile page there. You can share a page on social networks when creating a page there. It’s a common thing to do, right? I’m wondering when Facebook and Twitter will stop to be the only two options for sharing stuff on the web. Pinterest is nice but what about the open web like Mastodon? Or Bluesky…?

A 60-minute Video Tour of Pixelfed

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 07:16:16 -0400

I’m finally ready to share my 60-minute video tour of Pixelfed. If you’re contemplating the idea of creating your account on Pixelfed, I encourage you to do so, but after watching this video. You’ll learn about Pixelfed’s capabilities. It’s not a comparison analysis with services like Flickr or Smugmug, though.

Sat, 15 Jul 2023 12:18:35 -0400

Finished recording an hour-long video about Pixelfed. Yep. 60 minutes. If you are on the fence, that’s the one video that you should watch. Online soon.

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 22:09:57 -0400

The next time someone tells me that Mastodon is complicated, I’ll respond: try Discord. You ain’t see nothing yet.

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 09:31:28 -0400

My experience with Pixelfed goes so well that I’m in the process of migrating my old photos from Instagram. And what comes after this migration? The IG account closure. While everyone goes wild about Threads and going in drove to Threads, I’m turning my back to this privacy nightmare and fully embracing Fediverse.

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 06:35:28 -0400

These are my first downloads and purchases from the App Store in July 2008. Since the iPhone 3GS came to Canada the year after, those downloads were done on the iPod touch. For many people, the iTunes Remote was the first download. I have a hard time explaining the remaining ones. I mean, I never was a reader of the New York Times after having completed my university degree back in 1993 and yet, this is the second download.

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 21:33:35 -0400

I spent quite some time on Pixelfed today. I shared a few photos but also started writing an article about my experience with the service. So far, I do like the experience. Much more than I originally thought. Is it because of its polished design? Or is it because of its openness and its citizenship of the Fediverse landscape? I still don’t know. I do sense a few red flags here and there, though. More on that later. But for now, I enjoy the beginning of the ride.

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 08:57:06 -0400

Fediverse is so fascinating and so much interesting. I searched for my handle (@numericcitizen) on the Pixelfed main page and found my account here (marked as “Remote”), on my Mastodon instance and on Pixelfed, too (obviously)! So cool.

A New Start: Pixelfed

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 08:41:27 -0400

It didn’t take long. I’m now on Pixelfed (profile page). The reason it was a quick decision: I found a very specific use case for it. Since returning from my trip to Morocco, I have been looking for a way to share my best pictures with my family and friends. I prefer not to use Instagram / Facebook / Glass for different reasons. So here I am. Enjoy.

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 08:11:01 -0400

Glass doesn’t support ActivityPub, so I cannot cross-post with Micro.blog. Pixelfed supports ActivityPud, but Micro.blog doesn’t take advantage of it. Oh well. 🫥

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 07:36:15 -0400

I’m curious about Pixelfed. I’m also cautious about joining another service (I already have too many). I see two issues. One: the lack of an iPhone app (still in beta, no TestFlight slot available). Two: I’m curious as to why Micro.blog doesn’t support cross-posting to Pixelfed. @manton ? Also, who’s on Pixelfed here?

Using Day One for Travel Journaling

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 16:05:33 -0400

When I decided to use Day One for my travel journal, I had the following requirements:

Data portability is paramount (markdown, text, or textbundle);
It must work offline;
Integration into my existing workflow to share travel moments on Micro.blog;
Easy data entry with as much metadata automatically filled out for me as possible;
Look at my current toolset before using something entirely new.

I tried Craft last year, and it wasn’t up to the task. Apple Notes was a candidate, but it was dropped since notes’ metadata is nonexistent. Day One met all requirements. I’ve been using Day One for more than five years. It worked wonderfully for my last trip. Sometimes, the solution is right in front of our eyes.

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 13:34:18 -0400

🤔 Pondering installing iPadOS 17 beta 3 on my 2018 iPad Pro. This is not my primary driver. There will be another beta before I leave for Canary’s Island in late July, in case Beta 3 is a disaster. I should be good to go with a more stable release and experience overall. Decisions decisions decisions.

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 11:09:03 -0400

I am bored. Is iPadOS 17 beta 3 stable enough?

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 08:19:43 -0400

Testing a new Micro.blog plugin for embedding YouTube videos inside a post. You can ignore it. Or not.

I’m Still Liking HEY Email But…

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 07:41:31 -0400

I’ve been using the HEY email service since its introduction. This week I had to search extensively in my email history to find transaction receipts and contracts. HEY email client has a unique take visually on emails and the inbox, and you either like it or hate it. I still like it, but I feel let down by the software for operations like searching, content rendering and attachment processing. This is where I wish HEY had a more standard take on email display and attachment preview. There is a lack of information density in this app which annoys me.

If there was another similar service but with a native client, I think I would switch.

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 06:24:57 -0400

Wondering something this morning: if Threads was to offer “free” APIs, would developers embrace them or think again and remember about Twitter and Reddit snafu? I bet they would embrace them.

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 06:14:12 -0400

Threads is just another trick by cyberspace to divert my attention to being focused, creative, happy, hopeful, and more importantly to use me as another data point by scrapping my privacy. I say NO.

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 12:35:34 -0400

Call it whatever you like, design it whatever you want, release today, tomorrow, in a year, if there is one simple link with Meta, I’m out. Enough of this platform / Zucherburg. 🤮

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 11:36:21 -0400

I saved over $300 by cleaning up my custom domains Source: I saved over $300 by cleaning up my custom domains

I always found those types of cleanups so satisfying. I’m almost as satisfied when I’m reading this type of blog post. Good job!

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 07:47:56 -0400

Does Apple know that, with the Apple Vision Pro, they have a unique opportunity to reinvent weather apps? Imagine experiencing a thunderstorm forecast in this immersive environment. Can’t wait but I’m not holding my breath.

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 07:09:32 -0400

One thing that we don’t hear or read about these days is the lack of a standard way to get transaction receipts in stores, restaurants, and even online. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an electronic standard to get these receipts by email or any other means? @Apple, are you reading this?

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 03:46:34 -0400

Waiting for a new release of Craft this week (v2.5.6 today?)👀. Curious to see what’s coming with it. I heard about few stability issues with Apple’s crop of new beta OSes. Those might get a fix. It might add a few tweaks here and there too. We will see. It will be hard for me to create the usual release analysis this time around (vacation time!).

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 03:43:22 -0400

Using Day One to document my trip in Morocco is so refreshing🥰. This app is so well designed and executed. Strangely enough, I rarely use Day One other than for peeking at past memories of my publications (automatically added through IFTTT automation with RSS feeds). I rarely add to my personal journal. That might change from now on.

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 17:10:17 -0400

This time of the year where I fill my iPhone with podcast episodes. Using PocketCast. Getting ready for the airport ✈️

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 12:55:39 -0400

Just finished configuring my WhatsApp account on my iPhone. What a weird user experience. I couldn’t get my verification code to be sent by SMS after many tries. Finally asked to be called. WhatsApp asked me if I wanted to restore data from a non-existent iCloud backup. My account is configured with my current phone number which I’m pretty sure won’t work once I’m in Morocco. I bet that changing this phone number will require me to access my SMS on my primary line, which won’t be possible because I’ll depend on an eSIM. I’m not sure what is my “WhatsApp handle” either if such a thing exists. What is I prefer to use my email address so people can find me? I should probably spend an hour googling to sort this out.

And WhatsApp is the de-facto standard in most parts of the world, except North America.

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 08:32:10 -0400

Testing CloudFlare Analytics, because, I can, thanks to this plugin.

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 21:08:33 -0400

Day One creator Paul Wayne, on Apple’s foray into journaling app:

Rather than seeing this as competition, we embrace Apple’s entry into digital journaling as a testament to its growing importance. This evolution is not just beneficial for Day One, but also for our valued users. Source: Apple’s Journal App and Day One’s Evolution

I applaud the positive attitude here. There is one thing that is missing from Day One: the capability to share a journal entry as a web page.

Building a CRM in ... Notion? Really?

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 20:25:32 -0400

💡I’m trying to build my own CRM with Notion for my daytime job. After a few hours today building the data model using Notion tables and relations, I concluded that I underestimated Notion for such use case. It’s impressive and very flexible. It has a lot of potential. I’m pretty happy with my current work. I sometimes find it a bit laggy, but let’s keep the experiment running for a few months.😃

Sun, 11 Jun 2023 19:42:32 -0400

📺 I always keep two Apple TVs: an Apple TV HD for the main bedroom that I gave to my brother-in-law, and an A12-based Apple TV 4K was my main ATV for the living room. Today, I bought the 2022 Apple TV 4K with Ethernet. The older one is now in the bedroom, and the new one is in the living room. Not what I call exciting upgrades. Had to redo all the apps setup. 😒 But it does feel faster in a more compact package.

I’m Testing Day One for My Travel Journal Experiment

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 18:11:04 -0400

Date:	June 9, 2023 at 5:25:24 PM EDT
Weather:	18°C Mostly Cloudy
Location:	Montréal, QC, Canada

I’ll be going to Morocco a week from now. I plan to use Day One to document my trip there. It will be the first time since I’m a Day One user. I don’t know how I could not think of this before. I’ve been a big fan of Day One forever. It’s such a rich journaling app for the Mac, the iPad and the iPhone. I can wait to use it on my iPhone to create rich journal entries as my vacation progresses.

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 14:32:57 -0400

Still working from the coffee shop. 😅 While reading a technical document, I wish I could take notes and keep bookmarks about my readings. I discovered that, as well-thoughtful my personal creative workflow can be, I’m under-equipped for my work life🤦🏻‍♂️. OneNotes from Microsoft is great but so dull at the same time. This leaves me with Notion and Craft Docs. 🙄🤔 I really have to up my game at work; I’m way too lousy. I should use lessons learned from my blogger life.

