Apps & Services
I love apps and enjoy testing new services to improve my workflows. These posts discuss my experiences with them.
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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?
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Rewind: Thanks but No Thanks
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. Continue reading â
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The Cost of Twitter
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. Itâs incredible how thinking about my Twitter reliance makes me realize so many things on so many levels in my content creation workflow. Continue reading â
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Mailbrew, Typefully and Twitter
I finally found how to reconfigure my Mailbrew account to log in without using Twitter. Good thing. I donât log in often in Mailbrew, but this morning I learned that Iâd 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 hasnât been updated for quite a while (October of 2021, according to the change log). Continue reading â
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Matter to begin offering a subscription early next year. It was bound to happen. Iâll have to take a position and choose sooner than I originally thought. đ€Šđ»ââïžđ«€
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Twitterâs Essentials
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. Continue reading â
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How fast do you need your internet to be?
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. Youâre many people (four or more) living under the same roof who are active Internet users; 2. Youâre many users who are doing streaming at the same time; 3. Youâre downloading or uploading really big files all the time; 4. Youâre playing online games; Other than that, high-speed internet is useless as each micro-transaction (small HTTPS requests) wonât benefit from the bandwidth available. Continue reading â
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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.
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When Uber is Being Rude
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. Continue reading â
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On Time Machine Backups Over Network
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, youâre 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. Continue reading â
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On Carrot Weather â Is It That Cool?
Why is Carrot Weather so popular? Iâm 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 Iâm already using in MyRadar. Continue reading â
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Challenge of the day: exporting posts from WordPress to Ghost
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. Continue reading â
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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…
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I Just Paid $50 to Wikipedia
I think itâs worth it and itâs important. The transaction was easy (Apple Pay), which makes a big difference. Consider this an impulsive buy. Continue reading â
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Micro.blog Officially Launches Support for Newsletters
So, as expected, yesterday Micro.blog introduced support for newsletters in the premium subscription tier. The official announcement follows: Today weâre 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. Itâs 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. Continue reading â
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About Micro.blog Upcoming Update â Newsletter Support
Apparently, it looks like tomorrow, Micro.blog is going to add support for newsletters. A few weeks ago, I canât remember exactly, Manton posted a screenshot (which I can no longer find) where a ânewsletterâ item was shown on the left sidebar on the Micro.blog main site. Iâm 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, Iâm might enable it and use it myself. Continue reading â
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Changing my Mind
Boooooo⊠Well, it looks like I changed my mind. I didnât remember that I wrote this blog post following the release of Ghost 4.0. At the time, I didnât see the benefit, but now, itâs 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 Substackâs. Continue reading â
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Big Update to Timery â I Love It!
Timery received a major addition in this weekâs update: REPORTS! As I wrote recently, Iâm 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 Tooglâs website is really helpful. Now, looking forward for Timery to support macOS Montereyâs Shortcuts! Continue reading â
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Readwise.io Reader App â A Potential Game Changer?
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. Continue reading â
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Iâve 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.
