Currently using Photomator for a small project. I love this piece of software. I bought it for 99CAN$ for a lifetime purchase. I prefer Photomator design in general when editing a photo. It’s more approachable to me. Editing with masks is super easy to use, and it creates great results. The Mac version was the one last piece of the puzzle missing. Now we get the full picture (pun intended).

It makes me wonder if I will ever get out of the Adobe subscription trap. The one missing piece from Photomator is the library management. I cannot rely on iCloud Photos Library for this.

This wasn’t a review, obviously. Just a glimpse of my enthusiasm for this great Mac app.

If you consume my work through RSS, read carefully. I’ll be transitioning to FeedPress to act as the entry point for all my RSS feed publication needs. Consider updating your RSS client to use this new “superfeed”. Anything coming from long articles (Ghost), blog posts like this one (Micro.blog), photos (Glass) & videos (YouTube) will appear on this feed. I call this rather convenient, don’t you think? I’ll share the individual feeds soon if you prefer to be selective when consuming content. What will happen to the native/original feeds? They won’t go away, but in the future, If I decide to move to another publishing platform, you’ll probably be impacted if you are not making the change now. That’s the main reason why I’m moving to FeedPress.

Returning to normal programming. 🙂

Today, Apple announced upcoming features for people with critical disabilities. Here are some thoughts.

First, Personal Voice is incredible! I can’t wait to try this out. I always feared being diagnosed with ALS, but I can see this new accessibility feature, coupled with Live Speech real game changer for people with ALS.

Second, looking at some user interface samples, especially the iPhone with iMessage (see below), we can see the return of shadows, depth, and better contrast, compared to what we have now. So my question is: why not have these UI traits everywhere instead?

This weekend, I will publish a 6000 words thousand article about my migration to Inoreader. I’ve been working on that one for at least three months. While doing so, for the first time, I used Ulysses’ “multi-sheets” feature, where each sheet is a different section tied together as a long article that I can publish as a whole. Pretty handy stuff when working on very long articles. Thanks to Ghost’s publishing feature, it will also be the first time that a portion of my article (the last three sections) will be made available to my subscribers only.

I can’t wait to share with my readers the long journey that led me to Inoreder. Watch this space.

DHH wrote “In defence of the office”:

I salute Apple, for example, for sticking to their in-person culture now that the pandemic is long gone. They’re making that choice knowing that some, talented portion of their workforce will leave as a consequence, yet have the confidence that others will fill those chairs. Isn’t this what we wanted? The freedom to choose how we’d like to work by picking between a plentitude of companies offering the style of our preference?

We’re better served by diverse choices because of the diversity of people (profile, aspiration, culture, etc.).

Have you ever wondered what my typical creative week looks like? Here you go, courtesy of Things 3’s Logbook. As I was completing this week’s stretch, I had a look at the logbook, I thought it could be fun to share with you a behind the scene look. I love Things 3 logbook because it gives me a look at my past work.

If you want a closer look at my Things 3 usage in my creative workflow, you might want to watch this video. Oh, and don’t miss my documented micro-workflows.

Now, it’s time to prepare for the upcoming week by duplicating the project template and setting my three goals for the week. 😅

It’s been quite a while since I visited an Apple Store. Last I went for a quick stop after work since I was working at my downtown offices.

There are soooo many iPad models to choose from! Too many? The 12.9-inch iPad Pro screen is unbelievably gorgeous!! I wish it would come to the 11-inch version. Maybe next year?

Of all the iPad models that I looked at, Stage Manager is not enabled. So what’s up, Apple, with that? Isn’t the Stage Manager good enough for the showroom?

I wish I had bought the Studio Display with the articulated arm. Expensive but give the most flexibility. Too bad it’s not possible to replace the monitor’s stand.

I tested the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air and tried to imagine what a 15-inch version would be. Not an easy thing to do. Speaking of MacBook, when I looked around on the MacBook table, they all look about the same; only the thickness makes it look slightly different, oh and the “colors”.

I love the latest version of the iPhone display stands. Less dangling wires. Easy to grab and put back in place.

In the previous image, I am holding the iPhone 14 Pro Max. I was still testing the device’s overall size. This is my next. I mean, the 15 Pro Max (Ultra?).

It was the day Apple released their FY2023 Q2 results. The store was unusually quiet. The illuminated decorations on the walls are getting old. I never really liked them.

I’m out after having spent twenty minutes there.

After seeing this post by Chris Hannah:

It’s incredible to see the effect of the various recent changes on how the “blue checkmarks” are given out and what they seemingly represent to different demographics of people.

Here’s my take on this. It’s straightforward: you don’t need to be verified by Twitter (or any of these centralizing platforms) to feel that you exist, are relevant and be fabulous! Just be. If you’re uncomfortable with recently introduced changes at Twitter, move on elsewhere. That is all.

I’m fed up with these stories about Twitter removing previously verified check marks! This is stupid. It was bound to bound to fail from the start. Now, here we are. It failed. Look ahead.

Matt, the founder of the WriteFreely ecosystem, recently wrote a promising post:

It’s become clear over time that in order to make WriteFreely (and Write.as) as useful as it can be, it needs to have a much more unified experience.

…

I don’t think it makes sense for our self-hosted product to be chopped up into multiple components like our hosted tools are. Instead, I want to bring all those tools into a single application in WriteFreely.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article (“The Write.freely Ecosystem Explained”) trying to explain the WriteFreely ecosystem because I thought that, in its current form, it was a bit hard to grasp. It’s one of my most popular posts on Write.as. I think there is a need for unification and consolidation into a seamless experience. I’m glad the see that it’s coming.

In my Friday Notes edition #102, I shared my thoughts about my last four months without Twitter and how calm and quiet my digital life has become. I even wrote that I might ignore Bluesky. But that was last week.

Well, it didn’t take long to contradict myself! As you might have guessed, I’m now on Bluesky as @numericcitizen (of course), thanks to a generous donator of an invite link (looking at you @Maique).

Please make no mistake; it’s an experiment. I’m not planning to spend too much time on Bluesky, but I’m genuinely curious about its evolution and the traction it gets, if any.

I’m allowing myself to get on board for a simple reason: Manton from Micro.blog added support for cross-posting content to Bluesky. It didn’t take long. For me, it’s like getting a seal of approval from him. I highly value his opinion on Bluesky and the open web in general. So, I made the jump without really knowing what to do next except to enable the cross-posting of my content posted on MB.

Now, I wish Bluesky doesn’t get filled up with too many dark clouds. My fingers are crossed.

PS. I’m curious how Micro.blog will push that post onto the Bluesky universe. See you on the other side.

PPS. I’m gathering my thoughts and observations for an upcoming experiment status report. Stay tuned.