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 17:47:49 -0400

RSS > Reddit. That is all. Think twice before telling me that I’m wrong. Spoiler alert: contribute to your own destiny instead of other corporations’ destiny.

Watch Out Reddit

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 15:13:38 -0400

🤨 Because of recent Reddit behaviors towards their API consumption models, seeing Apollo go, just like that, plus similarities of behavior with Twitter, I may drop my cross posting to Reddit as a first step of protests. Then, stop manual posting (in /r/craftdocs for example). Ultimately, closing my account could become a possibility. 🫤

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:58:56 -0400

Use Ghost Bookmarker to easily add links and notes to a post, straight from your browser. Links are saved as a bookmark card (with an optional note) to a draft post called “Bookmarked links.” If this post doesn’t already exist, it’s created for you. Otherwise, bookmark cards are added to the existing content. If you publish the post or change the title, Ghost Bookmarker will create a new post with the “Bookmarked links” title. One way to use this is to save links during the week, publish your curated link list, and then repeat the process as needed. Source: Ghost Bookmarker - Chrome Web Store

What a great Idea for @Manton and Micro.blog! I want this! Please! 🙏🏻

Reflecting on My Photo Processing Strategy

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 16:43:30 -0400

For my next trip, I will bring my Nikon D750 and my iPhone 13 Pro (of course!), and my 2018 11-inch iPad Pro. How am I going to process my images? Will I continue using Lightroom for images from my Nikon? I usually use the iPad to import my photos into the Lightroom catalogue. What about pictures on my iPhone, which should be mostly in RAW format and shot with Halide? I like Photomator a lot; it is nicer than Lr and more approachable too. However, using Photomator to process images from my Nikon poses a challenge in file management. I’ll need to import the .NEF files from my SD card into my iPad in an iCloud Drive folder so I can work on imported files from any device (iPad, MacBook Air or iPhone). I prefer using iCloud Photos Library instead of managing files manually. I guess this will be this combo: Photomator + Halide for my “shot on iPhone” images!

Just writing this blog post made things a little bit less fuzzy. I’ll take any suggestions!

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 07:08:25 -0400

I’ve been watching my feeds analytics through FeedPress, since I made the switch. I’m surprised by the number of subscribers that keeps going up and up. I wasn’t expecting that. Should I trust the FeedPress numbers? Am I more popular than I initially thought? 🤔

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 17:58:58 -0400

From the release notes of the May 30th version of Hazel:

Added missing arm64 support for certain auxiliary binaries. Not having these meant that certain specialized functions were being run using Rosetta on Apple Silicon Macs.

That is something so important on an 8GB MacBook Air like mine. The less memory consumed by system services like Rosetta, the better. And I applaud the developer for mentioning it in the release notes.

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 17:07:15 -0400

And just like that, I discovered that my original Mastodon account is enabled and active. I didn’t know my account was finally made active after I submitted my request in Dec, 2019. Now I’m up to three Mastodon addresses. I wonder if I could drop my account at techhub.social and switch to the official Mastodon instance? And how should I do that, actually?🤔

What would you do?

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 10:58:55 -0400

My morning so far. Just finished and shared my thoughts on iA Presenter. Got myself ready to watch the WWDC 23 keynote using this handy shortcut. I tried to set up a mail address for numericcitizen.me (something like hello@numericcitizen.me) using iCloud+ Mail custom domain feature. Sadly, I won’t be able to do so as my numericcitizen.me root domain needs to be aliasing Ghost hosting website for my blog to work. This is conflicting with iCloud+ Mail custom domain requirements. Oh well, nobody use emails these days, right, right? Any suggestion on this if you are reading this? Finally, updated my Ubiquity DreamMachine to the latest release of UniFi OS.

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 10:00:11 -0400

Getting ready for WWDC keynote. This WWDC23 button on my Stream Deck mini triggers a screenshot of my Mac screen using Cleanshot X. Each file will be saved automatically and later processed by Hazel rules and moved to my Synology Photos library for future reference and use. 😎

On Reddit API Access Pricing

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 08:26:10 -0400

So, apparently, just like Twitter, Reddit is entering into a “kill-third-party-apps” by charging an enormous amount of money to use their APIs. It looks like it. Apollo isn’t happy, and for good reasons. Unless there was a calculation error from the makers of Apollo, it just makes no sense for them to continue. Maybe Reddit made some calculation errors, too. Perhaps they fail to read the room’s temperature. But maybe they are entitled, to some degree, I guess, to charge for their APIs, right?

I’m tempted to make a parallel with Apple’s dreaded 15%-30% App Store commission. Is Apple’s stance on its App Store different from Reddit’s stance on its APIs? Is charging a commission to be on the App Store and take advantage of all Apple’s technology to get a chance to be distributed on hundreds of millions of iPhones similar to consuming a platform APIs? If not, what is different, actually? Is free API usage a dead end in today’s world? There are whole business models built around APIs these days. API speaks intellectual property in my book. Only companies with business models supported by massive ad distribution or expansive paid subscriptions can think of thriving by giving away their API access. It will be interesting to see how Reddit is reacting to third-party developers’ pushback.

Oh, and if they actually kill the third-party Reddit client ecosystem, unlike Twitter, Reddit platform alternatives are not obvious to me.

I guess it’s time to remember: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Tue, 30 May 2023 07:00:32 -0400

I’ve been looking from a distance at the launch of Mimestream, and reactions are pretty enthusiastic. As a subscriber to HEY email, do you think/know if we could replicate the “Imbox / Feed / Paper Trail” model with a Gmail account + Mimestream? The other big issue with Mimestream: no iPhone or iPad client. 😔

I like HEY’s service principles, but their mail client is a bit goofy. I’m due for renewal on July 9th.

Mon, 29 May 2023 19:05:20 -0400

I’m not into Mastodon besides cross-posting to it and sometimes interacting with a few people. But when I do so, I want to use a great app. Ivory seems the best. I’m still unsure if I should go ahead with the subscription.

Tried Mona and Icecube, too. Ivory feels better in most accounts.

Sat, 27 May 2023 16:22:44 -0400

One of the best activity-tracking apps focused on steps tracking is StepsApp. I always find something new each time I use it. It is such a well-crafted piece of software. A vast array of widgets come with the app too. I paid for it. That being said, I’m not proud of my activity trend for the last two years. 😒

Wed, 24 May 2023 12:54:46 -0400

For the first time in a long time, I’m satisfied with my online publishing setup. I don’t see changes in the future. This is relieving. This mean I can focus a writing projects. The only moving part around Mastodon/Bluesky clients. Nothing to call my (late) mother.

Wed, 24 May 2023 10:29:26 -0400

Follow up to my previous post. I’ll probably keep Ivory and buy the bundle subscription: one app, for all Apple platforms. Also, It’s a way to show support for their journey out of Twitter. I’ll scrap Ice Cubes and Mammoth. Micro.blog, Ivory, Bluesky it will be. 😊 For now. 🫢

Wed, 24 May 2023 08:20:51 -0400

Eventually I’ll have to make a few decisions … 🤔🤦🏻‍♂️

Wed, 24 May 2023 07:31:51 -0400

If they are serious about supporting the federated web, @ivory@tapbots.social could add support for Micro.blog…

Tue, 23 May 2023 07:23:43 -0400

Exposure asks me to upgrade to the business tier subscription to support Plausible analytics via custom HTML headers. Thanks but no thanks. My current subscription is already expensive enough, and I am barely able to justify the price. I’m not going to support something that I think should be builtin, like Google Analytics. Plausible is an external service and would require minimal changes on Exposure part to implement. They are being greedy here.

Thoughts On FCP for iPad vs Screenflow

Mon, 22 May 2023 21:57:40 -0400

I’m more inclined and attracted by the idea of testing (and actually using) FCP on iPad than the Mac version. Without being an iMovie on steroids (something that I don’t want), I wish FCP for iPad to be a simpler (but not simplistic) version of FCP on the Mac.

The problem: all my videos are all done with Screenflow for Mac because It’s all about Mac screen recording. What value would bring another app like FCP for the iPad? I see a more complex workflow because I would need to “export” from Mac then import into FCP on iPad then do the actual montage on a less capable device (two different device paradigms, little added value).

Thoughts?

PS: My 2018 iPad Pro isn’t capable enough for my 4K screen recordings. But let’s imagine that I’m on an M1 or M2 iPad Pro.

On Mimestream Going 1.0 & Native Mac Apps

Mon, 22 May 2023 17:15:07 -0400

Mimestream, a native Gmail email client, is out of beta and looks quite good if this video, by Matt Birchler, is any indication. As a subscriber to HEY, I can only salivate when I see such great Mac apps being launched for such a mature category. The guys behind HEY brag a lot about having a unique take on email, but they seriously lack in their take on being native because their software is not and is one of their biggest problems IMHO. If only they had the guts to rebuild their client like Mimestream, it would be a real killer for me.

Mon, 22 May 2023 15:13:01 -0400

I bought a Hookmark license recently, thinking it would play a big role in my creative workflow. It isn’t so far. Sure, it works great but use cases are scarce.

Sat, 20 May 2023 08:56:18 -0400

Photomator is an alternative to Lightroom. Pixelmator Pro is an alternative to Photoshop. Source: The Difference Between Photomator and Pixelmator Pro

That’s probably the best way to understand the difference between Pixelmator Pro and Photomator. I’m a big fan of the latter. I plan to use Photomator exclusively to process my iPhone photos for my upcoming trip to Morroco.

Fri, 19 May 2023 09:58:35 -0400

Started testing Omnivore. 🫢

Thu, 18 May 2023 06:50:34 -0400

Pocket’s new features make it even easier to discover and organize content | The Mozilla Blog:

Pocket is rolling out a new mobile and web experience so you can easily find the stories and topics you care about

and

Moving forward, Pocket on iOS will be updated every two weeks. In the next few months, we’ll be bringing back the ability to create and view highlights on your saved articles, improving the quality of the articles that we recommend to you, and bringing additional functionality to our Listen feature, through which you can listen to your saved articles.

