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. I’ll highlight some words or phrases and I might add some inline comments while reading. It’s a great study experience.

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. Apple is still working off the half-pressure mode for taking pictures and I wonder how it will affect the general use… will it make it even harder to use?

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. Think Differently, again.

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. I don’t know if people will take time off their busy lives to visit or even bookmark the sites. I shouldn’t care about that. Those who pay attention might even notice a link to my digital hub, where I share all my other sites. Because I’m curious, I’ll return back to Facebook in a few days to see if I got some comments. I’ll report back here in any case.

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.

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.

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.

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. When Apple transitioned to Apple Silicon chips, right after the Apple Silicon Dev Kit was made available, I expected a redesign and saw the Dev Kit as a transitional step, simply because the chip is smaller, more power-efficient, and requires much less cooling. To me, this was the right time to do so. However, they did not.

If you look inside an M1 Mac mini, thanks to this teardown guide from iFixit you can see that there is some empty space. Coupled with what Apple can do with the M4 iPad Pro, and the environmental pressure to be more efficient in resource consumption (power, materials, etc.), it is clear that the Mac mini must be rethought from the ground up. Will Apple go with an external PSU for this? I don’t expect this to be the case.

One more thing: I’ve been a satisfied user of the M1 Mac mini since 2020, but I’m increasingly considering an upgrade, either to the Mac Studio or a more powerful Mac mini. I’ll be sure to pay close attention to my options.

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. How much processing power these apps takes out of the base configuration? Certainly a few percentage points, but for me, it’s ruining the whole thing. And that, MKBHD don’t mention anything about it.

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. 😔

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.

But you know, Apple is mum about its deal with Google as being the default search engine in Safari. The last time I checked, Google isn’t the type of privacy-protection company you might think they are.

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? That’s nothing. You need at least one hundred thousand to be part of the conversation. And yet, I find one hundred signatures in a guestbook to be a lot. Can you imagine having one hundred people in front of you, all saying something to you, one after the other? It would feel overwhelming.

I often think about this. Just like Manuel, I have a blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast (sort of). Globally, my follower counts are very low (even lower than Manuel’s) when looked through the Internet scale lens, but if those people were in front of me, in the same room, that would be quite something else. I find this thought to be comforting.

Google Chrome, Along With Other Popular Chromium Browsers, Grants System Monitoring Privileges to *.google.com Domains

But speaking of the DMA, Chromium is, far and away, the most popular browser engine that the DMA compels Apple to allow on iOS. There are legitimate reasons to wish that Apple allowed third-party browser engines on iOS. But there are also legitimate reasons why Apple doesn’t allow them. Chrome really is bad. Better to let the market decide than let clueless regulators decide.

I’m on the side of Gruber here. Governments are usually not very good at tech. We should always be on the doubters side when they want to regulate. Opening up the iPhone will make it weaker than today, not better. I would even argue that the vast majority of users will lose more than they gain. But some techies will be happy.

Great take by Gruber on this week sad but highly predictable events. The US is a sick country. Sidenote: on my last few trips, all Americans that I met told me after presenting themselves as Americans: “I know, we’re one of those stupid Americans…”. I reserve this thought mostly to Trump supporters which I never met personally, thanks god.

Today was our last day in Split, Croatia. We strolled through the streets of Split once again and had breakfast at the “Bepa” restaurant, which is accessible from one of the public squares. Once again, we ate very well. However, the prices for food are even higher than we expected. We’re coming to the conclusion that traveling in Croatia is almost as expensive as traveling in countries like Italy!

Today also marks the beginning of a short cruise that will allow us to visit the islands of Korčula and Mljet before arriving in Dubrovnik, our last stop before returning to Canada. We still have many beautiful things to discover, fortunately. I don’t know if it’s a good sign or not, but the early experiences from the beginning of our trip already feel distant.

Once again, with a bit of delay, I’m sharing a new update on my trip to Croatia. Yesterday, the day was primarily spent on the waters in front of the city of Split. We took a small speedboat cruise to visit three beautiful large islands. The tour lasted more than ten hours. We also passed through the popular Blue Lagoon and visited a cave located on the island of Bisevo, where the turquoise water offers a surreal setting. It was absolutely magnificent. We had a mini lunch in Hvar and spent two lovely hours there, strolling and enjoying this beautiful place. A fishing village welcomed us. Fishing is still practiced there, but tourism is by far the largest economic activity. The architecture of the buildings is similar to what is found throughout the Croatian coast, with light stone buildings and terracotta-tiled roofs in shades of orange. This is also similar to what you find in Italy, by the way. We had a quite bumpy return to the coast as the sea was much more agitated than in early morning. It was quite an experience. Thankfully, the boat operator was experimented.

