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Is Apple TV Really Improving With tvOS 17?
I’ve extensively used Apple TV (the physical device), Apple TV+ and the Apple TV app during the holidays to play music, videos, movies and series. One thing is clear: tvOS 17 is a regression in terms of usability, for me anyway. I especially don’t like the new left sidebar in the TV app. Navigating back to the home screen is cumbersome, requiring too many “<” back clicks. I often wonder if I’m in the Apple TV app or the Apple TV+ service. Continue reading →
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Hey Calendar First Impressions
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. Continue reading →
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Is GenAI a Product or a Feature?
Just like Steve Jobs once said that Dropbox is not a product but a feature, I wonder if the way we consume GenAI today makes it look like a product, but it’s actually a feature. Don’t get me wrong, GenAI is utterly important and a game changer, but I feel that in the future, there will be something bigger that will encompass GenAI that will actually be THE product. Continue reading →
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About blog.numericcitizen.me visitors for 2023
Visitors to blog.numericcitizen.me increased significantly compared to the previous year. Leaving Twitter at the end of 2022 probably explains why. Embracing the POSSE model and my adoption of Mastodon and Bluesky also explains why more people visited my blog. It’s been a great year on Micro.blog, and I’m really looking forward to 2024! Continue reading →
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About numericcitizen.me visitors for 2023
My main blog stats show a slight increase in visitors, especially in the last three months of 20231. The switch from WordPress.com to Ghost.org positively influenced the trend. The next post will be about the “blog.numericcitizen.me” site where the story is quite different. It’s related to the launch of my weekly creative summary. ↩︎ Continue reading →
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Episode 06 — Wrapping Up 2023
It’s time to wrap up 2023! In this last podcast episode for the year😌, I reflect on twelve months of creative work. It was a busy year😅👨🏻💻, and I’m grateful for all of it.🙏🏻 Links to some of the things I’m referring to: Bye Bye WordPress — Hello (Again) Ghost My Creator Workflow My Creator toolset Craft templates for sale on Gumroad Celebrating and Reflecting on my 30 Years Career in IT Transcript Continue reading →
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Strike One
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…🤔 ↩︎ Continue reading →
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HEY, what about Improving Newsletters Reading Experience?
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. Continue reading →
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My First Genuine Ah Ah Moment With Generative AI
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. Continue reading →
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The Danger of POSSE
A recently published article on The Verge discusses POSSE and the Fediverse: “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.” This content strategy emphasizes the importance of owning the content you create by publishing it on your own platform, like a personal blog or website, and then syndicating or sharing that content on other platforms, such as social media or content aggregators. The main idea behind POSSE is to ensure that creators maintain control over their content. Continue reading →
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Apple’s Siri, AI and Next’s Year’s OS Releases
I don’t know if Apple is working on LLM stuff; they probably do, they probably do work on improving Siri, too, if such a thing is possible in the current incarnation of its fundamentals. But, judging by the rapidity of other companies introducing AI features mainly based on LLM models, I don’t expect it would be so hard for Apple to do the same with Siri. But only if Apple accepts to work with CharGPT-back end for a short-term solution. Continue reading →
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What Happened to the Shortcuts Editor?
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. Continue reading →
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These Are My Entry Points to AI Usage
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. Continue reading →
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NSUserDefaults defaults = [NSUserDefaults NumericCitizenDefaults];
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) Continue reading →
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Another Case of Abandonware
I recently wrote about software is never really finished1. Here’s an example: Keysmith. I bought this utility in February 2021. I forgot to re-install it on my M2 MacBook Air. I just did. But under macOS Sonoma, it has some glitches which make it useless. The app hasn’t been updated for quite a while, same with the app website. Now what?2 The title should have been “Software Should Never Be Finished”. Continue reading →
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In Search of Augmented Capabilities Using AI
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. Continue reading →
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Shot on iPhone. Edited on Mac.
This short behind-the-scenes look at Apple’s “Scary Fast” event is the highlight of a marketing masterpiece. First, Apple, a highly-respected company for producing top-quality new product announcements, released new iPhones capable of high-quality filming in September. Next, in October, the company made another top-notch production and announced the first M3-based Macs. Not to be missed, and that is the key here, they slip the following at the very last moment of the presentation: Continue reading →
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Looking for a Useful and Secure Search Engine
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? 🤔 Continue reading →
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Hello, Again, Mac?
Surprised by this late-October Apple event (“Scary Fast”). Could this be about Mac gaming? Is this for the Apple Silicon M3? The timing is weird, in my opinion. What about the iMac with M2 and a new iMac Pro with M3? The latter wouldn’t make too much sense as Pros prefer more flexibility than an all-in-one Mac. But using the Mac happy face really points to a Mac-only event. And boy, do I like this animation that I’m including here for my own pleasure1. Continue reading →
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Glass Opens Up a Little Bit More
Glass feels right at home in Capture One. Long adored as one of the best platforms for editing and managing a photography workflow, we’re thrilled to include publishing to Glass in Capture One. The final step in the creative process is sharing the work you’ve made — making that as easy and frictionless as possible is what we’re both all about. Source: Capture One x Glass — Glass I like where Glass is going. Continue reading →