Is Pocket being “rebooted”? I recently closed my Pocket account because I didn’t use it much. This renewed interest in its platform by its owner won’t make a difference. Inoreader + Anybox are meeting my needs.

Tue, 16 May 2023 07:13:52 -0400

I finally completed and shared the last part of my story “Moving out of WordPress”, this time, it’s the DNS side of the story, where I explain the process of moving out of GoDaddy to CloudFlare so that I can keep using my root domain numericcitizen.me. Go on my Numeric Citizen I/O website for all the details if you’re curious.

Mon, 15 May 2023 22:33:31 -0400

The next little challenge related to FeedPress will be deciding if I want to share individual feeds also or only the merged one. What if someone is only interested in my photos or videos?

Mon, 15 May 2023 22:19:10 -0400

Played with FeedPress this evening. The one thing that I like about it is the ability to merge many of my feeds into one and put it behind a custom domain. But at 10$ a month, it freaking expansive. Oh and I get analytics…. And yet…

Mon, 15 May 2023 08:47:25 -0400

My full review of Inoreader is finally out, with exclusive content for those who subscribe (free) to my website. I hope you find it useful. Empowering My Reading Workflow With Inoreader.

Sun, 14 May 2023 13:59:38 -0400

Thanks to some people on my timeline (they recognize themselves, I’m sure 🙂), I’m giving a shot at FeedPress. The idea behind this experiment: have a way to consolidate all my RSS feeds into one tied to my custom domain. Let’s see what happens with that. Feel free to subscribe to the feed here: https://feeds.numericcitizen.me. You’ll get Long Posts, Blog Posts, Photos and Videos.

Fri, 05 May 2023 17:50:57 -0400

Another YT video for the “Understanding Micro.blog” series coming soon. But, you know already what you need to know, right??

Wed, 03 May 2023 17:53:06 -0400

So that sales pitch of “it’s just a coffee per month” really doesn’t hold water when you think that most people will subscribe to multiple services. Source: It Only Costs a Coffee per Month - Kev Quirk

This is why I maintain a spreadsheet of my monthly (and yearly) spending. And frankly, even with my recent subscriptions cleanup, you wouldn’t want to know my monthly spending on apps and services. Experimenting is not a free ride. Far from it.

Tue, 02 May 2023 19:59:25 -0400

I am currently learning to use Hookmark. This thing is so, how I could say that, powerful? It’s the kind of app with a slow learning curve that will take some time to use to its fullest potential.

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 06:36:26 -0400

Grammarly just enabled Grammarly Go on my account. I think that’s cool and could prove to be handy occasionally. Grammarly isn’t perfect, far from it, but for someone like me who’s not an English native, it helps a lot. Now, with Go, I feel even more in good company for all my writing. I get 500 requests per month with my subscription, which is way more than enough. Are any Grammarly users out there?

Disclaimer: I wrote this text entirely on my own, without any assistance or modification from AI technology.

The previous sentence is a false statement, Grammarly Go rewrote it for me. 😂

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 17:53:22 -0400

I have pulled the trigger: the concierge at Ghost(pro) is already working on importing my Substack content. It’s another nail in the coffin for Substack. If all goes well, bye bye Substack this weekend.

I must admit that this one is mostly an impulsive decision compared to my exit of WordPress. The migration is much more simpler compared the moving out of WP. In the end, I know I won’t regret it. Moving between platforms shouldn’t be a source of anxiety.

Major Updates Coming to WriteFreely And WriteAs

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 06:45:24 -0400

Matt, the founder of the WriteFreely ecosystem, recently wrote a promising post:

It’s become clear over time that in order to make WriteFreely (and Write.as) as useful as it can be, it needs to have a much more unified experience.

…

I don’t think it makes sense for our self-hosted product to be chopped up into multiple components like our hosted tools are. Instead, I want to bring all those tools into a single application in WriteFreely.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article (“The Write.freely Ecosystem Explained”) trying to explain the WriteFreely ecosystem because I thought that, in its current form, it was a bit hard to grasp. It’s one of my most popular posts on Write.as. I think there is a need for unification and consolidation into a seamless experience. I’m glad the see that it’s coming.

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 21:07:35 -0400

And now, I’m seriously considering closing my Substack account and migrating this to Ghost (using their excellent concierge service). 🤔

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 20:46:37 -0400

Blank. At first, I thought it was a joke. It’s not.

Hello, Bluesky. Nice to Meet You.

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 19:47:39 -0400

In my Friday Notes edition #102, I shared my thoughts about my last four months without Twitter and how calm and quiet my digital life has become. I even wrote that I might ignore Bluesky. But that was last week.

Well, it didn’t take long to contradict myself! As you might have guessed, I’m now on Bluesky as @numericcitizen (of course), thanks to a generous donator of an invite link (looking at you @Maique).

Please make no mistake; it’s an experiment. I’m not planning to spend too much time on Bluesky, but I’m genuinely curious about its evolution and the traction it gets, if any.

I’m allowing myself to get on board for a simple reason: Manton from Micro.blog added support for cross-posting content to Bluesky. It didn’t take long. For me, it’s like getting a seal of approval from him. I highly value his opinion on Bluesky and the open web in general. So, I made the jump without really knowing what to do next except to enable the cross-posting of my content posted on MB.

Now, I wish Bluesky doesn’t get filled up with too many dark clouds. My fingers are crossed.

PS. I’m curious how Micro.blog will push that post onto the Bluesky universe. See you on the other side.

PPS. I’m gathering my thoughts and observations for an upcoming experiment status report. Stay tuned.

And Just Like That Micro.blog Syncs with Readwise.io

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 17:09:19 -0400

Today, I unexpectedly came across this announcement from Micro.blog: Highlights are now synced to Readwise.io, provided that you have an account with them and that you are on an Micro.blog Premium plan! How cool is that!

I immediately configured my Readwise.io connection in the Bookmarks section and exported past highlights in a CSV file. Next, I tried the feature on an article from MacRumors.

After a few minutes, I could read the archived version of the article and highlight some portions. And sure enough, my highlights were saved to Readwise.io in a snap.

The nice thing is that Inoreader also supports saving my highlights to Readwise.io. Everything going at the same place. Occasionally, I export and then import my highlights into Craft. Readwise remembers the point of my last export session.

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 10:31:43 -0400

Just curious here, is anyone paying OpenAI to get one of their apps (like Raycast AI) to work with ChatGPT?

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 11:42:42 -0400

I’m currently testing Little Snitch mini. I had the Little Snitch app on my radar for a while, but this week they released what could be a better & lighter solution for me. The problem? As an IT guy, I like to know what is happening in my machines, and this little piece of well-crafted software could be the answer. So far, I really like what I’m seeing. It makes me think of Flighty from a visual design perspective. It could replace a portion of Stats, an open-source replacement for iStats Menu. I’ll decide once I’m back from vacation.

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 07:40:30 -0400

👉 I’ve been testing iA Presenter for a short while, and boy, I like this app. It’s not that often that we get new native apps on the Mac these days. I wonder if it is built with AppKit or other tech. Back in the day, before using Ulysses, I was a fan of iA Writer for its simplicity. iA Presenter feels so familiar and yet so rightly different. I’m impressed.

Now, looking for a use case for it! 🤔

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 16:40:02 -0400

I find Rewind to be very fascinating. Now, it comes with ChatGPT integration where I can ask for a summary of the things that I worked on last Friday, for example. It’s a great way to document my numeric life. There is a free-tier, but at 10$ a month for the paid tier, I mean, it’s a lot of money. Anyone tried it?

Introducing “My Micro-Workflows Explained” Series

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 08:59:50 -0400

I’ve been working on this for a while and now I feel it’s time to share with the world. Follow this link, then expand each question to read the answer. It was a lot of fun to put together.

This site is going to be updated as new micro-workflows are documented or tweaked. This document is now joining my Complete Content Creator Toolset.

If you have a question, feel free to ask, using the commenting feature of the website as shown below. I welcomed suggestions for workflow improvements too! Enjoy and I hope you learn a few things along the way or that it triggers some ideas for your own workflows!

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:17:08 -0400

I’ve invested so much of my time into Craft, since I left Notion. I never really left Notion, actually, but my usage of this app dramatically dropped. Only a few very limited use cases were left under the Notion umbrella. Today, I tried something in Notion for a project at work. I’m blown away to see how Craft is so far behind compared to Notion for things like databases, integration via APIs and general flexibility.

Sure, Notion has been around for much longer. Yet, I secretly wish I could use the best of both worlds: the elegance of Craft built on top of the robust Notion foundation. I’m actively looking at use cases that I could do in Notion to keep it alive somewhere in my workflow.

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 09:35:24 -0400

Hey, just a reminder that this invite is still open if you are curious about Wavelength, a secure and simple messaging service. We’re currently 26 nice people in there! Come on and join! You can leave at any given time!

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 06:50:36 -0400

The maker behind ToolBox Pro has passed away, as reported here and there. It’s very sad. I recently re-installed this utility on my devices for a shortcut project I started working on. There are some features in ToolBox Pro that I could use, but now I’m not so sure. What will happen to this app? Is this developer account be terminated and when? Or maybe someone is going to take over?

Quick Thoughts and Observations About Wavelength

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 07:34:52 -0400

After reading Gruber’s article about Wavelength, I decided to try it. I’m not sure I require another messaging solution. Besides using Apple’s iMessage and Telegram to get news from Ukraine, the rest of my messaging app usage is anecdotic.

