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My week-end so far
Exploring Pixelfedā . Producing a 60-minute video about Pixelfedā . Writing an article about Pixelfedā . Learning about Tinylyticsā . Learning about templates in Micro.blog and custom themesā . Adding Tinylytics to my blogā . Subscribing to Tinylytics. ā
Next up: going to see the latest Mission Impossible.
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A 60-minute Video Tour of Pixelfed
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.
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My First (And Unexpected) FaceTime Moment on My Apple TV!
I just had my first experience with FaceTime with one of my sons on my Apple TV. My son called me on FaceTime. I picked up the call. A few seconds later into the conversation, my iPhone suggested putting the call on my Apple TV. I really didn’t expect that. The iPhone instructed me what to do with my iPhone so it could catch me on camera. It was such an “Apple” moment! Flawless. Barely no lags. š¤Æ
My iPhone runs iOS 17 beta 3, and the Apple TV tvOS 17.0 beta 3.
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A New Start: Pixelfed
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.
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Using Day One for Travel Journaling
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 notesā metadata is nonexistent. Day One met all requirements. Iāve 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.
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Iām Still Liking HEY Email Butā¦
Iāve 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.
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We Must Do Something About Metaās Monopoly
In my mind, every new platforms should start from 0 user base. Meta, just to name that one, have a monopoly of social graph. This is anti-competitive. Should Bluesky sue Meta? Should the open source community sue Meta? Yes. And yes.
Remember Microsoft and Internet Explorer back in the days? Remember Apple and the App Store?
We are not ready to accept this but here we are. Meta is a monopoly in my book. Time for regulation. I casted my vote: no Threads for me.
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Bad News for Weather in Canada
Yesterday, weather report summary for June in Canada was released and it is ugly. Much higher temperatures in the wrong places and at much earlier time this year. Many records broken by wide margin (since 1871). Lotās of discrepancies in rain distribution with lack of rain in the north of Quebec which then allowed much widespread forests fire than usual.
One month is not a trend but when you look far back, there are many worrying trends.
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Hunting vs ChatGPT
Hunters are not allowed to use drones to locate their prey. It is seen as an anti-competitive measure or an unfair practice. While ārealā hunters who chase their future prey for fun arenāt allowed drone usage, what about those who hunt to eat meat because it is their way of living? Is it still forbidden?
Now, letās do a parallel with LLM-derived tools like ChatGPT. Is it ok for fun but not ok for actual work? When are the lines crossed? Is the content the only determining factor?
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The Bad Side of All Inclusive Resorts
I have spent the last two days at an all-inclusive in Agadir, Morocco. Itās quite busy here with a lot of people everywhere. People are from Morocco and mostly Europe. I donāt see many Russian (none actually).
The worst part of our experience here is at the buffet. People are eating way too much, because, itās free or because they āpaid for itā, so they are entitled. Yet, the amount of wasted food is astronomical. I would argue that 80% of people here are fat, 20% in advanced stage of being fat. Many people are rude with the personal (because they paid for it?). Itās sad. Many people lack the basic sense of why āwaiting in lineā. They skip, they bypass and they donāt give a damn. Itās a circus.
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Long Day Spent Visiting The Big Medina of Fez
Date: June 21, 2023 at 5:54:55 PM GMT+1 Weather: 29Ā°C Mostly Clear Location: Derb Salaj, Fes, FĆØs-MeknĆØs, MoroccoWhat a strange, busy, surprising place. Strangely, I didnāt take as many pictures as I could. I guess I was too busy looking around me, up, down, everywhere. š¤Æ
Visiting this Medina was like reliving the past, like going back in 800. Our guide told us that not that many things has changed since the early years. But man, everything is so coupled with the Islamic religion. Iām not used to that.
The Medina is a city in a city. Youāll find everything from food, clothes, and fake Apple gear (a lot). Oh, and, the young generation of sellers are all tied to their smartphone, all the time. Iām not sure this helps do good business. š¤
Oh and boy we eat too much in Morocco.
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Leaving Rabat
Date: June 18, 2023 at 7:28:55 AM GMT+1 Weather: 22Ā°C Mostly Cloudy Location: Rue Jamaa Mourino, Rabat, Rabat-SalĆ©-KĆ©nitra, MoroccoGreat city. Many photo opportunities. Like this wall and door. Unprocessed image.
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Iām really looking forward for this trip...
