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 →

I’ve been a News Explorer RSS reader user for a long time. It’s a less-known RSS reader compared to Reeder or anything else. It’s really good, but missing a few things that keep bugging me. There is no web version, no filtering feature, and no text highlighting either. I started testing Inoreader yesterday and Feedbin. Both seem good RSS readers, but none of them is satisfying. In fact, I’m never satisfied with anything when it comes to RSS readers and reading applications or services in general. Continue reading →

Don’t bother reading too much into the latest Apple financial numbers. They’re not too bad. What you should be paying attention to is this: Apple is eliminating one of its most high-profile executive positions. According to a new report today, Apple is eliminating the role of “industrial design chief” as part of a broader shake-up. This role was once held by Jony Ive, and most recently held by Evans Hankey. Continue reading →

I recently took a taxi ride to leave the airport as Uber taxis were unavailable and plagued with longer than usual delays. We were directed to the traditional taxi lines. I couldn’t use an app on my iPhone to call a taxi instead. Boy, it was a trip in the past. The taxi driver had no Google or Waze open to know where to go, only his memory and his knowledge of the city. Continue reading →

I don’t know if anyone knows about this free web tool by Adobe: Enhance Voice (link), but it is really impressive (@MattBirchler knows about it). Here is what I’d like to do: find a way to integrate this tool into my video production workflow. So, I’m producing YouTube videos with ScreenFlow (my YouTube Channel). So far, I’m ok with the results, but I think my voice, and the sound in general, could be improved (I’m using the Blue Yeti Microphone, but Adobe Enhance Voice is really impressive). Continue reading →

There’s this question that keeps popping up in my mind all the time since I’m being more active on Micro.blog. Why am I getting way more interactions with others on Micro.blog compared to Twitter? What am I doing differently? I write about the same subjects, albeit maybe more frequently. I think I have a few possible explanations. First, Twitter is full of bots. Twitter is a dumpster. I suspect many people or organizations are simply cross-posting stuff on Twitter without real human beings behind the content. Continue reading →

Today I spent some time in Matter to read a few articles. I went to the Staff Picks section, noticed those tweets between articles and remembered Matter's decision to leave the social portion in their early days. They preferred to go the Twitter route instead. That was before the Elon Musk fiasco. As you might expect, it was a deception for me, and I preferred Matter to build its own thing instead. Continue reading →

This video from birchtree@mastodon.social resonated greatly with me today. Here’s why. First, someone is finally calling out something about software subscriptions that I always wanted to call out myself. Every developer seems entitled to charge a subscription for whatever reason. Matt brilliantly illustrates that some subscriptions are ok, some are borderline ok, but others are not. For applications like Notion or Craft, developers must pay costs for hosting the backend. For example, Craft’s backend seems to be on the AWS cloud. Continue reading →

In recent months, we’ve seen the addition of many AI-based features in apps like Notion and Craft, two apps that I know pretty well. Now I’m wondering if it would be a good idea that Apple integrates such features at the operating system level. Just like we can double tap a word in a text and get its definition from the dictionary, wouldn’t be cool if we could select a whole text and ask for a summary or anything involving the selected content? Continue reading →

Which platform is best for photographer between Flickr and Twitter if you have about the same number of followers on both? You might think it’s Flickr? According to this experiment, you get 2x more exposure on Twitter, but you get 2x more engagement on Flickr. Things get even better on Flickr if your photo gets selected for Flickr Explore page. The “views” count definition is not clear but I would think that Twitter’s definition is a wide one (I don’t trust them for being honest about anything). Continue reading →

Here’s a great visual recollection of a trip to Italy back in 2011, when Steve Jobs died. Great images. Gentle words. It’s not only about the iPhone as a great camera, but about Italy, a place I visited last summer, and how it felt to be there when Steve death made the news. Must see and read. Continue reading →

The DMA holds the promise to return Apple to an earlier age without these gluttonous service and tax aspirations driving seemingly every major decision at the company. The EU just might make Apple lovable again by outlawing their monopolistic excesses. What a twist. Source: Apple’s big monopoly loss comes curtesy of the EU For once, I agree with David Heinemeier Hansson. Apple’s arrogance is slowly killing all the magic. Continue reading →

To celebrate my calculator app PCalc turning 30 today, I've written up all the history I can still remember: http://pcalc.com/thirty There's also a rare 30%-off sale, which runs until midnight tonight, PST: Mac: https://pcalc.com/store/pcalcmac iOS: https://pcalc.com/store/pcalc A big thanks to everybody who has used PCalc during the last three decades! James Thomson https://mastodon.social/@jamesthomson/109562907458479500 I never bought PCalc but for as long I’ve been following the Apple story, PCalc always was somewhere to be seen in a magazine, on the web or an App Store. Continue reading →