So, what are my thoughts about this? The initial few moments with Wavelength are not what I call an honest onboarding experience. Well, I already shared my surprise at having to enter my phone number at the very first step of the application onboarding. I thought it was brutal. I was quickly reminded that asking for our phone number is the usual thing to ask in a messaging app. M’ok. 🤨 But hey, Wavelength is still in beta, right? So, let’s give them a break.

So I created a group called Microbloggers (invite link) for hosting people coming from Micro.blog (well, anyone with the link can join). As I’m writing this, there are 25 members. I’m surprised. I wasn’t expecting that many people to join. I guess my Micro.blog circle is made of very curious people. I love this. Is @Manton joining? Nope. But @Jean is among the participant, which I find cool!

My general feeling with the application is that its design reminds me of Micro.blog’s simplicity. Wavelength is simple but not simplistic. I love it very much. I’m using Wavelength mainly on the Mac, but also on the iPhone. I prefer the Mac experience. But, again, Wavelength is not complete. I’m looking forward to watching its future evolution.

An interesting byproduct of Wavelength is the inclusion of a ChatGPT client inside. It’s the group called “AI”. We can interact with it at any given time, even include this “guy” in a conversation within a group, using the @AI in a message. Each request to the AI entity is kept as an individual conversation (except the one occurring within a group conversation). It’s fun, valuable and fascinating at the same time.

But now, the big question: why would someone of Micro.blog starts using Wavelength and participates in a group chat? Conversations are already happening on Micro.blog. Just like on Micro.blog, if you are a member of a Wavelength group, conversations are public. I’m still pondering this. I understand people who are also wondering about the usefulness of having Wavelength alongside the Micro.blog. Maybe the instant nature of such messaging platform is something missing on Micro.blog? This is something I liked on Twitter: this ability to enter a private conversation with one of your followers.

Well, that’s it for now.

You can join the “Microbloggers” Wavelength group with this invite link. I plan to leave the group open as long as my experiment with Wavelength lasts.

One last thing: after launching the app for the first time, this wave animation is mesmerizing.

Another thing: my avatar photo is me at 5. 😊

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 18:31:42 -0400

Testing the latest Micro.blog beta with picture upload. This is a screenshot of the current list of threads on Wavelength (invite link). 😎

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 12:51:19 -0400

For those who are (very) curious about Wavelength. This in an invite link to join a private group. It is called “Microbloggers”. You’re welcome.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:16:40 -0400

Why a dedicated music app for Apple Music Classical? When we first learned that Apple would launch a different app for Apple Music Classical, I was surprised and wondered why not add a big tile in its current Apple Music app. Apple explains this in more detail here about the reason:

Classical music is different. It has longer and more detailed titles, multiple artists for each work, and hundreds of recordings of well-known pieces. The Apple Music Classical app is designed to support the complex data structure of classical music.

I get it. It makes sense. Now, here is another question: could there be a need to create more “genre-dedicated” apps offering different browsing and listening experiences? How much could an app be different for electronic music? How about creating an app dedicated to music videos? All of these apps could tap the Apple Music back end. This needs more time to think about.

Oh, no iPad app, at launch, really?

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 09:33:00 -0400

Notion releases buttons. The world goes wild🤯. Seriously, I came a cross this announcement on YouTube this morning and god I never thought buttons could be that useful in such a tool. I’m not holding my breath for such a thing in Craft, but yeah, I’m already thinking about a pretext to bring back Notion into my workflow just for the kick of using this🙃.

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Two years ago, I had this wish list for Micro.blog. As much as I love Micro.blog, my list shows that a lot still needs to happen.

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 07:01:13 -0400

WordPress to Ghost migration report. Content has been imported on Ghost. Domain name moved from GoDaddy to CloudFlare. WordPress subscription cancelled. Getting ready to rename my Ghost website to take over my blog domain. FYI: Ghost.org concierge service has done an incredible job in moving my content, a much better job than if I had used their WP plugin. I’m really impressed by the service. 😊

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 21:59:06 -0400

I hate Slack. I mean, a lot. What a UX clusterfuck. 🤮 There. I said it.

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 07:47:22 -0400

Moving out of WordPress is such a pain. It was a pain to be there. It is a pain to get out of it. My problem: I’m moving to Ghost. I need to use their plugin, but the resulting files will get ingested in Ghost with a format that I don’t like. Each post will be inside an HTML object instead of a native Ghost post. That, I don’t like. Thinking of exporting content using WordPress export option and then translating it to Markdown. But Ghost doesn’t support Markdown files import. I could republish each post using Ulysses for example. But I cannot back-date any post when publishing.

Did anyone try importing from WordPress to Micro.blog?

It Was (Probably) a Rough Day at Craft

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 20:08:44 -0400

Craft version 2.4.5 came out today after more than six weeks since the previous release. Usually, releases come out every two to three weeks. I guess people’s expectations were pretty high after having waited so long.

Not only did the update bring very limited functionality, it broke a seemingly simple gesture that was used by a majority of users, mostly on the iPhone. As you might expect, this caused plenty of pushbacks on this. My guess is that it took the Craft team by surprise. Moreover, a new navigation sidebar design is also causing a some more pushback.

There is a recurring theme on Slack that people are tired of waiting for basic fixes while receiving questionable features they don’t see useful in general, not only for them. It’s a bit of a public relation crisis. Now my question, could this crisis be prevented? My short answer is yes. I gave a longer answer in my recent YouTube video… “A Proposal for Handling Users Feedback Differently” and published an article too.

Craft is a young company. They have plenty of things to learn, and managing expectations is certainly one of them. Managing or at the very least communicating a clear roadmap is another. It’s not enough to publish an article once a year on the company’s blog. Such messages need repetitive reminders and on more than one platform. If they would rather not share a roadmap, then they should probably stop using Slack and Circle. Those are discussion platforms where feedback and feature requests are expressed, albeit in a chaotic way.

What I’m starting to find really troubling and worrisome is the lack of fixes to obvious issues affecting many users, me included. And we are talking about long-standing issues here. Slack is full of users expressing their resentment for unfixed problems. Sure we get answers like “we’re on it”, “will check this out, thanks for the report”, “bla bla bla”. Actions speak louder than words. For the first time since I’m using Craft, I’m starting to wonder if I should reconsider my posture with my dependency on Craft.

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 08:06:25 -0400

Dear @vincode, I love your Zavala outliner. It’s a great native Mac app. I found a great use case for it when putting together my YouTube video. One thing I’d like to know, you are still updating the app? Do you plan to add the numbering of outline line items? Thanks, and I hope you’ll positively answer this small request.

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 14:04:55 -0400

Spent most of the day working on something that I hope will have some meaningful impact. Expect the unexpected. Hoping for a change of direction for one of my favourite tools. Stay tuned. 🤫

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 19:20:17 -0400

ActivityPub coming to WordPress, Automattic buying the developer of the ActivityPub plugin apparently. Ghost is next to add this to their platform?

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:32:43 -0400

Any Capacities users here? Is it me, or it looks more and more like another Notion? This small team is on fire with meaningful additions in each monthly release, but each of them seems designed to make Capacities a clone of Notion. Your thoughts? Am I mistaken?

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 08:13:24 -0400

Good morning! The third video in the series “Understanding Micro.blog” is out! It is about understanding the cross-posting feature of Micro.blog. This is something people are struggling with at first when they come to MB. I hope some of you will find it useful.

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:23:31 -0400

Obsidian users: what do you use for syncing across devices if you don’t pay any subs to Obsidian? On the Mac, do you put your vaults on iCloud Drive and let the “magic” happen? Asking for a friend. 🤫

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 07:36:46 -0400

For the time of my life, I downloaded Obsidian and launched it. Wrote something. Clicked here and there. Then, I closed it. I’m afraid. 🫣

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 23:36:50 -0400

You are out: Newsy out. Newsify out. Raindrop.io out. Matter out. Readwise Reader out. Medium out. News Explorer out (soon). 😅 Substack Reader… jury is still out. 😂

The year 2023 is the year if cleanup for better focus.

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 20:30:50 -0400

I finally completed and published my article about migrating to Anybox, a bookmarks manager competing with Raindrop.io. I’m not looking back.

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 19:37:10 -0400

@numericcitizen@me.dm is my new Mastodon address on Medium’s newly launched Mastodon instance. It’s without enthusiasm that I created this address when Medium opened the door to all Medium members today. I left the Paid Partner Program earlier this year. First, because I was no longer publishing articles over there. Second, because I’m not at ease supporting a closed platform like Medium. I’m not sure where I’ll go from here. That being said, I find it interesting that a closed and proprietary platform like Medium opens up to Mastodon, a distributed and open source network. Call it opportunistic, it will be interesting to see where this will lead in the future. I’ll certainly watch from afar.

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 11:08:36 -0400

“Social networks can be a great way to connect with friends and family, but they can also be toxic. Unfortunately, these networks can lead to cyberbullying, trolling, and other forms of online harassment. People can be cruel and insensitive in their comments, even if they don’t mean to be. Additionally, social networks can lead to feelings of envy and inadequacy, as users compare their lives to those they see on their timeline. It is important to remember to take a break from social media and step away whenever necessary to protect your mental health.” — ChapGPT

This text was used for the purpose of demonstrating the posting feature of Micro.blog. Please consider replying to this post so I can show how replies work. Thanks.

Sat, 04 Mar 2023 14:13:04 -0400

🎦 Smile, guys; you’re on camera! 😃 I’m getting myself ready to record th first video in the “Understanding Micro.blog” video series. This blog post on blog.numericcitizen.me will appear in the video while I’m giving a quick tour of a typical website hosted on Micro.blog.

Another Day, Another Discovery: TimeStory

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 18:51:09 -0400

After Anybox earlier this week, now is the turn of TimeStory to make its debut on my list of apps under consideration. About TimeStory, from the application’s website:

TimeStory is a Mac app for illustrating events on a timeline, designed to help you easily create plans and roadmaps, capture history, tell stories, and more.

