As an IT guy, looking at what Synology has in store for 2021 makes me pretty excited. I wrote about that yesterday but I took a deeper look at what is coming in DSM 7.0, their NAS operating system. I didn’t pay too much attention to their photo management software that comes with a Synology NAS, but that might change. In my blogger workflow, there is something I can optimize is the use of a photo management to store all my screen shots, stock photos, visual assets, etc. Synology Photos could be the tool I was looking for for a long time. I don’t want to use Apple’s Photos application as I don’t really like to see screenshots intermixed with family pictures. If Synology Photos is as solid as it looks, if their mobile application is much improved to their current version, I’ll certainly give it a serious try. On top of that, this photo feature also enable remote access to the photo library. Very interesting.

I’ve been shopping around for a home NAS for a long time and only made the plunge this year. After much thinking and reading, I settled on Synology because I saw a mature company offering mature products with a solid reputation. Again, DSM 7.0 brings a lot of new features and improvements which makes me feel happy about my choice of going with them. Can’t wait to try what’s new.

Over the last two years, I expanded my online presence. Maybe a bit too much; it’s hard to keep up. I came across something interesting recently: Linktr.ee. According to their website, the purpose of the service is to “Connect audiences to all of your content with just one link”. It’s exactly a case of “you don’t know you need it until you see it!”. Building the mini-website is quick and easy. There are enough layout options to make your page look like your own. I opted for the paying tier which enables more design choices and better analytics. Hope you like it and pay a visit to learn the breath of my online presence. I think of it as some form of a modern business card.

I started to replace my links to the following one which makes things simpler in places like my Twitter profile page. Check it out: https://linktr.ee/numericcitizen

My podcast adventure was too short (The Numeric Citizen Podcast). I prefer written words over audio. I prefer photography over video. There is something about moving content that I find difficult to grasp, as a creator. I’m may be too old for podcasts creation or YouTube, I don’t know. I loved creating those episodes (in French), though, using Ferrite.

What’s wrong with Medium’s “reading time" stat? Here, this story “Thoughts on ‘One More Thing’ - The Ultimate Mac Transition”, got 34 views so far, 12 reads, 2 two responses, 4 fans, 53 claps but the total reading time is 50 seconds? What’s wrong with that? 12 reads x 11 min estimated reading time = 132 minutes. Someone wrote: “very informative talk”! Did this guy really read my story or he is trying to get some attention? 🤨

My go to app for blogging, Ulysses, is now ready for macOS Big Sur. Yeah! I’m doing my part, as I’m going to order this M1-based Mac mini today so I can run Big Sur on its own machine and experience the future now. And that icon is lovely, not too iOS-ified, enough Big Sur-ified to feel at home! Ulysses 21, Pt. 2 - Ulysses Blog

As a blogger and a content-creator, how can I measure my success? Well, it’s not an easy one to answer. Each blogger could have its own way at looking at this. Personally, I could pay attention to my blogs visitors statistics, but there is one thing that I keep an eye on these days. I recently started publishing a free monthly newsletter on Substack. The membership is increasing, but what I'm looking for is easy: following a new issue of my newsletter, how many are unsubscribing? None, so far. To me, it’s some form of success.

Thanks to an article from John Gruber’s website, Daring Fireball, I discovered a new Apple-centric blog yesterday: Basic Apple Guy. After spending a few minutes on it exploring the content, I kind of fell in love with it and and started to wish it was mine. I’m impressed by the simplicity and the content quality. RSS feed already added to my collection.

This is my Micro.blog.

Using the popular Newsify RSS feed reader, I used my own feeds to see how it would look through it. I was pleasantly surprised by the end results. It’s been a while since I found the best way for me to post on Micro.blog. All posts have a title, hashtags, a picture and use at least 280 characters so the boundary where a title becomes available. Without it, Micro.blog cross-posts the whole text on Twitter which I don’t want to happen; I prefer a summary titled.

In a recent blog post, the well known blogger and content creator, Matt Birchler, wants to understand why so many people are opting for emails (newsletters) over the web. I want to give my perspective on each of his questions.

What about writing in a newsletter is more enjoyable than writing for a blog?

My Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter is a monthly one. I start writing the next issue at the beginning of each month. I hit “Publish and send” at the very end of each month. It gives me four weeks to nurture its content. When the end of the month approaches, the newsletter content is mostly complete and I like how it evolved from the beginning. It is a satisfying process. Then, I take a pause and look forward to start the next one. I like the regular beat of all this process. I wouldn’t do a weekly newsletter, though, as it requires much more time to do.

Are newsletter audiences more engaged than blog subscribers?

I’m not sure about this one in general. For me, it is too early to tell. My gut feeling is that people are more or less engaged the same way as they are with blogs. I’d like to be wrong, though, and have people engage more with newsletters.

As a reader, do you prefer reading in your email app to an RSS app (or just the web in general)?

I use Substack to build and send my newsletters. Each of them are also available via an RSS feed. Depending of the client used, the reading experience can be enjoyable on both type of clients. Personally, I do subscribe to Hey and reading newsletters with their client is really nice and provides a nice clipping feature which is very handy.

Do you not miss things like link posts and “going viral” which are much harder, if impossible to do with emails?

Link posts can be done in newsletters and they won’t go viral for sure. But, I’m not really looking for this kind of fame to be honest.

Is it easier to get people to sign up for a paid subscription compared to the web?

I’m still building this stuff and my newsletter is free for now. I get new subscribers regularly but not as much as I would like. I guess I still have to get the word out and be more “famous”.

A word about my other home: Medium, which I love. Following their latest update, they now offers publishers to secure their own domain name as well as allows better customization of publisher’s profiles. This is mine).

Im still pondering how I’ll make use of Medium’s new love for bloggers.