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Which is Best for Photographers: Twitter or Flickr?
Which platform is best for photographer between Flickr and Twitter if you have about the same number of followers on both? You might think itās 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 āviewsā count definition is not clear but I would think that Twitterās definition is a wide one (I donāt trust them for being honest about anything). A tweet could get a view count if it goes through an API without guarantee of human actually seeing the picture.
Personally, I prefer engagement over views. This is something to expect I guess from a photo-sharing service like Flickr or Glass. Finally, this is an indication of Twitter being an empty promise for photographers.
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Remembering Sad Souvenirs With Great Words and Images
Hereās a great visual recollection of a trip to Italy back in 2011, when Steve Jobs died. Great images. Gentle words. Itās 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.
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On Making Apple Lovable Again
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.
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30 Years of Platforms Learning
To celebrate my calculator app PCalc turning 30 today, I've written up all the history I can still remember:
There's also a rare 30%-off sale, which runs until midnight tonight, PST:
Mac:
https://pcalc.com/store/pcalcmaciOS:
https://pcalc.com/store/pcalcA big thanks to everybody who has used PCalc during the last three decades!
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. What a great way to learn, explore over the years.
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Thinking About 2023 and My Future Creative Projects or Experimentation
Itās the time of the year where I start to think of my upcoming year from a content creation perspective and as someone who likes to try new things. Here are a few things that Iām going to explore. First, as a subscriber of SoundCloud, Iām finding it hard to find content for my DJ mixing experimentation. More often than not, those publishing content on SoundCloud wants you to buy Ā what's available on Beatport. Someone told me recently to use Beatport instead. I may switch from SoundCloud to Beatport for 2023. Second, Iāll continue my slow migration from Smugmug to my Exposure page. Smugmug was good but didnāt fit well with what I expected from a modern photo-sharing service. Third, I finally found a use case for recording videos with CleanShot. Iāll use it to add short video clips showing how to use specific features and tricks in Craft. Those clips will be added to The Craft BibleĀ (a website dedicated to Craft, the document writing app) and will come as a complement to my YouTube channel. Itās fun to be full of projects.
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Leaving the Nikon D750 Behind
Can you believe it? As an amateur photographer, Iām leaving my Nikon D750 home for my upcoming trip to Brasil. This trip certainly classifies itself as a once-in-a-lifetime event, yet I wonāt bring my camera with me. There are a few reasons for this. First, Iāll be on a cruise ship for most of my twelve-day trip. Second, I donāt feel itās secure to bring such gear to some parts of Rio or Sao Polo when we go off-board. Third, itās tough to beat the convenience of an iPhone 13 Pro in the pocket. The Nikon bag with all my lenses feels quite heavy at times. Iāll see when I return home if I made the right decision.
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A Few Takeaways About My Mastodon-Related Questions Today
Thanks to all who replied to my question regarding Mastodon. What a great community over here! Never had this in fifteen years on Twitter. š
Here are a few takeaways (many may be obvious, duh!).Ā
- Just like for emails, one cannot "reserve" a username in the Mastodon-friendly world. Makes sense.
- Registering with a specific instance (or server) is mandatory just like opening an account with an email provider.Ā
- Using a custom domain that I own is something I should consider doing.Ā
- I should probably go ahead with my custom domain name for Micro.blog before doing anything related to Mastodon.Ā
- Setting my websites (I do have a few) to display my Mastodon username or profile is a good idea too.Ā
- Setting my Mastodon profile to display my website is another good practice.
- Finding an instance I can relate to is probably the most daunting task if my research is any indication. I didnāt find any so far.Ā
- I still donāt understand how a Micro.blog compatible Mastodon name is helping in any of this.Ā
- Having a registered account on a Mastodon wonāt do much for me. I already get everything I want on Micro.blog. People can follow me from their Mastodon instance, and I can, too, from Micro.blog.Ā
- Thinking about all this on Christmas day shows that I donāt have a life! LOL
Anyway, happy holidays to you all! š
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A Few Observations on Apple's Latest AirPods Pro
I got a pleasant surprise under the tree for this Christmasš: AirPods Pro 2. Some observations: I would say the clicking sound when closing the lid is different, with a bit lower tonality. The setup experience is top-notch, of course. Sound quality is definitively upgraded with more present bass and deeper sound. Noise cancellation is better too. Iāll have to experience it in a noisy place like an airplane tomorrow. For my next trip, I will leave my AirPods Max behind (they are too big for sleeping on the plane) and use the new, much lighter ones and easier to travel with.
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Comparing Elon Musk at Twitter to Steve Jobs at Pixar
When I read articles like this one from The Washington Post about Elon Muskās current tenure at Twitter, I think about Steve Jobs's tenure at Pixar. Both are quite different leaders, but I think Steve Jobs had a much more positive impact on Pixar than Musk on Twitter. My comparison comes from the belief that Steve could be seen as a jerk or be very hard on people. Elon is certainly seen and behaves like a real jerk. His leadership image is being tarnished every single day.Ā
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The Digital Cleanup Continues
This morning, I visited IFTTT and Zapier to turn off ten applets which were using Twitter. My About page was updated to remove references to my Twitter accounts. While at it, I removed all references to Medium and GetRevue since they are no longer used.
I still have to figure out how I will follow people on Twitter who are valuable (there are a few) but refuse to move elsewhere. I might use Ā News Explorer to follow them, cutting the noise because I refrain from using a Twitter client. Itās not a perfect solution because I would get all their replies which makes things noisy. Speaking of Twitter clients (Twitter & Tweetbot), these were removed from my devices too.