I spent quite some time today on a project at work using TimeStory. I’m blown away by the simplicity and the craftsmanship that went into this app. It’s very focused, which makes it easy to learn. At every step of my experimentation with the app, I was met with an evident interaction and response from TimeStory. I built something that took me a few hours instead of days in MS Project. Consider me impressed.

I’m on the seven-day free trial. I’ll probably buy the app for two reasons: it brought me real added value in my workflow, joy, and some rewards along the way. Also, I can see a few use cases in my personal numeric life, for my Apple Rumours hub, for example.

We need more apps like this. Very focused, not trying to impress with undeeded features. On the Mac only. Native: AppKit + Swift. No subscription.

Oh, and I love TimeStory’s About page. It’s always interesting to learn about the behind-the-scenes story of an app. I hope this app continues to evolve and improve for as long as possible.

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 08:45:28 -0400

👉 Updated my complete toolset website. ➕ Zavala ➕Anybox ➕Inoreader ➖ Raindrop.io

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 08:28:00 -0400

😅 Moving all my newsletter subscriptions to Inoreader (instead of Hey Mail) for a better reading and annotation experience. Unsubscribing to many along the way. That’s one of the many benefits of switching to Inoreader. Hey Mail isn’t that good for reading newsletters after all, when you compare it to other solutions (including Matter, Readwise Reader, etc.). Substack doesn’t make it easy to change the subscription email, BTW. 👨‍💻

Testing Micro.blog Bookmarking Feature

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 20:49:09 -0400

For the first time today, I diligently tested Micro.blog’s bookmarking feature. I don’t know if this is a popular feature among MB users, but I wonder if I should find a place for MB bookmarks in my workflow. Let’s see a typical workflow.

So, I start reading an article from my now favourite RSS reader: Inoreader. I decide to open the source website and use the bookmarklet to save the page into MB bookmarks. After a few minutes, MB diligently created a readable article archive stripped of all the noise. Think of it as an MB version of Instapaper.

I open the newly created archive and start my reading. I find an interesting or very valuable passage that I select in the browser. MB shows a very gentle overlay titled “Highlight”. I click on it, and sure enough, the text gets highlighted. But that’s not all.

MB can display a list of all my highlights. If I find a highlight that I want to create a linkpost for, I simply click the “New post” button underneath it. And voilà, I can start writing my linkpost right there.

Moreover, MB offers a simple way to save a bookmark by entering the article’s URL into the provided field at the top of the “Bookmarks” section on the MB website. Very handy.

Bookmarks can be embedded in a blog post too. Just click “Embed” underneath a specific bookmark.

The only downside, for now, is the lack of data portability: bookmarks and highlights can’t be saved or exported outside MB.

The bookmarking feature is part of the Premium subscription tier.

Coming out of another rabbit hole…

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 17:22:50 -0400

👨‍💻 I’ve been extensively testing Inoreader recently and I have to say that as much as I like the service, I find the support for third-party services seriously lacking.

Inoreader supports many third-party services like Blogger, Telegram, Buffer, Evernote, LinkedIn, Hootsuite, Pocket, Google Drive, Instapaper, OneNote, Hatena Bookmarks and Dropbox.

It certainly a long list of services but the problem is that I don’t use any of them. I recently cancelled Buffer and Pocket. I’m surprised to see Blogger but not WordPress or Ghost. Who’s using Hootsuite these days?

I wish Raindrop.io or Notion would be supported, after all, both of these services support offer APIs. Too bad because with better integration often come more efficient workflows.

Building something around tags, IFTTT and RSS could unlock some form of automated workflow. For example, tagging an article would generate an article in a custom RSS feed built using Inoreader which would trigger an applet on IFTTT monitoring this RSS feed which in turn could create an entry in Things 3. The latter part is a challenge, though. IFTTT can’t talk to Things, but it can talk to Google Sheet.

Nothing is perfect I guess. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 09:32:37 -0400

👉✅ I’m running a quick poll on my YouTube Channel, in the community section! I’m curious about your interest in “how-to” videos about Micro.blog. Thanks for taking the time to vote! 🙏🏻

AI Comes to WordPress… Who Knew

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 08:09:35 -0400

The pervasiveness of AI is starting to look troubling at best. This week as I was heading to my WordPress admin page, I got this message at the top.

Who knew? I was curious so I read the official “AI Engine” plugin page on WordPress.org. Here’s something that I found dubious.

Five stars reviews only so far. I won’t have the pleasure to test this plugin or implement any of this on my website as I’m getting ready to move out of WordPress this year. Now, who’s next, Ghost?

The official plugin page can be found here.

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 07:56:35 -0400

👉 It’s Friday, and it is time for another quick experiment. For the next few days, I will cross-post from the Micro.blog to my Mastodon account and see how it goes. I’m unsure if I will add more confusion than anything else.

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 21:59:20 -0400

Tonight, following one of my year’s goals of focusing on and reducing my digital footprint, I deleted my Tumblr account, where each post was cross-posted from Micro.blog ➡️ Tumblr. This platform seems like a ghost town.

I’m also testing the new “Show cross-posting” feature to push this post on my Mastodon instance. Zoom zip and hop to @numericcitizen@techhub.social!

A Typical Morning Rabbit Hole

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 08:27:05 -0400

I’m heading to Micro.blog and start reading on my timeline, I read someone’s post about note taking apps, mentioning how Bear Notes is great. I switch to Bear Notes website. After watching the introduction video, I head to the website’s blog section. Bear Notes certainly looks great. This particular blog post looks at how Bear Notes can work with other apps like Things 3 and Readwise. I wonder how I could use Brea Notes for my workflow. I’m reminded that we can export Readwise highlights in markdown files. I head to Readwise website and give it a try. I play with the export options for a while and export all my highlights, more than 1400 in total. Easy and quick. Next I wonder if I could import them in Craft. Yes I can. What about importing them in Ulysses. Yes I could. Then I remember that Ulysses, my go-to writing app, is great. And forget about Bear Notes.

Written and posted using Ulysses on my M1 MacBook Air.

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 22:41:29 -0400

👉🏻 Day One, now available on the web. Woah! This is cool.

I’m a big fan of Day One. I use it 99% of time for documenting my numeric life (details here if you are curious). When Automattic bought them a while back, I was curious to see how it would influence its future. Now we get a much better idea. The web access maybe was an obvious “next step”, but they did a superb job of transposing most of the Day One experience on the web.

What could be the next step for Day One? Well, what about being able to blog from Day One? A dedicated “public” journal could be created and any entry saved into that journal would go online. Boom.

Now, if only I could spend more time writing personal thoughts in it.😒

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 17:58:58 -0400

I’m still pondering about cross-posting everything from MB to my @numericcitizen@techhub.social mastodon account. Why should I, why shouldn’t I?

Hint: I don’t want to de-focus from Micro.blog as my hub for feeling part of the larger fediverse microcosm.

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 12:11:50 -0400

Seriously, what’s wrong with me? 🤔

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 09:46:57 -0400

I don’t know if it is a popular opinion or not, but Telegram is such a well-designed messaging app. It looks cool, and it has the right amount of gamification. Telegram.app feels native on all Apple platforms.

I use Telegram passively to subscribe to channels that publish news and information about the war in Ukraine essentially. Many of the publishers were on Twitter too, but I left this shitty platform. I don’t use Telegram for chatting with others.

I’m pondering about subscribing. there are things that I don’t like about Telegram (like insisting on getting access to my contacts and being owned by Pavel Durov). I don’t like the owner’s attitude toward Apple’s App store rules in general. He’s Russian with Ukrainian origins. Thankfully, is fled Moscow a long time ago to live in Dubai, a safe haven for many Russians these days. The fun fact is that Telegram is hugely popular in Ukraine and serves both sides in good and bad ways.

Are there any Telegram users here? Do you share my sentiment? Are you subscribing to the Premium tier?

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 22:44:30 -0400

Micro.blog things I like:

No ads

No likes

No brands

No metrics

No algorithms

No influencers

No follower count

No suggested/sponsored posts

Reverse chrono social timeline

Bookshelves feature

Simple, clean, UI

Customizability

Photos feature

Friendly folks

Blog hosting

iPhone app

Jason McFadden https://jasonmcfadden.com/2023/02/16/microblog-things-i.html

Nothing more to add.

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 08:10:18 -0400

Mailbrew still works but sadly feels increasingly abandoned by its founders fooling around with TypeFully, a writing tool for Twitter. Now Twitter is dead. TypeFully too. And Mailbrew is dying too. How sad this story is.

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 23:07:42 -0400

👨🏻‍💻I’ve spent quite some time recently on Inoreader, and I must say that I like it a lot. I’m on their generous three-month subscription. I can test everything without worrying too much about hitting the paywall. I must say that I’m more of an RSS-type-of-guy which fits Inoreader’s mission perfectly. I’m seeing fewer and fewer reasons to consider Matter or Readwise’s Reader… who knew.

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 11:56:13 -0400

Are there any Inoreader subscribers here? How do you take advantage of the service’s features? Do you use the Broadcast feature? How about tags and annotation features?

Eternally Unsatisfied With My Reading Apps

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 07:41:40 -0400

I’ve been a News Explorer RSS reader user for a long time. It’s a less-known RSS reader compared to Reeder or anything else. It’s really good, but missing a few things that keep bugging me. There is no web version, no filtering feature, and no text highlighting either.

I started testing Inoreader yesterday and Feedbin. Both seem good RSS readers, but none of them is satisfying. In fact, I’m never satisfied with anything when it comes to RSS readers and reading applications or services in general. It’s been going on forever.

Read-later apps are unsatisfying, too, for me. None of Instapaper, Pocket, Matter, and Readwise’s Reader satisfy my needs. Readwise is too busy and still immature, Matter is nice, but some things like tags handling don’t scale well.

