After seeing this post by Chris Hannah: It’s incredible to see the effect of the various recent changes on how the “blue checkmarks” are given out and what they seemingly represent to different demographics of people. Here’s my take on this. It’s straightforward: you don’t need to be verified by Twitter (or any of these centralizing platforms) to feel that you exist, are relevant and be fabulous! Just be. If you’re uncomfortable with recently introduced changes at Twitter, move on elsewhere. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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). Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (since it’s paywalled, look at MacRumors report instead), Apple is supposedly working on its own journaling application. Code named « Jurassic », many interesting details are emerging from this report. As an avid user of Dayone (read « Documenting My Numeric Life With Dayone »). , I find the prospect of having Apple entering the journaling apps landscape quite exciting. The idea of using journaling to help users with mental health issues is pretty clever. Continue reading →

I was looking for inspiration all week to write my next Friday Notes edition. Early morning yesterday, I was still unsure if I could make it, but at lunchtime, I tried ChatGPT with “Give me some blog post ideas about the positive effects on creativity of going on vacation for a week”. It came back with phrases that looked taken from a travel agency ad. I tried again with different variations of my question. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

🚨 This is post #2000. I have already written more posts in 2023 than for the entire year last year. I’ll probably write more than 2021. The record year, 2020, will be hard to beat. This post was written using Ulysses on my MacBook Air which is the most used device, with 73%. My Mac mini comes second with 20%, and lastly, my iPad with 7%. I love numbers. Returning to normal programming. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

From the Numeric Citizen Blog to the Numeric Citizen Space. The former was my WordPress site, now on Ghost and merged with what used to be the Numeric Citizen Introspection, the home for my Friday Notes Series newsletter. It took me a while, but here I am. I’m so relieved from not having to use WordPress anymore. I have learned quite a bit about WordPress since 2015, but my desire to simplify my digital life was pressing me to make some changes. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

Kottke.org turns 25. It’s quite a remarkable journey. I didn’t know about this website until recently. I’m not a frequent reader of it, although I spent quite some time today on it to better get the gist of it. Yet, I’m barely sure how to pronounce it. But I’m quite impressed to see someone’s life spent running a blog and getting paid for it. I’ve been into computer tech since I was a teenager. Continue reading →

It’s the week-end in a few hours, consider those suggestions by Shawn Blanc: A few alternative things you can do when you’re bored (instead of scrolling social media) Here are a few alternatives to what I call the “Just Checks”. – Scroll through your Day One timeline and read a previous journal entry or browse some old photos and memories. – Launch Day One and log how you’ve spent your time so far for the day. Continue reading →

I couldn’t agree more with 9to5Mac here: There’s something special about the 2018 iPad Pro - 9to5Mac The 2018 iPad Pro deserves a prominent spot in the Apple hardware hall-of-fame. No other product from Apple has remained so functional for so long without appearing long in the tooth. The 11-inch iPad Pro, specifically, has held up extraordinarily well for a product from nearly five years ago. I used my iPad Pro quite often and for so many different use cases. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

👨‍💻 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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

This evening, using an Apple Shortcut called Clips, I imported the « Apple in 2022 The Six Colors report card » by Six Colors into Craft. It’s a 25 000 article that I started reading on my iPad, within Craft. Then, fifteen minutes into my reading, I asked Craft assistant to summarize the Mac section. It came out with this summary: « In 2022, Apple released the M2 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Studio Display. Continue reading →