Date: June 16, 2023 at 8:05:30 PM EDT Weather: 20Ā°C Rain Location: AĆ©roport International de MontrĆ©al-Trudeau, Dorval, QC, CanadaFrom a photography experience perspective… My backpack š is so heavy with this camera and āonlyā two lenses. My hope is to use my big camera as much as my iPhone, so that I donāt think that I brought this with me for nothing. š
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Are We Ready for This Dystopian World?
Warning: it’s not about the Apple Vision Pro headset, which many people think will bring a touch of a dystopian future to our life. Something else more serious will.
I read this week somewhere that, to get climate back into the normality zonešŖļø to ensure the sustainability of the human race and life in general, everyone on earth would need to live in an oppressive world where everything would be controlled by laws and government all the time and for decades. From buying food to cars to travelling to entertainment services, we would be under constant quotas, which would bring our quality of life much lower than we currently enjoy. In fact, developed countries’ quality of life would join the much lower quality of life of the vast majority of the earth’s population in less developed countries. This would be the only way to get around this climate crisis. Not convinced? The COVID pandemic brought massive and repetitive confinements that weren’t enough to bend many climate change indicators downwards. It lasted two years, more or less. š±
Oh, and should we talk about forced birth control everywhere? Because we should, even if this is a taboo subject.
Are we ready for this dystopian world? š·
I can see a great Vision Pro use case right here where people watch daylong movies about what used to be a much more enjoyable world in 3D. š
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Building a CRM in ... Notion? Really?
š”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.š
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On 15-inch MacBook Air: Is It Too Big?
When the 15-inch MacBook Air š» was officially announced, I was excited and knew it would replace my M1 MacBook Air. Since then, I read many reviews and watched many unboxing videos. People seem to enjoy the new bigger MBA, and all is good, right? But, is it?
Nobody talks about the device’s size when you use it on your lap like I do with my MBA right now as I write this post. It’s an important factor to consider for such laptop category which the MBA is targeting. Are 15 inches too wide? Is it still comfortable? For some reason, I have a few doubts. This 15-inch MacBook Air is… big, but is it too big for me? š¤
When I come back from vacation, a visit to the Apple Store will help me decide once and for all.
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In Photography, the iPhone Can Be a Killer
My nephew, a semi-pro photographer, recently sold 90% of his photography gear (Canon). He only kept one body and one 50mm lens. š± He upgraded his phone to the iPhone 14 Pro. šHe couldn’t be happier, he told me. Even with the iPhone, he essentially kept his photo-processing workflow as-is (Adobe Lightroom). This makes me pause a bit. Sure, he spends much less time doing professional photography work, but still. I call this the iPhone-photography killer effect.
He got his first exposure (pun intended) to the art of photography with me when he was still a child, more than thirty years ago, when he accompanied me for a short photowalk. He demonstrated that he could be a photographer, even at this young age, just by his numerous questions and suggestions.
I’ll bring my small (but heavy) camera gear (Nikon) on my trip to Morocco and when I visit the Canary Islands later this summer. Will these trips be the last ones where I use the big one? š¤ I know that I’m going to upgrade my iPhone 13 Pro to the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max later this fall. This could trigger a similar fate to my camera bag.
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Iām Testing Day One for My Travel Journal Experiment
Date: June 9, 2023 at 5:25:24 PM EDT Weather: 18Ā°C Mostly Cloudy Location: MontrĆ©al, QC, CanadaIāll 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 Iām a Day One user. I donāt know how I could not think of this before. Iāve been a big fan of Day One forever. Itās 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.
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Watch Out Reddit
š¤Ø 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. š«¤
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A Few Last-Minute Questions for WWDC2023
Itās Apple keynote day, and it is exciting but also stressful! Here are last-minute questions.
- Will the headset pricing be announced today?
- Will the headset be like the Apple Watch and be running apps, or will it be more like CarPlay, with some additional viewport from the iPhone? Or a combination?
- Is the headset unveiled with a āone more thingā segment?
- When the iPad was announced, Steve Jobs spent some time explaining its relative position within the use cases spectrum of our computing devices. Where does the headset fit?
- Will the headset announcement overshadow Appleās timid foray into generative AI?
- Is Xcode finally coming to the iPad?
- Can we infer something about the rumors setting the price 1999$ when we compare that to the AirPods Max price?
- Tim Cookās air time has decreased in recent events, is the trend continuing today?
- Can we expect another meme moment from Craig Federighi?
- Whoās going to present the headset? Jeff Williams, just like for the Apple Watch Ultra?
- Can any of the announcements today affect my Apple hardware upgrade plan?
For someone whoās not interested in the headset, I have far too many questions about it. Iāll return to this post once the event is complete to fill in the answers!