Regarding food, restaurant offerings mostly consist of grilled dishes, mainly fish and meat. Tuna salads, Niçoise, and Greek salads are also on the menu. Some restaurants feature typical Croatian dishes like goulashes. The sale of ice cream and gelato is very common in southern villages, where it’s warmer. I succumbed a few times, actually. The brightness on clear days here is absolutely perfect, just like everywhere on the Côte d’Azur.

We are halfway through our stay in this beautiful country. Tomorrow, we will embark on a small cruise for a few days to visit other islands, ultimately leading us to our final destination: Dubrovnik, where we will spend a few days. I’m really looking forward to it.

Yesterday, I didn’t have time to write the daily update because it was a transition day by car to our next destination: Split in Croatia. Of course, we took advantage of our route to stop in Trogir to visit and have lunch there. It was our last stop by car as we had to leave it at the airport in the suburbs of Trogir. From now on, we will take a boat. More details to come on that.

Our journey continued to Split, taking a taxi via Uber. The trip took a little over half an hour. Once there, we went to drop off our luggage at our apartment and took some time to explore the surroundings. What a strange but beautiful urban environment. Our apartment is located inside the old palace of Split. Accessing it is not easy as there are winding corridors and numerous stairs to climb. We felt like we were living within the walls of a medina like those found in Morocco. It’s lovely.

I took advantage of the late afternoon light to take some photos. What a beautiful city. I already know that I won’t have enough time to see everything and try to capture photos that are off the beaten path. I’ll do my best, and it will serve as an excuse to wish to return someday.

Once again, what a beautiful day we had in Sibenik. The main objective today was to visit the three forts of the city, which offer a splendid view of the town and the islands off the coast. The weather was magnificent even though storm cells were threatening the region. Fortunately, we were spared from rain and lightning!

We visited the three forts, which were overall interesting but are mainly worth visiting for the views they offer. We took advantage of the occasion to have a picnic at lunchtime while the wind was blowing moderately across the area. It was pleasant to hear the wind rustling through the trees, mostly mature pines.

After visiting the forts, we descended back into the city, this time making sure to choose a parking spot on the west side of town so we could walk along the long promenade by the docks. We ended up in the old part of the city to revisit and complete our tour from yesterday, which was merely a preview. This time, I had the good camera in hand, and I took the opportunity to capture new perspectives different from those taken yesterday.

We were back at the apartment around 6:30 PM to freshen up before heading out to a small neighboring village of Vodice, i.e., Tribunj. I can’t wait to see this little village.

I can’t wait to share some of my best pictures.

As you probably know, I’ve been writing and sharing my travel notes since the beginning of my trip to Croatia. I’m proud of maintaining the regularity to post each day, but not as proud of my writing itself. I can’t quite describe the quality of my writing, but when I read it back, it feels rather superficial. Why do I feel this way?

Well, my writing tends to list the places I visited and whether I liked them. But I almost always fail to explain why I loved visiting them. Take yesterday’s travel update, for example: I wrote that I fell in love with Sibenik and shared a photo of banners adorned with children’s drawings. What exactly resonated with me in this place? What were my emotions when I entered the narrow streets of the village and first saw the banners everywhere? It was surprising—the children’s drawings added a contrast to the old buildings’ walls, giving the city a sense of humanity. And you know what? It was the children’s festival! It’s a great way to celebrate humanity.

Part of my problem is that I’m not a native English speaker, but a French speaker. I don’t have the same level of vocabulary to describe feelings or physical places. I’m wondering if I could first write a version of my travel update in French and then ask ChatGPT to translate it into English. For today’s travel update, that’s what I’m going to do. We’ll see how it comes out this time. Let me know if you notice a difference.

Disclaimer: this text was first written in English (yes, in English!) and I asked ChatGPT to improve to the writing. It made a big difference, trust me, but I still have this feeling of owning the ideas and the final results.

It’s been a day with ups and downs. We left the apartment at around 10:30 AM in direction of the Krka National Park, 45-minute drive to see some other waterfalls and translucide lakes. The first part of the visit was really nice because it was like a repeat of the other visit to the national park that we visited earlier in the week with great waterfalls and gorgeous lakes with transparent blue water. Unlike the first national park, this time, it was much more crowded to a point of being unpleasant at some point because we had to wait for people to finish their selfies. 🤨

We left to see another part of the park where a bigger waterfall was expected and was located further in the park, but we couldn’t locate it and wasted our time waiting for the bus to get us back to the parking lot. The last stop was to visit a secluded church rather hard to locate on the maps. We eventually ended up at the entrance and couldn’t buy any tickets to visit the area but a priest did let us anyway visit the monastery and the areas with a little smile on his face. It was a welcomed gesture.

Next up, we had to return to the apartment to exchange my pair of glasses otherwise I would have been enable to drive at night when coming back to the apartment. For dinner, we decided to go to Sibenik, a great little village near Vodice. Oh boy I instantly fell in love with it. I didn’t have my main camera so I was left with my iPhone to take as many pictures as I could. We decided to come back tomorrow and this time, I’ll bring my other big camera. I can’t wait for this.