The perfect combination of a read-later function with an RSS reader doesn’t exist. If I were twenty years younger, I would write my own.

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 15:19:39 -0400

Just found out about iA Presenter, from the makers of iA Writer. Looking at the website, this app looks like a superb macOS app! I can see a specific use case here for me: writing queue cards for when I’m recording my YouTube videos. Is anyone on the beta from TestFlight here? Any thoughts?

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 09:59:36 -0400

Any Little Snitch users here? Thoughts? I’m using NextDNS to block tracking sites, but what would be the added value of using Little Snitch?

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 21:59:30 -0400

I’m super happy to see Ivory going out to light and all. I was on the beta, downloaded the official release and played with it a bit. It’s really a great client. For now, I’ll let things settle down and see how Tapbots delivers on its promise. I’m focusing on Micro.blog for now, but I’m curious about Mastodon ecosystem evolution. I don’t want a new Twitter in disguise. Micro.blog in its current form is a very good compromise.

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 20:14:05 -0400

I’m seriously warming up to Readwise Reader. I get the feeling that I’ll be able to build a database of references and notes while I’m reading. The close proximity to Readwise is also a plus. It’s really geeky stuff for power readers, which I’m probably not. I’m waiting for the filtered view builder, they are working on a simplified and more visual version. Filtering the feed’s content by removing things like “Deal” or “Special Deal” would help remove some noise. I also keep an eye on the mobile app.

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 10:19:33 -0400

So, the only way to set a profile image in IFTTT is to use one of the following services?? Not possible to upload a picture. My profile image is now blank because I deleted my connection to Twitter. Weird.

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 21:22:20 -0400

On the web, I prefer Matter, but on the iPad, I think I prefer the Readwise Reader. In particular, I prefer the customizable home screen of the latter. But I prefer the reading experience of the former. Today that is what it is. Tomorrow? Who knows. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Integrating Adobe Enhance Voice Tech Into My Video Production Workflow — In Search of a Solution

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 12:56:15 -0400

I don’t know if anyone knows about this free web tool by Adobe: Enhance Voice (link), but it is really impressive (@MattBirchler knows about it). Here is what I’d like to do: find a way to integrate this tool into my video production workflow.

So, I’m producing YouTube videos with ScreenFlow (my YouTube Channel). So far, I’m ok with the results, but I think my voice, and the sound in general, could be improved (I’m using the Blue Yeti Microphone, but Adobe Enhance Voice is really impressive).

So, how can I:

Do my recording sessions as usual
Do my video montage as usual
Extract the audio track
Use Adobe Enhance Voice to re-process the audio track
Replace the audio track in my Screenflow document
Export the final video

Step 3 and 5 are not possible in the current release of Screenflow. Any suggestion of tools I could use instead?

Here’s what I know or already use:

Permute allows for easy conversion of audio files, including converting video files into the audio-only version.
QuickTime Player can export the audio track only out of a video file.
I know how to use iMovie.
I’m a happy user of Audio Hijack
I don’t really want to get rid of Screenflow. LumaFusion, FinalCut Pro, etc., maybe could do the job here, but it would be ok if I could find a simple utility that can replace the audio track easily instead.

This question has been posted to the Screenflow Telestream forum.

Update #1: corrected a few typos but added the solution using iMovie. Here’s the solution.

Do my recording sessions as usual
Do my video montage as usual and export the video
Extract the audio track using Permute in .MP3 format
Use Adobe Enhance Voice to re-process the audio track
Convert .WAV into .MP3
Launch iMovie and create a new Project
Import the produced video in step 2
Detach the audio track and delete it
Add the enhanced version of the audio track
Export the final video using iMovie’s share option

Voilà!

Update #2: there is a major issue with this process, the video and audio are not in sync over time, even though both files are of the same duration. This is not something easy to fix. Back to the drawing board. 😒

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 23:33:15 -0400

Matter is officially a paid service (if I want to get all the goodies). Well, my queue is full of unread articles. So this should be an excellent indicator to decide whether or not to subscribe.

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 15:41:23 -0400

Today, from WordPress:

Your favorite Jetpack-powered features from the WordPress app – including Stats, Notifications, and the Reader – have a new home: the Jetpack app! These features will soon be removed from the WordPress app so that its focus will be on essential user and publishing tools. With the Jetpack app, you can expect the same attention to core features like managing and editing content, as well as next-level tools to grow your audience on a trusted platform.

The JetPack app is now officially being pushed out, and WP asks site owners like me to consider transitioning to JetPack for managing the website and viewing stats. I’m not sure why the one-app-fits-all" is considered in need of a rework. I’ve read the blog post and couldn’t find a real reason worth forking these apps into two. Even more strange, when you run both WordPress and JetPack on the same device, the latter suggests removing the former from the device. Anyways…

I’m not sure if I want to spend too much energy trying to understand what’s going on. The reason is that I’m in the early stage of planning my migration off the WordPress.com platform. It will require some serious planning and some tedious work, but I’ll move out, before the end of the present year.

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 13:46:51 -0400

On October 13, 2018, I wrote:

This morning I found out about the existence of a blogging platform called Micro.blog. Something very special. Very lean. Very light. Without ads. Leaner than WordPress. Yet capable. Close to Twitter but with less clutter. I’m on a 10 days trial period. Tested the web posting interface. Tested the native macOS (light) client. Tested the iPad version too. Now, testing cross-posting from WordPress via an IFTTT applet. I’m loving it so far. Stay tuned for more discoveries about Micro.blog.Source: The Return of Micro Blogging? - Numeric Citizen Blog

This is the oldest post on my main website. I still love this platform, more than ever.

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 10:56:28 -0400

The yearly renewal of my WordPress.com business plan is a reminder that I need to go elsewhere. This thing no longer makes sense to me. Hard to justify. Where (and how) to move my data? Ghost?

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 08:02:40 -0400

I’m dropping this here. It’s a matter of time. Mark my words.

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 08:17:33 -0400

My latest project… explaining this thing… harder than I originally thought. 😅

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 19:24:00 -0400

Up until now, the Mastodon ecosystem felt like some sort of black magic to me. Today I spent a few minutes explaining to my wife what Mastodon is. As someone who already knows about Twitter and its subtleties, she got it pretty quickly. I couldn’t have done it a few weeks ago, but now, I could. I always thought that when you can explain something to someone, it is probably because you know enough about the subject. I think my explanation made sense to her, and for me! It was only then that the magic and the profound nature of the social and decentralized network became so clear to me. It was an enlightening moment, for sure. Better late than never. I instantly felt convinced that my awakening to the open web and Mastodon, a form of open web instantiation, would be a game-changer for me.

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 11:04:16 -0400

Today, for some reason, I decided to delve into the Write.as “ecosystem”. I’ve been subscribing to this writing service for nearly a year, I post from time to time like I did yesterday. I’m not so sure to grasp all of it. To get started, I went into Craft, and through the Craft Assistant, I asked a few questions (since ChatGPT seems overloaded). I got surprisingly good results, enough to get some context around the write.freely project. Then, I started a diagram illustrating all the components of the platform. This will become a blog post for sure. Today, I have a better understanding of this project.

What I want to emphasize here is the help that a service like ChatGPT (through an app) can bring to kick-start a small project like this. I’m blown away. But I’m staying critical too. More on that eventually.

This blog post was written by me.

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 12:43:48 -0400

Thought of the moment: on any platform, porn is never very far. #mastodon 🫣

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 12:38:47 -0400

I just updated my Numeric Citizen I/O website to summarize the last few weeks of change to my blogging setup if you are curious to know more.

This post is required because Craft’s shared documents don’t support RSS feeds, sadly. 😔

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 23:01:05 -0400

👉🏻 Well, that was fast: @numericcitizen@techhub.social 😎

Reasons why I joined this Mastodon instance. 1) I like the name “techhub.social”. 2) It’s operated by a Canadian. 3) He speaks french and has a Ukrainian flag on his profile.. 4) I’ll be able to see the interaction between Micro.blog and a Mastodon instance.

Micro.blog will stay my home, but I’ll experiment with Mastodon, even though I said and wrote that I would focus this year. Damn.

What's Really Behind a Subscription Fee?

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 18:02:38 -0400

This video from birchtree@mastodon.social resonated greatly with me today. Here’s why.

First, someone is finally calling out something about software subscriptions that I always wanted to call out myself. Every developer seems entitled to charge a subscription for whatever reason. Matt brilliantly illustrates that some subscriptions are ok, some are borderline ok, but others are not.

For applications like Notion or Craft, developers must pay costs for hosting the backend. For example, Craft’s backend seems to be on the AWS cloud. In that specific case, it’s clear that a subscription makes sense. So we must help the developers pay their bills, right?

Things get more controversial when the developers charge for a subscription, even though no backend services are required. Why would the developers go with a subscription model, then, you might ask? Well, this is where I want to chime in. The developers may not have to pay hosting costs, but what about their development time? It is as if we value infrastructure costs more than craftmanship time. It should not be this way.

I’m willing to pay for software or service using a subscription if the product comes with updates regularly. Matt has shown Tweetbot as an example. Well, this isn’t the best example because Tweetbot rarely gets any updates; it doesn’t fit my criteria for using a subscription. CleanShot X, absolutely yes. I recognize, through my subscription, not only the value of the service but the time it took to put it together and keep it running fine. I’m willing to support the developer for that through a subscription.

We pay 5$ for a drink that takes less than a minute to prepare at Starbucks. Why is it so hard to pay for developers’ time, spending weeks or months writing great software? Also, we must try to consider not only backend bills when deciding that a subscription is ok; craftmanship is something to pay for too.

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 07:49:48 -0400

Something will have to happen in 2023 in the Mastodon world. I would love to join (even though I said I wouldn’t). Now that I’m starting to get it, to understand all this is about, I fail miserably at finding an instance that I can join and fit my content publishing desires.