It is one of the most comprehensive digital cleanups I ever did since 2007. For the upcoming year: Iāll focus on the open web services and tools for publishing most of my content. There are a few exceptions: YouTube and WordPress.com.
I may sound a bit extremist.
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Getting Ready for the Holidays and my Next Trip
Closing out my working session with my office for the holidays. What a year it was. Now is the time to finally get ready for Christmas and everything that comes with it. Next, on December 26th, we’re leaving Canada for Brasil and our first cruise trip in five years! š
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After Closing Twitter, Medium Will Be Next
The next victim of my "digital cleanup" will be my Medium account. Even though I stopped writing original content there a while ago, I currently get a few cents a month of revenue, maybe a few dollars when Iām lucky. Itās tough to expand the readership over there. My revenue used to be enough to pay for my Partner Program annual membership, but not anymore. Ā All in all, the time has come to move on.
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An iPhone + a Belkin iPhone Mount + macOS Ventura + FaceTime Call
I finally tested a FaceTime call with my iPhone 13 Pro and the Belkin iPhone mount with my M1 MacBook Air running macOS Ventura. The setup was easy. iPhone automatically detected as a possible camera source within FaceTime. The image quality was obviously top-notch. The sound was great too. The tabletop feature required a bit of tweaking but eventually led to good (but not “top-notch”) results.
The only problem is the weight of the combined iPhone 13 Pro with a case and the Belkin mount: the screen panel of my MacBook tends to move back during the call. Oops. š¤£
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More is Indeed Better on Micro.blog
I receive more user feedback or interactions in a day here on Micro.blog than in an entire month on Twitter. On top of that, the quality is 100x higher too.
Think about that for a second.
Thank you guys!
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Musing About Writing Needs And This War
Earlier this year, back in May I think, I started a subscription to Write.as. Why? I was curious about this platform for writers and there was a special for a five-year subscription. So, why not! Then I started to write about my reactions to the war in Ukraine. I wrote maybe a dozen of posts on this subject. I had to let go my feelings. Then I stopped. But I still follow the news about this senseless war. Iām still in state of mixed feelings ranging from feeling helpless, frustrated, desperate, raging, etc.
Now, I donāt know what to do. Should I continue writing on Write.as or move my written frustrations elsewhere? Here? I donāt know. Enabling posts import to my timeline from the Write.as RSS feed might be a good solution.
Tell me what you think about dilemma.
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What I'll Lose By Leaving Twitter
As per my current analysis and preparation for leaving Twitter, here’s what I’m going to lose.
- Access to product announcements, most of which I track because they are part of my workflows (Examples: Glass, Unsplash, Substack, Opal, Readwise, and 90 more). This could be hard to replace, not all websites support RSS feeds.
- Access to some public services status messages like special events or some type of alerts.
- Two of my Brews on Mailbrew that are entirely based on Twitter content will need to be deleted.
- Interaction with people following me who wonāt leave Twitter to go elsewhere. I rarely get replies, though. Not a big loss.
- According to [my Plausible page](https://plausible.io/numericcitizen.micro.blog), 50% of visitors coming from non-direct sources are coming from Twitter. One way to mitigate this is by enabling RSS feeds and letting people no in advance other ways to get in touch.
- Quite a few of my published articles or blog posts refer to my tweets as links or embed. They wonāt show up anymore when I turnoff public access to my tweets. That's not cool.
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Write.as: Are You Fediverse Friendly?
Write.as and Fediverse support (or lack of):
Write.as doesn't render the URLs of both the toot and the PeerTube video. The HTML embedding code does work, but the rendered video is not responsive and doesn't blend well with the page on mobile.
My guess is that we will see changes to Write.as to make it more Fediverse friendly. -
Assign to All Desktops - A Must Know macOS Stage Manager Trick
Updated my last Mac to macOS Ventura and discovered something super useful when using Stage Manager.
If you want to have an application always visible, make sure to select “Assign To: All Desktops” from the application icon in the Dock. This is particularly useful with the Finder so we can easily do drag & drop of a file into the active window; the Finder needs to always be available for this to be possible. -
Why Close My Twitter Accounts? Here Are My Five Reasons
I think it is essential to elaborate on why I will close my Twitter accounts in 2023. This is not something to do lightly. So, after much thought, here are my five main reasons.
- I disagree with the values and views as they are expressed by its new owner: Elon Musk. Even if he resigns, it wonāt matter much. Elon Musk has broken too many things since he became the owner. Twitter is a broken platform and cannot be trusted.
- I no longer want to feed the beast (user tracking, advertising networks, algorithm-based timelines). I wonāt pay to get rid of 50% of the ads or whatever Musk decides to ask for.
- I no longer trust Twitterās sustainability and ability to thrive in the future. Twitter has become a loser in my digital landscape. If anything, Twitter has become the other wake-up call for the toxicity of a centralized web. The time has come for decentralizing the Internet.
- Twitter doesnāt add significant unique value to my digital life anyway. Most of what Iām getting from Twitter can be found elsewhere.
- Before I decided to close my accounts, I wanted to focus on one of my two accounts anyway (numericcitizen) instead of apple_observer, but it doesnāt have enough traction to warrant the efforts for the change.
What are your reasons?
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Installing Windows in 2022
I just spent part of my morning installing Windows 10 version 22H2 on a virtual machine with VMware Fusion 12 on my recently acquired 2013 Mac Pro. God, it’s been a long time since I experienced the Windows installation process. It is so freaking slow (way faster to install a Linux machine, BTW) and with so many reboots. I still prefer Apple’s macOS in that respect.
