I’be been trying to build a small business around Craft using Gumroad in the last 18 months. So far, it’s a hit or miss. I’m currently having paying 20 subscribers for The Craft Bible1. I sold quite a few Craft templates, too. I have many more ideas for 2025 to continue to grow this offering. Yet, it won’t replace my day job. I like Gumroad as a selling platform but also for writing articles and sharing them with my customers. Continue reading →

My experience with Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools is mixed. One significant issue is the absence of a feature to compare the original text with the revised version. In contrast, Grammarly excels in this regard, as its suggestions are contextual. Additionally, the constant need to select text to “feed” the Writing Tools becomes tedious. Another challenge arises when using Writing Tools with markdown content or links. These get mangled in the revised version. Continue reading →

Here is a thought about recent tweaks to RSS importer on Micro.blog. For example, now it’s possible to import photos in the RSS feed published by Glass. With this, when I publish a photo on Glass, it gets posted on my blog too. The same photo on two platforms. As much as I like the POSSE principle for writing, it doesn’t fit well with my desire to share photos on special places, like a photo-dedicated service. Continue reading →

So I put my M1 Mac mini for sale this weekend on Facebook Marketplace. 🤢 Got an offer for 50% of my asking price. I said, no, nice try . Got a second offer from someone else with a slightly reduced priced. I said ok. I went poking his Facebook profile page just to see if I’m being scammed👀🤨🧐. From the buyer’s profile and posts I can infer the following: he believes in conspiracies, he is an anti-vaccine, he is a proud pro-Trump, and the icing on the cake: he is pro-Russian. Continue reading →

Got my M4 Mac mini yesterday and completed the migration off the old M1 Mac mini. The process took me about 2.5 hours, where about 1.25 hours for data migration only using the Apple Migration Assistant1. Upon first login, I got only a handful of security-related popups, much less than I was expecting. Many apps like Microsoft OneDrive, Synology Drive client, worked perfectly with minimum reconfiguration, which was a pleasant surprise. Continue reading →

Paying to be a beta tester: is this a new trend? Glass Series was available to patron subscribers only while being in beta testing. RealMac Software offers Elements in beta as a subscription but at a reduced price. Active beta testers are actually paying of their time to use a software still being debugged and refined. Isn’t that enough? I understand that building software is hard and requires resources… but paying to be a beta tester seems to cross a line here. Continue reading →

Omnivore’s future is not looking good, following the announcement received by email yesterday night, by one of the founder himself. Omnivore was the best read-later service after Matter and Pocket, two services I didn’t really like or were too expansive. But now, with Omnivore’s future and slow demise, I’m getting fed up with those one-man-shop open-source projects. Pixelfed is another one that I’m getting tired of1. So, I’m going to refocus on Inoreader for read-later functionality and text highlights. Continue reading →

I’ve finally completed the arduous migration from 1Password and canceled my subscription. I didn’t encounter any issues with 1Password transitioning to an Electron-based application. While it was an excellent and overkill solution for managing my passwords and secrets, I generally prefer integrated solutions for fundamental products or features like password management. Is Apple Passwords the perfect solution? No, but it’s more than adequate for my needs. One positive outcome of this migration is an enhanced security posture, as I had to revisit many credentials and enable two-factor authentication for numerous services. Continue reading →

Today I decided to give a serious try to Notion AI to support my study of some Microsoft Azure materials. So far, I’m liking it a lot. Basic workflow goes like this: I visit the webpage, save it to Notion using a browser extension, then upon archival of the content, I ask Notion AI for a summary that is inserted at the beginning of the page. I read it then I read the actual original content. Continue reading →

I like the physical design, but it is too flush with the iPhone flat edge for my taste. It is easier to use with my thumb while the iPhone is in portrait mode. The required pressure to take a photo makes me shake1 which is not always good when taking a photo in low light conditions. I kind of “Digg” the UI which feels organic just like for the Dynamic Island but using multi-purposes buttons requires some time to get used to and learn the numerous modes. Continue reading →

Tomorrow is Apple keynote. I want to be surprised. I want something different. I want to see Apple push harder, differently. I want this “one more thing”. I want to see Apple think outside the box. I want them to show the way, the right way. I want them to not be afraid, and do it differently. I want them to stop looking at their past successes. Think like the underdog. Continue reading →

Today, I posted something on Facebook; and honestly, it felt weird. I can’t remember exactly when I last wrote on Facebook. I also had this symptom of missing out on things from my old colleagues and friends just by glancing at my timeline for a few minutes. It felt heavy. My post was about telling my “Facebook friends” about the two sites where I share my photos online: Glass and Pixelfed. Continue reading →

GM didn’t want to carry CarPlay (and Android Auto!) in their cars because they were dimmed as unsafe. Was GM in fact hoping to open up these, instead, but why? Apple didn’t want to open their platform. Now we have a better idea as to why. In other news, GM is laying off hundreds of software engineers. I guess GM learned that doing software is hard. Well, fuck them. Continue reading →

When things go wrong at work, when numbers don’t add up to meet high sales expectations, only then people starts to question things. It’s only in these harder days that we can really start to find new ways, reimagine how we do business. Those hard times are sometimes necessary for a company to evolve. Looking at you Apple1. I’m also referring to the company I work for presently. ↩︎ Continue reading →

Recently some people complained about Apple’s latest ad in the « The Underdogs » series to be offensive, and Apple « promptly » said sorry and removed the ad. If only Apple showed a similar attitude towards developers who are more than fed up with their App Store practices and voiced their complaints so many times in so many ways… many people are noticing and find this shit show exhausting and damaging. Continue reading →

Rumors suggest a “finally” moment, with Apple on the verge of completing the redesign of the newest generation of the Mac mini, this time featuring an M4 chip. This could result in the smallest Mac ever. The current Mac mini design dates back to 2010, when Apple was still using more power-hungry and larger Intel chips. The only change over the years has been the back portion to accommodate a variety of port offerings. Continue reading →

I always enjoy MKBHD’s videos, and this one about the Microsoft Surface ARM laptop is no exception. His views are well-balanced and feel honest. Now, about this specific lap, supposedly being fast with long battery life, great built quality and… a touch screen, certainly feels like a leap beyond Apple’s offerings, but… it’s running Windows. And that, is the problem. I wouldn’t buy one of these for the simple reason that running Windows required running a bunch of security-related software to keep it secure. Continue reading →

Today is my mother’s 91st birthday. She passed away 18 months ago, but the memories of her remain vivid. This morning, my iPhone suggested a video memory highlighting cherished moments with her, which nearly brought me to tears. Time may have flown by, but my affection for her endures, even though I wasn’t that close to her, not has much as I would have liked. One of my last photos of her. Continue reading →

There is something incomplete in how Apple is portraying Safari as a way to stay private when surfing the web. The ad is certainly visually striking, with surveillance cameras flying over people as they browse the web on their non-iPhone devices. It’s a compelling analogy. It reminds me of another Apple ad where a person is in a similar situation, being watched and followed by a group of people who want to know their online whereabouts. Continue reading →

Manuel Moreale reflecting on one hundred people who took the time to sign his guestbook (I did): It’s the number of people who have taken a few minutes out of their busy lives to write something on my guestbook. One hundred doesn’t seem a lot in the grand scheme of things, especially on the web. If you have one hundred followers you might as well have zero. One hundred views on a YouTube video? Continue reading →