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 08:38:14 -0400

I really like how Substack is evolving as a platform for content creators, especially for writers. I kept my account open after moving from Substack to Ghost.org. You may disagree with the fact that you don’t really own the content or whatever, but Substack is evolving quite a bit. If I compare the features set when it started and today, it is night and day. They are really killing it. As a member of Substack (free) and Ghost (paid), I would say Substack > Ghost.

I would really like to find a niche use case for Substack. And I thought that 2023 was the year of focusing more.

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 08:18:30 -0400

I just finished expanding the descriptions of the apps and services in my toolset.

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 00:47:31 -0400

Thought of the day: airports are probably the most user hostile commercial environment that we can think of. Bad UX. Wrong expectations management in general. Badly designed physical areas. The list goes on and on. Convince me of the opposite. 🫤

Thinking About 2023 and My Future Creative Projects or Experimentation

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 10:07:49 -0400

It’s the time of the year where I start to think of my upcoming year from a content creation perspective and as someone who likes to try new things. Here are a few things that I’m going to explore. First, as a subscriber of SoundCloud, I’m finding it hard to find content for my DJ mixing experimentation. More often than not, those publishing content on SoundCloud wants you to buy what's available on Beatport. Someone told me recently to use Beatport instead. I may switch from SoundCloud to Beatport for 2023. Second, I’ll continue my slow migration from Smugmug to my Exposure page. Smugmug was good but didn’t fit well with what I expected from a modern photo-sharing service. Third, I finally found a use case for recording videos with CleanShot. I’ll use it to add short video clips showing how to use specific features and tricks in Craft. Those clips will be added to The Craft Bible (a website dedicated to Craft, the document writing app) and will come as a complement to my YouTube channel. It’s fun to be full of projects.

A Few Takeaways About My Mastodon-Related Questions Today

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:21:23 -0400

Thanks to all who replied to my question regarding Mastodon. What a great community over here! Never had this in fifteen years on Twitter. 😊

Here are a few takeaways (many may be obvious, duh!).

Just like for emails, one cannot "reserve" a username in the Mastodon-friendly world. Makes sense.
Registering with a specific instance (or server) is mandatory just like opening an account with an email provider.
Using a custom domain that I own is something I should consider doing.
I should probably go ahead with my custom domain name for Micro.blog before doing anything related to Mastodon.
Setting my websites (I do have a few) to display my Mastodon username or profile is a good idea too.
Setting my Mastodon profile to display my website is another good practice.
Finding an instance I can relate to is probably the most daunting task if my research is any indication. I didn’t find any so far.
I still don’t understand how a Micro.blog compatible Mastodon name is helping in any of this.
Having a registered account on a Mastodon won’t do much for me. I already get everything I want on Micro.blog. People can follow me from their Mastodon instance, and I can, too, from Micro.blog.
Thinking about all this on Christmas day shows that I don’t have a life! LOL

Anyway, happy holidays to you all! 👋

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 14:16:13 -0400

Any Mastodon experts in the room? One quick question: how do I proceed to “reserve” my content creator name “numericcitizen” in the Mastodon world? I understand that I need to select a Mastondon server first where the account would be created, am I right? Then, what else?

Rewind: Thanks but No Thanks

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 08:32:44 -0400

After watching a recent video from Matt Birchler about Rewind, a constant screen recording utility for the Mac, I was excited to give my email address and get onboard the waiting list for early access to the app. I got my invite a few days ago. As much as I would like to test this app, here's this deal-breaker for me: 20 US$ per month to get on the early access program, no thank you. Why?

I understand Rewind is still in beta, but the developer wants me to pay for testing the application. Shouldn’t it be the other way around so I get a rebate when the app goes out of beta? I mean, even with a 30-day “trial” I still can’t get over this. If it’s 20 US$ a month now for the early access, what will be the price of the final product then? Even more expansive?

Rewind makes me think of CleanShot, and I find Rewind’s pricing overly expansive if I think about the scope of both apps.

Rewind is a great idea, even if it pauses many security risks, but I’ll pass for now.

The Cost of Twitter

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 22:57:27 -0400

I could save more than a whopping 400$ annually by shutting down my Twitter accounts. Thanks to the potential removal of a few service subscriptions from my workflow and potentially unjustified without Twitter in my digital life: Buffer, Typefully, Mailbrew.

It’s incredible how thinking about my Twitter reliance makes me realize so many things on so many levels in my content creation workflow.

Mailbrew, Typefully and Twitter

Sat, 17 Dec 2022 09:27:42 -0400

I finally found how to reconfigure my Mailbrew account to log in without using Twitter. Good thing. I don’t log in often in Mailbrew, but this morning I learned that I’d need to adjust many things when I close my Twitter account. As an example, this newsletter setup will need to be revisited to remove any references to Twitter as a data source.

Mailbrew is an excellent tool for generating newsletters, but it hasn’t been updated for quite a while (October of 2021, according to the change log). The developers behind Mailbrew are too busy working on their other product: Typefully, a web service for writing Twitter threads. I’m subscribing to both services. Typefully was cool when it launched but being entirely dependent on Twitter puts them in danger IMHO. I don’t use Typefully much, preferring Buffer for scheduling cross-posted content to Twitter, something Typefully doesn’t support.

It’s sad to see Mailbrew coming to a halt. Typefully will go down the drain with my Twitter account closure next year.

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 19:01:29 -0400

Matter to begin offering a subscription early next year. It was bound to happen. I’ll have to take a position and choose sooner than I originally thought. 🤦🏻‍♂️🫤

Twitter’s Essentials

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 08:00:00 -0400

I read about so many people flocking to Mastodon, leaving Twitter behind. I actually started to see a definitive decline in my followers number. Something is really going on. I myself started to think about the possibility of leaving the platform too. Just like I did with Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr, only to leave a place where my content is simply cross-posted from another source without a real and active presence of mine. Twitter could be next. Really. I could live without the traffic influx from Twitter, which represents about 15% of all my visitors.

There is one thing that it would be hard for me to leave behind, though. If it wasn’t about the war in Ukraine, it would be an easy decision. The problem is that I follow a few people and news sources that diffuse their content on Twitter. Is there a Twitter equivalent for this type of small blips of nano content? I don’t see that in Mastodon yet. RSS feeds are not a platform but transport. The next Twitter has yet to emerge.

How fast do you need your internet to be?

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 07:07:21 -0400

A recent post from MereCivilian about subscribing to a fast Internet service triggered this one. Here are a few reasons for having fast Internet at home:

1. You’re many people (four or more) living under the same roof who are active Internet users;
2. You’re many users who are doing streaming at the same time;
3. You’re downloading or uploading really big files all the time;
4. You’re playing online games;

Other than that, high-speed internet is useless as each micro-transaction (small HTTPS requests) won’t benefit from the bandwidth available. In other words, a 100K web page on a 100 Mbits or 400 Mbits or 1000 Mbits link will take about the same time to load and render within your browser. Finally, consider the DNS service, which plays a big role in the latency involved while browsing the Internet.

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 14:10:37 -0400

As much as I like #Ghost as a hosting service for my monthly and weekly newsletters, the lack of community, commenting, and recommendations by other readers make me wonder if I made the right move when I left #Substack.

When Uber is Being Rude

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 08:00:53 -0400

I recently came back from a one-week vacation in Cancun, Mexico. The first thing I did before leaving the airport to go home was to call an Uber taxi. My last experience with Uber went well, but it was quite a while. Boy, this time it was a surprising and unexpected experience. After ordering the car, I was met with a plethora of notifications and ads within the application and via Uber Eat to order food on the go or before arriving at home. Those ads took the form of notifications, but also big popups taking the whole screen within the application. It was so intrusive, it wasn’t always clear how to dismiss the ad to return to the actual trip details.

I understand the idea of integrating two different services from the same company, but doing so at the expense of a great user experience with the basic feature of the application is not the way to go with me. Even Apple sometimes seems to be going in that direction. Not good.

On Time Machine Backups Over Network

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 21:48:09 -0400

If you own a desktop Mac, you probably use an external drive for Time Machine. If you use a portable Mac, most likely not, and according to the Tidbits article, you’re not alone. The portability of the Mac is hindered by having an external drive hooked permanently. I, personally, have a different strategy: I use a Synology NAS DS720+ with Time Machine enabled to do my backups over the wireless network. It works perfectly, but I don’t do a full backup of my MacBook Air. Files that are part of iCloud Drive are excluded (read more here, you’ll find out why it’s a good idea). In fact, most of the files are excluded, except a few critical folders, outside the scope of any cloud syncing services. Applications aren’t backed up either (easy to recover in case of lost). Backups are small but are just what I need to protect my work.

On Carrot Weather — Is It That Cool?

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:23:34 -0400

Why is Carrot Weather so popular? I’m a weather enthusiast and I like trying new weather-related applications. I use many all year long, but Carrot Weather is not part of my application arsenal. They recently introduced updated weather maps, but to get a sense of them, I would need to subscribe for a year subscription. Most of the interesting features are available in the premium tier. I like the maps feature, but I wonder how better they will get compared to the ones that I’m already using in MyRadar. iOS 15 brought a significant update to the weather too, but I find the maps lacking radar resolution.

If there are users of Carrot Weather subscription, tell me more, tell my why it is so nice?

Challenge of the day: exporting posts from WordPress to Ghost

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 08:51:00 -0400

Well, well, well, it seems that data portability among CMS is an issue. Who knew! I’m trying to find an easy way to move a few posts from my WordPress blog into my Ghost website. Exporting data from WordPress seems like an all-or-nothing situation. There are a few plugins available for this. The problem is that the content isn’t easily imported into Ghost. The latter does have a plugin, but it doesn’t support selecting posts. I don’t want to do this manually.

Any idea or suggestions?

