Woah, I just paid a visit to my stats for Micro.blog. This year, I’ve got only 84 posts published; the lowest since 2019. It’s a bit sad because I like the platform, its values and the community. It’s not the first time I have lamented the lack of time elasticity. I have too many projects and fall into many rabbit holes. At the very least, I could tweak my routine to visit and post once a week. Vacations are a month away, but this could be the occasion to spend more time here.

We’re currently experiencing a major and nationwide cellular network outage here in Canada 🇨🇦, thanks to Rogers telecommunication company. It’s been going on since early this morning. Everything seems affected in one way or another: phone calls, internet access, emergency calls via 911, travellers, banking services via Interac, and lots of public non-urgent services, just to name a few. We will need a few days to comprehend the ramifications of what happened. It’s a major event illustrating that big telco companies concentration like we endure here in Canada isn’t a good thing. Also a good (and sad) example of how badly we’re dependent on technologies for everything.

I felt in a rabbit hole with these YouTube videos production. Either it’s because Craft is such a great application to talk about, or I’m just discovering the subtleties of the video medium, and I like it a lot. Or it could be both. Either way, I have much less time to write and publish here or on other publishing platforms.

If you aren’t aware yet, I recently started a YouTube channel about Craft. I’ll definitively write an article on my metablog about my adventure. I’m learning a lot.

Since early June, I’ve been quite busy working and producing YouTube videos about Craft which left me no time for posting here. As seen in the following graph, YouTube videos production is now the lion share of my spare time schedule. 👀

I expect things to return to normal in the coming weeks as my recording and producing setup is complete. Creating videos takes about 2-3 hours of my time. Subjects that I want to tackle will eventually dry out. If you are wondering what’s those videos are really about, feel free to pay a visit to my YouTube Channel. Tell me what you think here or over there in the comments!

Recently, during a discussion in a meeting at work, a colleague of mine was expressing his frustration about the fact that one of our customers was using Macs in its business. He went on saying the Mac is such a pain to manage and is an immature platform in the business world compared to Windows PC. I couldn’t help myself to tell him he couldn’t be farther than the truth.

Here’s the thing: of course, management tools and services are aplenty on the Windows platform. Why is that? Well, because it needs so much attention, so they can keep working! Just think of security-related software needed to keep hackers away from your machine full of security holes, thanks to Windows.

It was a “🙄” moment for sure. I think I’m on earth on a mission: to debunk false perceptions about the Mac.

WWDC is around the corner. It’s usually the time of the year when tech pundits will work hard on their wish list for the next major revision of Apple’s iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. I typically do that myself. This year, though, I’ll skip the whole thing. Apple’s core operating systems are mature, low-hanging fruits are scarce. At this maturity stage, it seems that expressing our desires is more and more a matter of preferences, or interpretation of what could be better user experiences. I may sound bored. Maybe I am. Sure, I’d like improvements to the iPad like full external monitor support, but then what? Apple owns the agenda, decides how to move the needle and protect its bottom line. The rest is pure noise.

Some weeks are busier than others for software or service updates. This week saw meaningful updates to many applications that I used daily.

• Craft version got bumped to 2.2, a controversial update. Using the updated Share Page feature, my Craft wish list was completely reworked. According to the Craft community channels on Slack, people would rather prefer to see the core experience to be refined and straighten up. I’m one of them. It seems to me that there are many unfinished core features within Craft that are in need of attention. For example, the Share Page is super useful but we still miss the use of custom domain names or notifications from people who post comments. It’s not a deal-breaker but it is annoying and frustrating.
• Matter, the new kid on the block in the read-later service space was updated too. The team behind Matter made a decision to focus more the product by dropping the social portion of it. Good move. The new update makes a lot of sense and is a joy to use on all Apple platforms.
• Microsoft updated the beta version of Teams for Apple Silicon, latest public build May, 19th. Previous release provided a very buggy in-conference experience. According to people on Reddit, it seems to be fixed. I didn’t try it yet.
• Apple’s platforms received a slew of updates. I was eagerly awaiting the Studio Display 15.5 firmware. I did a comparison of the image quality that I posted on Twitter. It’s not perfect but it’s a noticeable upgrade. Some more detailed video on the update.
• Finally, I wanted to mention something about Glass. It wasn’t updated this week, but I had a chance to sit with the team behind Glass in a Zoom Q&A session. It was a nice talk. We had a chance to voice our delights or wishes for where the product should go next.

I’m currently working on a proof-of-concept to migrate one of my website to Craft using the application’s SharePage feature. The beauty of this solution is the simple fact that the content of the documents are always readily available on the web. Once the root document has been shared, there’s nothing more to do on my part. It’s the most frictionless experience to date. I find this powerful and satisfying.

First, I got back to Pocket and paid for the subscription. Then I added Readwise. Then I found Matter, and fell in love with it. I’m not sure why. I’m still waiting for Readwise Reader application. While waiting for it, what’s the point of Readwise, again? News Explorer is my go-to application for most of my readings via RSS feeds; I can save links as favourites, but I never do so. My reading workflow is in a total state of flux.

Which application or service should I use to bookmark articles that I want to read later? What should I prioritize in such application: organization of links or the reading experience? How is that fact that I collect more than I read should change my application selection? Comparing applications like Matter, Pocket, and Raindrop.io, I find many common features, which brings confusion to me. Matter seems better for reading, but Raindrop.io more complete at organizing links collections. Why can’t I have both in the same application? Craft is my goto application for drafting and writing my articles, but can save links with nice previews. Craft is lacking tags to organize objects and doesn’t offer a reading experience as it doesn’t save content from a link. Craft is of no help here in my reading workflow. And what about highlights, how do I create them and make use of them later? Matter is good at creating highlights, Raindrop.io recently added highlight support too, but that’s it. Oh, and RSS readers like Reeder or News Explorer can save links and add tags too. Finally, I wish I could find a great text highlighting extension for Safari, after all, it’s my goto browser.

To some degree, read later applications or services are still maturing, no solution is complete. This explains that, I guess.

Help, please. 😫

Photo by Javier Esteban on Unsplash

I’m back on Telegram, after closing my account about a year ago. I wrote about the reasons why on my story published on Micro.blog. Since the start of the criminal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian, I found out quickly that a lot of information about the conflict is being published on Telegram. I decided to come back and open a new account.

I read on Mr. Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. Some compare him to Elon Musk. He’s opinionated, just like Musk. He has his views on Apple and technology. He seems to advocate user privacy protection. Furthermore, he flew from Russia because he refused to cooperate with the government, which was asking to leak information from Telegram users.

A few words on Telegram, my usage, its design and the application. It’s available on most of the Apple platforms, including the Mac. I like its design a lot. I don’t use it for chatting, only to receive messages from channels where comments aren’t enabled.

Only fools don’t change their mind.