Update 2022-02-16: There is a follow-up to my quest, read all the details here

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 08:31:27 -0400

I’m mostly done with my love letter to Cleanshot, a screen grabber utility for the Mac. I’m close to 500 words. I should be paid for doing this. Oh well… what passion can make us do…

I Just Paid $50 to Wikipedia

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 08:49:44 -0400

I think it’s worth it and it’s important. The transaction was easy (Apple Pay), which makes a big difference. Consider this an impulsive buy.

Micro.blog Officially Launches Support for Newsletters

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 08:30:00 -0400

So, as expected, yesterday Micro.blog introduced support for newsletters in the premium subscription tier. The official announcement follows:

Today we’re announcing a major new feature for Micro.blog Premium subscribers: email newsletters. Micro.blog can now manage, letting readers subscribe to your blog and receive emails for new blog posts. It’s deeply integrated into Micro.blog and works great for collecting multiple microblog posts together automatically.

Here is why I upgraded my subscription plan almost instantly after the news came out.

First, I’m a big fan of Micro.blog as a publishing platform and also of its foundational principles. I’m totally ok with paying a monthly fee of $10 to support the team behind—I want the platform to thrive. Second, adding support for newsletters is a great idea. Not everyone is using an RSS feed reader or like to read content through a browser. Everyone uses email clients! It’s important to provide different ways of communicating content to the readers. Newsletters are making a comeback.

Enabling newsletter is dead simple as shown below. I chose the weekly newsletter containing all the posts for the past week. Email go out at 9AM, local time, each Saturday morning. It’s a good way to start the weekend, isn’t it?

As you can see, the settings are quite simple. There is no formatting option (yet). Having a choice between all text vs excerpt would be a useful one. Speaking of formatting, one thing that I’m curious about, though: how does one newsletter look like? I couldn’t find an example in the documentation. Furthermore, how can we preview the next newsletter issue? It seems that, in case the first option is selected (one email for each post), the author has 30 minutes after posting to preview the email as explained here:

@timapple The preview works the same for the weekly and monthly option except it only creates it 30 minutes before it’s ready to send. Micro.blog will send you a preview email automatically with a link to edit it then. — Manton Reece https://micro.blog/manton/12238527

How does Micro.blog newsletter feature fit in my workflow? Micro.blog newsletter joins two other services that I depend on: Mailbrew to create something very similar in nature to Micro.blog offering and Ghost for my monthly newsletter (previously on Substack). On Mailbrew though, my summary newsletter also brings in content published on other platforms (WordPress, Blot, Ghost, Smugmug, etc.). It’s the ultimate weekly posts summary newsletter. Ghost, for my introspection newsletter, is like Substack, but better. I see Micro.blog offering as being a convenient way for my readers to get my content into their mailbox. It won’t replace Mailbrew or Ghost, obviously.

By subscribing to the premium tier, I also get a few goodies that could prove to be useful: bookmarking archiving and highlighting. The former allows for the bookmarking of a post on my timeline. The latter allows me to highlight some text while reading a bookmarked post or URL. Highlighted text can be conveniently used to create a link post easily. One thing that I would love to see is a browser extension for selecting text in any website. I’m not holding my breath, though.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with this addition to an already great service for content creators like me. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly digest! So, to those who subscribe, I guess this post is the first to get through the newsletter feature of Micro.blog!

Don’t miss the YouTube video explaining the feature.

About Micro.blog Upcoming Update — Newsletter Support

Sun, 05 Dec 2021 15:03:40 -0400

Apparently, it looks like tomorrow, Micro.blog is going to add support for newsletters. A few weeks ago, I can’t remember exactly, Manton posted a screenshot (which I can no longer find) where a “newsletter” item was shown on the left sidebar on the Micro.blog main site.

I’m very curious about Micro.blog take on newsletter. Micro.blog is all about simplicity without being too simplistic. If the feature is available to entry-level paid tier, I’m might enable it and use it myself. Right now, I’m using Mailbrew to gather all my published posts via the RSS feed to generate a newsletter. There is one thing though, are we starting to feel a bit of newsletters fatigue?

Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Changing my Mind

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 19:13:16 -0400

Boooooo… Well, it looks like I changed my mind. I didn’t remember that I wrote this blog post following the release of Ghost 4.0. At the time, I didn’t see the benefit, but now, it’s quite another story. I really love Ghost and I think I made the right choice for a few significant reasons:

Ghost comes with APIs, which enable all sort of possibilities to improve my workflow.
Ghost editor is much more powerful than Substack’s. This week, they started to release new cards type: GIF and Button. They promise another ten before Christmas! Yeah!
I prefer Ghost’s design in general over Substack.

In case you didn’t know, my newsletter website is reachable here: https://numericcitizen-introspection.blog

Big Update to Timery — I Love It!

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 07:30:30 -0400

Timery received a major addition in this week’s update: REPORTS! As I wrote recently, I’m tracking the time I spend on my blogging and content creation activities. Timery is my go-to client for Toggl, a time tracking service. Having access to reports within the application, instead of heading to the Toogl’s website is really helpful. Now, looking forward for Timery to support macOS Monterey’s Shortcuts!

Readwise.io Reader App — A Potential Game Changer?

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 11:38:51 -0400

In a recent announcement by Readwise.io:

We’re now in position to reimagine aspects of the digital reading experience itself, from how you annotate a document, to how you navigate. Readwise as you know it today isn’t going anywhere, but this is our future.

And:

With the new Readwise reading app, not only will these resurfacing and syncing features not go away, they will be enhanced through tight integration into the reading experience.

There is much more to digest on their published essay. They’ve been thinking about this for a while and judging from a few screenshots, their reading app seems compelling and well done. I’m hoping they will support Safari’s extensions. RSS feeds will be supported too. Sadly, it will probably be another Electron-based app. We’ll see if this doesn’t affect too much the experience.

I’ve been a subscriber of Readwise.io for a while, but I must admit that I’m not taking advantage of it as much as I would have liked. It does get synced with my Pocket account, but that’s about it. Oh, and my saved quotes get resurfaced in my Mailbrew summary newsletter, which is cool.

I’ve subscribed to their private beta testers waiting list and I can’t wait to try it out. If all goes well and is up to what they say on their blog post, this could entirely replace Pocket for me.

Fri, 09 Jul 2021 07:35:57 -0400

I’ve been experimenting with time tracking. I’ve been doing it as an experiment at first, but now it’s part of my workflow. I’m using Toggl and Timery. Ask me anything.

My Go-To Internet Destination for Reading: Mailbrew Website

Sat, 15 May 2021 08:17:39 -0400

I recently noted that I’m spending much more time on Mailbrew website for my newsletters reading rather than in HEY Feed. Why is that? Well, I think there are a few sticky features in Mailbrew that helps me better process information tidbits. First, the reading experience is great. The “Read” button next to a URL will bring a nicely formatted version of an article from a URL. Second, A “save” button is handily available for me to use if I want to keep a piece of information for later use. My collection of saved items is growing by the day. There’s also the Save to Mailbrew bookmarklet that comes handy. The website on the iPad is also a joyful experience.

Mailbrew update schedule is pretty fast and brings many small improvements on a constant flow. Now, if only there was a highlighting feature it would make Mailbrew reading experience a perfect fit for my workflow.

By the way, thanks to Mailbrew, you can get a weekly summary of all my publications here.

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 21:59:05 -0400

I’m thinking about subscribing to Instapaper and Readwise to help me gather and manage text quotes and other tidbits. The former is a “classic” while the later seems a work in progress and not exactly easy to grasp for me. Your thoughts?

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 07:14:19 -0400

The race is on. Can’t wait for the moment Notion’s APIs go live and Craft be updated to support them so it can suck all my data from Notion. #notionhq #craftdocs

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 07:42:26 -0400

Anyone here using a CDN to accelerate their website access around the world?

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 07:59:50 -0400

Anyone using @Readwiseio here? My trial expired. A few thoughts: their app feels “strange”; like a big “webview”. Workflow not yet clear to me. No Safari Extension support. Not cheap. Seems popular. You’re thoughts?

HEY World, it's now official! (#hey #heyworld #blogging)

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 15:49:32 -0400

They flipped the switch to ON. HEY World is LIVE! I’m so glad, curious and already excited to use this other channel to share my written content with the world. I’m already thinking about my first post on this new platform. Furthermore, I think this addition brings even more value to an already useful service, on which I depend every single day. Recently, I asked: How many websites can a blogger have? Well, as soon as a newcomer doesn’t add too much friction when publishing content, it’s ok to have many. HEY World seems to be such a service. Count me in.

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 08:35:30 -0400

Anyone here using Mastodon? If yes, why? Should I cross-post from here? Which one should I join? Tell me more. I’m not really aquainted with this platform.

On Spoonbill (#twitter #mailbrew)

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 07:42:00 -0400

I recently published a long piece about transforming your Twitter experience by using Twitter lists instead of following a bunch of accounts. As noted in the article, one side effect of this approach is that services that look for your Twitter account’s list of people you follow won’t really work. That’s the case for a new service called “Spoonbill”.

Keep updated on your friends’ and family members’ bios, websites, locations, and names.

Spoonbill will send you a summary of changes that occurred on Twitter’s bio of people you follow. I wonder if this service can be tweaked to use Twitter’s lists instead. What about Mailbrew, maybe they could come up with a similar feature, which would be really cool.

In the meantime, I’m not coming back to following two thousands people.

The Return of Micro Blogging ?

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 11:21:23 -0400

This morning, I found out the existence of a blogging platform called Micro.blog. Something very special. Very lean. Very light. Without ads. Leaner than WordPress. Yet capable. Close to Twitter but with less clutter. I’m on a 10-day trial period. Tested the web posting interface. Tested the native macOS (light) client. Tested the iPad version too. Now, testing cross-posting from WordPress via an IFTTT applet. I’m loving it so far. Stay tuned for more discoveries about Micro.blog.